Philosophea: Solutions
Metaphysics: A Complex Perspective
&
The Alchemical Renaissance: An Alternative Paradigm & Making The Shift
Contents
Preface 3
Introduction 7
Part I: Metaphysics
1. The Great Dialectic 11
2. Life and Death 17
3. Metamorphosis 23
4. Spectrum of Reality 27
5. Education & Enlightenment 32
6. Ethics & Nature 37
7. Economics & Planetary Organism 42
8. Psyche 53
Part II: The Alchemical Renaissance
9. Universal Synthesis 74
10. Education 94
11. Economics 127
12. Culture 166
13. Polity 214
Epilogue 227
Notes 230
Preface
This book is about solutions: a suspended combination of various fields, all interrelated and interdependent. The problems of our world need answers, and this book is about answers: solutions for our time, not a suggestion for how we should have or could have in a previous time, but how we must, in this time, solve our most serious and ubiquitous problems.
Philosophia is the origin of the word philosophy, and means the love of wisdom. Philosophea, with the suffix ea, could mean the love of wisdom and flow, or the love of wisdom and life force depending upon the etymology of either english or Hawaiian culture respectively. This book is the author’s attempt to share his love of wisdom with the world, and in the process infect his ken with their own unique love of wisdom, flow, and life force.
In the course of writing this book, the author drew from various sources throughout various fields. Part I, dealing with a new moral code, took influences from such deceased characters as Yeshua Ben Hur (otherwise known as Jesus of Nazareth), Jiddu Krishnamurti, Buckminster Fuller, Lao Tsu, &c., and such living characters as Ken Wilber, Tom Campbell, and Mihály Csíkszentmihályi among others. By bringing their distinct and seemingly different ideas together, it can be said that this book is complex—in that we have differentiated and integrated a variety of ideas together in harmony. However, if we were to sum up part I into one sentence or idiomatic phrase, we would boil it down to the platinum rule: Treat others as they would like to be treated. Many of the ideas expressed in this book are not solely that of the author, but rather express the mentality of a new paradigm that has been emerging more rapidly since the dawn of the new millennium, but which has always been present in the hearts and minds of great visionaries throughout history—in one way or another, in one shade or variation. In other words, both this book and its author are a product of our uniquely promising yet perilous times.
Misguided as many great leaders are, they have always attempted to create the perfect society, through eugenics and eumemics. Eugenics is the control of genes, and eumemics is the control of memes. Memes are any pattern in matter or information that has been produced by human intention. Between the control of genes and memes, most attempts by leaders throughout history have been negative: genocide, infanticide, fratricide, book burnings, religious inquisitions, and military conquests between cultures. Because of these morally corrupt forms of eugenics and eumemics, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction with the premise that everyone has a right to reproduce. And while we might, in our heart of hearts, wish that this was for the best, perhaps we should step back for a moment, and consider the truth: specifically we are all different, some more disposed to taking care of children than others. Cultural norms previously condoned marital relationships as a requirement for reproduction, but today this requirement no longer holds water, and the baby has been dumped out along with the bathwater with the emergence of liberal democracy. What is liberation in the context of empire?
Today, women are practically rewarded for being promiscuous in the United States, provided with tax cuts and supplementary income—and in some cases this is a good and just thing, but in the long run could it be harming our culture and society? The rate of single motherhood has increased dramatically over the past decades, and there does not seem to be any reduction of those rates. Without fathers, government has taken up the responsibility of father figure, and because most of these single mothers cannot give the necessary attention to the child they have, let alone the numerous children they may end up having, the state has become the new parental figure for most of the impoverished world. Schools have become nanny services for parents; and for single parents, the relationship is reversed: they are the nanny, and the state is the parent. Welcome to a brave new world! Aldous Huxley would be proud.
And while Part I is about, as Aldous put it, opening the Doors of Perception and exploring our antipodes, our exotic and uncharted territories (of the mind and our reality), what we are presenting in book II is a new paradigm, what we are presenting in book II is a new paradigm, which, if applied, would constitute a form of passive, noninvasive, positive eugenics, which, for the purposes of differentiation, we will be calling eugenesis, in which no direct manipulation of the genetic material is necessary, only the application of consciousness to the process of evolution—in regards to both genes and memes. Eugenesis, eu “good, well” and genesis “origin, generation, nativity” thus means “good origin.” The source of this concept is first, recognizing where life originated, where it generated from, and second, by recognizing its potential.
If and or when we can recognize our eugenesis and place that source in our attention, we can then begin to care about the problems of living with the kind of affect and thinking that is necessary for proper evolution or change; rather than punishing victims, rewarding criminals, and tolerating violence, we need to heal victims, avert evil, and end all forms of violence as a means of creating change. It is only through unity consciousness -- effective differentiation and integration of thoughts, feelings, and actions -- in the context of a mental or ideal universe that we can realize and generate the proper mentality to create our own reality (high level Freemasons know this through the Kybalion, A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, and the Seven Hermetic Principles: Mentalism, Correspondence, Vibration, Polarity, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, and Gender -- as well as the hidden 8th principle: The Generative Principle of Care.) and the sense of sovereignty necessary to start building it.
All too often promises of security and safety are presented in a nice suit, with a sharp knife hidden behind its back—in other words, the contents do not match the hype. More often than not the promise of freedom comes with an enemy which threatens the ideal way of life. In this book, the enemy is entropy, and the solution is complexity. And while there are many who are what would be considered guilty under our current system of laws for petty crimes, there are many also who are guilty of crimes not recognized as crimes, and they play as regular characters in the course of world events and our daily lives, if not more than drug dealers and thugs; thus, it makes no sense to claim this concept of guilt even exists in the manner in which we as a culture intend. Therefore, we must intend to seek justice, not guilt or innocence, but virtue in the pursuit of cleansing this world of its ills, and our society of its evils.
We do not intend to deceive the reader in regards to intent, packaging our ideas in Utopian paper with propaganda ribbons. However, just because it is not presented as a final solution, or as a simple cure-all to the world's ills does not mean that it is incapable of reaching to the root of today’s problems, and similarly, just because it is not presenting a bleak outlook of apocalyptic doom does not mean that it should be relegated to the index of boring and/or posh—in contrast to insane and raving notions. In our view, despite foreseeable hardship in the form of self-development and individual responsibility, it is not a matter of should, not a matter of could but a must—if the human species is to survive the 21st century, let alone the foreseeable millennium.
Whatever form eugenesis takes, it can only be based on the idea of fractal equality: that the balance inherent in all natural inequalities gives rise to the spectrum of beauty inherent in all varieties. This is a complex idea, both differentiating and integrating the forms and functions of nature, but it is a necessary idea in our time because of its implications for our culture.
In this book, we define beauty as a symptom of rarity, complexity, and functionality. Consequently, if we did not have ugliness (common, simple, and non-functional e.g. excrement), we would not have beauty (e.g. the rose and with it the honey bee). Ugliness has its own intrinsic purpose, just as beauty. Therefore, discrimination against people and things because of their apparent ugliness is folly, and should be prevented through education. Indeed the primary method of eugenesis, as presented in this book, is education and epigenetics rather than book burning and genocide.
Having said the above, it is not lost on our author that such quaint and poetic notions are incapable of emancipating the human race from its invisible shackles, and rending the unbendable bars of the enslaved mind. Nonetheless, this book was written with the intent of inspiring people, giving them hope, and presenting a case for a more complex, more beautiful world; a world which balances utilitarian principles with humanitarian ones; a world that balances and measures its own laws according to natural ones; a world that no longer has its roots in fear and loathing, but rather in love and receptivity.
Making such a shift requires that we use ecosophy, and sociosophy--words meaning wise economy and wise society respectively. Ecosophy, or a wise economy, is defined as a coalescence of both ecology and economy, using a scientific and spiritual perspective of education to enlighten society; it is by integrating the societal and spiritual components of culture in ways that bring people together instead of dividing them that we see a sane household and society. Sociosophy, or wise society, is the perspective that society and spirituality, or issues of the psyche, are intertwined and require wisdom as a matter of course to address and remove the problems of our current unnecessarily complicated and confusing culture in decline.
On the topic of defining terms, no term could be more important than wisdom. And though we define wisdom last, it should be recognized that this has been done for emphasis. Wisdom is a combination of intelligence and intuition, science and spirituality; wisdom is open-minded skepticism, and applied knowledge; wisdom is direct experience interpreted using complexity and applicability as principles for achieving what the classical philosophers called virtue.
Introduction
Philosophea may be described as the content of this consciousness. From the metaphysics of Part I the reader may come to view the world of mankind’s inventions in a new and different light, one which is more integral than the prevailing fear-based perspective of patriarchy and selfish dominance; from this new perspective the content of Part II may be read and interpreted in a more open, yet sceptical way, in which the author and reader may actually meet eye to eye in imagining a better world. In the course of this journey, the author suggests keeping a mindset of exploratory agnosticism, and keeping in mind the words of Aristotle that “It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without believing it” as well as the words of Einstein that, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it”. We encourage the reader not to believe everything they read in this book or elsewhere, but rather to do their own research and discover the truth for themselves.
As we mentioned in the preface, eugenesis, the practice of controlling genes and memes through positive and passive methods such as participatory education, participatory wisdom councils, and participatory economy, is the sum total of what this book will be describing (particularly in Part II). What eugenesis implies is a good nativity, or positive origin: a foundation of positivity and wisdom from which we can move forward into a level one civilization. The metaphysics of Part I will aid in the reader's discovery of their own innate virtue, and hopefully cause them to explore their own natural humanity.
Much of these ideas may seem new or original, but I believe they came from a greater source, a higher mind. My inspiration came to me at the age of eighteen, through much meditation and inward searching with limited knowledge and limited to moderate outward searching. It was then that I happened to experience the Zeitgeist movie by Peter Joseph and in the Addendum the following year, Jacque Fresco, founder of The Venus Project. Both of these films has a profound effect on me.
After watching the first Zeitgeist movie, I decided that a solution had to be made, and I set out to do so with passion and righteous vigor. Then, after a year of conceptualization and creating a solution in my mind, I saw Zeitgeist: Addendum, and decided that neither the Zeitgeist movement or the Venus Project had a comprehensive enough plan to really create a better world. I realized that it would not be any one of these movements alone that would change the world, but each of them working in concert under a fundamentally more comprehensive plan and paradigm, or more importantly by a popular world movement for peace, guided by an alternative paradigm and a comprehensive plan for world civilization. Thus began my journey to study and understand the world we live in so that I could effectively help solve our world's most prolific and pervasive problems.
Prior to writing this book I had a vision of my own, of a world without war, poverty, and ignorance, all of which I had discovered were derivative of a cultural narrative of fear. The narrative of fear is a meme that has existed for thousands of years, and for thousands of years it was true for everyone everywhere, and, therefore, valid. Today this once legitimate fear has turned into paranoia, causing the artifices of humanity -- and in effect humanity itself -- to do evil. Multinational corporations like Nestle, fearing entropy or decay, seek to privatize and control the world’s water supply, and thus the world; Monsanto, once a highly successful chemical manufacture known for agent orange, roundup, and recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), similarly fearing competition in the food market, has patented its genetically modified seeds, seeking control over the world's food supply, and thus the world. For he that controls the world’s food controls the world. Such parasitic practices constitute a syndrome of decay, which can result in nothing less than the decline of civilization, and nothing more than mass extinction.
However, if there is an Akashic record, or a greater consciousness system that stores, and thus avails all previously existing moments perceived by consciousness to those entities complex enough in their consciousness to do so, it is likely that this book was inspired by that source, or perhaps this meme wanted to come into being for the betterment of the planet and used me, as they use us all, as a conduit for its manifestation. More than likely, however, this book is, as we have said, a product of its times and a reflection of the coming civilization rooted in planetary consciousness, ready for universal change.
The idea of consciousness, and its complexity, is not lost on the modern world. Yet all too often this subject is way too big and daunting for many of us to face. Nonetheless, the importance of this greater energetic system, this force of nature, is paramount in our time. If we do not learn to control and harness our consciousness, as we have other forces in creating the iPhone and the Internet, we will likely destroy ourselves and much of the life on this planet with us.
In his book, The Evolving Self, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, professor at the University of Chicago states that: “the early Confucians understood something extremely important to human well being: that the best way to live is by learning to control consciousness, and that to control consciousness one must cultivate certain skills, acquiring a discipline which seems like mindless ritual, but eventually sets us free to be in harmony with the universal order” (pg. 169). He also goes on to say, “Those… who master enough skills to find flow in more complex activities tend to develop selves that can transform everyday events, even when these events threaten to bring chaos and entropy in their wake, into meaningful experiences” (pg. 204) Thus it is not a matter of should, not a matter of my opinion, but a matter of universal importance that we learn to grasp, control, and master our own destiny and evolve past the antiquated and obsolete conventions of the past. This book will act as a guidepost in the pathless land of truth, wherein you must discover the power to control and discipline yourself, and cultivate your consciousness.
It is by disciplining ourselves that we reach a state of mastery, and in reaching a state of mastery experience being in the zone, or flow. The pursuit of, and immersion in this experience is its own reward. Studies about flow have shown that when our attention is not focused on a goal, our mind tends to be filled with disjointed and depressing thoughts. Whereas if one or more people has a goal in mind and challenges themselves to be in a state of flow, people experience enjoyment for the sake of doing and being, even achieving states of transcendence where their self awareness fades into a deeper union and balance with their overall consciousness of the environment. Repetitive jobs and consistent television watching are examples of how our current society ignores and avoids the flow state for one reason or another—usually convenience, failing to recognize the intrinsic value which the flow state has to offer.
Building the new paradigm, which this book is about principally, is about integrating the flow state into everyday life, as well as consciousness, empathy, and receptivity into our moment-to-moment experience. By shifting the purpose of life from making money and having security—illusions by any critical standard—to cultivating trust, receptivity, empathy and flow, we are more likely to be, not only more productive, but happier and more secure (in our relationships and in our being) as well.
In Part II, we will go over the universal synthesis of the polarities and conflicting ideologies of our modern world. Addressing the dialectic of chapter one we go over how contrasting and conflicting perspectives and choices can be coalesced and brought into balance with techniques from positive psychology and methods of facilitation.
Part I
Metaphysics
SYNTHESIS
1
The Great Dialectic
GRANTING we know nothing of the world, and everything which can be known is before us, i.e., philosophy, physics, science, religion, history, &c., what can we say for the great works of mankind to attempt an explanation of her nature, and his reality? To be terse, we should say nothing, for silence shines with brilliance; we should feel awestruck and humble because before us stretches the lineage of human endeavor; yet still everything that our species has thought or invented represents a mere child with respect to the cosmic scale of civilizations and our overall potential.
If we are to treat reality with a critical, alive eye, we must assume that all and nothing is as of yet known; that we are a baby and a sage simultaneously; we must view the world with all three eyes: the eye of flesh (empiricism), the eye of mind (reason), and the eye of spirit (contemplation\ receptivity). In other words, we must become our own philosopher or at the very least critical thinking. [To help in the process of becoming one's own philosopher, the author describes an autodidactic five-step process, which we will call the Pentivium, pg. 118. If you feel a need to stop here and prepare yourself for reading further, please do so. Also, if the reader is unfamiliar with the above mentioned subjects and unfamiliar with the main and tertiary figures of western and eastern thought, suggested readings will be provided in the Notes section of this book.] [1]
Now that we are on the same page, we can begin attempting to describe reality in whatever limited terms as can be understood by anyone. To begin, we will describe the hermetic principle of polarity—that everything has its thesis and antithesis (hot vs. cold)—as well as the dialectic of Hegel, wherein we will attempt a synthesis, or compromise between the two apparently conflicting sides of the same coin; something and nothing merge together to form reality, hot and cold merge into mild. What we are searching for, in other words, is the golden mean, as Plato called it, which forces us to constantly question and evolve our ideas about everything.
The metaphor of this dialectic is much like light interacting with a crystal prism—just as light pours through it to create a beautiful spectrum—so too the great diversity is a manifestation of interacting phenomena of seemingly opposing natures: in knowing light we know dark, in knowing the combination we know reality. However, the truth of polarity is that poles are merely an expression of degrees, deriving from a single force: hot and cold, heavy and weightless; though different, these opposites share a common thread, energy and density respectively.
Being so derived, every aspect of nature is a reflection of that absolute relationship of polarities; therefore: masculine and feminine, hot and cold, up and down, hard and soft. Every aspect of reality has its opposite, but these are merely degrees of the same thing, and only by union and balance are they complete and appropriate. To bring these apparent opposites into harmony we need another hermetic principle: rhythm. To know silence without sound is impossible, and it is music which brings the two together in harmony. There may have been a time or condition without up or down, silence or sound, but it may as well not have existed because we cannot relate to it, even in our dreams. Therefore, if we are to rectify the mistakes of the past it must be our individual and collective dream to rectify every existing imbalance, and create a paradise on earth through harmony. Even if such perfection is impossible, the point is not to achieve perfection, but the journey and the quest for perfection, for it is not the destination but the journey which bears the most significance.
Back to our metaphor. If matter is the prism, and consciousness is the light, reality is composed of the same spectrum of ever-increasing diversity and complexity as that of color, and this is no coincidence. Literally everything bares the mark of this relationship: light comes as both a particle and a wave, even the prism is composed of mostly empty space—and what is not empty space is either energy or information in a primordial sense, i.e., data, or chaotic patterns and processes that can reproduce themselves (information at its most fundamental level is any propagation of cause and effect in any system). Therefore, even the things we think are one way, are really both ways, but in ways we do not fully understand through the eye of empiricism.
Nonetheless, we can say that that which is most good is that which is most related to the synthesis between something and nothing, chaos and order; and that which is most beautiful could be said to be that which is most in balance with those related contrasts; truth, then, stands on its own as the act and display of that relationship as an existential reality. For instance, a law is good when its weight or legitimacy is agreeable to those affected and clear in so far as its language and intent (weight or legitimacy being a matter of cultural bias, and clarity of intent being a subject of interpretation and, therefore, subjectivity or consciousness); a painting may only be beautiful when its color and forms are appealing, but more importantly when the two (object and subject) interact in such a way as to astound the observer (the paint and forms being matter, the orchestration of those forms being of the mind, and the experience of the profound beauty is a function of consciousness); a philosophy may only be true when it considers both the masculine and feminine, the objective and subjective, science and spirituality, and does so in such a way that the two apparent opposites are seen as complementary and non-dual; in effect the reader or student becomes enlightened in the process (the written or spoken word acting as the matter, the subjective interpretation of the reader then acts as the function of consciousness). In writing this book, truth is being imparted as a matter of fact. Which is to say, no one will deny that the current author took it upon himself to act on the impetus to write this book; therefore, this book is true in so far as it exists, but it only truly exists to the extent that it is being read by an observer at any given time (however true it is in respect to its content is up to the reader and future generations to decide).
To be a human being in disharmony means to discard the body for the mind, or the mind for the body, but either way, an obvious problem arises in the health of either the mind or body, or both the mind and body when this disharmony occurs, not to mention the deeper levels of our being: soul and spirit. More importantly, when an entire species plunges headlong into disharmony, the results can be catastrophic. For this reason, we will be exploring the nature of this disharmony at length in this book, as well as ways to bring about synthesis and restore harmony to the human species and the world with it. Chaos and order must be merged within each of us, as without, to the extent that each of us may be liberated from an authoritarian, socialist oligopoly, as well as any other master vs. slave model.
Humanity will find its salvation in a relationship between love (empathy\sentiment) and reason (epistemology/wisdom), where love is the light of awareness through community and reason is the prism of information and nature. Only by relating to nature can we commune with our deeper self, and only by relating to each other can we discover our deeper purpose. However, by sacrificing the body of nature for a higher intellect and actual community for a virtual one, humanity has ensured its own demise. At the very least our current civilization will plunge into darkness, and any civilization that kills its mother for its toys is not worth saving. Fortunately, humanity will kill itself before any major harm comes to mother earth, but before that happens we would be fools to ignore the signs and equally murderers of humanity if we passively accept this trend.
However, to prove the inner pessimist wrong, a new revolution of relatedness must come, is coming—has come. Reflecting on the self-same truth in us all, and in everything, a deeper dimension of compassion flowers into being. There is only one life, one being many—hence a universe. Therefore, how we treat animals is inevitably how we will treat ourselves. If we are to ascend to the level of gods, we must first grow past an infantile egoism which every great thinker has condemned as a hindrance to happiness and heaven and recognize that all life is one -- to greet all beings as thy self, and recognize the holarchy as a great We, for just as the spectrum casts an apparent diversity from one divine source, so too the face of god wears many masks.
Existence seems to be about finding that perfect balance between light and dark, chaos and order, consistency and form. In the pursuit of something better than nature, humanity has lost its inner innocence: its relatedness to the reality before and beyond itself. To regain that goodness is simple, but not easy: simple because it requires no effort, not easy because our world is so convincingly real (when I say our world, I mean the world of human nature, the artificial nature that has been superimposed over nature by humans, and not the world of Nature; one might say that the two are one, but anyone with a rational, discerning mind can tell the difference between organic and artificial. In essence, to break free from the tiresome game—provided to us by people who want our obedience and nothing more—all we need do is let go and pick up something new: a hoe, a book, the hands and hearts of our fellow beings, and begin providing for our own future. A balance between independence and interdependence is the essence of relatedness, and the inner good of humankind.
As in past ages a more integral, more related organization of the human species must come; a new revolution, but on a global scale—a demand for the end of war and prison by recognizing our own victimhood and simultaneous guilt as victimizers, for education to be absolutely free for everyone by recognizing our collective bondage through ignorance, and the end of poverty by unlimited access to resources and opportunity. We hold these conclusions to be self-evident—not by my particular religion but by a relatedness to reality that all religions proclaim. The goodness of humankind will be kept only once human reality (self) and its underlying natural reality (Self) are recognized and understood.
Heaven and hell exist here and now, this world can be a prison or a paradise, depending upon the choices we make and the perspectives we take. Therefore, a contingent to heaven on earth has always been the universal illumination of the average human being. Though a gradual trend evinces a natural impetus towards just such a mass understanding, the speed with which our technology is growing overshadows that gradual illumination—casting ignorance of the big picture to the four corners of the earth. For a beautiful outcome of the planet to blossom into reality, an active communication of the truth, by the illuminated, must take place. This too is not new, but only today would such notions be defensible and digestible to the masses.
As the human race learns to walk, as an infant species, balance is key. Thus far, humanity has struggled to find that balance, and has squandered its gifts; and as to be expected from a young child, imbalance of the overall outlook of life has taken place. For centuries the ego and selfishness have ruled over the hearts of men, until their hearts have withered, and their capacity for compassion has ceased. In order for the human species to survive and thrive, a union of the head and the heart, science and spirituality, humanity and nature, masculine and feminine must take shape. Only through unity will the contrasting natures result in a brilliant harmony. The more complete and integral the balance, the more good and beautiful the resultant world is bound to be.
In light of this revelation, it must be remembered that for many centuries women were the slaves of the world, and continue to be regarded as sub-human or second class citizens in many parts of the world. With no rights, no authority over themselves, and no equality, women, the sacred feminine of nature and life itself, have been overtaken by the patriarchal, linear logic of male dominance, rather than enlightened male and female coalescence. In fact, men and women have such a hard time communicating that entire fields have grown up around the need for communion (e.g. “women are from venus men are from mars”). Consider for a moment the obvious truth of this; our overwhelming disharmony and fundamental fragmentation of our species into many arbitrary distinctions—senseless boundaries of race, sex, class, and creed. All they do is hinder our cultural and inner evolution. There is only one life, one face underlying the manifestation of all life, but humanity has separated itself from all but itself through ego and selfishness.
The truth, thus far, is that disharmony and discord have been the norm historically, but this is the truth thus far. A deeper truth is that, as a species with the potential for world civilization, this initial dysfunction is relatively normal, but go too long as a child and eventually mother earth will abandon us and simply wait for a new species to take our place. Therefore, breaking down—holding on to these illusory boundaries—or breaking through—letting go of these illusory boundaries—and recognizing the underlying unity of all things is of vital importance to our species' survival.
How then can we bring harmony to the masculine and feminine forces, i.e. to men and women, to government and the people, science with spirituality, &c.? Can sexual intercourse, or a new sexual revolution do the trick? Or must we learn a new outlook entirely from what has been done in the past? Whatever conclusion we come to, it must be a natural path: founded in understanding and unity, and complement rather than competition. By doing so we will be living in the universal truth (rather than an artificial human gestalt), and men and women of the world will rejoice for new clarity and awakening. Otherwise, a planetary culture of schizophrenia will continue, and the potential of human civilization will be stillborn.
2
Life and Death
“Wherever life can exist it will.”~Mattrick
LIFE is a constant introduction to death, changing reality instantly; all forms of life are fractal holographic simulations of the eternal one. Deathless beyond this form, we are the chosen ones to live within form so that we may be mortal and experience death—but never truly “die,” because there is really only one underlying (life force) spirit. What this author believes is the truth, is that life is composed of one cosmic consciousness, animating all avatars, from atom to Adam; in other words, god created the universe with the intent of playing it through the lives of its own creation: Therefore, we (and Life itself) are the universe experiencing itself. Being none of them, yet all of them, one consciousness, one higher self, acting as the player of all characters rests as the central mover of all existence, itself unmoved.
As bodies, as humans, we are all in a state of flux in a sea of change, so to suggest that the world is the way it is and there is nothing you can do about it is pure hogwash—all things have their end and all things have their new beginning. However, what has always been and will always be, the essence of identity, the source of self, the I-Amness, transcends the form of forms, unifying all life as a central, underlying force—the unchanging Self of selves.
Immortality is beyond our three dimensional senses to perceive, but rest assured, beyond this ego we are all connected by an immortal soul; beyond this body-life, the universe is born and dies but is always reborn through the no-one and is, therefore, immortal. There is only one spirit animating all of reality in different ways according to their attributes and in different forms according to their place and time, but nonetheless there is only one of us. The point of this singular consciousness differentiating and integrating itself would be that it is more effective to evolve in a fractal diversity of many individuated units of consciousness than through an unchanging, eternal existence.
Thus death, without life, would be a cosmic tragedy: peaceful, but not beautiful; life without death would be a cosmic tragedy: beautiful, but not good—not in balance. The truth is that life and death complement each other like twin flames; where one ends the other begins, and there is as much death in life as there is life in death.
Because there is only one spirit, we are only ever partly in this realm or that; for when we, like waves in an ocean, wax and wane, come in and out of that higher and universal consciousness, there can be only unfiltered awareness of all reality; being so integral, the one is both here and now, and everywhere and nowhere. Yes, this world is an illusion, beautiful and convincing, but you make it real—through and through—for who are you if not the universe itself? The untouched, eternal treasure: the face of death is the mask of eternal life.
Those who experience death and have basked in the light of the eternal sun, have felt its warmth, and know the depth of and need for surrender. Life is the mask that death wears. Death is not to be feared any more than waking from a dream. Life is a dream, a simulation, what follows is actually more real, but what happens here is felt there (after life) as dreams or nightmares; life here and now can be either a heaven or a hell, as we have said. Therefore, beyond our limited senses and perceptions, reality is stranger than theology or fiction could come up with, for we exist in both places at once and go between them in perfect balance, whether we want to or not. Only when that balance is disrupted do we witness insanity—in other words we go crazy without sleep, without separating from this mortal coil. Death is the final deep sleep, wherein we become fully awake, and like how we greet this waking life with a sense of “of course, this!” so too shall we awaken in death to an old and forgotten reality, quickly resumed with the same continuity of “of course, this!”
From the moment we are born we are dying, one foot in the eternal void and one foot in the fire, i.e., the physical world of change. The eternal void is as vast as cosmic consciousness, as open as love’s embrace, un-judging and without boundary; it is the condition both before and after life. Life is matter, ignited by the spark of consciousness, the flame that brings light to the eye of the void. In other words, life is matter imbued with consciousness, and consciousness, just like gravity and electromagnetism, is a force of nature. Without consciousness the body is just a shell, and the person a mere automaton; when unconscious, one returns to the primitive state of the void—a plant-like condition we call a vegetative state (some come back to us from that state, remembering what it was like, but as the eye of empiricism overrides the eye of reason and contemplation, modern science dismisses their claims as abnormal or unsubstantiated).
Life is not consciousness, consciousness is not life, but life without consciousness, from the cell to an organism, from micro to macro, could not function, because it is all resting on a foundation of consciousness; therefore, consciousness through and through, is fundamental to all stages of being and knowing. This makes sense if we consider evolution from the standpoint of fracticality, that the big picture can be found in every one of its parts like a shattered mirror. How could we have consciousness, therefore, if it were not present from the very beginning as a contingency for evolution?
As natural as birth, death should not be feared, because where there is fear, there can be no love. Without love truth is obscured, and balance becomes unstable; so too beauty and grace are abandoned and forgotten—for when we lose sight of the underlying unity of all things, a solipsism takes over us, and our ability to transcend apparent boundaries, organize, and evolve properly dissolves. To be free from fear means to be free to love, to embrace life; it is in such moments, when we embrace life, that we are more capable and willing to seek balance, and achieve harmony. Rather than fighting and fearing the unknown, we must discover what is true, and be willing to toss into the fire whatsoever fake notions that have been instilled into our world.
By living out of balance, in a constant state of fear, humanity has created a world which has become completely destructive: even our creations are a means to destruction and further punishment of an innocent planet. To live motivated by love, completely, would be better, because of an inherent openness that love fosters; where husbandry of the earth takes the place of industry as our primary focus, or ecology takes precedent over economy (because one is real and the other a mere fiction), as the dominant human activity, where collaboration takes the place of competition. However, to envision a balance or synthesis to this contrast of fear and love, we must first reflect and come to a realization of the balance inside and out, be enlightened by the truth of the greatest teacher, which is nature, and know ourselves, and the universe as one.
Much like life and death are one, yet apparently in contrast, seemingly in opposition to one another, so too we find ourselves and the universe in an apparent contrast; yet underlying the surface, We and the universe are one: we are the universe experiencing itself subjectively. Therefore, only by integrating our dying selves and the eternal universe can we find peace and abundance in a world evermore conflicting and self-destructive. To join life and death, we can only join ourselves to the universe and be conduits of the creative force. And while it is important for us to differentiate ourselves from the universe, we have taken this differentiation too far by denying our connection to the ALL. Our only recourse is to connect to and learn from the universe itself.
To do so requires a kind of death in life: ego death, a death of the lower self, and of our self as we know it becomes a transformation of the world as we know it—because the self we know is merely a product of the world we know, a representation of it, and in killing that “self” we also kill the world which produced it. However, when we remake ourselves, we are representative of the creative force that men have called God, or the universe itself—not in absolute terms, but in terms of being a conduit for that force; receptive to the universe we become like mirrors of reality, reflecting its nature by embracing our natural humanity.
The embrace of death is the embrace of change, and the embrace of change is the embrace of life. One fears death and life out of ignorance, for they are one, and we are one in them. To be open to change, one must be always aware that they themselves are ever changing. To embrace reality, in this sense, is a kind of love that transcends all boundaries, and renders the one in harmony with the higher and most natural spirit: Agape. (John 4:7-8)
When this kind of universal, unconditional love exists—fear does not. This fearless state is the state of all animals naturally, except humankind, but this does not make humans better or worse, it simply means we have more challenges to face as imperfect incarnations of the source. We have been taught out of ignorance or intended deception to fear death, either for survival or for control. We have been taught that the universe started in chaos and must gradually reach for perfection, but in truth, the universe started in perfection (a state of permanent unity and harmony), fell from that perfection and has been put through the task of evolving in order to attain that stage of perfection once again, this time from the bottom up rather than the top down. Further, in recognizing that perfection is an impossibility but pursuing its glory anyway, humanity fulfills one of its many potential purposes: evolution.
To improve the forms to which we are accustomed, we must first bring death into them that they may breathe with the life of change for once, rather than their intensification into bureaucratic stagnation, and administrative evil. Without the vitality of change, stagnancy is the only true death, lifelessly carried on without purpose or meaning; our forms are perpetuated out of habit, and praised out of ignorance. If we love ourselves, each other, and our society, we will foster and allow change in them.
In human life, when one becomes fixed in their ways, and their activity is married to habit, marred in stagnancy and thoughtlessness, that person is no better than a zombie, or a Non-Playable Character (NPC) in a video game. To be alive is to be aware and in control of one’s self in dignity and in health, changing when necessary to fit the occasion, receptive to the world around us or ‘one’s self’. One's actions are his and her own when they are guided by a receptive, alive, and critical mind; actions that stem from the deep roots of consciousness are real or original actions, and actions driven by the superficial, second-hand knowledge fed to them by culture or so called teachers, are not real or original actions but merely reactions to situational forces beyond their control.
A NPC may appear to be alive—behaving with vitality and expressing themselves in various fashions—but they are merely one of the herd, either as an empty zombie or as a mere incarnation of the culture; they have no substance of their own—they have not grown within themselves enough to realize the underlying unity of all things and therefore the futility of egocentrism. Essentially that is what an NPC is, a pure ego, absent the empathic, sentimental capacity for heroism: consciousness.
Therefore, as we age we grow, or we stay the same; no matter what we are going to die, but we may as well truly live in the meantime. To be alive and not grow in life is the equivalent of eukaryotic life staying genetically the same despite an environment conducive to dramatic change, preventing the tree of life from growing, bifurcating, and transcending its previous limitations. In other words, progress that is inhibited, despite opportunity, is against nature and against humanity. In any case where change is denied or restricted, the equal opposite reaction will be like a screen door on a submarine or a concrete sidewalk cracking and broken by the weeds underneath.
Anywhere you can find life, you will, because that most powerful force, once established can overcome all others. A hydra at the very foundation of the tree of life, roots set in the very elements of the universe. From nothing, to matter, to life, to mind, the trend of change indicates a greater potential ahead, of which we can only speculate and dream.
In any organism where change is feared, so is life feared; we may as well burn our works of art and return to the time of black and white. Suppressing the spectrum of color by restricting their expression, either by law or by cultural norms, results invariably in a bursting of the dam—either by revolt or by popular evolution. Rather than being creators of our own world, we have relied upon the strict security of a nostalgic fairytale of a better time—when in all reality such a time has never existed; in fact we are living in the best of times, which is saying a lot, because things are not all that great for everyone as it is to put things lightly.
When confronted with this reality people can become hostile as they live vicariously through a bygone era. However, when the hatred for change results in inquisition or the burning of books, there is a clear indication of the underlying mentality. Emphasizing continuity over change, such people live in a world of delusion, manufacturing an ideal that has never and will never exist—tarrying in yesterday.
As the human race fumbles itself cyclically ad infinitum, due to a love of the past, love of dead things (as a noun), a fear of the future, and fear of death (as a verb), we shall see history repeated senselessly; as long as our species is gripped by a fear of death and change, history will repeat itself, and the dark corners of man’s soul will continue to lure him and rule him without his recognition or control. Having lived in such indignity for so long, one must wonder whether our species will ever be ready for liberation.
3
Metamorphosis
EVERYWHERE things are changing, but the rate of change is different for everything; beneath the surface—the face of death—all matter rests on the seat of existence: consciousness. We perceive reality, each of us differently, as constant change, but what is not changing? Consciousness: our awareness of that state of change. In fact, we should not underestimate the power and virtue of no-thing-ness and its value as well. The more conscious you are, the more sharp, spicy, honest and complete you will be: confident and at ease.
Through consciousness we will access higher levels of understanding; by complexifying our brains, our minds, we reach new potential consciousness, and evolution of the being intrinsically takes place. That evolution can be as instantaneous as a high-speed computer. Like going from laughing to crying or vise versa; we go from great extremes to every experience in between in adult life. Can you tell me there are not some people crying inside, with a smile on their face as they conduct their day; a baby crying or laughing in response to external senses of objects is far less sad or discomforted than an adult in the world of modern slavery; the only difference is conditioning, indoctrination, and desensitization.
At every level of transcendence toward consciousness a layer of worry and self-doubt fades away; like going in and out of focus on a camera, the perspective is altered to let in different amounts of light or information. The darker the iris, the deeper the insight and the wider the more progressive; more open, therefore, the more perspective. From this we can derive that the greater absence of known, which is stored light, the more capable we are of receiving the light or receptive to new information in other words. With this openness one becomes or taps into a higher intelligence, a collective unconscious, a union with the divine as it were—or a recognition of the exotically real. This transformation, and this alone is what we seek, is it not? To be connected to something greater?
When one experiences a metamorphosis, they do not necessarily change in appearance, but interiorly they are like a butterfly. Awakening is akin to breaking through the chrysalis, a new first birth, first breath. Only a transformation of the self can bring about the transformation of the world. Each human life is a letter in the strand of Life's DNA, by altering enough of the constituents in the code, the effects can be both radical and highly contagious (by fundamental I mean at the level of causation, and by contagious I mean easily transferable or viral ideas). When we are open to a new perspective of reality, reality itself does not change, but with enough attention we can realize how reality transforms in cycles; history repeats itself like seasons continuously in transition; life is a constant introduction.
The extent to which this transformation takes place may account for the degree of approaching perfection. However, degrees of perfection are like increments of infinity—in other words, approaching perfection is an illusion of mind, rather than a quality of reality. Nonetheless, the pursuit of perfection is a valid and worthwhile goal to have. This apparent paradox can be recognized within the Declaration of Independence with the phrase “more perfect union” to describe the confederacy of states seeking their god-given sovereignty.
Some believe that such a transformation can only come about through revolution—through violent or nonviolent means; others believe that it must occur gradually, through increments, or by an ocean of conscious droplets—emerging from time to time to deliver to our desert of ignorance a mere thimbleful of wisdom. No matter the form, love is the way, and peace is the outcome. Unity, in other words, is most if not all essential, for in our time we have enough thought, technology, and business; what we need now is wisdom and pure act, and not so much of the former.
That being said, I am not condemning thought or the intellect, for ignorance is not bliss; it is slavery and suffering without realizing that it is. Rather, I propose a transformation, a transcendence of the mind through a recognition of the consciousness which observes it and a connectedness of all things and of all beings—human or not. What I propose is not a denial of the mind for the sake of embracing the heart but the full embrace of the mind in order to fully embrace the greater force known as the heart.
Thought without emotion is dull and bland; emotion without thought is misguided and inept; combined, a person displays grace, innocence, discernment, and wisdom.
In order to witness a transformation of our antiquated forms, we must transform our ways of thinking: from ‘everyone is out to get me’ to ‘I am going to try my best to show others that I am not out to get them’. When we change the environment for others, displaying grace, innocence, wisdom, and discernment, our example resonates and carries like a song—acting as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Only when you have the courage to be vulnerable and to be liberated from the shadows of measurable time will such a transformation be possible, both in you and in the world.
There is something about the transformation—from a life of distraction to total devotion to the love of life—which greatly resembles that of the caterpillar; as its chrysalis phase ends it emerges beautiful and vulnerable, and as it does, it resembles our struggle and also that of the environment, making it beautiful and good. Like the caterpillar, a metamorphosis occurs in which the once destructive, consumptive, active creatures become creative, and helpful to the process of life—the very same life that was once consumed by that creature. After the chrysalis, a genetically new creature emerges; does that butterfly have the same awareness?
When we learn something, we cannot return to the lower level of awareness that existed before we had obtained that knowledge—in other words, we cannot unlearn what we have truly learned and grown to understand; in this sense, a death of the point of view that we once possessed takes place, and the birth of a new perspective comes to replace it in an instant—or rather the new view has vanquished the old. This death and rebirth is true growth of the human being; this is true life and the ultimate value of knowledge and learning.
To transcend the boundaries of culture and narcissism, all one needs do is turn the television off and be a creative force instead of a destructive one. Such a perspective does not involve tiresome effort; it is a choice between fear and love; between death and life. Turn off the television, put your hands in the soil, your eyes in a book, and your heart in the lives of your fellow beings—this is not rocket science, it’s community, communication, and real connectedness: that is our natural state!
We have been artificially put into a state of the busybody, worker bee; the world is the way it is so you just have to submit and force yourself to be alright with it. However, this being the case, we become depressed and our world seems bleak. The solution is to let this world as we know it go and inhabit the world our hearts know is possible. This, as we have said, is not impossible, it is only seemingly impossible to those who have never tried, being complacent in their life of convenience and living fixed within the current paradigm—accepting hopelessness as an inevitability due to learned helplessness.
This stage of metamorphosis, where we become aware of the choice between life (change), and death (stagnancy), is a state of intense vulnerability. Those whose heart is guarded, their minds fortified by bars of adamant stagnation, will not allow for such vulnerability, but in doing so they ensure a self-fulfilling prophesy of hurt. Visitors who make it past those supposed protections are then prevented from leaving the attention of the protected by those same protections—acting like a bee trap—causing further pain and unneeded suffering.
Fools to love live in fear, for where there is fear, there can be no love. The end of blind selfishness starts with the vulnerability of unity, both in one's self and as a part of society. The human body is a manifestation of a unity of many parts, each independent and interdependent, always acting as both parts and as a whole.
Like an infant child who is extremely vulnerable for a very long period of time, compared to other animals, the transformation of society from a centralized government of force and coercion to a decentralized organization of human activity, being voluntary and well regulated with wisdom and reason, shall take a lifetime or several to manifest into reality, absent some catastrophic, catalyzing event. It is a total evolution of the world order and human consciousness, and the individual mind is a vulnerable and delicate development. Nonetheless, this evolution is taking place in human beings throughout the world, and this trend evinces the ultimate transcendence of our antiquated forms.
Throughout history, from tribes to cities, the centralization of power has been manifest and has caused deeper and deeper suffering and servility in the people who follow witlessly the will of the oligarchs. A world government is in its fetal stage, and it is being born through the waters of maritime banking and admiralty law—the law of the sea. However, the character of this world organism, of either egalitarianism and ecological soundness or totalitarian banking and corporate dominance, shall be determined by the choices and perspectives of human beings, here and now. In the tumultuous ocean of woman’s and man’s mind, such a gestation is always taking place; within the unconscious, avoided and discouraged by social norms and ignorance or cultivated and nourished by meditation and practicing peace.
The common notion of peace is different than a state of mind, the inner condition of peace. Without this inner condition of peace, outer peace can not arise; without the outward peace, inward peace can not arise. Everyone is a genius; everyone is similar, fighting each other over petty ideas as man’s laws and contrived justice (all artifice and vanity). When reality conflicts with the world of man’s patriarchy, man either cowers before the awesome force of nature or exacerbates the conflict by persisting and increasing in harmful behavior—rather than seeking harmony or peace with these natural forces.
When mankind stops its egocentric chatter long enough, they may come to discover that it is more practical and realistic to listen to nature than to work against it. The constant war against nature, against life and death, must end in peace—either by our destruction or in our metamorphosis into a creative force on this planet
4
The Spectrum of Reality
BEFORE anything was, there could be only a deep dark blackness. When we say empty, or dark, these words come with connotations, which we must forget or suspend for the time being (that is, we should not be afraid of this darkness, for it is the essence of peace). The deep blankness, for our own discussion, represents awareness or consciousness. Therefore, awareness is the universal ground of everything.
From that ground, that absence, springs forth the light; from the cosmic conversation came the world and the language of light and energy. Therefore, the color white could represent matter, for all the material universe is composed of light and information. And as we have said, there is as much consciousness in light as there is light in consciousness. Therefore, the yin yang symbol has a profound and true meaning to it, which the author has just expressed.
The cosmos, being composed of both black and white, matter and consciousness, is as complex as it can be. Feeding back in a perpetual loop of love and appreciation, the entire universe is learning about itself and evolving with a gradual eventuality. Towards what we may never know. Nonetheless, through us the universe is learning how to live and die, to love and fear, how to laugh and cry; indeed as the relationship of matter and consciousness transpires through mutual response and intercourse or Love, the birth of beauty transforms the landscape of the universe.
Represented by the passionate color Red, beauty is the result of consciousness interacting with matter. The first color of the spectrum and the first manifestation of reality, beauty is the essence of all reality, a virtue among virtues, primitive but all pervading, present in all aspects of nature and at every stage of its evolution. The interaction of consciousness with matter intensifies with evolution, gradually allowing more and more consciousness to integrate into the body matrix. For this reason, evolution is depicted as a upward spiral, of ever increasing consciousness expansion.
As we have hinted at above, from the cosmic soup a potential for further, more complex forms of essence shall manifest. The creation of stars, star clusters, and finally star systems with planets creates the conditions for still greater beauty through evolution; from this we get the color Orange, which represents creativity, and the constant flux of change in the cosmos. [editor’s note: “sol” is the name of our star, so the “solar system” is our star’s system of planets, minor planets, comets, and all the rest of the material gravitationally locked to our star. Technically then, a star system is the generalized term for another star’s gravitationally locked matter, but most people – even astronomers who should know better – call all star systems “solar systems”.]
As beauty transforms itself from one stage of complexity to another, transcending and increasing the overall content of the universe forever, and ever, so too the gift of goodness springs forth instantly and simultaneously. For the universe to constantly be transcending and bettering itself is the definition of good, in that constant evolution takes place with perfect pace and perfect rhythm previous to life. However, because goodness proves the necessity of existence—to constantly improve the connection and feedback between matter and consciousness—goodness can be represented by the brightest of the three primary colors: Yellow.
From the evolution of matter, on a universal scale, to the evolution of life on the planetary scale, beauty, creativity, and goodness are combined to create life. A true union of and harmony of both beauty and goodness, life hints at the potential depth of mind. Green is the color that represents life itself.
From matter to life to mind, the sheer beauty and goodness of life results in the manifestation of truth. Only through the mind does the cosmos reflect upon itself and know truth. Due to this depth of awareness, which truth requires, it is appropriate that Blue represents truth and thought. The deep color is indicative of the further depth which takes place within the interior of life and its manifold manifestations of mind and the interior universe.
Interestingly enough, the focus of the cosmic eye has become transfixed upon the interior universe with the advent of mind and the discovery of truth. From here on out the colors of the spectrum will be still deeper and shall consist primarily of the realm of mind. As the depth of mind increases and the goodness of life evolves in a similar way to how life itself evolved, organization takes place through the mind. Only by proving deeper levels of truth can any valuable organization of sentient life take place. Organization is represented by the color Indigo.
Because organization requires many minds transfixed upon truth, the depth of its color is far more intense than mere truth and mind. However, because truth is, nonetheless, required, the similarity between blue and indigo, between mind and the organization of mind, is apparent to anyone. The power of any organization is determined by the level of life and the level of creativity set in motion by the minds that created them. (Here the secondary aspects are complimenting one another, just as beauty, truth and goodness complement one another, so too creativity, life, and organization complement one another.)
A truly great organization requires an equally great grasp of truth. The inherent unity of all reality and sacredness of all life engenders a potentially egalitarian and inclusive form of government and/or society, wherein the equality of all can be assured and recognized by every inhabitant through common sense and post-conventional sensibility.
Through self-governance of this kind, founded on the ground of a decent society and a true organization, transcendence may be manifest from the constant evolution as all good things transpire, and all beautiful things transform from one stage of beauty and complexity to another—more intense than the color before.
The color of transcendence is Violet, and its depth is indicative of its required level of truth, beauty, and goodness implicitly. By transcending one form of organization, we beam forth the positive light of goodness into our collective lives. The depth of transcendence, both individually and collectively, represented by such a deep color as violet, implies an utter intensity of the first deep color—represented by truth as blue. Truth is essential to transcendence inasmuch as life is essential to truth or beauty to creativity.
As one begins the path of transcendence, they invariably discover through truth that all boundaries are illusory or arbitrary; that all aspects of the spectrum of reality are synergistically intertwined in a complex way that exceeds perception. Moreover, one discovers the extent of those illusions through contemplation or meditation—recognizing them, the essential spirit of life that is aware of and in them, as being essential and the same to all life, despite its apparent diversity. From this perspective, the only rational sovereignty is a universal one from within and cannot be written into law or removed or outlined by any institution but is inscribed in the qualia of all sentient beings, and written into the genetics of all living beings.
The state of transcendence transforms organizations, previous interpretations of truth, goodness, and beauty; it gives a greater, more penetrating look at what defines life and creativity. However, despite transcendence being so all-encompassing, it is not the end of the spectrum of reality. In fact, the color choral represents the infinite potential that is beyond matter and beyond our minds to know. A subtle combination of white and red, a color which represents consciousness once again interacting with matter, this time through sentient consciousness rather than cosmic consciousness.
As the depth of consciousness reaches its zenith, meaning a collapse of colors altogether, their state of consciousness reaches a self-similar return to the material universe through an appreciation of beauty. And so the cycle of this spectrum is completed and potentially repeated ad infinitum.
This spectrum is important because it tells us so much about the individual and the collective human experience. Conforming to the fractal nature of reality, the spectrum of reality functions on all scales knowable to sentient beings. The first two tiers, representing the exterior realm of matter and the final, third tier, representing the interior ream, are not complete without understanding their reciprocal nature and the self-similar return to beauty and further recycling of the spectrum from deeper, more individualized states of consciousness. As the Hermetic teachings state: “As above so below.”
This spectrum, and its guiding principle, transcendence, is a fractal one, composed at every level of the overall picture. Indeed, to discover the secrets of the universe, all one must do is contemplate a tree or any of the wonders of nature. Only by embracing ignorance would we consider trivializing the natural world, taking it for granted, or trying to conform nature to our selfish will; the wise being neither lives in the wild, nor in the city does she dwell; for no matter where she dwells, she is in the forgotten realm of silence, peacefully aware that she is lucidly dreaming a cosmic attempt at perfection.
5
Education & Enlightenment
EDUCA'TION, noun [Latin educatio.] The bringing up, as of a child, instruction; formation of manners. education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties. [Webster's Dictionary, 1828, Online Edition]
DESPITE the common knowledge of today, learning is not a product of a teacher or an education program. Learning comes from the student, from the wonder and imagination inherent to the innocent mind of a child. When a child is raised in a culture that is uninspired, and devoid of visionary principles, that child is doomed to be as mediocre as his or her culture. With the premise of capitalism, and all that that implies, our culture perpetuates the concept that education is a commodity, or rather the students within our education system are a commodity: human resources. Under this premise it is not practical to have a decent education for all; rather, it is more important to train them for the world of work. 'We can leave academics to the colleges, where real education belongs; besides, that way people are spending money, and associating their level of learning with their level of spending.'
‘Modern Education’ has been the great failure of the 20th century due to the above mentality about education and its purpose, and into the 21st century we find only an intensification of this mentality that seeks to commodify learning and capitalize on our innate curiosity. First, by allowing lower standards in reasoning ability, as the math test scores show, then by allowing psychologists to turn the classroom into their own lab, and each student their guinea pig. The standards of education have slipped into a common core of mediocrity. It is no wonder that our children dislike school, and more and more learning and reading books comes with a stigma or is perceived as a chore. Modern learning and education sucks the fun out of learning, and reduces the natural creativity of the average child.
As this trend increases, we see more and more children on “medications” to help them adapt to the education system. However, the fact that millions of fresh young minds require medication to assimilate into the culture of Modern Education does not mean they are damaged. It means there is something fundamentally wrong with our approach to education.
When a human being is born, innocent to the world outside, uninfluenced by the world of humankind, that being is potentially a genius; and each human being--when conceived--has the same potential if we disregard the temporal, local and cultural factors. However, it is only when they are indoctrinated by a foolish society, nurtured by a culture of critical neglect, that they become one of the crowd—where it feels safe and secure. To be intelligent in modern times is not a difficult feat and one would have to seriously try, or not try at all, to be ignorant; but to be a critically alive human being is totally different from being intelligent and informed, as different from being smart to being wise.
Wisdom, rather than intelligence only, must be the end of education's object. However, self-education, rather than forced education, is the only sure way to ensure that the mind of the individual can think independently, and critically without the influence of culture, or the world around them.
In order for humanity to reach its fullest potential, it must slough off its most unnecessary and impeding concepts, most of which surround our ideas about education, ethics, and economics. For now we will be focusing our attention on education. How did you feel about your education, compulsory or otherwise? Very rarely does one receive education of their own volition—still rarer do we witness autodidact education—and after having such compulsory education it is still rarer to witness a person continuing learning after their formal education (unless they are a scientist or philosopher).
Without the ability to properly communicate, without intelligence, one calls themselves normal, when nothing could be further from the truth. The natural state of the human being is not stupidity, but genius. Only by conditioning and indoctrination to a stupid society will a human become “normal”. Sense as common as “if it ain't broke don't fix it” has been lost to the contrived notion that everything before the modern age is rife with rust and dust, and must be thrown away like my old computer.
At this point in our history, the education system is so far from decent, so obsessed with the future economy, that any semblance of education has been stripped from it completely. Were we to utilize the past forms of education, and those experiments which experience has shown most effective in educing the innate talents of the students, rather than experimenting with so called progressive methods, not only would we have a more sane and well-ordered society, but better workers and citizens as well.
If that is to be the standard objective of education, to increase the number of good citizens and workers, we have so far failed because our education is coming from a place of creating the perfect soldier, the perfect factory worker, and more recently the perfect coder. From this premise, education is designed to create obedience and can only end in the gradual but exponential break down of society, generation by generation; deliberate or not there is a dumbing down taking place—an anti-renaissance. Nonetheless it is our duty as thinking, breathing beings to turn off our televisions, ask our neighbors to do the same, and get to know them. It is time that the human race embraced its own intensity and the inherent genius within all of us.
For this reason, education deserves to be taken seriously, and with a more integral purpose than economic stability. Wisdom and enlightenment are not economical or practical for our capitalized society; but if we take education seriously, wisdom and enlightenment must be the sole object of education, and not preparing a workforce. This is a counter argument to the utilitarian philosophy of John Dewey, and though it may seem counterproductive to do so, were we to think for a moment, the idea of a utilitarian education was founded at the turn of the 20th century, when manufacturing was the primary focus of civilization.
Today, our economic and social conditions are vastly different, and constitute a valid reason for a fundamental restructuring of our education model. That being said, academic knowledge and demonstrable intelligence should be a mere side effect of a decent education—while the true object must be to dispel ignorance while cultivating the innate genius and independence of thought of a human being.
Rather than trying to force the tree-shaped mind into a square hole; rather than force our children into programs designed to transform them into workers, we should be working to create a community and society which naturally functions as a matter of practice and play. Were our education taken seriously, it would act as the center of our community, not just as a primary employer, but as a vector for human interaction, production, and consumption. That being said, going into the 21st century, we must re-purpose our education towards playful academics and building wisdom instead of just intelligence, and re-purpose our society from consumption and corporate production to culture and self-sufficiency.
This should be common sense, but instead our aristocratic, plutocratic oligarchy decides to invent programs to train us rather than traditionally educate us. Moreover, no matter where in the modern world, which is massively industrialized, the education system is basically the same Skinnerian training (i.e. search Behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner's premise of behavioral taxonomy) which consists of conditioning through rewards and punishment.
In order to take the first step into the present, we must collectively decide to change the forms which we are accustomed to; our government, to which we are beholden; our culture to which we are ceaselessly conditioned; to our reason for living, usually programmed into us by both.
We are creating the future today. Congratulations! And the future we are creating can be a heaven or a hell depending upon the choices we make and the perspectives we take. The actions of the American people against the best wishes of the founders, veering away from the enlightenment beyond the enlightenment period, towards a darker, more industrial world, proves the idiom that those unfamiliar with history are doomed to repeat it.
It is our right, it is our duty, as sentient beings to give a just scrutiny to the government and culture which so often define us. Only through education is this possible, only through education can a true civilization come into being. However, by externalizing society from education, and separating education from society, a deterioration of both takes place. By not providing facilitation, for adult learning, we have spoiled ourselves, and squandered our gift for the sake of conveniences and money. In other words: greed!
We have distanced ourselves from the natural order of things. To the degree that a parent has taken up the role of an extension of society, so too, education has taken up the role of parent. In this sense, it is difficult to imagine a regression, a return to those classic roles, unless people are willing to turn off their televisions, and put their hands in the soil, their eyes in a book, and their hearts into the lives of their fellow beings.
Although difficult to imagine, such a world is worth imagining!
Imagine a synthesis of the community with the education system, and the practice of education for community members by community members—facilitated by themselves—and not through the state or any federal governing agency. The more our education resembles the diversity within the local society, and the more diverse that society comes to be, the more responsive the student will be as a person, and not a puppet or a machine.
Were education to span the life time, from infancy to senility, a wise new world would naturally come into being; but only for those society’s willing to slough off their old forms, stagnant, and decaying, kept alive by nothing but artificial means; and utilize among their just powers the prerogative to establish a new design to the body of their organization, one that hopefully transcends and integrates previous attempts in a more perfect unity. In other words, humanity needs to actually progress, instead of digress or regress—or else we will go the way of the dinosaurs. To put it into words that anyone can understand: evolve or die.
The evolution that must take place is like that of the many individual cellular organisms, quantum leaping into a multicellular organism, or better yet into what could be called a planetary organism (as opposed to a world government or sovereignty. Regression can look a lot like progress in a profoundly sick society, and as the modern sage Jiddu Krishnamurti famously said, “it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society.”
[In Part II we will further imagine and describe in detail the education paradigm that the present author would aptly call Eduliberation, a philosophy of education based on what is scientifically known about the brain, and how a human's whole, or integrated self evolves over her\his lifetime.]
6
Ethics and Nature
IN the previous chapter we discussed the necessity in our time to establish a new form of education, and hinted at the establishment of a new form of organization to our relationships with one another, or society. Is that not after all what society is: the inter-relationships of everyone to everyone, but more importantly and simply you and I? How we relate to one another is how the world conducts itself, as below, so above; how we perceive and conceptualize the world is how it will be: as within so without.
When you and I are interacting, we are acting as a fragment of society; like a fractal, we imitate the big picture, and the big picture, in some small way, imitates us to a degree, where the essence of all expresses itself in the slightest details.
This may sound lofty, but it in fact bears much significance and existential reality to our lives. For instance, when we treat animals like chattel, putting them into small box shaped cubicles, and having them stand around for hours and hours, what do you think the eventuality of how the elite will treat us, and organize our work a day life? By putting us into small boxes, we sit in front of a computer all day instead of evolving properly.
In order to establish a more decent society, one based on absolute, total freedom, we must first examine our current state of human affairs: from the morals that guide them, and the prevalent perspectives that act as a foundation to our society. Because society is fractal in nature, by changing enough individuals the entire character of the society will be changed. Consequently, we must first examine whether such a change is necessary.
For centuries, since the so called age of enlightenment, there has been a war against nature, one that truly started several millennium ago with the advent of western, primarily Greek philosophy. Order against chaos, was viewed as the divine principle, absolutely against nature. As a result, the conquest over nature had begun, and continues to this day.
During the age of enlightenment a revival of Greek philosophy, and consequently a revival of the conquest of man against nature had occurred. Since that time, humanity has spared no effort to play god, and attempt a complete overthrow of nature. With the advent of the industrial revolution, an intensification of those efforts has taken place, and further technology and the digital revolution only intensified the drive to win in the age old battle against nature.
Today, people are mesmerized and transfixed by the screen of their technology of choice. People are more stimulated by artificial means than by nature, but are no happier today, or satisfied, than the people of yesteryear. The premise that technology can and will improve the quality of life, does not hold water when we open our eyes to actual reality. Technology has not made people happier, though it has extended their lifespan, or more satisfied, though it has brought the world to their fingertips; it has made them more distracted and more easily malleable.
This is not to say that technology is evil, or that the author is against technology, but simply that we are becoming more and more out of balance from nature, relying on technology to the point where the costs may be far outweighing the returns. Yes we have abundant energy, but when events like the Fukushima disaster leave the entire Pacific Ocean desolate to life it is time to question if we are ready for that power and responsibility; and while technology has a lot of immediate ups, we find that when technology goes bad (and it inevitably will) there is little to no comparison to the damage it may cause the more complex it becomes (due to an increase in the potential for human and unforeseen error). We are wrecking the planet with the double edged sword that we call industry, technology, and to such a degree that people are more inclined to simply leave the world than to solve the problems we have created. However, despite this, a vast majority of the modern generation are convinced of the merits of a purely technological world, that somehow more of the same will save us.
By sacrificing Mother Nature to the monetary and technological god named Moloch, we are sacrificing our spirit and humanity to an artificial intelligence. To some, this comes as no surprise, and with no negative connotation; but to those who see beyond the incandescent glow, and the conveniences of a dying world, nothing could be more concerning, or common sense, than the insanity of man’s conquest against nature; and nothing could be more important in our time than finding a balance between nature, industry and technology.
One of the effects of the technological boom is the devaluation of life, and the obsession with death. Whether it be in entertainment or warfare, technology only desensitizes and dehumanizes those who use them. This is not to say, once again, that the writer believes technology is inherently bad, but that how it is used is. Due to the materialistic spirit and character of our society, the drastic implementation of technology through video games, movies, smartphones, and the applications that accompany them, it has various psychological effects, which have been shown by psychologists over and over to be causing neurosis in children and adults alike—specifically in regards to narcissism and delusions of grandeur.
As a species we must begin to question whether our way of life is worth perpetuating. Unlike previous times in history, the notion that we have the capacity to create our world, our society, is more acceptable and apparent than ever; no longer do we necessarily have to obey the status quo, the forms to which we are so accustomed; we can change them simply by making a choice between fear and love, between a capitalist ideology of artificial scarcity in a mechanistic existence and a perennial philosophy of natural abundance in a divine cosmos.
There is greater potential for humanity to realize a profound future by having a balance with nature than without that balance. Without nature as a foundation and sandbox, the imagination of the human potential is as lost as any hope for a sane world; because nature, as well as the human that comes from it, is not a mere bundle of resources to be exploited and put on the market, but an intrinsically valuable object and subject in and of itself.
This kind of mentality is a symptom of a profound sickness that pervades the modern world: everything must have a dollar sign attached. In psychology this is called quantification, and it leads to alienation. With everything made so abstract by commodification, our entire psychology becomes narcissistic and consumed by avarice. Indeed it is the love of money that keeps the world spinning…backwards.
Rather than being a healthy society of collaboration and cultivation, ours is one of competition and plunder: perpetual growth as it is called. The underlying stagnancy of the notion of perpetual growth is causing the undercurrent of psychological disorder that such vacuity naturally educes from a natural human being.
A natural human being is born, not made. And though we live in a world where it is hard to find one, more now than ever, it is never too late to restore the conditions that are most conducive to the natural human renaissance. Such a revival would not mean a regression back to the wild, but the transcendence of the money game of survival: our industrial, commercial, corporatized society, and systems. Without such a transcendence, our species cannot reach to a higher level of advancement. Without human unity, as long as humanity is divided, all hope for a brighter future is lost.
Most important to recognize about our modern world is that it resembles previous governments throughout history, before they plunged into chaos and darkness. The similarities are not just in the governments but in the people as well as their culture. Rome, Egypt, Samaria, and Atlantis. History does not just repeat itself, it rhymes. In time, we all remember or we all forget.
To forget has its strong points and weaknesses: originality, depression, and ecstasy; to remember has its side too: creativity, habit, and discipline. To forget that there is a separated being, and remember that all is one Self: the synthesis of matter and awareness is to remember and yet to forget simultaneously.
In order for me to have meta-cognition, one must have cognition; I have awareness because my cells have awareness—and my awareness and my cell’s awareness act in a similar way. Therefore, history, or matters procession into life, has rhymed from cell to organism, from organism to superorganism. That is to say that ancestral cells were what we are now, single organisms; at a certain point in their history, however, they united to form multicellular organisms; they evolved, and not by any process within themselves, but by uniting as parts of a more powerful super organism. Today, that unity is what we call government, but so far any government as we know them has been nothing more than an attempt. No true unity of humankind has ever existed like the kind that our cells convey.
Consciousness acts as the foundation of everything; the spirit of life resides in the space between atoms and perceptions; between nature and nurture. Moreover, it has been shown that ancient people were actually more healthy and intelligent, in intuition and social skills, than we are on average. A deeper community presence and connection to nature and the spirit can be attributed to this forgotten unity.
The transcendence of our modern world, with a synthesis between the ancient and modern world is possible, but only with the attention and committed action of as many people as can tip the scales towards a shift in consciousness, or a gradual, incremental involution and evolution of culture.
Once the child rearing practices of the ancients (focusing on emotional intelligence and self-awareness) have been enhanced by epistemology, and a deeper sense of compassion through consciousness expansion, our incredible technology, and compounded as well by the exploration of mentality and consciousness (as was done by the ancients), we may create a true civilization—capable of rivaling the (perhaps) mythological Golden Age of Saturn. This, however, is not a plea for utopia, but rather a plea for a more empathic civilization, a more integrated order, and a more human lifestyle than what has grown out of the industrial era of reason.
A renaissance of the natural, healthy human lifestyle must take place, because the modern, developed culture can be so toxic that pollution ravages the landscape of the planetary organism.
We have a choice which we can make, between fear and love; those who put extra locks on their doors are guided by fear, while those who want to embrace others and tend to the earth embrace love. The natural human is guided by love in the spirit of peace. Fear results in violence through ignorance, and a sense of separation due to a traumatic upbringing.
We have a choice, however, to love and appreciate life as one being, or separate life into many different distinctions, or to bear witness to both! If we observe ourselves, we can recognize that where there is love, fear must cease.
Fear and love do not exist at the same time outside of combat comrades! To choose pure love means choosing the transcendence of war and poverty into a level one civilization; a level one civilization requires an end to the political boundaries and economic chains. The one nation of separated illusions prevents us from seeing the one nation of truth; compounded by monetary interests that delude us into believing money is our god.
What a bad joke when these criminals in high places are the heads of influence, with the sole intent to domesticate humanity under their will. A fearful act to combat the power of the people, which is an infinite power of complexification and compassion.
New generations have the right, and duty, to grant a just security to their rights by replacing their antiquated forms of government, and to provide new forms that more truthfully represent them; and not the corporations or centralized banks. The power is yours, use it wisely!
7
Economics & Planetary Organism
THE problems that face developed countries around the world, particularly in United States, with regards to hunger, are unbelievable. A combination of mismanagement of resources, and the stratification of classes from rich to poor has resulted in a dismal reality. According to worldhunger.org in 2013, there were 45.3 million people in poverty in the United States according to The official poverty measure, published by the United States Census Bureau. Due in part to the corporate economics of globalization, economic democracy, in the form of a universal value for wages of the same labor, has been prevented. Instead, under the premise of “free trade,” and “the factor price equalization theorem—which states that wages in rich countries will tend to go down and increase in poor countries through trade,” (Wikipedia 2010b) has resulted in exploitation of poor and developing countries for their low labor costs, and harm to the economic viability of those developed countries who shipped their jobs overseas.
An original truth about economics today is that there is a common economy; a white, or superficially available and knowable economy, and a shadow economy; hidden from view are its vast pools of so called wealth, which adds up into the quadrillions of dollars at the global scale. This does not change the fact, however, that all of this “wealth” is merely fiat, an arbitrary command that it is so: paper and debt-based currency can only lead to moral and psychological insanity.
The founders knew this on the anti-federalist perspective. Thomas Jefferson himself made clear that “... banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” (a letter to John Taylor in 1816). In order to get further away from this system which has proven itself imprudent and malicious, we must reinvent the wheel of our mind, and come to a new perspective of what economy is, what its purpose should be, and why we are even living on this planet in the first place.
If our purpose is to make a profit, do the ends justify the means? Does plundering the planet and enslaving the masses to debt justify a concentrated mine of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority? Any reasonable person would say no. Yet we seem to continue down this path for no other reason than, “it is just the way things are, and you just have to deal with it.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, however, as humanity, not its aristocratic minority, but all of humanity, is destined for the stars. As the stars have exploded and created us, so it is to the stars we shall return—at least in “physical” form. In the meantime, we have to recognize that our models of reality, including our economy, have been administered by an elite aristocracy, and have no connection to the natural order of things in their reality, and have no legitimacy beyond the arbitrary command that it is so, and that it has been so; but to say that the world must be a hellish place because our fathers made it this way is no reason at all, and in fact shows the level of neurosis in our society.
A world economy, rooted in ecology—in the environment—determined by collective human will, instead of an aristocratic stock market, upon which we are merely human resources, is the difference between a planetary organism and a global government respectively. We presently experience and know, by definition, a global plutocracy of money and power over principles and simplicity. As a matter of fact, everything we see is a product of the Age of Reason, and could be described as nothing less than hedonistic and materialistic—as reason degenerates into ignorance. Having so degenerated, the whole world is for sale, and the rape and plunder of the planet seems to be our species' pastime; the average person’s natural capacity for empathy and reason has been suspended by their depression—or distraction and complacency.
What makes globalization possible? Conglomerates such as Monsanto, cartels such as the Rhodes foundation in conjunction with De Beers, monopolies of oil, oligopolies of airwaves and satellite technology, centralized banks like the Federal Reserve and Bank of London—both controlled by the Rothschild and Rockefeller dynasties—and governments in cooperation with these coercive, commercial plans. This, however, is, by definition, not characteristic of a civilization:
“The truest definition of civilization—a civilized society with a civilized government—is a world without war, for it has become unified by global democracy; not at the hands of a calculating minority, but by will of the People for a more perfect union, drawn together by ideas like those in the Declaration of Independence. The promise of civilization is the escape from the primal hunt, and the development of a society beyond, not against primal nature.” ~Definition of a Civilized Society
In other words, a level one economy should be what the philosopher in everyone is in search of, both in themselves and in everyone they meet. A level one civilization represents a shift towards a balance between the masculine industrial, martial path and the feminine path of husbandry and cooperation.
The roots of our existence are resting both within our DNA and our environment: Just as there are microbes in the dirt that make us feel less depressed (search Mycobacterium vaccae), and sunlight is good for our healthy and natural production of vitamin D, so too the spirit depends on music, movement, and mutual respect to feel fulfilled. That is to say, we should be getting back to nature and common sense but in ways that have not been tried. In the sixties, the pendulum swung way too far into the direction of sacrificing all technology for a primitive lifestyle; what the present author is advocating is a balance.
A level one civilization has a level one citizen, critical thinking and intelligence being descriptive factors. A level zero civilization has level zero citizens, meaning people that have been suppressed by authoritarianism and Prussian-style education—suppressing natural humanity for the purpose of control. A level one civilization does not need to suppress its population, for it is wiser in realizing that, through a level one education, people do not need an authority over them but are instead capable of ruling themselves. This was the original intent of the founding fathers and the philosophers of the enlightenment; this was the end which their means had intended.
Rather than an economy founded in money, war, and fear, imagine an economy rooted in truth, peace, and love. Sharing the diverse interpretations thereof but with common fundamental beliefs that principles and simplicity are better to guide us into the future than money and conveniences. Some would say that money is inevitable and that currency may never be done away with, and money, as in a medium of exchange, will always exist. Fair enough, but that is semantic. In reality, you don’t buy things with money, you buy things with hours of your life; the only reason you literally have to spend hours of your life to get things is because the system is intentionally going against nature and contemporary yet underemployed technologies from giving all human beings what they need for free.
However, rather than cast aspersions upon the face of our present economic model, without presenting an alternative, the author has done so simply to bring the reader to the door of a new paradigm. The new paradigm we now come to is the reciprocal economy.
Reciprocism n.—a social and political system in which the reciprocation of labor is the foundation of human activity and trust its economic driver—rather than moneys, debt, or fiat. Citizenship, a chosen and then earned title through beneficial activity of any kind, represents the medium of exchange. In other words, participation in the project of civilization is the currency within a reciprocal economy, and trust is what lubricates the flow of resources and reciprocation.
In a reciprocal economy, he or she that plunders the environment is poor or mentally ill is seen as such by their fellow citizens and is either ostracized or provided with empathic induction -- a psychological process whereby the person naturally sees the error of her or his ways. Based on the principle of reciprocation and empathic receptivity, this economy inclines one towards psychological integrity, ecological preservation, and a broader consciousness of interdependence and cooperation than we could expect from competition and the premise of scarcity used by capitalism. Resting on a foundation of appreciation, one contributes to society because society has innate benefits, which contribute to the betterment of his or her life. The feedback loop of reciprocation begins with the request of citizenship by a sovereign individual. Sovereignty is a recognition of who we are and cannot be given up. By formally renouncing one’s individual sovereignty, the process is infinitely less coercive and manipulative than the current form, which forces you at birth to be a servant of the state and which does not ask your permission to sign the social contract.
A reciprocal economy is a stepping stone towards a reduction or transformation of the profit motive from expenditures over returns to ecological or human benefit. A reciprocal economy is so decentralized that it rests on a cloud of human will rather than a bed of currency; reciprocal economies are resource-based, where the fundamental resource is recognized as organized human will, not items or elements, industry or jobs. No longer will we need to stave off robotization, mechanization, and other ways of increasing efficiency.
Under this premise, human activity can be simplified; all elderly and infirmed are given free care because they need it; access to the abundance of food, energy, and property can be shared as inalienable rights for all, where depending upon the degree of benefit and intensity of one's occupation, one may purchase luxuries or have access to more immediate forms of transportation and so forth. Given this premise, it is no longer a question of how we will get the money, but whether some project or other is worth our time. The wisdom and merit of an idea will determine its viability, not how much money is backing it.
Some will suggest that the latter will likely ensure that an aristocracy will form yet again, but the truth is that aristocracy in one form or another will exist and perhaps ought to exist; the question is whether that form of aristocracy will be benign or not and whether the people of a more perfect society, educated independent of that aristocracy, will be able to defend their liberties and natural rights or not. With the introduction of wisdom councils (see chap. 12) and an independent education schema that is designed to liberate the human being from conformity, to question authority and think critically (see chap. 10), many of the problems that we face with corruption can and will be weeded out of the garden.
Recognizing that we are all made from the cosmic dust can change a fixed world view of separation, and recognizing the fractal patterns in nature and in ourselves, we can begin to better express and actualize transcendence: a planetary organism. Consequently, carrying that sense of agape to the world and the greater universe, we can change our fixed, stagnant world into a world civilization. Recognizing the image, the reciprocal pattern and spirit of the one, the sacred truth, all human beings are affected.
We are all connected and in ways that we would not have expected given the current model of reality -- both spiritually (psychologically) and physically through consciousness and DNA. Our DNA acts as a crystal through which light or photons are conducted (see phantom DNA experiment). It is the belief of the speaker that consciousness is conducted by electromagnetic pulses generated by the activity of the brain and not that the electromagnetic pulse generated creates consciousness as many theorists suggest. In other words, consciousness is not a product of evolution, but evolution is a product of consciousness.
It is through an expansion of consciousness that a new paradigm of human interaction and communion is born. As fractal representations of life, we are like the DNA of society; the fear of one another creates disorder; cancer, diabetes, depression, anxiety; even Ebola and so forth are existing problems only because of a paradigm of exclusiveness, privilege, and plunder by (free) trade. Were we to take care of one another, were we to preserve our resources and spend abundance on elevating the world rather than empire, a third world would not exist. The love of and unity within humanity creates health and abundance; empathic bonds are a more realistic and powerful driver for development than the motive of profit or imperialism. Only by refining and simplifying the control of development can we ever possibly have true, beautiful, and good order, either by grass roots control of the local area or by embracing love: a sharing, cooperative economy over a defensive competitive economy on a global scale.
To put it simply, we are talking about a we instead of a me culture. The choice between fear and love, between distrust, depression, and decay versus diversification, education, and compassion. This choice is really an option, and the option is really a test. We will either find love or stagnate into decay and ultimate destruction. In other words: evolve or die!
The century of the self has resulted in the age of digital and computer learning: the digital self. With things like Facebook, and Twitter, we are more connected but less available, more expressive yet more superficial than ever before. Narcissism has become normal, and in being so, we have lost touch with the natural human being within all of us.
However, as currency becomes less and less tangible, less and less reliable and therefore irrelevant according to our own notions of materialism, people seek an alternative. And whether that solution or alternative is a frame of mind, a commitment within themselves, or a more specific change in the forms of government and culture, it does not matter, because what does matter is that it will be in abeyance with the divine form of nature: as above so below.
The divine form resonates from the sacred space of consciousness, from which all knowledge, all thought and creativity emanates and to which all thought and creativity is emanated. Simply recognizing a universe of wisdom, an ocean of compassion, a heavenly perspective yields a heaven on earth. Were there a wise economy in motion, perpetual growth would not be a concept embraced; any sane and healthy society seeks homeostasis with its environment, so that it can survive and reproduce. Despite what the priests of modern culture, i.e. scientists and other experts, say, the universe is wise in its forms and function, and we would be wise to simply learn from her rather than fighting against her law and order with all of our artifice and legal fiction.
To use the natural world as our blueprint for planetary civilization puts us on sure footing for a quantum leap of cultural and economic implications, releasing us from monetary obligations such as debt, taxation, inflation, and parasitic practices such as stock market speculation, the profit motive, tax havens, interest, and allowing us to experience life without suffering the anxiety of worrying about money to survive.
Living in opposition to nature prevents human survival. On the small scale people are surviving and reproducing, but on the large, planetary scale, we are killing the surface—in order to satisfy our superficial wants—with waste and mass extinctions. Humanity has squandered its gifts thus far, but we are always learning with every generation. We certainly have the potential to create a paradise on earth, as it was before civilizations. Having said that, it is important to recognize that what we are talking about is not a regression back into tribalism or some bygone era; those times were worse by far than we have it today. Indeed, the pre-modern versus postmodern fallacy of conflating the two because they are both postconventional must be understood.
Just because we are doing away with money does not mean we are going back to barter, and just because we are embracing nature does not mean we have to sacrifice every convenience of the modern world. Further, such decisions will be made by councils of average people, randomly selected out of the population of healthy citizens. (see chap. 12)
In a time soon, a new economic system must, will emerge, and will prove to be self-evident; it will utilize a trusting and reciprocal economy, rooted in the idea of a planetary organism, complemented by a virtual reality mentality (as we will discuss in the next chapter), guided by the eastern philosophies of harmony and balance with the forces of nature; all things will increase in love and decrease in fear, increase in order, and ensure dignity and understanding of all for all.
When a society of agape exists, rooted in natural human coexistence, a new economy rises from the ashes of the old, an economy which is share-based, and opportunity shaped, rather than self-based and competition oriented. There is a time and a place to be selfish, but that is with regards to survival; we need to get out of this box that says we are in this for survival; we left that box many decades if not centuries ago; today we have the potential to thrive, and so it is important that we all understand why it is good and necessary to share. We teach this to our children, but as adults we somehow lose this most important lesson.
When we treat the planet like an inanimate object, whether it be flat or oblate, and try to quantify it into a dollar amount and own it privately, we lose a sense of our soul; a good person is wise and can see past the illusion of fiat wealth and private ownership when she or he understands that wealth and ownership are not quantifiable and not contractual. Life and its contingencies are the true wealth; our present economy is a death-based, waste management and distribution catastrophe!
Were we to have a wise economy, it would look more like the inner workings of the human body. For instance, if our lungs were to work in competition with our heart, what would be the inevitable result? Obviously death. However, because we are not cells, determined by DNA, but human beings determined by free will, some differences should exist between a wise economy and the human body. In the body, everyone is employed. In a wise economy everyone has access to employment, and everyone who wants to be employed is, but not everyone is employed, and employment is not a contingent to life, liberty, or property.
What is contingent to life, liberty, or property? Human and ecological benefit is the answer. By helping others, we create connections and support; in creating connections and support we ensure our liberty is protected; by ensuring our liberty is protected, and tending to the environment, we create property beyond the boundaries of personal ownership or state ownership. The term Trustery was created by the early 20th century accountant turned independent scholar, known as the grandfather of the counterculture movement, Ralph Borsodi.
Ralph Borsodi, along with Henry George and Thomas Paine, thought that the land should belong to the people, in one way or another. They thought this because it does not follow reason that one person could claim ownership over anything that he or she did not have a hand in creating. The world belongs to no one, and, therefore, the land belongs to everyone equally, but because it belongs to everyone equally, we are all free to act within it as we see fit. However, natural law principles and the platinum rule are of primary importance within this context of freedom.
Freedom without equality is nature (violent and chaotic); equality without freedom is slavery (coercive and inhumane). Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to find a balance. The balance we seek can be found by using existing forms and patterns in nature, with rational and intuitive deliberation. What we are seeking is a balance between freedom and equality. The key is love, for “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” and the outcome is peace and abundance for all.
It was scribed into the declaration of independence that, 'Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes, and accordingly all experience has shown that people are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.' And indeed this axiom holds true to this day. What we need is a war of ideas, a revolution of thought, an evolution of consciousness, and a transformation of paradigms.
The point to make here is that any alternative is not going to be perfect, but that, despite this, a more perfect form than what we currently use is possible, probable, and indeed in a gestation period right now. What we do now will determine the future form and whether it will be stillborn, impaired, or fully functional.
Any more perfect form must integrate love and care, responsibility and sharing, intelligence and intuition, nature and artifice--given our understanding of nature, of the balance of rhythmic forces between polarities and apparent opposites--mentalities that are naturally stabilizing in society tend to be both selfish and selfless; organization without government is possible given these conditions, but what it takes is loving and sharing the gifts of this world in physical ways as well as metaphysical ones.
Basing an economy on the available resources is empirically, rationally, and intuitively better than acting as though available resources on this earth are represented by a stock market and exist here solely for profiting shareholders. ‘Hey, as long as the market is fine, I don't care!’ This notion is nonsense, and creates objects we don't need from the destruction of things that we do: clean air, water, soil, and gene pools. All of the above cannot be and are not private property. To prevent such monopolies, it is important that people like yourself first imagine what a world without commercials and multinational corporations would be like.
Imagine a new stage of human evolution, one that takes place in you and in me, without time and without effort, and it starts with a choice between fear and love. Your choice will determine whether a shared economy, a planetary organism, a level one civilization can exist. All you have to do is trust in the better parts of the human psyche. Share the important and healing spirit that can be understood by being with yourself in nature, with the community you trust, in prayer and in deep meditation: Agape. Agape is a greek term for brotherly love and the love of god for man and the love of man for god. Such mentalities require zero effort; such experiences cannot be quantified; trust, then, is reciprocated in a perpetual feedback loop, and the entire enterprise of human society changes, allowing for more fluid forms of organization, economy, education and eugenesis.
So conditioned the average person may be to the selfish psychology of a culture of narcissism, where everyone is a consumer expressing him or herself with things rather than complex language and creativity, that a new paradigm is not only an inconvenience but a threat to their way of life; of course the true threat lies in a culture of conspicuous consumption and designed obsolescence, but the average person has not been taught what these words mean, let alone why they are significant. Were humanity to recognize its hellish choices and perspectives despite its supreme potential and correct them accordingly, our society and story would be forever altered; a true paradigm shift would emerge immediately.
In essence what is made essential given the facts, is a new psychology, founded in a different perspective of reality than we may be used to. Just because I may have only heard one story my whole life, or many, believing all of them, none of them, or both, rather than maintaining a healthy exploratory agnosticism, is it so unbelievable that the evolution of the human race could consist of nothing more than a shift in perspective? Did this not occur thousands of years ago with the conceptualization of a monotheistic god? More recently a spiritual reformation has occurred in the area of science with the discovery of the big bang. Therefore, whenever the collective perspective of spirituality has been shifted, what people view as normal also tends to shift and with it their world.
What this author expresses in this first part is the importance of a pantheistic and panentheistic perspectives as expressed by Hubert Reeves when he said, “Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature, unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping”, and Einstein when he said, "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God." (The Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press) and as defined by Webster and Wikipedia :
PAN’THEISM, noun [Gr. all, and God, whence theism.] The doctrine that the universe is God, or the system of theology in which it is maintained that the universe is the supreme God. (Webster’s Dictionary 1828--Online Edition)
PANENTHEISM (meaning "all-in-God", from the Ancient Greek πᾶν pân ("all"), ἐν en ("in") and Θεός Theós ("God")), also known as Monistic Monotheism, [1] is a belief system which posits that the divine – whether as a single God, number of gods, or other form of "cosmic animating force"[2] – interpenetrates every part of the universe and extends, timelessly (and, presumably, spacelessly) beyond it. Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical,[3] panentheism maintains a distinction between the divine and non-divine and the significance of both. (Wikipedia)
8
Psyche
PSYCHOLOGY, noun [Gr. soul, and discourse.] A discourse or treatise on the human soul; or the doctrine of the nature and properties of the soul. (Webster's Dictionary, 1828- Online Edition)
Introduction
IT cannot be too often stated that on the matter of psyche (mental energy and focus), the current writer stands on the shoulders of giants, and though none of them are perfect, together they evince a world beyond perfection. The author is a product of the information era, and yet no matter how original or persuasive, without standing on the shoulders of giants he cannot get to see, first the past and increasingly the present in all of its glory; it is by standing on giants that we become giants ourselves, envisioning a future into reality, yet it is through our originality that we change the archetype generation by generation, growing what Ken Wilber calls All Quadrants All Lines (AQAL), the continuum of spirit and evolution. And in the spirit of that transcendent evolution of consciousness, we branch out to that alchemical renaissance from a conflict ridden society to a sane society, simply by changing our attitude towards the world in which we live from fear to love; we will discuss these powerful ideas and make them practically applicable to your daily life, so that we can remove as much of the new age bullshit as possible (to use the vernacular).
According to the integral perspective brought forth by Ken Wilber in virtually all of his works but particularly in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, there are four quadrants of being (I, We, It, and It's), of which we are all simultaneously. That is to say, I am my awareness (I), a member of a community (we), as well as a bio-mechanical machine with built-in wetware (it), and a participant in a socio economic political game of competition, self-absorption, and dysfunction (it's), all at the same time, and to deny any one of those, or reduce them to only the it component, is a folly known as the flatland fallacy. Furthermore, each of us has evolved from matter, to life, to mind. Accordingly, just as matter evolved higher orders of life, life evolved higher orders of mind, and mind evolves higher orders of organization leading to wider, more inclusive conditions of transcendence; the great nest of being and knowing evolves from lower orders to higher orders, less inclusive to more inclusive views and interpretations.
Below is a free use image taken from the web to describe AQAL in simple terms:
Left Quadrant (I and We) Interior
Through many avatars, the field of consciousness can experience the reality that the lower orders of being co-created. Through inner experience, the spiritual essence of a person can attain higher levels of understanding and deeper stages of consciousness, and through understanding, larger circles of compassion emerge: from bodycentric, egocentric, sociocentric, world-centric, shamanic, Boddhisatvic, buddhic. As fractal expressions of what has ever and will ever exist, we are connected in the blueprint, the environment, and in the consciousness field; all is one, one is all, God is both nothing and everything, and neither as the parable of Indra's Net expresses.
For this reason conscious reality cannot be explained without at least mentioning fractal geometry. Why? Because fractal geometry is present everywhere in nature, including the human brain. In the blueprint of reality, we are all descended from geometric shapes, known today as sacred geometry and fractal processes such as reincarnation. In this most fundamental way we are all connected; the fractal nature of the world suggests a virtual origin, derived from simple processes of consciousness interacting with the simulation repeating and repeating ad infinitum—a holarchy (a hierarchy of holons or wholes that are simultaneously parts) resting on a field of evolving consciousness, and in this way we too are all connected. It is only when we are tricked, taught from birth, that we believe in the apparent separateness of reality; we believe our perceptions despite their inherent limitations, but this is just the power of our mind crashing against the rocks of our culture. Were we to see energy, we would see no boundaries but rather condensations, vectors in an endless field of information and consciousness.
Previous approaches in psychology have no mention of fractal concepts, fractal geometry has yet to be truly discovered in all its complexity and applicability since it was only discovered in the 1970's, so there has been little time for fractal concepts to work their way into any field of the humanities. Fractals have been relegated to the exclusive area of math and geometry. However, deep beneath the surface, fractal tentacles stretch into every region of life.
Rather than expounding upon the body-mind “hard problem” of philosophy, or the similar observer “hard problem” in physics, the above statements are metaphors for the truth beyond what modern and postmodern man has come like foggy eyed children to envision as his god—through his instruments and his vague aspirations (flatland)—into the spirit of her truth through intuition (contemplation). Therefore, we bring the reader to a profound truth; that, in a way, we are connected to everything (subtle/causal); it’s just in a way that we can't prove or measure via instrumentation (non-dual)—simply because both the observer and the observed are aspects within the mind of God. The measurement problems of both psychology and physics proves the following maxim; reality is fractal (mental) and probabilistic, not flatland (material) and deterministic. (I am not here equating fractal with mental, but mental with fractal: all brains are fractal, but not all fractals are brains. However, some living fractals may have brain-like qualities [Search Wai H. Tsang])
For the above reason, we must be skeptical of whether many of the approaches prevalent in our society are really capable of explaining anything, or making life better; we should be leery, instead, that they may be the tools of our destruction, like so many inventions of man. To make them work for our benefit, we must integrate them and make the dark conscious, so that we can transcend the boundaries of modern life, and the abstract alienation which defines it. The highest and most typified version of this abstract alienation is the phenomena of video games where one steps into a virtual reality and becomes someone else by living vicariously through an avatar. And yet this phenomena is a key metaphor for the nature of reality and ourselves.
Indeed, to imagine or entertain the idea of a virtual model of reality may be difficult for older readers if their interpretation of reality reflects the average; because they may have less interaction with, and understanding of them. Their interpretation of video games and even the term virtual, may be limited compared to their younger counterparts. To a younger person much of the notion of a virtual reality makes sense, a lot of sense; we have found it to be more readily accepted by them than their older counterparts.
Moving on, with the clarity of deep awareness, natural character or critical thinking rushes into place, replacing the programmed robot. This I call the difference between an original character and a non-playable character. In any Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) there are bots, beings which act like they are sentient, that are in fact just program. When we play the game, they can be seen walking around, interacting with things, but they have no player attached to them, no direct connection to consciousness. In a similar way there are those of us that are oblivious to our connection to a larger consciousness system, to the divine in whatever language, and to a higher purpose whatever may be one’s interpretation. These people simply fulfill their role as a cog in the machine, nothing more and nothing less. Their programming is of a different sort than that of a video game, but they are living according to a program nonetheless (rule/role/mythic approval).
Original characters, on the other hand, have realized that reality is a dream, a game, a simulation, an illusory thing and seek to grow and evolve their being rather than work and suffer to make worldly success—though worldly success may be a natural outcome of living their way. In the natural state of being we are drawn by curiosity towards deeper levels of understanding, not money or material wealth for the purpose of titillation. These things are mere encumbrances to the consciousness that simply seeks to play, to enjoy this realm without limitation. Which is not to say that drive and indulgence are bad, but simply that without balance, without moderation, these things become detrimental to our personal development.
Right Quadrant (Psychology and Materialism)
Today, psychology is grounded in the premise of materialism despite what physics has been showing us for close to a century: that consciousness affects matter. Some still work under the premise that DNA is what determines who we are, that the chemicals in our brains are what drives our behavior and what we are like. Of course the truth seems more often than not to the contrary; who we are is mostly influenced by the environment but even more so by our interpretation of that environment, which determines so much of who we are to become—only a fraction of who we are is determined by nature, and only a fraction of that has anything to do with DNA and neurotransmitters (those are symptoms, not the cause of our identity).
Therefore, a massive part of who we are is not material but circumstantial. Which is to say, much of what we experience is not material; we do not experience solid reality while we are alive but a mental representation generated by our brain.
Where is the mind? Can you point to it? Certainly not. The mind is resting in a field of primitive, primordial awareness (i.e., contrary to perception, you are nowhere and everywhere simultaneously). Let's say that two hundred years from now science has created a method of extracting the brain but retaining its connection to the body via transmitters and receptors connected to both the brainstem and the spinal cord, allowing for the patient to be awake and alive once the procedure is accomplished. If scientists were to remove your brain and show it to you and then put it into a jar, put the jar in a box, and then mailed the box to Canada, all while your body is still on the surgical table, your sentient awareness still located in the room where your brain was extracted, where you witnessed this surgery take place; where are you, that room or Canada? The only true answer is both and neither.
By increasing the depth or quality of one's own awareness, one can magnify their clarity of the world and of themselves. In doing so one discovers compassion due to the universal, boundless quality of awareness. One Self exists as a fractal; many selves exist in a chaotic sea of self, gradually ordering itself through fractal processes of love and disordering itself through similar processes of fear. By magnifying our awareness, we are more likely to organize and be deliberate in our lives, ultimately transcending the forms to which we are accustomed; by ignoring our awareness we are more likely to fear one another and war against one another rather than work together for our common good.
With this premise in mind, not only can we alter our inner reality but our physical reality as well. To go from being depressed to being happy changes reality in both a mental, and physical way at the conscious and chemical level. Some people would argue that there is a physical basis for altering one’s mood, and those people miss the point; things like pharmaceuticals mask depression, which is a merely a counterfeit cure. If the fundamental point is to reach peace of mind and happiness or love, these synthetic methods fail to come close to the mark; they're hardly even on the board.
In order to be effective, any approach has to be consistent, and yield demonstrable results. Hence, Big Pharma has dominated the medical field as well as the fields of psychiatry, bleeding into psychology as well. It is due to pharma's massive appeal to a more and more neurotic society -- a capitalist one at that -- that the apparent simplicity of taking a pill, which makes problems seemingly disappear, has been so appealing. Rather than meditation and inner work on expanding one's consciousness.
Nonetheless, meditation, inner work, and consciousness expansion are essential to bettering our own lives and evolving society towards civilization, towards a planetary organism. It all starts with the individual. Each of us are cells, and our goal must be to unify to create a multicellular organism; a planetary organism, in other words, consists of planetary cells or planetary sovereigns.
The Future Paradigm
There are seemingly infinite ways to improve our lives, as many ways as there are objectives: wealth, power, etc.; love, peace, etc.; et al. Without consciousness none of them are possible to attain. In fact, both power and love at higher and higher levels requires deeper levels of consciousness; only one difference makes the pursuit of power inferior to the pursuit of love: fear. The fear of losing unwarranted power causes higher entropy and suffering than the peace of mind earned through love.
Unfortunately, when we say love we often times mean something other than what love really is; we bring our fears, insecurities, and perspectives into lusts, infatuations, and matters of dependence; relationship, in this egocentric bond, starts with a kind of two-way, unspoken contract of mutual fulfillment, and when we do this, instead of discovering that we must fulfill ourselves first, all that can and will result is suffering and unnecessary pain. Within the grasp of fear, so limiting, the world, devoid of the factors that cause fear, looks dark, but that is only because of the vast nature of love seems empty—but this is all the better to contain the universe with. Fear is like an egg and love like the outside world. Eventually we must break through that egg or perish. Fear reduces our apparent options and courses of action to the equivalent of being trapped inside of an egg.
Love, on the other hand, is not one of the limited conditions manifested through fear (lust, romantic love, personal ownership (marriage), individuality, and statism), which represent a spectrum of unconsciousness. Love, on the other hand, is a perfect representation of the spectrum of life and consciousness; love is the underlying unity and the collective evolution of matter and consciousness (AQAL).
Fear and love may be conditions of consciousness, which then translate into chemical reactions in the body but not the other way around. Of course, it is possible to induce an expanded conscious state via chemical catalyst, but these altered states are, by their nature, counterfeit and potentially harmful to real, sustained psychological growth. That is not to say that chemically induced states are bad or only harmful, but that they in themselves are no answer. Psychedelic chemicals are potential tools but just like any tool, require the user to properly utilize them in order to be effective.
In a similar way, our emotions, our diet, and our perspective are fundamental to expanding our consciousness. Meditation without proper perspective may as well be playing video games or watching television. Yoga without proper diet may result in fatigue or exhaustion. Intellect and the expansion of knowledge, without emotion or intuition, is a failure, for our consciousness has not been engaged, our creativity has not been stimulated, and our ability to then create new possibilities has been ignored.
Without consciousness, life would never have been, and without life, mind would never have been, and without life with a mind, technology would never have been, and without technology (both physical and mental), we may never find the deepest reaches of our consciousness. Without a scientific spirituality, without a spiritual science, we may never live in a sane world—one that is in harmony with nature and recognizes what is essential to all life.
That being said, just as humanity is a product of nature, so too technology is a product of nature, an extension of life—but the same could be said of Ebola, anthrax, and the atom bomb. Therefore it is not what we say but how we say it, and similarly it is not the technology but how we use it that bares significance. For instance, a radical openness to technology could result in the complete dehumanization of the living and a humanization of technology (a kind of necrophilia as Erich Fromm calls it); just as animals can be anthropomorphic, the new life in technology has become a new mythology, a source of secular religiosity and the banishment of all previous orders of organized religion.
Exploration of the psyche, rather than only doing in physical reality, is the key to growth in consciousness and mental maturity, but doing in physical reality is also the key to growing empathy. Mental health can begin to show cracks when we believe that our mental states come from the outside, rather than taking ownership and responsibility for the world of our own creation, but we begin to show cracks also when we believe that we are an island unto ourselves. Believing that by taking some pill our problems may miraculously be healed or solved is nonsense and bares its fruits to us with every step we take into a darker and darker future, led by radical materialism. But it also bears mentioning that, despite our desire for freedom, we are witlessly affected by a system that seeks to assimilate us into roles that all too often lead to dehumanization and alienation and are likely the cause of depression.
Stepping away from the box, we may notice that it does not resemble our fractal mind or body. And stepping into nature, we notice perhaps a hidden language of sacred proportions, counter to the box and all that it stands for. When we step back from the video screens long enough to gain focus, we may begin to notice that the strange shapes and sounds in the room with us are not ghosts or illusions but people with faces and awareness just like us, and if we can bare this hideous reality for long enough, we may be bold enough to speak and interact with these unfamiliar apparitions.
The point is, maybe just maybe, it is not the whole of humanity that is sick but the whole of its culture, synthetically derived, that is making us sick. It was the modern sage Jiddu Krishnamurti who said: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” And as the hermetic maxim states: “As within so without, as without so within.”
Our choices and perspectives, like our intent, echo throughout the entire fractal superstructure of reality through causation—a spiritual dimension of reality that we cannot see or measure but which bears its fruits everywhere—as everywhere. We think that our thoughts have little significance to our reality, that we have no power over our reality, but what is reality if not a thought, a simulation within the mind—whether it be my mind or the mind of God's. Reality is mental not material. Therefore, our thoughts are immensely important, and so are our habits.
Methods of Conscious Creation
Our habits, forming rivers of information, chemical feedback loops creating fractal processes of perpetual repetition in the mind and in the body—unless acted upon by a greater force (i.e. consciousness)—are important as well. We can look at it this way: creating new habits is like creating a new channel for a river to branch off from; our attention and awareness is the water, and a groove created by repeated flows of attention acts as a channel. Those channels that we create for ourselves is what we call habit. To change that habit, we must flood that channel with attention and awareness, which then gives rise to new potential grooves and in time new channels for our attention and awareness to flow. This requires an immense amount of energy, which can only be attained through emptying the mind of all of its content and being completely free from what we “know.” To clear our mind, all it takes is for us is to recognize that planet earth is but an infinitesimally small spec in an infinite universe, that we are merely fleas on the back of a microscopic planetary organism, that we have existed for but a brief moment in time, and that we know practically nothing of the universe and have an immense amount still to discover and a vast universe yet to explore--both inwardly and outwardly.
Consciousness naturally grows like trees and wellsprings. Trees grow from above, and dig their way into the surface, and wells grow from deep below the surface, springing up out of the ground. For our world, our ecology, and many things, life needs springs and wells. Life most needs trees and the peaks and valleys of the soul to guide our actions into proper directions, always towards the inevitable great ocean of consciousness. We are the ocean; everything else is environmental circumstances. However, cannot the river dissolve a mountain in time; cannot ice break a tree and its branches by freezing?
Consciousness, in the form of deep waters and bright light from the source, constitutes the dialectic of being a sentient entity. The brilliant light comes from the source: primitive, cosmic awareness, and like pieces, elements long ago unified, emerge to the surface in the aid of evolution, which itself emerges from the matrix of consciousness, the organ of will. So all things are connected, all beings of the same origin and source (One Taste).
What point is there in being an intellect without depth? A great tree cannot stand without deep roots. The deep roots of the tree of life are grounded in elements inseparable from the source, over an aquifer always growing: consciousness always evolving and expanding. All is all, the universe is inside of you, and you are inside the universe.
The undercurrents, channels, and systems of consciousness conduct the energy of life towards evolution. Organization and transcendence are deeper stages of truth and thought, which require a highly evolved system of sentient beings, all working together for a purpose they all implicitly, innately agree on: survival and procreation.
Beyond the Current
Philosophy, physics, metaphysics, politics, psychology: all are intrinsically connected by subjectivity and the hard problem of consciousness. In our society, this hard problem becomes concrete. To become accustomed to the popular instead of what is best, we lose our natural humanity; ignoring all warnings and advice, solutions and principles, a being becomes a zombie to their habits and culture. Those who conform to a life of habit unwittingly give up their sanity for things and end their spontaneity and originality for patterns of repeating or regurgitating information, beliefs, and dogmas.
That is not to say that any of the above is bad, just that in severe cases the result can be shocking. Notice how our culture affects us through movies, video games, and the general modern language, emerging from the ongoing technology revolution.
More and more our media presents us with a violent picture of humanity (according to most people, the most dangerous threat to humanity is humanity itself). You or I might agree, but to play devil’s advocate, let’s say we changed our culture so that we no longer pollute the earth and husbanded it instead of fighting for its surface area. Let’s say we changed our government and laws so that the free enterprise of every human potential can be actualized, rather than broken in or broken down! We would have the potential to be our higher self as a civilization, but the question remains, could we even handle that responsibility, psychologically, without the essence that we have had bred out of us? That potential to be our higher self is stifled by the modern approach to life, and its effects would linger on even after its demise.
Art and creativity can prove to be more significant in our lives than production and profit; through the intellect we have access to the world of ordered information, but through the intuition we have access to the chaotic world of subtle causes (spirit, Self). Those who are truly interested in the investigation and self-education required to get a picture, let alone a big picture world view, are potentially the most fortunate yet are looked upon as the madmen and rejected by our times. It is they who are the seekers of power through knowledge, yet to the onlooker, their insight seems childish (pre/trans fallacy).
Say this were a society that used an alien economic model to guide its activity. Imagine if the premise was that you get as much as you give in a level one civilization; imagine how much life would change for humans on earth if the false premise of money as a necessity were to be lifted, and taxation and debt were eliminated from the equation of daily living. People would go insane, but only for a while, until the majority of them reached a state of metanoia (the process of experiencing a psychotic "breakdown" and subsequent, positive psychological re-building or "healing") and subsequent ego-death or ego-transcendence (both equivalent to love or agape, or unity in Spirit put more esoterically). For it is because our society is psychotic that we must cure it by metanoia, in the same way that we must cure our economic dilemma with a jubilee (as we will discuss in book II chapter 2.)
Think of how much this would affect the psyche, to no longer be married to the rut of survival mode mentality. Were permaculture to be integrated into your cultural landscapes, as well as the landscapes of our daily lives, we would not need to struggle to survive, but instead would thrive with the available technology and techniques that wait in the wings of the modern fringe culture; aided by advanced computing technology, such a state is in store. However, this kind of future possibility will only come about if we do not get tricked and drugged into accepting a new world war by the soap box of centers of imperialist capital. The world that will emerge out of that wasteland will be nothing less than a world government (mythic authoritarianism)—and not a planetary organism (rational/vision-logic). We shall evolve, evolution will come!
Psyche of the New Paradigm
To the end of evolution of the world, nay the universe, beings have the means of consciousness. We must evolve our awareness and perception of the world; we must transcend our culture and our upbringing. Most of those institutions which guide and represent our society are restrictive of the environment, either through education or through toxic chemicals, yet they are ‘filthy rich’ as the appropriate phrase goes. In order to correct this, we must correct our world view. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a subject of survival; remember that our species depends on the choices and perspectives we make; individually we add up to a great giant, and that great giant is sleeping within us all—until we awaken, it will remain silent.
We all know the government is corrupt; this is common sense and not unfounded by any means. It is not a superstition to say that this is so, nor pessimism to say that government is a hindrance to humanity rather than a savior. In fact, it is we who are the heroes we have been waiting for. This solution, that we are the saviors, is not easy, not final, and requires constant feedback to function. (Enter the technology and connectivity of modern times) We have that fundamental resource to shift the paradigm enough to transcend material reality. (By that I mean we can transcend materialism, the profit motive redefined as collective human and ecological benefit, combined with public feedback, participatory councils, and meritocratic councils.) No longer do we need government or corporations to create our world for us; we can do it for ourselves in ways that no one had ever predicted.
This sort of system could not have existed fifty or twenty-five, let alone some 250 years ago. But nonetheless, such a schema as we will present in the next book takes an inward choice between fear and love to come into existence here and now, not an over our heads market, upon which we are human turkey—I mean human resources. Nor is salvation going to come from a God above us but rather from gradual expansion of consciousness towards the God within.
When we start to take life into our own hands, instead of letting it be up to the so-called common sense or power of experts, our thoughts begin to change and with it our reality. First we must have an inward revolution of recognizing Self as consciousness. Secondly, we the people must work together to strategize and establish a freer, more moderate and flexible reward-based system, instead of punishment-based systems. Why? Behaviorism has much to say about this: reward works better at preventing bad behavior than punishment does—it's a fact.
Our society reflects, and is a reflection of, the individual (you and I), and the individual is a reflection of society (hologram/holon). When our society is constrained by a culture of fear, ego, and dogmatic beliefs, a sick society is inevitable, which is obvious according to history. Stagnancy in the individual, resulting from such a sick society, is a form of death worse than actual death.
The reality of the syndrome of decay (as Erich Fromm called it in The Heart of Man), which colors the collective human psyche of society or zeitgeist, manifests itself in many negative ways; the cultural decline into avarice and the foolish plundering of the planet by faceless corporations is one; it is the endless competition between nations in the senseless battle for supremacy and religions as well as economic or political ideologies. Then what is the solution? What is the alternative to a sick society bent on control and hostility? Well, love, trust and learning are to peace, as money, debt, and ignorance are to war, and freedom without equality is to nature as equality without freedom is to slavery. In other words, the solution starts with recognizing the nature of humanity and organizing our society in accordance with the natural human, rather than coercing the natural human into believing in an inhuman, synthetic culture and so-called civilization.
For the individual, doing for others rather than doing to get love, is the way to peace and prosperity. When the power of love overcomes the love of counterfeit power, the world shall know peace, and through peace we shall have universal freedom from oppression and freedom to live how we naturally desire—in a competitive game of collaboration.
No government can legislate or protect freedom through martial means because war is the single greatest threat to freedom and the cause of disorder. Further, freedom comes from within and can only be threatened by ignorance. The level of freedom in society is a reflection of the level of freedom within the average individual. The level of one's freedom is determined by knowledge, because knowledge is true power—where money is only counterfeit.
Turning our attention from a money-based, post-industrial culture to a resource-based, self-sufficiency model of society, we can improve life for all both physically and psychologically. Imagine the impact on society when it is guided by a population of individuals that are acting out of love rather than “professionals” acting out of greed and bureaucrats acting out of fear and belief of professional authority. Consequently, it can never be too often stated that it is not so much the act in itself but the intent that distinguishes a good act from a bad one. Any kind of revolution is more helpful and likely to succeed if it genuinely comes from the being level, from a love perspective rather than an intellectual level with a greedy perspective—rooted in materialism. Of course a proper revolution must have a balance of all these factors: body, mind, and being.
A true metamorphosis of our inner forms is necessary for the sanity of our society and the future of our species, and the sanity of our species is necessary for the metamorphosis of our society. For the sake of our psyche, what do we do, what can be done to facilitate that metamorphosis? The answer is to do literally nothing. In modern western culture, nothing and the state of being that meditation evokes are cast aside. Our culture is very self-centered; it’s all about me-me-me, and screw everybody else. If it does not get me money or the toys I want, why should I pay you any mind? Nonetheless, it is precisely nothing which can act as the catalyst to cut the umbilical cord of chrematomania (i.e., the love of money) and debt slavery.
Once again the parameters of our culture determine the options available in order to transcend and step into a brighter world; We the People have got to let go of the capitalist mindset of money obsession; that mentality and behavior-set creates only disease or dis-ease. To forget society and principles for economy of the so-called market is quite insane. What is important, under that sick premise, is the shareholders, not the society or the environment known as the stake holders. This mentality, above all else, is the true Antichrist, where the second coming of Christ is actually all of us realizing that we are the second coming of Christ.
Imagine if you will, a person living in a loving, nurturing society, in a culture rooted in shared abundance and trust. The available opportunities she or he can experience will be more wide-ranging, providing them with confidence and a lifestyle that is generally more positive for the worker than for the fearful worker mindlessly mining for money in a monetary system.
Creativity and art are more valuable in a culture of living and being, than serving people with things they rightly ought to have done for themselves in a culture of having and doing. What the world needs is a moment to reflect upon itself, a moment to consider what it means to revive and what it means to thrive. What better way to do this than through art? No matter how much we grow our bank account, we are still not growing our level of consciousness. Therefore, total immersion in the day-to-day game of money can be lucrative, and can benefit our short lives in strictly pecuniary ways, but only in this fully immersive simulation--in every other aspect of existence, those of us who are living to work or working to live are not evolving. The question is: are you growing at the being level, the level of consciousness? If you are not, you are a part of the problem, fundamentally, and need to do the great work of knowing thyself at the being level to heal this planet of its manifold ills.
When our society revolves around a precipice of selfishness and greed, with a form of economy and money that encourages and exacerbates an already impulsive impetus, the result can be nothing less than the decline of the culture. However, and more fundamentally our culture declines because of the fall of many individuals; their conformity to a sick society ensures the decline, and protects their ego, as well as the institutions that represent it: malls, television, media, entertainment, etc. To rid ourselves of these corrupt and corrupting institutions, we must first become aware of their darkness. Similarly, we must rid ourselves of ego by mastering and transcending it—and transcending the various learned corruptions we inherit by being brought up in the world as it is, by its institutions as they are.
These institutions are but relics of an ancient time; whereas, the human psyche is always new. We are born free, and raised into being servants (citizens) to some earthly authority, always arbitrary in nature. The difference between citizenship and sovereignty is fundamental: a citizen is a servant, and a sovereign is a master only unto themselves. It is through fiat that we are enslaved, but through agape, love, and fidelity to a conspicuous way that we will find liberation and true life.
That is not to say that we should become pacifists, rather it simply means that we must embody natural law and the non-violence principle. According to natural law, we have the right to defend ourselves and our rights to life, liberty, and property. We must seek unity with each other and the world. Let's be kind to one another, but when the time is right lets fight to protect our life and freedom! There is nothing wrong with defending your family from burglars—same thing with a corrupt government and its bankers. We must embrace love, but sometimes that means harming those that seek to do harm to others, or to impose their will upon us.
A woman is being raped, imagine you're standing there, what do you do? Do you intervene? Or do you walk away, afraid to be attacked or murdered if you do? A friend of mine says that he would just walk on by because it is not his problem—but what would you do? My friend's answer reflects the society and culture in which he lives—a culture in decline, which he welcomes. His answer shows a lack of empathy, desensitized by media and propaganda. Imagine that the woman being raped is really our collective constitution, the divine spirit which animates us all! With this analogy my friend says his stance changes, saying “In that sense, I would grab the guy, rip him into a million pieces and burn the remains.”
We have touched on the topic of awareness in previous moments, but what are the practical implications for our daily lives? What can we learn, and more importantly what can we unlearn, to have access to our deeper source, absolut originality? The answer is simple, but it is not easy. Like my friend, we have to put ourselves in our imagination, and allow our minds to wander from the glowing box. We have to step outside of the cube, and recognize the tree-shaped fractal as home. In other words, the larger consciousness system, being fractal, is felt through emotion and intuition, expressed or not.
How we view nature represents how we view animals, and in effect how we view ourselves. Psychologically speaking, due to philosophies of social Darwinism and eugenics, how we view chattel animals is how the aristocratic elite view us—hence, at the lower levels of society, cubicles and human resources are the human equivalent of cages and markets. We do not realize what we are doing to ourselves; with all of our activity no action takes place, for our active, critical mind has not only been stifled, but stigmatized by mainstream propaganda.
It was the botanist of the late 20th century, Terence McKenna, who said, “culture is not your friend.” Because any culture that would say it is alright to break into someone's home, and put them into a cage because, according to a small group of men, what that person was doing was illegal—despite the fact that what she or he was doing harmed no one, is insane . This kind of approach to law and government is, in itself, criminal; and that small group of men who claim such authority are, themselves criminals no matter the manufactured consent—such actions are intrinsically against natural law and any standard of decency. As a matter of course, rather than being judged by her or his peers in a sane social structure, that person must be judged by an aristocrat, whose job it is to protect and reaffirm the positive laws of the land, rather than true justice. That we have gotten so far from nature, natural law, and natural humanity is evidence of an underlying insanity that is likely derived from psychopathy in positions of power, and awakening to these truths requires education, hope, love and appreciation.
Integrating Pre-modernity with Post-formal
When we realize that the more primitive, or primary practices of human society, were more beneficial to the human brain's' development—according to new developments in epigenetics—we would soon turn a corner in our cultural evolution. How we view the world and ourselves, and how we use our attention, determines how the world develops.
The modern culture of ego, fear, and corruption which have kept us in bonds, once honestly recognized, will simply fall away. Do you understand what the speaker is saying? Change does not require us to have a revolution, it requires us to have a metamorphosis, to transcend the boundaries rather than battling with them. It was R. Buckminster Fuller who said: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
This is what we have gradually been doing in this book via memetics; developing the mentality required to build a new system which makes the existing system obsolete. When we act out of fear, and become afraid, we try to avoid that which causes us to fear. Rather than avoiding it, which is really only fueling the fear, we must face it! Rather than revolting against the current system, simply embrace, and illuminate it with understanding which causes a paradigm shift from within, by paideia, whereby one may come to “know thyself.”
If you are afraid, go in the direction of that fear rather than walking or running away from what are really opportunities; things that cause us apprehension we must become comfortable with—by seeking out and training ourselves to deal with those tense moments.
All too often our inner dialogue gets in the way, causing inaction and later regret. One must power through the hardships of life; to complain or feel self-pity is fatal, and a failure to maintain conscious composure, or dignity. By integrating the world with love, rather than avoiding and dividing the world through fear, our individual lives may begin to show signs of radical change. However paradoxical it may seem, this universal change must come from within.
To go deeper within something requires us to go outside of our comfort zone. However, this is the only way for any growth or learning to transpire. Relationship and love require us to overcome our comfort and complacency egg. Breaking out of that egg means breaking through to deeper levels or stages of consciousness.
When we connect with nature for instance, we are communing with our ancestors: spirits as ancient as time itself. When we enter into nature, a strange thing happens within that is totally normal—we begin to slow down and pay more attention to what is going on. Being attentive is extremely important for inner evolutionary work: attention towards the outside can be effortless, but nonetheless requires attention on the inside to be clear, and clarity is essential for our appreciation of beauty; therefore, attention and beauty are intertwined.
Paradigm Shift
The perspectives of science and spirituality, being incomplete, independent of one another, must be merged, before any social improvement can be possible. Most human beings have a vision of a brighter world, and it would have been realized long ago if only that conception were allowed to be believed by a large enough mass of people. Due to the unnecessary conflict between science and spirituality, a complete perspective has yet to be conceived, along with a vast enough demand for that alternative paradigm.
The lack of this vision tells us much about the human condition. However, any society or group which vocalizes a demand for this visionary concept would indicate a new dimension of soul evolution, and consequently evinces the new politic and economy of our alternative paradigm. The social strength of the past combined with the still emerging technology revolution of the present, would indicate a capacity for group enlightenment, so then why are we still waiting for the world to evolve?
One could say that our present state of progression is actually stagnant and requires revision. The century of the self has hastened the approach of entropy through deeper and deeper stagnancy and vacuity in individuals and society. Due to the Internet, our questions are virtually a keystroke away from being answered; thus, in a way, killing the mystery and vital curiosity which inspired the human species for thousands of years. This dynamic is a double edged sword, because data is now more available to anyone than it ever has; but that information is without context or filtration. One is equally likely to be enlightened by the Internet as they are to be retarded by it. The author is not advocating Internet censorship but rather a culture that functions to provide context, and thus increase the probability of filtration.
The question then becomes: how do we cultivate such a culture without violence, without fighting against the previous paradigm? How do we go about creating the new paradigm which will make the existing model obsolete? The question is tantamount to asking how do we provide context. If we understand the psyche of humanity, the answer becomes clear; the answer, inexorably, is education.
Further, if fear, ego, and harmful beliefs have been the currents which guided us into today, perhaps our exterior possessions, our boundary from the outside world cause us to think in terms of mine vs theirs, and have kept us from realizing that we have the tools to craft a rudder which uses love, instead, to guide our ship to new and enchanted shores.
By bringing love to a world full of ego, fear, and harmful beliefs, a simple but sophisticated order to the organs of society emerge organically; the zeitgeist of institutions and cults, filled with blind followers of elite oligarchs becomes obsolete, smashed against the more perfect union created through education instead of war, ecology instead of economics, and community participation instead of politics. To do this means both inner work and outer work with equal intensity and inclusiveness. This is not the easy way, but that path is for the weak; it is the right path which is hard, that, once recognized, attracts and educes greatness.
This concludes book one. In Part II we will explore the possibilities and structure hinted at in Book One, which promises to transform the inner and outer world from senseless chaos and disorder to love organized by informed intent. It can never be too often repeated that a people guided by principles and simplicity are far better off than a people guided by money and conveniences.
As the collective consciousness tumbles aimlessly towards deeper stagnancy, a new vision comes to light, which renders the old way obsolete, and cures the deep seeded insanity of our modern culture and pecuniary paradigm. The fundamental question we have to ask ourselves is this: should we seek to cure the collective amnesia of our species or use our advantage of forgetfulness in describing a new paradigm?
In the following book the reader will not find a cure to a historical amnesia, but a description founded in timeless, natural principles which dispel the fog of apathy from the reader. For a problem does not exist until a solution is brought into focus.
Part II
The Alchemical Renaissance
9
Universal Synthesis
“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
~Jiddu Krishnamurti | Freedom From the Known, chapter 6, paragraph 11
The Shift
THE world which has emerged in the 21st century is filled with second hand perspectives, relics of history, which may not cause, but certainly help to exacerbate conflict and disunion, while simultaneously filled with grand strategies and concepts to bring the world into order. A world plagued by conflicts must meet itself through reflection, and find a synthesis through reason and contemplation as Jiddu Krishnamurti clearly had. Most intellectuals would not be so bold as to even think of a universal synthesis, claiming that universals are rare, and human universals virtually impossible, but this is no intellectual exercise, and we are not interested in overused words like impossible. Nonetheless, before any description of a more perfect world can be told or understood, the conflicts in our culture, and the man-made boundaries of politics, nationalism, science, and religion must be recognized as illusory—and finally dissolved. What we are looking for in this chapter is the answer to the age old problem of balance, in a world that has still yet to walk—among the stars.
Consider for a moment, the violent nature of these boundaries. A nationalist has separated herself from the rest of the world. It is this perspective, and perspectives like it, which history has shown to make war not only more possible, but more probable. Politics and religion, as institutions, are subsequently subdivisions of, or within, the nationalist concept. While one aspect of nationalism would seem wholesome (i.e. a sense of belonging to something greater), that sense of belonging can only come about through other means: local culture complemented by a planetary awareness. When the archons (rulers) use violence to enforce unity, there exists no unity—no matter how apparently unified inhabitants of a nation are, in reality, they are divided, separated from each other and from their own natural humanity, and in effect broken. True unity has to come from within people, rather than be forced upon them from without. When this capacity has been broken in people the only way to get it back is for them to want it—much like love, freedom cannot be forced—instead people have been trained to want conveniences and consumption.
Ancient religions throughout the ages have always had some things in common, with regards to their esoteric (inner circle) aspects, and many differences in their exoteric (outer circle) aspects. The esoteric religions universally teach that love is the guiding (and principal) force in the universe, other than consciousness, which stimulates a generative force in opposition to the entropic forces: fear, ego, and fixed thinking. The exoteric aspects, universally, come from fearful second hand sources, that are not the original teacher or prophet who started the religion in peace (these exoteric teachings consist of traditions, rituals, superstitions, dogmas, and beliefs that are extraneous to the core values and principles expressed in the golden rule). As Csikszentmihalyi (famous for recognizing and describing the flow phenomena) states in his book, The Evolving Self, that “the task for us today is to separate the genuine insights of religions and philosophies from the inevitable errors that crept into their explanations.” (pg. 56) And indeed separating the grain from the chaff is the purpose of this chapter.
Guided by false religions and false philosophies of materialism and solipsism, our fear, ego, and beliefs drive us apart, towards insanity, chaos, and disorder. Seeking the comfort and conveniences of a conclusive answer to the unknown questions through religion or science, rather than seeking truth and peace with the unknown through evolution, our critical mind and capacity to think has been blunted along with our spontaneity and intuition through culture, and self-identity (as opposed to Self-identity). Despite this all too unnatural, synthetically induced impairment, there is hope; for those who have the eyes to see, remedies to our sick society reside in creating a new story, a new culture, and with it a healthier society (not through force or coercion, but through cooperation and active participation).
The number of conflicts, contradictions, and traumatic experiences,with the total amount of cyclical poverty and imprisonment, compounded by an ever increasing gap between the super rich and the super poor, have created a world filled with disorder. We act as our species has been self-guided towards self destruction this whole time. The truth is that time has no predestination, nor a set, linear path, but rather consists of many potential futures, and many potential universes, all of which are relatively fluid, and even relatively permeable given enough attention and action. In other words: fate is not set, and the future is what We make it.
Rather than being destructive, we, as a species, must become constructive beings through self-mastery. On March 21st 1948, at his tenth talk in Bombay, the modern sage Jiddu Krishnamurti wisely pontificated on the subject of self-knowledge and self-mastery:
“Self-knowledge does not demand accumulated knowledge. Accumulated knowledge becomes a burden to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge, the understanding of the total process of oneself, does not demand any previous knowledge. Previous knowledge about oneself brings misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Self-knowledge is constant movement without accumulation. This knowledge is from moment to moment, for self-knowledge is a process of discovery of the activities of the self. Only when there is the process of accumulating knowledge, then it is in opposition to creative being.”
With every generation, the repression towards insanity and irrationality deepens, and self-knowledge becomes further obfuscated. In effect, the potential of humanity to have a bright future is being slightly toned down with each generation of acculturation. The alternative to this confusion is not a miracle pill, or well-paid teachers, but an alternative culture based on Love rather than fear. As a guiding principle only love can bring the level one civilization of the future into the present. Doing this will not be easy, but nonetheless necessary. To do this we need only look to the lives of our ancestors in tribal, hunter gatherer cultures, taking from them the best of their perspectives about nature and how to live in harmony, and mesh them with modern scientific methods, technology and permacultural principles of how best to go about developing a world in homeostasis.
Humans are funny creatures, we think that chaos and order are opposites, and try to control the uncontrollable . The ultimate conflict of human culture is, indeed, between chaos and order; masculine and feminine, intellect and intuition, matter and awareness, empire and anarchy. Rather than be afraid of the unknown, and try to control the outcome of a cause we had no hand in creating, it might be the answer, finally, to apprehend the cause and effect in their comprehensive actuality, and in so doing learn how to be and create our own cause.
Empire is a construct of control and management, and it is an engine of fear, which feeds off of fear to administer its control through indoctrination, media, propaganda and so forth. Subsequently, the deliberate dumbing down of our society has resulted in insecurity and unnecessary confusion. Even the well educated are ignorant and ill informed, compartmentalized by systems of indoctrination we call school. Smart people seem like crazy people to vacuous people. With virtually every one being vacuous, the majority take it for granted that they are well informed and of average intelligence.
Therefore, our society has been divided into the dumbed down masses and the gifted few. Such conditions seem to be the foundation for future aristocracy, future empire, and future collapse. Only through a counter education initiative can a gifted few bring the power of hope back to the people. However, only a fraction of a percent are in a position of true understanding and actual power or control. That being the case, even a few hundred enlightened individuals working together could change the world, end empire, and with it the impetus for war.
The above conflict, between the .01% and the 99.9% is another meme which represents order and chaos; a serious conflict which requires a synthesis. The .01% represent order, or more accurately control; whereas the 99.9% represent chaos, or more accurately anarchism (i.e. no masters no slaves/ democracy without the formal or republican government). What stems from this socioeconomic inequality is the perspective that you can only choose between conformity or rebellion, but this is yet another of these apparent polarities, which have been created, contrived as such without a context of comprehensive understanding. These apparent opposites must be merged, rather than fought against, and to do so requires love and wisdom. If we react to the ruling elite with hate, this will of course result in more hate. Our only recourse is to awaken to the fact that they exist and instead of hating them, pity them, forgive them, and love them.
There are those who know the truth in shades and degrees of depth and breadth, and those who have believed the lies of mass media and popular culture, surrendering their god-given sovereignty to feel comfortable in the face of insecurity. (By sovereignty the author intends to mean both the earned degree of dignity one has developed, and the innate authority sentience grants itself by virtue of its originality, as well as independence of action (will) and power of reasoning.) In the face of insecurity, buying stuff feels like a way to fill the void. Only by making the void conscious can we, by redirecting our attention and psychic energy, be illuminated from within. Doing so ensures that we are more receptive to nature, and more likely to seek flow states, thus eliminating the clutter of modern material life, while finding authentic happiness instead.
In his book Tear and a Smile, (1914) Lebanese author of The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran includes a “Song of Happiness,” which bears this quotation in full:
Man is my beloved and I am his.
I yearn toward him and he has longing for me.
Woe is me, for in his loving is a sharer who troubles me and torments him.
She is a cruel mistress called Matter.
Wheresoever we go does she follow like a guardian to rive us apart.
I seek my beloved in the wild places beneath the trees
and beside the pools, and I find him not.
For Matter has seduced him and is gone with him to the city,
wherein are the multitude and corruption and wretchedness.
I seek him in the seats of learning and the temples of wisdom.
But I find him not, for Matter, who wears a garment of earth,
has led him thither to the walled places of selffulness
where dwell those busied in paltry things.
I seek him in the field of contentment, but find him not,
for mine enemy has bound him in the caverns of coveting and greed.
I called to him at the hour of dawn, and he hears me not,
for his eyes are heavy with the sleep of avarice.
I caress him at the fall of even, when silence is sovereign
and the flowers are aslumber. But he heeds me not,
for his love of things of the morrow has taken him.
My beloved loves me. He seeks me in his deeds,
but he shall not find me save in the actions of God.
He seeks my union in a palace of glory
builded on the skulls of the weakly, and among silver and gold.
I shall not be sufficient unto him save in the house of simplicity,
which the gods have builded on the banks of the stream of love.
He would embrace me before slayers and oppressors,
yet I shall not let him to kiss my mouth except in solitude among the flowers of innocence.
He would that trickery be a mean between him and me;
but I seek no mediator save a deed free from evil.
My beloved has learned clamor and tumult from mine adversary, Matter.
I will teach him to shed tears of beseeching from the eyes of his spirit
and sigh a sigh of contentment.
My beloved is mine and I am his.
It is those who know intuitively or intellectually, or both, that they are not a mere human resource, who can discern the “truth”; the awe-fullness and awfulness of our times! It is the spirit of happiness which requires of us our responsibility, and our willingness to sacrifice these conveniences which distract us from what actually makes us happy: relationships, flow states, natural shapes and landscapes, and life in general as a phenomena. Matter has its many followers, its many lovers, but if humanity is to be happy, or even just content with life, it is the purpose and meaning of humanity to move towards a better world, replacing the old with something better. We call this progress, but progressivism has had its politicizing and materializing, rendering it a dead philosophy.
Now we come to a conflict most relevant to this dialogue: that of conservative versus progressive. While the conservative decidedly wants to retain the world as it has been, the progressive desires a world improved by science and the fruits thereof. While much argument could arise as to the definitions of the above terms, a more important factor is the desired outcome of these conflicting perspectives. For instance, while the conservative may champion a golden age, one which itself championed slavery, her or his interpretation may be to protect human rights of privacy and informed consent, as well as personal property among other things (ignoring the hypocrisy and residual feudal practices that follow). On the other hand, progressivism, while championing human rights, takes steps in the opposite direction by limiting rights to privacy, independence, and property.
All too often these groups are mislabeled, actually the opposite of what their label is definitively supposed to represent. For instance, some progressives are actually aristocrats, championing residual feudalistic practices, or neo-feudalism; some conservatives are beholden to the banking cartels and their corporations and would be considered neoliberal; others are of the neoconservative camp -- meaning they desire their sovereignty to be an empire— which is hardly conservative. Both of these perspectives should be reproachable to the average person because both see the individual as a potential threat in that both desire the subjugation of the people, and usurpation of their rights under some form of centralized authority or another.
To truly solve this dialectic, the answer is not learned helplessness, nor voting. The answer is to fight for ideas outside of the two party, rigged system, seeking solutions beyond the corporatist plutocracy and the monetarist oligopoly. The more we are reliant upon corporations, and the 400 who make up the top .001%, the more we will be enslaved to the dollar and strict individualism. The more we are reliant upon government, and the 500 who make up the congress, the more we will be enslaved to law, and strict collectivism. The balance comes between, true self-reliance and independence, and true community and interdependence.
The dialectic between the individualist and collectivist is one which has raged for centuries, and continues to rage. This dialectic is typified by an iconic conflict between the libertarian and communist ideologies. However, this conflict once attended to, and understood through the conscious, critical mind, does not make any sense. In truth, both are after the same goal: to be liberated from the influence of tyranny in its manifold manifestations. The oligarchs try to bring about a collective which you submit to and give up your individualism, calling this democracy. But that is not how it works. We as individuals gravitate towards that which is at the core of the human being, we then transmit that information collectively, and as individuals build an organized collective. A collective must emerge from the individuals of any given society, true individuals do not emerge from a contrived collective.
Yet another false duality is that between pro and anti, status quo. This problematic conflict contradicts itself according to the allegiance between the left or right wing of the higher, godlike authority, when in fact that godlike authority transcends the illusory nomenclature, and is really a single party (the aristocratic party). For instance, when a conservative executive creates a model of education, many on the left will vocalize contempt for the schema despite the fact that a liberal version has many of (or the same) core features as the conservative version and vice versa.
The pageantry of statecraft has always existed, and today the power of the media, and the propaganda which is promoted by the press and entertainment is what guides public opinion. As Edward Bernays says in his famous book Propaganda (bernays edward l 1928 propaganda new york):
“In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on public questions and matters of private conduct. In practice, if all men had to study for themselves the abstruse economic, political, and ethical data involved in every question, they would find it impossible to come to a conclusion about anything. We have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions. From our leaders and the media they use to reach the public, we accept the evidence and the demarcation of issues bearing upon public questions; from some ethical teacher, be it a minister, a favorite essayist, or merely prevailing opinion, we accept a standardized code of social conduct to which we conform most of the time.”
Further, Bernays says that “It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But we have chosen the opposite method, that of open competition. We must find a way to make free competition function with reasonable smoothness. To achieve this society has consented to permit free competition to be organized by leadership and propaganda.” Perhaps he is right, and we have elected to allow propaganda to guide us instead of wisdom. Perhaps the time has come for propaganda to be made irrelevant, and for wisdom to emerge as the guiding factor in human life. [See chapter 12]
In fear, the lay people of these popular groups do not think rationally, and through both propaganda and lies, the modality of fear has been instilled and perpetuated throughout the population. Forsaking the big picture of where society is heading, these groups, equally corrupt, find themselves irrelevant with the introduction of an alternative paradigm—rooted in wisdom, balanced in freedom and equality, and guided by receptivity and trust. Blissfully ignorant, both wings of the current paradigm are used to propel their agenda beyond the deliberately dumbed down populations' comprehension.
We now come to another conflicting duality: optimism vs pessimism, whose synthesis can only be realism. In the case of pessimists on the right or left, a fearful mentality about the world leads them to hate the world, and focus their rage on specific groups who they think are to blame. Pessimists on the left see the ignorance of the right and their “wacky beliefs” as the reason why the world is unsafe—for one reason or another pessimists on the right see the left as “liberal,” socialist hippies who know nothing but sin and laziness— and it is for this reason that they must be the reason the world is going to hell. In both cases, without a doubt, there are exceptions, but generally this conception of the cause is basically the case.
However, if you are reading this and thinking that pessimism is bad and optimism is good, I am sorry to disappoint you, though I love you very much, bless your heart. Optimism on the left takes the form of an innocence of understanding; without the big picture through study and attention, disillusioned, even jaded to the world, the optimist takes the axiom of “be the change you want to be” to mean that one should only seek to improve one’s self, in effect removing any personal responsibility for the world at large from their perspective. On the right a commitment to success, with blind ambition, sometimes stepping over the bodies of others—depending upon how narcissistic and psychopathic they are—is the epitome of optimism. Both demographics are sides of the same self-centered coin, each with their own name can and must be differentiated and integrated lest we fall ever deeper into darkness. The point being, however, that our current culture is set up for psychological failure from the fundamental principles at play: such as game theory, and competition in general, which creates this fiat of failure and fire!
Manchild to Mature Ego
At this point it must also be pointed out that this book is not an attack or a declaration of anything negative; instead it presents an alternative culture, an alternative system, and an alternative paradigm. However, in order to advocate that perspective, and for it not to fall on deaf ears, one must give a due explanation of the abuses and absurdities of the existing model. Instead of condemning our brothers and sisters—realize that they are you and educated them instead, love them instead! To do this, we must remember our metaphysics: that you are consciousness imbued with matter, not this avatar solely, but residing within it for a while; we are reality experiencing itself—and it is ours in so far as we are co-creators with it, of it; and by nature's god moved by it, improved through it. Secondly, we must educate ourselves as to the truth, not the matter, but the TRUTH. You are reality experiencing itself; and the information you are witnessing, if you are an unaware manchild, versus the information that you are witnessing, if you are an aware and activated human being, is the difference between night and day: the world is us, and we are the world—reflections of the stars, vs we are worms, dried up by the sun, writhing under its heat and turned to dust from which we came. It is simple, though not easy perhaps, to comprehend the premise that you are in fact the savior you have been waiting for, looking for. It is not your fault, but consider, for a moment how liberating and empowering this idea is. Even if it isn’t true, it bares its own benefits to one’s positive psychology.
Nonetheless, it is because people believe they are nothing more than dust or biological machines that we are living in a world of indignity, conformity, and depravity. Without a balance of forces between industry and agriculture—between science and spirit—the true zeitgeist of our world is in the hands of a manchild with a loaded gun, cocked and ready with a hair trigger. If we are to grow up, we must, as a society, put down our toys, both physically and psychologically, and pick up the real tools of happiness, creativity, and productivity. The tools we speak of are subtle, and pertain to causation, which most people in western culture are not aware of, or are immediately dismissive of because of Faustian materialism. Nonetheless, the importance of meditation, empathic receptivity, and love, and their relation to positive psychology, make them central to a more happy, sane and fulfilled society.
To love someone is to accept and encourage them, supportive of their personal growth—to challenge our beloved towards their more perfect self—and not to merely serve or be served by that person, or get gratification, in some way, through an unspoken contract. Comprehending this, we can then understand that to love oneself is, to challenge oneself. A vision of a more perfect union and balance within oneself, is the key to flow and thus intrinsic happiness. Having this sense of love in our hearts, we may be able to finally bring union and balance into our daily lives, and to the world at large. We will show our love by actively pursuing conditions which bring humanity and the planet into harmony, creating a more perfect balance with our planetary organism.
To be less flowery in one's description: being left or right is irrelevant when it comes to protecting and respecting our collective freedom and capacity to be either one. It is the sense of haughty supremacy, pretentious in every way, which says, “My truth is the truth!” Perspectives like these breed violence, and cultures founded on them for their sense of cultural identity can be nothing less than tyrannical.
The underlying problem preventing a proper balance has little to do with existing structures, and more to do with the mentality behind it. Therefore, instead of reinventing the wheel, the alchemy of change is a simple transformation of perspective—our collective approach to life. In order to do this, each individual needs to take a good hard look at themselves, and the way they live their life. For most of us our existence is a black void, an emptiness which (thinking wrongly about the situation) has to be filled by something outside: toys, games, movies, and more; sex, drugs, and rock and roll; playing the money game, etc.. However, when we illuminate and witness the vacuity, decadence, and nihilism of such a life, through deep attention, we start to hear birds chirping, the trees rustling; and with that acute level of attention we can more easily take action. We make changes to our posture and perspective; turn around, open your eyes, and let your attention refocus from the meaningless void to the forest, and nature within which we all reside.
The oligarchs of modern civilization want us to think it's humanity's destiny to conquer nature, failing to see the foundation from which man emerged. They are incapable of recognizing the higher, more sophisticated order that nature encompasses. Human beings, in their foolish vanity, have come to believe that their kingdom is supreme—when in truth their less beautiful order is but a pig sty in the kingdom of nature, contaminating and cluttering up the otherwise fluid landscape. In order to truly evolve, humankind's next step is to go from believing in its own supremacy to recognizing the fundamental homeostasis of primitive life forms, ecological systems, and environmental conditions necessary for our survival. In other words, to turn off the television and put their hands in the soil.
In connecting with nature, we connect also with our more primitive and fundamental spirit. It is only through an agrarian culture and community that individuals have the time to introspect; and as automation simplifies the work of agrarian organization, it can also increase down time. However, because there are those who are so conditioned to the vacuous lifestyle of modernity, and its innumerable conveniences, there will be great resistance to such a mental transformation. “What would I do with the down time? I would get bored.”
Perhaps this seems true, looking at it from the perspective we have been brought up with—that our purpose is to work a job so we can get money to have food, clothing, shelter, life, liberty, and happiness; but were we to recognize that self-discovery, inner knowing, and self-mastery have far greater benefits (including those mentioned above), leading to individual sovereignty and enlightenment, as opposed to the drawbacks of an inculcated ignorance, willful or not, which our modern culture cultivates, we could finally move into the 21st century and create a planetary order, a level one civilization, a planetary organism. When we stop playing the money game and start living; when we stop scratching the surface and start going within to discover truth and happiness—boredom does not exist, and there is nothing to be afraid of.
It is only because of the inner vacuity of their own lives that they feel a sense of fear for the unknown, but when that vacuity is replaced by a greater purpose through flow, that fear is transmuted into love, for nature, for reality, and for Self. When humans have meaning to their lives, a meaning greater than getting money so they can try to fill their void with conveniences, they no longer need those conveniences; humans, without the influence of diminutive ideologies which cultivate and enforce their servitude, no longer need “jobs” to be productive, but seek out their own best interests based on the best available information and what most stimulates them. Self-understanding is much less immediately gratifying than resting into complacency, but it is precisely because it is hard that it is the most important thing for humanity (you and I) to do; self-understanding is not profitable, and in fact will probably result in the transformation of our economy, our education, and our assembly processes—irrespective of any alternative paradigm.1*
To move away from this inglorious trend of individual vacuity, of empire, and plunder by trade, we must allow ourselves to let go of the scripted narrative we have been fed since we were but children. In doing so we may discover the answer lies within: spirituality, art, community, organization, these are the keys of the Alchemical Renaissance. No matter the method, however, the outcome bares a common thread: We the People are at the fiery center.
Deep Science and Spirit Matters
Through a new science of spirituality we may come to a perspective which no longer hangs on to the conflicts and contradictions which plague modern civilization. In order for our culture to be open to such a radical truth, to recognize there is a common thread connecting all of us together; it is only in this way one reaches a sense of unity with the ALL, and may see the world in a new integral way.
Having done nothing to alter the environment, the spirit of change comes from within, but in doing so one has fundamentally altered the purpose and meaning of environment, and so has, in a way, transformed the environment as well: the environment of their mind and the environment proper simultaneously—for the two are literally one and interwoven.
Having transformed their environment from the inside out, the spiritual neophyte can now begin to express this altered environment through direct, uninfluenced action: art, activism, and individual sovereignty. In doing so, one may aid in the process of opening the doors of perception for others. Further, when one realizes that life itself is an art, to be practiced, learned, mastered, and perfected, one may begin to live their lives fundamentally different from what may have been the case previously (i.e. they may actually be the subject of causation, rather than be an object of someone else's; control their own destiny, rather than letting it be decided by some aristocrat or oligarchy somewhere off on high).
Once this perspective has caught on with a massive enough number of people, a non-local community will begin to take shape, a community rooted in the bigger picture, and in the subtlety of one underlying spirit. We may call this spiritual, intelligent, and well-ordered perspective TRUTH, and when people come together in the service of truth, no human force can stop or hinder them. It is only when people start to get away from the truth that their actions are corrupted and turned into waste. To prevent this, truth must be a personal path: no masters, no slaves, but this does not mean people should not gather and celebrate in recognition of truth, and the beauty and goodness that flower from service to it.
Organization emerges through synergy of diverse human interaction. Human organization is as natural as any ecosystem reaching homeostasis through the manifold actions and interactions that a multitude of lifeforms do in and of themselves. Only through organization can we unlock the mystery of human potential, and make the quantum leap to a level one civilization.
There the people are at the center, and the core of the people is education. From education civilization springs. However, because education will be the subject of the next chapter, suffice it to say education is integral to this universal synthesis, this Alchemical Renaissance we have been discussing thus far: a balance between chaos and order, technology and nature, with man and woman communing together with equal authority and value to human endeavor.
Truly this synthesis would be a mere reveal of reality, rather than an alteration of, or break from nature, or innately true ways of being. Such original law may or may not conform to historical precedent, but does emulate actual human relationship to nature and society. History is rife with injustice, and this is principally so because of unnecessary conflicts revolving around what people believe is truth. Indeed, because perception must be interpreted, reality, for us, is irrevocably subjective. For this reason, all conflict arises. But with such an understanding as we have discussed in the part I, we may in time see these conflicts disappear.
Agape, universal, unconditional love for both people and principles, brings us all together as one. However, its esoteric concept is condemned by both left and right because it threatens the status quo of corporations and competition in a profit-based model of economy, and stands as a serious threat to all governments around the world—because it would discredit their authority, decentralizing their power into the hands of every individual, and the resulting society. The world guided by love is a planetary organism, a level one civilization with sovereigns rather than citizens: a world sovereignty, constituted by sovereigns; sharing in a peaceful and loving society requires a participatory, reciprocal, syndicalist economy; such conditions also requires a shift in consciousness, or a mental shift within the individual. However, this ideal stands dormant as long as people are guided by selfishness, government controlled propaganda, trauma based mind control, video games, and organized religion worldwide.
To find love in a world of fear, we must discover truth, and beyond that what could be more sacred than the observer of truth? Perhaps to play life in its fullest context. From the perspective of either emotion or logic, rather than their combination, an imbalance between science and spirituality exists. Absent the combination, human activity becomes toxic or oppressive either way. This dynamic conflict can be assuaged by the collective human population recognizing that both are integral and must be balanced with awareness and discipline.
Nature is neither good nor evil, it is chaotic neutral; and, therefore, humanity is chaotic neutral. For our species to become evil is just as likely and determined as it is to become good.
To understand good and evil, and how they correspond (if we understand good without understanding evil we are naive, and if we understand evil without good we are sadistic and inclined to psychopathy), is what is of benefit to society and self, and a sense of oneness. In doing so, we are better equipped at guarding ourselves from tyranny, and prevent the institutionalization of evil--as The Lucifer Effect suggests is happening all too often.
Vacuousness, a stagnancy brought about by complacency or willful ignorance, is what has caused the overall disorder of our culture to get worse with time. Wholeness of oneself, love, and peace is the answer; and this condition has been brought about in the past by communities of people who are absolutely, totally free. It is through riches that people become enslaved, and through the promise of riches that they go insane (think black friday). Becoming narcissistic, individuals, and consequently whole populations of people have, become self-absorbed into the money game.
But this is not human nature, human nature is to both go quietly and to not go quietly. Human nature, as we have said, is chaotic neutral. At this point, it is important to recognize the dynamic principle of polarity, specifically regarding masculine and feminine: logic and emotion, the balance and organization rooted in the synthesis of intelligence, science, intuition and emotion, and logic with love . The world resulting from the synthesis of the genders would be balanced in agriculture and technology, guided by love rather than fear, trust rather than debt, and peace rather than war.
There are many reasons the premise of our society is failing, and one of them is that it is an unbalanced patriarchy: running on a hierarchical basis for everything, even in arbitrary ways. The assumption is that education is worth a damn (i.e. diplomas from poor colleges are not worth nearly as much as those from prestigious colleges or private schools). This very premise in society allows and encourages poverty over greater equality and diversity. Divided by ego, fears, and belief, people allow themselves to be ruled from above, believing in a higher power (a higher authority, a divine hierarchy) and fear their masters from above. Moreover, those people at the top, afraid of losing the power ball, compete amongst themselves. A civilization like this is not only unsustainable, it's insane, and needs a remedy.
The very linear nature of a highly patriarchal model is to grow and be big, rather than grow and be wise. Therefore, it is like the choice we have to make is between a forest and an oven: and I ask you, which is more sustainable? A wise person does not have to think very hard to recognize which choice is most correct, and which choice makes sense? The answer, of course, is that a forest is infinitely more sustainable than an oven.
Where do we get the above analogy? The difference between nature and technology is more or less perfectly exemplified in the fact that a forest, not only supplying for hunger needs, is also capable of supplying us with a virtually infinite amount of fuel—if we tend to it—whereas an oven requires either a grid or a commercial source of fuel and food, both of which one has to buy (and must be enslaved by debt to do so).
However, what must be recognized is that the apparent conflict between competition and collaboration, as well as capitalism versus communism in our society are not as simple as black and white. It is quite obvious that capitalism is blatantly schizophrenic, it is fragmenting and fracturing for the individual and the society, and manifests itself through exploitation and cultural decline. Capitalism brings about the greatest inequality for the most freedom (for a select few); while communism brings about the greatest equality without freedom (except for a select few). Both end up in a kind of oligarchy for the rich, and slavery for the poor.
Communism, however, does not necessarily mean collaboration, or even community. Not all capitalists are competitive, or even for capitalism. Both groups view their ideology as the only viable option. That being said, once we come together and organize around principles and beliefs of unity, mutual respect, love, collaboration, and permaculture, a new renaissance is real. Our goal here is not only to cherry pick the best parts of either capitalism and communism, but to create new possibilities through less hierarchical structures, as well as using models which are more participatory (as in democracy without the government) and less pecuniary i.e. reciprocation, trust, and resource based economy.
Consequently, we would be remiss to project such an ideal, casting aspersions at the current model, without already having a comprehensive plan or strategy for creating a society organized around love, collaboration, and trust, with its objective of global peace, planetary homeostasis and protection. Rest assured, we will discover them together in the following chapters. But, before we get to the meat and potatoes of this endeavor, we must first under-stand (or stand under the foundations of) why it is important to have this kind of synthesis, and a world guided by love rather than fear, ego, and belief.
Going from a model that demands a schizophrenic fracturing of individualism and collectivism (rooted in the belief that it is through individualism that the collective is made glorious, or that it is through collectivism that the individual is made free) to a model which demands a union and balance of individuals and collectives (rooted in the belief that it is through the enlightenment of the individual that enlightened collectives can emerge and begin to lead individuals in society towards a more perfect union) requires a shift in our cultural beliefs. For far too long our zeitgeist has been determined by a very rich few. In a way very similar to how people are ruled by a monarchy, our lives today are guided largely by the financial interests of money masters. It is common sense that the masses need something more adequate than a slim minority of wealthy individuals to guide them. That being said, it takes education to save humanity from its lesser urges, it takes art to inspire people towards their greater urges, and it takes love and wisdom to liberate humanity from its many dialectics.
Our modern science, inspired by our ancient past, presents a radical improvement, but only if it is done correctly. To do so requires wisdom, therefore, we must begin to develop the necessary foundations for the development and cultivation of wisdom. However, because wisdom is not enough to ensure the survival of our species, a necessary component of love becomes the focal point of our synthesis. In that, a method of reasoning, enriched with a method of appreciating, results in a perspective of being capable of putting one’s self into another's shoes. Then an empathic civilization will come into being and thrive. with people, loving and thoughtful enough to handle the responsibility of freedom and equality in a level one civilization.
Doing so requires us, once again, to reinvent the wheel of our minds and not the infrastructure: it's not the tool but how it's used (although, yes, we should move to green energy and more efficient methods of energy extraction, like zero point). We have to stop watching the prison-poverty planet being built up around us and take action; are we ruled, and embrace our servitude, or do we care enough to truly fight for freedom?
Without this synthesis our development will be and has been impaired,which is ultimately destructive. However, as we will see, this does not need to continue, and is not an aspect of our true nature. For tens of thousands of years before agriculture and so called civilization, humans lived in harmony with one another and the environment; and flickers of this truth have emerged throughout history, but those flickers were always quickly spotted and squelched by centers of imperialist capitalism, to borrow a term from J. W. Smith.
Classism and Consciousness
Finally, the conflict between the haves and the have-nots can and must be brought to a synthesis: a synthesis of aristocracy and democracy, aided by technology, and now is the moment. Whatever we do, the more we do it, the better we will get at it, unless the forms are corrupted by avarice and selfish people. Money for money's sake alone cannot get us to the next level of civilization this world so desperately needs. Love is what the world needs, not money.
It may be the case that those who have the most money are the most dysfunctional. Through repeated inbreeding and even child abuse or neglect, which may be rare but, like psychopathy, acts in our community in nonetheless important ways on the part of the absurdly rich and powerful. These factors, acting as a probable link to genetic and epigenetic mutations may have resulted in a greater propensity towards psychopathy—as it would seem—are most prevalent in the rich families, and families that are poor in equal degree to the rich. Therefore, bringing the haves, who are psychopaths, to an equal footing of love with everyone else will be difficult because this paradigm is not designed for them or the morally imbalanced, but is designed to help heal or relax their mind enough to restore sanity and cure disorder so they can join society rather than be banished from and by it.
Nonetheless, it has been said that money rolls up hill like shit rolls downhill, and unless you are a Rothschild, Rockefeller, or Koch etc., you are a have not; and it is every have not's dream to be what the media tells them it means to be a have. If you are a have not, you are being manipulated, systematically, through television or mainstream media via propaganda—to wish that you were a have. Thus we are divided. In a way we are worse off through ignorance an idiocracy, torn like tissue paper by the hands of Midas.
By combining these two classes, and redefining their parameters, a new generation of civilization can begin to awaken. To do this a final synthesis must be made in which attributes of both capitalism and socialism are put together: imagine a society without masters or slaves. Merging the chain of supply and demand with shared access, the cold, calculated logic of capitalism with the striving, emotional torch of communism, creating what the writer calls a reciprocal economy, or reciprocism.
It is here that our attention should be directed at an apparent conflict, which is associated with classism, but which is actually a false conflict like all the rest, and is the one between intellectuals and laborers. The notion is that these two groups are exclusive to one another, and that they must always be combating one another due to their drastically different backgrounds and education, and perhaps that is the case, but only because of the nature of our education and labor as they appear to us today. However, if we were to redefine our education schema, and our organization of work, perhaps a reciprocal relationship between the two demographics could take place, in which mutual respect and communication can happen between those two demographics, with real cultural betterment as a result.
Do you believe it is possible to have technology and be in harmony with the earth? Only when we realize what Ken Wilber has called AQAL [Chapter 8], are we provided with a legitimate reason to look within, and find the shadow, the soul, and the spirit as they are depicted in the upper left quadrant (I). Moreover, through the lens of fractal geometry and from a moral, philosophical perspective (lower left, We), the very fact that we have a soul or consciousness evidences panpsychism, deism, pantheism, or that reality itself is consciousness fundamentally, and information, interacting with one another in a fractal process (AQAL): as above so below in ever-rising tides of awareness in a spiral of increasing complexity and consciousness.
Some if not all of the ideas to follow will surely seem both familiar, exotic,and radical to some, if not most readers. The reason this will be the case is because it is. The author has pitted himself against the fray of ideas, the ubiquitous conflict livens the fight or struggle for freedom, and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an equal or opposite action or reaction. Therefore the prevalent apathy, which characterizes current Americana, and throughout most of the western world for that matter, has human beings feeling depressed, anxious, and afraid. Disorder originating from our unwillingness to address the truth of our matrix-like reality. The urgency that comes with the recognition of this struggle for freedom, and where it originates.
The class struggle for freedom permeates the literature of our ancestral past; the cultural landscape of every community throughout the world, particularly in or around such places where there is such history, can and often do share and celebrate their story. Accordingly the phenomena of apathy, due to intense, sometimes overwhelming anxiety for no apparent reason, is mostly a modern phenomena. Not that anxiety is exclusively modern, but the natural human can be so out of tune with nature, and so in conflict with “the world” and how it's fixed, that random or not-so-random spikes of fight or flight response activate for no apparent reason. In this sense, the epidemic of anxiety is an entirely modern phenomena.
Transcending military and political agencies and activities by internalizing both, both dispels and reinvigorates both military and polity immensely through voluntarism and freedom of association rather than a government or external sovereignty controlling one’s life in such a brutish manner. It is here that we, again, sound radical and idealistic, but in a sick and insane society, perhaps the poison is the cure, and the cure is poison. However, were this to be the ravings of a madman, the result would be more of the same. Consequently, the result is in your hands, just as your interpretation of this text is up to you. Take it with a grain of salt, but remember that real salt (iodized) is an essential nutrient to life.
For while our ancestors and their legacy are important, equally important is our legacy, and the new danger to our freedom and happiness is fundamentalism (fear, ego, and belief). A force of entropy, fundamentalism drives apart constituents of an otherwise planetary body. Rather than acting, or not, in accordance with the past or future respectively, we must live in the present with great intensity and presence—seeking understanding rather than conflict.
More to the point, and the essence of all: rage is better than fear, and love is better than rage. Fear is not the absolute opposite of love, but rage is, and so the opposite of love is indifference. Anger and love are two points on a spectrum and so are fear and indifference, according to what seems like common sense, but really fear is the opposite of anger and indifference is the opposite of love; they are intersecting and interrelated. Therefore, fearing our enemy is worse than hating them, and hating them is worse than loving them. If you fear your controllers they will continue controlling you; if you hate your controllers they will build new walls around you; but if you love your enemy, and act without concern for their illegitimate power, you become self-controlled, and they become irrelevant.
The transformation from lower states of consciousness, in realms of fear and suffering, is solved, only through the triumph of higher consciousness: To access the higher brain (the neocortex, which is responsible for imagination, and empathetic reasoning), encountering the profound through aesthetic experience is essential; To go from the lower (reptilian) brain to the higher brain, we must experience moments of truth—truth in the big sense, not in its particulars. Moments that cause us to associate with the forest, the ocean, or with nature as a phenomena, consequently causes us to relax our minds from our worldly tensions, and identify with an altogether more universal sense of being. As we reach these higher states of consciousness, we gradually reside more in the neocortex, and less and less with the reptilian brain, and in this sense we are reaching to higher or deeper stages, which are more permanent. For instance, experiencing a higher state of consciousness through meditation does not mean that one resides in that state--in fact usually people quickly return to their normative state within their stage immediately after their meditation has ended--but when one has reached a stage of consciousness through years of accumulative practice, he or she cannot reverse ship and return to a previous stage: states are permeable, stages are permanent.
Now having come to the end of this chapter, we may see a deeper version of reality and truth, or at least we are that much closer to doing so. The end of this chapter is the beginning of an entirely new subject, with bigger, more relevant ideas—ideas intended as powerful solutions to the problems that face the human species equally. From these solutions will stem new questions from the reader. Does there exist a beginning or end to the above inquiry or feedback loop? This, we will not attempt to answer, rather we shall proceed together into the realms of the unknown, fearless and without indifference.
10
Education
Table 1. (Schema Map of Eduliberation)
The great art of life is thus described:
For Children
UNIVIUM (Sensorimotor)
Music & Linguistics (Aesthetics)
BIVIUM (Phantasmic Emotional)
Fractal Geometry (Vision)
Art (Expression)
*TRIVIUM* (Ego) (Concrete Operational)
Ingestion (Grammar)
Digestion (Logic)
Expression (Rhetoric)
*QUADRIVIUM* (Other) (Formal Operational)
Number (Math)
Number in Space (Geometry)
Number in Time (Music)
Number in Space and Time (Astronomy)
For Adults
PENTIVIUM (Ego & Other) (Post-Formal Op.)
Purification (Therapy)
Consolidation (Study)
Exertion (Application)
Balance (Union)
Play (Causation/Flow)
[Note: The geometry of this process implies further shapes and concepts. In other words, the Hexivium (as we will discuss in chapter 4) and Septivium may encompass those needed stages for a world civilization to emerge.]
Using modern science, and proven facts of prenatal and early infant-into-childhood development, the current author has created the Univium and Bivium, a process of enhancing neural connectivity and plasticity, and early consciousness expansion respectively, for children from birth to... Using the knowledge of the ancients creatively, he has conceptualized the Pentivium, which is an extension to the Trivium and Quadrivium. But also conceptualized, the Hexivium is a plan of action for the actualization and realization of our own goals and greatest happiness. This chapter will be devoted to the exploration of the schema expressed in Table 1., and the merits of the praxis up to the Hexivium; the Hexivium will be discussed in the final chapter regarding culture.
A Preface on Children
THERE really is only one way to change the world when it comes right down to it. As long as we treat children as subhuman, as property, just as this patriarchal paradigm has done with women and slaves, we will not accomplish anything; the cycle of victimization and trauma will continue. The only way to end the perpetual cycle of hurt people hurting other people down the line is to be the parent, guardian, friend, and family member that does not abuse or allow harm to come to children, and this includes institutional harms that can come about through situational forces and cultural norms. As Fredrick Douglas said, “It is easier to build strong children than it is to heal broken men.” In other words, it is better to raise children to be psychologically sound than to simply subject them to cruel or unusual systems of indoctrination, and deal with the abhorrent behavior that they exhibit later on down the road.
Four in five Americans believe it is alright to spank their children. If we are to have a brighter future, with a better world order rooted in individual sovereignty and implied trust, first we need to treat our children the same way we want to be treated by the rest of the world: stop spanking them and start healing them. Perhaps children have been the scapegoat for all of our frustrations about the world, enacting violence upon them for having been acted upon by the world in similarly cruel and obscene ways. Nonetheless, this kind of scapegoating only ensures that the world will continue to be cruel and obscene--because the way the world treats us is only a reflection, ultimately, of the way we treat our most vulnerable members.
Similarly, using the premise of fracticality (the quality of being fractal or subdivided), the big picture is in every one of its parts, we can understand how we treat our children is how the world treats us and how we ultimately treat each other. It all starts with children, and every creature perceived as less than human, receiving less compassion. Children, however, are so impressionable, that when they are treated in certain ways, they then learn to think that this is the way you treat others.
Therefore, if we really want to change the world, and if we really want to see a better society, we must start with how we treat our youth. If you think of yourself as a good person, and despise the condition of the world as it is, you will want to change it, but the conventional methods of fighting against evil and disorder with governments, nonprofits, and organized movements only address the symptoms of a traumatized and victimized population and not the cause. To really heal and and revitalize our society, first we have to look at the cultural norms of how we treat our women and children and do so with a critical, alive eye.
Cultural norms have been at the root of humanity’s disorder since things began. In other words, we have always treated each other poorly, and it is only recently that we have begun to consider that maybe, just maybe, if we treat each other well the world will be a better place. To be sure, we are living in the best of times, because humanity came from a place of misery and barbarism, and it has been a struggle to make baby steps towards common sense levels of decency for certain segments of the population. But there is still much work to be done, even for those segments which we think of as liberated; and if we really want to change the world, the most important segment to consider, the segment which has been largely ignored by western and developed nations, has to be the children.
Indeed, what we are proposing with this chapter is an entirely different cultural narrative which recognizes children as equally protected and equally sovereign beings as adults. If we want people to stop being property of the state, we need children to stop being property of their parents, because the family dynamic directly reflects the governing dynamic. This is not to say that children should be the property of the state, or of themselves, but that human life is not property of anything or anyone whatsoever, that each of us, from birth, are free and born with inalienable rights of life, liberty, non-violence and property among others.
If we really want a better world, it starts with educating our children and people instead of beating them into submission through coercion and compulsion. By integrating humanity, instead of dividing it into various segments to be dominated, we ensure that future populations will not be so foolish as to go to war, plunder the earth senselessly and without forethought, or think it is right to commit violence upon women, children, or defenseless animals for fun.
First Premises
The most important problem in the world is not the economic problem, as Marxists believe; it is not the sexual problem as Freudians believe; it is not the religious problem as Christians and Mohammedans and Brahmans and Buddhists and the believers in any of the other supernal religions of the world believe.
The most important problem in the world today is the problem of the philosophy by which men live and the philosophy by which society is animated. This, however, is just another way of saying that the most important problem is the educational problem. For this in practice is the problem with which education deals; it deals with the whole process by which not only the rising generation but also older generations are imbued with the philosophy all are supposed to practice and which the whole social life of the community is supposed to reflect. Fortunately, there is a technical term ethos which designates precisely what I have in mind when I speak of a “philosophy for society”: the essential character, sentiment, and disposition of a people, of a community or country, a society or culture; the spirit which animates its manners and customs, its practices and institutions, and which is reflected in its ideals, and especially in its values—in its ethical and esthetic, its economic and teleological attitudes and practices. ~ Ralph Borsodi
So fundamental to civilization, education could be considered the root of all human endeavor. Where education flourishes, civilization lives long and prospers. However, as C.S. Lewis said, “When training beats education, civilization dies”. The issue at hand is not whether education has been turned into training—because the work of John Taylor Ghatto and Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt has established quite well the history of degeneration—but how we might stop this continuing trend before it’s too late? Today, training has so obviously replaced education that it has become the single greatest problem in our day and age, and such a threat to our safety and happiness cannot be taken lightly—this is our collective future we are talking about: it is our individual and collective responsibility, and duty to demand and create serious improvements and updates in education. Since we no longer have an industrial society as we had in the 20th century, our 19th century education model, much like our antiquated transit systems, is fundamentally outdated and in need of radical upgrade.
Moreover, this threat does not come about innocently, or without intent; our leadership has deliberately dumbed down the populations of America and around the world for over 100 years; due in part to John Dewey's philosophy about industrial, utilitarian education, 'school' has nothing more to do with education than it does with the ecology; it's first cause, result and purpose has been the exacerbation of greed, and the elitist hunger for power reflected in the average person through memes. The acculturation of people to this system has resulted in a gradual decline of education into an economic driver of human resources rather than an engine of enlightenment and true education. This has been shown to be the case via John Taylor Ghatto's, Underground History of American Education and the whistleblower Charlotte Iserbyt's, Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, and it represents the complete lack of imagination of our average person and our leadership.
Therefore, we must liberate (or more accurately educate) ourselves and future generations in the interest of evolving education practices towards world-centric, empathy oriented systems; expanding enlightenment, protecting society from the perils of so called progress (another word for corporate sponsored experimentations in collectivism) via the plutocratic government of aristocratic interests: tyranny of the lowest New World Order. For these reasons and more, self-education, or autodidactic education, stands as the greatest threat to the status quo and their interests.
And what are their interests? Clearly it would not be in the best interest of the wealthy elite to be surrounded by an over educated, well rounded public, capable of making their own mind and decisions, and more importantly capable of making their own widgets, or questioning the legitimacy of their debt; for this reason, and with many quotes and historical facts and experience to support the notion, it is in the interest of those aristocrats to see to it that the masses are just smart enough to work the machines or serve fast food, but too stupid to see how badly they are “getting taken advantage of” (or I prefer the vernacular: “getting bent over and fucked in the ass” as this depicts the severity of the relationship clearly and adequately). In plain words, it is in their best interest to enslave the working population as Marx warned. How do they do this? By making us all believe that it can't be done—through propaganda and controlled education—and that we are “sane” or “normal” only if we are in love with our slavery. This may be done without malicious intent, in fact it may well be done sheerly out of the self-interest of those modern despots without their knowing of the overall implications, but I highly doubt the farmer does not know he is going to slaughter his cattle. Nonetheless, the tide of modern ignorance must be turned, and it is through education that we shall turn this planetary prison into a vital playground.
In order to remove the ancient and cyclical influence of aristocracy, which so many republics have suffered in the past, we must instill the influence of world-centric perspectives through providing context. The author will describe in this chapter a miracle of our era of thinking (due in part to the fact that it takes into consideration the whole life, context, and development of the individual): an education schema which actually teaches relevant information from which students will be able to build a contextual understanding of reality, how its various aspects connect and interact in an interdependent world-centric, integral perspective, and one that begins at birth and ends at death.
At present, the model which teaches a series of arbitrary tests claims itself superior and world class because of how “common” it is, due in part to its collectivist agenda—in addition to its intellectual, academic speculations, rooted in opinion rather than science. But if we are to take seriously the process of our organic education, a first premise is that of open-minded skepticism. Therefore, while this idea may or may not appeal to the reader, it is important to understand that these ideas are intended to inspire the readership, and impel us into the discussion of active imagination: planting the seeds of positive creation—against stratification and dehumanization—towards humanization, towards a balance between technology and pre-modern techniques: meditation, and receptivity to the esoteric definition of enlightenment.
To begin with, the cultural roots of our views on education are inevitably an issue which must be understood; before any dialogue or description can be made, this pivotal subject must be intensely considered and inquired upon. (For insights and further inquiry into this subject, we suggest reading the book Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv, and Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.)
The dilemma we face with education seems most often to be a matter of chicken before the egg: is our declining culture a product of a failing education system, or is our failing education system the product of a declining culture? Clearly it was education that brought us out of the dark ages and into the state of enlightenment, and clearly it is the promise of education which has brought us into the information age; but if education is improving, what explains the clear cultural degradation that has taken place between the 19th and 21st century. Perhaps in contrast to common knowledge, as technology increases, dependence upon technology results in lower intelligence; just as specialization has resulted in compartmentalization, perhaps as culture and its effects ossify, maladaptive thinking emerges in the face of chaotic complexity, stifling the process of evolution . Either way, both culture and education act to reinforce one another indefinitely in a perpetual feedback loop: the more we fail in education, the more our culture fails, and the more our culture fails, the more our education will fail—the cycle is perpetual and dismal if we cannot fix our ways of thinking and work our way out of the feedback loop.
Some will say this is a false premise, that either our education is the best it has ever been (according to a highly limited historical understanding), or that our culture is no more in decline than it has ever been, and that we are on a comeback (a perspective brought about largely by cognitive dissonance and media lies). Both of these perspectives have their head firmly planted in the sand, and fail to recognize the empirical context of human intelligence and thought throughout history, as well as its overall potential.
The fact is that, while people are exposed to more information than ever, they are rarely if ever given a comprehensive context to go with it. The cause of this lack of context is simple: control. The more detached and alienated someone is, the more manipulable they are; and for this reason people have been divided and (though subtly) enslaved to such specious notions as central banks taxing them, class powers lording over them, racial and sexual differences dividing them, and many other conflicts described in the previous chapter. The desired effect of this lack of context is compartmentalization, because people who are compartmentalized are better at specialization, but simultaneously they are less capable of critical thinking. Critical thinking can be, and often is, a hindrance to the assembly line and all that it stands for, which is why we need it so desperately in our time.
Therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between our culture and our education system, and consider that relationship as we move forward; building on the need for context, we can begin changing how we think of educational systems, and the cultural mode of modern life. Our first priority is to create an educational system which is comprehensive, world centric, and holistic in its approach, having the entire spectrum of human development in mind. To do this work, and make this change in our time, our preconceived notions must be laid down and let go of as we enter a new and exotic territory. By doing so, we leave room to heal from the mental wounds of limiting cultures and ideologies, and make progress within ourselves towards higher consciousness in our own lives, and by example we leave room for our posterity to do the same.
So to begin with, forget everything they told you in school! Forget everything that you have seen on television; forget, as well, everything your parents told you. As we proceed, the reader and the speaker must be on the same page of understanding (that is under-standing, to stand under the structure of our systems, seeing the hidden workings of that system, and gaining true, unfiltered knowledge about that subject). By humbling ourselves to a state of admitted ignorance or exploratory agnosticism, and by relaxing the ego (a function of the accumulated knowledge about oneself and the world), we may have the optimal conditions for learning: Open-minded skepticism.
(It should also be pointed out that, because the United States has the legacy of trendsetter since the revolution in 1776, we will be focusing our discussion upon that system and culture throughout the next few chapters; our hope is that, with enough awareness and dissent, the paradigm may be changed in the United States, altered into a more perfect state which reflects natural humanity, rather than a synthetic human nature imposed upon them by a tyrannical central government.)
Invoking The Phoenix
With our awareness guiding us, and our ego out of the picture (under control, not eliminated in any way) we can begin to change our lives by changing perspectives, and by changing our perspectives we can then see a change in our choices, choices which impact the lives of others—directly or indirectly. Therefore, changing our lives and the lives of others is as simple as changing the first premises and fundamental ways of being that our conventions convey to us, and our governments try to convince us is normal: learning new, becoming new.
In Greece, the term Paideia was used to mean a form of education, where the student, having been through the program, would fundamentally be changed by his learning; the change would often be so great that the neophyte which existed prior to that learned knowledge would no longer exist as he was, and was instantly replaced (in spirit) with the more wise version of himself. In this sense, Paideia represents a death and rebirth—much like the phoenix of legend. To embrace the everlasting phoenix of death and rebirth in a spiral of developing consciousness, the highest quality of an emancipated mind must be educed through the art of life: education.
Our education paradigm begins with the invocation of the power of the phoenix, and embrace of the concept of Paideia (death through rebirth). It is necessary to understand that it will not take effort per se, but a calm and steady mindset, empty of the erroneous and second-hand notions of the past to internalize this principle.
Having said this, it is the advice of the speaker that the reader calm their mind, take a breath or two, and reach a state of relaxation before proceeding: The nature of the following subject is not be taken with a grain of salt. Education derives from the ancient Greek educo, meaning to bring up or draw out—to draw out the inner talents and abilities of the neophyte. To properly draw out the best in someone, it is necessary first to learn how best to ingest and digest information.
Because education is so vital, the need for common understanding is vital, and for this reason the art of listening is most vital. Listening is most fundamental to learning, and to be a good listener, I must not be, but only presence; attention must be the only presence, therefore, the ego must not be present, that is dominant, in the psyche of the student. Listening requires no-self, and in being and not being, we see more clearly without a filter; it is after we listen that we can then digest information, discern whether it is true or not, and turn what we have learned through intuition, rational thought, and contemplation into an applicable expression of rhetoric. Of course the ego is necessary in this process, but if we allow ego to dominate this process, the entire effort is for naught.
Therefore, it is important to understand that what we know, and the power of our knowledge and understanding is limited in correspondence to our inner lexicon—our inner dictionary which tells us what to say and what we can say (grammar); we are limited in our power to express effectively (rhetoric) and inner processing authority (logic) in the degree to which we are limited in our vocabulary. In ancient times, the best way to create an inner lexicon was the classical liberal arts of the Trivium and Quadrivium. The Quadrivium, a creation of Pythagoras, and the Trivium, a creation of Aristotle, represent the classical model of education, and their model has been proven through history to liberate those who study their subjects.
However, what classical models may be seriously lacking is an education schema that corresponds with infancy or early childhood, as well as later adulthood. Only through shedding light on and considering factual information which we have learned through modern scientific research, as well as wisdom we have gained through centuries of trial and error, could we possibly imagine taking education seriously: What would education look like? How would it correspond to our individual lives? And what are the cultural and universal implications? Answers to these questions and more follow below.
Univium: Infant Education
In describing a new approach to life, a process which we call the great art of living, our approach must be comprehensive; consequently it must begin pre-conception—following through to conception, birth, and then infancy. Because life starts at the intersection of two adults of the opposite sex through sexual intercourse (as we know it in the beginning of the 21st century), it is important to first acknowledged the immense importance adults play in creating the future population. To address this reality we will explore an adult education called the Pentivium below, but for now it will suffice to explore the merits of infant education through the Univium, but in order to do so, the existence of adult life, and therefore the Pentivium is integral.
Such a world starts with birth, and with birth starts the process of education, both for the parents and the new life. An infant brain is far more malleable than an adult brain, a phenomena known as neural plasticity (Huttenlocher 2009). Therefore, it stands to reason that we should start linguistic and numerical education at that early stage through lingual nannies and classical or complex cultural music, in addition to whatever environments the parents create for themselves and their children. The factor of home environments makes the Pentivium and parenting that much more important and integral to the formative years of the Univium.
Starting with two conscious adults at stage three of the Pentivium, that of exertion, they may begin to engage in sexual intercourse with the intent of making a life, of incarnating consciousness, what the author calls making love (because life and consciousness are manifestations of and conduits for love, which is the generative force countering entropy). It is, therefore, the mission of these neophytes and parents to devote their lives to aiding that life to be far greater than the sum of their parts—that is Love that child—and a new generation emerges, influenced by an emerging culture of love and co-creation.
This love, in a society which revolves around education, community, permaculture, and information, has no boundary; in this alternative paradigm we are exploring together, industry and economy have been localized and decentralized along with the power of governments worldwide (for this is the only way such a form of education—or paradigm in general—could exist). By reducing the parasitic forces worldwide, and replacing them with meritocratic systems of democracy, a far more viable order to the human will shall reduce the reliance upon governments and their corporations for survival, thus freeing up the psychic energy of people, from worrying about paying bills to involving their energies into rearing their ken, and developing themselves.
Before conception, and after into gestation, it is crucial to recognize the importance of epigenetics (i.e. The idea is that our environment affects our gene makeup, and so our genes are transferred over to our children with certain genotypes and phenotypes that pertain to our parents and their parents and so on, emphasizing healthy diet and stress response levels) and this is especially important in respect to females because they transfer the most viable genetic information. However, because our environment has a direct impact on our genetics as we live, and before we have children, it is important to recognize that if we change our environment, we also change the genetic environment of our infants and children to be. By taking their environment into consideration by taking our environment into consideration, we can now begin to inform ourselves as to the best approach for enhancing their early lives and our lives significantly.
The first and most real step for us to take, is stepping back from the economic world we live in, and recognizing economic reality: rooted in ecology, prudence, and conservation, wherein the people are driven to improve the environment, to live and thrive, to husband the earth, and to act and produce free of debt—rather than to feed a market of industries hell bent on progress traps and resource exploitation. With this in mind, a child's gestation truly starts with their parents’ proper diet and homeostasis both mentally and physically. To lower stress levels and increase nutrient levels in both sexes, we merge permaculture principles with a basic income system, first deriving from taxing corporations, ending foreign war, and taxing speculation as well as land rent, complemented by an incentives based luxury system which we will explore later in chapter 11. However, the phase we have just described is somewhat of an intermediary, or overlapping phase of the Univum, a genesis point that must be covered, because in order to describe the process of life, context is essential.
The Univium is primarily an aesthetic, a chosen pattern to life which permanently alters its meaning and context. To go from a primarily industrial to a primarily information-based society means to improve upon the environment while boosting connectivity and interactivity, dissolving the boundaries which define the previous model, and improving technology to work beyond fossil fuels; integrating the best and most of all previous attempts, yet going beyond them into a fractal holographic landscape that transcends the box, and demystifies the forest. By demystify, the author means to make regular so that it is everywhere, including in one's heart, therefore to demystify the forest, one must cultivate the world so that everywhere is the forest; consequently to demystify god in this way, we must first begin at the birth of every Christ that ever lived, and ever shall be—by changing our immediate environment.
The environment created through practice of the Univium, while the parents are neophytes of the Pentivium will look much like having a nanny who speaks Spanish cradle them for two to three hours a day; exposing the infant to complex music like classical (or intelligent dance music, e.g. Shpongle, Marconi Union, et al); and exposing them to geometric shapes such as fractals, platonic solids, and pictures of life, matter, and the universe. The purpose is not to directly teach them anything, but rather to allow the aesthetic to do the job better than any human teacher ever could.
In this stage, it is important to recognize infants are rooted in the Sensorimotor stage of their conscious development. Because the infant is incapable of distinguishing the inside from the outside, their environment and temperament in this beginning phase is highly important to their development later on. For this reason the parents at this stage are immensely important, and so is the cultural environment in which they will find meaning.
As two students, through sexual unity, produce a new student of Life, so too the infant hemispheres of the brain begin to develop and out of that union slowly begins to grow a new student of mind; the infant's growing qualia (ie. their sentient consciousness, or identity as a person) constitutes a new culture. With every generation, a new revolution of thought is possible, all it takes is the previous generation committing to such a trying endeavor. However, all that is truly trying is the present paradigm itself, and the debt attached to everything within it, to commit to the author’s alternative paradigm means to turn your back on all that previous mess, and approach sanity, peacefulness, and playfulness. Doing so, we approach a new possibility, a new life—a brighter future.
In accordance with this new life, this new student of life will begin at home, or at a midwifery center, in which the infants will be birthed with care. The greatest gift midwives can give to early life is care during birth—hospitals do not bring care to birth, all they bring is harsh sterility. Doing so, we ensure the first moments of a baby's life are calm, and inviting, rather than intensely traumatic. The closer to nature we can get with regards to the aesthetic and not the reality of nature, the better it is for our children's early life experiences, which have been shown, countless times and thus established in developmental psychology, to impact them later on; the further we get from nature, and the closer we get to the scientific, synthetic process of birth, the more traumatic it is for our prehistoric brains, tuned to the frequency of the forest, not the bright, sterile office that is hospital space.
Further, it is important that mothers be in a positive relationship with not only their midwives, but also their lingual nannies. What could be more important than really knowing the people who are involved in handling and educating your children? Creating the kind of community, upon which all of education rests is vital to a thriving civilization, and as the saying goes: it takes a village. The reason that is even a saying tells us it is a collectively agreed upon sound logic that indeed a village, or a variety of integrated individuals living in community is an optimal condition for educating children. They and we can learn from everyone around us, the whole world becomes a source of learning, and the boundaries of the education facility dissolve into an interactive and permacultural environment.
As we all know, infants and young children learn faster and better than their adult counterparts. However, maybe this is not true, maybe we have just been going about education the wrong way, perhaps our approach to education is what stifles the majority of us, and perhaps this is the only difference between geniuses and the rest of us: they just never lose their curiosity through indoctrination. According to new research in neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, the brain is constantly changing, but especially in bilinguals (Gaser and Schlaug 2003), and musicians (Mechelli et al., 2004, Wan and Schlaug 2013)
The Univium is the first stage of a developmental process of learning, developed by the present author, using the stages of cognitive development (Piaget 1990) to guide the process of education, is an untested, but scientifically verifiable concept. In a nutshell, the process begins at six months after birth at the latest (Kuhl, Williams, Lacerda, Stevens, Lindblom 1992), with a new language provided by a nanny who speaks a second language (a service provided free to the public). In the United States, this second language daycare service would be particularly available, and would grant any society that is culturally diverse an advantage (Kuhl et al 2003).
Learning the ins and outs of community life, a vital realization comes to the fore: people in community quickly become like family. But more to the point, our family does not end at the nuclear, blood ties, but branches outward—beyond the tribes, nations, religions and whatever boundaries we may create—towards the stars. If we can allow ourselves to go there, a boundless world exists, in which our unity creates a planet in homeostasis: Gaia, the planetary organism, mothership earth, &c. Learning about the ways in which we are all diverse but connected, rather than the ways in which we are all different and separate, could have no other outcome than greater compassion and willingness to cooperate rather than compete for resources.
Imagine a world that took education seriously, that put education, and not politics or economics at the top of its priorities; imagine a world that put ecology before economy, and which took the duty of stewardship seriously; and finally, imagine a world that took its process of assembly seriously, and did not have a media which bombarded its audience with mindless entertainments: beer and circuses, bread and football. Allow yourself a moment to seriously imagine such a world, what growing up in that world would mean to you, and how everything would be structured.
When the children are placed in the care of their linguistic nanny, they are being taken care of by a person who speaks another language than the parents, and who has been given a background check by and registered with a local initiative created to provide this service. But more importantly, the nanny is someone who the parents have a relationship with and respect for. Depending upon the location and design of the operation, this kind of education could be provided at one's home, or at the nanny's home, or at a facility designed to house that service—maybe all three, the point is the parents are in good relationship with the nanny or nannies they send their child to. The point of this service is to focus on stimulating the linguistic centers of the brain while they are the most receptive (or sponge-like). Making sure the infant is exposed also to complex music while they are being spoken to could be of equal importance in the promotion of neuroplasticity, particularly songs like Weightless by Marconi Union, known for its relaxing tones, or classical songs that are soft in tone.
Furthermore, those individuals providing the service would be considered members of the education system, and would be paid well for their service—and what women (particularly older) would not want to cradle a baby and speak to it for extended periods of time—and get paid to do so? Certainly there will be no shortage of applicants for this occupation. This kind of occupation serves another purpose, however, which is to make an otherwise criticized and belittled demographic of the population (minorities and aliens as we call them) an integral aspect of our society, and of civilization, giving them both a reason to be respected and to have a meaningful purpose in our community (I am thinking of the Spanish speaking population when I say this, but the opportunity should not be limited to any one language or demographic). Moreover, a hidden, but equally beneficial aspect of this service is that of multiculturalism—extending the empathic bonds beyond the restrictive nuclear family unit which resembles the tribe or kingdom in microcosm.
For this reason, the aesthetic here chosen is one that drowns out the exterior world, leaving us with the caring voice of the nanny and the infant's growing neuronal connections in both left and right hemispheres. By having a regular sensory experience in a language other than the cultural language where the baby is from, she or he may learn a second language effortlessly through love; and similarly, complex music develops the structure-oriented centers of the brain and has the potential of unlocking a key in neural-plasticity: synergy, a function of the brains fractal structure which allows us to have a more educable and flexible mind throughout life. By starting life with such an aesthetic experience, we are increasing the likelihood of neural plasticity occurring in infancy by a synergy of environmental factors—in response to an infant’s expressions of internal feeling; and by gradually increasing and diversifying the level of stimulus to coincide with the students aptitude and willingness to learn, a student may well retain that neural plasticity for their entire life, being what we would call a genius today.
Moreover, as a child grows, so too does the intensity of the stimulus they are to receive, according to what will best encourage their “flow” (Csíkszentmihályi 1996). Accordingly, at infancy the children will be stimulated by classical, as well as cultural music and eventually, geometric shapes. The means by which this stimulus is carried out may vary, but for children above the age of six or seven years of age, time tested methods could include the seven classical liberal arts: grammar, logic, rhetoric, math, geometry, music, and astronomy. And were we to refine these arts, refining these subjects with the razor's edge of what we now know about reality (i.e., physics, chemistry, psychology, ecology, and so forth) a new renaissance may be the result.
Bivium: Early Childhood Education
Starting at an average age of three years, the Bivium (early education) would constitute a gradual intensification of the stimulus regarding fractals and art. As this stage begins to intensify, learning must depend less on the environment created by parents and teachers, as the young begin to create their own environments: from an intrinsic desire to learn, and from the community itself.
As the young are exposed to fractals over the course of three years, they will begin to understand how things interconnect, simply by recognizing the patterns apparent in living systems and the cosmos. At this phantasmic, emotional stage, the young are less likely to absorb concrete information as in later stages, but their emotional and intuitive perspectives, though not post-rational, do evince a kind of innocence which resembles post-rational thinking, and it is this impulsiveness and irrationality which will fuel their art and expression at this early age. Other methods of promoting emotional intelligence, such as induction, must need be employed as well, in order to balance the intellectual forces which will inevitably surround them.
Just as the Univium has bisecting aspects in regards to the Pentivium, through adults and infants, so too the Bivium has intersecting aspects in the Trivium, Quadrivium, and Pentivium. Because all of these are gradually encountered, as their facilitated stimulus increases, they are all related to the initial core experiences which are established in the Bivium stage—lasting from three to five years old, but interacting and integral to the process of human development as a whole—but also from the perspective of a parent engaged in the Pentivium.
Parents of two-to-three year-old children need to be playing a more dominant role in modeling a good example, and less that of a an authority, because the sovereigns of the future must know no authority, nor corporal punishment; being both unnecessary, cruel and unusual in a society which is designed to cultivate discipline through self-control and self-mastery. This is by no means a way of pussifying them, so to speak; but to teach them principles of non-aggression, to guide them in ways of consciousness expansion, and create an interior environment which is constantly expanding and transcending, a parent must be less a tyrant and more of a teacher. Guided by their own intuition, the exterior environment would be altered selectively to fit the most engaging activities for the child, other than specific subjects like grammar or arithmetic. Further, to grow the child's emotional intelligence, which is of vital importance, parents in the Pentivuim will be encouraged, while performing mindfulness meditation, to allow their children to participate by watching or meditating.
Imagine that these rigid lessons are merely a means to instill the knowledge of the world, in a sense to domesticate the student, but in no way to break or stifle their curiosity; doing so, students will benefit from worldly knowledge early on, so they can learn to demystify such knowledge later on. Indeed depending upon a child's level of development and self-determination, she or he may want to simply be home schooled; and public school, fundamentally, must be a choice on the part of the parents and the students. However, the point of having free public education is to ensure universal access to knowledge.
In order to perpetuate the child's innate curiosity, however, unstructured play in nature for forty-five minutes each day for recess must be a universal characteristic of Eduliberation. Studies have shown that doing so is integral towards a child's growth and development of self-efficacy, and the book Last Child in the Woods (2005) by Richard Louv makes this point clear. (However, for more information on unstructured play in nature Google: An Investigation of Unstructured Play in Nature and its Effect on Children’s Self-Efficacy (Paul E. Starling)).
To merely play in nature each day would limit the potential of our prospective students. For that reason, several recesses throughout the day—consisting of practical but fun activities such as: art, meditation, martial arts, gardening, unstructured music, yoga, dance, and so forth--could act to replace many of the trivial activities children are put through in early age: PE, sports activities, and so on.
One might ask, how will we be able to fit all of these kinds of activities into one day? By having one primary subject per day, broken up by several recesses of this sort, we can do what the speaker has described. Further, when the students have one subject and one teacher for the entire day, their focus has not been divided and thrown about like a ragdoll as in the current paradigm; and by having several practical recesses, the children’s jovial love for life can be indulged while instilling discipline and a sense of purpose and self-confidence. This could also prepare the students for having workdays which are every other day, as we will discuss later in chapter 3.
The schema of public education goes thus: One subject for a term lasting from four to six months; that one subject starting with grammar is to be broken up by four to five recesses, including a breakfast and lunch. Students can choose their recesses at will, but be encouraged to engage in all of them over the course of the term; these recesses would include meditation, unstructured play in nature, gardening, music, art, yoga, and martial arts.
Continuity is of the greatest importance, however, so if the student chooses to continue their recess they will be given the prerogative to do so, but only in a reasonable manner (five minutes or so). If a child is acting childishly, and wants only to goof off demonstrably, they will be allowed to play in nature in order to expend that extra energy in the way that they prefer, but when they settle down they will be guided back to the classroom; but if a child is deep in meditation, or has shown an adept ability in whatever recess they are engaged in, they may be allowed to follow their flow instead of the flow of the mass. This is only right, and constitutes a dramatic shift from bureaucratic structuralism to a more balanced system of meritocratic orientation and individual sovereignty.
Additionally, it is the author’s opinion that the use of a child psychologist in this early process, for the purpose of mediation between teacher and student, would be invaluable to developing the mind of the child. In the Univium, focus was upon the brain, and now we gradually transition into developing the heart, in preparation for developing the mind during the process of the Trivium and Quadrivium.
Understand also that though childhood education is primarily focused on developing the mind, it is still constrained by the limitations of a still underdeveloped brain. It is at this stage between infancy and adolescence that the student must be engaged at all levels: physical stimulus interaction with the brain (by proper diet and exercise) and interpretive interaction with the mind (by addressing children with respect—as though they are adults—rather than disregarding them because they are not as experienced as an adult). [This is not to say that we should curse at, and expect adulthood out of, children.]
Not treating children as adults is a mistake. First, because the child will not grow to learn what being an adult means if all she or he knows is being treated as a child; without a sense of maturity, and without a sense of mutual respect a child will likely grow to be both dependent and fearful of authority figures, resulting in either pitiful attempts to rebel, or still more pitiful conformity to the majority. Also, because the child will develop without a sense of mutual respect, she or he will not likely mature as quickly as a child who has had respect, unconditional positive regard and understanding. With this practice in place, emotional intelligence is conveyed through example.
Thus alludes to a most important subject in childhood education, and that is a child’s sense of love. Some would say you cannot educate someone how to love, and that it is not possible for a teacher to make every student love them, but that is not what is being expressed here. Rather, by showing unconditional positive regard for the students, the teacher, along with a child psychologist to accompany the teacher in this journey, will act to cultivate a reciprocal response from the child, thus developing the sense of love which is so imperative in all times and in all regions of the world—for love speaks all languages.
The cultivation of love and positive regard towards others is a safeguard against moral insanity (i.e. prevents and safeguards society against psychopathy). The educational process, as a practical force, is a microcosmic representation of a macrocosmic society—that is, schools are like a little society. By reducing the overall tendency towards psychopathy in children in a microcosm, the tendency for psychopaths to dominate is equally reduced in adults in a macrocosm, the effect is a more secure society, a more happy society, and a more natural best fit to the praxis of a developing civilization.
More important than the actual subjects of the Trivium will be the three-quarters to an hour-long recesses which will make education not only easier to digest, but fun for the students to learn in general. By having practical recesses that do not resemble the more tedious subjects (such as grammar), learning can be as various and comprehensive as it can be without stress or overexertion into one single direction; in other words, we are promoting Flow, or completely focused motivation (more commonly known as being in the zone).
Having recesses that educate the students is another way to enhance the educational experience, as well as a way to employ more people in education, creating the village we were talking about earlier. Each recess facilitator will be bringing their expertise as a contributing member of the society in which they live: gardeners, chefs, martial artists, &c. In contributing to the education system, and as gardeners, chefs, and martial arts teachers , they are reciprocated for, in and of the education system by the community..
With recesses like gardening, culinary art, and martial arts, education can begin to subtly teach discipline, as well as self-control and other life skills. Other eastern practices, such as meditation, yoga, and acupuncture could easily replace many of the classes which currently serve as physical education today. However, agriculture and unstructured play in nature could improve student’s willingness to explore and appreciate the ecology and the world, and give a hands-on approach to learning, and be a resource for foodstuffs in the cafeteria. The possibilities are endless when recesses are redefined and reapplied as education.
Trivium: Childhood Education
Childhood education (average age 5-6) will begin with grammar; taught in multiple languages, one language per day--where at first students will be exposed to two languages, and gradually work their way up to three and four; this method of linguistic education uses the already existing neural plasticity of the developing brain, and its capacity for learning new languages as a tool for enhancing its success. This subject will utilize what the children have already learned subconsciously through the Univium and Bivium (essentially how to think, and not what) including but not limited to linguistics and mathematics, as a steppingstone for more involved learning as the Trivium progresses to logic and rhetoric. Having one language, and subject per day, will ensure memory consolidation through continuity. The point of this kind of education is internalization and understanding through concentrated effort by the teacher, something that can only be achieved without the time constraints of a scheduled curriculum.
By having one subject per day, the necessary time can be spent in devotion to that subject; with just one additional language to start, a constant rhythm of learning one language and then the other, and then another can begin— so we will learn something in English on Monday, then learn the same thing in Spanish on Tuesday, and return to English for a new lesson on Wednesday. By having alternating subjects every other day, we may bypass the tendency to fall into familiar routines; this will become more important as the intelligence and efficacy of the students develops. In this way, not only will students be more challenged, but they will be less bored with the subjects they are learning.
Not only will a first grade teacher observe and guide the classroom, but a child psychologist, teacher’s aides, and student aides will assist the teacher and the student to clarify points, and act as a catalyst for communication and mutual understanding in the classroom. The child psychologist’s role will also be to recognize and address the needs of children who have special needs, learning challenges, or are in the autistic spectrum.
In combination, the education of the student and the internalization of the information being taught is more effectively secured—this way—than in the traditional model of one teacher per class. Individuals in the classroom itself are more capable of determining the direction of future courses—rather than a bureaucratic, top down approach as we see today. Many teachers and textbooks on learning (for instance Motivating Students to Learn by Jere Brophy, 2010) will say that other than changing the system entirely, the way we teach is restricted, and that because optimal conditions are “difficult to establish in classrooms,” teachers should be more disposed to work with what they are given than to reinvent the wheel. Indeed, because of the limitations inherent in the current education paradigm, it is our obligation to future generations to remove the factors which limit our ability to educate effectively. With more aides, such as teacher aides (i.e. adult students learning to become a teacher), student aides (young adult students with an interest in teaching), and a community oriented environment where parents are encouraged to spend their extra time to help educate—and be educated—those old limitations of compulsory curriculum, depressing student to teacher ratios (20-1 or 30-1), public embarrassment, and finally grading systems, can be redesigned, reduced, or removed; more children will be willing to learn, and encouraged to grow along their own best path, rather than what the current, conventional society's economy wants them to be.
Grammar will be taught according to the Trivium. This lesson will be the only subject of the first grade classes; with every graduation an additional subject will be introduced. However, the first year of education in grammar will be taught multilingually as a foundation for the later study of logic, as we will discuss next.
Both logic and grammar will be taught once students are prepared, and both the psychologist and the teacher will evaluate the preparedness of each student individually, as well as make a family assessment to determine the best method of teaching. Once a student has mastered grammar they will graduate to logic. However, both subjects will alternate throughout the week in one subject per-day intervals, gradually reducing emphasis on grammar as it is mastered, and focusing on logic until it is also mastered. Once a student has mastered logic, a third subject will be added in tandem to grammar and logic.
Rhetoric will be taught in order for students to functionally express themselves to others. The art of communicating ideas, rhetoric, in this stage of education, is fundamental to the process of a student’s ability to think critically; and further, to be able to recognize logical fallacies as well as being able to decipher the world around them, both logic and rhetoric are essential. By being educated in the Trivium and Quadrivium alone the advantages are great for an individual to develop critically. And as younger generations are educated in critical thought—the better prepared they will be to encounter their world, and in proportion to how complex the world will become in the future.
Once a generation of children has been educated in the Trivium, they will reflect the values and intensity of mind which was revered in the enlightenment era, both in intelligence and virtue. However, once a child has developed past the stage of Trivium education, not only will they have matured past the trivial qualities of a map such as language, but they will have graduated from understanding and mastering the ego to understanding and mastering the other: from the fundamental to the instrumental. Adolescence is the next stage in a child’s physiological development (ages six for females and ten for males), and the beginning of a new curriculum, and a new stage of their growth as individuals, from fundamental to instrumental, their progression will be gradual but undeniable.
Quadrivium: Adolescent Education
A gradual increase of what would be an otherwise ever-present, quintessential aspect of life (geometry), will come greatly into focus through education in the Quadrivium at the age of about ten through fourteen. Improved by what we know about the universe since the Quadrivium was first created. We have an opportunity to bring this classical education schema up to date, exposing our adolescents to the razor's edge of knowledge much earlier, both through video and video games, and through hands on experience; rather than waste time, we can initiate adolescents into an understanding of the immensity and complexity of the universe at an early age.
In accordance with this advancement of vital contextual information (grammar, logic, rhetoric, math, geometry, music, astronomy), late in the Quadrivium, students will be additionally introduced to the hermetic principles: mentality, polarity, rhythm, vibration, correspondence, gender, and causality. An immense vista of contextual learning will be encountered in this four year span, but all with the gradualness and wiggle room that a level one civilization requires of its education, where individuals are recognized as sovereign. In other words, time can be taken to address the abilities and needs of every student due to a less structured and more malleable method of educating.
Towards the very end of the Quadrivium, less and less the responsibility of learning will be placed upon the student, and less and less upon the teacher. The final two terms will be the stages that acclimatize the students to this trend. However, as the intensity of the subjects increase, so too does the intensity and complexity of the recesses. The recesses of the Quadrivium would consist of the same general subjects, but in more depth and intensity: from gardening to farming to hydroponics, from art to design to architecture, from culinary art to health, from meditation to martial arts to acupuncture, from music to composition to theory, from physics to electronics to engineering; all of the prospective recesses evolve to become more practical.
It is at this point that a turning point occurs in the education of youth, namely that the primary subject becomes less “practical” or terrestrial and more conceptual and extraterrestrial; presented in such a way—the incredible beauty and immensity of the universe being exposed to them— the study of the Quadrivium and all that it implies will become their primary subject, and would take the place of the subject most anticipated, naturally because we are all born curious about the nature of reality; simultaneously, the recesses become less impractical and more practical as the students near young adulthood.
At the stage of young adulthood, from 14 through 18 years old, the students will be given free rein to study whatever interests them. Teachers, more like librarians, would act as facilitators to their learning, rather than authorities. Given the authority over their own lives that is granted to adults, a mutual respect can be developed between the student and their learning process, so that a constant desire to learn may also be developed. Without the constraints of a Prussian model, the single file framework of antiquated education can be done away with finally, leaving only the most essential element of lasting intelligence: a willingness to learn.
Once a student has been through the Quadrivium, they no longer face a structured education program, but rather face a vast world of information, all of which is placed at their fingertips. Homeschooling, but with a twist: the home is without boundary, and the schooling is entirely autodidactic. Nonetheless, centers for autodidactic learning, as well as education in technical fields such as engineering, acupuncture, architecture, hydroponics, theory and so on. The point of young adult education would be to make the student self-sufficient, capable of independence, and appreciative of what that entails.
To graduate, every student must go through three of the five subjects, where drivers education, included in engineering, is a mandatory subject for all. At least to begin with, drivers education should be taken as an important subject, but when cars become driverless, this subject shall become irrelevant. Nevertheless, while it is a relevant subject today, driver's’ education is a subject worth mentioning. As a graduation requirement, this aspect of education is integral in keeping average students involved in education: in order to get their license and drive with maturity after graduation they will have to pass from this course.
In addition to practical courses, students will be encouraged to find a particular subject of interest, and devote their time to studying that particular thing of interest. Because learning has no boundaries, and education no location in space or time, it is important to understand that, unlike formal education as we know it, where we have class at school and homework at home, the pattern may be reversed, and even done away with entirely by simply having autodidactic homework for academic information, and an edifice devoted to practical, technical information, which also comes from both the parents and the community.
As we transition from the Quadrivium to early adult education, the subject matter becomes more about creating an empowered individual on an existential, physical, objective basis, but even this is not sufficient to produce individuals possessing self-mastery. To know thy self, one must experience the world, and explore their individual consciousness. As the young adult becomes an adult, graduating from formal education into a state of becoming and intense learning, the Pentivium becomes the next holy mountain to climb.
To prepare students for the Pentivium, they will have been educated in all of the world’s religions during the latter years of the Quadrivium, and early parts of young adulthood (the age of reason). World religions and world philosophies will be exposed to them through video documentaries and reading source materials for themselves. If, for no other purpose, this practice would bring a more world-centric view of culture, and at the very best this will cultivate a sense of unity between all religions and cultures, and will ensure that the future is more peaceful, compassionate, and understanding than in our primitive past.
Asperger Syndrome and the Merits of Childhood Psychologists in the Classroom.
It has come to my attention while writing this section on education that I have not devoted enough of my attention to the comprehensive view of education, for instance the subject of special needs comes to mind. As the coming evolution of consciousness changes the narrative from selfishness to empathy, the subject of the less capable bears more relevance.
Dealing with reality means addressing the entire spectrum of human life, individually. For this reason, a flexible, tailored, individualized system of education can take shape, and with it the foundations of a level one civilization. Having child psychologists in the classroom increases the potency of the abilities of the teacher, teacher's aides, and student aides, to educe the innate talents and abilities of individual students, and recognize special needs students early on (above or below average or on the autistic spectrum, along with other “disorders” which characterize modern civilization).
A more intense first language program would naturally be applied to those on the autistic spectrum in the early years—and emphasis on that language resurfacing as needed. The goal of language education for special needs students must naturally be a more gradual and consistent program as compared to the average neurotypical student’s curriculum. Nonetheless an intensive and gradual increase in the complexity of the stimulus is essential for neural plasticity and connectivity, even promoting what science has called neurogenesis (Ming and Song, 2011).
By separating other needs children from the average students during their primary lesson, but allowing them to participate in the recesses, ensures that they will get attention though not at the expense of the lesson, while also socializing them and preparing them for the real world. Doing so also allows the average neurotypical students to have time to interact with the more fragile minded children, allowing them an unstructured place to interact and bond.
As we have stated above, focusing on discipline early allows us to educate without a rigid curriculum, the education of children and adolescence can be individualized, tailored to their every need, rather than their need conforming to the will of the crowd, or the authority of the teacher. Too many lives have been impeded by this very fact than we would ever admit. Without authoritarianism, culture and community flourish, just as without bureaucracy and paperwork happiness and the desire for liberty increases. Education, without a rigid curriculum based on an academic speculation, is better for everyone, whereas school, with its rigid curriculum based on flawed science, corrupted by an economic agenda, has produced worlds of poverty, and a universe of ignorance.
Replacing the rigid authority of the teacher with a council of wise individuals produces a sense of equality, friendship, and reveals the skills of conflict resolution, innately—just by observing these skills in adults in the room, students will, perhaps unconsciously, recognize and apply them. By being disciplined from an early age and encouraging the students to speak their mind while respecting the time to speak and when not to speak, an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect can grow into legitimate relationships of authentic purpose. Moreover, this may enhance the ability to socialize children with Asperger Syndrome, especially when a child psychologist, or other psychologist is there to mediate and aid in the process.
To aid in this process, the children of like mind will have been differentiated and educated in a cohort style since early childhood, normalizing them to abnormal consciousness gives the necessary experience to recognize mental divergence or cognitive deficiency, increasing the boundaries of one's own self-identification and worldly understanding. However, by adolescence their talents and abilities will have been differentiated to the point where their teachers would be of varying importance to their learning from dependent to semi-dependent to independent. However, students with Asperger Syndrome (AS), and those on the autistic spectrum—or those with so called learning disabilities—would be in their own way differentiated on a spectrum of stimulus and socialization, with their primary focus being on boosting the neural plasticity, and practical life functionality of the individual: again, depending upon the severity and particularities which have differentiated them along a spectrum that is being formulated as we speak by countless professionals, all thanks to the antiquated Prussian model.
Nonetheless, the motivation to live and evolve impels us toward a brighter future: a more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. To not be content with things as they are, and to move forwards into the darkness of the unknown, to step out into the world of becoming and be sacrificed upon the altar of experimentation and intuition, to test the fates and transform from a measly worm into a butterfly! This we can accomplish, and greater things: the products of a level one civilization; with all life cherished and cultivated with the most and best means possible of educating them, no thing is impossible, including lifting the symptoms of AS, making the lives of those with autism as stimulating as possible, yet as relaxing as possible.
To turn the disability into ability, we must first address the immediate culture of our minds, and process the fact that we are destroying life itself, we are killing ourselves in an indirect way when we allow psychopathic behavior to go unnoticed or just not addressing it, which is the same thing as being guilty of the crime yourself. For this reason, child psychologists in the classroom are also important for not only the classroom, but for society. The point would not be to punish the more psychopathic children, but to give them the appropriate therapy or alternative living environments they need to become sane again. The same would apply to children with mental disorders and mental illness: they would receive special care, and be put into environments that are therapeutic. A more tailored and case specific regimen makes sense for a smaller cohort of children in all cases. No less human, and therefore no less important in the planetary context, the treatment and integration of these children into the various practical recesses could be essential to their emotional and social growth.
Young Adult Education
Having graduated from the Quadrivium, and thus imparted with a general understanding of the world around them, students become more and more trusted to educate themselves, and to study what most holds their interest, the gradual trend of responsibility to learn will have shifted from the teacher to the student; until the young adult is his or her own teacher, and rather than having full (seven hour) days of school, their time is cut in half. Rather than practical recesses, their activities outside of academic study are shifted also, towards more technical subjects as we describe below.
By the time the students reach young adulthood, they will be given courses on architecture, hydroponics, electricity, plumbing, carpentry, and mechanics (really whatever the people decide is most practical). The purpose of these courses, being to instill self-sufficiency and independence, the graduating requirement of all students will be to pass their drivers course (assuming that people are still driving at this time), which will act as a certificate of their graduation. However, graduating and getting a driver’s license is not the same as requesting and earning citizenship (as we will discuss in the final chapter).
Young adults will also be given opportunities to teach the younger generations as student teachers, to serve their community with fellow students, and receive introductory experiences to being participants in their society in various ways: political, environmental, economic, and spiritual.
The purpose of this kind of education has not been to ensure that those coming out of it are functional workers, but rather as beneficial members of a community and society—functional workers are a pleasant side effect, but are not the foundational goal.
[An experiment of this kind cannot come without some degree of controversy. However, given the track record of the current public education paradigm, we are not going to get any improvements from it any time soon. Let us remember Einstein’s famous quote that, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Therefore, given the current failure of our education, as a system despite the efforts of individuals, we must reinvent the wheel of our mind, and think in brand new ways to solve the problems that our world faces.]
Pentivium: Adult Education
Indeed, the next step in changing our way of thinking is with regards to adult education. Once one has reached adulthood, and requested and earned citizenship, they may desire to enter into a free adult education academy called the Pentivium. The Pentivium, as you may already glean from the name, is composed of five subjects, which complement the subjects of the Trivium and Quadrivium of the classical liberal arts. It will please the reader that all of these subjects are plant and or consciousness oriented, rooted in fractal equality—a concept used by the author to describe the balance inherent in natural inequalities, which give rise to the beauty inherent in all varieties.
Separate from college, this program does not include specific subjects or compartmentalized views, but rather depends upon the community, and would act as a community-building forum in places like the city and suburb. The academy facility may be old malls, repurposed, and would be a perfect fit for green revolutions everywhere. How poignant, you might be thinking, how ironic, that the infrastructure that once perpetuated the consumerist, materialist view, now should be the edifice for its ultimate destruction, and the vector for a new, green paradigm.
The Pentivium starts with purification. Through meditation and medicinal therapy and study, the neophyte explores their own individuated consciousness, and dispels the illusory boundaries within themselves. (By medicine the author means plants, not synthetic chemicals, though the choice to do or not do any of that is the individuals; and while not entirely necessary, the process of purification can take substantially longer without the aid of our plant brethren.) What studies from prestigious colleges have shown, is that mystical or transpersonal experiences are possible with pharmacological tools, which have been shown to create authentic spiritual experiences. Tools, chemicals found in plants, today are considered dangerous “drugs”, rather than potential keys to their own self-discovery.
The purification process will also go hand in hand with the local organic economy, in which the participants have access to locally grown organic food, which they themselves have cultivated. Using re-purposed malls as the space, people could transform their landscape as a practitioner of the Pentivium. A full spectrum purification can then take place, therefore, in which diet and exercise are aiding aspects of the mental and spiritual purification. Mental and physical, diet and exercise, acting synergistically to magnify the process of self-mastery, a full spectrum of deconditioning can take place—in which the attempts of the world to bog one down with nonsense and false notions of who we are may be loosened enough to leave room for a more rational, caring, and self-empowered individual.
As we progress, the purification process takes place within the individual; their mind has expanded to be open to new ideas; without fear, ego, or formal belief systems the individual can now be introduced to esoteric concepts, which will further aid their endless process of purification. We may call this a consolidation, because it is an act of collecting one’s thoughts, and a re-examination of one’s reality according to occult—or what were previously hidden—texts, and what could be considered a divine (experiential) study of the sacred.
This could be anything from reading ancient texts, or modern texts devoted to their analysis, meditating on natural forms, to spending time in an isolation tank, even skydiving, depending upon the person’s temperament and general character—all of these may be applicable, or none of them. Everyone has different definitions of the profound, but that is exactly what one is seeking in this stage of the Pentivium. (Nonetheless, it is vitally important to read non-fiction, to study beyond history and the mainstream. When we do this, suddenly a can of worms the size of planet money explodes, taking with it the prohibition of spirituality and sanity vs satanism (ego worship).)
The third stage could be considered a form of exertion. Exertion can be explained in two ways, both in the process of sharing with others what she or he has learned, the neophyte has the opportunity to exert their learned knowledge; but exertion can also be expressed in learning the practice of self-healing—a practice of thought alteration is key to what the author calls “magik,” but really there is nothing magical or unrealistic about what quantum physics calls quantum entanglement. By practicing intent, critical thought control, and using the tools expressed in the previous stages of the Pentivium, the neophyte can begin to change their reality by changing their thoughts, perspectives and choices. At this stage, each of those involved may begin to have a positive, demonstrable effect on the planetary organism's healing process.
Sexuality will also play a pivotal role in certain neophyte's exertion of their spiritual path through connection and deepening love. In this process, the neophytes may decide to make love, and in so doing create a life. This, then, is the stage in which the Pentivium connects back to the Univium. The Univium is an aesthetic, to which the exertion stage necessarily has a direct connection, because not only will the neophytes be responsible for creating an environment that is conducive to the healthy growth of the infant, body and mind, but also of the proper inner environment of their own body in order to promote proper epigenetic conditions for future generations. Today it must be recognized that we are born swimming in a chemical bath, and this has epigenetic consequences for our future generations; if we are to solve this problem, it first must be recognized and mended accordingly.
At this stage, parents may also seek to have a direct, participatory role in their child's education, and they will be encouraged to do so: The education facilities in our alternative paradigm will not be exclusive and centralized as they are today, and because the working day of most people will be significantly shortened, the available time to spend involved at the education facility will be expanded, and parents will be justly compensated for this contribution as well. One step closer to homeostasis and conscious evolution, we continue to the next stage.
Through experiencing exertion, at the fourth stage of the Pentivium one comes into one’s self, and begins to exhibit a union in their body, mind, and spirit. This union, coming into balance, represents a state of mastery. Few who enter the Pentivium will reach this stage of mastery, but the benefits of such an evolution are greater than the bliss of ignorance, and the imbalanced disharmony, confusion, and chaos that otherwise plague human existence. This mastery will only further aid the neophyte in their relationship to others, their chosen field of collegiate study (assuming they go to college), and their overall appreciation of the world at large.
To become a master of one’s realm represents a total shift in personal ownership and responsibility. However, as we proceed, the fifth and final stage of the Pentivium is simply play. At this stage, one’s development has reached a nexus point, from the domestication of the Trivium and Quadrivium to complete freedom as an experienced adult—completely capable of virtually anything they put themselves to. The student has reached a point of knowledge and understanding for mastery of his or her realm: Purification, consolidation, exertion, union and balance have resulted in the transformation of the individual from a person with an ego to a character with a connection to the Cosmos. All that is left for them is to carry on, searching out complex experiences which create the flow state, a state in which the exhilaration of taking on tasks that require complex skills, stretching them in new directions, and recognizing and mastering new challenges is its own reward. According to Csikszentmihalyi, “Every human being has this creative urge as his or her birthright.” (The Evolving Self, pg. 175)
The reason the author has chosen to use the term play for this final stage is because of the inherent openness and fresh experimental curiosity engendered by the nested processes of the Pentivium, Quadrivium, Trivium, Bivium, and Univium. In combination these liberal arts have the potential to emancipate humanity from the survival mode, which has restrained it, into becoming the new center of human activity; in addition, any time we change education, we are developing an altogether new culture. More and more as automation replaces human labor; forms of deep play (self-empowerment and enlightenment), as in the Pentivium (a balance between consolidation and exertion), the rhythm of life becomes just as important as hard work to individual happiness. Further, when the education system employs farmers, and utilizes the land with economy (conservation and thrift) the fallacy of scarcity (one of the big myths of our time) can finally be lifted.
Widening the scope of education beyond the boundaries of the schoolhouse, the true schoolhouse must come to be the world, our true family the world also; only then can our species evolve past its arbitrary limitations, and come to inherit its divine role as co-creators with the sacred source—in other words, applying consciousness to the process of evolution. Indeed, only by having this implied trust through reciprocation can we evolve past the money paradigm, and act synergistically as a global consciousness to create what the author calls a planetary organism. This, and not the United Nations, is the solution to global warming, the poverty rampant in a depreciated world, and dictatorial governments bent on our indoctrination.
The fundamental purpose of the final stage, and the underlying importance of the liberal arts is causation and flow. Being our own first cause, we can liberate ourselves from our genes, our culture, and finally our selves; rather than being someone else's puppet to be caused upon and witnessing and bearing responsibility only to the apparent effects in our life; you are now at the helm of your own destiny, and truly capable of making your own decisions! This is not like in Scientology, where the cost of enlightenment is mental health and a depleted bank account; first, because it does not cost anything, and second because there is a point where you can achieve actual self-mastery through real effort, and actual expansion of consciousness through the action of non-action. The state of self-mastery is an easily verifiable stage of awareness which merely takes a dialogue with a self-mastered individual (or Guru) to test for. Nonetheless, we can see how causation and flow have vital importance to the evolution of the human species, as both of these challenge the individual into seeking more complex experiences, and “deeper” states and stages of consciousness.
The “great art of living” that the author has described may not be for everyone, but that can be said about enlightenment in general. Nonetheless, this program, and its potential to create community and enlightenment should be pondered and considered—before our materialistic, bread and circuses, beer and football culture retards and regresses into confusion and ignorance, making the vast majority of us entranced, under absolute tyranny, while dragging the rest of us along with them. (Some may think it is already too late, but that is flat wrong given the revolutionary spirit happening right now.)
Closing
To improve our standards of education, first we must examine the past and recognize what methods, standards, and practices actually worked, and thus we can start to develop a new education paradigm for the future, one that will water the seeds of enlightenment. Indeed, with the great advancements of technology our advancement of wisdom has been stunted, and though using the methods of ancient Greece may seem backwards, it is in reality the current model of education that is retarding us all, and has been gradually for the past hundred years. So for us to move forward, we have to recognize that these tools (the Trivium and Quadrivium) were withheld from the public, not for their betterment, but in order to better control them.
Your ignorance is the bliss of more fortunate men; for their interest is your ignorance: their bliss is indulged on your back. Your bliss, your authentic bliss, is to play life, to play the role of an original character in the world, to be a hero, and to be loved, connected to, to be challenged, and to be complex. These moments cannot come about in this world as it is. All one can get out of this life, in the world as it is, is strife, because they have not been taught how to access their more quintessential aspects: shadow, consciousness, ego, id, unconsciousness, and flow.
By focusing, not just on the students, but also on the education of the parents, and integration of them into the education paradigm, as we will discuss in the following chapter on economics, a far more evolved education, one rooted in society, in relationships, rather than statistics—rooted in the territory, rather than the map. A self-adjusting feedback loop between student and teacher-staff corresponds to the innately fractal structure of learning—similar to that of the brain—and, therefore, thought. The implications are that once this kind of education begins, it actually begins the life of a new culture, planting the seeds for a new civilization.
What is important to know about this process is that each stage transcends and includes the previous stage or stages. The Univium, being an aesthetic, characteristic of complexity, and the Bivium being an expansion of imagination within the previously created environment, are simply extensions of the mind, and aesthetics are a device into the mind; what follows (both the Trivium and Quadrivium) are integral disciplines that ultimately flow into the ability of the neophyte to evolve through flow as they set and pursue new goals and challenges. Such a transformation of the education meme requires a critical mass of human psychic energy being focused from all over the (world) cosmos—to converge and begin the process of installing their more perfect model. Therefore, before the critical mass has taken place, not only should there be a design for organizing the new consciousness, but a way to ensure that such a stage of development may be maintained and further developed in perpetuity—preventing or reversing entropy.
The Hexivium is the six step process of liberation (see Table 2. pg. 210 ), which we will discuss in the final chapter, but for now it will suffice to say that one must have been through the Pentivium, or at least be in the third stage, balance or mastery in the stage of exertion, in order to participate in the Hexivium. This key, which ties this entire book together, is worth reading through to the end of the book to find out about, because this book itself is a product of the Pentivium, but only hints at the potential of the reader to create their own Hexivium! In the meantime, when we are not reading or gardening or selling our soul, we should be giving these ideas life, by practicing the Trivium and Quadrivium, both as individuals and as an education system, the Pentivium, as well as the Univium and Bivium, in the process of homeschooling and/or group/community schooling of our children. Lets face it, our government is not here to provide us with useful, liberating, or empowering education.
The purpose of this one’s education is to unlock and develop the hidden potential of the human brain, mind, and ultimately spirit, especially those with special needs and handicaps. It can be said that a society is only as good as how it treats its least fortunate and least able, and what it does to help elevate those people instead of treating them as a burden, seeing them as an opportunity for change instead of a limitation on “progress”. Thus the great way of life and living: the univium, bivium, trivium, quadrivium, pentivium, hexivium, are original understanding: natural principles of the brain, the mind, the spirit, and society, and work irrespective of the designs that genes or memes have created.
As we will see in the next chapter, the implications of adult education spill over into the economy and vice versa. As thought-changing consciousness is drawn towards the interior and less upon the surface, a completely new culture starts to emerge, a culture we have seen glimpses of in the past: a world-centric culture which continues to impel itself into the realm of reality. This new culture is rooted in the emotions, but can be allowed to flourish in its intellect without fear or ego; entertaining without accepting the ideas taught in a bygone era, nor the selfishness and obfuscation of a powerful elite.
Anything but a fractal, holistic, synergistic, and empathic approach to this human endeavor shall prove to be futile. Therefore, as we proceed, it must be recognized that the author has been describing an altogether unrecognizable approach to human organization, but this unfamiliar form is made indurate by the pervious flow and flexibility of a growing, infinite consciousness, and spirit of evolution.
11
Economy
ECON'OMY, noun [Latin oeconomia; Gr. house, and law, rule.]
1. Primarily, the management, regulation and government of a family or the concerns of a household.
2. The management of pecuniary concerns or the expenditure of money. Hence,
3. A frugal and judicious use of money; that management which expends money to advantage, and incurs no waste; frugality in the necessary expenditure of money. It differs from parsimony, which implies an improper saving of expense. economy includes also a prudent management of all the means by which property is saved or accumulated; a judicious application of time, of labor, and of the instruments of labor.
4. The disposition or arrangement of any work; as the economy of a poem.
5. A system of rules, regulations, rites and ceremonies; as the Jewish economy
6. The regular operation of nature in the generation, nutrition and preservation of animals or plants; as animal economy; vegetable economy
7. Distribution or due order of things.
8. Judicious and frugal management of public affairs; as political economy
9. System of management; general regulation and disposition of the affairs of a state or nation, or of any department of government.
(Webster’s Dictionary - 1828, Online Edition)
Introduction
In this chapter we will briefly go over the problems inherent in our perspective of economy, and their respective solutions. Many of our problems in economics stem from the realm of our cultural ideology, and individual psychology (meaning that literally no infrastructural change is necessary), and for that reason the author will attempt to describe a more perfect organization to individual and collective human will than the present corporate, capitalist model. First we will describe the present model, and all of its foibles and folly. We will also be merging the topic of politics and government with economics because they have become so intertwined over decades and centuries. Then, we will go into detail about the author’s vision of an alternative economic premise, which he has chosen to call Cloud Economics: his answer to digital currency and globalism.
Work and Play
“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
― R. Buckminster Fuller
WHY is it that humans are expected to pay to live on planet earth? Is it a lack of trust? When the present author graduated from high school, it was 2007, the beginning of the great recession. The blame for this economic catastrophe has been placed upon the people by the banks, and the banks by the people, creating an air of distrust between both parties and cleaving the population into two primary conflicting factions of ideology ever since, but who or what is the real culprit behind the scenes?
The Federal Reserve system, since it was secretly created on Jekyll Island in 1913, and further passed in a vacant Congress on December 25, 1913, this banking cartel system, designed by bankers (namely Warburg, Morgan, Rockefeller, and Rothschild) for the international banks, has done little to prevent or assuage economic crisis; in fact the 'FED' has done much to create or promote both economic and political instability (War), and whether it's deliberate or not it is a paradigm that has served its purpose in growing the economy (Globalizing the World + Profit) but has consistently failed to do what it has been reportedly designed to do: to create monetary stability (safe money). (And though it has created functional currency, it is not rare, or dear, and it is not complex, meaning that each, being different, is yet one currency. Only humanity can be its own complex currency, and that is beautiful by my definition.)
Moreover, such conventions as a central banks and a holy stock market are relatively recent creations of the past 200 years, but they are not novel, they are effectively a new religion, a new empire. On the other hand, humans, before such tyrannical conventions, were responsible for stewarding the land in common, with a common bond of agreed upon spiritual and ethical rules. Perhaps it is time to create a better, more integrated model—one which uses modern technology to better life, and ancient principles to guide humanity towards healing the planet of the past human mistakes.
Today, money is our god: television is our preacher; the bank is our church; the mall, and now the Internet, is our cathedral; video games are our vicarious life we take on because we have none ourselves but the jobs we hate; currency is the cross, the symbol of our faith, and shopping is the religious practice that puts us in our place. We have faith in money before we have faith in humanity; we have faith in money before we have faith in ourselves. Money has the power to turn a coward into a lion, but it cannot turn a morally insane society into a sane one; in fact, the evidence has shown that the opposite is the case: money has the unique power to corrupt people; it is a quality in money that is commonly accepted, hence the maxim: “The love of money is the root of all evil”. However, what is more corrupting than money? Power! For power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It stands to reason then, that those with the most money are also the most likely to be morally corrupt, because with money comes power. This is not to say that all rich people are corrupt, evil, or psychopathic, but that there are in fact corrupt, evil, and psychopathic people with immense wealth; and that wealth does nothing to therapeutically save their moral sanity, if anything mountains of money can do much towards ruining someone's sanity and happiness—absolutely instrumental in destroying the lives of others.
Moreover, when people are being honest and frank, they are willing to admit that the bureaucracy of our society makes no sense, leaving most people scratching their heads thinking,”'the richer people get the dumber they seem to be.” This common sense is based on a premise of, first, it’s rooted in a lack of apparent options for viable alternatives. However, this worldview is driven, principally by the very systems of cultural education and indoctrination which benefit from the working man and woman being ignorant of their own slavery to a debt-based money system which uses interest as a means of locking their lives into a machine they have no awareness of. The ultimate result is a naiveté about the solutions to the world's problems, and a fixed perspective of “gotta do what they tell me.” (NPC Mentality)
When money, or rather when the concentration of people who have immense amounts of money, has reached its zenith, it and they begin to control the levers of power in government. In effect, money is its own meme, carrying with it the temptation of greed and progress traps. The more government bureaucracy gets involved in human life, the less work can seem like play because of an imposed sense of obligation. The more that there is a central authority, the less one has a sense of authority over their own life. The more centralized production and government becomes, the less sovereign the individual becomes over their own life. To bring humanity to the door of its own emancipation, a transformation of its first premises of its forms of economy and polity must take place, in which people are more connected with one another on a more differentiated yet integrated level than is currently in place.
Today, just as in recent-centuries-past, imperialism, in the form of centers of capital, controls and dominates the economies of the world—limiting the development of those worlds (the third world), and restricting access to vital resources from other developing nations. In this way, centers of imperialist capital have reigned since the first (and increasingly with the second and now burgeoning third) industrial\informational revolutions.
With every succeeding revolution in technology, a tighter and tighter network of “good old boys” seem to be in possession of the global market. This makes absolute sense, however, because it was their ilk who first recognized the market concept in the first place, and who have proceeded to lead in the economic tradition for the past centuries. It is, therefore, no surprise that such a network would be in a position of dominance as the “top of the pyramid” scheme suggests.
At this point the reader may be asking how or why such a widespread conspiracy would exist. And to answer that question the author will respond with this: it has always been the standard practice throughout history for those in power and authority, once they have found themselves there, to limit the freedom of the people under them. This has most notably been exemplified in the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo, and discussed in his book The Lucifer Effect (which we will discuss at length in chapter 12). What it says is that when you put people into positions of authority, and you give them carte blanche, you create monsters (see page 170).
In order to effectively address this important problem, we must first examine the systemic imbalances inherent in the first premises of our society, particularly in the form of corporations, governments, government agencies, legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government, media outlets, law enforcement, and so forth. We have given immense power to these institutions which supposedly represent us, just as ancient people surrendered and consolidated their sovereignty into a God King in Sumer, Egypt, China, and South America. And though these institutions may yield to our will on small issues, ultimately it is not in the interest of the government to create happiness or liberty, its purpose is to ensure law and justice according to a set of benefactors alterior to the entirety of the society to which the constitution, a social contract, belongs and is designed to protect. Since wealthy interests have taken over the government our laws and justice have skewed in favor of the will of consolidated wealth over the will of the common People; we now have an unelected and unaccountable oligarchy, a plutocracy, and it is at this point in history when we must become participants in changing our forms, not only of economy, but of government as well.
Rather than integrating all the things that make us human, we have chosen to focus upon the physical, material aspects. For this reason the science and health fields have effectively become the drug dealers of society; but from the point of view of real, authentic health, not only drugs can affect the metabolism. The truth is that internal aspects of the human being, the cause rather than the symptoms, have a much greater importance than the exterior factors.
Drinking the koolaid of the modern premise of materialism, we see the human being as solely a robot made of electric meat, but the reality is that the human being has far more aspects to it than the purely superficial flatland of modern science and reductionism. However, what this comes down to is personal responsibility. In truth, legitimate suffering cannot be solved with more dissociation from reality through the religion that money provides or science and psychology admonish; the only solution is to grasp reality from its roots, and perceive reality from a place of rational and receptive critical thinking. What can we do to the medical field to make drugs a true last resort, what can we do to our culture to prevent disorder instead of witlessly treating symptoms?
Changing our economic premises (as we will discuss below), a true transformation in social norms, and the personal involvement in our own health, happiness, and healing can take place without conflict. The more stressful our lives are, the less healthy and conscious we are. Health, both mental and physical, is fundamental to human endeavor, to both economy and the ecology; and for us to move from the sick care system to the balanced diet and exercise practice of eastern principles and western science, requires us to recognize the inherent benefits of preventative medicine and positive psychology.
Simply recognizing the importance of nature, and of the inherent nature of our bodies, as well as how better to relax during the day, and sleep during the night, eating well, and exercising often, we can see a new system start to take shape which has all of modern technology for when people need it, but also the needed perspective to treat chronic issues with education and detoxification. Rather than treating symptoms of a synthetic world, lets come into a place of creation with more vitality and permaculture, an organic world aided by synthetics. The good news is that a renaissance is happening as we speak. We all realize that the old ship is sinking, and there are those of us that have started creating something new, we're just waiting for the other foot to drop.
To anyone believing in the economic progress of the previous century, and of our current century, the author would simply ask how poverty, on a global scale, exists as it does—and that being so despite the available resources, both private, industrial and social being available, as well as logistical arguments being in no short supply? The only rational conclusion is that tactics of artificial control and scarcity have put people in a state of fear, in survival mode and distrust, and have caused them to flee from their initial problem—which is this world, how it operates and immediately impacts their life. Because people are acting out of fear they are not capable of rational, let alone trans-rational thinking (thinking that is both rational and intuitive or subtle). Their consciousness suppressed, the average person is literally the equivalent of a child or something to anyone with dignity (conscious will/original character). However, to the elite, these people are called the unborn, golems, or zombies.
Rather than valuing money, a new paradigm must root its value, its wealth, its economy in education of the whole society and ecology of the whole earth, not in the pursuit of money, but of the real benefits of cultivating the land and developing technology. It is a sick and cruel game, money, it brings us close, only to stab one another in the back; it convinces us that life's only worth living when money and riches surround us, when in actuality it is only when we are free from the worry of money that we can be happy. When a society and its culture are rooted in money, all characters but a few are subjected to NPC status; those non-playable characters will lose their individual identity, or it will never come into being, thinking all life can amount to is a job.
What is money if not hours spent doing something that someone else wants you to do? What is money if not energy spent in service to another? What is guiding this energy if not human will? Further, what gives money its value? and what makes a one hundred dollar bill more valuable than a one dollar bill? Other than our faith and will to agree that it does, there is nothing making a one dollar bill less valuable than a hundo. The truth is that, counter to public opinion, nothing but a cloud of human will and trust is keeping the entire economy afloat, and that cloud is all that we need. Money is nothing more than the result of centuries of conspiracy and contrivance to control and harness, as well as parasite off of the will and energy of human beings.
Play is integral to life. What we value needs to change. We value extrinsic things: money, status, and image, but what will make us happy is relationships, self-mastery, and being a part of something greater. That being said, work and play have been disassociated to the point that life has been turned into slavery to a job rather than mastery of one's realm. Recognizing the purpose of life unlocks the ability of all human beings to access deeper layers of experience, love, and truth.
Knowledge is wealth, it is the hidden treasure which no one can take away once it has been earned, and which one can give away infinitely without subtracting its value; in truth, by spreading knowledge we are actually increasing the real wealth of our world.
Progress and Poverty
If we view progress as expansion and growth, rather than enhancement and transcendence, the inevitable result for the planet is something much more like cancer, on a planetary scale, than stem cells. True progress can be seen in nature through evolution, and while we have expanded and enhanced our technology, the technology of our minds has been left to atrophy under the causal pressures of modernity. Below we will discuss the parameters of real progress, while also addressing the underlying cause of poverty.
Economics, the way we name and value our world, and how we then organize our lives in accordance with the resulting psychology, has evolved, from barter, when it was not possible to have some kind of consistent currency, to more civilized times with the invention of money, which was a manifestation of the first Tyrant Kings of the fertile crescent in Sumer and Babylon. Today, money is simply debt, it is backed by nothing, it operates mostly in digital form, and has nothing but faith to perpetuate it; money today is nothing more than a house of cards elegantly organized on the backs of slaves.
All governments are not created equal; all economies (when we are looking at them from a non-integrative perspective) are not equal (because we are not viewing them as one phenomena). There is really only one economy, the planetary organism, of which we are microscopic, fractal representations of; for we are its cells. In accordance with this elegant truth, understanding the evolution of cells is important to understanding the destiny of humanity: at a certain point, the first eukaryotic cells grouped together and created the first multicellular organism, this was a quantum leap in evolution, one of many, and it is this same kind of quantum leap which the author is articulating with the concept of a planetary organism. Basing our economy on the economy of the body, with a reciprocal method of exchange, we can find a new culture based on love and appreciation, rather than debt and war.
The author calls this a cloud economy. Its shape is fractal, based on supply and demand within a given area, region, or continent. Resources are shared and allocated by public councils in a participatory, reciprocal economy, or parecon-style system. Balanced by a council-based government, a cloud or trust economy is set within minarchy by any standard of modern/conventional/formal government. Rather than being represented by elite oligarchs that constitute a shadow government, and career politicians that constitute our government and merely carry out its residual feudalistic practices. To heal this wound we must become our own legislators, we must amend, and then abolished whatever forms of government that fail to secure us and our property, or do us harm. However, there are some fundamental changes to our economics we need to make to afford, let alone a more direct democratic process we need to maintain in order to actualize the authors hypothesis (but we'll save that topic for the next chapter, for now it should suffice to say that, while we may think we live in a democratic society, nothing could be further from the truth).
In order to make this ideal into a reality, first an economic democracy must take place, in which the visions of Thomas Paine, Henry George, and the Institute for Economic Democracy's J. W. Smith may finally come to fruition. Economic democracy, however, is merely a stepping stone towards eliminating poverty; eventually the goal must be creating a cloud or trust economy, and transforming our human landscape to be in accordance with natural human psychology, holism, and planetary homeostasis.
Imagine only having two taxes, those on land values, and those on market speculation. This would strangle the economic elites, the multinational corporations, and the entire false economy as a whole; it would create massive unrest in governments and corporations all around the world, but this would be the death before the rebirth into a far more simple and effective economic model; compelling them into submission with an alternative economic premise which makes bankers and the money centers of the world irrelevant, a true evolution can take place for all life on earth and planet earth herself.
The cloud economy is neither barter, nor Bitcoin, but a combination of the two, rather than the water economy of maritime admiralty law, originating in Rome, and rather than free trade, a polite pirate that plunders by trade from Britain, and especially rather than neoliberal plunder-by-trade policies of debt and exploitation of natural resources through globalism; a cloud economy is rooted in receptivity and trust in human will. Rather than a numerical value, all benefit that can be recorded is recorded upon request, and all that is recorded earns a percentage; this percentage, at minimum 1% all are granted necessities through an aforementioned basic income: food, clothing, shelter, etc; once maximized at 100% (a figure relative to the individual's willingness to participate and their desired range of comfortability), can be used to purchase items; items consist of anything that is not a necessity. Necessities are food, water, clothing, shelter, information, communication, and medical care. Items are luxury goods: furniture, advanced technology, personalized things, a private car, etc. However, when one wants to create a business, invent a thing, or anything that one would usually go to a bank to seek a loan for, they would instead go to the local resource council, and give a description, or show an example of the very thing they wish to create. Once an invention is approved and documented, it is publicly available and sharable, with a small percentage of those publicly generated benefits going to the original inventor.
As we age, our overall ability to contribute fluctuates. To account for this, each individual will have levels, which they can graduate to by gaining experience through benefiting society (in effect achieving a measure of reputation). When age begins to take its toll in the latter years, the experience levels which one had attained in their youth will affect their ultimate place of retirement. No one will be sent to a prison camp for being old, but the standards of living may be differentiated based on individual contributions to the planetary organism in a meritocratic fashion; guided by councils which have been randomly selected, humans and emerging markets, rather than governments and corporations acting in a stagnant stock market, can guide the standards of living and access to those standards far better than the ancient status quo. In this way, we can move forward, beyond materialism and paternalistic concepts of power and profit, to something more egalitarian.
It is the characteristic of modern civilization to secure its people in their property. Ever since John Locke wrote his opus on the subject of civil government, this concept of government and property have been intertwined. Locke made clear the importance of the connection between property and government because of man’s innate state of nature, which makes him both judge and executioner of his own laws. According to Locke and most political scholars, it is by constituting a commonwealth or government that a person can be safe in their property and person from those who, in the state of nature, might seek to take what they have, or harm them in body or in mind. In this book we use the term nature differently than Locke, both to represent the positivity of chaos in relation to human systems and to address the innate quality of sovereignty that every human being is granted from birth, which Locke agrees is true in his treatise. The fact that we are all sovereigns means quite a bit of chaos, but with that chaos comes great possibilities.
Property rights, being an important issue, then comes into play in our new paradigm through simple natural rights principles: you own land or capital if you have made improvements to it, and you own a residence if you have resided in that place for a period of time, and made improvements to the structure (moving in furniture, altering the interior/exterior, etc.), all of which could be determined by local policy by the community directly involved.
For various reasons, one might also want to own a private vehicle, and if they so choose they should not be excluded from that more expensive option, but vehicles could very well be socialized as well, allowing for a coalescence of both public and private transportation. Not only would socializing cars make more sense logistically, it would take immense amounts of stress and complication out of the experience of driving; and when that opportunity, created by access, can also avail you the extra opportunity to serve and benefit your community, an added benefit comes in the form of a more fluid and liberated society.
Socializing cars would be a huge step forward in preventing pollution, traffic congestion, drunk drivers, and reducing the time and effort that goes into maintaining roads to mention a few benefits; socializing cars, in combination with Fuel Flex, Tesla, or biofuel technology, rather than sticking with petrol and business as usual, could finally end the resource monopoly of OPEC, and the big oil companies which stand at the threshold of innovation, and prevent good progress while selling us the badly designed crap.
Not only would socializing cars be of benefit to cities, but in the short term it would be of benefit to the suburb. For one thing, the inefficiency of everyone owning a car and using that car for one person when it fits five, and for that one person to have to pay for that car for it to be in disuse for twenty hours of the day on average, seems insane from any reasonable perspective. For this reason, socializing cars, and organizing carpools would make the suburb a less inefficient, and less alienated structure of a commonwealth than we see through privatization.
Socializing cars, just as some cities have done with bikes, and making public transport a higher priority than private transportation, puts less stress on the person for maintaining the vehicle and paying off loans, but more importantly it changes the character of our urban landscape, and the propensity for grand theft auto, or any number of heinous crimes. By socializing vehicular travel, we loosen up the need for wider roads, because more people will car pool; we can reduce the size of parking lots because of an overall reduction in the number of cars in disuse. The excess space provided by socializing cars can be spent producing food, establishing community bonds, and extending empathic boundaries.
When cities go from being heavily traffic ridden by cars and congested with toxic residue spewing from their tail pipes, to places where bikes and foot travel are complemented by underground rail systems, the result would be cleaner air and more safe environments; the opportunity for local and community gardening projects can and will take up the majority of that once crippled landscape, changing it from one of scarcity and alienation to one of abundance and interaction. In more rural areas, however, private ownership makes sense, to a degree, mostly regarding utility, and people in those places and situations would not be excluded from legal ownership of their truck or other vehicular transport, but in equal measure those people should not be excluded from access to the benefits of socialized access to transportation. Therefore, what the speaker is proposing is both and, not either or with regards to socialization in general.
A frequent question that is asked is: “If we socialize cars for instance, who will take care of the cars, and maintain them if it's just left up to the people?” However, this is a classic tragedy of the commons question rooted in a disbelief in human ingenuity and capability of solving simple problems with logic. First, if vehicles are socialized in a monetary system you have immediate and significant problems; for one every vehicle costs money, and that money has to be accounted for; second, those cars that are socialized will be looked at with avarice by the average person, and attempts to steal them will be prevalent; finally, the entire premise of socialization will be met with considerable doubt by a population of consumers marred in egocentrism. If, however, a reciprocal economy socializes cars, the immediate impact is in the job creation that comes with a project for greater efficiency; first, by producing only vehicles that will be shared by society, and second by making those vehicles available en masse for free, the potential for that region to thrive is increased dramatically. Moreover, when we make a commodity like a car a free good to be publicly shared, and do so en masse, the propensity and desirability of stealing that public good is appreciably decreased.
Moreover, in contrast to a monetary economy, in a cloud economy the first priority is the active use of the mind. If we find that there is a problem in regards to maintenance, the solution is to provide regular maintenance stations for easy access, and provide their services to socialized vehicles through automation and robotization. Because money is no longer an issue, the solutions to basic problems like these is to simply address them with the mind, and solve them in ways that are simple and easy for everyone. Only in such a system, where money does not play a part, could such logical and intuitive solutions be applicable and appropriate.
Today, however, given the global economy, the race to the top, and seemingly unrestricted economic growth, a vital question looms over the entire endeavor: what are we going to do when all this stuff (oil for instance) runs out? With China developing past the western nations, it is now time to consider the impact that that population could have on the price of oil. Many westerners are worried about this transfer of power from west to not west, but rather than allow these kinds of power games to continue, we have the real opportunity to save ourselves from suffering major harm: we can bite the bullet of the unknown, and make real change towards a decentralized, human scale economy. By using electricity, ethanol, and methanol--a variety of fuels rather than a strict monopoly--a real chance exists for decentralization to take place, loosening and perhaps eliminating the stranglehold of the oil industry and their political lobby.
More importantly however, by making agriculture, food and health, as well as education the primary focus of human activity, the need for moving food produce from place to place fades, replaced by a human scale, organic economy, rendering the previous forms and concerns irrelevant, because they were simply made up in the first place. Effectively the most ubiquitous mental disorder is this idea that we have to sacrifice the real wealth of nature for the false wealth of debt.
In attaining our progress over the past 200 years, we have sacrificed our morality for technology, we have sacrificed real wealth for short term conveniences, and the answer is not to swing the pendulum aggressively in the opposite direction, nor to throw out the baby with the bathwater and eliminate technology, replacing it with a strict morality, but to integrate the two perspectives as we discussed in the first chapter of this book. Doing so necessarily entails that we limit our growth, limit our consumption, and limit extravagance through new cultural norms, based on a morality that goes beyond materialism, complemented by technology rooted in that more evolved morality and spirituality.
Progress comes with a price tag, and the price tag is up to us. Will we fall into a progress trap and consume our planet into oblivion, or will we right ourselves by curbing our enthusiasms toward what western civilization has made its enemy: moderation, and consideration for external factors such as life and its necessities, as well as consideration for stakeholders (you and me) only when there is a will to do so.
Where there is a will there is a way, and while the author could have titled this book, “Why Should I Give a Fuck?” it is his sense of obligation to work towards liberating humankind from debt imposed by oligarchs (as history has repeatedly demonstrated), which ultimately causes him to write this book, and if the reader cannot appreciate the gravity of this issue, then the finite resources of planet earth are already spent, and the human species is already extinct. On our epitaph will read the words: “Why?”
Since the dawn of the human brain, it has been its unique quality to inquire into why which has distinguished humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. Why is the central philosophical question, and it is given this question that the author has chosen to write this book, and the reader has decided to read it. However, due to our innate curiosity and depth, humans have been able to evolve the environment to suit their desires, and it is this very quality that has come to threaten us at this juncture. Why? Because there has not been a sensible limit applied to the pseudo science called economics; not only is modern economics not a science, it is not even rooted in reality, it is a mental disorder with effects similar to cancer, but on a planetary scale. Why should you care? Because not only does this impact you, but your children, and because when it comes down to it, think of the better technology and living conditions that are being restricted by design due to common market economy praxis: designed obsolescence, intrinsic obsolescence, and so forth.
And while people in this world do not see dwindling resources and a polluted environment as a situation needing saving, it is indeed in need of saving, like an addict to heroin or crack, we are addicted to growth, but stuck in denial of our self-destructive behavior. This book is not a prescriptive solution to the problems of the world, but the content of this book is intended to describe, to imagine, and aid in the process of envisioning a brighter future and further inspiring people to act on this most valid desire. That being said, simply wanting, without action, is not going to create paradise, let alone dignity, equality, and prosperity. Together we must act, and in acting together be as one, and in being and acting as one transcend the boundaries and limitations of modernity.
Conventional charities and markets will not solve poverty, only human will can. As we stated previously, it is stagnancy which constitutes the only true death. Change, or the death of the present moment, to then be reborn in the following moment, increases the overall content and beauty of the universe. However, when a species that is sentient, but still wired for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, is pitted against the prospect of progress, the idea of progress becomes more of a religion than an authentic reality. Wedded to progress that is fixed in this commercial fashion, we are stunted from moving full tilt towards a level one civilization. This evolution is the promise of a cloud economy, but the nightmare of a monetary economy.
First, we must abolish the Federal Reserve in our own country, divorcing government and private finance, and finally establish economic democracy. Once those stepping stones have been accomplished, towards which humanity is naturally flowing, a real chance for establishing a cloud economy is not only possible, it is inevitable.
Rather than money, participation in the project of civilization is the currency in a cloud economy; in other words the measurement of your purchasing power for luxury goods is not stored in a currency, but represented as a grade on a spectrum. This component of the economy is merely in regards to the purchasing power of luxury goods—in contrast to necessities, which are a human right. In this way, by differentiating between luxury and necessity, trust in the intrinsic value of human life, validating the need for a universal basic income, can make our lives not only more simple, but more inspired.
By elevating everyone to the status of sovereign, and the standard of living to that of dignity, regardless of one's contribution, people can finally be emancipated from the struggle for survival once and for all. Without the distractions of bills, and the game of debt, we can live happily on less conveniences and pampered extravagance, because in reality those modern titillations are mere ways to fill the void of a depressing life in a depressing world. In making a basic income contingent on the trust of innate human value, and that trust alone, work becomes a choice, and life becomes, no longer a chore, but a form of practical play. (This mentality shall be established in the early years of education, and further intensified through practicing the Pentivium.)
It is not a stretch to say that the wealthy elite are more interested in turning the planet into a prison, than they are in turning it into a paradise. Someone so elevated above the masses cannot help but view the crowd is as if they were ants or bacteria—ants that need to be caged lest they get out of hand. And so they want paradise to be exclusively accessible for themselves, and the rest be damned. Just think of the power! In the United States of America, the prison population is incredibly high, and for what reason? Not because of legitimate crime, but because of government laws interfering with human morality, a game that never should have been played, a game that was popularized by the media, and facilitated by the shadowy elements of government—as the article “Dark Alliance” by Gary Webb explicitly details. History has shown that whenever government tries to legislate morality, the result is the breakdown of society.
On the other hand, because government and finance have merged, our morally corrupt culture has precipitated a radical degree of wealth inequality. We are all playing the monopoly game, all thinking we are equally eligible at birth to reach the top, but the truth is that, under the present conditions, this is not the case, not even remotely. When the income tax was instituted, the two peak years of 1929, and in 2007, manifested immense concentrations of wealth. What makes an economy stable is a strong middle class, and it is for that reason that the standard of living should very well be the middle, not that everyone should be equally poor, but that everyone should be equally rich. Rather than having a class-based system where you can be one of three classes with gray areas in between, society can grant itself the pleasure of diversity specifically—in regards to purchasing power of luxury goods—as well as a fundamental ground of legal equality and universal basic income, the ability for people to live and prosper, happily, rather than being an ideal, can be a reality.
In a democratic society with a reciprocal economy, with full ownership of the resources (land, industrial capital, and the products thereof) in the hands of sovereign individuals, rather than private speculators or crooked governments guided by oligarchs—many of them speculators themselves—the justification and validity of war, scarcity, and selfish ambition can be rooted out. Doing so through education on matters of deep history, we can finally break down the CIA's “Mighty Wurlitzer,” and the public may finally see their birthright: the higher and greater freedom that our rational minds have been not to believe, but which our hearts know is possible.
Concordantly, as the evolution of technology and human knowledge takes place, so too are the economic conditions across the spectrum of reality. The marginal cost of production is reaching zero, just as robotics are gradually replacing human labor. This evolution represents a new industrial revolution that we would be foolish to ignore.
The question then becomes, what will happen when technology transcends us? This question has plagued the great economists and philosophers throughout the past two centuries, and today we are seeing the first golden cracks on the cast iron face of crony capitalism, and imperial centers of capital worldwide. Never before in history were more people open to the notion of a world democracy, and a paradigm shift from markets to commons: from exclusive private ownership rights to universal access.
Because money can be saved, and that saving can actually impact the rest of society negatively, and because investment can have a similar impact, good or bad, it is irresponsible for us to use money as a global system when there is a viable alternative. What has held humanity back thus far is the idea that there is no alternative? But what we are going to explore below is an alternative economic premise, which, we believe transcends the importance of money, placing the economy back into the hands of living people, rather than soulless corporations.
In the late 1970's, when productivity increased, the people who were at the top were the self-proclaimed cause, and patted themselves on the back by giving themselves pay raises. This has continued to happen to this day in the form of stagnating wages for the middle class, and ever increasing wages for CEO's and so forth. At this point, the wealth gap has widened to the point of ridiculousness, and it is not showing signs of altering its course anytime soon. This is yet another reason to shift to a new economic model.
Moreover, because of the impending problem of automation, the global economy looms over a pit of disastrous poverty. Machines cannot be paid, but as we approach greater efficiency, we increase the amount of unemployment. However, this is only due to our Zeitgeist, and has nothing to do with nature, or the inherent nature of humanity, it is the worldview of money and consumption that prevents real progress. Consequently, to solve this problem the prevailing worldview must change. The only way to do this is through education.
Big corporations are not designed to create jobs, they are designed to create profits. Who is looking out for the workers, who is working towards improving the working conditions of laborers in the workforce and the lives of stakeholders in society? The answer is nobody. The fat cats just keep getting fatter while real working wages stay stagnant. When automation hits in the early middle 21st century, we are going to face major job losses, and then what are we going to do? Our economic premise does not account for this reality, all it can do is just keep doing business as usual.
Since the invention of the internet, and its utilization for the purpose of information and data sharing, the premise of our economy was made obsolete. The push for free information over the internet is not coming from criminals, or hackers, but is an innate undercurrent in the ocean of sentient psychology. Not only should there not be restrictions of access to information, but that information should come without a cost.
Equality and Diversity
When we say we want equality, in what context do we intend? Do we mean legal equality: equal representation under the law? Do we mean we want to be recognized as equal human beings: philosophical equality? Or do we mean income equality: close to or purely uniform wage distribution. All of these forms of equality have a core aspect, which is culture.
If we are to have an economic premise that is integral, capable of addressing the complex human problems which face us, and differentiated in regards to individual preferences and perspectives, our vision must look both to nature and our current economic paradigm for inspiration. When we do this, we see that things like ownership, diversity, and meritocratic hierarchy come to the fore of our attention. For instance, does the cell own the body, or does the body own the cell? Does ownership exist intrinsically, or is it a human construct? And if it is a human construct, does it have merit, or does it not? When we say that everyone should equally own the earth, what are we they really saying? And if we say the opposite: that no one should own the earth, what is the difference? In this section we will explore these questions, and perhaps come to some interesting new ideas about economy.
Today, there are a select few (approx. 1%) who own much (90%) of the surface of planet earth. The remaining 99% are tenants on the planetary plantation of modern aristocratic society. From this first condition, people are indoctrinated from birth to believe that this way of life is it: there is no alternative. But this is a big lie, inherent in our prevailing ideology, and one which we will attempt to shatter with your help.
Everyone has a natural right to property, the need for personal, private ownership cannot be denied, and that right shall not be infringed by the economic model that we are proposing; however, if private ownership can be balanced by societal access to necessities, then what valid reason could possibly exist for preventing that progress? In other words, if we could heal the wounds of poverty, simply by differentiating between necessity and luxury, why wouldn't we? One does not exclude the other, and if we integrate these two principles, we may witness a more civilized society.
Moreover, we have intrinsic human needs, and when those human needs are met, we are more likely to actualize, and be conscious human beings, exhibiting traits such as compassion and love. However, when those human needs are not met, you see unrest, depression, and even chronic illness due to stress—symptoms that our modern world recognizes as ubiquitous. For this reason, we can see how a basic income of the necessities, and universal access to important resources are, and should be the foundation of economy and human happiness.
Rather than using the so called money sequence of value (focusing on markets, industrial expansion, and corporate profits), as we do today, we are sacrificing humanity itself, along with all life, on the altar of Money. To correct this, and live within the life sequence of value: human happiness and planetary homeostasis: economic growth must be curbed in certain sectors, and economized with preservation and efficiency in others. We live on a finite planet, and for this reason having a system that deliberately promotes the acceleration of consumption for economic growth is insanity.
The irony of what the author is describing is that it will be reacted to by many so called conservatives as communism, socialism, and a threat to their way of life. But what is actually the case is that the world as it is, is socialism, and its effects are obviously a major threat to all life. In fact, what the author is describing is actually a more conservative (in its classical sense meaning conservation and prudence with resources) than the current forms we endure.
The current paradigm is predicated on the idea that the world operates in a very different way from how it actually does in reality. Reality has been alienated, its complexity ignored, its costs externalized; the result is that we have succumbed in blind faith to modern market capitalism rather than envisioning a more realistic, less mechanistic-minded approach to the human project of cultivation. We are not proposing that we reinvent the wheel of civilization, but rather that we reinvent the wheel of our minds in regards to how we approach and interact with each other and the world.
The paradigm we are proposing, and which we describe further below, may not be the answer, and perhaps there never will be a perfect answer to how humanity can be organized to cultivate itself and the world towards its more rational, transpersonal self. When we do have this condition, a balance between equality and freedom is essential. Freedom, without equality, is nature, and equality, without freedom, is slavery, but freedom and equality together are civilization. Freedom is possible in Nature, but equality is not possible in nature. Equality is possible in government, but not freedom. To have both we must have a natural government, based on the principles present in the human body as much as in every other aspect of reality. Some might call this natural law, but rather than call it anything yet, let us go over the face of nature and describe its various aspects.
Nature's most prominent characteristic is diversity. The diversity of the human mind is greater than its genetic diversity. In reality, we are, genetically speaking, like clones: the difference in DNA between any human from another is negligible. For that reason, whatever diversity we perceive is a trick of the mind: there is more genetic diversity in cats. So the reality is, we are far more similar, physically speaking, than most of us are willing to admit. However, because we are so diverse interiorly, it is important to appreciate legitimate diversity, and grow that diversity in the public mind with education, rather than trying to bring sameness as we are doing now with things like common core.
Diversity entails inequality, but inequality does not entail bigotry, just like differentiation is the not the same as disassociation. The beauty of life is that it evolves, not that it seeks sameness, but that it naturally flows towards diversity. As one creature evolves, transcending its prior form, it sets the example for all future creatures after them—there is nothing wrong with this, but when humans get pretentious about their place in the hierarchy, as kings rather than as stewards, problems ensue.
Loving people, not despite their differences from us, but because of their differences, means not ignoring the variety and complexity of life, but opening up to it in a way that is essential to integrating the various contexts of equality. Transforming our culture from a highly disintegrated one to something far more healthy and happy is a matter of immersing children into an environment of diversity early on. When these conditions are not possible, for one reason or another, exposing children to different cultures, through video or first hand experience, is the next best thing.
Finally, the importance of equality and diversity, with regards to economy, is fundamental to the psychology that is prevailing in the public mind, or zeitgeist as it were. For instance, if our view of equality is limited to that of law, to the exclusion of philosophical and income equality, we are no more capable of real progress than we would be if we only had income equality, but no philosophical or legal equality. And there are other forms of equality, but these three are primary, and with their integration, culturally we may actually heal the wounds of not only poverty, but bigotry as well.
The root of fractal equality is the spiritual experience of agape: universal, unconditional love for all life and universal principles. The author describes fractal equality as the balance inherent in natural inequalities, which give rise to the beauty inherent in all varieties. For instance, there is a natural hierarchy in nature, or as Ken Wilber describes it, a “holarchy” (a hierarchy of holons). And nature’s hierarchy is not one that can be drawn like a pyramid, but rather like an upside down pyramid. The apex, the most important aspect integrally speaking, is actually those holons at the bottom, because if we removed them from the picture, for instance ants, the entire biosphere would go out of whack; something more fundamental for instance would be the cellular life on earth, and still more fundamental, if we were to take atoms out of the picture, only a primordial awareness would remain.
In the context of this kind of equality, were it to be popularized, a totally new premise to economy could start to take shape naturally; and the birth pangs of that transformation can be felt even now with the invention of the Internet, Bitcoin, 3D printing, Airbnb, Uber, Tesla, LGBT rights, and many other examples could be considered including sustainability and veganic life choices. The overall data suggests that a new form of economy, based on a far more inclusive, integrative, and human paradigm is on the horizon. In order for us to get there, major cultural and cultivative praxis, as well as preferences, must be made.
From this point, we can more deliberately describe, and help conceptualize a new economic premise which more adequately represents democratic and cooperative principles, like those expressed in book one. To begin with, the ownership of land can be nothing less than equally accessible to all beings. In other words, the natural world, or biosphere, must be a commonly held, not as property or capital, but as our beloved or as ourselves: we are extensions of nature, we are nature, and nature is us. This is a far more complex idea than we may give it credit, because it goes into the metaphysics of the subject of life, rather than its objective, extrinsic aspects of human life and economy. However, these are first principles, which, if we can agree on them, can make this concept grow into reality.
From these first principles, it can be deduced that, though people will not be the same, they will make choices that reflect their values. If people grow up thinking meat eating is best, they will go on thinking that their whole life. If, on the other hand, people grow up learning that vegan is best, they will go on thinking that their whole life just the same. The argument could be said for religious affiliation as well, but the point is this: whatever the thought, whatever the conclusion, it has to compensate for human diversity and complexity by being functional regardless of the inevitability of human error.
Below we intend to more deeply explore the structure and specifics of cloud economics. Because this is a new idea, we must recognize that, though it may be complex, in actuality the current system is by far a more complicated and daunting proposition. What cloud economics seeks to do is bring differentiation and integration into our planetary household, creating complexity instead of entropy. Therefore, in the attempt to be understood by anyone, first the idea will be explained generally, and then in more specific terms.
The Evolution of Money
What is money if not the agreement that a thing has extrinsic value (value bestowed by outside forces), and that it can be traded for things of intrinsic value (value bestowed by the thing itself)? In other words, money, outside of the cultural agreement that it has value, has no intrinsic value, or value that is derived from the thing itself. What makes a dollar bill have value at all? And how has the value of money, or rather the cultural perception of money, and its value, changed over time?
Money has evolved, from barter (in hunter-gatherer communities), to standardized currency (starting with the clay tablets of Sumer), to coin currency (starting with classic civilizations like Greece and Rome), to gold backed currency (of the Enlightenment), to paper currency (Starting with the end of the Bretton Woods agreement, or the Nixon Shock of 1973), to debt-based, electronic currency, to strictly digital currency (what I call vapor currency) at the turn of the century—and that is just the beginning. Today, as economic crisis faces the world, and as the World Bank and IMF plunder the world for corporate greed, more and more people resort to alternative currencies to protect themselves. Bitcoin has grown dramatically in value over the years since its invention, and has done so because of the gradually failing, collapsing institution of the global marketplace.
With the invention of the Internet, vapor\digital-only\virtual currency became a possibility, and with the invention of vapor\virtual currency, a new perception of economy was also born.
What the evolution of money evinces to us is that money (and our perception of it) is gradually on its way to being less and less tangible, and more and more implied. And what is the point of economic progress if not less and less work for more and more productivity? As currency becomes less and less tangible (as in time banking and Bitcoin) we can witness a less and less debt-based currency, and more and more a contribution-based currency rooted in reciprocity.
Reciprocation in age old currencies has always been explicitly between two individuals, where units of currency are exchanged for units of goods or services. However, as we have evolved economic technology, less and less do we physically hand over units of currency for goods; more and more we simply slide a card, or purchase things online through digital transaction. The future is here, and vapor currency is on the rise.
When vapor\digital currency becomes the standard, its inherent problems (hacking, viruses, and relying solely on technology) will cause us to look for newer, better alternatives. In order to be more universal, rather than regress to tangible currencies, and rather than resorting to barter or other pre-modern currencies like the Rai stones of Yap, or the Tally Stick—both of which have a narrative-based value—we could resort to something more rooted in consciousness, reciprocity, and trust in an intangible, implied exchange.
As vapor currency rises, it starts to form the conditions of consciousness necessary to grow a nebulous cloud: a cloud economy, which does not resort to a mediator for value exchange, is a resource based economy, where collective human will is the resource. And what, if not the cultural agreement that a thing has value, bestows that value? Value, in the form of currency and in the form of commodity, is a psychological phenomenon, and not an inherent quality to any of the things in an economy.
What we have seen, with respect to the evolution of money, is that as money becomes less tangible, it becomes more convenient, and simultaneously more secure (with respect to its viability and trade-ability); and what could be more convenient, less tangible, than an implied exchange with the activity of work? Thus, we are witnessing a transformation of our employment practices, as well as our forms of currency, and as these trends coincide, we will witness the growing pains of a new civilization.
Below we will explore the concept of a cloud economy more in depth, but it should be understood that, while this concept may seem foreign to us, the kinds of technology we possess today, and the consciousness of equality and empathy we witness more and more regularly, would have been inconceivable only a few decades ago. So with that, let’s move forward into the future: a cloud economy.
Cloud Economy & Reciprocism
Cloud currency, rather than being a tangible, traded commodity, is a recognized quality of human activity and life. A resource based economic model, where the foundational resource is human will, the cloud economy is not rooted in a market, but in the collective agreement that the resources of the earth must be shared and preserved for all life to benefit from their use. Participation in the project of civilization is the first half of the exchange process implicitly. Cloud currency, in other words, is not a currency at all, but a status granted with a person’s reciprocal participation in society. All humans, fundamentally recognized as sovereigns (their own ruler) under this premise, cannot be compelled to request citizenship, and one can rescind their citizenship at any time.
Sovereigns are granted access to necessities even if they choose not to contribute, but citizens (or participants) have the added perquisite of purchase power for luxury goods. Not everyone will want to be a citizen (a servant of her/his fellow beings), but because we all have a natural right to life, having regular access to food, clothing, shelter, and medical care is a necessity; and similarly, we all have a natural right to happiness, which is why information, entertainment, and transportation are also necessities that could be provided by society to society. Because we are all equal generally, a general allocation of essential, life sustaining resources can be seen as a major step towards a more humanitarian, egalitarian world. However, this unprecedented expansion of human rights will not be an easy sell, but it would be an easy transition because it does not require infrastructural change to implement, everything about this aspect of the proposed economic model is mental.
The basic income the author describes is the second half of a reciprocal exchange between the individual and the society in which they are a citizen. For example, as a sovereign, my first act of benefit to society is requesting to be a citizen in the first place, because with each added citizen the potential life value of humanity is increased. For this initial benefit to society, society then reciprocates back to the citizen with housing, and access to socialized cars and a smart device where available—depending upon location.
Having stated the above, it should be understood that, because this concept does not require currency or a national government to operate, it can take place anywhere; and as a matter of fact there are tribal communities all over the world that, in a sense, already practice certain aspects of this idea: people get what they need to survive regardless of their degree of contribution, because everyone is recognized as having value. That being said, cloud currency and cloud economics is not barter, and it is not pre-rational, but trans-rational (transcends rational thought) because it integrates pre-modernity with modernity, and even has post-modern aspects in its flexibility with regards to methods of exchange, it is a transcendence from, and expansion of the already explained evolution of money.
Payment and exchange in a cloud economy could work several ways, the point being to remain flexible to improvement. We expressed earlier the possibility of a percentage system, but a point system could work just as well. Similarly, a system based on reputation alone, or hours (as in time banking), could be incarnations of this model, or all of the above. That being said, a shift from the conventional methods of modernity will not be easy, but it will have immense benefits. For one thing, a black market is practically inconvenient, and logistically difficult when you have no money to exchange with. People will likely resort to barter in these instances, but when most of the illegal drugs are made legal, and regulated by whatever governing praxis the people so choose, even a black market becomes a minor concern.
We have the technological capability at this time to simply invent new ways of exchanging value, either electronically through devices or through plastic, or some other yet uninvented means, but all of these are vapor currency, and non-transferable because they are associated with your identity. The point here is not to get caught up in the logistics of pinning down a specific alternative to debt and money, but rather to simply understand that in a cloud economy banks, debt, taxation, and the rest of what makes us stressed day in and day out, are antiquated with this method; and the fact that all necessities are more than provided for by society further reduces stress and the propensity for violence. That is to say, today the horrid things mentioned above are unnecessary, and in need of replacing with participatory councils, voluntary debt reciprocation (mutual obligation), and basic income.
Making the transition to a cloud economy may seem like a radical proposition, but it is the only conceivable way to eliminate the unjust influence of high concentrations of wealth. To make the transition, a series of steps must first be taken. The first step, of course, is education, and this book could act as a blueprint for how to go about doing that. However, the second step is action, and actions that can be taken are manifold, but the first that comes to mind is demanding a debt jubilee, in which the debt upon the people, imposed on them by the financial oligarchs, is lifted. The jubilee, an ancient, and somewhat religious practice, was a great gift from pre-modernity, and it is this gift which represents the greatest hope humanity has for moving forward into a sane society.
To be sure, this paradigm shift is quite possibly the greatest threat to the status quo that there has ever been. This threat comes in the form of new thought, capable of transcending and making the old boy’s network irrelevant, and without a shot fired or a corruptible ballot cast. The characteristics of this new thought are holism, permaculture, economic democracy, ecological stewardship, and reciprocal exchange of cloud currencies.
In his book, Trust: Self-Interest and the Common Good (Oxford Press, 2008), Marek Kohn states perfectly the object of a reciprocal economy:
… interacting parties must see themselves as a network of exchange. The basis of exchange is reciprocity; the existence of a network allows reciprocity to become fluid. A can scratch B's back without trusting B to scratch A's, if A is confident that a C, D..., or other initial will come along to do the scratching. Direct reciprocity is replaced by indirect reciprocity, which has the potential to stimulate and sustain cooperation across networks of strangers. (Pg. 58)
The cloud theory of economics uses the trends of history to predict the future, as philosophers and futurists have done for over a century. That being said cloud-based currencies are a phenomena yet to come, but the vapor of digital currencies, like bitcoin and time dollars, represent the rising flow of digital networks towards clouds of reciprocal networks. Having observed that currency has evolved, just as economic practices have evolved from a tangible, direct exchange of goods, to more and more indirect exchanges of standard tangible objects (gold and silver) represented by paper, until eventually paper became plastic, and plastic became more and more digital, we can now begin to see how reciprocal networks have great promise for creating a more cooperative society. Accordingly, this trend is evidence that future currencies will be intangible, implied exchanges between individuals, and a form of statistically calculated resource exchange between regions of the world.
This trend can easily be observed in the past century, where gold and silver were kept in reserve, then only promissory notes since the Nixon Shock in April 1972, when gold convertibility was suspended, resulting in petroleum backed currency—or the petrodollar. Ever since this happened, all that was backing the American dollar was faith. Faith, to this day, is the only thing holding up the economy of the world. If this is the case, and it is, what is stopping us from simply recognizing that we are already resting on the cloud of human will? Today, with high frequency trading and digital currencies on the rise, it is only a matter of time until people get wise to the scam to control the wealth of nations and peoples throughout the world.
However, an alternative economic system, based on the metaphysics of book one, may only come about when the spirit of this evolution is felt by a critical mass of leaders and revolutionaries. Unfortunately, many of the world’s leading minds, being marred in the old paradigm, are hell bent on seeing their version of an alternative accomplished, or worse yet, hesitant to entertain ideas of viable alternatives, different from the prevailing narrative of their ideal revolution. Belief systems, even of a revolutionary and progressive bent, act only to prevent legitimate and authentic progress. Therefore, only by being our own authority, and developing our own philosophy can any real change be made; in other words, being the change will change the world.
Why a Shift is Necessary
Rather than putting our eggs into this or that basket, woven by this or that leader, one economic bondage can only be ended by many individual acts, perpetrated by individuals and groups of individuals—as it has always been done. It is when people learn to be individuals, authentic in their own self-understanding, that they learn the importance of interdependence, and come together for a better world; and in doing so we create the golden civilization that humanity has dreamed of for centuries.
The difference between now and past centuries is that the economic peonage was localized, and imperialism was similarly localized: there were pockets of freedom in other words. Today, there are fewer and fewer pockets, and soon there will be none. The centers of imperialist capital have multiplied, globalism has stretched its necrophilia to the four winds, and the biosphere of the planet is threatened by their idle growth; just as our life, liberty, property, and ability to dissent is being reduced under their tyranny, so too is the very biosphere itself. Such a global problem requires global initiatives, organized and unified by the common goal of world peace, direct democracy, and reciprocal cooperation in a global commons—and many of these already exist, such as the Institute for Economic Democracy, the Albert Einstein Institute, and the Earth Rights Institute among many others. However, these institutions are like branches of a tree that has no trunk, like many movements for peace and prosperity—the issue is organization and unification. Let this be a call to action for those organizers and movements to come together and manifest the tree of life that was forgotten when empire (what is conventionally called civilization) began, and which we must now recognize for the first true civilization to begin.
Further, once the Tragedy of the Commons (a myth perpetuated by aristocrats to subjugate and divide the layman and lower classes) has been dispelled with reason and common sense, full rights, absolute freedom, and total equality can be attained for all. It is a time many of us have been waiting for, from life to life, and century to century, but it can simply enough be attained by society waking up, and finally collecting on what has previously been monopolized by aristocracy and nobility since time immemorial: land rights.
By empowering all, rather than a few, all are naturally liberated. Those blinded by greed and the basest of temporal titillations would disagree, and find argument with the notion of access over ownership. As overt as ownership can be today, it appears to the author that conveniences have replaced our birthright, and that the former has been confused with freedom, when in actual fact our perceived mobility through cars for instance, has us running on a hamster wheel, chasing a carrot on a string rather than living more fully. Going nowhere fast has been the way of the west since the second industrial revolution—long enough—and it is time to recognize our place in the universe and grow up to meet this century with a similarly transcendent, transformative outlook, which was present during the turn of the 20th century. In other words, what we need is hope, and dreams that are higher than just an idealized reflection of consumerism.
The point of having luxury and necessity differentiated is not to increase the desire for luxury, and place necessity into the background, but rather to put both necessity and luxury into their proper place, as secondary concerns to the first priority: life and living, or being rather than having. Work too, becomes less of a compulsory action, and more a voluntary action when the conditions brought about by a basic income are established. This idea of a cloud economy, counter to capitalism and corporate economic theory, is based on the elevation of the human experience, rather than profit for a panopoly.
Making the Shift
The first and most important thing we can do today, to make this shift manifest quickly, is to simply stop supporting the corporate elite—by changing our consumption habits, using our dollars as ballots of corporate sponsorship or opposition; this is perhaps the most powerful political tool we have readily at our disposal, and we need to start using it if we are going to prevent a world government.
To be clear, this is not an idea that would practice RFID chip-based economic practices. No one would be chipped in a cloud economy, and there would be no way to deny necessities to anyone, regardless of their status. Further, with the eventual dissolution of the institution of aristocracy by way of real contribution-based remuneration, the possibility of their gaining control and implementing that program through government or any other organization would be virtually impossible.
By understanding the relatively subtle change of laws of land-rent from a residual feudal law of land monopoly to a land-rent whose revenue is bestowed upon the society, and that form of tax replacing all taxes, rewriting the price of land at zero, as well as rendering all other taxes unnecessary while retaining private ownership through earned remuneration in whatever means the people deem most effective, a truly egalitarian and just society may be the result. People could even use conventional paper or plastic currency, but that would defeat the purpose: to eliminate the potential influence of bankers and aristocracy from government and society it is important that money be eliminated from the equation. Making the shift into a cloud economy is, in effect, a giant leap towards economic freedom, and political democracy, economic democracy and political freedom.
As such, these baby steps of socialized land rent are but a necessary contingent for the democratization of aggregate labor, and a negative tax, or universal basic income for any contribution bestowed by any individual upon any other or groups of individuals; as the collective common cooperation expands, so too will the individual contributing member benefit until, at last, a cashless and tax-less society can exist, with the full abundance and freedom that the most sacred source originally intended: a level one civilization.
To clarify, and emphasize the above, one's labor can be understood to have two benefactors: the individual and the aggregate society respectively. In a cloud economy with a reciprocal, or contribution-based system of remuneration, the aggregate of human interaction—society—through democratic government, reciprocates back to the individual with a universal basic income. Therefore, the more developed a region is, the more capable it will be of reciprocating its intrinsic value to the individuals which compose it. However, this aspect of reciprocation is not based on what contribution, or how much, but simply accounts for the fact that one has chosen to be an active participant in the project of civilization whatsoever. Included in this basic income is access to social goods such as public transport, information-based technology such as television or Internet, and medical care, along with whatever the people of that society deems right and just.
However, the acts of benefit between one individual and another will affect a person’s renown in their respective community, and would determine how they are cared for, favored, and generally benefited by their community, thus unleashing the gift economy upon a reciprocal feedback loop, causing a new and different kind of perpetual growth and profit motive to take shape. This reciprocation between individuals, however, is organic, and constitutes a chaotic (totally unregulated and unobserved) element, which is both natural and undeniable. Rather than trying to fight this potential influence, we should embrace it, and with it our inner longing for peace, love, unity, and respect, cultivate it.
Rather than chaos in the name of peace and freedom, let’s have peace and freedom in the name of chaos. [The above statement is not intended to be a subversive declaration of revolution or terror, but as a thought provoking message intended to draw out the reader into the light of truth: that for all of our fighting and warring, in the misguided hope of bestowing freedom to ourselves and others, all we end up doing to them and ourselves is destroying any hope of freedom and peace. We owe it to ourselves to stand in the light of truth, and in doing so, expose ourselves to the inherent chaos of reality, and in doing so, learn to understand the chaos as our best friend, as the vitality of our existence, rather than how the elites would have us view it: as the single greatest threat to freedom and peace on earth. In reality the opposite is true, the pursuit of freedom and peace create nothing but chaos (war and desolation) for the world.]
Similarly, once common access to land ownership can be established, and the principles of permaculture embraced and utilized by, perhaps a devoted core of distinguished individuals, or the collective wisdom of the common people throughout the world, a world of scarce resources to be guarded and fought over could be turned into a garden that can easily be shared and appreciated by all. You can’t just up and switch to a new culture, it has to happen in transitional stages, but the best way is to be born into it.
The notion that our economic and political system has existed in the shape that it does today since its founding is not only foolish, it is fundamentally killing what is left of our constitution. As generation after generation deteriorate under the pressure of compulsory education, given its Prussian influence, the potential for a breakdown of society, politically, economically, socially, is immanent. Used as a means of controlling the masses, great injustices are committed without recourse. Corporations commit massive injustices, but are virtually unhindered by either law or public activism.
To make the point clear, Thomas Paine speaks of civilization in Rights of Man (part 2 chapter 1) at length:
“...Excess and inequality of taxation, however disguised in the means, never fail to appear in their effects. As a great mass of the community are thrown thereby into poverty and discontent, they are constantly on the brink of commotion; and deprived, as they unfortunately are, of the means of information, are easily heated to outrage. Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness. It shows that something is wrong in the system of government that injures the felicity by which society is to be preserved...”
“Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised [sic] community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.
“To understand the nature and quantity of government proper for man, it is necessary to attend to his character. As Nature created him for social life, she fitted him for the station she intended. In all cases she made his natural wants greater than his individual powers. No one man is capable, without the aid of society, of supplying his own wants, and those wants, acting upon every individual, impel the whole of them into society, as naturally as gravitation acts to a centre [sic].
“But she has gone further. She has not only forced man into society by a diversity of wants which the reciprocal aid of each other can supply, but she has implanted in him a system of social affections, which, though not necessary to his existence, are essential to his happiness. There is no period in life when this love for society ceases to act. It begins and ends with our being.
“If we examine with attention into the composition and constitution of man, the diversity of his wants, and the diversity of talents in different men for reciprocally accommodating the wants of each other, his propensity to society, and consequently to preserve the advantages resulting from it, we shall easily discover, that a great part of what is called government is mere imposition.
“Government is no farther necessary than to supply the few cases to which society and civilisation are not conveniently competent; and instances are not wanting to show, that everything which government can usefully add thereto, has been performed by the common consent of society, without government.
“... Formal government makes but a small part of civilised life; and when even the best that human wisdom can devise is established, it is a thing more in name and idea than in fact. It is to the great and fundamental principles of society and civilisation — to the common usage universally consented to, and mutually and reciprocally maintained — to the unceasing circulation of interest, which, passing through its million channels, invigorates the whole mass of civilised man — it is to these things, infinitely more than to anything which even the best instituted government can perform, that the safety and prosperity of the individual and of the whole depends.
“The more perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself; but so contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of the case, that the expenses of them increase in the proportion they ought to diminish. It is but few general laws that civilised life requires, and those of such common usefulness, that whether they are enforced by the forms of government or not, the effect will be nearly the same. If we consider what the principles are that first condense men into society, and what are the motives that regulate their mutual intercourse afterwards, we shall find, by the time we arrive at what is called government, that nearly the whole of the business is performed by the natural operation of the parts upon each other.”
What Thomas Paine says in these quotes is profound. What he is saying is that government is, in essence, unnecessary if, by human will alone, we can create the order that government proclaims to provide. If we can provide to ourselves what both governments and banks, with their laws and pecuniary systems pretend to provide, society may be healed and restored or established and grown. To linger in the realm of monetary government control, however, means to forfeit one’s life, liberty, and property to the state--at cost--where the alternative is without cost to the individual, but does require much dutiful sacrifice. Indeed, it is the government that governs the least that governs best, and it is through ground up organization and decentralized, participatory systems of governance that a more egalitarian and economic (prudent) society can be established.
The fact that corporations constitute what amounts to the governing class today evidences the fact that we are no longer a representative republic; that we are a most ruled people, under the ceaseless control of a government that is for and by the corporations, can no longer be denied. The implications are immense: a transformation of not only our economic but our political organization is necessary. Because of the collusion between both of these aspects of society, a method of checking and balancing those forces must be applied. The present author suggests a more fluid and democratic, rather than formal representative basis for government, and the use of a reciprocal cloud economy over a market driven capitalist economy.
In a corporate, capitalistic world, dominated by the push and pull of an impersonal market, that is itself guided by the lesser human impulses, it is no wonder that our world seems to have massive pockets of hell, insulated by gray vistas, and small oasis of plenty. Such a hierarchical schema could only be continued by imperialistic paradigms, perpetuated by academics and aristocrats alike, who act as a leader class over the many dupes. For a world government to form under these conditions, full of bureaucracy and senseless bookkeeping, seems only natural; however, our goal is to create the conditions for a planetary organism.
Planetary Organism
In terms of economics there is only a subtle difference between world government and planetary organism. To begin with, world government comes into being through backroom deals, and originates from the same old personalities that are addicted to war; love money; and loath fairness, freedom, and fraternity. In other words, world government comes about coercively—from the top down. On the other hand, a planetary organism comes about from the bottom up, through democratic means, and occurs organically—without government.
Both planetary organism and world government have the potential to create advanced technology, and both are capable, in the current author's opinion, of the interstellar dream which has mystified human beings for centuries; however, when done coercively, and without the insight and proper maturity that such endeavors require, a world government system may be more like a cosmic disease than a pollinating organism of creation.
Any government, formed in war, cannot be anything but disposed to conflict and secrecy. Conversely, any government formed in peace cannot be anything but disposed to deliberation and open proceedings. For this reason, peaceful revolution (or constitutional reformation) is the most effective means of improving our government and society, as well as our economy.
The planetary organism, which can be perceived and understood today, is evident in the sprawling networks of road systems, acting as channels in much the same way that veins function in the body to carry cells to their destination, unloading payloads of resources to their respective location. The parallels are stunning and obvious to anyone with a mind to see it. Similarly, fiber optics and the electric grid act as the nervous systems of a planetary body—the Internet a planetary mind. Some would say that the economy acts as a mechanism, but if that were so the relative adaptability and evolvability of those systems would not be so evident. The world organism has evolved more rapidly than any other life form ever has, and only within the last two centuries has this organism demonstrably emerged in our own efforts.
As the characteristics of a planetary organism begin to take shape, so too do the actions and inclinations of individuals begin to reflect this growing consciousness. The evidence can be seen in organic economies across the globe, and growing green movements—all of which are acting to revolutionize the way we live as a species. Instead of envisioning oneself as rich, and perceiving their goal in life to coercively force their will upon others, acting beyond the cares and wants of others, a new vision is dawning upon the world of the status quo, looking to them more like a nightmare; but that new vision is one of true wealth, for its bounty can be sustained and enjoyed by all. A true dream of paradise seems like a nightmare to the demons of a modern hellish world order.
What the author is advocating is not the elimination of wealth and order, but merely the elimination of fictional capital in the form of casino markets (through speculation), and the disillusionment of a formal government predicated on the universal crimes of war and slavery. By resting the primary means of exchange in the common understanding and principles of oneness, a cloud economy and a democratic republic can start to form, in which money and government plays only a minuscule and highly localized (as in decentralized) part.
Indeed, the world of finance is nothing more than a glorified monopoly game, and it requires our growing up to reshape it to be a completely different activity altogether. When our money is backed by paper and the good faith of the public, the question dawns on one: what makes a one dollar bill more valuable than a one hundred dollar bill? The answer: our collective will in agreement of its value says that it does; which then makes one wonder what our collective will would be capable of if it were spent actively making the world a better place to live—rather than seeking money and the products and services that it pretends to grant us, but which in fact we grant to each other trusting that each of us with those slips of paper is worthy.
In an economic democracy with elements of a cloud economy, a full positive impact may be felt by the human race in the forms of trust and receptivity in relationship to human relationship as well as exchanges between individuals. A cloud economy, under the premise of a reciprocal exchange between individuals and society, assures us the proper conditions for a more perfect civilization: both community and individuals are reciprocated mutually, and simultaneously—without the need for government or banking. This is a notion that human will and human labor are the world’s most essential and thus necessary currencies, that everything else is a distasteful, distrustful society's compulsion towards bookkeeping (a residual feudalistic practice), rather than an enlightened and timeless social method: freedom and equality in trust.
To evolve past these artificial artifacts, and build an earth without unnecessary strife or conflict, all we must do is step forward into an implied and automatic trust, based on the natural human will of reciprocal exchange. In fact much of democratic-cooperative-capitalism could be maintained while an overarching act to sustain and develop community on a local and regional basis would be implemented at the grassroots level by activists, community organizers, and interested community organizations; the purpose of which would be to clearly demonstrate the potential of participatory councils to solve problems, facilitate and create consensus, and provide goods and services for the better of the ALL, rather than a few at the top.
Further, when a business is established, the workers will be given the same grade or value as the business itself. The process of creating a business will be similar to how we do it today, through simple registration with the local community and facilitation councils, and other offices (similar to what we use today) created for this purpose. Once a business is established, the people working under it will be allocated the same grade as the business itself; from the bottom to the top, from the janitor to the CEO, giving everyone the same incentive to elevate the entire entity in the eyes of the public, seeking legitimacy in an economy of merit rather than profit.
By having a lottery to randomly select voluntary councils (people will have put their name into the pool by becoming a citizen), as well as meritocratic councils—of people acting as community resource councils, and localized councils for whatever executive purposes had lent before, the purpose that banks and formal government institutions once played will no longer be necessary. And one might say that this praxis is practically what we do today, but to forget that these people are neither elected nor selected, meaning that they are a segment of the population, rather than career politicians or bankers means a lot; in fact, this idea would render banks obsolete, and our entire premise of civilization along with it. With a populous capable of critical thinking, highly educated (See chapter 10) in a well put together, sophisticated, local commons, who needs either formal government or the artifacts of empire (“free market” capitalism).
By cutting out the middleman, collective human will can more directly and effectively be utilized, to such a great degree that working hours, and working days can be cut back dramatically, while equally dramatic gains in living conditions can be made for all. Further, the excess labor of working machines can be easily reallocated to the society simply by their agreement that it is so. This, in a reciprocal, cloud economy means significant gains for all people, working or not, and a huge popular incentive to go further into that direction (as long as that development is producing human or ecological benefit); additionally, under the premise of a reciprocal, cloud economy, considerations of ecology and human happiness would replace the profit motive of the old, capitalistic game, and the residual practices of feudalism.
Summary
By replacing banks with participatory councils, and establishing a resource-based economy, where the fundamental resource is recognized as human will; Replacing the formal economic and political bands with informal society, organized by principles of natural rights and natural law, as well as an education schema that takes the entire lifespan, and entire human being into account—a new economy can be borne, and with it a new culture of civilization.
The author calls this new economy a cloud economy: a resource-based economy, where reciprocation and mutual respect, rather than tangible objects, constitutes the foundation of human activity. Focusing on the living model of economy rather than the money model, a human scale economic premise can be established. By utilizing the principles of permaculture and holism, cloud economics does not require the artifacts of pre-modernity (i.e. money, debt, taxation, and interest).
Rather than having to save, and spend our life laboring tirelessly, struggling to survive, the system that countless philosophers and visionaries have advocated for is the cloud economy, which liberates us from the primitive struggle for survival—and thus emancipating us, finally, from the tyranny of our ever-present past.
The cloud, in a cloud economy, is the nebulous trust that other human beings deserve the respect that money, in whatever form, affords irrespective of merit. Rather than spending our time to acquire money to spend it on acquiring things, we can simply spend our time making the world better, while acquiring things becomes secondary. When survival-mode no longer suppresses us, the better qualities of human reason come to their natural place as the forefront of human activity. Instead of living to have better, humanity can and must see that it is a better, and more fulfilling paradigm, to instead seek deeper and better states of being.
Under this premise, the currency, if we are to call it that, is simply participation in the project of civilization, and what could be more civilized than that? As Thomas Paine described it, “If we examine with attention into the composition and constitution of man, the diversity of his wants, and the diversity of talents in different men for reciprocally accommodating the wants of each other, his propensity to society, and consequently to preserve the advantages resulting from it, we shall easily discover, that a great part of what is called government is mere imposition.” And so the economic paradigm forwarded by our government is: mere imposition. Without this imposition, and without the paradigm that allows for the corporate and financial interests to take advantage of the many, humanity may be emancipated from its golden chains once and for all.
Let no further big lies be spilled, that there is no alternative that the world is the way that it is and you just have to deal with it; that the system is not the problem; that it is something the matter with humanity itself. These lies have caused nothing but suffering since they were sold to the public by the elite. Today, we are standing up in defiance of that ruinous ideology, and coming together to make a new ideology, one based on ancient principles and modern technology, on humanism and permaculture-- an ideology based on love and trust, rather than fear and debt.
[To those of you who are in defense of this dangerous ideology of modern materialism: profit and passive acceptance. You are mistaken in thinking that our conversation is skewed in the favor of scientism, as though science is the excuse of all excuses, as though the authority of progress is god, as though any of this will make sense to a misanthrope, an atheistic Satanist—concerned only with that life which is within his or her own nuclear, perhaps if he/she be gracious enough, his/her radial boundary. There are things which go beyond this boundary, and concerns which affect us all. The truth is that you are not willing to see these truths because it would require a quantum shift in your present stage of consciousness development to apprehend, and an immense amount of courage to confront; but this is not a negative thing; you have a great mind, and when you do reach that stage of world-centric consciousness (or vision logic, as Ken Wilber et al describe it), or when you are aware of yourself and the world as one, yet as more than one, yet as one, without duality, then you will recognize the meaning and importance of the platinum rule: treat others as they would like to be treated.]
Conclusion
The simple, yet perhaps uneasy recognition of the power and influence of collective human will over coercive power of the few elite, can and shall dispel the myths carried over from humanity's forgotten past (namely that we must be ruled by the elite, and that we were born to be slaves). And despite the apparent course of events, the author would encourage the reader to consider another, just as viable direction, one which embraces and evokes the best qualities in humanity, rather than indulging the worst. Imagine the freedom and prosperity of such a world! Today there exist no reason that such a world should be impossible, other than an abundance of fear and a lack of love. This dynamic between fear and love is what truly measures our economy (our household management).
To love one's body, one must be tough, yet balanced with gentleness; to love one's mind, one must be open-minded but sceptical; to love one's spirit one must be able to love both body and mind; and to love one's world one must love one's spirit and environment as one. It is our relationship to the world and ourselves, which accounts for the human experience and enlightenment. An economy that is based on a love of the world is one which distributes the resources and preserves the rarer, dearer; husbands the natural and develops the artificial with care; and an enlightened society will commit itself to restoring the polluted world, and doing so because it is right—and because it is difficult.
The pompous human ethics of yesteryear has proven itself criminally insane, with brief moments of felicity. Any society, which takes conveniences for freedoms deserves neither, and any society that would sacrifice its mother for toys is not worth saving. Only the great luminaries of history have had the depth of consciousness to see this truth—and all too often the popular view of them has been that they are at the least eccentric, and at the worst insane. However, it is far more likely, as we have seen and as we will explore in the next chapter that it is the other way around: our society is profoundly sick.
This being the case, it is of the utmost importance that you and I see eye to eye, that our interactions be grounded in mutual respect and understanding, rather than fear, greed, and ego.
Any economic setting, otherwise established, will be a as we have witnessed: destructive of any reasonable and homeostatic ends. The realization of the destructive, disintegrative force, would cause in one, anyone for that matter, a sense of duty to make a change in the world, and rightly so. Consequently, to start we can change ourselves, but once we have become the change, where do we go from there? The next chapter of our journey will take us to the summit of a much greater mountain of practically geographical proportions: shifting our values and attention towards the alchemical movement of cultural peaks and valleys, and the empowerment of ourselves and others to the level of the great masters. Together, we will work as avatars of change, acting to move the aggregate form from dysfunction into lucidity.
Doing for others can have a powerful impact on their life and ours, interrupting their discord (this daily disharmony), and causing ripples of respite, allowing for the space to be filled by something other than senseless titillation and narcissistic misanthropy.
Indeed, the spiritual flame has been stolen from the majority of us, and for that reason we search endlessly to fill that void with consumption. Our entire economy is rooted in that fundamental tragedy and the fruits bare themselves out in anxiety, depression, alienation, and objectification. Surely we are in an intermediate stage and like children as a species, but it seems more and more obvious that we must soon wake up, and as a species grow up, if we are to have a future at all. Instead of thinking that something is wrong with people who have depression or attention deficit, why not question the institutions and systems that are set in place, and the kind of world or cultural environment that those institutions are creating.
Under the premise of a reciprocal exchange economy (i.e. cloud economy) the gifts freely given by nature, obligate each of us to give back in equal measure to what nature gave to us—through stewardship: the cultivation of all resources to a habitable and homeostatic state for all life. But beyond this, a mentality of depth in regards to the appreciation for those gifts freely given must replace the modern mentality of plunder for profit (a short term goal, foolish in nature, with only selfish pecuniary interests at heart). This is what the author means when he says “grow up”!
Further, it could be stated that we owe it to our mothers and fathers, who bore us and cared for us with no expected reward in return, to our ancestors and to the entire human lineage, to create a better world for our descendants as a way to reciprocate to those who came before us.
Moreover, we must recognize that the gifts that society reciprocates back to the individual, and the gift that the individual shares with society by contributing to the project of civilization, in combination act as the sole medium of exchange or transaction for mutual gain. It is an organic relationship of reciprocal contribution to society and access to the fruits of society rather than ownership, property rather than profit, and ecology rather than economics. Access to the necessities of life, ensuring all of “Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs” are met, rather than creating wage slaves and starving them through attrition, herding them into a survival mentality, as our current system does or seems to, will ensure self-actualization, and a heightened receptivity to the flow state given some practice in the pentivium.
Rather than centralizing production people will be encouraged to create their own property, and work together to create and maintain their own capital, utilizing their access to tools and resources such as those available locally to create their own inventions; and because there will be people who can't or refuse to create their own invention or tool, access to those inventions, and the removal of copyright from the equation of production and consumption results in an economy without a formal market, and one which focuses on husbandry of the earth, rather than the production and profit of complex and complicated schemes of monopoly and oligopoly.
To create a foundation for a new civilization, aside from considering the truth of our education and economy, we must reconsider our cultural and ethical truth, our political and social reality. Solutions to the problem of corruption, of institutionalized evil, will be discussed in the chapter to follow. Because of the integral importance of culture, many of the solutions will involve elements from the previous chapters, and thus should be taken in context of the overall book; For this reason we will be bringing all of the preceding elements into synergy with the subject of culture.
12
Culture
CULTURE, noun [Latin See Cultivate.]
1. The act of tilling and preparing the earth for crops; cultivation; the application of labor or other means of improvement.
We ought to blame the culture not the soil.
2. The application of labor or other means to improve good qualities in, or growth; as the culture of the mind; the culture of virtue.
3. The application of labor or other means in producing; as the culture of corn, or grass.
4. Any labor or means employed for improvement, correction or growth.
CULTURE, verb transitive To cultivate.
CULTIVATE, verb transitive [Latin , to till, to dwell.]
1. To till; to prepare for crops; to manure, plow, dress, sow and reap; to labor on manage and improve in husbandry; as, to cultivate land; to cultivate a farm.
2. To improve by labor or study; to advance the growth of; to refine and improve by correction of faults, and enlargement of powers or good qualities; as, to cultivate talents; to cultivate a taste for poetry.
3. To study; to labor to improve or advance; as, to cultivate philosophy; to cultivate the mind.
4. To cherish; to foster; to labor to promote and increase; as, to cultivate the love of excellence; to cultivate gracious affections.
5. To improve; to meliorate, or to labor to make better; to correct; to civilize; as, to cultivate the wild savage.
6. To raise or produce by tillage; as, to cultivate corn or grass.
[Webster’s Dictionary, 1828- Online Edition]
Introduction
To be terse, this chapter will start with a harsh critique of our present culture and society, ending with a number of solutions that address the various problems pointed out throughout this book. The first part of this chapter will be addressing modern culture and its counter culture, as well as the perverse nature of celebrity worship and consumerism, the power of the media, and the importance of administrative evil in the context of a highly bureaucratic society. The second part will explore the merit and character of an empathic civilization, as well as the power of co-intelligence and dynamic facilitation in the form of Wisdom Councils and how we can replace our current form of government with more decentralized, egalitarian forms. Finally, the last part of this chapter will explore practical approaches or techniques for individuals and groups of individuals to take in order to start making complex changes to themselves and the world around them--in other words to authentically be the change they want to see.
Culture and Cultivation
CULTURE and cultivation go hand in hand. What we consider necessary and good is what we ultimately cultivate, in turn this mentality and behavior becomes our culture. From the ground up, all civilization happens from the bottom up—through culture. Creating and maintaining the cultural conditions for civilization may be rather difficult, even where and when examples of civilization, recent or otherwise, seem viable. And when viable examples of civilization are rejected, despite their viability, creating and maintaining the conditions for civilization may be impossible.
Whether or not there are viable alternatives to the present model I will leave up to the reader to decide; however, the purpose of this chapter will be to provide reasons of doubt regarding the validity of our present culture, and provide alternative narratives in various aspects of our culture, which may or may not seem viable to some readers, but which reason and common sense would suggest have serious validity. Nonetheless, this alternative narrative will be what constitute a ground for a new form of civilization, one based on empathy rather than utility, one based on merit rather than superficial popularity, one based on a balance of reason and receptivity rather than speculation and impulse.
With that, let us examine our modern culture, and see how it has defined the course of humanity...
Modern Culture
Nothing defines a civilization, or its culture, more than its ideology, its belief systems (BS). Any civilization composed of communities that worship the self, will inevitably disintegrate; any civilization predicated on war, will inevitably fall by the sword; and any culture based on consumption will, in the end, consume itself. The reason for this is simple: the smaller the circle of compassion one has, the less likely they are to, a) be happy, b) listen to another's perspective, c) seek deeper levels of empathy, and d) think on issues of broad, all affecting importance; in other words, such a limited way of thinking can be an indicator of a low level of consciousness, increasing disintegration, entropy, and disorder. Without empathy, the possibility for a planetary organism, or biosphere consciousness, is inconceivable.
Modern spirituality is of many things but of the spirit. The mall is our church, the dollar bill our cross, symbolizing our religious practice: consumption is our holy ritual to abate the symptoms of emptiness in a vacuous world. Indeed we are living in an atheistic satanist society, an ideology familiar in America and other western cultures: “Fuck everyone else, I'm gonna get mine and do me!” is the prevailing mentality in many Westerners, especially those well-educated by the indoctrination system we call school.
According to Nemo, Magister of the church of Satan, “We are our own Gods in the sense of taking full responsibility for our actions and placing ourselves at the dead center of being important in our universe. But we do not pretend to be like Jehovah! Being our own God is an ethical statement of personal policy rather than a metaphysical statement regarding the nature of reality.” This ideology, similar but more sophisticated than the mentality common in western culture, can be seen in virtually every corner, and in every class of modern culture. Atheistic satanism is at the core of both capitalism, and the society that such a model engenders in the population.
Our cultural spirit is of a me-centered character, aided most of all by the wizards on Wall Street, the magicians of Madison Avenue, and the public relations society, founded by Edward Bernays during the prime years of psychology—and the burgeoning years of our cultural evolution. Were we to peer through the veil of their deception, and see the world as it truly is, their power would vanish like a fart in the wind. Many of the Big Lies that influence our cultural narrative and collective ideology, which attempt to regulate public opinion, are based on fallacious theory--most of which originate hundreds of years ago, and are based on outdated data—or still worse, no data at all. One of these is overpopulation (as submitted by Malthus to his aristocratic audience in 1798) , and another is survival of the fittest (as exemplified in Herbert Spencer's interpretation of Darwinian theory called Social Darwinism, which resulted in negative Eugenics).
It is not whether or not these theories are correct, but how they have affected the cultural narrative, and the zeitgeist of modernity, which we will address here. Both of the above theories (as they are interpreted today) act to intensify an already existing aristocratic, eugenic perspective, which further acts to lower the overall value of life, and reduce its opportunity to unify and grow as a community of living beings. Rather, life is viewed as a utility, its value to be viewed as a commodity, and its beauty as a luxury. Bringing higher entropy without higher order, stifling human (consciousness) evolution, these perspectives legitimize the subjugation of the third world, the animal kingdom, and the environment—ultimately resulting in the enslavement of the masses under a cold scientism, which supposedly works to protect us from ourselves—while worsening planetary conditions for life across the spectrum, threatening all life including our own.
Association in equality is the law of human progress. However, our current moral vacuum, created by a values-neutral science, has resulted in an equal empowerment of the least common denominator, and money changers in the temple. If we are to associate in equality, and have true progress from the primordial slime of the second industrial revolution, first we must recognize the necessity of shifting from a Newtonian culture and scientism to a Teslian, Quantum-based deep science: the kind of energy that Nikola Tesla discovered, and which the old boys network has innocuously prevented since the invention of the Alternating Current, is that which is always around us, ambient in a potential form until we unlock it with our powerful minds and technology.
Materialism, money, and machines (or humans acting as machines) are what amount to an unholy trinity. For these three things bring with them egotism, dissociation, and alienation. Today, more than ever, the unholy trinity can be seen running the show. It's no wonder we're in the shape we're in. Life has been reduced to a commodity, and our children along with it. Human resources, as they say, is all we are: Homo economicus, the economic man; this is what we have been reduced to.
In the times before the American Revolution, the Monarch was King George II, and everything that those early colonies befell could be blamed upon his head directly, where in reality it was his government, his cabinet that was mostly to blame. However, today the tyranny has gone global; no longer do we have a single figure to which we can hold our blame, no matter how much or how many times we are told it is the president’s or prime ministers fault. Today, our monarch, or tyrant, is our own ideology, and the momentum of the moment. There are specific entities (governments, corporations, coalitions, unions, etc.) that we can look to to blame, but the cultural and systemic forces that exist around them are the true cause.
For this reason it is imperative that we humans develop a new social narrative to help us interact and understand reality; one that brings us together, like a ligament connects muscle to bone; one that dispels the boundaries between self and other, so that our world may become sane; one that includes our participation in governmental decision making, and our deep play in communion with our fellow beings. To do this, however, we must become one with the world we seek to change; in other words, we must love our enemy. Only by studying, and becoming aware of the world as it is, can we have the needed coherence with the forms of our sick society that need attention; by doing so, we will have more influence over them. The same could be said of our bodies, but that discussion is for another book.
Equally important to our cultural narrative are our justice systems, and our cultural perspective, or zeitgeist, on justice: what constitutes a crime, and what are we to do in response to said crime? Some crime goes unnoticed (small time crime), others are culturally unrecognized as crimes (crimes of absolute immorality), and still others can only be said to be witnessed and recognized as crimes by poets and prophets alike (metaphysical crimes).
Nowhere in jurisprudence do we find laws that protect the rights of natural beings or phenomena in their wild state and habitat (a small time crime). Animals do not have rights beyond those which refer to human property. At this point, life has been patented (a crime of absolute immorality), and so life itself has been turned into property, which mankind has taken as its own creation as an early god (a metaphysical crime).
Nonetheless, the suggestion exists to grant equal protections under the law, of both the animal kingdom, and the biosphere itself. India has been a pioneer of this, suggesting that dolphins be released from captivity, and labeled as non-human persons. This notion may seem ridiculous to the Japanese fisherman, but only a person with literally no understanding of how the planet works would suggest killing off an entire species because it interferes with their fishing business. In this instance, economic factors corrupt human morality.
Moreover, many of the crimes of the hidden (corporatocracy) government and its movers go unbound, acting independently of public scrutiny. Meanwhile, frivolous acts are punished severely, and even law-abiding citizens can be seen treated as criminals— and in cases like this, similar to instances like the “Kids for Cash” scandal in Philadelphia, life and dignity are sacrificed for money and convenience. Indeed, we are merely allowed to move and act under our wayward systems of law.
Judges truly believe they are doing the best for the lives of their victims. However, rather than question the validity of such a system, the judge, the lawyer, and even the people, simply comply and witlessly so, with a system that has not ever been seriously challenged—and which, more importantly, has never had the effect of rehabilitation, which the entire premise of corrections is based on. Rather than authentically constructing a system capable of this end, more of the same punishment and consolidation of criminality has continued to exacerbate, until today the united states, with only a small fraction of the world’s population, has approximately 20% of the world’s prison population—a staggering figure.
Moreover, our consumption of livestock, being so voracious, has gotten to the point of insanity and idiocracy. To many this subject is touchy, but only because of egotism and fear. People fear change and love only their desires. The desire to eat meat overpowers reason, and causes us to level the rainforest, desertify the world, and plunge our entire economy into the rectum of a cow--all in the name of convenience. We do not need meat to survive, but we do need clean air and water, both of which are more affected by livestock farming than by organic farming.
Culturally speaking, nothing could be more important than what we cultivate, and if we are choosing to cultivate meat, while we say there is a crisis of greenhouse emissions and global food security, our culture, globally, is ass backwards. Meat production produces more greenhouse gases than all of the transportation industry combined according to the World Bank and United Nation’s own reports. For this reason it only makes sense to consider a huge reduction of meat production and consumption, if not a complete abandonment of the enterprise, resorting instead to veganic and organic agriculture to feed the world; this, not switching to an energy saving light bulb, is going to prevent global warming and human made climate change, desertification, and global starvation and drought.
Cows produce huge amounts of methane, which is over 600 times more insulating to the ozone, exacerbating the greenhouse effect far more than carbon emissions. Therefore, the threat to human life is not technology per say, but the habits and lifestyle choices of our consumption, particularly in regards to food. More vital resources are spent raising a cow than a human being, and despite this, we say that there is a shortage of resources; this however, is another big lie, and an appeal to the hedonist in us all by the cattle industry and the complex of complexes that support and rely upon the livestock industry to exist and survive. It is not lost on the author that what he is professing herein is radical and would transform our entire society and every aspect of how we live, but then again so would extinction. And that is basically our choice space: be hedonists and apathetically recline into extinction, or grow up and change our habits in order to survive and thrive.
Countering Modern (Counter) Culture
The hedonistic paradox is something that ancient philosophers were aware of and what they pointed out that people who directly aim at pleasure, it's where the term hedonism comes from, people who directly point out at pleasure seldom get it. They end up finding the things they thought would give them pleasure, not satisfying, not pleasing to them.
On the other hand, people who don't aim at pleasure but aim at something else, some activity that's worthwhile in itself and they get absorbed in the moment of doing what they're doing and what the psychologists are calling the flow. They actually get enjoyment of fulfillment out of it so the paradox of hedonism is if you want to get more satisfaction, more happiness out of life, don't aim for happiness, aim for something else.
I sight the paradox of hedonism in response to questions like, well, why should I be moral? Why should I pursue morality? Why shouldn't I just go after my own happiness? Why shouldn't I earn what money I can and then retire to the beach where I have beautiful people of the other sex rubbing oil into my skin or whatever your vision of what hedonism might be?
What I argue is that, that's really not likely to bring you happiness, and you're more likely to get happiness from doing something that is intrinsically worthwhile, that you can see is worthwhile, and you can take some real satisfaction from when you actually succeed in achieving it.
~Peter Singer, Recorded by Big Think on: March 16, 2009
The above statements briefly describe our modern culture, which we will more adequately describe later in this chapter. However, suffice to say that a traveler, a vagabond such as myself, seeing it as his duty, must contend, and peel bare the stronghold of this strangest utopia: The utopia that people have created in their mind about this empty, mundane place—full of injustice, hedonism, and moral insanity. To be world-wise, in this paradise of dull-witted woe, is an art, and an undertaking of no small proportion. For there is a war on us and a war on truth, because in an empire of lies truth is as revolutionary an act as any and yet infinitely more powerful than violence.
To give hope and excite hearts and minds, we share this opus with you so that you may offspring and become your own masterpiece. Doing so, we transcend the boundaries of our own era. Beyond these boundaries there is a mansion to be built and a garden to be tended; a center to be felt and a life to be lived. The mission of every philosopher, every man and woman with a vision beyond themselves or their culture, is to enlighten themselves and others. We seek to unlock the heart, enlarge the mind, and practice consciousness of greater layers of intensity: peeling back the superficial distractions of the world—through a change in the character and identification with our inner freak.
To recognize what we warship, guided by the reigns of our cultural ideology, the collective conspiracy in maintaining this global criminal enterprise we call globalism, of which we all play a part, first we must take an honest look at the beast, and brave the initial drain to our ego. To acknowledge that we are not in control of our life can be a difficult thing to do, especially when your ideology tells us that we have control, and that we are fully responsible for our life as it is despite our reliance upon that ideology as a mental crutch and the inventions of society as a physical crutch. Awakening to the manipulation of a scientifically engineered dystopia can seem like waking up to a nightmare, but I assure you, my friend, closing your eyes to the sun will not make it go away.
Moreover, the only way to make the sun appear is to open your eyes, and the only way to overcome a Brave New World is to become brave ourselves. To be free from this nightmare, we must first own it. Through study and action, taking steps to master our realm (Pentivium chap. 10.), and evolve past the matrix of evil, and every counterfeit revolution, we open the door to our collective freedom as players of existence, and co-creators of our own reality. By doing so, you will have become the true revolution, for the change starts from within.
However, history seems odious to the sophisticated mind, blameworthy and vile; it is no wonder that intellectuals such as Herbert Spencer have borne such a misanthropic view upon the world (e.g. Social Darwinism); that humanity is an evildoer, a monster composed of wild libidinal forces, is common sense today thanks to Sigmund Freud, and we wonder why our law enforcement judges us guilty before proven innocent. The rampant abuse of police power has been the result of a shift in our cultural narrative, from principles to profit, and from a loving view of humanity to an abusive moral insanity. To curb the tide of this Cultural Revolution from a syndrome of decay towards a syndrome of growth, a new cultural narrative of empathy must take shape in the reader, and in her or his community.
Perhaps this negative counter revolution—the war on us—was most fully embraced after the plain bombings of September 11, 2001; and perhaps the legitimizing of this dark narrative originated from the plutocracy run media, and the military industrial complex—evidenced by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), to send them bombs instead of education, torture instead of food, and turmoil instead of other forms of aid. However, this subversive war has always been in the minds of politicians and the secret documents of governments around the world: it is only news to the willfully ignorant that their government is so incredibly corrupt.
Reduced to mere poverty, a punishment that would seem enough under any moral sentiment, and lead astray by beer and sport, those under the influence of imperialist centers of capital cannot see the prison walls, nor the bars of their cell; because the entire prison structure has been internalized, making them their own prison guard, and the guard of their own best friend and vice versa, our society is not only schizophrenically paranoid, it is asleep to this nightmarish conclusion. To any wakeful person, the world is a prison, and freedom is something few can say they truly understand. The fact that freedom and sovereignty come from within has been replaced with the notion that freedom and sovereignty are provided by governments and organizations of aristocrats and other criminals.
Having stated the above, it is important that the reader recognize that, despite all of this negativity, and as intense as all that may seem: what goes down by artificial force, must come up by natural force. Much like if we were to submerge a Styrofoam ball under water, we can only keep it submerged as long as our hand is kept over it, suppressing its natural tendency to float. Similarly, humanity's natural tendency to empathic communion and flow (i.e., deep play) has been suppressed by the systems of modern cultural conventions. Just like what happens when we remove our hand from the ball, when we remove the constraints of this dysfunctional culture, our natural tendency will kick in immediately, and like the ball shoots to the surface, our humanity will shine out like a radiant star.
It is important to understand that it is not by ignoring the problem of globalism and administrative evil that those demiurgus will be brought down. It is not by partying, going from festival to festival, from one psychedelic experience to another, that we will change the world. Being the change you want to see must necessarily mean something more than selfish hedonism masquerading as an enlightened journey. Those brothers and sisters following this empty path, those in the new age movement and the rave scene, are using their time to indulge in an equally drone-like, lotus eater lifestyle as their conventional counterparts. In essence, to revolt against convention is equally as perverted, misguided, and errant as the opposite found in conformity. The solution, therefore, is to evolve and create something altogether new: a culture that is more complex and integral than consumption, or the cult of personality and perversion, as we shall explore below.
The Cult of Personality and Perversion
Now we will go over the modern social phenomena uniquely expressed in the U.S. as: the culture of celebrity, and how it affects our society--as well as the various perversions that occur due to that cult of personality. To give an adequate criticism of this aspect of our culture, a few grounds upon which to build that foundation must first be laid: first, media has a higher role than entertainment and that is to provide context and disclose information for the betterment of society; and second, to bring people together in body, mind, and spirit, so that they, as a person and as a people simultaneously, may become more integrated, and thus more complex. To be a authentic, both our media, and the figures around which that organ of society revolves, must be rooted in reason, and dispense reliable information in such a way that the above points are met in tandem.
There is little to nothing authentic about the media coverage of celebrities, nor that they are worshiped today. This is not a point of jealousy, nor a point of anger, but a point of disappointment. If either the coverage or the celebrities themselves were real, or genuine, they would either be, with regards to coverage, critical of celebrities on a substantive or human level (whereas today they are judged on a purely superficial level, or for dealings in their private life that are of no consequence to anyone with a critical mind or a sensible soul, missing the mark in regards to aiming our criticism where it rightly belongs: the culture); and were the celebrities themselves real, on average, the industry itself would not, could not exist under the weight of their condemnation of it; further, the resulting elevation of the general population towards transcendence, given some real truth by either celebrity or industry alike, must make the media industry seem irrelevant and unfavorable. Compared to truth and reality, everything smells like shit.
How many of our celebrities are about elevating others in any authentic way? Celebrities are the most viewed people in the world, yet they are the least responsible for cultural evolution towards deeper states and stages of consciousness. Indeed, not even the directors and producers of entertainments take that responsibility seriously—though it is their ethical and occupational charge. And while there may be exceptions to this rule, no matter how authentic, a few good examples can not counterbalance the weightiness of the whole.
Let’s face it though, people are obsessed with celebrity today, and because of social networks people are also more inclined to think they actually know and are loved by the celebrities they warship. And it is no wonder why; we are bombarded with images day in and day out, of celebrities, their babies, and their new flings, what they are wearing, and every idiosyncrasy of their lives. Many people are obsessed with being like celebrities: looking like them, acting like them, aspiring to have as much as they have; their wives are beautiful, their houses are huge, their clothes are expensive and fashionable, they always seem happy, and everybody loves them. But underneath the surface, these people, on average, are just as sad and dissatisfied with their lives as anybody else.
Why keep up the appearance of happiness then? If these people are so dissatisfied, why do they not speak up and vocalize their dissatisfaction? Because the point of their existence, in the cultural scheme of things, is not to entertain us, the masses, but to keep us in line; the point of celebrity, beyond conventional wisdom, is to keep the glamor of the money economy going, to keep it fresh in our minds, to keep us consuming, and more importantly to convince us and our children that anything is possible in this economy. Few understand the sacrifices that are made by celebrities: normalcy, privacy, and anonymity among others. Further, it is rarely acknowledged how few celebrities got there of their own volition: many of them are there because of connections that they have, or are riding on the coattails of someone else.
That being said, it is not our goal to hate celebrities, because they are victims of an inhuman system, just like anyone else. The paradigmatic systems that are in play are what cause us to be, not players, but slaves to our roles: race, sex, class, and creed. Were we to realize this, our obsession with celebrity would be but a passing memory. The more immersed in flow stats, for instance, the less likely we are to be obsessing about celebrities or living vicariously through others.
But for now, we can see how celebrity harms humanity, in that it creates unrealistic expectations, and an unrelenting desire to “live big”. Celebrity is a major component in our culture, just as important as media and movies are, because celebrity causes us to desire what Wall Street and Madison Avenue want us to desire. Creating an artificial want for things we do not need, our dreams and our thoughts are compelled to submit to the will of their hidden hand.
Is this democracy? Edward Bernays would say that propaganda is absolutely necessary in any democratic society, because he believed, as many of his time did, that humanity is a rabid beast inside, and incapable of rational thought. Rather than relying on that beast, according to Bernays the people must be guided by hidden hands (propagandists/public relations). Rather than doing so in the light, the departments of public relations rely on secrecy to subtly manipulate the opinion of the masses, and guide their will in directions that benefit the wealthy class.
The decline of modern culture is evidenced by the fact of its perversion from authentic empathic, to utilitarian psychopathic characteristics. Perversion, like sin, is merely the notion of missing the mark. We miss the mark of greater and greater limits of consciousness and empathy, as well as rationality and skepticism, the more we entertain ourselves with brainless titillations; we miss the mark in regards to reaching our own state of sovereignty, a sovereignty that can only result in the innate willingness to unify as one humanity, one earth; one life, one cosmos. In first recognizing the sovereignty of ourselves, we can then more easily recognize the unheeded sovereignty in everyone.
We also miss the mark in regards to those whom we worship. We (and by we I mean the general public) worship those who entertain us, those that perpetuate the mechanisms of war, and those that have ravaged the planet for pecuniary gain. In other words, our culture warships sin, missing the mark, and does so because of propaganda and lies, rather than truth. Our culture worships lies, in whatever form, because that is the only way we can be restrained, and controlled by the elite of this world. The truth will set us free, but in a culture of lies, truth and wisdom seem more like madness than sanity.
It is by the transmitted idea that cultural narratives are constructed, and it is through this process that civilizations are formed. However, because of the perversion of our society, from one that embraces empathy to one that embraces cold rationality; from one that embraces intelligence to one that embraces ignorance; the gradual transformation from a growing transpersonal consciousness to a regressive egocentric modality has resulted in the decline of civilization. Below we will examine how transmitted ideas are central to our culture, and how the media plays a central part.
Media and Memetics
It was the late philosopher Marshall Mcluhan, who famously said, “The medium is the message”. And indeed, the medium (Television, Internet, Radio, Person to Person, Painting, Writing, etc.) has its own language of expression, its own mechanisms of perception, and underlying significance—or lack thereof, which in itself has its own underlying significance—to the one perceiving it. Since the technology of wirelessly transmitting information has been invented, a revolution in media has taken shape, and with it a revolution in memetics.
Memetics is a theory of mind that has vast implications on culture. The equivalent of a gene in physiology, a meme is a unit of culture in psychology and philosophy. Among other things, ideas, beliefs, patterns of behavior, and fears can be attributed as memes; held within individuals and groups alike, memes can (and tend to) be spread like a virus from host to host, transmitted through the mediums listed above. Depending upon the medium, the message (or meme) may be interpreted in a number of ways, and received in a spectrum of degrees, but because memes can be transferred by all mediums, culturally speaking it is impossible to avoid a meme forever.
New memes are being created every day, and the most popular ones have their place in the spotlight. This book is itself a meme, and an attempt to transform our current memes into memes that actually matter, and that actually have the potential for transcendence, rather than stagnancy. Today, we are obsessed with having the new thing, and it is for this reason that we have become stagnant: rather than wanting the best, we want the newest; rather than wanting the best for humanity, we want to be fed by the hand of science; rather than creating our own culture, we are prescribed what is cool by the oligarchs and talking heads of Wall Street, Madison Ave, and the media.
The evolution of culture has been guided, in large part, by the memes created by Hollywood, Wall Street, Madison Avenue, and every other industry of cultural influence: music, writing, art, etc. Very rarely has anyone ever been capable, in modern times, of influencing culture without the aid of these industries. More and more, as attempts to make them irrelevant mount, counter offensives are waged—it is a war against a future freedom, a freedom incomprehensible to the powers that be, a freedom in opposition to centralized authority.
Memes have the power to change the world, and nothing can stop a meme whose time has come. As they say, the revolution will not be televised, but what will be televised is the debate leading up to it. We hope that with this addition to the mimetic library, a debate will rise in regards to what is best, rather than what is new. In doing so, we have a real chance of making this century the century of the sovereigns.
The Century of the Self
In a now famous BBC documentary called “The Century of the Self”, the 20st century is examined with a critical eye regarding the role of psychology. So much focus was, and continues to be paid to the self, and how to cure the self of disorder, that no other title could be as fitting than “the century of the self”.
The cultural narrative of the self has never been more accessible (it seems like every other commercial is about some pill you can take to cure one of your latent mental disorders), yet the cultural institutions that exist today have never been further from addressing the self. Rather than addressing legitimate suffering, pharmaceuticals are prescribed; rather than addressing a world order that creates dysfunction, intense anxiety, and depression, people have been convinced that something is wrong with them; rather than recognizing that the world is dysfunctional, and dealing with that real problem, fictional problems were theorized: a chemical imbalance is why you are depressed, not because the world is depressing; in other words, it's your fault (the victim) and not ours (the victimizer).
Moreover, as alienating as the present world is, especially in western culture, our efforts to try to reconnect have proven only to exacerbate our already cozy relationship with hedonism, narcissism, and ignorance. With the iphone and ipad we take selfies, and go on facebook (an anti-social network) in order to fill the void created by a life without meaning (epistemologically, morally, or metaphysically) ; and no longer having conversations, we have chats, even shortening those to snapchat's—can it really be said that we are more connected now than ever, or are we just kidding ourselves like we always have? The issue with this kind of life is, we are no longer really living lives, instead we are carrying out roles that we only think we have chosen, but have we really? In the attempt to become something more, we have lost sight of the balance between what we are and what we could be, and in doing so we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater—we have sacrificed our humanity along with our natural limitations, for the promise of convenience and dopamine. Indeed, the century-of-the-self pushes on—full throttle—into the 21st century. As we bare witness, only those aware enough to see will be seen crying, and cursed as crazy by the idiocracy.
Many of the younger generation, of which the present author is a part, have succumbed to the temptation of self-indulgence, self-worship, and self-avoidance. However, there are those of us conscious enough to recognize this syndrome of disintegration, resisting the temptation to slumber in lower consciousness states, rising instead into higher stages of being. Ken Wilber, in his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality depicts these states and stages of consciousness as a nest, or spiral, representing the growth and expansion of consciousness; expanding the circle of compassion\identity to include more and more, until the entire universe is recognized as having no boundary; growing in consciousness to the point that all knowledge has been integrated and contextualized to recognize truth, live life in peace, and express love and gratitude without conflict.
The century of the self was a century of psychology, a century of suspicion and fear, a century of repression and liberation, and more importantly it was a century of lies. The 21st century is turning out to be only more of the same with some extra added in: repression, normalized narcissism, psychopathy, and complacency. This being the case, we are in for a hell of a show.
It is, however, as we have touched on earlier, a choice between fear and love; or rather it is a choice between integration and disintegration, growth or decay. Though, because of all of the technological advancements of our time, you would think we were an almost supernatural force, as wise and as powerful as the gods. However, the truth is that as advanced as our technology is, we are no wiser as a people than our distant ancestors were—perhaps even less in some respects. Today morality and sentiment have been sacrificed to epistemology and utilitarianism, and the results speak for themselves.
Rather than trying to find the balance between self and other, with a goal of integration, we have focused entirely on one or the other. Those of us obsessed with the other are in physics, mathematics, engineering, etc. in order to measure and quantify everything outside; those of us obsessed with the self are in cosmetics, entertainment, psychology, etc. Today, people are less worried about success and more worried about fulfillment, but if they were to recognize how, by balancing the polarity of self and other, they could come to a point of innate fulfillment through attentive awareness and, resulting in heightened states of appreciation and love for both self and other simultaneously. The state which we are describing here is called Agape.
If we are to come to a point in our culture where we can seriously be happy, fulfilled, and without conflict, we must come to a point where epistemology\knowledge and morality\intuition, are unified in each and every one. In doing so, we see reality for how complex it really is, rather than filtering it—however witlessly—through the lens of an artificial ideology. In seeing how complex reality is, we also recognize the complexity within ourselves, and in doing so make room for deeper and more integral states of being. Indeed, if our species wants to survive this century, it must transform itself into the century of Agape—and soon.
To do so requires that we become the heroes that we have been waiting for. In order to avert evil, the price of liberty is constant vigilance; however, we cannot properly be vigilant if we know nothing of the nature of evil. In order to be properly equipped against the evils of our world, we must understand how the evil of situational forces manifest. It is most often those of us convinced of our goodness that, unprepared when situational forces strike, are the most disposed to behaving immorally.
The Lucifer Effect
What makes good people do bad things? We see it all the time; whether it is a well-intentioned person helping convicted felons, or patriotic soldiers torturing people in sick and creative ways, people who love their family and friends, yet have the capacity to kill others for no apparent reason; people seem to have an unbelievable capacity for evil despite their apparent willingness for good—but more importantly, humanity seems to have a nebulous capacity for both, given the right circumstances. In his book The Lucifer Effect (2007), Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University, attempts to answer this daunting question: what are the contingencies for making ostensibly good people behave immorally. (This sub-chapter will act as a condensed version of that book.)
In the now famous (or rather infamous) Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 1971), the initial question of how prison effects inmates was inquired upon. The study was originally intended to be two weeks long, but it was cut short (to six days) due to severe psychological breaks of several of the paid volunteers\inmates. The reason was not because of intrinsic factors, such as the volunteers being psychologically unstable prior to the experiment, but was due instead to the unrelenting abuses perpetrated by the other paid volunteers: the prison guards. What was originally supposed to be a study of the effect of prison life on inmates, quickly shifted its attention upon the abusive guards, and what caused their immoral actions. To this day, many fruitful discussions have bore forth from this bad barrel experiment, where the barrel itself created bad apples from good: an alchemical transformation of personality if you will.
Both the prison guards and the inmates of this study were selected on the grounds of their so called normalcy, even their apparently high levels of compassion, and then randomly differentiated into the two roles: prisoner or guard. This being the seventies after all, most of them had long hair, and could be described as hippies. Thus the apparent shock to the conductors of the study, showing even a reluctance to admit when things went terribly wrong; turning a blind eye to immorality and injustice, Zimbardo and his team were thinking that such abuses could not be authentic expressions of immoral behavior, seeing as how these subjects were initially so altruistic and empathic.
In fact even Zimbardo himself became a part of the systemic abuses that were taking place in his own study. How could this be possible? His answer is that “Good people can be induced, seduced, and initiated into behaving in evil ways. They can also be led to act in irrational, stupid, self-destructive, antisocial, and mindless ways when they are immersed in 'total situations' that impact human nature in ways that challenge our sense of stability and consistency of individual personality, of character, and of morality.” In other words, situations matter because they provide roles, and through the context of those roles people interact with each other in prescribed ways (as in the case of the prisoner vs the guard); but more importantly, systems matter, because systems provide the situational forces (or context) for those roles to be carried out (and make sense to the role followers). It is a top down world after all, and so the hierarchy goes from top to bottom: systems create situations which in turn create dispositions.
According to Dr. Zimbardo:
The most important lesson to be derived from the SPE is that Situations are created by Systems [sic]. Systems provide the institutional support, authority, and resources that allow situations to operate as they do.
...System power involves authorization or institutionalized permission to behave in prescribed ways or to forbid and punish actions that are contrary to them. It provides the “higher authority” that gives validation to playing new roles, following new rules, and taking actions that would ordinarily be constrained by preexisting laws, norms, morals, and ethics. Such validation usually comes cloaked in the mantle of ideology [sic]. Ideology is a slogan or proposition that usually legitimizes whatever means are necessary to attain an ultimate goal.
The purpose of the present book is to provide the logistical as well as moral imperative for the alchemical transformation of our systems, their extended situations, and finally the resulting dispositions that directly affect our lives, bringing them into balance with the nature of human nature—rather than forcefully trying to squish human nature into a box of imposed systems and contrived situations. And while this may sound chaotic to some, seeing as how the nature of human nature is not regular, not symmetrical, and not perfect, it may seem that what the author is calling for is nothing less than insanity. But as we have already established by now, the world we live in is not only intellectually insane, it is morally bankrupt because of the imposed systems that try to limit or control most if not all natural human behavior. And were it not for these forms, we would certainly have a saner, progressive, and fulfilling existence on this spec in space.
The more we conform to these abhorrent systems, the more depressed we become generally--due to a lack of healthy catharsis (consider for a moment the rates of suicide in the military at this time, and particularly during the occupation of Iraq, as well as the rates of depression and anxiety in the western world [upwards of 20% according to the American Psychological Association]), and it is because we live in a world run principally by psychopathic institutions that this kind of inward suffering takes place (please forgive my bluntness, but it is the truth as we shall discover below).
Corporations, for instance, are psychopathic (amoral, irresponsible, selfish, and incapable of love), and are the primary guiding force in our lives: even governments are a form of corporation, but with more constraints placed upon them by the people. The purpose of a corporation is to give its founders an air of “limited liability” in the eyes of the law, where personal liability is excluded from business debts. In other words, a corporation is a means for deindividuation: creating both anonymity, and the excuse of inaction on the part of CEO's, and executives of these all too often “too big to fail” institutions. The legal purpose of corporations is to maintain profits for shareholders, while externalizing non-pecuniary related costs—more often than not at the expense of stakeholders (you or I).
Social Dynamics:
Conformity, Deindividuation, Dehumanization, and the Evil of Inaction
Much research has been done on the subject of social dynamics, and I will leave it up to the reader to find those examples (most of which can be found in the book, The Lucifer Effect, or thelucifereffect.com). Instead we will focus on describing the situational forces that act to pervert our ability to think critically, and empathetically towards others, which have been proven by the studies and research alluded to above. Below we will explore the concepts of Conformity, Deindividuation, Dehumanization, and The Evil of Inaction in consecutive order, giving some historical examples of their effects on social situations, and finally giving some attention to their impact on culture in general.
To begin, we will address the issue of conformity, which, if you live in a western culture, you will be well aware of in terms of the influence of peer pressures, as well as the desire to be a member of “the inner ring” as C.S. Lewis describes it. The innate desire of the human being to be accepted into the group, or to be one in unity with his or her community is a powerful force—and is a major reason for the recognized severity of solitary confinement as a punishment in prison situations.
Conformity, therefore, is perhaps one of the most powerful situational forces, and one which we take so much for granted, that we fail to see the impact that it has on our judgment. The amount of independently verified research to back up this claim is staggering, and the results are even more staggering; but what we must not forget to remember is that, regardless of the power placed on situational forces such as peer pressure, it does not excuse the actions that take place while under its influence; and for that reason the Nazi officers who said “we were only following orders” were, nonetheless found guilty of war crimes—and justly so!
Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the loss of self-awareness in groups, and it is through deindividuation that people are more likely to ignore injustices as they occur; this phenomenon has been called “the bystander effect” in social psychology, and is also known as bystander apathy. Bystander apathy is an effect of deindividuation, whereby a victim receives no help from bystanders when there are other people present: The more people there are in a given situation, the less likely bystanders are to give help. Why? Because one's sense of responsibility is diminished, or diffused, upon the surrounding people in the situation. It is because an individual feels less directly responsible to help the victim that he or she is reluctant to help. However, when people are alone, and a victim presents themselves, people are more likely to help, because at that point their responsibility has not been dispersed.
Dehumanization, on the other hand, is a powerful social psychological technique that renders a victim inhuman (or outside the sphere of humanity) in the eyes of his or her victimizers. Dehumanization has been used in the art of war, in order to reduce the effects of cognitive dissonance on the soldiers; it has also been used by politicians as a way to vindicate the acts of government and military personnel in the eyes of the public. To dehumanize a victim, all one need do is have a person of authority relate them to animals, or defame their character by calling them a derogatory term, or categorize them as a culturally stigmatized. The point is not so much how it is done, but the effects that such dehumanization techniques bring out in both the victims and in the victimizers.
When the forces of obedience to authority are met with aspersions of dehumanization in the victim, the result for the victim are: apathy—because they start to believe the abuse that has been rained upon them—, their self-image and self-awareness become skewed in accordance with these lies, and in effect depression and a lowered sense of self-confidence. Case in point, a school teacher from Riceville, Iowa, named Jane Elliot, conducts a simple experiment\game, whereby she tells her elementary school students that children with blue eyes are superior to children with brown eyes. What ensues is a perfect example of what can happen when legitimate authority endorses dehumanization. According to Zimbardo, “Within one day, the brown-eyed children began to do more poorly on their schoolwork and became depressed, sullen, and angry. They described themselves as “sad,” “bad,” “stupid,” and “mean.” (Further reading on this subject, and what happened to the children after this experiment can be found in The Lucifer Effect, of which this subchapter is devoted.)
Yet another term devoted to the concept of dehumanization, is infrahumanization, wherein the infrahumanized individual has been segregated from the human population—but only to a lesser degree than in cases of dehumanization. In cases of infrahumanization, things like eugenics become prevalent, and because the degree of dehumanization has been, perhaps masked with the air of trying to help the less than human people, either in procreation or in education, the result is inevitably an abdication of personal responsibility, and a general apathy in the face of situational forces, created by a system of infrahumanization. Examples of infrahumanization in modern history are: the genocide of Native Americans, our most perfect example: American slavery of Africans (in the first U.S. Constitution (Article 1. Section 2) slaves were considered, for the purposes of the census, to be 3/5ths of a person.),Eugenics, Nazi subjugation of the Jews, Planned Parenthood, and the tragic list goes on with continued polarization, but all are the consequences of empire.
The Evil of Inaction was best characterized by Martin Luther King Jr., when he said: “We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.”
It is the evil of inaction that entices the heads of various systems in our governments, our businesses, our industries, and in every level and layer of our society and culture. Everyone at one time or another befalls this evil due to the already existing systemic constraints or liberties, to which every one of us must fall in conformity, which are afforded to all of us by a state or federal (aggregate) government. This evil stems either from procrastination or ignorance, both of which originate in an already corrupted environment, themselves rooted in parental abandonment issues; and thus our culture seems to be to blame; and thus the way we educate and raise our young ourselves, so that they become responsible, enlightened (as in both empathic and receptive, as well as epistemic and critical), healthy adults is the answer.
The Banality of Evil and Administrative Evil
The Banality of Evil may strike one as an oxymoron, or at least as a paradox; all too often we think of evil as some Monarch on high, as the prince of darkness—bad apples that are exceptions to the rule of decency—or as we perceive them in James Bond films: larger-than-life-evil, conspicuous in its every aspect. It never strikes us that, perhaps, just perhaps the ones doing evil are just like us, or even completely normal outside of their occupation of evil. However, the sinister, insidious truth of evil is that all too often, especially in society as opposed to war, we witness the truth of evil as a far more mundane and banal thing than we craft in our Hollywood dreams.
What Philip Zimbardo exposes in The Lucifer Effect, is that while some cases of bad apples do occur, and while evil may come in conspicuous packages, the more sinister form of evil comes in the form of the friendly neighbor who goes to work torturing people for a living, or the prison guard who, while at home is a friendly and domesticated human being, that, once at work, becomes a tyranny unto himself, unleashing his silent rage upon this inmate subjects.
The point, herein expressed, is that the banality of evil is something which, if we are not aware of it, can turn into other, more sinister, more destructive forms of evil, as we will explain below.
Administrative Evil is a new kind of modern evil, it comes about when emergent norms that are based on systems that are themselves rooted in secrecy, conformity, dehumanization, and deindividuation, take over, and the people inside of those administrations are succumb to the powers of situational forces that are beyond them; in this situation, people are more disposed to play the hand they have been dealt, follow orders, and ignore injustices as they happen as a matter of course.
Administrative evil is the result of incrementalism: gradual, incremental changes, which occur by way of small, seemingly insignificant changes in policy, which, like the boiling of the frog (metaphor), gradually intensify without the recognition of either spectators or those directly involved. The end result is that a once decent human beings become conduits for injustice, entire systems become selfish in their administration, losing humanity (love and reason) to the numbness of psychopathy.
This evil became so serious during the controversy over the Abu Ghraib prison that General Counsel Alberto Mara describes its effects, stating that “If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government.” []
The Banality of Heroism, and What Makes a Hero?
The Banality of Heroism may also seem oxymoronic at first, but this concept is best summed up by an old, wise man named Gandalf the Grey (J.R.R. Tolkien) when he said: “Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.”
Indeed, as we proceed, we will explore the possibility of enhancing the quality of kindness and love in everyone, and in the banal heroes who surround us, by changing our situational forces, and cultivating receptiveness in children and adults alike; we will also explore ways of celebrating the unsung heroes (teachers, nurses, mothers, the honest cop, etc.) all of whom we are remiss in our culture to ignore simply because they are not controversial.
What Makes a Hero? If we want to cultivate heroes in our children and adults alike, we first need to understand what heroism is, what makes a person a hero, and how that kind of alchemical transformation can be made to cultivate heroism in our society. However, because “we do not keep records of how many acts of charity, kindness, or compassion occur in community in the course of a year,” as Zimbardo points out, we are navigating in the dark, and because there have been no studies into what makes a person do heroic acts, we are also navigating blind.
However, in response to this bleak outlook in psychology, Martin Seligman and others have resorted to peering into the more positive side of humanity, calling their perspective Positive Psychology.
Positive Psychologists have pinpointed six major virtues in behavior: wisdom & knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Of these six, three are primary: courage, justice, and transcendence. Courage and justice most of us are familiar with, or at least we think we are, but transcendence is one, which most of us are not familiar. Transcendence is a moment of act that goes beyond service to self; when in a state of transcendence we go beyond self in service to a higher order of values.
As an example of a state of transcendence, all one must think of is the young man who jumps on a grenade to protect his or her comrades. This act of courage directly transcends his or her identity, and the usual situational forces that would prevent anyone with a brain from jumping on the grenade; at that point, service to friends and to the cause supersedes any forces, situational or otherwise, which would prevent him or her from doing so.
Courage, on the other hand is especially a virtue in the face of powerful situational forces that readily entrap most people. While the tale of Achilles is an example of a military hero, which most of us are familiar, Socrates (a lesser known Greek hero) was a civic hero because, despite situational forces like norms and custom, he went against the grain, and did so unapologetically, and at the expense of his own life. In the case of Achilles, his risk was peril, while Socrates risk was that of sacrifice. What we want to focus on, in culture, is social heroism, and the sacrifices that are required of us if we are to live in a world of administrative evils.
Here are the four key features of heroism according to positive psychology: a) heroism is voluntary b) it involves risk and\or sacrifice c) heroism is a service d) and it is without anticipated extrinsic gain. In essence, heroism is socio-centric, and not egocentric. And while heroism may not be egocentric, it does require autonomy and receptivity. However, to be a hero one also needs a higher calling, a Quest, in order to set her or him on the right path: preservation in service of life or a noble ideal (Life or life itself being the highest of noble ideas).
Moreover, in order to be our own hero, first we need a heroic imagination. Imagine that everyone is a potential hero in waiting, because according to the statistics, everyone is. To be a hero, all it takes is to be receptive rather than passive, to be a participant, rather than a spectator, to be a producer (or prosumer) rather than a mere consumer. Emotional receptivity, as we will see, is the greatest of heroic virtues in the 21st century, and it is this fact that we will explore below.
[To read more on the subject of evil, and how to protect yourself from situational forces of administrative evil, visit www.lucifereffect.com]
Empathic Civilization
As we said at the beginning of this chapter, culture and cultivation go hand in hand, and if we are to cultivate fear, rather than love, distrust rather than trust, passivity rather than participation, and competition rather than reciprocity, our culture is doomed to disintegrate under the constant forces of entropy. The result can be nothing less than the inevitable death of freedom, friendship, and humanity in every sense of the word. We are already witnessing the cracks of our culture, in the way our society is degenerating into a full blown empire with a police state, aided by a gradually increasing bureaucracy, and lubricated by an already obvious public idiocracy.
Many people in various fields of study have come to a revelation in the passing decades, that Faustian, enlightenment thinking, while valuable to a patriarchal, capitalistic society, is not as comprehensive and beneficial as we once thought. As Michael Slote points out in his book From Enlightenment to Receptivity (2013), “If receptivity is the great virtue...then by the same token control or the inordinate desire for control is the besetting philosophical sin of our entire Western tradition, and any new large-scale picture of our values needs to emphasize these facts or conclusions.” (pg. 203)
The striving for rationalistic control has led to a complete lapse in realistic apprehension of the nature of human nature, and the actuality of human interaction and psychology. In other words, we have no clue what we are doing, but pretending that we do because of a fear of a lack of control, intellectuals and the leaders of the status quo have kept up the appearance of coherence, while the world crumbles down around them. And while great strides of jurisprudence have been made regarding the expansion of empathic regard (granting equal rights for blacks, women, homosexuals for instance), and while there is a natural progression of cultural empathic expansion, this trend is also leading the more traditional and conservative members of our society to lash back with acts of violence.
It is because of a lack of reciprocal empathic regard that these kinds of irrational, inhuman, and generally evil behavior have become so common, and not just in the United States. Empathic regard is just as important for males as it is for females, if not more, in any culture. Moreover, this is not just an idealistic rhetoric about how things should be, this is a fact of life, and because our values have been so twisted by the culture of patriarchal empire, males have been turned into war machines, killers of life, before they have a chance to be recognized as protectors of life, and stewards of their ken. Women are naturally more empathic more often than not, but when they are just as influenced by patriarchal culture, their sensitivity to the world is either numbed or reversed inwardly into narcissism and egocentrism, and we can all recognize this as it is happening, and this happens to both men and women who are naturally sensitive in our culture of narcissism. The pain that comes from this tragic formality of modern culture causes the regular person to resort to what is commonly accepted to feel better: consumption of frivolous goods; and if consumption doesn’t work, it must be something to do with your brain chemicals. So instead of branching out the average person seeks to isolate themselves, and find their own source of happiness, separate from everyone else. This, however, does not work, and cannot work because the only way to find happiness is to lose one’s self in something greater, i.e. transcendence.
To become a culture of empathy we need to recognize the importance of biophilia (the love of life itself) over necrophilia (the love of dead, inorganic things); to inherit an empathic civilization and an age of receptivity we need to stop and realize what we are doing to ourselves and the interconnected web of life on this planet—overcoming the imbalance of staunch reason with a balance between hand, head, and heart—a more fulfilling, empowering, and universally beneficial condition for all life can be nothing but the result. So why do we not go for the gold, and push for this kind of transformation, both in ourselves and in the world around us? What is preventing this alchemical renaissance from happening? The answer is simple: the love of money. However, as we explained in the previous chapter, this roadblock on the way to transcendence is nothing more than a thought, and that thought is showing—through its cracks—that it is itself without substance, and heading to the cloud.
However, flowing from money are a variety of complexes, all of which are seemingly permanent fixtures in our cultural narrative. The first and most prevalent is the Military Industrial Complex, which was so famously warned about by President Eisenhower as he left office in 1959. However, the next biggest complex is the Agricultural Industrial complex, which has taken over our food supply and made sure that we are immersed in a matrix of food-like products, and synthetic produce that have invariably been sprayed with toxic chemicals to ensure high rates of productivity—sacrificing health for profit. The next big complex is Big Pharma, which provides a host of innumerable pills and quick fix solutions (essentially snake oil 2.0) to the public, sanctioned by the new holy priests of our secular consumption culture: scientists, psychiatrists, and other experts. Our final and most prevalent Complex is the for profit Prison Complex, which has taken over this country by way of the drug war, and the morally repugnant war on everyone, which has been carried out since the backlash of the sixties counter-culture revolution.
Around all of these complexes, which in themselves deserve whole books to be written, a brave new world has emerged in which people are in love with their slavery and condemn anyone who is not. This is not the age of reason that the enlightenment philosophers projected, but rather an age of treason, and an age of deception, tempered with the faculties of reason; in truth it is the age of the psychopath. And the question is, are you in favor of empathy or psychopathy, because that is the decision space we have today: life or death, love or fear. The choice is obvious to anyone with common sense, but there are those out there guised in the air of altruism, calling themselves utilitarians, who are really fascists in disguise; there are people who call themselves liberal who enslave people that they consider below them in the “pecking order.” This kind of injustice cannot stand in a time when human progress could not be more alive; it is an injustice that can only continue with your compliance. If you are not outraged, you're not aware.
Having said the above, let’s get to some problem solving! To begin with, our concept of weaponry, practically sexualized in our patriarchal culture, and in the same boat as beer and bacon, what word can we use to replace this kind of object? Livingry, much like the term Trusterty (the concept of ownership held in common trust, coined by the autodidactic scholar and philosopher Ralph Borsodi, to counter the residual feudalistic concept of property), has the potential, along with other ideas that we will explore below, to provide the language that is necessary for a new dialogue about the role of “mankind” in the story of life on this earth.
By raising consciousness to recognize the transcendent potential of the exponential transformation and evolution of technology as a realistic world view, we also recognize the failure of the old model. In seeing the inadequacy of the old model, and the viability of the new, we have a real chance for an alchemical transformation of our culture from one of linear reason to one of fractal receptivity. And while receptivity may seem too open-minded, it should be recognized that receptivity does not exclude reason, but rather includes but transcends reason, and allows for critical thinking, where the premise of rational thinking does not entertain the notion of empathy as a valid approach to life. This imbalance has led to the disorder we see today, and is why people are pressured to swallow petroleum-based drugs if they cannot cope—in effect stripping them of their humanity in order to feel normal in the context of this sick society.
If we are to overcome these injustices and the dehumanization of humanity, mutual education is the key; we must become our own educators, and the educators of our neighbors (our community in general), because we cannot rely on the government, or any other institution (religious or otherwise) to do the job. Why? Because every institution that exists today has emerged from the foundations of history that preceded them, and for that reason they are innately tainted with the stains of imbalanced thinking (either too faith based or too reason based) and because of that they are ill equipped to provide the state of transcendence that is so required in our times. Instead, what we propose is the application of the Pentivium and the great art of living described in chapter 2.
Literacy leads to liberation, and today this could not be more relevant and true. We are witnessing the world become more and more driven towards literacy, and the empowerment of literate culture cannot be denied. The question then becomes, what are we going to verb with the noun? In other words, now that we have attained a global village that is becoming more and more literate, what are we going to do with it? Now that we have a network of communication that connects the world, how are we going to utilize it? In both cases, it seems that the answer has been to expand profit at the expense of the human experience. For this reason, the author and many others have come to the conclusion that Politics have become obsolete, and that it is time for either a bloody revolution or designed evolution. (This chapter and this book are attempts to make clear the merit and necessity of a designed evolution over a bloody revolution.)
What we have today is a matrix of necrophilia: a matrix of death glorification. Because there is such a great fear of death, the glorification of death (in service) is made into the spectacle of entertainment. The reasoning is that if we desensitize ourselves to the horror of war, we will not be so affected by it, and in essence the cultural stigma of war will be erased slowly but surely. This line of reasoning has ostensibly worked, but it has also caused a backlash of more regular youth killings and mass murder. So the question is, has this matrix of necrophilia worked in assuaging our fears, and is there a solution? The answer is no the matrix of necrophilia has not worked, and yes there is a solution and it is a matrix of biophilia.
In contrast to the matrix of necrophilia, which revolves itself around entertainment technology, computers, and other inorganic systems like corporations and industry (all of which have their place in the context of a matrix of biophilia, but which are not as heavily emphasized and glorified as they are today), a matrix of biophilia has Life and living as its primary focus, and uses Livingry as its tools for human interaction. Livingry would be things like vertical gardens, Pentivium academies, permacultural landscape projects, green technology, health services technology, and really all technology that aids us in the process of ecological and human benefit all of which make the phrase “seeds of revolution” into a literal reality.
In creating this matrix of biophilia with the tools of livingry and trusterty, we can witness a gradual, subtle, but eventually obvious transformation from scarcity to surplus. In creating a cultural narrative of surplus, democracy can finally be implemented without the need for centralized power structures. In other words, the decentralization of all power structures is possible, and the war between freedom and slavery can finally be won in favor of the side of freedom by simply changing our cultural focus.
The disillusionment of fear means the elimination of the obstacles to authentic progress. Surplus means no longer having to earn the right to live on planet earth. Scarcity means a fear and distrust of others, requiring the contractual agreement that one must be earning a living to have a legitimate place at the table of life. However, this is not socialist rhetoric but that of classical liberalism upon which the United States constitution was intended, and it is not the view of the speaker only. As we went over in the previous chapter, many throughout history have had the same or similar view: that humanity has been stifled from progress due to the dog eat dog premise of capitalism and free trade empires, but it is coming to the attention of many people around the globe that this nonsense is no longer serving us, and it has got to go.
Let me be clear in saying that the evolution of culture and the human approach to living has been a necessary one; capitalism being a necessary stage in the development of certain types of capital infrastructure to propel us into the 21st century and a level one civilization. The problem is that, due to a lack of vision, we have held on to these ideas long over their expiration date, which would have been around the time the internet was invented, perhaps sooner (aspects like trusterty could and should have been introduced during the New Deal Era). So now the issue is getting the ball rolling in making the ideas of capitalism and all that it stands for obsolete.
The trouble has been that we see through only two perspectives: utilitarian and sentimentalist. What we must do now is not only rely on the emphatic\sentimentalist perspective, or the rational\utilitarian perspectives alone, but a combination of the two; with both materialistic and spiritualistic perspectives represented, we could call this perspective aperspectival or integral.
One of the positive effects of our globalizing world, irrespective of the economic and political forces, has been multiculturalism and the expansion of cosmopolitan consciousness. Unfortunately, this has been met with great consternation by the conservative swathe of populations across the world, and has little chance of being assimilated by that segment of the population if drastic measures are not taken. One of those measures is interracial marriage, which is condemned by the right for the same reason that the emancipation of slaves was seen as a crime in its day: race is seen as a boundary rather than an opportunity, a defect rather than a prospect. However, when those people begin to have family members who are of a different race, their circle of empathy expands just that much more. In other words, interracial marriage extends the empathic bond, and it is for this reason that it should be promoted, and is being promoted by the entertainment industry among others (not all elements of our society are wrong). On the other hand this transformation must not be one of coercion, but one of informed consent, and it is for that reason the speaker is open in expressing this emergent norm as a powerful contingency for change.
Expanding empathy into deeper realms of trust, loyalty, and most important receptiveness to Life (life itself) is important to the expansion of our awareness and the evolution of the human experience. Immersion in nature in the Japanese sense of “wei wu” translated as “action that is non-action” is the essence of the kind of receptivity that we describe herein; immersion in nature is a powerful method of developing that clear state of mind, which is the generative principle of care. When we are more receptive we are also more aware, more attentive, and more likely to reciprocate with kindness, loyalty, and friendship than if we are kept in a closed box all our lives. Communication itself acts as a powerful lubricant for developing relationships, love, and trust, all of which act as enzymes (or catalysts) for change. Finally, if we want to change the world, it takes action, it takes changing our behavior to be in alignment with our thoughts and feelings, this is the generative principle of hermeticism, and that is what will bring about the change we want to see: feeling the desire for change in our hearts, creating a thought or imagination of that change in our minds, and actively pursuing that concept in our guts through action.
Extending empathic bonds to our human brethren is a good step towards the humanizing of humanity where it has been dehumanized in the past, but the issue of extending our empathic bonds to all life is the next step in the development of an empathic civilization. The previous sentence alone is evocative of a seemingly radical proposition to some, and one that seems to carry with it an equal importance as the proposition of the abolishment of slavery, or gender equality had during their time, and as the debate about sexual equality for the LGBT community does today. However, we have already gone well beyond the constraints of our present culture in demanding the humanization of humanity, but would extending that empathic bond to all life be too big a leap for people? Is it impossible or do we take for granted that human and animal are too far apart in the spectrum of reality to reconcile our differences? (I think not, and below we shall see how and why such a bond can be made within a very few generations.)
Why is this such an important issue you may ask, and why should I care if animals are treated well or considered when human development is so seemingly important to human life. The answer is relatively simple: While human life may carry more meaning and significance to humanity, both individually and specifically, generally human life is no more significant to the biosphere than ants, and in fact if we were to take away ants the entire web of life called the biosphere would be sent into chaos; take ants away and the biosphere would be severely harmed: they are more integral because they are more fundamental to the web of life, but we are less fundamental, and therefore less integral to the web of life (take humanity in its current form out of the picture and the biosphere flourishes). Moreover, take atoms, equally far from ants as ants are from humans perhaps, and the entire planet vanishes: the more fundamental something is, the more integral, important, and meaningful to those things which are higher up the chain as it were.
However, the importance of this fact goes beyond the realm of physics, residing in the hidden realm of psychology, specifically in how we treat the least and best among us. In other words, if you can slaughter a cute fluffy bunny directly, more than likely you can do the same to a homeless person indirectly through law. So basically, what we do to animals is reflected in how we treat the least common denominator in society, whatever the minority is to those individuals living in that society. Therefore, when we consolidate herd animals and domesticate them for profit, rather than live in harmony with the land, precisely the same thing will be done to humans, but on a grander and more sophisticated scale.
For this reason, our entire culture cultivates conformity; our entire civilization promotes and programs eating meat, owning and driving inefficient cars, in essence consuming energy like there’s no tomorrow; our entire world revolves around money, and everything we do is tied to that medium. However, what keeps that medium relevant in the minds and hearts of people in western culture?
The power of media, the power of entertainment, the power of technology, all are at our disposal, and much of what is created is geared towards propping up the status quo of the patriarchy, but more and more the realm of entertainment is being turned into an ideological battleground, all of which is less fundamental than human life, dependent upon human life for memetic survival. What we use our media and entertainment for, for the most part, is in enticing people to buy products, but there are other things which the incandescent glow of the television or movie screen can impart to the audience.
There was a time when movies and plays were a form of visual and audible art, and their purpose was to expand the minds and hearts of the audience, the purpose being to bring people together in a common bond. Today, we watch the television in hopeless isolation. Most people have a television in every room so that they can watch whatever they want rather than share the experience with their family. Rarely do people even eat together anymore. To some this reality is both sad and disheartening, but to many others it is just normal.
That being said, it is important to recognize the immense power that television media has over people and their perceived decision space. Many children have been raised by television since its popularization after WWII. Incidentally, many people have since become attached to their television, its convenience, and the sentimental comfort that it brings to them. However, this kind of attachment is neither healthy in a biophilic sense, nor constructive in a psychological sense. Nonetheless, it is this powerful technology that, if used constructively as a tool for consciousness expansion, could lead us into a more empathic society. A good example of this being the Disney movie Bambi, which uses cartoon animation to humanize animals in a very effective way.
This kind of approach to extending empathic bonds could be modified to be more direct and less coercive, but the point is mostly just to get people to put themselves into the consciousness of an other. No greater tool for drawing out this kind of transformation exists than Ayahuasca, a brew from South America in Peru, which contains a common chemical and neurotransmitter called dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain, and is found in a variety of plants and animals, most notably the pineal gland in reptiles and mammals (in reptiles the pineal gland has visual receptors and a lense, and has been said to be the third eye by hindus, egyptians, and other eastern cultures). Dimethyltryptamine is a serotonin analogue, and has been called the spirit molecule by Dr. Rick Strassman, who did a study on its effects, and wrote a book called DMT: The Spirit Molecule, subsequently making a documentary by the same name in 2010.
Many who have taken DMT through ayahuasca tea report anthropomorphic experiences, in which they become an animal and run through the jungle, all of which is taking place safely within their mind? The same effects have been reported by using isolation tanks, psilocybin (or magic) mushrooms, and other substances that have been known to alter one's state of consciousness. Much of what the brilliant botanist polymath Terence McKenna said about taking “hallucinogenic” substances (or entheogens) was true: they are not like alcohol or cocaine, they are not something that one takes to get loaded, and they are tools for the expansion of consciousness and the evolution of the human animal in various ways. (His stoned ape theory, for instance, is a magnificent contribution to the theory of human history, and it is something that everyone should look into.)
By prudently using these natural technologies, both organic and inorganic, we have the potential to evolve human consciousness and culture to a saner, healthier, and happier version of itself. The power of this kind of mind altering technique cannot be underestimated, however, and must be used as a rite of passage, and be taken with similar reverence as the ancient peoples did in times immemorial. That being said, an integration of pre-modernity with modernity creates a stage of post-modernity, in which the best qualities of both are integrated in order to elevate all life beyond the status of electric meat into the realm of cosmic avatar. By doing so, we are hinting at the paradise Adam and Eve inherited called Eden, but doing so while embracing the fruits of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. In creating balance, we manifest the conditions for wisdom, and from the tree of wisdom we get the fruits of co-intelligence, by a concept that is ubiquitous in all decentralized and fluid models of human society:
Wisdom Councils
To liberate humanity from the clutches of corrupt and corrupting institutions, education is the key, and we cannot rely on the systems of government to do the job; each of us must become participants in a new society, created from the ground up by its participants. By having a participatory economy, education, and assembly, a participatory culture is the natural result; rather than having culture created for us to sedate us, we may truly become free to create and co-create, and in so doing, empower each other by the freedom of will, with which we were endowed by our creator--with the intent of eventually discovering us as equals. (We have gone over the better part of a participatory economy already in chapter 2, but to find a more in depth description of that concept, read the book Parecon by Michael Albert.)
Rather than focusing on economy, however, at this point we are going to go into something first developed by a man named Jim Rough, in his book Society's Breakthrough, which he calls Wisdom Councils. Using a technique called Dynamic Facilitation, Rough and his colleague Tom Atlee have shown that “collective wisdom” is not only legitimate, it is perhaps more valid as a premise of democracy than any other. According to the book Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, by David Steele, Mark Tovey, et al, the working definition of collective intelligence is: “...groups of individuals doing things collectively that seem intelligent.” Seems pretty simplistic, doesn't it, but in truth this kind of thing is rarely seen in the halls of government, as most of us can agree (at least it seems that way most of the time).
In all seriousness, the principle of Collective Intelligence could indeed be society's breakthrough. Because it is such a general concept, if we think about it, collective intelligence has existed for eons, and not just in humans. Families, tribes, companies, etc. collective intelligence can even be exhibited in bee colonies, or further in the eukaryotic transformation of single-cellular to multicellular organisms, but that may be stretching it a bit. Nonetheless, collective intelligence is important to the process of life, and acts as an innate characteristic of living in the world. By using this technique, we are opening the door to transcendence, and stepping into the 3rd millennium A.D.
Using collective intelligence, harnessing it with dynamic facilitation, a participatory system of assembly can be formed, in which average people are put into positions that are usually taken up by researchers, or individual experts in any given field. In the book Collective Intelligence, an example of this is given: “For instance, Eric von Hippel, in the Sloan School has done some studies of how the collective body of users of a product are often a better source of innovation for a company’s products than the company's own researchers.” In a participatory society, this kind of collective intelligence could be applied towards developing products that fit the needs of society, rather than having products that society needs to fit itself around.
Moreover, when we need resources to be allocated justly in a resource-based economy, we should not be resorting to a World Bank, IMF, or WTO; rather, the collective intelligence of regional resource councils could replace the bureaucracy of those hideous institutions, and their aristocratic, plutocratic controllers who represent no one but themselves and their shareholders.
To begin, we must establish some simple designs of government historically, which perform according to some simple geometric principles. The following is a quote from the book Spontaneous Evolution (Hay House inc., 2009) by Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D. (pg. 331):
To encircle the box of government with collective wisdom and co-intelligence, Tom Atlee, Jim Rough and others propose citizen deliberative councils or citizen wisdom councils. These or similarly named groups of randomly selected persons focus on issues and policies that are mired in conflict then glean common wisdom and make it available to the entire community or nation.
These councils are holistic in two ways: First, they seek input from the broadest range of information and points of view, even ideas that seem outside the box. Second, they seek solutions that address the well-being of the whole versus that of special interest groups. In contrast to the static positions that typify binary politics where one party is pitted against another, citizen deliberative councils offer dynamic, emergent solutions.
The concept of a council-based assembly structure falls perfectly into harmony with a participatory economy’s “nested worker and consumer councils” (Parecon, pg. 84). Those most affected by the problems discussed would be the ones brought together in council. Far more democratic than the representative republic model, due to the direct involvement of the people, the democratic council structure represents a more egalitarian circle in every way, where the present order represents a box with a pyramid on top of it.
A framework into which all of our legal rights and laws may be contained; the “box” of our current governmental structure is the constitution. The pyramid, however, represents the residual feudalistic practices, which linger on in the form of the Federal Reserve and the corporate dominance of the financial elite. The pyramid rests on top of the box, preventing any substantial reformation or legislation from coming into the box. If we are to take the world back from the money masters, it is our right, it is our duty to throw off such forms of tyranny, and draft newer, more liberating forms.
Therefore, the council structure, bestowing power equally to its members, is far more egalitarian than the feudal pyramid, or the enlightened box alone. And with a constitutional framework added to that council structure, our new paradigm may be given great integral reinforcement. So long as that council circle or planetary sphere (acting like a protective bubble) contains that box structure—meaning as long as the people maintain their power to control and amend that underlying constitution—a pyramid may never be able to work its way atop the box, perverting the constitution, and usurp the levers of power as we have seen today.
Moreover, creating meritocratic councils could benefit society in many ways. In the context of this new paradigm, where councils populated by average citizens may lead to greater freedom, not guided by parliamentary representatives appointed by financial interests unaccountable to the people, it may not lead to the most efficient, productive, or logical conclusion. For this reason, emergent councils of scientists, engineers, designers, technicians, and many others could act as mediators, formed emergently for the purpose of guiding public opinion, and proposing new public projects aside from those of the existing government, for people to consider. How is this different from the secret government of today? Transparency.
Other councils, formed emergently by the people themselves, could act on behalf of the people for the purpose of organizing cultural events for the community. However, at all times these councils are not a form of authority, dictating to society what they are to do, but rather a form of facilitation and guidance for the people. Ultimately it is the people who have the power over their lives, and not these councils; the councils are merely a means of organizing ideas and opinions, consolidating information and thought for the purpose of informing the public in order to ensure informed consent. By establishing informed consent, and reaching for consensus with dynamic facilitation, the world we live in can be fundamentally changed, and every life liberated and empowered by knowledge.
In such a flexible form of governance, we can see how close to anarchy we can get before absolutely no governing authority exists, while simultaneously improving the lives of those involved by empowering them with education, information, and participation. Beyond democracy, a people can be informed by its most and best (most affected and best caring), while having little to no chance of being guided by its least and worst (in the same contexts). If you believed that you had the ability to make a positive difference, and were randomly selected for office, more than likely you will affect positive change; contrariwise, if you believe that you have no impact on the system, or that humanity is not worth benefiting, you more than likely will just pass on your opportunity. Moreover, if you were corrupt, the lack of privacy would prevent you from perverting from the purpose of serving the public interest.
Imagine that instead of an executive office in the shape of a pyramid, council structures are formed, deriving their members through lottery, rather than election, and once in office, are monitored in a similar fashion as with reality television: in other words, total transparency. Taking into consideration that everyone chooses to be a citizen, and agrees to the social contract, one’s service in council, like jury duty, is merely a part of their civic duty. That being clearly stated removes any probability that someone will disagree to the potential inconvenience of serving in a public office once they are randomly selected. However, due to the relatively easy means of selection, anyone may choose to pass on their opportunity to serve, providing a reasonable five thousand word explanation.
The same policy of transparency would ensure a limit on the level of corruption that could take place (taking place on the higher stratum that branch outwards, from borough, to city, to region, and so forth). Further, doing so creates a medium through which people can be entertained by monitoring their public officials. While this may result in something more boring than C-SPAN, the overlying outcome will be a major check on the ruling powers, and a transformation of the democratic process.
Participatory democracy with a reciprocal (quasi-participatory) economy resembles minarchy more than it does the traditional power structures; fluid and decentralized, minarchy means the least amount of government possible before reaching anarchy, and is exactly the character of government, or lack thereof, which the writer is proposing. A kind of government that has few boundaries, in which the average citizen gets to participate in the process of his or her local decision making assembly, and have an impact depending upon the degree to which she or he is affected, is the essence of association in the context of equality.
The point of describing this system in this way is not to give a prescriptive solution, which people must follow in strict bureaucratic fashion, but rather to remove the excuse that there is no alternative, no better option for our society to organize itself around. And surely there will be trials and errors as to how this kind of system will best fit different regions and cultures. Nonetheless, this kind of approach to assembly represents a newer and better form of democracy than has ever existed, and has the potential to infuse wisdom into our society, culture, and customs.
With these participatory councils, in combination with participatory education, and participatory economy, a participatory culture and civilization emerge as a vastly more democratic, egalitarian fellowship than has ever existed. This, in contrast to communism or socialism, has the distinct potential to decentralize the power structure, inverting the hierarchy in such a way that a revival of critical thought, humanistic principles, flow, fluidity, and integral perspectives on a mass scale, constitute what the author calls:
The Alchemical Renaissance
The alchemical renaissance is not a revival of alchemy (as a practice) in our times, but rather an alchemical transformation of the individual from a non-playable character, zombie drone to an enlightened, sovereign individual, capable of recognizing her or his place in an interdependent world organism.
The alchemical renaissance is a fundamental transformation of our systems from a level zero civilization psychology to a level one civilization receptivity. This kind of transformation represents an evolution of consciousness from having (selfish capital) to being (community/participation) as a guiding force. The revival of the human being from what she and he has been (homo economicus) represents a true Renaissance, a revival of culture, sane society, liberty, freedom, and democracy.
Such a transformation requires a fundamental change in the thoughts, emotions, and actions of a substantial portion of the population. For this reason, it is imperative that more people become aware of the systemic evils of our cultural institutions, and their implications on our world; but just as important, people need to become aware, everywhere, that they have the power to create change, worldwide change. In the book The Conscious Resistance by John Vibes and Derrick Broze, calling for an alternative paradigm, advocate a form of “Agorist-Mutualist alliance,” (pg. 26) which this author agrees has the potential to make the old model obsolete.
Agorism, a method of creating systems and organizations to compete with, and ultimately replacing the existing capitalistic model, does not use violence of any kind to revolutionize the systems of economy, polity, or education, but seeks rather to replace them with meritocratic validity; and it is this very kind of approach which we are advocating in this book.
Mutualism on the other hand, seeks to put the means of production into the hands of the people. In The Practicability of Mutualism, Clarence Lee Schwartz says mutualism, “is a social system based on reciprocal and non-invasive relations among free individuals.”
In combination, these two ideas (mutualism and agorism) constitute a powerful force for alchemical change in our systems, and represent the essence of the alchemical shift taking place in various minds and governments throughout the world. That being said, the next step in the evolution of this shift is for the masses of people to wake up to the shift taking place around them. And whether you believe in the forms which have been proposed heretofore or not, the fact of the matter is that the old model is both unsustainable, and desperately in need of replacing; and regardless of what we may think of as the answer, the truth of the matter is that if we squabble for too long about which kind of system should replace the current order, or which of the virtually identical perspectives is most viable, a powerful world empire will be set into place, is being set into place, has already been set into place in the meantime!
Much of the information and ideas in this book are strong medicine, and it is for that reason that they will be rejected by many in our times who seek sweet easy answers, or more of the same, as a sugary solution. This being the case, the author does not anticipate a welcome reception from those brothers and sisters whom he hopes to liberate through providing this message, and neither should the people who take this message with open arms, hoping to share it with others. Nonetheless, this message must be shared!
The transformation of our world from a level zero civilization into a level one is taking place in our time, and whether it will be a dictatorship or a democracy shall be determined by the actions of either the few or the many. If by the few, the many will fall, divided and in a syndrome of decay as Erich Fromm describes in The Heart of Man, wherein the heart of man shall dissolve under the economic pressures of the World Bank, IMF, and United Nations, constituting a World Empire of planetary enslavement under the almighty idol: Money. If, on the other hand, the transformation takes place through the many, the syndrome of growth, of biophilia, will be the result, causing a world democracy to replace the World Bank Group with a World Wise Council.
Such transformations do not take place on the physical level of manifestation, but rather exist on the mental (being) level of thought, will, and idea, and then translate into the physical world through action. The Hermetic principle of Mentalism, that everything that manifests physically must first be thought of in the Mind, is what is being used in this premise of an alchemical transformation of our forms. This, in essence is the hidden hermetic principle of Generation or Genesis: that which we care most about is that which will be most emphasized in our reality. If we focus on the positive or negative (either by willfully attending to its existence or willfully ignoring it) in either case our will is being applied: our thoughts and feelings churn up an already stormy sea of probability and interactivity; a blazing fire of energy and vibrations through the electromagnetism of the heart and less so through the brain, that interact with forces in the quantum, probabilistic realm, ultimately affect physical material reality in ways that defy logic, but nonetheless happen. The proof for this is not in the scientific record of the main streams cognitive dissonance over academic “facts” versus scientific reality, the proof is reality.
The kind of revolution we are advocating here, the kind of transformation that is being described is not one of violence, as revolutions have taken in the past, but one of spirituality and psychological growth. For this reason the premise that “Prudence indeed will dictate the governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes,” as expressed by Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence should be taken seriously in our approach to creating a more perfect union. However, he also writes that “all Experience hath shewn (sic) that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” And according to the founders, revolutions of the kind they enacted send humanity back into a state of nature (freedom without equality) in which their baser passions dictate their actions, rather than principles and virtue, which are the first and highest priority for any enlightened being. For this reason, it is important for us to recognize the difference between an alchemical (intrinsic) evolution of consciousness, and a political, economic (extrinsic) revolution of the past.
The private banks that produce money, covet the world, and circulate their counterfeit influence around the planet. It is the banks that have enslaved the vast populations of humanity, convincing them that it is money that will be their salvation instead of self-knowledge, and have done so for long enough through the auspices of altruism and the premise of emerging markets: But all of this is nothing more than neo-colonialism and empire. It is time humanity stood up, awake and alive with fire in their hearts to burn every last unit of currency, and render the debt these banks have given us back to them; as Jesus said: “Render unto Caesar that which is his, and unto God that which is God's.” meaning send back these pieces of debt, and be with the almighty god in harmony (as in stewardship) with nature.
Neo-liberalism, through the Washington Consensus, and the systems set into place by the City of London have us enslaved, indeed, to a debt created out of thin air; but by replacing the very systems that give them carte blanche, humanity can be emancipated from their golden chains once and for all, rendering unto tyrant what is his, because you know what, they can have back their fictitious debt, we didn't want it anyway. Besides, the social costs always outweighed the benefits that were more often solely felt by the aristocrats in the first world anyway. And besides that, the fact that there could be a third world (and poverty in general) in the 21st century, when we have so much technology and abundance is both a tragedy of the market, and a joke of common sense.
For these reasons and others, expressed at length in this book and other books in the suggested reading, a serious consideration as to the validity of countering the financial revolution is one of the solutions of our time, and in doing so an alchemical transformation in the individual from a passive observer or spectator to an active participant in the course of human affairs is sure to take place, and must if we are to have a liberated planet.
Hopp off of the hamster wheel, get involved, starting with reading the suggested books bellow, and sharing what you learn from those texts with others. The words liberation and library have the same prefix (liber) for a reason, because it is knowledge which grants us the power to liberate ourselves from the shackles of ignorance. My suggestion would be to read the works of Gene Sharp, particularly From Dictatorship to Democracy, and familiarize yourself with the ways of community organization, non-violent revolution, and public relations in the form of white propaganda (i.e. spreading the truth in order to liberate people – as opposed to black propaganda: spreading lies in order to control people).
Finally, given what we have talked about previously regarding the lucifer effect, and corruption of our government in the dark corners of secrecy and deception, it would be right and appropriate to have fear in the face of this threat, for the present and future. However rather than putting our collective heads in the sand, as we have done for decades, and rather than going along to get along with a psychopathic system, the truly appropriate response is righteous anger; to take heart and act in spite of that fear, be courageous, sacrifice conveniences in the short term and act—to find safety and true security in the long term confronting our fears is essential. In changing the forms to which we are accustomed, as Thomas Jefferson said, we pave the way for our independence from tyrannical authority and suppressive systems of control that limit our potential and happiness. The purpose of this book is to provide alternatives, and act as a new declaration of independence, but one of global independence from the financial Kings that lord over it.
For a practical method of action, to be used by practitioners of the pentivium, see below:
The Hexivium
Table 2.
HEXIVIUM (World Centric) (Vision Logic)
Strategy (Configuration)
Organization (Formation)
Education (Actualization)
Synergy (Mastermind)
Dissemination (Communication)
Manifestation (Transcendence) (Early Psychic)
The Hexivium is a method of world-centric transformation, in congruence with the Pentivium. In our times, it is a physical, mental, and spiritual matter of human life to be subjected to the powers and wills of sycophants and parasites, elites and psychopaths; to protect ourselves (and yourself) from this kind of criminality and tyranny, not only mental fortitude, but action is necessary. The Hexivium is an action plan for world liberation. We use the word “world liberation” because this concept is world-centric, meaning that if any part of the world is still oppressed, the ultimate goal of this system has not been manifest. The point being, not to achieve perfection—recognizing that true perfection is impossible—but rather, in spite of this truth, pursuing perfection (i.e. world liberation and individual sovereignty) anyway.
A transformation of alchemical proportions requires us to embrace post-conventional perspectives, and recognize the powers that be for the criminals that they are. Recognizing that they are not stupid, we must become aware and smarter (both as individuals and as an aggregate) than the status quo. Further, rather than fighting them, and playing their game, the methods of transformation must be to create a more perfect order, which makes the old model obsolete.
By first strategizing with other players of life (practitioners of the Pentivium who have achieved balance), original characters that have been liberated from the mental shackles of modern culture and society have a unique capacity for causing change and doing so in a flow state; such that, doing so at the expense of social approval, conventional values, and preserving the passive peace is of no consequence to them. However, without strategy, as Gene Sharp contends in his book From Dictatorship to Democracy, the game of power and control is already lost before it is played. Rebellion worsens the situation, ignorance worsens the situation, and denial worsens the situation.
The power and potential of the Pentivium, in regards to studying the economic, political, and cultural systems that have created the world in which we live, is the true value of this concept in our time. Having connections with like minded individuals, all exploring and sharing their understandings about the world in which they live, establish the conditions for a Mastermind Alliance (or Fellowship Cell as described by Csikszentmihalyi in The Evolving Self). It is when we become organized around the power of knowledge that we can actualize the Mastermind potential, as was conceptualized by Napoleon Hill, in his book Think and Grow Rich, where he defines the term as such: “The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony."
Through strategy and organization, the next inevitable step towards cultural evolution is education. By educating ourselves and the people inside as well as outside of the mastermind alliance, a group takes on the power of knowledge, and uses it for the greater good. Only by educating people about reality will they ever be empowered, and in effect liberated. However, simply educating people will never get them closer to freedom without synergy, wherein new members are brought in and connected into the strategic plan, and brought in to the mastermind group concept, preferably creating their own cells.
By repeating this process, the participants are creating new networks, and in doing so create a platform for more potent dissemination into the public realm. Actions that can be taken at this point would be: reaching out to community organizations (such as churches, labor unions, and government officials), having proficient members run for political office, and creating media, entertainment, and organizing community events and attracting further community involvement. A powerful and effective method of bringing about synergy is education—establishing new education memes must constitute the greatest effort in the course of the Hexivium. By establishing Pentivium academies, using old malls as the edifice, would be one of the biggest steps that such a community organization can make.
Once a group has been successful in changing their local community, shedding light on systemic corruption, inadequacy, and obsolescence, the final stage is transcendence, or manifestation. By achieving renown for being movers and shakers, the Hexivium group has dismantled the pyramid-like power structure of the status quo through non-violent action; in the process, replacing it with a circular-shaped egalitarian structure in their community.
By integrating the practices of the Pentivium into this process, we are also integrating the principle of flow into these activities. In the context of flow, the challenge of changing the world to be more harmonious and fulfilling for all human beings is not only fun, it is exhilarating, and a source of authentic ecstasy. In other words, not only can we change the world, but we can have fun while doing it! Therefore, let the spirit of liberty, which rose in the year 1776, be rekindled yet refined in the spirit of evolution 240 years later!
13
Politity
Introduction
This chapter, which was not originally intended to be included in this book, will be addressing certain aspects of both John Locke’s second treatise Of Civil Government and Jean Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract, as well as other points not connected to either book; Both of these treatises have fundamentally influenced political thought throughout the past centuries, and it is for this reason, among others, that the concepts found in both books, particularly the social contract, shall be addressed below.
Some key terms we will be using will be sovereignty, government, and the prince. These terms do not mean the same thing as they did back when those books were written, but it is precisely the old meaning of those words that we will be using. For that reason, it is important for us to meet eye to eye with regards to diction. These words will be integral to our discussion because they will inevitably compete and fight each other for dominance and power, as the checks and balances system in the U.S. and other countries implies.
Moreover, this chapter will be devoted to more accurately describing the form of government that we currently have, and how we can improve or replace our system(s) of government if they are corrupted. If the social contract has been broken, which we will attempt to prove that it has, there is no obligation to obey; we are merely forced to do so.
Laws of Inclusion
IN the social contract, the premise of citizenship is fundamental to the idea of a commonwealth, state, sovereignty, and government. In other words, the laws of inclusion, the laws of how one becomes a citizen, is fundamental to the premise of polity, or the systems of public power. For this reason, it is vital for us to understand what the author is proposing in regards to a new system of polity, assembly, sovereignty, etc.
To be a citizen, implicitly means to surrender one’s individual sovereignty, which they have naturally, to the will of the aggregate sovereignty in a civilized society. However, when that civilized society breaks down under the pressures of corruption and usurpation, as they inevitably do, that power of sovereignty is immediately returned unto the individual, at which point their will is superior and unanswerable to the power of the tyrannical system set into motion.
In Rousseau’s Social Contract theory, he expresses the notion that a sovereignty is the law making entity in any society, with or without a government; on the other hand, government is the apparatus that is erected by that sovereign to both generate new laws as they become necessary and to carry them out; he she or it that executes the laws, consequently can be known as the Prince, or the executive (for our discourse we will use the word executive for clarity purposes).
The executive may be more than 50% of the population, i.e., democracy, or less than 50% of the population, i.e., aristocracy, or merely one man or woman, i.e., monarchy. However, to be legitimate, the laws and the execution of those laws must be in the best interest of the people, and not the interest of the sovereign, the executive, or the government in general.
Naturalization is a word that applies to laws regarding citizenship, how it is obtained, and what contingencies there are to acquire it. Any government that naturalizes its citizens without their expressed consent or expressed desire, is unethical and uncivilized by its very nature. When citizens have children, for instance, their children have not agreed to the social contract, and it stands to reason that that system will do whatever necessary to ensure that those children become citizens. To get around the paradox of implied naturalization for those who have not given consent, most governments imply citizenship for the children of citizens as a courtesy; thus naturalization acts as a means of increasing the population within a common governing power, and as that government becomes corrupted, it will seek to indoctrinate them with school to be in agreement, without informed consent, of the systemic practices and societal norms within that political regime.
In contrast, however, this author proposes that when consent is not expressly given from the citizen to the governing authority, either verbal or written, the social contract cannot apply. If we are to be born into the world, already under the practically irrevocable authority of a governing body, there must be laws or systems in place to aid that individual in becoming critical of the systems in place.
It is the perspective of the author that we are all born equally sovereign, naturally, and that, therefore, a system of laws must be devised in order to both recognize and protect that innate sovereignty (self rule) until informed consent may or may not be given towards one’s naturalization under a political sovereignty (societal rule). In this sense there are two kinds of people under this premise: sovereigns or natural persons, and citizens. Each child born is a natural person living within the laws of nature and remains in that state until the age of consent, but their parents, if they are citizens, have earned the right to have their children educated by the systems of the civilized state. This, however, does not mean that education can be compulsory; indeed, education under this premise is up to the child to partake.
Moreover, any kind of agreement that does not have a way out is nothing more than a trap. Consequently, fluidity is essential for naturalization to function properly under this premise. That is to say, both acquiring and rescinding citizenship must be both easy and without formality or expense. To do this, however, requires laws that are wisely derived and thus a sovereign that is easily adaptable.
Of the Sovereign Power in Relation to Government Power
“The power to legislate is the sole power that vests in the sovereign.” The Social Contract
Legislative power is the power to give and enact laws. Therefore, the sovereign acts exclusively through the laws, and laws are only applicable or valid with the consent of the general will of the people. The sovereign, under any form of government, is always the general will of the people. Consequently, the only way to really have the general will behind a law is when the people, in their entirety, are assembled. Today such an assembly is uniquely possible given the internet and available transportation technology. Moreover, if the people have agreed to elect officials to represent them, as we have done with the Congress, that entity thus, within the boundaries of the law, can assemble and make laws that are valid and legitimate--given that those laws are not directed at individuals or groups other than the whole of the people.
To be sure, government (the agency through which the public will is to be carried out), in this sense, is more powerful, reasonable, and well intentioned in the form of a democracy, but democracy is only practical when it is used by a smaller population; because the process of assembly and legislation can be conducted with fewer impediments as the population decreases, democracy becomes less manageable as the population increases. However, as the population does increase, as it inevitably will if the government is good, and the effectiveness of a democracy begins to vanish, the need for elective representation becomes immediately apparent. (Further, democracy becomes a problem when the majority rule becomes authoritarian in nature: two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. For this reason, checks upon the majority will are essential to any form of democracy, as well as the potential for illegitimate, tacit consensus.)
Aristocracy is the form of government in which the whole supreme power of the state is vested in the highest ranking persons of a state. America, having been sold to its own constituents as a democracy, was, and has always been by its very nature an aristocracy. Oligarchy, however, is a term used to describe an aristocracy that, having been permitted (knowingly or unknowingly) to deteriorate and become corrupt, has allowed a select few to dominate and control the laws of the state and the lives of its citizens. Having established this premise, it is not difficult to see how and why we are now living under oligarchy in the United States; for it is the rich and the owner class, the proverbial .1% who have usurped the powers and levers of government.
The third and most controversial of the three types of government is known as monarchy. Monarchy is a government in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of a single person. According to Rousseau, the monarch is most appropriate to the condition of a large, immense population. The greater the population, the harder it is to convene and make decisions that affect everyone. In situations where one person has usurped the powers of the sovereign authority (superseding the general will of the people), that person may be known as a despot, and when one person has usurped the executive authority, that person is known as a “tyrant”; in cases where one person has become both maker and executor of the laws, what you invariably have is despotism. According to Rousseau, “The tyrant gets around the laws in order to govern in accordance with the laws; the despot puts himself completely above the laws.” And, thus, “While, therefore a man can be a tyrant and not a despot, the despot is necessarily a tyrant.”
The appropriate role of government, or any governing body, is to work within the boundaries of the law to conduct the business and general will of the people or the sovereign. The relationship between the governing body and the sovereign power is thus reciprocal if it be legitimate. The sovereign lays down the law, and the governing body (be it democracy, aristocracy, or monarchy) shall execute the laws. In both outlets of public will the purpose is to serve the will of the public, and not the will of the entity or entities that govern.
Of Complex Government
Complexity, here defined as the differentiation and integration the various parts of any system or process, naturally implies the premise of fractal equality, as well as individual sovereignty or natural authority. The kind of government that we are proposing heretofore requires us to understand the three primary colors of government authority (demos, aristos, and monos).
Sovereignty, deriving from the people, is innate to the human being in the state of nature. The State of Nature, being a permanent and fundamental condition of reality, must be recognized as the first condition of every human born; and every human born, therefore, necessarily deserves the independent authority of this condition as a natural right, regardless of whatever governing body may exist throughout time. The natural state of individual sovereignty, and the state of nature, being thus innate conditions of all life, must be integrated into the system of any well designed or complex government.
From the ground level, the state of nature seems crude, if not brutish, and in need of organization as soon as any society begins to form. The first form of organization for people in community tends to be one of democratic councils and consensus. Therefore, as primitive or unorganized people emerge from the state of nature the most natural form of government is direct democracy. However, as society grows, spreading over the surface of the earth into confederations of communities, the need for representation becomes obvious.
Thus, as democracy starts to show the cracks of mismanagement and over stretching itself in regards to practicability, the form of government must evolve from democracy to aristocracy. This condition of mismanagement and impracticability must be recognized and dealt with by the sovereign, the general will of the people, and not by any other agency. Moreover, the process by which a democracy evolves into an aristocracy must be a fluid one in which the elected officials are merely randomly selected, or meritocratically elected. In the case of random selection the average citizen must be well educated, requiring a previously existing and well established public education system as we have today, the primary point being to raise everyone into literacy at the least, and enlightenment at the most; in the case of meritocratic election, however, the process of election would mimic the current form present in the U.S. government of America, but with the premise that wisdom, and not money, acts as the determining factor of who is the most electable.
As a population aggregates (from the city to the state, the state to the region, the region to the continent, the continent to the world) or grows by natural procreation or incorporating other populations, either through diplomacy or conquest, the need for direct authority in the form of monarchy becomes equally apparent. Therefore, as meritocratic councils become incapable of addressing the problems of a burgeoning state, the need for a leader among the members becomes apparent. However, because the authority of one man, if not checked by a system of peers, is liable to become despotic or tyrannical, the need to have monarchical councils or executive boards that derive their members from the inferior councils at lower levels seems undeniably necessary.
Thus, as the process of polity gradually concentrates it must be equally diffused and checked. In essence, the most effective and complex (not complicated mind you, but well orchestrated and capable) government, must have all three forms acting simultaneously given the living and actual conditions of a state or aggregation of states. Further, in any complex governing body, these three forms must be actively working together in a synergistic fashion which replicates the homeostasis of the natural world.
As we have explained in previous chapters, the need for participatory government, education, and economy, necessarily requires that we make as many ways for people to be involved as possible, but also as many ways as possible for people to simply act independently of those authorities and obligations. The truly well designed government has such flexibility and rigidity as it needs in order to function properly, and for society to thrive as if it were non-existent. Indeed, this form of government must be the society itself, essentially, and not a government in the sense of control, but rather a government in the sense of guidance or management through rules or principles.
The power of authority, existing always in the hands of the people, either individually or collectively, or both, in general exists to serve the public, and not the public to serve the power of authority. When that power is misdirected, either by an individual, a council of individuals, or a population of individuals, it makes no difference: that power is illegitimate. For this reason, the public, and its will in the form of democracy, must always be actively in existence simultaneous to any governing system in the body politic. The more the great body of the people assembles, and uses its just authority to check the powers of government operating over top of it, yet under it, the better protected that governing body will be from corruption. In effect, the simultaneous existence of these three forms of government will not only bring more checks and balances to the system of our government, but it will also bring more public involvement into government.
On the State of War and World Government
Government founded in the state of war cannot be trusted for long. Due to the first premise of secrecy and exclusivity, classification and rank counts for more than truth, wisdom and virtue; government created in the state of war is thus rendered more a weapon of the oligarch than as a means of providing good living conditions for all, let alone any higher ideal. This being the case throughout history, it is imperative that any well designed or complex government be submitted while the state is in a time of peace.
Once government of the kind described above has been established in a time of peace, it can be maintained only once the states surrounding it have been similarly founded. That is to say, government that is founded in peace cannot survive in isolation, and cannot survive while surrounded by warring nations. For this reason the state of war must come to an end, worldwide, in order for a real democracy to come into being with the complex forms we are herein describing.
Global government is only possible, under the premise of the social contract, if there is first a global sovereignty; such a universal sovereign can only come into being with the widespread recognition of a) the integral relationship we all have with one another as a species and b) the existence of, and one’s relationship to, the planetary organism and its body politic. And while this may seem ridiculous to those of us who assume that war is a natural condition of mankind, it is incumbent upon us in these perilous times to think outside of the box, and consider for a moment the necessity of our growing up as a species into a worldwide peace. Once world peace has been established, any or all capacities for governing bodies to wage war must be removed or excluded from all governments and their constitutions established thereafter. To remove the power of waging war from the capacities of the executive, only the sovereign can make such a declaration with a perfectly unanimous vote, which, given the difficulty of such a proposition, shall render it as if it were impossible.
Given that the already existing infrastructure and apparent will exists for world peace, it is strange indeed that the sovereignty of the people of the world has not yet been assembled in order to establish a set of laws, and, to that end, establish world peace. However, as humanity has existed in a perpetual state of war, corruption, and thirst for power, due principally to government in whatever form it has taken--guided as it has been by the premise of a fundamental need for war, the inequity of war mongers and political despots--the political drive for world peace has not been realistically entertained; but rather an imposed obligation by various oligarchs to establish a “New World Order” that is neither new, nor order, has remained the prevailing rally cry of the oligarchs. Consequently, without the worldwide assembly of the people, and not their governing officials in representation, such a sovereignty and thus world government can never legitimately exist.
Therefore, it is only by such an absolute assembly that the world may know peace, and an authentic governing body be bestowed upon the people by the people. Any other government established will be established with conquest or coercion, and thus must be an arbitrary or illegitimate authority. This being the case, it is vital to the future of human experience that humanity as a whole assemble, enact such a power as world sovereignty, and create a state beyond nature, and beyond the arbitrary conventions of all previous so-called civilizations.
In truth, no civilized society, just as no true democracy and no true king, has ever existed in the history of the world; but if this be the case (as it is the author's opinion that it is) it does not mean that civilization or world sovereignty of the kind described above is impossible--merely that it is difficult, requiring the best of humankind to manifest and formally or informally constitute itself into reality.
On the State of Civilization
There has never been a true civilization on this planet, only collectives of people seeking greater territory and dominance with empire. Even the pattern of so called enlightened civility that was bore out of the united States Constitution has resulted in the opposite of enlightenment, and, indeed, through oligarchy the total abandonment of civilization through a war on ideas and/or viable alternatives.
Civilization has been defined by physicist Michio Kaku by the nature of its technology, and he considers the present world at a level zero civilization, which uses dead plant matter as its source of energy. A level one civilization has learned to harness the earth’s energy systems to power their technology, and has transcended non-renewable energy sources. Level two civilizations have become immortal because they no longer depend on the planet to survive; it could just terraform planets and colonize them if their world dies. Level three civilizations are galactic, and perhaps truly immortal, what science would consider the astronaut gods of old.
Michio Kaku’s interpretation of civilization is one bound by the parameters of physics instead of the philosophy of authentic civilization: a globally accepted concept of world unity through societal consent instead of coercion; a transcendence of the artificial, political, and national boundaries that act to divide and conquer us by design--through war, poverty, arbitrary laws, and oppressive taxation--while simultaneously the global elite unify and consolidate power for themselves and their ilk. (It is obvious that global unity is unstoppable and infinitely more powerful compared to the elite that govern us, which is why it has been integral for them to limit our intelligence through school and controlled media--as well as chemically limiting us through poor diet and chemical, pharmacological lobotomy.)
The wisdom that must come from a civilization is characterized by its intense recognition of selfhood as a natural, sacred being that exists equally in everyone regardless of external achievements or possessions; that sense of selfhood is inhabited by all beings proven to have sentient consciousness, and such a beingness or I-Amness is the unifying principle that transcends all cultures and artificial or geographic boundaries.
The transfer of that wisdom through individual and collective recognition of the fact that we are all made of the same elements; we all have the same blood, the same DNA; such a recognition must become the priority of everyone with a brain to think and a heart to feel. Even trees, non-sentient beings, must have our respect because of their relationship to us as carbon dioxide breathing, oxygen producing life forms while we are oxygen breathing, carbon dioxide producing life forms. The whole world is in relationship with itself, it is obvious, yet still we are bound by the artificial boundaries that tell us we and our land are better and more free than another’s (the truth is there is no other); we and our land are fit enough to survive in competition with everyone else, yet we are all in this together.
And indeed nationalism and senseless war has been the object of the previous millennium, but it cannot be a part of this one. It makes sense that we must transcend to civilization in this millennium; civilization is inevitable without the fictional divisions of the world into parts unified by public consent. The very purpose of society must be to discover and secure wisdom, spread by the people to the people in a reciprocal feedback loop of negative entropy: love, organization, and transcendence.
Nothing could be more central to the understanding of reality and the wisdom decipherable through reason and observation than Holons: nested wholes composing parts of larger wholes and so on, similar in effect to fractal geometry, which represents a fundamental tendency of nature to gradually become more complex through a hierarchy of holons; representations of the big picture are present in the small, and representations of the small in the big picture. All existences, micro or macro, animate or not, are fractal and thus self similar to one another regardless of scale or complexity. Reality is fractal in nature, even our thoughts conform to the patterns of self-similar returns through a feedback loop of information and thought in the form of fractal processes.
Therefore, it is congruent to apply those principles to culture and society, organizing the world as if it were an aggregate organism composed of self similar micro organisms of the state and city level and still more fundamental to communities and individuals. Founded and shaped by wisdom, education, and independence at the ground level, the government represents society with self similarity by being a wise, just, and reasonable system, composed of people instead of titles and classes.
The unity and similarity of our species is in the surface level in the general perspective, but individually we are all as varied as the stars and states interiorly. Society that bases its value system on a basic recognition of inherent natural, inalienable rights has at its core the will of humanity instead of a lifeless currency. With citizenship as an earned class of relative entitlement relative to one’s contribution to society, a new economy can be born with little to no difference to the present economy logistically, only the availability of jobs and necessities will be different, expounded, and yet people would have to work less and thus have more time for leisure, necessity, and thus also invention.
This is possible only when the people legislate a different work schedule into existence. Determined by the type of occupation, the schedule could be a four day week working every other day. Because one is evaluated on a four month basis, the individual and the group are compelled to either improve output or stay the same according to the evaluation. With this incentive in mind, individuals will desire naturally to contribute more, more effectively. And with their contribution and effectiveness the limits of society are determined by individuals in collaboration instead of competition. Those who do not participate will be given a separate grade based on their lack of performance, and will eventually be either relocated or fired.
The macro scale of such a system would be configured in smaller states and larger regions of the world, acting individually but interdependently, could be similarly incentivized by evaluations by an objective, critical public to contribute to global conditions for prosperity and peace. This condition however, cannot be enforced by martial law. Only the People can keep a civilized global society, because the individual is the whole, if one is fractured and distracted, society reflects this in macroscopically similar ways through conflict and confusion.
It is difficult to describe civilization only because it has never existed, all one can do is say what it is not. However, philosophically conclusions can be made as to the nature of a true civilized society: First that it has wisdom--or a society of wise individuals--at the foundation, guiding the people with education; Second, that it has democracy, the people undeviating their aristocracy with the authority of direct force in the case of corruption or acts of arbitrary power. Further, bolstered by the vigilant recognition, and frequent use of their power of assembly, the sovereign power of the world's people cannot be degraded.
Moreover, the most essential aspect of civilization is choice, the choice to participate in it in the first place, and as we stated above, the choice to exit said state of civilization--because otherwise a global empire could grow up and force citizens to be accountable to arbitrary laws, and eventually enslave, and get away with murdering mass numbers of people under the auspices of government. When citizenship is a choice, the system of government is set more firmly, yet subtly upon the shoulders of the people than ever, and the will to progress is determined by human beings instead of corporations or an enslaving monetary system.
The governed, wielding the powers of their sovereignty frequently, purveys with their efforts the just assurance that the government they establish is secure from despotism of all species and varieties. The circumstances necessary for the protection of inalienable rights and the order of justice in law must be established at every microcosm, including the local community, to ensure that it is the case at the macrocosm: the world community.
The premise of the civil system described in this book is that a civilized people utilizing democratic principles govern themselves, informed about and giving their opinions about public plans and laws. The premise also includes a necessary check against pure democracy, because that can lead to hedonism and deterioration of even the wiggliest of orders. That check is the wise council, which can veto any decision made by the people, but must be able to convince the people that they are wrong in order to keep a voice of wisdom in public affairs.
With the objective of healing the earth from the past destructions, science and technology must be refined and redesigned to be more efficient and less wasteful; cities must be redesigned green and environmental instead of obviously opposing natural order; and the search for renewable, sustainable energies must begin at a never before seen level, unleashing the already patented infinite energy sources of this world and universe; communities must be redesigned also to encourage community collaboration and interaction via communal farms and festivals held at the people's request to the community council.
In order to dismantle the uncivilized prehistory of a civilized world, certain kinds of developments are necessary. For instance, replacing ghettos with garden tower apartments would work as a kind of positive development that can be immediately enacted after a community agreement that it is so. By training the people who live their how to build it, we can repay them with living in the structure when it is done, thus giving them great incentive to do the best job possible. Such a project is not only ecologically sound, but economically and logically sound as well.
The overall husbandry of our own development and our sacred planet must be understood and agreed upon as the responsibility of everyone, and a duty for all citizens. Those corporations that serve no purpose other than to make profits by genetically modifying and patenting life cannot be supported in a civilized society because the very notion is unethical. Corporations like Monsanto that patent life and sue you if you don’t pay them for the use of their seeds, are the scourge of the previous millennium, and must be stopped.
Indeed the grounds of the previous millennium are cracked and broken by the weeds of a new generation; the new millennium must be founded on the timeless charity and the inventions of necessity. Survival is imperative and cannot be addressed when the profit motive is the gospel of mankind. In order to preserve home world, the collective human will must be harnessed towards the depths of inner and outer space. This endeavor cannot be undertaken by separate nations bound by artificial lines in the sand.
Civilization of the 21st century must transcend the previous millennium, or it will fall into a dark age, and be descended upon by a virtually endless tyranny of neo-feudalism. Debt as a concept is antiquated and essentially limiting to overall prosperity. Taxation is the same. What is necessary for the future therefore is to establish the conditions for slavery to be virtually impossible, hence the abolition of debt and taxation at all. However, replacing the role of the slave will be the robot, and so freedom can become the full occupation of humanity as it was in the golden ages of Sparta, Athens, and Rome.
True civilization is driven by collective human will, not a manipulative minority of coercive elites bent on godhood. Civilization recognizes the place and station of life as sacred and civil government at its core seeks to protect life. The heart of government reflects the heart of the governed. Without the immediate attention of the People towards keeping this security through involvement, civil government fails and must be replaced posthumously.
Also fundamental to civilization is that there can be no overarching power that transcends either the individual or the collective of people globally. Not even the people can justly wield that kind of power within a government structure; only through revolution against despotic government can that power be justly manifest.
The notion of a federal government on a global scale is nonsense, but to have a council composed of several members, perhaps seven for the regions of the world, there would be a means for feedback and immediate globally environmental effect for positive change. This federal council made of seven members would be derived from councils spreading across the globe; those councils would be selected and elected by the people for their wisdom.
The Social Contract Violated
The following are a series of quotes, in no particular order, from The Social Contract (Translated 1782 by G. D. H. Cole, public domain)
“The life-principle of the body politic lies in the sovereign authority. The legislative power is the heart of the State; the executive power is its brain, which causes the movement of all the parts. The brain may become paralysed and the individual still live. A man may remain an imbecile and live; but as soon as the heart ceases to perform its functions, the animal is dead.
“The State subsists by means not of the laws, but of the legislative power. Yesterday's law is not binding to-day; but silence is taken for tacit consent, and the Sovereign is held to confirm incessantly the laws it does not abrogate as it might. All that it has once declared itself to will it wills always, unless it revokes its declaration.”
“AS the particular will acts constantly in opposition to the general will, the government continually exerts itself against the Sovereignty. The greater this exertion becomes, the more the constitution changes; and, as there is in this case no other corporate will to create an equilibrium by resisting the will of the prince, sooner or later the prince must inevitably suppress the Sovereign and break the social treaty. This is the unavoidable and inherent defect which, from the very birth of the body politic, tends ceaselessly to destroy it, as age and death end by destroying the human body.
“There are two general courses by which government degenerates: i.e., when it undergoes contraction, or when the State is dissolved.
“Government undergoes contraction when it passes from the many to the few, that is, from democracy to aristocracy, and from aristocracy to royalty. To do so is its natural propensity. If it took the backward course from the few to the many, it could be said that it was relaxed; but this inverse sequence is impossible.
“The moment the people is legitimately assembled as a sovereign body, the jurisdiction of the government wholly lapses, the executive power is suspended, and the person of the meanest citizen is as sacred and inviolable as that of the first magistrate; for in the presence of the person represented, representatives no longer exist.”
“First, when the prince ceases to administer the State in accordance with the laws, and usurps the Sovereign power. A remarkable change then occurs: not the government, but the State, undergoes contraction; I mean that the great State is dissolved, and another is formed within it, composed solely of the members of the government, which becomes for the rest of the people merely master and tyrant. So that the moment the government usurps the Sovereignty, the social compact is broken, and all private citizens recover by right their natural liberty, and are forced, but not bound, to obey.”
“AS soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far from its fall. When it is necessary to march out to war, they pay troops and stay at home: when it is necessary to meet in council, they name deputies and stay at home. By reason of idleness and money, they end by having soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to sell it.
“It is through the hustle of commerce and the arts, through the greedy self-interest of profit, and through softness and love of amenities that personal services are replaced by money payments. Men surrender a part of their profits in order to have time to increase them at leisure. Make gifts of money, and you will not be long without chains. The word finance is a slavish word, unknown in the city-state. In a country that is truly free, the citizens do everything with their own arms and nothing by means of money; so far from paying to be exempted from their duties, they would even pay for the privilege of fulfilling them themselves. I am far from taking the common view: I hold enforced labour to be less opposed to liberty than taxes.”
Conclusion
The need for world civilization is undeniable, and carries with it a negative connotation only if or when the establishment of a world government precedes or prevents the establishment of a world sovereignty. That is to say, if a world government comes about via coercion and deceit on the part of the oligarchs, it has no legitimacy whatsoever. Only when the people come together under the premise of creating a social contract is there a justifiable right to establish a world civilization. Unless or until such a world assembly takes place, there will not be any such thing as a legitimate world order.
Epilogue
The purpose of this book has been to convince the reader to consider a new perspective. Not to believe a new perspective, not to follow a new perspective, but simply to consider, to entertain a new perspective: We are living in a simulation; the proof is in the details of cosmic rays. We are living under neo-feudalism; the proof is in the details of our society. The solution is to recognize our fundamental reality, and create new forms that give us all more choice space and participation in the organs of our planetary organism.
Breaking down the ideologies and dogmas of bygone eras, and the broken religions, governments, and cultural paradigms of humanities immature past, this book has been an attempt to stir up the pot in providing solutions; we are cultivating a newer, better paradigm: a new metaphysics, a new physics, a new philosophy of education, a new philosophy of economy, and a new philosophy of ethics; this book has been an attempt to represent a glimmer of legitimate, authentic hope in the face of apathy and globalism. The love of truth, wisdom, and knowledge has brought us to the potential of a more independent yet more interrelated world society.
However, the powers of law and jurisprudence currently existing, preferring the aristocratic, prevent real progress. The elite have captured people with a legal fiction, a practice where, by capitalizing all the letters in someone's name, you can diminish a person’s rights to the maximum limits of the law called: CAPITIS DIMINUTIO MAXIMA. The federal government creates this legal fiction with your birth certificate; the state using that slip of paper as a strawman then ties the real natural being to the synthetic artifice of the government and the Federal Reserve System, the IRS, and Social Security. Thus, when you go to court and the judge calls your name, he or she actually calls out a name that is written in all caps; and it is this name, not the natural person that you are, which he or she is referring to. Therefore, if you do not acknowledge this fiction, the power over your life no longer holds.
To overcome the inherently feudalistic, scientific dictatorship of manufactured consent, the answer is to get wise. To love wisdom--rather than money--cultivates a culture of invincibles to the cult of cult mentality. We as observers, as sovereigns, have the power to alter our reality, and this is best evidenced by the synthetic, artificial human world in which we live. In the process of becoming wise or critical thinking of the universe, we develop the skills necessary to have a greater ability to change it: spending our money wisely, wanting what Nestle, Monsanto and others cannot provide (Nature's Bounty), looking at the universe as a simulation created by a higher, immaterial (higher dimensional) mind, we realize that reality can be hacked; understanding the fractal nature of reality, we can derive the model of a simulated reality, and actually come to hack it. Becoming wise, we become original characters instead of non-playable characters, drones, or philosophical zombies, taking responsibility and generating a cause in our world instead of being caused upon.
It may seem unreasonable to the reader that we have here brought religion together with politics, but in truth there could no greater, more important relationship. Certainly they should be differentiated, our systems of government should be uninfluenced by the dogmas and traditions of religion, but the wisdom of critical thinking, and the consciousness of a wise society could have no greater influence upon its government, and justly so, and it is for this reason formal religion is unnecessary, but rather a culture of wisdom and virtue, which would seem lost to our unwise and unvirtuous selves. Given our eugenesis as incarnations of the divine source, the force, the higher dimensional mind, it only makes sense that we should all be acting as sovereigns, originals in a world made by our higher self for evolution and exploration, but to be a sovereign takes dignity, which in itself requires context within a paradigm. What we have provided with part I is the premise of a new paradigm in consciousness and reality, as well as ethics and econ.
Max Planck one of the most highly regarded theoretical physicists had much to say about consciousness and matter upon receiving his nobel prize “...There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” Further, on consciousness specifically he said, “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” And Max is not alone in his findings, or his perspective, but don’t believe what you read, do your own research and come to your own damn conclusions!
Learn about the laws that bind you, study the truth, and become wise, this is the charge that you have now that you have been exposed to the truth of our world: there is an Alternative Paradigm, and an alternative way from the capitalistic or communistic fashion. We hope that you feel a sense of personal responsibility for the world, because you are the world, and the world is you. Using the holographic principle, we can see how by changing our thoughts we can change our reality, and with this power comes great responsibility. This brings us back to the principle of mentalism: that every creation in reality originated as a thought, and by holographic, fractal extension, we too have the power as creators to invent and conceive anything our minds can come up with, as Napoleon Hill once wisely said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
The connection between the observer and the observed, or the hard problem in physics, has best been exemplified by “the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment”, which, like the double slit experiment, evinces a direct relationship of causality between the observer and the observed; in other words, your awareness, your thoughts that emanate from it, all exist within a matrix of awareness and thought, energy and information; outside of our perception, reality is a gas of possibilities, formed into coherence when we (as white holes) observe it. It is only by willful ignorance and cognitive dissonance that the scientific world holds on to its faith in materialism and staunch atheism. However, fortunately we do not have to wait for their consensus to have access to the greater reality that is available to us through Realism and exploratory agnosticism.
By harnessing this power, inherent in the human mind and heart, practicing the pentivium and hexivium: establishing seeds of hope, cells of evolution, Mastermind Alliance, fellowships for the future, etcetera, there must be a willingness to proverbially die to our culture, to go from being a worthless, greedy worm to being a helpful, beautiful butterfly. Through the crucible of metamorphosis, the seemingly horrific chaos that is change, we witness the cracks of our shattered reality--yet it is through those cracks that the golden glimmer of a greater galaxy of purpose and opportunity is revealed to us.
Go now and spread your wings!
Notes
[1] Suggested reading:
*My Big TOE……………………………..…………………………………... Tom Campbell, 2007
*The Evolving Self................................................................................. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1993
*Spontaneous Evolution…………………………………………………….. Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D. 2010
*Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution……………………... Ken Wilber, 2001
*The Secret Teachings of All Ages…………………………………............ Manly P. Hall, 1928
*Think on These Things…………………………………………………….. J.Krishnamurti, 1989
*Tao Te Ching………………………………………………………………… Lao Tzu, 500 BC. ?
^Trust: Self-Interest and the Common Good………………………….. Marek Kohn, 2008
*Positive Psychology of Love………………………………………..... M. Hojjat and D. Cramer 2013
^*The Lucifer Effect…………………………………………………..... Philip Zimbardo, 2007
^Economic Democracy: The Political Struggle of the 21st Century........ J.W. Smith, 2005/ 2008
^The Social Contract…………………………………………………………. J.J. Rousseau, 1762
^Second Treatise of Civil Government………………………………... John Locke, 1689
^Progress and Poverty ………………………………………………… Henry George, 1879
^Parecon: Life After Capitalism ............................................................. Michael Albert, 2003
^The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions…. Thorstein Veblen, 1899
^The Rights of Man……………………………………………………. Thomas Paine, 1791
^Agrarian Justice ……………………………………………………… Thomas Paine, 1797
^The Declaration of Independence………………………………....….. Thomas Jefferson, 1776
^*The Conscious Resistance………………………………………...…... J. Vibes, D. Broze, 2015
^*Propaganda............................................................................................ Edward Bernays, 1928
^The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America………………………….. C. T. Iserbyt, 1999/2011
^Tragedy and Hope.................................................................................. Carroll Quigley, 1963
^The Sane Society…………………………………………………….... Erich Fromm, 1965
^*Eye To Eye……………………………………………………………. Ken Wilber, 2001
^From Enlightenment to Receptivity…………………………………... Michael Slote, 2013
^*Empathic Civilization………………………………………………… Jeremy Rifkin, 2009
^Seventeen Problems of Man and Society……………………………... Ralph Borsodi, 1968
^From Dictatorship to Democracy.......................................................... Gene Sharp, 2012
^*A Brave New World/ Revisited.............................................................. Aldous Huxley, 1932/58
^*Island………………………………………………………………….... Aldous Huxley, 1962
*The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life... R. Becker & G. Selden, 1985
*Hope for the Flowers…………………………………………………. Trina Paulus, 1973 Paulist Press
* Pentivium
^ Hexivium
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