Another great interview with Miguel Conner of Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio. How does the spiritual seeker navigate this political turbulence and polarization? We spotlight the powers which should not be and their ultimate objective. Is this the endgame of The Fabian Society and other influential players?
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I’m glad Adrian Smith, author of A Prison for Your Mind, will join us to find a better world. We’ll discuss politics from a Gnostic stance. Adrian will provide many potent ideas, from the Gnosis of John Adams to the concept of Utilitarianism to the malevolence of the Fabian Society. In the end, you’ll get valuable and necessary antidotes to the various Wetikos that block your sacred mission and infect the collective human psyche. We got Yaldi Balid right where we want him.”
With eyes wide shut we make a conscious choice to stay unaware, even when the situation is clear.
Many sources of information are unreliable, and others tell the truth. Museums, archives, court records, the legislative output of Parliament, these are considered reliable. Hansard is the official record of proceedings in Parliament. Hansard does not lie, so when Parliament gave two standing ovations to a wanted Nazi war criminal for his “heroic fight” against the Russians in World War 2, the only solution was to erase the whole embarrassing episode from the record. They tried but failed. Damage to the larger war narrative was not fatal, however – the deeper truth hidden in plain sight.
Hidden in plain sight means hidden but easily discoverable for those who want to know. You won’t learn much from corporate or state media – two horns on the same goat. You can search the record and/or hear different points of view. This is essential to avoid dystopia.
The Canadian “Online Harms Act” (Bill C63) protects us from “harm”, they say. State media reinforces the narrative. A tearful mother is interviewed, recounting her daughter’s suicide when compromising pictures were circulated on the internet. A distraught black woman complains of racial slurs. A child’s Lego set is regulated, so why not the internet, they say?
Sounds reasonable until you dig deeper. The harms which the Online Harms Act seeks to address are already prohibited by the Criminal Code of Canada. It’s already an offence to post non-consensual sharing of intimate images or content which incites racial hatred. Nothing new in the Online Harms Act when it comes to actual harm, except the harm it causes.
So, here’s what’s new but left unreported by a compliant Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Under the pretense of protecting children, the government would give unprecedented powers to a Canadian Human Rights Commission, a body exempt from the normal rules of evidence. You could be liable to pay $50,000 to the federal government and $20,000 to a “victim” who felt offended or hurt by what you said. Legal costs are added but the complainant (victim) pays nothing, whatever the outcome. The tribunal can even prosecute based on an anonymous complaint.
In our common law tradition, representing 1000 years of constitutional evolution, you have a right to know who your accuser is, you have a right to confront your accuser and to question him (her) or have your representative do it for you. The alleged “victim” was once called the “complainant”, preserving a presumption of innocence, but all these things are up ended by the Online Harms Act. Even if found innocent, the process is the punishment.
Denunciation is usually enough for a politicized kangaroo court. This has happened before – the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, Stalinist Russia and Hitler’s Germany. In Hitler’s Germany you could easily dispose of an unwanted spouse by complaining to the police that he insulted Hitler. Denunciation was enough and the accused would disappear forever.
Imagine a new army of deeply offended busybodies filing thousands of complaints, including anonymous ones, against ideological opponents or someone they just don’t like. No need for evidence, only that they were “offended”. Imagine the chilling effect on free speech.
Being offended is an emotional state, not a rational argument. Emotional states do not operate at the level of objective reality which the law requires for the protection of all.
Similar legislation and procedure is rolling out across the anglosphere. According to TheTimes of London, 30 people are arrested every day for offensive online comments. In these cases, the complainant is always referred to as the “victim”. From The UK College of Police, “the perception of the victim is the defining factor——. The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception.” Denunciation is enough.
But it gets worse. By mending Section 810.012 of the Criminal Code, judges will have the power to violate the liberty of Canadians based on what they might say in the future. We have officially entered the dystopian sci fi world of P.K. Dick, who describes a fictitious “Department of Pre-Crime” in his sci fi short story “The Minority Report”, which was also made into a feature film, Minority Report.
For the world management team, perception management is everything. There is no truth, only narrative. Psychiatrist Scott Peck describes these imposters in his book People of The Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil. They may own all the channels of communication, yet truth is discoverable, albeit disturbing. The black magic spell is reinforced by participating in a lie. Whatever we can face will break the spell.
In conversation with Steve Seven, prolific author, transpersonal psychologist, expert on the psychology of Freud and Jung, New Testament scholar, and much more.
In Part 1, we discuss transpersonal psychology, Gnosticism, spiritual evolution and wonder-working in the invisible world, and the name of Steve’s Facebook group.
In Part 2, we discuss the hidden hand behind events in the materium.
An inspiring discussion with Taoist priest and master, San Qing, creator of Consciousness of the Way 126podcast and YouTube channel. We explore the Gnostic path and similarities with Taoist practice and tradition.
Another great interview with Aeon Byte. Joining the discussion is friend and author, Cyd Ropp Ph.D.. We discuss the problem of evil in our world and how to oppose it.
When my early life as a fundamentalist minister came to an abrupt and traumatic end, I surveyed what could be salvaged from the general shipwreck of disappointment. A few valuables could be gathered up, for sure; but that old ship would never sail again. Disappointment is an understatement. What is left to believe in when belief itself has betrayed you? We are held captive by belief (ideology, narrative, meme). Manipulation of belief is the basis of mind control, a clear pathway to dystopia.
I spent time in the corporate world. More accurately, I “did” time there. But to survive and thrive aboard the ship of commerce, one must believe without question. “True believers” embrace with total commitment, the paramount importance of production. Quotas and achievements give meaning, purpose, and a direction in life. Scientific materialism produces labour-saving machines and fascinating gadgets which do nothing for the soul. So, with the passage of time, belief falters. “We keep you alive to serve this ship,” the Roman overlord tells the galley slave. I would abandon the ship of commerce to find a new direction.
A man can only stand so much disappointment. I even thought I might become an atheist, but I couldn’t do it. Those who confidently champion scientific materialism, and deny any spiritual reality, are true believers but not true scientists. A true scientist examines the evidence on its merits without pre-conception. No need to review the evidence, they say, we already know the answer. But evidence does exist for a supernatural or paranormal reality. The scientific research of sincere parapsychologists and paranormal investigators is met with derision and ridicule. This is getting much too close to that original experience of belief which tolerates no dissent. The militant atheist has much in common with the religious fanatic.
I graduated from The University of London with a degree in law. Here I began to re-evaluate the fatal attraction of belief. Asking the right question is more important than finding the right answer. Appreciating a good argument is more realistic than an over-abundance of certitude. Adherence to core values of justice, truth and morality are the foundation of natural law. Pursuing what is right, is more important than being right.
Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1)
I discovered Gnosticism by a process of elimination, filtering out that which was reminiscent of my original experience of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a mentality, transcending any particular belief system, religious or otherwise. The devil (demiurge) is a shapeshifter. Changing a disguise does not alter the true nature of what lurks beneath the costume. On a good day, the adversary is rigid, inflexible, arrogant, intolerant, argumentative, narrow minded, and contemptuous; on a bad one, unhinged, vicious and violent. The same mental virus infecting the Christian mob which murdered Hypatia of Alexandria also infected the Jacobins of The French Revolution. They believed in extensive government intervention to effect revolutionary social change, in some ways, an early version of Marxism. Thomas Paine was arrested in Paris after he recommended mercy for the royal family. Only an intervention by Thomas Jefferson saved him from the guillotine. A different context yes but the same counterfeiting spirit.
Beliefs are toxic when held tightly. Toxic beliefs thrive on ignorance. Exposure to a wide range of ideas is an effective antidote.
Gnostics believed different things and argued amongst themselves, but that melting pot of ideas uncovered an array of possibilities which could not be known otherwise. When constantly exposed to new ideas which challenge old ones, we avoid the cult of belief. Gnostics hold beliefs lightly. Theirs is a unity of Spirit. Their gnosis (knowledge) is experiential and shamanistic. Beliefs are provisional and subject to change.
A world without belief becomes administratively unworkable. What is there to manage if people are allowed to believe what they want. Authority demands one truth, a narrowing of the imagination. Brute force is clumsy and expensive, better if the masses accept or even demand their servitude. For this they must believe.
I have also had time to reflect upon all the false beliefs (narratives) we hold about ourselves which, quite apart from those in the world at large, also keep us locked up in a prison for the mind.
This process of calcification drove the Gnostics underground, their wisdom reduced to fragments found in pots. The Library of Alexandria was burned to the ground and with it the natural curiosity of the human mind. If you want to control the world, control the mind.
Paul of Tarsus was once a man of definite belief, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, as he described himself. Early Christians were heretics of Judaism and he participated in their persecution. Paul was later transformed, not by a new belief but by a bolt of lightning, a vision on the road to Damascus, a transformative religious experience (gnosis).
He emerges much less certain about belief.
I am determined not to know anything,
He who thinks he knows, knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
Where there is knowledge, it shall pass away.
He speaks of that impermeant or provisional knowledge which often fails but not of gnosis, that revelatory experiential knowledge which is transformative and everlasting.
Psychologist Carl Jung, referring to gnosis, says it best: “I do not believe, I know.’
Further to my presentations on Canada’s truckers’ protest, delivered at The Glastonbury Symposium and on Aeon Byte, there has been an important new development. The Federal Court of Canada has just decided that Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act 1988, was unconstitutional, illegal and unreasonable.
This contrasts with the prior determination of Justice Paul Rouleau, Chairman of The Public Order Emergencies Commission, a public inquiry into the circumstances leading up to invocation of the EA and subsequent freezing of bank accounts and martial law responses.
The important distinction here is that Justice Rouleau was a political appointee charged with rendering an “opinion” at the end of the inquiry. Justice Rouleau’s “opinion” was that the very high standards of the EA were met. In his remarks, Justice Rouleau emphasized that his “opinion” did not have the force of law and that a final determination was a matter for the courts. This recent decision of the Federal Court, on the other hand, does have the force of law and of legal precedence, opening the way for further lawsuits against the government by all those harmed by invocation.
In his remarks more than a year ago, Justice Rouleau also stated that he arrived at his “opinion” reluctantly as it was “not strongly supported by the facts” and that a reasonable person, properly informed, could easily reach a different conclusion. A compliant media dutifully reported the headline “opinion” without reporting his follow-on remarks, so the government appeared to be in the clear; that is, until now.
If granted leave to appeal, the Trudeau Government will go to the Supreme Court, but government lawyers will have a very steep hill to climb.
Having followed this protest closely for over two years, I now believe we have two different legal systems at odds with each other — one based on established principles and the other clearly politicized. The latter is prepared to ignore “facts” or redefine language to support government policy.
It has been accepted for centuries that a “balance and separation of powers” is the basis of a free society. No one organ of governance (legislative, judicial, executive) should be allowed to dominate the others. In our system, even the police exercise an independent authority. So, when judges make decisions which ignore facts to protect the powerful, we are in grave danger.
“Facts,” said, John Adams, “are stubborn things.” It has been two years now since the protest but those stubborn facts, though suppressed, have not gone away.
We stand on the precipice but have stepped back from the edge, at least for now.
Here is my presentation this past summer at The Glastonbury Symposium, the UK’s largest alternative conference, recorded at the Town Hall, Glastonbury, Somerset, in July 2023.
Autonomy Now: 