The Human Potential Movement Part 2. The New Age

The “Secret” with dealing with Rhonda Byrne? Sign the contract.

Human Potential Movement  and the New Age
At the beginning of the 20th Century, the followers of a Greek-Armenian mystic with a message of awakening to a “higher consciousness” promoted George I. Gurdjieff (1866?-1949) as an enlightened spiritual master. Gurdjieff claimed that human beings were helplessly caught in a “waking sleep” unable to perceive reality fully, thus Gurdjieff’s teachings were necessary in order for the student to transform his life into one of enlightenment and clarity.

Gurdjieff’s theories were allegedly given to him through a mysterious association of a secret spiritual group called the “Sarmoung Brotherhood,” an esoteric Sufi group that Gurdjieff claimed descended from the Assyrians who live somewhere in the “heart of Asia.” Modern critics claim that the Sarmoung was a fictive device Gurdjieff used to promote is ideas.

In America there was a concurrent, if small movement that taught that humanity was spiritually evolving. In 1924, Baird Thomas Spalding (1872–1953) began publishing a series of books called, Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East. These books allegedly depict Baird interviewing beings of great spiritual power, “Ascended Masters” much like the “Mahatma” figures made popular by Helena Blavatsky and the mysterious Sarmoung Brotherhood of G. I. Gurdjieff.

Guy Ballard (1878–1939), who happened to be a friend of Spalding, claimed he met the Ascended Master “Saint Germain” on Mount Shasta. The message from the Ascended Masters was that they were once human beings after becoming perfect during reincarnation; their spiritual perfection allowed them to be immortal, residing in the higher planes of existence. They invariably mentioned that their evolution from human to god was destined to occur for all humanity, in accordance to the Divine Plan.

Even though the core of the HPM was wrapped around the pole of existential humanism, there was a metaphysical slant that appeared at the beginning, thanks to Esalen’s attraction to Zen Buddhism, and Esalen’s attraction to the ideas of Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), who had worked on his theories of spiritual evolution and what he called, the “Supermind.” For Aurobindo, the Supermind is similar to the nous or the Logos of Classical Greek metaphysics, and the familiar all-pervading Brahman of Hinduism; the divine creative consciousness, transcendent and immanent within the world. According to Aurobindo, the potential exists within every human to access the consciousness of the Supermind which would lead the humanity into a realm of supernatural transformation.

Alice Bailey (1888-1949) produced a multitude of densely complex spiritual material that covered, in part, the role of what Bailey termed, the “Spiritual Hierarchy.” This squad of immortal masters were behind the physical and spiritual evolution of humanity. Whereas the “Mahatmas” of Blavatsky claimed that depictions of “God” were “imaginary,”[1] Bailey’s Masters argued that a “spiritual plan” presupposed its creation by “God,” and included an intervention of cosmic avatars who would descend to Earth and prepare humanity for the arrival of the cosmic Christ, who would then rule the Earth along side the Spiritual Hierarchy (which sounds much like a New Age reinterpretation of Christian fundamentalist view of the Book of Revelations). Bailey believed that the raising of one’s consciousness to the divine, as will as recognizing one’s inner divinity would initiate a golden age for humanity. [2]

In 1963, Jane Roberts (1929-1984) and her husband Robert Butts where playing on a Ouija board when she began receiving messages from a spirit who came to call himself, “Seth.” The material dictated by “Seth” energized and gave shape and form to the emerging New Age movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Seth repeated stated that the key to self-transformation was to “create your own reality.” The Seth Material almost single-handedly gave the New Age in the 1970’s its vocabulary, shape and cosmology. “Seth” continuously referenced “Inner Selves,” “Higher Selves” and that consciousness creates and influences the physical. Seth also loudly echoed and reinforced positive thinking principles. New Age luminaries like Shatki Gawain, Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra and many others have referenced the Seth Material as being a great influence in their thinking.

J.Z. Knight (Judith Darlene Hampton) and her channeled being, “Ramtha,” who claims to be a being from an ancient and advanced race of humans in the distant past and became an “ascended master,” speaking through Knight and continuing in Seth’s path in the wake of Roberts’ death in 1984. The message from Knight/Ramtha was that consciousness and energy can change reality. Consciousness and energy are the same. Human beings, according to Ramtha, are on a path towards enlightenment, and we are also “divine” (echoing many spiritualists of the past).

Rhonda Byrne and “The Secret”
However, the culmination of 20th Century spirituality occurred in 2007 with the release of the film, The Secret. Rhonda Byrne, the film’s creator, claimed that the core ideas for the film were the messages from a book written in 1906; “Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World,” by W.W. Atkinson (a New Thought writer) and Wallace Wattles’ 1910 book, “The Science of Getting Rich.” The Secret contains many New Thought ideas such as, “No rules according to the universe… you provide the feelings of having it now and the universe will respond.” The Secret, although considered as “New Age” as anything, was primarily a reiteration of a century-old New Thought spirituality.

The Secret, with the help of media attention, slick packaging and being in the right place at the right time, made millions for Byrne, and brought attention to the stable of speakers featured in the film. Byrne was embroiled in a legal dispute with two former associates who claimed they were promised a cut of the profits from Byrne’s film, which reportedly grossed $20 million in the first eight months (The film and books ended up raking in over $300 million collected worldwide). When the subject of payment came up with her Australian director and co-author of the screenplay, Drew Heriot (who had personally kicked in $10,000 towards the production), Byrne instead fired him.

“Essentially, she said my company wouldn’t be working with her again and they’d be using another writer and director for the sequel. I said, ‘I can’t believe you are doing this. Are you saying there is no profit-share?’ She said, ‘Yes, but I can return the $10,000 you gave me.’”[3]

Heriot sued Byrne for copyright infringement and fraud. Heriot sued Byrne, but lost in court in 2009. [4] Heriot vowed to appeal. Apparently, the Law of Attraction works better if you get it in writing.

Esther Hicks and “Abraham”

One of the main speakers in the original cut [5] of The Secret was Esther Hicks and her channeled entity (or entities, as Hicks claims Abraham is a collection of beings), who carried their Law of Attraction message to a wider audience. Esther Hicks was influenced by Seth Material, in particular, “Seth Speaks” and (not surprisingly) Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich,” which seems to be the go-to book for anyone wanting to make a splash in the Human Potential Movement. Abraham/Hicks goes a step farther beyond being indebted to the Law of Attraction, for if you visit the Abraham/Hicks site you’ll see a rebranding of the Law of Attraction as the “Teachings of Abraham” and where your grandfather’s Law of Attraction took time to get what you wanted, the Teachings of Abraham offers of manifesting your desires “instantly.” I suppose we can call this Law of Attraction 2.0.

Next: The Human Potential Movement Part 3. The New Prosperity Gurus

Notes

[1]  The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, 2nd. ed., TUP, 53, 1926. pg.142- 43.

[2] Bailey, Alice. A Treatise on White Magic, Lucis Publishing 10-11

[3] Guilliatt, Richard. “The secret of Rhonda.” Australian Magazine. 28 2008: n. page. Web. 31 Oct. 2012.

[4] “Heriot recalls that early on Byrne promised him a percentage of the film’s profits, but rebuffed his request for a written contract. “Rhonda actually insisted that we not have a contract – she said they limited people’s freedom, that they’re designed to guard against things going wrong, which is not the way of The Secret because it is focusing on the negative,” he says.” (Guilliatt).

Indeed, since Heriot did not get the promise down in writing, he effectively failed “to guard against things going wrong,” allowing Byrne to “burn” him out of millions. 

[5] Salkin, Allen. “Shaking Riches Out of the Cosmos.” New York Times, 25 Feb. 2007. Web. 31 Oct. 2012. Byrne promised the Hicks 10% of the DVD sales, but just before the big money came in, Byrne told the Hicks that they would either have to accept ripping up the contract or be cut out of the film. The Hicks took $500,000 and went away. 

October 14, 2012, Snake Oil for Sale!

Not sure to where I begin with this one, but here goes…
I want to post this review of a YouTube video created by some woman named, “Teal.” Don’t know if it’s her real name. In her video called, “How to Raise your Vibration,” “Teal” claims, though she never divulges her authoritative sources, that “raising one’s vibration” is the result of one’s “commitment to personal happiness.”
Now, I get that the notion of “raising one’s vibration” or “frequency” has enjoyed some popularity for some time. The notion that vibrations were sacred appeared first in the East, in ancient Brahmanism, from which Hinduism descended. The Vedic cosmology claimed there were 14 planes (or worlds) of existence. Buddhism asserted that there were 31 planes of existence. However, it was Hinduism, primarily through Advaita Vedanta conceived by Adi Shankara, that claimed that the universe, represented by Brahman, was a “pure consciousness.”

Thus, the idea that the universe is a form of consciousness is very old, and existed long before the West got wind of it through the ancient pre-Socratic philosophers like Parmenides and Anaxagoras who conceived the universe as something like “the mind of God.” The idea that consciousness evolved or was capable of being “raised” in modern times seems to be first recorded by Ramakrishna, the 19th Century Hindu mystic and later updated by the 20th Century guru Sri Aurobindo. These spiritual metaphysicians, along with the Theosophist master Helena Blavatsky, who lived about the same time as Ramakrishna, all asserted the idea that the planes of existence, divine consciousness and sacred frequency were the same. These streams of spiritual ideas helped formulate what has been called since the 19th Century as the “Law of Attraction.”

The Law of Attraction’s main premise is that consciousness is superior to the physical, an idea that runs back to the ancient Vedantic principle that Brahman is the divine consciousness and the material world an illusion. In the West, this idea was latched onto by Theosophy and the New Thought Movement in the late 19th Century. The New Age spirituality and the principles of the Law of Attraction are essentially the culmination and combination of Theosophist and New Thought ideas.

Which brings us back to “Teal” and her video, which purports to be a “how-to” manual in drawing good things by only engaging in “good thoughts.” According to “Teal,” if one is to live a full and complete life one must make a “commitment” to “personal happiness.” This is done through the “raising of frequency” through “feeling good.” Yes, we’ve heard this all before. It’s from New Thought author W.W. Anderson and his book, “Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World,” published in 1903. Napoleon Hill followed with his, “Think and Grow Rich,” which was followed by the Secret, up to the present day with LOA proponents and New Age trance-channeler Esther Hicks.

While Theosophy and the New Thought Movement often placed humans as “divine” figures, neither movement tried to elevate personal happiness, or enlightened self-interest, at the forefront of their philosophies. That occurred with the rise of the New Age, with its emphasis on spirituality as commodity. Capitalism has long corrupted all forms of religious enterprises, so this isn’t such a surprise. It is interesting to note the uniqueness of the New Age shift to the concerns of the person and not say, the redemption of groups of humanity, as we have in the Organized Religions. This shift of elevating personal happiness to a spiritual goal coincides with neoliberal conceptions of personal liberty, acquiring property and the rights of the Individual.
“Teal,” like all who wish to ignore the scary parts that make up existence, is promising her hapless clients the virtue of magical thinking that will transform them into perpetual happiness machines.
This teaching amounts is the worst of snake-oil salesmanship, which may not be fair to snake-oil salesmen because at least they had oil, which was something tangible. People like “Teal” only give lip service and fluffy-sounding claims that cannot be verified by anyone.
How convenient.

06/21/2012 – 2012 and the Uselessness of Compassion

Shinzen Young: Genuine wisdom or ironic Zen nonsense? 

“Compassion is to share the pain without sharing the suffering.” ~Shinzen Young. 

How can one who claims to be a spiritual master be so oblivious of misguided nonsense that escapes from the depths of  their brainpan? And yet, acclaimed and renowned “mindfulness” teacher Shinzen Young seems unaware of the violence of his redefinition-mangling in service of his metaphysical  perspective. In his attempt to fuse “contemplative meditation” techniques of the East with the “scientific method” of the West, Shinzen Young has been lauded for his “innovative interactive, algorithmic approach to mindfulness.” “Mindfulness” refers to the Buddhist contemplative meditation techniques (Vipassanā) where the goal is to focus on the awareness of the mind and body and achieve knowledge of the nature of reality which then I suppose makes one a “Spiritual Master.”

But why do so many “Spiritual Masters” say such ridiculous, incomprehensible bullshit? Has their “mindfulness” meditation experiences left them with so much knowledge about the nature of reality that they can even see how far removed they’ve become from every-day common sense? Run through the above quote once more:

“Compassion is to share the pain without sharing the suffering.” 

What’s the takeaway point of this sentence? Well, the unintended point made by Shinzen reveals the uselessness of compassion, which is commonly described as an emotional response within a person to the misfortune and suffering of another and wanting to do something about it to remove the other’s plight. But to create a situation where one can safely  share one’s pain without sharing the other’s suffering is like having one’s cake and eating it too. Why would anyone want to share another’s suffering “out of compassion” without getting down into the dirty, painful and equality-based business of removing the suffering for everyone? Because nobody in their “right mind” would want to. It is the human design to avoid suffering at all costs, especially if one has enough money – and it takes money – to keep physical suffering at a manageable level.

But nobody, including Shinzen, would want to actually do something about the suffering of others in this world, or literally place their feet in the shoes of someone’s suffering.  Much better to “feel bad” about the plight of human trafficking or hearing about children starving to death in the media. A brief, cheap, momentary emotional investment called “compassion” is enough for most people.

But one doesn’t really “share the pain”  of others through compassion, do they? And this is where Shinzen misses the point. He could have said something more profound by revealing the uselessness of human compassion – where one could place the total amount of that human emotion one side of an equation against the totality of human suffering on the other side and see how effective emotions really are in dealing with the human condition of suffering. Or he could have gotten down into the shit with the misfortunate  others like Mother Teresa - who despite her existential doubts spent her life amid the suffering of others [1] and could only cope with her own metaphysical doubts by linking her own spiritual suffering and the suffering of others with the “suffering of Jesus.” But that doesn’t seem to be any more effective in dealing with the removal of suffering, does it?

Spouting religious and spiritual language and meditative exercises  to deal with human problems has simply never worked. Using human emotions like compassion, pity and sympathy to deal with human problems has simply never, ever worked in stopping the condition of human suffering. What statements like these do is allow the person who comes across them to become beguiled by the implied “wisdom” imparted. But it isn’t “wisdom.” It’s just ironic Zen-Buddhist bullshit.  It’s bullshit because all statements made from the starting point of projecting a religiously philosophical perspective can only fail in providing real insight to humanity. Buddhism has been around for nearly 3000 years and it’s failed in bringing “enlightenment” to the people. It’s ironic because Shinzen obviously believes in the power of compassion without sharing another’s suffering but he simply fails to understand that such a point reveals compassion to be nothing more than an illusion. Then again,  this is quite proper since all metaphysics deal with elevating illusions into meaningless life-long obsessions – while choosing to ignore and excuse real suffering and despair with pious blandishments and feel-good flowerhat philosophies And now you know what really matters to these spiritual shysters. Forget about trying to find a way to lift the peoples of this world out of an endemic of inequality. What is most important to these gurus is within the relation of their own knowledge and information about the nature of reality to others while making a buck. I can only hope against hope that people will wake up and reject that and choose equality for all and make it happen. But first, we have to stop listening and being bewitched by the deceptive spiritual nonsense these gurus love to share so much.

Note

[1] “Now Father—since 49 or 50 this terrible sense of loss—this untold darkness—this loneliness—this continual longing for God—which gives me that pain deep down in my heart.—Darkness is such that I really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason.—The place of God in my soul is blank.—There is no God in me.—When the pain of longing is so great—I just long & long for God—and then it is that I feel—He does not want me—He is not there.—Heaven—souls—why these are just words—which mean nothing to me.—My very life seems so contradictory. I help souls—to go where?—Why all this? Where is the soul in my very being? God does not want me.—Sometimes—I just hear my own heart cry out—“My God” and nothing else comes.—The torture and pain I can’t explain.” Letter to Father Joseph Neuner by Mother Teresa.

05/26/2012 – Is the Mind the most powerful thing in the Universe?

“Uhn.. if I could just think… a bit… harder… somethin’s bound to happen!”

Your thoughts create your reality.

Your mind is more powerful than you know.

Are you worried about something right now?

Are you feeling unsure about something these days?

God invites you to change your thinking.

Miracles seldom occur in the lives of those who do not consider them possible.

There could be a miracle waiting for you this minute.

Please make room for it in your thinking. Thanks.

Love, Your Friend….

Neale Donald Walsch

Wow. The mind has been given a lot of credit by philosophers, metaphysicians, science and religion. Not only does the miraculous mind receive credit for moving things in the universe, it has been touted as creating the universe! That sounds nice but seriously, can we really define consciousness in any other terms other than a vampirous abstraction, or as  generative and consuming energetic of substance –  like a flame devouring and evaporating a candle of wax?  But the majestic brilliance of the flickering light lasts only for a moment until it vanishes into the darkness, rubbed out from existence and from memories. But such metaphors must sound too cruel for people like Walsch when referring to something so God-like as the mind, until one realizes that  there is a difference between “God” and “God-like.” I suppose the biggest difference is that “God” is a mind-created fable and  truth-claim about a unseeable object while the mind is something we are all very intimate with, especially its oppressive, deceptive and ingratiating nature which ceaselessly drives us to erect such titanic monumental altars to worship it.  The mind has seemingly deserved all the praise that we have given it, what with all the wonderful things in the world that the mind has given us, like depleted uranium, plastic soup oceans and genetically modified vegetables (and wasn’t the world clamoring for more depleted uranium, plastic in the oceans and genetically modified food?)

If one would find any benefit to blame whoever was responsible for lifting up such a bully to eminence, we could mention the Brahmanas and the ancient Greeks. The Advaita – the orthodox philosophical school of Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism), claims that Brahman is “knowledge” and everything in the visible world, “eternal spiritual body which is full of bliss!”  He is the Supreme Person! A Consciousness of Absolute Truth! The principle Upanishads claim that Brahman is the infinite consciousness. And how did we come to know of this infinite consciousness? From the words handed down from Vedic literature. You know, from stories. But the Vedas will be the first to admit, the Brahman that can be talked about is not the true Brahman.  Talk about having your cake and eating it too!

The Greeks had their stories as well, but I’m not talking about their superhero gods like Hercules, Aphrodite and Apollo. Their conception of the mind as God was just as abstractly absolute as anything  the Brahmanas cooked up. Anaxagoras conceived of a cosmology of where there was nothing but a formless, cosmic soup that existed at the beginning , until a cosmic mind he called, nous placed everything in order.  As Donnie Darko would say, “Deus Ex Machina! Our Lord and savior.” Anaxagoras never said where is “mind” came from, but you gotta admit, it makes for a great story and it even influenced the great Plato and the Neoplatonists, who also conceived a transcendent cosmic mind as being and thought from which all things emanated. The enemies of the Neoplatonists were the Gnostics, who claimed that the physical creation was the inferior and flawed work of an evil creator and a growing post-Judean sect called Christians who worshipped a crucified man as the Son of God, the Logos, the creative principle made flesh.

And to this day, there are people who believe that the mind within our holy brains, is the most powerful thing in the universe. Good ol’ New Age. Way to keep the cosmic consciousness home fires burning. From this we gather stories about how the human mind, the “greatest force in the universe,” is evolving into achieving “higher consciousness” and increasing our vibration to the point of becoming one with the cosmic consciousness.  Which is all well and good, but goddamn, where does the love-in end, Neale Donald Walsch? Why do you ask us to “make room in our minds for miracles,” for God’s sake? I understand that some of the books you’ve presented appear rich in wisdom and profound statements and that  you made a fortune with them, but did you ever ask yourself whether the alleged contact with “God” could in any way be verified? Did you ever consider that the words you assumed that came from “God” were actually formed within  a secret compartment  within your mind that in no way was connected to any Divine source? From judging the above quote, I reckon not, because it sounds like you are serious when you suggest that “making room” ” in your thinking for a miraculous intervention from “God.” Somehow, according to the schematic of  Walsch,  ”God” is quite limited – and can only act on the human scene through the thoughts of human beings, but only if we engage in wishful, magical thinking. Again, like Eckhart Tolle, Barbara Hand Clow, Esther Hicks  and many, many others who present consciousness as the most powerful force in the universe, they present claims as truths and don’t seem to realize the difference. To tell people to make room in their thinking for a miracle is capitulation of one’s self-direction. Thus Walsch’s claims are not credible and people need to check themselves for the lack of development of their common sense if they buy into this garbage. And that so many people do buy into this trash should make one question whether consciousness is all that “powerful” after all.

05/09/2012 -”Is Everything Thoughts?” 2012 and Abraham-Hicks

The question at the beginning of this Abraham-Hicks clip: “Is it fair to say that everything is thought?”

Before we continue with the answer given by Esther Hicks’ channeled personality “Abraham,” a bit of exposition.

The question comes from a historical spiritualist assumption most clearly expressed within Pre-Socratic and  New Thought metaphysical traditions , and the nature of consciousness is the key point. The pre-Socratic sage Anaxagoras developed a theory that a Universal Mind he called, Nous was responsible for creation. Heraclitus assigned the creative principle to Reason, which he called the Logos. Within New Thought metaphysics (which is the direct forerunner of the New Age movement), mind is Divine (as in the Mind of God) and superior than the physical. Hicks-Abraham mentions this directly in answer to the questioner by relating that if one tunes into a certain “frequency of being” through “reaching for the best feeling thought you can find,” one is able to receive an “alignment.” Hicks goes on to remark:

“Without alignment, you are giving up all that assistance – not completely because you are never cut off from it – but then you have to rely more on your physical activities in order to move things around. And at best, it is mediocre and unproductive.”

With this New Thought schematic, Esther Hicks lays the framework of the Law of Attraction where the thoughts of humans are invisibly influencing the course of human events. But according to the question, which assumes that the channeler will corroborate with its premise that everything in Creation exists as thoughts within the Mind of God, the physical is relegated to irrelevance. We have Plato, among others, to thank for this, as  this brand of cosmology has informed Western metaphysics that the physical is the imperfect copy of transcendent Forms, or Ideas.

So why is the answer given by the channeler a deception? This “tuning in to the frequency” of your being (whatever that means, but I’m assuming it relates to the “reaching of the best feeling thought possible” positive-thinking jazz) as the preferred course of action over physical activity is a great deception and a massive affront to common sense. The Great Wall of China and the Pyramids were not created by people sitting around reaching for the best thought feelings. They had to build the damn things. Just apply this crap to any real-world scenario and see if it makes sense. I suppose the half of humanity that are starving on their feet need only to “reach for the best possible feeling thought” to end their poverty.

But Hicks and her channeled personality are not  that concerned with  those outside of their targeted audience. Empty phraseology,word-games and regurgitated spiritualism makes sense only within that framework. “Leverage in alignment,” “tuning in to the frequency of who you really are” and ascribing anthropomorphic attributes to thought itself (“it existed in its presence and absence, and the combination of those two things caused it to become more “) forms a catalog of  nonsensical truth-claims that will lead many well-intentioned people into a massive trap of self-deception, within the so-called Law of Attraction where the Right to be Selfish is elevated to a spiritual principle, and the search for the “better feeling thought” becomes one’s mantra and moral compass. These beliefs, however, only represent a catalog of deceptive magical thinking. This is the problem with these types of beliefs, they do nothing but focus on encasing self within a make-believe world in separation with the rest of humanity through avoiding and denying real-world issues that affect everybody. Nobody within Ester Hicks’ retinue seems to notice the obvious problem of contradiction between living in a world that isn’t “real,” yet focusing on the best  possible feeling thoughts, abundance and preference. Why would preference or good feelings “matter” in an illusory, imperfect and irrelevant world? And if everything is thoughts, then why would the physical exist at all?

The questions become easier to answer when we are willing to flip the script. Moving things within the physical is much more practical and demonstrable than magical imagination. Test it out for yourself. Gather several books and arrange them into a single stack on one side of a table. Now search for the best possible feeling thought, tune into the frequency of who you really are  and move that stack to the other side of the table. Golly. Why didn’t the stack move? Perhaps you’re not trying hard enough. Come on, tune into that frequency. Still nothing? Well, don’t feel bad. I doubt Esther Hicks could have moved it with her mind either.

I have an “idea,” though. Let’s dispense with all forms of spiritualism, metaphysics and religions. These systems have not enhanced the human experience, ever.  They just superimpose a layer of sweet-sounding bullshit within the minds of the gullible and desperate that keeps us divided and diverted from the stuff that really matters, like the survival of the human race. The physical is here and no amount of love ‘n light-tooti-fruity nonsense will ever be able to remove this reality. Deal with it.

2012/01/20 – Dr. Wayne Dyer’s 2012′s New Age Snake Oil for Success

Dr. Wayne Dyer, "Sit Back and Let the Unseen World Take Care of It."

 

To make your dreams come true, you must go to the unseen world–the world of Spirit, or inspiration. It is this world that will guide you to anything you’d like to have in your life. – Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

 

This fluffy-sounding yet insidious trope is one of my favorite flower-hat New Age-isms to refute, and I thank Dr. Dyer for placing it so elegantly.

Making one’s “dreams come true,” aka, ” the “pursuit of happiness,” has been hardwired into our collective brainpan for so long, we have failed to noticed how unconsciously driven we are to seek the pleasures of comfort. As I briefly recounted in my blog entry, “The Soft Domination,” our perceived need to dominate our environment with creature comforts has produced a dysfunctional, lopsided world where affluence and poverty seemingly exist in unrelated, parallel worlds. The fact that one world feeds off the other like an ever-present vampire is hardly addressed or considered by those who are “lucky” enough to be born on the good side of town, like, presumably, the good Doctor Dyer, the author of the above quote. One only has to look at the schematic of Dyer’s recipe for success with a clear eye to see how shallow and meaningless – and more important – deceptive it is. But Dyer learned a long time ago that spouting such Candyland platitudes is what sells his books. So he must be on the right track, right? But let’s take this quote apart and see what remains.

To make your dreams come true, you must go to the unseen world…

Apparently, this is the world that Dr. Dyer is intimately familiar with. It is “unseen.” And it is a “world.” Is Dyer speaking metaphorically or is he claiming that there is a level of existence that is “unseen” but apprehended? Why is it so crucial that one enters into this  “unseen” world to make one’s wishes to “come true?”Dyer explicitly claims that this world has certain properties.

–the world of Spirit, or inspiration.

Let that sink in for a moment. Forget that there are many dimensions in defining the word “spirit.” We will assume for the sake of brevity that the Good Doctor is referring to the part of self that is said to survive after death. The next word, inspiration, contains the root of spirit, so we can see that Dyer connects spirit and inspiration very closely. Inspiration is the “process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially creative.” [1] So, instead of actually working out your dream in dealing with the physical complications that will arise to thwart your dream from ever becoming a reality, Dr. Dyer prefers that you sit back and wait for a disembodied, unseen dimension to somehow birth your unmanifested desire into existence. For he actually says so in the next sentence that:

It is this world that will guide you to anything you’d like to have in your life.

Take a look at the world around you. The numbers don’t add up.

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day

The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.

According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death. [2]

I guess in the rose-colored world of Dr. Wayne Dyer, who has amassed considerable wealth peddling sweet-sounding nonsense to the crowd of gullible New Age consumers, his program of wishing and waiting works for him, but not for those who live in the real world of consequence. If “making one’s dreams come true” is the overarching motivation in one’s life, and it doesn’t include all others who live in this world with you, then what you want is continuance of the insanity of a world that we have now. That’s not good enough, obviously. But for those like Wayne Dyer, things can’t be good enough. And that’s the problem with CandyLand metaphysics. Too many people are going to have to die for no reason before anyone begins to question their preciously-held beliefs.

 

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

[1] Oxford dictionary. Origin Middle English – “divine guidance”: via the Latin “inspirare,”to breathe or blow into.” Spirit comes down from the Latin, “spiritus,”  breath. Those with an understanding of the Desteni vocabulary will find this definition to be one that makes a lot of sense.

[2] Shah, Anup. “Poverty Facts and Stats.” Global Issues. 20 Sep. 2010. Web. 20 Jan. 2012. <http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats>.

2011/06/13 – A Cult of their Own: The Ironic Fabrications of “0rdo Aurora Templii”

We do not know who is behind the secret minds of the You Tube channel, “0rdo Templii Aurora,” who claim to be a collective that opposes Destonian principles completely. What little evidence we have suggest part of this group are from the British Isles and have also set up “anti-Desteni cult” blogs that spew comically paranoid conspiracy fever dreams. They prefer to run their propaganda hate machine behind the curtain of anonymity while gleefully attacking and smearing known Desteni members in their videos and blogs. As if we care, yet it shows everyone the intrinsic fear of exposure and consequence these haters live with daily, and the voice of the narrator of the 0rdo videos, drips with an affectation of defiance that belies their obsessive fears that Desteni, if unchecked, could take over the world by installing a “spiritual fascism.” Like I said, comical.

The bone of contention that 0rdo has with Desteni contains many facets, but can be traced to one point: they believe that the portal is the “big lie of Desteni.” We will not respond to that, as this is only an opinion that they have formed out of ignorance and disbelief. They have zero-proof to back up their claims that the portal is a fake, as there is no evidenced available to them that they can use to validate their claims. They will not admit this, because out of their self-righteous belief that they have a pure, undimmed understanding of what they think Desteni is about. They have formed, like the rest of the haters, a “cult” of their own.

Let’s give a close reading of their video attack, Desteni Preacher of Hate, Bernard Poolman – Part 1, for example. It contains a laundry list of “crimes against humanity” that the mouthpiece for  0rdo (henceforth known as, “Zero Our Doom,” or just “Zero”) dryly reads in a stiffly detached British monotone.

1. Bernard Poolman’s Desteni is a centralized regime, run as a dictatorship, which advocates strictly regimented economic, industrial, and social controls. 

A: Being described as a “centralized regime” sort of makes me pine for the old Cold War days. That Desteni is “centralized” is a fairy tale scare tactic, and false, as Desteni is a global group that is beginning to replicate all over the world-wide web of the collective unconscious.

That Desteni is a “regime” is only partly correct, as we are not authoritarian as the word is applied here, but we do promote a “regime” as giving a modality or way of doing things that brings equality to the world. What Zero fails to realize is that there are more “social controls” arrayed against human beings under this current system then there would ever be in an Equal Money society. But that doesn’t seem to bother them at all. The Equal Money and the universalism of Desteni isn’t that terribly concerning to them either. They have fears that what Desteni says about the religious and spiritual scam of humanity may be true, and this exercise of character assassination against members of the Desteni Group should be read with that in mind.

2. It suppresses free speech and forcibly attempts to censor criticism and opposition. 

This is hypocritical nonsense from “Zero,” as they have also blocked comments on their channel, depriving people of their “right” to freely speak. That’s because 0rdo doesn’t really give a damn about “free speech.” We are not afraid of opposition. We are not afraid of criticism. We are not afraid of “free speech.” Desteni members will not tolerate abusive comments from haters, and that is a totally different thing than what Zero would have you believe. What Zero wants to do is be allowed to spew their dishonest, spiteful smears on our turf. They are not interested in an honest discussion, for they have already made up their minds about Desteni: it’s a cult led by a madman. Fuck them. Haters can converse among themselves, as they are free to exercise their “free speech right” to converse among themselves within the Anti-Desteni echo chamber of their own making. Have at it.

3. Its extensive use of propaganda utilizes democratic procedures for an anti-democratic cause. 

Again, what Zero fails to appreciate is that what they despair against is currently happening in this world. I am not going to go into it here, as there are many blogs by Desteni members that take this one, but it is clear to all with any kind of functioning brain power that Democratic principals today are used to push undemocratic agendas that benefit the elites of this world at the cost of everyone else. But Zero doesn’t find that sexy enough to complain about. Desteni must seem like such an easy target, but we see right through them.

4. Destonians condemn non-Destonians as less-than-inferior beings.

This is a lie. We condemn no one. We DO disregard the spiteful, opinionated ignorance of haters. Who wants to listen to someone talking shit all the time?

5. Bernard Poolman’s comments on Jewish people suggest he is anti-Semitic.

People who believe or think that Bernard Poolman is “anti-Semitic” is projecting their own prejudices onto him. File under: hate smear.

6. Desteni is a fascist organization. 

See: #5

7. Its devotees say Desteni is all about equality and like nothing that has ever existed before. But Desteni uses the same exploitative methods of mind control found in mystical, religious, or quasi-religious thought-reform cults, and is a hierarchal organization, not a collective of equals. 

Ah, the “mind-control” bomb. I was wondering when we would get to this. A favorite smear used by the haters who have read too much into Margaret Singer’s book, “Cults In Our Midst.” Singer’s theories of “thought-reform” has been seized upon haters and critics as “proof” that Bernard Poolman has “hypnotized” and “brainwashed” thousands of Desteni members scattered around the world.

And yet, there appears to be no inclination from the haters and critics of Desteni to be concerned with the hypnotism and brainwashing performed by families, religions, politics, education and the media centers that dominate the mental environment of the human being. Apparently, the thoughts engineered by these centers need no attenuation or revision. We should never, ever question what has been told to us or consider that what we have previously believed is wrong. Beliefs should never be challenged. Especially those held by faceless, anonymous critics. If you do, you will be labeled a “cult.” It is a narrative based on  the claims of one scientist. Therefore, according to the narrative, it MUST be true.

8. It has more in common with religion than any equal rights group. 

What does Zero mean by this? What commonalities to “religion” do they see Desteni favorably compared to? Which “religion?” Is that a “bad thing?” Loaded language. Beware the Forked Tongue.

9. Mystical notions of enlightenment or ascension are scoffed at by Desteni.

I suppose 0rdo has direct, irrefutable evidence that such phenomena exists? Is that an axe I hear grinding?

10. They regard Bernard Poolman as the only authority to be trusted on mysticism, the new age, religion, occultism, and spirituality. The Desteni philosophy is based entirely on those influences. 

I can speak for myself as having studied all these things intensely in vain for decades. It was only because that all those paths led to the same dead-end that I could take what Desteni said seriously. It was all about the “dead-end.” None of those things have ever changed anything meaningful for the human race. Instead of experiencing expansion, these things diminished us with Holy Wars that have gone on for centuries. Now 0rdo may feel that these things are still beneficial, although I would love to see them “prove it.” Desteni is a total and complete rejection with all things “metaphysical,” precisely because it doesn’t work!

Somehow, in their haste to slander and smear, 0rdo missed that.

11. Poolman puts his own spin on it all and employs a less traditional phraseology, which his acolytes slavishly copy and repeat.

Bernard only relates what he’s found through difficult years of study and application. He doesn’t make anything up. He doesn’t lie. He is the one person that I have ever seen in my life who lives his words. I lived with him in his house for two years and the things that went on were both incredibly normal and extraordinary, and I listened to what Bernard and Andrea and Sunette said, interviewed them all. There is a ton we don’t share.

And I can say that I did not believe in the existence of demons until after Andrea told me of her story about Jack many years before she knew anything about Bernard Poolman, a story that is worthy of a movie. There is just too much that people do not know about this world for anyone to claim they “know it all,’ as critics say of Bernard. But let me tell you, unless you have walked in Bernard’s shoes, you have no business in pretending that you know anything about the man. Bernard is the last person who needs to defend himself.

12. Everything he says or does, they regard as beyond question because it surpasses the mind, which is the same mystical power ascribed to leaders of other religious cults. 

I repeat, Bernard Poolman does not need to defend himself. He knows what he’s doing and haters can only guess. It’s amazing to read the shit they say about, as if they ever met him or know him through any other means than the smear campaign they all copy each other from.

These people are so insignificant and petty, honing their hate against us as if they have a real target. They are only hating themselves. How neat is that?

13. The Desteni group say Poolman and Sunette Spies possess abilities to function in both the interdimensional and the physical realms. They say Poolman is somehow not an individual or a personality. He is said to exist Here, bringing together Heaven and Earth in the physical, as if he were the incarnation of the Hermetic maxim, ‘as above, so below’. 

Correction: Bernard Poolman does not “see interdimensionally” and has never claimed to do so. We would like 0rdo to produce the text when Bernard claims interdimensional sight because we need it for our records.

As for Sunette, I can attest to anyone interested that she is as she appears. There is not one goddamned person in the world who can prove otherwise, and if it were in my power I would send limousines to pick these f**kers up at the airport to make sure they get on a plane to South Africa so they could for see for themselves the truth of the matter. As it is, we will not offer any more “proof” than what we already have. So the haters like 0rdo can continue to “make statements” and entertain their wrong and mistaken “opinions” “about” the Portal. Why? Because their self-dishonesty will not allow for anything else. We understand that for them the truth that they must deal with is that haters can never know for sure if their claims are correct, which is extremely funny to me.

14. Just like any other new religious movement, sect, or cult, Desteni redefine and reinterpret conventional religious or spiritual ideas and beliefs, using their own peculiar invented jargon. 

Desteni does not “redefine” religious convention: we completely render it unusable and a waste of time. Desteni is not a “new religious movement,” which is a term coined by Methodist pastor and religious scholar, J. GordonMelton. Anything that Melton investigates must take his religious beliefs into consideration. Desteni is not an  ‘anti-religious religion.” Desteni is not defined by hater-speech. Desteni defines itself as a group of people who are working the only work acceptable: the establishment of universal equality. Without the need of calling on “God.” The group that’s behind 0rdo Templii Aurora is a joke. Their opinions are worthless. Their lies are outlandish. Their bravery nonexistent. Desteni is giving them more than they deserve and more than they expect, and we thank them for showing us how much they care for life and for others. They have a very big problem on their hands, however. They don’t know what they are doing.

2011/03/13 – Stars “Send Love” to Japan! Really???

Japan is in deep shit, an unknown number of people dead and missing, infrastructure destroyed, millions of people homeless and hungry, a nuclear meltdown… but never fear. Everyone’s favorite pop-psychologist/New Age guru, Dr. Wayne Dyer has a request: he wants you to “send love.”

 

Send Love to Japan ♥ Send Love in some form to those you believe wronged you, and notice how much better you feel and how more peace you have. — Dr. Wayne Dyer

 

Yes. Send love and you’ll “feel better.” And it seems like Dr. Dyer’s advice is being picked up by the Hollywood glitterati. Pop Singer Kylie Minogue claimed she ‘sent love’ to those affected by the recent earthquake in New Zealand.

P Diddy tweeted:”Oh man yall see this earthquake in japan??????!!!!! Let us pray!!!! God bless Japan!” I think God’s done enough “blessing” on Japan, thank you very much. Ryan Seacrest tweeted that he was “[s]ending prayers to everyone affected.“  Awesome that the Hollywood celebrity community is sending so much “love” to Japan, but how does someone like you or me “send love” to millions of people on the other side of the world?

Some people imagine a green light around their heart and visualize the green waves reaching all the way to Japan. Seriously. People actually believe this shit: that through the power of what they can imagine within their mind, they can have a physical result. Some people believe if they can “fill themselves with light,” they can “send” that light to others, and things will be all better. At least, the ‘sending” the “light” will “feel” better. I know it might seem incredible, but there are people who call on Arch Angel Raphael or Uriel and visualize them bathing places in crisis with healing light.

What a bunch of hooey. Is there anyone who can offer us with proof that such energetic transactions do indeed take place? I understand where this all came from; the New Age belief that the human mind is allegedly the most powerful thing in existence. But I want to see those who are engaged in “sending love” and “energetic abundance” to Japan and other parts of the world, to give evidence for their claims. If only we could build a machine that could measure such stuff…

Ok, I kid. But this kind of “magical thinking” has gone too far. It is not taking responsibility for anything. It only serves to give nominal ion a way where one doesn’t have to commit themselves to do something for real. And to read about these Hollywood stars with more money than anyone “sending love and prayers” to Japan is sickening. People need to stop pretending that what they imagine is real.

 

 

2011/02/11 – What is Postmetaphysics?

I do not recall when or where I first heard of the term, “postmetaphysics,” but it has become a fascinating field of discovery, one that will allow for the expansion of perspectives and offer a key for understanding the limits of human knowledge and reason, and I would like to share what my understanding of the term and what such a perspective can offer us.

So, “postmetaphysics” means, obviously, that which comes “after” metaphysics. It is a perspective that can be confused as “atheist,” but it is not. It is simply a view that calls out for a non-metaphysical view of our reality, rejecting metaphysical speculation as useless and unproductive in terms of the common good. Religion, as the carrier of metaphysical principles, has failed to deliver on its promises. The universal suffering of humanity has not been validated by anything but desires and fears, and these things do not need religion to exist. They do need Religion, however, to explain it all.

Which leads us to another dimension of the postmetaphysical which would be “post-psychological,” Consciousness has been uplifted as the crown, the essence of humanity, of human nature. Human beings have identified with the mind much more than they ever have with the human body. From human consciousness  arises all forms and systems that we pass through and engage with every day, as outward manifestations created by thought and human action. But without the substance of physical reality, the structures of the mind would lay in state, formless, pointless and barren. As it is, the mind in effect has become the projected definition of humanity, and the essence of that projection is “God.” The inner workings of each being’s consciousness is submerged in the bottomless pit of ego – motivations, an organic computer  forever calculating the score, creating, directing and participating in daily events.

As we all know from looking in a mirror or watching a movie, a projection is not real. It is the image and likeness of something, taken to be real yet understood that it is an illusion. It is exactly like the consciousness of a human being; mental, immaterial, yet taken to be more “real” than what physically exists. It’s like watching the movie The Matrix and believing what you are seeing on the monitor is more real than yourself. This is exactly what people have done with God, Religion and Spirituality (and Science!), which were created out of fear and the need for verification that we exist for a reason which doesn’t exist. Of course, reason is the playing field for the mind. Reason can only exist in the mind, yet tools are made as extensions of ourselves, they have a reason for existing, which is to make this physical world easier to deal with. But that doesn’t mean there is a reason for anything else to exist. If God truly existed, we could have only been tools for Him, there would have been some utility that we gave God in order for Him to have created us. There would have been a need to make things easier for God that existed in human beings. In other words, God would have had to have a mind, for only the mind creates “reason,” and that mind, by its nature, would be a projection, which would be an illusion.

It is interesting how Metaphysics was able to convince people things that are not seen and not met… was more real than the reality of their own physical bodies. It was a great trick. Magical. They did it by magnifying the projections of their fellows. They understood human psychology before the psychologists. It’s ironic that the colossal achievement of turning the Mind into God, human beings are really not that swift.

So, the postmetaphysic says, “Enough. We call into question every single foundational – approved consensus of reality, the premises, the assumptions – in short, all criterion of knowledge must be question within the scope of recognizing and being truthful about how we deal with the limits of consciousness and knowledge. We understand that “God” exists wholly as a mental construct that has been used as a form of social control. When it comes to knowledge and consciousness, the Uncertainty Principle* must apply, because if we claim to believe in God and we know we have no evidence for His existence other than what is read and said by others, we are only insisting to be pathological liars. The fact is we don’t need a “God” because it’s like the dude is never here anyway. Postmetaphysics may not be the Religion of the 21st Century, but it ought to be. It will allow us to put away old superstitions and justifications for the evils that the human mind has wrought by dealing with things, here. and in a way that is best for all,

============================================================================

* The Uncertainty Principle is one of Quantum Mechanics most fascinating theories, first conceived by , in 1927 by Werner Heisenberg, more or less states that it is not possible to know both the placement and momentum of a particle.

2011/01/23 – The Ramtha Factor

Who knows what went through their minds before they were killed under a vengeful barrage of police bullets on a Sutherland farmhouse in South Africa? News reports allege that Philippe Meniére and his companion, Agnes Jardel, who had shot dead Constable Jacob Boleme, 27,  and seriously wounded Warrant Officer Glenwall du Toit, 42, all this from the couple having an adverse reaction for being evicted from their home of 12 years on another farm near Sutherland.

The couple allegedly believed that the world would and had trained themselves to be survivalists extensively. They had weapons. They believed the world was ending any time now. Their training enabled to evade police forces for six days before their own survival was terminated. JZ Knight and her Ramtha School of Enlightenment sought to downplay the incident, deploring the events and claiming that the couple acted on their own. By all accounts I have read, the couple apparently went cuckoo from their religious and spiritual brainwashing. There are a couple of points to take from this. Like other deluded  beings like William Miller, Hal Lindsay and Charles Manson, among others, everything they looked at looked like the End Times.  One wonders what this couple would be like if there had been no religious indoctrination in their lives. They obviously programmed themselves to be End Time Survivalists which ultimately led to the end of their time on Earth.

Another thing is the way the couple was portrayed in the media as “followers of a cult.” One expects the media to use the common denominator and oversimplifying things until that view is accepted by anyone who reads or watches it. How else does on explain the otherworldly success of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck? So the subtext of the “crazy cult” narrative is that these people are dangerous and mentally unstable. This oversimplification has a great effect on anyone associated to a group with unconventional views but attaching the smear to those who come from a different perspective, like Desteni and the Equal Money solution for Humanity. We get attacked by neoliberals for being “communists” and  by communists for being “neoliberal.” Oh, and yes, we also get accused  of being a “mind control cult” engaged in “occult fascism,” (oh, how clever!) and New Age Luciferianists. We seem to have whatever the haters need to get out of us. How unfortunate it is for them that they do not realize that Equality is coming and there’s nothing they can about it. But using guns? Really? That’s soooooo 20th century. We rather take the online route. Reaches more people. Keeps us engaged and out of our minds so much. If only Phillippe and Agnes could have realized this before it was too late. They might have realized that their religiously-informed world view was a delusion.