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MONDAY, JULY 30. THE MYTH OF MERLIN. THE INSIDE SCOOP. Once upon a time, there were many intersecting dimensions. There still are, but we've forgotten all about it. We're drunk and stoned on tranqs. We're bleary, but all that will now change. Merlin of course was a magician. He was THE TWILIGHT MAGICIAN. He created that which was not there before--which, after all, is the definition of magic. Why twilight? Because he positioned himself in those times and places where there was a passing from an age of diversity and sparkling wit and magic into an age of THE SINGLE THING, THE DRIED OUT RELIGION, THE OVERSEER, THE EXHAUSTION. Merlin was the bridge guy. He presided over the slow-motion disaster. And eventually he tired of this. He became too sad, was reborn too many times in the same role. He became bored with his own gig. So he decided that with Arthur, this would all change. King Arthur would be his most subtle creation, the one who would sink into the very soul and subconscious of the race and stay there for as long as necessary, waiting to be reborn as THE HARBINGER OF THE ARTIST, THE VAST CREATOR WHO KNOWS NO LIMITS AND NO EXHAUSTION. This was Merlin's plan, and it had many, many improvised parts. First, there was the Lady of the Lake. She is the dream itself coming out of the depths below the still surface. She is the signal that the thing has begun. She pulls away from the dark bottom and slowly moves up to the surface, raising above her head the GREAT HONED SWORD. And the sword comes up first out of the water, its tip first into the gloomy afternoon, the silver and gray afternoon. That glinting perfect sword, that machine, that thing honed to exceeding perfection coming up first out of the water and breaking the surface of the dream like a thing out of Dali. The surreal moment. The impossible occurrence. The entrance into nature of the honed and polished perfect thing. The magic weapon which can defeat any enemy. The work of art which can bring down the mindless forces of oppression. And yet...it is not exactly a work of art. It is a technological product. It is the beginning of another age. It is the intrusion of the machine into the pastoral meadow and forest. The meaning of the sword is startling and hopeful and ominous all at the same time. Excalibur. The thing which will be transported to the stone where it will be placed, waiting for the man who can remove it. The sword. The entirely unpredicted object. Unique. Riveting to the eye. Absorbing the desire for power, for bringing Justice to the world. The sword opens the way. It releases the desire for justice. It comes up out of the dream held by the dripping hand of the Lady and she emerges too and very slowly, her hair plastered with a great sheen against her head like a helmet. She is asleep. She is sleeping with the sword in her hand. She is the unconscious dream producing the desired object against all odds. And Merlin has arranged this moment. He has sponsored it. He is present for it on the edge of the water in the trees, watching the new clock of time come into being. But this time, he says, it will not end in sorrow. He has a different way. A way to infiltrate the coming SINGLE OPPRESSIVE KINGDOM WITH A MEMORY THAT WILL NOT DIE. More later.... EARLY EDITION, TUESDAY, JULY 31. CONTINUING THE REWRITTEN MYTH OF MERLIN. The sword, Excalibur, was the point of perfection rising through the dream into the present. It was the impossible object, the thing imbued with power and magic so that it could be used to achieve an almost impervious protectiveness from harm. In this, it was a holdover from the age of magic, in which thousands of creatures and beings and people created new things and sights and smells and sounds and moods and colorations and art and structures from nothing, spontaneously, or from existing energy snatched out of the ether. But the sword was also an artifact brought about through intense labor, and in this it was almost a machine. It suggested the new age which was being born, the technological age, the new era. It was an era in which the old magics would fade into oblivion, to be replaced by a monotheism, by a religious posture in which the supplicant would seek salvation from the pain and weariness of the declining ALIVENESS and richness of the age of magic. The age of magic passes into the age of the machine. The age of magic and spontaneous creation which is not bound by "ordinary science" passes into an age of religion in which a "rational god" is posited as the single ruler of All. Who makes all the laws of existence and offers in return, salvation from strife. This is where MERLIN positioned himself. In between the ages. And he chose as his great pupil, Arthur. He offered Arthur a clear track to obtaining the sword, Excalibur. Arthur was a classic blank slate, a student waiting for the teacher. A boy who contained the seeds of the leader, the appearance of the leader. He lived in a somewhat puzzled undercurrent, because he was trying to see through the fog of his own destiny. And finally, he did. But that is later. TUESDAY, JULY 31. WHO WAS MERLIN? He was a man from the old age of magic. He was a philosopher of sorts, an observer who had watched, countless times, in countless dimensions, the unraveling of one age and the coming into being of another. Merlin has seen, over and over, the erosion of societies and the building of new harsher societies on the ashes. He has seen people put their faith in the power of machines to create. He has seen people lose faith in their own ability to create. He has seen people weave together the dream of a single god who will embody all the creation that is. He has watched with fascination as the people abandon their own capacity to create in favor of a central ruler who does all the creating. In this incarnation, he takes on Arthur as his student. Arthur, who will one day be king of the knights. He teaches Arthur that the future Roundtable will be a magic circle of trust and loyalty. And that, imbued with this faith, its members will be able to carry out the great Adventure. They will be able to overcome enemies. They will be able to FIND THE MISSING GRAIL. Merlin knows that the meaning of the grail is not clear to those who will search for it. He knows that it will take many forms in the minds of the knights. He knows that the grail is not the object which will build the religion of the new god into an unstoppable force. Rather, the grail is the familiar object which has been lost, and the object which will restore harmony to the realm. Millions of times, in the infinity of dimensions, he has seen this drama played out. A realm of magic finds its harmony dissolved, and the object which in its magic will restore that essential goodness must be located and brought back to the throne where the good king waits for the restoration. This will be the mission of the Roundtable. It is doomed to failure on certain fronts...and yet... WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1. MERLIN, THE ULTIMATE REBEL. Merlin said, "I will create a society of knights through my pupil, Arthur. He will form an alchemical mixture of the new and old in this Roundtable. The new will be the fervent iron-clad loyalty of principle and asceticism and puritanical morality and marital fidelity and brotherhood. This is the coming coloration of morality. This is the new thing, in which the sin is the hammer that breaks the porcelain of prescribed behavior. "Arthur and his knights will become the embodiment of this stern and attractive and fragile new morality, and yet we will mix with that, molecule by molecule, a sense of the old era of magic, in which the brotherhood confers more-than-human power, in which spells and ceremony are articles of faith that yield up psychic powers, in which the sword Excalibur functions as a wand and weapon of more-than-physical power. "And with this mixture of the old and new intact, this myth of Arthur, this chapter of history will live forever in the minds of future humans. They will be drawn by the ascetic quality of it, but they will also find the spirit of magic, and they will accept that too. And thus, as the machine age dawns, as the age of rational religion dawns, the memory of the old magic will never be eradicated...because it will live as an infiltrated archetype in the souls of everyone, as the myth and legend of Arthur and his knights." And it has. THURSDAY, AUGUST 2. Merlin sees the oncoming rush of the new ceramic morality, which can be shattered by a single blow. This morality, which replaces the much more flexible and humane morality of the era of magic, will be demonstrated by the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, who is the wife of Arthur. Their secret affair will be discovered, and it will smash the tight trust of the Roundtable. There is little Merlin can do about this. So he looks elsewhere for answers. He assures that the search for the Grail by the knights will continue. For it is in this search that some remnant of the magical era can be preserved. The knights journey into other dimensions not of this Earth. They encounter new creatures and beings, and they bring back this incredible knowledge with them. Time and space are not merely parts of a box. One of the essences of magic is understanding and experiencing this. FRIDAY, AUGUST 3. Merlin is the rebel with a cause. He launches the search for the Grail, through Arthur, and reality is decentralized. Knights journey to many different sorts of realms and realize that space-time is a box among many dimensions...and the whole coming era on Earth will be an attempt to focus entirely on the space-time box. The rebel decentralizes reality. The rebel does not remain true to a cause when the cause is exposed as a limitation on perception. The rebel discredits all attempts to define and enclose some ultimate external reality. Merlin's inspired "search for the Grail" opened up the space-time box and revealed the magical proliferating nature of realitieS. And this was the legend, embodied in the Roundtable, that he passed on to the consciousness of the human race. For the time--like NOW--when such a legend would be needed. This universe and its presumed rulers are an attempt to CENTRALIZE reality. SATURDAY, AUGUST 4. Merlin foresaw a day when humans would be looked upon as machines, in a new technological era. Even religion and faith and prayer would be standardized. He ensured that the mysterious, multi-dimensional search for the Grail, by the Roundtable knights, would result in tales and legends of encounters with magical creatures and beings (e.g., fairies, witches, guides)...and these stories would proliferate through time, giving people a remnant of the Old Dream. The dream of magic, the creation of realities in spontaneous non-scientific ways. The true rebel does not believe that human society can be transformed by new social arrangements alone. The true rebel recognizes that there is an open door into other dimensions of experience. The true rebel does not have faith in the engineered society. The true rebel wants the future to yield to freedom over tyranny. Merlin was launching a potent message in a bottle to the future. Which survived in the form of much literature and legend passed down to generations of people starving for a way out of the box. That is Merlin's legacy. SUNDAY, AUGUST 5. From an artistic point of view, the Roundtable was an architecture. A band of men welded together by a sworn oath, girded in metal, in steel, devoted to a cause, bound to the leader--yet a company of equals. The Roundtable was Merlin's dream. A dream-machine of the coming age, a machine that would attract attention in the mythical part of the consciousness of everyone. The Roundtable. Almost an egalitarian machine. Part of the new era of technology, a part which would never be forgotten. A juggernaut-dream of armor and hope and promise and devotion to a cause...the finding of the Grail, the missing object which would restore a magic and harmony among equals to civilization. This was Merlin's immense creation: a machine of equals girded in steel, in power, devoted almost unconsciously to the restoration of magic. A company of men flying a flag of the new rational religion and yet seeking the older forms of magic. This was no small accomplishment. It was the answer to the question, how do you make a human machine that wants unconsciously to find its own magical roots? MONDAY, AUGUST 6. Okay, I think you get the point about this amazing rebel called Merlin. I could go on, but you get the point. Let us get back to the generic true rebel. The true rebel does not give up. He doesn't wallow in his own struggles. He acts. The rebel finds an avenue. He finds a way to teach and lead. The rebel digs for the gold. He accepts the fact that there is ordinary soil and ordinary rock to get through on his search for the gold. The rebel doesn't accept the eternal corruptibility of the world. He doesn't accept the picture of the world which the media paints. The rebel paints his own picture and he shows it to others. He shows others that history is, among other things, a record of human achievement. He finds ways to wake himself up and wake others up from their usual slumber and acceptance of "things as they are." The rebel will reach a hundred people to find that one who wants to wake up now. The rebel learns that waking up is a progressive thing. It is contagious. The rebel does not give up. TUESDAY, AUGUST 7. The rebel may believe he is free from every form and message of brainwashing and mind control, but sooner or later he realizes that even he has bought into some brands of lunacy and limitation and he accepts that easily and then offloads these heretofore hidden influences on his mind. The rebel is quick to see that categories of struggle such as left vs. right and capitalism vs. socialism, while they have limited validity, are really masks for the larger issues and larger struggle, such as, CONTROL BY THE FEW OVER THE MANY. FREEDOM VS. SLAVERY. FREE MARKET VS. RIGGED MARKET. The rebel takes action. The rebel spreads the truth. The rebel finds a way to speak the truth without having to put up with every single objection and resistance made by every single person... The rebel on one level knows it is all a game, but he also knows and feels that the future of life on the planet is REAL, and justice and injustice are REAL. The rebel is not afraid of anger. He is not afraid of HIS OWN ANGER. The rebel does not believe he must transform that anger into love. OUTRAGE AT INJUSTICE IS REAL. The rebel finds a way to express his anger so that it has effect. He is not just screaming at random 24 hours a day. The rebel discovers that when he does express his outrage so that it will affect others and move them, he is not bathing in a stagnant pool of his own anger. He is not seething. But then, the rebel believes in the future. He is not dedicated to failure. GIVEN ALL THIS, OUTRAGE AT INJUSTICE WHICH RESULTS IN CONCENTRATED ACTION TOWARD TRUE CHANGE CLEANSES THE PORES. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8. The rebel sees where things are going. He acts on his knowledge of the future. The rebel discovers there are many possible futures that can be created. The rebel tempers his impulse to destroy with the knowledge that a better situation must replace a worse one. The rebel finds ways to succeed. The rebel is looking to build a better reality. But the rebel does not delude himself that this better reality can be introduced without the rejection of the worse reality. The rebel knows how to reject. The rebel does not wallow in some sort of fairyland where "everything good works out" without effort. The rebel does not confuse taking a short vacation with "allowing the natural evolution of better futures to take place." The rebel does not stand aside. The rebel does not believe in "a natural evolution to higher realities" absent human effort. The rebel does not think that "the stock market of human existence" is a cosmic cycle that is beyond human control. THURSDAY, AUGUST 9. The rebel wants to make sense. He wants other people to understand that sense. The rebel finds out the difference between what is commonly accepted and what is actually true. And he presses on that. He presses hard. The rebel is not walking a fine line. He is building a super-highway of truth. The rebel learns that justice can be obtained on that super-highway. The rebel discovers how to translate his ideals into information and knowledge. The rebel does not wait for the truth to hit him in the head. He discovers it and spreads it. The rebel does not linger forever in the satisfaction of knowing he has a handle on truth. He spreads the truth. The rebel is creating new experience. TUESDAY, AUGUST 14. The rebel finds answers. He finds them in the past and in the present and in the ether floating around, and he finds them within himself. Wherever he finds them, he then CREATES them. The rebel creates. The rebel comes to terms with the fact that he has the soul of an artist, because any other conclusion, sooner or later, has the effect of shrinking the dimensions in which the rebel can act and drains away vital energies. The rebel, as one reader, B., pointed out, knows that things can get better or worse, and he knows the difference. He goes about creating that which will make things better. The rebel knows he is creating. He doesn't shrink away from this. What he creates may be a past gem that has been lost, or it may be a gem that has never been seen before, or it may be a gem that has never been made before...but the act of creating makes it new and makes it now and makes it, well, COMING FROM HIM. For example, in this sense, creating the US Constitution now, even though it was formulated long ago, is a LIVING enterprise, and it has human agents NOW who are doing more than reinstating lost glory. They are breathing new life into that document. They are putting their shoulders and minds to the wheel of change. They are both putting things right and making something new. They ARE reinstating a truth, and they are inventing a symphony which was written 200 years ago and has been gathering dust. They are re-inventing it with every note they now play. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15. The rebel finds facts and then connects those facts to form a picture. The picture informs. The picture spells out what is happening behind the drone of information. The picture educates. The rebel discovers that a true picture is an inspiration, a call to action. A picture formed out of facts focuses the mind. The rebel's RESPONSE to the picture is a creative act. When the rebel finds that he is stalling at the picture, he also finds that he is becoming confused and unfocused. He is delaying his response. The desire to act from absolute 100% information is an excuse. In important matters, no one acts from 100%. The rebel acts. THURSDAY, AUGUST 16. The only posting today is, read (or read again) the top posting on the nomorefakenews home page. And think about it. And get back to me if you are motivated to. FRIDAY, AUGUST 17. For a completely different view of the map of consciousness and creativity, I recommend all the Seth books by Jane Roberts. Smash hits at the time of their publication 30-40 years ago, these books are extremely bracing, whether or not you agree with their conclusions. In fact, that is their beauty. They provoke thought about basic questions of the Self. How vast is Self? What are we possibly doing, behind the scenes of our own awareness, to forward our cosmic goals? Seth is a "channeled entity." Which provokes more disagreement. Which is good. You can't read these books without launching your own introspective investigation of your power, your imagination, and the possible infinite dimensions of consciousness. SATURDAY, AUGUST 18. Once again, today's posting here is simply a recommendation that you read the first posting [on Limits of perception and imagination] of the day on the nomorefakenews home page. Yesterday's newsletter interview with Jack True was all about power X, and it was one of many I had over the years with Jack. We were colleagues in fleshing out methods by which the individual could arrive at many new plateaus of creative power. [Editor: You may also want to read the other two items for August 18th: Gore Vidal on Tim McVeigh's role in OKC bombing and on fluoride.] NO LIMITS. SUNDAY, AUGUST 19. The rebel is not only solving problems. The rebel is finding problems and is discovering how they were created. The rebel, in other words, is searching out the problems that give rise to problems. The rebel is always widening the struggle. The rebel is looking for underlying causes. The rebel finds that failure to have faith in the imagination is a core problem. The rebel finds that people have endless numbers of excuses for ignoring their own creative powers, and that no amount of surgically removing these excuses will put an end to them. The excuses are turned out on an assembly line. MONDAY, AUGUST 20. The rebel knows that patterns of mind and thought keep people confined to boxes of various sizes. The rebel knows the difference between liberation which is really nothing more than random destructive action and true freedom. The rebel flies the flag of real freedom. The rebel knows the difference between a phony use of the idea of creativity to justify stupid actions and real imagination. The rebel flies the flag of imagination next to the flag of real freedom. The rebel has the soul of a real artist. Without imagination, this world will sink into a swamp of systems which will never liberate anyone. As DH Lawrence wrote, "Great souls, the only riches." A great soul is creating and he knows he is creating. All systems of human social order suffer the fate of decay, because they are not being imagined with great fire NOW, because they become mechanical. The American system opened the door to individual freedom, and whether it lives or dies depends on what people create with their freedom. TRUE freedom is one of the ultimates. We may surround this freedom with lethargy and with all sorts of conditions and we may attack those who use this freedom to do immoral things...but in the end, the question is: ARE WE GOING TO FIRE THIS HARD-WON FREEDOM WITH CREATIONS WHICH WILL CARRY US INTO A FUTURE OF EXPANDED CONSCIOUSNESS AND INDIVIDUAL POWER, OR ARE WE GOING TO BURY OURSELVES IN MECHANICAL DETAILS? TUESDAY, AUGUST 21. The rebel is not satisfied unless he is creating. The rebel may try to sabotage that impulse, but it won't work. The non-rebel strives to fit in. The rebel seeks to invent. The rebel looks in from the outside, but he affects what is inside through action. The rebel does not accept a morality whose highest goal is to fit in. Others may believe that the rebel is perched on an abyss, but the rebel knows otherwise. He knows that a society based on conformity and mechanical organizations is a dying art form. A rebel inspires others even if they tell him otherwise. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22. When somebody tells the rebel the whole world or the whole universe is built THIS way, and it has immutable laws, he starts sniffing around for the con. Because if its name isn't FREEDOM, there is going to be a con. The "immutable" laws are ALWAYS framed by a few people and their armies who want control. Sooner or later, it becomes apparent that there are whole layers of laws, laws behind laws, and "researchers" exult in discovering them. These laws maybe exceptionally useful in solving problems, but they are cons. Scams. Shell games, designed to keep the kiddies down on the farm. Just because certain laws of physics enable people to build an atomic bomb...that doesn't mean we are bound by those laws. It's a CON. A limited truth can be a con. FRIDAY, AUGUST 24. The rebel does not seek perfection in society. He leaves that to the fascists. He knows that every attempt at such perfection is an obsession for control, not morality, not freedom, not justice. The rebel is not anti-science, he is against the use of science to create perfection. SATURDAY, AUGUST 25. The rebel is suspicious of "global solutions." He knows they usually add up to less individual freedom. The rebel correctly assumes that, all over the world, there are local heroes who are solving serious community problems where they occur. The rebel knows the difference between top-down and bottom-up. The rebel understands that the idea that no one is doing anything good anywhere is a media-fostered delusion. The rebel steps up to the plate and makes his ideas known. He is not waiting. SUNDAY, AUGUST 26. This is a good day for reading this page all the way down and making some notes and planning that thing called the future. Yes, a human being can conceive of a future and then launch a plan and action. Something new. Something different. An invitation. MONDAY, AUGUST 27. Creating out of the imagination has a momentum factor. When the velocity reaches a certain point, one begins to realize that reality is a kind of taffy-energy. It is very pliable. An artist friend has told me that when he works up a head of steam in his studio late at night--and this guy paints every day of his life for long hours--objects begin lifting off tables and moving around. I believe him. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28. A reader submits the following: "This imagination thing...I couldn't get a grasp on it. I couldn't really find it within myself. But when I began to think about what I really wanted to do in life, the fog moved away. I saw a road I wanted to take. And then my imagination turned on like a light bulb. It was very powerful...I suppose the lesson is, the imagination is not interested in working for something that's not interesting or inspiring. But when you're ready to move in a direction that really suits you, the whole thing changes..." Exactly. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29. Here is another message from a reader: "I found it troubling to think about what I really wanted to do in life, as opposed to what I was already doing. But I managed to go through with it. The results, after a few weeks, were amazing. I've started to plan out my future in a completely different way. I'm still having problems with this shift, but they're my problems. I caused them, and I'm feeling I can solve them." THURSDAY, AUGUST 30. A reader writes, "I've lived my whole life on the basis of my imagination. But I never stopped to consider what this means. Now I'm beginning to realize that imagination is a power which helps define what life is really all about. I'm taking charge of this aspect, using it much more consciously. That's a big difference. In fact, the conscious part has changed my whole approach to my life. I find I have a lot more energy, and my outlook is very positive. Things aren't perfect, and I still come up against problems, but now I have a basis for dealing with those problems. This is quite a change for me. As far as what I want to do in life, I'm thinking and planning in much bigger ways..." FRIDAY, AUGUST 31. Two readers today. The first writes, "Will power is a lesson that I have been learning more about lately. If I know what I really want to do--and now I do--then will power is the only thing separating me from getting what I want. It's stark. But the path is very clear." Reader two, B., a valuable resource for many articles and insights, informs me that Michelangelo, every morning, would eat a plate of pasta and then go chip rock for sixteen hours. At the age of 89. Every day. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1. I have made a tentative arrangement with an art dealer to carry some of my work. In our discussion, we spoke about painting as a language, a glimpse of another level of discourse, one which perhaps was once present but is now largely lost. I say this is more than possible. Somewhere, sometime, we were able to "talk" with symbol and form and energy and shape and color in a back-and-forth way. Such conversations were the norm...and they were very exhilarating. They helped define life on another level. This level has been largely shut down, but it can be resurrected. Not as artist and audience. But as CONVERSATION. SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF ART. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2. Readers are always asking, "What can we do to create solutions?" You'd be surprised at how many answers are lurking on this page and the home page. Here's another one. Read today's piece on the home page and start a group of citizens which rallies to side of the small farmer against the USDA re terminator technology. A very worthy cause, on behalf of people, food, survival. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. The rebel is not waiting for answers. The rebel is not waiting for solutions. The rebel is not waiting for support for his ideas. The rebel is making a new beachhead. The rebel is not afraid of truth. He uses truth for its function: to serve individuals. If what seems to be true does not serve the individual, then it is rooted in a deeper falsity. The rebel sees this. He sees "the illusion of truth" for what it is. NOT ENOUGH. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4. The rebel does not succumb to paranoia. He recognizes the different between finding out what is really going on in the world and succumbing to that news. The rebel knows that, if he persists in DOING NOTHING, then the truth will paralyze him. You cannot discover the truth and do nothing for very long. Discovery and action go hand in hand. Action is the antidote that burns away the bad news. Intelligent action making use of the imagination is the CURE. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5. The rebel realizes that suppressed technology in the past has changed the present, that we would live in a different world right now if medical and energy technologies which were crushed and lost were available in 2001. The rebel can think about these things, and can work to restore lost technologies. Another solution. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. Once any kind of barrier is erected between learning and action, several things ensue. People begin to believe that only "positive news" is acceptable. Why? Because truthful "negative news" is too frustrating, since no action will be taken. Hence, George Washington might have said, "Don't give me these reports about King George and taxes and all that. It's a downer. I'm trying to run a farm here." Thankfully, that was not his response. Where, in the learning process, do we discover that action is irrelevant? The truth, even if it is "negative," is supposed to be a spur to action, to correct injustice and create a better state of affairs. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. Today's post is simply this: Read my article on education on the home page and decide what a true rebel would do about THAT. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8. A reader writes, "When I first came across your website, I was overwhelmed by all the negative news. I was chilled to the bone by what I found out. Nevertheless, I went ahead and subscribed to your newsletter, and I discovered an even deeper level of manipulation. Surprisingly, it didn't make me feel worse. It made me feel better. I had reached 'rock bottom.' If this was what was going on then I could somehow deal with it. As you've written, it's being in the middle ground that causes all the anxiety. You know what is wrong, but you don't know how the strings are being pulled. The newsletter gave me the missing pieces of the puzzle. It still does, with all the new revelations every week. Then you started the PowerX page. I began to see daylight. I saw my own role in changing the paradigm. That was the key. I changed from being an observer to a doer, a rebel. I see how all these elements of your information fit together..." SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9. Another solution. Become a videographer. Travel around the US, or focus on your own town or city. Tape interviews with people. All sorts of people. Ask them anything. Get them to talk about what's really on their minds. At length. Put up a website and show the videos. Viewers would begin to see the difference between what media present as real human beings and what real human beings have to say when they get the chance. For better or worse. Just show it. I guarantee you, this will be quite different from the "reality-TV" shows or the internet sites that track the daily lives of roommates. Under the general category of WAKE-UP CALL. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. Reading a translation of the I Ching, that famous work of hexagrams which can be used to "do a reading" for a person. Actually, these symbols are a system, and although they are used for divination, their real purpose has a larger reach. Readers simply study the meanings of all the 64 hexagrams and glean what they can from this fascinating philosophic machine, as one commentator has called it. I noticed that hexagram number 1 is CREATIVE POWER. The other 63 seem to slide down from there. In other words, everything after hexagram 1 is a way of dealing with life and society on lesser terms. Much wisdom is possible re hexagrams 2 through 64, but it is a caliber of wisdom which is a substitute for the absence of hexagram 1. So it is with life. One can adjust all over the place, but without imagination and creative power, there is a hole. The hole cannot be filled except by claiming and using and understanding the underlying meaning of creative power. And as I never tire of saying, every human being has the soul of an artist. Does this mean that everyone must paint or compose music? Of course not. Does it mean that those who do are automatically living life with great knowledge? Of course not. That's why I say a person has to understand the MEANING of creative power. The meaning in terms of its own implied philosophy, in terms of how creative power truly lays out what a human being can be all about. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. To keep your head, while around you all others are losing theirs. It's not just a platitude. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. No one said it would be easy. That doesn't mean it isn't possible. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. The rebel does not give up. The rebel does not seek to deny what happened, he moves out in front and works for the answers. The rebel takes risks. He does not spend all his time figuring out where the price of oil will go, or the price of gold, he forwards new energies like hydrogen. He may think about oil and war and what will in fact happen, but he makes the NEW happen too. He is the vanguard. He is relentless. He is not totally caught up in the moment. He does not a seek a premature "healing" that is merely cutting off both the problem and the solution. He works to control his emotions. It may not be easy, but he works at it. He also uses his emotions to awake the slumbering ones. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14. Tragedies and disasters and great crimes induce people to fall back on their own hard-wired ideas about reality and right and wrong. The very ideas they have long ago given up for more intelligent and wise and creative discoveries about life...suddenly those old ideas resurface and they are once again front and center. The life they are trying to create suddenly becomes irrelevant. All that goes out the window. That is what THEY want you to do. They want you to revert to type. They want you to polarize. They want you to go back to being an irrational human being. Don't do it. That way is nowhere. SAT.-SUN., SEPT 15-16. Remember, you have the perfect right and the absolute power to believe anything you want to. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. When the enemy seems implacable and too huge to approach, you have the perfect opportunity to use that belittled faculty called the imagination. If you do just that, you discover you have a new foothold on the universe itself, to say nothing of other universes. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. A person says, "In view of this tragedy, how can I mount my own dream and ride it into the future? How can I believe that my own power is equal to all that devastation? No, that devastation is greater." WRONG. WRONG. Now, if you tie your dream to a project which will ALSO reverse the lunacy, then you just multiplied that power of yours by a factor of 1000. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19. Not only you but every human being shares the common impulse to create reality. In the long run, you win with other people by treating them as if they have this desire, and as if they can accomplish it. They can, and so can you. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20. See the puppet game. See the string-pullers/see them do their work. Unravel the deception. Create a different world. This is the time. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. If you have any capacity or interest in this area: develop alternative energies. Now. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. What is your power? What is your imagination? What is your creative power? How can you tap into it in a deeper way? Where does your creative power come from? What is reality? What do you want to create? These seem like the most foolish questions to ask at a time like this. But in fact THESE are the questions which, being brushed aside as inconsequential, have led us to the current crisis. These are questions which, when unexamined, give rise to substitutes that result in people throwing bombs and crashing planes and launching missiles. The "secret societies" which control this planet have answered those questions for themselves, and however insane their answers are, they have acted on them. The bottom line is, they have one power and one power only: to keep you from asking and answering the questions and finding more and more creative power with which to act. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. Belittled, ignored, downplayed, ridiculed, the power of the individual imagination flies like a great flag over the catastrophes of nations. It is the power that can create a different sort of world, a better world. Since 1776, it HAS created a better world, once a relative freedom prevailed which allowed it to flourish. Now is the time. These are the days. To find more of that power. To use it. To earn a new place in the sun for all people everywhere. Who are the proponents of imagination? To what party do they belong? Where is their leader? None of these exist. Never did. You are the one. You are the proponent. In all times and places, such individuals have existed. They discover that they can create without limits. The potential is there. The power is there. A group dedicated to the imagination would fail. It would degenerate into programmatic assertions and platforms and binding regulations. It would eventually place the collective over the individual. That is not the way. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. DECENTRALIZE ENERGY SUPPLY GLOBALLY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. At this point, I have written all I need to write on this Power X page. And as you can see, I have begun integrating the material and point of view of Power X with my home page. If I feel the need to return to this page and make new posts, I will. Otherwise everything will be written for the home page of www.nomorefakenews.com. I suggest you read and re-read the material on this Power X scroll. There is much to think about and act upon. |
Power X Pages:Part 1 (July 2 - July 29) Comments & Links by Frederick Mann: The August 14th entry states, "For example, in this sense, creating the US Constitution now, even though it was formulated long ago, is a LIVING enterprise, and it has human agents NOW who are doing more than reinstating lost glory." See:
***** RESPONSIBILITY The August 16th entry addresses the issue of RESPONSIBILITY, particularly related to individual health and "official" health systems. See:
An important related issue is covered in #TL015A: The Good and the Bad. In general people tend to reveal their good traits and hide their bad traits. This also applies to "health helpers." Jon Rappoport has done a great deal to expose the "bad." There's probably a tendency (even a propensity or proclivity!) among many people, when things go well in any area of their lives to praise and congratulate themselves, but when things go badly to condemn and blame others or outside factors. The latter, of course, is a formula for irresponsibility. Wherever we are in our lives -- our state of health, the relationships we enjoy (or suffer), what kind of home (or not) we live in, how much money we have, what kind of car we drive (or not), how happy we are, etc. -- is the outcome of choices we've made. Similarly, our futures are to a considerable extent determined by the choices we make from now on. Operating on this basis is a formula for responsibility. Of course, there are some exceptions. Some of us may have inherited genetic defects from our ancestors -- something we have no control over. (The day may not be far off when technology breakthroughs can do something about "bad genes.") Some of us may have inherited physical weaknesses as a result of the poor diet of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents -- smoking, drinking, bad drugs, etc. Some of us seem to have been born with greater intelligence than others. Some of us had more intelligent and wealthier parents than others. Some of us were born in better parts of the world than others. "Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquillity and outer effectiveness become possible." -- Epictetus What can we be responsible for? Answer: What we can control. What can we not be responsible for? Answer: What we cannot control. We can control (at least potentially) our emotions -- see #TL12 Emotional Control. "He made me angry," "she upset me," etc. are formulas for irresponsibility. You make yourself angry. You upset yourself. These are learned behaviors. You can unlearn your automatic emotions. "The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes." -- Victor Frankl You are responsible for your attitudes. All of them. See Attitude is Everything. You can choose to live free to a large extent even in areas where some people use violence, threat of violence, and guns in their attempts to reduce your freedom. If a thug points a gun at you and says, "Lift your finger or I'll shoot," it's your choice to lift your finger or not. Disobeying can sometimes have bad consequences. You can choose your actions but you can't always choose the consequences. Responsibility includes that you carefully consider the consequences your actions might produce. When I buy gas for my car, some of the money I pay goes to people in the "US government." They in turn may give some of this money to people in Israel, who may use it to napalm women and children in Lebanon. Does this make me a "murderer by proxy?" If you drive a car, and it emits harmful gases, you are responsible for the pollution. (I must confess to being a polluter!) If you work for, or invest in, a company and some of the managers and employees do "bad" things, how responsible are you personally for those "bad" things? If you pay taxes to a government and some of its politicians, bureaucrats, cops, and soldiers do "bad" things, how responsible are you personally for those "bad" things? If you vote for politicians and they or some of the people they control do "bad" things, how responsible are you personally for those "bad" things? What actions do most people routinely take that involve relinquishing personal responsibility? Have we set up political, economic, financial, educational, medical, military, etc. systems such that all kinds of "innocent" individual actions -- like buying food, driving a car, using a bank, etc. -- indirectly result in harm to others, including their premature death? Are our systems such that as individuals we can hardly move a finger without becoming murderers by proxy? You are responsible for the contents of your mind. However you may have been "educated" (conditioned, indoctrinated, and brainwashed), you can unlearn the "bad stuff." How? Answer: Question everything -- see How to Disagree (right-hand column). However you may have been traumatized mentally, emotionally, or psychologically in the past, you can remove any resulting "negatives" from your mind. How? Answer: The most effective and efficient way I know of is called IDENICS. Phone 1-800-IDENICS (1-800-433-6427) toll-free, mention Frederick Mann, and get a FREE consultation by phone. Responsible people take into their own hands:
There's a section on Responsibility in #TL15: How to Achieve Ultimate Success. ***** The August 19th entry says: "The rebel is not only solving problems... The rebel is finding problems and is discovering how they were created... The rebel, in other words, is searching out the problems that give rise to problems... The rebel is always widening the struggle... The rebel is looking for underlying causes." See Project Abolish Stupidity & Increase Intelligence. ***** The August 20th entry says: "The rebel knows that patterns of mind and thought keep people confined to boxes of various sizes." See #TL07A: The Anatomy of Slavespeak. ***** The August 22nd entry says: "Just because certain laws of physics enable people to build an atomic bomb...that doesn't mean we are bound by those laws. It's a CON... A limited truth can be a con." As Nietzsche indicated, the "laws of physics" are human inventions to describe repeating or consistent patterns of behavior in the universe. Nietzsche emphasized that these "laws" don't really explain; they describe. For more on this, see #TL05AB: Anthropomorphism and Related Phenomena, from which I quote: "Naturalism. The doctrine that scientific laws are sufficient to account for all phenomena in the universe. Some scientists say, "The universe is governed by laws." If we ask, "What kind of creatures are these supposed "laws" and how do they go about their business of "governing" (so-called)?" then we can see the anthropomorphism: attributing "special powers" to non-human "laws" that enable them to "govern." (A more sophisticated scientist might say, "So-called "laws" are really the descriptions of our best interpretations of certain perceived "regularities" in the universe.")" Pathetic Fallacy: The mistake of attributing human powers, aspirations, emotions, feelings, thoughts, or traits to events, inanimate objects, or human symbols, which do not even possess the capacity for such qualities. ***** The September 5th entry says: "The rebel realizes that suppressed technology in the past has changed the present, that we would live in a different world right now if medical and energy technologies which were crushed and lost were available in 2001... The rebel can think about these things, and can work to restore lost technologies." See: ***** The September 7th entry is about education. See Education. ***** Power X is basically about finding solutions -- and individuals becoming more imaginative, creative, and powerful at finding and implementing solutions. There may be certain qualities that distinguish "solutions" from "nonsolutions." If you're looking for a solution to solve a particular problem, your attempted solution may be a nonsolution. What I mean by this is that solutions that work have certain characteristics. The nature of some attempted solutions is that they have no chance of working; they are nonsolutions. It's a big advantage to understand the nature of solutions that work. Some years ago, I bought a tape from Dr. Win Wenger -- see #TL07C: WENGER DEBATE #1 -- on "solving world problems." It included a powerful process for accessing the subconscious. It was partly based on the idea that people could access their subconscious and access all kinds of solutions to problems. The tape included some examples of suggested solutions. (Dr. Wenger is an expert on methods for increasing intelligence. See Project Renaissance, which also includes a number of proposed solutions. Although I don't have any objective proof, it seems to me that my own intelligence improved considerably as a result of doing some of Dr. Wenger's exercises, such as "image streaming" and swimming underwater holding my breath to increase the size of my carotid arteries (which supply blood to the brain), and applying some of his principles, such as expressing my thoughts on various subjects and topics. See also #TL11: How to Increase Your Intelligence.) My interactions with Dr. Wenger led me to pose the question: What constitutes a solution? There is some relevant material in #TL07C: WENGER DEBATE #1 on this, including my "Criteria for Solutions": "My idea that we need criteria against which a proposed solution should be tested is very recent. So the following is very tentative: For more on coercion, see Why You Must Recognize and Understand Coercion. Four additional criteria: What further criteria should be added? Attempted Solutions Often Become New Problems Suppose I decide I have a problem of feeling lonely. I decide the solution is to get married. After a while the relationship fades. My wife and I decide the solution is to have a child, which "will bring us closer together." So we have a baby that cries at night, keeping me awake. Now I have the problem of not getting enough sleep. This vicious cycle of attempted solutions leading to successively new lower-level problems is not uncommon. In Scientology there's a "Problems and Solutions" process, which goes something like this: The Scientology Auditor (listener) asks: What is the problem? Client: I can't keep up with my car payments. Auditor: OK. What solutions have you had for that problem? Client: I got more credit cards. Auditor: OK. What other solutions have you had for that problem? The question is repeated until the Client has exhausted all the attempted solutions -- at which point he has some realization about how buying the car caused new problems. Auditor: What is the problem? Client: Women find me unattractive. Auditor: OK. What solutions have you had for that problem? Client: Besides buying a car, I also bought new clothes. Auditor: OK. What other solutions have you had for that problem? Etc. The process gets you to "backtrack" to ever-higher levels of problems and attempted solutions. So the general solution here is to discover how so many of your attempted solutions only became new problems. The process is also an example of a formula as a general solution to the general problem of attempted solutions becoming new problems. Formulas as Solutions Another example of a general formula as a solution is the scientific method -- see Using the Scientific Method to Solve Any Problem. How to Disagree and Question Everything is a formula for improving your general knowledge and understanding. See also #TL03: How to Improve Your Information. The Preponderance of Means over Ends
See Quintessential Questions to Change the World - Part I and Quintessential Questions to Change the World - Part II. The philosopher Hans Vaihinger (author of 'The Philosophy of As-If') formulated the principle of The Preponderance of Means over Ends. We tend to get lost in the means while losing sight of the ends. We select a solution (ends). Then we design a method to implement (means) the solution. Suppose we decide to solve the problem of lack of health freedom. Our solution is to create an organization like Americans for Free Choice in Medicine or ARXC - Alternative Medicine Connection. The organizations are the means to solve the problem. There is a tendency for the organizations themselves to become "more important" than their purpose of increasing health freedom. (I have no evidence that any of this applies to these two organizations.) If Steiger's Law applies here, then the people in these organizations spend more time and energy maintaining the organizations than on working toward their goals. Steiger's Law is another way of stating Vaihinger's The Preponderance of Means over Ends. Build Freedom as a General Solution Build Freedom is also the "real free-enterprise sector" of the world. I distinguish two other sectors: the public or terrocrat sector (terrocrat = coercive political agent or terrorist bureaucrat) and the "private" sector, which to most intents and purposes is really part of the terrocrat sector -- see Is the Private Sector Really Part of the Public Sector?. Even people who've never heard of Build Freedom, who have assets in the real free-enterprise sector, and who conduct transactions in accordance with the Build Freedom Code, are to that extent operating in Build Freedom as Build Freedomns. Note: From 1993 to 1996, Build Freedom did have a considerable structure, eventually with several dozen paid employees. At that time Build Freedom books and reports were being sold and delivered in hard-copy form. This structure was of course subject to Steiger's Law and Vaihinger's The Preponderance of Means over Ends. There were also all kinds of lower-level problems related to maintaining a physical office, dealing with personnel, internal security, handling orders, delivering products, credit card charge-backs, paying refunds, etc. Since 1997, the Build Freedom materials have been available free of charge on our website. The transition eliminated a host of lower-level problems, including the headaches of running a business. An essential aspect of Build Freedom is the formation of voluntary alternatives to coercive terrocrat monopolies. This is happening, as can be seen from Is the Private Sector Really Part of the Public Sector?. Self-Elevation as a General Solution It's easier to change what you can control, i.e., yourself and your personal affairs, than to change what you don't and can't control. "Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquillity and outer effectiveness become possible." -- Epictetus There are many things in the world that need to be changed and improved. Some people make the mistake of butting their heads against the brick walls out there that need to be torn down, while neglecting to work on themselves. They attempt to change what they can't control, while neglecting to change what they can. They are not very likely to implement any worthwhile solutions. The more you elevate yourself, the better you get at dealing with the "bad things out there" that potentially or actually impact you. If a large enough number of individuals elevate themselves to a high enough level, then it may become much easier for these individuals to fix the "bad things out there." So how do you elevate yourself? 1. You improve your health -- see Health Freedom & Life Extension. The longer you live and the better the quality of your life, the more good you can do both for yourself and the rest of the world. 2. You increase your wealth. The wealthier you are -- provided you also increase your intelligence if necessary -- the more good you can do both for yourself and the rest of the world. 3. Withdraw your support from "the system" as far you can practically and legally. If you're spending 40 hours a week working in some corporation (that may overall do more harm than good), that doesn't leave you much time to elevate yourself. This is a most important reason for increasing your wealth. See Is the Private Sector Really Part of the Public Sector? 4. Improve your emotional control -- see #TL12: How to Achieve Emotional Control. 5. If you can benefit from psychological elevation (most people can), check out Idenics, mention Frederick Mann, and call Mike Goldstein toll-free at 1-800-IDENICS (1-800-433-6427) for a FREE consultation by phone. 6. Increase your intelligence -- see #TL11: How to Increase Your Intelligence. I paraphrase from 'The Heel of Achilles' by Arthur Koestler: "The striking disparity between growth-curves of technological achievement on the one hand, and ethical behavior on the other; between the power of intellect when applied to technological mastery, and the impotence of intellect when applied to the conduct of human affairs." To be blunt, we humans can be very intelligent at implementing technological solutions, but we are comparative morons at implementing solutions regarding the harmonious conduct of human affairs. 7. Eliminate your "deep stupidities" -- see Project Abolish Stupidity & Increase Intelligence. Maybe, when a significant number of individuals have eliminated their deep stupidities, we can make some real progress regarding the harmonious conduct of human affairs. 8. In general, upgrade your brain and your life -- see UPGRADE YOUR BRAIN & LIFE!. 9. Become a Maturity Booster -- see #TL15: How to Achieve Ultimate Success. 10. BECOME A 10X PERFORMING PERSON! Our Legacy of Bad Programs "The genetic portion of stupidity is programmed into all of us and consists of 'typical mammalian behavior.' That is, a great deal of the human nervous system is on autopilot, like the closely related chimpanzee nervous system and the more distantly related cow nervous system. The programs of territoriality, pack hierarchy, etc., are evolutionary stable strategies and hence work mechanically, without conscious thought. These evolutionary relative successes became genetic programs because they work well enough for the ordinary mammal in ordinary mammalian affairs. They only become stupidities in human beings, where the higher cortical centers have been developed as a monitoring system to feed back more sophisticated survival techniques and correct these stereotyped programs with more flexible ones. In short, to the extent that a human follows the genetic primate-pack patterns, without feedback from the cortex, that human is still acting like an ape, and hasn't acquired facility in using the New Brain." -- Robert Anton Wilson ('The Illuminati Papers') The point is that our bad programs come from at least two sources: genetic and parental. Because most "normal" humans have such bad programs, most of them may also be unaware of the problem-causing (and solution-preventing) programs festering in their brains. Can you now see the reason behind: "The striking disparity between growth-curves of technological achievement on the one hand, and ethical behavior on the other; between the power of intellect when applied to technological mastery, and the impotence of intellect when applied to the conduct of human affairs?" Do you now know why we can be very intelligent at implementing technological solutions, and why we are comparative morons at implementing solutions regarding the harmonious conduct of human affairs? Much of our genetic programming is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of life in a hostile environment where food was often scarce and "kill or be killed" was the rule. Add to that all the bad programming received from parents, teachers, preachers, etc. and we have a "normal, modern" human! (Why did the Enron executives, probably already millionaires, have to cook the books to steal many millions more? Because they suffer from primitive, insatiable "scarcity programs.") On the other hand, in the areas of science and technology, how much bad programming have we accumulated in 250 years or so? How much bad programming did we receive from our parents, teachers, preachers, etc? (Of course, some scientists may also suffer from "bad-science-programs" -- see Semmelweis-reflex -- and when politics invades science and technology, the bad "human-affairs programs" kick in! And we get technological disasters and atrocities!) OK. WE CAN BE GENIUSES IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE A LARGE LEGACY OF BAD PROGRAMS IN THIS AREA. AT THE SAME TIME, THE VAST MAJORITY OF US ARE COMPARATIVE MORONS REGARDING THE CONDUCT OF HARMONIOUS HUMAN AFFAIRS BECAUSE WE SUFFER FROM AN OVERWHELMING LEGACY OF PRIMITIVE GENETIC SOCIAL PROGRAMS. Primitive Genetic Social Programs Fight or flight Unconscious or Ritual Games and Life Scripts Adapted child In 'Games People Play,' Eric Berne writes:
"Helpers" Who Depend on Problems In addition to the above phenomenon, there's the issue of "helpers" presenting their good traits but hiding their bad traits -- see #TL15A: The Good and the Bad. The Path of Least Resistance as a General Solution How to Achieve Ultimate Success In his most important book 'The Mature Mind,' H.A. Overstreet introduces his "maturity concept." Many apparently intractable "world problems" may only seem so because there haven't been any humans mature enough to solve them. Some aspects of the maturity concept are covered in #TL15: How to Achieve Ultimate Success. Examples of Great Solutions? "Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential." To what extent is this project a potential solution? Or a most comprehensive example of "the preponderance of means over ends?" "The Global Ideas Bank" is "A Global Suggestion Box for socially innovative non-technological ideas and projects, with £1,000 UK sterling awards annually for the best ideas or projects submitted." How many of the proposals qualify as potential solutions? "ThinkQuest" and "World Hunger" -- potential solutions? "OneWorld Solution 2By2" -- a worthwhile project? The Jonah Complex
Conclusion Nevertheless, I'm very optimistic that the obstacles can be overcome... particularly if crises trigger our "deeper selves" -- see John Rappoport's news item dated February 6th, 2002.
So what do you plan to do about it all? Frederick Mann |
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