Liminal Worlds

The following is Part 3 of a four part new video series by David Wilcock. All are worth watching, but I’m highlighting this one right now because of some fascinating evidence that is unearthed in regard to two modern sacred cows: global warming and evolution.

David Wilcock first points out that climate change is occuring on many planets, not only earth, which suggests that it’s far more complicated an issue than is usually supposed.

Even more startling is the evidence he brings up that completely overturns many assumptions about evolution and Darwinism. For example, there are links to studies that show that life can spontaneously evolve within a single generation -or even within the lifetime of one organism- in response to environmental pressures.
There is even evidence to suggest that life can be generated from nonliving matter!

To be open to such ideas, you have to first remove them from any entrenched political or ideological frameworks. For example, people will tend to label you a reactionary or conservative if you question the orthodox view of climate change. Similarly, you are immediately labeled (by some) a religious fundamentalist if you question evolution.

The truth is really more complex, and not tied to any particular dogma. It does not follow, for example, that if climate change is interplanetary and not (mostly) caused by humans, that all environmental concerns are irrelevant. In other words, you don’t have to be an “anti-environmentalist” to question the orthodox view of global warming.

And you certainly don’t have to be a fundamentist, or even a monotheist to question the current orthodoxy on evolution. These are only the simplistic positions that the polorarized media push people into.

belief systems climate change, David Wilcock, evolution

When I first discovered the TED talks, I thought I’d found a great source of cutting edge, innovative intellectual stimulation. But the more of them I watch, the more I’m starting to think that it tends to represent a rather narrow and conventional view. I really started to wonder where they are coming from when they showed a rather trivial presentation by professional debunker Amazing Randi.

This video shows what happened when TED invited controversial comic Sarah Silverman to speak. Predictably enough, she offended many people, including the organizer of the conference. How smart can these people really be if they were surprised when Sarah Silverman said something politically incorrect?

What’s especially annoying is that I could not even find the original talk given by Sarah, while TED routinely posts all of their talks on their website. The video below is an interview by Bill Maher about the TED incident.

While I’m sure there are still some positive things about TED –with all of the hundreds of talks they organize every year some of it has to be good!– my overall estimation of them is steadily declining.

belief systems sarah silverman, TED

A new French experiment recalls the infamous social psychology experiments conducted by Dr. Stanley Milgram, in which it was shown how willing many people are to obey authority. In these experiments, people thought they were giving painful electric shocks to subjects. This was fake, but participants did not know this, and the majority obeyed commands to administer shocks.

The video below is from a recent fake “reality show” done in France where contestants also believed they were giving dangerous electrical shocks to other contestants. Apparently, today an even higher percentage of people were willing to do this, even to the point of killing someone, than when the Milgram experiments were done, back in the early 1960s!

Of course, today the cultural context is a little different, not that this makes it any more comforting. In the 60s, subjects were in a fake scientific study and were obeying the commands of traditional authority figures such as doctors or psychologists. Today, the “victimizers” were caught up in the hype of a reality TV show and were responding to the pressures of mass media hysteria rather than traditional authority….if this makes any real difference.

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The complete, rather hyperbolic title of this book is Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Barbara Ehrenreich has written the ultimate secular humanist anti-positive thinking book, the antithesis to The Secret, What the Bleep Do We Know and other new age, metaphysical and “Law of Attraction” type material.

This book is basically a polemic, and is unlikely to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with its premise. Most likely, few people who don’t agree with it will even read it. I’m an exception to this, as I like to familiarize myself with as many aspects of the cultural landscape as possible.

Barbara Ehrenreich represents one third of what might be considered an ideological triangle into which the majority of people can be located. The three sides of the triangle are orthodox religion, securalism/atheism and new age spirituality (under this I’d also include modern interpretations of Eastern religions and neo-paganism).

Obviously Ehrenreich occupies the second of these positions, which might be called (though probably not by those who fall into this camp) fundamentalist atheism or secular humanism, whose leading advocate right now is probably Richard Dawkins.

I wrote a review of Bright-Sided that is now on the Associated Content site, so I won’t go into any more detail here. I would, however, suggest that it’s not a bad idea to read this book, even if you are a believer in things like the Law of Attraction. It’s healthy to expose yourself to all points of view.

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This is Part 1 of a 2 part video by Bashar, channeled by Daryl Anka on the topic of skepticism, gullibility and cynicism. As Bashar points out, true skepticism implies having an open mind. He goes on to say that the two extremes of gullibility and cynicism are actually similar beneath the surface.

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Is everything just a game? If so, how seriously need we take it? These are some of the questions thoughtfully posed and answered in two strange videos, which are narrated by a man in a black mask. I don’t know if the mask if for anonymity or dramatic effect, but you don’ t have to let that distract you from the message.

There is a 2 part video called Playing To Win. The first part can be found on the website link below. I’ve copied Part 2 below this right here. If you only want to watch one, I’d recommend Part 2.

What I like best about this perspective is that it’s a bridge between the “conspiracy” type point of view that talks about the New World Order, 9/11 conspiracies and the like and the “Law of Attraction” type material offered by Abraham, The Secret and such. The narrator of these videos nicely puts these two positions together. For example, he points out that fearing or hating the “Elite” only empowers them.

He also talks about the value -and limits- of so-called “truth jocks” -people who are very vocal about publicizing the nefarious schemes of the Elite/Illuminati. The narrator wisely tells us that we can learn from these people, but if we keep listening to their messages over and over, we are likely to remain in a “low frequency” state such as fear or anger.

Well worth watching!

http://www.theantiterrorist.co.uk/

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Pataphysics is a rather obscure word. In our time, it’s probably best known from
the Beatle’s song Maxwell’s Silver Hammer: “Joan was quizzical; Studied pataphysical Science in the home.”

I’ve heard those lyrics many times without knowing or really thinking about what “pataphysical” means.

Pataphysics was invented by an eccentric French writer, Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), who was an early modernist playwright. I was reading about this in Peter Gay’s recent book, Modernism- The Lure of Heresy.

Jarry calls pataphysics, “the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments.”

I like the first part of that -”the science of imaginary solutions,” though the rest of that
sentence is typically convoluted European metaphysics -virtuality…lineaments?
This type or nonsensical or paradoxical thinking is important, though, and helped to inspire the Dada and Surrealist movements. This was part of a wider reaction against rationalism and industrialization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/’Pataphysics

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Kymatica is a video well worth watching if you are interested in subjects like new physics, consciousness expansion, conspiracy theories, alternative archeology and evolution and so forth. This video covers some of the same material as Zeitgeist, another popular video, but in some ways I think Kymatica has a clearer, more empowering message. While Zeitgeist mainly tries to expose all of the ways we are deceived, Ben Stewart, the creator of Kymatica, stresses the importance of personal responsibility. In fact, he ends up concluding that all of the negative events in our world are actually projections from the false ego that all of us share.

Some of the actual theories explored in Kymatica are, well, theories rather than facts. For example, Stewart explores the possibility that the real origin of the Satan/Devil archetype was a comet that destroyed much of civilization and became the basis for the flood myths of so many ancient traditions.

Similarly, he covers some of the familiar (at least to conspiracy buffs!) ideas that all of the major political leaders of the world are related by blood. He even states that Obama and Bush are related! This may or may not be true, but it’s something that is not proven in this film. There is also an interesting section that discusses how many of our laws and regulations are actually variations of Maritime law, and reduce people to the status of property when we are required to apply for things like birth certificates and driver’s licenses -and pay taxes. These are issues that are often brought up and debated among libertarians, constitutionalists and others who want to do away with the oppression and red tape of modern society. Stewart, however, weaves all of this into a more spiritual and empowering message.

The most important part of the video is the last twenty or so minutes, when Stewart really lays out the problem of people projecting their false egos/shadow selves upon external enemies. This is true whether you follow the mass media or radical or conspiracy theories. It’s easy to be diverted by the ultimately illusory idea of external enemies, whether in the guise of terrorists, corporations, the Illuminati, or other nations, races or religions.

Among the most interesting and informative parts of Kymatica are interviews by Dr. Bruce Lipton, who has done some cutting edge research on healing, genetics and evolution. Towards the end, he gives some convincing evidence that genes do not determine our fate, but are adaptable to the environment.

I don’t necessarily subscribe to every idea or theory put forth in Kymatica, but it’s definitely an important contribution to understanding the predicament of the modern world!

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Concert pianist-turned-philosopher Ervin Laszlo talks about his personal intellectual and spiritual evolution and about the evolutionary challenges facing humanity as global civilization approaches the ‘chaos point.’ The cofounder with Ludwig vonBertalanfy of General Systems Theory, Laszlo talks from a broad, trans-diciplinary perspective that integrates leading-edge science and spiritual understanding from many traditions. The founder of the Club of Budapest, he travels the world working with many organizations on the urgent mission of helping create a ’sustainable transformation’ to a peaceful planetary civilization before its too late. *

* The above is the description by eon3, the person who submitted the video to YouTube.

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