fighting fascism cannot be realized in techno-crazy society

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fighting fascism cannot be realized in techno-crazy society

Postby yesferatu » Sat May 27, 2006 3:59 pm

This is one of those pogo "the enemyis us" articles....but it was revelation to me. We're doomed until total collapse.<br><br><<What If They Gave a War...?<br><br>By Tony Long| Also by this reporter<br>02:00 AM May, 25, 2006<br><br>The Luddite<br>1968. It was the height of the Vietnam War, the year of My Lai and the Tet offensive. Student riots in Paris nearly brought down the French government. Soviet tanks put a premature end to Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring.<br><br>In the United States, the streets were teeming with antiwar protesters and civil rights demonstrators. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other. The Democratic convention in Chicago dissolved into chaos. And by the summer, America's cities were in flames.<br><br>The world was seething, and for good reason. There was a lot to be angry about. It was a lousy year, 1968.<br><br>I was in high school then. I quit the baseball team because, frankly, sports seemed frivolous. In 1968, there were more important things to worry about than perfecting a curveball. All very high-minded and, in retrospect, more than a little pompous. But nearly 40 years down the road I don't regret having done it. My political consciousness was awakened and I was actively engaged in the world around me.<br><br>But as bad as things were then, they seem infinitely worse now.<br><br>So why aren't the streets clogged with angry Americans demanding to know why their president lied and deceived them so he could attack a country that had absolutely nothing to do with his so-called war on terror? To an extent, we got suckered into Vietnam. We can't make that claim about Iraq. Iraq was the premeditated, willful invasion of a sovereign nation that was threatening nobody. "Saddam Hussein is a prick who treats the Kurds miserably" is no justification. By the principles established by the Nuremberg Tribunal and international law, our president is a war criminal.<br><br>Why aren't we marching to demand an end to the illegal surveillance of American citizens by their own government, again under the pretext of waging war on terror? Why do we so blithely surrender our civil liberties -- the very thing that supposedly separates us from other societies -- to the illusion of security? All the high-tech snooping in the world won't stop a determined terrorist from striking. If it could, Israel would be the safest country on earth.<br><br>Why aren't irate Americans camping out in the lobby of every newspaper and TV station from coast to coast, demanding that the press reassert the right to perform its single most important function, that of government watchdog? The ghost of Richard Nixon, and a very corporeal Bill Clinton, must be cursing their rotten luck.<br><br>Why aren't enraged college students occupying their campus administration buildings, demanding that the United States sign the Kyoto Protocol? Hell, it might already be too late, but is the luxury of driving your mom's SUV really worth the coming dystopian world that you, more than I, will inherit?<br><br>Why aren't we storming the battlements of every filthy oil company in America, demanding that their executives be tossed into fetid dungeons for cynically manipulating gas prices while raking in obscene profits?<br><br>Why aren't we demanding that religion return to the pulpit, where it belongs, and keep out of the White House and the courts?<br><br>In short, where the hell is everybody?<br><br>I'll tell you where they are. They're at home, tuning in to root for the next "American idol." They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending 25 hours a week playing video games in virtual worlds instead of fighting to save the only world that really matters. They're surfing porn. They're text messaging and e-mailing and scheming to close that next big deal. They're flogging their useless crap on eBay.<br><br>All that technology at their fingertips, and they're completely blind. Two terms for George W. Bush? They're deaf and dumb, too.<br><br>Bread and circuses. The government and the corporations are giving us bread and circuses to keep us sufficiently distracted so the powers that be can pursue their agendas. Television (flat screens only, please) serves up Donald Trump and Paris Hilton as role models, and gives us the abomination of Fox News, which is more a wolf in sheep's clothing than any Vulpes vulpes you're likely to encounter.<br><br>Hollywood only cares about blockbusters, chick flicks and inane buddy movies. Tiresome reality doesn't make for good escapism and, more importantly, it doesn't fill coffers. And George Clooney can't be expected to produce every movie.<br><br>Whither the press? Forget it. Britney Spears gets more ink -- and better play -- than global warming does.<br><br>The real voices of dissent and engagement are found on the internet these days, but the internet is simply too diffuse to effectively galvanize a revolution.<br><br>And we desperately need a revolution.<br><br>- - -<br>Tony Long is copy chief at Wired News.>><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.wired.com/news/columns/1,70980-0.html">www.wired.com/news/column...980-0.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: fighting fascism cannot be realized in techno-crazy soci

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Sat May 27, 2006 4:21 pm

Not just as modernist angst, we need to recognize that <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>technology is inherently elitist</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> and plays a big part of our current criminal cryptocracy.<br><br>It takes money, education, access, etc. to use technology.<br><br>Since power became invisible as electricity, chemical potential, and data bits, we've been in a humanitarian disaster due to even less accountability than usual by the elite has set us on a path to potential extinction.<br><br>Now Hitler is the fucking Invisible Man. Not enough bandages in the world to either reveal or cover him up.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: fighting fascism cannot be realized in techno-crazy soci

Postby PeterofLoneTree » Sat May 27, 2006 4:45 pm

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"We're doomed until total collapse."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> -- yesferatu<br><br>A conclusion that I must reluctantly agree with, yesferatu. <br>As to the article's questions, "Why aren't we doing something"?:<br>Perhaps those who are "otherwise occupied" as Long describes, realize, at least subconciously, the inevitability of the collapse, and prefer to amuse themselves until the end. Or "beginning".<br>Wikipedia has an interesting entry entitled "List of wars and disasters by death toll" at <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://tinyurl.com/k64ea">tinyurl.com/k64ea</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> and somewhere I read that the death toll from wars, just in the 20th century alone, is two <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>B</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->illion people. Perhaps people know this; perhaps people are resigned to conflict as a way of life; perhaps they "agree" with Seymour Hersch's comment that "It's got to play itself out".<br><br>But I'm still continuing to study whether "war as a way of life" is <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>our</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> choice, or if it's being forced on us. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: fighting fascism cannot be realized in techno-crazy soci

Postby greencrow0 » Sat May 27, 2006 5:24 pm

Western society had plenty of warning about the illegality of the Iraq war.<br><br>All the commotion in the UN at the time and the refusal of the UN to sanction the war should have got everybody's attention...aside from all the anti war websites.<br><br>So, most people, whether they will admit it or not, sanctioned the war. I believe middle class males who run our society, in particular, sanctioned the war. Their thinking went more or less like this:<br><br><br>It's survival of the fittest and we have to control the resources so, we may have to break a few eggs to make the omlet.<br><br>We don't want to be 'like them', living a third world lifestyle with no technological perks...so we have to fight the, and keep them in line. We can't try to negotiate a 'sharing' of the resources, because they would just take that as a sign of weakness. We must control the source of the resources and then be in a position to 'dole' them out in return for compliance and loyalty."<br><br>IMO ths was the thinking not only of the elite but was generalized throughout western populations. We were simply not able to define the responses to the problem (deminishing natural resources) in any way other than empire.<br><br>Empire seems to be the only human response to international political or economic instability.<br><br>Empirial militancy is inherently a 'masculine' approach. A 'feminine' approach would have been to negotiate a sharing of resources, according to the rule of law...but unfortunately for future generations, we live in a male-dominated society.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Fantasy

Postby The Omega Man » Sat May 27, 2006 6:28 pm

No one collectively is doing anything because the illusion of freedom has not yet dissapated within the masses. They go through their checklist everyday, willingly and cooperatively suffering through the constraints of the new power dynamic. <br>Let's see:<br><br>1) I ate and was able to eat 3 or more times today.<br><br>2) I still have a home and my family remains intact.<br><br>3) I have a job that I'm overworked in and hate but still I have stable work.<br><br>4) I have a car and material items of personal satisfaction and the ability to collect more.<br><br>5) I have the ability to move about freely and without being accosted by roadblocks and paramiltary forces.<br><br>6) I still have the belief that in the hierarchy of a global standard of living, I am above the status of suffering masses.<br><br>The way American outrage happens is through the principle of mob rules, with a few as catalytic matches to the everyready tinderbox. The Illuminazi know this and it is their waking nightmare, thus they employ every precaution, utilize every psychological manipulation to abate anger, or dissipate it through diversions such as spectator sports, game shows, video games, films, television and the lot. Even the music is a safe, controlled, homogenous monotony, the soundtrack of submission and compliance. Before rage is ever fully focused or realized a diversion is contrived and unleashed through the corps of presstitutes. The main difference that sets America apart from say a French culture that would dare to rise in defiance and fight in the streets for incursions of their liberty or endemic rights, is that they are perhaps a more literate mass dynamic. We in this fading republic however, are largely unconcerned with expending energy to derive knowledge from reading. We by and large derive information neatly packaged from a smiling, well preened puppet who delivers a state sanctioned product to swallow whole without chewing.<br><br>Until people feel the personal sting of naked fascism in their personal lives they will grumble and further contort themselves to adapt to the remaining scraps of democracy. In other countries they employ the more brutal form of repression using death squads, police hit teams, and overt miltary force. There are no blogs for them and their morning commute takes them past the tortured remains of the poet who said too much, or the activist who protested for clean water and fair wages.<br><br>The war that has been launched against us long ago by the brokers of subjugation, is way off in the distance for the majority of people who exist but never live. It exists as rumour that is sublimely shunned as fact. For them a barely manageable, comfortable cognitive dissonance to reality, blinds and deafens them from the enemy consolidating at the gates. Until these demons are unmasked and forced to the point of no return, they will frantically fight to keep the facade of synthetic peace. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=theomegaman@rigorousintuition>The Omega Man</A> at: 5/27/06 4:29 pm<br></i>
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Re: fighting fascism cannot be realized in techno-crazy soci

Postby Sweejak » Sat May 27, 2006 8:25 pm

Here is a recent one from Paul Levy:<br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>From: Dreamers <dreamers@awakeninthedream.com><br>Date: May 27, 2006 17:40:17 CDT<br>To:<br>Subject: DANGER: FASCI-NATION WITH BUSH<br><br><br>Hi everyone,<br>Now that my book "The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of <br>Our Collective Psychos"is out, I've been busy writing. Here's my <br>latest. If you want to order my book, please go to my website <br>www.awakeninthedream.com, or call 1-888-280-7715 to order by phone. <br>If you are inspired by the message of this article, please feel <br>free to widely circulate it.If anyone has any creative ideas how I <br>can get my work out to the wider public, please feel free to <br>contact me at paul@awakeninthedream.com. I need all the help I can <br>get. Keep dreaming, Paul Levy<br><br>DANGER: FASCI-NATION WITH BUSH<br>by Paul Levy<br><br>George Bush is embodying a very dangerous mental illness, what I am <br>calling “malignant egophrenia” (see my book The Madness of George <br>Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis, available on my <br>website www.awakeninthedream.com). As we see and shed light on this <br>malevolent disease animating Bush, we recognize that the pathogen <br>is not localized in Bush, but pervades and partakes of the entire <br>field, which includes all of us. This non-local disease of the <br>psyche that has taken over Bush literally “cultivates” itself <br>through our unreflected-upon unconscious “reactions” to it, whether <br>they are positive or negative. The illness that Bush is embodying <br>requires the participation of our unconscious for its generation. <br>The malevolent psychic illness that has taken over Bush is non- <br>locally propagating itself through our unconscious reactions, as <br>compared to conscious responses to it. Whether we unconsciously <br>react by ignoring Bush, becoming angry, repulsed, or entranced into <br>support<br> ing him,<br>if we are re-acting out of our unconscious in a habitual way, we <br>are unwittingly supporting the very psychic disease that we are <br>reacting to.<br><br>An insidious aspect of this psycho-spiritual disease of the soul <br>that has taken over Bush is that it has a “fascinating” effect on <br>others. Because Bush is so possessed by the unconscious, he has an <br>“obsessive” effect on consciousness. He “fascinates” us in a way <br>which “catches” our attention. We become “triggered,” as if <br>something deep inside of us has become activated. If our mind <br>becomes “hooked” on Bush, however, a part of our awareness has <br>become “captured.” The mobility of our consciousness becomes <br>restricted and limited, as if we have become hypnotized or fallen <br>under a spell. Etymologically, the word “fascinate” is related to <br>the words “enchantment” and “bewitchment.” If we become overly <br>fascinated by Bush, we are unknowingly feeding the very sickness he <br>is embodying.<br><br>In becoming overly fascinated by Bush, we become “fascined,” or <br>“fastened” to a particular re-action, which limits our fluidity and <br>our ability to self-reflect, dis-connects us from our power, and <br>takes away our internal freedom. When a group of people (or a <br>nation) falls into mass psychology together, this collective <br>fascination is a form of madness whose underlying psychological <br>dynamic breeds fasc-ism.<br><br>There is a danger in becoming too fascinated by George Bush, which <br>results in projecting our shadow onto him. We then become entranced <br>by our own reflection, and by focusing our attention on Bush, we <br>become compulsively tied to him. This is a psychological <br>transference, just as when someone projects part of themselves <br>outside into the environment, they become magically tied to the <br>recipient of their projection. This state of unconscious <br>identification, or fusion, is a primitive, un-evolved state of <br>mind, psychologically speaking. Because it is an unconscious <br>reaction against Bush, the result is that we are secretly feeding <br>the very projection he is embodying.<br><br>If we are overly triggered by Bush and focus our attention outside <br>of ourselves onto him, we have become bewitched by our own <br>projection. We then have dissociated from our genuine self, which <br>can only be properly experienced within ourselves. If we become <br>overly focused on Bush, we can disassociate from what he is <br>triggering inside of ourselves, thus losing access to the power <br>within ourselves that is only available when we are in phase with <br>our wholeness. We are then unwittingly giving our power over to <br>Bush, and are complicit in the very thing we are reacting against.<br><br>It is easy and very seductive to personalize and concretize Bush as <br>being evil, for he is literally embodying this archetypal quality. <br>By being so taken over by this archetypal energy, he becomes the <br>portal through which the archetype fleshes itself out in human form <br>in a negative, and hence, destructive way. He has become an open <br>channel and instrument for the malevolent aspect of the archetype <br>to become incarnate and materialize itself, becoming fully clothed <br>in the human world.<br><br>Because Bush so convincingly embodies the destructive aspect of <br>what Jung would call the archetype of the Self (which contains both <br>light and dark), it is very tempting to solidify him as actually <br>being evil. To concretize Bush as being evil, however, is to become <br>bewitched by our own shadow projection, and is to be secretly <br>feeding, supporting and creating the very evil to which we are <br>reacting. If instead of recognizing that Bush is merely being an <br>instrument for evil and is playing a role in a deeper drama, we <br>concretize Bush as being evil, we are projecting the shadow onto <br>him. We are then guilty of the very same thing, projecting the <br>shadow, of which we are accusing him.<br><br>If we project the shadow onto Bush and concretize him as being <br>evil, we have become fixated on a particularized part of a much <br>deeper process in which he is only playing a role. It is like an <br>artist focusing only on the foreground and not noticing the <br>background of which it is a part, forgetting that the two only <br>exist in relation to each other and actually go together, co-arise <br>together, are two parts of a greater whole. Bush is part of, <br>contained in, and an expression of a greater unified field of which <br>we belong and are all members. Bush, like all of us, is an <br>expression of the field. We are all being dreamed up by the greater <br>field, while concurrently dreaming up the field in a circular, non- <br>linear, acausal and atemporal feedback loop. This greater unified <br>field, which we are not separate from, is consciousness itself.<br><br>If we become too fascinated by Bush, we can potentially become <br>distracted and take our attention away from the deeper process <br>employing him. If we solidify Bush as being the problem, this takes <br>our focus off of the deeper, archetypal process that is <br>simultaneously veiling and revealing itself both through him and <br>the field around him. Focusing on Bush can be like falling for a <br>magician’s deception, for as we focus our attention on Bush, we <br>marginalize, don’t engage with and don’t notice the deeper, <br>underlying corruption which he is both an expression of and a <br>smokescreen for. By not engaging with the real power lines which <br>actively underlie what is manifesting in our world, we give away <br>our power to effect real change. We become “spellbound” by the <br>outer manifest forms of the universe.<br><br>We don’t want to marginalize and ignore what Bush is doing, but we <br>don’t want to concretize him in a way that is an expression that we <br>ourselves have become fixated, are caught in a particular viewpoint <br>and have lost our fluidity. There is a balance of seeing the deeper <br>process that is playing out through Bush and not solidifying him as <br>being that. We need to not make it personal to Bush. He is merely <br>the instrument through which impersonal, archetypal forces are <br>playing out. If we personalize Bush as being the problem, we take <br>our attention off of the deeper, underlying problem. In <br>scapegoating Bush to satisfy our own anger and guilt, we are <br>actually protecting the darker forces that are playing out through <br>him in the surrounding field.<br><br>By being so unconsciously possessed by the archetype, Bush is <br>literally killing people, as he is embodying and incarnating the <br>malevolent aspect of the archetype. He has become the agent through <br>which the deeper archetypal process is acting itself out in our 3-D <br>world while simultaneously revealing its darker side. What this <br>means is that Bush, being a mere figurehead and cardboard cutout <br>figure, is a symbol reflecting the more powerful, darker archetypal <br>forces that inspire him and exist within all of us. Bush is <br>literally re-presenting a deeper process that is operative <br>throughout the field, which is to say both outside and inside <br>ourselves. Bush is the mouthpiece through which this deeper, <br>archetypal process, which has everything to do with us, is making <br>itself visible. He is the revelation in human form of the <br>malevolent aspect of the archetype in all its nakedness. The (Mad) <br>Emperor truly has no clothes. Bush’s incarnation is actually <br>revealing something to us about ours<br> elves.<br><br>When we recognize that the figure of Bush is in the form of a <br>revelation that is speaking symbolically, instead of feeding the <br>darkness when we contemplate Bush, we actually liberate it. Instead <br>of becoming tied to him in unconscious fascination and giving him <br>our power, when we recognize what the figure of Bush is <br>symbolically showing us, we dis-spell the darkness while <br>simultaneously empowering ourselves. When we shed light on the <br>darkness in the field of which Bush is merely a reflection, the <br>darkness becomes de-potentiated, as it can no longer act itself out <br>through us. Illumining the darkness, we take away its power over us.<br><br>Once we stop projecting our shadow onto Bush and recognize that the <br>darkness we see in him is reflecting something inside of us, we <br>stop relating to him as being separate from ourselves. Not being <br>separate means that we cannot contemplate Bush in isolation to <br>ourselves, as our roles only exist in relation to each other. The <br>one is a condition of the other and vise-versa. A deeper process is <br>revealing itself through our interplay.<br><br>Bush is an embodiment of an archetypal figure existing deep within <br>the collective unconscious of humanity that we have all “dreamed <br>up” into incarnation. This is to relate to Bush not in a literal <br>way, but as a figure in a dream, whose language is symbolic. All <br>characters in a dream symbolically re-present aspects of ourselves. <br>Seen symbolically, Bush is embodying a figure that exists deep <br>within each and every one of us. He is the part of us that abuses <br>power simply because he can, which is morally indefensible. Bush <br>has fallen into and is embodying a form of “moral insanity.” Bush’s <br>sense of morality is truly upside-down and crazy-making, as his <br>morals are perversely inverted so as to feed their own pathology. <br>Bush is the aspect of us that is truly sick.        <br><br>The underlying archetypal process giving shape to and in-forming <br>the evil playing out in our world is revealing itself, in condensed <br>form, through the figure of Bush for all who have eyes to see. Bush <br>is the cipher through which a higher-dimensional process is <br>bleeding into our third-dimensional reality. The way to see these <br>deeper, darker archetypal forces is through the act of recognizing <br>that Bush is both the portal thru which these darker forces are <br>incarnating on the world stage, as well as the symbol which <br>simultaneously hides, represents and reveals this process.<br><br>It should be emphasized that it is a very unique situation when a <br>formless archetype of the collective unconscious, which is <br>transpersonal (beyond the personal) in nature, manifests itself and <br>becomes visible through the form of a human being. Because of <br>Bush’s possession by the archetype, a higher-dimensional and <br>atemporal process is symbolically re-presenting and revealing <br>itself through him. Because of the extent of his unconscious <br>identification with the archetype, Bush has become a vacant vessel, <br>empty of any discriminating wisdom, controlled by the archetype to <br>embody, incarnate, and reveal its negative, destructive form.<br><br>Though the supposed leader of the free world, Bush is merely a <br>puppet on a string, controlled by forces beyond his conscious <br>awareness. Paradoxically, though he is supposedly the most powerful <br>human on earth, he has the least internal freedom of all. Becoming <br>possessed by an archetype of the collective unconscious is to fall <br>prey to the overwhelming compulsive power-drive of the archetypal <br>shadow, a process that robs us of our actual freedom. In light of <br>Bush’s depraved situation, it is the height of irony that, in his <br>delusion, he identifies himself as the “bringer of freedom” to the <br>planet.<br><br>By being so taken over, Bush is literally being used and <br>manipulated by the very forces he has conjured up and identified <br>with. He himself is victimized by the very forces which possess him <br>and compel him to victimize others. By becoming unconsciously <br>possessed by an energy that is more powerful than he is, he <br>unknowingly plays a role, like an actor in a play, to fulfill the <br>agenda of this more powerful agency. Bush is a true Manchurian <br>candidate, a finger-puppet of the underlying, impersonal archetypal <br>darker forces that animate him.<br><br>The people who are manipulating and controlling Bush are themselves <br>being used as instruments in the hands of this archetypal power, <br>just as much possessed by these darker, archetypal forces as Bush <br>is, ad infinitum. Bush and his “handlers” are all nested in and <br>slaves to the underlying formless archetype which moves them. It is <br>as if Toto, in the Wizard of Oz, pulls away the curtain, and <br>instead of finding a frail old man, there is no one behind the <br>curtain but the formless archetype itself. This formless archetype <br>“clothes” itself in numberless variations of people and events, as <br>it is the animating power which gives shape and form to our <br>universe. When not recognized, the archetype becomes constellated <br>in its negative, and hence, destructive manifestation, “drafting” <br>people into its service so as to incarnate itself in physical form. <br>When we don’t become overly fascinated by Bush, however, we can <br>recognize the deeper process that is revealing itself both through <br>him, and a<br> ll of us<br>as well.<br><br>It is not that there are not “bad” guys who are, because of their <br>moral depravity, purposely perpetrating “evil” acts. Of course, on <br>one level, we desperately need to act and deal with the very real <br>criminality that is being acted out by the White House. What I’m <br>pointing at, though, is that these bad guys are just picking up and <br>playing roles in a deeper process that is playing itself out <br>through our species. Unless we deal with the deeper process, even <br>if we get rid of the seeming “bad guys,” central casting will <br>simply send others to eventually play these same dastardly roles. <br>Until we deal with the underlying psychic disease affecting our <br>species, in thinking that Bush is the problem we are becoming <br>distracted and only dealing with the outward symptoms of the real <br>problem. Unless we deal with the deeper, archetypal process that is <br>in-forming and giving shape to what is playing out in the world <br>theater, we are doomed to unconsciously re-create it, as if we are <br>stuck in a r<br> ecurring<br>dream. Bush is simultaneously a symptom and symbol expressing and <br>(potentially) revealing to us the nature of the deeper sickness <br>pervading the field.<br><br>Bush is an open portal through which the deeper archetype <br>incarnates itself, affecting the field around him. The deeper, <br>archetypal process is expressing itself through the interplay of <br>Bush and the field around him, which in this case is the entire <br>planet. The archetype is expressing itself non-locally throughout <br>the entire field, with Bush being the magnet around which the <br>archetype constellates itself. A deeper process is bleeding through <br>him, literally, into our 3-D reality and is becoming visible <br>through him and the actions of his administration. By being so <br>possessed, Bush is the crystallization of this deeper, archetypal <br>process, which is to say that the deeper process is symbolized and <br>fully-embodied in, as and through him. By being so taken over, Bush <br>is like a looking-glass window through which the deeper, archetypal <br>process appears, becomes accessible, and is contained in full. Just <br>like a piece of a hologram contains the whole hologram, or a <br>fragment of a dream co<br> ntains<br>our entire inner process.<br><br>To initiate the re-solution of our current dilemma, what is needed <br>is the slightest shift of focus in our vision. It is like our <br>fingers are one key to the right of where they’re supposed to be on <br>the computer keyboard. When we type, it looks illegible and <br>hopeless, like a terrible mess. We might not even know where to <br>start to fix our seemingly very large problem. As long as our <br>fingers are on the wrong keys, any intervention we make to rectify <br>our situation only makes it worse. In reality, all we have to do is <br>make the slightest little adjustment as to where our fingers are on <br>the keyboard, and our seemingly overwhelming problem is resolved. <br>Or similarly, if our fingers are slightly misplaced on the keys of <br>a piano, we produce a dissonant cacophony, whereas if we move our <br>fingers one key over, we produce beautiful music. Our situation is <br>similar, we just need to make the slightest little change in our <br>perception, and our entire situation can be transformed.        <br><br>Paradoxically, Bush is a potential distraction from this deeper, <br>darker archetypal process, while being an expression and revelation <br>of this deeper process at the same time. Seen symbolically, he is a <br>true “coincidentia oppositorum,” a conjunction of opposites. He is <br>both a smokescreen while being the very revelation of what he is a <br>distraction from. Seen symbolically, he is the living embodiment of <br>the darkest evil, while simultaneously, like the archetypal figure <br>of Lucifer, he is the bringer of the light. Destroying our planet, <br>he is simultaneously awakening our species.<br><br>A true reconciling symbol, the figure of Bush contains and unites <br>both of the opposites. Seeing that Bush is a diabolically “dividing <br>person,” while at the same time being a sacred “uniting symbol,” is <br>to recognize that the figure of Bush is truly a revelation that we <br>have all dreamed up so as to re-mind ourselves that we are not <br>separate from each other. To the extent we are unconsciously <br>reacting to Bush as if he is separate from ourselves, we are <br>complicit in the madness that is getting acted out in our world. <br>Instead of becoming fascinated by Bush and unconsciously re-acting <br>against him, however, we can recognize that the figure of Bush is <br>symbolically reflecting back to us our own darkness. Seeing Bush in <br>this way is the very expansion of consciousness that redeems and <br>liberates our situation. Seeing Bush in this way empowers us to co- <br>operatively deal with the deeper, archetypal powers that animate him.<br><br>Paul Levy is a spiritually-informed political co-activist. A <br>pioneer in the field of spiritual awakening, he is a healer in <br>private practice, assisting others who are awakening to the dream- <br>like nature of reality. He is the author of The Madness of George <br>Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis, which is available <br>at his website www.awakeninthedream.com. Please feel free to pass <br>this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. If you <br>resonate with the message of this article and want to help Paul <br>spread this information, please contact him at <br>paul@awakeninthedream.com, as he needs all the help he can get. © <br>Copyright 2006.<br><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Dont fight that which you cant beat.

Postby slimmouse » Sat May 27, 2006 8:28 pm

<br><br> You dont fight a system you cant beat.<br><br> You just refuse to be part of it. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Dont fight that which you cant beat.

Postby Sweejak » Sat May 27, 2006 8:41 pm

STRIKE!?<br><br>I feel Long's pain, but what I think Long is missing is decades of dumbing down, falsification of history, and likely poisioning down too.<br> <br>And then, there was PTB support for some of the 60's demos in the form of hijacking legitimate movements. <br> <p></p><i></i>
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sweejack

Postby yathrib » Sat May 27, 2006 10:56 pm

Truly an enlightening and disturbing article. Can you think of another figure in the 20th century who was described as a concretization of his nation's shadow side? Hmmmm..... <p></p><i></i>
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wow Sweejak

Postby yesferatu » Sun May 28, 2006 12:44 am

Ok...many, many thoughts here.<br>First, I did read it all. Wow. <br>If anyone reads that and calls it Jungian psychobabble are in need of a mental enema. The faults within the whole premise are so minor as to be discounted. For my part, I would replace archetype with archon. But that's just me. Really, this is, as they say, "deep". <br>Reading it felt like a dream interpretation which resonates intuitively.<br>A personal thing about the authors "shadow" projection/identification analysis/prognosis/solution: (and this means nothing except as a personal aside.) My father died in '01. There are certain pictures of Bush I've seen where he looks every bit like my dad.<br>And I get my looks from my dad. And I loathe....loathe....loathe Bush. Nuff said bout that.<br>(Oh, and there are pics of Laura that look every bit like my mom used to....weird huh?) Part of some personal equation....I dunno.<br>But really, if anyone says the article is Jungian intellectualism at its worst would be candidates for the anti-intellectualism neanderthal award. Sorry. That's how I feel. <br>Thanks for sharing it!!<br>I would love to debate anyone who finds fault with it. But first let me play devils advocate (to at least prove I am ahead of the curve on this): "This is the kind of psychobabble that stultifies the needed revolution. It makes people sheep to think like this."<br>It's not fair to the ongoing revelation to speak in archaic, draconian old world "revolutionary" terms that frame it as such. If you are at the evolutionary phase of Newtonian/Trotskyite rationalist, then the argument might work. I don't think anyone here is. I could be wrong. <br>Now it is true I said we are doomed to, as another poster mentioned in this thread, to "let it play itslef out", as I see no other alternative to the present dynamics. But the fluidity of our condition makes the "play itself out" scenario at least cautiously hopeful.<br>And to answer the objection posited by my devils advocate above, let me say it is inconcievable there will form an underground of neo-Luddism which will be in the numbers to activate a street revolution that Tom Jefferson would wholly sanction were he around to see it. <br>We are where we are. <br>Okay, so the enemy is us.<br>What do we do about our enemy? <br>Just "think" harder? No. Pray harder? NOOOO.<br>I believe the answer in part, is in what the article gave. Read it again....quite a bit to digest.<br><br> <br><br> <br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Now And Then

Postby Pissed Off Cabbie » Sun May 28, 2006 1:28 am

The difference between now and then is that a draft was in effect in the 60's. They didn't make that mistake again, and so young people don't have much personal at stake. <br><br>It's easy to be principled when your number is being called, but, when you're speed-dialing your way through life, and only the kids from the wrong side of the tracks who enlistened as a way out are the ones doing the fighting, it's harder to care. <br><br>This generation has no Bob Dylan calling them out, and no Bobby Kennedy giving them hope. They live in techno-cocoons, where reality is held at bay, and history seldom extends any further back than analog. Politics is just dark comedy, and democracy hangs in a museum. This country has become one big factory farm, churning out boneless chickens. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: wow Sweejak

Postby Sweejak » Sun May 28, 2006 3:52 pm

Yesferatu,<br>When Levy came out with his first article, "The Madness of George Bush" I figured it was another Bush bashing article and was taken aback when the tables were turned. Also, he was criticized just as your devil's advocate has done and came out with an article called, "Spritually Informed Political Activism" <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.awakeninthedream.com/activism.html">www.awakeninthedream.com/activism.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>which clarified that he did not advocate doing nothing.<br><br>There is an interview with him and Fintan Dunne (gag) here: <br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.kathymcmahon.utvinternet.com/mrn/audio/InsideTrackNews050413.mp3">www.kathymcmahon.utvinter...050413.mp3</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>I looked for evidence of manipulation and found that the forward of his book was written by Mark Comings who was a fiance to Elizabeth Targ. Her father Russell Targ is a name that crops up in association with Hal Putoff and others... Military mind research etc. <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Targ">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Targ</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Personally I don't think there are mind game manipulations going on with Levy. Besides the intuitive rightness of his ideas other things are incontrovertable to me. For instance the comparison with Hitler, the obviousness that if W disappeared tomorrow we would still have the same problems etc.<br><br>I think he is calling for a deeper revolution, we all know that simply shooting them down will only be a temporary solution in which the revolution once again eats it's own and we get to start over.<br><br>I'm a little wary of the cutting edge field theories and the reality of dreaming things into existence, but I find little to complain about the idea of "be the revolution".<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Targ connection is interesting

Postby yesferatu » Sun May 28, 2006 8:28 pm

I think it is always good to know if there are possibilitiies of an angle being played, but I agree with your assessment (at this point) that there are no mind games on the part of Levy.<br><br>One thing on a more practical note, in the article I posted....it seems that I have to re-think the idea of a shut-down or clamp-down on the internet by a "big brother" type of move in the near future. It seems the argument favored by the PTB would be for continued full access. <br>Of course, the flip side is the PTB always up the ante in their need for confrontation for further implementation, so they may need a nice, visible reactionary confrontation and subsequent show of pre-eminent force, and come to realize the only way their targeted patsy "leftist-reactionaries" will organize and give them spilled blood for mass consumption, is when such targets feel cut off and seek out physical groupings which will eventually follow the lead to slaughter, and MORE "law and order" will be called for by the frogs in the boiling water.<br><br>But that is just wild(?) speculation. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Targ connection is interesting

Postby Sweejak » Sun May 28, 2006 8:48 pm

Yeah, and a look at the film Das Netz (in the other thread) certainly allows for those ideas. I think a lot of people are wondering why the net is still up. What are they planning on doing with it?<br><br>And... Levy's ideas of a spritual revolution would presumably cut the legs off of the standard armed revolution which many think the PTB would like to see attempted..... eh.. in which case they would want to hijack the spiritual revolution option too. Talk about wild specutlation.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Postby Sweejak » Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:54 am

Levy's Latest, pretty much the same theme:

ILLUMINATED BY DARKNESS
By Paul Levy

(Note: For those of you have read my book, the first few parts of this article might be somewhat familiar, but I urge you to not let this stop you from getting to the meat of the article, as I genuinely try to illumine some new territory. I’ve included these first few parts for those unfamiliar with my work, as it serves as a framework for the main discussion that follows later in the article).  

In my recent book “The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of our Collective Psychosis (available on my website www.awakeninthedream.com),” I point out that one of the fundamental psychological dynamics in-forming the crisis that is playing out in our world is the unwillingness to “consciously experience” our own sense of shame, guilt and sin. This turning away from the darker part of ourselves pervades the entire field, which is to say it exists within each one of us in potential at each and every moment. This contraction against our own guilt, shame and sin is an active dynamic that exists “inside” every one of us and is revealing itself to us as it gets “dreamed up” in the “outside” world. This inner psychological process of turning away from our own darkness is giving shape to collective events in our world.

To see what is playing out in our world as a “dreaming process” is to contemplate it as if it IS a dream we are having right now. As in a dream, the outer (what is happening in the world) is nothing other than an unmediated expression or reflection of what is going on inside the dreamer, which in this case is us. The fact that this core psychological process of turning away from our guilt, shame and sin is at work, “fully employed” in-forming and fueling the crisis in our world, is revealing to us that this very same process exists within ourselves. This is to say that the genuine healing and resolution of our world crisis is to be found by looking within ourselves. This is exactly what Christ himself was teaching when he said, “The Kingdom is to be found within.”

Just like a dream, the core “inner” process of the psyche is revealing itself, both literally as well as symbolically, in, as and through events in the “outside” world. We don’t recognize this synchronistic correspondence between the inner and the outer not because it is hard to see, but because it is so obvious, we don’t notice what is staring us in the face. This correlation between what is happening inside of ourselves and what is happening in the outside world is “transparent.” This is to say it is not hidden, as it’s fully apparent, while at the same time being invisible, like a see-thru medium that we are not able to register. This synchronistic co-relation between the inner and the outer is veiling itself in the obviousness of its very revelation. We are simply being asked to recognize what is being revealed.

Seen as a mass, shared dream that we are all collaboratively dreaming up into materialization, what is playing out on the world stage is symbolically revealing to us the core psychological process that is keeping us separate from one another. Any one of us integrating our own darkness into our image of ourselves has a non-local effect on the entire field, which is to say that the way to “fight” evil is by coming to terms with it within ourselves.

GEORGE BUSH IS OUR REFLECTION
We can use the figure of George Bush as an example. As I articulate in my book (in chapter 1), at the bottom of Bush’s madness is his unwillingness and fear to consciously feel and experience his own guilt, shame and sin (which means to miss the mark). In order to hide from his darkness, Bush splits-off and projects his own darkness outside of himself. In projecting his shadow, however, he is lying (both to others, as well as himself), for he is disassociating from and deceiving himself about his darker intentions. Bush then deludes himself into believing his own lies, which is the very thing which feeds his guilt in the first place, creating the very thing he is hiding from. Bush is caught in a self-created, involuted spiral of ever increasing madness, a crazy-making double-bind with no “exit strategy” that he is acting out on the world stage.

This self-reinforcing process of splitting-off from his guilt develops a momentum and a sovereignty of its own, more and more taking Bush over in the process. Bush is being manipulated, victimized and possessed by darker forces that he himself is setting in motion through his refusal to self-reflect and consciously experience his guilt. He has fallen into a self-created and self-creating feedback loop, an infinite regression known in Buddhism as the endless wheel of cyclic, problematic, and suffering-filled existence called “samsara.” Because of his position of power to determine events in our world, however, we are all at risk, as his disastrous, unconscious, fear-based re-actions threaten the well-being of the entire planet.

Being so taken over by his unconscious as a result of his unwillingness to feel his guilt, Bush is incarnating this (inner) process in full-bodied (outer) form, which is to say he is an embodied “revelation” of this inner process. The figure of George Bush is both literally, as well as symbolically - like a figure in a dream - reflecting back to us the part of ourselves that is feeding and thereby supporting our own darkness, as well as the darkness in the universe. Seen as a dreaming process, in which George Bush is a figure that we’ve all dreamed up into materialization, we have dreamed him up to mirror back to us our own ignorance, madness, and darkness, so as to help us recognize and integrate these pathological parts within ourselves of which he is merely a reflection.

Being an embodied reflection of this part of ourselves is to say that Bush is not separate from us, as we are all interconnected parts and expressions of the underlying unified field. We don’t exist in isolation from Bush, nor him from us, but rather, in co-relation to each other. We are all interdependently co-arising together, which is to say that we are all parts of one another. We are expressions of and contained in a being whose periphery is far greater than what we have been imagining for ourselves. To realize this is to have an expansion of not only our image of who we are, but of consciousness itself.    

WE ARE ALL COMPLICIT
Avoiding relationship with our shadow results in having a chronic “guilty conscience,” which is an expression of “unconsciousness,” and is the polar opposite of “consciously” experiencing our guilt. Our turning away from consciously experiencing our own guilt, shame and sin literally feeds and give life to the shadow, both on the personal level (in ourselves), and on the collective, archetypal level (on the world stage). This “turning away” from a part of ourselves is an inner, archetypal, age-old process that has enacted itself all throughout history. This is to say that this dynamic exists in the collective unconscious of humanity, pervading the entire field of consciousness, and is therefore a process in which we all share and participate. To the extent that each of us is not dealing with our own guilt, shame, and sin, we are contributing to and unknowingly colluding with the collective shadow that is playing out in the world.

The evil that is playing out in the world non-locally pervades the entire field, which is to say that we are all complicit. Though he was talking about Nazi Germany, Jung could have been talking about our present day when he said, “Psychological collective guilt …hits everybody, just and unjust alike, everybody who was anywhere near the place where the terrible thing happened.” In our case, because the evil is playing itself out non-locally throughout the field, which is to say everywhere, we are all “near the place where the terrible thing happened (and is happening).” We are all playing roles, to the extent we are acting out our unconscious, in animating the darkness that has befallen our planet. To say this differently: We are all collaboratively dreaming up the darkness in the world, we are all responsible. There is no one in this world who is completely innocent, as we are all interconnected, inseparable parts of the greater field.     

When we are unwilling to consciously experience this shadow part of ourselves, we necessarily project it outside of ourselves. This split-off, darker part literally gets “dreamed up” into materialization in the outside world. Once we meet our projected shadow in the outside world, we immediately contract against it, which is the very reflection of our original impulse of contracting against our own inner darkness being played out in the outside world. Paradoxically, this implies that the way to work on our inner process is by actively participating in the outside world, while concurrently, the very way to change the outer world is by looking within and working on our inner process.  

THE DARKNESS ITSELF ILLUMINES US
Once we project our shadow, we fall into a vicious cycle in which we are endlessly hiding from and lying to ourselves. In order to justify our shadow projections, we continually have to entrance ourselves into believing the lie that is inherent in our shadow projection. Interestingly, Jung simply refers to “shadow projection” as “the lie.” Etymologically, lying is related to the word “Devil,” who is the “liar.” Shadow projection is intimately related to the evil that is playing out in our world.

We secretly feel a sense of guilt when we shadow project, because we inwardly know we are not in our integrity. This sense of guilt itself is the very feeling from which we split-off. Our guilt does not allow us to feel our guilt, which is what we secretly feel guilty over. To the extent that we don’t consciously experience our guilt, we become caught in an infinitely-perpetuating double-bind in which we project out our darkness, which just perpetuates the very thing we feel guilty about, ad infinitum.

Commenting on the insidious futility of shadow projection, Jung said, “One realizes, first of all, that one cannot project one’s shadow on to others, and next that there is no advantage in insisting on their guilt, as it is much more important to know and possess one’s own, because it is part of one’s own self and a necessary factor without which nothing in this sublunary world can be realized.”

Jung is pointing at the “primary” importance of getting in touch with our own guilt. It should be noted that getting in touch with our own guilt doesn’t preclude at the same time holding someone like Bush accountable for his criminal actions. Both the inner and outer situations need to be consciously dealt with, without either being marginalized.

Once we consciously access our own guilt, however, we withdraw and dis-invest our projection of the shadow onto others. We recognize that the evil we’re seeing in the other is simultaneously our own evil, thereby realizing we can no longer project evil outside of ourselves and keep it at arm’s length. On the contrary, we discover that evil exists within the very arm that is pointing to it out there. Yes, Bush is guilty. And to the extent that we are turning away from a part of ourselves (whether within ourselves, or as it appears in reflected form in the outside world), so are we. We are all complicit.  

Once we withdraw our shadow projections from external reality, we dis-spell and dis-engage from the diabolical feedback loop which we were unknowingly feeding and in which we were imprisoned. Once we withdraw our shadow projection from the outside world and recognize it within ourselves, we are able to snap out of our self-created double-bind and consciously feel our guilt, shame and sin. Once we become fluent and engaged with the darkness within ourselves, we no longer have to hide from it, which is to say from ourselves, by projecting our shadow outside of ourselves. We can thereby take responsibility for our role in perpetuating this cycle of self-deceit and denial, and with our increased consciousness, bring our complicity in this dynamic to an end. We are then able to deal with the “sublunary world” of the dark unconscious, both within ourselves and as it appears in the outside world. Once we are acquainted with the archetypal darkness which expresses itself non-locally
throughout the field, this darkness paradoxically reveals itself to be an expression of the light, as it is the darkness itself that has illumined us.

Becoming “intimately related” to our own darkness empowers us to effectively deal with the darkness in the world in a way that was unavailable to us as long as we were avoiding a confrontation with our own inner darkness. When we were hiding from our own darkness, we were trying to destroy it as it appeared in the outside world (which is merely an “externalized” reflection of our “inner” act of contracting against our own darkness). In other words, the darkness (inside of us) is trying to get rid of the darkness (in the outside world), as if the darkness is trying to get rid of itself, which is the very act that generates and is generated by the darkness in the first place.

WE ARE ALL GUILTY OF BEING INNOCENT
Once we consciously take the shadow back into ourselves, we become an instrument, a flash of light that illumines the darkness in the outside world. Instead of reacting to the darkness in the outside world through the lens of our own unembraced darkness, which simply creates, through projection, more darkness, we are able to see the darkness through the part of ourselves that is separate from it. Paradoxically, seeing our own evil is the very thing which activates the part of us which is “other” than and free of evil. This part of us that is “other” than evil is the only part of us that can clearly see evil (as it plays itself out both within ourselves and in the outside world) because it is not “mixed up” with it, and thus, is not blinded or deceived by it.

At the same time we see the evil part of ourselves, the part of us that is seeing evil is free of it, for we couldn’t objectify it otherwise. For example, if we have jaundice, we couldn’t pick out what objects are truly yellow, for everything looks yellow. The part of us that is seeing the color yellow is the part of us that is “yellow-free.” Paradoxically, it is only in recognizing and owning the evil within ourselves that allows us, by virtue of being the witness of it, to relate to it as “other” than ourselves, which is to be free of it (“evil-free”).

This is a very subtle, but immensely profound point. When we see the evil within us, by owning it we simultaneously witness it as other than and separate from ourselves, which is to get in relationship with it as an “other.” Simply aware of what it is witnessing, the part of us that is the witness of “evil” is free of the attribute that is being witnessed; it is not the “guilty party.” The evil I am witnessing within myself is an aspect of me and I own it but it is not mine. This is the personal/impersonal paradox of the soul: what is most me is not mine.

We are only able to bear the experience of the evil within us and not fall into overwhelming despair if we recognize the “transpersonal” origin of evil (for a deeper discussion on evil, see the chapter in my book called “Shedding Light on Evil,” chapter 13). Instead of identifying with the evil we have found within, thinking it “belongs” to us individually, we recognize that evil is “archetypal” in nature, in that it belongs to the universe itself. Realizing the archetypal dimension of evil is itself an expression that we are in touch with our intrinsic wholeness, which enables us to not split-off from nor identify with, but rather contain, transmute and liberate evil’s deleterious effects. Becoming engaged with and intimately related to the transpersonal evil within us simultaneously acquaints us with the part of ourselves that is beyond the personal ego and plugged into something greater than ourselves.   

Similarly, the part of us that experiences the guilt that is bound up in the evil within us is the guilt-free (innocent) part of us. When we consciously experience our “feelings” of guilt in a “full-bodied way” (compared to an “intellectual” way, in which we only experience the “idea” of our guilt), the underlying guilt, as if released from being stuck in a frozen block of ice, begins to melt, move, and transform. Fully experiencing one of the opposites, our guilt, constellates its opposite, as we become introduced to the part of us that has always existed in primordial purity. This “innocent” part of us has simply been temporarily hidden by our unwillingness to experience our own evil and corresponding guilt. Paradoxically, by consciously experiencing our guilt, shame and sin, and experiencing remorse, we become acquainted with the part of us that is “innocent.”

This “innocent” part of ourselves has never been tainted by darkness. This part of us that is “other” than evil is unstained and undefiled by evil, just like the sands of the Sahara desert are not made wet by a mirage of water. This innocent part of us warrants being identified with divinity.  Paradoxically, by owning the evil inside of ourselves, we access the part of us that is untouched by evil, and can genuinely be called “good,” as it is of the nature of “God.”

THE SHADOW IS A TRICKSTER
Jung said, “Consciousness of guilt can therefore act as a powerful moral stimulus…without guilt, unfortunately, there can be no psychic maturation and no widening of the spiritual horizon.” Feeling genuine regret and remorse brings with it a “metanoia,” a refreshing and renewal of the spirit. This is the “remorse of conscience” that the spiritual teacher Gurdjieff considered to be the doorway into genuine spiritual maturation and evolution.

Experiencing remorse involves seeing the times in our lives when we have deceived ourselves and/or others and have hurt other people in the process. Who among us is not guilty? It takes moral courage to shatter our one-sided image of ourselves as “pure and righteous,” face ourselves in the mirror, see our darker half and experience remorse. Humility spontaneously arises as we “feel through” our remorse.

There is a danger however. To quote Jung, “In making the shadow conscious we must be very careful that the unconscious does not play yet another trick and prevent a real confrontation with the shadow. A patient may see the darkness in himself for a moment, but the next moment he tells himself that it is not so bad after all, a mere bagatelle [something of little importance]. Or else he exaggerates his remorse, because it is so nice to have such a wonderful remorseful feeling, to enjoy it like a warm eiderdown on a cold winter’s morning when one should be getting up. This dishonesty, this refusal to see, ensures that there will be no confrontation with the shadow. Yet if there were a confrontation, then with increasing consciousness the good and the positive features would come to light too. We must therefore beware of the danger of wallowing in affects- remorse, melancholy, etc.- because they are seductive.” [Emphasis added]

Until integrated and made conscious, the shadow is always trying to obfuscate itself. Even the part of us that wants to integrate the shadow so that we can be free of it might itself be an aspect of the shadow. The shadow itself is not “bad,” it is a mere “shadow” with no substance. It is our turning away from and avoiding our shadow which is the very act that is both created by and creating the darkness from which we are turning away.

Spiritual/New Age practitioners who are endlessly affirming their innocence are another example of falling under the spell of the shadow. Many metaphysical practitioners are actually caricatures of genuine spiritual practitioners, as in their affirmations of their guiltlessness they are unwittingly avoiding conscious relationship with their feelings of guilt, shame and sin. Overly identified with the light and trying to be pure, they become self-righteous and one-sided, which guarantees that they will unconsciously act out their shadow destructively in the world. These “light-workers” generally run the other way screaming in horror when someone has the temerity to even mention the word “evil.”   

There is also a danger of identifying with, getting absorbed into and caught by the shadow, where we feel possessed by it and act it out unconsciously. Once we develop a strong enough sense of self, however, we can not only become more intimately in relationship with the darkness as an “object” other than ourselves, but we then experience the darkness “subjectively,” as we experience ourselves as the source of the darkness. This is to realize that it is our contracting against the darkness, a form of clinging and grasping, which is the very act that generates the darkness against which we are resisting.


OUR BURDEN IS LIGHT
As Christ said, “resist not evil.” There is a radical difference between fighting evil and loving God. Loving God is to embrace unconditionally both the light and dark sides of God, which is to say of ourselves. Snapping out of the self-created and infinitely-regressing feedback loop of fighting against our own darkness is to realize that our very grasping itself is the origin of the problem of evil. This realization allows us to receive the blessings of the “dark God.” As alchemists, we are then able to transmute the darkness into light. As Christ said, “My burden IS light.” Could this statement by Christ mean not only that his burden is “not heavy,” but that his (and our) burden IS (in disguised form) the “light” of the Godhead itself?

We are confronted with a paradox: No one is innocent, as we are all complicit in the darkness that is playing out in the world, while simultaneously we are all innocent. A genuine “coincidentia oppositorum,” a co-inciding of the opposites, a complete and utter paradox where both opposites are true simultaneously. Consciously experiencing this co-joining of opposites challenges us to snap out of the spell of our bifurcating, dualistic mind which separates this seamless universe of ours into alienated fragments that seem to be at “odds” with each other.

The only way to directly realize this union of opposites is to have an expansion of consciousness in which we recognize our interconnectedness and interrelatedness, and develop a more complete and holistic vision of our inseparable relationship to each other and the universe as a whole. Entertaining both opposites being true simultaneously is an expression that we have become united with ourselves (which is reflected both within ourselves, as well as in the outside world), while at the same time we ourselves have been united by the opposites. Not merely the “subjects” of our inner process, we have become the “objects” of a deeper, mythic, archetypal and divine process that is incarnating itself through us. We are the conduits through which the universe is becoming consciously aware of itself. The universe is waking itself up through us.

Just like the darkest thunderclouds are themselves the unmediated expression of the sky, not separate from the sky in one iota, as they come out of the sky and unfold back into the sky when they dissolve, evil can be recognized to be related to, not separate from, and a revelation of our true nature. Just like the darkest thunderclouds don’t dirty the sky, evil is recognized to have no power to taint our true nature, but rather, in some very peculiar way, helps us to realize who we are in a deeper, more ultimate sense. Evil awakens in us the recognition of our true nature, similar to how we would never notice the surface of the mirror without its reflections. Interestingly, it is only by allowing himself to be completely bound by darker forces on the cross does Christ actualize true freedom.  Paradoxically, by binding us, evil can potentially enliven the part of us that is truly free.

Just like a mirror can reflect back the vilest image and not become sullied by the darkness of the reflection, when we become truly acquainted with our true nature – which embraces both light and dark and is simply aware of what it witnesses - our “original sin” dissolves back into the empty illusion that it always was. Acting from the living experience of our basic goodness and primordial purity, we can then truly be of benefit to the world.

Paul Levy is an artist and a spiritually-informed political co-activist. A pioneer in the field of spiritual awakening, he is a healer in private practice, assisting others who are awakening to the dream-like nature of reality. He is the author of “The Madness of George Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis,” which is available at his website www.awakeninthedream.com. Please feel free to pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. You can contact Paul at paul@awakeninthedream.com; he looks forward to your reflections. © Copyright 2006.
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