People who come to one of those places will, if they wish to 'fit in', eventually be part of that established Group Mind. If they don't wish to 'fit in', others who are a comfortable part of the Group Mind will unconsciously sense a strangeness about those new people, and be hostile towards them. If those new, not-fitting-in people are strong enough and persistent enough, it may be that they can change the established Group Mind to something that is accommodating to both established people and newcomers. This can also happen if the new people are simply considered too different by the Group Mind - which is what manifests in the physical as racism, which is a sign that the Group Mind needs to be healed / helped to grow.
People who willingly leave such places tend to fairly quickly and automatically sever their psychic connections to the Group Mind, although, if they were particularly troublesome to it, the Group Mind may well indulge in psychic attack.
Now, from time to time, those groups, and their associated Group Mind, may undergo what I choose to refer to as an Initiation - in the broadest sense, which includes a personal test of some significance (see here for something I've written on this). In a sense, the World as a whole underwent such an initiation test in 1914 - and failed. My nation, Australia, has failed - and continues to fail - exactly such an initiatory test in relation to our indigenous people, and refugees.
The world as a whole is also failing the current initiations in relation to environmental issues (which should be sub-titled "survival of humanity/the planet") and matters such as poverty and inequity/discrimination generally.
On a more constructive note, the world largely passed (well, maybe a conceded pass) the test created by the existence and activity of the Nazi's.
The USA currently has one such initiatory test (well, a couple at least, actually, but I'll focus on this one) before it: how it chooses to respond to the revelations about torture of people after the terrible events of '9/11'.
President Obama has urged that the torturers be not judged harshly - and certainly their actions would be supported by many people, even now. But the issue remains as to what you are trying to defend, and whether your actions undermine that.
One of the most powerful arguments against the death penalty, in my view, is that governments should be aiming to teach that life is valuable, and should demonstrate that - and taking life when there are other options is not demonstrating a respect for the sanctity of life. There are circumstances when taking a life is necessary - for instance, in the heat of battle during which a terrorist is aiming to take as man lives or harm as many people as he or she can (although, even then, one's conduct can be becoming or unbecoming ... ), but as a matter of a fair and just trial where a criminal has been arrested and brought to justice through proper, due course and the death penalty would be imposed deliberately - coldly, if you will, then the consideration needs to be made:
in the long term, what is going to send the greatest message to respect life: keeping someone alive, despite their harm or even evil, or indulging in short term actions that temporarily seem to satiate a crowd's blood lust ... until next time when they roar even louder?That question is loaded with emotive wording and bias, of course - mine. I will, furthermore, add that my perspective is that souls are indestructible, and thus killing someone is pain and fear and hatred is only more likely to create a rebirth of that person in those such energies - it doesn't help heal or remedy anything. In fact, it likely feeds the uncooperatives who are inevitably drawn to such people and events.
So, in the context of the USA and its current deliberations, does the reduction of loss of life and damage to property outweigh the harm that is done by torturing people and then covering that up for a decade?
I'm not going to answer that question directly, but I will add a few other points for consideration:
- maturity is, in my view, a key necessity in being able to consider this issue properly;
- I've already mentioned the issue of stopping people who are actively harming others (which most people seem to think of from the physical perspective, but it also covers emotional, mental, financial, spiritual and psychic - e.g., uncooperatives), but I also favour - with qualifications (e.g., staying alive if one has responsibilities for dependents, or so one can be part of a resistance, etc) the view that it is better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees;
- some commentators seem to be of the view that the actions of the USA and its allies (including Australia) have helped drive people towards terrorism (incidentally, both Australia and the USA have had problems with terrorism before 9/11 - e.g., the Hilton bombing here in 1978, and perhaps the 'Battle of Broken Hill' in 1915, and the Oklahoma City Bombing [I found the children who were killed in that latter particularly disturbing]); and
- I suspect that future kids will not play 'doctors and nurses' so much as 'TSA agent and passenger' ... and others have posted about people who are not using air travel because of 'security' measures - see here.
There are other nations undergoing such initiations as well - Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, several in Africa, and so on. When you've finished thinking about my question in the context I've posed. put yourself into these various other situations and rethink it.
[2]
Please see here and my post "The
Death of Wikipedia" for the
reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of
h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as
extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather
engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy").
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr,
Wéofodthegn
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix
Lux? … Morinehtar?
… Would-be drýicgan
... )
My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.
I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour, and see also here and be flexible.
- One size does NOT fit all.
- Don't be mediocre - seek to excel.
- Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
- Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life.
- May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
- Ban the dream interpretation industry!
- A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
- Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal.
- Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
- Expertise at intimacy and emotional happiness is generally not the same thing as spiritual growth.
- Any person, male or female, who has neither a serious health issue, dependents nor an agreement about study. yet expects their partner to work to support them, is, spiritually speaking, little more than a parasite.
- The means shape the end.
- BPLF restraint of uncooperatives is NOT an opportunity for revenge or getting even - even unconsciously.
- As words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
- My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
- All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be
stronger [people].
John F. Kennedy (who was
quoting 19th Century Episcopal Bishop Phillips Brooks)
Jesus loves you. Odin wants you to grow up.
We make our decisions. And then our decisions turn around and make us.
F.W. Boreham
Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious.
Jane Elliott
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.
(based on
writing by) Edmund Burke
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Albert Einstein
We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children
Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that -- counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. ... Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."
Robert F. Kennedy 1968
There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
John F. Kennedy
If we could change ourselves, the
tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so
does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see
what others do. (Often degraded to “Be
the change you want to see in the world” – see here)
Gandhi
Tags: abuse of power, control, crime, discrimination, group dynamics, Group Mind, history, initiation, justice, maturity, society,
First published: Laugardagr, 13th September, 2014
Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Saturday, 13th September, 2014