One of the earliest things I learned in my
life generally, and my spiritual development when that kicked off, was that
there is more to life than money (or
social status, or worldly power, etc, etc, etc).
Furthermore, many of the people who chase
after those things are either flat-out “nasty” people, or in a spiritual state
of being that is “wrong”, or undesirable –unbalanced, from the point of view of
Balanced
Positivity. (This does NOT apply to all such people – Warren Buffett, for instance, is a notable exception, as is the Russian
philanthropist Dmitry Zimin, who has a strong science and education connection, or Russian
oligarch Alexander Lebedev, who chose to keep a Western newspaper going.) This “lesson” was noted while
I was a child, seeing “Sunday Christians” who preached love on a Sunday and
struck the knife in people’s backs on Monday.
So it can be important to focus on what are
commonly viewed as immaterial things – such as values.
The problem is, the pendulum can swing too
far the other way, with too focus on immaterial at the expense of the physical –
in many ways, including the denial of sexuality associated with neochristianity,
and a refusal to engage with financial matters. The latter problem can result
in problems such as:
- people being naïve re Abundance (see my post here on one of the problems that can occur around how people relate to this Law / principle);
- inadequate resources for deserving groups and people;
- people who are so focused on spirituality that they are oblivious to what those are supporting them are going through in the course of earning an income to support them (I’ve seen several people in this category, sadly). That means the so-called spiritual partner can end up being responsible for causing so much pain for breadwinner that it neutralises the value of the supported partner being “pseudo-spiritual”. This expectation of support from others is a concern I have with some monastic and religious traditions – although not all who receive support;
- naïve views such as “love conquers all” – which I’ve mostly heard from people who haven’t had to worry about how they’re going to feed / house / clothe their children, and thus haven’t really been in a situation where this has been tested (some people I’ve known have had that test of themselves and a partner, but all people involved have been adults capable of choice, and thus I argue it is not the same). This simplistic view is, in my opinion, a far too common cause of problems – including the problem of spiritual people not being involved in activism;
- failure to act on things that are important to people’s quality of being, such as this: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld;
- also, a failure to act on things like the GFC, or addressing the nastiness of politicians (have you, Dear Reader, ever done something as simple and basic as write to MPs when they have indulged in such behaviour?); and
- a failure to recognise that we are a part of the world – that we are, in fact, a part of the animal kingdom.
So … what does one do about all this? Well,
firstly, make sure one has a balance between the worldly and the immaterial –
and review that balance regularly, and, whenever one is involved in financial
matters, stay focused on ethics – which leads a focus on what the money is
really about, not the numbers!
This is a lesson I have learned far too late in life, and I hope that, next time, I learn this - especially the value of being focused on ethics - at a far earlier age.
Here’s another link to consider on this
topic: http://wildhunt.org/2016/04/column-living-in-a-material-world.html
Which World Will We – and the Advertising Industry’s Advisors – Feed?
I’ve just been watching The
Century of the Self. Although I’ve still got a bit more to watch, I can
state that this series focuses – in part – on perceived struggles between
sexuality and suppression (named “control”),
and a struggle between “rational” and “irrational” behaviour
of crowds – the latter being a particular fear of Edward
Bernays, who invented the term “public
relations” to avoid calling it “propaganda”,
and took psychology to the commercial world and politics (from the Wikipedia site: “He combined the ideas of Gustave
Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd
psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund
Freud”).
The first struggle - sexuality
vs. suppression
- is portrayed as being about Sigmund
Freud, his
daughter and their “opponents”. I’m definitely more in the Jung
camp that Freud, but Freud did help widen awareness of the world of the diverse
nature of consciousness.
The history of the last century, however, shows
that people have both sides of whatever polarised category you want – and I
note that some political events of late show people can be enlightened and act
or vote way beyond being merely self-interested. Yes, movements like Nazism
showed irrational herd instinct (sheeple) at its worst, but there are also
examples of our better natures.
I also note that the involvement of
advertisers in getting to go from buying what needs to consumerism is evil – this
is a good part of what led to climate change ... It also goes far beyond the
self-serving justification of “giving consumers what they want”, as it actively
shapes and modifies people’s
perceptions of what it is they want: it actively drags people down to a consumeristic
state of being (starting in the 1920s, according to this programme).
In other words, the advertising industry is feeding the unbalanced / unbalancing wolf in our natures / society's nature.
In
my view, all of these ploys and campaigns miss out because it ignores the nature
of reality - which is that we have a Soul / Higher
Self, and that our purpose
for existence is – to simplify a little - to evolve.It is when one starts to acknowledge such that one is able to answer the challenge of "well, all we are doing is giving the consumer what they want - what's wrong with that?" with "it makes them less good people, and encourages a selfishness that puts them, other individuals and society back."
Another way that these concerning abuses and misuses of
knowledge can be overcome by people thinking clearly and critically (e.g., BrendanMyers’ course “Clear and Present Thinking”, which I want to see taught in every school - although I saw my current partner's children show signs of having been taught to critique consumer advertising), and by learning and doing the
psychic basics (flame, ground
and shield, clear,
etc - refer to my signature block below for more).
Here are some more links on this topic:
- The Engineering of Consent – the Wikipedia article on this includes the following: “Under modern conditions of political advertising and manipulation, it has become possible to talk of the engineering of consent by an elite of experts and professional politicians. Consent that is thus engineered is difficult to distinguish in any fundamental way from the consent that supports modern totalitarian governments. Were the manipulated voter to become the normal voter, the government he supports could hardly be said to rest on his consent in any traditional sense of that word” … which has been very true, in my opinion, but has also come undone in a big way in recent elections …
- The Men Who Made us Spend – I’ve commented about this before: “ I’ve been watching the excellent (well, the first episode was … After loading skips I have to watch the second on catch up TV … ) series “The Men Who Make Us Spend” (see here also for another review of it; I can’t find any useful link on the BBC, which originally screened it – apparently they don’t make their programmes available to anyone else in the world), and reflecting on the fact that one of the reasons Australia has such generally poor politicians is because voters fail to think properly and effectively about many issues. (It's also why a lot of people foolishly put personal convenience ahead of internet safety, and expediency ahead of 'right living' ... )”
- PBS's Frontline – The Persuaders – about the clutter that advertising creates, which includes a line to the effect “when a culture accepts advertising, it is no longer a culture”. Interestingly, this programme identifies that advertising in the 90s tried to start focus on “the meaning of life”. It also shows the power of words – such as changing “estate tax” to “death tax”, changing “War in Iraq” to “War on Terror”, and “climate change” rather than “global warming” … and there is the reprehensible, damaging “toilet to tap” (not mentioned in this programme). One of the practitioners of this technique admitted it was up to the practitioner to choose to do “good”, not “evil” – which puts back into the self-regulation model that failed so abysmally in the NSW greyhound industry. This is also credited with having led to more “emotive” and deceptive political advertising. The personalisation of advertising – whether political or consumerism - to break through “clutter” is based on data acquisition that is extremely disturbing, particularly when it leads to a loss of the common good.
The man behind The Century of the Self, Adam
Curtis, has said that that “his
favourite theme is "power and how it works in society" ”, and has
a few other programmes that I may watch at some stage (if I can find them - hey, BBC, maybe remember there are people in the world outside the UK), including:
- Pandora’s Box, “looking at the consequences of political and technocratic rationalism”, which includes – according to the Wikipedia article, an episode on engineers in the early days of the Russian Revolution which sounds as if it could be as bad as I would expect engineers to be in social roles;
- The Living Dead: Three Films About the Power of the Past, which “examines the different ways that history and memory (both national and individual) have been used and manipulated by politicians and others”; and
- The Mayfair Set, which “looks at Britain's decline as a world power, the invention of asset stripping in the 1970s, and how buccaneer capitalists shaped the climate of the Thatcher years, focusing on the rise of Colonel David Stirling, Jim Slater, Sir James Goldsmith and Tiny Rowland—members of London's elite Clermont Club in the 1960s”.
There are others as well, but they looked a
bit of a mixed bag, some aspects good, some neutral, and others not so good. Feel
free to look at the Wikipedia links and chase whatever is of interest to you :)
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr, Pagan Energy Worker, Wéofodthegn
I am revamping my former website, and getting at least one other underway (pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix
Lux … aka Morinehtar … would-be drýicgan or maga
... )
My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this
site) is here, and my glossary/index is here. The reasons for my caution when using Wikipedia are 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
for a few minutes at some time between 8 and 11 PM on Sunday, wherever you are,
to meditate-clear 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.
May the best in me, my Higher Self,
and those of the Clear Light who assist me,
help me to keep myself grounded, centred and shielded,
to be Balanced and a Fulcrum of Balance,
a centre of Balanced Positivity and Spiritual Maturity,
with my aura continuously cleansed, cleared and closed,
repelling all negative or unwanted energies,
whilst allowing positive, balancing and healing energies in and through.
The real dividing line is not between
Christianity and Islam, Sunni and Shia, East and West. It is between people who
believe in coexistence, and those who don’t.
Tom Fletcher, Former UK
Ambassador to Lebanon
- All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...
Tags: consumerism, discrimination, finances, hypocrisy, materialism, naivete, society, social status,
First published: Sunnudagr, 10th July, 2016
Last edited (excluding fixing typo's
and other minor matters): Sunday, 10th July, 2016
