Post No. 3,009 - A triggered reflection

So far this week, the nightmares coming out of the Unexceptional States of America include an admission by Tr_ mp that he does not care about his voters.

That reminded me of something that happened shortly before I retired, which was a “town hall” style meeting after the company I worked for had suffered a cyber attack. 

At one stage in that meeting, then then-CEO made a glib statement that was basically along the same lines as Tr_ mp of not caring about key underlings - specifically, they cared about being able to recover and keep safe the company’s data, but they didn’t care about the data of workers - or our families, and what we would possibly have to do to reclaim our identities and lives because of the company*s failings. 

There was absolutely no comprehension that: 

(a) workers’ families matter a damn sight more to us than the company we happen to be working for at the time; 

(b) there have been - and still are - questions about why companies need the information they claim they do (do they recheck everyone’s ID before each pay period, or something equally stupid?), and why they do not implement measures such as one way storage; and 

(c) there is a MORAL-ETHICAL duty of care that employers have to employees, a duty of care that has been slowly recognised by the law in physical care matters, is being recognised politically, and will eventually be recognised in law as well, on psychological and cybersecurity matters - and employers can either decide to be on the right side of history on that, or they can be condemned as uncaring, obstructionist, greedocracies.

Finally, I wish to remind all who may be reading from inside the political world of the following, originally posted by me at   “Some inspiration for the national ALP ... ”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/09/some-inspiration-for-national-alp.html      

In the West Wing’s Series 3, Episode 7 “Gone Quiet”, at around 35:45 - 36:46, the Bruno Gianelli character says: 

“... ’cause I’m tired of working for candidates who make me think I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe.   ...   We all need some therapy because somebody came along and said liberal means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defence. And we’re going to tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn’t go to work if they don’t want to. And instead of saying “Well, excuse me, you right wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave it to Beaver trip back to the ’50s”, we cowered in the corner and said, “Please don't hurt me””

Don’t cower before wealthy property developer Dutton and the Murdoch media: believe in working for natural persons (who are NOT in the top 1%), not corporations, and all the values that flow from that, and continue with the feistiness that has started being shown, but incorporate the lessons from November, 2024 in the USA (and, for instance, this). 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also other options. 

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here. 

(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)  

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and   

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2025     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/  

 

Post No. 1,019 -Not the Weekly News

One of the aims I set myself some time ago for this blog was to do a third post each week – a post that wasn’t about news (hence, with apologies all round, the title of this post) or psychic weather. Where possible, I like to do a proper post for each idea, but … that rarely is possible, and so these will often be collections of brief expositions on various matters.

As an example, Thomas L. Friedman, in his recent book “Thank You for Being Late” (pub. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2016; ISBN 978-0-374-27353-8; available on Amazon, partially reviewed by me here), cited Intel engineers’ calculation that, if cars were developed the way PCs (well, chips, actually) have been, then we would have Volkswagens that could drive at 500,000 kilometres per hour, need 0.00012 L per 100km, and cost six (Australian) cents (I’ve converted the figures; the imperial units and US costs are in the book, on page 36).

We would also, every few years, wonder what had replaced doors to let us get into the new version of what used to be a car, where the brakes were, and how to use the latest version of what used to be a steering wheel :)

Now for more serious expositions:

• everyone is unique, which may boil down to each person being a unique combination of characteristics, each of which is shared with a different group of people (resulting in us “having something in common” with an extraordinarily wide range of people). A key result of this is that what works for one person, will not necessarily work on others – which is particularly important to remember when proposing actions or measures to deal with problems, including societal issues such as hate, fear and discrimination, or, say, violent crime.
  
  What this boils down to is:
   - what works for us won’t necessarily work us;
   - what other people are advocating may work for them;
   - what other people are advocating probably won’t work on a third group.
  
  When I first started thinking about that, it was in the context of crime – specifically, those who advocate for harsher approaches to crime are perhaps not only doing so out of fear, but also because it is – perhaps unconsciously – a matter is a deterrent to them. In other words, death penalties are advocated by those who fear the death penalty and use that fear to help keep themselves as law abiding citizens.
  
  More importantly, what this means for those who are advocating for a rational approach towards crime (and other issues), such as criminologist, social justice and equity activists, and my currently mythical proposed Chief Criminologist, is, in addition to explaining to such people how “evidence” has been obtained and proving to their satisfaction (not the academics’ satisfaction!) that the evidence is real, reliable, and worth considering, illustrating – in a manner believable to the audience, not the presenter – that other people have different motivations and thought/emotion processes, and thus what is being proposed by the target audience will not affect the issue at hand.
  
  In a sense, “know thy enemy” …
  
  I have touched on these issues in “Sustainable Progressivism”, and “A critique of the reactions to US President Trump's actions”.
• I re-read, some time ago, James Michener’s novel “The Source” (my copy pub. Corgi, London, 1971 ISBN 0 552 08790 4, originally published Random House, 1965), and have to say I found the speculation by archaeologists around how religions started painfully ludicrous – and that woefulness on the part of said archaeologists basically comes down to their inability to accept the reality of psychism – particularly psychism as experienced/used by shamans/shamankas, who were the progenitors of religion.
  For more on this, refer to Victor and Wendy Zammit’s excellent – and logical - book “A Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife” (pub. White Crow Books, Guildford [UK], 2013, ISBN 978-1-908733-22-1; available on Amazon, partially reviewed by me here)).
• quite some time ago now, one of the PAN magazines I read had an article about locally-based magic (always a good principle :) ) which included an annual cycle of rituals based, in effect, on agricultural types of connections to the land by a Jane Meredith. These were good – and I see, looking at her website again, that she has a book based on this, as well as an interesting looking book co-written with Gede Parma, but …
   - for a gatherer-hunter society, such as Australia’s indigenous people, rather than a once a year harvest of food there is a continual variety of foods. As I’ve written elsewhere (can’t be bothered trying to find the link), one month will be the equivalent of having aisles 3 and 7 open, whereas the next month it will be aisles 1,2, 4 and 6, perhaps – they were amazed at the sight of the remnants of Burke and Wills party starving to death when there was, to the indigenous people, so much food around them. A significant part of this is plant based – for more on this, see  (I wish such information was available in every area of Australia);
   - the article was, in my opinion, naïve about what motivates people to destroy forests – such destruction (in slash-and-burn cultures) is often a (short-sighted) love of family, including wanting place for one’s kids to live, rather than hate of nature.
  Those two qualifications aside, and apart from this being more Wiccan than my version of Pagan, the approach was good, I have added several of her books above to my “wish list”, and I will continue to read her blog.
• in the excellent TV series Stargate Atlantis (hmm … must re-watch that – again :) ) there a story arc around an enemy alien who is captured and – against his will aka “without his informed consent” – transformed into a human-alien hybrid species.
  It’s a story arc that covers a lot about ethics (with the humans not coming out of it looking particularly good – very paternalistic in an empire-building sense), and – along the lines of the twinned Jack London books ”The Call of the Wild” and “”, is a counterpoint to the story arc of the human Aiden Ford. As such, it could reasonably be considered to be a continuation of the tradition of exploring the notion that we have two natures inside us, and what we become.
  At the time I last viewed this story arc, however, however, there were a few other aspects of this that occurred to me:
   - some lives can feel like the situation “Michael” was in – trapped, and being on against one’s will. As examples, consider being trapped in a job one doesn’t like, or living in a situation that one doesn’t like (e.g., living in the city rather than the country, or vice-versa – or at a latitude where one doesn’t like the weather). In such situations, it is important to find out what is going on within oneself and deal with that compassionately, effectively, and realistically (the reality of life is often that, for financial reasons or the obligation of caring for dependents), lest one manifest the parts of oneself that one is working at transforming … ;
   - is this similar to the experience of those who have left the military without any deconditioning, as is the case of most ex-military people I know, some of whom clearly are suffering;
   - what is one’s innermost, truest self? In my opinion, it is our Higher Self – a lot of what is being dealt with is partly scarring from life and mistakes we’ve made, partly the trauma of learning – or, for the recalcitrant majority of us (including me :) ), being forced to learn.
• All those people who enthusiastically promote anything which will remove jobs – even if the jobs are considered undesirable (e.g., “menial” [physical labour can be good], or low class, “intellectually too simple” [I’ve rephrased that to be nice – and such attitudes WILFULLY IGNORE the fact that we are all abled in different ways – e.g., some are more physical or emotional than intellectual, and that IS PERFECTLY OK]) – without adequate consideration of the social and human costs is an UNETHICAL, IRRESPONSIBLE IDIOT.

Now, here are a few general reading links for your interest.

• a video about starting to work for the Morrigan and more with Nature, which is consistent with this John Beckett article;
• another interesting John Beckett article on – amongst other things – being careful not to feed a dying inner remnant of fundamentalism;
• with profound apologies for using a social media link, an article on “generous leadership”;
• with profound apologies for providing a social media links, an interesting article on Emotional Intelligence;
• some criticisms of recent management fads: “Agile”, and “Scrum”.

I apologise for publishing these posts twice, but Blogger keeps changing my formatting. I can either publish it and then correct it, or save and close the post and correct it when I reopen it, but that leaves an extra copy in my "drafts" folder ...

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear") 
Pagan Energy Worker, Wéofodthegn, Bellatrix Lux, Venatrix Maga, would-be Drýicgan. 

I am revamping my former website, and getting at least one other underway.

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 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: change, empathy, growth, Higher Self, inner conflict, rituals, society, technology, understanding, 

First published: Fryrsdagr, 28^th April, 2017

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's, Blogger's change of my formatting and other minor matters): Friday, 28^th April, 2017

Post No. 848E - the sixth set of keywords

Owing to Blogger's limits on keywords, when I have a lot I have to post them in batches. This is the sixth lot of keywords for this post.

Keywords: 

thought / thinking, time magic, training, uncooperative, understanding, Valkyrie, values, vampire, vortex /vortices, ward, words,

Post No. 838G - the eighth set of keywords

Owing to Blogger's limits on keywords, when I have a lot I have to post them in batches. This is the eighth lot of keywords for this post.

Keywords:

abuse of power, anger, animals, artificer, attitudes, authentic presence, awareness, balance, Balanced Positive, Bhakti, blackmail, blood, challenge, change, chaos, children, circle, clairvoyance, concentration, consequences, control, death, Deities, dimensions, discrimination, divination, dowsing, Earth (element), earthbound entities, elements, emotions, energy work, equal and opposite reaction, ethics, evil, faery, faith, family, fear, fight or flight or network and nurture, Fire (element), focus, folk lore, forgiveness, friends, genes / genetics, gifts / giving, grounding, growth orientation, guilt, healing, history, honour, ignorance, informed decisions, insularity, invisibility, invocation, isolation, judging others, justice, knowledge, language, levels, limitations, love, Mӕgan, magic, magickal language, magickal techniques and styles, magickal tools, manifestation, metaphysical mass, metaphysics, moral courage, motivation, mythology, myths, names, neochristianity, nightfall, Paganism, pain, Pentacle, pentagram, personal responsibility, perspective, phenomena, power, prejudice, preparation, prophecy, protection, psychic attack, psychic development, psychism, psychology, racism, reincarnation, rescue, residue, responsibility, revenge, risks, rituals, sacrifice, scepticism, Seelie, self knowledge, sexism, shielding, (the) Sight, society, spells, Spiritual Maturity, spirituality, subconscious, submissiveness, sunrise, survival after death, teaching, telepathy, temperature, tests, thaumaturgy, the Greater Good, train others how to treat us, uncooperative, understanding, undetectability, Unseelie, ward, werewolf, yoga,

Post No. 618 - Current Events: World

The big news at the moment in the media is the decision of the Grand Jury in Ferguson,and the response to that, which I am pleased to see includes people of all ethnicities in many places, and some very perceptive commentary - for instance, see here (from The Wild Hunt), and here, here, found via the Wild Hunt post, and here, which I came across under my own steam. There are a lot of other useful links in the comments section of the Wild Hunt post - and some uncharacteristic abuse.

I'd like to write something about these events as well, but I won't post them unless I consider them worthwhile - even if only in the context of Sunday night's meditation.

It does seem that the process was flawed from a legal point of view, in that the accused was allowed to give evidence, which it seems is not supposed to happen, and the matter has been run as a de facto jury trial, but without the protections and requirements of that process (e.g., cross examination). Some of the initial comments on the Wild Hunt post talked of the flaws of the US Grand Jury process in a couple of instances. On the other hand, there are claims that African-American witnesses backed up the police version of events.

Those claims have not been tested in a court of law, so we will never know for sure.

More broadly, there are issues around that part of justice which is that it must not only be done, but be seen to be done. On that aspect, there has been a failure - of spirit, if not letter of law, and that failure is, in my opinion, related to endemic racism. This is related to something I recall reading that the great Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., begged the government of the time to do, which is to give some sign of progress to reassure coloured people in the USA that better days were happening. When that didn't happen, the Watts Riots did.

I can understand that lashing out as a result of not being listened to - or worse: it is something almost every trans person goes through at some stage, and it can be bad enough to drive people to commit suicide.

The also great Nelson Mandela also understood this. I have a copy of Mr Mandela's "I am prepared to die" speech, and in that he makes clear that there was a move away from nonviolence for a range of reasons, including a desire to try and direct, or minimise the damage from, the violence that was an inevitable response to those circumstances.

The also great "Mahatma" Gandhi is renowned for leading a movement built around peaceful noncooperation, which was effective because the entire system in India at that time depended on Indians. In South Africa and the USA, the victims of discrimination have been important to some sectors of the economy, but I suspect were not as crucial as the Indians in India were - and, in any case, Gandhi had to fast to the point of death several times to stop the violence. I also think there were some signs of progress that gave hope in India (for instance, Gandhi's success in South Africa, and the support from some sections of the English) that weren't present in the other instances.

I would like to provide a few quotes, now.

First, Mr Mandela:

"Our problem was not whether to fight, but was how to continue the fight.
...
It must not be forgotten that by this time violence had, in fact, become a feature of the South African political scene.
...
As far as the ANC was concerned, it formed a clear view which can be summarized as follows:

• It was a mass political organization with a political function to fulfil. Its members had joined on the express policy of non-violence.
• Because of all this, it could not and would not undertake violence. This must be stressed. One cannot turn such a body into the small, closely knit organization required for sabotage. Nor would this be politically correct, because it would result in members ceasing to carry out this essential activity: political propaganda and organization. Nor was it permissible to change the whole nature of the organization.
• On the other hand, in view of this situation I have described, the ANC was prepared to depart from its fifty-year-old policy of non-violence to this extent that it would no longer disapprove of properly controlled violence. Hence members who undertook such activity would not be subject to disciplinary action by the ANC.

...

As a result of this decision, Umkhonto was formed in November 1961. When we took this decision, and subsequently formulated our plans, the ANC heritage of non-violence and racial harmony was very much with us. We felt that the country was drifting towards a civil war in which Blacks and Whites would fight each other. We viewed the situation with alarm. Civil war could mean the destruction of what the ANC stood for; with civil war, racial peace would be more difficult than ever to achieve. We already have examples in South African history of the results of war. It has taken more than fifty years for the scars of the South African War to disappear. How much longer would it take to eradicate the scars of inter-racial civil war, which could not be fought without a great loss of life on both sides?"

Next, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. (from Morpheus Ravenna's post):

“It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.”

The minutiae of evidence and procedures for the Grand Jury in Ferguson are not the point: the point here is the failure to listen and the endemic racism that underlies that.

As it happens, I've been working on a post on the topic of racism in my own country, Australia, which has an appalling, notorious history on that matter, and a suggestion to address that problem. I am currently thinking about whether it makes sense to combine the two.

There are a few other issues as well, such as the militarisation of police, particularly in the USA, and their interpretations of "public order", which is the other, equal part of their their duty: to uphold the law and order. I think my post on changing the personality of oppressors might get a guernsey here ...

I'm going to leave this post at that - I've done more than I had planned anyway.

Post Script 
For my part, I want to make it clear that I consider nonviolence generally preferable to violence. There are exceptions - for instance, I consider the war against Hitler and his thugs was justified, and unavoidable because of the violence of Germany. There may be other situations where violence is justified - for instance, if a criminal has a gun and is shooting people, the most important thing is to stop the harm, not consider the mood, happiness and general wellbeing of the shooter. The same applies to stopping some of the powerful uncooperatives who are doing massive harm through psychic means - although, in that instance, the conflict is psychic, not physical.

This situation comprises both the initial shooting, and the response to it. 

Addressing the situation is flawed, because of the flawed management of the US Grand Jury process: if this had gone to a trial, it may well have had the same outcome, but the issue that justice must also be seen to be done would have been better addressed. 

In terms of the response, this has been a trigger to the issue of racism, and the responses are not only violent riots and destruction of property - there are peaceful marches elsewhere, including in other nations, and discussions and education on the topic all over the planet. The rioting is an entirely predictable response to the ongoing, poorly responded to at a governmental level of racism. The situation also raises the issue of militarisation of police and the mind set that lies behind it, and why that is not appropriate to policing.

[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[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 … 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.

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. 

I am a Walker upon the Path of Balanced Positivity, seeking Spiritual Maturity.

• neither eloquence nor inarticulateness inherently indicates correctness;
• 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.
• 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.
• The means shape the end.
• 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 ...

Human dignity is the inherently cumulative holistic combination of human rights, wellbeing and potential, and all actions or interaction which promote, realise or facilitate same. The converse also applies: whatever degrades, diminishes or robs humans of dignity, is inherently undignified.

Gnwmythr

The “purpose” of spiritual evolution is not the attainment of “spiritual perfection” - not in the sense of not having to evolve further, at any rate, since there is no such thing. We need to evolve in order to grow - but we can take rest breaks (hopefully well earned :) ) along the way. No, the “purpose” of evolution is, rather, to perfect our ability to learn, and thus grow.

Gnwmythr

Jesus loves you. Odin wants you to grow up.

(Facebook meme, according to John  Beckett)

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

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children

Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

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.

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

Tags:abuse of power, attitudes, discrimination, empathy, personal characteristics, racism, society, understanding, violence,

First published: Thorsdagr, 27^nh November, 2014

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Friday, 28^nh November, 2014 (added post script)