Bcc: FYI
rkm website: http://cyberjournal.org
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Peggy Conroy wrote:
It seems to me you have to take over the Occupy movement thus giving it a solution for its complaints—all justified, of course, and a way to mobilize and actually create this world you envision. The template has to be accessible to all interested parties such as our “local” movements in upstate NY and VT.Sincerely,Peggy
Hi Peggy,
I’m not sure what the Occupy movement has to do with it, but I have offered you a template to experiment with, and it’s accessible to all interested parties:
rkm
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Jim Fadiman wrote:
rkm> Change requires people rallying around what they want, not what they don’t want.
That is almost more than I can take in at once, but it says in a sentence why protest movements peter out.thank you for this.nice thing about teaching people better safer ways to use psychedelics is that I’m giving away what people want. Helping the thirsty learn where good and better water is is a nice job to have.may your creation of ways for real people to work with one another to make a society work feed the desire bodyjim
Hi Jim,
I’d say thirst for liberation is perhaps the strongest of thirsts. But it’s a thirst people need to be awakened to. They’ve been conditioned to think liberation isn’t possible, and would be dangerous in any case (the Lord of the Flies myth). As with acid, only a taste can convey what’s possible.
Protest movements peter out for a lot of reasons… burnout, suppression, infiltration, internal divisions, co-option, etc. But that’s not why I say they can’t be the agent of positive change. It’s like a protest movement wants to tear down an ugly building. Fair enough, but if we want a new building we need architects and builders, not demolition experts.
I hope your book is doing well:
I think it should be paired on Amazon with:
Have you seen this one yet? (My guess is that you have.) The ancient mysteries were not fully lost after all, thanks to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi material! And at the center of the mystery initiation was kykeon, a psychedelic. A substance, offered to us by nature, enabling us to attune with the consciousness that surrounds us.
For anyone who has any interest in spirituality, religion, Christianity, human history, or the nature of reality, this is a must-read book. The part that most interests me are the mysteries themselves, the writing that has survived of the Gnostic world view, cosmology, philosophy, practices, rituals, etc. It ties in with the Sufi material, with Transpersonal Psychology, and it resonates with traditions in India, Tibet, and indigenous societies around the world.
I particularly like the Gnostic ‘Theory of Error’, perhaps because it tells the story of my life:
Humans are specifically prone to making mistakes, and this is a very positive thing, as regards the evolution of ideas. Mistakes lead to unanticipated circumstances, and in learning from those mistakes, unanticipated things are discovered. That is, mistakes generate innovation.
rkm
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Peter Koenig wrote:
rkm>…knowledge of how bad things are is of little or no help in figuring out what we can do to change things. Polemics may motivate people, but it doesn’t give them a direction, other than anger and protest. Change requires people rallying around what they want, not what they don’t want.
I partly agree with you. There are many-many news outlets that spread the truth. You don’t need to provide me with any. I have plenty of them. And I know, they seem to be ineffective.Also, you are right -the major reason is denial. I see that with my own family which is so terribly frustrating, witnessing how ignorant and in denial they are — as my brother told me just recently, he still believes that people are better thanI describe them – ‘my’ thruths sound mostlylike conspiracy.And when I deliver such people evidence of the truth with articles and their multiple cross-references so they can check for themselves – they don’t even bother, other than: “who tells you that they are right and not my evening news?”Admittedly, its difficult for people who have been believing the evening news or the main tream newspaper all their lives – to admit they have swallowed lies most of their lives.Nothing against your democracy initiative. To the contrary. We will need democratic thinking soon enough.But right now – how do we dispell the lies about Syria, about the Euro, the lies coming out of draghis orifice called mouth? – How do we hrelp salvage Syria from anotyher Libya or worse? – Or europe from stumbling back into Stoneage ? – which would probably be better than the future they face under the troika.But how?This is urgent.And this is not negative, as the wish for peace is positive.Right now, this is my biggest wish that Syria is left in peace.I don’t have the answer.But together we might be able to find one.Collective meditation by thousands of us with concentrated thoughts?Cheers,peter
Hi Peter,
You’re like a drowning man, hoping for a scrap of wood to hang onto. As long as you dwell on problems we can do nothing about, that’s the space you put yourself in. A sea of hopelessness and desperation. Before you can discover a path of real hope, you’ve got to give up hoping for what cannot be done.
The only ones who can fix things is us. We are the answer, but only if we can get it together. ‘Democratic thinking’, as you call it, is how I think we might be able get it together. That’s why it’s called the ‘transformation’ project, rather than the ‘democracy’ project.
rkm
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Howard Switzer wrote:
Sean B. Carroll, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at the university, listed the six steps used by all denialists in discussion:1. Doubt the science.2. Question scientists’ motives and interests.3. Magnify legitimate, normal disagreements among scientists and cite gadflies as authorities.4. Exaggerate the potential harm of believing the science (and scare people).5. Appeal to personal liberty and freedom (no government official should tell me what vaccinations I need).6. Show that accepting the science would represent a repudiation of a cherished common philosophy or worldview held by most people.
Hi Howard,
I don’t have time to deal with your long message, but I was intrigued by the extract above. How dare we doubt the science! Heresy: only the high priests of science can know truth. And why would anyone question the motives and interests of corporate-funded researchers? And how underhanded it is to listen to all researchers, instead of just the anointed ones. And what right do we have to consider harm to ourselves, or to care about personal liberty? And how parochial of us to honor our own philosophy or worldview. Those deniers must be a really deranged lot.
rkm
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