Zeitgeist: Why This Is IMPORTANT

"Simply put, what The Venus Project represents and what The Zeitgeist Movement hence condones, could be summarized as: ‘The application of The Scientific Method for social concern.’" ~ http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." ~ Edmund Burke

It's easy to imagine that what matters in life is the small circle of family, friends, and colleagues surrounding us, and to narrow our focus so as not to detract from the attention we wish to give them. It's harder to imagine how this inner circle is ultimately affected by much wider issues and concerns about the culture as a whole. When we do attend to larger issues, they are entirely, or almost entirely, confined to the political arena as it exists within our present culture. Perspectives which transcend the culture altogether, and propose sweeping, foundational changes to the culture, tend to be summarily dismissed as irrelevant and unconnected with "the real world". In fact, the opposite is true. While we try to keep our careers and personal lives afloat, and lend our support to political movements (or simply empty promises) which involve making various adjustments to the current system, we lose sight of the bigger picture. The fact is that our system is not "broken" -- rather, it is flawed by design. There's nothing we can do to reestablish equilibrium in the economy, because it never existed to begin with. It is not a question of rooting out threats to our economy; our economy IS the problem.

The following films are not merely informative. They are game-changing, world-changing films. Your understanding of human nature, and how environmental conditioning affects the "free will" of individuals, will be utterly transformed and updated. Your belief in what is possible will likewise be radically revised. In light of what you know now (or imagine you know), it must be impossible to suppose that our civilization now has everything needed (in terms of technological advancement) to establish a world in which the material abundance you enjoy may be maintained at approximately 3% of the labor now exerted. Also, that this may be done is such a way as to eliminate, not only labor, but also famine, war, poverty, waste, and environmental collapse. In light of what you know now (or imagine you know), such a concept must seem like an absurd utopian dream, which may at best be attained in some thousand years or so. Well, that's because you haven't seen these films. Instead, you've been listening to the people who are trying to preserve our outmoded system, and the traditional values you've assumed are those which aim to support this system. It's time to open your mind to the possibility of a very different way of seeing the world. All that is necessary is the flexibility to allow your most rigid and deeply ingrained beliefs to be challenged, not by another opinion, but by science.

It is science which will ultimately convince you (if you will only take the time and make the slightest effort to listen objectively) that within a monetary system, which relies on the profit motive, true advances in civilization are not only inhibited, but are actively resisted because they reduce profits. Presently, the well-being of a nation, and its progress, is measured by a country's GDP (Gross Domestic Product), or how much money is being made -- particularly by the richest 1% of the population. But once you understand that money is made by manufacturing needs and desires, and not by satisfying them, you will see how backwards this model is. The healthcare industry makes money, not by curing disease, but by treating it; hence, the more sick people there are, the higher the profits. And this principle may be seen to exist at every level of our economy; not merely in the healthcare industry. In other words, this is not an aberration in the system -- THIS IS THE SYSTEM. And the sickness, suffering, poverty, servitude, oppression, war, and death engendered by this system, and required to maintain this system (which is ultimately doomed to devour itself anyway, because it depends upon an infinite supply of resources; and no such supply exists) are not merely the "facts of life" -- they are not necessary evils with which we must contend. Rather, they are the inevitable by-products of the present system. Moreover, they make the Holocaust look like a wet dream, and Hitler look like a hot date.

You are hereby cordially invited to discover the real real world:

Zeitgeist 2: Addendum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg

Zeitgeist 3: Moving Forward
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w

Future By Design
(Jacque Fresco, modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxe7tlr-2I4

The Venus Project
http://www.thevenusproject.com/


Thank you,

Valus

The Busy Philosopher

What is left for a philosopher to do, when a society is preparing for war?

When Philip threatened to lay siege to the city of Corinth and all its inhabitants hastily bestirred themselves in defense, some polishing weapons, some gathering stones, some repairing the walls, Diogenes seeing all this hurriedly folded his mantle about him and began to roll his tub zealously back and forth through the streets.

When he was asked why he did this he replied that he wished to be busy like all the rest, and rolled his tub lest he should be the only idler among so many industrious citizens.


-- Kierkegaard


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Having conquered the world, Alexander The Great, an admirer of Diogenes The Cynic,
asks the latter to name a gift with which the emperor might honor the philosopher.

Diogenes replies, "Get out of my sun."

A Message To The "Christians"

Many of you who believe yourselves to be Christians,
have never heard preached the true word of Christ.

Would you care to know the Truth?

I confess a faith for Christ one hundred times greater than your own.
Even so, I cannot dare to call myself a Christian.

I cannot honestly believe that being a Franciscan,
and following the monastic rule of Saint Francis,
requires more of you than being a Christian,
and following the rule of Christ.

Can the student be greater than the teacher?

(But you call yourselves "Christians".)

I am sure that to be a Christian is to be an anarchist,
who believes no man should use force to govern another.

(But you call yourselves "Christians".)

That it is to preach the abolition of all courts of law,
and of any form of judgement whatsoever.

(But you call yourselves "Christians".)

To preach the renunciation of private property,
and the life of a wandering beggar.

(But you call yourselves "Christians".)

To preach the refusal to participate in war,
or in any form of violence whatsoever.

It is to be a martyr for peace,
devoted to the service of truth.

To believe otherwise is pure delusion.

But you call yourselves "Christians".

How can you go straight into being a Christian?
There ought to be a word for what you are.
We might call you "Christians-In-Training."

What does Nietzsche say?

'Before one can fly,
one must first learn to walk and run.
One cannot fly into flying.'

If you want to call yourselves Christians,
while owning property and supporting war,
please call yourselves hypocrites as well,
and make some little effort in His direction.

But, for Christ's sake,
don't disagree with everything the man stood for.

The Road Not Taken

"Father Maximos laughed as he recalled an incident with a fellow monk at Mount Athos. 'He was always very forgetful, he claimed, but fortunately for him the moment he began to pray, the devil would always remind him of all the things he forgot to do during the day.'" ~ from: The Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos Markides

"Modern people lack silence. They no longer lead their own lives; they are carried along by events. It is a race against the clock... If your life is chock-full already, there won't be room for anything else. Even God can't get anything else in. So it becomes essential to cut something out. I'm putting it as simply as I can." ~ Paul Tournier, psychoanalyst and Christian mystic


The common obsession with career advancement, place-seeking, and the accumulation and maintenance of material goods, consumes so much time and energy. Most people have little or nothing left for themselves, their families, or God. They complain of being overworked, yet are forever looking to increase their workload by getting a promotion and a raise. Success is not utilized as a means of providing more liberty and time for reflection. Rather, with every advance, they continue to make material investments and to live beyond their means, and in debt. The work they do, from a global and historical standpoint, is almost always detrimental to the true welfare of society.

When they get home (usually late), all they want is to pacify their minds, which have been occupied all day long with largely trivial, yet highly demanding, concerns. They stuff themselves with rich, stupefying foods and drinks, crack a beer or pour themselves a glass of wine, plop down in front of the "boob tube", and watch some mindless sitcom or feel-good romantic comedy, or they watch the "news" and hear about the latest child murder or political scandal, or they turn on some nerve-wracking criminal or medical drama with ominous music and a plot replete with child rape, incest, and bone-saws cutting ligaments, or, if they pick up a book, it is some shallow pulp fiction of espionage and intrigue which they have heard told a thousand times before.

They say two relatively careless words to their spouse or child; whom they barely know, yet think they know too well. Then it's off to bed, to get up and do it all over again. And while the promise of a coming vacation sustains them in their work, when they get it they are generally under so much pressure to fill the time with enjoyments, that it goes by in a kind of blur of sensory gratifications and idle chatter; not having learned anything, they have little to say, as does the company they keep. Vast sums are exhausted, and then it's back to work!

One day they fall ill and feel like their prayers have been answered. Bedridden, they are forced to take it easy, to get off the hamster wheel and relax. At this point, they may revue their lives, full of guilt and regret. Or maybe the habit of superficiality has become so ingrained that even this is impossible for them. Then they die, wondering what went wrong.

It is rare than anyone organizes their time and resources so as to be in a position to learn about the very systems of which they are a part; about the corruption which infests nearly every aspect of the culture which they have come to trust implicitly and to see as "the real world". Attention to social causes and spiritual well-being are, likewise, entirely or near-entirely absent. And the realization of the vanity and emptiness of this way of life is held continually at bay by keeping oneself perpetually engaged and distracted with the very things which only deepen that inner void and disconnectedness to the sacredness of being.

This is a call to relax and simplify our involvement with commerce, while simultaneously intensifying and enriching our awareness of matters of true importance. It is a call to the path "less traveled by", as Robert Frost put it. But not, as Frost understood it in another poem, to a path with "promises to keep" and "miles to go before I sleep". Rather, one is invited to reflect upon the foolishness of "promises" made which only scatter our energies and spread us thin; and to regard fidelity to oneself and one's deepest voice as the only promise worth keeping. It is a reminder that there is nowhere to go; not until one has stood still enough to honor the very place where one is in this present moment. It is a call to the inward path of self-exploration and self-discovery, for that is truly "the road not taken".

FRUITS: Some Green, Some Ripe

"The Formless Absolute is my Father,
and God With Form is my Mother." -Kabir
We are the jewel which completes the Trinity;
every one of us a facet.

All things perish.
How much quicker do your models break down?
No vision can encapsulate the mystery.
Sell your cleverness and purchase love-simplicity.

The Lady cradling, and gazing lovingly
upon the Christed Child.
His face is round like the Earth,
His Mother's is round like the Sun.
She beams Love and He receives.

Love is sweetness, joy, compassion, sympathy; all of these.

Do not scrutinize the sayings of the wise. A cup turned over cannot hold water; truth cannot perform its function in an atmosphere of doubt. The wise know their insights are precarious steps, which crumble beneath all but the lightest feet. It is with the quickness of faith that they carry their message, and do not fall.

She drinks wine. She said to me, "Everyone deserves one vice. Everyone is allowed one vice." Has the ignorance of virtue attained to such abyssmal heights? Her entire life is vice! Yet she believes the wine alone prevents it from being viceless. How can life be anything but vice, when one is not on the path of virtue; devoted to God and His most miserable creatures? How can we speak of virtue with our own lips? Saints do not open their mouths; God opens them. Yet we think we can count our vices, -- and on one finger!

Of the healthy and unemployed, it is justly expected that they commit themselves to the revelation of mysteries; -- be they worldly or more directly engaged with the life of the Spirit. If they did not seek and reveal these things, their liberty would surely be license, and a disgrace. Whereas, for those entangled in the world and its labors, such seeking and revealing becomes a badge of true merit, and neglecting these things, though unfortunate, would not be disgraceful.

The sayings are not arranged; which is to say, they are arranged purely by Providence. God Himself will direct the reader, providing what is needed, and not merely what is sought. Read in order or at random, they jump from topic to topic, so as to awaken a consciousness of the whole, without undue attention to its parts.

God ordains that some, by His grace, observe a perfect and minute order in their daily lives, while others He leads by seemingly chaotic channels, more intuitive than anything. Each one must discover Him anew.

The original sin is procreation. God loves His Children too much to see them in the world. And while His Love makes everything good, His Fullness makes great. Bodily incarnation conceals from us the fullness of His Presence. Though it may be possible to build a heaven on earth, we know -- by faith and for certain -- that His Heaven is ready-made in the sky. Non-action is sometimes the wisest of actions.

It is said that God chooses the weakest, and the lowest of the low, in order to exhibit the fullness of His power. But are they not the ones made weak with alienation; brought low by the misunderstanding scorn of their communities? Are they not simply the most maligned? Those who, before God illumined them, struggled to interpret their prophetic wisdom, and almost believed it when the people called them mad?

The source of wisdom is mysterious.
Even the wise are shocked by what they know.

Conspiracy Theory, The Pathology of Institutions, and The World Situation

"Every true secret must of itself exclude the profane. Whoever understands it is of himself, by rights, an initiate." ~ Novalis

A Democracy is a tyranny of the majority, in which 51% of the population can take control the other 49%. Americans do not live in a Democracy. We live (at least, in theory) in a Constitutional Republic, in which even 99% of the people do not have the right to take away the rights of the remaining 1%. However, since our nation's founding, and long before, there have been power struggles between those who want to ensure our rights and those who want to use and manipulate us as commodities; namely, the bankers and those in league with them. At present, we live within a system which is somewhere between a Constitutional Republic and a Plutocracy, leaning heavily toward the latter. This is a situation in which the richest 1% are, frequently, in a position to take away the rights of the remaining 99%.

In such a system, not being a victim means somehow being smart and/or skeptical enough to realize the profound effects that money (and those who care for little else) has on our institutional structures -- particularly media and government. It means waking up to the many ways in which you are being lied to. It means seeking out alternative, independent news sources, and ultimately acquiring a sweeping, historical vision of what's going on here. Having a vote means nothing if the information you are heeding is bull, so you have to be smart and self-motivated enough to find the truth. Not everyone can do that, -- let's face it, even some of the most savvy people are so overworked and distracted that they haven't the time or energy for this search (and, undoubtedly, it could be argued that this lack of time and energy is by design) -- but those of us who can search have a responsibility to the rest, to spread awareness and to find ways of subverting the flaws in this system.

The corruption actually extends to our medical institutions and practically all areas of the sciences. First, you need to understand that these systems are composed of individuals who need and want to keep their jobs, and many who want to make names for themselves. All of that creates bias, but it's how our world works. What happens is, a dispute arises between two or more factions, and people stake their careers on the particular theory or model that they support... A theory or model gains supremacy, not because it is more accurate, but, generally, because it has more influential supporters, and can make more money. Eventually, yes, the truth comes out, and the better system triumphs, but usually not before it is stigmatized and consigned to the scrap heap. When one theory gains dominance, the "anomalous" evidence in support of the contrary theory (or theories) is buried, and those in support of it are ostracized into obscurity. Some social theorists have called this process "knowledge filtration". Basically, they lose funding, lose their jobs, etc., if they don't tow the line.

Of course, most people tow the line because they implicitly trust the prevailing paradigm. If the dominant view, for example, is that drugs and surgery are the best treatments for Cancer, and that radical changes in diet are less effective, they will assume that this view is grounded in solid research. Books like "When Healing Becomes A Crime" and "Forbidden Archeology" can help shine light on the bigger picture, but they are not located on the beaten path, and most people will scoff at the premise without even hearing the arguments and evidence. In fact, most people are so entrenched in their cultural programing, that they have no idea how thoroughly they are being manipulated and victimized, and they will adamantly defend those structures which victimize them; stigmatizing anyone who attempts to pull back the curtain as a paranoid conspiracy theorist nut. So it goes.

Every time period has overthrown and disproven the prejudices of the centuries preceding it. Yet, every time period continues to cling tenaciously to the contemporary models as if they were the final word. What can we learn from this? Only that one should not dare to consider oneself a critical thinker unless one is equally as skeptical of the mainstream as of the alternatives. The methods and models of the future have always arisen, and will continue to arise, from the margins. History has shown that nearly every significant discovery was first disparaged and rejected by the established order of the day. Will we ever learn?

How is that, in the face of the sweeping historical perspective mankind has achieved, the vast majority of people still sacrifice their skepticism in the face of a university degree, and embrace cynicism as a response to anything not already approved by the established order? The fact of the matter is that at a university, one is far more likely to be indoctrinated than educated. True scholarship is an independent effort requiring a passionately inquisitive mind. Practically all that is necessary for a university degree is the ability to memorize and to regurgitate the views of the past and present day. In such an environment, progressive thinking is a hindrance, not a help. We must realize that the ability to unlearn is often a prerequisite for the ability to learn. We can learn nothing new when we are fixedly convinced of a falsehood.

History moves at a snail's pace. Innovations which require the abandonment of enormous institutions, and the restructuring of entire fields, like medicine, education, economy, etc., are not easily accepted. Just imagine it: Suppose a radical discovery is made in medicine which undermines the entire system. Do you think the medical schools will gut their curriculum overnight? That diplomas will be revoked from doctors everywhere? That billions, maybe trillions, of dollars worth of equipment will be destroyed? That organizations (and the thousands they employ) will gracefully bow out in light of the emerging evidence? Of course not! People will resist such sweeping changes; consciously or unconsciously, they will scramble to defend the structures in which they are ensnared.

And all of this is visible to a relatively miniscule percentage of the population. Though history illustrates these truths again and again, only a small number of people, far in advance of their times, have been in a position to grasp them. Like the legendary prophetess, Cassandra, they speak the truth and are not believed. The lyricist, Kurt Cobain, wrote: "A little tribe it's always been. And always will, until the end." Is this statement lacking in optimism, or does it just about sum up the historical predicament? Many believe we are coming into a time of greater awareness, when larger numbers of people will be receptive to these truths. I'm not so sure.

In Defense Of Everything Emo

Do we love our misery? Our defeats? Our angst? Do we revel in it? Of course we do. But, then, what choice have we got? The human creature is of such a frail constitution, that it must, and will undoubtedly, find something to love even in the most deplorable of states. We need to find things beautiful, and the more horrific they are, the more power we experience over them in beautifying them. Yet, ultimately, nobody wants to dwell on loss, and, however much sympathy may sweeten a bitter condition, we'd all prefer admiration to sympathy, and triumph to tragedy.

It irks me when anyone suggests that we love, and choose, our misery. If we choose it, it's only after the choice has been made for us, and because we need to retain some semblance, albeit illusion, of freedom; also, because it is easier to "go with the flow" than to wage an endless, fruitless struggle against it, even when that flow leads to the tears and consolations, rather than the laughter and applause, of the crowd.

We are who we are, and we have little choice but to find something beautiful in it. We form our arguments in accordance with our dispositions, and not the other way around. The free spirit will always advocate a positive outlook, not because the outlook uplifts him, or is more "true"; but because it is natural and congenial to him, and he may even be incapable of taking a darker view. The industrious man praises industry and prides himself on his fidelity to it, while deriding all others. The reflective man praises leisure. And so on. We play our parts.

If your part is a sad one, then, at least, do not be ashamed to lend style to your character. So long as we feel ourselves or our fates to be tragic, then let us revel in them nonetheless, as we would in victory; let us glory in our misery and find beauty in our disintegration. Who, happier and healthier than we are, would presume to begrudge us this carrion comfort?