Thank you for this promising post! I will come back to read more carefully and comment more fully later, but I want to pop in right now after skimming and mention that my "dumbphone" is produced by a Mennonite company, which sure does feel right! https://sunbeamwireless.com/the-story-behind-sunbeam-phones/
Very well articulated. Is there a new technology which hasn't made things better and worse? I think the Plain People understand that and try to make choices that maximize utility while minimizing distractions from what is important. We could learn from that.
"We can’t entirely set those horses free any more than a wagon driver can release the reins and expect to stay on the path."
Perhaps the most enlightening article I have ever read! The picture of human life as a carriage being pulled by potentially wild horses reverberates as true. The driver and the horses have to be trained to the task of controlling the speed and direction to harness the potential for disaster into productive motion.
Grateful to you for this exquisite post! Knowing that writers can still be found who help us all with our "mirrors" is why I subscribe to Substack. This is an excellent piece and should be widely read. Thank you with the greatest appreciation!
Boy, did I need this today. Over the past two years I have uprooted myself from the city in order to escape the Machine. I moved to a place where I believed (passionately) that I had escaped. Less than one year after my move, I noticed some unusual activity around a telephone line by my home….to shorten the story….it had been selected as the ONLY possible location for a 5G antenna. I managed to hold them off for 12 months. I am currently out of the country, and my neighbor sent me a photo of this monstrosity that now looks down over my bedroom and living room. I’ve been feeling broken hearted. Your article helped a lot although I will need to read it again. I love your writing.
Peco, Thank you for this beautiful work. I've just been re-reading Robert Bly's Sibling Society. Do you know it? He brilliantly describes the relationship between the absence of initiation, culture loss, the approach of technology and computers, and the turn toward self-concern. Thanks again, Adam
Firstly, I would like to say that I respect and admire your endeavor to help people to find a compass that points to a true north where embodied humans matter, the natural world matters, love and sacrifice matter and the working of our hands matters.
While I admire your noble goals I have several concerns about shaky assumptions that are built into the tools, institutions and frameworks you highlight as viable to enable people to build a compass which can help them to pierce through the foggy realms of “cognitive distortions” to perceive objective facts about reality.
The first aspect I see as problematic and potentially capable of becoming detrimental/dangerous is the premise of CBT therapy itself.
If the therapists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and councilors etc that are administering something like CBT were omniscient, uniformly benevolent, and incorruptibly objective than I think that process (at least, as you describe it here) would work for the benefit of the one receiving the therapy 100%.
However, our psychiatrists, psychologists and councilors are human beings. Many of those human beings are being targeted by corrupt institutions and corporations by indoctrination, bribery, blackmail and weaponized mob mentality (Ashe conformity experiment) dynamics and they each have varying degrees of mental, emotional and spiritual maturity, resilience, integrity and courage (and thus are impacted by said indoctrination campaigns to varying degrees and with varying results).
The stated goals of the CBT procedure sound benign and beneficial at first glance, however, when one takes a closer look at the inherent corruptibility of that system it actually has the potential to become a weapon rather than a pathway to healing.
We live in the era of “trust The Science” corporate slogans (pushed by corrupt and subservient governments and academic institutions) which have been used to gaslight (and/or coerce) billions of human beings into allowing experimental, toxic, ineffective, gene based injectable pharmaceutical products (which were manufactured by corporations with repeat felony fraud criminal track records) to be put into their bodies.
The propaganda that was (and is still being) disseminated about said injectable products was so prolific, so ubiquitous and projected through so many institutions we have been raised to trust and respect, that many people that were typically critically thinking individuals capitulated and conformed to the irrational, unscientific and irresponsible corporate slogans, simultaneous government propaganda and government edicts/coercion tactics (internalizing the propaganda even though everything about it represents a radical departure from critical thinking into a sort of dogmatic belief system or cult).
Doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and councilors were not immune to this propaganda and psychological warfare campaign of unprecedented proportions, in fact, people in those professions were targeted with coercion and gaslighting campaigns by big pharma corporations and complicit governments in a much more concerted and relentless way than the general populace.
While some courageous individuals resisted that coordinated premeditated attack on their hearts, minds, bodies, financial security, social status and professional standing and chose to remain true to their convictions , ethics, integrity and critical thinking capacities, many (understandably) folded, capitulated, fell in line and then having internalized the dogmas disseminated by said corporations and governments, began attention to indoctrinate others into joining their new found religion/cult.
In the minds of most of these indoctrinated medical and mental health professionals they were now making choices (and encouraging others to make choices) based on their rock solid assessment of objective evidence (which was and actually is fallacious big pharma propaganda) and observations of the “real world” (the story of how statist institutions are inherently trustworthy and what they mandate should be obeyed without question).
Here in Canada that resulted in millions of everyday citizens going to the doctor and asking them for advice on what course of action they should take with regards to deciding if they should allow a product (manufactured by a corporation with a felony track record of fraud) to be injected into their bodies as their government was strongly suggesting, financially pressuring and attempting to coerce them into taking. Many of those medical health professionals told people that the experimental injections were “safe and effective” (as their cult leader’s propaganda had indoctrinated them to parrot) and these millions of people followed the advice of those doctors in deciding to inject themselves and their children with these big pharma products (resulting in thousands of unnecessary fatalities and the maiming of people of all ages and massive profits for corporations like Pfizer).
Despite the observable (directly attributable) death of children (and people of all ages, including many doctors) due to receiving these synthetic mRNA gene based injections, there were medical professional organizations and institutions that declared the deaths and permanent injuries being incurred by healthy individuals receiving said injections were “rare” and that the real problem doctors needed to be focusing on was “vaccine hesitancy”.
Here in Ontario, On October 5, 2022, the CPSO (College of Physicians and Surgeons Ontario) updated their website page Covid-19 FAQS for Physicians in regards to providing Covid care to patients, specifically in the area of vaccination hesitancy and alternative treatment. The following are two paragraphs (questions and answers) copied from their guideline: (See cpso.on.ca for full report)
Patients are asking me to write notes supporting a medical exemption from COVID-19 vaccines — what do I need to know?
It is also important that physicians work with their patients to manage anxieties related to the vaccine and not enable avoidance behavior. For example, for extreme fear of needles (trypanophobia) or other cases of serious concern, responsible use of prescription medications and/ or referral to psychotherapy may be available options. Overall, physicians have a responsibility to inform their patients about vaccines and not have those anxieties empowered by an exemption.
I’ve read about some drugs that might prove beneficial in treating COVID-19: Should I be prescribing these drugs as a precautionary measure? Can I prescribe them for myself or family?
No. Many of these drugs have an intended use and prescribing them as a precautionary measure has or may contribute to drug shortages, compromising care for others. Should these or other drugs prove useful in combating COVID-19, their use will need to be carefully managed to support those who need them the most.
So, in examining these two answers, it is important to read critically. We must pay attention to key words and phrases woven into the guidelines such as, “anxieties” “not enable avoidance behavior” “not have those anxieties empowered” “serious concern” “contribute to drug shortages” “compromising care for others”.
According to this guideline, resisting being vaccinated is deemed to be an “avoidance behavior” rather than an informed choice. This so called behavior now allows doctors to prescribe medication to their resistive patients, providing a more comfortable means to sway them to the guide’s suggested ‘yes’ behavior. Further, if the prescribed medication does not result in the required outcome of a ‘yes’ behaviour, doctors can then refer their patients to a psycho-therapist for the ultimate persuasion.
How will they distinguish “serious concern” from unwilling patients in the future? Can you read between the lines? The meticulous and careful wording of legal documents often allows for an unseen, underlying power in favor of the (big pharma dominated and beholden) rule makers.
Even though most folk are aware of the scientific data and research on alternative medicines that work to ease the effects of Covid, the CPSO is still saying no to administering anything but the vaccine. It is hard to believe this when scientific evidence proves the benefits of both Ivermectin and many naturally occurring substances in medicinal foods through the voice of many doctors who have prescribed such. It is also hard to believe that the use of alternative medicine will create shortages. Really? There is certainly no shortage of a worldwide profit-making vaccine made for billions of non-suspecting people who may not even be ill.
"The horses of our nature can be overwhelming, and sometimes we think, “Just let them run free, they’ll be okay”.
That might work if we were only horses, or only wolves, birds, or fish, purely natural. But human beings are not like other animals. We are not purely natural, but uber-natural, beyond natural, half horse and half wagon driver."
This statement seems to me to hold a sort of hubris based in human-exceptionalism and anthropocentrism.
I explore the detriments of the rise of anthropocentric thinking in this essay:
I would value hearing your thoughts on what is presented in a book called THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING: A NEW HISTORY OF HUMANITY" by DAVID GRAEBER and DAVID WENGROW
Thank you for this framing. I read about a dozen books on Amish education, socialization, etc. when I was a teenager and was struck when I first learned that the Amish are not so much anti-technology as they are pro-discernment. They are hesitant to adopt new technologies simply as the way things are -- they resist the inevitability narrative as well as a few others of the mistaken cognitions that you identify. They make deliberate, deliberative decisions.
We have a lot to learn from this, even if we do not make the same decisions as an Amish community might. Are we making decisions about tech, or are we letting tech be the tracks we ride on?
This quote from St. Porohyrios comes to mind in thinking about the battle with the passions:
“Do not fight to expel darkness from the chamber of your soul. Open a tiny aperture for light to enter, and the darkness will disappear. Attack your passion head on, and you’ll see how strongly it will entwine you and grip you and you won’t be able to do anything…Let all your strength be turned to love for God, worship of God, and adhesion to God. In this way your release from evil and from your weaknesses will happen in a mystical manner, without you being aware of it and without exertion.
A person can become a saint anywhere…Look on all things as opportunities to be sanctified.”
As so say, it's not in pitched battle and pure resistance that we overcome, but in turning our attention on the Good, True and Beautiful - namely, on the Holy Trinity.
Thank you for this promising post! I will come back to read more carefully and comment more fully later, but I want to pop in right now after skimming and mention that my "dumbphone" is produced by a Mennonite company, which sure does feel right! https://sunbeamwireless.com/the-story-behind-sunbeam-phones/
Very well articulated. Is there a new technology which hasn't made things better and worse? I think the Plain People understand that and try to make choices that maximize utility while minimizing distractions from what is important. We could learn from that.
Excellent. So much to think about here!
"We can’t entirely set those horses free any more than a wagon driver can release the reins and expect to stay on the path."
Perhaps the most enlightening article I have ever read! The picture of human life as a carriage being pulled by potentially wild horses reverberates as true. The driver and the horses have to be trained to the task of controlling the speed and direction to harness the potential for disaster into productive motion.
Grateful to you for this exquisite post! Knowing that writers can still be found who help us all with our "mirrors" is why I subscribe to Substack. This is an excellent piece and should be widely read. Thank you with the greatest appreciation!
Boy, did I need this today. Over the past two years I have uprooted myself from the city in order to escape the Machine. I moved to a place where I believed (passionately) that I had escaped. Less than one year after my move, I noticed some unusual activity around a telephone line by my home….to shorten the story….it had been selected as the ONLY possible location for a 5G antenna. I managed to hold them off for 12 months. I am currently out of the country, and my neighbor sent me a photo of this monstrosity that now looks down over my bedroom and living room. I’ve been feeling broken hearted. Your article helped a lot although I will need to read it again. I love your writing.
What great images, metaphors and arguments to meditate on! Love the CS Lewis quote to tie it together. I feel inspired to do some writing.
Peco, Thank you for this beautiful work. I've just been re-reading Robert Bly's Sibling Society. Do you know it? He brilliantly describes the relationship between the absence of initiation, culture loss, the approach of technology and computers, and the turn toward self-concern. Thanks again, Adam
Well thought out! I loved the quotes from Chesterton and C.S. Lewis.
Firstly, I would like to say that I respect and admire your endeavor to help people to find a compass that points to a true north where embodied humans matter, the natural world matters, love and sacrifice matter and the working of our hands matters.
While I admire your noble goals I have several concerns about shaky assumptions that are built into the tools, institutions and frameworks you highlight as viable to enable people to build a compass which can help them to pierce through the foggy realms of “cognitive distortions” to perceive objective facts about reality.
The first aspect I see as problematic and potentially capable of becoming detrimental/dangerous is the premise of CBT therapy itself.
If the therapists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and councilors etc that are administering something like CBT were omniscient, uniformly benevolent, and incorruptibly objective than I think that process (at least, as you describe it here) would work for the benefit of the one receiving the therapy 100%.
However, our psychiatrists, psychologists and councilors are human beings. Many of those human beings are being targeted by corrupt institutions and corporations by indoctrination, bribery, blackmail and weaponized mob mentality (Ashe conformity experiment) dynamics and they each have varying degrees of mental, emotional and spiritual maturity, resilience, integrity and courage (and thus are impacted by said indoctrination campaigns to varying degrees and with varying results).
The stated goals of the CBT procedure sound benign and beneficial at first glance, however, when one takes a closer look at the inherent corruptibility of that system it actually has the potential to become a weapon rather than a pathway to healing.
We live in the era of “trust The Science” corporate slogans (pushed by corrupt and subservient governments and academic institutions) which have been used to gaslight (and/or coerce) billions of human beings into allowing experimental, toxic, ineffective, gene based injectable pharmaceutical products (which were manufactured by corporations with repeat felony fraud criminal track records) to be put into their bodies.
The propaganda that was (and is still being) disseminated about said injectable products was so prolific, so ubiquitous and projected through so many institutions we have been raised to trust and respect, that many people that were typically critically thinking individuals capitulated and conformed to the irrational, unscientific and irresponsible corporate slogans, simultaneous government propaganda and government edicts/coercion tactics (internalizing the propaganda even though everything about it represents a radical departure from critical thinking into a sort of dogmatic belief system or cult).
Doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and councilors were not immune to this propaganda and psychological warfare campaign of unprecedented proportions, in fact, people in those professions were targeted with coercion and gaslighting campaigns by big pharma corporations and complicit governments in a much more concerted and relentless way than the general populace.
While some courageous individuals resisted that coordinated premeditated attack on their hearts, minds, bodies, financial security, social status and professional standing and chose to remain true to their convictions , ethics, integrity and critical thinking capacities, many (understandably) folded, capitulated, fell in line and then having internalized the dogmas disseminated by said corporations and governments, began attention to indoctrinate others into joining their new found religion/cult.
In the minds of most of these indoctrinated medical and mental health professionals they were now making choices (and encouraging others to make choices) based on their rock solid assessment of objective evidence (which was and actually is fallacious big pharma propaganda) and observations of the “real world” (the story of how statist institutions are inherently trustworthy and what they mandate should be obeyed without question).
Here in Canada that resulted in millions of everyday citizens going to the doctor and asking them for advice on what course of action they should take with regards to deciding if they should allow a product (manufactured by a corporation with a felony track record of fraud) to be injected into their bodies as their government was strongly suggesting, financially pressuring and attempting to coerce them into taking. Many of those medical health professionals told people that the experimental injections were “safe and effective” (as their cult leader’s propaganda had indoctrinated them to parrot) and these millions of people followed the advice of those doctors in deciding to inject themselves and their children with these big pharma products (resulting in thousands of unnecessary fatalities and the maiming of people of all ages and massive profits for corporations like Pfizer).
Many allopathic medical professionals in Canada paid the ultimate price for conforming to the irrational corporate and government propaganda: https://druthers.ca/wp-content/uploads/druthers-november-2022-resized.pdf
Despite the observable (directly attributable) death of children (and people of all ages, including many doctors) due to receiving these synthetic mRNA gene based injections, there were medical professional organizations and institutions that declared the deaths and permanent injuries being incurred by healthy individuals receiving said injections were “rare” and that the real problem doctors needed to be focusing on was “vaccine hesitancy”.
Here in Ontario, On October 5, 2022, the CPSO (College of Physicians and Surgeons Ontario) updated their website page Covid-19 FAQS for Physicians in regards to providing Covid care to patients, specifically in the area of vaccination hesitancy and alternative treatment. The following are two paragraphs (questions and answers) copied from their guideline: (See cpso.on.ca for full report)
Patients are asking me to write notes supporting a medical exemption from COVID-19 vaccines — what do I need to know?
It is also important that physicians work with their patients to manage anxieties related to the vaccine and not enable avoidance behavior. For example, for extreme fear of needles (trypanophobia) or other cases of serious concern, responsible use of prescription medications and/ or referral to psychotherapy may be available options. Overall, physicians have a responsibility to inform their patients about vaccines and not have those anxieties empowered by an exemption.
I’ve read about some drugs that might prove beneficial in treating COVID-19: Should I be prescribing these drugs as a precautionary measure? Can I prescribe them for myself or family?
No. Many of these drugs have an intended use and prescribing them as a precautionary measure has or may contribute to drug shortages, compromising care for others. Should these or other drugs prove useful in combating COVID-19, their use will need to be carefully managed to support those who need them the most.
So, in examining these two answers, it is important to read critically. We must pay attention to key words and phrases woven into the guidelines such as, “anxieties” “not enable avoidance behavior” “not have those anxieties empowered” “serious concern” “contribute to drug shortages” “compromising care for others”.
According to this guideline, resisting being vaccinated is deemed to be an “avoidance behavior” rather than an informed choice. This so called behavior now allows doctors to prescribe medication to their resistive patients, providing a more comfortable means to sway them to the guide’s suggested ‘yes’ behavior. Further, if the prescribed medication does not result in the required outcome of a ‘yes’ behaviour, doctors can then refer their patients to a psycho-therapist for the ultimate persuasion.
How will they distinguish “serious concern” from unwilling patients in the future? Can you read between the lines? The meticulous and careful wording of legal documents often allows for an unseen, underlying power in favor of the (big pharma dominated and beholden) rule makers.
Even though most folk are aware of the scientific data and research on alternative medicines that work to ease the effects of Covid, the CPSO is still saying no to administering anything but the vaccine. It is hard to believe this when scientific evidence proves the benefits of both Ivermectin and many naturally occurring substances in medicinal foods through the voice of many doctors who have prescribed such. It is also hard to believe that the use of alternative medicine will create shortages. Really? There is certainly no shortage of a worldwide profit-making vaccine made for billions of non-suspecting people who may not even be ill.
(continued..)
"The horses of our nature can be overwhelming, and sometimes we think, “Just let them run free, they’ll be okay”.
That might work if we were only horses, or only wolves, birds, or fish, purely natural. But human beings are not like other animals. We are not purely natural, but uber-natural, beyond natural, half horse and half wagon driver."
This statement seems to me to hold a sort of hubris based in human-exceptionalism and anthropocentrism.
I explore the detriments of the rise of anthropocentric thinking in this essay:
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-anthropocentrism-bright
I would value hearing your thoughts on what is presented in a book called THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING: A NEW HISTORY OF HUMANITY" by DAVID GRAEBER and DAVID WENGROW
You will find the full book here:
This the full PDF of the book: https://archive.org/stream/graeber-wengrow-dawn/The%20Dawn%20of%20Everything%20-%20David%20Graeber%20%26%20David%20Wengrow_djvu.txt
I especially recommend chapter 2 titled “Wicked Liberty”.
Perhaps I misread the intent of the content I quoted above and I would like to learn more about what was meant if that is the case.
Well put, thank you! I love the idea of creating a positive vision “for” instead of just a vision “against.”
It reminds me of the advice about avoiding potholes when biking: look where you want to go, not where you don’t.
Thank you for this framing. I read about a dozen books on Amish education, socialization, etc. when I was a teenager and was struck when I first learned that the Amish are not so much anti-technology as they are pro-discernment. They are hesitant to adopt new technologies simply as the way things are -- they resist the inevitability narrative as well as a few others of the mistaken cognitions that you identify. They make deliberate, deliberative decisions.
We have a lot to learn from this, even if we do not make the same decisions as an Amish community might. Are we making decisions about tech, or are we letting tech be the tracks we ride on?
This quote from St. Porohyrios comes to mind in thinking about the battle with the passions:
“Do not fight to expel darkness from the chamber of your soul. Open a tiny aperture for light to enter, and the darkness will disappear. Attack your passion head on, and you’ll see how strongly it will entwine you and grip you and you won’t be able to do anything…Let all your strength be turned to love for God, worship of God, and adhesion to God. In this way your release from evil and from your weaknesses will happen in a mystical manner, without you being aware of it and without exertion.
A person can become a saint anywhere…Look on all things as opportunities to be sanctified.”
As so say, it's not in pitched battle and pure resistance that we overcome, but in turning our attention on the Good, True and Beautiful - namely, on the Holy Trinity.