It is not often that someone writes exactly what I would like to write, but much better than I could. Thank you for this series and especially for this essay!
Thank you for this series of thoughtful, enlightening and astute psychological analysis of the phenomenon of scapegoating. This is the epidemic we must transcend to create the world we wish to see. Yes, we must be the change and quit dehumanizing anyone. I really appreciate a voice for unity in the midst of this chaos. I have recently been sharing content around vaccine safety and experience the "war mentality" of which you speak, which only keeps us entrenched and vulnerable to those in power.
Calling one's opponent evil is the ultimate judgement, but doing so causes us to suffer a worse fate: We dehumanize ourselves. Only compassion rehumanizes us. It accepts that in the totality of the situation, if I were in your shoes, I may have acted similarly. An ancient greeting that recognizes this truth can be translated as "I am another you."
We are definitely surfing on the same wavelength, Charles!I have begun to deviate from my typical content in Solace for Sensitive Souls, my Substack newsletter, because I am compelled from my soul to speak out about threats to freedom ushered in under covid. As a mother of three, now-grown children, I learned about vaccine injury firsthand. Looking back, it felt as if I were constantly trying to reclaim my children from the clutches of pharmaceutical companies. Fast forward 30 years, I am a grandmother who wants a better future for my grandchildren, one where they can grow up healthy and happy, free from State intervention and forced medical treatment.
There's a broken link there to a humane lecture by Dr. Peter Mc Cullough, which I highly recommend. His humanity is evident as he speaks common sense from his own experience. Don't miss it! Here it is: https://www.bitchute.com/video/UxXFyWFfkve6/
Profound essay, Charles. It provoked in me, once again, empathy for health authorities sensing that they must take action without waiting for clinical trials to be analyzed and re-analyzed. In this situation errors will be made. You just hope that they are not too deadly, but you know that you will will be criticized both for acting too soon and acting too late. People crave a perfect answer, an instant miracle when none is possible, so they come to doubt the entire process. Social media makes it easy for masses of critics to second guess and to scapegoat.
Scapegoating is a mob mentality, a mob that faced with uncertainty picks a victim and does something. They act. And they find closure and relief in so doing.
I recall reading a news reporters account of a crowd at a lynching over 100 years ago. He asked a woman, "Suppose he didn't do it?"
Her response, "Don't make no difference. He ain't doing it again!"
How do we promote better systems thinking and problem solving in an entire population?
Thank you for this gift, Charles. One of the mantras that comes to mind in reading your essay is "as above, so below", which helps me daily to remember my connection to all around and in me. May we create an earthly temple, indeed.
This essay rings so true for me it literally gave me chills. I've been feeling horrified and alienated by the ridicule and vindictive grave-dancing I've seen by members of "my tribe" who express more and more ill will toward Covid deniers/skeptics/anti-vaxxers/etc. And I have to catch myself from slipping into feeling superior toward those who act superior LOL. But mostly I just feel broken-hearted and powerless to hold back this tidal wave of hatred.
Charles, This is a wonderful, profound essay. It points us toward the need to reclaim our humanity. However, two things to consider. First, in the struggle around the Covid-19 vaccines, I feel your call for a perfect balance between the "two sides" is itself a distortion given that any dialogue or debate around the merits of the vaccines has been completely refused. Second, nowhere do you mention the word "capitalism." Nor indeed is it used by any of those seeing corruption in the rollout of the vaccines. But that's the system we live in! Predatory capitalism enfolds everyone in its grasp. We must face this head-on in order to find a better way to live.
Brilliant Charles! Thank you for your very thoughtful, balanced approach to what humanity is experiencing now. It is an ongoing struggle for many to avoid falling into the trap of feeling victimized by 'the others' and using that as an excuse to victimize and scapegoat 'them'. We are all connected and to hate someone else is only directing hate towards myself.
Thank you very much for your inspiring words which are indeed so necessary in these times of collective confusion.
Although I share most of your reflections, which undoubtedly stem from a sincere desire to unite humanity as the one being that we really are, there are a few minor points on which I differ slightly.
Like you, my perception is that the way forward must start from the deep understanding that we are all and everything in reality the same Divine essence, which is also our human essence, for without the former, the latter would be lifeless on its own.
Now, the changes that are taking place in the collective body of humanity, though guided by the Divine Essence of all, materially manifest as the interplay between the energies of evil and good, God and the devil, or if we prefer, by the evolutionary and anti-evolutionary forces.
There is no doubt that these pairs of opposites have been functioning from the beginning of creation, in my understanding, simply to promote evolutionary movement, to prevent stagnation, and to help the creation itself and each of its constituent individuals to taste in fullness their spiritual Essence when they reach it.
In this sense these two aspects of creation, the negative and the positive, are undoubtedly real in the current evolutionary state, where the experience and identification with our Divine Essence, both as individuals and collectively, has not yet been achieved.
In modern times, this interplay between good and evil is more apparent than ever, all due to the transitional moment between two evolutionary eras, the Kali Yuga, or age of darkness, and the Satya Yuga, or age of truth. This being an abrupt, if not progressive, change, these forces are playing their role more strongly than ever before.
This is undoubtedly evident as we see around the world how massively a desire has arisen for a spiritual quest for our Divine Essence, something that has previously only occurred on a small scale. At the same time the anti-evolutionary energy, symbolic of this age of the Kali Yuga is clinging tooth and nail to its precious spoils, humanity, as it can see on the horizon how in the fast approaching new world of Satya Yuga, it will have hardly any space or place.
And I finally came to the conclusion of my slight differences with your writing.
In these modern times the involutionary forces seem to have taken control of humanity as a whole. These forces represented by the financial groupings, multinationals, politicians and the media are impressing upon humanity their own anti-evolutionary essence by consciously attempting to prevent the leap into the new age of Satya yuga.
Of course these forces act through the human being in very different states and intensities. But it seems obvious that, at present, the positions of power are instruments of these forces, and are almost totally identified with this negative essence. For this reason they are able to create pain, confrontation, polarity, scarcity, suffering, ultimately, for humanity as a whole, something that would be unthinkable in a person who is guided by his or her Divine Essence.
This seems obvious to me, and in this situation, Bill Gates, as well as many other people, are a clear example of this. They are instruments of the anti-evolutionary energy working in many cases consciously to achieve their goals. Here, the idea that these people might think they are doing good in the world seems to me too idealistic. Although many people at other levels below such organs of power may be unaware of the purpose of those from whom they receive instructions or orders, at a lower level they are also instruments of that energy which ultimately seeks to stagnate evolution in this dark age.
Now, the solution to such conflict in the world, beyond dealing through empathic communication within the polar opposites of humanity, is to grow into the new world that is coming, a world for which many people have been preparing for a long time, though especially in the last few decades. In many of these people, among whom you undoubtedly represent a light on the path, the new consciousness of the coming world has already awakened. A consciousness where the pairs of opposites we briefly described earlier are one and the same Divine Essence, barely representing a game, all to propel this transcendental shift we are approaching.
Just as a blind person cannot be shown the colour we see in front of us, but can only be shown our interpretation of it, so when there are people who have been blinded by the propaganda of polarity and confrontation, it is almost impossible to convey to them the reality we see before our eyes.
Now, there is another possible way, to transcend to another plane, where even if veiled, the spirit of the other person, their Divine Consciousness, beyond the material plane, can receive the gaze of another Divine Consciousness and see their own reflection, feel their own Love and Compassion. All this in a natural way because both consciousness and love are actually the same.
This is my understanding of the creation of the new world of Satya yuga. To understand that everyone and everything is the same Divine Being and to go beyond polarity by pouring this understanding and vision into everyone, pouring our light more if possible, where it is most needed, where the darkness hides the Divine reality.
In this case it certainly pays to be acutely aware that a partial understanding of the interplay between good and evil can certainly get us stuck in the pairs of opposites, where confrontation inevitably occurs. But if we adopt the higher understanding that even though all this is real on one plane of existence there is a higher plane of the Oneness of all, we can see ourselves not only free from the influence of the pairs of opposites but awaken new dimensions of true compassion where there is no other but Divine Essence, Undifferentiated Consciousness, Immutable, Eternal and Joyful.
Very important ideas for the consideration of us all. Non violent communication is pretty much the same understanding. Also "The Work" by Byron Katie recognizes that one can never really know enough of what might cause some people to act in such a way that seems evil or bad, to stand in judgement of them.
Could you elaborate more on point 1. at the end? "from what I’ve seen the main thrust of their arguments is based on a misunderstanding of how viral gene sequencing works." With a lack of control experiments for a virus' cytopathic effects to assure a viral presence, does sequencing anything from that petri dish really mean anything? Thank you for all you write.
Curious why you think Lanka's work is a 'misunderstanding' of how viral sequencing works. He did himself (in the 1980ies) isolate a virus (a bacteriophage from algae) using the process he and Cowan/Kaufman refers to as 'true' isolation. he questions why this cannot be done for the so-called 'human viruses'. He also conducted a control experiment which showed that the 'virus sequence' could be created in an isolation process simply by adding the various other ingredients of the process but not any human 'snot' suggesting that - as he claims - what they are sequencing is produced by these substances in the lab and not in the human body. Cowan just released a new book addressing many of the criticisms which I plan to read in the coming weeks.
It's also worth reading VirusMania which builds a convincing case that all other viruses too are misidentified (and they go into detail on how). I agree with nearly all your arguments and while it is hard to believe that a whole profession could be wrong over decades it is not unheard of (in fact, it is quite normal in science to hold on to false assumptions simply in order to sustain the existing paradigm. This happens with the Big Bang Theory and many other dominant theories to this day).
I shared the very same photo on my Facebook feed. What I got was a sad and discouraging series of replies railing against the unvaccinated. Instead of understanding why these two women where holding hands in solidarity of their humanity, their friendship, their empathy, people responded in self righteous prejudice and shall I add, hatred?
Wake up people, we are being told to hate each other, and we have been trained to do what we are told.
I know that you don't just write about these things Charles, but you embody them - I saw you live these values whilst being "interviewed" on the Conspirituality podcast. You reached out to connect and listen, despite the hosts being highly critical of you both before and after the interview. [The people who run that podcast would do well to read this series because they are so caught up with their self-righteousness that they don't see they are doing the exact same things that they project onto the people they critique in their episodes - I can't even listen to them anymore due to that]
Thank you for embodying your message at that time which provided a great example of how to practice these principles when dealing with "the other side".
This series of articles has helped me so much - I was struggling to understand what was going on in these bizarre times, and it was playing on my mind so much that it was taking a severe emotional toll.
But viewing these events from the Girdian perspective you outline makes 100% sense to me. It feel true in my heart and gut. I've re-centered and I feel better equipped to connect rather than convince.
It is not often that someone writes exactly what I would like to write, but much better than I could. Thank you for this series and especially for this essay!
Thank you for this series of thoughtful, enlightening and astute psychological analysis of the phenomenon of scapegoating. This is the epidemic we must transcend to create the world we wish to see. Yes, we must be the change and quit dehumanizing anyone. I really appreciate a voice for unity in the midst of this chaos. I have recently been sharing content around vaccine safety and experience the "war mentality" of which you speak, which only keeps us entrenched and vulnerable to those in power.
Calling one's opponent evil is the ultimate judgement, but doing so causes us to suffer a worse fate: We dehumanize ourselves. Only compassion rehumanizes us. It accepts that in the totality of the situation, if I were in your shoes, I may have acted similarly. An ancient greeting that recognizes this truth can be translated as "I am another you."
We are definitely surfing on the same wavelength, Charles!I have begun to deviate from my typical content in Solace for Sensitive Souls, my Substack newsletter, because I am compelled from my soul to speak out about threats to freedom ushered in under covid. As a mother of three, now-grown children, I learned about vaccine injury firsthand. Looking back, it felt as if I were constantly trying to reclaim my children from the clutches of pharmaceutical companies. Fast forward 30 years, I am a grandmother who wants a better future for my grandchildren, one where they can grow up healthy and happy, free from State intervention and forced medical treatment.
Check out my latest article: https://revkatiegrace.substack.com/p/if-vaccines-are-modern-medicines
There's a broken link there to a humane lecture by Dr. Peter Mc Cullough, which I highly recommend. His humanity is evident as he speaks common sense from his own experience. Don't miss it! Here it is: https://www.bitchute.com/video/UxXFyWFfkve6/
Profound essay, Charles. It provoked in me, once again, empathy for health authorities sensing that they must take action without waiting for clinical trials to be analyzed and re-analyzed. In this situation errors will be made. You just hope that they are not too deadly, but you know that you will will be criticized both for acting too soon and acting too late. People crave a perfect answer, an instant miracle when none is possible, so they come to doubt the entire process. Social media makes it easy for masses of critics to second guess and to scapegoat.
Scapegoating is a mob mentality, a mob that faced with uncertainty picks a victim and does something. They act. And they find closure and relief in so doing.
I recall reading a news reporters account of a crowd at a lynching over 100 years ago. He asked a woman, "Suppose he didn't do it?"
Her response, "Don't make no difference. He ain't doing it again!"
How do we promote better systems thinking and problem solving in an entire population?
The End of Scapegoating article can be found at: https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/264317.pdf
This piece is so powerful. Reading it has glued me back together just when I felt I was falling apart. Thank you.
Thank you for this gift, Charles. One of the mantras that comes to mind in reading your essay is "as above, so below", which helps me daily to remember my connection to all around and in me. May we create an earthly temple, indeed.
This essay rings so true for me it literally gave me chills. I've been feeling horrified and alienated by the ridicule and vindictive grave-dancing I've seen by members of "my tribe" who express more and more ill will toward Covid deniers/skeptics/anti-vaxxers/etc. And I have to catch myself from slipping into feeling superior toward those who act superior LOL. But mostly I just feel broken-hearted and powerless to hold back this tidal wave of hatred.
This is one of my favorite that he’s written. It offers a real way out of this quagmire of polarization.
Charles, This is a wonderful, profound essay. It points us toward the need to reclaim our humanity. However, two things to consider. First, in the struggle around the Covid-19 vaccines, I feel your call for a perfect balance between the "two sides" is itself a distortion given that any dialogue or debate around the merits of the vaccines has been completely refused. Second, nowhere do you mention the word "capitalism." Nor indeed is it used by any of those seeing corruption in the rollout of the vaccines. But that's the system we live in! Predatory capitalism enfolds everyone in its grasp. We must face this head-on in order to find a better way to live.
Brilliant Charles! Thank you for your very thoughtful, balanced approach to what humanity is experiencing now. It is an ongoing struggle for many to avoid falling into the trap of feeling victimized by 'the others' and using that as an excuse to victimize and scapegoat 'them'. We are all connected and to hate someone else is only directing hate towards myself.
Thank you very much for your inspiring words which are indeed so necessary in these times of collective confusion.
Although I share most of your reflections, which undoubtedly stem from a sincere desire to unite humanity as the one being that we really are, there are a few minor points on which I differ slightly.
Like you, my perception is that the way forward must start from the deep understanding that we are all and everything in reality the same Divine essence, which is also our human essence, for without the former, the latter would be lifeless on its own.
Now, the changes that are taking place in the collective body of humanity, though guided by the Divine Essence of all, materially manifest as the interplay between the energies of evil and good, God and the devil, or if we prefer, by the evolutionary and anti-evolutionary forces.
There is no doubt that these pairs of opposites have been functioning from the beginning of creation, in my understanding, simply to promote evolutionary movement, to prevent stagnation, and to help the creation itself and each of its constituent individuals to taste in fullness their spiritual Essence when they reach it.
In this sense these two aspects of creation, the negative and the positive, are undoubtedly real in the current evolutionary state, where the experience and identification with our Divine Essence, both as individuals and collectively, has not yet been achieved.
In modern times, this interplay between good and evil is more apparent than ever, all due to the transitional moment between two evolutionary eras, the Kali Yuga, or age of darkness, and the Satya Yuga, or age of truth. This being an abrupt, if not progressive, change, these forces are playing their role more strongly than ever before.
This is undoubtedly evident as we see around the world how massively a desire has arisen for a spiritual quest for our Divine Essence, something that has previously only occurred on a small scale. At the same time the anti-evolutionary energy, symbolic of this age of the Kali Yuga is clinging tooth and nail to its precious spoils, humanity, as it can see on the horizon how in the fast approaching new world of Satya Yuga, it will have hardly any space or place.
And I finally came to the conclusion of my slight differences with your writing.
In these modern times the involutionary forces seem to have taken control of humanity as a whole. These forces represented by the financial groupings, multinationals, politicians and the media are impressing upon humanity their own anti-evolutionary essence by consciously attempting to prevent the leap into the new age of Satya yuga.
Of course these forces act through the human being in very different states and intensities. But it seems obvious that, at present, the positions of power are instruments of these forces, and are almost totally identified with this negative essence. For this reason they are able to create pain, confrontation, polarity, scarcity, suffering, ultimately, for humanity as a whole, something that would be unthinkable in a person who is guided by his or her Divine Essence.
This seems obvious to me, and in this situation, Bill Gates, as well as many other people, are a clear example of this. They are instruments of the anti-evolutionary energy working in many cases consciously to achieve their goals. Here, the idea that these people might think they are doing good in the world seems to me too idealistic. Although many people at other levels below such organs of power may be unaware of the purpose of those from whom they receive instructions or orders, at a lower level they are also instruments of that energy which ultimately seeks to stagnate evolution in this dark age.
Now, the solution to such conflict in the world, beyond dealing through empathic communication within the polar opposites of humanity, is to grow into the new world that is coming, a world for which many people have been preparing for a long time, though especially in the last few decades. In many of these people, among whom you undoubtedly represent a light on the path, the new consciousness of the coming world has already awakened. A consciousness where the pairs of opposites we briefly described earlier are one and the same Divine Essence, barely representing a game, all to propel this transcendental shift we are approaching.
Just as a blind person cannot be shown the colour we see in front of us, but can only be shown our interpretation of it, so when there are people who have been blinded by the propaganda of polarity and confrontation, it is almost impossible to convey to them the reality we see before our eyes.
Now, there is another possible way, to transcend to another plane, where even if veiled, the spirit of the other person, their Divine Consciousness, beyond the material plane, can receive the gaze of another Divine Consciousness and see their own reflection, feel their own Love and Compassion. All this in a natural way because both consciousness and love are actually the same.
This is my understanding of the creation of the new world of Satya yuga. To understand that everyone and everything is the same Divine Being and to go beyond polarity by pouring this understanding and vision into everyone, pouring our light more if possible, where it is most needed, where the darkness hides the Divine reality.
In this case it certainly pays to be acutely aware that a partial understanding of the interplay between good and evil can certainly get us stuck in the pairs of opposites, where confrontation inevitably occurs. But if we adopt the higher understanding that even though all this is real on one plane of existence there is a higher plane of the Oneness of all, we can see ourselves not only free from the influence of the pairs of opposites but awaken new dimensions of true compassion where there is no other but Divine Essence, Undifferentiated Consciousness, Immutable, Eternal and Joyful.
José Mateos Juárez
Very important ideas for the consideration of us all. Non violent communication is pretty much the same understanding. Also "The Work" by Byron Katie recognizes that one can never really know enough of what might cause some people to act in such a way that seems evil or bad, to stand in judgement of them.
Could you elaborate more on point 1. at the end? "from what I’ve seen the main thrust of their arguments is based on a misunderstanding of how viral gene sequencing works." With a lack of control experiments for a virus' cytopathic effects to assure a viral presence, does sequencing anything from that petri dish really mean anything? Thank you for all you write.
Curious why you think Lanka's work is a 'misunderstanding' of how viral sequencing works. He did himself (in the 1980ies) isolate a virus (a bacteriophage from algae) using the process he and Cowan/Kaufman refers to as 'true' isolation. he questions why this cannot be done for the so-called 'human viruses'. He also conducted a control experiment which showed that the 'virus sequence' could be created in an isolation process simply by adding the various other ingredients of the process but not any human 'snot' suggesting that - as he claims - what they are sequencing is produced by these substances in the lab and not in the human body. Cowan just released a new book addressing many of the criticisms which I plan to read in the coming weeks.
It's also worth reading VirusMania which builds a convincing case that all other viruses too are misidentified (and they go into detail on how). I agree with nearly all your arguments and while it is hard to believe that a whole profession could be wrong over decades it is not unheard of (in fact, it is quite normal in science to hold on to false assumptions simply in order to sustain the existing paradigm. This happens with the Big Bang Theory and many other dominant theories to this day).
I shared the very same photo on my Facebook feed. What I got was a sad and discouraging series of replies railing against the unvaccinated. Instead of understanding why these two women where holding hands in solidarity of their humanity, their friendship, their empathy, people responded in self righteous prejudice and shall I add, hatred?
Wake up people, we are being told to hate each other, and we have been trained to do what we are told.
I know that you don't just write about these things Charles, but you embody them - I saw you live these values whilst being "interviewed" on the Conspirituality podcast. You reached out to connect and listen, despite the hosts being highly critical of you both before and after the interview. [The people who run that podcast would do well to read this series because they are so caught up with their self-righteousness that they don't see they are doing the exact same things that they project onto the people they critique in their episodes - I can't even listen to them anymore due to that]
Thank you for embodying your message at that time which provided a great example of how to practice these principles when dealing with "the other side".
This series of articles has helped me so much - I was struggling to understand what was going on in these bizarre times, and it was playing on my mind so much that it was taking a severe emotional toll.
But viewing these events from the Girdian perspective you outline makes 100% sense to me. It feel true in my heart and gut. I've re-centered and I feel better equipped to connect rather than convince.
with gratitude xx