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What a great article, Charles! In reading the comments debunking your UFO thesis, unfortunately, they missed the point of your article, imo.

The last 2.5 years has given me the opportunity to listen to the “other side of the debate.” People that I would normally “compartmentalize” into a social/political/ideological groups in the past have turned out to be the most intelligent and rational people. The last 2.5yrs has exposed fallacies and lies, but at the same time introduced me to new ideas and friends. Your article does a great job encapsulating this process.

Thank you.

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I studied to be a high school art/ English teacher back in the 80’s. I walked away from the public school system because I could not stand the way the entire system was designed to teach each subject in isolation. I felt that it was making the kids dumber and less likely to make connections. A number of years later I read John Taylor Gatto and did a deeper dive into the history of the public school system and realized, of course, it was deliberately designed to suppress creative thought.

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Beautiful essay. Thank you.

I’m a (former?) far left progressive who lived in a deeply conservative town in upper east TN for decades. I loved it there. Raised my kids there. Loved my neighbors, the forests and farms and fields, the community. But as our country headed into deep division so did my life in this community. It became clear that our family was no longer welcome or accepted in our small industrial town, despite our deep community involvement and commitment.

My reaction was wrong-headed but protective: Anger. Protect my children. Leave as soon as possible. And we did, but to an equally divisive state because that was where the job was.

I was fortunate to have had a serious health meltdown accompanied by a return to meditation and deep spiritual searching. And what kept coming through to me was ‘let go’. I continue to follow this gentle command. Not at all perfectly, but as best as I can. This essay speaks eloquently to that. I believe that it is in the space of vulnerability and surrender and openness to what is possible, but only together, that our survival and future will be co-created.

I’ll add that many of my conservative friends from TN and beyond are now my daily companions. We ‘hash it out’, feel every emotion together, grow together. It’s hard work, surrendering and listening. We are specks, the smallest points of light, a tiny bit of fractal, doing the hard work in our stuttering, faulty way. But it feels right.

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"Trauma and ideology have riven the modern self and modern society into fragments, which take refuge in social and psychic compartments."

When I read this, my first thought was that "the modern self" was borne of trauma and is a symptom of trauma. The modern self, as a concept and an image, is the concept and image of 'self' as interior and world as exterior. The very essence of 'the modern self' is thus alienation, separation, fragmentation, division....

The principal ameliorative alternative image and concept of 'self' would, in my opinion, have to consist of two basic elements, aspects or components. It would have to unite what we've come to call "interiority" with what we call "the world ('out there') and it would have to preserve, honor, respect and incorporate (embody) alterity, or the distinction between individual people (and other living beings). This seems quite paradoxical to the mind of a modern self. And it is!

The self is actually cosmic, not isolated and alienated. While localized in an individual it is not self-enclosed nor self-contained. It is continuous with the whole of the cosmos, undivided... and in radical relationship with all things, all beings. But the modern self feels itself contained within an 'interior', separate and alone. It learns this way of being through enculturation and indoctrination. Myriad ideologies grow out of this nucleus, and they all have the same basic shape: e.g., anthropocentrism, economics rooted in competition and conquest, etc.

The essence of the modern self is alienation. And alienation is essentially traumatic. The only thing for a modern self to do is to let go and fall into radical relatedness of a cosmic sort. Which isn't so hard to do, really, since this radical relatedness is our innate nature.

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Bob lazar, who knows, he seems genuine, but there's genuine people who think Jesus etc talk to them. Genuine does not equal sane, being ridiculed does not equal truth either. These are all huge logical fallacies.

Officially confirmed? Haha, did you know that those videos of jets chasing the objects were flown not by military pilots but "contractors"? But if you believe UFOs are real, you will ignore that shady fact.

Talk about trust, sure, that's a problem even among those who think they are on the path of truth. I wanted to believe in things and refused to consider that I trick myself like the masses who might believe in more widely held ideas.

John keel who was big on the mothman investigations went deep into investigating abductions for a long time and eventually realized that it's a psychological phenomenon, just like religious experiences. You cannot assume that what people think is true is really true once you've studied psychology, mainly the issue of how big groups promote group think/ archetypes. Before it was angels, fairies, demons, gods... Today it's UFOs and spirit guides...

Eyewitness testimony is inaccurate, even under hypnosis. Why? Because our brains edit memories to fit our internal paradigm.

I think it was from a summary written by RAW, which I saved because it explains why all of the "proof" of et is so fragile like ghosts etc.

The best way to handle looking into phenomena is to adopt RAW: "I BELIEVE NOTHING"

that doesn't mean to blind yourself to things, it means to not blind yourself to see what you expect in reality based on your beliefs. You see what you want to see and not see what you deny, as our minds interpret what the senses provide and we try to fit it into the internal map that we have of "reality"

"Daimonic Reality

Daimonic Reality by Patrick Harpur examines UFOs and a wide variety of “paranormal” phenomena from a rather unique angle. Although Harpur never fully defines the daimonic—“the daimonic that can be defined is not the true daimonic,” as Lao-Tse would say—it seems to exist both inside us and outside us. Like the Greek daemon and unlike the Christian demon, it takes both good/healing and bad/terrifying forms, depending on our commitment to rationalistic ego states.

In a sense, the daimonic is like the collective unconscious of Carl Jung, inside us as a part of our total self that the ego wishes to deny, outside us in all the other humans who ever existed and in the dreams, myths, and arts of all the world. But Harpur follows Irish poet (and Golden Dawn alumnus) W. B. Yeats as often as he follows Jung, and traces some of his ideas back to Giordano Bruno and the alchemical/hermetic mystics of the Renaissance. The daimonic is just a bit more personalized and individualized than Jung’s species unconscious.

Harpur’s major thesis is that unless we recognize the daimonic (make friends with it, Jung would say) it takes increasingly malignant and terrifying forms. For instance, the Greys of UFO abduction lore, he says, are deliberately mirroring our ego-centered and “scientistic” age—showing no emotions of the humans they experiment upon, just as the ideal science student feels no emotion and has no concern with the emotions of the animal being tortured in his laboratory.

Despite dealing with many subjects common to conspiracy theories, this book does not quite fit into that category. We are the conspirators, so to speak. We have repressed the most creative part of ourselves and now it is escaping in terrifying forms"

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Standing aside from conventional beliefs we can seem to enter a world more metaphysical than physical . Yet I think we ignore the signs , rythyms around us everyday that point to laws which surpass our individual existence .

Citing this example of hidden and commonly presented science and the chasm between , Charles has illustrated how it is evident that “ trust “ regarding what is true is broken both ways ; those who are conventional may choose to rate those who have challenging information and suspicions as conspirators, those with these alternative beliefs then choose to believe that those who adopt the more common ideology are somehow inadvertently in cahoots with the authorities by proxy . I agree with Charles summary of these polarities , they actually prevent progress , this way good things medicine can be denied to everyone on the basis that this group refuse to believe there’s any good in it , the refusal being self propagated . Additionally those who access these technologies or medicine are unable to allow creative thought that might question their own suitability to the “ product “ or see the morality of its impact on society in general . This is a way we can all be lost . The mere idea of an advanced civilisation shouldn’t cause havoc but keep us alive to watching the skies , the dreams of intergalactic travel and community a tangible reality . The technologies also a shared asset for the earth rather than one National interest .

It does really reflect what we see in relation to vaccination , instead of discourse and sharing or structured ethics we have division and beliefs from both sides which ring the alarm bells of danger to me . Online apart from the balanced arguments we exchange here I am unable to find a group that’s not essentially tribal or so anarchist that we can exchange with intelligence that reveals anything useful .

Yet again Charles has illustrated the problem with” division “ , the source of “ compartmentalisation the source of war the source of tears . Thank you again Charles for your work it’s always a breath of fresh air

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I have been following Ekhart Tolle lately, one of several teachers and masters (including you, Charles) who are amongst us at this time. While it has seemed so overwhelming to live through this time period, it is becoming evident to me that the turmoil and outrage might be serving a purpose, that being a way to shake humanity up so hard that individuals will finally surrender and seek out that which has been missing all along in us and which has coalesced collectively into the world we see now. We are missing the connection with our true selves, the self that is inexpressibly vast compared to the egoic self with which we identify so hard and so exclusively. The mind & ego were meant only to be the tools with which we navigate our physical existences. They were never meant to make us forget that we are consciousness itself, perfect and knowing. We have traded that in to put our ego above all else and to live in a world where we either feel inferior or superior to others, not realizing that there is one consciousness and that we are all ripples in the ocean of it. We are connected in a profound way with each other. There is a reason that we are all here right now. We chose to be, so let’s figure this thing out.

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As I inhale this message every cell in my body relaxes…the words express what I know but can’t articulate. So grateful.

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Wonderful Charles. the exercise of truth even if it hurts deserves a concerted and courageous effort from all of us. We are the Earth and such re integration of our personal realities on some level allows the Earth herself to renew; to regenerate as we, parts of her expression come back on line with our purposes. Thanks for putting things together so gracefully. Regards Pete

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This is incredibly powerful and it’s serendipitous that it would arrive in my inbox this morning. I was trying to reconcile my own divided mind and having trouble accepting truths about the past few years, and this essay laid bare the core structural problem inside of me, as well as some really beautiful encouragement regarding the result of de-compartmentalization that I can say I have seen first hand to be true/coming true. Thank you for the continued gift of your writing.

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I recently read "The Sun Thief" by Cara St Louis Farelly, a novel based on real-life events on the subject of chemtrails. The deliberate compartmentalisation of knowledge, preventing anyone working on particular projects knowing what the others were doing, is clearly described in this book. Definitely a tactic of anyone wanting to control others on a grand scale.

What I wonder about the UFO information coming out is how much this is the deliberate building up of a narrative that will be used to scare us into giving more power to the state. I have heard this from various channelers and psychics - it seems to be common knowledge in such circles that the next big scam story will be that of evil aliens invading and good ones saving us in cooperation with our lovely governments. And they also say that we are ourselves the aliens - kind of like Charles's story of A Gathering of the Tribe, and that it is all to be understood on a very different level from that of the literal one. So I remain sceptical about everything we will hear - plagues, wars, alien invasions.... They are all a ploy to convince us how helpless we are and distract us from what we are really doing here.

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I've been contemplating the role of war and the military in shaping so many aspects of our societies and cultures. The development of the pattern which is war and militaries extends into prehistory, but certainly it has 'evolved' a great deal since the emergence of modern nation states and technological industrialism.

Today, of course, we have a deep habit (all over the world) of assuming that weak nations will be invaded, militarily dominated.... So merely to survive as a nation it is generally regarded as necessary to have a big, powerful and strong military, or at least to have the promise of protection from a nation or nations which do have this. (Russia's current war with Ukraine comes to mind as I write.)

If UFOs are real, and if the government and/or corporations have been secretly seeking to reverse engineer their propulsion systems, surely the secrecy must relate to the notion of 'national security' in relation to the hope of having technological superiority over any enemies which may arise.

But the boundary between security (defense) and offence (exploitation of others) appears not to be at all clear in practice. Modern nation states are in competitive relation to one another, after all.

More and more I am doubting that we humans can extricate ourselves from our collective omnicidal habits without essentially putting an end to competition between nation states, or groupings of nation states. Somehow, we will have to enter into true cooperation between nations, which would initiate the process in which nation states as we now know them will simply dissolve, because they can serve no meaningful function without their basis in competition, war, and the fear of being invaded by a dominating neighbor.

The root of our collective problems is a certain mistaken way of conceiving of "the other," and thus of "the self". If we don't shift at this most fundamental level I suspect our species, and most of life on the planet now, will become extinct.

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"With each stage of its construction, life got better and better". Nope...

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What if these UFO's are actually from another dimension? What if there are MANY other dimensions? What if what we think we see is only a tiny bit of a whole 'nuther world, but we can't go there, because we're not advanced enough? I mean, look at us... Our technology is what it is, but our spiritual/social/interpersonal maturity is... well, less than "mature," I would say. I mean, we're STILL lying, waging war, letting people starve, hurting, killing... We're due for a serious growth spurt, folks. Maybe in a few thousand more years we can manage something like contact with ... whatever/whomever. We're like TODDLERS.

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Bless you Charles for your passion to make the invisible visible and the many ways you come at this mystical phenomenon. It is very difficult in today's world for people to embrace the invisible as REAL. This is why it is hard to see that the Corona virus is real on two levels. The invisible reality is that the the illusion of separation has gone viral and taken on form in the collective human soul, as you have said. To try and compartmentalize these realities without addressing both is futile as we are seeing. The Climate is changing on two levels. What we think we see "out there" is actually a manifestation/mirror of what is happening in the human psyche collectively. The polarization is increasing and manifesting in the weather as more violent and extreme patterns of hate and rage against the "other." The violence isn't "out there" somewhere its in the soul of humanity as we separate ourselves from God, nature and one another. Bringing these two realities in to some kind of balance and harmony requires a return to the "Womb," the Source from which all life arises. We are actually still in this womb where the expansiveness allows us to see all possibility and potential, all form that is possible. We are scrolling through all possibility trying to see our true Self in the mirror or our soul. We are searching for the original form and our longing to see it is the discontent we feel because we haven't found it. This form is actually a Divine Dance between Lovers/others which is equal, mutual, reciprocal in an economy of resource to meet all needs of both. This dance of give and take has created the space, the womb and the time we need to freely choose our destiny.

We can't "think" our way into this relationship. We have to experience it, get quiet enough and hear the invitation to enter the depths of Silence where we will find our way Home.

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Charles, I so appreciate your speaking to this deep pathology of cultural compartmentalization and the resulting centralized control of perception that creates individual and social paralysis. I am reminded of my self-designed graduate study to weave together an education that crossed the compartmentalized curriculum of several departments--to pursue my quest for answers. Interestingly, the dean of the graduate school called me in his office and said I had set a record for being "unclassified" and suggested I "finish up" while also sharing with a wink that he had been part of some secret gov operation that started with the words, "Blue". I have recently learned of several covert programs that started with the word, "Blue...don't know which was his. My "takeaway" point here is that my refusal to be compartmentalized was a threat to something hidden of which he had been a part and now as dean of graduate study he was guarding.

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