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by Kingsley Dennis
New Dawn 177
(Nov-Dec
2019)
from
NewDawnMagazine Website
Spanish version
...in the
darkness
charlatans are
easily mistaken
for sages...
Chantal
Delsol
There's something
fundamentally wrong with how the world is right now.
Don't you see it - feel
it...?
We are a species with
noble character, with a great spirit, and with a sacred soul.
In our hearts we wish
only for the betterment of all people; for love and justice and
communion.
And yet what we see
going on in the world is nothing less than complete madness.
We have to say it exactly
as it is:
there is a
sickness going on, and this pathogen is spreading on a vast
scale.
We live in a world where
economic greed overrides all other factors.
Nations,
corporations, and individuals commit horrendous acts that
include impoverishment, deprivation, psychological and physical
torture, and even murder, just for financial gain.
We behave
horrendously toward each other; there is constant bullying and
harassment upon all social and cultural levels.
Violence is endemic
across the globe, and
pharmaceutical corporations
would rather turn a profit than support health and well-being.
Governmental
bodies and agents participate in
drug trafficking on a huge
scale in order to both make money as well as
promote addiction amongst the masses.
Rich individuals
and corporations hide their money through illegal offshore
schemes rather than contribute to the welfare of their
communities.
People in high
office consistently abuse, harass, and violate people within
their power as a sign of their high status.
The health of the
planet and its natural environment is constantly mistreated and
polluted; again, mostly for the sake of economic gain...
And the list goes on....
We have entered the
third millennium, and we pride ourselves on being an inventive
and intelligent species.
We have probed
off-planet and have allegedly placed people on the moon.
We are now planning
trips further afield into the solar system and of having people
live on the planet Mars.
We are an incredibly
creative and compassionate species...
So,
What is wrong?
Why do so many people
so much of the time adhere to thinking and ways of behavior that
is nothing short of insanity?
Why is everything so
seemingly upside-down?
The reason, I propose, is
that,
we are not living
within our right minds...
That is, we have 'lost'
our minds to a collective psychosis that seeks to imbue us with a
traumatic mind.
This is no flight of
fantasy. There are indeed indigenous and wisdom teachings that tell
of a mental force that exists in the collective consciousness field
that came to usurp our minds.
Various traditions refer
to these nefarious mindsets as,
...and more.
They speak of how an
'alien mind' has entrapped and traumatized the human collective
mind.
Another side of this story is that as a global species, we are also
projecting the wounds of our collective unconscious out into the
world.
This is both a traumatic
as well as cathartic process.
Perhaps it is
necessary - a collective cleansing of our unconscious traumas
and of the shadows that lurk in the dark recesses of our minds -
to prepare our species for the next phase of our evolution?
What we can be sure
about, without a doubt, is that we are amidst a great, historical
transition.
At this time, two major
issues confront us:
What's Going
On?
The question we are confronted with is a collective one, and it
concerns us all.
Why are so many of
us, our fellow humans, behaving so badly?
And not only badly, but
in a way that is detrimental to our own well-being.
It would seem more than
strange, verging on the insane, that any creature would wish to
deliberately harm its own environment and support systems.
Yet for us humans, we
have the significant added factor of being conscious of our actions,
and self-conscious in our reflective understanding.
So, again, we ask:
what has gotten into
our minds...?
Modernity (and
post-modernity) has given us the perspective that anything that is
important lays external to us.
The attitude of this
'modern mindset' to the external world has largely been one of
hostility:
we have been
conquering the external world for the greater part of recent
history, instead of mastering our own inner nature...
Whatever we project
externally eventually becomes our sense of reality:
therefore, if we have
inherited a corrupted collective mind, then we are projecting a
tarnished collective reality...
Modern life has attempted
to reinterpret the human condition, and this has resulted in a
separation from our need to seek essential inner meaning in our
lives.
Progress may alleviate
some of our suffering and pains, yet it shall never compensate for
the lack of fulfillment we feel inside, for this
requires metaphysical or transcendental nourishment.
Any notion of the spiritual, or the metaphysical, is often
considered not essential to our daily life, and we are taught to
dismiss it.
Modernity's task was
thus seen as freeing us from the illusions of
transcendence...
And in its place, we
have been conditioned (a.k.a. programmed) with a form of
thinking opposing a genuine path of human psychic development.
In this regard, I now
consider the hypothesis that a mental infection (a
psychosis) has entered the collective human mindset.
I examine this proposition from four different cultural contexts:
And I have given it my
own name:
the
Wounded Mind...
First, I turn to the
indigenous Native American tradition.
The Wetiko
Virus
Jack Forbes,
Native
American scholar and activist,
studied
this disease of the mind,
concluding it
"is the
greatest epidemic sickness known to man."
Jack Forbes
(1934-2011), a Native American scholar and
activist, long considered this question of what has gotten into the
human mind - and came up with an answer for it.
After long study, he came
to the conclusion that humanity is suffering from a specific
disease, a psychosis:
For several thousands
of years human beings have suffered from a plague, a disease
worse than leprosy, a sickness worse than malaria, a malady much
more terrible than smallpox... whatever we call it, this
disease, this wetiko (cannibal) psychosis, is the greatest
epidemic sickness known to man. 1
Wetiko is a
Cree term (windigo in
Ojibway, wintiko in Powhatan) that refers to,
an evil person or
spirit which terrorizes other creatures by means of terrible
acts...
And in Forbes' view, the
great tragedy of humankind is that our history for the past
two thousand years has largely been a tale of the psychosis
of the "wetiko disease" as he calls it.
He goes as far back as to
include the,
...as cultures that
helped to spread
the wetiko disease
throughout the Middle East.
Afterwards, it was,
the Macedonians and
Greeks under Alexander who spread it still further until
it finally landed in the lap of the Roman Empire,
...who, according to
Forbes, really expanded the wetiko infection.
What he is saying here is that this psychosis is a
particular mindset that took form as certain hierarchical cultures
and civilizations began to grow.
And in order to maintain
control, power, and to further bloody expansion, this mindset was,
deliberately
cultivated, encouraged, and then developed as the dominant
perspective and narrative...
In fact, it was a crucial
perspective that had to be propagated in order to maintain all
status quo power structures within a developing culture.
To not adhere to this
specific mindset almost certainly meant annihilation and eradication
in the face of other competing cultures (as was the case with
Forbes' inherited Native American ancestral cultures).
Forbes' view is that the wetiko disease has so corrupted
European thinking that,
wetiko behavior is
now regarded as the very fabric of European culture and the
pursuit of progress.
And in order for the
ruling few to maintain stable power and order, they must convince,
persuade, or condition the masses within their society/civilization
to either believe and support the same, or at the very least not to
rebel against it.
The functioning of our
modern societies has been derived from this operation of providing a
dominant mindset - or social narrative - and manipulating its
collective consent through coercion or, as is now more the
case, persuasive propaganda...
Forbes comes to the conclusion that a developed society takes the
wetiko desire for power and channels it into,
creating highly
disciplined and rigid structures that over the years have
managed to conceal their controlling mechanisms through
institutionalized conditioning.
These institutions
then go on to create an established 'pecking order,' or
hierarchical status, between people.
This ranking social
status system continues to exploit the general population
through more socially 'normalized' means.
Innocent or
non-conscious wetikos can also be co-opted into this system
of behavior through allurements such as grants, support,
employment, etc., which entices them into the illusion of
individual freedom and personal power.
Like any other pathogen,
the wetiko virus tries to infect and feed upon others
by reinforcing its own corruption of the human mind.
The predatory nature of wetiko can lurk under almost any
guise and is most prevalent in such slogans as,
We could say that we have
seen recent examples in,
'you're either with
us or against us'...
The wetiko mindset
assimilates itself through intensive propaganda programs designed to
perpetuate its own self-serving values.
In the end, many of our
national cultures have become pervaded by myths, narratives, and
entrained thinking patterns that perpetuate a wetiko society.
Yet,
what if
such a mindset is not only preserved within particular cultures
but is available to be assimilated through a species collective
mindset?
This is the question
posed by the psychoanalyst and psychologist Carl Gustav Jung.
Jung's
Collective Unconscious
According to Carl Gustav Jung,
'Hell'
represents, among every culture,
the
disturbing aspect of the collective unconscious.
The
wetiko pathogen may have infected
the
field of humanity's collective unconscious.
Jung was perhaps the first psychologist to fully realize that what
we see playing out upon the global stage is largely a projection, or
symptom, of the unconscious psyche of humanity.
Jung considered that this
collective unconscious does not develop individually but is
inherited.
That is, we inherit a
'psychic life' that is filled with 'occurrences' that stretch back
to earliest beginnings.
What if a psychosis,
such as the wetiko pathogen, has already invaded this psychic
stratum and now manifests as a disturbance in the field of
humanity's collective unconscious?
We could very well be
dealing with a psycho-pathogen - that is, a mind virus - that
infects our individual minds from the underlying collective realm.
This collective psychosis functions as a field phenomenon, and as
such it underlies the entire collective field of nonlocal
consciousness.
The danger here is that
each person can potentially be infected by the psychosis simply by
not being mindful of their thoughts.
Before we know it, we are
having malicious or angry wetiko-like thoughts, which then could
easily manifest into actual behavior.
Who at one time or
another hasn't had a mean or nasty thought...?
The question is, did
this thought originate within us, or did it enter from without...?
Since the mind virus
pathogen - which I refer to as the Wounded Mind - is a nonlocal
phenomenon, then it is possible we all are infected with it to
varying degrees.
Or, it may be more
accurate to say that,
this mind has us...!
And the worst of it is that
most people will be unconscious and unwitting carriers of this
pathogen.
As Jung said,
"Wars, dynasties,
social upheavals, conquests, and religions are but the
superficial symptoms of a secret psychic attitude unknown even
to the individual himself." 2
If we take the modern
analogy of computing, then it is similar to how a virus would enter
our computers and install malware or change the coding.
Such a mental pathogen
would act in the same way by installing its own malware program in
our minds. For most of the time we
are unaware of it, as it acts alongside our own 'normal' mind until
a time when it takes over almost completely.
Over time our own
mental make-up - our psychological state - would adapt the foreign
'invader' and assimilate it into its own functioning as a way of
normalization.
In other words, we would
eventually come to consider it as 'our mind'...
Don Juan's
Alien Mind
Carlos Castañeda
(1925–1998)
There are wide-ranging accounts throughout shamanic and
anthropological literature about how people are vulnerable to
psychic invasion and predatory 'energy forces'.
In recent times, perhaps
no-one has been as openly explicit as the teachings given by
Don
Juan through the books of Carlos Castañeda.
Later in the series of
books, when Castañeda is more experienced and matured into the
shamanic path, Don Juan reveals some 'truths' to him regarding
the
nature of the predators.
Don Juan explains that
there are "outside forces" that impose control upon us.
These 'predators'
imprison human beings and make us docile.
When Castañeda protests
against this, Don Juan explains that:
In order to keep us obedient, meek and weak, the predators engaged
themselves in a stupendous maneuver - stupendous, of course, from
the point of view of a fighting strategist.
A horrendous maneuver
from the point of view of those who suffer it.
They gave us their
mind...!
Do you hear me?
The predators give us
their mind which becomes our mind...
The predators' mind is
baroque, contradictory, morose, and filled with the fear of being
discovered any minute now...
Through the mind, which
after all, is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of
human beings whatever is convenient for them. 3
According to Don Juan,
an 'alien' presence,
or energy, has infiltrated the human mind...
That is, when 'we' are
thinking, or 'having' thoughts, we are in effect manifesting - or
being influenced by - a corrupted mind that is "baroque,
contradictory, morose" and filled with fear.
When we connect and
engage with the collective unconscious, or the collective mindset,
are we, in fact, tapping into a psyche that, in the words of Jung,
stretches "right back to the
earliest beginnings"?
Yet those beginnings may
also include the 'alien mind' of the predator.
As a species, humanity accesses a collective unconscious mind that
forms the basis of our thinking patterns and our behavioral traits.
If an element of
psychosis, trauma, a dominating narrative - i.e., wetiko, predator -
has infiltrated this collective mental field then it is a very real
possibility that we too have inherited what I call the Wounded Mind.
It also raises the
question of,
what type of civilization or society would such a
parasite-predator psychotic 'mind' wish to create?
The answer to this may lie with a form of
twentieth-century
theosophy that was put forward by the Austrian philosopher and
mystic Rudolf Steiner.
The Coming of
Ahriman
Painting of Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925)
displays the spiritual forces at work on humanity
including that of the Ahrimanic presence
which
seeks to bind us to matter.
In the writings of Rudolf Steiner in the early part of the
twentieth century, he makes mention of an entity he calls
Ahriman.
For Steiner, this Ahriman
is a supersensible being that wishes to distract humanity from
aligning with its evolutionary potential. In order to accomplish
this, it seeks to influence the minds of humanity in order to
develop along a specific path:
one that aligns with
its own needs rather than that of humanity's.
The conditions that the
Ahrimanic presence wishes to create includes the following:
-
a materialistic,
mechanical conception of the universe
-
a
rational-materialistic based scientific dogma
-
an economic view
of social dynamics and systems
-
a strong feature
of nationalism and national identities
-
the popularity of
separatist party politics
-
the prevalence of
fundamentalism in religious dogma
-
the dominance of
an arid, dry intellectual culture. 4
It would appear that this
Ahrimanic presence has been quite successful so far...!
Steiner was also explicit in stating that the most dangerous aspect
of Ahriman is for this presence to go unrecognized for it seeks to
be hidden (similar to the predators).
Steiner, in one of his
lectures, stated:
"...think of everything
that presses us down upon the earth, that makes us dull and
philistine, leading us to develop materialistic attitudes,
penetrating us with a dry intellect, and so on:
there you have a
picture of Ahrimanic powers..." 5
The Ahrimanic powers, we
are told, have a firm intention to get the human domain, as well as
the earth, into their sphere of power, and to make human beings
dependent upon their control.
Again,
it sounds eerily
familiar...!
Steiner tells us that Ahriman intends to conceal from us
that,
modern intellectual, rationalistic science, is a great
illusion,
a deception.
The idea, apparently,
is
to keep us all so dulled with our materialistic paradigms that we
have no inclination or urge to go seeking for knowledge concerning
"soul and spirit in the cosmos."
The Ahrimanic powers use everything at their disposal to seed
discontent, disarray, and conflict.
They manipulate notions
of heredity - family, race, tribe, peoples - to create confusion and
division.
Through these class structures, they enforce the dominant
cultural paradigm of economic and material needs.
Steiner warns his
listeners that the "Ahrimanic incarnation" will be greatly advanced
if people fail to develop an independent life of the spirit.
A Few Words of
Recognition
In all the examples described here - indigenous Native American,
western psychology, Central American shamanism, and European
theosophy - we have had a glimpse of the proposition of what I term
the
Wounded Mind...
The source of this
trauma, however, is still unclear and open for debate.
It may be either,
-
a
collective psychosis of civilization
-
a predatory invasion
-
a
devolutionary impulse/presence
-
a combination of these...
Or else it
may be something other but with similar aspects.
Yet whatever may be the
root cause, it is still quite clear that a traumatic presence
lingers within the collective psyche of humanity, and it needs to be
recognized for what it is - and expelled.
Perhaps the traumas we are seeing inflicted upon the world today are
part of this expulsion - a sort of public exorcism.
In the end, we will need
to curtail these 'foreign impulses' in order to evolve toward a
better future for us as a human species upon this planet.
Read Kingsley's book
'Healing the Wounded Mind - The Psychosis of
the Modern World and the Search for the Self'.
Footnotes
-
Jack D. Forbes,
2008 (rev). Columbus and other Cannibals, Seven Stories
Press, xvi
-
Cited in Meredith
Sabini (ed), ed. 2008. C.G. JUNG on Nature, Technology &
Modern Life, North Atlantic Books, 188
-
Carlos Castaneda,
1999,
The Active Side of Infinity.
Thorsons, 220
-
R. Steiner, 2009,
The Incarnation of Ahriman - The Embodiment of Evil on Earth,
Rudolf Steiner Press
-
Ibid, 1
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