New Dawn – World's Most Unusual Magazine

Author: Marie Jones

  • The Gospel of Money: How Prosperity Gospel Preachers Hijacked New Thought

    The Gospel of Money: How Prosperity Gospel Preachers Hijacked New Thought

    From New Dawn 202 (Jan-Feb 2024)

    I do not put my eyes on men, but on God who gives me the power to get wealth.
    – Robert Tilton

    God wants you well. God wants you prosperous. God wants you a whole person.
    – Oral Roberts

    When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance. 
    – Joel Osteen

    The Judeo-Christian Bible is full of contradictions, especially when it comes to the pursuit of wealth. Some passages tell us we cannot enter Heaven if we have wealth, such as Luke 18: 24-25: “Jesus looked at him and said, ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’.” 

    We are also told to ask and we shall receive, and that God wishes for us the abundant life. In Proverbs 3:9-10 we are encouraged to tithe for increased wealth.

    Honour the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.

    Does God want Christians to be rich and prosper or to be poor and downtrodden? Does the Bible promise Christians wealth, luxury, fabulous health, perfect relationships, and spiritual healing if they keep their covenant with God? Does the Kingdom of Heaven include all that a Christian could ever desire? 

    It depends on how one interprets biblical teachings, but for Prosperity Gospel and Word of Faith Christians, a prosperous and abundant life might only be a prayer or two away.

    The Gospel of Prosperity

    A New Thought movement called Unity blends traditional Christian concepts with older New Thought ideals. Its founder, Charles Fillmore, once rewrote Psalm 23 to read, “The Lord is my banker/my credit is good.” It focuses on teachings of abundance and on asking and receiving. 

    New Thought encourages people to use forms of prayer to “align with the divine” and the power of belief, faith, and consistent visualisation of a desire or goal to make it a physical reality (for more on this, see my article ‘New Thought Movement Revolution 2.0’ in New Dawn 197). These teachings tell us that we have access to the same ‘source’ materials that create worlds and that we connect to this source to co-create our reality. Source has been equated with God, the divine, and the Universe, among other names, and is the invisible field of potentiality and possibility from which physical reality manifests. That manifestation depends on our desires, beliefs, and attitudes and on properly using the power of our minds when connecting with Source. 

    Perhaps it was only a matter of time before New Thought concepts were integrated into biblical teachings. The love of money is universal, after all. But that integration has not always been a smooth one.

    We are told in the Old Testament’s Deuteronomy 8:17-18 that God gives us the ability to produce wealth, so how can it be bad?

    8:17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”

    8:18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today. 

    Like New Thought teachings that encourage us to see ourselves aligned with Source, the Bible suggests that if we work on the side of God, we can be rich. Yes, it would appear that God wants good for us in this material realm, but it gets a bit more complicated than just believing and receiving. 

    A whole breed of Christian pastors, ministers, and teachers have created their own evangelical version of Christianity that sounds more like New Thought/New Age ‘Law of Attraction’ but immersed in Pentecostal and charismatic beliefs. This ‘Bible-based’ ‘Prosperity Gospel’ promises lavish financial abundance to those who follow it and has made more than a few millionaires out of those who teach it. 

    The Prosperity Gospel movement, led by mega-preachers of mega-churches, has caused much controversy among traditional Christians who see the focus on money and wealth as contradicting Christ’s teachings. 

    According to historian Kate Bowler, author of Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, these teachings formed from three different streams: Pentecostalism, the New Thought movement, and “an American gospel of pragmatism, individualism, and upward mobility.” 

    The commonalities with New Thought are not coincidental, as these teachings have been in circulation since the 1880s, promoting the power of the mind to achieve prosperity. These concepts served as a foundation for Christian movements to come.

    Word of Faith

    The theology of E.W. Kenyon (1867–1949) was heavily influenced by New Thought ideas.  

    Word of Faith is a neo-charismatic prosperity theology with roots in the writings and teachings of Baptist minister E.W. Kenyon (1867–1949). He influenced Kenneth Hagin (1917–2003), who later became known as the father of the Word of Faith movement in the United States. Kenyon attended the Emerson College of Oratory, where he was immersed in older New Thought teachings and later wrote about positive declarations and the power of the mind. He denied his New Thought origins, but they were obvious. He taught that to receive the blessings of God, one must use positive, faith-filled speech. He also taught his followers to demand healing and prosperity because it was their divine right. They were entitled to it.

    Hagin took these teachings and founded the Kenneth H. Hagin Evangelistic Association, started a magazine in 1966 called Word of Faith, and built a seminary for Word of Faith ministers to train, teach, and spread the prosperity gospel. This claims that if a person keeps their covenant or word with God in full faith, they will be blessed with healing – physical, emotional, spiritual, and/or financial. One could also achieve this promise of total healing by simply becoming a believer and asking for atonement. 

    Interestingly, as in New Thought teachings of affirmative prayer and using intention to speak of desires as if one already has it (all New Thought prayers end with “And so it is”), Word of Faith teaches that healing should be prayed for and accepted as if it is already done. Doubt and fear that it will not manifest only serves to delay the healing and manifestation. Anything negative such as illness, death, pain, or suffering, is considered an attempt by Satan to prevent or deny total healing in believers. The fix? Praying and strengthening one’s faith even more.

    Word of Faith preaches that those who follow these teachings must “decree and declare” their faith in order to create what they seek to gain. Again, this mirrors the New Thought and Law of Attraction teachings that rely on visualising and speaking only of what is desired, not of what is not desired, and demanding the Universe/Source/God fulfil their personal order like someone dining out at a restaurant. One’s order is put in writing or spoken aloud to give it more ‘power’. 

    The spoken word has creative, generative power in both movements through prayer, affirmations, spiritual mind treatments (intensive, structured affirmative prayer), and the stating of intentions. This spoken declaration in prosperity theology is known as a “faith confession” or “positive confession” and is the key to claiming and affirming healing as already fulfilled.

    Kenneth Hagin believed that because God spoke the universe into existence (“In the beginning was the Word”), God’s believers have been given this same creative power, even going so far as to call believers “little gods.” 

    Prosperity Theology

    Kate Bowler writes that the movement was also influenced by mesmerists, faith healers, business oracles, revivalists, Pentecostal healers, and metaphysical sages. This variety can be seen in the different styles of those who have risen in its ranks. Modern Christians may call it the “Name It and Claim It” movement or Health and Wealth, but it is all under the umbrella of prosperity theology, which is today embraced by millions of adherents all over the world.

    Bowler argues that the central thesis of the New Thought movement is present in Christian prosperity theology: “People shaped their own worlds by their thinking, just as God had created the world using thought. Positive thoughts yielded positive circumstances, and negative thoughts yielded negative circumstances.” 

    Historical events such as World War II prompted a spread of these prosperity teachings and caught on quickly as evangelicals sought miraculous healings and money blessings as a way to appeal to those struggling with post-war problems such as homelessness, poverty, and joblessness. 

    Oral Roberts

    Modern proponents such as Oral Roberts (1918–2009), the famous American Charismatic televangelist – considered one of the first propagators of prosperity theology – pull their beliefs from a host of Bible passages to back up their claims. They also tend to interpret these passages to support their teachings. Some of the more widely used are:

    I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

    Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)

    Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as they soul prospereth. (3 John 1:2)

    My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

    Roberts amassed a huge following with his televised ministry that helped introduce Pentecostalism into the mainstream. He pioneered the use of television to reach millions and founded the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University.

    Reverend Ike

    Other Word of Faith and prosperity theology preachers who took to the airwaves include Juanita Bynum with “Weapons of Power” on the Trinity Broadcasting Network; Kenneth and Gloria Copeland with “Believer’s Voice of Victory;” Jan and Paul Crouch, who founded Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN); Creflo Dollar with “Changing Your World;” Benny Hinn with “This is Your Day,” currently seen in almost 200 countries; Marilyn Hickey with “Today with Marilyn” on TBN and Black Entertainment Television; Robert Tilton who has shows on Black Entertainment Television; T.D. Jakes with “The Potter’s House;” Joyce Meyer with “Enjoying Everyday Life;” and New York’s Reverend Ike (Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II), who preached up a storm in the US before his death in 2009 with his motto, “You can’t lose with the stuff I use!” 

    Then there was Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, who took television evangelism to a whole new level with their flamboyant looks and extravagant lifestyles. Their Heritage USA theme park was a hugely popular destination for Christians and non-Christians alike, and their Praise the Lord (PTL) Ministries incredibly successful. Many will remember that scandals eventually brought down the Bakkers.

    Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, at the peak of their success.

    Television allowed these prosperity preachers to reach new audiences far beyond the confines of just one church in one town or city, and many started running ‘megachurches’ with thousands of followers. Today, the internet and social media offer even more outlets for profitable preaching to extend beyond national borders. Although the prosperity gospel has its origins in the United States, there are now many multimillionaire preachers and pastors benefitting from its teachings all over the world.

    Criticisms of Prosperity Theology

    What if these promised money miracles do not occur? What if someone follows these teachings and remains poor? Dr. Andrew Spencer in “What is the Prosperity Gospel?” for the Institute for Faith Works and Economics, says these failings are “blamed on the lack of faith in those seeking the miracles.” They were at fault for unfulfilled prayers, not the preachers promising them that miracles would manifest. “If wealth and health are a result of the degree of faith a person has, this leads to the conclusion that the poor are poor because they are spiritually deficient,” writes Spencer. 

    People often refer to one of the Beatitudes of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, as a way to validate being poor, but Jesus actually said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (emphasis added) (Matthew 5:3). The statement has nothing to do with money but with the spirit, implying that the sad, depressed, and downtrodden will be given the keys to the heavenly kingdom. Even rich people can be sad, depressed, and spiritually downtrodden. 

    This clearly contradicts where prosperity preachers like to place the blame – on the person asking for help. This victim-shaming and blaming is one of the key criticisms many people have of religious leaders pushing material and financial wealth. They can never seem to explain why it doesn’t work for everyone else, so they blame… everyone else.

    Baptist preacher Russell H. Conwell is famously quoted as telling his poor congregation in 1915, “I say you ought to be rich; you have no right to be poor.” This same line about the rich and poor has been repeated, ad nauseam, in prosperity gospel preaching for over 100 years, implying that Jesus placed emphasis on this when he clearly did not focus his teachings on material riches. Rather than blame society or inequality in the workplace, the blame is shifted to the failures of the poor, who very well may be hard-working individuals with good hearts.

    Crimes & Misdemeanours

    In 2007, United States Senator Chuck Grassley probed the financials of televangelism ministries that promote prosperity theology, including Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Creflo Dollar Ministries, Benny Hinn Ministries, Bishop Eddie Long Ministries, Joyce Meyer Ministries, and Paula White Ministries. The probe concluded in 2011, with Grassley stating that self-regulation was preferable to government oversight of these ministries. All six televangelists insisted they would comply with tax regulations for religious non-profits. Only Joyce Meyer Ministries and Benny Hinn Ministries told Grassley they had changed how they govern their ministries or set compensation. The other four refused to provide full information to Grassley, and a few accused Grassley of violating their religious freedom. 

    In the early 1990s, Jim Bakker asked for forgiveness for his prosperity teachings from a prison cell after being convicted for mail and wire fraud associated with his ministry’s various fundraising activities. He was also involved with a highly publicised sex scandal involving a woman named Jessica Hahn that eventually brought down his powerful PTL Ministries.

    There have been numerous media hit pieces on the extravagant lifestyles of these preachers, suggesting that they fell prey to the materialism the Bible teaches against. Not all flaunt their lavish possessions and massive bank accounts. Mainstream evangelicals such as Rick Warren and Jerry Falwell have come out opposing prosperity theology as heretical to the true teachings of Christ. 

    “Capitalism Christianity” has been called an abuse of faith as well as a way for the preachers to become rich at the hands of their congregants who want to believe so badly that they, too, can be rich if they have faith or tithe ten per cent or more of their income to the men and women making those grand promises from atop a gaudy stage. There are many sad stories of people giving all of their money over to their church leaders, only to be left destitute while the preachers buy mansions and expensive toys or run off to another country, never to be heard from again.

    As noted by Cathleen Falsani in her 2013 piece “The Worst Ideas of the Decade” for The Washington Post, these teachings conflict with the basic tenets of Christianity. “Jesus was born poor, and he died poor. During his earthly tenure, he spoke time and again about the importance of spiritual wealth and health. When he talked about material wealth, it was usually part of a cautionary tale.” 

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    To Be Or Not To Be

    Is it spiritual to be poor? Do Christians have to give up everything they own and be homeless on the streets in order to achieve the grace and abundance of God? 

    Those who prosper can easily become ego-maniacs and materialists, using their money to buy power and influence over others, or they can be meek, merciful, and pure in heart. They are, after all, human. Some might argue that millionaire preachers who become rich off their much poorer congregants will have one hell of a time, pun intended, threading the needle and getting into Heaven. 

    Money itself is not the root of all evil, although lust, greed, and how someone makes all that money can play a big role. It’s not wealth that makes the person, but what they do with it and whether or not it changes them for better or worse. 

    Those who are blessed can no doubt bless many others in ways being poor cannot. Money can bring happiness and it can bring despair. It favours no one. It’s neutral. 

    Prosperity preachers and their eager adherents might remember that acquiring true wealth may be more about getting right in spirit first. Whatever comes after that is just icing on the cake.

    [alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This article was published in New Dawn 202.[/alert]

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    Sources

    “5 Errors of the Prosperity Gospel” by David W. Jones, thegospelcoalition.org/article/5-errors-of-the-prosperity-gospel
    Katie Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, Oxford University Press, 2018
    “Prosperity Gospel” by Bryn Donovan, britannica.com/topic/prosperity_gospel
    “The Prosperity Gospel, Explained: Why Joel Osteen Believes that Prayer Can Make You Rich” by Tara Isabella Burton, vox.com/identities/2017/9/1/15951874/prosperity-gospel-explained-why-joel-osteen-believes-prayer-can-make-you-rich-trump
    “The Worst Ideas of the Decade” by Cathleen Falsani, washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/outlook/worst-ideas/prosperity-gospel.html
    “What is the Prosperity Gospel?” by Dr. Andrew Spencer, tifwe.org/what-is-the-prosperity-gospel

    © New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
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  • New Thought Movement Revolution 2.0

    New Thought Movement Revolution 2.0

    From New Dawn 197 (Mar-Apr 2023)

    “The Science of Mind is the study of Life and the nature of the laws of thought; the conception that we live in a spiritual Universe, that God is in, through, around, and for us.”
    – Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind

    “It is the childlike mind that finds the kingdom. Words are also seeds, and when dropped into the invisible spiritual substance, they grow and bring forth after their kind.” 
    – Charles Fillmore

    “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
    – David R. Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender

    As the world’s elite and powerful meet every year in private to discuss the many plans and agendas they have to control our lives, from what we eat to who owns our bodies to how we spend our money, it’s easy to fall into a sense of total disempowerment, of feeling as though we no longer have choices, individuality, or sovereignty because other far more wealthy and influential people are pulling the puppet strings of humanity. We are told we are “bottom feeders” and “useless eaters” who don’t have the brains to decide our own destinies, and that one day we will be made obsolete thanks to transhumanism. 

    Yet there is a movement that began back in the early 1900s, based upon ancient wisdom teachings thought about in new ways, that tells us this is not true. The New Thought Movement and its teachings and principles are finding a new home in the hearts, minds, and souls of those who know they were not meant to be puppets under someone else’s control. They are spiritual beings having human experiences, sparks of divine intelligence that bow to no external forces or influences, directly linked to the infinite intelligence of the Universe and are, ultimately, co-creators of their own lives.

    Over the last few years, we have all become aware of the agendas of the ultra-rich and powerful, of organisations like the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum, and Big Pharma and the complicit mainstream media that lie to us and deceive us into pushing their chosen narrative. It has left many of us reeling for solid ground physically, mentally, and spiritually as we watch loved ones fall prey to propaganda and brainwashing. They turned the truth on its head, telling us up is down, and altering science to fit their woke agenda.

    We have watched as our spiritual lives have been sapped of strength as we questioned those we thought were on our side, doctors and researchers who sold their souls to Big Pharma, celebrities that pushed gender mutilation and the belief that men can give birth and menstruate. Media pundits tell us to look the other way when thousands drop dead of “no apparent cause” because they’ve been told to keep the truth from us about vaccine injuries and deaths.

    The whole world has been turned upside down and we have lost our footing.

    Focusing on these externals has created a sense of fear and anxiety that is unprecedented in recent times, but there is a great truth the elites don’t want us to remember and will do all they can to hide it from us. A truth with ancient roots and a more modern view that tells us we are way more in control than we could ever imagine. A truth that reminds us real power comes not from some arrogant billionaire with a God complex or some corporation that benefits from illness and death. Real power comes from within each and every one of us, if only we would stop looking for it in all the wrong places.

    What Is New Thought?

    The name is a bit deceiving because New Thought has been around for well over a century. Not to be confused with New Age, New Thought is a spiritual and philosophical movement with roots in many religions and metaphysical teachings. It is ancient wisdom thought about in new ways as most of its ideas, core principles, and teachings are rooted in everything from Christianity to Buddhism. William James referred to as “the Religion of Healthy-Mindedness” and wrote about the movement in his book, Varieties of Religious Experience, alluding to the emphasis on the power of the mind and our thoughts.

    New Thought focuses on using the power of the mind to heal, create reality, and prosper in the world because all is mind and all begins in thought. The “founding father” of the movement was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866), an American clockmaker who was also a mentalist and student of mesmerism. Quimby suffered from tuberculosis as a youth, which had no cure, and set about to experiment with his own ideas. He was intrigued by the mind’s ability to control and affect his own pain and thus, the body, and even claimed to use his mind methods to cure his TB.

    Mesmerised

    Quimby was a follower and devotee of the teachings of Charles Poyen, who came from France to the United States to lecture on “mesmerism,” a form of hypnotism created by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century which claimed the presence of an invisible natural force possessed by all living things, including humans, animals, and vegetables, and that this force could serve as an attractor, as in animal magnetism. Quimby also followed the teachings of other mesmerists visiting the United States from Europe and began to develop his own practice of working with ill patients, many of whom claimed he cured them.

    He was called a quack and fraud by those who did not understand his ideas, but his work served as the foundation of New Thought – how the mind can cure, or harm, by the use of this invisible and mesmerising force. 

    Some of the key founders and major influencers of the New Thought movement:  1. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby  2. Warren Felt Evans  3. Ernest Holmes 4. Malinda Cramer (below is a bookplate issued by her church) 

    Mental Sciences 

    According to an article on NewThoughtWisdom.com, “New Thought also helped guide a variety of social changes throughout the 19th, 20th, and into the 21st centuries. New Thought directly influenced the growing movement of ‘Mental Sciences’ of the mid-19th century, which would later become the New Thought Movement. The mental-healing movement was a protest against old beliefs and methods, particularly the old-school medical practice and the old theology of the time.” 

    Quimby’s belief that one could cure themself of disease by using their own mind was at the forefront of a revolution in how we thought about illness and suggested strongly that we had more control than even doctors or pills and surgeries.

    The ‘Mental Sciences’ are also rooted in the work of Warren Felt Evans who became a student of the movement in 1863 after seeking healing from Quimby. His great achievement was being the first to write about the New Thought healing methods as taught and practised by Quimby. His first book was published six years after Quimby died.

    The New Thought movement may have originated in the United States, but it also had some roots in England, where the term “Higher Thought” was used instead of “Mental Sciences.” New Thought ideas spread via lectures, books, magazines, and leaflets in the early days. It was never intended to be a formal or organised religion. New Thought groups and churches were non-judgmental and open to all, unlike more traditional religions with rules, doctrines, and dogma.

    Eventually, there arose three major branches within the movement that still exist today:

    • Religious Science/Science of Mind 
    • Church of Divine Science
    • Unity Church/Unity Christianity

    Religious Science was founded by Ernest Holmes (1877–1960) who wrote the seminal textbook, The Science of Mind. Holmes was heavily influenced by other New Thought pioneers such as Judge Thomas Troward, a founder of Mental Science, and literary legend Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as the work of Emma Curtis Hopkins, who was often described as the New Thought “teacher of teachers” because of her influence on the movement. 

    Religious Science is a spiritual system based on the idea that all religions claim the same divine truth. Holmes wrote, “The varying faiths of mankind are unnumbered, but the primal faith of the race is today, as of old, the One Faith; an instructive reliance upon the Unseen, which we have learned to call God.” The teachings of Religious Science, summed up in The Science of Mind, claimed people could realise their true power and individual goals by believing the Universe was filled with divine intelligence, purpose, and order and that they could access that intelligence within, through the power of their minds and alignment of their thoughts. 

    The Church of Divine Science originated in San Francisco in the 1880s under Malinda Cramer (1844–1906). She and her husband Frank created the Home College of Spiritual Science in March 1888. Cramer later changed the name to the Home College of Divine Science. According to Divinescience.org, divine science teaches “that the fullness of Spirit is forever pouring Itself through the mind of man, limited only by the way man thinks and feels about life in general and about certain conditions and situations in particular. Therefore, all change begins as an activity in mind and through the law of cause-and-effect mind manifests as a personal experience.” 

    Charles and Myrtle Fillmore

    Unity Church or Unity was founded by Charles (1854–1948) and Myrtle Fillmore (1845–1931) in 1889, with roots in Transcendentalism. Unity describes itself as “for people who might call themselves spiritual but not religious” and publishes a popular devotional publication called Daily Word. Unity has more of a Christian basis but without the dogma and doctrine. Unitychurch.org describes “a philosophy of life that emphasises a positive approach to Christianity and daily living and is based on the principles of Truth taught and exemplified by Jesus the Christ. We welcome all people regardless of religious background and serve their spiritual needs through prayer, education, publishing and being of loving service.”

    All were incorporated into the International New Thought Alliance (www.newthoughtalliance.org), which provides educational information as a gathering place (now online) for those who follow the principles and practices.

    Key Principles

    The principles of New Thought, no matter what group or branch, are as follows:

    • Infinite intelligence, or God, is omnipotent and omnipresent.
    • Spirit is the Ultimate Reality.
    • True human self-hood is divine.
    • Disease has a mental origin.
    • Divine thought has power for good.
    • Right thinking can heal.
    • There is power in prayer, meditation, and positive thinking.

    New Thought regards God as the Source of all, infinite intelligence that is everywhere, and that divine thought is a force for good in the world. God, or this infinite intelligence, exists within and yet is the entirety of the Universe itself, and there are metaphysical laws that govern the spiritual universe just as scientific laws govern the physical universe. We can use these metaphysical laws to consciously create our life experiences.

    According to NewThoughtWisdom.com, “New Thought teaches that everything begins in the mind, and that events in the ‘outer’ world reflect the atmosphere of the ‘inner’ world: the macrocosm of human collective consciousness is regarded as inseparable from the microcosm of individual thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs. Through a shift in consciousness, conditions can be altered – for the individual and thus for the collective.”

    Wayne Dyer (1940–2015)

    In other words, as the late modern New Thought teacher/author Dr Wayne Dyer put it, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Neuroscience tells us that our brains will look for evidence of what we expect and believe. We are pretty much what we think about all day long, as are our experiences.

    These concepts can be traced to the more mystical teachings and philosophies of the ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Taoist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Vedic, and Muslim cultures, emphasising the interaction between the mind/thought and consciousness and its effects in the external world outside of the human mind. Unlike many religious teachings, there is no need for a middleman, an intercessor, a Church leader, a dogmatic doctrine, or a set of fixed rules. 

    What a dangerous concept in these trying times when we feel so out of control because of tyrannical entities such as the World Economic Forum, the UN, Big Pharma, and our government leaders seeking to take away every remaining freedom we have. If we were to all wake-up and realise we have this divine power within us and that we alone control our minds, thoughts, and beliefs, those who seek to control us and make money off of our backs would be… powerless. This is why a new revolution of New Thought principles and teachings can literally change the world.

    But first, we must change ourselves individually. We must achieve right thinking and learn to focus our thoughts and attention on what we want to create, not what we don’t want. New Thought teaches us that we are all sparks of divinity and that, as stated in the Divine Science Statement of Being, “God is all, both invisible and visible. One Presence, One Mind, One Power is all. This One that is Perfect Life, Perfect Love and Perfect Substance.” We are also told that “the transcendence and immanence of God is manifest in all created things.” Imagine knowing that we are a part of this divine powerhouse that takes invisible, unformed substance and brings it into form. Who would need institutions and corporations to create prosperity? Who would need the constant intervention and meddling of medical authorities and Big Pharma when we can learn to heal our own bodies via the power of our minds?

    New Thought reminds us that there is visible and invisible, absolute and relative, universal and individual and that it is all God, and we are a part of this. God is within us. Just as Christians are told the Kingdom of Heaven is not some external place, but in us and through us and all around us.

    New Thought is called a process that evolves with each individual. Unlike traditional religions, New Thought remains “new” by embracing insights, discoveries, and levels of consciousness that allow the individual and the collective to continue to “become” more.

    How Can Evil Exist if God is All Good?

    As millions of people die from vaccine injuries, COVID-19, crime, poverty and other causes, one might ask how New Thought views evil. In “Toward the Prophetic: A New Direction in the Practice of New Thought” by independent scholar Liza J. Rankow for Religion Online, God is not personified but regarded as “an Eternal Principle that appears as Law, Being, Mind, Spirit, the Cause and Source of All.” 

    Rankow explains that the Christian doctrine of God as good is contrasted with “some independently existent evil, in a dualistic context (whether or not that evil is personified as the devil or Satan). New Thought, however, believes in ultimate oneness and that God is all there is, and “evil is regarded not as a fundamental part of the universal order, but as the byproduct of a human consciousness of separation.” Thus it is this sense of separation that is at the root of all evil and despair.

    We are, therefore, individualised expressions of and one with the Life of God, spiritual beings in human incarnation. We can choose good or evil within that context and Life will respond to the force and focus of our thoughts. To reach our greatest soul development and for the good of the collective soul, it behoves us to choose good. This was a central teaching of Jesus Christ and other great wisdom teachers who believed in The Golden Rule.

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    The Power Is Us

    Those who seek to suppress, control, or rule over us, whether individuals or institutions, know that many of us have lost our connection to this truth – that we are divine co-creators, that we have the power within to change our thoughts and minds and therefore our external experiences, and that no one can take away the sovereignty of our minds and freedom of our thoughts. They know we have little to no spiritual life because they have forced us into a relentless fear-based survival mode. 

    As more of us awaken to these New Thought teachings, their power over us will diminish and vanish. We will no longer be victims of people, things, or situations outside us. We will step into our true nature, one they will do anything to keep from us.

    We can then apply the principles of universal and divine oneness of the individual to the greater social condition, creating a profound new understanding of how we interact with others and the Earth itself. If we understand that the essence of all life is unified with Source, and we are all of that Source, then there is no “we” and “them” and only all of us, and harming one harms all. Individual transformation leads to the transformation of the entirety of life itself. The power begins with each of us. 

    What a truly revolutionary act it is today, amidst censorship and banning and suppression of truth, to learn to reclaim our inner power, our divine connection, and our ability to use our minds to create the lives we desire and to control our thoughts, our lives, and our destinies. This is the gift of New Thought. 

    [alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This article was published in New Dawn 197.[/alert]

    [alert type=”success” dismiss=”no”]If you appreciate this article, please consider subscribing to help maintain this website.[/alert]

    Sources

    Braden, Charles. Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought. Southern Methodist University Press, 1963.
    “History of New Thought.” Center for Spiritual Living Tahoe-Truckee. tahoecsl.org/history-of-new-thought/
    Holmes, Ernest. The Science of Mind: A Philosophy, A Faith, A Way of Life. Tarcher Putnam, 1998.
    International New Thought Alliance. newthoughtalliance.org
    “The Philosophy and Foundation of the New Thought Movement.”
    newthoughtwisdom.com/about-new-thought.html
    “Toward the Prophetic: A New Direction in the Practice of New Thought.” Liza J. Rankow, Ph.D., Religion Online. religion-online.org/article/toward-the-prophetic-a-new-direction-in-the-practice-of-new-thought

    © New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
    For our reproduction notice, click here.

  • Permacrisis: The New Normal 

    Permacrisis: The New Normal 

    From New Dawn Special Issue Vol 17 No 6 (Dec 2023)

    What are the main characteristics of this “new normal” of enduring crisis? First and foremost, a generalised acceptance of the idea that we can no longer afford to organise our societies around a stable set of rules, norms and laws. Rather, the constant stream of new threats – terrorism, disease, war, natural disasters – means that we must be constantly ready to rapidly adapt to an ever-changing scenario of permanent instability.
    – Thomas Fazi

    Permacrisis signals not only a loss of faith in progress but also a new realism in relation to what people can cope with and achieve. Our crises have become so complex and deep-seated that they can transcend our capacity to understand them. Any decision to tackle them risks only making things worse.
    – Neil Turnbull

    Never let a good crisis go to waste.
    – Attributed to Winston Churchill

    There has never been a time in history free from crisis. But the last several years have introduced a relentless parade of crises, one after another, with less and less time to recover, in an all-out snowballing assault on the mind, body, and spirit that leaves people drained, depressed, exhausted, and in a permanent state of high-cortisol fight-or-flight.

    Welcome to the new normal of “permacrisis.”

    Energy crisis. Financial crisis. Housing crisis. Drug crisis. Unemployment crisis. Homelessness crisis. Disaster crisis. Food crisis. Climate crisis. Geopolitical crisis. Immigration crisis….

    If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

    Permacrisis

    The Cambridge English dictionary defines permacrisis as, “A long period of great difficulty, confusion, or suffering that seems to have no end.” Permacrisis was voted the ‘2022 Word of the Year’ by Collins Dictionary to recognise that year’s numerous challenges. Although there have always been difficult times, recent years have seen more of them occurring more often, and the toll on humanity is physical and psychological.

    Each crisis also appears to be a means to an end for some group of power players. Mass shootings in the United States predictably lead to pushes to disarm the public. Virus outbreaks lead to forced lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and the suppression and censoring of information that questions official narratives to protect key government and corporate players. Geopolitical conflicts lead to governments overtly and covertly plotting against other countries – and using your tax dollars to do so – while ignoring national issues. Natural disasters lead to cries of horrific climate change and a push for zero carbon footprints and programs that benefit the elites more than the environment.

    Never – ever – let a good crisis go to waste, especially when the public is now conditioned to the “new normal” of permacrisis that cannot be put back into the Genie’s bottle. It’s the Hegelian Dialectic on steroids, with the cycle of problem, reaction, solution on an exponentially snowballing loop. They create the problem, engineer the reaction, and force their solution. We have little to no say in it all.

    It’s a permanent state of suffering made up of a bubbling cauldron of ingredients, a recipe for disaster for everyone except the powerful elites behind what many say are manufactured crises or who take advantage of every natural disaster they can milk something out of.

    They feast from the cauldron while we slowly starve.

    Crisis: Why Choose Just One?

    • COVID-19
    • Ukraine/Russia
    • Natural disasters
    • Energy squeeze for net zero
    • Interest rates/financial instability
    • China/Taiwan
    • Mass immigration/migration
    • Climate change fear-mongering
    • Animal viruses, mass cullings & food shortages
    • Trump on trial in the US
    • Mass shootings
    • War between Israel and Palestine

    Add a complicit mainstream media, including social media platforms, acting in lockstep as mouthpieces for an agenda that seems hell-bent on total destruction, with crises piling on top of each other and burying the populace beneath the weight.

    It’s no longer just one natural disaster, geopolitical conflict, or viral outbreak with a few months or years for recovery before the next thing hits.

    Polycrisis

    “Polycrisis” is when several events occur in tandem with much less time in between for people to catch their breath. Nothing will ever return to normal because these crises happen so often that the public is already immersed in the next one by the time the truth seeps out.

    Who cares if COVID was leaked from a lab or that the “safe and effective vaccines” are causing untold injuries and death? Who cares if the World Health Organisation has a 10-year pandemic plan, of which COVID is part of their quest for global health domination?

    COVID was “so yesterday’s news.” We are too busy now fearing for our lives from this, that, and the other thing and virtue signalling our support for the crisis du jour on social media to pay attention to new facts and information or demand justice be served for the sins of the past.

    Bye-bye Ukraine/Russia, hello Israel/Palestine. Epstein’s client list? Who’s Epstein?

    Two Types of Crisis

    There are two main types of permacrisis/polycrisis.

    Events that may be engineered for a specific outcome – think of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Information that contradicted the official narrative, with revelations about Building 7’s mysterious collapse, passports found unscathed in the rubble, CIA connections to the terrorists, covered-up connections to Saudi Arabia, no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and much more. The clear evidence that US President George Bush and VP Dick Cheney – following the strategy of the neoconservative think tank The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) – used the horrific attacks to invade not only Afghanistan but also Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein despite his total lack of involvement in the 9/11 attacks. There were so many unanswered questions to suggest the US government knew of the attacks and may have been complicit in allowing them to happen.

    9/11 ushered in an unprecedented period of surveillance, curtailing of freedoms, and a push for tyranny in the United States with The Patriot Act, which never would have passed into law had the public not first been terrorised and traumatised – so much so that they willingly begged for their freedoms to be restricted to keep them safe and secure. That push for tyranny is only getting worse, and on a global scale, simply because the public accepted it the first time.

    Israel and Palestine are currently doing the war dance after the brutal attack by Hamas on 7 October. As the leaders of Western nations rushed to defend Israel, massive pro-Palestine protests were occurring in every city across the globe. Both sides have been wrapped in a long-range conflict. Few understand it was the Israeli government and Mossad (their version of the CIA) that helped create Hamas in the late 1980s to fight their primary threat at the time, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). While there is no excuse whatsoever for the horrific October 2023 attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent years bolstering up Hamas in the Gaza Strip to cripple the power of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government from succeeding in establishing a Palestinian state.

    In this case, a problem (Abbas et al.) created a response (empower Hamas) that led to a solution (Hamas turns against you) that drastically backfired for Israel – and the end result may be World War III and no doubt a boon to the coffers of the military-industrial complex.

    The only difference between this and 9/11 may be the intention. While 9/11 felt engineered with a specific intention in mind, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict seems rooted in a domino effect of terrible past power plays and decisions pitting one enemy against another, proving that “the enemy of my enemy” isn’t always my friend… for long.

    Writing in his Badlands Media Substack, Erik Carlson wrote of the recent Hamas attacks: “Some believe no one has been killed and it is all fake. Some believe all of it is real. Others believe some of it is real and some is propaganda. While yet others, like me, believe some is real, some is propaganda, and all of it is a contrived effort to create a bigger war.” Add into this mix the onset of new artificial intelligence-generated fake images and videos, which will make it doubly hard in the future to decipher the truth of events in faraway places.

    Another type of permacrisis is when events unfold naturally but are taken advantage of for a specific end goal. These are the natural disasters used to forward a not-so-green agenda or global pandemics that bring about forced vaccination and lockdowns to curtail freedoms.

    Sadly, larger crises outweigh smaller crises when governments point the propaganda machine at threats to their long-term interests. Who cares about a small-town chemical spill that poisoned an entire town (which recently happened in the US), when China – we are told – might invade Taiwan? Local, regional, and national instability takes a back seat to global instability, not because our leaders are looking out for the population at large, but because they are looking out for vested economic, military, political, and corporate interests.

    It’s this exact instability that keeps people sick, stressed, and distracted from the World Economic Forum’s attempts to force upon us their Great Reset with its digital wallets, CBDCs, total surveillance, climate lockdowns, forced vaccinations, SMART city prisons, social media censorship, mass media lies and deceptions, and landgrabs so that we will own nothing and need them for everything.

    Crises that concurrently impact us at the same time leave people reeling and drained, emotionally and physically. People lose loved ones, lose livelihoods, and suffer the fight-or-flight stress of always being hypervigilant and at the ready. With non-stop surges of cortisol and adrenaline, it’s a wonder we can still function. This may be why depression, anxiety, and other stress-related diseases like heart attacks, strokes, cancers, and auto-immune disorders have skyrocketed in the last few years.

    We are at the precipice with nothing to do but jump or perish. Our psyches are taxed to the point of no return. We cannot take much more until we are forced, and the cycle repeats.

    They want us divided and angry. They purposely ratchet up the violent rhetoric between two sides and push us to choose one, even if both are awful choices. Then, they can swoop in to save the day and claim they are “uniters, not dividers,” even though they divided us all in the first place.

    If there is peace and quiet for too long, they fear we might regroup, restrengthen, and revolt. If we have ample time to gather our thoughts and enough of us share notes, the danger for the powers that be is that we will wake up, en masse, when too many of us have worked out how we are manipulated by this insidious cycle.

    Historical Examples

    It’s not hard to look back at historical events and see the problem, the reaction, and the solution and how it all played out for a certain goal or agenda of the involved parties. Given enough time and water under the bridge – and if we care to scrutinise the facts when they eventually come out – we can clearly see how crises are engineered for some goal.

    Operation Northwoods

    Operation Northwoods is a perfect example of how a crisis is used as a means to an end, in this case, in the form of a false flag event.

    False flags are often at the heart of permacrisis because they work so well to fool the public into complicit behaviour and acceptance of acts by their own governments that they might never otherwise have gone along with. For example, a terrorist attack coordinated by a country’s leaders against their own citizens to place blame on a country they want to trigger a war with.

    According to PublicIntelligence.net, Operation Northwoods involved a US government plan in 1962 to stage false flag terrorist attacks inside the United States and abroad to justify military intervention in Cuba.

    “The plan called for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other operatives to commit genuine acts of terrorism in US cities and elsewhere. These acts of terrorism were to be blamed on Cuba in order to create public support for a war against that nation, which had recently become communist under Fidel Castro. One part of the Operation Northwoods plan was to ‘develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington’,” explains PublicIntelligence.net.

    The document was signed by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer and presented to US Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara on 13 March 1962, who then presented it to President John F. Kennedy, who promptly shot the entire plan down. Kennedy was assassinated some months later. Decades later, the top-secret report was declassified as part of the John F. Kennedy Assassinations Records Review Board in 1997.

    (Top left) The US Joint Chiefs of Staff 1962 memorandum outlining Operation Northwoods which was rejected by President John F Kennedy. (Top right) Cuban President Fidel Castro. (Above) US Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara during the Vietnam War. 

    Vietnam War

    While Northwoods was not given the go ahead to trigger war with Cuba, Vietnam was a different story.

    US Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara was in charge of the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. He wrote about US foreign policy decisions in his book, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, admitting that the dangers the Vietnamese presented were exaggerated and that the loss of South Vietnam never truly threatened US interests. McNamara also explained that the theory about the fall of Vietnam causing a domino effect of countries falling prey to communism was entirely false.

    “We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong,” wrote McNamara.

    Those wrong decisions altered US strategy in late 1967, but it was too late for President Lyndon Johnson’s presidency to overcome the damage.

    McNamara also referenced a false flag incident that took place in the Gulf of Tonkin, which gave him a blank check for the escalation of US involvement in the war, an escalation that would send tens of thousands of young American soldiers to fight, only to return home dead and wounded.

    The question remains: did McNamara and others know they were “terribly wrong” at the time and let the crisis unfold anyway because war is always good for the pocketbook? And was the fact that Kennedy wanted to pull US forces out of Vietnam, not get more involved, the reason why the CIA had him assassinated?

    At the time, anyone questioning the official narratives about the Vietnam War was labelled a communist sympathiser, and later a “conspiracy theorist.” Decades later, with all the new information coming out, it makes a lot more sense that conspiratorial forces did work behind the scenes to make sure the war continued – no matter what lies and manipulation were forced upon the public. In his dying days, McNamara had the guts to admit it. Of course, we also now know the CIA was running Operation Mockingbird, a large-scale program that began in the early years of the Cold War to manipulate domestic news media organisations for propaganda purposes.

    The Power of Instability

    The state of permacrisis and polycrisis create conditions of fear and instability that undermine a person’s physical, emotional, and economic security. There is no firm ground beneath our feet when we are rocking and reeling from one horrible situation after another. This leads to heightened hyper-vigilance and fear-based responses, a constant state of fight-or-flight from some external threat we have zero control over. The result is a compliant and submissive populace who will do just about anything to feel safe and secure again.

    One of the most powerful ways permacrisis controls the masses is through reinforcement, which encourages particular behaviours. Positive reinforcement alone may be too nice to get the job done, and negative reinforcement, such as punishment, is too harsh for controlling people who might otherwise rebel. Intermittent reinforcement works like a charm by putting its victims in a sort of hypnotic ‘spell’, creating cognitive dissonance using doubt, fear, anxiety, expectation, and hope as weapons against the mind.

    By mixing a tiny bit of positive reinforcement in with the negative, the person is kept unbalanced. Those small periods of general peace between crises, where we celebrate returning to normal, give us hope and breathing room again before the next round of negative reinforcement in the form of more fear, anxiety, and instability. This give-take and push-pull is what creates things like cult mentality, mob behaviour of going along to get along, trauma bonding with our ‘captors’, and Stockholm Syndrome.

    The pain and suffering during each crisis leave us begging for just one crumb of relief to the point where we begin to side with our captors and abusers, even making excuses for their actions. In this manner, we accept even more abuse and crises if we can just get them to toss us a crumb of normalcy now and then.

    This coercive persuasion creates a population of mindless zombies, numb yet holding onto a tiny sliver of hope deep inside that things will level off and get better. It succeeds in modifying human behaviour on a grand scale so that it is far easier for the powers behind the crises to execute their plans and reap the rewards without too much of a fight.

    Until it doesn’t work anymore.

    Stepping Out of the Crisis Matrix

    Using the Hegelian Dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis, or problem, reaction, solution), we can see that the problem is the collective of puppet masters behind the permacrisis: the central bankers, too big-to-fail corporations like Blackrock and Vanguard, the royal families and old money with its privileges and power, the military-industrial complex, billionaire oligarchs like Bill Gates and George Soros, Klaus Schwab and his WEF minions, and the complicit mainstream media and the Deep States of all governments. The usual suspects.

    The reaction is our succumbing to the fear they impose upon us, and the loss of freedoms as the elites push their thumbs down hard upon our heads. One only has to turn on the news to see how we are reacting to the problem of looming tyranny, fascism, and total control of our lives. We turn against each other instead of the ones oppressing us.

    The solution to the problem we are reacting to is in our hands. It really is, and they know it. We are not powerless against the permacrisis agenda. We can do much to keep ourselves sane, healthy, and empowered. We can step outside the crisis matrix and create a new reality. We can demand our leaders remember who they work for and vote out those who have forgotten. We can boycott and protest and put our money where our mouths are.

    We can spend less time on our mobile phones and social media exchanging barbs with those who think differently and more time cultivating our dreams and fulfilling our goals.

    Hating and fighting those different from us or who hold different opinions keeps us weak and distracted. This is their plan. Right vs. left, black vs. white, male vs. female. The key is to learn to observe what is going on and take right action when needed, but not to engage in the emotional drainsuck – to be in the world but not of it. Instead of fighting against something, find out what you stand for. Instead of engaging in word and meme warfare, spread humour and happiness.

    Staying healthy is the most revolutionary act we can partake in. When we care better for our bodies and minds and love ourselves and the people around us, we empower the world. We can do spiritual work like prayer and meditation, eat healthier, move our bodies, laugh more, volunteer, and create stronger communities. The elites hate it when we build community and support local businesses, farms, programs, and services because it means we don’t need them as much. They hate when we strengthen our human bonds. That’s why they tested us with COVID-19 lockdowns and hint at doing it again in the name of climate change. Locking us down in isolation makes us miserable, scared, and compliant.

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    Another Perspective

    There is another way to look at permacrisis. What if it’s more like the labour pains of a pregnant woman that get stronger and more frequent just before the baby moves down the birth canal to be born? The permacrisis/polycrisis we are dealing with might be intensifying labour pains of the dying of the old guard and the pending birth of a new world – not the one the elites dream of but the one that we, the people, know is possible when we take back our power and sovereignty.

    Maybe we are already winning, and they know it. As Thomas Fazi writes, “Our desperate rulers are clinging on to a dying world…. aside from being a ‘method of government’, permacrisis neatly encapsulates the panic of the Western elite: it is their global order, their dominant position in the global food chain, that is under threat.”

    While imprisoned in 1930 after speaking out against Mussolini, Italian philosopher and journalist Antonio Gramsci famously wrote: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. The old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth. Now is the time of monsters.”

    It is up to us to slay the monsters.

    [alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This article was published in New Dawn Special Issue Vol 17 No 6.[/alert]

    [alert type=”success” dismiss=”no”]If you appreciate this article, please consider subscribing to help maintain this website.[/alert]

    Sources

    badlands.substack.com/p/the-hitler-or-obama-youth
    cnet.com/culture/dont-stress-but-permacrisis-is-the-2022-word-of-the-year
    ft.com/content/937c4eb1-7240-481d-9775-71de7b8bb171
    Marie D. Jones, Disinformation and You: Identify Propaganda and Manipulation, Visible Ink Press, 2021
    Marie D. Jones & Larry Flaxman, Mind Wars: A History of Mind Control, Surveillance, and Social Engineering by the Government, Media, and Secret Societies, New Page Books, 2015
    mckinsey.com/mgi/overview/in-the-news/is-the-world-on-the-brink-of-a-new-era
    Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, Vintage Books, 1996.
    publicintelligence.net/operation-northwoods
    resilience.org/stories/2023-01-03/from-polycrisis-to-permacrisis
    theconversation.com/permacrisis-what-it-means-and-why-its-word-of-the-year-for-2022-194306
    tfazi.substack.com/p/challenging-the-permacrisis-paradigm
    timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces
    unherd.com/2023/09/why-the-wests-elites-invented-a-permacrisis

    © New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
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  • Attack on the Mind: Mental Health Fall-out From Cognitive Warfare Techniques

    Attack on the Mind: Mental Health Fall-out From Cognitive Warfare Techniques

    From New Dawn 193 (Jul-Aug 2022)

    Even the mainstream media and global health organisations cannot ignore the massive toll COVID-19, the Ukraine/Russia conflict, vaccine and mask mandates, geopolitical chaos, rising inflation, and new threats – real and imagined – have taken on our physical and mental health. 

    The catastrophic rise in mental health disorders over the last three years – from anxiety to depression and suicide – has made us more than physically sick. We now watch in horror the rising mental health fall-out of non-stop, fear-based living.

    We learned that researchers in a large study published in the British Medical Journal found that surviving COVID could “increase the risk of developing mental health issues, including increased rates of anxiety and depression, even when compared to non-COVID patients or even those who contracted the flu.” They also reported that it could result from body and brain inflammation and physical and emotional factors related to the pandemic. 

    The World Health Organisation took it one step further in their March 2022 report, “COVID-19 Pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide.” They noted “multiple stress factors” including loneliness, financial woes, fear of the virus, suffering and death, and anxiety and grief after losing a loved one. No mention of how their own policies like mass lockdowns contributed to all of the above.

    In May 2022, Medical Press ran a report, “COVID-19’s devastating toll: A rise in adolescent mental health crises and suicidality.” They cited a new study by Patricia Ibeziako and her team in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Services at Boston Children’s Hospital, which found suicidal ideation, or suicide attempts, among young people jumped 60% during the first pandemic year. 

    Young people were hit hard, and continue to be, because not only do they suffer more from lockdowns, lack of socialisation, masking, and virus fearmongering, but they are forced to watch their parents, the people they rely on for safety and stability, suffer the same.

    But we don’t need news headlines to tell us what is going on. Our social circles and social media are filled with people reporting higher levels of illness, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, hostility, anger, and rage. 

    The sad irony is that the same mainstream media outlets and government health experts admitting to this mental health crisis orchestrated the crisis in the first place. 

    The war on the mind relies on specific tools and methods to destabilise our sense of safety, belonging, resiliency, and adaptability. Cognitive dissonance is described as a mental discord when we are presented with an idea that seems to contradict previously accepted ideas or thoughts. People are averse to inconsistencies in reality that challenge deeply-held beliefs in their subconscious minds. When new information is presented to them, they either shut down, avoid, or change their thoughts and behaviours to eliminate the inconsistency and restore cognitive consonance. 

    Behaviour modification works best on the subconscious mind, which does not analyse, criticise, judge, or question but accepts what it is fed as the reality. Coercive persuasion systematically manipulates a person’s behaviours, thoughts, and emotions using fear, intimidation, and punishment, and controlling the information given to the victim (or not giving them any information at all). The coercion comes with a promise of reward if the victim behaves. These tactics include:

    • Intimidation – Threaten the victim with various punishments if they don’t behave as the controlling party desires.
    • Isolation – Keep victims isolated from human comfort so they feel powerless and alone.
    • Cut off information – Keep the victim off balance and in fear of not knowing what is happening in the outside world.
    • Increase suggestibility – Use of subliminals, hypnosis, music, sleep deprivation, and food restriction to make someone more compliant.
    • Create a sense of powerlessness – Subject the victim to frequent, often surprise actions that undermine their confidence and sense of security.
    • Destabilise a sense of self – Work to destroy someone’s ego and sense of self with the intent to recreate them as the controller wishes.

    Sometimes victims become strangely attached to their abusers and controllers. Capture bonding and Stockholm Syndrome describe the effects of a mind-control technique that creates confusion, cognitive dissonance, and a destabilised sense of identity to bond the victim with their abusers. Capture bonding may also be a survival mechanism where we are forced to adapt to an extreme by coping with it or becoming accepting of it. 

    Psychologist George K. Simon, author of In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing With Manipulative People, wrote that to manipulate another human being successfully, a controller or abuser would have to:

    • Conceal their aggressive agenda and intentions.
    • Know the psychological vulnerabilities of the intended victim, and modify the tactics accordingly.
    • Be ruthless enough not to care if the victim is harmed or killed.
    • Use covert aggression in the form of relational or passive-aggressive tactics.

    The most subtle and insidious tactic is reinforcement, which we have all used on our pets, children, and even ourselves when trying to train a new habit or change a bad one.

    Positive reinforcement uses praise, flattery, admiration, attention, affection, gifts, and declarations of love to create a sense of goodness and adoration in the victim. Narcissists and psychopaths use this technique to secure a victim by what is called “love-bombing,” and set the victim up on a pedestal for what will unfortunately be a brutal and abusive fall from grace once the desired outcome is achieved. However, when used for the benefit of the individual, such as in giving positive praise to a child or a training athlete, this kind of reinforcement can build confidence and self-esteem. 

    Negative reinforcement is the polar opposite, using punishment, criticism, and silent treatment to manipulate the victim to behave a certain way. Negative reinforcement can include shaming, guilting, yelling, abusive language, and even physical violence. Today, silent treatment equates to social media censoring, blocking, banning, and deplatforming.

    Using the threat of fear, violence, and virulent language serves to degrade, diminish, and dominate and, in the extreme, leads to torture and physical abuse.

    Intermittent reinforcement is far more devious and effective than either positive or negative reinforcement at creating such strong instability and cognitive dissonance in the victim they cannot help but surrender control to their abuser. Intermittent reinforcement relies on doubt, fear, anxiety, expectation, and hope, and plays upon the deepest emotional needs of wanting to be loved and accepted. It can, when used adeptly, create trauma that can literally drive the victim insane or to commit suicide.

    The controller/abuser starts with positive reinforcement, setting the victim up to crave more positive reinforcement, which is then taken away intermittently to create confusion and anxiety. The victim wants more of what he/she got in the beginning and begins to accept the introduction of negative reinforcement, as long as it is peppered in with some positive. By this point, the controller/abuser can begin to torture the victim and the victim will become so desperate for the normalcy they once received, that they will accept more abuse while waiting to get it. Soon, the victim is settling for tiny crumbs of positive behaviour from the controller/abuser, who now has the victim under complete control. 

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    This kind of manipulation puts the victim under a “spell” because the damage is done on a subconscious level. Not only does this manipulation change the victim’s thoughts and perceptions, but it changes their actual reality and removes their individual will over time.

    Victims suffer in a perpetual state of confusion and chaos, even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with symptoms such as severe depression, panic attacks, insomnia, physical illness, emotional debilitation, inability to concentrate and focus, and a host of other ailments. As the control continues, it can drive the person to suicide or into psychiatric care if proper help and support are not found.

    All these mind manipulation tactics are used against whole populations today and have been in the recent past (COVID-19, etc.), and it will continue in coming times. Once a victim is under this hypnosis, it is hard to come out of, but it is possible. Turn off the news. Avoid negative and divisive people. Get outside and move around in nature. Work on your health and general well-being. Eat healthier foods. Meet with friends and loved ones. Engage with pets. 

    We are at a point in history when negative forces are constantly working against us. Protecting your own individual health is now a revolutionary act and one that will have a ripple effect on those struggling around you to do the same.

    [alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This article was published in New Dawn 193.[/alert]

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  • Lighten Up: It’s Time for a Great Awakening

    Lighten Up: It’s Time for a Great Awakening

    From New Dawn Special Issue Vol 17 No 5 (Oct 2023)

    No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
    – Albert Einstein

    A radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the Western mechanistic paradigm.
    – Stanislav Grof

    Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
    – Martin Luther King Jr

    We are a world at war. This is the first time in history that the war has not been fought on battlefields, or in the air, or on the water, for territories or principalities or rights to land and resources, for conquering other cultures and peoples, but for the mind, the heart, the soul, and the collective consciousness of humanity.

    This war is an insidious and invisible all-out assault on individual freedom, thought, choice, and self-expression. What happens to the individual spreads like a pebble in a pond to everyone with whom the individual comes in contact. Humanity’s future is at stake, but no number of guns or tanks or nuclear weapons can win this war.

    The outcome of this war will be determined by our ability, alone and together, to open our eyes, awaken to truth, and move from dark to light on a whole different battlefield – human consciousness.

    We have been through this before – revolutions of consciousness that catapulted humanity out of quagmire. We have experienced cultural, political, and societal revolutions that propelled history forward. We have fallen prey to totalitarianism, fascism, and communism, but never on the scale we now face. It’s like we are battling a cult of massive proportions, one that may include those we love and care for.

    Whether it’s the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, the United Nations’ Agenda 2030, or the government push for digital wallets and enforced medical procedures, it’s all about control and the puppet masters are wealthier, more powerful, and more determined than ever to take control over every aspect of our lives: from what we eat to what we drive to where we live and what we spend our money on.

    One thing that eludes their control is consciousness. Consciousness is the great mystery of existence. We know what it means – to be internally and externally aware of one’s existence. But we know little about its source and how it operates with the human brain to manifest perceptions and levels of awareness. Is consciousness outside the brain? Does it reside within the brain? Are our brains acting as transceivers of consciousness, taking in signals and sending them out?

    Do we have an individual consciousness that is part of a larger collective consciousness and how much influence over that collective do our thoughts, actions, and behaviours have? While philosophers, religious leaders, and scientists debate these questions, we all agree that we perceive our world according to our own perspectives and from a greater perspective that is true for us all. We might all look at a horse and react to it differently based on our individual past experiences with horses, but we all agree it’s a horse.

    Psychic Epidemics – The Fall Before the Rise

    Indeed it is becoming more obvious that it is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes.
    – Carl Jung, The Symbolic Life

    Revolutions in higher consciousness are always predicated by periods of darkness and despair. The collective psyche must become so damaged it feels compelled to take action, break out of chains and through boundaries often imposed by external forces, and decide unequivocally to heal from an epidemic that, if not healed from, will destroy the host.

    Belgian clinical psychologist Mattias Desmet is recognised as the world’s leading expert on the theory of mass formation psychosis as it applied to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his book The Psychology of Totalitarianism, he deconstructs the societal conditions that allow this collective psychosis to take hold.

    During the recent COVID lockdowns, the work of Belgian clinical psychologist Mattias Desmet on ‘mass formation’ psychosis took centre stage as a way to explain the global insanity of the last few years. Desmet presented his theories about how free-floating fear and discontent serve to breed the kind of fear-based environment where common sense and cognitive functioning fly right out the window, replaced by a desperate need to find a common enemy upon which people could project that fear.

    The article, “Mass Psychosis – How an Entire Population Becomes Mentally Ill,” which appears on the Academy of Ideas website, describes this condition as “an epidemic of madness and it occurs when a large portion of a society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions. Such a phenomenon is not a thing of fiction.”

    The article puts forth two historical examples: the American and European witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries and the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century. “When a mass psychosis occurs, the results are devastating.” Many have seen this unfold in their personal lives and on the global stage, when common sense and logic no longer exist, and you are either in the cult or you are the enemy.

    Killing of the Mind

    This psychological warfare has what are called psychogenic triggers, the most common being a flood of negative emotions such as fear, anger, or anxiety that “drives an individual into a state of panic.” Sometimes this leads to a psychotic break and a literal “re-ordering of one’s experiential world which blends fact and fiction, delusion and reality, in a way that helps end the feelings of panic,” notes the Academy of Ideas. In other words, those afflicted by this epidemic adapt by becoming delusional, and no amount of fact or logic will wake them from their trance-like condition.

    This non-stop attack on the individual psyche also infects society as a whole, and totalitarianism becomes the next easy step for those seeking ultimate power and control. With much of the populace operating in disempowered states of consciousness, controlling and manipulating them is easy.

    Arthur Versluis in The New Inquisitions says: “Totalitarianism is the modern phenomenon of total centralised state power coupled with the obliteration of human rights; in the totalised state, there are those in power, and there are the objectified masses, the victims.”

    This objectification leads to menticide, a “killing of the mind,” notes psychoanalyst Joost Meerloo in his book, The Rape of the Mind, an analysis of brainwashing techniques and thought control in totalitarian states.

    “Menticide is an old crime against the human mind and spirit but systemised anew. It is an organised system of psychological intervention and judicial perversion through which [a ruling class] can imprint [their] own opportunistic thoughts upon the minds of those [they] plan to use and destroy,” writes Meerloo.

    Meerloo expounds on the presence, at this point in time, of effective means to manipulate society: cell phones, social media, the Internet, propaganda-spreading bots, and censorship algorithms.

    The addictive nature of these technologies means that many people voluntarily subject themselves to propaganda with remarkable frequency. Think Stockholm Syndrome and capture-bonding of the masses. Add to this social isolation, as we saw with COVID lockdowns (we now possibly face ‘climate change’ lockdowns & blackouts), and the human being becomes a remote-controlled robot.

    Clearing Muddy Waters

    The collective consciousness is coloured by the energy we each and all put into the world around us when faced with increasing chaos, disorder, crises, and challenges. The Chinese word for ‘crisis’ comprises two Chinese characters meaning ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. There’s an opportunity to create a new order in times of chaos. But, of course, the puppet masters want to keep their power in any “new order.”

    A Great Awakening and new consciousness revolution is pushing things forward in an accelerated manner. Its ultimate aim is to seek the light, but first, the shadows and darkness propel it from a point of stasis to the light at the end of a tunnel. That tunnel might be a long way off and involve a lot of suffering and pain, but the light is the key attractor point.

    Our awareness as individuals in the body of humanity is rapidly changing and – though many members of that body grasp onto the ways of old – enough of us are tipping the scales in the other direction. We seek that light by our very nature because we know it lifts us. But only when we courageously break free of the capture-bonding to embrace our shadow selves can we truly become whole to advance the larger positive agenda of the consciousness revolution.

    Credit:  Beacons by Bob Moran. bobmoran.co.uk

    Shadow To Light

    According to Jungian psychology, the shadow self is an archetype of the darker side of the unconscious mind composed of repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts, and shortcomings. When we ignore, deny, or avoid our shadow self, we project it onto others. That projection becomes the reality we exist within, made up of all the personality traits and emotions we find hard to accept because they don’t fit our egoic self-conception. It’s like each of us throwing poison into a pool we will all drink from, then each denying we threw in our share.

    When we work with and embrace the shadow we can transform it into something beneficial for wisdom and growth – but only if we are courageous enough to undergo the alchemical process of intense self-examination. In today’s social media world, attention spans have diminished to the point of five-second video clips. Yet the idea of conscious evolution suggests that we all have the ability to become willing participants in the growth and expansion of culture, of society, of life itself.

    We must become aware of the patterns of belief and behaviour that shape our internal and external worlds. These keep us from evolving out of our current state, one we might describe as a comfort zone of conscious awareness because we feel safe there, we know its stink and circumstance. We must do a lot of hard excavating work, like excising a cancerous tumour.

    Moscow-born musician and writer Tessa Lena writes: “We, modern people, are very much like cells that are born into a body overtaken with metastatic cancer. We only know how to be a part of a sick body and, based on our immediate practical experience, we ascribe our starved state to ‘just how things are.’ But no. This is only how things are for a cell that exists in a body overtaken by metastatic cancer. This is not how things are by default. This is how they are now. And we are in a journey. We are swimming through sewage collectively, and we’ll get to our destination faster if we keep swimming forward…”

    When we open our eyes and see the way things really are, including the dirt and muck we are currently swimming in, we can consciously choose to make effective and revolutionary change.

    Levels of Consciousness

    Dr. David R. Hawkins, author of the seminal Power Vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, writes of the 17 levels of human consciousness we experience throughout our lives.

    From lowest to highest, these levels of consciousness are shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, pride, courage, neutrality, willingness, acceptance, reason, love, joy, peace, enlightenment. Few ever achieve the top level. We are told that one person operating at the highest level can offset the damage done by millions operating below. But we don’t have to all be Buddhas to change the world to that degree. Small ripples have big results, too.

    Sadly, too many people operate in the realms of shame, guilt, and other lower-level vibrations, not realising they affect other people and energy fields around them and thus, the collective.

    Those who seek to keep us down in the dirt will never shine any light on this truth. Once we learn and see, we cannot unlearn or unsee. That alone is the biggest threat to totalitarians poised to imprison us in fifteen-minute cities, control our behaviour through trackable digital currencies, or new insidious schemes to depopulate the planet of “useless eaters.”

    Lessons from the Quantum Field

    Max Planck, the father of quantum physics, stated: “All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.”

    The bizarre world of quantum physics indicates that we are part of this intelligent Mind that creates the matrix of matter. An act of observation affects a particle’s trajectory and behaviour.

    Quantum entanglement posits that two particles that come in contact with one another will continue to affect each other’s ‘spin’ even across vast distances. Could this be applied to life on a grander, cosmic scale? If we, too, are entangled, then we are all a part of the web of connectivity, and this does not exclude our enemies. Our individual level of consciousness influences everyone around us, as theirs does everyone around them, and so on and so on. Raise enough individuals up the scale to higher consciousness and we offset the damage of many who vibrate lower.

    We cannot rely only on the high-vibers to save us. We must find our inner light and let it shine brightly right where we are. Two powerful flashlights can light up a dark room. A million or more can light up the entire world.

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    The Great Awakening: Higher Self, Higher World

    Writer, artist, and journalist Martin Geddes writes succinctly of the times at hand and what is required to rise to their challenges in his book, Open Your Mind to Change: A Guidebook to the Great Awakening.

    Geddes unravels the forces behind the emergence of the ‘Great Reset’ – a plan offered up by the technocratic elite to maintain power – and the concurrent Great Awakening.

    “The unacknowledged reality is that there is a spiritual war raging around us, and it can be seen in classical terms of light versus dark. The good news is that the light is winning, as it always eventually must. For however you describe and define it, the universe fundamentally is interconnected and seeks unity. Evil always collapses under its conceit that it can maintain separateness. It is like a physics of morality: it takes non-linear energy to compartmentalise us and resist the unifying power of love.”

    Geddes refers to his own experiences during modern crises such as COVID, the 2020 US election, vaccine mandates, and the Ukraine conflict. A personal revolution of consciousness led him to a more illumined perspective on the ongoing spiritual war, and he is both hopeful and realistic:

    “It took us 6,000 years to get into this mess, so fixing it won’t be quick or painless. However, just as there is a negative ‘occult’ power in the world that enslaves us, there are also unseen positive forces for good.”

    Perhaps we cannot fight against what we don’t want. The “fighting against” creates resistance to the expansion of consciousness. It is negative energy, tight and constricted. It adds low-level vibratory energies into the collective quantum field, which is then shaped to become external reality.

    Now is the time to awaken and choose a higher path that does not involve “warring against” but “welcoming into.”

    Imagine duelling lighthouses so engrossed in trying to outshine each other in a “battle of the beams” that they forget to shine their lights outward to the sea and end up causing untold ships to crash against the rocky shores. Both are at fault because their focus was on trying to control the other, to suppress or oppress, rather than to combine energies and save a lot of lost souls.

    We should strive to attain a higher state of consciousness, to grow and become and seek and speak truth, and to emit light and counter shadow. We don’t become the darkness we dissipate. Instead, we become the light that – when shined into the darkness – dissipates it.

    If enough of us do this, there will be little darkness left to fight and dissipate. The Great Awakening is at hand. 

    [alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This article was published in New Dawn Special Issue Vol 17 No 5.[/alert]

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    Sources

    academyofideas.com/2021/08/mass-psychosis-how-an-entire-population-becomes-mentally-ill/
    Martin Geddes, Open Your Mind to Change: A Guidebook to the Great Awakening.
    David Hawking, Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, Hay House, 2014.
    tessa.substack.com/p/swimming-with-zombies-how-to-protect
    verywellmind.com/what-are-jungs-4-major-archetypes-2795439

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