by Robert Bonomo
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Contemporary
baptized, corporatized and sanitized man rarely has the occasion to
question his identity, and when he does a typical response might be, “I am product
manager for a large retail chain, married to Betty, father of Johnny, a Democrat, Steelers fan and a Lutheran.”
His answers
imply not only his beliefs but the many responsibilities,
rules and restrictions he is subjected to. Few if any of these were
ever negotiated- they were imposed on him yet he still considers himself free.
But is free the
right adjective for him, or would modern domesticated simian be more apt? He has been told what to do, believe, think and
feel since he can remember. A very clever rancher has bred billions of
these creatures around the globe and created the most profitable livestock
imaginable. They work for him, fight for him, die for him, believe his
wildest tales, laugh at his jokes and rarely get out of line. When domesticated
man does break one of the rules there are armies, jailers, psychiatrists and bureaucrats
prepared to kill, incarcerate, drug or hound the transgressor into submission.
One of the
most fascinating aspects of domesticated man’s predicament is that he never
looks at the cattle, sheep and pigs who wind up on his plate and make the very
simple deduction that he is just a
talking version of them, corralled and shepherded through his entire life. How is this
accomplished? Only animals that live in hierarchical groups can be
dominated by man. The trick is to fool the animal into believing that the
leader of the pack or herd is the person who is domesticating them.
Once this is accomplished the animal is under full control of its homo
sapien master. The domesticated man is no different, originally
organized in groups with a clear hierarchy and maximum size of 150- it was easy to replace the leader of
these smaller groups with one overarching figure such as God, King, President,
CEO etc.
The
methodology for creating this exceptionally loyal and obedient modern breed,
homo domesticus, can be described as having seven pillars from which an immense
matrix captures the talking simians and their conscious minds and hooks them
into a complex mesh from which few ever escape. The system is so advanced
that those who do untangle themselves and cut their way out of the net are
immediately branded as mentally ill, anti-social, or simply losers who can’t
accept the ‘complexity of modern life’, i.e. conspiracy nuts.
 |
| DELUSION DWELLERS, Laurie Lipton, 2010 |
“--Behold! human beings living in an underground
cave...here they have been from their childhood...necks chained so that
they cannot move, and can only see before them. Above and behind them a
fire is blazing at a distance...the screen which marionette players have
in front of them, over which they show the puppets... and they see only
their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws
on the opposite wall...”
It began
with the word, which forever changed the ability of men to manipulate each
other. Before language, every sensation was directly felt through the
senses without the filter of words. But somewhere around 50,000 years ago language began to replace reality and the first pieces of code were put in place for
the creation of the Matrix. As soon as the words began to flow the world
was split, and from that fracturing was
born man’s angst and slavery. The words separated us from who we really
were, creating the first screen onto which the images from Plato’s cave were
cast. Gurdjieff said it well, “Identifying is the chief obstacle to
self-remembering. A man who identifies with anything is unable to
remember himself.”
It’s no
accident that in Hesiod’s ages of man the Golden Age knew no agriculture,
which appeared in the Silver age, and by the time we reach the Bronze age the
dominant theme is toil and strife. The two key elements to the
enslavement of man were clearly language and agriculture. In the hunter
gatherer society, taking out the boss was no more complicated than
landing a well placed fastball to the head. Only since the advent of
farming was the
possibility of creating full time enforcers and propagandists made
possible,
and hence enslavement inevitable.
The search
for enlightenment rarely if ever bears fruits in those temples of words, our
schools and universities.
Almost all traditions point to isolation and silence as the only
paths to awakening; they are the true antidotes to modern slavery. As Aristotle wrote, “Whosoever is delighted
in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.”
So from the
institution from which we are mercilessly bombarded with words and enslaved to
time, we begin our descent through the seven layers of the Matrix.
There are
things we are born able to do like eating, laughing and crying and others we
pick up without much of an effort such as walking, speaking and fighting, but
without strict institutional education there is no way that we can ever become
a functioning member of the Matrix. We must be indoctrinated, sent to Matrix
boot camp, which of course is school. How else could you take a hunter
and turn him into a corporate slave, submissive to clocks, countless bosses,
monotony and uniformity?
Education
Children naturally know who they are, they have no existential angst, but schools immediately begin driving home the point of schedules, rules, lists and grades which inevitably lead the students to the concept of who they aren't. We drill the little ones until they learn to count money, tell time, measure progress, stand in line, keep silent and endure submission. They learn they aren't free and they are separated from everyone else and the world itself by a myriad of divides, names and languages.
It can’t be stressed enough how much education is simply inculcating people with the clock and the idea of a forced identity. What child when she first goes to school isn't taken back to hear herself referred to by her full name?
It’s not as if language itself isn't sufficiently abstract- nothing must be left without a category. Suzy can’t just be Suzy- she is a citizen of a country and a state, a member of a religion and a product of a civilization, many of which have flags, mascots, armies, uniforms, currencies and languages. Once all the mascots, tag lines and corporate creeds are learned, then history can begin to be taught. The great epic myths invented and conveniently woven into the archetypes which have come down through the ages cement this matrix into the child’s mind.
Even the language that she speaks without effort must be deconstructed for her. An apple will never again be just an apple- it will become a noun, a subject, or an object. Nothing will be left untouched, all must be ripped apart and explained back to the child in Matrixese.
We are taught almost nothing useful during the twelve or so years that we are institutionalized and conditioned for slavery- not how to cook, farm, hunt, build, gather, laugh or play. We are only taught how to live by a clock and conform to institutionalized behaviors that make for solid careers as slaveocrats.
Government
The
functions of the state are so well esconded in dogmatic versions of
history
taught in schools that almost no one questions why we need anything
beyond the
bare essentials of government to maintain order in the post-industrial
age. The
history classes never point the finger at the governments themselves
as the propagators and instigators of war, genocide, starvation and
corruption. In Hollywood's version of history, the one most people
absorb, 'good' governments are always portrayed as fighting 'bad' ones.
We have yet to see a film where all the people on both sides simply
disengage from their governments and ignore the calls to violence.
The state apparatus is based on law, which is a contract between the people and an organism created to administer common necessities- an exchange of sovereignty between the people and the state. This sounds reasonable, but when one looks at the mass slaughters of the 20th century, almost without exception, the perpetrators are the states themselves.
The state apparatus is based on law, which is a contract between the people and an organism created to administer common necessities- an exchange of sovereignty between the people and the state. This sounds reasonable, but when one looks at the mass slaughters of the 20th century, almost without exception, the perpetrators are the states themselves.
The loss of
human freedom is the only birthright offered to the citizens of the
modern
nation. There is never a choice. It is spun as a freedom and a
privilege when it is in fact indentured servitude to the state apparatus
and the corporatocracy that controls it.
Patriotism
What is a
country? Using the United States as
example, what actually is this entity? Is
it the USPS, the FDA, or the CIA? Does loving one's country mean one should love
the IRS and the NSA? Should we feel differently
about someone if they are from Vancouver instead of Seattle? Loving a state is the same as loving a
corporation, except with the corporations there is still no stigma attached to
not showing overt sentimental devotion to their brands and fortunately, at least for the
moment, we are not obligated at birth to pay them for a lifetime of services,
most of which we neither need nor want.
Flags, the Hollywood version of
history and presidential worship are drilled into us to maintain the
illusion of the 'other' and force the 'foreigner/terrorist/extremist' to
wear the stigma of our projections. The archaic tribal energy
that united small bands and helped them to fend off wild beasts and
hungry hoards
has been converted into a magic wand for
the masters of the matrix. Flags are waved, and we respond like hungry
Labradors jumping at a juicy prime rib swinging before our noses.
Sentimental statist propaganda is simply the mouthguard used to soften
the
jolt of our collective electroshock therapy.
Religion
The original spiritual connection
man had with the universe began to dissolve into duality with the onset
of language, and by the time cities and standing armies arrived he was
in need of a reconnection, and thus we get our faith based religions.
Faith in the religious experiences of sages, or as William James put
it, faith in someone else's ability to connect. Of course the liturgies
of our mainstream religions offer some solace and connection, but in
general they simply provide the glue for the Matrix. A brief perusal of
the news will clearly show that their 'God' seems most comfortable
amidst the killing fields.
If we focus on the Abrahamic
religions, we have a god much like the state, one who needs to be loved.
He is also jealous of the other supposedly non-existent gods and is as
sociopathic as the governments who adore him. He wipes out his enemies
with floods and angels of death just as the governments who pander to
him annihilate us with cultural revolutions, atom bombs, television and
napalm. Their anthem is, "Love your country, it’s flag, its history,
and the God who created it all"- an ethos force fed to each new
generation.
Circus
As long as
homo domesticus goes into the appropriate corral, jumps when she is told
to and agrees wholeheartedly that she is having fun, than she is a good
slave worthy
of her two days off a week and fifteen days vacation at the designated
farm
where she is milked of any excess gold she might have accumulated during
the year.
Once she is too old to work and put to pasture, holes are strategically placed in her vicinity so she and her husband can spend their last few dollars trying to get a small white ball
into them.
On a daily
basis, after the caffeinated maximum effort has been squeezed out of her, she is placed in front of a screen, given the
Matrix approved beverage (alcohol), and re-indoctrinated for several hours
before starting the whole cycle over again. God forbid anyone ever took a
hallucinogen and had an original thought. We are, thankfully, protected from any substances that might actually
wake us up and are encouraged stick to the booze.
The matrix loves coffee in the morning, alcohol in the evening and
never an authentic thought in between.
On a more
primal level we are entranced with the contours of the perfect body and
dream
of ‘perfect love’, where our days will be filled with soft caresses,
sweet words
and Hollywood drama. This is maybe the
most sublime of the Matrix’s snares, as Venus’s charms can be so
convincing one
willingly abandons all for her devious promise. Romantic love is
dangled like bait, selling us down the path of sentimentally coated lies
and mindless consumerism.
Money is
their most brilliant accomplishment. Billions of people spend most of
their waking lives either acquiring it or spending it without ever
understanding what it actually is. In this hologram of a world, the
only thing
one can do without money is breath. For almost every other human
activity
they want currency, from eating and drinking to clothing oneself and
finding a partner. Religion
came from innate spirituality and patriotism from the tribe, but money
they invented
themselves- the most fantastic and effective of all their tools of
domestication.
Money
They have
convinced the slaves that money actually has some intrinsic value, since at some
point in the past it actually did. Once they were finally able to
disconnect money completely from anything other than their computers, they finally
took complete control, locked the last gate and electrified all the fences. They ingeniously print it up out of the
nothing and loan it with interest in order for 18-year-olds to spend four years
drinking and memorizing propaganda as they begin a financial indebtedness that will most likely never end.
By the time
the typical American is thirty the debt is mounted so high that they
abandon any
hope of ever being free of it and embrace their mortgages, credit cards,
student
loans and car loans as gifts from a sugar daddy. What they rarely asks
themselves is why they must
work to make money while banks can simply create it with a few key
strokes. If they printed out notes on their HP's and loaned
them with interest to their neighbors, they would wind up in a
penitentiary, but
not our friends on Wall Street- they do just that and wind up pulling
the strings in the White House. The genius of the money scam is how
obvious it
is. When people are told that banks
create money out of nothing and are paid interest for it the good folks
are left incredulous. “It can't be that simple!" And therein lies the
rub- no one wants to believe that they have been so easily enslaved.
Culture
– Terence
McKenna
As Terence
loved to say, “Culture is not your friend.” It exists as a buffer to
authentic experience. As they created larger and larger communities, they
replaced the direct spiritual experience of the shaman with priestly
religion. Drum beats and sweat were exchanged for digitized, corporatized noise.
Local tales got replaced by Hollywood blockbusters, critical thinking
with academic dogma.
If money is
the shackles of the matrix, culture is its operating system. Filtered,
centralized, incredibly manipulative, it glues all their myths together into
one massive narrative of social control from which only the bravest of souls
ever try to escape. It's relatively
simple to see the manipulation when one looks at patriotism, religion or
money. But when taken as a whole, our culture seems as natural and timeless as the air we breathe, so intertwined with our
self conception it is often hard to see where we individually finish and our culture begins.
Escaping the Grip of Control
“Everything
becomes clear once we accept the fact that scholarship as a whole is not
concerned with finding, or even looking for, the truth. That’s just a
decorative appearance. It’s simply concerned with protecting us from
truths that might endanger our security; and it does so by perpetuating our
collective illusions on a much deeper level than individual scholars are aware
of.”
Whoever
discovered water, it certainly wasn't a fish. To leave the ‘water’, or
Plato's cave takes courage and the knowledge that there is something
beyond the web of control. The path out of the Matrix is not for
everyone because it requires dangerous unlearning, unbelieving,
disconnecting and
unplugging. No stone can be left unturned within the soul of the
seeker,
but the reward is beyond anything words and culture could possibly
offer.
Plato described the process of leaving the Matrix over 2,300 hundred years ago in the Allegory of the Cave:
"First he will see the shadows best,..then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven...Last he will see himself in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate himself as he is."
"First he will see the shadows best,..then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven...Last he will see himself in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate himself as he is."
Robert's site is Cactus Land
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