Friday, May 29, 2009

New Age Solipsism

There's something many people are caught up in these days, and it has some really horrific effects - socially, culturally, and politically.

It's this idea of: "Nothing exists outside me. I create my own reality."

This concept is basically feeding the already off-the-charts strain of narcissism in Western culture and leads to endless philosophical tail-chasing, navel-gazing, and inaction in any concrete or meaningful way. It also leads to that very scary level of detachment so commonly asserted: "I live in a different dimension. I've transcended the pain and suffering of Earth. It has nothing to do with me. I'm enlightened."

(I'd just like to point out here: anyone who uses the word "enlightened," isn't. There's nothing worse than premature enlightenment! The New Age sells it in a jar.)

It's some sort of Piscean oneness concept gone way wrong, horribly misapplied to the point that its effect is opposite what was really meant. Instead of understanding the energetic connection among people/situations and the personal responsibility that goes along with that, it promotes a very desired mindset: It's all about you! Nothing exists outside you and your own little bubble of understanding!

It's a prime example of how the New Age latches onto a grain of truth (concepts of holism, for example) and then promotes the misapplication of it.

I was on an internet message board yesterday on a thread where people were talking about Obama and if he is a "lightworker." Someone posted that he was doing the evil deeds of the New World Order.

The reply to that comment from another poster (a huge The Secret fan who is constantly schlepping his website based on it) was a prime example of this solipsism.

Instead of actually talking about Obama and his concrete track record (you know, continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, funneling trillions of dollars of taxpayers' money to international bankers under threat of martial law, prolonged detention, attempting to bring in compulsory military service for all citizens 18 - 25, etc., etc.), this dude gets all up on his pseudo-Socratic high horse (another common method with these condescending douches who believe they are "kindly and wisely" pointing out the errors in our perceptions) and asks:

"What is it in yourself that Obama reflects that you've decided is evil?"

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

The old, "If you don't like something about someone, it's related to something you don't like about yourself" trex. Bullshit dime-store psychology packaged and sold as "spiritual truth."

His whole ideology is that if there is something you're seeing that you don't like in the world, you just require more meditation or cleansing or self-examination or whatever the fuck he prescribes, more INTERNAL focus, and that will make all the bad stuff go away.

Insanity. Sheer insanity. And the popularity of The Secret (and now Beyond the Secret!) has created millions of these people, promoting this same garbage, up on their "enlightened" high horses about how those of us who see "darkness" in the world are buying into a "negative belief system" and that we will only understand the errors of our ways once we get to their level of enlightenment.

Dear God. And we wonder how Bush et. al. were able to get away with it all? And how international bankers just robbed the American people blind under Obama? How all this continues?

It doesn't matter what particular subject you're talking about, "true believers" of this stuff translate everything into their brand of The Secret-ese. It all has that very simplistic and meaningless answer. It all goes back to the same solipsistic ideology and lets them off the hook for any sort of real analysis, action, or concrete problem-solving.

Don't like poisonous oilsands mucking up your river systems? Well, it's a part of you that's doing it! You're creating it.

Don't like babies being born irradiated and deformed from exposure to the U.S. Army's depleted uranium munitions? Well, it's connected to you! You create your own reality, so you're creating that.

They seem to believe that constant repetition of this messed-up, solipsistic idiom is meaningful in and of itself. 

It's not.

You can see exactly how this is being used by the powers that be. They love the fact that people are going to look at themselves as the cause of these murderous, destructive regimes and focus internally, rather than holding those responsible accountable for their crimes against humanity.

It's this whole idea of giving institutionalized murder and crime a New Agey free pass because "we were all murderers in one lifetime or another!" 

Bullshit.

It's the same misuse of concepts like "bad karma" and the caste system, manipulating people with "spiritual" concepts into accepting injustice and substandard conditions.

The New World Order (or Global Government) seeks control in four ways - political, monetary, intellectual, and spiritual.

And its clear that the ideology of the New Age movement works perfectly to subdue and energetically lobotomize the population. They'll repeat the same old, meaningless idioms, lulling themselves and those around them into complacency. A complacent population: just what the doctor ordered. Add intense and misguided self-righteousness to that complacency, and it's even better for the criminals in positions of power to operate unfettered.

Unless humanity starts to collectively take a look at what is really going on, to hold awareness of it and demand accountability for crimes committed against humanity, these things continue unchallenged.

All while the "enlightened" crowd sits on their thumbs in some yoga studio.

Oh, but these people are all beyond the archaic political system, right? It has nothing to do with them, up on their enlightened pink clouds. They see no level of personal responsibility or accountability at all. It's all in the hands of the "higher power," which, it turns out, is THEM! (No wonder these people are so messed up.)

"All part of the divine plan. All part of the divine plan. All part of the divine plan."

The thing is: spiritual hierarchy is over. Dead. Done.

So anyone talking about "enlightenment" is living in an outdated paradigm. Most of the Love and Light worshippers I've come across are enamoured of false light. They have little to no intuitive capacity as far as determining what is real and what isn't and have handed their personal discernment powers over to external sources. Many go from fad-to-fad, desperately trying to get their fix of puffed-up Neptunian glamour, using whatever energy they can find (dirty or not) to sustain their ride on the spiritual carnival merry-go-round, refusing to get off to face anything beyond that spinning wheel of hyper-real lights and mind-spinning ether.

Neptunian energy really can be an intoxicating and addictive substance, and once you see how people are using/abusing it, it's sad and enraging at the same time. Most people are better than this.

I see signs of progress, though. There are a lot more people speaking up about this stuff than there ever were before, challenging the constantly repeated assertions of the New Age ideology and ideologies of the day, in general. I think the mass appeal is weakening. People are speaking up despite the fear of spiritual bullying from the positivity-pushers. That pressure really was immense. There were (and still are) so many people lying in wait to latch onto anything they perceived as "negative" and stuff their ideology down other people's throats. These dynamics have definitely created self-censorship, and I hope people continue to break the influence of that.

It's kind of crazy that the positivity-pushers could have that level of control, considering the weakness of their schtick, but they did and still do to a great extent.

The other odd thing is how many people who are blatantly promoting ideology related to the New Age movement do not consider themselves New Age. (Or at least won't admit it.) The aforementioned The Secret-spouting message board poster is an example, as are quite a few people in astrology circles.

I think it's possible they have no idea what they're promoting when they constantly spout off this ideology, no real understanding of the effects this stuff has...

However, in the name of bringing this all to awareness, I definitely encourage people to speak up and put these New Age regurgitators in their places. I do it every (clear) chance I get.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bravo! Bravo!

I live in San Francisco and it's ground zero for the new age soft heads you describe.

Thanks for the breath of fresh astrological air.

Willow said...

Oh, man...is it ever ground zero! You poor soul. heehee The website I'm talking about originates in San Fran, also. (tribe.net) And even the cyber-doses of that crap that I get are more than enough to irritate me on a daily basis.

Although, it has spread pretty much everywhere...even here in Cowtown, Alberta. haha

Anonymous said...

Ugh! I am so fed up of New Age bullshit that I can't take anymore of it. Totally insidious crap! I'm tired of pointing out the inconsistencies and hypocrisies to others, as they just say that I am being "negative." So I've given in to my Scorpionic love of solitude and retreated for awhile to regain my sanity.

Jeannette said...

You make me giggle.. Thanks for doing your Virgoian duty!!
Praise the Lord and Pass the amnutition..

George Dipa Jekic said...

Hi There. Cool Argument'
I have just one comment on that.
Im not sure as far as meditation goes that you have mentioned Zen Buddhism or traditional practices which you know go back a long time.
Would you say this stuff to a very old roshi master in his 80,s?
about solipsism and the concept of Maya (please explain)

Refreshingly though Dr David Albert says that The new age movement and science are not merging and if they did there would be something redundant about it.
(referring to the hijacking of quantum physics by the new age movement to suit there own agenda)
Im probably a new age wanker but i understand collective responsibility to the earth and environment. We have to make a stand even though the odds are stacked against us"
After watching a documentary of the oil Producing in Alberta Canada which i had no idea existed and the displacemet of indigenious populations.
Movements like the new age are made up of people with all sorts of ideas about reality'
Whats the difference between that and football" Millions of hypnotised idiots getting emotional about a bag of pigskin being kicked around"yeah the NWO sure know what thier doing"
I agree with you there are a lot of wankers around and no shortage of them in the new age movement'

Alex said...

Great article! You wrote this in 2009? Wow, this gem should be rediscovered.

AnĂ­bal Coto Jenkins (Hannibal) said...

I just shared this on my FB page, 'cause I've been seeing a lot of this recently

Willow said...

Thanks for sharing! Yes, it is terrible how strong the grip of delusional New Age thinking is in the population. I still see it alllllllll the time. And this article was written in 2009.

Willow said...

This illustrates the false hierarchy and eugenicist ideology promoted by the New Age and Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey, et. al.

"Mankind is obviously divided into god-informed men and lower human creatures. The intellectual difference between the Aryan and other civilized nations and such savages as the South Sea Islanders, is inexplicable on any other grounds. No amount of culture, nor generations of training amid civilization, could raise such human specimens as the Bushmen, the Veddhas of Ceylon, and some African Tribes, to the same intellectual level as the Aryans, the Semites, and the Turanians so called. The 'sacred spark' is missing in them and it is they who are the only inferior races on the globe, now happily – owing to the wise adjustment of nature which ever works in that direction – fast dying out. Verily mankind is 'of one blood,' but not of the same essence. We are the hot-house, artificially quickened plants in nature, having in us a spark, which in them is latent" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 421).

Alice Bailey was also a big proponent of the "New World Order" and one world government:

1934 -- The Externalization of the Hierarchy by Alice A. Bailey is published. Bailey is an occultist, whose works are channeled from a spirit guide, the Tibetan Master [demon spirit] Djwahl Kuhl. Bailey uses the phrase "points of light" in connection with a "New Group of World Servers" and claims that 1934 marks the beginning of "the organizing of the men and women...group work of a new order...[with] progress defined by service...the world of the Brotherhood...the Forces of Light...[and] out of the spoliation of all existing culture and civilization, the new world order must be built."