Switching gears this week – rather than an in-depth review and musings around a book I’ve read recently, I’m going to let you know which books I’m currently reading so you can read along too, if you so wish. And I’m also throwing in a few other recommendations for podcasts, courses and a movie.
As usual, I have several books on the go:
The Psychology of Totalitarianism, by Mattias Desmet (audiobook)
This just came out last week, and I bought it after hearing Mattias on Aubrey Marcus’s podcast (see below). Using the Covid pandemic as his starting point, he identifies and analyses the phenomenon of “mass formation hypnosis” – in other words, how societies fall into a shared narrative based on our fears and weaknesses, rather than on observation and critical thinking. It’s a very fitting follow-on to 1984, which I reviewed recently.
If you passionately believe that global lockdowns were the right thing, and that Covid really was an existential risk to humanity, you may find it challenging reading – but that is all the more reason to read it. Or start with the AMP podcast interview: Why People Willingly Give Up Their Freedoms.
Deer and Thunder: Indigenous Ways of Restoring the World, by Arkan Lushwala (paperback)
According to the blurb, “Deer & Thunder shows us the way to remember what it is to be a real human being. It shows us the way to return to our true home, our true nature, the place where we are one with the Earth and capable of nourishing all that lives. According to Arkan, technological changes toward cleaner forms of energy production are important, but not enough. Humanity must undergo a shift in consciousness. In order to continue living on this beautiful planet, our modern cultures need to cultivate a mind and a heart that make the protection of life an incontestable priority.”
Arkan Lushwala is indigenous to the Peruvian Andes and writes in a style that is clear, simple, and deeply powerful. And I couldn’t agree more that a shift in consciousness is what is needed. (See my forthcoming book, Ocean in a Drop, due out in November this year.)
The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry, by Rupert Sheldrake (e-book)
“The biggest scientific delusion of all is that science already knows the answers.”
What I most appreciate about Rupert Sheldrake – apart from his quite excellent initials 🙂 – is that he dares to step way outside the scientific box to ask really, really good questions about the nature of reality, in contrast to the narrow frame of reference of many scientists.
“I have spent all my adult life as a scientist, and I strongly believe in the importance of the scientific approach. Yet I have become increasingly convinced that the sciences have lost much of their vigour, vitality and curiosity. Dogmatic ideology, fear-based conformity and institutional inertia are inhibiting scientific creativity.”
He sets out to challenge ten central tenets of conventional science:
1. Everything is essentially mechanical.
2. All matter is unconscious.
3. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same (with the exception of the Big Bang, when all the matter and energy of the universe suddenly appeared).
4. The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at the beginning, and they will stay the same for ever.
5. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.
6. All biological inheritance is material, carried in the genetic material, DNA, and in other material structures.
7. Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains.
8. Memories are stored as material traces in brains and are wiped out at death.
9. Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory.
10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.
So… big questions, and he comes up with some convincing answers. I love his idea that the universe is not governed by fixed laws, but rather by evolving habits. And even more I love his searing question to materialists who claim that we are not intentional beings exercising free will, but merely beings driven blindly by our biology:
“Is your own belief in materialism determined by unconscious processes in your brain, rather than reason, evidence and choice?”
Podcasts:
Aubrey Marcus has an interesting mix of guests, exploring spirituality, consciousness, philosophy, science, and psychedelics.
Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts has a strong environmental bent, endearingly mixed with laddish banter and lots of swearing to prevent it getting too earnest.
Accidental Gods, with Manda Scott, describes itself as “Exploring the liminal space between science and spirituality, philosophy and politics, art, creativity – working towards the conscious evolution of humanity” – and I can’t improve on that as a recommendation.
Film:
I started writing a blog post on Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, and may post it next week. You may have heard of it as the film where Emma Thompson goes full frontal nude, which is indeed a part of it, but very far from all of it. In this press conference in Berlin, Emma T does a great job of describing the issues it raises, around shame, bodies, and women’s desires. The film is beautifully intimate – most of it just a man and a woman in a hotel room over the course of 4 meetings in which all is bared – literally. It was filmed in 19 days and probably didn’t cost very much, but its simplicity only enhances its emotional power.
Courses:
Automatic Writing: There’s one more day to sign up for Mike Dooley’s 21-day course on automatic writing. And no, I’m not on commission. I’ll admit, I find Michael Sandler’s way of speaking a little irritating, but that’s just me – and the content makes it worth bearing with. It’s my way of coaxing my reluctant early-morning self into meditation and journaling. Choose your price, starting at $27.
The Gene Keys: This powerful modality and tool for contemplation, by Richard Rudd, is a cross between astrology, Human Design, the I-Ching, the Kabbalah, with a bit of Jungian psychology and genetics thrown in. You can get a free profile that tells you about your life purpose, relationships, and path to prosperity, but to really get the benefits you need to dive in deeper by taking courses and buying the books – although there are also tons of free resources including videos and meditations on his beautifully-designed website. I’m studying the Gene Keys with a group of wonderful friends, which is really helping to integrate the learning.
So that’s what’s keeping me out of mischief at the moment. I hope you found at least one thing in this smorgasbord of delights to tempt you!
Featured Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
RE Desmet, “his” mass formation story line and his “teachings” …
The official framing of this “phenomenon” is misleading and wrong. The false hope-addicted psychologists and their acolytes want you to believe this is “just some temporary occasional” madness by the masses that has been going on for a couple of centuries when it is but a spike of a CHRONIC madness going on for aeons with “civilized” people — read “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room –The Holocaustal Covid-19 Coronavirus Madness: A Sociological Perspective & Historical Assessment Of The Covid “Phenomenon”” …. https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
One of these mainstream psychologists who have been spreading this whitewashed reality, Dr. Desmet, also fails to see that the PLANNED Covid Psyop is a TOTALLY deliberate ploy because he doesn’t think (after more than 1 year, even 2 years, into this total PLANNED scam!) it’s ALL intentionally sinister as he stated in a prior podcast (this makes him witting or unwitting controlled opposition).
In the May of 2022 podcast with James Corbett he stated that “some people tend to overestimate the degree of planning and intentions” (behind the COUNTLESS, VERIFIABLE, FULLY INTENTIONAL, FULLY PLANNED atrocities by the ruling tribe of psychopaths over the last century alone) and see all of it as being planned which Desmet called “an extreme position” … Sound logical thinking is “extreme” and therefore false and sick in his demented delusional view!!!
In his overpriced misleading whitewashing old material regurgitated book the psychology of totalitarianism he too states that “There are countless … examples that seem to point in the direction of a plan being implemented, such as the fact that the definition of ‘pandemic’ was adjusted shortly before the coronavirus crisis; that the definition of ‘herd immunity’ was changed during the crisis, implying that only vaccines can achieve it … [he continuous with several other obvious facts of an ENTIRELY PLANNED event, especially discerned through the totality of all these facts].” “SEEM to point in the direction of a plan”??? No! They most evidently, clearly, and irrefutably DO demonstrate and prove it IS a COMPLETELY AND FULLY DELIBERATE PlanDemic! A big scam. An Entirely Planned Holocaust against the non-ruling herd of people (see cited link above). A coherent 12-year old kid can figure that out.
It clearly shows Desmet’s own complete lunacy. But because almost everyone in the culture is a member of mass formation (madness), including the “woke” people of the alternative media domain, hardly anyone recognizes Desmet’s lunacy. Not surprising that he has even become some type of popular “guru” among the adherents of the alternative media landscape.
With his false use of language Desmet obscures or hides the true reality instead of directly and uncompromising exposing it — aiding the obfuscation of the vital reality of what the ruling authorities really are. He does the same thing when he speaks of ‘the elite’ (as he does in a number of podcasts) when, in reality, they are THE SCUM OF HUMANS because they are REALITY-VERIFIED PSYCHOPATHS (see referenced source above). Yet in the Corbett podcast he “teaches” us that we, the masses, need to start thinking differently. Right… how about YOU start with sane instead of insane thinking/talking/”teaching”/etc, Dr. Desmet?
How do self-styled “truth-tellers” wake up the masses to the so-called truth when they THEMSELVES use lies with their deceitful fake language???
No one is “teaching” or “waking up” the ignorant masses to the CORE truths with lies, with the official “language of lies” (see cited source above).
This all means Desmet is ALSO a member of the masses of lunatics, an ACTIVE CARD-CARRYING MEMBER of mass formation!!! When, if at all, will he wake up from his state of mass psychosis? When, if at all, will he face the TRUE and FULL reality instead of hiding behind fantasies such as his whitewashed “reality” of human civilization?
It shows we live in a global mental asylum with criminal and/or delusional mainstream psychologists, scientists, and docs as the guards, “teachers” and “therapists” … The blind/criminal/mad leading the blind/criminal/mad; the blind/criminal/mad adhere to the blind/criminal/mad = the human madhouse.
Worst of all, perhaps, the mass formation/mass psychosis notion frames the problem as the public being a mere unaccountable non-culpable victim in this phenomenon (the gist of the circular argument is: the masses should change their thinking but they got brainwashed so they’re victims). Nothing could be further from the truth (see referenced source above).
Desmet is right in that truth-activists must fight against mass formation psychosis (human madness). That also means exposing HIS deeply destructive mad part of it. This comment serves, in part, that objective.