Mind Healing: We Live in the World We Believe We Live in
Thoughts on conspiracy, reality and harmony
Taking care of and venerating Gaia, the planet we live on, is arguably the wisest thing we can do, but we must not forget to embrace our own wellbeing, sanity and clarity. Indeed, the former isn’t possible in a meaningful way without the latter.
Humans are not just any other animal. I am convinced we have a different role to play. Spiritual guide Matías De Stefano calls humans the neurons of Gaia. I think it may be an apt description. We need Gaia, but to evolve she also needs us to evolve. So the body, mind and spirit of those neurons had better be as healthy as possible. Health is not a bodily state. Health encompasses every layer of our existence, physical as well as nonphysical, and the allround drug is unconditional love.
I have an ongoing conversation with one of my former podcast guests (I hope to publish parts of our chats, but nothing is in the pipeline yet, so I won’t be more specific than that for now). Our talks are almost completely free of an agenda, and they are very rewarding. They are generally about life, humanity and the society we have built for ourselves — which basically translates to “everything”.
Lately, we have zoomed in on the societal matrix, for lack of a better word, and how the big actors of that matrix define conspiracy theories. If you are a person who thinks and feels for yourself, you should probably take it as a badge of honor if people label you as something containing the terms conspiracy, pseudo, fringe or woo-woo. I mean it. It indicates that you are a free soul prepared for healing in a wide sense. But there are some caveats and red flags, which I will get to in a minute.
If you question these conventional “truths”, chances are you will be ostracized
To clarify what I mean, here are a few topics where the standard story is more or less misleading, but where most people wouldn’t dare to challenge it for fear of the above labels.
- “Human civilization is only 5,500 years old” (evidence for much a more distant origin is becoming clearer)
- “The virus was dangerous enough to warrant lockdowns and vax mandates” (evidence is piling up that these policies were unscientific and detrimental)
- “Climate change is almost solely our fault and very dangerous” (evidence shows both of those claims are questionable)
- “Reality is material and consciousness is a by-product of the brain” (a growing body of evidence points to survival of consciousness after clinical death)
If you openly question any of the above or a number of other conventional “truths”, chances are that you will be ostracized by more mainstream peers, friends and family members. Ostracism is deeply uncomfortable. We are social creatures. We long to belong to the “righteous” group, the “good” herd. So most stay on the officially sanctioned, beaten track.
But there are those who stick to their guns and ride out the storm. Once through that ordeal, there are two ways to go:
- Either you level up a notch in your awakening process (if that is the right term), which entails breaking free of the shackles of the material world, seeing it for what it ultimately is, an illusion, and letting go of the constant drama that people around you are caught up in.
- Or you decide to stay on the drama level, where the lesson you just learned makes you draw the conclusion that this world must be plagued with some fundamental flaw. So you resort to the conspiracy theory with a capital C, namely the overarching, hardcore idea that the people who are truly calling the shots belong to a certain category that stands above the authority figures we see and hear and that pulls the strings behind the scenes (think deep state).
I am not saying that the latter conclusion is false. I tend to think there is a kernel of truth to it. But to linger on it and to base your everyday reality on it is still to experience a “level one” reality. It is a bit like being stuck at a depot on your way towards a higher truth, a depot where resentment is a base feeling. This resentment boosts the newly found insights and fuels certain excitement and satisfaction, which feels good (until it doesn’t).
One of the charges — a reasonable one — against the powers that be is fear-mongering. But with all their resentment and anger, the “half-awakened” ironically risk spreading fear themselves. Clear and independent thinking boosts sanity, but fear corrodes it.
I firmly mean that the human world is in a better shape than ever in recorded history, both in terms of wellbeing and in terms of behavior. But our evolutionary dance is not a straight line, it’s a cha-cha: two steps forward and one step back. Sadly, we are always much more concerned with that step back than with the two steps forward. The main reason the violence and the perceived chaos of our time shock us is that we tolerate ever less of it, not that it is worse than ever.
Is this a perfect world? Definitely not, but it is the only possible world now, because it is the result of every decision that has been made since the human journey began, decisions based on the level of knowledge, insight and awareness in each instance. It goes without saying that myriad improvements lie ahead of us. But we can choose to see the glass as half full rather than half empty.
“Half-awakened” people never do that. They see a world where everything is getting worse. They see a world where humans are more selfish and greedy than ever. They toll the alarm bells about looming disasters that are not talked about in the mainstream, but they scornfully reject as fake the ones that are talked about in the mainstream. ”My apocalypse is real, but not yours.”
Are we the unwitting victims of a gigantic poisoning from the enormous amounts of detrimental substances that they put in our water, air and food? Are the oceans choked with plastics and filth? Are we getting fried by radiation from cell towers and power lines? Well, you can obviously see it that way. But when I look around, when I study trends and averages, I find a very different world. I find that we are still here — more of us than ever — and that we are living longer lives than ever. I find that almost all of us are fine most of the time, that water and air quality is better than when I grew up, and that the same goes for the state of flora and fauna (we don’t actively exterminate animals and plants anymore, we try to preserve as many species as possible).
My very wise conversation friend tells me that it is pointless to define whether things have become better or worse. It is all in the eye of the beholder. We all use different lenses and have different experiences and personalities through which we filter our perceptions of the world. He also points out that physical and material wellbeing is overrated, whereas spiritual and social wellbeing is underrated.
I agree, and his remarks are in a way the whole point of this essay, but I still can’t help finding it odd not to acknowledge the tremendous progress humanity has made in many areas, and not only the material. However, I realize the crucial part of of what my friend says: The filters. Our perception of reality.
I met an interesting and likable person the other day. We spoke about food. He had done an impressive amount of research on his own and reached the conclusion that almost every nutritional advice from the authorities was wrong. And so, he had become a carnivore. He ate one kilo of meat every day. He said he felt great. He certainly looked strong and seemed very healthy. I haven’t eaten meat since 1993, and I am also perfectly healthy. Interesting.
In his book The Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot relates an event where a man is put into hypnosis and led to believe that his daughter is invisible. The hypnotist holds a pocket watch with an inscription on it behind the back of the daughter, and the hypnotized man is able to not only see the watch but to read the inscription. Right through his daughter’s body.
A spectacular case of multiple-personality disorder was described in the 1980s. It was a person who displayed no fewer than twelve different personalities. Eleven of them were allergic to orange juice. Drinking it always resulted in an outbreak of hives. But the twelfth personality loved orange juice and could binge-drink it without any problems. Not only that: If the twelfth personality “came in” when the person had hives, the water-filled blisters on their skin would recede.
“‘If the mind can do this in tearing down body tissue, I think it suggests the same potential for healing”, commented psychiatrist Bennet Braun in a New York Times article about this and similar cases.
The main takeaway from all of this is that we live in the world we believe we live in. We create our reality in every instant. What it looks like is up to you and me, my friend.
It may sound absurd, but absurd is just a word. Life transcends words.
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