Captured Imagination

And Taking It Back

I’ve been revisiting Downtown Abbey and having a completely different experience than I did first time I watched it. Of course.

Layer-peeling and dot-connecting changes us. We tend to see big changes in ourselves in retrospect - Oh, last year I would have responded completely differently… that kind of thing.

As I watched I realized the person who carried some memories of it from a decade or so ago wasn’t rewatching at all. She was largely gone.

Over the six seasons of the series, significant world events: The Titanic, WWI , the Spanish flu and Teapot Dome scandal, etc., run through and alongside the personal stories of the main characters who span different ends of the cultural-economic spectrum - from the aristocrats who own Downtown to the servants who serve them.

World events act as markers in our shared story; orient us and provide a sense of continuity - the givens or agreed upon stories. When they come with a shared shock they can also break down previous boundaries. As example in Downtown, with WWI, the roles suddenly flip; the owners of Downtown pitch in and go to work while a servant is put in a position of authority; a lowly footman finds himself a soldier fighting alongside the heir to the estate.

Their stories of the war entangle and their lives entwine in new and deeper contexts. We can say their experiences are ‘true’ and so meaningful, even though the underlying narrative about why there is a war on at all, is completely false.

A lie then - as much as a truth - will become part of our personal stories, they will be absorbed and re-expressed in infinite ways. This inadvertently amplifies them and gives them more depth and dimension. Personal acceptance of a lie - however unwitting - becomes part of our personal truth; imbued with real feelings and thoughts; recontextualized over and over and deepened in importance.

No wonder facing them is uncomfortable.

Just as pre and post are often used when we discuss world wars - markers in our human story - pre and post covid are now part of the common vernacular. (Though these do not mean the same thing to all of us.)

When a major world event is exposed as a lie the rippling effect can be monumental. The amplifying layers that surrounded it, expressed in multiple ways - poetry, non-fictionalized and fictionalized (a not-so-simple distinction) accounts, academic degrees or simple belief carried in silence - are also exposed as manifestations of that same lie. Human effort, real emotions, intellectual framing and all the associated identities that go with them, get caught in the lie too.

So much is undone when a big lie is exposed.

Imagine a history professor who spends decades teaching a version of history - passing on what he thinks of as knowledge in a noble career - suddenly confronted with the realization that’s he been duped. The facts are not as he was taught, the enemies not as he believed.

It wouldn’t be surprising if he experience a crises. The same is true for a scientist who built a career on flawed assumptions.

Same for all of us who trusted and accepted the narratives of a fabricated reality.

When I watched Climate: The Movie and realized a full universe of climatologists and experts had been created and now populate our world, around another central lie - that humans are behind a climate crises - I realized how easily its done. And how difficult it is to undo. (Though, it’s getting easier.)

Celia Faber has reported on the lies behind the ‘AIDS’ crises for many years. How ‘they’ do it is more or less the same. (Fortunately once you do see through it you can’t unsee it.)

The thing with an invisible prison system is you don’t know you’re in it. It’s been operating so long now that generations have been born into it; we see the world through the lens of confinement from the get-go, while being told we are free. We had no way of knowing that the capture of our world required the capture of our imagination and its subsequent steering.

Those who run the global penitentiary narrate everything - from our history to our future, they provide rules of operation, define key terms like freedom and democracy, tell us who the enemies are, what and where the threats lie, and how ‘good’ inmates citizens behave.

Over time this morphs into deep acceptance; the everyone knows stuff that doesn’t get questioned.

Depending on where they would like to take us, the story changes, sometimes radically and rapidly. (Ex: homeownership as a hallmark of the American Dream pivots to Own Nothing and be Happy.)

Perception management is their specialty and covers every area of life. What’s ‘real’ what’s important and where they would like our attention to go is so refined that a Maestro conducting a tight orchestra would be envious.

Creating sides is key.

The owners shape inmates expectations and aspirations and provide the maps for how to achieve them. Those who fall in line, tend to do pretty well. Following the rules given and not asking too many questions is a pre-requisite to already-defined success. They are often rewarded with nicer, more comfy cells. (This too is now falling apart.)

An impressive feature of the prison is how cost-efficient it is; the prisoners largely fund it themselves via illegal taxes among other things. They also act as their own guards, if one gets out of line, others will act to minimize the effects. They even buy and carry their own tracking devices, unknowingly submitting to the ever tightening grip of surveillance.

New updates are added all the time - these too largely unseen and come in the form of restrictions and mandates, global treaties, bogus laws, digitalization, etc. (Mike Yeadon has written about that recently.)

These are always accompanied with new stories of greater threats, propagated via the multiple prongs of propaganda.

All marketed under ever-changing definitions of freedom, safety, the greater good and more recently, the Green agenda.

Acceptance of the prison’s ‘brand’ is essential to its success. Via this acceptance the prisoners brand themselves as willing inmates. (It’s something of an inside joke to the owners.)

It’s worked well.

If you don’t know you’re in a prison, you don’t notice the additions.

If you don’t notice the prison, you don’t look to break out.

One of the reasons the system has been so successful is that the model is replicated in all areas of life; no matter where a prisoner wonders - they are still inside. Doesn’t matter the label slapped on it - academia, economics, various industries, geopolitics, etc. - they are still inside.

All that was required to pull off such a scheme was to recognize some features of humanity and then leverage those insights.

• Humans are trusting and highly adaptable.

• We want to fit into our communities and get along.

• We tend to be helpful and value kindness.

• We also like to appear to know what’s what.

Understanding these characteristics and knowing how to use them, how to manipulate, hijack and weaponize them to one’s advantage, made the calculations of control pretty easy.

• Define authority and provide helpful examples. This includes religious, governmental, societal, legal, etc. Market appropriately.

• Define enemies, again with instructive examples.

• Define a good citizen as someone who follows the authorities provided and plays by the rules provided.

• Define a bad citizen as someone who challenges authorities and questions the rules.

• Reward authority-followers, punish challengers.

• Create ongoing divisions to dilute public unity.

• Maintain divisions with repeated narratives.

• Use already-established ‘authorities’ to support the divisive narratives.

• Adjust message as needed when critical numbers push back, use the opportunity to create more divisiveness.

• Infiltrate anti-establishment groups, creating confusion and… you guessed it, more division.

• If push-back continues, get heavy handed and project abuse onto established enemies.

• If pushback still continues, defund, legislate, censor, jail, kill opponents as needed.

Since normal and good have already been defined by accepted establishment in relation to those who accept establishment and officially sanctioned narratives, you have created an ongoing circular ‘reality’.

Clearly defining detractors (conspiracy theorists) as dangerous, unhinged, untrustworthy, and outside ‘reality’ minimizes their ability to break through to amplify counter-narratives. Hammering guilt-by-association causes open-minds to think twice.

Market your version of reality - over and over.

Really not difficult.

Occasionally ramp up fear, via shocks, increasing submission and re-fueling the desire for authority.

Voila.

Okay it’s maybe a little more complicated than but not much.

It’s obviously doable because it’s been done.

Most of us simply can’t imagine that there has been some group who would do such a thing. It’s unimaginable.

And here we are, living in unimaginable times.

Getting out of the imperceptible prison is not so easy since there are many layers to it. You think you’re out and then - what’s this? - another layer is encountered.

In this essay by Catte Black, she discusses the current wars and asks if they are ‘real’ and how we define real. She notes that even post scamdemic, where we saw the breathtaking global coordination of oligarchs, we still fail to take those lessons and apply them to the current wars. We fail to question the reality of what we’re seeing, the unspoken motives behind them, and instead get pulled back into binary thinking and picking sides.

To successfully exit the global control grid, we must move past and let go the many of underlying assumptions we were taught not to question. The only an idiot doesn’t know… stuff. We have to be willing to accept we were wrong. We have to be willing to be wrong. The subjects considered settled history or science; things like the very nature of the world, human history, our planet and place in the larger cosmos, even God - all are up for reconsideration.

It’s a tall order. For those who do venture there is a major upside - as we acknowledge how little we actually do know - humility shows up and is a great companion to journey with.

Many will never consider doing this. (The owners know this.) Upending foundational assumptions is uncomfortable to who we (think) we are - and of course, where we are in our story.

The process of letting go - this too? - over and over is both disillusioning and also wearying. We encounter resistance to the degree of attachment we have to what is up for release. Religions have proven particularly sticky. (This due to the merging of the primary and intuitive aspect of the divine with the secondary and formalized expression of that intuition in religions. I’ve written about that here.)

You may glimpse how the illusion is done in one area, but find it eludes you in the next.

Some examples:

• I can concede COVID was a globally coordinated psychologic operation that abused humanity at many levels in its pursuit of centralized control via submission and poisoning, but climate change, that’s real.

• All high-level politicians are controlled, except Trump, he’s part of a 5-D game plan.

• All wars are bankers wars, except this one with Russia and Ukraine - that’s evil Putin.

• You can tell who is controlling things by who you can’t criticize, except when it comes to Israel and the Jewish state, that’s anti-Semitism. Etc.

We might call these places where we get stuck and pulled back into the system, identity-snags. (That’s what I’m calling them.) Tricky buggers.

There will be truths weaved throughout all of it. The best lies always contain a percentage of truth. So if you are in resistance, you’ll find things you can grab on to and even dig your heels in with.

Understanding the mechanisms of control is not about dismissing everything as a lie. It’s about seeing how it’s done; the larger context - in this case larger container - in which everything is happening. If there is an agenda at that level - and there clearly is - then we have to recognize manipulation is ongoing, and deep discernment is needed.

Attempting to sift through and sort out what’s true Vs what’s false has value - in some cases is essential. Though it’s important to note it can also maintain and create new divisions, suck up our time and keep us busy arguing with each other while the hidden agendas advance.

Once you get a sense of how deep the deception goes the details may not entice so much. The rabbit holes are endless; let’s not forget our would-be controllers anticipated our discovery of them and set traps accordingly.

We will all have to ask ourselves, when does parsing out the truth in its minutia become yet another potential trap? When does it serve to free us and when does it serve to create yet another detour and delay our exit?

Fortunately more and more are seeing through the invisible slave system. We need all of us to dismantle it. Some are brilliant at pulling threads and separating out the lies from the truth - even within those big linchpin narratives we’re not supposed to challenge.

Tereza of Third Paradigm has been dismantling the ‘settled’ history around the Nazi story, the Jewish story, the bible and many other recently untouchable subjects. Using a combination of curiosity, intelligence, challenging inconsistencies and looking through counter-narrative material - she plunges fearlessly into muddy waters, all while maintaining a generous assumption that people are good and when they are not it’s because corrupt systems have corrupted them.

Some are brilliant at reminding us of those essential human qualities we need to embody right now - courage and creativity, honesty and intellectual clarity.

Margaret Anna Alice and Mike Yeadon come to mind instantly. (If you haven’t listened to Mike Yeadon read Margaret Anna’s Mistake Were Not Made, I recommend it.

Some will point us in the direction of what exists - has always existed - right alongside the many layers of our confinement - Nature and the Natural world and our presence within it. Directing us here is directing us out of the prison. Two of my favorites:

Barbara Sinclair of The Quaking Poplar and Sue Cartwright of Spiral Leaf.

Some express the process of letting go those identities we adopted and that no longer serve us; the necessary ingredients of observation and self-honesty required to do so, as we reclaim larger, truer versions of ourselves.

Mary of The Art of Freedom has a beautiful piece on just that.

Of course there are many more. Visceral Adventure is a favorite, blending insight, humor and creative-flourish in video, music and text. She often collaborates with other talented stackers and the result is always an enhancement.

I never feel deflated or weighed down by any of them - in fact the opposite. Despite the challenge of these times, taking on and participating in the dismantling of lies is life-supporting, meaning-making and inspiring.

Whatever the marketing jingle that accompanies the yoke, we can easily gauge our situation by the degree of freedom we experience. I trust I don’t need to list the many ways, and increasingly egregious ways in which we are being confined.

Whether we like looking at it or not - the truth is we’ve been steered, corralled, bullied and plainly duped into accepting a world that what would otherwise be deeply unacceptable to free and sovereign beings.

Of course we have to recognize and claim ourselves as free and sovereign before we can recognize its abuse.

Here is the good news. More and more of us are claiming that status. A freer version of the world and ourselves is coming. (Some significant hurdles still to get through.)

Our Universe and Nature are already supplying the frequencies needed to support our status as free beings. As we open to them, they open to us, awakening and supporting our essential selves. (So no worries when the superficial identities go.) A whole being remembrance - and natural restoration of who we are - is now possible, along with the planet itself.

The dissolving ‘foundations’ of our world were never the real foundations anyway. Let them go. The actual foundation - the ground itself - isn’t going anywhere.

Once you realize your imagination was captured, you simply take it back. We entered someone else’s make-believe story that cast us as pawns in a game we didn’t know was being played. They provided our scripts and we were pushed around the board.

Enough of all that.

Let’s walk out of the imagination-prison. We can’t afford to go along with where ‘they’ would like to take us anymore.

We are free, intricately part of Nature, guided by Universal Law. We naturally intuit and connect to the Divine, on a planet in which everything we need has been provided.

So, we’re fine. The question is, how will we re-imagine our world?

Thanks for reading.

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