[Editor’s note: Some world affairs observers are suggesting the word “gaslighting”, named 2022 Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, become raised to the highest level possible by naming “gaslighting” (gaslighting, verb, manipulating another into questioning their sanity/reality) the Word of the 21st Century.]
CJ Hopkins Well, it has been quite a year, 2022. I’m officially dubbing it “The Year of the Gaslighter.” I was going to dub it “The Year of the Mother of All Mindfucking Global-Capitalist Gaslighters,” but that seemed like a mouthful, so I’m opting for brevity. Seriously, if there were an Olympics of Gaslighting, GloboCap…
The Year of the Gaslighter — OffGuardian
THE ONENESS of HUMANITY 
Greetings Jerry!
Interesting article following the link.
I posted a new article to my Blog December 13 with no gas lighting like the erasure of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis in the proscribed US/NATO War narrative. Just telling it like it is.
Remembrance Day in CanaDa is Veterans Day in the US.
Have a Merry Christmas celebrating the 2,023rd Birthday of Christ Jesus!
Peace
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Thanks, Ray,
Best wishes for a peaceful holiday season.
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The ultimate gaslighters are religions
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Hello Jimmy,
Many people prefer to describe themselves as spiritually oriented as opposed to dogmatically religious. We would align with such a philosophical worldview, but to go into detail here would require around a bazillion-zillion words gathered across the centuries… 🙂
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Thank you, Jerry. I was referring to the religions, not people. Have you read Alexander Pope? William Blake? Both very religious, both opposed to the church.
I Saw a Chapel All of Gold
by
William Blake
1757 – 1827
I saw a Chapel all of gold
That none did dare to enter in,
And many weeping stood without,
Weeping, mourning, worshipping.
I saw a Serpent rise between
The white pillars of the door,
And he forc’d and forc’d and forc’d;
Down the golden hinges tore;
And along the pavement sweet,
Set with pearls and rubies bright,
All his slimy length he drew,
Till upon the altar white
Vomiting his poison out
On the Bread and on the Wine.
So I turned into a sty,
And laid me down among the swine.
Know Then Thyself
Alexander Pope
1688-1744
Epistle I
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleased with nothing, if not blessed with all?
Look round our world; behold the chain of love
Combining all below and all above.
Vast chain of being! from God knows where began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From Nature’s chain whichever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
Nor this is a good, nor that a bad we call,
Each works to its end, to move or govern all:
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; (Heisenberg’s Hubris. Einstein’s insight)
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.
Epistle II
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Plac’d on this isthmus of a middle state
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or thinks too much:
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus’d
Still by himself abus’d, or disabus’d;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world
Two principals in human nature reign:
Self-love, to urge, and reason, to restrain;
Self-love and reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire;
Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end:
Fix’d like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy’d.
‘Tis but by parts we follow good or ill;
For, vice or virtue, self directs it still;
Virtuous and vicious every one must be,
Few in th’ extreme, but all in the degree,
The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise;
And even the best, by fits, what they despise.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with its face,
.. first we endure, then pity, then embrace.
But where th’ extreme of vice, twas ne’er agreed:
(Ask where’s the north? at York, ’tis on the Tweed)
No creature owns it in the first degree,
But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he;
Ev’n those who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier natures shrink at with affright,
The hard inhabitant contends is right.
Epistle III
For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate’er is best administered is best:
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right:
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind’s concern is charity:
Epistle IV
That reason, passion, answer one great aim;
That true self-love and social are the same;
That virtue surely makes our bliss below;
And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know.
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Coincidentally, we found the following words at a WordPress blog recently associated with Sri Aurobindo:
If we consider what the most important quality is for progress in spiritual growth, we generally come up with a number of different ideas, including devotion, strong mind or will, faith, dedication, aspiration. We rarely name ‘sincerity’ as the quality most required. Yet, the Mother stresses the importance of this generally under-rated quality. Without sincerity, all the other qualities tend to fail at some point.
A disciple asks: “What is the fundamental virtue to be cultivated in order to prepare for the spiritual life?”
The Mother writes: “I have said this many times, but this is an opportunity to repeat it: it is sincerity. … A sincerity which must become total and absolute, for sincerity alone is your protection on the spiritual path. If you are not sincere, at the very next step you are sure to fall and break your head. All kinds of forces, wills, influences, entities are there, on the look-out for the least little rift in this sincerity and they immediately rush in through that rift and begin to throw you into confusion. … Therefore, before doing anything, beginning anything, trying anything, be sure first of all that you are not only as sincere as you can be, but have the intention of becoming still more so. … For that is your only protection.”
Sri Aurobindo clarifies what sincerity is: “Sincere is simply an adjective meaning that the will must be a true will. If you simply think ‘I aspire’ and do things inconsistent with the aspiration, or follow your desires or open yourself to contrary influences, then it is not a sincere will.”
https://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com/2022/12/22/sincerity-is-the-only-protection-in-the-development-of-the-spiritual-life/
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It’s an old adage, ‘the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not Love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Love, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not Love, it profits me nothing.
[…] And now abides Faith, Hope, Love, these three; but the greatest of these is Love.
1 Corinthians 13:13
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Jimmy, there’s no doubt most Christian Leaders in the US live a lifestyle of the rich and famous, most of them having the latest status symbol of a private jet, so they don’t even have to mingle with the sheeple paying for their lifestyles.
The Apostle Paul makes the point in his writings he WORKED to support his own lifestyle and cost of living, not to put it on the Church.
While they all preach we’re living in THE LAST DAYS, and even atheists see it’s possible like never before, with the US WAR with Russia over Ukraine in NATO, as much as they cite Bible verses, have you ever seen any on TV expanding on this Prophecy of James the Apostle in the Bible writing about THE LAST DAYS? Not likely!
Go to now, you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten.
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for THE LAST DAYS.
Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, cries: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord ALMIGHTY.
You have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; you have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
You have condemned and killed the just; and he does not resist you.
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
You also be patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draws close.
James 5
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