Invisible Empire

– 05/22/2014Posted in: Essays

http://neilkramer.com/invisible-empire.html

In discussing matters of society, politics, climate, war, education, and such like – the substance of the conversation is fundamentally determined by the participants’ cognizance of Empire. Without knowledge of Empire, the veracity of any discourse is severely restricted.
As an exercise in grasping the gulf between Imperially conditioned responses and free-thinking observations, I drew up a representative list of subjects to illustrate the extraordinary polarization. These are from real conversations, experienced by myself and/or respected colleagues.

	Imperially Conditioned Responses – Unapprised Of Empire	Free Thinking Observations – Fully Apprised Of Empire
Government	Freely-elected agents serve the people. Keeps civil order. Promotes harmony.	Selected governments administrate Imperial business at the expense of the people. Prevents natural order. Promotes conflict.
Money	Sensible way of paying for goods and services. Brings freedom. Natural market forces shape wealth and distribution.	System of indebtedness. Brings dependency. Imperial monopolies on currencies and interest dictate wealth distribution.
Colleges & Universities	Educate people and help to prepare them for success in life. Honor knowledge.	Kill learning and transform individuals into vocational robots. Honor Empire.
Corporations	Big businesses. Everyone has an equal opportunity to the profits of their own labor.	Criminal cartels. Real profits for management only.
War	Necessary evil that helps to enforce a healthy balance of world order. Rarely used. Defensive. Everyone participates.	Weapon of Empire to punish rogue states and secure resources. Frequently used. Offensive. Proactive industry of private specialists.
Certificates, Licenses, & Permits	Help to authorize and legitimize skills, things, and privileges.	Harvesting consent to sign away personal sovereignty, skills and rights.
Mainstream Entertainment	Harmless fun.	Behavioral engineering.
Exoteric Mainstream Religion	Brings people closer to God, the prophets, and savior(s). Encourages good behavior. Wisdom passed down through generations.	Distances people from natural divine contact. Encourages unthinking obedience. Willful misinterpretations and omissions impede growth.
Climate Change	Due to humans.	Due to the sun.
Race & Immigration	We are all mature enough to live together in harmony. Many cultures are compatible.	We are not all mature enough to live together in harmony. Many cultures are incompatible.
Obamacare	Affordable medicine for everyone.	Mass experiment in social submission.
Terrorism	Disgruntled fundamentalists.	Instrument of statecraft.
Legalization Of Recreational Drugs	A triumph of personal liberty.	Part of Imperial mass sequestration of plant medicine, transforming into harmful synthetic analogs.
Choice	Free to choose any products, services, and lifestyles.	Limited choices from pre-determined, restrictive menus.
Private Gun Ownership & Carry	A society without guns is safer from itself.	A society with guns is safer from government and criminals.
History	Old, irrelevant, indulgence. Few wonders.	New, relevant, trail of Empire. Many wonders.
Privacy	A privilege bestowed from the authorities. Unnecessary if you’ve done nothing wrong.	Individually claimed. My business is my business.
Self-Reliance	The state will look after you.	We should look after ourselves.
Nature	Dangerous. Needs mastering.	Benevolent. Needs respecting.
Change	An opponent to evade. Usually something bad.	An ally to embrace. Usually something good.
Life	Biological accident.	Spiritual training.
Death	The end of existence. A door closing.	The furtherance of existence. A door opening.

Notes & References
1. What is Empire?
Empire is an ethos that seeks to control humankind by restricting it to a lower state of being.
Empire is old, influential, and pervasive. It does, however, require the implicit consent of the people to function. Empire is apolitical, amoral, and collectivist (placing group goals over individual goals). All systems of world governance (from totalitarian to democratic), all mainstream Abrahamic religions (Judaic, Christian, Islamic), and all economic models (capitalist, socialist, communist etc) are aspects of the one Empire. Every major nation must agree to the rule of Empire or risk isolation or invasion.
For the ordinary person, the primary power of Empire rests not in its might or cunning, but in its invisibility. People who are not mindful of its presence do not comprehend their conscious and spiritual incarceration. For those who decide to inquire into Empire, initial investigations usually begin with scrutiny of interconnected fraternal and secret organizations and their relative aristocratic families. Then there are the think tanks, corporations, and institutions that have been sequestered by Empire. This leads on to analyzing the logical deleterious effects on society, law, science, industry, culture, education, language, and media.
Many intelligent people don’t want to think about the possibility of a malevolent force that is curbing human development and expression. To understand why that might be, consider that there are two basic types of ignorance. Firstly, there is “simple ignorance”, where a person simply does not know a thing. Like a baby doesn’t know how to do quadratic equations. They just don’t possess that knowledge. Then there is “complex ignorance”, where there is a willful maintenance of ignorance. The adult says, “I don’t want to know.” The portcullis comes down and there is no desire for any learning that upsets their existing belief systems. Consequently, many who take their first look at Empire are apt to promptly turn away and forget all about it. They know there’s something there, but they don’t want to know any more. They are not prepared for the inevitable life changes that such esoteric knowledge brings.
For those who choose to confront Empire, a lot of personal study has to be undertaken to accurately establish its reality. Gladly, the origins, personnel, conduits, and methods of Empire, have been illustrated in detail by many insightful mystical orders, alternative scholars, and independent political observers. Much of this work is freely available on the Internet and in bookstores. Comprehensive and discerning study is necessary. Only then can an informed individual judgment be made. The resultant life changes for the individual student are accepted as part of an evolving journey of wisdom.
Empire is what happens when humans forget who they are and what they’re doing. Some of that is our fault, and some of it is not. Either way, we always have the power to change it. To do that effectively, we must be under no illusions as to the relative strengths and weaknesses of Empire. As such, it is useful to consider Empire as an ideology, rather than a collection of individuals. That’s not to say that many people who constitute Empire don’t exist – they do – but the timescales and impact of Empire always eclipses the significance of any of the current administrators. The people come and go. Empire is a “way”, not just a group, or a thing. The control system, the construct, artificial unreality, and totalitarian government are all elements of Empire.
The intelligences within Empire are playing a high level game. Despite the restrictions of Empire’s esoteric origins and heavy negative polarization, it is not a low consciousness game. The higher the orchestrating consciousness, the more it has to abide by universal law. One such law forbids contravening the consent of a sovereign being. So Empire must give either constructive or actual notice of its ruling intentions. Better still, they get the people to sign their personal will away. This consent is harvested through claiming you are your name, claiming you live at your street address, driving licenses, taxation, citizenship, passports, registering to vote etc. People are conditioned to consider themselves subject to the rule of the monarchy, the government, the scientific dictatorship, the banks, the military, and the police. This fosters an attitude of continual subservience. If consent is withdrawn, all of this can be reversed. Empire is toothless without consent.
The following two historical quotations from American statesmen, provide instructive context for the reality and scope of Empire within the last two hundred years. Whilst far from perfect in their own being and conduct, Jefferson and Roosevelt expressed things in a remarkably honest way which suggests our current 21^st century challenges are nothing new.
2. 1816 letter from Thomas Jefferson (US President 1801-1809) to Samuel Kercheval (Virginian lawyer & author).
“To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.”
3. President Theodore Roosevelt; Opening of the Jamestown Exposition; Norfolk, Virgina, April 26, 1907.
“We of this mighty western Republic have to grapple with the dangers that spring from popular self-government tried on a scale incomparably vaster than ever before in the history of mankind, and from an abounding material prosperity greater also than anything which the world has hitherto seen.
As regards the first set of dangers, it behooves us to remember that men can never escape being governed.  Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others.  If from lawlessness or fickleness, from folly or self-indulgence, they refuse to govern themselves then most assuredly in the end they will have to be governed from the outside.  They can prevent the need of government from without only by showing they possess the power of government from within.  A sovereign cannot make excuses for his failures; a sovereign must accept the responsibility for the exercise of power that inheres in him; and where, as is true in our Republic, the people are sovereign, then the people must show a sober understanding and a sane and steadfast purpose if they are to preserve that orderly liberty upon which as a foundation every republic must rest.
If a nation, whether free or unfree, loses the capacity for self-government, loses the spirit of sobriety and of orderly liberty, then it has no cause to complain of tyranny; but a really great people, a people really capable of freedom and of doing mighty deeds in the world, must work out its own destiny, and must find men who will be its leaders—not its masters.”

Hypnotic Handshakes & Jedi Mind Tricks

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– 03/29/2014Posted in: Essays

http://neilkramer.com/hypnotic-handshakes-jedi-mind-tricks.html 

The basic routine goes something like this. Most people are very habitual and ritualistic in their daily behavior. Everything works by pattern recognition, based on the prevailing social norms and the individual’s catalog of personal experience. Critical thinking is rarely required. Aware of the rigidity of these behavioral mechanisms, the Jedi* mind trick operates by unexpectedly interrupting the customary train tracks of consciousness and diverting the subject to a predetermined destination, subtly implanted into the subject’s unconscious mind.
A good contemporary practitioner of the Jedi mind trick is illusionist Derren Brown, probably best known in the UK, where he is the undisputed heavyweight of mind magic. His mental, physical, and psychic abilities seemingly reach way beyond the limits of normal human experience. His TV shows are major events and get regularly dissected and pored over in excited office banter the next day.
What is interesting to me is how a study of Brown’s craft can provide a deeper insight into the manipulation techniques pouring out of the TV & Internet and thus reduce the likelihood of being programmed.
Derren Brown’s most beguiling performances center around his apparent control over the minds of his guests. He apparently reads their thoughts, controls their behavior, spontaneously hypnotizes them, and makes himself invisible to a chosen subjects. Pretty compelling stuff that leaves the viewer wondering how on earth he achieves this strange wizardry. Have a look around YouTube and you’ll get the idea.
His mind tricks use a slick combination of psychological techniques – such as mirroring, NLP, eye accessing cues, cold reading etc – but the real focus is on exploiting the subject’s ignorance of their own subconscious and unconscious processes.
Only a tiny fraction of the stuff that the senses take in is processed as consciously perceived information and events. That is, 99% of the perceived world is soaked up into our minds and sits there – largely unprocessed – separated out from our ordinary conscious ruminations. But even the unconscious observer sees all. Everything goes in; every gesture, thought, image, word, smell, touch, and feeling. Everything is permanently recorded. Whether the conscious mind has access to it or not, is immaterial. And this colossal torrent of information doesn’t go into the regular filing system. Instead, it goes into a mysterious storage facility (that we don’t have convenient access to) from where it exerts a profound influence over our daily behavior.
Derren Brown is no doubt aware of the works of Milton H. Erickson, the American psychiatrist who specialized, amongst other things, in medical hypnosis. Erickson’s unconventional use of hypnotic technique, coupled with his radical theories on the subconscious, provide an intriguing range of practical possibilities for the eager illusionist.
One of Erickson’s trademark procedures was the confusion technique (which is depicted in popular culture in the movie Star Wars as the Jedi mind trick). When a person is confused, their conscious mind is busy and occupied, and is very much inclined to draw upon unconscious learning (or prescribed instructions) to make sense of things. A confused person is in a trance of their own making and therefore goes readily into that trance without resistance. Confusion might be created by ambiguous words, complex or endless sentences, pattern interruption or a myriad other techniques to incite transderivational searching.
A transderivational search (often abbreviated to TDS) is a psychological and cybernetics term, referring to a kind of search conducted for a “fuzzy” match across a broad field.
TDS is a fundamental, automatic and unconscious part of human language and cognitive processing. Arguably, every word or utterance a person hears, and everything they see, feel, and take note of, results in a very brief trance while TDS is carried out to establish a contextual meaning for it. The skilled illusionist can utilize this process to create or deepen a trance.
Examples Of TDS Triggers
Leading statements
“And those thoughts you had yesterday…” The mind cannot process hearing this phrase, without at some level searching internally for some thoughts or other that it had yesterday, to establish the subject of the sentence.
“The many colors that fruit can be.” This starts the mind considering – even if briefly – different fruit sorted by color.
Textual ambiguity
“Do you remember line dancing on the steps?” Without sufficient context, some statements may trigger TDS in order to resolve inherent ambiguity in the interpretation of a posed question. Do I remember a bygone fad called “line dancing on the steps”? Do I remember personally engaging in dancing in the past? Do I remember my routine practice dancing by focusing on the steps of the dance? Do I tend to forget about dancing when I am standing on steps?
“Penny-wise and pound the table dance to the beat of a different drummer.” The mixing of cliché and stock phrases may trigger TDS in order to reconcile the discrepancies between expected and actual utterances in sequence.
The Hypnotic Handshake: In The Room And Through The Screen
Erickson’s “hypnotic handshake”** is a technique that induces a TDS trance in the subject from a specific kind of handshake intentionally performed outside the normal protocols of social etiquette.
It works like this. Many actions are learned and operate as a single chunk of behavior: shaking hands and tying shoelaces being two good examples. However, if the behavior is diverted or frozen midway, the person literally has no mental space for this. He is stopped in the middle of unconsciously executing a behavior without a corresponding pattern. The mind crashes, suspending itself in trance until either something happens to give a new direction, or it reboots itself. A skilled hypnotist uses that momentary confusion and suspension of normal processes to induce a TDS trance.
By interrupting the pattern of a normal handshake in a particular manner, the hypnotist causes the subject to wonder what is going on. If the handshake continues to develop in a way which is out-of-keeping with expectations, a simple, non-verbal trance is created, which may then be reinforced by the hypnotist. All these responses happen naturally and automatically without telling the subject to consciously focus on an idea.
Confusion is a tool used by hypnotists to put the subject into an altered state. The slumbering brain state induced by injudiciously watching TV and surfing the net achieves exactly the same thing. This is how the Empire implants its messages deep into the minds of the great unwashed masses. To the unconscious observer, the messages are not properly perceived at the point of entry. They are nevertheless permanently recorded in precise detail and influence the individual emotionally, intellectually, and physically with their latent memes.
For this to have impact on a mass scale, people need to also believe that they are finite, separate, the world happens “out there”, and they are essentially powerless. Once this is achieved, the covert messaging is much more readily absorbed. The isolated little human seeks comfort and reassurance wherever he can find it. If the mind is suitably controlled, the thrill of a new gadget, the delight of a new snack food, the consolation of a new TV drama, and the platitudes of government, may constitute all the solace required to get through another day. The prescribed messaging sinks in and no-one is any the wiser.
This deception can be swiftly dismantled with one simple mental gear shift: for the common man to cease regarding his mind as some plain old fiddle churning out the tunes of unseen dubious impresarios – and instead to recognize it as an exquisite Stradivarius violin that is at its greatest when playing the authentic and beautiful music of his own making.
As for the hypnotic handshake/Jedi mind trick, after reading this, the chances of it ever working on you will be virtually zero.
Notes & References
* Jedi. The Jedi are a monastic, spiritual, and academic organization in the fictional Star Wars universe. Jedi study, serve and utilize a mystical power called the Force, in order to help and protect those in need. For many generations the Jedi served as a paramilitary for the Galactic Republic and the galaxy at large to prevent conflict and political instability including playing a leading role in the later Clone Wars.
** The hypnotic handshake. The various descriptions of Erickson’s hypnotic handshake (including his own very detailed accounts) indicate that a certain amount of improvisation is involved, and that watching and acting upon the subject’s responses is key to a successful outcome. The most important thing is that the normal handshake is subverted in such a way to cause puzzlement, which may then be built upon. Here’s one account of how it works.
Initiation. When I begin by shaking hands, I do so normally. The “hypnotic touch” then begins when I let loose. The letting loose becomes transformed from a firm grip into a gentle touch by the thumb, a lingering drawing away of the little finger, a faint brushing of the subject’s hand with the middle finger – just enough vague sensation to attract the attention. As the subject gives attention to the touch of your thumb, you shift to a touch with your little finger. As your subject’s attention follows that, you shift to a touch with your middle finger and then again to the thumb. This arousal of attention is merely an arousal without constituting a stimulus for a response. The subject’s withdrawal from the handshake is arrested by this attention arousal, which establishes a waiting set, and expectancy. Then almost, but not quite simultaneously (to ensure separate neural recognition), you touch the under-surface of the hand (wrist) so gently that it barely suggests an upward push. This is followed by a similar utterly slight downward touch, and then I sever contact so gently that the subject does not know exactly when – and the subject’s hand is left going neither up nor down, but cataleptic.
Termination. If you don’t want your subject to know what you are doing, you simply distract their attention, usually by some appropriate remark, and casually terminate. Sometimes they remark, “What did you say? I got absentminded there for moment and wasn’t paying attention to anything.” This is slightly distressing to the subjects and indicative of the fact that their attention was so focused and fixated on the peculiar hand stimuli that they were momentarily entranced so they did not hear what was said.
Utilization. Any utilization leads to increasing trance depth. All utilization should proceed as a continuation of extension of the initial procedure. Much can be done non-verbally; for example, if any subjects are just looking blankly at me, I may slowly shift my gaze downward, causing them to look at their hand, which I touch and say “look at this spot”. This intensifies the trance state. Then, whether the subjects are looking at you or at their hand or just staring blankly, you can use your left hand to touch their elevated right hand from above or the side – so long as you merely give the suggestion of downward movement. Occasionally a downward nudge or push is required. If a strong push or nudge is required, check for anesthesia. (Erickson & Rossi – Hypnotic Realities)
This article revisits and expands upon the original published version from April 2007 by Neil Kramer.

2014 The Year Ahead

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2014: The Year Ahead
(THANKS Dagny!!)
by Neil Kramer
This brief piece appears in New Dawn magazine, Jan-Feb 2014 edition. The editor asked me and several other authors and thinkers to give our 500 word perspective on what 2014 will bring. Read more at newdawnmagazine.com and get your copy.
For millions of stirring souls, 2012 resonated the blunt but timely message of “recognize your own authority or perish.” The old slothful days of dutifully following someone else’s belief system had formally concluded. Associated reveries of mass salvation punctually burned away, like fog in the morning sun. People began to grasp that there is no special master, temple, book, or system that will deliver us from pain. There is only growth.
Growth brings truth. In this light, 2013 continued a trajectory of harsh realization by obligating people to admit the reality of their own lives. Not what they would like to see, but what actually is. Whenever this precious process occurs, untrue things rapidly take on a conspicuous aspect; insincere friendships, marriages, jobs, beliefs, and ideologies begin to disintegrate. Never have I seen so much dysfunction and fantasy put on the table for all to see. Terrifying – unquestionably – yet cleansing. There can be no falsehood if we wish to embody our own immaculate core.
For the sovereign self-determining soul, 2014 will see all remaining cracks open up into deep canyons; in the control system, in government, in society, and in ourselves. Issues that had been papered over for many a long year, will demand unswerving attention. No more hiding. The paradigm is shifting with surprising haste. What was alternative in 2001 is now mainstream. What was paranormal is now normal. What was extraordinary is now ordinary. This makes it hard for unconsciously egotistical teachers and scholars to operate, especially in the alternative sphere. Power based on obscure knowledge is an empty power. As Bruce Lee once said, “Knowledge earns you power, but character earns you respect.”
People want to see who walks it. How has their metaphysical study improved their life and relationships? How has it informed their humor and love? As ever, many can persuasively talk about it on Youtube and Podcasts and Skype and Television, but can they do it in real life? In their own domestic lives?
2014 resonates the primacy of being; being over knowledge. Simply stated, the quality of one’s being is more significant than the depth of one’s knowledge. I define being as the graceful confluence of the animal nature, the higher soul will, and divine presence. All these elements, in harmony, constitute “good being.”
Where “being” is important, gathering is also important. It is no longer enough to just talk to each other on screens and pages – we need to do it face to face. We need proximity. To share space with fellow journeyers so we may embrace, support, listen, and speak the naked truth. This is where the real learning takes place. Around the fire and in the forest; on the city streets and in the cafes; in cars on long highways and in warm kitchens filled with cheer and wonderment.
There is no greater intimacy than being known by another. In loving each other deeply and unconditionally, we come to know our true grace. Let us gather in 2014, and let us gather often.