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Pita
19:43 / 14.10.04
politics is distraction if you want to effect change in the world then don't focus on the bonesman focus on what they are doing while we all get angry at bush

http://solidarity.indymedia.org.uk/
 
 
LVX23
22:01 / 14.10.04
???

Care to elaborate? If you took the time to post here, then take a little more time to get your point across. I'm certainly aware of what happened to Indymedia and it is indeed frightening.

Your statement "politics is distraction" is very catchy but says very little. Are you saying that the media parade of politics is a distraction from what's going on behind the scenes? I would agree. Does this mean we shouldn't vote because it's all been decided for us? I don't agree at all. There is no monolithic body that has everything under control. There is far more chaos than order in the world.

It's critical to be aware of as many levels of the political game as possible. And we must believe we still have a voice. I can still shout, can't I?

Ultimately the only way to change politics is to change ourselves.

So, um, why did you post a political statement in the Temple?
 
 
LykeX
00:07 / 15.10.04
I think maybe it was meant in relation to the recent threads about using magic to affect the presidentiel election.
In that sense, maybe it would be more productive to focus on smaller more managable issues, where the spells or whatever could have a greater effect.
Of course, one thing doesn't rule out the other.
 
 
Rialian
00:53 / 15.10.04
===I think it is a good point, to focus less on the figureheads and the "leaders"...and go after the enviroenmnts they are trying to foster. The "Bonesmen" could be considered simply to be manifestations of a current wanting to be born, who would be less able to do their workings if the environment was not as fertile to their sort of seed.
 
 
Charlie's Horse
03:01 / 15.10.04
The "Bonesmen" could be considered simply to be manifestations of a current wanting to be born.

That's to say that Kerry and Bush are parts of the same thing. If you mean - 'they're manifestations of the current of democracy in America,' fine, but I don't think that's what you mean. They're not the same thing as far as political stances go. Kerry seems to understand that we need to work with the world to effect change. Bush doesn't. Kerry is pro-choice. Bush is not. You know. Stuff like that.

Alright, alright, don't mean to go off like a gun. Changing the environment these two create would be great. But they don't quite create the same environment. And the fact that they manufacture an atmosphere at all shows that these 'figureheads' do have some power.

But like LykeX said, one doesn't cancel out the other.
 
 
LVX23
07:03 / 15.10.04
Sorry for the terse response.

If you're suggesting that it might be better to focus magickal energies on currents and edddies of power, rather than Republicrat figureheads, then I think I agree. But it's been a good excercise to direct our energies towards such a couple of large targets. The debates are really what spun this whole thing off. It's like Kerry and Shrub walked into our living rooms. You can almost just touch them... It was the catalyst to project our energies out into the aether and raise the frequency a bit.

Certainly such techniques could be employed towards many other genres of hominid recklessness. The thread about Sinclair Media is a move in that direction, branching out to engage a corporate entity, rather than a figurehead. I'm sure one could divide out many aspects of the capitalist experiment (gone wrong) and direct willful intent their way.

Though personally, I don't feel up to fooling around with Yale 322 just yet. I'm sure there's some bad juju hissing through the skull of Jimi Hendrix back at the clubhouse.
 
 
Pita
08:51 / 15.10.04
As someone who has played a bit with psychic activism, I thought I would share my perspective on your efforts with the election. While I agree that spoofing the debates is wonderful I also recognize that during the debate period there were some significant events which seem to be more pressing to the current world of subversive culture.

Badnarik and Cobb being arrested for example, and the indymedia servers being taken down. What sort of democracy arrests candidates on 48 state ballots for trying to enter the presidential debate?

My impression of these cats running things is that they are experienced with ritual magic. There are planned distractions which are played out at critical moments so that our energy is focused in the wrong place.

Once I tried to use remote infulencing to open one Ms. Rice's heart chakra. Regardless of the inability to accomplish my intention, I learned a great deal from that experience. After seeing the structure of her ego and how compartmentalized it was I knew the problem went far deeper than just greed. She is built to be controled by someone else. It is the most intense conditioning I have ever seen. My focus since then has been on removing this sort of conditioning from everyone. This less oppositional approach to things seems to work better for me and I would bet that it would be more effective here also.

Just wanted to share, there are not many people out there persuing this sort of work.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:12 / 15.10.04
What sort of democracy arrests candidates on 48 state ballots for trying to enter the presidential debate?

Erm... what sort of democracy allows an unelected man to remain leader?

My impression of these cats running things is that they are experienced with ritual magic. There are planned distractions which are played out at critical moments so that our energy is focused in the wrong place.

And I think you're confusing ritual magic with political tactics and possibly also with coincidence.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:13 / 15.10.04
Verry interesting, Pita...thanks for posting.
 
 
Pita
13:20 / 15.10.04
"And I think you're confusing ritual magic with political tactics and possibly also with coincidence."

actually no

take a gander at this

if you can manage the bandwidth you can clearly see ritual magic being used at the end of the video
 
 
Alex's Grandma
13:49 / 15.10.04
Once I tried to use remote influencing to open one Ms Rice's heart chakra

Could you expand on this a bit ? The technique, the experience, that type of thing. While I'm very much an armchair character when it comes to this stuff, I've never even heard of anything like that, and it does sound interesting.
 
 
Pita
14:00 / 15.10.04
"Could you expand on this a bit ? The technique, the experience, that type of thing. While I'm very much an armchair character when it comes to this stuff, I've never even heard of anything like that, and it does sound interesting. "

here is the Rice story:

"This was the birth of the Remove the Veil project. Sean and I chose an upcoming meeting of NATO scheduled to be held in February 2003 as our target for remote influence. As a practice round, some of us decided to attempt a remote influence upon a member of the Bush administration. We focused on opening her heart chakra and bringing love into her life. I entered my altar room and sat in the lotus position. I quickly passed into a trance and transported myself into the targets bedroom as she lie asleep on the bed. I reached out with my heart and began to encourage her heart to open up. I then encountered her guardian. A spell was cast upon me and I found myself locked in a singularity surrounded by strange living letters which seemed to form a vortex around me. I was unable to think or move, all I could do was observe this vortex which kept me pinned to the moment. Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, I was back in my body. Mere seconds had passed despite my elongated perception. I decided to go back and learn more about this guardian. Once again I was there in an instant and saw what appeared to be a sort of human who radiated light. I knew then that this was an angel, an entity connected to our target to protect her from psychic attack. I told the angel of my intentions and asked forgiveness for barging in so rudely before. The angel told me that it was forgiven and granted me permission to speak with the target. I was warned however that she would not be able to accept it consciously. Apparently she had built up such a barrier between her conscious and subconscious mind that all intuition and understanding of the subtle realms were cut off. Our spirits conversed for some time and she knew deep down inside that the administration’s intention for this war was not to better the world. She agreed with me that there was a darkness being cast in order to attain material profit, but was sad to share that she no longer held any influence over her conscious state. I thanked her for her audience and left disappointed but glad that there was a true loving soul deep within her."

you can read the full context of it at twentythree the Rice stuff comes in at psyber apocalypse on the menu
 
 
JohnnyDark
13:03 / 18.10.04
Was looking for a place to post this fairly hair-raising quote which showed up on William Gibson's blog - maybe it'd be better off in politics, dunno:

"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

--Ron Suskind, "Without a Doubt", New York Times Magazine

It's fairly politically chilling but I found myself wondering what iceberg might lie beneath the tip represented by this aide's revelation: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality". If a Shrub PR guy will say this much to an journalist/author we can imagine what foaming-at-the-mouth paroxysms of occult grandeur they get into behind closed doors when congratulating one another on their handling of this New American Century...

I think 'Lithers are the first people to handle the idea of reality being plastic so I don't expect people to be shocked but it made me think of GM's messy rituals in Downing St and his assertion that corps and gubmints are up to their eyes in conscious, occult reality bending...
 
 
LVX23
18:23 / 18.10.04
Yikes! This is an area I've always been curious about but generally have preferred to sweep it under the rug. It's bad enough that these powers are walking the earth with nukes and automatic weaponry... I shudder to imagine in what morbid ways they may be poking and prodding at the aether. I'll admit that when reading Invisible's I tend to project that the fantasy part is Sir Miles and his ilk (a method to protect myself from too much paranoia), while I tend to project more reality into Fanny & the cell (a method to empower myself and feel like we stand a chance and have equally capable weapons).

I guess I've always assumed that the rise of rationalism and materialism that seems to permeate our society and our governments has marginalized magick so much that only a few kooky black mages are working their devilry to directly empower the empire. In short, I tend to think the modern empire is fueled by greed and power and fear and other vestigial ape-politics, rather than some dark forces of ritualistic evil. I could of course be wrong but I haven't heard a whole lot to the contrary. Spending one week a year at Bohemian Grove and partaking in ritual is kind of like going to church only on Christmas. It doesn't really make you a christian.

The quote from Gibson's blog is certainly very intriguing, but seems to be more telling of a sort of sociopolitical postmodernism. But what's the difference these days between a magician and an actualized postmodernist? Buch & Cheney are certainly very adept at working their wills and manifesting their desires. Is mobilizing the largest war machine on the planet and sending it into the cradle of civilization an act of magick?
 
 
LykeX
20:47 / 18.10.04
Just recently my brother and I sat down and watched Star Wars episodes 4-6. It's ages since I saw them last, so I was reminded of a lot of things I had forgotten. One thing is, that in episode 4, one of the officers on the Death Star ridicules Dart Vader for his 'faith'. Vader naturally responds by strangling him from the other end of the room.
But the point is Vader and the Emperor are running the show. So even if the outward, official attitude is that magic doesn't work and it's all superstition, that doesn't mean that somewhere behind the scenes someone isn't pulling strings in a magical manner.
You don't have to have everyone involved in magic, you just need a few people in key positions. They don't even have to be President , Prime Minister or anything. More likely they are speech writers, advisors experts on this or that. They can then place the right ideas in the heads of the people in power, and off goes war machine in whatever direction they choose.
If you want to know who's really in power, find out who stays as advisors after the elections. Who has access to the top regardless of who is elected. The elected officials come and go, but those who stay can have a lasting influence, often without anyone knowing.

Anyway, I'm in a slightly paranoid mood at the moment, so I may very well be quite incoherent and not know it. Regardless: Bush loses!
 
 
Pita
23:35 / 18.10.04
"Is mobilizing the largest war machine on the planet and sending it into the cradle of civilization an act of magick?"

in my definition of magick it is


I am curious as to what a diverse community such as this thinks about decentralized psychic revolution...
 
 
LVX23
04:30 / 19.10.04
Well, I think it's critical. If we believe we have the capacity to influence energy systems and feel that there are deeper levels of life that are being compromised by rampant consumerism, hypermediated escapist fantasies, manufactured news and marauding robber baron's, then we nend to put whatever effort we can to help the evolution of our species succeed beyond just a brief moment of atomic self-destruction.

Change ourselves and we change the world. I think it was Gurjieff who hypothesied that 100 fully realized mystics could change the world. In other words, it's not about quantity so much as quality. We just need to raise the frequency a bit...
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
06:50 / 19.10.04
"Is mobilizing the largest war machine on the planet and sending it into the cradle of civilization an act of magick?"

in my definition of magick it is

In mine too. I see the NeoCons as using the exact forms of magic(k) as Dr. Gull in From Hell. Just bigger.

I am curious as to what a diverse community such as this thinks about decentralized psychic revolution...

All for it myself. I may or may not have been working in that direction for a long or short time.
 
 
JohnnyDark
08:01 / 19.10.04
The quote from Gibson's blog is certainly very intriguing, but seems to be more telling of a sort of sociopolitical postmodernism.

I entirely agree with this... I tend to feel much more that they are groping towards some kind of understanding of the malleability of reality, rather than invoking Dark Powers in the State Dept - though the latter makes a better graphic novel. I suppose I think that the political class is used traditionally to manipulating reality through the application of economic forces as well as physical brutality (direct control of the press, bribery, union-bashing etc.)... Nowadays, a much more sophisticated (if indifferent) electorate is primed to be suspicious of such shenanigans - this electorate requires more sophisticated weaponry. Personally I'm thinking more 1984 than The Invisibles - dossiers that appear, then suddenly become insignificant; uranium shipments that did or didn't leave North Africa; fear of the outsider. This is, of course, the manufacturing of Consent (as Chomsky might have it) and good old-fashioned misinformation and propaganda but this is where there is undoubtedly magic being applied, under whatever label - as you say, activated postmodernism.

But if govts/control structures pursue this line - and they will - there are only certain places they can end up. If space was the 'high ground' of the 50's, surely consciousness will be the high ground of C21?

(Hang on, hasn't someone said all this before?)
 
 
Pita
09:19 / 19.10.04
from my current perspective, it seems that the best approach to achieving beneficial change through all this is to develop some sort of decentralized communication structure. there are a lot of people in the world who share our dissatisfaction, hell there are are even a lot of them in the US! the gravest danger facing this lot is a loss or lack of free communication. while I recognize the benefits of working within a group such as the one here at barbelith, my own experience has been that such groups can be limiting in that they tend to be quite internally focused.

would anyone be interested in playing a sort of web based rpg with the intention of testing out a communications infrastructure. the game itself is only in the intitial stages of development but I think it could have some very interesting results

here is the basic layout:

psychinc. : subversion network

psych: to anticipate correctly the intentions or actions of.

incorporate: to unite or work into something already existent so as to form an
indistinguishable whole.

subvert: to overturn or overthrow from the foundation.

network: an interconnected or interrelated chain, group, or system.

PAZ: Personal Autonomous Zone the area around a person into which forcing ones
will or the will of some group is considered a violation of inherant living
rights

Passive entanglement being unsuccessful in our previous implementation (potentiaproject), an
attempt is now underway to determine the feasibility of active conscious
persuit of psychic entanglement as a means of tapping into the brilliant
problem solving abilities of decentralized and diverse groups of individuals.

Rather than an experiment, let us have an exercise in which we can play out a
hypothetical reality to increase our awareness of the nature of consciousness
and interaction.

The stage: PsychInc - a multinational corporate body founded to enable the
subversion of the global control structure, in turn maximizing individual
development and minimizing the violation of the PAZ

The players: all potentiates are to be randomly assigned to some sector of
PsychInc or one of the specified markets, it is suggested (although not required) that each potentiate plays
the given role to the best of their abilities and attempts to view the world
from the assigned perspective for at least the portion of waking life when they
are visiting the potentiaproject website.

-corporate sectors-

psychInc founders
-mission statement
-strategic goals

marketing
-target demographics
-promotions

research and development
-tools and techniques which will achieve mission
-exploration of emerging paradigms

finance
-funding
-spending

human resources
-internal social engineering
-maintenance of corporate mythos

facilities
-design and maintenance of infrastructure
-attainment of physical/mental property for PsychInc work

information technology
-web presence / services
-transmission / communication tools

legal
-keeping us out of jail
-lobbying governments for mission objectives

international relations
-create and maintain international presence in each market
-cultural / lingual translation


-Markets- (and the number of potentiates assigned to each, assignments based on population with some slight adjustments made for military / resource wealth)
Africa - 9
Asia - 17 (includes middle east)
NAmerica - 5
SAmerica - 5
Australia - 2
Europe - 6
Russia - 2
China - 14
India - 12

each sector / market will be internally structured by its assigned potentiates

corporate sectors must all work together through international relations to reach individual markets

this is the script which will be played out on the stage currently under development at potentia project's R&D department - essentially series of web-messaging tools which communicate across domains and maintain redundant message storage, preventing denial of service and expanding the visibility of the project.

my intention with this project is to develop a better understanding of how enahanced people interact and work together as a means of devising a more realistic and effective psychic activism

are any of you up to participating once released?
 
 
FinderWolf
17:21 / 19.10.04
Pita, thanks for your fascinating expansion on your workings with Ms. Rice. She does indeed seem like someone who is very subservient and wants to be told what to do and what to think...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:03 / 19.10.04
And yet she is rather a lot more powerful and influential than any of us. Go figure. Maybe this is something about the way we like to see our women. Who knows?
 
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
05:09 / 20.10.04
Or at very least how the current regime likes to see its women, particularly those of color, even those with PhD.s.

I don't know if this is appropriate to the topic, but one of the signifiers of this coming election may well turn out to be the World Series. Against all odds the Red Sox have tied the Yankees for the American League championship, and there's also as good a chance that the Houston Astros will defeat the St. Louis Cardinals to clinch the National League championship, too.

Which means that we could have a team from Texas and a team from Massachusetts competing in the World Series. Add onto that that the Sox have labored for most of the 20th Century under the supposed "Curse of the Bambino," enacted when Babe Ruth left the Sox to make his name with the Yanks. I've heard tell that two things might have broken this curse this year: a pilgrim to a monastery in Nepal was told to leave his Sox cap at the monastery, and a kid who apparently lives in a house that Ruth used to inhabit had his two front teeth smashed out by a wild foul.

Admittedly, this may all mean nothing, but it may also mean a whole lotta something. My roommate has taken to proclaiming that the future of this country could well hinge on the Sox winning the World Series. If they did, it would truly mean the end of the 20th Century.

Everybody's got their bones to throw, but this is a pretty big set of bones, so I'd keep my eye on them and try to jinx them in the Sox's favor. And remember, this is a New Yorker telling you this. Yeah, I'm bored seeing the Yankees win year after year. Let's do this one for the future.

/+,
 
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
05:50 / 21.10.04
Update: The Sox did indeed win the championship tonight. I will monitor tomorrow night's game to see whether the Astros complete the pact. But in an indication of good news, the Nickelodeon "Kids Pick The President" event had Kerry win by a healthy margin, and host Linda Ellerbee stressed that this event correctly predicted the past four presidential elections' outcomes. (I assume 2000's event "correctly" picked the man who ascended to that office, not the true popular vote.)

/+,
 
  
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