The other day I was talking with the universe about the geoengineering and toxicity that’s been amping up where I live, and about the “dimming of the sun” experiments proposed in the UK, and how misguided humanity is to devise and tolerate these obvious disservices to itself and the planet.
The moment I began this sort of prayer for humanity / moving meditation, I passed a church whose sign said “The Old Order — Revelation 21:4.”
I am not religious, but I am very spiritual and moved by signs and synchronicity. I knew there would be insight in that passage about the futility of the collapsing system’s attempts at maintaining dominance.
I looked the passage up and it reads:
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
The sickness that has plagued humanity for thousands of years is not just dying. It’s dead.
Anyone, any force (collective consciousness or otherwise) trying to keep that old sickness alive will not triumph. Nor can the new order that’s trying to animate from the corpse of the old order like the limp limbs of Frankenstein’s monster. That order is based in fear, disconnection, unawareness, greed, coercion, and all the misguided depravity that necessitated the death of the old system.
Hanging in the balance as the dead system slowly realizes it’s dead is different every day. Sometimes I wish we could experience a healthy new society in our lifetimes. Other times I realize it exists already in the consciousnesses of those of us who know there are better ways.
We have to leverage that knowledge, that awareness, that gnosis and catapult the better ways into practice in every institution. So many people around the world are doing so — in holistic healthcare, transformational education, regenerative farming, humanist architecture, art, communications, etc. It’s not obvious, and it is daunting because the pain and the hideousness and the ghost of the old order still predominate the outer world — and will continue to do so until we realize we can drive it out with the better ways.
Those of us with intuition and gnosis are all creating change in our own manners — particularly when we purposefully and regularly banish hopelessness, cynicism, and contempt — because we’ve always known that there is so much more potential for flourishing on this beautiful planet than recorded history has ever seen.
I just came across a trivial example of a serious problem with big tech. I’ve noticed this with Google since at least 2010 when I was an SEO writer. It has gotten much worse in the last five years, particularly (as we’ve all observed) since Google started producing “AI Overviews.”
As much as Google censors information, erases facts, sanitizes truth, and disseminates propaganda, it creates false information.
In this relatively innocuous example, its “AI” claims Mod Pizza’s cauliflower crust is not gluten free — and goes so far as to assert on Mod’s behalf that Mod doesn’t recommend its own crust options for gluten-sensitive people. It goes even further to say “Mod Pizza recommends that people with Celiac Disease or gluten allergies avoid their restaurant.”
Go to Google’s “reference” links on Mod’s site and you find that Mod’s cauliflower crust is gluten free, and of course it recommends its own GF options. On one of the reference links, Mod says the opposite of “avoid our restaurant.” It says, “Picky Eaters Rejoice! There’s a Pizza for Everyone.”
Google’s misinformation is not jeopardizing lives in this case, but it could harm Mod’s business. Say people read Google’s twaddle, decide not to eat at Mod, and tell their gluten-free friends that Mod doesn’t even recommend its own GF options. Those friends tell their friends, and eventually you have a widely spread false rumor that many people believe to be true about a company that actually does a good job of offering a variety ofoptions and relatively simple ingredients. (Is it a coincidence that Google suggests bigger chains “offer gluten-free crust options, such as Domino’s, Papa John’s, and Pizza Pizza”?)
Every time I Google something, whether I already know the answer or not (I often test it), it yields misleading information or contradictory nonsense.
More perilous than pizza
Examples like this are reminders to cultivate discernment and critical thinking. Much more dangerous than mindless, made-up information about pizza is the news that gets churned out by big tech, corporate media, etc.
Recently, a trans woman in the National Guard, Jo Ellis, was said to have piloted a helicopter that crashed into a plane and killed everyone involved. It turned out that Jo was not one of the three pilots.
Why was this news initially misrepresented? Hasty humans and big tech bots drew false conclusions and spewed nonsense with the discernment of a mob of gossip columnists. Slipshod conjecture spread like a game of telephone, and according to The Guardian, some X posts got “hundreds of thousands of views.”
As Jo relates it, she’d just written an article and done a podcast when “the timing of that put me in a nice, delicious algorithm of ‘trans Black Hawk pilot Virginia.'” Apparently, X’s chatbot Grok in particular reported an erroneous surmise about the identity of the third pilot, saying it was Jo and implying she had died and contributed to 67 deaths.
Hats off to the Daily Mail for calling Jo’s cellphone and actually verifying that she’s alive. The much-spurned tabloid did better journalism that day than any fossil of formerly respected news outlets.
Ironically, the word grok, which comes from Robert A. Heinlein’s novel A Stranger in a Strange Land, means “to understand profoundly and intuitively,” as Merriam-Webster puts it.
False reporting happens countless times a day around the world when inchoate bots and sloppy journalists who don’t check references end up belching bullshit — on every groove along the political spectrum.
News that’s confused
Sometimes false and misleading news comes from public service organizations. The Oregon Department of Agriculture misled the public in December last year when it proclaimed it was “confident” that raw food had caused a cat’s avian flu. It asserted: “This cat was strictly an indoor cat; it was not exposed to the virus in its environment.”
But as Truth About Pet Food shows, vet Dr. Laurie Coger filed a Freedom of Information Act request and found that according to the department’s initial report, the cat in question was in the habit of going out on a leash, engaged with “grass outdoors,” and had a “possible exposure” to “waterfowl.”
One of the most invigorating thinkers of our time, psychologist Mattias Desmet, noted recently that a Belgian newspaper reported that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. crushed live mice and birds for his falcons in a blender. This sensational news apparently came from his cousin Caroline Kennedy in her letter to a senate committee, opposing his nomination as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Nowhere in her letter does she say the mice were alive when she’d seen them having been blended (for hawks) over 40 years ago. I can only guess that the provocative adjective “live” was assumed by someone at the newspaper, and no editor throughout the publication process thought to question or verify it. As Desmet put it, the newspaper should rewrite its article and title it “Robert Kennedy Had the Habit of Feeding His Falcons.”
(Or “Hawks.” The newspaper would have to ask Kennedy himself to verify which. Or barring the practice of directly interviewing involved parties to ascertain details, “Raptors” would be an apt choice since it covers both hawks and falcons.)
Survival tools
If we want sanity in our society, it’s crucial to harmonize the qualities that make us human. Two of our capacities, often considered opposites, are actually complementary and are particularly important at this time of heightened misrepresentation, division, and volatility.
The first is the authentic intuition that speaks to us from the core of our being. Not over-emotionalism or defensive gut reactions (which can be mistaken for intuition), but the deep knowing that can spot bullshit and lies instantly. Even when they seem to provide an answer, viewpoint, or solution we need.
The second is critical perception — taking a critical view of everything we see and hear online and on TV. (Follow links. Read source materials!!! Do as Plato and Einstein did and question everything.) Because more often than not, whatever a person, company, or organization’s political affiliations are, their chronicles and conclusions are too frequently ill-founded.
And every incidence of recklessness or deception wreaks collateral damage, major or minor.
I believe this phenomenon is partly unconscious (individuals and organizations that dispatch false “facts” and witless slander are often unaware of their errors when they make them without intention, thoroughness, or wisdom, but they’re still accountable for them and should apologize for and correct them). For example, one believes that RFK, Jr. is such a barbaric “predator” (Caroline’s word) that of course he would grind mice and chicks while they’re alive — the descriptor seems logical and there’s literally no question.
There’s also ample evidence that falsehoods, manipulation, and politically driven, Ministry of Truth-style censorship, slander, and pseudo-fact-checking are more often intentional than many people realize, though none of these particular examples seem to be (I even think the bird-flu one could have been a result of oversight). Fairly often, distortions are mostly due to sloppiness, injudiciousness, panic, a need to seem swiftly definitive and in control, ignorant artificial “intelligence,” and/or the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. That said, we should aim to triumph over both conscious and unconscious drives to distort and divide.
Which means that as crazy as it is online and in the world, info police will never help. More constructive is taking responsibility for our own thinking, cultivating immunity to inflammatory headlines that imply what to think, and drawing our own measured conclusions.
Part of that involves freeing ourselves from the destructive belief that vigilantly watching or reading the news is the responsibility of intelligent people. In fact, we all know that the 24/7 (usually flawed or manipulative) reports of horrors across the planet are noxious mentally, emotionally, and physically. Most advertising is also manipulative, and the mega corporations that advertise fund the news and politicians. Making a sharp distinction between staying informed (through well-grounded sources) and constantly absorbing bad news can help restore humanity because, as the observer effect in quantum physics shows, our perceptions and observations influence reality. This doesn’t mean ignoring what’s happening. It means recognizing the horror, doing what we can to help individually and together with others, living the best lives we can, and shifting the mind from horror to focus on creation rather than destruction.
Typing -ai (note the minus sign) after a search term in Google is helpful too because it reduces the amount of off-the-wall results.
One of the most useful survival tools in the crucible we’re undergoing, which demands tectonic societal evolution, is seeing and being resilient to half-truths, plain lies, obtuse errors, and especially the emotional manipulation that pervades the media from all directions. In terms of what gets pumped out on right, left, and centrist channels, there’s both unconscious shaping and deliberate exploitation of the fact that shock and fear sell products, page views, TV ratings, and ideas.
We need to be open not to the drivel that makes us half-informed, reactive, and polarized, but to the complex nature of our world as we realize there’s more to a thing than AI or our media — both of which are manifestations of our collective mind — are currently capable of accurately conveying.
(Irony: I chose WordPress’s “Generate a featured image with AI” option. It created the image of the disbelieving woman on the computer. Also out of curiosity, I let WordPress’s AI create this post’s title. Originally I had “Every Time I Google Something, It Yields Misleading Information or Contradictory Nonsense.”)
When I smell the fake-sweet chemical odor that signals my neighbor has hired a “pest” control service or sprayed his lawn with herbicides, I close my windows and want to run rather than talk to him.
But pesticides and herbicides damage our health and that of our pets, wildlife, plantlife, air, water, and soil, so we have to talk to each other about toxic lawncare and safer choices. After I and one of my cats went through health crises caused by toxic chemicals, I swore I’d be more outspoken about the poisons that disrupt our bodies.
I found that one way to broach the subject is to create a non-preachy flyer educating people on making informed choices. If you’re looking for something diplomatic to pass around your neighborhood, download the flyer at the bottom of this article, or share the following reel. Both summarize the info below.
In the last 50 years, we’ve had the biggest surge of chronic disease in the history of humanity.
It’s now “normal” for 60% of adults and 40% of kids to have at least one chronic disease. These numbers come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This explosion coincides with the escalation of pesticide and herbicide use over the last 50 years, and particularly the last 35 years. Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, was registered for use in the U.S. in 1974. In the 1990s, the “Roundup Ready” patented line of crop seeds, genetically modified to be sterile and to live while glyphosate kills everything else around them, hit the market.
Since the introduction of these “terminator” crops in the 90s, chronic disease has skyrocketed. A 2014 study [PDF] revealed that 22 diseases follow the same pattern as that of IBS shown below, steadily increasing since 1991. The 22 diseases include kidney and liver cancer, autism, Alzheimer’s and dementia, Parkinson’s, and other serious conditions that have shortened or thwarted lives. A 2022 study showed that glyphosate crosses the blood-brain barrier and can have “detrimental effects on the human nervous system.”
Glyphosate is a carcinogen. “The surfactant ingredient in Roundup is more acutely toxic than glyphosate itself and the combination of the two is yet more toxic,” reports the Ecology Center.
Poisons like glyphosate and other toxic substances (including but not limited to lead, mercury, formaldehyde, benzene, active ingredients in synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, and additives like adjuvants, stabilizers, and dyes) in our neighborhoods cause disease and worsen chronic conditions.
The following synthetic chemicals are not safe for adults, children, or pets. Rather, they are hazardous waste.
Weed killers ❌
Insecticides ❌
Pest sprays and services ❌
Tree and shrub pesticide sprays ❌
Crabgrass killers ❌
Most lawn and garden sprays ❌
Banned in 41 countries
Because glyphosate (as one common example of neighborhood poisons) is linked to cancer and many other illnesses, 41 countries have banned it or imposed restrictions on it. Its maker has paid out $11 billion to settle 100,000 lawsuits and counting. Cities in these states have partially or fully banned pesticides and/or herbicides such as glyphosate and other harmful compounds: AZ, CA, CO, CT, IL, IA, FL, ME, MD, MN, NV, NJ, NY, OR, TX.
Spreads several miles
Pesticides and herbicides drift, damaging neighboring life up to several miles. They don’t just go away. They leach into soil, pollute air, and poison water.
Greenwashing
Many companies sell fake “green” and “environmentally friendly” services and products that prey on consumers’ good intentions and are not safe for human, pet, or planetary health.
This includes “green” pest control and “green” lawn care products and services. When you dig deep to discover what’s actually in their products, you find they’re the opposite of safe and eco-friendly. They could be represented as “carbon neutral,” have the word “green” or “nature” in their brand name, purport to be recyclable, or have any combination of false claims. In many cases, the claims of these products and services are clearly counter to logic. Sometimes they’re intentionally misleading with manipulative marketing. In other cases, companies have good intentions but are ignorant or misguided.
More Destruction
Authentically safer herbicides
Vinegar and herbicides made from real plant oils (like neem, thyme, garlic, cinnamon, clove, lemongrass, and wintergreen) are safer than synthetics. Natural weed suppressants like corn gluten meal, mulching, weed flaming, steam weeding, and weed pulling are also safer. Additionally, plants that grow in healthy, fertile soil are less susceptible to weeds and pests. Purchased or homemade compost is solid gold for building rich earth that’s more resilient than weak or dead chemical-laden soil.
In Praise of Hermes is a book of devotion by Galina Krasskova to the god of writing, trade, travel, luck, and more. It walks you through a nine-day tradition (a novena) of prayer and meditation. On Day 6, you write your own prayer to Hermes and post it on your blog. Here’s my prayer to one of my favorite gods:
Hail Hermes!
O swift one,
hallowed be thy being.
Mighty son of Zeus and Maia,
brother of the god of the sun.
Patron of writing and silver tongues,
messenger of the gods, guide of souls,
walker between worlds, maker of magic.
I praise thee for ensuring Peace is pulled from the pit,
and for ushering Persephone from the Underworld
to this land of flowers and flourishment —
then back to her husband below
when it’s time for all to rest.
Beloved Hermes,
wield thy caduceus so that I
fall into the bliss of Hypnos,
wrapped in the arms of Morpheus,
and sleep until I am rested
and filled with replenishment.
Guide my travels, god of voyages and luck.
Make me wise in words,
Messenger Hermes,
so that I write and speak
truth with resonance
and converse with ease
in three languages.
Grace me with your gift of ingenuity;
help me be sharp-witted, lighthearted,
and playfully mischievious.
In praise of thee I offer my gratitude,
handwritten scrolls of my favorite poems,
and love-filled prayers as you
infuse my steps and words with
your levity and eloquence.
In your honor, it is so.
The image is a detail of The Judgment of Paris by Guillaume Guillon Lethière, 1812. Sotheby’s has an image of the full painting. I found the detail on a Facebook account called Hermes/Mercury.
Tonight, on election night, I’m building a fire, and on top of the logs I’m burning one stick for each thing I vote against in the world, such as:
War, corruption, manipulation, deception, double-dealing, propaganda, malfeasance, slander, libel, mudslinging, disillusionment, horror, gaslighting, insanity, hysteria, death threats, fear mongering, coercion, money laundering, fraud, genocide, infringements against sovereignty, medical disasters, conscious or unconscious ethical violations, iron grips, cruelty, arms manufacture, irresponsibility, untrustworthiness, laziness, doublethink, groupthink, Newspeak, disconnection, authoritarianism, greed, inauthenticity, close-mindedness, etc.
Then I’m telling the universe what I value and elect more of in the world, such as:
Love, peace, wisdom, sanity, sovereignty, truth, choice, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, care, wellbeing, safety, security, respect, service, kindness, humanity, decency, expanded awareness, spiritual connection, person-to-person connection, fairness, cooperation, open-mindedness, independence, creativity, beauty, honor, generosity, symbiosis, authenticity, tranquility, civility, courtesy, compassion, manners, grace, health, prosperity, patience, resilience, responsibility, free thought, free speech, freedom to love in your way, freedom to worship (or not) in your way, freedom from want, freedom from fear, etc.
This is how our ancestors did it. Wherever we come from. For some groups, practices like this stopped thousands of years ago. For others, it was more recent. At some point, all our ancestors worked with nature to call and release what does and does not belong in a healthy society.
What qualities are you voting in and out of your world?
Some (hopefully) seed-planting words I posted on Facebook:
“So where’d you get your information from, huh?” is a little line from this classic song that I sing every day.
The amount of censorship, cancel culture, defaming, disrespect, close-mindedness, “fact checking,” deplatforming, and thinkpol I’ve seen in the last two years toward scientists doing science and critical thinkers doing critical thinking is disgraceful. My last straw with LinkedIn occurred last week when a rational physician was deplatformed on that site.
I’m excited to be closing my Facebook account soon when I’m done collecting my photos. I look forward to seeing you on a sane new platform in the future. Haven’t looked for one yet, but I’m confident that if it doesn’t exist now, it will within the next couple years. Hopefully many will, and we’ll be beyond monopolies.
Our world is rife with insane turbulence, and the legacy media and social platforms are a colossal part of it.
But I believe that we each have opportunities to invoke and embody more acceptance, fairness, curiosity, progressiveness, open-mindedness, solidarity, and authentic humanitarianism than we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes.
Psychology professor Mattias Desmet is one of many brilliant people these days who shows us ways we can do that. May his insight help save the world.
I had a strange encounter the first time I went to Pátzcuaro.
Pátzcuaro is a beautiful village in the center of Mexico known for its rich Indigenous and Spanish colonial heritage. At an altitude of 7,020 feet, it’s not the Mexico many Americans think of when they think of Cancun or Cabo San Lucas. It’s an artisans’ town in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, beloved for its handicrafts, particularly its Day of the Dead crafts. Deemed a Pueblo Mágico (magic village) by Mexico’s department of tourism, it was mostly visited by weekenders from Mexico City when my mom and I went there 17 years ago.
One day, we walked up an ancient side street from the Plaza Grande to the Temple Sagrario.
We each bought embroidered pillowcases and a Catrina figurine along the way, then stopped for a drink next to an outdoor market.
Across from us sat someone with the most intensely piercing eyes I’ve ever seen — by far the clearest and bluest eyes I’ve ever come across — eyes that glistened like sapphires with the clarity of supernatural intelligence, eyes that bored into my soul. This clairvoyant took a drink of my marrow that lasted minutes and plumbed the subterranean recesses of my being.
A soul penetration of that magnitude is not something one usually experiences in life. In death, perhaps, because it was as if Thoth and the 42 judges who preside over the Hall of Truth in the Egyptian afterlife were weighing my heart.
It was even more as though this other-than-human could see the after-death movie that shows you every single thing that ever happened in your life — every trial, every tribulation, every joy, every achievement, every loss, every honor, every transgression, every blessing, everything.
I think if you asked this haunt what engendered him to overstep ordinary observation, he would have said he was compelled to because he recognized me and was driven to appraise the development of my soul since we last met.
If he was Mexican — say, from Mexico City — his heritage was entirely European, as he had none of the features of Indigenous peoples of Mexico. If he was from Europe, I guessed his native land to be Spain, or maybe Basque Country. But his otherworldly bearing told me he was not bound by the figment of nationality.
And while this force with lapis eyes was as young as I was, he was old.
“So not all vampire lore can be true,” I thought, because he was sitting outside in the sun in the middle of the day.
Driving home the other day, I asked the universe to show me someone awesome.
Specifically, I said, “Dear Universe, please show me someone who’s fucking awesome.”
Within three blocks, I was at a stoplight in front of a house I’d never noticed before. A little boy, about four years old, was out on his lawn in a pair of black underpants (briefs) with no shirt and a little yarmulke on his head.
He was directing his older brother, who was about eight, on how to throw the ball to him so he could hit it with the tiny plastic bat he held in his hand.
As he instructed his brother on the rules of his game, I noticed how excellent his posture was — how square and natural his shoulders were. He had that perfect posture that babies are born with, that perfect posture that children retain until they learn our bad habits.
The way this little guy of four suns directed events as he went to bat in a pair of black underpants really amused me. He was indeed fucking awesome — for being four, for wearing just a pair of black underpants, and for having so much character.
I hope you’ll play this game, asking the universe to show you something you’d like to see.
I wouldn’t like to see anyone older than perhaps eight wearing a pair of black underpants on their front lawn, but you know what I mean.
You may not see what you expect, but you’re likely to be cheered if you ask for something uplifting.
For example, maybe you see too much illness, war, or hate.
Say to the universe, “Dear Universe, please show me peace.”
Then look around. Pretty quickly, perhaps on a very small scale, you’ll see, hear, or sense something ostensibly ordinary or slightly mystical — maybe a tree, a bird, a child, a song — that will stretch your perception with fresh awareness of the power of your intentionand your attention.
Most people don’t work consciously with these, unaware that they can set intentions for what they want and direct their attention (and, in more practical applications, their effort) to its unfolding. Our society didn’t have the wisdom to teach us this.
But when you play with this magic and witness it working, you’ll see how wondrous it is that you actually can draw in goodness. No, you can’t control everything, but yes, you can affect how you experience your reality.
But it’s not likely you’ll see the betterment you crave on TV or in a news article. Where you do see a glimmer is likely to be in a place that draws your attention away from the rampant negativity that loves to feed on the energy of your emotions.
I don’t think enough people realize the degree to which we’re at a turning point — one where there is uncommon opportunity for us to come together using our personal power to turn society around.
I think there’s a lot of hope of returning to “normal.” Yet the “normal” we knew involved war, hate, division, destruction, pollution, poverty, control, greed, ignorance, and insane governments. The “new normal” has all that too so far, with more division, and a frightening trajectory.
We can do way better than that.
Our future is connected to where we direct our attention. There’s a great story that when imprisoned in a concentration camp, neurologist-psychiatrist Viktor Frankl visualized himself standing at a podium giving a lecture called “The Psychology of the Concentration Camp.” Once he was liberated, he stood at a podium delivering that lecture.
Our minds are immensely powerful because they’re connected to the mammoth, if not infinite universe. It’s our responsibility to use them well.
Research on the Maharishi Effect indicates that “if 1% of the population meditates, it produces measurable improvements in the quality of life for the whole population.”
Will you be part of the one percent of the global population we need using the power of the mind to lift this planet up?
The first of the ancient Hermetic principles is The Universe Is Mind. An article on AnAntidoteTo Violence.com lists a slew of physicists who say the same. Here are two of many:
“The stuff of the world is mind-stuff.”
Arthur Eddington, British astronomer and physicist
“I regard matter as derivative of consciousness.”
Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning German physicist
When you routinely focus your attention on the ever-streaming torrent of bad news and rely primarily on outside sources to tell you what’s going on, you’re not using the power of your mind as well as you are when you consciously direct your attention to what you want and rely primarily on your inner wisdom for your highest truth.
Play this game because it’s fun and we need you.
“Dear Universe, please show me [something good you want to see].”
Erin Harris 