Beneath the Rose - Peter Grey

[Wombaticus Rex]

This is a barn-burner: http://scarletimprint.com/2015/03/beneath-the-rose/

I will highlight one riff...

It is has not proved necessary to waterboard the secrets out of us. Or to search the secret mark with witches pricker, stress position, sleep deprivation. Such theatre is the necessary ritual performance of power, not the retrieval of raw data. Abrogate are the masonic threats of sawing open brain pans and exposing us to the scorching sun. The closed books are scanned and read by pricks on the internet. The secret fled without grip or word, charter or garter being exchanged. The images we revere are endlessly shared until the meaning and holy awe is as washed from them. The rites we celebrate are uploaded and stumbled through by youtube goons. We have pilfered, scanned and torrented the mysteries – creating not a leap in consciousness, but a culture of entitlement.

It was MKULTRA, the Esalen and New Age black-op, Star Gate, First Earth Battalion and their ilk who field stripped and double-blind tested our occult tech. They didn’t come knocking on our doors, we handed it over with our sloppy protocols and desire for kudos. The fraternal societies that manifestly work are Skull and Bones, Bohemian Grove, Propaganda Due (P.2), et al; not the magical post-war offcuts of Wicca, OTO or IOT. While we squabble, they rule. In the game of thrones, we are manifestly absent, replaced by ad execs and algorithms, drones and cointelpro. We need to take secrecy back, and we need to remember what the secret is.

I am assuming that some of you know the secret?

[Lord Balto]

This is a barn-burner: http://scarletimprint.com/2015/03/beneath-the-rose/

I will highlight one riff...

It is has not proved necessary to waterboard the secrets out of us. Or to search the secret mark with witches pricker, stress position, sleep deprivation. Such theatre is the necessary ritual performance of power, not the retrieval of raw data. Abrogate are the masonic threats of sawing open brain pans and exposing us to the scorching sun. The closed books are scanned and read by pricks on the internet. The secret fled without grip or word, charter or garter being exchanged. The images we revere are endlessly shared until the meaning and holy awe is as washed from them. The rites we celebrate are uploaded and stumbled through by youtube goons. We have pilfered, scanned and torrented the mysteries – creating not a leap in consciousness, but a culture of entitlement.

It was MKULTRA, the Esalen and New Age black-op, Star Gate, First Earth Battalion and their ilk who field stripped and double-blind tested our occult tech. They didn’t come knocking on our doors, we handed it over with our sloppy protocols and desire for kudos. The fraternal societies that manifestly work are Skull and Bones, Bohemian Grove, Propaganda Due (P.2), et al; not the magical post-war offcuts of Wicca, OTO or IOT. While we squabble, they rule. In the game of thrones, we are manifestly absent, replaced by ad execs and algorithms, drones and cointelpro. We need to take secrecy back, and we need to remember what the secret is.

I am assuming that some of you know the secret?

The secret is that there is no secret, or the secret is so ludicrous that it serves as a way of filtering out the free thinkers, as with Scientology's DC8s from Xenu.

"He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know." --attributed to Lao Tzu. I am continually amazed at the characters who appear on Sean Stone's LipTV show and claim to be 33rd degree Masons. Or the psychos that give interviews to Kerry Cassidy. Real "occult tech" is not passed on through knowledge of some mysterious secret. It is developed like any other human talent, like playing the violin. And yes, there are genetic tendencies that make it easier, but in the end, it's how many hours a day you spend practicing. And that cannot be short circuited by making a pact with the devil, or chanting some magic formula, or being audited with a couple of tin cans hooked to a galvanometer.

At the risk of letting Shordinger's Cat (as Subhash Kak would say) out of the bag, we are talking input of parameters into a machine programmed to give you what you want, not a method of making anything happen through magical workings. Enough said. The Nova Police are scanning this channel.

[BrandonD]

"Once that transformation has been accomplished a teacher would usually say to his disciple that he has arrived at a final crossroad. To say such a thing is misleading, though. In my opinion there is no final crossroad, no final step to anything. And since there is no final step to anything, there shouldn't be any secrecy about any part of our lot as luminous beings. Personal power decides who can or who cannot profit by a revelation; my experiences with my fellow men have proven to me that very, very few of them would be willing to listen; and of those few who listen even fewer would be willing to act on what they have listened to; and of those who are willing to act even fewer have enough personal power to profit by their acts. So, the matter of secrecy about the sorcerers' explanation boils down to a routine, perhaps a routine as empty as any other routine."

-Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power

[Twyla LaSarc]

Thanks, great article. It's gonna take some digestion, but he makes some pretty interesting points.

[Grizzly]

“I don't like the looks of it,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand, if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.”

[Nordic]

Some great quotes in there, like: "In essence, we are not googling the internet, it is googling us."

Great article. Lots to think about. Especially makes me think about my son, who is being raised within the panopticon itself. His might be the first generation to do this.

Heavy sigh .....

[Nordic]

Btw I read this sitting in the control room of a reality show, where a group of people are voluntarily subjecting themselves to a literal panopticon. Facing me are 38 camera feeds showing every detail of these people's existence in this house. 24 hours a day, seven days a week while the show continues. There are cameras in the bathrooms.


And this is considered entertainment.

[Elvis]

a group of people are voluntarily subjecting themselves to a literal panopticon. Facing me are 38 camera feeds showing every detail of these people's existence in this house. 24 hours a day, seven days a week while the show continues. There are cameras in the bathrooms.

An old friend of mine recently turned down $3K a week to do pretty much that ^^^^

(they wanted to do a series about a *real* marijuana business...I'm sure they found someone to do it)

[coffin_dodger]

a most excellent read - thanks Wom.

[Lord Balto]

a group of people are voluntarily subjecting themselves to a literal panopticon. Facing me are 38 camera feeds showing every detail of these people's existence in this house. 24 hours a day, seven days a week while the show continues. There are cameras in the bathrooms.

An old friend of mine recently turned down $3K a week to do pretty much that ^^^^

(they wanted to do a series about a *real* marijuana business...I'm sure they found someone to do it)

This is precisely what Ondi Timoner's We Live in Public documentary is about. The events described were shut down by the NYC police as a millennial cult around January 1, 2000. The documentary is from 2009. Old news, folks.

[slomo]

Let's not forget the antidote proposed by the author? She implores us to return to the body as central. A key passage (for me):

Let us remark that Plato in Timaeus writes: ‘It is therefore necessary that the mathematician, and anyone who strenuously performs any intellectual activity, should also give movement to his body by practicing gymnastics. While the man who is diligent in molding his body must in turn provide his soul with movement by cultivating music and philosophy in general, if either is to deserve to be called both fair and good.’ Everything begins with the body, and this is where our secrecy is to be found.

Old-timers at RI may have noticed my disappearance for several years (or maybe not, I've never been a major contributor here). What was I doing? Well, a number of things (cross-country move, dealing with a major death in the family, a break-up, falling in love, getting engaged), but principally, I was trying to regain my spiritual center through dance, and by that I mean serious dance in the context of performance. I can't emphasize enough how crucial that has been for me.

All of the horrors that are discussed endlessly on RI are countered by returning to the body. Deeply, in every way possible.

[Harvey]

Speculative ramblings, take them with a bucket load of salt as always.

Rumsfeld was nearly right. There are things we don't know that we don't know. He's simply stating the limits to knowledge. No matter how far out you go, that limitation remains to the sceptical mind (in the best sense) the critical mind.

These so called 'elites' are nothing more than big babies who discovered that crying and throwing refined tantrums (of the spirit, if you like) mysteriously gets them what they want. They are in effect, spoiled little brats who collaborated to build sophisticated justifications, philosophical frameworks which appeal across categories, to different scales of intellectual ability, which is in effect, a cradle. They live in this cot, their only real knowledge is of the bars of their cage.

The real kicker is that this is just human nature, and applies in different concentrations to all of us. I know this for so many reasons I can't say. I built elaborate experiments to prove it and then simply looked honestly at myself. We want what we want and we take it, we connive, or we collaborate to get it at some level, because we all live in a society of inter-penetrating societies. There is no man or woman alive who wants nothing. I tried it, I had to know. I was barely alive, despite the colossal events occurring inside me.

In the midst of all our complex competing motivations, the urge to share something marvellous exists with the urge to protect it, but we can't know whether what we seek is really validation, recognition of our qualities and the basic urge to acquire more. Selfish biological components are inseparable from the more refined cultural components, the most altruistic response exists within the pleasures to be gained through sharing. Life itself is impurity.

If there weren't limits to knowledge, we'd be living in a different universe, and not this one. We wouldn't be human, that is, cultural animals. We'd be something else.

[82_28]

Returning to magic, I would like you to understand, in the light of this, how vitally important in initiation is the grip, the touch, the holding of hands, the kiss, the physical communication of the mystery. The visual body is not the felt body. We need to develop greater empathy and incorporate that into our ritual work and wider lives. Empathy with your own body, with the bodies of others, animals and plants and spirits, distinguishes witchcraft from the elitist call to prayer sung by the muezzin from the tower of the black brother. Isolation is a lie. One could argue that secrecy is impossible, in that on a cellular level we cannot prevent the endless transmission of information. We are not towers of silence but a Witches’ Sabbat of interpenetrated information fields. All of us erotic living organisms in constant wordless exchange. It is for us to build an alternative through our present actions, our explorations, our play: all done without any spectators. This is more powerful than uploading a picture of your engorged genitalia. Love one another. Resistance and knowledge begins in your body. Secrecy remains an essential power of the sphinx.

I have brought up millions of times in my life, that I hate no one. I told my last boss that I loved him, but I do not like you, for instance. I also always interact with others, but use the Internet quite a bit, so I am kind of in a "gray area" according to this author. Myself and my best friends have all met via the Internet many moons ago. My job is in telco now, but I take my many years of bartending for granted in any occasion. Sometimes I wonder if it will be taken wrong because literally I treat every last person as a friend with equal amounts of love. I don't think that many believe this is possible and they think I am lying -- which I can detect. And yet I use the Internet a lot and am totally anonymous. Well perhaps not "totally", but "I'm not out there". Sure there are "fingerprints" of my existence, but many of my personae cannot be directly traced to me because paradoxically they are all me. Yet many even here know me in real life. So that would be the "weak link".

That there is the problem for "them". My cellphone number for instance is over 15 years "old" but is not in my name. The arcane ways to trap me into something would be pretty hard and would always be circumstantial. Our extracurricular writing is all done with the same password and we are the same entity with anything we write or come up with. It comes down to trust. We all trust one another fiercely. In over ten years of knowing one another, living with one another, we have never been in a fight. We know that no one is going to do anything stupid. There are no rules, no judgement and all because of what the author says comes from all of us simultaneously. Maybe we should write a super stupid and subversive self help book come to think of it.

[82_28]

Oh, Nordic!

I think it's time to dust off your chops and write an expose on this reality show thing you're working on. Just a telling of how stupid it all is. I don't know how you would do it and remain anonymous, but your observations I would love to read. Absolutely love to read. Because of you I literally watch everything way differently as far as production.

Please do!

[minime]

You can run and you can hide. But wherever you go, there you are. On the outside looking out. It's time to turn the inside out. Shine the light on the light.

Hello?

"In a way, I envy you... your daily routine, you know what's expected. You know the drill. My job is to plumb the depths, so to speak. Dredge up something from inside, something honest. I got to tell you, the life of the mind... There's no road map for that territory. And exploring it can be painful. I have pain most people don't know anything about... This must be boring you."