Bryan Brandenburg

 

Introduction

“Meanwhile we shall express our darker purpose” - King Lear, Act 1:Sc1.

The purpose of this piece is to introduce the reader to the possibility that much of what we typically believe about our world, notably its history and its political structure, may be some distance from the truth. In writing it is not my intention to reveal some vast, secret government or destiny, but simply to allow interested readers to indulge themselves in the exercise of re-evaluating just what is going on around us. Whether or not anyone chooses to believe the scenario portrayed is entirely up to him or her. I make no categorical statements about “how the world is” because our interpretation of our world and the events of our lives is ultimately an entirely subjective experience.

In presenting this alternative interpretation of our world, I have simply gone straight into the “conspiracy theory” version of history with scant regard for quite viable alternative explanations for much of what has happened in recent years. Put simply, I have for the purpose of this exercise quite deliberately selected the most negative explanation or outcome for any series of events portrayed. If the reader finds following this piece stressful, then I advise him or her to always keep in mind that there are many other ways of looking at our world and, even if the “worst-case scenario” were true, then simply recognizing the problem would quickly bring about its reversal.

Nick Sandberg, Feb 2001

 

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This piece is split into four sections. The first section consists of a basic overview of our recent history and possible destiny from the perspective of an increasingly popular “conspiracy theory.” The second looks at the means by which such a plan might be being kept from our awareness. The third examines some basic concepts that can be put to use in the manipulation of large population groups. And the fourth looks at what believers or concerned citizens might do to hijack this process.

People from a wide variety of backgrounds are increasingly willing to take seriously the notion that much of what we are taught of our history is some distance from the truth. In accordance with classic “conspiracy theory” beliefs, they believe that the degree of randomness ascribed to much of what has happened in the last few centuries is excessive, and that, behind the scenes, a coherent negative force is manipulating the events of our lives for its own ends.

It is believed that there exists an “elite cabal” at the apex of banking and industry, operating through government and the media, and controlling our political, social and personal lives to ever-increasing degrees. This elite group has been pursuing its ambitions for centuries and is operating to an agenda entirely not in our interest. It has ruthlessly manipulated the political landscape via the strategic destabilization and reorganization of nation states; and its ultimate objective is to take the incredibly diverse range of human cultures once existing on Earth and slowly mould them into a single, homogenized trading and consuming block under their centralized control.

The principal means by which it is believed this group is seeking to do this is via the expansion of their own developmental prototype for world culture - America; a set of cultural values that is systematically being expanded across the world, progressively eliminating a wealth of ancient peoples and beliefs, and leaving in their place a standardized, consumerist stereotype.

The ultimate goal of this proposed elite group is to bring about a single global marketplace, controlled by a world government, policed by a world army, financially regulated by a world bank via a single global currency, and populated by a microchipped population connected to a global computer, a computer that both monitors and updates our personal location and financial status, and regulates our emotional state via transmitted electrical signals - technology that already exists.

This ambition of thus rendering the Earth a “prison planet” - a self-contained, interactive social structure under total centralized control - is chiefly being pursued via activities in two areas - commerce and culture. In “commerce,” the elite group have created the corporations, the vehicles for the planet’s enslavement, and in “culture,” the elite group have created both the drivers and passengers of those vehicles - us.

The historical roots of this “elite group” stretch back into the mists of time. But the development of the modern banking system in Middle Ages Europe provides a useful starting point for a look at their activities. The reader should note that, in describing the activities of this proposed elite cabal, I have had to give them a name, that name usually being simply “the elite.”

 

Part One - The World Outside

A Brief History of Banking

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws” - Amshall Rothschild

In the recent era, the story of “the elite” commences with the development of the modern banking system in Middle Ages Europe. At that time, disposable wealth was usually held in the form of gold or silver bullion. For safety, such assets were kept in the safe of the local goldsmith, he usually being the only individual who had a vault on his premises. The goldsmith would issue a receipt for the deposit and, to undertake financial transactions, the buyer would withdraw his gold and give it to the seller, who would then deposit it again, frequently with the same goldsmith. As this was a time-consuming process, it became common practice for people to simply exchange smiths’ receipts when conducting financial transactions. As time passed, the goldsmiths began to issue receipts for specific values of gold, making buying and selling easier still. The smiths’ receipts thus became the first banknotes.

The goldsmiths, now fledgling bankers, noticed that at any one time only a small proportion of the gold held with them was being withdrawn. So they hit upon the idea of issuing more of the receipt notes themselves, notes that did not refer to any actual deposited wealth. By giving these receipts to people seeking capital, in the form of loans, the goldsmiths could use the money deposited with them by others to make money for themselves. It was found that, for every unit of gold held by the goldsmith, ten times the sum could be safely issued as notes without anyone usually becoming any the wiser. If a goldsmith held, say, 100 pounds of other people’s gold in his vaults, he could issue banknotes to the value of 1000 pounds. As long as no more than 10 percent of the holders of those notes wanted their gold at any one time, no one would realize the fraud being perpetrated. This practice, known as “fractional reserve lending,” continues to this day and is actually the backbone of the modern banking industry. Banks typically loan ten times their actual financial holdings, meaning 90% of the money they lend does not now, never has, and never will exist.

Loans issued by the goldsmiths had to be paid back to them with interest, meaning non-existent money slowly became converted to tangible assets in the form of goods and labour. Should the loan be defaulted upon, the banker had the right to seize the defaulter’s property. As time passed, therefore, the goldsmiths became wealthier and wealthier. They had devised a scheme to create money out of thin air and then convert this money into real goods, labour, or property. A loan of money at 12% interest recouped not merely 12% for the banker, but 112%, as it does to this day.

As the industrial era began, so the potential for furthering this scheme increased exponentially. The goldsmiths were now fully-fledged bankers, and their ability to create money out of thin air and then convert it into tangible assets enabled them to begin to control whole industries to the point where the worlds of banking and industry became, to all intents and purposes, seamless entities. Extended family banking structures, such as the Rothschilds, acquired so much power in this manner that the various monarchies and fledgling governments of the time soon began to seem quite feeble by comparison.

To increase their power and influence still further, these elite banking families would subtly buy influence within governments or monarchies and utilise this influence to strategically stir up unrest between nations. When the inevitable disputes broke out, they would then lend vast sums of money, usually to both sides, so that war could be waged. Any armaments purchased would be those manufactured by the industrial wing of the banking-industrial cartel, and by regulating the loan of money and the timing of the delivery of weapons, the outcome of any conflict could effectively be controlled. If deemed necessary, monarchies and governments could further be destabilized by generating poverty through regulating the money supply, and by using agent-provocateur tactics to fuel any latent desire for revolution. With such power it was easy to control the fledgling governments of Europe and ensure that only those politicians who would do the will of the banking families came to power.

As the twentieth century dawned, the banking families hit upon a new means to consolidate and increase their gains. They discovered that by periodically restricting the money supply crashes within the emergent stock exchanges of the world could easily be engineered. The most notable example of this was the famous Wall Street Crash of 1929. What the history books usually fail to record is that, in a crash, wealth is not actually destroyed, but merely transferred. The “Crash of ‘29″ allowed the most powerful of the banking and industrial families to absorb the weaker elements, generating even greater levels of centralized control.

As the technological revolution progressed, so the buying up of TV stations and newspapers allowed the creation and control of the mass media. This served to ensure that only a portrayal of events that suited the interests of the elite banking families would get to public attention - invariably one that all but denied their very existence.

 

A Closer Look at Government

The vision we’re usually given of how political power is manifest in our society typically runs something like this: government at the top, banking, industry, media and military, beneath, and the people beneath this. However, an independent examination of the development of modern political power is more likely to reveal the following arrangement: extended family banking groups at the top, government beneath, facilitating the wishes of this hierarchy, and the media beneath portraying the work of the government to the people as “democracy in action.”

It can thus be seen that, in truth, most governments are little more than front organizations for the elite banking cartels. They interface with the public via the media, acting to facilitate social change in a manner that maintains relative social stability, while ensuring that our culture stays in line with any course the elite wish it to pursue. Western governments do not usually allow the public to actually pick who becomes their political representative, merely to choose between individuals selected by the party hierarchy. Neither do the public get to pick the policies the representative will pursue, this is also under the control of the party. To say that this system is open to abuse is a considerable understatement.

 

America

The creation of the United States of America represents the pinnacle of the elite’s ambitions for world domination. America is, in essence, a prototype for world consumer culture. By encouraging a broad base of racial groups to settle and develop under their constant control, the banking families have been able to slowly direct the natural evolution of a form of social order that humans from any background can adapt to, without a significant number of them becoming sufficiently dissociated to actually take up arms and overthrow the system. This is aided by a highly repressive justice system and backed by the largest prison population on the planet. Now that the technological revolution has facilitated the expression of American cultural values across the world, America is, in effect, expanding until the 50 states actually encompass the whole globe in all but name. Our planet is slowly becoming America.

America is the ultimate control fantasy - consensual incarceration - whole groups of people slowly driven to believe that there exists no way of securely living together other than by the giving up of personal freedom bit by bit.

 

World War II

The Second World War, a conflict which cost the lives of tens of millions of people, was entirely manipulated into being by the elite banking and industrial cartels.

Hitler rose to power in a country so economically crippled by the reparations imposed after the previous war that going into another should have been inconceivable. But the banking elite agreed to the loan of billions of dollars, and furthermore set up a vast industrial complex within Germany, (much of it the Standard Oil subsidiary, I.G. Farben), to manufacture the tanks, planes, arms and munitions necessary to wage another European war. Oil pipelines and factories were built, lines of credit extended and the war machine spent nearly a whole decade churning out weaponry while the rest of the country remained in abject poverty thus fuelling the desire for war. The whole thing was a set up from start to finish, as even a cursory independent examination will confirm. The millions of deaths that resulted were looked upon by the banking families as being simply a sacrifice necessary to achieve greater levels of European homogeny and control.

 

The Third World

“Conquered states…. can be held by the conqueror in three different ways. The first is to ruin them, the second for the conqueror to go and reside there in person and the third is to allow them to continue to live under their own laws, subject to a regular tribute, and to create in them a government of the few who will keep the country friendly to the conqueror.” - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

I will now look at the banking families’ ambitions in the Southern Hemisphere, or so-called “Third World.” All across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, the elite banking families have again pursued unrelentingly the ambition of destabilizing a multitude of traditional cultures and creating in their place a series of homogenized trading blocks. In recent years this task has been undertaken chiefly by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But the story commences many years before.

Colonization by the European empire builders from the sixteenth century onwards and the later granting of “independence” to conquered territories led slowly to the forging of individual nation states with monarchies and governments. To ensure that these institutions remained subservient to the elite, agent provocateurs and dubious Western government agencies worked behind the scenes to displace any leaders who showed democratic tendencies and replace them with elite puppets from local communities and their extended families. To maintain these hated and corrupt regimes in power, the Western banking institutions lent vast sums of money to these “governments” and monarchies to enable them to form armies, frequently with foreign troops, and thus prevent the people of the country from wresting power. Loans were further granted for the purchase of weapons, to wage various regional conflicts stirred up by elite agent provocateurs, and to build palatial homes in which the puppet monarchs and their officials might reside.

In the early 1970s, the elite-manipulated Yom Kippur war resulted in a massive rise in oil prices. The whole world found itself paying vastly increased rates for petroleum, and the massive profits made by the oil-producing nations were invested back with the elite-controlled Western banks. Relying on the ever-popular tactic of loaning at least ten times their reserves, the banks now had insane sums of money to lend. With the “Third World” countries compelled to pay vastly increased sums for their oil, as well as service the debts already incurred by their puppet leaders, further massive loans were advanced to them in a banking strategy that came to be known as “petrodollar recycling.” The Western banks would send youthful reps across the world offering gigantic loans to anyone in power who wanted them. These loans were, of course, created out of thin air and tied to the recipient buying weapons, machinery or goods from the industrial or military clients of the banking cartel offering the money. In the 1980s, the bubbles began to burst, with the Mexican debt crisis becoming the first of many “days of reckoning.” The World Bank and the IMF, elite-manufactured organizations created in the 1940s to “stimulate the conditions of world trade,” stepped in. They offered “adjustments” - strategies for repayment that involved the countries concerned adopting economic “austerity” programmes and commencing industrial production of Western goods and consumer products.

To commence industrial production, the countries had to take out further loans and buy plant from - the industrial clients of the banking cartels. To generate sufficient power for the new industries, they had to hire companies to build hydroelectric power plants or nuclear reactors - companies that were again the heavy industry clients of the banking cartels.

The IMF debt-rescheduling practices enforced on the countries experiencing major problems paying back their loans (problems entirely generated by the elite via their control of world interest rates and oil prices) compelled the “Third World” nations, one after another, to commence manufacturing goods, not for themselves but for sale on the world markets. Here, in the emergent global marketplace, they had to compete with each other in a highly competitive market over which they had no control. The only factor in the IMF equation that the Southern Hemisphere countries could control was the cost of labour. The result was cheaper goods for Western consumers and greater poverty for workers in the “Third World.”

All across the Southern Hemisphere, small farmers were driven away from planting crops for themselves and compelled to plant crops for export, hoping they’d get paid enough to survive. In the 1980s, runaway inflation stimulated by Reaganomics in America (the arrangement of vast loans for US government spending on military and space projects that sent world interest rates skyrocketing) began to force many local people out of the countryside altogether. They were driven into the newly created cities where they vied with each other for work in the newly built factories. This led to the destruction of traditional ways of life for millions upon millions. Emergent drug cartels, invariably under the direction of government agencies such as the CIA, began to flood the cities and industrial areas with cheap drugs, hooking those with jobs deeper into a life of wage slavery, and those without into lifelong street-level delinquency. In addition, grain crops, previously used for bread, were diverted into producing of alcohol for the relocated populations. Problems unheard of a generation before - alcoholism, drug addiction, crime, unemployment, poverty and malnutrition - became epidemic in proportion all across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. In Brazil, one of the biggest food exporters in the world, approaching half a million children die annually from malnutrition or hunger-related diseases.

In the early 1990s, the spectre of capitalist greed proved increasingly disturbing for the people buying the goods created in this manner. So the elite came up with “green-washing” - the media-driven means by which images of change within the Southern Hemisphere are bombarded upon the Western viewer, convincing them that “the system” is adapting to moral pressure from Western citizens. News broadcasts accepted that previous practices had been exploitative but that, post Live Aid and similar, things were changing and any residual problems were entirely the fault of the poorer nations themselves or the weather. The previous “evil capitalists,” the Reagans and Thatchers, were removed from power and replaced by consumer-friendly mouthpieces of the elite - the Clintons and the Blairs. On UK TV at the time of writing (originally Spring 2000), one BBC programme features former Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell, entering the world’s shanty towns and meeting crowds of poor but happy-looking children jumping up and down, thus generally promoting the image of gradual change and improvement. What the programme neglected to reveal is that, in many of the “Third World’s” shantytowns, children now have less than a 50% chance of making it to their first birthday. Infant mortality rates are rising steadily throughout the Southern Hemisphere, despite the efforts of the United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (WHO) to massage the figures. For those lucky enough to reach the grand old age of five, the only prospect to look forward to is a life of begging, street crime or child prostitution. The population of the world is currently estimated at six billion. Three billion of these are existing in poverty, one third of them at near-starvation level. For the majority of the world’s citizens, life is now demonstrably worse than at any time in recorded history.

 

The Future - Chips with Everything?

In the passages above, I’ve looked at a few aspects of our recent history with the intention of demonstrating that there may be a pattern of organization in the background that could give many people grounds for concern. At this point, I would now like to address the question: “If there really was a coherent body organizing all of this, what would their motivation be, and where might all this be leading?”

The primary motivation behind all elite activities is the desire to acquire control. It is the base desire to control everything, to take a vast and dynamic planet full of people and drive them into a single cultural structure under their central control. It is the fulfillment of this desire that truly motivates the elite. In their attempt to bring about this highly negative state of affairs, the elite need to be active on two fronts simultaneously - the world outside and the world inside, the planet and the mind.

In the “world outside,” the objective the banking families are working towards is globalization - the creation of three vast interlocked markets centred on America, Europe and Asia, followed by their full integration into a single trading block. A global marketplace peopled with consumer-workers and serviced at the lower end via “Third World” debt.

In the “world inside,” the plan is to get all humanity microchipped. For, despite a multiplicity of control tactics currently being imposed upon us - mortgages, credit cards, street surveillance systems and antidepressants among them - people still have a basic level of personal freedom. Although it’s getting harder to do so, we can still walk out of consumerism and embark on a new life. But if we are ‘chipped this won’t happen. This is because scientists’ knowledge of neuroscience is now such that, by having a tiny microchip implanted inside our body, we can be regulated at an emotional level. By gaining control over our body’s receptor-ligand network, our emotional state can be manipulated by electrical signals, either as a part of a ‘chip’s program or via remote signalling, thus offering the possibility of the creation of a perfect consumer workforce - a people whose only thoughts are those of working, eating, procreating and sleeping.

However, despite the progress our planet has made along the road of becoming a world consumerist superstate, most people are still highly resistant to the idea of having a ‘chip put under their skin. There is therefore a progressive strategy that will be gradually implemented to lead us, step by step, into permitting this nightmare future to come about.

It will unfold in three concurrent stages. Firstly, cash will be gradually eliminated. Secondly, all personal and financial data will be placed on individual “smartcards.” And, thirdly smartcards will be themselves gradually eliminated to be replaced by microchip implants. By first removing cash, then introducing problems into electronic money systems while simultaneously promoting microchip implants as a safe and acceptable alternative, the elite will lead us slowly into accepting personal implant technology. I will look more closely at how these three stages will likely unfold.

For the past twenty years we have been slowly led towards giving up cash in favour of electronic money, and in the last ten, the heat has been turned up. The increased promotion of credit cards, phone banking, mail order and Internet shopping have all helped to bring about a society where the need for cash transactions is greatly reduced. Yet many people still like carrying cash, meaning more will have to be done if it is to be eliminated completely.

One strategy that will be employed will be the gradual implementation of “smart citizenship” schemes across ever-widening sectors of our society. “Smart citizenship” is one of a variety of euphemisms now emerging for “cashless society” and, once one city has been signed up, the benefits can be extensively promoted by the media to encourage others to follow suit. In April 2000 it was announced that the UK city of Southampton and the Swedish city of Gothenberg will host smart citizenship schemes commencing 2002, to be technically facilitated by the French consortium, Schlumberger.

Another strategy that might be utilised is the introduction of new, multinational currencies not available as cash. The euro, the currency for the European Union, may well be such a thing.

Another possibility is that cash will be removed on the pretext of eliminating the illicit drug trade. Many cities now have around 1% of their population using heroin daily. This, along with crack cocaine addiction, is proving a near intolerable social burden for many people who live in the areas affected. If cash were eliminated, anonymous illicit transactions for small sums would not be possible. With electronic money, the identities of the buyer and seller of any article are recorded on computer and, should a transaction be for an illicit substance, it could be traced. Although illicit drugs come into our countries in vast shipments, each load is ultimately sold in small amounts at or near street level. Remove cash and the illicit drug trade would be finished.

If the “drug war” is going to be used to assist in the outlawing of cash, one of the first signs will likely be moves to legalize soft drugs like marijuana. The smoking of cannabis is the primary cash-based illicit activity that people indulge in, and the prospect of having this pleasure withdrawn from them would inevitably create considerable opposition to any plan to outlaw cash. In addition, marijuana legalization would create the appearance of policy-softening on behalf of government, when the opposite is in fact taking place.

Whatever tactics are eventually employed, while cash is being eliminated and the creation of a global society pursued, an assortment of “softening-up” strategies are likely to be deployed by the media. There will be a steady trickle of stories in the papers and on TV relating the benefits of microchipping. Scientists will make statements extolling the wonders of implant technology for treating and monitoring illnesses and futuristic articles will relate how, in a few years time, we won’t have to carry wallets around. Such stories will invariably make it seem that microchipping and globalization are not only desirable but also inevitable - that they have already “been decided.”

Once cash has finally been eliminated from a region, what will next happen is that problems will begin to mysteriously occur within the electronic money system. People will occasionally find their money disappearing into thin air. Computer errors, viruses and fraud, previously virtually unheard of, will increasingly begin to manifest. Having your personal records placed on a microchip implant will become renowned as the only safe way to keep personal data safe from interference, likely because encryption technology available on the personal ‘chip won’t be available on the smartcard.

Whole groups of people within society will likely have already been ‘chipped by this time. Criminals, the mentally ill, and military personnel are three likely targets. The media will constantly portray ‘chipping as the socially positive thing to do. Small children will go missing in high profile cases on the daily news, then be found, “because they were ‘chipped.” Young people’s TV will be especially targeted. Getting ‘chipped will be seen as a cool thing to do, with a vast array of different ‘chip features available to order. Getting ‘chipped will be seen as synonymous with “getting ahead” and attracting members of the opposite sex. The media will spare no effort ensuring that the negative aspects of getting ‘chipped, such as feeling like a robot, are driven from people’s minds.

To still further intensify the drive to get the public ‘chipped, large corporations will begin to make it a requirement for employment, likely under the guise of it being their contribution to creating a positive society. By this time the multinational corporations of today, big as they already are, will have been transformed into transnational giants, astride the world like statues of Colossus, controlling vast sectors of the earth’s resources and meeting them out according to their masters’ schedule, and with a vast and continuous PR job making it all appear completely consensual. Virtually everything purchased will be from a multinational corporation, and nearly all employment opportunities will involve working for one.

With cash gone and no way of bringing it back, and the credit card, ID card, and even smartcard systems increasingly falling into disrepair, life will begin to seem pretty bleak for those persons not ‘chipped. Pretty soon, not being ‘chipped will effectively mean you are not capable of working for a regular wage in any but the most menial job. There will initially still be a large black market operating at varying degrees outside the law and trading in a wide variety of licit and illicit substances. But, as ‘chipping proceeds all across Western society, and becomes seen as being as natural as paying tax, so the State will increasingly make moves to attack illicit activity. With the moral backing of the microchipped population, engineered by the media, those persons not ‘chipped will increasingly be marginalized in the same way the homeless are now - forced to the edges of society and left to fend for themselves in an environment of poverty, drug addiction, sexual exploitation and crime.

Once ‘chipping is finally accepted as being an integral part of life in the twenty-first century, the next stage will be implemented - the promotion of ‘chips that can regulate aspects of our body’s function.

Self-regulation of our body and mind will be seen as a new and convenient means of treating any number of complaints ranging from depression to minor flesh wounds. No need to take tablets or call up the doctor, just program your ‘chip to do it for you. Scientists are now sufficiently knowledgeable of our body’s electrical system and ligand-receptor networks that they can superficially alter many of our natural emotional functions. By changing the way our body metabolizes serotonin, for example, the symptoms of depression can be relieved.

With ‘chips available capable of altering a whole range of neurochemical functions, we will increasingly have the ability to emotionally regulate ourselves. Given that it is now well recognized that negative emotions are mere symptoms of deeper needs not being met, all sorts of health problems could easily go undiagnosed. But, apart from health concerns, giving people the means to easily emotionally self-regulate could lead to the “Prozac generation” becoming global. People will become obsessed with feeling good about themselves all the time, ignoring anything which threatens to interfere with that feeling. Wars, starvation, political upheavals and global tyranny will all become just “other people’s problems.” With implant technology accepted as being part of life in the twenty-first century, who is going to notice if one day the ‘chips seem to start regulating themselves. Who is going to notice if they no longer require us to actually program them, but seem to do it without our help, no longer allowing us access to our true feelings even if we wanted them?

This nightmare scenario seems like something out of science fiction but, in fact, much of the technology has already been developed. The implantable microchip with global tracking system and biomonitoring system, Digital Angel, is scheduled to go into production in late 2000, (see later). It is powered by human muscle movement and will be offered to people concerned that they or their loved ones may go missing and to doctors wanting to monitor their patients. Patents for implantable ‘chips that release pharmaceuticals into the bloodstream have already been issued and companies, such as ChipRx, have been set up to develop them for the market. The technology is here, the only question is: how much persuading will be necessary to make us accept it? One thing is certain - everything will be done bit by bit. Step by step, we will be led into a place where no one, if they thought about it, would ever willingly go - and without means of escape.

 

Part Two - The World Inside

“The psychological rule says that when an individual remains unaware of the divisions within, the world he experiences must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves” - Carl Jung

Hiding the Plot

If one imagines for a moment that the world is being run by an elite cabal at the apex of banking and industry, one might legitimately inquire as to how such a group might have prevented us from discovering their true level of power. We are intelligent and inquisitive creatures by nature, craving input and stimulation, and it would appear impossible that a truth of this magnitude could be hidden from us for such a length of time.

As I hope to demonstrate, it is actually quite straightforward. The “conditioning” process that most of us undergo in the course of a normal Western childhood not only causes us to divert from our natural behaviour but also permanently alters the way most of us evaluate information. In the second section of this piece I shall be looking at how a typical Western childhood can subconsciously render us: addicted to material pleasures and the quest for personal power, resistant to information which contradicts what we believe we already know, and impervious to natural self-healing - and all without most of us becoming any the wiser.

 

Conditioning

Conditioning is the means by which our reaction to traumatic events can be put to use to cause us to permanently alter our natural behaviour. Parents usually condition their children by giving them affection when their behaviour is deemed “good” and withholding affection when it is deemed “bad.” They do this because the overwhelming majority of cultural influences they are exposed to tell them it must be done or we will not grow up to be “civilised” human beings. The action of conditioning, when it first occurs, will cause the mind to repress - to block awareness of what it was that happened. This will reoccur the first few times the action of conditioning, for instance, slapping, occurs. Then the mind will learn. It will learn that, in order to avoid being slapped in future, it must undertake the change in behaviour required. However, in order for conditioning to take place, the memory and pain associated with the original act of conditioning must remain repressed within, blocked from our awareness.

The intention of the mind, in blocking our awareness of events and repressing any associated emotions, is to protect us from emotional damage in our formative years. Each time something happens around us that in any way reminds our subconscious mind of a repressed memory, we receive a little burst of anxiety as repressed emotions begin to be processed. As repressed memories build up, whole areas of natural thinking and behaviour thus begin to become painful to us. The mind deals with this by learning subconsciously to avoid situations that remind it of repressed memories; and it is this “need to avoid” that allows the conditioned mind to be so easily controlled. By creating a culture in which repressed pain is not released from the system but, instead, can merely be avoided through social conformity, Western populations become emotionally dependent on their culture to feel secure. They can easily be directed to both do work and follow a lifestyle that slowly draws the planet under centralized control.

 

The Persona

One means by which nearly all Westerners learn to avoid contact with repressed emotions is through the development of a “persona.” The persona is essentially a shield, a face that one can present to the world, behind which one can interact with society free from the risk of experiencing repressed pain. A consequence of developing this shield is that we, as children, start to learn to mask our true needs behind symbolic needs. We naturally crave deep love and affection but many learn not to seek it directly for fear of re-experiencing the pain that results when it is denied. Instead, many of us grow up learning to crave things that merely symbolize what we truly want, things like material possessions, personal power, sensual pleasures, and fame.

Material possessions symbolize love because we learn that our parents show us love by giving us things. Personal power symbolizes love because it represents freedom of expression, the withholding of which was used to condition us. Sensual pleasures symbolize love because we associate intimacy with love. Fame symbolizes love because we associate adoration with love. All these cravings are for things that symbolically represent what we truly need but are not the actual need itself. Because the true needs are not being met, the pleasure experienced proves only temporary and the craving for more symbols of love quickly returns. This is the true root of the universal problem of greed. The child chasing mere symbols of its true wants becomes the adult doing the same. We thus grow up driven to seek out things that merely symbolize what we actually want, and so never experience lasting satisfaction. When we don’t comprehend the root of our behaviour, we simply assume that we don’t have enough and strive for more.

 

School

Our school years are a time when we should be opening up emotionally, learning about the world and understanding what it means to be alive. Instead, most people’s experience of school is that of being subjected to a rigorous indoctrination process while immersed in an emotionally repressive environment. An atmosphere of inhibition and abuse pervades, and fear of ridicule from our peer group causes us to spend most of our time hiding our true feelings and directing our energy into maintaining face.

Our shield, our persona, is maintained by self-esteem. Experiencing a feeling of security within the peer group is vital if the persona is to be held in place. To experience embarrassment in front of one’s peers will instantly expose the individual to deeply painful repressed emotions, and thus is something to be avoided at all costs. One result of this is a corruption of our innate need to understand the nature of our world. For, from now on, whether or not we accept what we learn as being true will depend not only on whether it makes sense but also on whether we feel that believing it might pose a threat to our place within the peer group. We thus become dependent on our beliefs not only to help us understand the world but also to help maintain our persona. It is natural therefore that we soon develop a deep need to agree with the taught versions of subjects such as history and science. For not to do so would invite ridicule, and thus lead to a re-experiencing of deeply negative repressed feelings.