Despite the stark warning against risky biological experiments sent to the world by the Covid pandemic, research with dual-use potential on viruses continues.
Last week, a scientific team of Chinese researchers linked to the Chinese military published a study revealing that a newly discovered variant of the pangolin coronavirus results in a 100-percent fatality rate in humanized mice due to severe brain infection.
According to the paper, researchers from the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering and the Research Center for Clinical Medicine of the Fifth Medical Center of PLA (the People’s Liberation Army) General Hospital have come up with a variant of the SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus, known as GX_P2V(short_3UTR), that has killed all human ACE2-transgenic mice exposed to it. The findings suggest a potential risk of spillover into humans.
Hard to say what this is. Real, fake, preprogramming, sowing chaos; China did play a major propaganda and laboratory role in the origin and onset of covid and covid panic. Something to know and keep in mind. ABN
In her keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reaffirmed Europe’s unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion.
However, in the open admission of priority, President Von der Leyen declares the #1 priority of the corporations who run the WEF and world of politics, must be control of speech and information against their interests.
She goes on to note that political dissent, what she calls “polarization within our societies” must be controlled, as the ability of individuals and groups to assemble against the WEF plan remains a constant threat to the fulfillment of the agenda. [Insert a picture of dissident enemy #1, Donald Trump, here] Yes, you do not need to interpret their intent, you only need to listen to their words and accept them. WATCH (first two minutes):
This is a good video for Buddhists since much of it comports well with Buddhist teachings. Good for other religions and philosophies that have roots in the deep past as well. The ancients did not have our tools, sciences or mathematics, but they were easily as smart as us and did have more time to meditate, contemplate, and ponder the nature of reality. It’s a wonderful thing that a good deal of modern thinking corroborates many of their findings. Psychology has benefitted greatly from Buddhist techniques and ways of thinking. Now, even physics and cognitive science seem to be touching deeply on Buddhist teachings. ABN
Non-FIML sociology cannot but be based on and imbued with vagueness and uncertainty. Individuals make their ways in this foggy social environment according to their upbringing, experiences, and the different ways they have learned to negotiate ambiguity. Each non-FIML individual cannot but conform to or accept a position somewhere on the spectrum of private neurosis-public semiotics.
This is so because non-FIML individuals cannot attain interpersonal certainty; they can only attain a semblance of interpersonal certainty that is necessarily made up of many erroneous interpretations of the world around them, their loved ones, and themselves. Their understanding of themselves and of others will necessarily be made up of either private interpretations (that are sure to be largely false and thus neurotic) or public/cultural interpretations that are similarly just as false and/or too narrow or generalized (science, mainstream psychology, professional societies, religious or ethnic allegiances, etc.) to be fully satisfying to the profound needs of the individual. This is not to say that many individuals living in conditions like that are not happy, but rather that their sense of who they are and what they are doing is false, utilitarian, exploitative, slavish, or otherwise limited in one way or another. Individuals in conditions like that cannot but offend their deep-seated needs for interpersonal honesty/certainty by compromising their individual understanding of what the world around them means by accepting either prepackaged public explanations (public semiotics) or making up their own (private neurosis).
Most individuals in the world are, thus, contorted in some way. Some are deeply unhappy because they can sense something is wrong but have no way to grapple with it. Others decide to make their way in the world as it is, fully accepting, even enjoying, their perceived “need” to deceive themselves and others, to manipulate others, to take advantage of them, etc.
I think the above roughly describes a big part of what is meant by delusion and suffering in Buddhism. Delusion and suffering constitute the first two of the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth says unenlightened life is characterized by suffering or dissatisfaction. The second explains the first by saying, briefly, that people suffer because they become attached to delusions. Delusions can be egocentric, sociocentric, or both. They can be a private neuroses or the very public madness of a whole society, or both. However you look at it, individual human beings will suffer and experience discontent under these conditions because their core sense of what is true is almost constantly being violated.
In the Buddha’s day, you fixed this problem by becoming a monk. You can still do that today, or you can practice Buddhism as a lay person. My feeling is that if you only practice Buddhism and do not do FIML practice, you will make a lot of progress but remain unsatisfied. Societies today are so large and complex, it is nearly impossible not to be influenced constantly by them. If you can join a monastery or build a cabin in the woods, lucky for you. Most of us, though, will continue to live among unenlightened people and will continue to have deep needs for highly satisfying interpersonal communication with our loved ones and close friends. FIML practice fits in right there. Since so many monasteries today are burdened with the weight of their own semiotics, FIML practice probably would be a very good practice even for monks, if it can be arranged.
In the Chinese Buddhist tradition, there is a story about heaven and hell. In hell people sit at a dinner table to eat but are forced to use chopsticks that are so long they cannot put any food in their mouths, and so they go hungry and feel miserable. In heaven, conditions are exactly the same, but people there use their long chopsticks to feed each other, so everyone if well-fed and very happy.
FIML practice is like heaven. By doing it we feed each other and grow more satisfied as we come to understand what the real conditions of this world are.
Incidentally, I am of the opinion, and many share this opinion, that Buddhists can and should work with the basics of the tradition to make it speak to them. I am fully convinced that FIML practice will open a very large door for almost anyone who tries it. Non-Buddhists can do FIML, but so can Buddhists. I do not see any contradictions between FIML and Buddhist practices. And I do see many advantages to augmenting Buddhist practice with FIML.
1. When it comes the semantics of what constitutes a pandemic, unfortunately they have been made important by the existence of the Pandemic Preparedness apparatus, including the WHO accord and IHR revisions. That’s the only context in which the definition of a pandemic is important. A very broad definition, which includes pathogens that are mild, is of no use to man or beast absent that context, and irremediably perilous within it. The Covid policy response has proven that.
2. Under a sensibly narrow definition, Covid was not a pandemic. Controlling for misattribution and iatrogenic harms, its fatality rate was negligible.
3. Under any definition, the excess mortality witnessed in a few places during the Covid phenomenon was not caused by a pandemic, but by policy. The real phenomenon was a mass casualty event, not a pandemic.
4. It is extremely unlikely that a pandemic, narrowly defined, can occur. In our integrated world we don’t encounter pathogens that are novel in the sense of immune naivety, because pathogens are related to one another, and we enjoy rich immune cross-reactivity from prior exposure to related endemic ones. Even the cleverest lab scientists can’t cook up entirely new ones.
The validity of points 1 to 3 above in no way depends upon point 4 being valid. So I reject the Pandemic Preparedness construct and view pandemics as not presenting a real threat. Preparation for them is akin to preparing for invasion by the flying spaghetti monster. I cannot prove that he doesn’t exist, but I think anyone who spends a cent on that project is a dangerous lunatic.
And for clarity, even if none of the above four points are valid, all of the mandates involved in the Covid policy response were moral obscenities never to be repeated under any circumstances whatsoever.
Several explosions were reported near the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, Iraq, an Iraqi security source told ABC News.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps quickly took responsibility for the attacks, saying it was targeting the “headquarters of spies” and “anti-Iranian terrorist gatherings in parts of the region” with ballistic missiles.
The German farmers are not negotiating with a government who is supposed to represent their interests. No, the farmers are telling their elected officials what they will accept, and what they will not accept. And this approach has the German government in fits of apoplexy…. The farmers are revolting.
[Background Here] The second week of massive protests in the streets of Germany has the overwhelming majority of the people in support of the farmers. However, to show just how large the gap between the people and their government has become, the German officials think a process of negotiating terms is possible. The farmers are having none of that.
Really, this is awesome to see. The Dutch farmers are in full support and truckers from around the EU are aligned with the German farmers. The simple message is “enough is enough” and there are more EU interests that just the German government paying attention. Keep in mind, the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos began today.
LCOE or Levelized Cost of Electricity is defined as the price at which the generated electricity must be sold for the system to break even at the end of its lifetime.
The Rape of the Mind explores the Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing. Published in 1956 and written by Joost A. M. Meerloo, M.D., Instructor in Psychiatry, Columbia University Lecturer in Social Psychology, New School for Social Research, Former Chief, Psychological Department, Netherlands Forces.
“SINCE 1933, when a completely drugged and trial-conditioned human wreck confessed to having started the Reichstag fire in Berlin, Dr. Joost A. M. Meerloo has studied the methods by which systematic mental pressure brings people to abject submission, and by which totalitarians imprint their subjective “truth” on their victims’ minds. The first two and one-half years of WWII, Dr. Meerloo spent under the pressure of Nazi-occupied Holland, witnessing at first-hand the Nazi methods of mental torture on more than one occasion…Then, after personal experiences with enforced interrogation, he escaped from a Nazi prison and certain death to England, where he was able, as Chief of the Psychological Department of the Netherlands Forces, to observe and study coercive methods officially…. After the war, he came to the United States…As more and more cases of thought control, brainwashing, and mental coercion were disclosed – Cardinal Mindszenty, Colonel Schwable, Robert Vogeler, and others – his interest grew. It was Dr. Meerloo who coined the word menticide, the killing of the spirit, for this peculiar crime…
It is Dr. Meerloo’s position that through pressure on the weak points in men’s makeup, totalitarian methods can turn anyone into a “traitor.” And in The Rape of the Mind he goes far beyond the direct military implications of mental torture to describing how our own culture unobtrusively shows symptoms of pressurizing people’s minds. He presents a systematic analysis of the methods of brainwashing and mental torture and coercion, and shows how totalitarian strategy, with its use of mass psychology, leads to systematized “rape of the mind.” He describes the new age of cold war with its mental terror, verbocracy, and semantic fog, the use of fear as a tool of mass submission and the problem of treason and loyalty, so loaded with dangerous confusion. The Rape of the Mind is written for the interested layman, not only for experts and scientists.”
Rape of the Mind is available at the link above for free or on Amazon or elsewhere.
I am posting this today because after covid and now as we move toward war with Iran and WW3, it is obvious to many of us that our minds have been raped repeatedly over many decades.
As we witness the precipitous decline of USA and the West, those of us who can see what is happening must also appreciate that all of it has been deliberate. MK-ULTRA is merely the visible sliver of a vast mind-control war of occupation and takeover which has been waged against USA and the West for over 100 years.
Meerloo does an outstanding job of describing how mind-control techniques work and which parts of human psychology allow them to work. I want to point out that mind-control alone, without violence, is a fairly weak brew. When accompanied by violence, mind-control is all but insuperable. Obvious forms of violence are imprisonment, police phalanxes, perverse laws and prosecutions, military combat.
To understand what has caused the West to decline so rapidly, one must also understand that Western people have undergone many decades of clandestine violence, secret violence, which includes, at one end of the spectrum, soft forms like reputation destruction and educational misdirection, and at the other end, poison, physical maiming, psychosurgery, sensory harm, and disease creation. Covid and the covid response in the West has all of the hallmarks of a disease-creation mind-control campaign.
It is very important to understand that clandestine violence, hidden violence, is the major factor in bringing USA and the West to this point of probably no-return we find ourselves at now.
American Buddhist Net 