None of this sounds very enjoyable, but it’s not the worst thing in 1984. To me, the most terrifying part was that you couldn’t keep Big Brother out of your head.

Unlike other 20th-century totalitarians, the authoritarians in 1984 aren’t that interested in controlling behavior or speech. They do, of course, but it’s only as a means to an end. Their real goal is to control the gray matter between the ears.

“When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will,” O’Brien (the bad guy) tells the protagonist Winston Smith near the end of the book.

We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him.

Big Brother’s tool for doing this is the Thought Police, aka the ThinkPol, who are assigned to root out and punish unapproved thoughts. We see how this works when Winston’s neighbor Parsons, an obnoxious Party sycophant, is reported to the Thought Police by his own child, who heard him commit a thought crime while talking in his sleep.

“It was my little daughter,” Parsons tells Winston when asked who it was who denounced him. “She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?”

Who Are These Thought Police?

We don’t know a lot about the Thought Police, and some of what we think we know may actually not be true since some of what Winston learns comes from the Inner Party, and they lie.

What we know is this: The Thought Police are secret police of Oceania—the fictional land of 1984 that probably consists of the UK, the Americas, and parts of Africa—who use surveillance and informants to monitor the thoughts of citizens. The Thought Police also use psychological warfare and false-flag operations to entrap free thinkers or nonconformists.

Those who stray from Party orthodoxy are punished but not killed. The Thought Police don’t want to kill nonconformists so much as break them. This happens in Room 101 of the Ministry of Love, where prisoners are re-educated through degradation and torture. (Funny sidebar: the name Room 101 apparently was inspired by a conference room at the BBC in which Orwell was forced to endure tediously long meetings.)

The Origins of the Thought Police

Orwell didn’t create the Thought Police out of thin air. They were inspired to at least some degree by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), a complicated and confusing affair. What you really need to know is that there were no good guys, and it ended with left-leaning anarchists and Republicans in Spain crushed by their Communist overlords, which helped the fascists win.

Orwell, an idealistic 33-year-old socialist when the conflict started, supported the anarchists and loyalists fighting for the left-leaning Second Spanish Republic, which received most of its support from the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin. (That might sound bad, but keep in mind that the Nazis were on the other side.) Orwell described the atmosphere in Barcelona in December 1936 when everything seemed to be going well for his side.

The anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing … It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle,

he wrote in Homage to Catalonia.

[E]very wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle … every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized.

That all changed pretty fast. Stalin, a rather paranoid fellow, was bent on making Republican Spain loyal to him. Factions and leaders perceived as loyal to his exiled Communist rival, Leon Trotsky, were liquidated. Loyal Communists found themselves denounced as fascists. Nonconformists and “uncontrollables” were disappeared.

Orwell never forgot the purges or the steady stream of lies and propaganda churned out from Communist papers during the conflict. (To be fair, their Nationalist opponents also used propaganda and lies.) Stalin’s NKVD was not exactly like the Thought Police—the NKVD showed less patience with its victims—but they certainly helped inspire Orwell’s secret police.

The Thought Police were not all propaganda and torture, though. They also stem from Orwell’s ideas on truth. During his time in Spain, he saw how power could corrupt truth, and he shared these reflections in his work George Orwell: My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943.

…I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened.

In short, Orwell’s brush with totalitarianism left him worried that “the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.”

This scared him. A lot. He actually wrote, “This kind of thing is frightening to me.”

Finally, the Thought Police were also inspired by the human struggle for self-honesty and the pressure to conform. “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe,” Rudyard Kipling once observed.

The struggle to remain true to one’s self was also felt by Orwell, who wrote about “the smelly little orthodoxies” that contend for the human soul. Orwell prided himself with a “power of facing unpleasant facts”—something of a rarity in humans—even though it often hurt him in British society.

In a sense, 1984 is largely a book about the human capacity to maintain a grip on the truth in the face of propaganda and power.

More Prophetic Than He Knew?

It might be tempting to dismiss Orwell’s book as a figment of dystopian literature. Unfortunately, that’s not as easy as it sounds. Modern history shows he was onto something.

When the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, it was revealed that the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, had a full-time staff of 91,000. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but what’s frightening is that the organization had almost double that in informants, including children. And it wasn’t just children reporting on parents; sometimes it was the other way around.

Nor did the use of state spies to prosecute thoughtcrimes end with the fall of the Soviet Union. Believe it or not, it’s still happening today. The New York Times recently ran a report featuring one Peng Wei, a 21-year-old Chinese chemistry major. He is one of the thousands of “student information officers” China uses to root out professors who show signs of disloyalty to President Xi Jinping or the Communist Party.

The New Thought Police?

The First Amendment of the US Constitution, fortunately, largely protects Americans from the creepy authoritarian systems found in 1984, East Germany, and China; but the rise of “cancel culture” shows the pressure to conform to all sorts of orthodoxies (smelly or not) remains strong.

The new Thought Police may be less sinister than the ThinkPol in 1984, but the next generation will have to decide if seeking conformity of thought or language through public shaming is healthy or suffocating. FEE’s Dan Sanchez recently observed that many people today feel like they’re “walking on eggshells” and live in fear of making a verbal mistake that could draw condemnation.

That’s a lot of pressure, especially for people still learning the acceptable boundaries of a new moral code that is constantly evolving. Most people, if the pressure is sufficient, will eventually say “2+2=5” just to escape punishment. That’s exactly what Winston Smith does at the end of 1984, after all. Yet Orwell also leaves readers with a glimmer of hope.

“Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad,” Orwell wrote. “There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

In other words, the world may be mad, but that doesn’t mean you have to be.

By Jon Miltimore | FEE.org | Republished with permission

The views in this article may not reflect editorial policy of The Mind Unleashed.

The Chinese government utilized the annual opportunity to have police show off a new tool at their disposal to conduct surveillance on crowds: eyeglass mounted mobile facial recognition devices, facial recognition glasses you could say.

In state media this week, the surveillance devices were touted as a way to help Chinese cops catch criminals who try to remain undetected in the annual crowds that flood airports and train stations. The thing is, these “criminals” are often people doing things that are regarded as completely normal, well within the basic rights of people in other places. In China people become “criminals” very easily.

For instance, there was the man who was an online activist in China, a person like the individuals who write articles in the western alternative media. Liu Hu became a criminal, and eventually had his ability to perform basic tasks such as board a flight or a train, or own land revoked. You could say he had his “chip turned off,” but never harmed anyone. Liu Hu belongs to a demographic that is persecuted in China: the thinkers. The most colorful, unique souls alive in China might become criminals.

The facial recognition glasses have already been a factor in deciding the fate of a few people.

7 people wanted by the authorities for alleged involvement with “major criminal cases,” and 26 people traveling under false identities were recently arrested with the aid of the new facial recognition glasses at Zhengzhou’s East Railway station. Using a false identity could probably become necessary for any average free spirited person in China.

The Chinese government closely monitors air and train travel, and people often try to evade travel restrictions with an identity that someone allows them to borrow, or one they stole. Because of surveillance, a massive facial recognition database is possible.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

“China is already a global leader in deploying cutting-edge surveillance technologies based on artificial intelligence. The mobile devices could expand the reach of that surveillance, allowing authorities to peer into places that fixed cameras aren’t scanning, and to respond more quickly.”

“The eyeglass-mounted camera is equipped with facial-recognition technology capable of “highly effective screening” of crowds for fugitives traveling under false pretenses, the official People’s Daily newspaper reported Monday. Its story included images of a policewoman wearing a sunglasses version of the device at a railway station in Zhengzhou, capital of central China’s Henan province.”

The mainstream media articles don’t mind admitting China is a totalitarian nightmare, because they’re on the other side of the geopolitical divide: the US commits war crimes abroad while China does not, but China is a nightmare for its citizens.

“The potential to give individual police officers facial-recognition technology in sunglasses could eventually make China’s surveillance state all the more ubiquitous,” said William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International.

So who made the glasses for the police? A company based in Beijing called LLVision Technology Co.

However, not a single article one can find on the Internet has pointed out that LLVision Technology Co. was founded a mere 3 and a half years ago: by ex-engineers and experts from Google, Lenovo, and Microsoft.

According to documentation on Made in China.com:

“LLVISION was founded in 2014 by a team of experts and engineers from Google, Lenovo, Microsoft and the China Aeronautics Consortium. Its mission is to help companies realize their Industry 4.0 revolutions with the advent of it Augmented Reality glasses and Enterprise platform.”

Do these facial recognition glasses seem similiar to Google Glass? Because some of the very same engineers from Google could have participated in the creation of these glasses. Exactly which engineers from Google and Microsoft joined LLVision Technology Co. in Beijing, it is unclear as of yet.

Articles from sites such as Engadget noted that LLVision created the glasses for Chinese police, but said little about the company. According to Engadget:

“The Wall Street Journal reports that Beijing-based LLVision Technology Co. developed the devices. The company produces wearable video cameras as well and while it sells those to anyone, it’s vetting buyers for its facial recognition devices. And, for now, it isn’t selling them to consumers. LLVision says that in tests, the system was able to pick out individuals from a database of 10,000 people and it could do so in 100 milliseconds. However, CEO Wu Fei told the Wall Street Journal that in the real world, accuracy would probably drop due to “environmental noise.” Additionally, aside from being portable, another difference between these devices and typical facial recognition systems is that the database used for comparing images is contained in a hand-held device rather than the cloud.”

The CEO of LLVision seems to be a man named Fei Wu. According to his professional profile on Linked In, he is also the Key Part Manager for Lenovo Research, as he was from January 2010 to the present.

That means Lenovo figures are helping the Chinese police state in a major way: and all of the media is silent. This detail is mysteriously left out of every report on this. Fei Wu is apparently an inventor, with 64 US patent applications filed and 39 granted, according to some evidence that can be found at this link via Patent Buddy.

Why is it relevant to learn about these people? To understand the way our world works and what we are subject to, compared to the class above us: Fei Wu is probably not subject to the same type of tyrannical legal pressure as the civilian class of China, as Americans with money are usually not subject to the laws enforced in the drug war.

He’s like the founder of Alibaba, the corporation helping the Chinese government surveil the residents of Hangzhou, China, with cameras linked up to artificial intelligence in what they now call a “smart city.” He is lavish billionaire Jack Ma: a wanna-be celebrity corporate kingpin, who makes headlines about how he is going to become a movie star.

Best believe Jack Ma and Fei Wu can break the laws of China if they want, because they have money. You bet if Fei Wu or Jack Ma want to, they can spark up a joint or violate a minor law: but if a regular citizen of China did that, they might end up with a heavy prison sentence, or even disabled from traveling on trains or flights.

This company is creating non-consumer items, specialized for police use with a feature so the data is stored on the device and not on the cloud: so the civilians get a different type of technology with easily surveilled data, conveniently stored on the cloud and Chinese authorities get facial recognition glasses?

At first this seemed like a common story of the Chinese surveillance grid getting worse as it constantly is, but upon closer inspection this might be something more. This story might suggest that a corporation as big as Google, Microsoft, Lenovo or Apple, might be such an incredible force of power that it would splinter off a team of engineers that could form a company, that within 4 years, could provide a government with some technology that damages its civilians.

So that’s the era we live in: an era where corporations are so powerful, they are on par with government in terms of influence and power. They are technological pioneers: and will make deals with governments that can affect the lives of all civilians living within those borders, whether the people like it or not. Several categories of power could be considered when trying to figure out who runs things. There is government power, corporate power, institutional power (for instance, universities and academic institutions). There is financial power, bankers and such, and there is even occult power, fraternal orders and secret societies.

Whenever a force alters the lives of civilians minding their own business, it becomes the business of the people to understand how the power operates.

Image credit: Wall Street Journal, Lowyat, Treasure Reading

Human brains on average have 86 billion neurons. If we didn’t have any we’d be a sponge which have zero… Interestingly we were taught different until someone questioned it? In 2005 Dr Suzana Herculano-Houzel discovered that although 100 billion was used in all the science text books and journals they were all wrong. None of her colleagues knew where that figure came from so she set upon discovering the true figure. After liquefying human brains she then counted the neurons using a formula.

It’s the same with intelligence – with so many different definitions what we actually have are educated opinions. Intelligence is a formally recognized, organized and categorized structure of human perception. “Catching on, making sense of things or figuring things out” are three characteristics most experts agree on. “Reasoning, learning from mistakes and abstract thinking” are some others. Then there’s the ability to make sense of it all and translate that. The time it takes between individuals is of course taken into account.

Age and its association with either intelligence or wisdom are misleading and constrained understandings of both. After all Einstein was a 25 year old patent clerk when his “Theory of General Relativity” created shockwaves around the world. He was quoted as saying: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” He also said: “A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so” however the heyday of the twenty something physics genius is gone… Today’s average age for Nobel Prize winners in physics is 50 and over 65 for writers.

As with all good mainstream science we can dissect it, wrap it in a multitude of statistics, facts, figures and BS – then stick it into our textbooks. Now really much of the knowledge we retain is on a need to know basis not overcomplexity. Do most of us need to know what a synapse, a neuron or quantum tunneling is? Tesla said: “Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.” Tesla was hands on – believing much of theoretical physics lacked observed reality. It’s the reason why we can read dozens of different theories on its nature with none being real.

Speaking of real, the WAIS-IV, is the current test by which we measure IQ but it has many critics who say the tests are easy to manipulate. Much of this is done in the US as a means to a predetermined outcome. If I asked you why electrons don’t fly out of their orbits of the nucleus of an atom what would your answer be? This issue alone is too complex for the scope of this article because it indicts the entire educational system. How all tests are structured determines the outcome. Determines steering allocations of educational resources including federal discretionary funds. Besides there are plenty of books on the subject.

So then that aside, how smart are you in actual mind power? As of this writing the top three richest people in the world are each worth upward of 70 billion US. If we based intelligence on income most of the rest of the world would be mental microbes. If artistic talent were our measure, we would come to the realization that some of history’s finest artists died paupers.

Most top scientists will never win a Nobel Prize and live otherwise ordinary lives outside of being extraordinarily smart. The same can be said of many religious scholars like St Augustine whose writing is thought provoking and meticulous. In fact some of the most brain draining reads I’ve ever experienced involved philosophy which uses language to transcend mortal thought.

Above: ENIAC was 8.5 by 3 by 80 feet and weighed 27 tons.

Now here’s something I was thinking about: Arguably the first computer unveiled on February 14, 1946 was the ENIAC aka “The Big Brain.” The IBM-701 went public in 1953 and could do 16 thousand OPS (Operations Per Second). Today Intel’s fastest desktop CPU can do over 300 billion OPS. Today’s fastest supercomputer is the Sunway TaihuLight which has a speed of 93 petaFLOPS or 93 quadrillion OPS. So we’ve gone from 16 thousand to 93 quadrillion OPS in around 60 years. We might then conclude that these increases will continue exponentially and computers will shortly surpass the entire human collective in processing power.

While web searching even my most obscure concepts I came to an epiphany. We – the human race have unknowingly taken the next step in our evolution. Where in the past we could work on problems or ideas collectively, we couldn’t do it in real-time. Now we can almost instantly access and filter trillions of ideas and bits of data contributed by hundreds of millions of minds working virtually as one.

What also struck me is how rapidly “AI” (artificial intelligence) is advancing. Autonomous AI internet search bots will soon understand the content they gather using “AC” (Artificial Consciousness). Entire libraries will be read in seconds on quantum scales. These synthetic entities will be our greatest thinkers, inventors, designers, physicists, philosophers, physicians… They’ll access databases containing all the knowledge from the history of human existence. Only, as it may take humans years to go from concept to result, for AI we may be talking minutes.

Somewhere around here a metaphoric event horizon occurs as was predicted by Dr. John Lilly in his 1978 book “The Scientist” talking about “Solid State Intelligence.” Our machines will become self-reliant eventually controlling human thought through timeline manipulation. They’ll guarantee their own creation, evolution and man’s dependency on them. This for me was incredible – we came to the same exact conclusion years apart.

Philosopher Nick Bostrom suggests that if one were living in a virtual world it would be indistinguishable from a “REAL” one. Elon Musk like many others agree and fears we may already be living in a simulation meaning the change event already occurred. Contrary to popular belief this idea of reality being an illusion predates antiquity. It did not start with Bostrom nor with the Lillys of the world – everyone’s in on this game. Science or theology as in the Christian “Omphalos” hypothesis which presents that God created the world ten thousand years ago. The universe was already complete with stars, planets, Adam and Eve. Much like a well written simulated world program.

So now here we are in a simulation? However we exist, it’s real enough to us. Speaking of what’s real, we’ve touched upon wealth, talent, religion, philosophy, science… but the question was: “How smart are you?” The truth is that it doesn’t really matter because the quotient is an illusion. It measures what a committee decides intelligence is at any given point in time. This usually involves political and cultural interpretations. It doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly be good at math or will now create a great symphony. It means that like millions of others you’ll pass or like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg all University dropouts you can still go on to change the world…

Written by the author Robert Torres. http://RTR-Publishing.com https://about.me/towers3

From now until almost the end of the year, a special astrological configuration will be stuck in the sky. The aspect seems to foreshadow a serious, determined and energized period of time. It is a clear sign of rejuvenated inspiration, which we seem to have been needing for a long time.

Rejuvenated energy and inspiration but in a somber, “post lesson” type feeling: an intuitive, music appreciating watery energy, and a solid, energized crystallization, solidification of ideas will occur for the next several months.

It doesn’t mean that the circumstances of our lives will cease to affect us or our problems will disappear, but the energy will again feel ripe for functioning in life generally, and some sense of grounding might come about.

This solidification of the decade’s ideas, and lessons learned from its events, will culminate and peak in the two August eclipses, and it will persist after. This article will explain what astrological aspects are shaping this era.

It happened like this: from mid-2015 to late 2016, some of the most inspiration killing, devastating, spirit crushing and depression inducing aspects in about 30 years occurred (since the Jupiter/Saturn/Neptune aspects in Cancer and Capricorn in the late 80’s.)

It was 3 aspects that locked together in peak: a rare Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune configuration in hard, “negative” aspects, with eclipses occurring exactly on top. It was:

Jupiter square Saturn

Jupiter opposition Neptune

Saturn square Neptune

After the September 2016 eclipse, things looked like they were getting better in the sky. The hard aspects ended, but a series of small, harsh astrology aspects with the inner planets extended the period of lessons in a fateful way. Something said more lessons needed to be learned.

By November 2016, in Scorpio season, people were blasted with a dark, Pluto influenced, Scorpionic wave of energy. It was lit on fire (Mars) and with electricity (Aquarius) when the Scorpio planets squared Mars in Aquarius.

What people called PizzaGate broke, and this purging, immensely agitated feeling emerged with both the energy and the circumstances of the month, with the US presidential election. Either intentionally or not, the media used this moment to agitate the general public to the maximum.

The purging, harsh truth revealing heavy aspect Jupiter square Pluto kicked in that November.

The Sun and Venus in Scorpio sextiled Scorpio’s planet Pluto and squared Mars. November left an imprint on us, an agitated, exasperated shadow of darkness that seems to have persisted several months. November 2016 left a long-lasting imprint on the world like an eclipse. So since November, the agitated and out of balance collective energy that seemed to crystallize with the aspects of this month, it felt like the lessons of 2015-2016 were extended a few months further.

But exactly now, the “lesson era” is definitively taking a turn for the better. The circumstances of the world  as a whole remain critical and our problems will not evaporate out of nowhere, but the energy is finally returning to favor us.

Considering how strong the ruling classes are and how increasingly non-free and malleable our class of people is, you could say we’re collectively in a “lesson epoch”: a massive, unknown-number-of-millennia long era of learning the lessons of human slavery and freedom, or care vs coldness, or however you see it.

So now, there will be what astrologers call a “Grand Fire Trine” in the sky for several months.

Saturn in Sagittarius trine North Node in Leo and Uranus in Aries. 

It locks into the Moon’s nodes, which is where eclipses occur, because the nodes are the points where the Moon conjoins the ecliptic bi-monthly every year (the ecliptic is the belt the Sun and all planets travel on).

There is a fire trine, but more importantly all the outer planets will be locked together in positive angles. As 2016 saw a Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune configuration in hard, “negative” aspects, 2017 is a Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus-Neptune configuration in “positive” aspects.

2017’s skies have:

Jupiter sextile Saturn (in Libra and Sagittarius)

Jupiter quincunx Neptune (in Libra and Pisces)

Saturn trine Uranus (in Sagittarius and Aries)

Jupiter opposition Uranus (in Libra and Aries)

Jupiter opposition Uranus (conjunct the two dwarf planets Eris and Haumea) is the central aspect of 2017, but its second peak doesn’t occur until the mid-end of 2017.

The eclipses in Leo and Aquarius this year lock into the configuration in the sky, as they did with a different one in 2016: so if you believe in synchronicity, or the code of this existence whatever it may be, it’s telling us something significant is happening right now. The annual eclipses keep occurring on the other most important aspects in the sky, year after year this decade.

Recognizing synchronicity and the improbability of such synchronistic things occurring, and not rigidly believing we know exactly what it means, we can understand something of significance is happening.

The Meaning of 2017’s Sky

The most central component of the energy we will feel in the next few months is a long Grand Fire Trine locked into the points of the eclipse in August. It’s a Saturn-Uranus-North Node triangle in the sky, 2 planets and the eclipse point locked into 120 degree angles to each other.

It is composed of the aspects:

Saturn and Uranus trine the North Node (and sextile the South Node)

Saturn trine Uranus

While this Grand Fire Trine is stuck in peak, the aspect Jupiter quincunx Neptune in Libra and Pisces will be active.

The only way to explain this is to look at it in pieces and picture the mixture of all these aspects in the bigger picture: mix these detailed descriptions together and you’ll understand the energy of the next few months.

Saturn trine Uranus

Saturn trine Uranus is probably the strongest aspect in the air right now: it adds a grounded, solid, structure creating feeling to the day, crystallizing and solidifying ideas, ways of being, and things that pertain to Uranus in people’s minds.

Saturn trine Uranus solidifies and crystallizes things in people for an extended period of time: philosophies, ways of thinking, ideologies and ways of being become solidified in culture and individuals when this aspect occurs.

It causes our ideas, convictions, ideologies, thoughts, and learning/thinking processes (Uranus) to become structured, refined, and solidified in us (Saturn). Ideas may become more disciplined, refined, or practical, and our desire to improve things may become energized.

Saturn is the planet of structure, form, discipline, and of course it can be extremely malefic in worse aspects. However this is a positive one, and Uranus’ energetic thinker energy lights up Saturn here. When energies of flowing ideas, creativity, or substance hit Saturn in positive aspects, the fluid ideas become solid structures in reality.

Uranus is one of the great bodies of original idea. You could say Uranus and Neptune are the two great bodies of idea and intuition. They are the two different flavors of creativity, thought, ideas, perception. Uranus is an electric, information accumulating, technology producing thing with an inherently freedom loving nature. Neptune is the music appreciating, dream associated, intuitive watery energy, where almost all creative people receive that quality. That energy is Neptune as a planet, or Pisces/Cancer as a sign (just an area of the sky that bears that energy).

But Uranus is an information seeking energy with a specific rebellious, non-conforming, freedom seeking and energized quality. This makes Uranus, or Aquarius energy circumstantially be exactly what we need on Earth right now to pursue freedom from the slavery systems we struggle so hard in.

Uranus and Aquarius are an antidote to the tyrannical circumstances of the world at this moment, and their energy filling the air is something we should gratuitously anticipate and appreciate to the fullest.

Depending on how much people utilize this energy, the freedom seekers and revolutionaries of the world will solidify and crystallize their efforts of the past several years during this time. These people will find themselves in circumstances ripe for the inspiration to fight for freedom again: the thinkers and activists everywhere will form new structures and crystallize past efforts into a new form this year. The air will finally be ripe for the activists again.

While Uranus is the revolutionary, thinker energy when it is imbued with the purpose and heart of some water energy like Neptune, Pisces, or Cancer, Uranus is like mad science in harsher aspects.

Uranus is exactly what people felt in the early years of this decade, with 2012-2015 Jupiter-Uranus-Pluto blasts occurring with Blood Moon eclipses contributing to the rise of the alternative media, and a fiery activist spirit.

The most important aspect of the 2010’s decade was undeniably Uranus square Pluto from 2012- 2015: the great purging and dissolving (Pluto) of old ways, old ideologies and previous conceptions of how the world works (Uranus). This was the awakening people experienced, and the long Uranus square Pluto had bursts of positive energy and activity at the moments Jupiter locked into Uranus square Pluto.

These blasts of awakening, thinking energy occurred in 2013 and 2014 at the peaks of:

Jupiter sextile Uranus (2013)

Jupiter opposition Pluto, Jupiter square Uranus (2014)

Jupiter trine Uranus (2014 and 2015)

And here in 2017, at the center of all the other aspects in the sky, Jupiter opposition Uranus and Jupiter square Pluto are there. A great purging and changing of ideas, an awakening defined by Uranus and Pluto is the dominant theme of this decade.

So all this time, the Uranus of this era has been in Aries: lit on youthful, energetic fire. Since 2011 the Uranus/Aquarius people of the world, the thinkers, revolutionaries, or on the dark side the stubborn ideologues and those trying to build a scientific dictatorship, have been lit with fire.

But in 2018, Uranus will start to leave Aries. Uranus will enter Taurus, and for the next 7 years, the fire and energy will not be present in people as it was most of this decade. This configuration in 2017 is the grand finale of the fiery revolutionary energy of this decade: Uranus in Aries’ finale.

After the depression we felt from late 2015 to now it’s finally time for more of that 2013-2014, high inspiration Uranus energy. However, we can’t expect it to feel as climatic and euphoric as 2013-2014. We all went through something and generally speaking we became humbled and changed after the intensity of the recent purging. We had a wave of awakening, a euphoric, intensely confidence building one for the first several years of this decade, and then a fall to a low pit of depression, and now we’re being built back up but the circumstances of our world still remain unsolved.

Jupiter quincunx Neptune

The entire time the fire trine is stuck, this aspect will be as well. It’s a special, particularly pleasant one, a positive quincunx. A Quincunx aspect fuses together two energies in a way that could either be functional and positive, or discordant and less positive. For example, two planets quincunx in Aries and Scorpio are likely to produce volatile, impulsive (Aries) deep feelings (Scorpio), but not 2017’s Libra-Pisces quincunx.

Libra and Pisces are both more relaxed, harmony-loving, emotion feeling signs. The planets beaming their energy through them and forming the aspect, Jupiter in Libra and Neptune in Pisces, are also harmonious and positive planets, especially in those places. Jupiter and Neptune both formerly represented Pisces and Sagittarius in astrology, before the discovery of Neptune. A Jupiter-Neptune aspect is a strong pull toward the spiritual, the Neptune or Pisces energy.

This mix of Libra/Pisces/Jupiter/Neptune is a very gentle, watery, deeply feeling but harmonious energy that will saturate the atmosphere for the next several months, calming the intensity of the Uranus, fire aspects, giving the Uranus fire purpose and heart to guide its intense willpower. This aspect has the power to rejuvenate people’s appreciation for life, music, nature, family, and the things they couldn’t enjoy enough during this recent period of collective depression.

Uranus trine/sextile the Nodes, Saturn trine/sextile the Nodes

The points eclipses occur on, or the North and South Nodes, are some of the most important factors in any astrological equation: in a person’s chart, or in the sky at any time. Any aspect to the nodes is sure to be particularly potent.

So Uranus being in a positive trine/sextile to the nodes for the next several months will give our collective direction the influence of thinker energy, revolutionary energy: we will strongly gravitate toward fire laced, freedom loving energy for a period of time that we need to savor to the maximum.

Uranus trine/sextile the nodes is an easy to interpret equation: everyone is drawn to Uranus energy, and this pull toward it will crystallize and fully culminate with the eclipses in August, which will also trine and sextile Uranus.

Then after the eclipses locked into Uranus, like the 2014 Blood Moons locked into Uranus aspects more directly, the high energy, insomnia inducing, inspired feeling will persist in the air for an unknown period of weeks after the eclipse. Eclipses can make energies persist in the air or in specific people’s feelings for weeks after the event.

So now, everyone will be drawn to thinking, learning why we aren’t free in this world, ect. People will feel a conviction to be free. This Uranus energy that is the antidote to humanity’s circumstances of slavery will make one final appearance in this decade of higher hopes for freedom (amidst circumstances that seem hopeless).

However, remember that when any positive, functional aspect occurs the entire world feels it at once (as with anything that happens in the sky). So everyone, from the most evil to the most compassionate of people, awake or asleep people, will be feeling a form of this inspired, higher energy Uranus: it could fuel a purpose, like the fight for freedom, or it could get contorted into stubborn, headstrong discordant energy in people individually.

Either way, our “bottom” class desperately needs this energy that is inherently non-compliant and freedom seeking. This energy never fails to inspire disobedience, and no Uranus energy will be this imbued with fire (Aries) for 7 years. No Uranus energy will have this type of fire for 21 years, Until Uranus enters Leo, the next fire sign.

So what will Saturn trine/sextile the nodes do?

It is the same thing as Saturn trine Uranus: the Uranus energy described above will be crystallized and solidified in the collective consciousness where it will never be forgotten.

Years from now this year will be remembered. Saturn trine Uranus and the nodal/eclipse locking into Uranus are two factors sure to solidify this feeling we’re about to have in the consciousness of people for a long time. What we felt this decade will not be forgotten.

North Node in Leo, South Node in Aquarius

The nodes bear an energy where they stand, and the Saturn/Uranus solidification of purpose will crystallize into this axis where the eclipses occur. The whole equation lies on the Saturn/Uranus being beamed into Leo/Aquarius. Aquarius is the sign of Uranus, and Leo is the sign of the Sun. This is an equation for warm, human (Leo, Aries) purpose and unwillingness to succumb to slavery (Uranus, Aquarius).

The North Node’s position determines what energy will collectively satisfy everyone at any given time. Collective lessons pertaining to a certain energy change every 1 1/2 years with the movement of the nodes backward through each sign.

So as the North Node in Virgo 2015- now, made all those who tapped into their intuition gravitate toward a desire to better their health, lessons about poison and chemicals, lessons about paying closer attention to detail in life (all Virgo), the North Node’s recent entrance to Leo changes the flavor of this era’s lessons. The North Node pulls us like gravity to an energy that satisfies and grows us, advances us personally and collectively on a deeper level. Now Leo’s energy will fill this role.

Leo energy is about warmth, the arts and crafts, skills and hobbies of life (art, music, film, books, any form of creation or construction).

Leo energy is about an ambition, a sunny, warm, human desire to create something or accomplish something. When aspected with Uranus, or a purposeful, heart filled water energy like the Jupiter quincunx Neptune that will coincide with North Node in Leo, the energy becomes warm, human fire for whatever purpose: here it is extra inspired and ambitious.

So in 2017 and 2018, we’ll have a collective hunger for wholesome, warm, sunny energy. This energy will be filled with purpose and heart, Uranus and Neptune, and we’ll have an equation for people desiring freedom. Coldness, technology, these things will feel less appealing then heart filled music, the Sun, nature, the crafts and activities of life, ect. The South Node in Aquarius also means we will have a desire to distance ourselves from technology (Aquarius). However, the revolutionary energy of Uranus’ sign Aquarius will surely be present in the air.

Conclusion

In short, this is what the next few months will be like, leading up to the August eclipses in Leo and Aquarius which will bring this energy to fruition, and leave a long lasting imprint of it that will persist for probably the rest of 2017.

– Warm, unafraid, strong fire energy with revolutionary purpose (North Node in Leo, Uranus trine NN)

– A desire for wholesome, warm, down to earth activities over technology (Nodes in Leo and Aquarius)

– A music and nature loving soft, pleasant, watery emotional energy in the air helping everyone feel their hearts (Jupiter quincunx Neptune)

– A solidification of this decade’s ideologies, ideas, revolutionary energy, thinker energy: a grounding in stone of what we believe in and care about (Saturn trine Uranus)

The next article will explore in greater detail exactly what the August eclipses will solidify, and what will happen next.

This article (All Outer Planets Lock Together: Fire Trine on Eclipse Point to Last 5 Months) is a free and open source and can be re-published anywhere with proper attribution to the author and Themindunleashed.com.

(Image credit: NASA, LID, Wiki, NASA, NG, Mashable)

If you haven’t had a chance to be profoundly awakened by this book yet, here are ten quotes from it that will move you to question your own environment, religion, culture, and relationships, to possibly find something more.

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else … Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.” 

We so often misunderstand the difference between wisdom and knowledge in this world. Wisdom is timeless. It can only be arrived at with discernment and the development of our consciousness to a level that understands paradox and true freedom.

Knowledge simply binds us to erroneous, concrete beliefs, making it nearly impossible to understand the truth of the Universe. Wisdom, however, discloses Truth in ways that cannot even be explained with a thousand books, a million teachings from religious figures, or a hundred million facts memorized and assimilated. Wisdom is so pure, that even language corrupts it.

“When someone seeks, then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.” 

There are numerous literary and mythical examples of the seeker. Joseph Campbell describes the seeker in the quintessential quest for the Holy Grail – a representation of some outer prize that can be obtained with enough valor or sacrifice, but what we truly seek can be found only within our own hearts. When we seek an outside goal, this is an indication that our own hearts long to be understood. Striving for something outside ourselves causes us to forever remain a seeker.

“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.” 

All people, places and circumstances in life are fodder for spiritual advancement. Tears are a spiritual release. Hearing a song on the radio that reminds us of someone is a clue from the Universe to send that person love and compassion. Seeing someone else go through something horrible and thinking, “that could have been me,” is a reminder to be thankful.

Getting stuck at a red light is a reminder to breathe deeper. An argument is a gentle tug from the Universe to look inside yourself. Everything that we experience can help us grow. It isn’t just the positive, airy fairy things that help us grow.

When we do a life review, the times we acted with courage and faced our pain, fear, and sadness will be the moments when we smile the biggest.

“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.” 

This point is described in great detail by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan in their discussion of spiral dynamics. The way they visualize change is in a spiral. Though we may circle around to the same challenges, each time we do, we are higher up on the spiral, hopefully with a higher level of consciousness with which to approach the problem.

Beck explained that if we try to impose our ‘solutions’ too far ahead of the curve the result can be rebellion rather than transformation. Because of this, the authors use the term “more complex” instead of “better” or “higher” to describe humanity’s stages of evolutionary development. Even if we haven’t quit reached the apex of what we can visualize, we have already taken many steps to make a better world a reality.

“So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.” 

Sex is so often a mindless exchange between people these days. It is not an act to be engaged in so recklessly, though. When we share each other’s bodies, subtle energies are exchanged between us. The cultivation of these energies can even be used to achieve higher states of consciousness. When we act as though our bodies are just sacks of flesh, instead of the physical manifestation of energy, then we are missing the point of sensuality.

“It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.” 

One of my own spiritual teachers once said to me, you only have to learn to love. That is your only lesson while you are here. Even when we think we are loving, there are usually ways that we are not acting, thinking, and feeling from a loving place. This includes how we think and treat ourselves, not just other people.

“My real self wanders elsewhere, far away, wanders on and on invisibly and has nothing to do with my life.” 

Whatever you define yourself as in this life – a father, a mother, a daughter, a son, a husband, a friend, a lover, a worker, etc. – these are only labels. They don’t not encase your infinite soul. You have been all these things and more in many lifetimes, and in many more places than where you are now.

“Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them.” 

You know that other saying about opinions and asses. Enough said.

“One can beg, buy, be presented with and find love in the streets, but it can never be stolen.” 

With everything that has been taken from us by an evil, destructive, psychotic, corrupt cabal, isn’t wonderful to know that love cannot be traded like a stock or destroyed like gold, faked like paper money, or made to be more, or less valuable at the whims of a few elite. Love is eternal, indestructible, and pure. It is our greatest treasure.

“I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.” He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.” 

 Every single major religion on this planet has been corrupted. This doesn’t mean that religion has nothing left to teach us. It also doesn’t mean you need to believe in God or be an atheist to arrive at true wisdom, but as long as you are looking to an institution or a person to bring you enlightenment, you’ll miss it.

Image: Source, Source

‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’

– Buckminster Fuller

The Six Dimension Model

Around ten months ago I had a profound and very sudden awakening brought on by the realization that humanity was on a collision course with itself. It was at this point that I decided I was going to dedicate my life to changing the education system. Like Fuller, I thought it was much more pragmatic to wipe the slate clean and start over than to try and patch up the leaks of the old system, so I came up with what I call The Six Dimension Model.

In no particular order, these six dimensions are Self-Discovery, Inquiry, Sustainability, Innovation, Communication, and Empathy.

Self-Discovery

The first of the six dimensions focuses on the internal and personal growth of the individual child. Children will have access to all the avenues of discovery they desire, from artistic and aesthetic practices to sports, outdoor activities and everything else in between.

Creative play will be a part of every day, and students will be given free reign over a wide range of creative tools and resources with which to draw, build, invent, compose, design, imagine, and experiment to their heart’s content. Teachers will take the time to get to know each child on a personal level, and will make every effort to nurture and unearth each child’s natural abilities, passions and interests.

Children of all ages will take part in meditation and mindfulness practices to help them align with the essence of who they are and assist them in finding the path they wish to take with their lives. This will not be a mandatory practice, but instead will be something the school system highly encourages as a tool for self-discovery.

Inquiry

This dimension is all about providing learners with the tools and resources to be completely independent critical thinkers, and to discern information through an investigative approach. The role of the teacher will shift from an information dictator to a facilitator of open dialogue. Traditional teaching methods will make way for more Socratic-style mentoring, which involves probing and challenging students through a process of open-ended questioning. Socratic mentoring is named after the Athenian philosopher, Socrates, who wisely said, ‘I cannot teach anybody anything – I can only make them think.’

Schools will not teach a single version of history. Instead, children will investigate the evidence from a number of different perspectives, and alternative accounts of history will not be dismissed or overlooked. They will then collate and weigh that evidence before reaching their own conclusions. Differences in opinion will be encouraged and will be a necessary departure from the Orwellian groupthink mentality of the herd. Philosophy will also be taught as part of this dimension, giving students the ability to challenge their own rigid belief systems and open themselves up to different viewpoints and perspectives. The classroom will be a place where children truly feel like they are able to question everything and have their views respected, no matter what those views may be.

Religious doctrines will be abolished as they have no place in the education system. Open discussion of religion within a philosophical context will be encouraged however, as such discourse is highly valuable.

Sustainability

At present, the education system does not take our environmental reality seriously enough. Sustainability must be a primary focus in any new system. With the catastrophic deforestation of the Amazon, the plastic junkyards in our oceans, the pollution in our atmosphere, the displacement and destruction of our ecosystems, the threat of nuclear radiation, and now the plundering and pillaging of the Arctic regions, it is paramount that our children are not sheltered from the truth of our real and lasting impact on the environment.

Students will learn all about intelligent and effective resource/waste management, will interact with new energy technology in all its forms, and will be empowered to become problem-solvers with regard to the environmental crises facing our planet. Immersion in nature will be an integral part of this model, as it is crucial for us to regain our connection with the earth and with all life on it. The aim will be to get children out of the traditional classroom setting as much as possible and into a diverse range of environments that suit the learning context.

Children will also be equipped with the skills to become self-sustainable. This means being taught how to grow their own food, how to provide their own energy supply, how to build a house that can withstand the elements, and all other real useful life skills that allow them full autonomy over their own lives. The aim is to give young people the freedom of not having to rely on any system to do everything for them. They will be shown how to make sound choices for their health and wellbeing, through good nutrition, regular exercise and meditation. Again, it will be the responsibility of the children to look after their own vitality, and none of this will be forced on them.

Innovation

Humanity’s greatest feats of creativity and progress have always been born out of unconventional ideas. Out of the box thinking will be deeply ingrained in the philosophy of a new education system. Schools will place a great deal of emphasis on divergent thinking, that is, thinking that does not require a clear right or wrong answer to any given problem. Divergent thinking strategies allow children to sharpen their natural creative intelligence so that they may reach their highest potential as innovators of the future.

All unnecessary competition in the classroom will be replaced by collaborative teaching and learning practices. Our human potential is far greater when we work together than when we work individually or at odds with each other. We must raise our children in an environment centred on collaborative and community-oriented principles so that they may grow to help create a better world and a fairer reality for the whole species.

Mathematics will be an optional pathway beyond elementary/primary level. Math will become a meaningful and highly relevant study with regard to its real world application. Students will also discover how sacred geometrical principles relate to nature, to the building of ancient civilizations, and to the framework of the universe itself.

Science education will see a shift away from reductionist materialism and into non-physical and quantum phenomena. This is not to say that the education system will abandon material science, but instead will extend its reach above and beyond traditional boundaries to include a study of that which we cannot perceive ordinarily with the five senses. All such exploration will occur through experimental and investigative inquiry by applying the scientific method.

Communication

This education model aims at retaining our native languages and recognises that cultural diversity is necessary in a thriving world. That said, English will also be taught across the board as that will enable all races, cultures and peoples to connect easily via written and spoken language.

Literacy and language acquisition will remain a cornerstone of the education system at elementary level, but will be voluntary at secondary level. Once a child can read fluently and get their message across effectively, it is no longer an absolute necessity for them to pursue further advancement of these abilities unless they choose a path that requires these skills. The engineers, nurses and dancers of the world would most likely prefer to use that time to develop skills in other areas.

Media literacy will be taught from around the age of ten. Children will be exposed to all kinds of media and will learn to think critically about the persuasive techniques being used. They will be able to read subtext, recognize manipulative language, and dissect political propaganda in all its forms. These skills are essential if we are to raise our children to maintain dominion over their own minds.

Students will also learn to recognize emotions and body language, and will apply that understanding to the management of social relationships and their own personal growth. By becoming conscious of their emotions, they will be able to minimize conflict, both internally and externally.

Empathy

The last of the six dimensions, Empathy, is all about bringing real human connection into schools. It is so important that the future generations learn to value all life on the planet, so that our species does not continue to perpetuate the vicious cycle of war, oppression and conflict that has caused an unconscionable degree of pain and suffering.

In order to evolve, we must unite all colours and creeds and remove all barriers of separation. Nationalist fervour will be eliminated. There will be no pledge of allegiance. There will be no ethnocentric pedagogies. The education system will take a holistic, planetary approach, and will work on the foundational philosophy that we are all one.

Schools will function as real communities instead of the institutions they are now. Children will be valued, respected, and trusted with important roles of responsibility in the school. They will also be encouraged to engage in random acts of kindness in and out of the classroom, and to act with compassion and human decency in all that they say and do. Kids will learn strategies to empathise with others who are experiencing psychological, physical or emotional turmoil, which could be as simple as sitting silently by them and sharing their pain, or a heartfelt hug. Teachers will have the freedom and flexibility to establish a human connection with every child under their wing. Children will no longer feel alienated by their school system, but loved, understood, and empowered.

The Six Dimension Model will bring much-needed balance back to our education system, and will give both left-brain learners and right-brain learners the same opportunities to reach their highest potential. There is much more to this blueprint, including the structure and implementation, that I have written about in great detail in my book, Education Revolution, but this article should give you a clear idea of the scope of this vision. If this is the kind of education system you want to see for the future generations, then let’s hit the reset button together!

About the Author

Will Stanton is a writer and activist who has devoted his life to changing the education system. He has just launched his book, Education Revolution, which proposes an entirely new global education model for humanity called The Six Dimension Model. The book is available in paperback format on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers.

You can follow Will’s Facebook author page here:

https://www.facebook.com/thesixdimensionmodel

This article is free and open-source. The author grants permission for anyone to republish it.

“The thing about people who are truly and malignantly crazy: their real genius is for making the people around them think they themselves are crazy. In military science this is called Psy-Ops, for your info.” –David Foster Wallace, ‘Infinite Jest’

When we utilize critical thinking and question whether what society tells us is true or not, we are called “paranoid.” When a major tragedy strikes, we are conditioned to automatically accept what authority figures and the media tell us without question, lest we wish to be cast into the tainted demographic of society known as “conspiracy theorists” –basically, a manipulation of the term “free-thinkers,” insinuating a person’s open mind is instead a psychologically deranged prison. When we feel sad, we put on brave faces like we were taught to do; and we certainly do not let others see us “break” down, as to do so would be socially unacceptable. We fail to realize this, in reality, is the very definition of weakness. The truly brave thing to do would be to embrace and listen to our feelings, otherwise known as embracing our innate human nature. Rarely do we consider that by repeatedly denying ourselves the opportunity  to “break” down and feel our emotions in their entirety, we are simultaneously sealing our fate to break down on a chronic basis in the future, as the accumulated negative energies within us from our repressed emotions will eventually reach full capacity and burst.

When we fail to thoroughly work through and resolve our emotions, their energies remain stuck within us and accumulate until all we feel is their collective darkness, as there is not much room left inside us for anything else. This, of course, is quite frequently the working definition of “chronic depression.” Since we masked our sadness and anger so many times, we seemingly have no root cause for our chronic depression. Once repressed emotions from various experiences become piled up within, it is close to impossible to distinguish one from another and trace each one back to their origin. As a result, there is no identifiable root cause of our now unrelenting depression –and rightfully so, as there are many. Of course, the doctors we go to when such depression befalls us typically only lend to the notion that there is no root cause, and in no way promote healthy methods of taking responsibility for the management of our emotions in the future. However, they nonetheless claim they can help us –and they do, they help us to further gloss over uncomfortable feelings by placing us on psychiatric medications such as anti-depressants. Unfortunately, anti-depressants not only take away feelings of sadness, they to some degree take away all feelings in general.

When it really comes down to it, the choice to escape darkness is at the same time the choice to escape light. To knowingly opt out of painful emotions is to unknowingly opt out of pleasurable ones as well. Unfortunately, this numb state of existence promoted by modern day society is all too easy to fall victim to –especially when medical experts we quite literally trust with our lives tell us it is a correct and healthy way of being, generously giving us substances to feed our desire to not feel pain of any sort. So, who and what is really crazy here?

“Our education from the start has taught us a certain range of emotions, what to feel and what not to feel, and how to feel the feelings we allow ourselves to feel. All the rest is non-existent.” –D.H. Lawrence, ‘A Propos of Lady Chatterley’s Lover’

Since we are taught from a young age which feeling are acceptable to feel, what emotions are safe to express, what heart driven behaviors are appropriate to act upon without deviating from the “norm,” doing otherwise seems incredibly dangerous and can easily invoke paralyzing fear. However, subduing parts of ourselves by cutting off certain feelings and prohibiting emotions from arising past a certain level is the truly dangerous thing to do. It prevents us from fulfilling one of our primary obligations in life –to give birth to all parts of ourselves, to emerge into the world as beings alive in every sense of the word, and to then share with the world our unique gifts stemming from the deep sense of luminous aliveness radiating within.

Allowing Ourselves To Fully Feel

How do we go about allowing ourselves to feel our emotions in their entirety though, and how do we do so without letting ourselves become consumed by the negative energy of the more painful ones? For starters, we stop telling ourselves that feeling any emotion too intensely is wrong, because perhaps there is actually no such thing as feeling TOO intensely, there is only feeling something intensely and not knowing how to then work through those feelings. Perhaps it is not the feelings themselves that are the problem, but our inability to deal with those feelings. Perhaps  there is no clearly defined right or wrong way to feel, there is only feeling what it means to be alive in its entirety. And whether or not those feelings are painful or pleasurable will not matter much in the end. What will matter is we can rest assured that we did not take life for granted, knowing we seized every opportunity to fully live.

Next, we must cease to resist strong emotions out of fear, often resulting from a subconscious awareness that surrendering to them will inevitably change us within on a deep level, as anything of depth in life always does –and we certainly must stop worrying that allowing profound changes within may cause others to no longer accept us. After all, any love with conditions is limiting, and thus does not embody the true definition of love. Those who do not love us unconditionally and who hold a firm picture of how we should live our lives do not serve our true nature, and should in no way be allowed to influence who we are or what we do or do not become. Ultimately, we must die to the false belief that a way of life that is safe even exists. As Michael Meade so eloquently put it, “a false sense of security is the only kind there is.”

Once we dissolve the fear of allowing ourselves to fully feel due to the desire to be socially accepted and the like, and begin the process of feeling our emotions in their entirety and journeying deeper into our hearts, we often run into the problem of subconsciously resisting from fully engaging in the process because it is uncomfortable at times. However, at this stage of journeying deeper into our hearts to reclaim our capacity to feel, it is crucial to acknowledge that the only reason we feel this discomfort is because we have been conditioned to believe we should avoid discomfort and pain –much less take responsibility for working through our pain, especially when emotional in nature- at any cost. Basically, we must become comfortable with being uncomfortable. A strange thing happens when we do this –feeling uncomfortable begins to dissipate entirely, as we have given ourselves permission to feel and surrendered to its existence, thus dissolving its power over us. No longer feeling uncomfortable over, well, the act of feeling in itself, sends a signal to our subconscious minds that there are really no “good” or “bad” emotions, there are just emotions. In this, we learn “good” and “bad” are merely a matter of subjective perception, and  many of our perceptions regarding what is good and bad are actually not our own that were born out of our own self-discovery and life lessons, but are ones that were instilled within us from a young age via conditioning from others.

It is our inherent birthright to explore life and use our personal experiences to formulate our own perceptions in life. In order to cultivate such experiences, the manner in which we live must stem from the deep sense of aliveness within that can only be accessed when we feel intensely and allow ourselves to be flooded with passion. Inevitably, this leads many to find there is really no such thing as “bad” feelings, in the sense that they are intended to harm us. Rather, the feelings we once revered as “bad” are intended to deliver specific messages to us, signaling certain areas in our lives are not in alignment with  the true nature of our souls.

Beginning to work with our feelings rather than against them, and exploring them to unveil the messages they are attempting to reveal, is the process of working  with our different ego states –not dissolving our egos entirely, but transforming them. Eric Berne, who developed the idea of Transactional Analysis and Structural analysis, was the first to really bring to light the idea of observable egoic states within individuals –the parent, adult, and child egoic states. Using this theory, we can begin to identify the different ego states within and learn what role each one plays, essentially allowing us to work with and nurture the expressions of all of them rather than suppress them. The ultimate goal is to bring to surface and heal the fragmented parts of ourselves we have repressed, and essentially reintegrate these parts of ourselves into the whole. You can learn more about this process and the different techniques for working with ego states and reintegrating fragmented parts of the self into the whole to cultivate a healthier internal state here.

To feel is to be human, to be alive. To not feel is to be less human, to be less alive. This is a grotesquely reckless way to live, as it involves taking life for granted. In fact, it may be one of the most damaging forms of abuse humans are capable of inflicting upon themselves. I in no way expect you to accept my words and the concepts they shape as absolute truths. In fact, I beg of you to do the exact opposite –to consider them, but not adopt them, and instead go out and find your own personal truths.

©2015 The Mind Unleashed, Inc, all rights reserved. For permission to re-print this article contact contactthemindunleashed@gmail.com , or the respective author.

We all have a certain degree of admiration for those forward-thinkers who were ahead of their time or for those free-spirited individuals who had the courage, the will and the foresight to speak out their minds despite risking being labelled as non-conformists and cast to the outer fringes of society.

Well, truth be told, that is never a real threat for free thinkers. Actually that is where they belong and makes them what they are. Free-thinkers breathe and thrive at the margins of society where structure and chaos cross at the borderline. If you want to be a free thinker, embrace chaos, novelty, disruptive change and non-conformity. Free-thinkers live on the brink of social breakdown. They live on the edge, away from the anaesthesia of normalcy and institutionalised control.

They are not held captive by the rigid walls of the dominating worldview. They do not fear change, poverty or conspiracy. If you want to free your thinking and become an agent of change and novelty, there are a few things you need to recognise and understand.

1. Creativity is your natural birth right:

We stereotype creative thinkers as artists or bohemians who are different than the rest of us. Well that is plainly false. We are all endowed with the gift of creativity. Education, or rather schooling, has successfully stripped us from that natural disposition. It has moulded us into mechanistic and reductionistic images of humanity – into cogs in the wheel. The schooling system is designed to make people think within the same parameters – those laid down by the dominating view of society and culture.

Students are discouraged to deviate and think freely outside of those parameters. They just have to follow curricula which channels them to examinations, higher institutions and eventually become part of the workforce. Yet creative thinking is your natural birthright. They only taught you how to unlearn it without even noticing.

2. Group thinking & Herd Morality are your enemies:

Group thinking is the silent enemy of free-thinking. We unconsciously follow the rhythm of the crowd. When the crowd shouts, we feel compelled to shout. When the crowd panics, we panic. Emotions, sentiments and ideas can be very contagious. So is thinking. It’s quite easy to follow the line of thought of your peers and those in authority. Yet as we become sedated with group thinking, we lose the power to claim the authenticity of our own mind.

Besides thinking, we judge people and events as being right or wrong following the morality of the herd. We succumb to morally feel what the rest of the herd feels about an issue. Morality is a highly debatable philosophical idea but the short end of it is that herd morality limits our potential to be free-minded, responsible individuals.

3. Perspective is key:

The free-thinker knows the power of perspective. Perspective changes everything. What we feel or think about something can dissolve or flip the other way round just by changing perspective. Even the strongest of views and beliefs can change when a newer perspective is reached. What seems like loss can be seen as opportunity just by changing your perspective. Adversity can turn into a learning opportunity; problems can turn into a solution; what is failure from one perspective can be seen as a launching pad for success from another.

When you think freely you know that there is always more than one perspective on a given situation. You just need to view things from another angle. I like to use the internal courtyard analogy. We are all windows in a circular building overlooking an internal courtyard. The perspective from my window is different than the others. Hence, if I want to have a better picture of the courtyard of life I need to look at it from other windows.

4. Knowledge is provisional:

Conservative, authoritarian, religious or institutional structures resist change forcefully because their worldview rests on the premise that their knowledge or beliefs are absolute. Even Science can and did fall in this trap at times. Yet the free-thinker is sure of only one thing – that knowledge is provisional. What we think we know today will be debunked or dramatically changed by what we know tomorrow. Free-thinkers run away from individuals or organisations who claim to know something, or worse, know everything. They are fully aware that we haven’t got the faintest clue yet, despite big leaps forward, about the world, life and the Universe at large.

5. Popping the time bubble:

Free-thinkers, especially visionaries and forward-thinkers have burst the time bubble. That means that they recognised that we view the world through the narrative of our time. That narrative changes over decades and centuries yet we are closed in a time bubble so to speak that limits us to see the world only within the narrative of our own time. The greatest innovators, futurists, visionaries and thinkers saw beyond that narrative. They burst the time bubble open and saw ahead of their time.

6. Defying institutional pressures:

Society had two major forces at play. One is a top-down control transmitted hierarchically through the institutions. The other is a force of change, novelty and innovation which is built bottom-up from individuals and slowly accepted and adopted by larger social structures. One crazy innovative idea from a free-thinker on the fringes of society can be taken up by some influencers and spread virally through the mass media until it becomes a norm. OK this is a simplistic overview but it’s enough to show the basic mechanics of social change.

Free thinkers are those individuals on the fringes of society cooking up shockingly new ideas. They refuse to succumb to institutional pressures of uniformity and control. The institutional top-down forces are there mainly to preserve their status-quo, the stability of the social system and its identity hence they resist novelty and change. The power of the free-thinker on the other hand, lies in constantly defying these institutional pressures to abide to the rules and accepted norms of society.

7. Perception is to be altered not accepted:

Another powerful tool in the free-thinker’s toolbox is perception, or rather its bending and shifting. Philosophers have debated the nature of perception for ages. There are some who hold that perception gives us a reliable view of how our outer reality is and some other argue that perception is greatly influenced and fixed by our beliefs and knowledge. A classic example is colour perception. Colour is only a conventional label. What may seem plainly white to you, is only one of a large variety of hues for the Inuit eskimo who practically lives in a white world. They can differentiate between a wide range of ‘whites’ and they even have words to describe them. The perception is different and so is their reality.

Free-thinking individuals understand how perception is fixed and limited by our consensual view of the world. Yet in reality, perception need not be fixed; It can be altered and changed. It comes to no surprise then that many free-thinkers turn to ancient traditions who had studied and tinkered with perception for millennia either by disciplined practices or entheogens.  Famous free-thinkers like Timothy O’Leary, Terence McKenna and Ram Dass come to mind.