Don't worry, be happy

I’ve been critical of the Law of Attraction and The Secret ever since the glitzy Internet advertising campaign duped millions into purchasing the snake oil offered by these profiteers. I’ve said since the beginning that The Secret represented either a) an incredibly naive and unsophisticated view of the principles of creation and consciousness or b) a deliberate attempt to mislead and demotivate people, feeding them drivel in order to turn them away from spirituality and spiritual awakening. I said that teaching people The Secret is likely to lead to despair and depression because when people start to realize that its not working for them, they are going to blame themselves. After all, as the gurus of attraction say, just put up a vision board and everything you want will flow straight through! All you got to do is exclude negativity, and think positivity, and the universe will provide.  Well, as millions have now discovered, The Secret was a load of bullshit. All it takes is one greedy president with the power to transfer a trillion dollars into private hands and “poof,” the dreams, homes, and savings of billions “magically” disappear into thin air. It’s not magic,  it’s not divine, and there’s nothing spiritual about it!

In any case I thought I’d share some recent comments from refugees of the The Secret with you. Here, for example, is a family who despite having listened to what the Law of Attraction gurus said, lost everything. They now live in abject poverty in a desert without running water or bathroom facilities! Read what she says because she’s quite right, it doesn’t work.

I only know a little bit about any of this, and that is from a small amount of understanding of the law of attraction. But most of the articles I read on that did not go into any true details on how things are done. They make everything when it comes to manifesting something sound like it is sooo easy, when in reality it was not, but then again I never had the money to buy any of the products either that they claimed would help manifest. Again, all this is new info for me, and I want to truly learn how to clear and release fear once and for all. I want to learn also how to manifest anything, what is involved, etc. Right now my family is in desperate need of change, and we are tired of suffering. We currently live in the desert in a small Rv with no running water, bathroom, etc., because we lost everything in 2009. We have looked for work, but have been unable to find anything, and our savings is about gone now. In KY where we lived, We lost our jobs, our home, everything. All we had to go to was a piece of land I had purchased months before all this happened. We want to take control over our lives and learn how to come out of our un-empowered state of being. Thanks so much to anyone for their advice and help.

Most of my journey has been in religions. After 30 yrs worth, I can tell you religion left me more devistated and confused to where my family and I just recently came out of all of it due to feeling utter confused. I guess after we came out of religion, some how we came across a site that told us about the movie called “the secret.” We watched it, and was left in even more states of confusion. We then started looking into all sorts of sites that spoke of “the law of attraction.” When trying some of the procedures we could not understand and learn how to quote, “stay happy and positive” all the time 24 hours a day in order to manifest anything good. Actually we waisted so much money and were left with a lot of disappointment and felt we obviously just cannot connect correctly and this is why we cannot manifest what we want. We kind of gave up because we simply did not have the money to buy any products that claimed they could help us. This left us feeling even more alone, because of our financial situation. Here it is we want to change our life and learn, but yet we have no money to help us. This leaves us feeling even more without power to even help ourselves move forward.

Personally, what I find most disturbing about this whole Secret debacle is how it encourages people to blame themselves. It’s not that our president gave close to a trillion dollars to private bankers, thereby triggering a global recession and throwing thousands out of their homes, it is that “we cannot connect correctly” or that we exist in an “un-empowered” state of being. Yikes! It is not that we live in a corrupt system where the rich steel from the poor, it is that there’s something wrong with you. You have to admit, if you were a government operative, and your job was to convince people that all the economic hardship they experienced was their fault and not the fault of the politicians who steal the money and spend the dollars, you’d be hard pressed to come up with a better psychological tool than The Secret. If your life isn’t working out the way you planned it, don’t look to any other reason then your spiritual failure. It’s brilliant really since it magically disappears the real causes, thereby saving the world for graft and heartless greed, and gets the victims to blame themselves! Wow.

Anyway, if you’re tired of The Secret and the shills who shell it out to you, and want to get a glimpse at how money, energy, and the economy really work, just read my Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy. It’s a nice and easy to digest introduction to the realities of global economics. It will save you from the despair and depression caused by  the LOA and deliver you from the misinformation of those who work, willingly or no, to perpetuate an old world system of graft, greed, and suffering.

Thanks for your call today. I thought about your comments concerning your employees asking my six your old child to “look after his mommy.” I actually don’t think you can normalize that. It is wholly inappropriate, unethical, and unprofessional for a total stranger to step between me and my children, and tell my children what they should do. The word that I will use to describe that in my blog is “paternalistic” as in “the paternalistic continental airline employee presumed to be able to give orders to my child while I was standing right there.” Unfortunately, his attitude was hostile after I pointed out his violation (perhaps he did not like his paternalistic and authoritative stance being challenged) and he transferred this to your head steward in the cabin who also acted in a paternalistic fashion. So is this a feature of the employees of your airline, that they are trained to be paternalistic and presume to be better parents than the parents themselves?

You know, it was bad enough he did it, it was even worse that he didn’t even bother to ascertain the extent of the injuries, or consider whether assistance was necessary. As you said however, your staff are under pressure to close that door and I can only assume at this point that this means regardless of any injuries, traumas, or medical concerns your passengers may have.

I suppose the icing on the cake in this whole affair was the fact that this was all caused by a delay on the part of your airline. Had our original flight out of Orlando not been almost an hour late getting off the tarmac we would have had the time we needed. But your mechanical failure caused this professional and ethical failure, and a whole heap of unnecessary pain and suffering. As you suggested you did have the needs of other passengers to consider (especially those with connecting flights), but really an appropriate, non-paternal, medically appropriate, and ethically valid solution to this would have taken perhaps another minute or two of effort on the part of your employees.

As for keeping a seat empty because you were afraid of offending another passenger, I can tell you that other airlines have different policies. Air Canada, for example, has much better customer service and does in fact free up seats in first class when available and needed. And frankly, blaming the people on the blame for your corporation’s policies is also inappropriate.  You said that your elite members would have been offended if the seat had been taken on compassionate grounds,  but I’m sure people in your plane, regardless of whether they were elite members or not, would have understood on compassionate grounds. Your assumption that people will simply be offended that a free seat was taken by a non-paying member, even when there were obvious medical and compassionate issues involved, appears to me as a justification for your airlines non-compassionate approach to our situation. I know people and people generally act compassionately. Corporations are, however, another matter entirely.
e poor behavior of your employees.

Parables got a bad rap, no doubt about that.

But its not deserved.  Just because some institution misuses parables to confuse, and just because we’ve been to afraid to update our parables for modern mentalities, doesn’t mean parables are bad things per se.  A parable is really just a story,  a teaching tool. A parable is a story with a purpose and that purpose is to teach. Parables are common in religious systems because of their power to convey complicated ideas in short periods of time, but you also find them in native cultures where storytellers traditionally teach using symbols and metaphor. In fact, all cultures use stories to teach, even ours.  In fact, our North American culture relies on stories more than any other culture in history. In fact we (and by “we” I mean Hollywood) ave raised story telling and the use of parables to a visual art form. I mean, if you think that Star Wars was anything other than a traditional Christian parable about the some cosmic battle between good and evil, designed to instruct you in the dogma of western religious thinking, you’re not thinking with a wide open crown chakra. A lot of what comes out of Hollywood is nothing more than fancied up western religious dogma. It might not look like a traditional parable/story, and it might not acknowledge overtly the religious and dogmatic overtones, but they are there nonetheless.

And is that a bad thing? Well, I wouldn’t want to defend Hollywood on this point. If they want to use their vast money and power to reproduce the old world systems of thinking that’s there business. But that shouldn’t turn us off of parables. Parables are just teaching tools. They are stories that we use to convey complicated (scientific, philosophical, or religious) ideas in a grounded, easy to understand and assimilate, and often entertaining sort of way. There is nothing bad about parables per se. In fact a well constructed parable can move your understanding of things forward by leaps and bounds.  Of course it is true they can be used to control and manipulate, but once we’re clear about what a parable is we can think critically about them. Once you know that Star Wars is a Christian morality parable, or that The Knowing is nothing more than a glitzed up and story-fied interpretation of the book of revelations in the bible, then it becomes harder to manipulate you without your knowing. The key is calling a spade a spade. People would look with a lot more critical cynicism at the whole Star Wars enterprise if G.L was honest about what it was to begin with.

And the point of all this?

Well, just this. Just because I write a story and call it a parable, and just because the overt and self-professed function of these stories is to teach you things, doesn’t mean you should shut down before having a look. It’s actually a good thing when we call a spade a spade, or a parable a parable, and rather than turning you off, it should turn you on and get your mind active. A parable is just a story that I and others use to teach. If it is a well executed parable, then it is a powerful teaching tool and if your goal is to learn then why would you turn away from the opportunity? When you know what you’re looking at (or viewing) is a teaching story designed to teach you something, then at least your brain will be turned on and alert and critical of the message, which is a good thing. Alert and critical allows you to decide for yourself whether you want to accept what is being taught.  Unfortunately the same cannot be said of your typical movie theater experience. When we go and we pay our dollars, and when we sit in our movie chair and think we’re simply being entertained, we shut our brains down in order to enjoy the “experience.” And that’s a bad thing! When you do this you are still being taught, but your critical sensibilities are shut off and you more easily accept whatever it is you’re being taught without question, and you don’t want that. If you’re serious about spiritual awakening and empowerment, if you want to get the most out of your time on the Lighting Path, then make sure your brain is working at all times. Learn to see things for what they are, learn to call a spade a spade, but remain open to the guidance and instruction that is provided. There’s nothing here that is sneaky, under the table, or hidden.  It’s all above board, obvious, and in your face. So remain open and decide for yourself.

I am Michael Sharp

Welcome home!

..I live 5o or 6o miles from the east coast in South Carolina and I am very upset and concerned about the Gulf Oil Gusher. There are rumors of mass evacuations and people being confined to Fema Camps. I would not be able to handle a situation like that and would rather die instead. I have worked hard for my small homestead and do not want to leave and have no where to go should I decide to leave before they start evacuations….If you could email me a few lines and tell me if my fears are justified, it would help me very much.

And so I did. I sent a few lines reassuring her that these were just rumors and unlikely to manifest.  I haven’t heard back yet, so I hope she’s doing alright.  But I just thought I’d offer a few comments here. You see, I’ve been following the Internet buzz on this stuff for a few years and if there is anything I’ve learned over the past few years it is this. Internet shock jocks and erstwhile spiritual commentators will say anything just to keep your eyes glued to their pages. They’ll talk about conspiracies and reptiles, gas chambers and body bags on the side of the road, forced evacuations, the elimination pf rights and freedoms, the collection of arms, and just about anything else they think will frighten you. I’ve been paying attention since 911 and it seems every time there is some natural or man made disaster, they trot out the same foul horseshit. The world is ending and the PTB are going to collect you, intern you, and gas you.

Now I’m not saying that such a thing can’t happen. If we learned anything from WWII we learned this, the people in power will go to great lengths to keep themselves in power. And I’m not saying the PTB aren’t preparing for it. Look around you at the incredible amount of surveillance technology being put into place.  Even assuming the best motives and intent, these technologies can always be used to control populations if it comes down to it. What I am saying however is that this possibility, no matter how slim, is being exploited in the same foul way that BP has exploited our natural resources, our leaders exploit their power, for personal gain.  All you need is a general lack of conscious, a willingness to ignore the impact of your words, and a few dollars and cents to motivate, and someone out there who will take their little bit of political knowledge and use that to catch you, and keep you, and sell you.

They don’t care.

They just want your eyes and your attention because the more eyes eyes they have, the more valuable their advertising spaces are!

It is the same principle as on television.

Capture the viewer and present them to the people who pay. The only difference is that on television there are least standards for programming. On the Internet, anything goes. Any jackass, no matter how misinformed, no matter motivated by greed and lucre, no matter how lacking in morals and compassion, can set up a site, write whatever the hell they want, and sell your soul to the highest bidder. And you can be sure when they are doing this they are not taking responsibility. They don’t care if some innocent women who works her whole life commits suicide out of fear and desperation. They don’t worry about the children and the teenagers who they scare. They are in it for the $$ and they’ll stretch and bend the truth in whatever which they can as long as they think it will get them the attention they want.

So what can you do about it?

Go figure.

–

Dear Continental Complaints Department.

On May 28th, 2010 my wife and two children were traveling back to Canada from Orlando on an emergency medical trip (Flight CO 687 Orlando to Houston, CO 622 Houston to Edmonton). My wife sustained serious injuries to her left leg (two fully torn ligaments, an impact fracture, a partially torn ligament, and serious internal bleeding in her leg) and was in serious pain and distress. In order to travel home she needed both the extended leg room of a first class ticket (she is wearing a leg brace that does not allow her to bend her knee), and (because of the pain and medication she was on) the care and supervision of a responsible ADULT. We had arranged with our insurance to purchase two business class tickets and two economy tickets so that I could provide the necessary medical assistance to my wife and so that she would be able to keep her leg straight and elevated.

In Orlando, as discussed with our insurance provider, we purchased two upgrades for our children so we could sit together in first class. We asked the attendant in Orlando to do the same for the Houston to Edmonton leg of the flight but he informed us we would have to check with the flight attendants in Houston. Unfortunately, due to aircraft maintenance issues, we were one and a half hours late flying into Houston. Although they held our aircraft in Houston for us, when we arrived at the plane we were informed that because our children were minors I would not be able to sit with my wife. I explained the medical urgency of my wife’s condition and asked if there was a way to arrange seating so that I could provide the required assistance. I tried to explain that we had upgraded in Orlando and that if we had had time we would have either done the same in Houston, or had our children sit with their grandparents. However because of the technical delays it seemed that neither arrangement was possible. The supervising gate attendant was not at all helpful. Despite a free seat in first class, and despite the presence of grandparents, the attendant made no effort to provide suitable seating arrangements. In fact, your supervisor (some middle aged male), asked my six year old son if he could sit with mommy and provide medical assistance! I pointed out to your supervisor how wildly inappropriate such a request was (who asks a six year old child to provide medical care for an adult female?) and this seemed to just irritate your flight crew who them seemed to go out of their way to avoid accommodating my wife and I, going so far as to suggest that I was being irresponsible for continuing to seek appropriate arrangements so my wife received appropriate medical care. During all this there seemed to be absolutely no legitimate concern for the seriousness of my wife’s injury or her distress. As a result, despite the fact that we had purchased first class tickets for the majority of the legs of the flight, despite the fact that it was no fault of ours that we had no time to make alternate arrangements, and despite the presence of an available first class seat, and an empty seat beside the grandparents, your flight supervisor refused to accommodate us. At one point I even asked your flight supervisor why she would rather leave a seat open than accommodate a family that had just spent 4,000 dollars to fly a medical emergency with your airlines and she had no response. As a result my wife spent four and one half hours on your plane alone, without assistance, and in considerable pain and distress.

In closing I would like to say that after over thirty years of business and pleasure travel we have never been treated so poorly, with such unprofessionalism, and with such lack of compassion and consideration, than we have flying with your airline. I must say this was our first and last flight with your airline.

Anyway, since that movie I’ve avoided seeing anything with Cage in it, which is why it took us so long to see his recent film The Knowing. Even before going in I knew that Cage would be working his magic and we weren’t disappointed. The movie was nothing but a slicked up presentation of Catholic end times dogma. The world is ending we are told, some of you (in this case the children who demonstrate some psychic ability) are chosen and going to get raptured up by “angels,” and the rest of you unworthy fucks are going to die off in some kind of fiery holocaust of some sort. It’s been a common theme of the elites who control this planet for centuries and it’s presented, or rather re-presented, to every new generation. It is in the Book of Revelation of course where we are told that Jesus, the epitome of God’s love and compassion, is coming back with a hammer to smash the infidels, but it’s also in popular culture. Arthur C. Clarke wrote a novel way back in 1953 with the exact same theme as The Knowing. In that book, entitled Childhood’s End (presumably because the novel marked the end of our evolutionary childhood), the recently evolved children of the earth are saved by some alien intervention while everybody else, including the parents of the kids, are left to die a horrible death.

I suppose what is most horrifying for me about this dogmatic horseshit is the way the people who propagate it make it look like the whole shebang is a good thing. In the movie Nicolas Cage watches his only son walk off into the bowls of the alien light ship because only the children with the psychic ability have been “chosen” to go (and yes, they actually use that work). IMHO, horrible hogwash. If it were true, if aliens really did come to this earth to harvest mother nature’s silver seed (as that 60s musician once sung about), separating children from their parents, and loved ones from their partners, it would really be a unfeeling and callous act–something a heartless monster might do. Yet in the film the aliens are presented as light being and angels!

It’s true. In the last few minutes the aliens are revealed to have the likeness of angels, complete with wispy little entrails that look remarkably like wings.

WTF?

I mean, really?

Light beings would really do something like that, separate kids from parents and leave the parents to die?

No #$%*() way Mr. President.

No light being could even consider such a horrible act, much less carry it out.

That’s something a heartless monster would do.

And the destruction of the world?

Well, I’m watching the end of the film with my seven year old daughter and you can tell she is a little disturbed. As she watches the flesh being fried of the bones of the people of the earth, she wonders “why are they playing music like that.”

“Like what?” I ask her, “knowing exactly what she’s talking about.

“Happy music,” she says.

She’s puzzled by the music score at the end of the film, you see, which is playing a subtly subdued, but nevertheless triumphant counterpoint to the horrible death and destruction she is witness to. Her innocent little child brain, and her uncorrupted child heart, cannot understand what is happy or triumphant about the searing death of all life on this planet and frankly, neither can I. All life on planet earth is being destroyed, six billion people are dying, and the band is playing a happy tune?

Are the writers insane?

What exactly are they trying to tell us?

And if you can believe it, that’s not even the worst part!

The worst part is that society turns a blind eye to the problem.

Despite the fact that children are being molested and raped on a daily basis, people pretend it doesn’t exist. Listen to the stories of survivors and you’ll see. Their parents did nothing, their sports group did nothing, the boyscout leaders did nothing, the schools did nothing, nothing! Despite the fact that it is happening all around us, we  pretend it doesn’t exist and in that pretension we let it happen again, and again, and again.

We have a systematic, organized, and deliberate blindness to the problem.

Don’t believe me?

Well, did you know that one in four sexual offenders have between ten and forty victims. That means that 25% percent of sexual offenders have not one, not two, but ten or more victims!

You pause and think about that for a moment.

Now here’s the shocker.

Did you know, serial child molesters can have as many as four hundred victims?

FOUR HUNDRED!

One perp., four hundred victims??

I mean, how can four hundred parents, four hundred mothers, four hundred fathers, four hundred organizations, and four hundred schools not have seen anything?

There are signs.

Children talk, cry, and scream.

They say, “I’m being hurt.”

They watch as their parents turn away and they must ask themselves, “why is nobody listening?”

“Why can nobody see?”

How do you explain four hundred victims if not with the phrase, “organized blindness?”

“Why can nobody see?”

And if that’s not horrific enough, if the callous disregard that society exhibits for the physical and mental health of its children is not enough, consider that the answer that the children give themselves to the question (i.e., “why can nobody see?”) is emotionally and psychological devastating and leads to a severely damaged physical unit and years of chronic psychological and medical distress.

“Mommy is not doing anything to stop it,” says the five year old girl to herself, “so it must be my fault.”

“Daddy is not there to help me,” says the young boy with Father Jim, “so I must not be worthy or deserving.”

What do you think that does to a child?

What do you think that does to a growing physical unit?

Well, I’ll tell ya.

It is experienced as a blow, like somebody hammering on your entire being with a bat.

it is absolutely devastating and the total antithesis of what is required to raise a healthy physical unit with flowing chakras and properly developed systems capable of embracing the full power of consciousness and spirit (See my upcoming The Basic Book, 2009).

Take a look at what happens to the children.

• They blame themselves.
• They don’t trust themselves.
• They feel hopeless.
• The feel disconnected.
• They fear healthy affection
• They feel betrayed
• They feel damaged
• They feel powerless
• They live in shame
• They feel angry, express hostility
• They experience constant headache, or migraines.
• They deny everyday experiences.
• They hate themselves.
• They feel abandoned.
• They can’t have authentic emotional relationships.

Wow, that’s bad, and it’s even worse when you consider what this means for our global society, and what this says about the level of pathology and dysfunction that we accept as “normal.”

Remember the statistics.

Take a look around you at your work.

Ask yourself the question, how many people do I know have had their ability to fully exist in their body robbed from them because of the violence, betrayal, and disdain of those who abused them?

Ask yourself, how many people are walking around incapable of experiencing the full range of intellectual, emotional, and expressive potential of the physical unit because of the profound violation they received as children?

Ask yourself, how many people cannot have an authentic relationship because their ability to trust has been totally and utterly undermined by their family’s willful ignorance of their horrible experience?

Take a look at your own family and ask yourself, “what small child that I know is currently being sexually abused.”

Remember the statistic.

One in three.

In a group of ten children, chances are good that at least three of them  have experienced sexual abuse.

Now, as you allow the enormity of the problem to begin to filter into your consciousness, make a choice and do something about it.

Quit pretending it doesn’t exist around you.

Quit turning a blind eye.

Open to the reality of it.

See it.

Talk about it.

STOP IT.

And I mean everybody here.

If you’re an “innocent bystander,” start talking about it. Bring it into conversation. Show people the statistics. Make it a point to raise consciousness.

If you’re a pedophile, stop what you’re doing and get help now. Don’t wait. You haven’t got time to spare.

If you’re a survivor of sexual abuse, take heart and have hope.

Everyday more and more people are waking up to the realities on this earth and every day more and more people will reach out in understanding and compassion, with help and assistance.

There is no room to despair.

You can recapture the innocence and exuberance of childhood.

You can learn to trust again.

You can reclaim your power.

Trust me, it’s always possible to heal.

I am Michael Sharp

Welcome Home -> http://www.michaelsharp.org

Visit Little Warriors at http://www.littlewarriors.ca

So here’s a good example of the kind of nonsense that surrounds this whole 2012 debacle. Just a couple of weeks ago some guy, a “big name” in the field of 2012 doomsday criers, sent me an email. Seems he didn’t like it that I was telling people that the Mayans didn’t say anything at all about 2012. In an email to me he said, and I quote:

“…you point out that the ancient Mayans didn’t say a single prophetic word about 2012 as a cosmic end date?” Only a little thing about the 9 gods descending, whatever that means… But they do say that they last 4 times this calendar ended, mankind was wiped out, and the gods created a new improved version. A wise person would accept that this infers that they predict the same for 2012. Nice poem though!

Now there’s a lot of manipulative crap going on in this email. This guy is not writing to be friends, he’s writing to control my perceptions and opinions, and that is quite clear. Only a few sentences into his introduction he sets up a thinly disguised criticism of my position by suggesting that a “wise” person (i.e. not me) would infer, based on some things he just told me, that the Mayans predicted bad things for 2012.

Wow. This guy doesn’t even know me and already he’s implying I am a fool AND offering a solution to my foolishness. I can be wise if I just accept without question and agree with him!

Now I imagine that a lot of the times this works. After all, he’s dealing with a population whose self esteem has been hammered by The System and are therefore desperate for anything that they can attach to that proves they are worthy. But it doesn’t work on me. I mean, not only is this a bizarre definition of wisdom (i.e. a “wise” person doesn’t question, a wise person just accepts), but it is very clearly a transparent attempt at psychological manipulation. I’ll be one of the “cool” ones if I go along with him.

Ya right.

Not giving this guy even an inch I immediately fire a polite email back with some questions about why he thought “the gods” were going to smack down humankind and create a “better” version in 2012, when the Mayan calendar rolled over. First of all I asked about the  “nine god’s descending.” That’s a very suggestive comment isn’t it, especially in the context of his comments about a cosmic smack down coming. Are we to infer then that the “nine” are coming to wipe out the unworthy? So I ask him, where does he get this idea and he says, and I quote:

“Here’s the only mention (we have found) of what the Mayans thought would happen in 2012:“

He then proceeds to quote the following:

“The Thirteenth ‘Bak’tun” will be finished

(on) Four Ajaw, the Third of Uniiw (K’ank’in).
? will occur.
(It will be) the descent(??) of the Nine Support? God(s) to the ?.”

When I saw what he was referring to I admit,  I laughed out loud, but I controlled myself and emailed back saying  “This is almost meaningless,” I said, “…absolutely intelligible in fact.”

and he says:

“Correct, almost worthless that text, but indeed the Mayans did think something was to happen in 2012…”

OK so mid game recap. He says the Mayans are coming to smack us down, he drops a quote about the nine gods which he then has to admit is meaningless and irrelevant, but nevertheless he fires on. Something’ is going on, he says, just  “read the Popul Vuh because it says that the world has ended four times before.”

So I do. I go read the Popul Vuh but I only find only one instance of the “world ending,” and unlike his original assertion that there is some commentary about the calendar ending, there isn’t. Nor is there any mention of 2012 anywhere in the Popul Vuh at all!

I corner him on that and he says oh, well,”it’s all inference that 2012 = cataclysm.”

“What?” I think to myself, groaning and scratching my head.

Yes he says, confirming for me my growing suspicion that this guy has gone out to lunch..

“There’s absolutely no statement in any of the Mayan texts at all directly linking 2012 to some kind of cataclysm….”,

“Really,” I exclaim to myself with a mix of horror and amazement.

Ya,  he says, “...Not because the Mayans didn’t say such, but because the Spanish burnt thousands of their books, with only 4 surviving.“

Oh I see, wondering how far down the rabbit hole this guy is going to go. The Mayans’ DID say something  about 2012, but the Spanish burnt their books, and so now we don’t know what they said about 2012.

Well that explains everything!

We’d know what the Mayans had said if the darn Spanish hadn’t burnt their books. I have to admit I’m experiencing a bit of disbelief at this point. I’m thinking about the prophets conferences and all those people jumping on the 2012 bandwagon and wondering WTF is everybody thinking?

I look again at what he has written, drop a few of the filler words that he uses to separate the basic causal statement, and sure enough he is saying…

“There’s absolutely no statement in any of the Mayan texts at all directly linking 2012 to some kind of cataclysm …. because the Spanish burnt … their books.”

So, I ask the obvious question “so you’re assuming that had the Spanish not burned the books, we would have found the Mayan’s saying the world was over in a couple.”

To which he responds, and I quote:

“I’ve got no idea what the books would have said, just that there’d be more info.”

Oh?!

“Keep in mind, I’m never saying a cataclysm is coming,”

Huh!??!?

Only that one might,”

????

“And it would be prudent to prepare for the worst.”

Oh, I say, now I see what’s going on here!!! Did I tell you, dear reader, that this guy is writing a book on how to survive 2012? And he’s not giving it away! He’s charging good money for it.  Of course, nobody is going to buy his book if they think nothing is going to happen in 2012 so… I guess his apparently nonsensical position makes sense…at least from his financial perspective.

Now here’s the cincher. After going through his references and pinning him to the wall, forcing him to admit that the evidence for the connections between the Mayans and 2012 is absolutely non-existence, he finally admits that the Mayans didn’t say anything important about 2012!

“I fully expect the 2012 date did not originate with the Mayans and that whatever they say is not so important.”

Now if you aren’t on the floor in total disbelief at this point, read the above quote again. What the guy has finally said, after trying to shove the Mayans down my throat as evidence that something is going to happen in 2012, is that Mayans didn’t say anything, but somebody did and that’s important.

Of course, at this point the conversation is over. Past this point there is no arguing with him.  I mean, how the heck are you going to argue with his last statement. Ya, no doubt some people think 2012 is important, but that doesn’t mean they are right about it. People thought y2k was important but even countries who didn’t do any prep. at all didn’t collapse into end-times Armageddon. I imagine people sold a lot of books on the Y2K bug, but in the end it all amounted to nothing more that marketing hype.

Anyway, at this point I’m wondering about his initial introduction where he tells me  “A wise person would accept that this infers that they predict the same for 2012.” How wise can it be, I wonder, to accept that the Mayan’s predicted something bad in 2012 when he himself admits that they didn’t say anything about 2012. I mean, on a balance scale with wise on one side and total fool on the other, it’s not the wise person that stops questioning, draws unfounded inferences, and misconstrues evidence.

Anyway, it was a useful conversation. One of his last comments illustrates what this guy is thinking and where he is coming from. He says, and I quote, “All that matters is that someone, at some time, made that date the end for a reason.

Anyway, the thread doesn’t go into a lot of theoretical detail (yet anyway) but it does bring up some interesting points which, if you’re practicing the LP, you may want to peruse. It talks about the significance of the GI as a method for bringing up fear and issues, but also points to the need to develop workable therapies (perhaps building on what psychology already has to offer, perhaps starting fresh) that address the spiritual realities of our collective dysfunction. The thread is in the advanced section of the website, and therefore assumes a basic familiarity with the LP corpus.  If you are a subscriber, simply log onto the main site to access. If you are unfamiliar with the LP cosmology, theology, and psychology, start here.

http://michaelsharp.org/en/forums/lp-advanced/general-discussion/33262-jacob-levy-moreno

I just thought that if I didn’t focus on these issues, didn’t give them any energy, they’d just go away.

So says the female whose health is failing, whose heart is 20 years older than her body (according to her doctors) and who has precancerous growths, and full diabetes.

So says the man who is so full of anger that every week is a stress bomb for him and everybody in his family.

So says the female who takes responsibility for nothing, and blames everything on others.

So says the female.

So says the male.

So say a million people snookered by the Law of Attraction and The Secret.

Boy!

Let me tell you.

Are they in for a big wake up call.

First it was their jobs, their homes, and their dreams, lost as the political reality of this planet, a reality that includes manipulation of the economy for the benefit of the very rich (see my Rocket Scientists Guide to Money and the Economy), beat the “attraction” right out of them.

Now it will be there health as they naively and foolishly turn their attention away from the things that matter most in order to “avoid giving the problems any energy.”

Got a precancerous tumor?

Don’t ask yourself about lifestyle, diet, stress, or any of the other things that make you unhealthy and sick. Just pretend it isn’t there and, according to the Law of Attraction, it will go away!

That’s the secret of the “law” right? If there’s something bad happening, don’t give any energy to it! Pretend it’s not there and it will go away.

I mean…

I just…

You know…

Sigh!

If you want my opinion you can’t just turn your back on the troubles in your life, or in this world. You can’t engage in some California fantasy about the “magic” of attraction.

If things are bad around you…

If things need fixing….

If you got heart trouble…

If your doctor is telling you that you are at risk of developing cancer…

If you’re living in a toxic soup…

Then for God’s sake don’t listen to the fools who tell you to pretend it’s not there. If you do that, the dangerous things in your life that you are pretending don’t exist will kill you.

That’s the bottom line.

If you stand in front of a hungry bear smelling like sausage, you’re gonna getting eaten.

It’s no secret!

That’s the way life works!

You can’t just passively attract your way through it.

You got to open your eyes to reality, dig in, take control, and set your own course.

Awaken, empower, and ascend as I like to say. Better that than being jolted awake one day by the doctor telling you you got cancer and only six months to live.