The Media Fast: Go Hungry Today

In his highly thought-provoking book The 4-hour Work Week, professional young vagabond Timothy Ferris recommends taking a complete media fast (see my review of Ferriss' book here). That is, he suggests stopping watching, listening to and surfing the news media in all its forms - indefinitely. Ferriss recommends a total fast, but that is probably more than many people would prefer. I would include myself in that category. I prefer to be selective in what I read and watch in the media. Nonetheless, I believe that it is highly beneficial to detach for periods of time from the mass media.

It is Ferriss' idea of the media fast that inspired me to include a media fast day in my Urban Enlightenment booklet and workshop. Again, this is an easy-to-do process that anyone can apply - if they are prepared for a little discomfort as their daily routine changes. For greater effect, try turning off the media for longer periods, say 1-3 days, or even a week. 

The Media Fast is meant to be part of a 30-day programme, and will work best as it builds upon the attention-shifting processes outlined in Urban Enlightenment. (A one-off day is is less likely to be as deeply transformational). 

Here's the process in it's entirety. Give it a try!

The Media Fast

Newsflash: the media world isn’t real. That’s right. By ‘real’, I mean it does not project an impartial view of the world. Remember the first law of consciousness: what you focus upon expands, and the media focuses upon that which sells newspapers, airspace and that which gets viewers glued to the TV screen. By definition, the media brings to attention that which is loudest and that which captivates the attention. The problem is that your senses are a vestige of more ‘primitive’ human urges and needs. Your brain is ‘designed’ to be alert to the dangerous and the threatening; and to scan for possible procreation prospects! This is the way our minds and bodies have developed through millions of years of evolution.

The popular media exploits your primitive biological impulses, and locks you into a world of fright, flight, and another unmentionable ‘f’! Everything is distorted through the lens of the Darwinian mind. A plane may have crashed in Africa today, but another 100 000 planes took off and landed without a hitch – but that didn’t make the news. Nor did my stopping on the way to work on Tuesday to check if an old guy sleeping on the stairs downtown in Hong Kong was OK (he was just drunk).

The other issue is that the media presents a consensus reality that effectively brainwashes us. As just one small example, ideas related to Integrated Intelligence, which I have written about extensively, almost never appear in the mass media, and when they do it is often done so in a derisive manner. Clearly, such cognitive constraints can prevent us from activating our full mental potential.

Today your task is to completely detach from the media, no matter what! Do not read any newspapers, media-based magazines, web media, nor view any TV news media  and so on Instead, place your attention elsewhere. Make sure that while you are out and about that you note the REAL world around you. You will probably notice that you are not about to die, and that not everyone wants to have sex with you! Relax and enjoy your safe life in the security of the present moment, the only most real world you can ever experience.

Marcus

Are Your Gadgets Making You Sick?

One of the benefits of being a "sensitive" is that I can sense the harmful effects of certain environmental "hazards". This awareness often comes as an intuitive feeling, but it also comes in dreams and visions. Often when I am meditating or sleeping, small "movies" will play in my head, and they will convey some information about something.

One thing that I have seen repeatedly is the harmful effect of electrical fields on the human body and mind. In these visions I will suddenly see electricity shooting forth, sometimes electrifying my body. The times these visions occur are almost always after extended use of laptop computers. Let me say this as something that I am absolutely certain of. If you use a laptop computer on your lap, you are doing some real damage to your body and your consciousness field. 

Researcher and parapsychologist Michael Persinger showed quite clearly that there is a correlation between nightmares and the presence of electrical devices close to beds. In one instance, a girl reported being attacked by evil spirits. Persinger is a sceptic. When he investigated the case, the first thing he did was remove an alarm clock from a drawer near the girl's bed. The "psychic attacks" stopped. Persinger concluded that the electrical field of the clock disturbed the electrical activity of the girl's brain, making her have nightmares.

I would go a little further than Persinger. As someone who is very aware of the consciousness fields of other people and even of disembodied beings (call them spirits if you like), I have seen repeatedly that over-exposure to electrical fields opens the human aura to manipulation and even possession by low-density consciousness fields and entities. 

My intuitive reading also indicates that there is a correlation between over-exposure to electrical fields and depression. This depression follows from the degeneration of the person's energy field, and/or from the psychic interference.

What can you do about this? Here are some suggestions, and they are all common sense.

1.  If you live next to a power plant, sell the house (preferably to someone who voted for GWB). If you can't sell it, give it away.
2. Turn off all electrical devices if you are not using them, including at the power point.
3. Minimise mobile phone calls.
4. Never, ever, ever use a laptop on your lap. This is psychic suicide.
5. Gong the gadgets! It really perturbs me to see the onset of the gadget culture. Even in their spare moments on the bus or subway, many people are glued to iPods, laptops and fancy mobile devices. Run! Run away!
6. If you have your mobile around at night, keep it well away from your bed. Better still, turn it off.
7. Avoid electric blankets.
8. Keep note of what lies on the other side of the wall if your bed is up against the wall. If there is a TV, CD Player or electrical appliance on the other side of the wall, make sure you turn it off before you go to bed.
9. If you use computers for a long time, take breaks where you get away from the machine. Get outside for a few minutes if you can, and preferably to a place where there is fresh air, grass, trees, or a body of running water. The natural ions in the air will help restore your energy field. Go bare foot if you can!
10. A wooden table is probably best between the computer and you.
11. Nominate at least one computer/gadget free day per week, if possible.

I can't prove any of this, but there is a body of research which provides some evidence (see the article by Stephen Goldate for Living Now magazine.   

 To live your Bliss, you need to find the right spark! However, the electric kind are not recommended!


Marcus

Is Education Killing Us?

Thanks to 22c+ member, Karl, for alerting me to this story.

Just how useful is school? According to one now (somewhat) famous recent high school graduate, it's worse than useless - it's actually dangerous! Erica Goldson graduated as valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School just this last month. No doubt she would have been expected to prattle on about how great everyone was and how she became a better person for her years at school. Instead she took the opportunity to trash the system! You can see the video and read the actual speech, below. Here I offer a few insights of my own, taking specific quotes from Erica’s talk, and suggesting some of its limitations.

Erica highlights many of the issues which I have critiqued in my own writings about education and Deep futures. She says that system is dominated by credentialism, and the test has become the focus of the curriculum. Modern education is embedded within an extremely materialistic society, where the dash for cash is the prime motif in many lives (I might point out that I believe this is less so in Australia and New Zealand, where I have also taught high school).

(You should) Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. 

I would add to what this remarkable young woman has said here. By “intellectual capabilities”, Erica appears to be referring to independence of thought and the ability to individuate as a unique human being. My point is that the analytical mind and intellectual acuity are not enough to empower human beings towards their full potential, to live their Bliss. People also require an enabling of the intuitive mind and Integrated Intelligence.

One crucial issue that Erica fails to address in her speech is that the culture in which her education system is embedded within is often not hostile to individualism and radical thinking. In fact it is one of the major characteristics of the United States as a nation. It's not much different in Australia. I vividly recall the graduating class of my very first teaching post. It was 1992 at Warren Central School in inland New South Wales. The graduates marched into the school hall to the chorus of Pink Floyd's Another brick in the wall ("We don't need no education"). That school was in the tiny town of Warren, with just 2000 people, and in the middle of nowhere. The graduates were basically an unteachable rabble, and this was their way of say “Fuck you!” to the teachers and administrators. This was a phrase directed at teachers at irregular intervals by students expressing dissatisfaction with particular pedagogical processes of which they did not approve.