You Are Brainwashed - Is There No Escape?

originally posted by: richapau
a reply to: muzzleflash

society is screwed. there is no escape using their rules.

But that still leaves room open for an escape.
My lamentation was that we'd probably die of old age before we'd find our way outta this maze though.

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: muzzleflash
That's how I know I too am trapped. I needed my fix. It involved some serious emotions and deep reflection.

What is the alternative, lock yourself in a room and meditate to forget or beat yourself up for wanting a milkshake or wanting to say hello to someone?

How would that be any better or worse than just going out and enjoying the milkshake or a conversation with someone?

Dude that milkshake cost 4.50 $.
Now think about that.

I maybe had 20$ total at the time...
I tried not to beat myself up over it, and I did good this time letting it go.
But I definitely deserved at least a small smack-down.
4.50 $ for a milkshake!

originally posted by: Ophiuchus 13
a reply to: muzzleflash

Yes many of us including me are always learning and caught up in the many distractions that tend to capture our immediate attention.
I think my sometimes short attention span helps to not get too distracted oddly.
But I do agree we all need to sit down and reevaluate these old world centers of political-religious and ethical influence.
Especially since a lot of what is brainwashing & controlling is associated with the ancient past.
In no way am saying forget the old world input more less saying maybe update it for better understanding to help enlighten future generations of the New world...

Agreed.

I am curious why you call it "old world" though.
That's an interesting way of putting it.
Hmmmm, lol.

originally posted by: FissionSurplus
a reply to: muzzleflash

Do you think the biologically hardwired responses, like a baby kitten fearing a hawk, was hardwired in by hundreds of generations of environmental experience?

Some say there is a body of knowledge that encompasses EVERYTHING we have learned over the tens of thousands of years. Animals tap into it with ease......we used to be able to tap into it before we lost our ability and our connection to each other and the universe. It's late on here on the east coast so my mind's a little hazy, but the body of knowledge is there, we have just lost our way.

Apparently indigenous peoples still have this deep connection, to the point that they can communicate via telepathy and they just "know" stuff. Modern man has lost that connection and so we have to start all over again.

Let's just say that we are open to brainwashing / hypnosis of what to feel, what to do, and what we like and don't like based on the most superfluous of things, because our original connection to what is real and true has been severed.

What you are referring to is called many different things by many different cultures or sects or schools.

To the Greek philosophers, it was the "Sea of Beauty".
Here's the wiki: Sea of Beauty

The Sea of Beauty is one of many analogies and similes employed to describe a high vision of reality. Some writers have employed this term upon having arrived at the most mature, the farthest, and the highest stages of the philosophical or mystical search.

It is described variously as the Beatific Vision, enlightenment, nirvana, satori, Kensho, Bodhi, awareness, true knowledge, etc.

Those who claim to have had such a high and final vision sometimes report that reality is, at its deepest level, utterly unified, like a vast ocean, and that it is unutterably beautiful, or rather, source of all beauty.

Such likenesses are drawn many places, including the mystical poetry of Sufi Jalal'udin Rumi and the writings of Plato. Rumi, in this unidentified excerpt, writes:
"The shop of Oneness, The Ocean that has many harbours, Yet where there is no division Between man and man, or woman, But only a unity of souls In the process of return to their Creator, Whose breath lives inside each one And helps to guide us home."

Plato, in his Plato's Symposium (210d–e) writes (in the character of the priestess Diotima): The result is that he will see the beauty of knowledge... the lover is turned to the great sea of beauty, and gazing upon this, he gives birth to many gloriously beautiful ideas and theories, in unstinting love of wisdom, until, having grown and been strengthened there, he catches sight of such knowledge, and it is the knowledge of such beauty... The man ... who has beheld beautiful things in the right order and correctly, is now coming to the goal of Loving: all of a sudden he will catch sight of something wonderfully beautiful in its nature; that, Socrates, is the reason for all his earlier labors."

The notion that only or mostly indigenous people have a good grasp on this "Cosmic River of Information" flowing around us is completely absurd to me however.

I will argue strongly (and I believe due to my own ability to connect with it) and will almost certainly win the argument that indigenous people have no distinct advantages whatsoever in this faculty (the mind being able to consciously interact and glean information from the cosmic sea of information).

There is not even a cultural difference. It is clear to me that the human being, of any race or culture, is designed perfectly for the exact purpose of making that connection. And that this connection can not only be had by anyone, but it can be had at any time anywhere even during unpleasant moments. It is, in my assessment, a natural construct of the human being.

I will reiterate, it is a myth that indigenous people have any advantage because well, we are all indigenous to Earth at the end of the day. We are all humans and we are designed the same at our core.

All you have to do is let go of everything and look.
And hell, maybe THAT right there is the solution to all of the brainwashing?
To just let go and Look at Spirit.

originally posted by: rexsblues
Can anyone define the true essence of 'freedom' in this new hyper connected digital age?

The difference between the state of our collective awareness in our fairly recent past and this new digital age is that while we have reached new highs in shared awareness and thought, what juxtaposes that are new lows and attacks on freedom of thought. Not only directly, by example of the current censoring of free speech, but also the more dire and situational construct of it all which is the subconscious natural demand of being 'in the know' and privy to the immediacy of new information.

This is THE primary natural instinct in awareness, one that exists as to judge ones comprehension and piece of mind relevant to the security of the tribe, or community. Through this digital age, we are normalizing and actualizing a state of collective hyper-vigilance to which we can no longer relax from. We are in fact breaking our minds.


Great thread, appreciate the effort.

I've been bored with everything though. Its hard for me to stay interested in any one thing.

I know it "looks like" some sort of ADHD but actually it's so much deeper than that. I am experiencing very complex buried emotions of anticipation and expectation.

It's like part of me knows all of this is meaningless and temporary, and I want to experience that big new thing that's about to happen in my life so that finally everything will change and I can enjoy it.

That's very personal, and I don't know what others are experiencing. I'm thinking about certain goals I'm working towards manifesting, so there's no way it's the same for anyone else.

But me personally? I'm super bored with everything.
I want to write my 50 threads on occult topics but I'm not in the right position to get into the mindset where I can really do them some justice and write them the way I truly want to write them. That's a small part of it, there's way more to my current boredom.

Sorry to go offtrack there.
Your post asks a very hard question that I cannot sufficiently answer at this time (what defines freedom in this context?). I'll think it over tonight... thanks for piquing my inquisitive mind.

originally posted by: SpeakerofTruth
S&F

Of course. There's not a person who's immune to being brainwashed. Even people who are "aware" are brainwashed.

If you stop and think about it,brainwashing is essentially exposing oneself to the same experience, ideas, et cetera, over and over. That's basically what everyone does on some level.

To think one has somehow been endowed with some inherent ability to not be brainwashed is not only the height of arrogance, but of ignorance as well.

True that!
You are enlightened.
Zero sarcasm, I absolutely mean it.
You put the hammer and the nail together with excellence.

a reply to: Cofactor

Good post, and very accurate.

Once you break out of the Matrix, you will do what?

Exactly what Neo did, you'll go right back in there.
But this time to kick some butt, hopefully.

And yes, when everything turns into Agent Smith, you do go insane.
Surviving that battle and coming out on top is the real test.
Once you get past the challenge of madness, you can then begin to design your life rationally and creatively.

I do really believe that those who don't even recognize their chains are the luckiest of all, because they don't go through any of this at all. They just go mindlessly do their thing without any major existential crisis. At least theoretically someone gets off that easy. Maybe no one does and we just like to think others do? It's hard to tell sometimes.

a reply to: growler

But you did exactly the very thing you condemned in your post.

You picked out certain controversial things, picked a side in it, then portrayed the other side as lunatics or as idiots.
While you were condemning people doing exactly that.

I'm not sure I can open your eyes to this. It was contradictory thought patterns exactly like that which caused me to write this thread to begin with.

The mere fact that you determine if someone is "stupid" based on their Brexit vote for example, amazes me. Or the disingenuous way you take a controversy like vaccines and essentially say the side that disagrees with you must not want to cure diseases. I honestly have never met a single person who said they didn't want diseases cured. Not a single one.

I'm afraid that you are so terribly self-centered that I couldn't really teach you much anything. You already know it all.

Forgive me for being a bit of a jerk about it, because some of the things you say are indeed true. It's just most of the stuff you believe, isn't. And I'm afraid you, like the rest of us, are victims of a lifetime of brainwashing. So don't take it personally, but do try to focus on self-development more please.

While brainwashing obviously exists, I don't believe it is as wide spread as you may suggest. Of course, subliminal imaging is everywhere... but I think most are only enticed by that which they like or desire. Some are more easily manipulated than others, but I think this is because they except the manipulation because it meshes with their credo. We all hear information everyday that we choose to except or challenge, but most of us require something to resonate with are personal beliefs before we ever give it added weight.

If a person chooses to be materialistic, so they buy and wear designer brands, it doesn't mean they are brainwashed, just that they like to appeal to other people's materialism. Imagine that, people trying to identify with like minded people.

a reply to: muzzleflash

Where did you go, Jack Rabbit Slims?

So, you think it would make you a better person if you had not had the milkshake?

Would you have been a better person if you had had $1,000 in your pocket?

Wouldn't you feeling that you needed a small smack down part of your brainwashing?

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: muzzleflash

Where did you go, Jack Rabbit Slims?

So, you think it would make you a better person if you had not had the milkshake?

Would you have been a better person if you had had $1,000 in your pocket?

Wouldn't you feeling that you needed a small smack down part of your brainwashing?

If I could go back in time a 1000 times and re do it, I'd have that milkshake every time in every parallel universe.
Yes this is a definite problem, isn't it?

originally posted by: muzzleflash
If I could go back in time a 1000 times and re do it, I'd have that milkshake every time in every parallel universe.
Yes this is a definite problem, isn't it?

Why would it be a problem?

Thinking it is a problem is part of your larger cage brainwashing.

a reply to: daskakik

Ahhhh.... See what I mean?
I'm totally brainwashed from multiple directions!

originally posted by: muzzleflash
Ahhhh.... See what I mean?
I'm totally brainwashed from multiple directions!

What I can't figure out is where you got the notion that these things are bad?

It was there even before you chose to use the word "brainwashing".

Why couldn't the $4.50 shake be an expression of your free will and doing it with nothing but $20 be your refusal to be filled with fear at the thought of running out of money?

a reply to: muzzleflash

I was meaning to make a similar thread, except not so harshly as to illicit the inherent conditioning that has been engrained.

People used to be taught how to think, now in schools people are taught how to react emotionally to a situation, so there can be a group reaction, to illicit a certain scenario.

My question for you, how did you become self aware of this happening or this state of mind?

A person could always try to escape their brainwashing through the use of various psychotropic chemicals. But that would be wrong.

a reply to: WhyDidIJoin

That is a false premise. Who says people used to think and not react emotionally?

Both types of people have always existed.

It's the inevitable conclusion of capitalism, into a pay to play scheme of huge proportion. Elections are a show put on for the guise of legitimacy. The system is rotten to the core and it will take a revolution to throw it out and give something new a try.

This is why it's so hard to come up with an original thought and hence why the Arts are more essential than science to the development of humankind. We are being led down a path to extinction, losing our adaptability with each generation. Like insects we are becoming specialists so it shouldn't surprise us much that the elites think they're the only ones who should be able to reproduce, have their cancer cured or be given life-extending technologies.

Self-awareness comes in steps until hopefully we become "awake" humans at least knowing that we are being manipulated in a thousand ways. The best way to break that conditioning is nature. Nature is reality, the ultimate reality that no one can escape. As soon as the electricity goes off suddenly we're forced to think in ways that everyone had to just a few centuries ago. "How do I keep warm? Cook my food? - little things like that.

Time spent in nature divorces us from the babble of society and gives us a chance to allow our natural cycles to flow and find synchronicity with reality. Inspirations can come from anywhere; the grandness of the stars or the relentless effort of an ant dragging some large morsel back to the colony. Maybe it's the colors in the wing feather of a crow or the raucous chorus of cicadas at night that prod our curiosity and satisfy our aesthetic sensibilities. The more integrated we become with this digital reality the greater the need to find balance by escaping from it.

The Borg is real, unless actively resisted we eventually become absorbed because we lose the objectivity to realize it.

originally posted by: muzzleflash
Please watch this video about how social media and new video game design and marketing techniques are being used to brainwash people and there is even a clip halfway in of an industry expert explaining what things will look like in just a few years, where "points" are connected through all sorts of products and advertisements become part of all of the excitement and "fun". Let me be the first to say, collecting points ain't that fun, it's farming. We are sheep on the wolves' farm.

This is a really good video. The Corbett Report is a fairly good series with a lot of critical thinking and an open source model where you can become interactive similar to how ATS operates.

I will link more videos as the days go on in this thread that are very informative and discuss all sorts of things such as psychology experiments or historical events where conditioning is apparent and critical in determining how those historical events played out - and indeed our perceptions and opinions about those events.

After watching the video my favorite one video was the one guy giving a presentation about how everything will be kept as points.

It sounds like Idiocracy in real life. I feel like that movie will one day be true in our future.