Category: Philosophy

I Read Only 63 Books in 2021

Here is my reading list from 2021.

I post this up here in the tradition of what I’ve done the last few years. (You can find the others here: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)

Hidden-in-plain-sight within this list you may find the main reason that I read less books this year than previously! Feel free to guess in the comments below 😉

The List

  1. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
  2. The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture by Fritjof Capra
  3. It’s About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated into Your Greatest Advantage by Arlan Hamilton
  4. Walking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine with Ann Frederick
  5. The Practice of Soul-Centered Healing: Vol. 2: Navigating the Inner World by Thomas Zinser, Ed.D.
  6. DMT the Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences by Rick Strassman, M.D.
  7. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
  8. Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer
  9. The Standing Meditation: Excel in the Modern World Using an Ancient Practice by Nate Rifkin
  10. Microcosm and Medium by Joseph P Farrell
  11. Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
  12. The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Translated by Gary Gagliardi)
  13. Feng Shui that Makes Sense: Easy Ways to Create a Home that Feels as Good as it Looks by Cathleen McCandless
  14. Government – The Biggest Scam in History Exposed by Etienne de la Boetie²
  15. The Infinite Machine: How an Army of Crypto-Hackers is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum by Camila Russo
  16. The Fairy Tales of Herman Hesse (Translated by Jack Zipes)
  17. Tao Te Ching: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell
  18. A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload by Cal Newport
  19. White Wash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science by Carey Gillam
  20. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Mate, MD
  21. Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and Beliefs by Steve Hassan
  22. The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution by H.G. Wells
  23. The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
  24. The Internet of Money: Volume One by Andreas M. Antonopoulous
  25. The Internet of Money: Volume Two by Andreas M. Antonopoulous
  26. The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking by Saifedean Ammous
  27. Effortless: Making It Easier to Do What Matters Most by Greg McKeown
  28. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body In The Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.
  29. The Internet of Money: Volume Three by Andreas M. Antonopoulous
  30. Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey
  31. The New Tactics of Global War: Reflections on the Changing Balance of Power in the Final Days of Peace by Benjamin Baruch and J.R. Nyquist
  32. Memos From the Home Office: Channeling the Muse in Business and Life by Perry Marshall and John Fancher
  33. The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last by Azra Raza
  34. People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck, M.D.
  35. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan
  36. Delta-V by Daniel Suarez
  37. Joyful Toddlers and Preschoolers: Create a Life That You and Your Child Both Love by Faith Collins
  38. Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained by Derek Lin
  39. Toxic Sludge is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
  40. Detox with Oral Chelation: Protecting Yourself from Lead, Mercury & Other Environmental Toxins by David Jay Brown & Garry Gordon, M.D.
  41. Kicking the Hornet’s Nest: The Complete Writings, Emails, and Forum Posts of Satoshi Nakamoto, the Founder of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency
  42. The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice by Carey Gillam
  43. The Shamanic Way of the Bee: Ancient Wisdom and Healing Practices of the Bee Masters by Simon Buxton
  44. Detox Declutter Dominate: How to Excel by Elimination by Perry Marshall and Robert Skrob
  45. The Cosmic Journal by Yanik Silver
  46. Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont by Robert Bilott
  47. Cashless: China’s Digital Currency Revolution by Richard Turrin
  48. Be Like the Fox: Machiavelli In His World by Erica Benner
  49. The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing by Joost Meerloo
  50. Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey
  51. Your Money & Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich by Jason Zweig
  52. Sun Tzu’s Art of War Playbook: Book One, Volumes 1 to 4 by Gary Gagliardi
  53. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
  54. Not Even Trying…The Corruption of Real Science by Bruce G Charlton
  55. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
  56. Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons by Kris Newby
  57. The Lyme Solution: A 5-Part Plan to Fight the Inflammatory Auto-Immune Response and Beat Lyme Disease by Darin Ingels
  58. Pseudo Pandemic: New Normal Technocracy by Iain Davis
  59. The Art and Science of Personal Magnetism by Theron Q. Dumont
  60. The Phoenix Protocol: Dry Fasting for Rapid Healing and Radical Life Extension by August Dunning
  61. Principles for Dealing with The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail by Ray Dalio
  62. The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
  63. The Fiat Standard: The Debt Slavery Alternative to Human Civilization by Saifedean Ammous

Here I’ll highlight some of my top picks across different categories.

Economy and Crypto

The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking by Saifedean Ammous

If you read one book about cryptocurrency, I would recommend The Bitcoin Standard. It doesn’t just talk about Bitcoin but gives a good history of money. Considering how little people understand how money actually works, this is important for understanding how Bitcoin can work as money. His sequel The Fiat Standard, is also great.

Principles for Dealing with The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail by Ray Dalio

I mentioned this in a recent article. It’s a great overview of the rise and fall of empires. As we’re going through this shaky time right now (the USA falling and China rising fast), it is useful to learn the historical lessons involved. This covers what a changing of the world reserve currency has looked like in the past.

The Pandemic

The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I’ve obviously studied the pandemic a lot, as you can see by the many articles on this blog. But some have covered it even better. High marks for The Real Anthony Fauci. This covers not just the past two years but all the nefarious actions, particularly around HIV/AIDS that too few people know. The final chapter covering how the military allied itself with pharma (having to do with a biological weapons ban that left biological defense, aka vaccines, on the table) is worth the price of admission. It gives me hope that this was the #1 book in the world for a short time.

Pseudo Pandemic: New Normal Technocracy by Iain Davis

I also have to give a shout out to this one as well. While this drills into the details of inflated deaths and so much more, the best parts, in my opinion, covered the worldviews of eugenics, technocracy and the bigger picture of how current events fit in. Coming from the UK it also gives a greater perspective across the pond, compared to the USA. (Note that you can download this free from his website.)

How the World Really Works

Beyond the pandemic, there’s so many good ones. This subject matter is the main thing I read about these days. But I’ll select just four. I might also term this conspiracy history, or how evil is perpetrated often under the cover of good.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

Witness the pattern of economics and totalitarian action done in country after country after country. This playbook is being rolled out worldwide right now (though Klein herself doesn’t seem to see it!). This is foundational and I mention it in this article, Is Your Money Safe? Is the Economy Safe?

Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer

When people laugh off conspiracy theories, I know that they simply don’t understand history. The CIA literally tortured people in cruel ways as part of their experiments. Dosing them with LSD along with sensory deprivation for weeks on end. And that’s just one example of what we know about as covered in this book. My theory is they were more successful in these experiments than what has been let on. Still, the understanding of the publicly available knowledge is critical.

The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing by Joost Meerloo

The title tells you what you’re in for. Meerloo was in the Netherlands when the Nazis came through. Helps to flesh out and give some perspective on the former book. I mentioned this book in this article, Totalitarian Takeover.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Before Purdue Pharma, Arthur Sackler singlehandedly developed pharmaceutical advertising and was a pioneer in the corruption of regulators. His sociopathic children and brothers children were worse. This book catalogs the rise of what is a worse pandemic going on right now, the opioid epidemic, and just how lucrative it was to become philanthropic high society members. In the reality inversion they caused tremendous pain by treating pain. If you’re thinking in terms of family dynasty at all I would encourage you to read this as a cautionary tale.

Science

The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture by Fritjof Capra

Amazing that this book was written decades ago! Capra was a prophet that saw the swinging of the pendulum and put so well into words many things I was thinking. If you’re into philosophy of science, this is a must read.

Not Even Trying…The Corruption of Real Science by Bruce G Charlton

A quick read that accurately diagnosis some of the main problems. There’s a focus on peer review, which instead of making for good science, has turned into a popularity contest.

Health

The Phoenix Protocol: Dry Fasting for Rapid Healing and Radical Life Extension by August Dunning

I don’t read too much about health these days, though you can see the topic sprinkled in my list. This book is the most intriguing to me on the topic of dry fasting which I plan to experiment more with.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body In The Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

A dense book but well worth reading through. If you want to understand trauma and healing it, this is probably the best place to start. Highly recommended!

Mind-Stretching

The Shamanic Way of the Bee: Ancient Wisdom and Healing Practices of the Bee Masters by Simon Buxton

A non-fiction account of a man initiated into a secret sect of shamanism focused around bees. The out-of-this-world shamanic events are mind-blowing. A highly entertaining read.

Fiction

Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey

This is the third in a series called The Expanse, my favorite so far. Its an Amazon Prime series, though as typical the books are far better, especially this third book that loses its best character and gets scrunched into half a season.

It’s some good ol’ sci-fi drama. I’m enjoying it and have the rest of the books in the series that I’ll eventually be reading.

Your Turn

If you have any questions about any of these books go ahead and ask them in the comments below.

Also please share your top one or two books that you read last year. I’m always looking to add to my reading list.

Lessons from Home Burning Part 2

“This Gives Me Perspective”

This is odd to share. I am not trying to come off as holier-than-thou although I’m sure that can be read into this. I’m sharing my experience, my feelings around events, understanding they are very different than everyone else in the same situation. I am not writing this to judge other people’s response to these events as inferior. Your response is your own, more normal than mine and that is fine. Instead, in writing this I am striving to better understand why my experience is such as it is. In addition, I’m hoping that my sharing may help some others through inspiration, as indeed several people have said regarding part 1. With that disclaimer, onward…

Am I just suppressing grief that will come out later?

Am I just in denial about what happened?

These are the questions I was asking myself after I had confirmation that my home had completely burned down.

You see, what I was feeling was positive.

Don’t get me wrong. I was realistic about the hurdles ahead, but focused on what mattered. No one was hurt. It was all just material things that could be replaced and a good exercise in enforced minimalism.

As for the sentimental things… well, here is a good enforced opportunity to practice non-attachment.

I mentioned the paradox of feeling both devastation and liberation to some, but if I’m honest, I was feeling more of that latter.

But why wasn’t I depressed? Angry? Stricken with grief?

Would it hit me like a tidal wave later? Would it come in repeated waves over time?

No, I was actually my normal happy self. I thought there might be small pangs as I recognized this or that thing that I enjoyed was gone. But to be honest, now three weeks out, not really even that for me.

I’ll admit I have faced some frustration over insurance hassles. And, especially since we were just seven days from selling the house, that this event will financially set my family back despite insurance.

But I had already moved on.

Truth was people around me were more sad for me than I was personally! That’s a weird thing to deal with.

I would say I had already reframed the situation to know that this would be a good thing. Actually reframe is the wrong word. Just the frame from the very beginning. A new challenge to overcome. An adventure to have. A great story to tell. Something that would make me a better person. That would strengthen my family.

I wouldn’t even say I was being stoic so much as I was actually already looking at the positive things to come from this.

It came down to perspective.

First of all, I knew it could have been far worse. As I mentioned, no one got hurt (that I knew). Had that been different, I don’t think I’d be positive the same way. This gives me perspective.

Secondly, I’d gone through rough things before. The worst being losing my mother to cancer. I had tons of grief at that time. Back then I DID suppress my feelings. And while I still miss her, wishing she was around to play with her granddaughter especially, having worked on my grief with many psychological tools over the years, I see her passing as the last gift she gave me.

Couldn’t the fire be a gift too? Why wait to see it as such? This gives me perspective.

A friend of mine lost her house to a fire years ago. I had heard her story. I had talked to her about it. And, like with my mother, she now sees it as a blessing in disguise. This gives me perspective. (Thank you Denise!)

In the days following, I was amazed by all the love and support and donations too. This made me feel on a more embodied level that I was rich in one of the most important things, human connection. This gives me perspective.

All these came immediately to mind. But for a couple of days there was something niggling at me. I didn’t quite have the complete picture. I felt like I was missing another key component. Why was I genuinely okay with this?

And then it hit me.

I’ve spent the last year and a half diving deep into the darkest corners of humanity. Into the amazing levels of corruption that exist in our world.

There’s this idea that doing so makes people unbalanced (or attracts unbalanced people in the first place). Looking at conspiracies makes people depressed. Angry. Sad. And I have no doubt that that is true…to some degree and for some people.

There is no doubt I felt those feelings at times. Comes with the territory. There are revolting horrible possibilities.

Yet, I could make a very strong case that most people aren’t willing to dig into the facts of such, as a protection mechanism. Deny it exists so you don’t have to face its terror.

Not me. I felt the trauma of our reality…and I kept moving forward.

I felt the confusion of the mysterious, contradictory and insane possibilities, the ten thousand rabbit holes…and I kept moving forward. As the saying goes, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

I felt like I broke my mind at times wrestling with the truth. My sensemaking capacity fractured striving to understand what was really going on. (I still don’t…but I am reasonably comfortable in this place of realizing we’re all delusional about a lot…)

I sought to recognize sociopathy. I sought to understand evil. I sought to grasp our collective shadows and had to process them personally along the way. Oh yes, I definitely went through ups and downs.

Too few people wrestle with the fact that 97%+ of people would have joined the Nazi’s had they been in Germany at the time. Or at least stepped aside and allowed it to happen.

“Not I” says the naive individual who doesn’t actually reflect on what really went on there, how uncertain things were in the present compared to having hindsight, and how well propaganda really works.

“Yes I” says the person who does the deep, dark self-reflection.

Knowing this now let me set about changing course so I can truly say “Not I”. (Still a work in progress of course…)

And this more so than anything else I believe was why I was in a good mood!

Knowing what really goes on, the depths of the darkness of what occurs in the world, it makes me more resilient. More antifragile.

After all, it could be far worse. I mean come on! Child sex trafficking is a thing. A BIG thing. I have wrestled with conceiving that that could be my daughter. This gives me perspective.

There are more people in slavery today than in anytime in history…and yet we’re arguing about reparations for past slavery. This gives me perspective.

Companies profiting off of the death of people is a thing. In fact, it makes the world go round. And gaining so much profit they can steer laws, science and culture in their favor. This is so pervasive most people can’t see but a tiny fraction of it. This gives me perspective.

So much perspective in fact, that losing my home and just about all my possessions genuinely feels like child’s play in comparison.

No, not just that. My house burning down is a good thing. I needed more genuine personal adversity to forge my soul for the battles ahead.

What is occurring right now in the world and what is coming down the road is much harder…

Face the truth. It might break you. But if it doesn’t you’ll become a better person for it.

That’s my crazy, weird, but seemingly useful perspective anyway.

Lessons from Home Burning – Part 1

Physical, Mental, Emotional and Character Strength

On the night of August 19th my home burned completely to the ground.

A few people made comments to the effect of it being telling that the only thing left standing was my power rack. That this was a symbol of strength.

I agree! And that’s what I want to talk about today.

There is the common stereotype of the “all brawn, no brain” individual. In other words, the meathead. And certainly, this is the case for some.

But as a stereotype it is very often wrong.

One of my many books that burned up was Not Just Pumping Iron: On the Psychology of Lifting Weights by Edward W. L. Smith. In fact, I had a whole shelf on one of my bookcases devoted to sports psychology. 

Sure, I’ll admit it. In the beginning I tried to workout as I was interested in looking good in order to impress the ladies…but that was such a minor thing in the grander scheme.

Strength training in all its forms became so much more to me.

It was the first and foremost place where I pulled myself up by my bootstraps from a self-loathing, insecure individual into the person I am today. It was my crucible where I not only forged my body but my psychology and spirit.

No, it wasn’t just because it became a career either. The truth is that was a result of the above, not the cause. 

In Smith’s book he talks about lifting weights as the Yoga of the west. It’s interesting to reflect on because most yoga in the West is a watered down version of what it originally was, i.e. a holistic practice that encompassed body-mind-spirit.

Now, I know I’m not your typical person. Many think me superhuman. 

But that’s just the thing. ANYONE can be superhuman. All it takes is proper know-how and dedication. Compound this overtime and truly miraculous transformation is not only possible, but likely.

If I could transform myself from a scrawny, unathletic, timid boy into a strongman certainly anyone can…if the desire is there. 

No, strength training and fitness is not just about the physical. If that is the case for you, I’m sorry to say but you are missing the boat.

It’s not even all about the mental and emotional though those are such huge parts. In very few other areas have I found such a useful “laboratory” for training your mind’s capabilities and state management. (Throw in competition and/or lofty goals to really amplify these things!)

What is too seldom talked about is that strength training can build up strength of character. 

It can aid you in becoming more virtuous. 

You know, I’ve done some pretty wild and wacky feats of strength. Case in point, lately, I’d been hanging myself by a rope around my neck! Or seeking to do over bodyweight in a bent press. 

Now, my entire gym is gone. But the lessons I’ve learned, who I’ve become, is stronger than ever. 

And I’d let one million gyms burn down before I’d give up what I’ve obtained and who I’ve become along the way.

All the stuff can be replaced. Yet my latest challenge of a house fire is in itself…priceless.

Again, I get it. I’m the odd one out. I’m truthfully not grieving the loss. I’m flowing with it like water in the river of life. 

Every once in a while I get asked what I’m training for. Yes, I train for fun. Sure, I train to hit goals. Of course, I train to be healthy. 

But most of all, I train for LIFE.

Without awareness of it, I was training for this event. Having done so I’ve even surprised myself at how much I’ve taken it in stride. 

I train to be antifragile. 

Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually too. This means that stressors not only don’t break me, but make me even stronger. In this way a big stressor means big rewards. 

Prior to this, I know that 2020 has been far easier on me than many other people because of how I’ve setup my life. I know that there are people in dire straits.

In other words, I am privileged. Instead of taking that on with guilt, I aim to be a force for good. In other words to actually deserve it.

So I welcome the additional challenge. After all, it’s good to be humble!

I’ll continue to train to best serve my family. I will continue to train to best serve my community. 

I must be strong for those are not. 

The world has some great darkness to it. If we are aware and honest about it, the trajectories of where we are headed are not looking so good. (The fact that most people reading this probably think they know what I’m talking about, but really do not being a sign of such.)

So now more than ever we need strong men and women to step up in every sort of way. In my opinion, you can’t do anything useful if you don’t build yourself first. 

In fact, without the internal work, you’ll likely just get in the way. And I’m not saying strength training is the only way. Far from it. But it has worked really well for me and others I know!

In alchemy, one of the steps involved is calcination. This is the burning away of matter to get to the “salt” principle. To purify to get to what is essential.

As above, so below.

So I’ll take this event as an initiation and move forward. In doing so, I hope I can inspire you in the right direction too. 

There is something to be said for the fact that the only things that survived and are usable left from the wreckage are some of the weights. There’s a deep metaphor here…

In my opinion 2020 still has more surprises in store. And I don’t think we’re going back to normal, or even a new normal in 2021 either.

This is going to be a rough decade ahead.

You must be adaptable. You must be strong. Not just for yourself, but especially for those around you.

Sociopathy and Evil

“According to Nazi ideology, Untermenschen—subhumans, as they were called, a designation that included Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Poles, Slavs, Russian prisoners of war, the handicapped, the mentally ill, and others—were no different from white mice or lab rabbits whose bodies could thereby be experimented on to advance the Reich’s medical goals. ‘The sub-human is a biological creature, crafted by nature,’ according to Heinrich Himmler, ‘which has hands, legs, eyes, and mouth, even the semblance of a brain. Nevertheless, this terrible creature is only a partial human being….Not all of those who appear human an in fact so.’…the Reich had first sterilized and then euthanized nearly its entire population of mentally ill persons, including tens of thousands of children, under the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring.” – Annie Jacobsen, Operation Paperclip

If you’re not familiar with Operation Paperclip, that is where the USA brought Nazi scientists over to work in the U.S. If you’ve heard of it it’s probably like this, with a lack of much detail. In fact, that’s why I read this book, to fill in the missing facts.

We brought over war criminals, people who by everything they did should have been in the Nuremberg trials, tried and hanged. We brought over scientists and doctors that experimented on human beings, including in ways that killed them from freezing experiments, explosive decompression, mustard gas research, and more. One survivor at Dachau reported how he was used for a seawater drinkability test. This included part of his liver being removed without the use of anesthesia to be analyzed.

We brought over zealot Nazis. We brought over SS officers. We brought over some of Hitler’s inner circle. Some of these scientists, hiding and whitewashing their past, became highly decorated individuals over here.

A big question I have, that I don’t have the answer too, to what degree did Nazi ideology spread and infect people over here? Or did these former Nazis really just abandon their old ways? Which of these seems more likely to you?

When some of these details came to be publicly known, Jacobsen quotes nuclear physicist Hans Bethe, and Dr. Henri Sack who wrote, “Was it wise, or even compatible with our moral standards to make this bargain, in light of the fact that many of the Germans, probably the majority, were die-hard Nazis?…Had the war been fought to allow Nazi ideology to creep into our education and scientific institutions by the back door?…Do we want science at any price?”

It wasn’t just scientists and doctors. We worked with their intelligence officers. That’s right, we gave more power to former Nazis who were great at being duplicitous and keeping secrets.

“A network of former Nazi intelligence agents, the majority of whom were members of the SS, began working…side by side with army intelligence officers,” writes Jacobsen. “According to documents kept classified for fifty-one years, relationships between [Major General and former head of Nazis’ intelligence against the Soviets Reinhard] Gehlen and [US Army Colonel William] Philp declined and became hostile as Philp finally realized the true nature of who he was dealing with. The Gehlan Organization was a murderous bunch, ‘Free-wheeling’ and out of control.”

This is where Operation Bluebird began, which led to Operation Artichoke, followed by MK-Ultra.

Of course, it was all just to better fight the communist Russians. They were going after their scientists too, so we had to play the escalation game.

Our own sociopaths wanted to win no matter the cost. We “needed” to do MK-Ultra. We “needed” to conduct experiments with biological and chemical warfare on our own populations. We “needed” to do much more.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke

There were good people that tried to stop Operation Paperclip, but not enough. Small details were leaked out to the press back then. Most of the information only came to light many, many years later. There are STILL classified details regarding many of these Paperclip members.

Yet the people that skirt the rules tend to get their way because the moral people live by those rules.

This is how evil is insidious and spreads over time.

We must understand evil if we want to make changes and that is what this article aims to do.

Culturally, there is a denial that evil even exists. That surely must help those who are evil operators. It’s easier for good men to do nothing if they don’t even perceive evil happening. (This makes me wonder if that idea was up-regulated.)

Or if the attention is misdirected away from the actual evil…

Something I’ve Not Mentioned Publicly Before

This is the second time I’ve opened up a post quoting Nazis. And so I’ll mention this…

My grandfather fought for Germany in WWII.

He wasn’t a Nazi nor SS or anything like that. He was a run-of-the-mill man who fought as an anti-aircraft gunner. He was captured and released after the war. He came over to America in the mid to late 50’s with my mother when she was around six or seven years old.

My grandfather on my father’s side also fought in WWII but for the Americans.

I’ve always thought this was interesting, but beyond these basic details I don’t know much. We didn’t really talk much about our history in my family.

But here’s another twist I did hear about. My grandfather’s grandfather had enough Jewish blood in him that he would have been sent to the camps, but he hid it well.

My grandfather got wrapped up in Nazi propaganda. This, despite his family not being of “pure blood”.

Maybe knowing this happened has helped me to get to this point where I see that we ALL easily get wrapped up in propaganda.

On the Sociopathy Spectrum

I don’t think that sociopathy or empathy are black and white things. Like pretty much everything, it is more useful to think of them on a spectrum where you can have more or less.

I’ve always had a hard time with “feelings”. Over the years I’ve done tons of work to the point where I am fairly balanced. Of course, there are more layers of the onion to be peeled in the future.

And I reflect on that often especially as of late.

I do believe in free will. I also see that we are so affected by circumstances in far more subtle ways that many realize.

And thus, I recognize that had my life happened just slightly differently, it could have completely changed my trajectory.

I was never physically or sexually abused. But if I was…what would I have become?

I had a period in high school where I had a morbid fascination with serial killers. Did I dare to think about actually becoming one?

Sure, some sociopaths may be born that way. Genetics likely plays some role though there is certainly no sociopath gene. (In fact, the whole idea of “gene” is pretty much wrong, but that’s a big topic for another day.)

I think much more so that sociopaths are made.

I think that lack of empathy can be taught. It can be culturally enforced. It can be rewarded.

…Or to put it another way natural empathy can be stomped out.

Personally, I feel like with just a few key events and/or choices I could have gone down a much darker path.

And this grappling with your own possibility of evil is something that not enough people do.

This is a deep, dark shadow (one that many people deny exist). Had I grown up in Germany in the 1920’s and 30’s…there’s a really good chance I would have become a Nazi too.

Jordan Peterson highly recommended the book “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland“. It’s a fascinating read about how ordinary men were conscripted into doing work…which in time led to slaughtering Jews. It doesn’t excuse this behavior. Far from it. But it explores how ordinary men came to do such a thing. Some fought against it but that’s few and far between. Most took part. Some gleefully.

Maybe I wouldn’t have been a Nazi. Maybe I would have been one of the good guys. But there is certainly a chance I would not.

I recognize that. I sit with that. It gives me two things.

  1. More compassion for those that perpetrate evil things knowing that they’re often victims of evil themselves.
  2. It helps me to understand how evil can and does operate in this world.

Projection

Especially if we’re not aware of our own shadows we project them out onto other people. (I’ve been getting into more shadow work lately.)

They accuse of people of being anti-science when we actually want better science. And now…

Psychopathic traits linked to non-compliance with social distancing guidelines amid the coronavirus pandemic

This is a clue…

I agree that some people are being dicks about it. I do not think spitting on food or getting in people’s faces about masks is warranted. But notice what the broader message is here. Us vs. them.

J. Edgar Hoover wrote, “Yet the individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.”

He was referring to Communism…and based on what we now know about him and his actions, he was projecting like crazy!

The Predator Class vs The Prey Class

I was thinking about this topic and then, boom, find yet another Daniel Schmachtenberger video discussing it. There’s a reason I like this guy…

I recommend watching the video, but I’ve transcribed most of it below. This is super important and seldom discussed.

*****

I had a conversation several years ago with one of the most powerful, evil power brokers in the world. Long one-on-one where I was actually surprised at how much he kind of both was inviting me into his world and opening up about it. And the way he framed it, it goes like this. I’ll just do it briefly cause it’s important.

“It’s like, look, humans are animals. Animals are either predators or prey. Predators don’t feel bad when they kill prey. If you feel bad, when the prey humans die, it’s cause you’re a prey human and you won’t run the world and the apex predator will run the world. They will be the thing that determines the shape of an overall ecosystem.

“And whether you like what apex predators do or not, doesn’t determine, it doesn’t matter at all to the fact that apex predators will be the ones who run the world. So the only question is whether you have what it takes to make it into that group or not.

“And so that’s the inexorable argument, right? Power in the form of predatory power is inexorable. Can’t do anything about it. It’s always going to win. Well, if that’s the case and I can’t effectively fight against it, that just binds all kinds of moral possibilities as just stupid and naive.

“So then the next part was power as virtue. Which he said, and it’s actually good that the apex predators are the ones who run the world because they’re the ones who are steely-eyed and real and grounded enough to understand how shit works. And the world is actually kind of brutal and people who just don’t get how it fucking works can’t guide stuff. They’ll make it worse. Sometimes you got to put a head on a spike in the yard to keep everybody else from being assholes. And so it goes from power as inexorable to power as virtue, and then some people stop there.

“And then the last step is feeling good about exercising your own power over because it says you are a part of that class, which becomes power as fetish, which is the movement from sociopathy to sadism. When you actually fantasize, fetishize the exercising of it.

“Now of course, everything he was saying was utter gibberish. And it’s important to know that. And I didn’t bring it up with him because I knew that wasn’t relevant in that moment. I was basically getting more information. Like blue whale is neither predator nor pray in a traditional sense. Neither is an elephant. The apex predator is lower on the food chain than a virus or a parasite or a mosquito in many ways. You’re pretending that there’s this thing that isn’t really there. And you are not acknowledging that the arms race that has always won, self terminates pretty soon, because when you externalization and war, it actually destroys everything. And so basically, it’s gibberish, but it’s compelling enough gibberish that if you kind of want to do it anyways, it’s plausible deniability.”

*****

  1. Power as inexorable. (In other words, inevitable, impossible to stop.)
  2. Power as virtue. (In other words, moral excellence, that is literally inverting what most would say is moral.)
  3. Power as fetish. (In other words, an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion.)

Welcome to the evil worldview!

These are some ways that a significant portion of people see the world. I found this very powerful because of the layer of values that some sociopaths can operate from.

It helps me to understand a “world perception” that could drive the behavior we see playing out in the world, in corrupt institutions.

No One Thinks They’re Evil

I don’t really remember the movie all that much, but this quote stood out for me. I remember it now despite watching the movie once probably twenty years ago.

“No matter what you do, no matter how awful, no-one ever thinks that they’re a bad person.” – Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley

There is always rationalization for everything that is done.

…Therefore rationality can NOT be our ultimate guide.

Here is how rationalization can work. Power is the only game in town so might as well play it. Well, since the game is power the person who is best at it is the best most virtuous person. Since it’s all about power let’s do things just for the sake of power.

The Russians will get advanced Nazi science and technology and kill us Americans, so we need to get them instead, despite whatever they did in the past. We need to spend tons of money on biological, chemical and nuclear warfare in preparation.

Black men wouldn’t go in for syphilis treatment anyway therefore we’ll study the course of the disease and never treat them. What science gains from actually blocking these men from being treated, because our assumption was racist and wrong, will be worth it. (Tuskegee)

Our drugs our saving people’s lives. Never mind that we statistically manipulated data to get them approved or sell them for non-approved uses, bribing doctors to do so. On the whole, we’re helping people more than we’re harming them.

Yes, we can always find a rational reason to explain away doing evil.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t evil.

So with this in mind let’s look at one of the biggest boogeymen right now.

Amoral George Soros

Is George Soros behind Antifa through his Open Societies Foundation? Is he sending stacks of bricks at protest sites to incite violent riots? Is he funding Black Lives Matter as a part of a color revolution?

I don’t know! The little I’ve seen suggests the possibility, but I have yet to come across hard proof and I’m doing my best not to leap to conclusions, recognizing that much of this could very-well be propaganda.

I have not dug deeply into this man. But here is what I know. This interview alone speaks enough to me about the morality of this man. I’d recommend watching the video, but I’ll pull quotes from it below.

“In the last two years you’ve been blamed for financial collapse Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Russia,” says journalist Steve Kroft.

“All of the above,” replies Soros with a smirk and a bit of a laugh. (Notice the body language as he talks about some devastating things.) “I am basically there to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do.”

Later he says, “I don’t feel guilty because I’m engaged in an amoral activity which is not meant to have anything to do with guilt.”

In other words, I won’t admit to there being morality involved. The money part is amoral. What that in turn causes does not matter. Therefore, I am not guilty because there are no morals involved with which to be guilty. Big rationalizations!

“Whatever his motivations, no one can accuse him of greed. He’s backed away from the day to day operations of his businesses and is giving away his billions now with the same determination he made them in places like Haiti, a country that has less money in the bank than he does.”

Here comes the widespread belief that philanthropy automatically makes you a good person. See Robber Baron Philanthropists for more. Don’t forget, Jeffrey Epstein was trying to rebrand himself as a philanthropist. (Did you see the news, they finally arrested Ghislaine Maxwell!)

That’s one of the problems inherent in making money into your God or even close to it. Then if people are giving away so much of it they MUST be good, right?  If money is god then those that give away are godly.

Kroft mentions this, “Like Carnegie, JP Morgan and the Rockefellers he amassed billions through ruthless business decisions only to turn around and give away most of his fortune to advance his own personal philosophy.”

Is this what a moral person does? Thankfully, there is a movement today called by many names such as conscious capitalism, evolved enterprise, etc. People are beginning to recognize that the “robber baron” your way to the top, only to about-face later on, is not an ideal way to go. It’s not a moral way to go.

But notice that last line. To advance his own personal philosophy. What if you disagree in part or in whole with that philosophy? Is it a moral philosophy? Or is it an amoral philosophy?

Back to Nazi’s, we see that Soros was a Hungarian Jew that posed as a Christian. He was able to avoid arrest, meanwhile he or his father was involved in confiscating property from other Jews.

When asked about this, he replies, “There was no sense that I shouldn’t be there…Well, actually in a funny way it’s just like in markets. If I weren’t there, if I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would be taking it away anyhow. Whether I was there or not, the property was being taken away. So I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.”

The game of power is there. I might as well be good at it. I’m not guilty because power is a virtue. If not me, then simply someone else. This is a cop out to say that someone else would be doing it anyway.

Amorality = Immorality

I’ve been talking about these words, so let’s make sure we’re clear.

  • Morality = The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.
  • Amorality = Lack or absence of morality
  • Immorality = The character of being immoral; transgression of the moral law; immoral thought or action; wickedness; dissoluteness; licentiousness.

Kroft says, “At the center of George Soros there’s an inherent contradiction…On one hand you’re the capitalist who does not care about the social consequences of his act. And on the other hand you’re a philanthropist who only cares about the social consequences. How do you resolve the two?”

“Recognizing that as a competitor I’ve got to compete to win. As a human being, I am concerned about the society in which I live,” replies Soros. “It’s one person at one time who engages in amoral activities, and the rest of the time tries to be moral.”

Is there such a thing as amoral activities? He’s talking about playing the markets. Sure, for you or me to play in the markets there isn’t really an outcome outside of what happens for with the money. There is no inherent morality in such. When you get to the economy-crashing-scale you cannot claim it’s amoral. It has very real impacts on people and the world. Again, saying it is amoral is a cop out.

Notice his language too. One person who engages in amoral activities and the rest of the time TRIES to be moral.

If you’re saying your decisions are amoral, like playing the markets, then they are not guided by morals. They are guided by making money. If the desire is to win at the money game, then morality will be trampled upon in doing so simply because these are sometimes competing aims. Therefore, amorality leads to immorality.

Rest assured; I’m not saying you have to believe in God to have morality. There are atheists such as Sam Harris that are trying to figure out a way to establish morality. There’s been humanism for quite some time. So I’m not saying we all have to agree to a certain belief structure.

But can we all agree that we do need morality? And that the “Golden Rule” tends to be a good place to start?

With atheism and materialism tends to become a belief in the universe and life just being random. (I say this as someone who previously believed in these things or as I think of it now, bought the propaganda.) If it is random then there is no meaning beyond the meaning we give things. If there is no meaning then there is no right or wrong, no good and evil.

Steve Kroft asks if he believes if Soros is religious or believes in God. “No.” Kroft says “Soros told us he believes God was created by man and not the other way around. Which may be why he believes he can smooth out the world’s imperfections.”

While I haven’t read the book, there is an biography from Michael Kaufman titled, “Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire“.

Messianic. Messiah. Do you desire to have this man leading the way into the future?

Do you trust he is using his power (in the form of money and influence) for moral purposes that align with your own?

Is it possible that he is manipulating peoples and governments the same way he manipulated markets while thinking it’s just an amoral activity?

Once again, to deny that evil exists, we’re pushing it into the collective shadow, which allows it to flourish all the better.

Let’s equate sociopathy with amorality. You don’t feel empathy. You don’t have a conscience. If you establish power as your virtue, then you’ll engage in what others see as immorality to get there. That’s your guiding north star.

I cannot tell you that 100% for sure that Soros is one of these people. I’m not trying to force beliefs on you. But based on this interview alone I do NOT think he is a good person and I am troubled by what I see.

A Hilarious Aside

Also quoted in this interview is Jim Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer and Wall Street Analysis.

First a serious quote. “This man is a carnivore of the first order.”

Carnivore of the first order would be equivalent to apex predator going back to what Schmachtenberger said.

But here’s the golden quote…

“George Soros, in a way, is Donald Trump without the humility.”

Wow! Very funny given Trump’s position today. That quote aged well (or not so well depending on your perspective)!

Smart Criminals Make The Laws

Look, I get that George Soros is used as a boogeyman for conservatives. That there are lies spouted about him in order to push right-wing agendas. I’m not denying that that has taken place because, after all, others are playing the same power game too.

Wading through the muddied waters and getting to the bottom of the swamp is extremely tough to do.

There are predator class billionaires on both sides of the aisle. The Koch brothers would be the equivalent boogeyman for the left who peddled influence in much the same way.

Remember in a previous video, Schmachtenberger said, “I don’t find that most successful politicians that I’ve encountered near the top of the power actually believe red vs. blue ideology. They just believe in the game of power and signal red vs. blue ideology as part of their mimetic warfare to control people that are going to vote for them.”

And while billionaires certainly have their leanings, they tend to fund both parties because they understand what that gets them.

Daniel also mentions in the longer version of the above video, that “Dumb criminals break laws. Smart criminals make laws.”

Think about that for a moment. Really give it some thought. We see it play out in spades. That’s what lobbyists are all about! That’s what regulatory capture and the revolving door accomplishes.

What about when you play the international game where you can use the laws of different countries to your advantage? (In the 60 Minutes interview, it shows how Soros operates in low tax and regulation countries specifically, while saying there should be more regulations! He’s just playing the game to win.)

As of the start of this month, Soros has a $8.3 billion net worth, with his Open Society Foundations having been given $18 billion in 2018, with current assets of $8.4 billion.

That’s a lot of money that can affect a lot of change. I’m not saying we should automatically assume anything.

But given what I know about apex predators, sociopathy, and the widespread corruption going on in our world, I am extremely suspect. I think this interview alone speaks volumes about this man.

Bill Gates is another messianic billionaire who doesn’t believe in God and made his way to the top by ruthless (amoral/immoral) business practices.

Do you automatically trust that he is being truly moral now? Does his personal philosophy that he is propagating through philanthropy match up with yours? Not for me.

Nazi Medicine

We brought Nazi doctors over here that conducted human experiments.

IG Farben was a chemical and pharmaceutical company where some of these doctors worked. They relied on slave labor from the concentration camps and produced Zyklon B used in the gas chambers.

After the war some of the executives were convicted, but many were not. The company was broken up into what today are Bayer, BASF, Sanofi and Agfa.

I still have a lot more digging to do into these companies and their literal Nazi past.

Yet I already know of some clear examples of “medical sociopathy” such as Bayer’s selling of HIV infected blood products for which they paid tens of millions of dollars. Of course, “the company accepts no responsibility” and “continues to insist it has always acted responsibly and ethically.”

Just like Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer. They’re paying out $10.9 billion for Roundup causing cancer. CEO Werner Baumann says “the Roundup settlement is the right action at the right time for Bayer to bring a long period of uncertainty to an end.” They deny any responsibility and even the cancer link.

Why do I bring these up?

How much of our medical system is infected by sociopathic and evil ideas? Because we need to see this to look at today’s events. It’s not just careless indifference in the chasing of money. That’s a part of it, but it doesn’t explain everything.

No, many times actions are taken that are willfully killing people. So I want to talk about that in relation to a few things going on.

Medical Malpractice Deaths

“They’re not dying of COVID. Yes people are going to die of COVID, I know this, I’m not like a new grad student. I am literally saying they’re murdering these people.” This comes from an ICU nurse, Nicole Sirotek, that was working on the frontlines.

“What I need is someone to help me save these people from being killed from gross negligence and medical mismanagement and no-one is listening to me.”

And on topic for this post, “It’s like if we were in Nazi Germany and they were taking the Jews to a gas chamber and I’m the one saying, ‘Hey that’s not okay. This is wrong.’ And then everyone tells me, ‘Hang in there. You’re doing a great job. You can’t save everybody.’…I’m pretty sure when you defibrillate someone with a heart rate of 40 and a stable rhythm that’s murder…And I’m pretty sure when you put someone’s PEEP (Positive End Expiratory Pressure on a ventilator) up to 25 and PEEP doesn’t go past like 15 or 20 and you blow someone’s lungs out and they die – that’s murder.”

Nursing Home Deaths

On May 26th, Forbes reports: The Most Important Coronavirus Statistic: 42% Of U.S. Deaths Are From 0.6% Of The Population

That population is those living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. And 42% could be undercounted. “States like New York exclude from their nursing home death tallies those who die in a hospital, even if they were originally infected in a long-term care facility.”

States like New York, New Jersey, California and Michigan ordered active COVID19 patients to go to nursing homes after discharge from hospital. Governor Cuomo said “They don’t have a right to object. That is the rule and that is the regulation and they have to comply with that.” Weeks later after thousands of deaths that order was partially rescinded.

This has led Senator Charles Grassley and Representative Greg Walden to write a letter to Inspector General Christi Grimm on June 29th to investigate this.

Was this just a bad call, relying on some bureaucratic rule?

Or was there actual mal-intent? I do not know the answer, but I agree it needs investigation.

And now thousands of nursing home residents are simply being evicted. NY Times reports, “According to three Lakeview [nursing home] employees, [an 88 year old man with dementia eviction] came as the nursing home was telling staff members to try to clear out less-profitable residents to make room for a new class of customers who would generate more revenue: patients with Covid-19.”

Hydroxychloroquine Update

I covered the controversial drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in my Science as Propaganda post. Go back and read it if you’ve haven’t.

To recap, doctors and scientists the world over are saying this dirt cheap existing drug works, especially when combined with zinc and the antibiotic, Azithromycin. But some scientific studies are saying that it doesn’t work and may even be deadly. The data for one such study, published in the Lancet, was completely made up, literally pulling data out of thin air. Damage was done even though less than two weeks later this paper was retracted.

As science goes more research is being done. There is good, legitimate research. And then there is agenda-driven research. Here’s some new data I didn’t cover before on the latter.

On June 15th, the FDA revoked emergency use authorization of HCQ and CQ. “FDA has concluded that, based on this new information and other information discussed in the attached memorandum, it is no longer reasonable to believe that oral formulations of HCQ and CQ may be effective in treating COVID-19, nor is it reasonable to believe that the known and potential benefits of these products outweigh their known and potential risks.”

So let’s look at some of the agenda driven science.

To of the main ones are the WHO’s Solidarity trials and the UK’s Recovery trial.

The problem is that these trials are using excessive, deadly doses. The WHO’s own information shows this. A 1979 paper by consultant H. Weniger mentions that 1.5 to 2 grams of HCQ may be fatal. Around this amount is what is being used, the Recovery trial specifically 2.4 grams in the first day.

Meanwhile, French doctor Raoult was using 600mg daily for up to ten days with his patients. Of 1061 Covid19 patients all over 74 years old, only 8 died, a mortality rate of 0.75%.

Meryl Nass, MD says “Excessive, dangerous HCQ dosing continues to be used in WHO’s Solidarity trials. These trials are not, in fact, testing the benefits of HCQ on Covid-19, but rather are testing whether patients survive toxic, non-therapeutic doses.” If you want more detail see this article here.

Only when this information was repeatedly pointed out was the HCQ arm of the trial stopped. They did it without announcing this information.

So let’s think about this for a second. Do you think these were honest mistakes? It was just an accident to use massive doses of a drug that has been widely used for decades safely at lower doses out of the blue?

Or do you think that they set out to prove the HCQ did not work, so that Gilead could make money off of Remdesivir now, and that a vaccine later on becomes the savior?

As you might expect by this point, the Gates Foundation is implicated in this research, along with the Wellcome Trust for funding the Recovery trial. As for the WHO trial, well Gates is now the #1 financial backer of the WHO.

Understand what this means:

They were not only ALLOWING people to die from COVID19 due to poorly treated them.

But they were in fact KILLING people by purposefully overdosing them on drugs all to prove this drug doesn’t work so that their agendas move forward.

The Vaccine before the Vaccine?

Last week I published how University of Tennesse was mandating Flu vaccines now and the COVID vaccine once it is available. Shortly, after this I came across this…

CDC, drugmakers boost flu vaccine doses amid fears of an unprecedented respiratory illness season

The CDC bought 7 million doses directly from manufacturers (you did know they’re the biggest customer of the vaccine companies they regulate, right?) spending $100 million to do so. This is fourteen times the normal 500,000 doses they normally buy.

IG Farben offspring Sanofi is one flu vaccine provider. The industry is producing 189 million doses total, up from 170 million last year.

The reasoning is interesting. “Getting a flu shot does not protect against the coronavirus, but disease experts said reducing episodes of flu could prove pivotal in freeing up space in hospitals and medical offices to deal with covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.”…because all the hospitals were so heavily overloaded previously, right?

And did you know, as the Guardian reports, that “Higher influenza vaccination rates could help prevent a future pandemic by exposing new viruses like Covid-19, which was probably circulating much earlier than December 2019 but was mistaken for flu, an expert has said.”

They want you to read that you should get your flu vaccine. I read that this thing was with us well before March 2020 and therefore all this shutdown continuation and masking up is nonsense.

There’s an interesting study just released last month from the Department of Defense that shows that those that got a flu vaccine, while getting less flu, were susceptible to 36% more coronaviruses, due to something called virus interference.

Vaccine derived virus interference was significantly associated with coronavirus and human metapneumovirus; however, significant protection with vaccination was associated not only with most influenza viruses, but also parainfluenza, RSV, and non-influenza virus coinfections.”

The data is from 2017-2018 so does not involve SARS-CoV2 but other types of coronaviruses. The fact-checkers want to dismiss this of course. The funny thing is they don’t actually address the data in the study head on…because they can’t. But if they were honest, it would be cause for concern and more study, rather than blanket denial.

It’s not the only evidence we have that flu vaccines may increase some issues. This Children’s Health Defense article dives into several other studies. None are conclusive but lead to an interesting hypothesis.

What if the flu vaccine DOES increase susceptibility to coronaviruses including SARS-CoV2?

Then ramping up production, suggesting and mandating that people get it would cause even more harm.

If we understand evil, that some powerful people not only don’t care if you die, but might actually enjoy the fact, we have to consider this possibility. What would this accomplish? Three things:

  1. Sales of flu vaccine right now for profit.
  2. Expanding mandates for flu vaccine now for more control.
  3. If more people die of COVID later on during flu season, more fear, more restictions, more mandates are all forthcoming.

Do we have any evidence that the flu vaccine impacts COVID19? Just a hypothesis that needs to be investigated further but remember all the deaths in Italy? In September 2019, a new flu shot, VIQCC, which has four viruses, was widely rolled out.

And back in March, Deputy chief medical officer for England said that people who get the flu shot are in the high risk group and should isolate for 12 weeks to avoid the coronavirus.

Oh yeah, and “Pandemic 2” seems to already be on the horizon. A new swine-flu strain with ‘pandemic potential’ was just found circulating in Chinese pigs. Just stirring up more fear?

Taking Occum’s to Hanlon’s Razor

Hanlon’s razor states, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

Look, I know most people are not in on these evil schemes. I attribute most of it to stupidity. (Or sometimes better explained as people being under the influence of propaganda and not realizing it.)

But how many coincidence’s until we get to the point of realizing there IS MALICE involved? At some high powered levels?

At what point does Occum’s razor take over, you know as the simpler explanation?

Hydroxychloroquine, for sure. Some know. Some are intentionally killing people.

The other stuff, maybe, just maybe it’s a bunch of coincidences.

You really have to see the wider picture to get that there is evil going on. Any single example can be denied, explained away. But the pattern over time cannot.

There is evil in the world.

  1. It exists (though the exact nature of it is a whole different, even bigger topic)
  2. It is more widespread than most realize
  3. It is insidious, meaning subtle and expanding over time
  4. It crawls up hierarchies and then dominates them

And if we don’t understand how it operates, we have no chance of stopping it. If all it takes is for good people to say nothing, to do nothing, then evil thrives.

There is very little chance of this happening if we don’t face our personal shadows. If we don’t look into ourselves and see how the possibility (and hopefully only the possibility!) of evil exists.

With more men and women doing that, we’ll be equipped to facing the collective shadow of evil.

Battleground for Your Mind

“Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will…To believe yourself above the influence of propaganda, is to become more susceptible to propaganda.”

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda

We as a civilization are screwed if we don’t get better at identifying propaganda real fast. Yet, do we stand a chance?

Really understanding the world is a full time job and my estimate is you need at least a decade of that (10,000 hours+) to even come close. The rat race, or trying to escape the rat race, keeps you occupied so you’re unable to do that.

The honest and mature thing to do is to recognize you’re being controlled no matter your beliefs. Start here. It’s like facing addiction or any other major problem. Recognizing your awash in propaganda is the first step.

From that recognition you can start to make your way through the dense jungle of misinformation and narrative, but be aware that it’s a very long, very hard journey. In doing it you’ll likely think you’re winning…but realize you’ve been led down wrong paths sometimes for years.

Getting duped hard and coming to realize that’s the case is part of the journey. It’s an initiation. Be proud when you come out the other side. (Show me a person that has never been absorbed into propaganda and later realized they were wrong, and I’ll show you someone that is naively convinced they not possessed of an ideology!)

Learn from the experience. How were you duped? How can you avoid that next time?

Yet, realize it will happen again…

It’s hard to face this. Really hard.

This is why so many buy into the consensus narratives. That’s so much easier.

This is why those that realize that it is all BS simply opt out of following news or current events. It’s so much easier to disengage and go about your life.

These are easy choices. Or you can then walk the road less traveled. Once again, we need a lot of people doing this much better and much faster if we want a good future.

Bread and Circuses

Yes, this has happened before…

“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”

Juvenal, Roman Poet (100 AD)

Some say we’re repeating the Roman experience right now. Indeed, there are many parallels.

Learn from history, but not just the popular history. Remember that history is written by the victor. (In other words, telling you the truth behind how they were victorious is not always in their best interest.) Conspiracies have happened from at least the time there was money.

Speaking of Goebbels, don’t forget Operation Paperclip, where we brought over Nazi scientists giving them positions in our scientific institutions. Where our intelligence communities worked hand-in-hand with them, learning their methods…

Trends come and go. Patterns repeat. Some patterns last longer than human lifetimes. These may be especially useful to know about right now.

Is the Roman Empire still around? Nope.

And so too shall the American Empire fall…for better and/or worse depends…

Narrative Control

Is your head spinning from what is happening in the world?

Just when I felt like I and others were getting a handle on facts behind the coronavirus…the narrative completely changed.

Wait, were not focused on the virus anymore but now there’s rioting across the world against racism and police brutality?

(I’m aiming to be sensitive to matters at hand and yet focus on what I perceive as the bigger picture. What happened to George Floyd was an atrocity. Same with Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor…on and on it goes. I am against racism. I am against policy brutality. Personally, I was at two protests in Santa Cruz. We absolutely do need reform of institutions regarding these things. Justice needs to be served and would not have been without this popular uprising. Even now it still may not be. But I’m also worried that these events are being manipulated for dubious purposes…)

What the hell happened to social distancing?!?

Watching the media do what has to be of the most massive about-faces ever is fascinating.

Just two weeks ago, the anti-lockdown protests were vilified. Those who partook were selfish bastards, “covidiots,” even “granny killers” that would spread the disease.

Yet, now if you’re not out protesting you’re basically a racist.

Dr. Tom Friedan, former CDC director and sexual abuser, said this regarding the lethality of the virus with any group gatherings (skip to the second part).

Yet now…

Again, I’m not saying people shouldn’t be protesting. I was suggesting protesting back in April. I’m pointing out the hypocrisy of the media and our so-called health leaders.

Here’s another comment from a Senior Scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security:

Seems to me this just as easily was “In this moment the public health risks of economic shutdown impacts greatly exceed the harms of the virus.”

But that thoughtcrime was not allowed.

Even so, the virus narrative is still strong. At both protests I was at, at least 99% of people were wearing masks. I even had a man mutter something about me spreading the virus, because I was not one of them.

Making Sense of the Downward Spiral

I must share another video from Rebel Wisdom with Daniel Schmachtenberger. I’d recommend watching it, but I’ve pulled out some of the most important quotes below if you don’t have time, along with my thoughts. They’re in italics through the rest of this post.

“There’s like a gazillion hypotheses. I think the problem is the people who aren’t buying the mainstream media narrative are buying the first alternate narrative that appeals to their sensemaking desire to not have uncertainty and put the pieces together, before there is adequate evidence that that alternate narrative is much better.”

You must become more comfortable with uncertainty. You need to hold competing narratives as possibilities within your mind. Reaching conclusions is something you need to do very carefully over time.

A book I read recently was Annie Dukes’ Thinking In Bets. It helped gave me a framework of thinking about both decisions and narratives. “I’d give XYZ a 30% chance of going this way. There’s a 5% chance ABC is true.” This is extremely helpful as you hold multiple possible and sometimes mutually exclusive narratives in mind.

Here’s another tip. Perhaps, instead of looking for answers, you are better spent looking for questions. Like who benefits?

“Warfare is mainly not fought with bullets. Like the kinetic warfare that we think of as warfare that’s fought with weapons is maybe 1% of warfare. 99% of warfare is diplomatic warfare, political warfare, economic warfare, narrative warfare, information warfare. All of this comes together to what we call hybrid warfare, or really just politics, or game theory or the game of power…In this war, the treasure being fought over is people’s minds and the battleground is people’s minds. The primary weapons are tools of narrative influence, and emotional evocation and control of the information flows. And in these wars, they’re asymmetric wars because you have some actors that have access to billion or trillion dollar level information technologies, AI empowered micro-targeting. And then you have other people just trying to figure out shit on their own and they don’t even know they’re in a war. And they don’t even know their own mind is the battleground of the war. And they think they believe the shit they believe. And they think they came to it on their own. And they think they’re doing a good job sensemaking.”

One of the things I recognized is that we’re dealing with advanced technology. Here is what I mean by that. Our governments (and public partners of course) absolutely have hidden technology. It is not a matter of if they do or not. It is a question of how much more advanced?

That’s one piece. But another is that just the public technology is very much beyond the sensemaking of most people, myself included.

Here is a great analogy I heard regarding what is called artificial intelligence, machine learning or algorithms. Imagine yourself as compared to the best chess player in the world. They’re magnitudes of scale beyond your ability, right?

Now, imagine that grand champion player against AI. The AI is a similar magnitude beyond them.

That level of AI is what controls your social media feed.

“Given enough data, the algorithm was better able to predict a person’s personality traits than any of the human participants. It needed access to just 10 likes to beat a work colleague, 70 to beat a roommate, 150 to beat a parent or sibling, and 300 to beat a spouse,” writes a New York Times article from five years ago. Algorithm maybe able to predict your actions better than you consciously can…

Does the government have more powerful algorithms than that? Are these hooked into not only social media but other things? It’s scary to think about but the answer is probably yes. The question again being to the degree of what is available.

You are in an information war and you are so insanely outnumbered and outgunned it is not even funny.

Meanwhile most people are blindly walking down the battlefield thinking they’re strolling in the park.

The Upcoming Election

“We have an election coming up in the US that will be radically consequential for the world. Either way. No matter who wins currently, whether the election is illegally tampered with and stolen or not, half of the population will think it was. This is a real problem.”

Let that sink in for a moment. Last week before I saw this video, I echoed a similar point regarding the election: “How long until we see the “radical left” clashing with the “Q Anon Church”? After all, each side knows with 100% certainty that they’re trying to stop ultimate tyranny from occurring.”

After that, one person asked me about Q Anon. I’m sure other people were wondering too.

If you’re not aware of Q Anon…you’re missing a huge piece of HOW the information war is being fought.  

I’m not saying to be a Q Anon “follower”. I’m not saying to dismiss it out-of-hand as a right-wing conspiracy theory either as is the mainstream narrative. I’m saying to be aware of it, because it is important either way (neither are these the only two options). I’ll dive deeper into the subject at some point, but I feel like more groundwork needs to be laid to even be able to talk about that mindscrew in a coherent way.

(For those that are aware and want to know where I stand, I think it’s a limited hangout psy-op. I give it only about 1% chance of being what it says it is all about.)

“I don’t find that most successful politicians that I’ve encountered near the top of the power actually believe red vs. blue ideology. They just believe in the game of power and signal red vs. blue ideology as part of their mimetic warfare to control people that are going to vote for them.”

Politics is a dirty, dirty business. Us vs. them is a powerful means of control and it’s used in more ways than most people give credit.

Remember how even the science of the virus got split by political lines? Watch it happening again, because both red and blue ideologies have things to gain from doing so.

Upregulation and Downregulation

“When I look at the counterculture movement as a whole and I look at the green revolution, the sexual revolution, and the civil rights process, and women’s rights, all the various things, the deeper story that I see, most of the activists who were there don’t know. The deeper story I see is actually understanding COINTELPRO, and how the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies actually infiltrated the progressive movements to very specifically derail them. And get them focused on shit that would be ineffective, that we’re still doing today. So I happen to believe there was intentional upregulation by those power structures of postmodernism as a structure of thought. Because if the people that only studied social science only studied how to critique the game of power, without actually knowing how to effectively organize, then they would make sure they could never actually really do anything. So if every time someone’s organizing well you call it imperialism, you won’t end up organizing well, becoming an imperialist, or you’ll just be noise and that’s fine. And the social sciences that are actually studying the history of military theory and political theory and strategy itself, got very downregulated in exchange for something that would make people feel more righteous, while being less effective. So I want to make sure that we’re learning the right lessons from the right periods of history.”

This goes back to what I was saying earlier about learning from history, but the right history, or as Daniel calls it here, the deeper story.

Let me take some time to explain this a bit more because I doubt it is clear to most. Postmodernism is basically the idea that all truths are relative. It has been used to criticize morality, hierarchy, reason, logic and truth.

Some people, such as Jordan Peterson, argue that it has come to be the dominant ideology behind much of what is taught in college to the detriment of higher learning and the people that go through it.

What Daniel is saying is that intelligence operations made these ideas bigger than they otherwise would have been. They upregulated them so that would more embrace the philosophy.

At the same time they took other ideas, that might better challenge existing structures (aka those in power), and downregulated them.

If you have not learned that intelligence agencies did this back then, you wouldn’t know that they’re doing it today…and likely have much better tools, such as AI, to do so.

If they did it with postmodernism, what else have they done it too. What kinds of science? What kinds of spirituality? What other philosophies?

Identity politics, that of oppressor and oppressed, is based in postmodernism. What I believe Daniel is saying here, without coming right out and saying it, is the following.

Are the Protests and Riots Being Upregulated?

The murder of George Floyd went viral.

Why did it go viral? It is particularly brutal and in your face. The video is about nine minutes long, the cops clearly seen. In fact, I’ve seen some question the validity of it based on it just being so blatant. But the sheer incredulity of it certainly seems to be a piece of its virality.

(An aside but interesting point that this has a parallel between ideas of a natural virus vs. one worked on for gain-of-function or other purposes in the lab…)

And you have to imagine that virality can be up and down regulated. A small tweak to an algorithm and something that is viral to any degree could be put to the top of everyone’s feed. A small tweak in the other direction and something would not make the same kind of rounds.

The use of bots and other methods is an easier way this can be done without actually having the social media companies in on it. In the mainstream narrative, these bot armies are always blamed on China and Russia, which I don’t deny they use. But if you don’t think US and other intelligence agencies and their private partners, nor multi-billion dollar foundations, would make use of the same, that’s naïve.

Then there’s what gets play on the mainstream news. “If it bleeds it leads.” Of course there is this old exhortation that is true. It’s a big part of why the past three months have been nothing but coronavirus 24/7.

But bleeding doesn’t always lead. Media coverage of Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t there much at all. We also see it being stamped down on in several places (downregulated) despite it being one of the most interesting stories ever if the news actually covered the details and all the ramifications.

In other words for something to become huge it has to fit the desired narrative.

Why no protests or riots for the underage girls abused by Epstein? Why no protests over the obvious miscarriages of justice there, including no charges, not even an investigation against against Ghislaine Maxwell, Prince Andrews and others involved?

If we accept the hypothesis that media is manipulated (previous posts here and here), of which we have tons of evidence for, then we have to ask, why this narrative? Why now?

Some Theories On Where This is Headed…

The following are some ideas on what is going on and where this all might be headed:

Patsy Hypothesis

This one is my favorite hypothesis. It’s to let off steam from the lock down. It was starting to open up, it seemed not so bad to many, the virus narrative was getting weaker or perhaps just going stale.

People would be angry at the politicians, health leaders and economists if it was lifted and all we had to focus on was the economic ruin.

But instead we are given the authority figure of the police to aim our frustrations at.

The police are a patsy, a misdirection from the larger criminals., the looting of our economy and transfer of wealth to the already extremely rich.

(Again, not to take away from any racism and brutality they do engage in that should be reformed.)

Regardless of how the protests and riots play out, no one is looking at the bigger picture because we’re absorbed in this crazy story, justifiably so.

Military in Streets Hypothesis

This is to get US citizens used to military in the streets. Even for people to start asking for the military to help.

This seems to only be a possibility if it continues to get worse and in select areas. But if it happens in some it’s easier for it to happen more later.

That gives another possibility down the road. If the military is already deployed…well, then they could more easily be used to distribute the vaccine.

Second Wave Hypothesis

The lockdowns were growing stale. The second wave has long been promised.

Now, we do see cases rising…

Is that because cases are actually rising, or more testing shenanigans? Regardless, now the protests can be blamed as the cause. Therefore, we’ll need to do more and longer lockdowns as the second wave hits…once again, until the vaccine is here to save us.

Preparation for Stage 3 Hypothesis

I wonder with this level of protests and riots are the American people MORE or LESS likely to engage in the same in the near future?

I’d lean towards more, especially if they’re effective. (The charges against cops have escalated thus far and various proposals for police reform are up in the air. But time will tell…)

So then I ask is this a preparation for the next phase? If phase 1 was the coronavirus and phase 2 is the protests and riots, what is phase 3? I don’t know but I wonder.

Assuming there are some sort of central planners, do they have something up their sleeves?

The US election is coming up in November (or is it? Some theories that it could be postponed or canceled in some way.) More big stuff will happen before that absolutely 100% guaranteed! Something else on the scale of corona or these protests/riots.

Since it happens every year, I would expect some natural disasters. Fires in California. Maybe earthquakes. Hurricanes elsewhere. These have been quite devastating over the last few years, so they’ll probably be again.

How much worse will natural disasters be with the current tensions and economic problems?

Q Anon Hypothesis

This is not really my hypothesis but one of the narratives out there. The virus and the race riots are all ploys to try to steal the election from Donald Trump by the Deep State/Democrats.

I have to wonder about putting Biden up as their candidate. I understand he has been an establishment player for a long time now (aka someone who doesn’t really believe in blue ideology).

But compared to other candidates he had a fraction of popular support. Do they want to lose against Trump?

Or, as others have proposed, will there be some late stage shenanigans of Clinton or Obama becoming vice president? Or Cuomo? Does Biden die and someone must step in to fill his shoes?

One thing Q shared that which is very interesting is the Google Trend for “black lives matter”. It originally blew up in 2015 about the same time before an election. (Again, I’m not saying this detracts in any way from the fact that black lives matter, just that it is an interesting point.)

American’s Great Leap Forward

Hanlon’s razor is an aphorism “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

I don’t know but the more I hear people use that to explain what is going on in the world, the less I think it adequately explains a lot of things. Do you really believe that all the most powerful people in the world are stupid?

And, if indeed there are central planners, they probably have phase 4, 5 and beyond too. I covered not how we’ll get there but what seems to be in the plans in this post.

Please note that these hypothesis aren’t mutually exclusive.

The best operation would be to have positive results no matter how things turned out. Smart people look at possibilities and adapt as the situation unfolds.

The propaganda is adapting as such…are you?

Top Books Read from 2019

Out of the 111 books I read last year, here are some of the highlights. I’ll be saving my #1 book of the year for the following post. And if you missed it, the full list can be found in the previous post here.

With reading this many books it is possible to read quite a few around different topics. I like to consider these “Deep Dives“. These included:

  • All of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s books (and I’ll likely re-read some next year)
  • Masculinity
  • Magick, specifically chaos magick
  • Systems thinking (including reading Thinking in Systems twice)
  • Conspiracy (aka history and biography)
  • Habits (in preparation of my release of HabitsOnDemand.com)
  • Medical intuition

A number of these will be addressed a bit more below.

Favorite Fiction Book of the Year

I only read ten fiction books this year. Most of which were Sci-Fi but not all.

It’s hard to call out a favorite of these as there were some great ones! Notable runner ups were Gates of Fire, Blood Meridian and Pandora’s Star. (The Brothers Karamazov was really good too…but it did take several hundred pages before I was really hooked. Actually the same for Pandora’s Star but the payoff at the end was worth it.)

But the award goes to Daemon by Daniel Suarez. (With the sequel Freedom™️ being right up there.)

This book has a bunch of themes that are currently present in our world and seeing them play out in a really fascinating way was great. It was also relatively short compared to some of the other monstrous novels I read.

Tip: A while back I searched for a list of top 100 science fiction books and used that to identify many titles, I’ve been reading the past couple of years. Working my way through the books that stood out to me on such a list is one reason I’ve been reading so much science fiction.

Favorite Book on Masculinity

King Warrior Magician Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette

In the early part of the year I felt drawn to dive deeper into the topic of masculinity. One of my favorite articles I wrote all year was Masculinity Forged in the Gym. It’s worth reading, and covers the four archetypes mentioned here too.

I re-read a bunch of books I already had on the topic and got some new ones. Of them all, this one is my favorite. I find it a useful framework of archetypes to work with. (And truthfully, it can work for women just as well too, simply sub out King for Queen.) This led me a bit deeper into Robert Moore’s work including the topic of initiation which is interesting too.

Favorite Books on Systems Thinking

Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows

2019 was the year I got into systems thinking. And I’m kicking myself for not diving in sooner! For a long time I have thought about systems, but I finally found some great books on the topic.

Thinking in Systems is a short read. But it is so good that I read it twice in 2019. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book twice in one year, so that is saying something. I’ll be working further to understand and utilizing the Systems Traps/Opportunities and Leverage Points covered here.

The Fifth Discipline by Peter M. Senge

And I can’t not mention The Fifth Discipline as well. This is a business book and covers other topics too, but the section on systems thinking here is worth it alone. It gives a bit of a different take on the systems, diagramming them differently as well.

Systems thinking is so important it should be taught in school. Since for 99% of people it was not, I would encourage you to educate yourself on the topic now.

Best Book on Parenting

Becoming the Parent You Want To Be by Laura Davis & Janis Keyser

I haven’t read a whole lot on parenting, but of what I’ve read so far this is my favorite. It covers a lot. One tip I heard from another parent was to read a book about development. This helps you to know what is coming. Well, this book covers that topic quite well. And on that note, I’m sure I’ll be referring to it again and again as new ages occur and new strategies are needed.

Best Book from Taleb

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I would say that all of Taleb’s books are worth reading. I read them all this past year and there is a good chance I’ll be revisiting at least some of them in 2020 as well. Highly entertaining while being highly educational.

I’ve heard several people say that different books of his are there favorites, but for me the concept of antifragility was a big aha. I’ve been talking about it ever since, like in the health sovereign podcast. It applies to strength. It applies to health. It applies to so much. And it’s not like this book just covers the one concept but so much else.

Taleb gets a high recommendation from me!

Most Useful Business Books in 2019

I’ll cover three different books here. By most useful I mean that I took the ideas and put them into action.

One to Many by Jason Fladlien

This book is about webinars. I did two webinars in 2019. One was before I got this book and it was all over the place. The second one was much more tightly focused using the model Fladlien lays out in the book. That was The Art and Science of Habits On Demand that I did in December.

I’d like to say I crushed it and sold a boatload…but unfortunately the audio cut out during the close which, needless to say, was not the best way to sell. Still I think the webinar went really well.

Deep Work by Cal Newport

There is a lot going on in life these days. This book, is about stepping away from activity, in order to really focus on what is important. Reading this, along with some other situations, has led to me doing computer-free work days which have thus far been quite amazing. Without using a computer I’m able to focus on deep thought. I’ll likely be reading this one again at some point.

The Bezos Letters by Steve Anderson with Karen Anderson

This book shares principles gleaned from Jeff Bezos’ letters to shareowners of Amazon. There’s some great stuff in here. The distinction between type 1 and type 2 decisions (primarily, those that are reversible and those that are not) was very helpful.

In addition, it got me focused on figuring out the Flywheel for Lost Empire Herbs, which I’ll be sharing in an upcoming post. (Which happens to be a systems diagram!)

Best Science Book

Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity by Denis Noble

“There’s no privileged level of causation in biology.” -Denis Noble

I got turned onto the work of Noble from Perry Marshall (whom I interviewed recently surrounding such topics here and here.) He shared that quote at one of his seminars and I new it was important for me to learn more about.

Of Noble’s two books, this one is more recent and better. It covers a lot of similar information as Perry’s Evolution 2.0, which I highly recommend (and re-read this year). But this is a bit more technical though not overly so. And you see that a systems approach is necessary here, rather than reductionist science.

Best Mind Stretching Books

A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber

I found myself coming back to this distinction multiple times since reading this book. That is the four quadrants of the individual vs collective and the internal vs external. (The common thread of systems thinking runs through this, but is only a part, i.e. the external and collective.)

These in turn leads to the Good, the Beautiful and the True. This shows why Sam Harris trying to derive values from facts will not work. Incompatible quadrants.

That’s far from everything covered in this book, but a critical distinction, like I said, that I’ve been reflecting on a lot.

The Watchman’s Rattle by Rebecca D. Costa

Collapse. It’s something we are quite likely facing. So much of what we humans are doing right now is unsustainable. By definition, that means it will not sustain. We must either change such things…or we will go into some form of collapse.

This book takes a look at past civilizations, which pretty much all have collapsed to see why that happens. And basically the answer here is that the people stop being able to make sense of what is going on. Do you perceive that as going on right now? I sure see it.

I’ll be returning to this topic, but I did find this book a great way to dive in.

Best Biography Book

The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot

This book is about Allen Dulles, one of the early heads of the CIA.

It details how much he worked with Nazi’s after the war in his fight against the threat of communism, along with his brother John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State during the Eisenhower administration.

It covers the CIA coups against democratically elected leaders in Iran, Guatemala and elsewhere. (Are you aware of these? They’re common knowledge outside of the US, but for some reason aren’t taught in our schools.)

This stuff is disclosed nowadays and out in the open. But it also goes into detail of some of the stuff still hidden. Seeing Truman’s response to the CIA, when he was the president that created it, was eye-opening.

“I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo.”

“Now, as nearly as I can make out, those fellows in the CIA don’t just report on wars and the like, they go out and make their own, and there’s nobody to keep track of what they’re up to. They spend billions of dollars on stirring up trouble so they’ll have something to report on. They’ve become…it’s become a government all of its own and all secret. They don’t have to account to anybody.”

Former President Harry S. Truman, regarding the CIA he started

So that’s just some of my top picks from the year. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I’ll be sharing my top pick for the year in the following post.

Synchronicity

The past year or so, I’ve been focusing on synchronicity more. This is when two or more seemingly unrelated things happen together in a way that defies coincidence.

Although some people were looking into this phenomenon earlier, the concept and name comes from Jung. He defined synchronicity as an “acausal connecting (togetherness) principle” or “meaningful coincidence.”

If you focus on synchronicity more it tends to pop up more often. And apparently stronger forms of it too, as you’ll come to see…

Last year I read two books on the subject (of 73 books total). These two books are:

Both of these books are worth reading if you’re into this subject, which since you’ve read even this far into the post, I’m guessing you are. While I do not agree with many of the opinions in them, there is definitely some great food for thought.

For instance, Dr. Kirby discusses the “New Age” idea that synchronicities are signs from the Universe pointing you in the right direction. Without being explicitly taught that, I just kind of picked it up. Contrast this to his opinion is that synchronicities simply match whatever we think about. They’re a reflection on what you desire…including if you want to believe the Universe is guiding you. He shares some somewhat humorous, somewhat sad stories of people with psychological problems that he’s worked with having synchronicities support their crazy worldview.

But I’m not here to discuss theories on why or how these work. Instead, I wanted to share some of the more powerful ones I’ve had.

My Most Potent Synchronistic Series of Events Ever

I realize that’s a bit of an oxymoron. Synchronicity is about things happening at the same time, aka synchronized, while here it is a bit of a chain of events. Still, up until recently I thought this was my best example. The timing was off a bit, but the meaning was potent. In fact, this series did help steer my course in life to some degree! Another term for this would be following a “golden thread”, as Stephen Harrod Buhner talks about.

One day when I was writing, and I don’t even remember exactly what it was, the idea of alchemy popped into my head. This was a subject I hadn’t really explored before. I go online, fire up Google, and for some amount of time, went down the rabbit hole. Soon enough I realize what I’m doing, close the browser and get back to work.

Later that day I was at the Lost Empire Herbs office (technically Super Man Herbs at that time). My oldest brother Cloud hands me a book saying you’ll probably be interested in this. It was called Spagyrics: The Alchemical Preparation of Medicinal Essences, Tinctures, and Elixirs by Manfred M. Junius.

For those not familiar, as I certainly wasn’t at the time, spagyrics essentially means alchemy with plants, as opposed to the more commonly known metals. There is something to this art and science, even if the turning lead to gold (which everyone automatically goes to first in their mind with the word alchemy) didn’t prove out.

Yes, definitely interested! And I did take that as a sign that this was something I had to start reading immediately (as opposed to some other books I’ve been gifted from the same brother, or other people).

So I read the book…and was confused. Spagyrics, alchemy is a pretty complicated subject. Reading the book I was thinking two things.

Number one: there is no way I could possibly do this stuff without finding a mentor or something like that.

Number two: I wonder if anyone is doing this and selling the spagyrics? For this second reason, I started hunting around online. Spent a half hour to an hour looking at sites, many of which are extremely ugly.
After that I forget about the subject for a little while.

But then a short time later I find myself at a health conference in Southern California. One of the exhibitors looks a bit familiar to me, though I know I’ve never met them. Soon enough I realize that I came across this website in my earlier search.

This company, Organic Unity, not only prepares and sells spagyrics but they also have training on herbalism which includes alchemical preparations. The training starts in a month and is in Jackson county of Oregon, close to two other places I’d done lots of training in Medford and Ashland. And a place that is only a seven hour drive away. No problem!

I take this as a sign of something I need to do (and want to do) so I sign up on the spot.

The rest, as they say is history. I got into spagyrics, started making my own, and Lost Empire Herbs now sells a number of them, which are very popular, with far more growth in this area almost certainly to occur in the future.

(For those interested its our Ashwagandha, Nettle Root, Blue Vervain tinctures, as well as Mushroom Alchemy.)

Recent Powerful Synchronicities

I get a piece of direct mail, a postcard from the company Robinhood, which promises to let you buy and sell stocks for free. They also offer a free share of stock when you sign up. I’m intrigued so I check it out.

As I’m setting up my account, I’m also multi-tasking…

I have a video on with Peter Diamandis interviewing Martine Rothblatt. I follow Peter’s work even if I’m not quite as optimistic about how future technology will save us all. Anyway, I had never heard of Martine, but she was the creator and CEO of Sirius XM, the satellite radio station.

The interview is going on, just starting up where I’m hearing about this as I’m working on the Robinhood account. The free stock comes up and it’s…Sirius XM

Whoa! That synchronicity definitely blew me away. 

Then just the other day I was walking through the forest, aiming to find some new fungi and partaking in my “Church of Nature” routine.

I’m on my way back on a loop I’ve often taken. I start noticing the Redwood Sorrel around me. This plant looks a lot like Clover, and is commonly mistaken for it.

As I’m looking at the Sorrel, I start wondering if the same mutation that makes a four leaf clover happens in this plant.

Literally two seconds later I notice this.

I have never, ever seen a four leaf version before this moment…and I’ve spent plenty of time around Redwood Sorrel.

Crazy synchronicity in which the world reflects my thoughts. It’s interesting to think about how this occurred:

  • Did I start thinking about four leaves because the plant was talking to me?
  • Or was it the future event rippling back in time as quantum physics says is possible?
  • Did my thoughts “create” reality because I was in an open state walking through the woods?

I can’t say for sure what it was except that it was one of these, or at least something like it.

Or was it just coincidence? This option I don’t believe at all. The materialistic mindset really doesn’t explain anything, so much as try to explain it away…unsuccessfully I might add.

Besides a more magical worldview is just plain more fun in my opinion.

These are just two examples of the more powerful synchronicities that have happened lately.

(I’ll share one smaller one. I think the number ones are pretty common and not a big deal to me. To me they seem too easy but lots of other people seem to focus on them. As I was journaling in the morning, sitting in my infrared sauna as I always do, thinking about writing this article, I looked up and saw 32 degrees Celsius with 32 minutes left on the timer. Okay, I guess I’ll write the article…) 

I would love to hear a story of a powerful synchronicity you’ve had in the comments below.

Health, Nature, Shamanism and Science Books

This is the ongoing analysis of the books I read over 2017. This title might seem like an odd grouping to most people, but there is actually a strong thread throughout.

First, if you missed the previous posts here they are:

Now, more on that strong thread…

A lot of what I read this year was to aid in the writing of my own book, still in the works, Powered By Nature. In the following lists, every italicized book title was quoted, referenced or otherwise utilized for this purpose. As you can see, across the four sections it’s most of them.

And really many of them could have been put in the other categories. You’ll see I actually did put Sheldrake into two different categories. Most of the nature books were heavy on science, and about the health impact of nature, which is the primary goal of my book too.

Nature Books

Nature Books

  1. The Nature Principle by Richard Louv
  2. The Lost Language of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
  3. What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz
  4. Vitamin N by Richard Louv
  5. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
  6. The Secrets Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
  7. The Bay Area Forager by Kevin Feinstein and Mia Andler
  8. The Rebirth of Nature by Rupert Sheldrake
  9. Survival Handbook by Peter Darman

Buhner is one of my favorite authors. That’s also why I read his book about writing too. More on that later.

I won’t go into the amazing details of all these books. You’ll have to wait for Powered By Nature for that (or read all of these).

But I will mention The Bay Area Forager. Actually before I read this book I did a foraging class with Kevin Feinstein. That class, then using this book for more and as a resource guide, helped me up my foraging game in 2017, which should grow even stronger next year. I’m doing this as a way of building a closer connection to real food and where it comes from, especially in the wild.

Shamanism Books

Books Shamanic

  1. Psychonavigation by John Perkins
  2. Illumination by Alberto Villoldo

Seeing as I’ve traveled to both the Amazon jungle and Guatemala with him, I’ve read over half of John Perkins’ books. Very entertaining author with subjects that are important to me.

Science/History Books

Science Books

  1. The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollock
  2. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
  3. Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
  4. Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris
  5. Slow Death By Rubber Duck by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie
  6. Evolution 2.0 by Perry Marshall
  7. Trust Us, We’re Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
  8. Magicians of the Gods by Graham Hancock
  9. Why Science is Wrong…About Almost Everything by Alex Tsakiris
  10. Science and Spirituality by Rupert Sheldrake

One of the hardest chapters for me to write in Powered By Nature is the one about The Fall of Nature/The Rise of Scientism. It was Rupert Sheldrake’s book Science Set Free that opened my eyes to this idea, which I read the previous year. (The synopsis is materialism as a philosophy has a strangle hold on science and the worldview of many things and is not actually scientific in it’s approach.)

While Sapiens and Homo Deus are conventional science, everything else listed here is not. They either detail the problems of science, alternative (but superior and actually fitting the evidence better) theories, or both.

Evolution 2.0 looks at the whole idea of Darwinism vs. Creationism as a false divide, and what the evidence is actually showing.

Trust, Us We’re Experts is about how industries can muddy the scientific waters, and have done so over and over. Everyone knows that Big Tobacco did this. Few people realize how pervasive it has been in the past, and still is today.

Rigor Mortis covers the difficulties of scientific experiments, even when it is not purposefully mislead. From the conventional side of things, it still shows the major flaws in what we call science.

The Fourth Phase of Water shows just how wrong the conventional understanding of water is. Water! If we don’t have the most common and foundational molecule right, how much can we trust more advanced things?

Nor is it just science, but other fields like archaeology too, as covered in Magicians of the Gods, which shows a preponderance of evidence for rewriting human history from what we’re all taught as the mainstream view.

I am thoroughly enjoying this topic. The more I dig in the more I see how flawed so much that we accept without question is. Since we live in the “scientific age,” I feel this is must-have knowledge to be able to successfully navigate the world. I plan to write more about this topic in the future.

Health Books

Health Books

  1. Primal Fat Burner by Nora Gedgaudas
  2. The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
  3. Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson
  4. King by Elliot Hulse with Chris Barnard
  5. Head Strong by Dave Asprey
  6. Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman
  7. The Vaccine Friendly Plan by Paul Thomas, MD and Jennifer Margulis, PhD.
  8. In the Dark by Jason Bawden-Smith
  9. Fat for Fuel by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Once again, plenty of science in pretty much all these books. And the crossover between health and nature books is fairly arbitrary.

You’ll notice that a lot of them lean towards the high fat diet or ketosis. That’s something I’ve been exploring and is trendy now, so new books on the topic have been coming out and I’ve been reading them.

But these aren’t all diet books. Some are about things likes light and how it affects you, and movement.

There is one more post about the categories in books, then a final post covering a different way of look at the complete list, as well as thoughts on my reading for 2018.

The Visionary View

Recently, I bought my first home. Before that was months of being in the market to buy a house. My wife and I each had our own list of criteria.

There were things that were non-negotiable. For me, these included things like:

  • The location. We only wanted to live in certain areas.
  • The land. It needed to have some space and be close to nature.
  • A big garage for a gym.
  • A space for an office, with enough separation from the rest of the house.
  • The price. We had a ceiling in what we could get as far as a mortgage loan.

We looked at a lot of houses. Probably physically went to 30 or 40 over the span of a few months. (It was a crazy time that I’m very happy to be done with!)

One thing that we ended up with, that was not on either of our lists, was an amazing view.

Visionary View 1
This sunrise was from the first morning staying at my new place.

 

I love this expansive view because it is visionary. That’s an interesting word that I’ve been thinking about lately.

In business, they often talk about visionary leaders. Some of the prototypical ones of these are guys like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk.

The definitions of visionary:

1. (especially of a person) thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom.

2. relating to or able to see visions in a dream or trance, or as a supernatural apparition.

I like both of these definitions.

And so, when I saw this view that I knew that living at this house, with the visionary view, would help me to become even more visionary.

How could it not?

Indeed, a friend of mine said the same thing to me.

And right around the time of waiting through escrow on the hous I was reading through Les McKeown’s book, The Synergist. (I’ll be talking about his earlier book in a future post.)

In it he discusses four different operational styles. The Visionary. The Operator. The Processor. And the Synergist.

Guess which type was highest for me? Visionary.

You can take a test to see how you stack up right here. (It’s free, though you have to signup with email address at the end to get your results.)

I had all my partners and employees take the test, and have also recommended it to other business owners in a couple mastermind groups I take part in.

In business, as well as everywhere else, it is important to know yourself.

It is also important to know where you want to go. In the future, I plan to be even more visionary. And it is great to have an amazing environment to support doing that.

Thinking, being imaginative, coming up with ideas, meditating while sitting out there overlooking the view.

Visionary View 2
A typical day…

We’re all products of our environment far more than many people realize. Plenty of studies showing how small environmental cues will shift habits, behaviors, even what we think.

That’s why it is very important to setup your environments for what you want.

The Secret to Winning

“The secret to winning the game is staying in the game long enough to win the game.”
-Dr. Glenn Livingston

I came across this quote somewhere the other day, and liked it so much I had to write it down.

I liked it so much because it is so true.

With life, and achieving anything in it, you need to take a long term perspective. A year…years…a decade…multiple decades.

Something I’ve heard, and know to be true from personal experience, is that humans tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in a year, but underestimate what they can do in three years. 

(A lot of people tend to set yearly goals, but how many set three year goals? I wonder if that has anything to do with it.)

The fact is that most people quit too early. And in some cases too early may be after three or five years!

I’ve seen this happen in my fitness life. I was weak starting out. It pissed me off to see people that didn’t workout able to do things I had to bust my ass for six months to accomplish. But I continued working out. They didn’t.

I look back ten years and I’m amazed at all I’ve done. Holy shit! I am actually quite strong and do some amazing things. When did that happen? There was no magical flip of the switch, just consistency over a long time frame. 

I have made just about every mistake you could possibly make when it comes to business. I cringe to think about some of what occurred in my early days…or even just last year. But the one mistake I did not make, the one that made all the difference, was that I kept going.

I’ve stayed in the business game almost a decade now, and it’s really starting to pay off. 

It’s kind of aggravating thinking “Why did it take so long?” Well, I had a whole lot to learn over that time.

As long as you keep going, and you learn along the way, in the end you will be successful.

As coaching legend Vince Lombardi once stated after a loss, “We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.”

In sports you have a finite time to win. While the time may vary, that’s part of the rules in pretty much every single sport there is.

In life, there is also a time limit…but this is far, far, far longer than any sport.

The more you can wrap your head around being persistent, being patient, and thinking for the long-term, the better off you’ll be no matter the endeavor.