How The West Lost Its Mind — And Why It Must Regain It Fast Now To Survive

Op-Ed by Neenah Payne

Most people recognize that the world is in very serious trouble in multiple ways — the global economy is increasingly at risk, the world’s rainforests are being destroyed as are our soils which undermines the health of our plants and animals as well as our own health. There are endless wars and the 1% seem to get ever richer at the expense of billions of people. We are on the verge of the Sixth Mass Extinction — the only one caused by humanity.

However, the answers proposed in political circles — whether socialism or the World Economic Forum’s plan for The Great Reset — don’t address the root causes and thus offer no real solutions. The phrase “As a man thinketh, so shall he be” shows the critical importance of our thoughts in creating our world. Legendary British author David Icke has also often stressed the key role of perception in shaping reality.

People often don’t realize that entire civilizations are built on Foundational Stories. The story of the West now is “Greed is good” as Gordon Gecko (played by Michael Douglas) told us in the 2010 film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. That philosophy is based on the insatiable demand for “more” which is celebrated each year by the Forbes List of Billionaires. We need a better story that provides a more holistic vision and greater harmony with our only planet. Our survival now depends on our ability/willingness to envision a new (ancient) story so we can THINK DIFFERENT as Apple advised us. We must transition to this new way of thinking and this new era quickly to survive now.

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How do we start? Are there any reliable guides now?

Westerners Search For a New Vision

Are You Choosing The Light In The Dim Age? shows that author Vin Armani points out that we are now in the “Dim Age” — a time of magical technology. In his interview What Are The Politics of Bitcoin?, Armani explains that in The Dim Age, the “Woke” folks are staying in the darkness while “The Remnant” is going into the light. Armani defines “The Dim Age” as “The End of the Empire”. The Controlled Demolition of the American Empire by Jeff Berwick and Charlie Robinson has a 5-star rating and has over 1,500 reviews since it was published in October 2020.

Return To The Garden of EDEN Now links to Armani’s Ascendant Project in which he explains the four cycles of history and shows that we are moving into a period now when people who are self-sufficient will be most able to thrive. Humanity Is Living In Two Worlds Now! shows that Armani explains that The Remnant are increasingly opting out of the dominant culture now to seek greater freedom by going off grid, growing their own food, getting into cryptocurrencies, etc. The GREATER Reset — Inspiring Vision For Humanity! shows that these steps are endorsed by Derrick Broze and John Bush who created The Greater Reset in January and will host another series in May.

In a profound search for a deeper understanding of themselves and reality, a growing number of Westerners are flocking to the Amazon to drink ayahuasca with shamans now. This is a deep search for meaning they feel they cannot find in Western culture. Armani says he has drunk ayahuasca 15 times with 5 different shamans.

Wikipedia explains: “People who have consumed ayahuasca report having mystical or religious experiences and spiritual revelations regarding their purpose on earth, the true nature of the universe, and deep insight into how to be the best person they possibly can. This is viewed by many as a spiritual awakening and what is often described as a rebirth. It is often reported that individuals feel they gain access to higher spiritual dimensions and make contact with various spiritual or extra-dimensional beings who can act as guides or healers…It is claimed that people may experience profound positive life changes subsequent to consuming ayahuasca, by author Don Jose Campos and others.”

Several DVDs on Amazon Prime provide a glimpse of that world and help explain its deep appeal including The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms, Shamans of the Amazon is a 3-video series, Shaman, Healer, Sage is a journey with Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D. and the Shaman’s Apprentice is a journey with Mark Plotkin, founder of The Amazon Conservation Team.

How The West Hides Its Links To Shamanism

Why We Celebrate Christmas The Indigenous Way points out that America is a largely Christian nation and Christmas – which commemorates the birth of Christ – is one of the most important celebrations of the Christian religion. However, few Americans realize that almost all of the ways in which we celebrate this holiday (Holy Day) have nothing to do with Christianity. Most of our Christmas traditions are based on the shamanic traditions of the Sami – an indigenous people in Scandinavia.

Could Magic Mushrooms Explain the Story of Santa Claus? explains that: “The story of Santa flying around Earth on Christmas Eve with his reindeer and sleigh is a Christmas staple popular enough to rival that of Jesus’ birth. But where did the idea of flying reindeer and a stealthy gift-giver squeezing down chimneys come from? One interesting theory claims the answer revolves around amanita muscaria: magic mushrooms.” Also see Christmas, Amanita Muscaria, and Santa Claus, Shaman Claus: The Shamanic Origins of Christmas, and Santa is a ‘shroom. And the reindeer are all tripping.

Saami shamans wear red and white to show that the red and white amanita muscaria (aka fly agaric) mushroom is their sacrament. They wear red and white capes to symbolize their flight through the air when they eat the mushroom on their most sacred night of the year, the Winter Solstice – the celebration of which begins on December 21 and ends on December 25.

The shamans gather the mushrooms and put them in sacks to deliver them to each household by descending through the roof since the yurts are piled high with snow. Reindeer also like the mushroom and are said to “fly” when they eat it! The sacred mushroom is eaten on December 21, the Winter Solstice, to commemorate the return of the light and to provide a transcendental experience that is said to lead to enlightenment.

Santa Claus and our Christmas traditions preserve our connection to our shamanic roots — while hiding and disguising them. However, instead of delivering the magic mushroom which is a pathway to enlightenment through direct experiential knowledge, Santa Claus brings gifts we often don’t need or want — and ties us to the material world. It turns a sacred holiday when we could grow wiser into a requirement to shop!

So, we adopted the form, but lost the meaning of the sacred ceremonies. We lost the path to enlightenment that Westerners are now going to the Amazon to drink ayahuasca to find again.

How The West Lost Its Ancient Wisdom

Egypt was powerful and enlightened for thousands of years. We are living in ancient Egypt now in many ways, but look on with eyes wide shut. The Connection Between Ancient Egyptian Mystery Schools and Freemasonry shows that ancient Egypt is woven into many facets of our lives. That’s why there is a pyramid with the Eye of Horus on the back of our dollar bill. Several signers of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, and 14 of the 45 US presidents were Masons. Because the US Founding Fathers worshiped Egypt, the Washington Monument looks like an Egyptian monolith.

Peter Gandy, British co-author of Hermetica: Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs warns: “Our memory is wrong. Without a correct memory, we don’t know who we are or where we’re going. So, for me, history is a sacred science. Also, it is about giving credit where credit is due.” Eden in Egypt by Ralph Ellis includes a 45- page dictionary which shows that Egyptian hieratic script became the Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Hebrew scripts. Thus, Western alphabets are derived from the ancient Egyptian language.

Sigmund Freud proposed in his last book Moses and Monotheism that Moses, the founder of Judaism, was an Egyptian priest. Ralph Ellis explains in Eden in Egypt that Moses was the brother of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Stephen Mehler explains in Light Into Darkness that the 10 Commandments introduced by Moses were based on the 42 Principles of Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess of Truth and Justice. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were derived from the Egyptian Mystery System, a gnostic system which relied on direct experiential knowledge. The Egyptian Mystery System forbade the documentation of its spiritual traditions because a book cannot provide direct experiential knowledge.

However, in 325 AD, Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea to consolidate the ancient records into the Bible to serve as the text for the Roman Catholic Church. In relying on a book rather than direct experiential knowledge, the West severed the Right Brain and relies almost exclusively on the very theoretical, mechanical Left Brain which learns from texts through memorization.

The introduction of the story of the Garden of Eden — the Foundational Story of Christianity and of the Western world — further led to the devaluation of the intuitive Right Brain and all things feminine — including women and Mother Earth. Just as the story says Eve was thrown out from the Garden for wanting access to the Tree of Knowledge, the West has been denied access to forbidden knowledge, direct experiential wisdom, for over 2,000 years now.

The hunger for that knowledge is manifest now as Westerners seek the forbidden knowledge through shamanic cultures. The importance of that wisdom is acknowledged, but hidden in our Christmas traditions. The Bible says that God threw Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden for eating from the Tree of Knowledge, but does not explain why that was forbidden. Shouldn’t human beings want to know more? The Bible says Eve’s sin was SO great that God condemned all of humanity to be born with “original sin”, for all women to bear children in pain, and for men to have to till the soil. It’s not clear why a just and loving God would punish all humanity for one “mistake” by one person.

Christianity teaches that we are all born with “original sin” which was redeemed by his sacrifice of his only begotten son. So, Christianity has an anthropomorphic God who allowed his Son to be crucified to redeem us from Eve’s sin. The Christian cross often displays the crucified body of Christ and is often hung in churches or worn around people’s necks. That reminds us of a very brutal death.

We Must “Think Different” Now

While the Christian cross often depicts the crucified body of Jesus and is thus a symbol of a very brutal death, the cross was derived from the Egyptian ankh — the symbol of life. Do the divorce from direct experiential knowledge, the Garden of Eden story with the devaluation of Mother Earth and women, and the focus on the cross help explain the West’s centuries of attack on humanity and the Earth?

The Catholic Church began the Inquisition with the murder of the Cathars, neo-gnostic followers of the Egyptian Mystery System, from 1209-1229. Inquisition Against the Cathars of the Languedoc says: “The activities of the Medieval Inquisition were so terrible that the memory of them has survived throughout Europe to the present day. Some Christians acknowledge that this body was one of the most sinister that the world has ever known, and now attribute its work to satanic forces.”

The Church put the Knights Templar, who had built the great Gothic Cathedrals of Europe, to death in 1307 on Friday, the 13th — a date we fear without knowing why. The Spanish Inquisition followed for over 350 years until 1834. The Western bloodbath extended to the Americas, Africa, and Australia. It returned to Europe in WWI and WWII. The Crusades against the Muslim world from 1095-1291 are echoed today in the now almost 20-year War on Terror.

Capitalism with its demand for endless growth on a finite planet is destroying Mother Earth. As Occupy Wall Street complained, the greed of the 1% knows no limits. Can this bloody history, endless wars, and insatiable greed be explained by the divorce from the Right Brain? When people lose access to direct experiential knowledge, they feel empty and keep looking for “more” outside — more money, more possessions, more land, more power, etc.

The Apple logo advises us to “Think different” and displays an apple which has been partially eaten– suggesting that we taste the forbidden fruit of The Tree of Knowledge for which Eve was thrown out of the Garden of Eden. In The Ascendant Project, Vin Armani said in 2016 that his plan was to return to The Garden of EDEN using the advanced technology of an automated aquaponics garden.

On April 5, 2020, Armani moved to Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth, in the Western Pacific with his wife, and their two young kids to escape the growing tyranny of Governor Gavin Newsom in California. Armani warns that we are in dangerous times now as the tyranny will escalate.

Shift Now From The 1% to Oneness

Gates’ Plan To Control World’s Seeds, Agriculture, Food shows that he is the personification of the greed of the 1%. His plans pose a real threat to our survival. Dr. Vandana Shiva’s 2020 book Oneness vs. the 1%: Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom provides both a comprehensive understanding of how the Western value system is killing the Earth and humanity and an alternative life-sustaining worldview.

Vandana Shiva on the Taking Down of Bill Gates’ Empires says

“By the looks of his actions, this power-hungry technocrat is hell-bent on undermining life in all of its forms. From forcing public institutions to use only his patented intellectual property to surveilling and mining the world’s farmers for their data….While pretending to save the world through philanthropy, Gates’ solutions perpetuate and worsen the world’s problems. They may even threaten the future of humanity, as they’re driving us closer to extinction.

Through his company, Gates Ag One, Gates is pushing for one type of agriculture for the whole world, organized top, down. This includes digital farming, in which farmers are surveilled and mined for their agricultural data, which is then repackaged and sold back to them. The answer to the environmental problems we face is not more of the very things that created the problems in the first place, which is what Gates proposes. The answer is regenerative agriculture and real food.”