TRUE ENLIGHTENMENT: VISION OF A POSITIVE WORLD

[Vic]

What are non-economists?

I meant people like you and me, not professional (and brainwashed) economists. We need to be literate in economics to see through the mistakes---lies, even---in economic orthodoxies affecting our lives.

The purpose of studying economics is... to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.​

Joan Robinson​

Read a few critical writers on economics. For example, do you know about Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein?
Whether we know it or not, admit or deny it, economics is part of our lives; and bad economics is very bad for the world and us.

It is the weekend now. To whom are you goint to sell the time and energy of God-given life on Monday just to earn the right to live? (I am not being personal here, just showing how real economics is in our lives.)


Old McDonald said other things I also would have said.

Janosabel, the only question I'm asking is - is the study of economics the best use of your energy in the context of The Wave and all connected to it? I'm not saying it isn't because I couldn't know in terms of where you are in The Work. Only you'll have the answer to that one.

May I ask what books from the recommended reading list you have read?

"Old McDonald said other things I also would have said."

Okay, and what are those things?

 

[Buddy]

The choices we have to make start with some mundane issues, largely in the realm of economics: how to ensure basic material and social security to every individual human alive on earth at any particular time?.

Sounds good, but it seems that question needs to be broken down and then reformulated to make it answerable within local individual contexts.

I would like to say something about the first phrase in this signature:

"There is no "free lunch" and knowledge is the key. Strait is the gate and narrow the way".

Like any worthy quote, when taken in the absolute sense, it can lead to "formulaic thinking". I believe it was Milton Friedman's favourite saying.
Taking it as "gospel truth" has caused a lot of distorted thinking while trying to understand problems in society---especially in economics.

Sure, so don't take it as "gospel truth". I've read the material context of that statement. It wasn't intended to be an absolute, but as a generality it is correct in my estimation. Also, from the perspective of polycontexturality, which is useful and relevant to a whole economy of scale, there are contexts in which that statement supports your argument, so I don't see the problem here.

Economics is not serving humanity because it is not guided by real economic laws but by theoretical constructs cooked up in academic institutions.

Indeed, economic activity has gone from "free", more or less to regulation under, not common law, but statutory law aka political policy which originates as you say. IMO, in America, the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission succeeded in blurring the lines between the business practices of honest entrepreneurs and robber barons and to this day, many of the old ways of short-term sacrifice for long-term gain have been outlawed due to having been abused by the lazy and dishonest who were more interested in gaining political favors and free money from the national treasury than they were in earning it from their own sweat and tears.

We need to be literate in economics to see through the mistakes---lies, even---in economic orthodoxies affecting our lives.

Since your argument pivots on the above, I have a question. For you, it seems the way to enlightenment in a social and political sense, is to gain literacy in Economics and to do that you study "Sacred Economics" to give yourself a way to step outside the current set up to see it as it is.

Do you see masses of people educating themselves on Sacred Economics and then rising up against the PTB and somehow revolutionizing an overall economy somewhere? If so, how would that work in the face of globalization?

Like The Strawman asks, how would a study of economics be a better use of energy? What do you see as the payoff?

 

[Laura]

Your comments are full of self-importance and assumption. That's how I experience the reading of them anyway, and that's all I can go on at this moment. Consequently it's almost impossible to respond to them without going into your psychology. I don't want to do that right now.

Time out, Strawman! You are going deeply into assumption yourself here. It's a good idea, when you are a bit emotional about a topic to take 24 hours to think about your response. Flinging accusations that are basically ad hominem doesn't do anybody any good, least of all yourself.

 

[janosabel]

Janosabel, the only question I'm asking is - is the study of economics the best use of your energy in the context of The Wave and all connected to it? I'm not saying it isn't because I couldn't know in terms of where you are in The Work. Only you'll have the answer to that one.

May I ask what books from the recommended reading list you have read?

"Old McDonald said other things I also would have said."

Okay, and what are those things?

OK, I read about half a dozen in the list, plus many more books on similar subjects not included in the list.
I have also made a serious study of Alice Bailey's work (remember the "New Group of World Servers"?). So I am reasonably versed in esoteric ideas, principles, practices. My signature sums up about 50 years worth of conclusions. Another one of my favourite authors is Ouspensky especially when writing about the fourth dimension. (By the way, I feel personally that, coming under the influence of Gurjieff, diverted Ouspensky from fully developing his own cosmology.)
I bring about 40 years of life experience as a manual (factory) worker to the evaluation of these readings. And that makes me sum up the current human predicament by saying that,
The material conditions of incarnation are under the control of dark forces, and the human spirit is greatly inhibited in its mission to unfold its transformative gifts in the physical world during incarnation; and the main mechanism of this control is operated through economic ideologies. This interferes with our tendency as units of evolution to self organize in creating the form of the new world waiting to be born.
In short, spiritual energies flow parallel (i.e. deflected on reaching) the physical world not through it.

"The Wave", as I see it, is an abstract energy that is seeking expression in the material world but bad economics is distorting that expression. So the "payoff" for humanity from economic literacy is the ability to eliminate that distorting influence.
By "good" economics I mean the simplest of social sciences based on the reality that human effort, combined with the creative forces and materials given by nature, produces the means whereby spiritual beings can live and work in the physical world.

Re the post from Old McDonald, I had in mind "...I knew from a very young age the way I wanted to live - a simple life as a farmer. Unfortunately, as with everything else in life, economics played an important part in my plans..."
Myself, I feel I was born to be a philosopher and a scholar but the world, in effect said, "you will be a semiskilled worker, forget about meddling in those other things".
Note, though, I am not resentful; being grounded by material constraints, I may have acquired a good balance of the spirit/matter equation.

PS Writing this was quite an intellectual marathon for me. Deficiencies and omissions are due to the failure of ant reaching for thr sky :)

 

[janosabel]

...the only question I'm asking is - is the study of economics the best use of your energy in the context of The Wave and all connected to it? I'm not saying it isn't because I couldn't know in terms of where you are in The Work...

Strawman, sorry for the long reply (but context is essential in communication). I should have emphasized the direct answer: the "payoff" for humanity from economic literacy is the ability to eliminate that distorting influence

 

[janosabel]

Your comments are full of self-importance and assumption...

For a minute I though this was a response to me (and it probably could have been)... was a bit of a jolt, being so misunderstood.

But actually I wanted to say something quite unrelated. I am intrigued by your cybername, Strawman.
Are you aware of the more sinister referents describing the "influence of "dark forces" on humans in the world like here http://www.yourstrawman.com/?

 

[janosabel]

Milton Friedman !!! Have you read the book The Shock Doctrine written by Naomi Klein?

Hello Gandalf,
I have not read the book. Thanks for the link to the thread here.

I think that there is an error in "Sacred Economic" and that 2 letters are not at the right place. Shouldn't it be instead "Scared Economic".

It is no error. Thanks for wondering.
Sacred Economics is a book by Charles Eisenstein talking about problems of understanding the world when spirituality is separated from economic experience.

 

[Laura]

May I ask what books from the recommended reading list you have read?

OK, I read about half a dozen in the list, plus many more books on similar subjects not included in the list.

No doubt; it shows. Might have better spent your time on the listed books, IMO.

I have also made a serious study of Alice Bailey's work (remember the "New Group of World Servers"?). So I am reasonably versed in esoteric ideas, principles, practices.

I would suggest that Alice Bailey et al were a bunch of misguided wannabes.

My signature sums up about 50 years worth of conclusions.

And mine sums up about the same of mine.

Another one of my favourite authors is Ouspensky especially when writing about the fourth dimension. (By the way, I feel personally that, coming under the influence of Gurjieff, diverted Ouspensky from fully developing his own cosmology.)

Hardly likely. We have some intense and extensive discussions of Ouspensky's failings here on the forum the main conclusion being that he spent a lot of time mentally masturbating and very little time actually caring about anybody but himself.

That's all the time I have to comment at the moment; bottom line is, I suspect that a different forum might be a better fit for you based on your initial launch.

 

[janosabel]

...bottom line is, I suspect that a different forum might be a better fit for you based on your initial launch.

Thank you for this "warning shot".
I do hate sounding irrelevant or inappropriate.
However, truth hides in all kinds of places. Also, differing views indicate unexplored information.

 

[Laura]

...bottom line is, I suspect that a different forum might be a better fit for you based on your initial launch.

Thank you for this "warning shot".
I do hate sounding irrelevant or inappropriate.
However, truth hides in all kinds of places. Also, differing views indicate unexplored information.

Or explored and discarded as irrelevant.

 

[Vic]

Your comments are full of self-importance and assumption. That's how I experience the reading of them anyway, and that's all I can go on at this moment. Consequently it's almost impossible to respond to them without going into your psychology. I don't want to do that right now.

Time out, Strawman! You are going deeply into assumption yourself here. It's a good idea, when you are a bit emotional about a topic to take 24 hours to think about your response. Flinging accusations that are basically ad hominem doesn't do anybody any good, least of all yourself.

Thank you, Laura. I knew it the next day when I read it over. I probably knew it when i wrote it. I'll deal with it.

 

[Vic]

Your comments are full of self-importance and assumption...

For a minute I though this was a response to me (and it probably could have been)... was a bit of a jolt, being so misunderstood.

But actually I wanted to say something quite unrelated. I am intrigued by your cybername, Strawman.
Are you aware of the more sinister referents describing the "influence of "dark forces" on humans in the world like here http://www.yourstrawman.com/?

Yes, I'm aware of the darker meaning of Strawman. To be honest I wasn't when I first came to the forum. But my use of the term is in reference to the explanation in my signature. It's the fictitious 'person' that is created when parents sign off their children to the state through the birth certificate. It gives the state permission to do what they will with us. And they certainly do that!

I do intend to change the name when either of two things happen:

1) I am asked to by a FOTCM member/s
2) I grow, or transform, sufficiently to 'earn' a more positive name.

I'm glad you brought this up actually - at the risk of alarming members I must say that I have felt like a strawman for many years, and in some ways still do. Not the dark kind, more the sort that's stuck in the middle of a field - a scarecrow. Oh dear -Worzel Gummidge. he had many different heads didn't he, that he used for different occasions

A pot of tea and a slice of cake, Aunt Sally?

 

[Vic]

Strawman, Take a motor car for example. Many people cannot drive, many who do, do so badly - to the extent that they kill themselves and others at times.

You are saying that if someone cannot adequately drive a motor car in a safe manner then it is "not fit for purpose". You further suggest, through inference, that a self steering, 100% accident free form of transport should be available to all and sundry instead. Without the use of economics, please tell us how you would provide such a mode of transport.

I am certain that I have been neither hypnotised nor ponerised. I knew from a very young age the way I wanted to live - a simple life as a farmer. Unfortunately, as with everything else in life, economics played an important part in my plans, and I had to earn sufficient money to buy my lifestyle. How did you manage to achieve the lifestyle you now enjoy? Were there any economic constraints that deferred your ability to reach your goal? I am. of course, assuming that you are following your chosen way of life and enjoying it.

Old McDonald, please accept my apologies for my previous, less than externally considerate, response to your comments. My comments weren't, consciously at least, made ad hominem. It was more of a case that I felt you misunderstood the actual point I was making. And this brings to mind something I read in ISOTM recently, regarding language and communication. To paraphrase it concerns how people can never fully understand each other because each one of us communicates with our own frame of reference.

But anyway, impatience, and tiredness, had me firing off a response tinged with emotion, as Laura saw, and I feel very small right now. That's good. I won't stay feeling small - instead I will do my utmost not to make the same mistake again.

I appreciate the patience forum members are showing me, and have shown me since I came to the forum. I am determined to get it right.

Old McDonald, just to clarify the actual point I was attempting to make regarding 'economics' - for me it's like focusing on one little piece of the jigsaw, and remaining focused on it, until it's too late to complete the picture. If only I had said that in the first place.

 

[Zadius Sky]

I am certain that I have been neither hypnotised nor ponerised. I knew from a very young age the way I wanted to live - a simple life as a farmer.

It is almost impossible for any of us to avoid being influenced by the pathological society where we grew up. May I ask how would you be so certain that you have been "neither hypnotized nor ponerized"?

 

[Buddy]

Also, differing views indicate unexplored information.

Or explored and then determined that the shortest route from A to B is a straight line. It appears to me you are following step one of that three step plan on that straw-man webpage and that is to basically get the word out. Nothing wrong with that, in principle, since we do the same thing: raise awareness or get the word out.

You use facts and data belonging to an economic context whereby a reader can eventually work his way through any and every other subject. We use facts and data belonging directly to ponerology, pathology and psychopathology whereby a reader can eventually work his way through any and every other subject. We both appear to share a similar historical context, so we have facts, data and historical context being presented to help make people aware of the "world situation" and ultimately it's the same picture but with different preferential starting points.

So, that's what we have in common. Where we seem to differ is in approach. This is a forum oriented towards Fourth Way work. Gurdjieff's work is the cornerstone which blends seamlessly into the remaining structure referred to as the Cassiopaean Experiment. A foundation in the reading material is necessary to understand what we talk about, how we talk about it and why.

If necessary, you might review the forum guidelines to refresh your memory of what we do here, how we work on ourselves and how we help each other if you plan on being a helpful, active member of the community.