Fake Pennant events abound - through history, and now!
A big one has recently happened with the obvious intent to provoke (another) war-front and escalate the ongoing world war III.
So far, the Fake Pennant seems to be having the effect intended by its devisers.
But all this is - for almost everybody in the world, as yet - a remote Geopolitical event; known only very indirectly, very incompletely, and with distortion, via the media. Yet most of us will, nonetheless, immediately and increasingly feel the strength of manipulation pressing upon us.
(First emotional- then spiritual-manipulation).
That is our first warning - when we take one step back from unconscious emotions, rendering them into conscious feelings; and recognize that we are being-manipulated.
We can feel the externally-desired responses arising in us. We find ourselves spontaneously taking sides in a conflict between evils.
What should we do?
Become aware, then understand what is ongoing - and understand spiritually, rather than materially.
As of 2023, all the Big Things of which we are made aware by the mass media are spiritual issues primarily - else we would not be getting so many Big Guns firing at us so loudly and often.
Like all such things now; we are dealing with lies; and whatever truth there may be (and sometimes there is no relevant truth - some of the biggest lies are rooted in total lies) we should not become distracted by trying to do what we cannot possibly do: understand the true material causes of the material problem.
We cannot uncover the specifics of conspiracy; but we can recognize that something is not-what-it-seems.
By the way the event is propagated in spiritual terms - which we know from self-monitoring, and noting and comparing the responses of rulers and of 'the masses' and known individuals; we can be sure that that there have-been and are elements working to generate and interpret a Fake Pennant event.
The intention of a Fake Pennant can again be understood from 'self-monitoring'. Currently, the intent is to provoke cycles of resentment and fear to seek some kind of 'final solution' by destruction - some solution depending on the annihilation of the problem (e.g. particular people, or a particular place).
For the remote masses, the intent is to provoke material fear and despair - rooted in the open-endedly horrific prospects of physical suffering, as war spreads between and within nations.
Our job as Christians is to recognize that we are being manipulated into fear, resentment and despair; and to reject the validity of these spiritual responses as sinful.
We cannot resist having these feelings altogether; but we can reject their validity - which is called repentance.
This entails recalling (and affirming inwardly) that the real war of this world is (now as always) spiritual, not material.
We should also take confidence from the truth that our own personal awareness, understanding, affiliations, attitudes etc. really make a difference in the real world; and that is exactly why they are being-manipulated so aggressively.
Even just "noticing" what is happening spiritually; seeing through the lies and seeing the demonic 'at work'; by perceiving the workings of evil in oneself; has an immediate and positive effect.
To understand and reject it - even more so.
To transcend all this and take an inwardly God-aligned perspective - more so still.
So there is much that each- and every-one can and should be doing.
Of course, this whole thing needs to be done again and again!
For instance, it should be relatively easy to accomplish when the problems are merely in the mass media; merely remote, virtual and conceptual.
It may be much harder to accomplish when the problems become personal and experiential (as sooner or later they must, if the problem is really-real - or even if the problem is merely treated and regarded as real).
Such is life... We are here to learn, and keep-learning, for as long as we are alive.
"To transcend all this and take an inwardly God-aligned perspective - more so still."
ReplyDeleteThe best way I've found to do this is with a simple mantra. Any time I find myself starting to slip into fear, resentment or despair I try to say out loud "Thank you Lord." And put as much feeling from my heart into it as I can. I don't always remember to do this, but I am getting better at it.
It probably sounds cheesy, but it seems to be a powerful tool to help me 'spiritually-reject the agenda of evil' (as you have worded it).
@Matt - I know what you mean. Similarly, I use the Jesus Prayer - in fact it often happens spontaneously (probably because I used to practice the JP deliberately, systematically - about a decade ago, when I was aiming at becoming Eastern Orthodox).
ReplyDeleteSuch short-repeated-'mantra*'-type praying seems to be a good first step, like an emergency rescue; and then maybe we can move on to something more consciously active and focused.
*It isn't really a mantra when done with proper intent, because a mantra in its original usage was intended to 'stop thinking' (sort of) - rather than 'connect' with a loving personal God; but the term is a handy shorthand.
Thank you Bruce!
ReplyDeleteI no longer try to figure out who, what, where when regarding these "fake pennant" events. I just perceive, fairly quickly, that it's all nonsense. I don't need, any longer, to figure out things like, "Gee, isn't it odd that nation X didn't see this attack coming, despite their supposedly great intel and surveillance." Hmmm...
The harder part is to not want to "take a side," because in the current fake pennant event, one side is obviously weaker and being used as a pawn, and the poor people there most likely had no way of stopping the event. Yet they will suffer, and perhaps be annihilated. Not having resentment or hatred over this is hard indeed. Yet the dark spirits running this know what our weaknesses are in terms of reaction and anger and despair, so they will push all of our buttons. We can only resort to connection to God.
I suspect trying times are coming, or about to get worse.
For me the mantra for these situations is “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”
ReplyDeleteI dreaded going to church thus weekend, expecting much talk of fake events, but absolutely shockingly I heard not one mention. I had forgotten about the whole thing by Sunday morning and did not remember until media intruded in the evening. Very encouraging!
ReplyDelete@JG - wrt Taking a side. It is not usually necessary or desirable; but I personally try to see whether one side is (genuinely) working for something I would recognize as overall-Christian Good (e.g. up to now, and to my knowledge - I have regarded the Fire Nation as overall aiming at Christian Good - probably this is the only current nation for which this could be said).
ReplyDeleteHowever; this is seldom the case nowadays, and we are usually confronted by two relative evils. Any choice between them is often dependent on where people draw the starting line of who did what, which depends on one's prior assumptions - and usually I find there is no intuitively valid and clear way of deciding this.
@Bruce: please could you direct me to a post dealing with your journey toward Eastern Orthodoxy, and then the tack toward Romantic Christianity (sorry if this is an incorrect characterization).
ReplyDeleteI have been reading your blog for a few years and feel I know the outlines of the thinking/perception involved, but I'd be intrigued to return to this aspect of the arc in a unified post - and have no doubt such a thing exists, just don't know where to find it!
@Martin - There is no such post, I'm afraid - and my engagement with Mormonism reached a peak in between EO and RC (RC begins from about mid 2014, but arrived properly in 2015) - but most of what I wrote in 2011, and the 2011 book Thought Prison, is from an EO perspective. You could also word search Seraphim Rose.
ReplyDeleteBruce, this is the first I have heard of the Jesus Prayer. It's simple beauty smote my heart. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAbout whether or not it is a mantra...perhaps ii is a mantra in the context you defined - if we look at it from the perspective a connection to a loving, personal God can only be accessed via the Intellectus, then we would need to quiet the computer-ish Ratio in order for that to occur. Or at least keep the Ratio from running wild. Regardless, I really like your idea of viewing it as an emergency response with an eye on building beyond that. I'm still trying to "stop the bleeding" but I'll keep my eye on how I might build beyond it.
Thanks Bruce!
@Matt - Glad to be of service...
ReplyDeleteI think it is worth holding-onto the distinction of *intention* between Hindu/ Buddhist mantra and the Christian Jesus Prayer, which the Eastern Orthodox are insistent upon.
I say this despite that this is rooted in an earlier form of human consciousness - in which the name of Jesus has a special and *objective* power - and which which does not really work for most modern Westerners. We need to *work* to forge a special quality to the name of Jesus, whereas this link came spontaneously to older generations.
Like many people in the West, I first came across the Jesus Prayer in JD Salinger's stories "Franny and Zooey". If you don't know them, they are well worth reading (as literature, not so much as a devotional book) - especially Zooey, which is a great favourite of mine and one of the most original of all short stories.