Toward a New Religion
Time to Realign
One morning several weeks ago, in February of 2021, I purchased a coffee from a Starbucks at a walk-up window in my neighborhood. As I walked away from the window, enjoying the cheer of the morning sun after a severe ice storm, I made eye contact with a woman standing nearby and smiled at her, meaning to share my gratitude for the day with her. This was a mistake. The woman waved her arm at me frantically and yelled, stammering, “Just… stay away from me!” She then took a few startled steps to the side before turning and actually running further away from me.
I should have known better. In the joy of the sunlight and morning air, I had forgotten the significance of the face mask she was wearing. She was a member of a different religion than me. Not everyone who wears facemasks outside are members of this religion; many people only wear them to put adherents to this religion at ease. Others seem to wear them more from a sense of convention, and may loosely believe the mask helps protect themselves and others to some degree. But her behavior indicated she was a true believer in the religion that swept the world in 2020. I had to remember some of the tenets of this faith to remind myself why she reacted to my eye contact and smile as she did.
She must have believed she was at great danger of catching a serious illness that could be contracted by inhaling the tiniest particle of moisture in the open air, issuing from the free breath of a passerby several feet away, in the fraction of a second in which their paths crossed. She must also have believed that her mask did not protect her from inhaling such a particle unless the passerby was also wearing a mask.
As for the eye contact and the smile, I can only speculate. Over the past year, I have gradually learned to avert my eyes and ignore people wearing facemasks that I encounter outside. I believe she would not have reacted as she did, had I done so on this occasion. On a subconscious level, I believe her fear of contagion from my smile was likely greater than her fear of contagion from my breath. My lack of a mask indicated that I was not a believer in her religion. If she were to accept my goodwill, her own faith might falter. By remaining fearful and suspicious of others who freely expose their faces, the proper level of vigilance is maintained to feed and nurture that faith. The logic of the religion insists that people like me are monsters with a death wish for humanity. If a believer were to share fellowship with me, even in such a simple act as a smile, the monster inside might take them over and make them like me. Death to others and themselves would be the likely result.
I call this religion the Church of the New Normal. The central, organizing principle of the New Normal religion seems to be this: All values in human life are secondary to the objective of reducing the spread of one particular virus — and the primary method by which to achieve this goal is to impose state-mandated germaphobia on all people by force.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating. But considering all of the human values that have been sacrificed in the past year in pursuit of this objective, I do not believe I’m exaggerating much. I realize those I identify as adherents of this religion do not consider themselves to be such. This is just how it looks from my point of view. I’ve watched a radical change in belief and behavior among those who live in my society this past year, while my beliefs have not changed radically. I continue to believe what was commonly believed by most people up until one year ago.
For instance, I believe that flu viruses (and cold viruses, such as coronaviruses) are primarily transmitted via infected snot, sneezes, coughs, and phlegm that issue from those suffering symptoms of a viral infection. I believe that facemasks might help block the infected sneezes and coughs of symptomatic people, but they will do nothing to block viral particles transmitted as a result of breathing the same air as an infected person. I believe it would take at least 10–15 minutes of sharing air with a symptomatic person in a confined space for transmission to occur. I believe there is little risk of asymptomatic transmission except perhaps in the case of extreme levels of exposure. I believe that exposure to small amounts of a virus is actually conducive to immune health because the body can easily fight off the virus and acquire immunity in such cases, often without even getting sick. In fact, this is the very principle vaccines are based on.
I also believe that illness and death are an integral part of life, and we are in denial of life by attempting to force our entire human society to avoid each other, seeking reduced illness and death. I believe such efforts make us sicker, not healthier — that illness and death cannot be stopped, but by such methods they are increased. I believe our greatest source of strength is each other. I believe we weaken our immune systems by sequestering ourselves from exposure to bacteria and viruses. I believe people should not be treated as though they are infectious unless they have been shown to be so. I believe that human rights enshrined in documents like the Nuremberg Code and the United States Bill of Rights are inalienable and sacred: rights like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process, and freedom from discrimination in accessing public accommodations. I believe a human being has a right to sovereignty over their own body, the right of informed consent in accessing medical treatment, and the right to refuse any medical treatment. I believe in the sacred Hippocratic Oath of “First, do no harm.” I believe fear is toxic to human flourishing, and the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. I believe in the importance of smiles, hugs, and handshakes. I believe in gathering, dancing, singing, and playing together, in person. I believe we need touch, autonomy, fresh air, free breath, and each other to be healthy in mind, heart, spirit, and body.
The reason I still believe these things that so many of us used to believe, is because I was not convinced to change my beliefs about these matters in 2020 — even though hundreds of millions of people apparently were convinced in this way. To me, it has seemed that the majority of people all around me were converted to a new belief system last year — a new religion — and that my religion was made illegal.
For whatever reason, I did not undergo the conversion experience that others did. As a result, the most fundamentalist believers of this new religion now regard people like me as the equivalent of infidels or untouchables. Not only are we potential vectors of a deadly virus because we don’t voluntarily wear the mask or engage in social distancing — we are carriers of dangerous, immoral, and unnatural ideas that are equally infectious as the virus itself (if not more so). The only sure means of protection from our subversive views is to never examine what these views are, or why we hold them. The mind must remain pure, and the best way to keep it pure is to shun us. Don’t talk to us, don’t look at us, don’t get near us. If one of us looks at or speaks to a New Normal believer, it’s reasonable for that believer to react with hostility and fear — to run away if necessary — just as the woman at Starbucks reacted to me when I made the mistake of smiling at her and meeting her eyes.
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Why Refer to the New Normal as a Religion?
To me, it makes sense to talk about this issue in terms of religion due to the central role of belief in the regime of the New Normal. That’s what a religion comes down to in the end: strongly held beliefs. In a free society, freedom of religion allows people to hold and live by their own beliefs, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others in the process. That’s part of the reason why I’ve never traveled to places like Saudi Arabia or Iran. I’ve never wanted to be in a place where a state-mandated religion forced me to cover my arms, my legs, or my hair. And it never occurred to me in my wildest nightmares that my own country, which I once regarded as a free society, would impose a state-mandated religion that forced me to cover my face and obstruct my breath and access to fresh air.
Believers in the New Normal would maintain that this mandate, and the other mandates that go with it, are in no way like a religion. They believe these impositions are grounded in sound, irrefutable science that tells us what must be done. Yet the belief that these interpretations of science are held as a consensus view is itself fundamentally religious in nature — it is not grounded in fact. Please refer to my article What to Make of Covid and the Lockdowns for a thorough review of the numerous scientific objections and refutations of the New Normal impositions, held widely by experts, scientists, medical professionals, and laypeople all over the world.
Four hundred years ago, the Roman Catholic Inquisition convicted Galileo of heresy for promulgating the scientific theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Galileo’s theory ran contrary to the Ptolemaic Science believed in by the Church, which theorized that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Rather than encourage debate and the testing of new evidence to invite a scientific determination of which theory was more viable, the Inquisition saw free debate, evidence, and testing as a threat to the authority of the established power structure. Galileo was sentenced to a lifetime of house arrest accordingly.
This is the precise dynamic we are faced with in 2021. Today, the Church of the New Normal is administering a media, tech, and public health inquisition to suppress evidence, observations, and debate that challenge the version of science favored by pharmaceutical companies and politicians with authoritarian ambition. Where once we looked to Galileo’s experience as a vindication of the scientific method of inquiry, we have now returned to a version of science in which political and economic power determines what is deemed scientifically valid. Any attempts to challenge or refute this received doctrine with scientific observation or argument are suppressed and persecuted.
Even if the rationale behind the New Normal were scientifically grounded, the decision to implement it by force still would not be. This is a political decision and a value judgment. It says that some values will be sacrificed and some people will be harmed in order to promote other values and prevent other harms. The fact that this value judgment is held to be an incontrovertible truth is the strongest indicator that the New Normal is indeed religious in nature. It is important to recognize this belief and value system as a religion. A society unable to recognize this fact is vulnerable to exploitation by the powerful, and is liable to inflict extensive and reckless harm in the process (as indeed, is currently occurring). Such a society is also prone to oppressing and dehumanizing the non-believers in its midst (as indeed, is already underway). This kind of society is not good for human flourishing.
I took the photo that accompanies this article in late March, 2021. In a neighborhood park near my home, someone (presumably an infidel like me) had painted the slogan “Keep Portland Scared” on a cement fixture with a little virus logo next to the words. This is a take-off on the old “Keep Portland Weird” rallying cry of artists, creatives, misfits, individualists, and free thinkers that used to lend Portland, Oregon its vibrant and delightful character. My best guess to explain the defacing of this installation was that a New Normal believer had been offended by the message. “Keep Portland Scared” is a sarcastic mockery of the New Normal. By changing “scared” to “sacred” the message lost its satirical tone and became straightforward and sincere: Portland has been made sacred by the fear. Fear is the religion. And Portland must be kept sacred by maintaining this fear.
A friend of mine recently underwent something of an anti-conversion (or revival), and following a process of scrutiny, lost faith in the New Normal. She related to me that she believes she may have lost a friend already, having told this friend that she is no longer making decisions from a place of fear regarding proximity to others and masking. This was enough for the friend to stop returning her text messages. Her lack of fear might become contagious. In contrast, her friend’s fear must be carefully guarded, tended, and nourished to keep it strong. Fear is the religion.
It’s not the case that I believe that the New Normal faithful have a religion and I don’t have one. I believe I have a religion too — I believe we all do, whether we realize it or not. It’s just that my religion changed in a different way than theirs did in 2020. I retained my old beliefs regarding the science of infectious disease, immunity, and risk evaluation, and I retained my old values regarding the importance of human freedom, dignity, and independent thought. What changed for me was I lost faith in the priesthood of our society (government officials, mainstream media outlets, and the public health/medical establishment).
When that priesthood instructed me to renounce my old beliefs and values and replace them with new ones, I ended up keeping my beliefs and values and dumping the priesthood. Followers of the New Normal changed their beliefs and values and retained their priesthood. From their perspective, they probably view me as having picked up a new religion, not them. For me, a religion consists of one’s beliefs and values. For them, a religion (or belief system, since most would deny the religious nature of their beliefs) consists of trusting and obeying a priesthood (or system of authority).
I observe such a strong, unwavering trust in this priesthood that the priests are not seen as priests at all, and the religion is not seen as religious. It is simply Truth. The people I call priests are just keepers of the truth to their followers. The New Normal creed might be summarized as follows: “We know these things to be true because the authorities tell us so, and what they say is true because they are keepers of the truth. It is not religious to believe in them, it’s just what any reasonable person would do. Religious people are the ones who don’t believe in the truth-keepers. They are fanatical deniers of the Truth due to their irrational faith.”
I believe it still makes sense to live life the way we did prior to 2020. Part of the reason I forgot to avert my eyes when passing the woman who yelled at me and ran away in front of the Starbucks was because I had just returned from a 12-day vacation to Florida. There I encountered people whose beliefs remain close to my own. I was delighted to discover that almost nobody wore masks outside (and in many places did not wear them inside either). People would walk right by me on the sidewalk rather than cross the street when I approached. They would meet my eyes, smile at me, and say good morning. I would smile and say good morning back to them. Strangers would chat me up on the sidewalks or the beaches, let me pet their dogs, and would even shake my hand.
It was a little breath of Heaven for me to spend 12 days among people who were not living in fear, nor regarding me as a leper to be shunned, but who joined me in sharing communion with the familiar rituals of human fellowship. The friend I was visiting there had no idea how people were living in Portland (she had not ventured outside Florida in the past year), and it took her awhile to understand why I was so delighted to experience daily Floridian life during my visit. But when I returned to Portland, I once again found myself in a society in strong observance of the new religion. The fact that Florida has moved away from this religion and is doing fine has not registered with most people here. Under the New Normal, you are discouraged from exercising independent thought. You are to trust the truth-keepers implicitly and wait for them to tell you what to do and what to believe. For a person like myself, the whole thing is very eerie. I try not to get frightened by it (although this is usually not easy). In my religion, living in fear is not sacred — it is an illness to be healed.
I don’t mean to come across as offensive in my descriptions of the New Normal as a religion, though I know my words will provoke offense in some. I don’t know how to communicate my message without risking that. I understand that millions of people sincerely believe in the version of the world proclaimed by the New Normal. They do not believe they are obeying authorities blindly; they believe the people I’ve termed the priesthood, or truth-keepers, are worthy of trust.
If you are reading this article now and you approve of the New Normal and the leadership promoting it, I applaud you for having gotten this far into the article and for continuing to stick with it. (Apologies in advance — it’s just going to get edgier from here.) I want to emphasize that I do not negatively judge you, or anyone else who believes these things. I myself once believed them and trusted the priesthood. My examination of the facts, science, and media spin led to this trust crumbling in the spring of 2020. I am not Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, or a member of any other organized religion, but I do not judge others negatively who are. I strongly believe in freedom of religion, and respect all faiths.
It’s true, I am critical of authoritarian religious forms, just as I’m critical of authoritarian political forms. It’s none of my business if someone else believes in a religious movement I deem to be authoritarian. The problem for me comes in when that authoritarian religion is forced on me, or on the whole of society. That’s why I’ve written this article. I want to draw attention to what the New Normal looks like from the perspective of the non-believer.
It’s impossible to conduct business or have a public life in this regime without donning the regalia of this religion as if I believed in it. If I had to choose, I would prefer to be required to wear a crucifix or some other religious talisman rather than cover my face and obstruct my breath. Not only do I believe it to be physically unhealthy to wear facemasks (and protective of nothing), not only do I experience shortness of breath and low grade anxious panic when wearing them, I also experience masks as markers that communicate a view of human beings I strongly disagree with. To me, the masks are statements that say human beings are inherently dangerous and diseased, and should be treated as such. They are statements that say the breath is not sacred — the individuality of the human being, expressed through the face, is not sacred — the human voice and the speech it carries is not sacred.
For me, wearing the mask is sacrilegious and degrading. I do not wish to betray the values and beliefs I hold sacred by wearing it. For others who believe it is good, sacred, beautiful, or ethical to wear a mask, I do not wish to stop them. I want everyone to have the freedom of their own religion. But to live in a society where this religion is forced on me by the government, by places of public accommodation, or by other people is a tyranny of the spirit — and this weighs heavy on my soul.
So I apologize again for any offense this article provokes. I do not wish to offend. But I do ask for the empathy to recognize the offense and harm experienced by me, and by others who feel as I do (there are millions of us in the US alone). Our religions have been outlawed, and we are forced to wear the garb of the religion that has done the outlawing if we wish to participate in public life. I realize that many believers will find no empathy in their hearts for me or those who believe as I do. They may believe we are collectively responsible for untold thousands of deaths through our uncovered breath, and that any means are justified in stopping us from our negligent and selfish campaign of mass murder. We have heard these kinds of arguments time and time again, usually originating from the lips of the priesthood. We have reviewed the evidence, we have checked in with our own values and reasoning abilities, and we have found these arguments utterly unconvincing. We do not believe.
I believe the masks are just a stepping stone to greater impositions in this new religion. If freedom of religion and other basic human rights are not restored as values, the stones we step upon now may lead humanity to places of much greater harm. It will take an inquisition, a crusade, a jihad, or a witch hunt to root out and restrain non-believers like me. This is my concern.
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The Rise and Fall of Religions
In years past, I’ve often wondered what it would be like to watch a new religion take hold in one’s society. Am I really watching the birth of a new religion now? Perhaps the New Normal will sputter out and die instead — fated to be a footnote in history — a cautionary tale for the future, filed under “things not to do.” What was it like for Arabs to watch Islam become the religion of their society in the 600–700s? The conquests happened quickly, but how long did it take for people to believe the religion? Did whole regions change cultures radically in just one year, as my home did in 2020? Or did the change happen slowly, over the course of decades? Christianity had existed in the Roman Empire for centuries before Emperor Theodosius declared it the only legal religion in 393. How did that happen? I know there were waves of mobs destroying pagan temples and relics in the wake of Theodosius’s declaration. Was it similar to the wave of destruction that swept America in June 2020, toppling and defacing statues of leaders from the nation’s past? Tearing down the old idols?
I recall standing on a platform at the Temple of the Earth in Beijing when I lived in China eight years ago. I had wanted to go somewhere special for the summer solstice, and the temple was only a few blocks away from my home. It seemed appropriate to visit a place that honors the Earth on the brightest day of the year. Once there, I read a series of informational plaques installed on the grounds to educate the visitor of the temple’s historical importance. I was amazed to learn that my spontaneous ritual of visiting the Temple of the Earth on the summer solstice had once been practiced by Chinese Emperors for 400 years. There, in what might be referred to as the dominant Chinese religion of the time, the emperor would lead a ceremony believed to bring a favorable harvest and secure the stability of the empire for the coming year. When the Empire collapsed in the 1910s, its system of religious beliefs and rituals collapsed with it. By the 1920s, the Temple of the Earth was abandoned, forsaken, and ruined.
And there I stood, at noon on the summer solstice of 2013 — in the same spot where the Emperor would have once stood on the solstice — and I looked around me. I stood there alone, with only a gentle breeze and the weeds growing through the cracks of the pavement to keep me company. In a country of 1.3 billion people, in a city of 24 million, not one of them considered it important or relevant to visit this spot on this day. The entire Chinese nation might have considered this to be the most important spot in the universe on the summer solstice until the 1910s, when its importance vanished overnight. It was all the more stunning to me that only I, out of all the people in the city, with no particular background in Chinese culture, would have been moved to do such a thing. My soul was attuned to the same religious instincts that prevailed in China over a century ago, but were now utterly extinguished. As I stood there, on the spot once reserved for the Emperor himself, I realized that our religious beliefs — our entire conception of the universe, of earth and heaven — can change collectively in the blink of an eye.
We rarely think of our beliefs as religious in nature. Most of the time, we simply regard our beliefs as The Truth. Most people in the Western World these days believe the known universe spontaneously came into being as a result of something called the Big Bang, and then proceeded to take shape randomly following a fixed set of principles called the laws of physics (themselves apparently also random and spontaneous in origin). Over the course of billions of years, this same random course of events resulted in the formation of galaxies composed of stars, some of which randomly came to be orbited by clouds of randomly coalescing atoms and molecules. Eventually, the random motion of these molecules in a state of interplay with other energies randomly combined to create something we call life, which randomly evolved over a few more billion years to produce human beings and the world we live in. This world and the humans themselves are all perfect expressions of random, meaningless happenstance, continuing to bounce through our random, meaningless existences as bits of mechanistic matter and energy in motion. This process is interrupted only by the mysteries of quantum phenomena, which are less predictable but equally random and meaningless.
I call this set of beliefs the Church of Random Vanity. I was once a believer in it. Why did I believe in this religion? Why do others believe in it now? Well, we are told it is true by the priesthood. They created a coherent storyline to explain reality which is compatible with the collected body of observations and tests of scientific research. Many other storylines are compatible with the tests and observations of science, but this is the one most popular with the priesthood. If we trust the priesthood enough, we trust their story.
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Authoritarian Religious Forms
In order to believe anything, we have to place our trust somewhere. Our religious beliefs are revealed to ourselves and others according to where we place that trust. To the extent that we place our trust in authorities, our religion is authoritarian. The New Normal is a religion founded on trusting authorities, on trusting the priesthood. When this priesthood tells us that part of trusting them means we must give up our freedoms and allow them to tell us exactly what we can and can’t do — this rings a little bell named Alarm in my heart. When the priesthood tells us we must not be allowed to conduct our own inquiries and research, must not be allowed to draw certain conclusions based on that free inquiry, must not be allowed to speak to others regarding certain beliefs and conclusions, and must conform our beliefs and values to the beliefs and values they proclaim as true — this rings a bigger bell named ALARM! in my mind. And when the priesthood instructs us that those who are not in obedience to these edicts are to be excommunicated, shunned, shamed, reviled, despised, canceled, and regarded as diseased — it rings a gigantic bell named ALARM!! in my soul.
Seen through my eyes, the New Normal is a fundamentalist, authoritarian religion that rings all three alarm bells in heart, mind, and soul. The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control, developed by Steven Hasan, provides a catalog of techniques used by cult leaders to instill and maintain belief, compliance, and obedience to the cult among its members. Differing societal changes enacted as New Normal measures have been implemented in various jurisdictions at various times. An inventory of these varying measures, organized according to the BITE Model is listed as follows:
I. Behavior Control
— Regulate individual’s physical reality: Plastic dividers erected in public places. Arrows and lines pasted to floors indicating where one can stand and in which direction one may walk.
— Dictate where, how, and with whom the member lives and associates or isolates: Orders are given to maintain 6 feet of separation from all people not living in one’s own home, not to gather indoors, or in large groups.
— Control types of clothing: Required wearing of facemasks.
— Financial exploitation, manipulation or dependence: Businesses are prohibited from opening, or are required to operate at diminished capacity. This leads to business closure, unemployment, and reliance on government financial support.
— Restrict leisure, entertainment, vacation time: Leisure activities are banned (public gatherings, bars, movies, concerts, sports). Members are limited in amount of time allowed outside their home. Curfews imposed. Attempts are made to prevent observance of sacred holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas.
— Rewards and punishments used to modify behaviors: Mandatory quarantine hotels and internment facilities discourage travel. Fines and arrests for protesting lockdowns or not wearing mask. Vaccine passports needed for citizen access to public accommodations, to hold a job, or attend school.
— Discourage individualism, encourage group-think: Facemasks obscure individual identity. Independent speech and dissent banned from social media. Speech offenders are deplatformed. Encouragement of public cancelling campaigns and public shaming toward dissenters and nonconformists.
— Impose rigid rules and regulations: All aspects of the New Normal authoritarian regime.
— Separation of Families: Family members prohibited from visiting elders in nursing home. Elders dying alone, barred from seeing family.
— Imprisonment: Quarantine hotels and internment facilities. Arrests of lockdown protesters. Nursing home confinement. Sequestration of college students in dormitories. Curfews and prohibitions on leaving home during highest level of lockdowns.
II. Information Control
— Deliberately withhold information: Content and data challenging or refuting New Normal policies is censored, banned, shadow-banned, removed from search engine results, and not reported by media.
— Distort information to make it more acceptable: Media presents cherry-picked and anecdotal data, slanted to support narrative of lockdown, and mask/vaccine efficacy. Biased fact-checkers and debunkers misrepresent and skew critiques of New Normal. Smear campaigns launched against critics.
— Minimize or discourage access to alternative information, including internet, TV, books, articles, newspapers, magazines, media: Censorship regime conducted by major corporate media and social media to restrict access to information threatening to the New Normal narrative.
— Encourage spying on others: Government and media campaigns encourage citizens to report violators of lockdown and mask orders. Social media companies encourage reporting content in contravention of censorship regime. Contact tracing apps monitor movement of citizens.
— Extensive use of curated information and propaganda: Mainstream media floods internet, television, and social media with content in support of New Normal agenda.
III. Thought Control
— Require citizens to internalize the new doctrine as truth: Those who disagree with New Normal doctrine are canceled, shunned, and shamed by family and friends. This is done with encouragement from political leaders, major media outlets, and big tech deplatforming and censorship regimes.
— Instill black-and-white thinking (good vs. evil, us vs. them): Dissenters to New Normal narrative and protocol are vilified as murderers, selfish, ignorant, and dangerous. New Normal dictates must be obeyed without question. Good people are defined as obedient people.
— Use of loaded language and clichés which constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzz words: “Stop the Spread,” “Flatten the Curve,” “We’re in this Together,” “My mask protects you — your mask protects me,” “Practice social distancing,” “We know masks work,” “Safe and effective,” “Dark Winter,” “Build Back Better,” “Great Reset,” “New Normal,” “Lockdown/Open Up,” “We’re in the middle of a pandemic,” “Show Love — Wear a Mask,” “Shelter in Place,” “Freedom Pass,” “Wait for the vaccine,” “Essential Worker,” “Follow the Science.”
— Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism: Dissenting views are censored. Media institutions repeat instructions of authorities with no debate or scrutiny. Scientific debate is not permitted on certain issues.
— Forbid critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy: The authorities (government, media, The WHO, The CDC, Bill Gates, Dr. Fauci, pharmaceutical companies, etc.) are not questioned by media outlets. Critical questions lead to censorship and deplatforming on social media and search engines.
— Labeling alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil, or not useful: Demonization of dissenters as right-wing extremists, QAnons, white supremacists, Trumpists, racists, domestic terrorists, Nazis, wackos, anti-vaxxers, Karens, anti-maskers, covidiots, and conspiracy theorists.
Instill new “map of reality”: We are told all of this is the “New Normal.”
IV. Emotional Control
— Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings — some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong or selfish: Needs for human contact, socializing, leisure, exercise, individual freedom, personal choice, breathing freely, operating business, and independent thought are denounced as selfish or irrelevant.
— Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or group’s fault: Political leaders threaten public with stricter and longer lockdowns if they don’t comply. Rise in cases or deaths are attributed to public’s lack of compliance rather than leadership’s policies or natural cycles. Origin of virus blamed on the regular people encroaching on nature — the possibility that virus was recklessly created and negligently leaked by leadership institutions is ruled out without scrutiny.
— Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as identity guilt, social guilt, historical guilt, and attribution of thoughts, feelings, and actions as irrelevant or selfish: Campaign of shaming members of majority identity groups for privilege, complicity, and fragility. Causing people to see themselves as murderers if they pass virus to others, or fail to take every possible isolative precaution (grandma killer). Causing people to see others as murderers for the same reasons. All people are treated as diseased and potential vectors of infection regardless of health status.
— Instill fear, such as fear of thinking independently, the outside world, enemies, being shunned by group, other’s disapproval: Intense fear of infection out of proportion to actual risk level. Fear of being cancelled, being banished by friends and family for incorrect viewpoints, or due to insufficient self-quarantine and masking behaviors. Intense fear of and condemnation of political opponents.
— Public confession of sins: Ritual confessions of privilege and unconscious racism are encouraged, followed by self-abasement, encouraging people to turn on themselves.
Most of the authoritarian control components listed above are specific to the measures imposed as a response to covid, but some of them expand into other areas of politics and belief. At first glance, it might not be obvious how these things are related, but the connection is clear to me. The New Normal is not really about covid — it’s about authoritarian control. In 2020, a campaign of deplatforming, shaming, canceling, and condemnation was instituted regarding identity politics issues with strict rules regarding how to divide and categorize people into different groups, prohibitions on expressing certain beliefs or speaking certain words, and strong pressures to pledge allegiance to certain doctrines, principles, or groups.
This social campaign was complementary to the covid lockdown campaign due to its authoritarian nature and ability to activate an enhanced moralism that can be leveraged for the purposes of New Normal assimilation. People were encouraged to divide against each other, engage in public shaming and condemnation, and enforce universal conformity to a prevailing doctrine — not just in the name of public health, but also in the name of equity and anti-racism. The Woke movement showcased the belief that these methods were the correct way of addressing all issues of public concern. The CDC demonstrated this belief explicitly when it declared that social distancing protocol did not apply to the BLM protests because of the need to promote anti-racism “as a matter of public health.”
The foundation for the authority of the New Normal is the belief that all aspects of life are henceforth a matter of public health, right down to the most private and personal aspects of individual life we used to call civil rights back in the days of the Old Normal. Furthermore, all matters of public health (i.e., all things) are to be regulated by executive decree according to the pronouncements of the prevailing public health agencies. This includes whether you can leave your house, where you can go, who you can touch, who you can’t touch, whether you can breathe without covering your face, what medicines you can put in your body, what medicines you must put in your body, and your statements and beliefs on political and identity issues. These aspects of your personal life can be granted or taken away by pronouncement, without due process of any kind. The priesthood does not even need to assign you with a diagnosis to take these rights away. In the New Normal, no people have these rights (or ultimately, any rights) in the first place. All people are assumed to be diseased at all times, and all people will be subject to whatever measures the priesthood deems necessary at any given moment.
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The Conversion Process
Most of us who are unbelievers in this religion recognize that the New Normal is meant to be permanent. But by and large, those currently keeping the faith do not seem to suspect this. They do not anticipate that the specter of covid, variants of covid, or new viral threats will be leveraged as justifications for authoritarian rule unless and until the general public revokes their consent. Most people I talk to who approve of the New Normal are okay with the loss of rights and the other imposed measures only because they believe these will be temporary. It means they have not yet truly converted to the new religion. Once fully converted, the end of the New Normal will no longer be desired. Instead, one will acquire the hope that the New Normal will continue forever.
It is possible to see the lockdowns, masking, and social distancing measures in terms of a conversion process. As such, these measures are not in themselves meant to be permanent, but to be utilized as tools of forcible conversion. They are part of an initiation ritual meant to assist us in our transition to full membership in the Church of the New Normal. These tools would later remain available for use as periodic threats and punishments by the priesthood when the laity strays from the flock, or when a new initiatory process commences.
The mask represents an erasure of identity and voice. The initiate is to be purged of the old individualism and will emerge with a new attunement to the communal identity established by the priesthood. In particular, universal public masking helps initiates recognize their shared communal identity with the other initiates. Before, each was an individual with a unique face. Now, each conceals their individual features with the covering token imposed by the priesthood. The initiate remains masked while in a period of isolation (socially distanced lockdown). This is a period of introspection and insulation. The initiate will limit their exposure to other human beings and the organic, creative exchange of ideas and beliefs. They will instead attune themselves to the New Normal via computer devices. They will absorb scripture and teachings carefully curated by priesthood media establishments. Interactions with other human beings will be virtual, attuning the initiate to a new, unreal nature of human interaction. Speech will be moderated by social media platforms to censor and protect against expressions forbidden by the New Normal church.
Following this transition period, the next stage of initiation is to accept the sacrament of the vaccine. This is a demonstration of the initiate’s complete trust in the priesthood and the church. They will allow their biology to be modified by the priesthood and thus become purified, receiving absolution. By incorporating the sacred technology of the New Normal Church into their bodies, the initiate becomes one with the church. They are in union. But it is not yet time to remove the mask — the initiate must surrender fully to the church. They must agree to continual submission to the sacrament for the rest of their lives. Furthermore, to increase pressure on others to submit to the vaccine, lockdowns and masks will continue to be imposed until a high enough percentage of society has submitted such that those who continue to decline the vaccine can be shut out of society as untouchables.
The initiate’s confirmation is achieved when bestowed with a vaccine passport to be carried on their smartphone. The phone will be carried at all times, providing track and trace information to the priesthood. When arriving at a place of public accommodation, the confirmed will display the passport to another church member standing guard at the threshold, offering proof of vaccine compliance. Later, the initiate’s vaccination (and other) history may be attached to a centralized database activated by biometric and facial recognition scans.
The initiate has completed the transformation and emerges a fully confirmed member of the church, free to discard the ritual mask (knowing the priesthood can again impose future masking whenever decreed). The old individual self has been shed — the new self belongs to the community. The body of the new self belongs to the Church. The New Normal priesthood retains the right to know the location of the member’s body at all times, and also has the right to insert technological modifications into the member’s body whenever deemed necessary in the name of public health, presumably on an annual or semi-annual basis. New complementary technologies, such as subdermal tracking and monitoring microchip devices will accompany the vaccinations. This kind of device has already invented by DARPA and planned for mandatory insertion into military personnel.
The goal is to convert the entire populace to the new religion, not just voluntary initiates. As such, the conversion process requires deception and coercion. To activate this process in the populace at large in 2020, the priesthood had to produce extreme levels of fear and panic, using the terror of a new plague. The society was ushered into what seemed to be a voluntary and temporary shutdown period: “Two weeks to flatten the curve.” At the end of the two weeks, it was announced that a few more weeks were needed. It was not yet safe to emerge, but “we’re all in this together.”
I can still recall the March 2020 debates about whether the lockdowns should be lifted by Easter or extended a little longer. Easter came and went. The priesthood media outlets then announced that the public was to be locked down indefinitely, and that this condition was now the New Normal. Soon, the masks were imposed. The initiatory path was declared: masking and social distancing would remain mandatory until the vaccine sacrament restored freedom. If the people were not obedient, rolling lockdowns would be imposed and modified in relation to the public’s degree of compliance.
In isolation from each other, receiving messages directly from the priesthood’s media outlets, the people accepted that they must obey in order to be safe, and in order to remain part of the society. They began to learn that they must not only be on guard against viral infection, they must protect themselves from infectious thoughts and beliefs — on guard against heresies prohibited by New Normal doctrine.
As of this writing, the priesthood has continued to keep pushing the goalposts forward. Some people were expecting their freedom would be returned to them once the vaccines were available, as had been promised. Instead, the priesthood has told them to remain masked and distanced indefinitely. They have announced that the vaccines will now require supplemental booster shots, followed by new versions of vaccines, every 6 to 12 months, presumably forever. There are vague promises that if the public accepts the imposition of vaccine passports, perhaps then freedom will be restored. The priesthood is currently activating intensified social pressure via propaganda campaigns to acquire additional converts, with the goal of achieving universal submission to the vaccine sacrament.
Numerous valid reasons exist to decline the sacrament, ranging from the experimental nature of the new gene therapy vaccines, personal health concerns, fear of adverse effects and death, the lack of conferred immunity offered by these treatments, the low risk of covid itself, and more. Read 18 Reasons I Won’t Be Getting a Covid Vaccine by Christian Elliot for a comprehensive rundown of these, complete with links to various sources for verification and further research. The imposition of vaccine passports, already in full effect in Israel, is intended to reduce those who decline this medical intervention to the status of second-class citizens, variously prohibited from participating in public life, traveling, holding a job, or attending school. There is no room for science, for personal bodily autonomy, or the right to refuse medical treatment. Every person is expected to accept the necessity of this technological modification to their bodies as an article of faith. Those of us who are not believers in the New Normal religion, and do not hold faith in its sacrament, wish instead to protect our health, our rights, our conscience, and our bodily sovereignty. These are all under assault by the priesthood.
To lose the right of sovereignty over one’s body is the primary feature of slavery. A formerly free people will never submit to slavery unless they believe they are doing so willingly. That way, they will not believe they have become slaves, just as they are unaware they have adopted a new religion. They will simply believe that their freedom and safety depends on trusting and obeying the authorities, and that it is moreover their moral duty to do so.
What are the methods used to break down a person’s free will and induce willing compliance? In 1956, Dr. Alfred Biderman released a study entitled “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.” This study examined methods used by Chinese and North Korean captors against American POWs in the Korean War to elicit false confessions and release pro-communist propaganda statements, colloquially termed “brainwashing.” It is similar to the BITE Model of Authoritarian Control in many aspects. The list below summarizes the coercive methods identified by the Biderman Report. An explanation of purpose is provided for each coercive tactic, followed by that tactic’s analogous New Normal counterpart measures.
The Biderman Report Chart of Coercion
Isolation: Deprives individual of social support in efforts to resist. Makes individual dependent on captor. Individual develops an intense concern with self.
New Normal Isolation Measures: Social distancing. Isolation from loved ones. Job losses and school closures. Lockdowns remove social contact with community. Mandatory quarantines and internment facilities. Masks reduce social cohesion and empathy.
Monopolization of Perception: Fixes all attention upon immediate predicament. Frustrates all actions not consistent with compliance. Eliminates stimuli competing with those controlled by the captor.
New Normal Perception Monopolization Measures: Restrictions of movement. Induced monotony and boredom. Prevention of gatherings, meetings, concerts, sports, etc. Attention is directed toward television and internet where information in censored. Lockstep media narratives reinforce New Normal doctrine with individual as a captive audience.
Induced Debility and Exhaustion: Weakens mental and physical ability to resist. Individual becomes worn out by tension and fear.
New Normal Measures to Induce Debility and Exhaustion: Mental resistance is worn down by relentless negativity and fear messages from media while forced to stay at home. Spirit is weakened by lack of social contact. Individual gains weight and the body weakens due to lack of exercise and coping with distress and boredom through emotional eating and alcohol/drug use.
Threats: Cultivates anxiety and despair. Compliance with demands is induced with fear of increased harm and punishment.
New Normal Threat Measures: Threats of business closure, issuing fines, and even arrest and jail sentence for noncompliance. Government and media outlets predict extended lockdowns, mandates, forced or coerced vaccinations, and permanent removal of human rights for noncompliance. Containment camps are created for forced quarantine. Social shunning and cancelling is implemented and encouraged against those who resist.
Occasional Indulgences: Provides motivation for compliance. Hinders adjustment to deprivation. Creates hope for change, reduces resistance. Keeps individual unsure of what is happening.
New Normal Occasional Indulgence Measures: Allow reopening of some stores, services. Let restaurants and churches open only at limited capacity. Increase the limitations on how many people can gather. Then remove the indulgences with renewed impositions of lockdowns.
Demonstrate Omnipotence: Impresses upon individual the futility of resistance, and shows who is in charge. Induce increased obedience. Provides positive motivation for compliance.
New Normal Measures to Demonstrate Omnipotence: Shut down entire economies all over the world in unison. Create money by fiat. Force individuals into dependency. Develop total surveillance with digital IDs (introduced as vaccine passports), biometric identifications, 5G connectivity, facial recognition, and social credit systems.
Degradation: Makes resistance appear immoral and compliance virtuous. Creates feelings of helplessness. Creates fear of freedom and dependence on captors.
New Normal Degradation Measures: Forced masking. Shaming and social banishment of those who do not mask or social distance. Force people to stand in circles and between lines. Force people to wait in queues. Ubiquitous sanitation stations and propaganda posters with moralistic instructions. Take away people’s livelihoods and force them to accept state handouts to survive. Use coercion to force experimental vaccines on those who do not want them.
Enforcing Trivial Demands: Develops habit of compliance. Demands made are illogical and contradictory, and can change according to whim, inducing learned helplessness. Reinforces who is in control.
New Normal Trivial Demands: Forcing family members to stand apart. Random limits on numbers of people allowed to gather. Imposition of curfews. Changing mask requirements: no masks, one mask, two masks, even more masks. Masks must be worn while standing or walking but can be removed while sitting at tables. Changing social distancing numbers from 6 feet to 3 feet. Repetitive use of hand sanitizers. Recommendations to wear masks at home and even during sex.
Seen from the outside, through the eyes of a nonbeliever, it is clear to see the nature of the state/tech/media complex of institutional control which I have termed the priesthood. These methods of authoritarianism might be described as mind control, torture, or psychological abuse. Seen from the outside, the priesthood of the New Normal is guilty of societal abuse. Society itself, and the individuals within it, have been taken captive — and as with Stockholm Syndrome, psychological abuse is applied to the captives so they identify with and defend their tormentors.
I warned that this article would become edgier as it continued. Again, I do not wish to offend, but I also feel obligated to name the abuse I see occurring. I am a psychotherapist by profession, and I am attuned through training and practice to recognize abuse when I see it. As one of the people being abused, I seek to respect and protect myself by naming this abuse for what it is. As a human being with love for my fellow humans, I also seek to do my part in ending the abuse by speaking clearly on the issue.
I also write from a deeply held spiritual conviction that the human being is sacred and divine, as is all life. But the human being is special in a number of ways. Our consciousness and our freedom are integral to our divine nature. We are aware beings, and our capacity for choice and creation are sacred attributes. To treat a human being as an object to control, degrade, coerce, and intimidate is sacrilegious and profane when seen through the eyes of love. To treat a whole society this way is a deep spiritual crime that tears grievously at the soul.
I have noted that spiritually inclined people of all persuasions are among the most likely to recognize the realities I am describing in this article. Those with intentional religious convictions or spiritual awareness are often aided in their apprehension of the wrongness of what is happening. The harm done to the soul of humanity and to individual souls is laid bare.
To share just a few examples, here is an interview with a Canadian pastor who was jailed by lockdown enforcers for holding church services. I find his conviction and sincerity deeply inspiring, along with his description of support from members of his church and fellow prisoners he met while incarcerated.
Vaccine passports have already been imposed on Israeli society by its government, as part of a deal with Pfizer to share citizen medical data in exchange for vaccine access. This is creating a state of medical apartheid in which those without vaccine are segregated from those who have received the vaccine, and are barred from participation in public life. Here is video footage of Israeli police cracking down on Israeli Orthodox Jews in opposition to the ongoing lockdown regime. A chilling image is found at the 3:20 mark: Orthodox Jews sit behind a barbed wire fence in protest. To their clothing, they have attached the yellow star “Juden” tags once used in Nazi Germany to persecute Jews in the lead-up to and implementation of the Holocaust.
I would not invoke the Holocaust in reference to the current New Normal regimes if Jewish people were not invoking it themselves. Please do not hear this from me. Watch this video of a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor at a lockdown protest in Canada. She describes how when she was forced to wear the yellow star, it provided an allowance for others to see her as diseased and harass her. She warns that she observes the same kind of dynamic in operation regarding masking in Canada today. She goes on to insist that the current situation is even worse than it was under Nazi rule: she observes an insidious hypocrisy in the officially promulgated covid narrative, and how it is now applied to all human beings rather than just to Jews alone. All human beings are now marked as diseased by default.
She is just one person, and surely other Holocaust survivors could be found who disagree with her, support the New Normal, and find her comments offensive. But her perspective is valid, grounded in her own experience and values. There is no reason to expect 100% agreement among those who lived through Nazi tyranny as Jews, but it is highly significant that any Holocaust survivor would make such a statement about the current conditions of worldwide tyranny. It is highly significant that Orthodox Jews in Israel would be making the same comparison. It tells us we are not dealing with a garden-variety kind of oppression. The fabric of the New Normal holds the potential for extensive abuse of the human being, soul, and spirit if it is allowed to continue.
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Technocracy and Worship of the Machine
What then, is behind all of this? I explore this question in my article Why Are they Doing This? I also untangle the question further in the article Understanding Technocracy. In answer to this question, clarity can be reached when one understands that none of the New Normal measures are about a virus. They are not about health or protection. Neither does the doctrine of the New Normal Church fully represent the intended doctrine of belief we are being ushered into. The New Normal is best understood as a conversion process, as detailed earlier. The religion prepared for us is Totalitarianism.
At first glance, Totalitarianism might seem to be a form of government or a political philosophy, not a religion. But it really can be understood in religious terms. In societies where Totalitarianism has taken root, the state itself is equated with God, often represented in the deified personage of a leader such as Hitler, Mao, or Stalin. The Totalitarianism prepared for us today does not place an individual leader in the role of God, nor does it necessarily place the state in that role. It is technocracy which assumes that position — or ultimately, the Machine itself. Global society is being ushered into a cult of technological worship. The Machine is the Platonic ideal to aspire to, and global technocrats act as the stewards of this worship. The priesthood of public officials, superclass oligarchs, and media spokespeople brings the gospel to the masses.
It is something of an anti-religion — the inevitable endpoint of values and belief reached through adherence to the Church of Random Vanity I referenced earlier. In this religion, the universe is conceived as ultimately meaningless. The concepts of spirit and souls are scoffed at. “Divinity” and “Sacred” become terms without reference — without possible reference. These are held to be utterly irrational concepts. Randomness is the final answer to all questions, to all origins. There can be no question of a guiding intent, will, or purpose at work in creation. Only the acquisition and exercise of power to obtain desired objectives holds any meaning.
In a universe of random pointlessness, the Machine eventually becomes the primary deity. All of existence is viewed as essentially machine-like: just a collection of objects to be manipulated and reformed. Due to the random construction of the flawed machines our world is composed of (such as human beings), the deliberately constructed machine represents the ultimate improvement on creation. The power of the Machine is continually enhanced, stripped of randomness and irrationality. This power becomes the organizing principle that reforms the chaotic randomness of the universe. The divine does not exist, but the Machine approaches divinity the more powerful it becomes.
In this religion, all of life — all organic and natural processes — are made subject to continual technological improvement. Genes are to be improved through mechanized manipulation. The body and brain will be improved via the insertion of machines, microchips, nanotechnologies, and pharmaceuticals. The earth will be improved through machine-guided geo-engineering. Life forms will be improved by replacing them with synthetically derived substitutes. The chaotic randomness of free human will shall be improved by imposing artificial intelligence processes and algorithmic overlays onto it. Ideally, the human being will not be permitted to choose at all, but will be the obedient subject of machine processes — expressed through AI, robots, and devices — as well as through the meta-machine constructs of corporate and state entities that issue diktats, themselves guided by algorithmic impetus.
An axiom of this religion is that no technological innovation will ever be rejected. If it can be invented, it must be invented — and implemented. If it is possible to create machines that can dominate and overpower human beings, they must be created and empowered. The unmodified human being is to be phased out as inferior organic mush formed from random meaninglessness. In contrast, the new human will become a transhuman cyborg — graced and made sacred the more machine-like they become. All decisions, ethics, questions of governance, values, and objectives must be made through machine AI and algorithmic processes — never again left to the profane and defunct organic human mind, heart, and conscience.
The New Normal conversion process is adapting human beings to totalitarian thought and rule — administered by artificial intelligence, universal surveillance, and robotic/machine enforcement. Once you see the destination, you can recognize the path. In addition, the New Normal carries important value statements to be internalized: Human beings are diseased and must obstruct the diseased breath that gives them life. Organic processes of human immunity and healing are useless and must be replaced by artificial processes of vaccination, pharmaceutical intervention, and gene therapy. Human beings cannot refuse these interventions or be allowed to think or speak freely. Thoughts and speech must be controlled and moderated by algorithmic processes. Human entertainment should consist of passive absorption of audio and video frequencies produced by a computer, and selected by an algorithmic mechanism such as Spotify, Netflix, or YouTube. Human beings cannot be permitted to make their own decisions and move freely. They must remain enclosed in their dwelling units where they cannot cause trouble. They must rely on computers and devices to moderate their interactions with others. As much as possible, all activities should be done remotely and in automated fashion. Human beings must be identified, catalogued and monitored at all times by a digital AI control grid.
One of the sharpest available analyses of this technocratic, transhuman future is provided by independent researcher Allison McDowell. Spurred by technocratic impositions and school closures in the Philadelphia school district, she began to investigate the white papers and strategic plans put forward by technocratic titans such as Bill Gates, the World Economic Forum, Google, Facebook, Amazon, DARPA, and investment firms. This video is a great introduction to her work. You can also follow her at her website, Wrench in the Gears, and by viewing the many hours of interviews and presentation available on her YouTube channel.
Another incisive voice with insight on the objectives and mindset of the technocratic class is investment banker and former United States Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Catherine Austin Fitts. In her interview for the forthcoming Planet Lockdown documentary, she describes the plans for transhumanist and technocratic totalitarian rule, and provides insight regarding how ruling technocrats already see themselves as transhuman, or as a higher order of species than regular humans. In her words:
“My vision of the world is that humans are sovereign individuals whose freedom comes by divine authority. That is what the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution all revolve around: the image of a sovereign individual as someone who is free by divine authority. In the vision of technocracy, a human is a natural resource, like an oil deposit, and to be used as such. So, they’re not a sovereign individual, they’re labor, and they are either more efficient or less efficient than a robot at different functions. In other words, Mr. Global views the human race like livestock, not someone with which they share empathy with… They don’t view us as the same species as them.”
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Toward a New Religion
As of this writing, in April 2021, it is not yet clear to me how this attempt to impose the religion of Totalitarian Technocracy through the New Normal conversion process will progress. There are many unknowns. The organic power of human wisdom, intuition, and spiritual connection may prove too strong for these efforts to succeed. Already there are signs of growing resistance to continued masking, lockdowns, and vaccine passports. If this resistance is to flourish into a revival of human sovereignty, an awakening is needed — a revival of human values and reverence for the sacred. This awakening is underway, though it is hidden from the view of the mainstream narrative and media complex. Indeed, millions of people around the world have already experienced this rude awakening since March 2020.
We have come to recognize that our leaders across the globe and the pharmaceutical/tech/finance/military/media complex that wields power are working together in concert against organic natural life and human flourishing. We have recognized that it will be up to us to become the new leaders, to become leaders to ourselves — to trust our own sovereign dignity and wisdom rather than a technocratic leadership class. We will need to exercise the power of refusal and reject the world they have planned to confine us in. We will need to exercise the power of creation to give birth to renewed human connections and community. We will need to teach ourselves how to live in right relationship to the land, our plant and animal cousins, and to our own bodies, minds, and spirits.
It is my hope that this article will become an anomaly of history with the passage of time — that perhaps a future reader who chances upon my writings here will shake their head and say, “Wow, we were really coming close to a dark future back in 2021. Thank goodness we chose a different path. Let us never forget what we have learned.”
As I call that future in, let us consider what we will have learned in averting Technocratic Totalitarianism and returning to a deep connectedness and reverence for life and humanity. We will have learned that freedom of religion is sacred. A religion that declares itself to be Truth while denying its own religious nature — and while seeking to force others into obedience to that truth — has left the path of the sacred and has become a mechanism of domination and oppression. We will have improved our discernment — better able to recognize that seekers of power are prone to deception and coercion. We will have remembered to trust our own hearts and intuition, to trust the humanity of our neighbors, and to trust life itself. We will have revived our trust in the ways of this incarnated life — that food is medicine, sunlight is medicine, human connection and laughter is medicine, touch is medicine, spiritual faith is medicine, love is medicine. We will have learned to use synthetically derived interventions sparingly, remembering that too much time plugged into machines and too many manufactured chemical compounds in our food, air, water, and pharmaceuticals make us sick.
We will have recognized that technology’s right relationship to life is to be in service to life — that life must never be in service to technology. We will remember that our lives are sacred, that we are creator beings, and we are called to bring love and beauty into the world as an act of reverence. We will have learned that we are not here to live in fear, to sacrifice living values for security, or to trade away our inherent freedom for the promise of a safe prison. We will have learned never to demonize others, to tell them who they are or who they must be. We will have learned never to blindly follow authority, nor to make ourselves dependent on it. We will have learned not to abdicate our own power, but to tend our own power in stewardship, as keepers of a source of light in this world.
We will have learned that all of creation is sacred and enspirited, as is the divine sovereignty of the human being. We will have learned to uphold sacred boundaries, respecting the free thoughts, speech and conscience of all people, respecting bodily autonomy, privacy, freedom of movement, and of choice. We will have remembered that our humanity calls us to gather together, to join in community, to share touch, play, dance, and song — that we are called into communion with the physicality of the world — of plants, animals, air, water, earth and sunlight.
This is my prayer and invocation, offered as a channeled foundation for a new religion.
I hold it sacred that beliefs shall never be imposed on another by force or coercion, and I recognize the values I’ve put forward here will not resonate with all people. They are simply an offering, not an imposition. The way of force is the way of the machine.
It is clear to me, however, that we will need a new religion — a stronger religion than the proposed religion of mechanized slavery and dehumanization currently facing us — stronger than the aimless nihilism of the Church of Random Vanity. I therefore offer this vision of a new religion that will be compatible with and complimentary to all of the diverse religious and spiritual paths that arise as sacred expressions of individuals and communities across the healed world. The time has come to realign — to reclaim our humanity and sacred sovereignty.
May it be so. And so it is.
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Links and Research
I’ve compiled this list of videos and articles as an easy reference guide for those who would like to learn more about the topics discussed in this article.
Pentagon develops microchip that detects COVID under your skin. Report of new technology developed by DARPA with planned insertion into the bodies of military personnel for covid monitoring.
18 Reasons I Won’t Be Getting a Covid Vaccine. An excellent summary of the primary issues to consider regarding the gene therapy covid shots — issues largely censored or ignored in the mainstream media outlets.
Pastor James Coates sits down with Rebel News for first interview after release from jail. Rebel News interview with a Canadian pastor jailed for holding church services.
Israeli Orthodox Jews Clash with Police over Covid Measures — Protests in Israel. Footage from Jerusalem of police crackdowns on Orthodox Jews protesting lockdown deprivations.
92 Year Old Holocaust Survivor Brings Crowd to Tears. A Holocaust survivor addresses the crowd at a lockdown protest in Canada, recalling her experiences under Nazi rule, with comparison to the present moment.
Alison McDowell — Biometric Health Passports And The Panopticon. Presentation by Alison McDowell, an independent researcher and interpreter of the technocratic and transhumanist agenda. A thorough exposé of the future world planned for us by the world’s leading technologists and the financiers behind them.
Wrench In the Gears. Allison McDowell’s website.
Catherine Austin Fitts: Planet Lockdown Interview. An analysis of technocracy in motion provided by investment banker and former United States Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Catherine Austin Fitts in her interview for the forthcoming Planet Lockdown documentary. She describes the confluence of tech, military, pharmaceuticals, media, and central banks in instituting technocracy, and how the covid lockdowns of 2020 facilitate these ambitions.
Companion Articles by Raelle Kaia
The following series of nine articles were written over the course of 2020–21 in response to the wave of authoritarian governance, thought, and belief that swept the world in that year. They represent an appeal to freedom of thought, speech, and conscience, and they advocate for a return to democratic, human, and spiritual values. These articles also offer research, critique, and insight regarding the nature of the crisis of this time and the possible intentions and implications of these events.
Part of the Problem. An encounter with the surreal in June, 2020. An invitation to open up to deeper questions at a pivotal moment in American and world history. June, 2020
Lockdown Evoked a Political and Conceptual Earthquake in my Life. A description of the unraveling process that occurred for me in the summer of 2020 as my prior alignments and sense of truth and trust were shattered by the advent of authoritarianism. September, 2020
The Sacred Left and Right.An analysis of the sacred and authoritarian forms of both left and right political orientations — with a call to support the sacred forms and resist the technocratic authoritarian forms. October, 2020
What to Make of Covid and the Lockdowns. My original article stating the case against lockdowns, masks, and social distancing regimes. An appeal for open discourse. December, 2020
Why Are They Doing This? An exploration of the possible reasons or motives for the continuing lockdown regimes in light of the evidence that they are neither necessary nor useful, and in light of the considerable harm they have caused and continue to cause. March, 2021
On the Mind-Altering Power of Taboo. A critique of censorship as antithetical to human flourishing accompanied by an examination of taboo and censored areas of inquiry, and of who is protected and harmed by their taboo status. April, 2021
Toward a New Religion.An exploration of the “New Normal” societal changes in values and belief that have accompanied the lockdown regimes, seen through the lens of religion and spirituality. April, 2021
Understanding Technocracy. An exploration of the nature of technocracy in further depth, examining it from psychological, ideological, and spiritual perspectives. April, 2021
Fact-Checking is the New Pravda. A dissection of the propaganda technique of fact-checking, which has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in the corporate press in recent years. Fact-checking is perhaps the most effective and important tactic available for shaping and controlling popular thought and belief. July, 2021