Earlier this week, a group in North Dakota filed a ballot measure petition to legalize recreational marijuana in the state. The measure would permit individuals aged 21 years and older to buy products from registered marijuana establishments in the state and possess small amounts of marijuana.
For the measure to qualify for the November ballot, the group will have to collect 15,582 signatures from eligible voters by July 8, 2024.
In a release, the New Economic Frontier stated that the proposal would promote economic growth in North Dakota and reduce the burden on the criminal justice system. This committee is sponsoring the proposal. The state’s attorney general and secretary of state are expected to draft petition titles to be presented to the committee no later than April 25, 2024.
Steve Bakken, chair of the New Economic Frontier, stated that marijuana legalization was coming and noted that the measure had been carefully crafted to make sure it fit what the community really needed. According to this committee, the marijuana industry in America is expected to bring in more than $38 billion in revenue this year. The industry also supports 400,000 jobs, with the committee noting that the legalized marijuana industry offers funding for local programs and schools in large and small communities while also growing tax revenue.
Legalization also diversifies income streams and encourages economic development, which the committee notes would contribute to North Dakota’s long-term prosperity. Those in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana also say that legalization allows law enforcement to focus on more violent or serious crimes, which saves taxpayer money and improves public safety.
Statements by the officials from the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation support this as they note that violence linked to marijuana cultivation is rare, unlike other illegal substances such as cocaine and heroin. Mark Friese, a criminal defense attorney who is supporting the measure, stated that it was a sensible and conservative approach to legalization. Others have also argued that marijuana legalization would eliminate barriers for individuals with medical conditions who can’t access medical marijuana as well as veterans.
Additionally, adult-use legalization would ensure marijuana products are regulated by screening them for contaminants and testing their potency.
This isn’t the first time the state has taken steps toward marijuana legalization. In 2016, voters in the state passed Measure 5, which allowed a medical marijuana program to be established in North Dakota. One year later, the state’s legislature approved changes to the initiative and eliminated a provision that afforded medical users’ permission to grow cannabis. Previous efforts to legalize recreational cannabis in 2018 and 2022 failed.
Marijuana industry actors such as Aurora Cannabis Inc. (NASDAQ: ACB) (TSX: ACB) based in other jurisdictions with regulated cannabis markets will be keeping an eye on the developments in North Dakota to see if this also state ends prohibition this year.
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“It seems to me that we face very grave crises indeed and that, if we are to survive, we need not just a few new measures, but a complete change of heart and mind.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
There seems to be a sickness that has spread throughout society, and it has infected most people with a mindset that is not suitable for individual or social flourishing. In this video, we explore a fascinating hypothesis, put forth by the psychiatrist and neuroscience researcher Iain McGilchrist, that can help account for the sickness of the modern age. This hypothesis suggests that most people rely too heavily on one side of the brain, which is leading to a peculiar worldview, and a pathological way of being, that is characterized by stubbornness, a lack of empathy, a desire for power, and an overall disconnection from reality.
“Brains and minds are living, constantly adapting, interconnected systems. And they are conscious. A brain disease or mental illness, then, is a change in a person’s whole way of being in the world.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
To understand the mental pathology that has infected society we must begin with a basic understanding of the structure of the human brain, or specifically its bipartite nature. The word bipartite means “involving or made up of two entities”. The human brain is bipartite as it is divided into two asymmetrical hemispheres, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. This asymmetrical division is not unique to humans, but is found in every neuronal system, of every known creature, stretching back to the beginning of evolutionary history. Why is this? What purpose does it serve? Or as McGilchrist asks:
“Why are the two cerebral hemispheres asymmetrical? Do they really differ in any important sense? If so, in what way?”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
Common in popular culture is the idea that the two hemispheres differ in what they do. For example, it is often said that the left hemisphere is locus of logic, analytic thought, language, and reason, while the right hemisphere is the locus of emotions, creativity, intuition, and artistic ability. But as McGilchrist notes:
“Just about everything that is said about the hemispheres in pop psychology is wrong because it rests on beliefs about what the hemispheres do, not about how they approach it. . .”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
Both hemispheres play a role in virtually every human activity and in all mental processes and states. From language, to emotion, movement, thought, imagination, creativity, logic, and reason, all these activities are mediated by the operation of both hemispheres. Or as McGilchrist writes:
“. . .we will never learn anything about hemisphere differences if we wait for a situation in which one hemisphere is 100% responsible for whatever it is, and the other contributes nothing. It is always a matter of degree – a matter of asymmetry.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
To understand the primary difference between the two hemispheres it is helpful to examine a fundamental problem that all creatures face in the struggle to survive: We must eat, while also protecting ourselves from being eaten. In his book The Matter with Things, McGilchrist provides the example of a bird to show how the bipartite nature of the brain helps to solve this fundamental problem of survival. When a bird is searching for food, it must deploy a narrow, focused, and precise attention to find, and attack, the worms and bugs it eats. But if a bird only deployed this narrow attention its survival fitness would be low as every time it focused on finding food, it would be oblivious to its surroundings and easy prey for predators. To solve this problem a bird simultaneously deploys a more open, broad, and sustained attention to monitor its surroundings and to be on the lookout for potential threats. The simultaneous deployment of two types of attention was made possible by the evolution of the two brain hemispheres, or as McGilchrist writes:
“How on earth can you dispose your consciousness towards the world in two conflicting ways at once? The answer is the evolution of two neuronal masses, separate enough to function independently, but connected enough to work in concert with one another, each capable of sustaining consciousness on its own. In other words, a bipartite brain.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
In the bipartite brain, the left hemisphere specializes in the narrow and precisely focused attention that is necessary to obtain the resources needed to survive. But the utility of the left hemisphere’s attention extends beyond its ability to help us attain resources. In a more general sense, we use this type of attention to focus in on specific elements of our environment, in order to manipulate and control them, in the service of a wide variety of ends. The right hemisphere, on the other hand, specializes in the broad, open, and sustained form of attention that keeps us on alert to potential threats. This form of attention, however, is also used to help us comprehend the world in its vast complexity and to integrate diverse elements of our experience into a cohesive whole. Together, these two hemispheres strike a balance between the need to control and manipulate our environment and the need to understand it. Or as McGilchrist explains:
“In humans the left hemisphere is designed for grasping, controls the right hand with which we grasp . . .and helps us manipulate, rather than understand, the world. It sees little, but what it does see seems clear. It is confident, tends to be black and white in its judgments, and jumps to conclusions. Since it is serving the predator in us, it has to if it is to succeed. It sees a linear relationship between the doer and the ‘done to’, between arrow and target. By contrast, the wide-open, vigilant, sustained attention of the right hemisphere, without preconception as to what it may find, is designed to look out for all the rest – whatever else might be going on in the world while we are busy grasping. Its purpose is to help us understand, rather than manipulate the world: to see the whole and how we relate to it. It is more exploratory, less certain: it is more interested in making discriminations, in shades of meaning.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
We do not notice the discrepancy between the two modes of attending to the world that are provided by the left and right hemispheres. We have evolved so that both forms of attention can be deployed simultaneously while our experience appears as a unified gestalt.
“If in everyday life we were aware of the discrepancies in the view, or ‘take’, on the world each hemisphere offers, it would render the immediate business of survival impracticable. For this reason, nature has taken care that these discrepancies should not be part of our everyday awareness.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
When both hemispheres work in harmony we function at optimal capacity. Sometimes, however, one of the hemispheres dominates and crowds out the contribution of the other. This may be a result of a physical injury to one of the hemispheres, such as occurs following a stroke. But physical changes to the brain are not necessary to effectuate an overreliance on one hemisphere. McGilchrist provides the analogy of using a radio to help elucidate how non-physical processes can result in one hemisphere dominating: Let’s say we buy a radio and at first we listen to a wide variety of stations across the spectrum. With time we increasingly tune into only one station and eventually we never turn the dial to explore what else is on. This does not imply that there is anything wrong with the physical components of the radio, we just never change the station. So it is with the brain: our lifestyle, habits and technological, cultural, and social trends can lead to a situation where we increasingly ‘tune in’ to one of the hemispheres and become overly reliant on its mode of attentional deployment. This situation can become so habitual that we don’t even realize that our experience is largely sculpted by one half of the brain and that we are ignoring the potential contributions of the other hemisphere.
McGilchrist suggests that in the modern day it is the left hemisphere that has come to dominate the experience of most people. We are a population of men and women who habitually rely on the narrow and precise form of attention that is the forte of the left hemisphere and this is exerting a formative influence on the type of people we become. For how we attend to the world is a prime shaper of the way we experience it, and our experience, in turn, shapes our character. Relying on one side of the brain produces a different type of personality than the personality that would arise if we were to allow the optimal deployment of both hemispheres. Or as McGilchrist puts it:
“Things change according to the stance we adopt towards them, the type of attention we pay to them, the disposition we hold in relation to them. This is important because the most fundamental difference between the hemispheres lies in the type of attention they give to the world.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
What can account for this shift toward the left hemisphere’s take on the world? Or as McGilchrist asks:
“. . .why has one particular model [or one hemisphere’s take on the world] come to dominate us so badly that we hardly notice its pervasiveness?”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
This shift towards a left hemisphere dominated experience can be attributed to several key factors. Firstly, there is the rise of the reductive-materialist paradigm of modern science. Reductionism, in the words of McGilchrist, “assumes that the only way to understand the nature of anything we experience is by looking at the parts of which it appears to be made, and building up from there”. While materialism is a philosophical position that asserts that matter is the sole, primary, and fundamental component of reality. In the reductive-materialist paradigm, the world, and everything in it, is made from tiny parts of matter and the purpose of science is to break down these larger wholes to their constituent material parts in order to understand how these mechanisms operate and how we can manipulate them.
Although many people are unfamiliar with the term “reductive materialism”, the assumptions embedded within this paradigm shape contemporary worldviews. This idea that all phenomena can be reduced to physical mechanisms has become a cornerstone of the modern zeitgeist, influencing what people believe and how they interact with the world around them. And this paradigm, which has dominated mainstream science for over a century, is tailormade to the strengths of the left hemisphere, or McGilchrist explains:
“. . .science is heavily dependent on the exercise of what the left hemisphere offers. Science’s successes, in explaining how the world works and in helping us to control and manipulate that world to the extraordinary degree to which we now do, are unquestionable, and are dependent on precisely those specific capacities which the left hemisphere contributes, capacities of analysis and for identifying mechanisms.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
Modern technology is another factor making us reliant on the left hemisphere. As a species we have become so entwined with our technologies that most people spend more time using technology, than not. Most of these technologies, but especially computers, smartphones, and now virtual reality devices, require the narrow and precise attention of the left hemisphere and inhibit the broad, sustained, and open attention of the right hemisphere. Furthermore, modern technology is built for the primary purpose of manipulating and controlling the environment, goals that align with the motivations of the left hemisphere. Or as McGilchrist explains:
“Technology is one expression of the desire for power and control over the world, which is of course the primary motivation of the left hemisphere, in which it repudiates the right hemisphere on which we rely for our sense of depth in every sense of the word.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
Another trend pushing us in the direction of the left hemisphere’s take on the world is the bureaucratization of society. As the state has grown in size, power, and scope, its bureaucratic tentacles have infiltrated all areas of society. Opportunities for spontaneity have declined and human life is now increasingly patterned by the need to check the boxes, and follow the rules and procedures of some government bureaucracy. An individual dominated by the left hemisphere’s take on the world will feel right at home in a world where following rules and procedures is the norm, for as McGilchrist explains “the left hemisphere’s forte, its strong suit is following familiar procedures. . .” (The Matter With Things)
The shift towards left hemisphere dominance is further exacerbated by a widespread move away from activities which promote the right hemisphere’s way of attending to the the world, be it time spent in nature, religious practices, appreciating art, or creative problem solving. These activities are not defined by a need to narrow down our focus to manipulate or control our environment, but instead permit the emergence of the broad and open attention of the right hemisphere. It is the right hemisphere’s attention which is needed to absorb the beauty of nature, appreciate the meaning implicit in a great work of art, it is crucial in the attempt to connect to the transcendent Other of religion, and it is essential in the process of a creative breakthrough. Or as McGilchrist explains:
“Certain kinds of mind-wandering are creative; narrow attention hampers creativity. Only turning off the spotlight of left hemisphere attention enables the more complex and diffuse arrays of neurones in the right hemisphere to work on solving the problem.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
These activities that rely on the power of the right hemisphere have been crowded out by pursuits mediated by technology and structured by the familiarity of bureaucratic rules and McGilchrist write:
“Increasing technologisation and bureaucratisation of life help to erode the more integrative modes of attention to people and things which might help us resist the advances of technology and bureaucracy, so that in this way they aid their own replication.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
All these trends have contributed to a dangerous situation. Most of us rely far too much on the left hemisphere and this is stunting the development of our character and creating a population of men and women ill-suited for the challenges of life.
“. . .there have been swings in the pendulum, the balance of power has shifted where it cannot afford to go – further and further towards the part-world created by the left hemisphere.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
In his books The Master and His Emissary and The Matter With Things, McGilchrist highlights many of the dangers associated with left hemisphere dominance. Much of this knowledge comes from a wealth of studies that have examined individuals with physical damage to the right side of the brain due to a stroke or other form of brain injury. But as McGilchrist notes, similar tendencies and character flaws are generated whether one relies on the left hemisphere due to a brain injury, or due to habits, and ways of life, that draw primarily on the potentials of the left hemisphere.
One problem associated with left hemisphere dominance is that the more we deploy the narrow form of attention that is used for manipulating the world, the more we look at the world as composed of objects to be exploited. The natural world becomes a set of resources, and other people become mere means, to be manipulated in the service of our goals. Left-hemisphere dominance, in other words, results in an excessive drive for power and control over both our physical and social environments, or as McGilchrist writes:
“The left hemisphere’s principal concern is utility. It is interested in what it has made, and in the world as a resource to be used.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
To make matters worse, while the left hemisphere is driven to manipulate the world and exert power over it, it is unwilling to take responsibility for the mistakes it makes in the process of this manipulation. Its narrow focus interferes with the ability to stand back and look at the bigger picture which is necessary to accurately assess where we have gone wrong, or as McGilchrist explains:
“The left hemisphere’s is the wilful consciousness, the one that makes things happen. Its purpose is clear: action towards a target that is centre-stage, taking possession of what is in full vision. But unfortunately it knows remarkably little about all the rest. So when things outside its ken happen, they logically must have been willed by someone else. They are someone else’s responsibility.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
Or as he writes in The Master and His Emissary:
“. . .the left hemisphere . . . may be unreasonably, even stubbornly, convinced of its own correctness.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
Another flaw of left hemisphere dominance, as has been revealed by studies of right hemisphere stroke patients, is that the left hemisphere’s take on the world tends to lack empathy. The right hemisphere, as McGilchrist explains “is superior at reading body language and emotion expressed in the face or voice. . .is better able to understand another’s point of view [and] is essential for empathy.” (The Matter with Things)
Left hemisphere dominance also leads to a disconnection from reality. For the left hemisphere is great at creating models of the world that can help it manipulate its environment, but in lacking the broad, sustained, and open form of attention that is the forte of the right hemisphere, it struggles to anchor itself in the world as a whole. Or as McGilchrist writes:
“…the right hemisphere is more in touch with reality, and the left hemisphere more concerned with the internal consistency of whatever virtual model of the world it happens to be working with at the time.”
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
If McGilchrist’s hypothesis is correct and most of us are overly reliant on the left hemisphere, this can account for many of our social ills. It can account for the rise of narcissistic individuals, as left hemisphere dominance is associated with lower levels of empathy. It can account for the relentless power seeking that many of us display, and it can account for the deformed character of many politicians and bureaucrats. For politicians and bureaucrats are particularly susceptible to left hemisphere dominance as their primary job is to adopt the bureaucratic mindset that attempts to control society through science and technology. This mindset leads to all the flaws of left hemisphere dominance including stubbornness, arrogance, deceitfulness, a lack of empathy, a disconnection from reality and an unwillingness to take responsibility for mistakes. Or as McGilchrist explains:
“. . . a culture that exemplifies the qualities of the left hemisphere’s world attracts to itself, in positions of influence and authority, those whose natural outlook is similar. People with certain [left hemisphere] traits will be attracted to, and be deemed especially suitable for, employment in the areas of science, technology and administration which have, during the last hundred years, been immensely influential in shaping the world we live in. . .”
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
So long as most of us remain possessed by one side of our brain and so long as we allow ourselves to be ruled by those who suffer most acutely from this pathology, we place ourselves in grave danger. Our ability to control the world, and to exert power over nature, may continue to grow, but our understanding of the world we seek to control will not keep pace, and this is a recipe for disaster, or as McGilchrist writes:
“The problem is that the very brain mechanisms which succeed in simplifying the world so as to subject it to our control militate against a true understanding of it. Meanwhile, compounding the problem, we take the success we have in manipulating it as proof that we understand it. But that is a logical error: to exert power over something requires us only to know what happens when we pull the levers, press the button, or utter the spell. The fallacy is memorialised in the myth of the sorcerer’s apprentice…while we have succeeded in coercing the world to our will to an extent unimaginable even a few generations ago, we have at the same time wrought havoc on that world precisely because we have not understood it.”
“The Spiritual journey is not a career or a success story. It is a series of small humiliations of the false self that become more and more profound.” ~Jung
What is the false self? It’s that part of you that wishes to remain fixed despite a changing universe. It’s that part of you that is trapped, stuck, and confined by fear. It’s that naïve and pacified part of you propped up like a puppet by culture, politics, and religion. It’s that tiny part of you that takes up all the room by causing you to fall victim to cognitive dissonance despite open-mindedness.
The false self is behind the curve. Stuck in its own certainty. Trapped in what it thinks it knows. Confined by the prison bars of its own comfort zone. Floating in a sea of its own narcissism, it is lost to curiosity, inquiry, and courage. It is that part of you that is so afraid to fail that it creates the greatest failure of all: never taking a risk, never taking a leap of courage, never surrendering to the unknown.
You must continuously humiliate the false self in order to stay ahead of the curve. As Baal Shem Tov said, “Let me fall if I must fall. The one I am becoming will catch me.”
1.) Humiliate your culturally conditioned self:
“True states of realization occur when you throw away all the teachings. All of the teachings, absolutely. Everything. Then you are Investigation itself finding out what you are.” ~A. H. Almaas
To get out of your own way, you must be capable of reconditioning your cultural conditioning. This is perhaps the most important task of a truth seeker. If you cannot humiliate your cultural conditioning, you will forever remain a puppet to it. You’ll forever be trapped in the tiny comfort zone of Mother Culture. You’ll forever remain afraid of the unknown and “the other.”
Culture is a false God. It’s a comforting mask. It was forced upon you at birth. It was hardwired into your brain as you grew. It has systematically been brainwashing you into just being another cog in the cultural clockwork.
Your truth lies somewhere beneath that mask. Your freedom lies in reconditioning the conditioning. Doing so may be one of the most difficult tasks you will ever participate in. There will be landmines of cognitive dissonance to navigate. There will be mass amounts of cultural pressure from family, jobs, authority figures. There will be many hard truths you will have to swallow, while asking yourself, “would I rather be kissed with lies or slapped with the truth?”
But as Nietzsche said, “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
2.) Humiliate your religious self:
“A sense of humor is superior to any religion so far devised.” ~Tom Robbins
Your religious self is one of the most blinding cultural conditioning masks there is. Overcoming it may be more difficult than overcoming cultural conditioning itself, because it is conditioning on top of conditioning. It is an abstraction of an abstraction. The smoke and mirrors of “truth” may be hard to penetrate for the weak-minded. And the fear of sacrilege will be a Goliath of an opponent.
The key to humiliating your religious self is to get out ahead of it with the greater power of spirituality. Spirituality is driven by curiosity, whereas religion is driven by certainty. Spirituality is flexible and cosmic, whereas religion is rigid and dogmatic. Spirituality is liberating (courage-based), whereas religion is authoritative (fear-based). Spirituality is interdependent, whereas religion is codependent. Spirituality is vulnerable intimacy with the Infinite, whereas religion is veiled invulnerability pretending to be intimate. Spirituality speaks a language older than words, whereas religion speaks a language limited by words.
When you choose spirituality over religion you’re choosing healthy nonattachment over unhealthy attachment. You get ahead of the existential game. The journey is allowed to be the thing. The Truth Quest is never forsaken for the “truth.”
3.) Humiliate your political self:
“As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.” ~Wendell Berry
When you’re outflanked by people who can’t think outside the box of their political beliefs, you must be capable of being the bigger person and detach yourself from the box of your own political beliefs. Better yet, humiliate your political self. Otherwise, you remain just another run-of-the-mill, close-minded, political sycophant.
There is perhaps nothing more vital to our world right now than someone with this ability. It takes a leap of courage. It takes audacity and moxie. It takes insouciance and outside-the-box thinking.
You’ll begin to see how the partisan propaganda and the political claptrap clapping back and forth is nothing more than a culturally conditioned song and dance. You see the two-headed hydra of partisan politics playing itself out. You see how each side’s attempt to cut off the other’s head just leads to more heads. You see how it just leads to further sycophancy and deeper political blindness.
You see how the lib-tards are blinded by oversensitivity, identity politics, and political correctness. You see how the Trump-tards are blinded by showmanship, glamour, and the belief that they need a savior.
Better not to feed into either side. Better to go Meta, politically speaking. Better to practice detachment and to have a flexible political notion rather than a political fixation; better to have a political sense of humor; best, to entertain a political thought without accepting it and then move on smartly into the sunrise of a flourishing democracy.
4.) Humiliate your notion of Self:
“The human mind is a delusion generator, not a window to truth.” ~Scott Adams
Definition of Self: Masks all the way down perceiving delusions all the way up. Masks and delusions reinforce the illusion of a truth. Neither of which are true.
The only Truth is ungraspable. The only way to grasp this truth is to let go of it. The only way to feel it is to sacrifice yourself to it. The only way to employ it is to always keep the Truth Quest ahead of the “truth.”
You do this by staying one step ahead of your own cognitive dissonance through ruthless self-interrogation, and “entertaining a thought without accepting it (Aristotle).”
Incorporate the spirit of a boxer. Bob and weave. Dip and jab. Zig and zag. “Dream of a language whose words, like fists, would fracture jaws (Emil Cioran).” Then fearlessly fracture the jaw of any so-called “truth” that comes your way. Give the devil a black eye. Leave God with a broken nose. Kill the Buddha on the path. Leave the ring a champion of the Truth Quest rather than a victim of a so-called “truth.”
Have no hangups. You are a delusional creature caught up in an indifferent and absurd universe. You either learn how to transcend it or it will smother your truth-seeking spirit. It’s already swallowed you whole, so the only way to become whole is to subsume it. Incorporate it—mind, body, and soul. Integrate the absurd. Be the paradox. Let go of the need to hold on. Burn the effigy of the self. Let the Phoenix of nonattachment rise out of the ashes.
5.) Humiliate your perception of fear:
“Create an environment where you’re free to express what you’re afraid to express.” ~Rick Rubin
Between courage and curiosity is everything you need to become fearless. Fearlessness is not the rejection of fear, it is curious intimacy with fear. It’s in the intimacy where transformation takes place.
When you become curious about your fear you transform it into a whetstone. Then you can use it to sharpen your mettle. Use it to test your soul. Use it to forge a character so antifragile that God itself shatters against it.
Take the lasso of your comfort zone and toss it around the horizon of your fear. Pull it toward you. Get your fear behind you where it can push you further rather than ahead of you where it will only hold you back.
Use that deep curiosity to integrate your shadow. The undisciplined mind (unintegrated shadow) looks at death like a beast it should fear. The disciplined mind (integrated shadow) looks at death like a beast it must ride into fearlessness.
Fear is not an obstacle; it is a doorway. Have the courage to open the door into your inner most self. Into your darkest depths. Have the nerve of a gambler. Have the audacity to challenge any and all threshold guardians. The treasure you seek is on the other side of your fear.
Then tear the doors off the Ivory Tower and tell the oracles that they have failed. No fear. Ride like lightning, crash like thunder. Live dangerously. Live on purpose, with purpose. As Courage Wolf said, “Climb the highest mountain and punch the face of God.”
6.) Humiliate your concept of God:
““Reality” is just a word, and you shouldn’t use it without quotation marks around it anyway.” ~Joseph Campbell
Your concept of God is probably more akin to a religious hangup than an infinite interconnectedness of all things. As a truth seeker, this must be remedied—stat! Lest you remain a victim to the outdated notions of your forefathers, you must be able to humiliate your notion of God.
The best way to do this is to simply redefine God. Use the same strategy you used to recondition your cultural conditioning and apply it to your concept of God. Upset your settled mind. Reimagine imagination. Reinvent God.
Step one: Stop pretending you’re not God. Understand that everything is connected to everything else. You are the perceptual pivot of this interconnection. You are the universe becoming aware of itself. And you have a responsibility to it.
You were always God in disguise. You are Infinity pigeonholed into a finite construct. You are the finite integration of an infinite expression.
You are God playing peek-a-boo with itself. As Alan Watts said, “You are something that the whole universe is doing, in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing.”
Just as the Truth is not a fixed thing, neither is God. It’s a moving, transforming, unfixed vibration, with which you have an integral connection. Move with it. Transform with it. Remain unfixed, unconvinced, undaunted, undeceived. As Bruce Lee said, “All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”
This is why it is your responsibility alone to break the fixed pattern of yourself (your cultural/religious/political conditioning). The truth will always be outside the fixed pattern of yourself.
You were always God in hiding. Discovering the God within yourself is merely the parting of the veil. It’s the cutting away of delusion. It’s the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of all the religious pretense that came before. It’s the complete eradication of everything you were culturally conditioned to believe.
After all, “God” is just a word, and you shouldn’t use it without quotation marks around it anyway.
Image source: The Boxer by Eolo Perfido
About the Author:
Gary Z McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide-awake view of the modern world.
This article (6 Ways to Humiliate the False Self) was originally created and published by Self-inflicted Philosophy and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary Z McGee and self-inflictedphilosophy.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.
2019: carbon and graphene microtubes and nano-structures (now in most injectables like dental anesthesia, IV liquids, etc.)
2020: partial sequences of viruses (HIV, SV40), sequence for cancer modulation (Moderna patent), genotoxins like mutagenic DNA, transfectional modmRNA, ubiquitous lipid nano-particles
Obviously, many of those elements aredeliberately not listed in the package inserts and government vaccine information.
Lab analyses proved, again and again, that this isn’t accidental contamination, but deliberate contamination and tampering, involving all brands.
Governments are complicit with this, by complete lack of:
a) Research Control:tweaked animal and clinical studies are presented by Big Pharmafia just to be rubber-stamped by the corrupted authorities.
b) Quality Control: batches differ dramatically (e.g. HowBad.info)
Depopulation or extermination?
1901. Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research started the instrumentalization of medicine, turning into Rockefeller University in 1978. 1913. Rockefeller chartered his foundation. “John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was an early advocate of Margaret Sanger’s pioneering work in birth control …”
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Depop vaccines: no myth
“The theory is that when people don’t have to worry so much about losing children to preventable diseases, they have fewer of them, as explained in the 2014 Gates annual letter.” 1 The data they use to support that argument shows a small correlation between average number of children v. child mortality, yet “correlation is not causation”:
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If ever, the term “vaccine” is no longer applicable.
They are used as Trojans to hack our cells, immune system, cardiovascular system, organs and pre-frontal cortex.
In April 2020, this author coined the term hack-cine, haxxine or, even better, haccine.
Bio-BOMB, not “vaccine”, not “gene-therapy”
This author suggested in April 2020 that the best term to name mRNA and viral vector injections is “haccine”, because they hack the cell to produce the spike protein non-stop until the cell dies of old (apoptosis) or exhaustion. It turned out that haccines, not only elicit an immune response to the s-proteins expelled by the hacked cells, but also an auto-immune response against that type of cells, as they were foreign organisms.
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2017 DTP increased mortality:
10x in girls
5x in boys
“DTP was associated with 5-fold higher mortality than being unvaccinated. No prospective study has shown beneficial survival effects of DTP. ”
“It should be of concern that the effect of routine vaccinations on all-cause mortality was not tested in randomized trials. All currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis. Though a vaccine protects children against the target disease it may simultaneously increase susceptibility to unrelated infections.”
In sum, DTP vaccine from Bill Gates killed 10x more African girls than disease itself
Mogensen, S. W., Andersen, A., Rodrigues, A., Benn, C. S., & Aaby, P. The Introduction of Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis and Oral Polio Vaccine Among Young Infants in an Urban African Community: A Natural Experiment. 1 Feb 2017 EBioMedicine, 17, 192–198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2017.01.041
Which explains:
2012 Flu shot increases rate of non-flu infection 4x
Cowling, B. J., Fang, V. J., Nishiura, H., Chan, K. H., Ng, S., Ip, D. K., Chiu, S. S., Leung, G. M., & Peiris, J. S. (2012). Increased risk of noninfluenza respiratory virus infections associated with receipt of inactivated influenza vaccine. Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, 54(12), 1778–1783. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/cis307
1999 CDC’s study on HepB
8x dramatic increased risk of Autism
5x Sleep Disorders
2x Speech Disorders
2x Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Thomas M. Verstraeten, R. Davies, D. Gu, F DeStefano. Increased risk of developmental neurologic impairment after high exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccine in first month of life. 1999 CDC
2008 Hepatitis B vaccines increase 9x the odds for Special Education
Gallagher CM, Goodman M. Hepatitis B triple series vaccine and developmental disability in US children aged 1–9 years. 13 Nov 2008 Toxicological & Environmental Chemistry Vol 90 Is 5 Ps 997-1008 https://doi.org/10.1080/02772240701806501
2010 Hepatitis B vaccines in male newborns Increased 3x the odds of autism
Gallagher CM, Goodman MS. Hepatitis B Vaccination of Male Neonates and Autism Diagnosis, NHIS 1997–2002. 6 Nov 2010 Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A 73(24), 1665–1677. https://doi.org/10.1080/15287394.2010.519317
1999 CDC 1,135% higher risk of autism, a relative risk of 11.35 (2 is proof of causation)
“A secret meeting organized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1999 after they conducted an internal study of their database, which contains the medical records, including the vaccination records, of 10 million children from the 10 biggest HMOs.
Specifically, they wanted to know whether mercury-containing vaccines might be causing autism. One of the first comparisons of health outcomes was done on the hepatitis B vaccine.
The data showed that infants who had received the hepatitis B vaccine within 30 days of birth had a 1,135% higher risk of autism compared to infants who either did not get the hepatitis B vaccine at all or received it after 30 days of age. “At that point, they knew what caused the autism epidemic,” Kennedy told Rogan, because “that’s a relative risk of 11.35, and a relative risk of 2 is proof of causation.”
As panic spread through the industry, the CDC put together this secret meeting at a retreat center in Georgia. It was intentionally held outside the CDC campus to circumvent FOIA laws. The meeting included representatives from all the major vaccine companies, regulatory agencies that administer vaccines, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Health and Human Services Department and leading academic institutions that conduct clinical trials.
The first day was spent discussing the reality of the problem, and the second day was spent discussing how to hide it. While the meeting was held in secret, someone did record it and, in 2005, Kennedy obtained a copy of it:”
Early on in that 286-page transcript, we find the following admission by Walter Orenstein, then-director of the National Immunization Program at the CDC:
“Initial concerns were raised last summer that mercury, as methylmercury in vaccines, might exceed safe levels … Analysis to date raise some concerns of a possible dose-response effect of increasing levels of methylmercury in vaccines and certain neurologic diagnoses.”
What happened to this safety signal? As explained by Kennedy, it was intentionally “vanished” by reworking the study four times, using statistical tricks.5 After the fourth iteration, the signal linking thimerosal with autism and a half dozen other neurodevelopmental disorders were no longer detectable.
The CDC published that final version and announced thimerosal had been investigated and found to be safe. And when investigators asked to see the raw data, the CDC claimed the data had been “lost,” so no one was ever able to verify the results. The fabrication stuck and has been peddled ever since.
2017 Vaccination of preemies increased 7x odds of Neurodevelopmental Disorders
“NDD, a derived diagnostic measure, was defined as having one or more of the following three closely-related diagnoses: a learning disability, Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
The vaccinated were more likely to have been diagnosed with pneumonia, otitis media, allergies and NDD… preterm birth and vaccination was associated with a 6.6-fold increased odds of NDD.”
Mawson AR, Ray BD, Bhuiyan AR, Jacob B. Pilot comparative study on the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated 6- to 12-year-old U.S. children.24 Apr 2017. Journal of Translational Science 3: https://doi.org/10.15761/JTS.1000186https://archive.is/PwUrN
2020 “higher ORs were observed within the vaccinated versus unvaccinated group for developmental delays, asthma and ear infections.”
Hooker, B. S., & Miller, N. Z. (2020). Analysis of health outcomes in vaccinated and unvaccinated children: Developmental delays, asthma, ear infections and gastrointestinal disorders. SAGE open medicine, 8, 2050312120925344. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050312120925344
2000 DTP and Tetanus vaccinations duplicate the odds of allergies in children
Hurwitz, E. L., & Morgenstern, H. (2000). Effects of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis or tetanus vaccination on allergies and allergy-related respiratory symptoms among children and adolescents in the United States. Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics, 23(2), 81–90. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10714532/
Ongoing VaccineInjury.info 18K people survey
There were only 4 severe autism cases in 18000: one tested very high for mercury, aluminum, and arsenic, in another case the mother was tested very high for mercury.
Steve Kirsch: “We Can’t Find an Autistic Kid Who Was Unvaccinated”
Watch now (1 min) | “The Amish are a perfect example of a large group of people who are largely unvaccinated,” testified Steve Kirsch to the Pennsylvania State Senate. “You won’t find kids with ADD, with autoimmune disease, with PANDAS, PANS, with epilepsy. You just don’t find any of these chronic diseases in the Amish…
TheControlGroup.org survey
“For those with zero exposures to post-birth vaccines, pre-birth vaccines, or the K shot, the total rate of autism in the entire CGS is 0% (0 of 1,024).”
2020 Lyons-Weiler groundbreaking study on 3300 children shows unvaccinated children are healthier than vaccinated children
Lyons-Weiler, J., & Thomas, P. (2020). Relative Incidence of Office Visits and Cumulative Rates of Billed Diagnoses Along the Axis of Vaccination. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(22), 8674. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17228674
Unethical retraction by the journal, due to breach of COPE guidelines, published Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jul 22;18(15))
“Unvaccinated children are healthier than vaccinated children, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The study — “Relative Incidence of Office Visits and Cumulative Rates of Billed Diagnoses Along the Axis of Vaccination” — by James Lyons-Weiler, PhD and Paul Thomas, MD, was conducted among 3,300 patients at Dr. Thomas’ Oregon pediatrics practice, Integrative Pediatric.
This study adds to a growing list of published peer-reviewed papers (Mawson, 2017; Hooker and Miller, 2020) that compare the health of vaccinated children to the health of unvaccinated children. These studies suggest we have long underestimated the scope of vaccine harms, and that the epidemic of chronic illness in children is hardly a mystery.
The study the CDC refused to do
Since 1986, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been legally obligated to conduct safety studies and issue a safety report on children’s vaccinations every two years. In 2018, it was determined they had never done so. It is therefore incumbent upon non-governmental groups to do the work the CDC refuses to do.
As the leading governmental organization driving vaccination among Americans, the CDC refuses to incriminate themselves in the epidemic of childhood chronic illness. It is a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse. They are complicit in creating an evidence vacuum to deliberately manage against the possibility of the public turning against vaccination.
Since the Lyons-Weiler and Thomas study demonstrates that vaccinated children have more chronic illness and were also more likely to get respiratory infections, those who downplay vaccine risks will be sent into another round of apoplectic machinations to attempt to invalidate the results.
Despite the rigor with which this study was conducted, expect critics to do anything but cite opposing science. They cannot. It simply has not been done. Instead, expect critics to draw from a hackneyed playbook to draw the attention away from these scientific findings by directing ad hominem attacks on the authors, criticizing the journal where it was published, and claiming that the study design was not sound.
When research highlights anomalies that diverge from a dominant scientific paradigm, it’s important to remember that the playground of science is not in proof, but in the accumulation of evidence that bolsters an emerging paradigm. The Lyons-Weiler and Thomas study strengthens this emerging paradigm that vaccines may cause more harm than previously documented and characterized.
A perfect pediatric practice to study health outcomes among varying rates of vaccination
Thomas’ pediatric practice follows The Dr. Paul Approved Vaccine Plan, allowing for fully informed consent and parental decision-making in vaccination choices for their children. The plan was developed to reduce exposures to aluminum-containing vaccines and to allow parents to stop or delay vaccinations if some telltale signs of vaccine injury were starting to appear. Conditions like allergies, eczema, developmental delay or autoimmune conditions are typical signs that a child’s immune system is not processing vaccines normally.
These conditions serve as early indicators to help the parent and pediatrician consider slowing or stopping vaccination. As such, Dr. Thomas’ practice has an incredible mix of children who range from fully vaccinated, to partially vaccinated, to not vaccinated at all, making it the perfect pediatric practice to mine for insights into side effects of vaccination.
Study results based on relative incidence of office visits
The Lyons-Weiler and Thomas study was conducted among pediatric patient records spanning 10 years, from Thomas’ practice in Oregon. Instead of using odds ratios of diagnoses in the two groups, the authors found that the relative incidence of office visit was more powerful. Even after controlling for health care exposure, age, family history of autoimmunity and gender, the associations of vaccination with many poor health outcomes were robust.
Unvaccinated children have less fever, seek 25X less pediatric care outside well-child visits
The study found that vaccinated children in the study see the doctor more often than unvaccinated children. The CDC recommends 70 doses of 16 vaccines before a child reaches the age of 18. The more vaccines a child in the study received, the more likely the child presented with fever at an office visit.
The study had unique data that allowed the researchers to study healthcare seeking behavior. Unlike increases in fever accompanied by increased vaccine uptake, which is accepted as causally related to vaccination, increases in vaccine acceptance was not accompanied by a major increase in well-child visits. In fact, regardless of how many vaccinations parents decided their children would have, the number of well-child visits was about the same.
Any concerns that the non-vaccinated or less-vaccinated children would avoid the doctor are unfounded, and puts the jaw-droppingly large difference in office visits in perspective — outside of well-child visits, children who received 90 to 95% of the CDC-recommended vaccines for their age group were about 25 times more likely than the unvaccinated group to see the pediatrician for an appointment related to fever.
Compared to their unvaccinated counterparts, vaccinated children in the study were three to six times more likely to show up in the pediatrician’s office for treatment related to anemia, asthma, allergies and sinusitis. The striking charts below show age-specific cumulative office visits for various conditions among the fully vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated.
No ADHD among unvaccinated
In a stunning finding sure to rock the psychiatric community, not a single unvaccinated child in the study was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD,) while 0.063% of the vaccinated group were diagnosed with ADHD. Likely due to the vaccine-friendly plan parent-doctor dyad decision-making at Dr. Thomas’ practice, the overall rates of ADHD and autism in the practice were roughly half the rates found in the general population of American children.
Low levels of chicken pox and whooping cough in vaccinated and unvaccinated
Regarding the question of whether or not vaccines prevent the infections they are intended to prevent, a quarter of a percent of the vaccinated were diagnosed with either chicken pox or whooping cough, while a half percent of the unvaccinated were diagnosed with chickenpox, whooping cough, or rotavirus.
Significantly, there were no cases of measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, hepatitis or other vaccine-targeted infections in either the vaccinated or unvaccinated, during the entire 10.5 year study period.
Vaccinated 70% more likely to have any respiratory infection
Vaccinations do appear to make recipients more generally susceptible to infections, so it is ironic, yet not surprising that the vaccinated children in the study appeared at the doctor’s office for respiratory infections 70% more often than the unvaccinated. This finding is likely why vaccinated children present to the pediatrician so often with fevers. Your grandmother was right when she asked why kids these days seem to be sick all the time, despite heavy vaccination.
Family history of autoimmunity correlated with ear infection and allergic conditions
Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld and others have described a condition called autoimmune syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA), where genetics and family history of autoimmunity appear to pre-dispose vaccinated patients to higher risks of developing an autoimmune condition. With this in mind, the authors compared patient records from those with a family history of autoimmune conditions — such as multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis — to patients whose families do not have autoimmunity. The results were striking. Vaccination among children with autoimmunity in their family appeared to increase the risk of ear infection, asthma, allergies and skin rashes relative to the unvaccinated with family history of autoimmunity.
Past studies have used a weaker statistic
Readers of the study will learn about flaws in past vaccine safety studies, such as over-adjustment bias, in which the data are analyzed many times over in search of the right combination of variables to make associations of adverse health outcomes with vaccines go away. One of the most important findings of this study is that the comparison of the number of office visits related to specific health condition is a far more accurate tool than just using the incidence of diagnoses. In fact, the study authors show this with simulation — and they point out that studies that use odds ratios with incidence of diagnosis are using a low-powered special case of the method introduced by their study, the relative incidence of office visits, because patients with a “diagnosis” have at least one billed office visit related to the diagnosis. The authors conclude that future vaccine safety studies should avoid using weak measures such as odds ratios of incidence of diagnosis.
Conclusion
Since the study found healthcare seeking behavior could not explain vaccination rates, the only remaining explanation of why vaccinated patients require more healthcare for symptoms of chronic illness associated with vaccination is that vaccines are not only associated with adverse health outcomes — they are also associated with more severe and chronic adverse health outcomes. Recalling that 54% of children and young adults in the U.S. have chronic illnesses that lead to life-long pharmaceutical prescriptions, it seems a lot of human pain and suffering could be reduced by adhering to informed choice regarding the true risks of vaccination, and heeding signs of vaccine sensitivity. Although the authors call for more studies to be conducted using similar methodology, this study should certainly cause pediatricians to pause and wonder if they are contributing to life-long chronic illness in some of their patients.”
2022 Babies: chronic disease from vitamin K shot, better take it orally
Garner, J. (2022). Health versus Disorder, Disease, and Death: Unvaccinated Persons Are Incommensurably Healthier than Vaccinated. International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, 2(2), 670–686. https://doi.org/10.56098/ijvtpr.v2i2.40
Except few tweaked studies, all independent unbiased studies and government statistics show that the COVID haccinated had much worse outcomes than the COVID unhaccinated, not only with COVID but also with other diseases and all-cause mortality: https://bit.ly/research2000
Unlike the studies above, comparing with those who didn’t even receive one shot, the COVID unvaccinated had dozens of prior vaccines of the government schedule, which maimed their immune sytem. Have this in mind when seeing wrongly defined “unvaccinated” in studies which show little difference.
A 2004 CDC studie proved that it caused a 700% surge in Autism in the children with other prior problems (e.g. preterm) and in African Americans. The team leader ordered the results to be destroyed and tweaked the research protocol to hide the signal by subtracting much of the problematic population. In 2014, Dr. Thompson repented and showed the data. The results were replicated by Dr. Brian Hooker:
In 2013 Dr. Theresa Deisher proved, in 14 countries, that the main driver of Autism was excess human DNA (up to 2000% higher tha the FDA 10 ng limit), showing in all the vaccines being made in cell lines from aborted/dissected-alive babies:
Share to save lives: not sharing is not caring! If you know more video links, please post them in comments, so we’ll make the most complete list. Before binge-watching, it’s important to understand the full PLAN: Died suddenly, by Stew Peters: 15 million views in 3 days!
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Many treatements guided by MDs are showing improvements. For example, Chelation (if there’s excess metals) or using ivermectin or Chlorine Dioxide.
Get in touch with vaccine injured groups in Telegram.
If you had success or know trustworthy doctors or organizations, please share your experience below.
Years ago, some pediatricians recommended never vaccinating preterm babies and waiting at least until 3 years of age to vaccinate children, with few (6 at most) spaced vaccines, never the whole schedule, never together.
Also, if there were adverse events, like fever, they discouraged further vaccination, also in siblings (due to potential genetic/environmental suceptibility).
Yet, with the weaponization of nearly everything for “depopulation”, especially medicine, today it’s more than clear that no vaccine is safe and effective.
We need a law forcing Government to pay safe-vax NGOs to run studies comparing vaxxed v. unvaxxed, at least until we clear the lies.
Federal and State Governments refuse to do the studies, because they are terrified about people’s reaction, when they find out that their children had been intentionally murdered or disabled for life, either by negligence or criminal intent.
Nobody should ever be injected until the whole pharmaceutical approving and control system is rebuild from ground up, with laws for:
Brute transparency. Real useful statistics opened to everybody (VSD and Medicaid databases are still denied even to scientists).
No direct funding of studies by the private sector (corporations, foundations): they should use an independent transparent vehicle.
Untainted control groups for double-blinded studies (unvaxxed, no placebo, half placebo because they haven’t really used un-harmful placebos even if they stated otherwise).
Real world absolute performance, not only relative.
No liability protection.
Effectiveness and quality control, double-checked by independent NGOs, paid by Pharma.
Access to immediate therapy to any alleged side effect.
No-cause compensation funds.
Empowerment of parents and patients organizations with permanent oversight (70 years follow-up).
No patents to products based on taxpayer funded research (except abroad).
No nudging, pushing, penalizing, or mandating treatments.
No forced funding of vaccines, even indirect funding through taxes, health insurance, etc. Government money out of Pharma.
After that, we might find out that most vaccines (if not all) have no benefit compared to risk, especially if we consider that the benefits vanish when diseases get milder due to natural herd immunity, better preparedness, effective treatments, globulins, just as taught by the COVID government-created emergency:
The big news that wasn’t news this past week was that the Federal Budget 2024 did not include any changes to cannabis excise rates, a move that wasn’t surprising to anyone following this website, despite the silly predictions by some Pubco CEOs.
The folks at the Deep Dive called out what they deem as hypocrisy from well-compensated corporate execs decrying the lack of excise tax reform, noting Tilray’s president and CEO brought in more than $15 million in wages, stock options, bonuses, and other compensations in 2023, while Canopy’s CEO brought in nearly $6.5 million.
Leafly and Uber Eats Canada pushed a campaign promoting some of the “Dopest cities” in BC as a way to highlight that Uber Eats offers cannabis delivery in the most bestest province.
Canadian chain Pizza Pizza also ran a 4/20-themed promotion for their pizza “pre rolls,” leaning heavily on the hot, cheesy innuendo.
Winnipegpolice raided several foster homes operated by Spirit Rising House following allegations that the operator was giving cannabis to children in the care of Child and Family Services, reported CBC/Radio-Canada.
CAA Manitoba released results from a survey looking at people who consume before driving. According to the survey, 61% of cannabis-impaired drivers in Manitoba wait less than three hours before getting behind the wheel.
The Vancouver Park Board is closing a parking lot and bathrooms in an attempt to dissuade people from attending the annual 4/20 event on Sunset Beach.
And finally, Manitoba’s Delta9 Cannabis Inc announced the third anniversary of the launch of their mobile cannabis store. Delta 9 has plans to attend between 8–10 events in the 2024 season.
A lifelong entrepreneur, Abit Roach began her first company when she was 14 selling jewelry on Queen West in Toronto. Between Paul McCartney’s roadies and Hell’s Angels bikers, she also met the owners of The Friendly Stranger who sold her the hemp for her macramé jewelry.
When she was 20 she decided to do what she loved, and in 2000 opened a headshop called Roach-A-Rama, which, in 2003, evolved into a place called the HotBox – a lounge and a store.
“That was the concept behind HotBox essentially utilizing the community that we built through the lounge to have a community of loyal customers. People will still follow me and buy what I do just because it’s me and it’s HotBox, even though it’s been gone for so long. I did it for 20 years and got kind of tired and wanted to do something else and I had an opportunity to sell the HotBox and I sold it to the Friendly Stranger, funny enough – the people who got me started.”
Roach then got the opportunity to work for the Ontario Cannabis Store, strategizing and buying all the pre-rolls, concentrates and accessory for the province. Between maternity leave and working for Mera Cannabis, Roach also recently developed a lifestyle brand for women, Jane Dope, in addition to the consulting she does in the industry under the title Dope Brands.
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OG entrepreneur, advocate and influencer, Abi Roach recounts her cannabis journey to date while saluting the spirit of 4/20s past:
The Manitoba government is expected to table legislation as early as the week of April 22 that could lift the province’s ban on residents growing cannabis at home.
The province originally banned growing cannabis at home in 2018. While Canada’s federal regulations allow people to grow up to four plants per household, courts in Canada have upheld the right of provinces to “limit to zero” the number of plants someone grows at home, which works as an effective ban on the activity.
The ban does not include those who are authorized to grow cannabis for medical purposes.
Bill 34, The Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Control Amendment Act, has been expected to be tabled in the House for the last several weeks, but it was delayed due to the release of the provincial budget and other priorities. Rumours have swirled for weeks that the legislation would include language lifting the home grow ban, and City News Manitoba first broke the embargo on this detail on April 19.
The contents of Bill 34 are still not known.
The Manitoba NDP, led by leader and now-premier Wab Kinew, formed a majority government in an election in October 2023, defeating the Progressive Conservative government that had been in power since 2016. Then-Premier Brian Pallister said at the time that banning home cultivation of cannabis would protect children and undermine the illicit market.
Quebec and Manitoba were the only two provinces to challenge federal authority, banning home growing entirely, as did the Territory of Nunavut. While Quebec’s rules implement fines for those found growing cannabis, Manitoba’s ban creates criminal penalties and a $2,542 fine for growing non-medical cannabis in a residence.
Quebec’s ban on growing cannabis at home was challenged in the courts, making its way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the province’s right to do so.
That group, TobaGrown, has noted that the Manitoba NDP, including Wab Kinew, had expressed support for lifting the ban previous to forming government, a commitment the group’s founder Jesse Lavoie has been pressuring the party to uphold.
“Since the NDP was elected in October 2023, we have consistently communicated that our preference would be to see the law changed by the government, not the courts,” said Lavoie earlier this year.
“Do not fear those who can kill the body but not soul. Rather be afraid of him who can destroy both soul and body in the life after death.”
Gospel of Matthew 10-28
I have described the machinic impulse as a force that is accelerating the automation of the human being and of life upon this planet. The machinic impulse equates to the forces of materialism. These material forces propagate an impulse and influence that if taken beyond its necessary function can lead to entropy and decay. Materialism is all good and well – yet up to a certain point. This is recognized by some as the ‘Fall’ – the deep immersion into physical reality. To a certain degree, this immersion into physicality was necessary for developing individualization and to perceive existence in relation to Source. Once this recognition is gained, then begins the ‘return journey’ back to Source/Origin consciousness. However, if a species remains too long within the grip of materialistic forces, then a hardening – or deadening – can occur that crystallizes certain faculties and organs of perception, which leads to an evolutionary stagnation. As such, the stagnation of evolvement can be due to the over-influence of entropic forces. The philosopher Rudolf Steiner, in his spiritual science, referred to these entropic forces as the Ahrimanic impulse. For my purposes here, I shall make reference often to this Ahrimanic impulse (or the forces of Ahriman) as a way of conceptualizing energies of decay, deterioration, and decline.
The entropic forces that exist in opposition aim to ‘over-materialize’ materialism. They intend to deepen the entanglement within physical matter, and to create artificial material forms that would not have arisen in the natural course of human evolvement. This is being applied in such a way as to block a renewal of human culture beyond the present age and to direct it into a new form of materialism, a more etheric form that seems un-material (or de-solidified). That is, the digital-virtual realms, whilst seeming contrary to physical-materialism, are in fact working to deepen human entanglement in material forces. As I’ve mentioned previously, I refer to this as the ‘Material Fallacy’ in that the digital realm and its extension into augmented reality, and into such spaces as the Metaverse, is a further deepening into materialism rather than a release from it. These digitized spaces, because of their sense of non-physicality, are really an etheric manifestation of materialism. Or rather, a realm of theoretical materialism (also a Steiner term). Theoretical materialism signifies a reality construct that does not need to be physical to the touch, yet it is based on, or is a projection from, a material foundation. Within both the theoretical and regular mode of materialism, the human being is encapsulated within an amalgamation of material processes. It is also a world of facts and external evidence that a person becomes lost within. All life experience proceeds from this material realm, and this conditions the human being to gain a view of life that is factually based, and to accept that there is no other reality except this world of materialism. Any notion of the soul or spirit – the transcendental impulse – is either regarded as being a by-product from material reality or is rejected altogether as a false notion. This is the power of the immersion into matter-reality.
Deep materialism finally becomes a mythology of entropy and decline. It leads to mechanical, artificial modes of thinking that eventually brings about a stagnation in those forces driving human development. If continued, these materialistic forces – the machinic impulse – carve out a path of technological advancement and evolution that further blocks vital, spiritualized forces. In this route, the human being strives for greater material benefits yet neglects the vital human forces of spiritualized connection. According to Steiner, our current epoch is the one which is concerned with the development of the material world; and if the human being is not to degenerate totally into a mere accomplice of machines, then a path must be found which leads from the mechanical impulse towards a life of the spirit. However, entropic forces are in play that are opposed to forms of spiritualization (spiritual freedom), and which work to reduce and, eventually, dispose of spiritual seeking and to replace it with an ethereal and otherworldly ‘virtual paradise’ where all needs can be fulfilled-by-illusion. A part of this ‘hyper-materialism’ is the notion of immortality that is arising through transhumanist tropes. This can be referred to as Ahrimanic immortality as it works not through the spirit-soul but through a prolongation of the physical life experience by merger with machinic forms. This is a mode of potential immortality within the physical sphere but not within the spiritual. In the end, it is an entrapment for it disavows the inner spirit release from the physical domain. This can lead to a state of soullessness within the human being as the contact with Source becomes, over time, diminished. Or, perhaps this materialistic, transhumanist agenda will attract those people already without full spirit-soul incarnation.
It may be that there are people walking around in physical incarnation, in physical bodies, yet who are lacking, for want of a better word, a soul. Rudolf Steiner made note of this a hundred years ago when he stated:
‘…a kind of surplus of individuals is appearing in our times who are without Egos [‘I’], who are not truly human beings. This is a terrible truth…They make the impression of a human being if we do not look closely, but they are not human in the fullest sense of the word.’ 1
Steiner warned us to be aware that what we encounter as human beings in human form may not always be what they appear to be. He stated that the outer appearance can be just that: appearance. He went on to state: ‘We encounter people in human form who only in their outer appearance are individuals…in truth, these are humans with a physical, etheric, and astral body, but beings are embodied in them, beings that make use of these individuals in order to operate through them.’2 What this refers to is that human bodies can be vessels for other beings to operate through.
This suggests that the world of ‘spirit’ – or the occult – may not always be what we have thought it to be, for there are players and forces that wield a great deal of influence within the physical world. And some of these influences act through the presence of certain individuals that may appear outwardly ‘normal.’ In this light, a completely different kind of spirituality is at work in present-day humanity – and this is what I have repeatedly referred to as the Inversion. It can be understood from this that certain power groups, and their individual members, are influenced (and perhaps dominated) by a non-human species (entropic forces) that are intent on implementing non-human objectives. Such groups and individuals would, in this case, exhibit a distinct lack of ‘soul’ – i.e., empathy and compassion – and would appear to others as displaying almost sociopathic tendencies. Yet at the same time, such people can appear unusually charismatic and are able to exert great influence over other people, especially with their words and speeches, whilst being themselves emotionally stunted. If we take only a cursory glance at the actions of many incumbent leaders, politicians, corporate businesses, financial institutions, and more, we can see a clear lack of any soulful behaviour or intent. Quite the contrary, many of these individuals and groups seem determined to curtail human freedoms, sovereignty, and inner empowerment. If Steiner were alive today, he would no doubt say that what we are currently witnessing upon the physical plane is an act of soulless terraforming of the planet and a controlling manipulation of the human life experience by nefarious forces that have anti-human aims and intentions.
Furthermore, such beings or forces might be motivated in their actions to attempt to block other human being’s connection to their own individual inner/spiritual impulse. By a range of actions, they could focus on distracting people away from the notion of a metaphysical reality and of their inherent connection to Source (or a realm of vital conscious intelligence beyond matter-reality). In extreme cases, such players might even target the bio-psycho human body in an attempt to sabotage the vessel so as to make it a less viable vehicle for soul-spirit incarnation. What else might they hope to achieve? Again, referring to Rudolf Steiner, he stated that: ‘Their objective is to maintain the whole of life as a mere economic life, to gradually eradicate everything else that is part of the intellectual and spiritual life, to eradicate the spiritual life precisely where it is most active…and swallow up everything through the economic life.’3 These entropic forces, which Steiner calls Ahrimanic forces, distract humanity from aligning with its developmental potential by introducing mechanisms and processes of stagnation and decay. To accomplish this, a specific materialistic and mechanical construct of life is established based on rational-materialistic and scientific dogma. This is the impulse that now permeates the current mode of the Inversion. Our lesser reality has become inverted into a territory that is acclimatized for Ahrimanic, entropic forces.
To give more description of this environment, it is one that cultivates the following features: antagonistic nationalisms and frictions over divided ethnicity and racial identities; polarized party politics and political tensions; the subjugation of cultural life to economic power; the mechanization of industry and modern life; cultural censorship and manufactured political correctness; identity confusions; social division and the breakdown of social alliances; industrialized and corporate healthcare; scientific statistics and empirical data; corporate profit-seeking and powerful corporate interests; the increasing automation and artificiality of human life; economic domination; the negation of all genuine spiritual traditions; the rise of technocracy and technocratic forms of governance; the increasing social management and surveillance of the populations; the standardization of entertainment and cultural events; the dominant worldview of mechanization over the organic; increased immorality; the loss of value and tradition; and so much more. Steiner was also explicit in stating that the most dangerous aspect of Ahriman is for this presence to go unrecognized for it seeks to be hidden. He added: ‘…think of everything that presses us down upon the earth, that makes us dull and philistine, leading us to develop materialistic attitudes, penetrating us with a dry intellect, and so on: there you have a picture of Ahrimanic powers.’4 For many, such materialistic progress appears contrary to notions of stagnation and decay. And this is where the sly, and dry, intelligence of entropic forces show their strength. Such ‘Ahrimanic forces’ aim to block evolvement by stimulating a particular form of progress; that is, by accelerating all modes of mechanical processes. We can see this if we only take a brief look at events today: almost everything is 24/7 full-on access; continuous distractions through online devices; short-term projects; the push for quick results, etc. Ahrimanic forces organize this acceleration deliberately so as to prevent the human being from developing and maturing their inner certitude, and to block people from reaching a fully conscious relationship with developmental impulses. These forces are shaping superficial people, without an inner world, who act and think automatically and align with a mechanically minded society.
What is occurring here is a deliberate push to accelerate matters before their time. This will then create further imbalance. Individual freedom and inner-life autonomy is part of humanity’s innate heritage; however, opposing forces will act to frustrate and even block human development. An aspect of these forces acts through illusions and dream fantasies (Metaverse), whilst others aim to push humanity into deeper materialism (automation – transhumanism). In this mix, we see the empty fantasy meshed with the automated mind. The destination for such entropic forces is for a dark, materialistic culture. Within this deeply materialistic culture all traces of free, individualized humans will be targeted and possibly eroded. The aim here is to divert the human being from developing an individualized consciousness and to steer people into docile masses – a form of pseudo-humanity. These forces can also be said to represent humanity’s lower nature – as expressed selfishly through commercial-consumerist cultures, filled with superficial personalities. It is the outward gaze that seeks material pursuits, and which denies the inner spirit and expansive consciousness. Those people deeply embedded within materialism display an ‘Ahrimanic consciousness.’ Social forms of individualization are instead the behaviour of selfish, individualistic drives. The rise of such entropic forces in our societies show themselves through the increasing popularity of empty words. Deep communication gets hijacked into emoticons, abbreviated words, short text messages, slogans, and twitterings. Words and language become subsumed by subconscious forces, and people are increasingly oblivious to this. As it is said, the demons of materialism speak through empty words.
To be continued in Pt.3 …
References
1 Cited in Grosse, Erdmuth Johannes (2021) Are There People Without A Self? Forest Row: Temple Lodge, p31-2
2 Cited in Grosse, Erdmuth Johannes (2021) Are There People Without A Self? Forest Row: Temple Lodge, p60
3 Cited in Grosse, Erdmuth Johannes (2021) Are There People Without A Self? Forest Row: Temple Lodge, p63
4 Steiner, R. (2009) The Incarnation of Ahriman: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth. Forest Row: Rudolf Steiner Press, p1
Two of every five dollars spent on legal cannabis in Canada from 2022-2023 went to government budgets.
The federal and provincial governments received $1.9 billion from cannabis sales in the most recent fiscal year, a nearly 25% increase from the previous year.
The figures were shared as part of an April 19 post on cannabis in Canada, with figures from a recently released annual update from the federal agency.
In addition to the $1 per gram excise tax applied to any cannabis sold into a provincial market—with 75% of this given to the provinces in which those products are sold—there are different provincial taxes and fees added to cannabis. In addition, many provinces manage cannabis distribution and/or sales, bringing in additional revenue.
The majority of sales of cannabis continue to be dried cannabis flower, accounting for about 65% of the $4.7 billion in sales in the 2022-2023 fiscal year. Cannabis extracts, however, represented most of the nearly 16% growth in cannabis sales from the year prior: a 59% increase in sales within the extracts category.
Fewer than 10% of adults in Canada consume cannabis on a regular basis
Canadians under about 45 were more likely to consume cannabis than those younger. About one-third of adults aged 18 to 24 years (38.4%) and 25 to 44 years (34.5%) reported using cannabis over the course of the previous 12 months, compared with just 15.5% of adults aged 45 years and older reporting cannabis use in the past 12 months.
These figures were even lower for those consumers who used cannabis on a more regular basis. Only about 10% of adults aged 18-44 reported using cannabis daily or almost daily, about twice as much as those 45 and older.
In comparison, about 75% of Canadians 15 years of age or older reported consuming alcohol between 2008 and 2017. This number was even higher for those between 20 to 24 years old.
Of those who said they had purchased legal cannabis in the past year (2022-2023), 71.7% said they bought it exclusively from legal sources. Product safety was the most commonly provided reason for choosing legal cannabis at 38%, while convenience and desire to follow the law were 16.9% and 12.9%, respectively.
The 2022-2023 fiscal year represented the first year cannabis producers in Canada sold less cannabis than the year prior, a 2.9% decrease. Cannabis sales and supply may have reached a potential saturation point following several years of consecutive growth.
Halifax smokes the most weed, but Toronto and Vancouver are catching up
In addition to surveying cannabis consumers, Canada has also used samples of wastewater in major cities to measure things like cannabis use since 2019.
Based on these samples in Toronto, rates of users showed the most significant increase in cannabis, up 85.2% in 2023 compared to 2020, followed by the Metro Vancouver region, increasing 56% from three years prior.
While Halifax has consistently had the highest average cannabis levels in wastewater nationally since data collection began, they had the smallest increase (+27.5%) among participating municipalities from 2020 to 2023.
Unsurprisingly, cannabis-related arrests have continued to decline in Canada since legalization in 2018. There were 10,824 total cannabis-related offences in Canada in 2022, with 67% of them related to the illegal import or export of cannabis, while just 12% were for possession.
It is legal in Canada to possess up to 30 grams of cannabis in public. Cannabis can be transported in a vehicle but cannot be accessible to the driver.
Mark Carter’s – Ascension Intention-From Shadow to Light!
Cosmic Cleansing
Greetings, readers!
If you’re at all like me, you may have been noticing a recent acceleration and intensification of Energy/Light waves in your body, accompanied by greater sensitivity and awareness. (And see *Miles Mathis’ science site* <http://milesmathis.com/updates.html> for sunspot reports.)
This is physical and emotional evidence of a karmic purification process that mankind is going through, aligned with the birthing of a new era. It is occurring on an individual, collective, planetary, and solar system level.
Mankind’s longtime attachments, entanglements, polarizations within the “3D” octave are rising to the surface to be noticed, *felt*, and cleared from our bodies and minds. Both “positive” and “negative” aspects within a dualistic human framework are emerging into awareness, to be dissolved and merged into a harmonious higher whole.
Many longtime patterns that have kept us locked into limited behaviors are being shown to us repeatedly, in order to be consciously cleared from our system. As our bodies are being gradually cleansed of all traumatic programs and toxic substances, it’s helpful to be aware of this upgrading process, and to be gentle and patient with ourselves as we realign.
When we acknowledge and feel whatever turbulent streams may be arising, without attachment or judgement, we can infuse the current natural evolutionary flow with loving cooperation, and smooth our personal journey.
One of the greatest breakthroughs we can experience is to adopt an “All for One, One for All” energetic awareness and approach. For a long while, humanity has been locked into predatory/parasitic energy struggles with our fellows – indulging in fear-based and selfish behavior – under the false belief that Life Energy is scarce. In fact, by looking within and reconnecting with our creative Heart Source, we can practice tapping into an abundant Life Stream that can supply all our needs, without our having to look with the mindset of a victim or pauper to temporary external fixes. Opportunities to expand our development will be provided in perfect timing, overriding the split-screen human mind’s addiction to dividing and controlling things, loosening the grip of past behavioral loops, and thus freeing up energy for us to engage in more resourceful approaches.
As outmoded patterns and systems disintegrate, fresh avenues to explore and activate will present themselves, with decreasing ambient interference. We will emerge into an Energy geography with spectacular vistas that beckon us to grow in Love, Adventure, and Wonder – and to finally fulfill our deepest dreams. Now *that’s* a vision worth celebrating!
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