The Natural Treatment of Mental Illness

First, take no medication

I'd wanted to write this piece about The Natural Treatment of Mental Illness for a very long time, but every time I did, something would come up. This is what I wrote in my last article: "The planets Pluto and Uranus will enter into square position to each other this June 24, 2012. We have been feeling its stressful effects since the super moon of last month, and the Transit of Venus, which also had a message of its own I shared with you last. There was an upsurge of psychosis and gruesome murders, and almost every one I know is in a state of crisis".

I'd been involved in the Meredith Kercher murder case that kept bringing up new insights into criminal pathology; we had the horrific Luka Magnotta case right here in Canada, where a deranged young man killed and dismembered another young man and videotaped the whole crime, and finally, we had the largest mass shooting in the United States at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. 12 people were killed, and 58 more injured. Interesting coincidence, but the shooter was a young neuroscientist born the same year as Amanda Knox, and he, too, had no earlier indication of anything being wrong. He had just presented a paper on micro-RNA research in a class titled "The Biological Markers of Mental Illness" which closely matches my current field of study.

But, much as the study of criminal psychology interests me, my practice has had more to do with the broader definition of mental illness, as a breakdown of the human race and society.

I am a physician, but I also am a spiritual teacher. A search for the causes and treatment of mental illness has been a lifelong passion of mine. I have long concluded that there are not only physical and emotional causes for every illness, there also are, spiritual causes. Not the sort of paper one can present to a medical journal, but that's ok. I'd rather pass on my findings to other doctors to carry on the research, and write in plain language, for ordinary people.

And now, it seems that concurrent with the breakdown of spirituality in society, there is a huge increase in mental illness around the world. And what I classify as mental illness, is not just the isolated cases of criminality or the increased numbers of mentally ill people, but what I see in our political, financial and social elites. What could the greed and lust for power and countless wars, destruction of our environment, and whole scale theft be classified as anything but a widespread pathology? 

But first, I would like to share my journey with you.

In ancient times, mentally ill people were considered to be blessed by the gods.

Then, they were thought to be possessed by demons.

Jesus, the healer, is said to have cast out evil spirits. But then, he knew all along that mental illness is also, a spiritual illness. Until we recognize that, all the search for a defective gene or chemical imbalance or areas of brain damage or physical treatments will make no difference at all.

I have already written that several people in my family suffer from Autism. I've also published much of my research and discoveries in the effective treatment and prevention of such disorders. I shared this information with other doctors and specialists around the world, at international conferences on alternative medicine, in my free clinics, and now, I am writing this article to share the information with you.

One of the first books I read on Psychology was a treatise on Criminal Psychology, the second on The Mass Psychology of Crowds. (I was 14 years old, and we had a well stocked school library, courtesy of the British Council) Since then I have done a lot of work in looking up the connection between criminality and mental illness.

I also, through my connections with the Psychic community, discovered a close connection between their extreme emotional sensitivities, schizophrenia, and depression. Yes, I lost many of my friends to suicide, and wish I could have helped them more, even though my first lesson has always been, you can't help everyone. (See my Michael Jackson, the Drowning Man, July 03, 2009).

There may be environmental or genetic reasons why we are having a huge increase in mental illness figures. The old figures were that 10% of our children had some sort of a learning disorder; it's likely to be much higher now. And I am reminded every day about the disturbing increase in psychoses and psychotic behaviour in society.

Nature vs nurture may play a part. Vaccines cause brain damage across several generations, this much I know through my work (article to follow) Environmental pollutants and neurotoxins (mercury, fluoridated water, aspartame, MSG) definitely play a part. Trauma, be it emotional or physical, plays a part.

There are those who believe that the major psychiatric illnesses, depression, schizophrenia, paranoid psychosis, and psychopathy are all caused by neurotransmitter deficiencies, inactive areas of the prefrontal cortex, or brain damage. True, but I do not agree with the treatments used by conventional psychiatry, which consists of chemical, electrical, or physical lobotomies of the brain.

Then there are many in the alternative field who say mental illness, especially depression and ADHD,  is over diagnosed. I do not agree entirely. Yes, there are way too many new 'labels', each designed to widen the market for psychotropic medication. But, there is a definite increase in mental illness, sociopathy, and psychosis. I fear for the survival of society, for we are now passing on illness to our children. Homoeopathy calls it a  miasm, but that really is the same as genetic damage.

But first, I have a unifying theory that covers the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of the illness. Before I teach you about treatment, first, I must educate you.

First, if you read my previous article The Criminal Mind 

http://manfromatlan.blogspot.ca/2011/09/criminal-mind.html which shows the similar patterns of brain damage in psychopaths and schizophrenics. Then, please read about my work in Autism here Not Incurable-New Research on Autism http://manfromatlan.blogspot.ca/2007/12/not-incurable-new-research-on-autism.html you will get an overview of my approach. 

Then, please read Renewed Hope for Mental Health, http://vitalitymagazine.com/article/renewed-hope-for-mental-health/ by Helke Ferrie, which details the ground breaking work of Dr. Abraham Hoffer, M.D., a psychiatrist who pioneered the use of supplements and nutritional therapies for the treatment of psychiatric disorders.

" The October 2005 issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress was devoted to research articles focusing on the now increasingly undeniable fact that most psychiatric disorders (not induced by physical injury) are caused primarily by emotional trauma. The mythic “chemical imbalance,” which automatically was assumed to be a Prozac deficiency, is evaporating for lack of evidence.

What do these four news items have in common? The truth that feeding the brain garbage — toxic or dead food, or toxic and deadly experiences — is the cause of mental illness in all its many forms including faulty brain development, cognitive deficits, Down’s Syndrome, depression, and schizophrenia.

PloS, founded by thousands of US medical students and Nobel laureate Harold Varmus in 2004, was created in protest against the corruption pervading medical publications; PloS accepts no advertising, only publishes research free from all connections to the pharmaceutical industry, and is freely available on-line.

Even the ultimate sacred cow of standard psychiatry, the famous serotonin theory of depression, has expired. The new journal PloS Medicine (Public Library of Science Medicine –http://medicine.plosjournals.org) published an article in their December 2005 issue entitled “Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature.”

Reviewing research since the 1960s when this hypothesis was first suggested, the authors conclude that the $3 billion (US) antidepressant market, claiming this hypothesis as scientific justification for its existence, is based on nothing at all; they observe that “contemporary neuroscience research has failed to confirm any serotonergic lesion in any mental disorder and has in fact provided significant counterevidence to the explanation of a simple neurotransmitter deficiency.” They conclude: “The incongruence between the scientific literature and the claims made by SSRI [anti-depressant drugs] advertisements is remarkable, and possibly unparalleled.”

Dr. Abraham Hoffer inspired me to look for alternative answers for mental illness. We are indeed fortunate that the NDP government of Saskatchewan encouraged this groundbreaking psychiatrist and biochemist to successfully treat his patients using large quantities of vitamins and mineral supplements, instead of the previous, unsuccessful electroshock and brain surgeries.

His Adventures in Psychiatry will always remain a classic, in my eyes.

What changed in the last 40 years? The discovery of Lithium based medications encouraged drug companies to bring in newer, more expensive and highly dangerous psychopharmacological drugs to a population that was convinced that pills would make them 'feel better'. The FDA rubber stamped approval based on drug company assurances they were 'safe', even though their trials were incomplete, flawed, and short term.

For a list of the harmful drugs and their side effects, see here: http://www.sntp.net/drugs/drugs.htm  

They state: "Psychiatric drugs obtain their result by causing brain dysfunction". And, according to Dr. Peter Breggin of Toxic Psychiatry, those on medication have a greater incidence of suicide or suddenly snapping and committing a horrible crime. I myself have lost or nearly lost loved ones to suicide after starting on anti-depressants

Then please, read "Anatomy Of An Epidemic~Magic bullets, psychiatric drugs, and the astonishing rise of mental illness in America" by Robert Whitaker which asks the question why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the last two decades? He doesn't quite have an answer, but suggests that the medical establishment is not interested in an answer, just wedded to expensive 'solutions' and suppressing, other, more humane methods of treatment. Sometimes, all we need is someone to listen to us.

If I were to say what are the physiological causes of mental illness, the answer would be:

• Vaccines, and the ensuing genetic damage.
• Micro-brain tumors.
• The overload of environmental toxins from our chemicalized society.
• Aspartame and Fluoride taken internally.
• Nutritional imbalances and poor diet.
• Auto-immune factors.
• Prior recreational or pharmaceutical drug use.
• An unresolved psychological trauma, abuse, or isolation.
• Brain injury.

But the real answer is that mental illness has not only a physical cause, but also, an emotional, and, a spiritual cause. And the treatment cannot completely work if it does not incorporate and balance all three energies.  

Sadly, we are so wedded to the rational material world that we can never see that.

When my son was diagnosed with Autism we were able to help him recover with intensive therapy, a strict diet, and two substances which can, taken in combination, help reverse brain damage (more on this below).
But what made the difference was the healing work, and not just the other things.

Nor will we ever cure mental illness till we heal the psychosis that pervades this planet, and get rid of the warmongers, polluters, and thieves that plague us.

But, till then, try to live as natural a life as possible.
Give the time to listen to someone in pain.
Find a spiritual path that can help you find peace.

So far I have treated over 400 Autistic children, most of whom have gotten significantly better, and some, recovered fully. And not just Autism, I have treated many more people with other illnesses. I had a free clinic for many years in Toronto, and I have traveled the world and treated patients privately. I gave the research to other doctors, but they did not carry it as far as I would have liked. Me, I had to come back to my spiritual work, but would like to share this insight with you.

Psychiatry, as it is shaped today, does not work. It needs to find natural substances, and not chemical ones.
Psychology can help, but it's a lengthy process. Still, treating our lost souls with love and kindness does help!
If I were to open another clinic, it would be in nature, with clean air and away from the deadness of a city, and it would include, spiritual healing. My goal is to keep teaching the healers.

Till then, here is what you can do. Dr. Hoffer successfully treated Schizophrenics with Vitamin B. Look up an ortho-molecular or homoeopathic physician. Research in Brazil shows that Vitamin E helped increase the IQ of Down Syndrome children. Well, Dr. Charlton Fredericks proved the brain repairing power of Octacosanol which is the active ingredient in Vitamin E, and Russian scientists have had remarkable results with DMG. It was my discovery, that the two substances, taken together, Octacosanol and DMG, could reverse brain damage. Literally, children began to speak! And that was confirmed by Autism researcher the late Dr. Bernard Rimland and clinics in Korea and Japan, when they replicated the results. It works by increasing the oxygenation and brain circulation, and improving the immune system. Why is this not widely known? Actually, I was written up in Super Memory-The Revolution, but there still was way too much resistance to anything new, alternative, and not covered by a patent.

My younger daughter was classified as a 'slow learner'. Now she started taking the two substances, she gets A's and B's. A friend in England, her daughter has improved at Maths. And many more stories like that.

But if your illness is deeper than that, you need to find a way to that peace. Let me know if there is any way I can help.

Sincerely,
Naseer Ahmad

The Unstoppable Change

It is now time

Twenty two years ago I made a choice, to devote my life solely to following my spiritual path. There were quite a few twists to it, raise a new family, help people, publish, teach, travel, activism, and, develop a new paradigm for healing. It has not been easy for me, and I had to make a few sacrifices along the way. But it was the most amazing trip, and I have been blessed in being able to share it with you in these pages.

One of the things I have stressed, over and over again, was the need for change. But the lesson I had to learn was how difficult it was for people to change. I knew that in the end, people would have to be forced to change. Yes, we have free choice, but most do not know or appreciate what a rare gift that is, until it is too late. I know that I had to change, and for me, it was relatively easy, because, I am, and bring, change.

Even the people I have met, and taught, realize what a difficult path this, and while they hope it could be more in tune with the way they would like it to be, I'm sorry, but it is not. They have a choice to make, and I respect that choice. But in the end, faith and belief is something that comes from within oneself, and cannot be pushed. So I force myself to move on, and not, look back with regret. 

But I also said this once: you will not be allowed to destroy the planet. Change will happen, whether you like it or not, and ignorance will be no excuse. 

The planets Pluto and Uranus will enter into square position to each other this June 24, 2012. We have been feeling its stressful effects since the super moon of last month, and the Transit of Venus, which also had a message of its own I shared with you last. There was an upsurge of psychosis and gruesome murders, and almost every one I know is in a state of crisis. Then, there are those who chose the spiritual path, and I see them, moving forward as best as they can.

This planetary upheaval will last three years till 2015. The last time it happened in 1967-68, was time of revolution around the world. The time before that, we went into the Great Depression 1931-33. Will we repeat either, or both? We shall see.

This is prophecy, greater than that about some sort of cataclysm in 2012. As I said, 2012 is merely the beginning, that there will be resistance and obstruction, and yet, there will be change. The Occupy Movement? You ain't seen anything yet.

We have got the fascism we deserve. Yet the country that leads us in this, will see the greatest change, for good and bad. I hope that when my American friends wake up, they will see the Way of Atlan was always meant for them. But as I said about choices, we shall see.

And maybe, just maybe, there will be unstoppable, spiritual change.

The Transit of Love

I am the Lord of the Morning

In the next day or so we will be observing the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun, which will surely be the beginning of more stirrings around the world, and, within us.

Do the planets influence us? No, but I believe that God influences the planets. They are signs, except for those who cannot see.

The rare double transit of Venus takes place June 05-06, 2012, then will not appear again until the year 2117. This transit will be visible in Western Australia and the Pacific Ocean throughout, then Northwestern America and the Arctic at sunset, then the U.K., Europe and the Middle East from sunrise on. That, truly, is the Lord of the Morning I referred to, and is closely connected to the Mayan Venus calendar cycle that ends this year.

I am glad I had the chance to teach and set up healing centers in all those places during my time. I am glad to send one person to Italy, where I had placed so much focus, to be a healer there this fall. I am sorry to say, though with much love, that there will be a great need of healing in the Muslim world soon; I will address that in my next article.

I was reminded recently about the great need for love in this world. How much easier it is to kill, and make war, and hate. How much harder it is to love, make love, and forgive. Yes, there must be justice and balance in the world, in the time to come. There must also, I believe, be compassion, and, not just to love, but to become love.

This is the greatest influence coming into the world today. That it will lead to a greater love across the planet, I already know. For a stranger to smile at me in a subway train, for the people of the present and the future, I wish them love.

There also are people from the past. Yes, I make a point of not looking back. Yes, I accept that people make their own choices, and move on for reasons that are right for them. Yet, somehow, they are the ones who keep being drawn back. The people we run into, the ones whose thoughts I pick up, they will always be welcome, as friends, or whatever they wish. And I say this with the deepest compassion, as I see them struggling with the burden of their karma. But, the choice is theirs.

The last time I saw the transit of Venus across the sun was in Devon, UK, June 08, 2004. we had a christening for a friend's one year old daughter, and she got an unexpected horse ride that appeared out of nowhere :) Then up we went to the top of the Beacon where last I saw the total eclipse of the Sun in 1999 which led to my reaching out to people through the website MAN FROM ATLAN . Now here I was again,  and it was er, interesting.

Starting out on a sunny day, it became bitterly cold as we got to the top. But the sun was still out and we had a chance to see the little dot start to pass in front of the sun. That was when the fog rolled in from out of nowhere, in waves and waves so we could barely see in front of us. I did a healing for the earth, and for the many people there. And I told them, to love one another. The fog started to clear as we made our way down...

That was when I resolved no matter how difficult the path ahead would be, I must work on my relationship and my family, and not let them be secondary to my work; the two must go together. Yet this also was a period when I gathered disciples to me, and did so much of my spiritual work. But I never lost that focus afterwards.

But, you see, the 2004 transit of Venus was about personal love. This year's transit is about Universal Love. It is the harbinger of the end of the 25,000 year Mayan cycle, based on the planet Venus. Without arguing about the exact date that is supposed to happen, let's just prepare for the end of this year.

There have been gruesome deaths and killings across the world since the last time I wrote. Aside from the deaths in the Middle East, there was a murder in Montreal where a psychotic man killed another man, ate his flesh and videotaped it, and then dismembered the body and shipped body parts to the prime minister's office. Then I went to see a movie last week and a nearby shooting at a shopping mall resulted in eight people being shot, one killed. An increase in criminal, psychotic behaviour, and some of that from our very own 'world leaders', many of whom are in my opinion, just as psychotic. Again, very sad. Yet, the fact is the cannibal from Montreal was caught in Berlin, and the Toronto Eaton Centre shooter was also apprehended and charged. So, no matter who you are, karma does catch up with you.

Whatever I say, I do with love. Now is the time to choose your direction. You can chose to follow a spiritual path, or you can choose a path of fear. Yes, we are starved for love, but do not know how surrounded by love we really are. If that love is missing in our lives, it is because we do not love ourselves enough. I give love, and receive it, in abundance. And so, too, can you.

There is so much beauty in the world, yet we are islands isolated from each other.

But yesterday, I was drawn to a store, and there was a bracelet there, inscribed with a verse I had given to my wife when I first met her many years ago:

And now these things remain:

faith, hope and love.

And the greatest of these is love.

Healing the Unquiet Spirit

The spirits call to me

I hear the spirits of the dead.

Those who have died in war, natural and man made disasters, and the spirits of loved ones.

In the case of the murder of Meredith Kercher, it was her spirit that called for justice, and still affects many.

We are surrounded by spirits. Children see them as flashes of light or people, in the corners of their eyes, and ask quiet questions about them. Adults grow up, and forget how to do so, until tragedy hits them.

An old friend, Yogi Alfred Narayana, a famous Toronto psychic, was murdered a while ago. But then, he told me he would be killed one day.

My brother died of leukemia at the age of 10, and it was only when I asked the questions about what happens to us after death that I was able to start preparing for my life as a healer.

Many of us carry old traumas from past lives, from the destruction of Atlantis and Aergon, from Atlan. On Atlan many spirits simply crossed over into another dimension and were reborn here, and carry a sense of being strangers in their bodies, beings out of sync with time, spirit, and place.

I once cleansed an entire apartment building, the Manulife Center in Toronto. It was built over some native remains and people were getting strange, suicidal thoughts. You just need water, candles, smudge the building. When we got to the 18th floor the actor Christopher Plummer walked into the elevator. Lovely twinkle when we told him what we were doing.

So, we are surrounded by spirits. But we also, have the unquiet spirit within.

I heal the unquiet spirit.

An Easter Meditation

I asked a question about First Love

I've mentioned how I hold 3-4 meditations a year with my close group. We share food, wine, and friendship, and the things that occur around this time, I share with you.

This year has seen a lot of movement and change, in keeping with the themes of reflection and renewal. Many of the things we hold on to, will be left behind.

We had the meditation this Saturday, March 31. I turned off the lights for Earth Hour, and lit some candles. Someone asked a question about her first love, was he around, and I said yes, and he was happily married :) So I asked every one to tell a story about their first love. Yes, some hold on to them, and some, are transformed by them and move on, but isn't that the theme of Easter? Rebirth and Resurrection? And Bunnies?

So, speaking of bunnies, someone told a story about bunnies. Working on a farm, his dad had inadvertently killed some wild rabbits in their nest with a backhoe. His brother raised the surviving baby rabbits, whose poop all over the premises led to him getting the bunny disease tularemia which led to meningitis. He almost died, and his health has not been the same since.

So I invited him for a healing, and the pain he had in his head for some time shifted down to his back. This reminded me of something that happened a while ago. When he came for a first healing, he had some sort of visual disturbance that caused him to not come back again for a while. Yet, this is what I do. By stirring up the area that has been damaged, yes, there can be, um temporary reactions. Yet, the reaction tells me the healing is working. Tularemia causes optical neuritis, which can affect the eyesight and cause headaches. So I gave another healing, and he seemed to feel better, and now, there is hope for him, where conventional medicine had no answer.

And when we talked about it at the meditation, I talked about how one thing leads to another, and how important it is, the communication we establish with one another. And how I had once again received a reminder about the little girl Sara, the miracle child I talked about before, and this is where Ania stuck up her hand and said this was what I did several years ago. She was in my office and I held up my hand and said hold on for a moment, then I called Hawaii and it turns out the mother was hemorrhaging and about to go the hospital, and for the next while it was touch and go to send healing and help deliver her child.

But really, this meditation is about one's first love, and how we are always chasing after that. Yes, we can connect with a soul mate or an idealised being and keep looking for that person. Yet, the question then is where is love, and why don't have that loved one? Why do we spend lives in loneliness, looking for love?

Indeed, what we seek is unconditional love, but, be it pets or people, that may not always be there.

There is a time, a moment, of creation. In that moment, you see the one true love, which is that of God, for all of God's creation. God does not judge, or condemn you. It is that love we seek, beyond every other kind. God loves all beings, and every once in a while reincarnates to remind those of us who forgot, what it was like to know that.

And that was the message of this Easter meditation.

Ps: While I was writing this blog, twelve tornadoes touched down in the Dallas-Fort Worth area during a major storm http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/05/uk-usa-tornado-dallas-idUSLNE83303820120405 There has been extensive damage, especially in the town of Lancaster, Tx, and some fear that 2012 will be even worse than 2011, which was the worst year in a century.

I felt this disturbance in the energies, and, as I said before, such events often follow my meditations. My connection with the Dallas area is this: I was welcomed by and stayed with good friends in Dallas for several months over 1994, and many of my followers still live there. I am glad to hear that no one was killed. As the mayor of Dallas said, "it was a miracle".

This, too, is the message of Easter. Follow the spiritual path. Believe in miracles.

The Media, and Karma

It couldn't have happened to a nicer fellow

I've been writing this for more than a year now, but in the way of things, I got distracted :) because the story wasn't complete. It started with the revelations of criminality at the world's largest media corporation, News Corp, and the disgrace of its chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Now, with the fall of Murdoch and another right wing media magnate, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, this seemed even more timely.

If you had told people a year ago that the most powerful man in mainstream media (MSM) would be called upon to resign in disgrace from News Corp, the $40 billion media conglomerate, they would have laughed.

Keith Rupert Murdoch's influence was so great that he and his media companies literally helped move the electorate to a more right wing point of view. All 173 of his newspapers supported George Bush's invasion of Iraq, which led to over a million deaths, and immeasurable costs to the world economy.

He could and did help elect right wing governments all around the world. He was also a blind supporter of Israel's foreign and domestic policies. And his media outlets were at the forefront of calling for even more war around the globe.

Yet it is in Murdoch's ill fated attempt to purchase shares in BSkyB, the British Satellite TV company that would have made him even more rich and powerful, that we see the hubris and self destruction that is evident in all his ilk, and the promise of what is yet to come.

In the end it was a grassroots campaign of hundreds of thousands of angry British people that delayed the sale of the BSkyB shares. Then news came of his cosy relationship with the new government, sleazy tactics in wiretapping the phones of murder victims families, the arrest of close associates who worked in British PM David Cameron's circle, and the mysterious deaths of the whistle blowers who'd revealed the wiretapping, and that led to his downfall. That he is now considered to be a liar as well, for his testimony before the British Parliament, is just icing on the cake.

This is why I love the British people. Britain is my second home, having lived there since almost after I'd been born. I've written about my extensive visits and spiritual work there, and for the fact that two million marched against the war in London, 2003, that it is a headquarters of the non-GMO and anti-war movement; yes I love them very much. I wrote about how my 2007 trip there would presage the huge shifts taking place now.

But, the revolution that toppled Murdoch didn't just happen there, it has happened world wide. The revolution in Egypt that I wrote about, the spiritual changes I promised would happen, are all harbingers of the change we are right in the middle of. Right wing governments all over the world are under threat, the Japanese PM had to resign for his handling of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and in Canada, we have a real left wing alternative as the official opposition.

People see quite clearly now, that corruption lies at the heart of the political process, but also, the handmaidens in the media that facilitated that.

And one last word about our Rupert. After WWII the victorious allies hanged Julius Streicher, the Nazi publisher who demonized Jews. Murdoch, on the other hand, whose Fox News and acolytes have been demonizing Muslims, gets to retire and enjoy his $7 billion (est) net worth, and that's how it is.

But it isn't he that merits any attention at all. It is the media, and its role in subverting democracy, that needs to be examined, and, changed.

The 19th and 20th centuries was the era of trade, communications, and rational thinking. New theories of Psychology were used by the media. It is in the ideas of psychologist Edward Bernays that we see so clearly how this was achieved.

From Wikipedia: "Edward Louis Bernays (1891 – 1995) is considered one of the fathers of the field of public relations along with Ivy Lee. Combining the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the psychology of the subconscious.

He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that Trotter had described. Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations.

Bernays's public relations efforts helped popularize Freud's theories in the United States. Bernays also pioneered the PR industry's use of psychology and other social sciences to design its public persuasion campaigns. "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits." (Propaganda, 2005 ed., p. 71.) He called this scientific technique of opinion-molding the "engineering of consent"

In 1913, Bernays started his career as Press Agent, counseling to theaters, concerts and the ballet. In 1914, (former) American President Theodore Roosevelt engaged George Creel and realizing one of his ideas, founded the "Committee on Public Information." Bernays, Carl Byoir and John Price Jones worked together to influence public opinion towards supporting American participation in World War I"

Apologies for the long transcript, but it is Bernays own words that best describes the relation between the media and power, be it communist, fascist or oligarchic.

Propaganda

by Edward Bernays
Ig publishing, 2005, paper
(originally published in 1928)

p37: The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons-a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million-who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses.

It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.

It is not usually realized how necessary these invisible governors are to the orderly functioning of our group life. In theory, every citizen may vote for whom he pleases. Our Constitution does not envisage political parties as part of the mechanism of government, and its framers seem not to have pictured to themselves the existence in our national politics of anything like the modern political machine.

But the American voters soon found that without organization and direction their individual votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens of hundreds of candidates, would produce nothing but confusion. Invisible government, in the shape of rudimentary political parties, arose almost overnight. Ever since then we have agreed, for the sake of simplicity and practicality, that party machines should narrow down the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three or four.

In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on public questions and matters of private conduct. In practice, if all men had to study for themselves the abstruse economic, political, and ethical data involved in every question, they would find it impossible to come to a conclusion without anything.

We have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issue so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions. From our leaders and the media they use to reach the public, we accept the evidence and the demarcation of issues bearing upon public question; from some ethical teacher, be it a minister, a favorite essayist, or merely prevailing opinion, we accept a standardized code of social conduct to which we conform most of the time"

And if this invisible government should militate against our best interests, who then will report on that?

The media and their paid psychologists can be counted on to call such speculation "conspiracy theory", of course, with lots of theories about why people believe this. There even is a book called The Influencing Machine by NPR media columnist Brooke Gladstone http://www.amazon.com/Influencing-Machine-Brooke-Gladstone-Media/dp/0393077799 which acknowledges "the manipulations of contemporary journalism" but denies the power it has to influence our psychology.

By using as its title a 1919 paper on Schizophrenia, where sufferers believe that external forces work to shape our perceptions, it, funnily enough, denies what Edward Bernays himself wrote in his 1928 paper "Propaganda". Keep in mind that Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels acknowledged he learned his techniques from Bernays "American" techniques and you get where I am coming from.

The media operates through the energy of the throat chakra, the mind. I sometimes think it exists only to distract us so that instead of working for real change we focus on visual distractions and mindless entertainment. But, that's ok. The power of the media to shape us is now coming to an end, as we look at forming smaller, more coherent societies and groupings.

This is how I started the article. But now, as I look at the bloated evil being whose actions led to the murder and suffering of so many millions of people, then I know what I really want to say to all the people like him.

No matter how rich you are, or how powerful, or, how long you got away with it. Sooner or later, your karma will catch up with you.

Remembrance of Things Past

Those were the perfect years

I really have no patience with utopians. They may look to some perfect place down the future. Me, I only think of the work required to get anywhere.

But, if there ever was a perfect time, and place, it surely was the first seven years of my life, that I spent in Pakistan, India, England and Japan, which I've already written about.

Perhaps, as we get older, we all tend to look at the past with nostalgia. Speaking only for myself, I know that my childhood was magical.

I know, every day, just how much suffering there is in the world. But what I try to also do is take people to the magical place every child knows. There was a time when you knew how to do magic. There was a time when you simply knew you were loved. Maybe it was a parent, friend, teacher, grandparent, or simply, God, but, at some point in your life, you were loved.

There was a time when you were scared of nothing, and full of confidence.

Everything tasted wonderful, the colors were vibrant, and the world was a beautiful place to explore. You were never again as alive as at that one moment in time, and then you forgot.

Children, and animals, know how to disappear. They disappear from right under their mothers noses, dogs shift, as I wrote, through locked doors, cats, cross back from death, and that is why I keep using them as examples, of the spiritual dimensions they, and we, can all access.

Because it's not we also do not have those abilities, but, that we've forgotten how to use them.

Yes, there was a time when we learned fear, and anger, and hatred, and that the world was no longer a safe place. There was a time when we grew up.

The six of cups of the tarot deck shows children playing in a new setting. I teach you how to go to that new place, how to play, and, how to be a child again.