How to Spot Controlled Opposition: Reclaiming the Energy, Passion, & Effectiveness of the Resistance - available at the Willow's Web Astrology Etsy shop
This article was first posted on the main blog on November 19, 2018, and it has now been compiled into a zine.
I wrote this guide on How to Spot Controlled Opposition when Jupiter was in Sagittarius (truth, dogma) forming a series of three square aspects to Neptune in Pisces (illusions, fog, deception). The Jupiter-Neptune square was strongly in effect from late November 2018 to mid-November 2019 and indicated a primary theme of determining what is real and true from what is illusory and deceptive.
To these ends, I compiled this guide so people could identify the "pretty manipulators, confident deceivers, and charming liars," hopefully helping to nullify the manipulative stranglehold on the collective discourse and public mind held by controlled opposition.
Controlled opposition is just what it sounds like. It is a method of infiltrating, influencing, or misleading real resistance and opposition by establishment agents or groups. These agents or groups are put in place to purposefully mislead, to lead in the wrong direction, or to entirely shirk leadership at critical moments, sabotaging any real progress. Controlled opposition hijacks, confuses, and diffuses grassroots movements and independent action that would otherwise be effective.
Controlled opposition agents are often looked to as primary leaders for a cause, and this creates and reinforces passive dependence on them as figureheads. This dependence pacifies and neutralizes the energy, movement, and goals of the true resistance. Ideas and discourse are kept under tight control. Spontaneous or organic independent action is suppressed. It's follow-the-leader, but these are no legitimate leaders. Controlled opposition ensures that people don't organize or take independent action on their own, and it keeps an eye on (and a lid on) the real dissenters or resisters.
It's important to know that people can be used as controlled opposition consciously (with their knowledge) or unconsciously (without their knowledge). Whole movements or "scenes" can also be infiltrated by controlled opposition. This maintains establishment control over dissent and the exposing of truth by scratching the surface, appearing to allow a public platform for alternative views but never going to the real roots of the situation or truly liberating people's minds or lives.
As we begin the major shift into stronger Aquarian Era themes, initiated at March equinox 2020 by Saturn entering Aquarius, the public stage is absolutely thick with false heroes, fake rebels, and pseudo-alternatives set to hijack the true potential of both humanity and these times on the planet.
So many bright and inquiring minds have been sucked into the dead-end black holes of controlled opposition, gatekeepers, egotists, narcissists, and general fakes and phonies. Their minds and their spiritual energy are being hijacked. Their time on this planet is being stolen from them. The words coming from their mouths are not their own. The ideas being furthered through them are not in their best interests. Despite pure hearts and good intentions, their effectiveness is being diminished terribly by following the wrong leaders.
How to Spot Controlled Opposition
1. The person or organization is famous, a household name (at least in certain circles), and/or is covered on mainstream media. This is a dead giveaway. People who have the real-deal information, who do the real-deal research and journalism, are suppressed, ostracized, mocked, isolated, and even murdered by the establishment. They do not rise to any sort of prominence within the public, especially with the assistance of mainstream media. They have to fight tooth-and-nail to get the truth out there amidst monstrous opposition. They are certainly not provided with large public platforms or mainstream media play, even if only as supposed "enemies of the state." Real whistleblowers are stepped on, intimidated, shut up, or killed. They don't hit CNN or CBC or BBC or Fox News. They don't hit VICE or Democracy Now or Dr. Oz. (Unless, that is, they are being used by the establishment as unwitting controlled opposition.) Within the pseudo-alternative media, controlled opposition agents will often have relative fame - a relatively large public platform in the hundreds of thousands or low millions. These individuals will often seem just a little too slick or a little too rehearsed to be real people. They may have an extreme and unnatural level of charisma, and this charisma can draw people in. (The standard cult leader personality.) This type of charisma can be generated with mind control techniques, occult-based machinations, or both. 2. Limited hangouts: a controlled opposition agent will release very juicy insider information to the followers to make them believe that "someone is doing something; someone is on top of this." This is a common technique by the power establishment of "throwing people a bone." Because the agent is releasing information that the powers-that-be would not generally want released to the public, information that makes the established order look bad, the controlled opposition agent gains legitimacy in the minds of the followers. The followers trust that this person is "one of them, on the good side, playing for the right team." The information being released is often partial, outdated, diversionary, or of limited scope. If the information is legitimate, nothing effective is done with it. The controlled opposition agent or group does not direct people to take viable action based on this information. Often, the limited hangouts merely scratch the surface. They do not go to the real roots of the situation or call out the real people and organizations responsible. Limited hangouts are often used as a "look over there!" tactic to divert attention from other areas. Limited hangouts by controlled opposition agents have the effect of controlling dissenting discourse within the public. Followers hang on the controlled opposition agent's every word, waiting to be told what to think or what to do, never doing their own research or coming up with their own thoughts, ideas, or actions. The discourse only goes so far as the controlled opposition agent allows it to go. Limited hangouts are being used to great effect by Donald Trump and supposed Trump insider Q Anon, as well as by other puppet-celebrities. (Don’t worry – the establishment left is just as chock full of controlled opposition as the establishment right.) The public has never before experienced a high-level politician or celebrity producing such a steady stream of juicy limited hangouts, and many people are utterly mesmerized and mind controlled under the spell of it. The reason limited hangouts are being used so extensively at this time is that the public has successfully uncovered so much of the true reality on this planet. The people have uncovered things that can't be swept back under the rug, and the power establishment must now try to take control of this information. 3. The controlled opposition agent will often have ties (past or present) to mainstream organizations, government agencies, or establishment groups. A controlled opposition agent is often a supposed dissenter who rejected some mainstream organization or industry in order to "tell people the truth." (I've personally found these types of fake rebels or critics to be common within the New Age establishment - people pretending to be critics of New Age while actually being adherents to New Age beliefs and ideology.) While true dissenters and whistleblowers do exist, they almost never gain large public platforms. The ultimate allegiance of a controlled opposition agent is with the establishment, and they may receive funding directly from related industries or organizations. If being an "establishment rebel" is a strong part of the person's schtick, there is reason to be suspicious. 4. The controlled opposition agent creates and reinforces a strong Figurehead-Follower power dynamic. This is a hierarchical dynamic where the Figurehead sits at the top of a pyramid scheme of power with the followers gazing up in rapt devotion. This often takes the form of the "Wise Fatherly" archetype with the controlled opposition agent being looked to as the pinnacle of wisdom and the ultimate fount of information. The Figurehead is seen as the most intelligent and most important individual in the pyramid scheme and certainly receives the most attention. Narcissistic tendencies can commonly be observed. The Figurehead must be deferred to at all times. Dissenting information is generally censored, and anyone considered a dissenter is cut out of the fold. There is no climate of intellectual equality, even though lip service may be paid to that. People often want to get closer to the Figurehead, moving up the rungs of the pyramid scheme to the inner circle. Once in the inner circle, people will defend and protect the lofty position of the Figurehead to maintain their own position. The energy, ideas, intellect, talents, and efforts of the followers - those on the lower rungs of the pyramid - are funneled to the top and often folded into the Figurehead's own work. In this way, the followers are used to prop up or bolster the position and status of the Figurehead. This is energetic theft, and it's really the only way the bloated public platform used by the Figurehead can be maintained over time. 5. The Figurehead controlled opposition agent has extreme influence on the thoughts, ideas, and speech of the followers to the point of mind control. This takes the form of hundreds of thousands or millions of followers parroting the Figurehead's exact ideas and catch phrases. (Hatefully referring to the public as “sheeple” is one that springs immediately to mind.) This phenomenon can be easily picked up on by those objectively viewing the dynamics, and it is another dead giveaway. Free thinkers do not parrot the same catch phrases, idioms, or ideas at the same times as hundreds of thousands or millions of others. Independent researchers and thinkers do not obsessively focus on the pet subjects or ideas of the Figurehead to the exclusion of other, more important matters. The common denominator when seeing these types of dynamics will be exposure to one particular Figurehead. 6. The Figurehead controlled opposition agent often stirs anger, rage, fear, frustration, confusion, or despair in followers with no healthy outlets for those feelings. Anger and rage will often be directed toward certain groups of people as the cause of the ills. These groups may be gender-based, race-based, or politics-based but can also be the public at large (“the sheeple”). Massive amounts of time and energy are directed toward particularly divisive topics as well as to matters of secondary importance, skirting around the real, core issues of the times and the real individuals, organizations, and entities responsible for the harm being caused. The Figurehead can also stir confusion and a sense of futility or helplessness in the followers, ensuring that followers do not take independent action (“there’s nothing we can do about it, anyway”) and that they will continue to look to the Figurehead for instruction on what to think or what to do. Dependence on the leadership of the Figurehead is encouraged, even if not expressly. These are some of the characteristics of people who act as controlled opposition. You can use these points to sniff them out.
Please do not look to anyone else to tell you what to think or what to do. Always look for the direct actions you can take in your own life, including freeing your mind from the manipulative influence of controlled opposition.
From April 3, 2020, "False Heroes, Fake Rebels, and Pseudo-Alternatives in the Astrological Aquarian Era"
All Willow's Web Astrology articles on Controlled Opposition
A critique of controlled opposition/gatekeepers in the protest movement: This Mind is Otherwise Occupied.
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