Deconstructing pseudo-spiritual New Age ideology continues to be very important, and the need for this deconstruction grows with transiting Jupiter in Pisces in an applying conjunction to Neptune in Pisces (exact April 12, 2022 at 23 degrees).
"Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense."
- From 1984 by George Orwell
The last post on New Age solipsism got me thinking about how important both Virgoan analysis and Scorpionic intuition are, especially these days, in determining real from fake. It also got me thinking about how both those things are vilified in much of the New Age ideology of the day.
The manipulation of the people has very much gone to the embedded stage. The trick of the day is to mix a grain of truth with a little trend-a-licious language and imagery along with a whole lot of garbage designed to achieve certain hidden, control-based motives - and hope people swallow it whole.
Current world governments are setting up embedded police/military forces. Just think about that for a moment. People embedded in daily society who appear to be regular people who are actually members of the police or military. Imagine the effect of this on our communities.
In the same way, I feel that the people are being coerced with embedded pseudo-spiritual ideologies.
I know this starts to sound a little kooky for some people, but it's not.
It's the idea of certain ideologies, catch phrases, and ways of thinking catching on like wildfire in a population. We must examine the root reasons certain ideologies spread so rampantly in this way (virally), as well as the effects those ideologies have on the individual and the collective society. .
Although I'm not a Richard Dawkins fan (strong non-fan, actually), he coined the term 'meme' for this phenomenon.
Meme: a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes, especially with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them, much as viruses do.
The term 'meme complex' denotes a group of mutually-supporting memes that form an organized belief system.
I see the New Age movement as a meme complex.
To me, this concept explains very well how the ideas of the New Age are spread. Think of the rampant spread of the ideology of The Secret, for example, and how people felt a compulsion to aggressively (and/or passive aggressively) proselytize and spread those ideas to the people around them. They did so and continue to do so to a nauseating extent.
The constant promotion of certain New Age ideas by its proponents - all while often denying doing so - is an example of how these memes are spread in the population. Examples: "manifesting abundance," "creating your own reality," "all part of the divine plan," "love and light," "oneness," "moving to a new dimension," "density," "enlightenment," "transcendence," the concept of spiritual hierarchy leading to ascended master consciousness, etc.
People are often parasitized by these ideas/memes without even knowing it. Their speech is peppered with this stuff, or sometimes just a few words sneak in, but the energy of it is the same. The fact that people promote it often without recognizing they're doing it - or at the very least denying they are doing it - shows the level to which it has been embedded.
A lot of New Age people I've come across use very sneaky and subtle proselytizing techniques. They start off with seemingly benign chit-chat and then subtly start pushing their beliefs, throwing in a few key concepts. Because they're not doing it out in the open, it's easier for the meme to spread. People feel its all very innocuous.
But I believe the effects of these New Age memes on the individual and, therefore, on our societies, are far from innocuous.
The words often say one thing, seemingly benign on the surface, but ultimately mean another. Elements and applications of New Age ideology are being used manipulatively, in damaging ways, and are taking hold along with the seemingly more light-hearted aspects.
The end result of people adopting these ideas is a largely complacent, docile, navel-gazing population ignorant of much of anything that hasn't been prescribed on their journey up the (false) enlightenment ladder.
It's bizarre to me that people speak as if they're reading straight out of a New Age 101 textbook, but they claim they are not New Age. They repeat the same beliefs and idioms, quote the same gurus, and use the same tactics but claim no connection.
If there really is no connection, how can I tell within seconds that someone is coming from this ideology, no matter how sneaky the person is? Once you can energetically pick up on the influence of these New Age ideologies, there is no doubt.
So perhaps "New Age" is an old term, one easily denied by those who sense critique? Maybe we need a new term for this meme complex.
Either the proponents of these ideas are denying the roots or they really don't know what they're promoting. In either case, most haven't examined the sociological effect of what they're promoting, and this is unnerving.
To me, the prevailing New Age meme complex is an overriding mindset that promotes complacency (misusing the terms "acceptance," "tolerance," "surrender," "all part of the divine plan"), along with sociopolitical ignorance, lack of personal responsibility/action, and solipsism (nothing exists outside yourself), where every social ill is linked back to the individual's own negative thinking, personal impurities, or belief system. Every social ill, people are told, can be solved with internal self-examination, meditation, and "spiritual" practises prescribed to them.
Everything is considered subjective and beyond personal judgement, even the idea of right and wrong.
Everything can be explained away with this mindset - murder, theft, rape, destruction of people's homes and businesses. People are taught that they do not have the right to judge these things. They are taught to give up their own personal discernment and values in favour of the "divine order."
People are taught that nothing exists outside themselves, and that, therefore, there is no external accountability for actions, even from public officials. Everything is in the hands of the "higher power," which they already are or can become by submitting to the hierarchical process of "enlightenment."
The ideology goes that there is a spiritual hierarchy that each individual is striving to climb on his or her way to achieving "ascended master" consciousness. (IE. Buddha, Jesus, etc.) Immense amounts of time and energy are put into climbing this supposed enlightenment ladder, all focused on the individual achieving "enlightenment," which is determined by those who are already considered at the top of that hierarchy.
There are endless books, lectures, workshops, retreats, sessions, fasts, cleanses, purification rituals, diets, programs, all intended to keep the individual focusing strictly on him or herself. There is also a strong element of playing people off each other, activating the spiritual ego about who is more or less "enlightened." It's a race to the finish line.
"Guru" human beings who have supposedly reached the highest levels of this enlightenment ladder are set up as models by which those on a lower rung should pattern their lives.
And again, the language of it seems innocuous at first to the untrained ear. (As does, for example, world leaders calling for a new world order.)
Tolerance, acceptance, love and light? Who could be against these things?
But here is the subtext, the double-speak. Here is where the combination of Virgo and Scorpio are necessary to weed out the real from the fake, to pick up on the underlying message and energy, and to identify and eliminate the embedded poison before it is swallowed.
There is the message and then there is the effect and application of that message. Here is where the ideological thrust of the New Age movement gets less innocuous.
When you strip away the fuzzy language, the effect is this:
People are taught to adhere to moral relativism - that reality is completely subjective, all in how you look at things. People are taught that acceptance of all things is the way to go, including those things generally considered personally or socially unacceptable, because the individual has no right to declare what is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. They are told they do not understand the divine order of things (only those "higher up" do) but can calm themselves with the understanding that it is "all part of the divine plan." This goes to the extent that mass murder committed by the state is considered to be all part of the divine plan.
Nothing exists "outside" the individual, so all events are linked back to the individual. If "darkness" is experienced, it is because the individual is a negative thinker or holds a negative belief system and is attracting this "negativity." This often creates a huge amount of guilt and an eroding belief that there is something wrong with the individual, that he/she is energetically dirty, etc. Because of this all-encompassing link to the individual, all ills, people are taught, can be solved with internal focus. There is a lack of holding anyone external accountable for his or her actions because, they are taught, there is no "external." This also relates to the state and relieves the individual of any requirement of political or sociological awareness or action. There is a lack of any personal responsibility or concern for collective circumstances.
There is constant, unbalanced positivity-pushing, an "if you don't look at it, it doesn't exist" ethic.
All questions are answered with the same meaningless, solipsistic idioms.
An endless focus on spiritual materialism, philosophical tail-chasing, and internalized navel-gazing related to the goals of climbing the personal enlightenment ladder is encouraged, fueling already off-the-charts levels of narcissism within this group of people. (Wank, wank, wank.)
People are encouraged to drop or "purify" their egos and personal wills, as well as any personal values that are not aligned with New Age values. Those values, they are told, are from a "lower consciousness." Also sometimes referred to as a "lower dimension," "lower vibration" or "density."
Anything that doesn't fit the meme complex, people are told, is from that "lower consciousness" and is looked upon distastefully.
There is overriding pressure to conform to the ideas of the group - misusing Piscean "oneness" to mean homogenity. New Age adherents are taught that it is inevitable that, with enough exposure to their "universal truths," everyone on Earth will come to the same understanding of things that they have, which, they are taught, is simply "increased consciousness," not a belief system or ideology. There is pressure to envelop the traditional religions into the New Age "oneness consciousness," also sometimes referred to as One World Religion. This New Age "oneness consciousness" is, again, believed by adherents to be the inevitable progression of human consciousness on Planet Earth as it moves to "5D reality" or to whatever "D" they feel is the most prestigious "D."
Reinforced separation from non-adherents is built right into the system. This goes along with playing on the hierarchical spiritual ego: the idea that New Agers are special and of a higher consciousness level than the rest of the people on Earth. New Agers are taught that the people who refuse to "see the truth" are in a different dimension of consciousness from the one(s) they inhabit, and that the dimensional divide is so strong that eventually they will not even be able to physically perceive these people.
This reinforces the "enlightened/unenlightened" divide and fuels more bubble-dwelling solipsism and lack of care for fellow human beings. It's also a big boon for murderous world governments when people divide themselves along "consciousness" lines and stop believing they even inhabit the same "dimension" as people who are less privileged or who are being harmed. Because it is only the so-called enlightened who know how to "manifest abundance" (wealth), the poor are blamed for their poverty and difficult circumstances with no understanding or consideration of the class-related power dynamics - intentionally reinforced to benefit the few over the many - on this planet. More of the "if I don't look at it, it doesn't exist" ideology.
There is a great deal of reinforced sociopolitical ignorance within this ideology, as New Agers are often taught that they are in a "different dimension" from war, suffering, injustice, poverty, politics, etc. Because they have "transcended" these distasteful aspects of life on Earth, they believe they have no personal responsibility for social or political awareness or action.
The constantly reinforced ideas of "transcendence" further the ungrounded separation from the requirements of physical life on Earth. Those requirements (including those of the physical body) are often looked upon as "unenlightened throwbacks," simply as things that need to be pushed beyond, rather than heeded.
Virgoan skills such as critical analysis, personal discernment, personal preference, judgement, and rejection of what is not meaningful, necessary, or acceptable for the individual are all looked at suspiciously and are quite often given a negative spin. Here, within the context of the tail-end astrological Piscean Age, there is an imbalanced glorification of and push for Piscean qualities (tolerance, acceptance, surrender to a higher power, going with the flow, love and light, etc).
So much easier to pull the wool over your eyes, my dear!
In reality, Virgo energy has never been more necessary to balance the excesses of tail-end Pisces.
Scorpionic intuition is also vilified quite often by those in the New Age but is very necessary to skillfully determine what is really going on. Scorpio is aware of extremes, both ends of the spectrum - light and dark, yin and yang, negative and positive, and it is also aware of the trickery and ruthlessness that can be used along that spectrum. The consciousness represented by Scorpio relates to things most people would prefer not to look at or would prefer to deny altogether (which the New Age consistently does). Scorpio can't pretend or look the other way. When it feels that something isn't right, something isn't right. It has to penetrate to the core of what is going on and remove detrimental influences.
Scorpio intuitively feels things like dishonesty, lack of integrity, ulterior motives, abusiveness, coercion, and attempts at subjugation/domination.
This intuitive understanding is, again, generally written off within New Age circles as "negative" under the imbalanced Piscean umbrella of, "Everything is acceptable. Be open to everything."
Scorpio is aware of both the surface appearance and what is going on beneath the surface (hidden influences and motivations), and the proper use of its intuition is crucial.
But any form of critique or exploration of motives is written off by the New Age movement as the "negative perceptions" of the individual. Or the (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) perceptions of a less enlightened individual who "just isn't there yet." The individual's intuitive skills and personal perceptions are often vilified by those in the New Age. "You need to check/align your perceptions," they are told by the New Age proponent, all in an attempt to get them "on board."
Both Scorpio and Virgo, when they haven't allowed themselves to be talked out of their knowledge, can smell bullshit a mile away. These energies, well-developed, can determine real from fake. They can identify the drop of embedded poison before it is swallowed.
Skillfully used Virgo and Scorpio energies are both dangerous tools to have in the hands of people you are trying to put one over on. If your motive is dirty, Virgo and Scorpio will more than likely know it and, in combination, can generally prove it. These signs can pick up on the most subtle of vibrations. Very refined "spidey sense." Built-in bullshit detectors.
Both these energies are valuable in scenarios of embedded motives.
And again, these signs are dangerous to people with coercive, manipulative motivations. They would prefer the populace give these powers over to them, and with New Age adherents, they usually do.
This is why people using these faculties are so often attacked or written off as negative, dark, dense, unenlightened, etc. within the New Age movement.
It's the perfect embedded religion to go along with that embedded police force. It's a belief system that claims no centralization. People promote the beliefs without even knowing what they're doing and without an understanding of the effect of these promoted beliefs. It's the advancement of One World Religion, and most people don't recognize it.
"Good afternoon, believers," Obama says.
Gag.
Nothing is out in the open. The influence and allegiances are hidden, which is why it's crucial that we develop these very refined bullshit detecting skills and trust our own perceptions, especially when the pseudo-spiritual ideology of the day is trying to talk us out of them.