The Goodwill Festival 2021

THE FULL MOON OF GEMINI
26 MAY 2021
© Malvin Artley

Greetings Everyone!

Messages and messengers come in diverse ways and in many guises. They can come internally, as in a flash of insight. They may appear borne in the guise of a friend or even an enemy. They may appear as a symbolic event or in dreams, if we know how to read the symbolism. And in the latter, each event can have numerous interpretations, and usually does, dependent upon the consciousness and experience of the observer. We may get a message through some sort of media, as it happens to fall within our stream of consciousness. If we are ‘in the flow’ the answers we seek seem to come easily. But sometimes we are made to work for answers, for our own development. We hear messages all the time. Nature, people, our higher Self, the world and the stars tell us everything we need to know. The trick is, do we listen? Are we ready to hear what is being conveyed to us? Are we even aware enough to recognize what the message is, or even if there is one? In our search for meaning in life, we look for the answers and expect a messenger to bring us the answers we seek. Sometimes we stumble on the answers. Sometimes the answers appear to be rudely shoved in our faces. If the latter, it usually means we have been told previously what we need to know, but have failed to listen. Or perhaps the answers have been willfully withheld from us by parties who seek to keep us ignorant. The latter is often the case in the mainstream media. We’ll get to that one in this letter, later.

Here in Rovereto, we recently had a few messengers coming to the house, as in literally flying in – kind of like the wings of Mercury, you know? As the weather has turned beautifully sunny and resplendent, as the sun has turned decidedly northward, our thoughts here at the house have turned to outdoor activities, as in gardening and bringing color to our little patch of green here in the city center. It is enough for one to stand on the terrace and sing “O Sole Mio”. That being the case, we leave the door open when we are here working outside so we don’t have to constantly let the dogs in and out. The thing is, other critters also take the opportunity to let themselves in and explore our indoor space, seeing the open door. And why not, to their view? On the 6^th we had one such ‘visitor’ to our premises – a messenger, in hindsight (messages also come in after the fact, for future reference) – this one being a blackbird who had graced our kitchen with its presence and other sundries. It perched itself on one of our chandeliers and waited for me to open a window, which it gladly flew out of after one was duly opened. A most curious occurrence, we thought, and let it go from immediate notice, not seeing anything of particular importance from the visit. But being a curious sort (take that as you will) I started to look up the various symbols associated with blackbirds later. In Italy, the symbol of the blackbird is taken to be an omen of bad news. We’ll get to what happened on the 6^th in world news a bit later.

Then, on the 11^th another little visitor came in, this time to the back part of the house, exploring a little deeper. Curious creatures, animals. Take that one as you will, too.  Another blackbird, who also left little ‘side messages’ behind. Another window opened (This bearer of tidings actually sat and waited, unperturbed, as if understanding what I was doing.), another guest gone. Perhaps there was a follow-on message, or perhaps I wasn’t listening to the 1^st one. We’ll get to what happened on the 11^th, too. The thing that alerted me to this visitor was a familiar rustling sound. Our littlest dog has epilepsy, and the noise sounded just like he was having one of his seizures. Much to my surprise and relief, the noise was from the little black messenger. But as the saying goes, events like these usually come in threes.

The third visit was from a friend of ours, and a Gemini at that, speaking of Gemini themes. This guy is an American expat and we sat around sharing tales, talking shop and shop equipment, about impending deaths, dog companions, travel, old ‘war wounds’ and politics in the United States, as men do. It was good to see him and to catch up. Gemini types are the messengers of the zodiac. As to what he represented, it ties in with what will follow (You’ll have to wait for it). But that brings us to our present theme – Gemini – and for this year the focus of this letter will be on the media of all types, what we hear, what we are not told and why, and what the world is actually trying to tell us in these days.

Mundane Gemini: Orthodox Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the Divine Messenger. Its symbol is the twins, also known as ‘the quarreling brothers’, which gives us a clue as to what is going on with this sign. Geminis can be known for their ability to weigh numerous facts and factors at the same time. As a result, if they are not spiritually oriented, they can also be known for their shallowness and fickleness, dancing between the various ideas in their heads and people in their lives, and as a result never going deeply into matters, in the way their opposite sign, Sagittarius would. Mercury transmits the 4^th ray[1], of harmony through conflict or beauty. Gemini is one of the ‘human signs’, is an air sign and a mutable (changeable) sign. It is a sign very important to humanity, because it works with the juxtaposition of the opposites and their resolution into synthesis. The Gemini as a result will often know a wide circle of people, will be able to converse with all of them on an equal basis, but at the same time will not be able to hold the lines of conversation for very long and will bore easily. That boredom works both ways, in that the Gemini can get bored with one-sided conversations, and on the other side people can be bored and irritated by the Geminian penchant for endless speech and not staying on subject. Gemini can also be known for double standards.

Because of their ability to hold conversation and people’s interest, at least for a while, Geminis make good go-betweens in negotiations, whereas real diplomatic skill belongs more in the domain of Librans, the latter also an air sign. But it is in conflict where the worst side of Gemini comes through, because then the old ‘divide and conquer’ rule takes over. In that mode the Gemini is faithless as a friend, opportunistic and adept at pitting people against each other. These points will be important later when we discuss the nations and the media.

In general terms, the Gemini type is a good communicator, is good with languages and media (Gemini rules the media), is stimulating mental company, at least for a time due to their breadth of knowledge and trivia (the sign is also known for trivia). Geminis can at least appear to be quite intellectually brilliant, and they often are. But the Mercurial nature of the sign makes them restless and they really do need to be challenged in a good sense by intellectual equals as a spur to meet their highest potential as personalities.

Esoteric Gemini: On the spiritual path, the situation for Gemini changes. The esoteric ruler for the sign is Venus[2], and under Venusian influence Gemini becomes the mediator, as in the relation between the higher Self and the personality, as well as the telepathic communicator between people and groups. Venus co-rules the ajna center (along with Mercury) and integration of factors.[3] The ajna center rules the pituitary gland[4], which is also known as the ‘master gland’, in that its secretions hold sway over the majority of bodily functions. It is probably best known for its secretion of growth hormone, and the correspondence between spiritual and physical growth will be readily apparent. The ajna center also resembles a pair of small wings in the region between the eyebrows. In the Gemini type, when Venus ‘takes over’ as ruler of the sign, ‘divide and conquer’ is replaced by the ‘urge to brotherhood’. The 4^th ray of Mercury is harnessed toward the realization of harmony and the synthesis of diverse factors, leading to enlightenment. In fact, Venus and Mercury are both sacred planets[5], both intimately connected with mind and both of them also closely associated with relationship. This brings in a most interesting consideration.

The tendency of Venus is to bring factors and people together into more intimate rapport[6], hence its association with sex – that is, the relational side of sex. Mercury, on the other hand, governs the interplay between them. Venus and Mercury are both involved in the building of the antahkarana. Mercury rules the use of the antahkarana[7], while Venus rules its construction and placement. Venus transmits the 5^th ray[8], the ray of science (which includes ‘the science of the soul’) and which holds sway over the mental plane (the 5^th, counting ‘from the top down’). The antahkarana exists on the mental plane in its entirety[9], and is after all, the bridge between the mental unit (the synthesis of concrete mind) and what we might call ‘the vibration of mind’ – the most abstract portion of our mental faculties. The latter is the ‘manas’ portion of atma/buddhi/manas, the latter also known as the Spiritual Triad, or our higher Self. This is ‘the soul on its own plane’. What we have with the antahkarana, then, is the connection – the completed circuit – which connects the personality and the higher Self, thus giving a clear line of communication between all parts of the human being – personal, personal soul and the most spiritual. Mercury at that point represents something more than the orthodox ruler of Virgo and Gemini. Mercury at that point becomes the true Divine Messenger for all the signs. For in the final analysis, Mercury is ‘the mind of enlightenment’.

Mercury and the 4th ray hold sway on the 4^th plane, the plane of buddhi[10], and of intuition[11]. Mercury is the messenger that carries intuition[12], in its true sense as a synthetic, blissful ‘knowing’. Mercury is the purveyor of direct valid cognition, another name for true intuition. What we call ‘intuition’ in the vernacular is solely psychic impression, which is simply an extension of the senses. Intuition, on the other hand, is a glimpse at what, for want of a better phrase, is as much of ‘The Plan’ as we can access via the connection between our higher Self as it communicates to our brain consciousness.

Mercury as the mind of enlightenment[13] also has another function, that of active kundalini[14], known in part as ultimate bodhichitta. It is ultimate in the sense that enlightenment is no longer something we imagine and to which we aspire, but is instead an active and vital expression of service, as one would see in a bodhisattva. Ultimate bodhichitta is that which makes the bodhisattva path a living reality in the life of one thus awakened. While all this may be obscure to the reader with no esoteric background, the simple summation of the preceding is that Mercury and Venus as a combined pair carry us from the unreal to the Real, from slumber to awakened Reality, from separated existence to union with Universal Truth. This is the highest expression of Gemini as a sign and symbol. The ‘twins’ in the highest sense are then one, inseparable, at the same time individuals, yet united in service to humanity and the greater Good. With these points in mind, we move on to the full moon and then to our worldly considerations with Gemini themes.

The full moon takes place on 26 May 2021 at 11:20 UT. It is a full lunar eclipse of the 121 Saros series, the last of the total eclipses in the series. The time is for the maximum of the eclipse. From the Farmer’s Almanac, this one is called the ‘flower moon’. It is also a supermoon. Thus, we have a ‘super flower blood moon’. The moon at this eclipse is near perigee (close to the Earth, and thus will appear bigger than usual. The eclipse will be visible essentially across the entire Pacific region. The Sun culmination line runs through central Europe and West Central Africa. The Moon culmination line runs through the Pacific to the east of New Zealand. The eclipse axis lies at 5°25’ Gemini/Sagittarius. Jupiter makes the apex of the t-square with the eclipse axis, which will show as a sunnier disposition (good for goodwill), but at the same time contributing to over-optimism. This will be added to by a semisquare by Mars to the eclipse axis (to the Sun). Mars will have just gone in-bounds, leading to a relief from the tensions we have seen in the last two months and probable lessening of violence (and there have been some very tense moments). At the same time, Mercury and Venus will have both gone out-of-bounds, implying that negotiations and diplomacy will have gone into overdrive. And right now we need it. But it also means media spin will be more than usual now, too. That brings us to our current events.

Gemini events and spin: In case you haven’t noticed, a rather important event took place within the 1948 borders of Israel. I have posted three articles on events there on the blog site which go into the background, the short war itself and an emerging plan which will probably work out over the next year or two (HERE, HERE and HERE). With the blogs in mind and as background we will not cover the events in Israel here, save for a few points. There were two dates listed at the start of this letter – the 6^th and the 11^th of this month. The 6^th was when violence erupted at Sheikh Jarrah and Jerusalem in the last week of Ramadan. The 11^th was when Hamas gave the Israelis an ultimatum to end the violence against the Palestinians and then began firing rockets into Jerusalem when their ultimatum was ignored. Then we watched as Gaza got pounded by Israeli bombings and artillery fire. One can try to say, well, “Israel has a right to defend itself”. But what we are seeing in Gaza is not ‘self-defense’ by the Israelis. Israel has self-defense, exhibited in its Iron Dome system, ineffective as it was. The bombing of Gaza is something else, analogous to several people bringing machine guns to a knife fight. The Israelis were firing the machine guns. You won’t hear it is nthe mainstream press, but this was an important battle, won by the Palestinians, and marked a sharp turning point in the history of Israel and in the lives of the Palestinians. Life will not be returning to ‘normal’ for the Zionists in Israel.

I have stated my views on Zionism in the past and stand by those statements. The statements just made are to call out the Zionists who supported the Israeli operations against Gaza and across Israel as to their extremity. I know there were many Jews who condemned the Israeli bombings. And there is a growing movement of young Jews in the US who are against the apartheid state. Zionism is not Judaism, and to call out Zionism as a racist, separative and apartheid construct is in no way anti-Semitic. The war we just witnessed has many Gemini underpinnings, beginning with the two nations in particular with Gemini expressions who fully supported the Israelis against the Palestinians.

The bombing was not, as was sometimes portrayed, ‘tit-for-tat’ between Israel and Hamas. However, bad as the bombing against Gaza was, Hamas and the Palestinians were victorious. The worm has turned. (Let me know if cannot read the article at the link.) The Israeli operation was for political purposes and it was beyond the pale, all out of proportion with the actual rocket strikes, the ones that made it through the Iron Dome. And the United States (as in the establishment) condoned Israeli heavy-handedness. They even want to send them more weaponry. Economic sanctions against the Zionists would be a better idea. Call it what you will, but the lack of a US condemnation of the Israelis, along with Washington’s statements that “Israel has a right to defend itself” enabled the escalation and continuance of the fighting. American arms manufacturers made a killing from the killing. The US even refused the call for a ceasefire at the UNSC, having vetoed it three times. The Palestinians saw they had no other choice but to fire their rockets. I have outlined why in the blog posts. How does this relate to Gemini, though? It does so because there are two aspects here – the spin from the US and UK media, disgusting as it was, and the Gemini expressions of the US, UK and to a lesser extent, Brussels (the EU). We’ll start with the nations, go on to the media and then come back to Palestine.

Gemini and the 6th ray: The Gemini personality of the US is particularly pronounced at this point in time. With the passing of the 6^th ray, expressing through that personality, the crystallization and misappropriation of the nation’s professed highest ideals is nearly complete. We see in America a nation where ‘liberalism’ has become ‘cancel culture’, where ‘conservatism’ has become radicalized and reactionary, where what is called ‘leftist’ is actually centrist if not outright conservative, where being ‘woke’ means to be asleep to being used to keep the nation divided, and where any program that advocates for the greater social welfare is denounced as ‘socialist’ and ‘evil’. Our news is now mere infotainment, reinforcing an exceptionalist agenda, much to the detriment of the nation and international relations. In true lower Gemini fashion, it is the US against the world, the quarreling brothers set against themselves. The individual’s rights are held up to be more important than the collective welfare. Both are important. And ‘the market’ is held as the gold standard in measuring the nation’s wealth, instead of its people. The US is a land of opposing forces at the moment. And yes, these statements may seem exaggerated, but they go to illustrate what will actually be a most interesting phenomenon to eventuate over the next few years. These statements illustrate the following consideration, seen in terms of an evolution in the nation’s soul growth:

“The result of the increasing flow of seventh ray energy plus the decreasing influence of the sixth ray — which shows itself as a pronounced crystallisation of the standardised and accepted forms of belief, religious, social and philosophic — is to throw the millions of people who do not respond to either of the above influences through egoic or personality relation, into a state of bewilderment.  They feel entirely lost, are gripped by the idea that life holds for them no desirable future, all that they have learnt to cherish and to hold dear is rapidly failing.”[15]

Spain and Russia, the 6th and the 7th rays: The preceding quote echoes throughout the US and the UK. But in terms of nations, we can find no better examples of the ebb and flow of the 6^th and 7^th rays, respectively, than in Spain and Russia, with both nations expressing both of those rays. They have both undergone crystallization, breaking and reformation in recent history, both along their own lines. It has been quite pronounced in Russia, with the personality of its 6^th ray ossifying increasingly throughout the years after WWII,  finally collapsing in the late ‘80s and throughout the ‘90s and then reforming under Putin from the turn of the century onwards. The US, for its part and with its 6^th ray personality, had hoped Russia would continue its ‘road to freedom and democracy’ under Western guidance into this century, only to have the Western ‘high ideals’ shunned under Putin, along with the corresponding stoppage of the flow of Russia’s wealth into Western coffers as a result. Ukrainians need to take particular note here, as Ukraine is quickly becoming a failed state under Western ‘guidance’, its wealth being transferred to the West, its remaining infrastructure placed under Western control, its people left with no future and poor. Watch what happens, unless a savior for Ukraine magically appears. If so, what would follow would not be to Western liking. But because Russia called a halt to Western deviousness in Russia, we have the animosity between the West and Russia, to the point of hysteria at times on the part of the West.

As Russia’s strength and society waxes, the attitude of the West’s foreign policy establishments,  especially in Washington, hardens and ossifies in a manner very reminiscent of what took place in Russia prior to its collapse. At the same time, as Russia (as well as China and Iran, too) wax in strength, the level of hysterical, outlandish ‘reporting’ on that nation rises. There is a direct relation between the strength of a nation that opposes Western control and the level of smearing said nation in the Western media. There is a cautionary tale there, especially for the US. The Russians know the story of ossification and collapse very well. They see what is happening in the US, do have sympathy for the American people, and have stated they are happy to cooperate with Americans whenever the situation in the US changes for the better. There are very many Americans, too, who want better relations with Russia. I know many such Americans personally. The two nations do have Aquarian, 2^nd ray souls in common, after all.

Returning to our 6^th and 7^th ray topic, the Spanish have undergone their process of breaking and reorganizing, too, as mentioned. They once had a huge colonial empire, one of the biggest in history, the remnants of which lasted until 1976. Its ossification and breaking period was under its fascist period, from WWII to 1975 under Franco. It is now a constitutional monarchy, and it struggles still with its 6^th ray legacy and the changing world order. In the reversed order of their rays, Russia and Spain have a sort of shared destiny. They have had stable diplomatic relations for three centuries. As was recently stated regarding the two nations (machine translate), “If Spain had a more active or proactive role in re-establishing bridges (between the EU and Russia), it would play a historic role that would benefit everyone.” Given the ray synergies between Spain and Russia, the Russian ambassador’s statement is probably justified, if not prescient.

The 5th ray and the 7th: As an aside, it is said that the nations expressing the 5^th ray are being especially stimulated by the waxing 7^th ray, and have been for a long time.[16] The relation between the 5^th and 7^th rays demonstrates as an increased ability to relate spirit and matter via science.[17] The primary 5^th ray expressions in the nations are France (soul), Austria (personality), London (soul) and Darjeeling (personality). The places on Earth just listed have all contributed to that relation in one way or another since the 17^th century, when the 7^th ray began to manifest.[18] We saw it in the French Revolution, the 1^st Industrial Revolution (which started in England), the growth of science as an academic discipline (Austria) and so forth. London and Darjeeling are great planetary synthesizing centers, with London showing as an economic and political center. Darjeeling is still very young – the youngest of the centers – and thus far has reflected British influence and has been a melting pot of religions.

Gemini tactics: Returning to Gemini, the US has been a meeting place for diverse cultures and has displayed the intellectual brilliance of Gemini in the past. But it is also quite shallow in some areas of its expression, as in media and popular culture for instance. But going back to the mundane side of Gemini, previously, the US has displayed the worst side of Gemini in its foreign policy, in that it has used the divide-and-rule dynamic to keep nations destabilized internally and divided against their neighbors, as well as pliant to American interests. This has been especially evident in the nations it has destabilized since WWII, which is a great number of nations, in an effort to control trade and resources. It is a dynamic and tactic it learned from its parent nation, Great Britain, which misappropriated its Gemini soul energy and employed the very same tactic among its colonies. Palestine is a case in point, for both the US and the British. During the British mandate for Palestine, the British committed numerous atrocities in Palestine and trained many of the early Israeli military in their techniques, still in use today. The US has used similar policies or enabled them in puppet governments, and we see the same practices today by the Israeli military and law enforcement. And in an ironic twist of fate, that same tactic is now being used by the establishment against the American people themselves, causing domestic instability, great polarization and disparities, dividing sectors of the populace into idealist ‘camps’ and so forth.

The US has tried to use the divide-and-conquer tactic on Russia and China, which Kissinger advocated throughout the Cold War. It was one of the primary reasons Nixon went to China, as a means to try to weaken the Soviets and to keep the two premier communist nations at the time from possibly uniting. The Chinese at the time were somewhat open to the idea, as their relations with Russia in the ‘70s were at a low point. But the Chinese also had other ideas, as we are finding out today, in that they needed to boost their economy then, being very poor at that point, and saw in the US an opportunity for investment and skills. At the same time, the Americans were looking at the vast Chinese population and land and saw an opportunity for a powerful American outpost (they hoped), with the eventual aim of toppling the CPC. The Gemini of the US has indeed been very evident since WWII. That same Gemini tactic was used in the Arab Spring uprisings in the MENA region, but was called to a halt by the Russians and Iran in 2015. And even now the US seeks to do the same with the EU against Russia as it tried to do with China, with Biden’s Cold War cry of ‘diplomacy is back’ as the centerpiece of America’s foreign policy. That sort of ‘diplomacy’ is an effort to form blocs of nations to ‘push back’ against China, to try to isolate Russia and to keep the EU weak. But this is also true of the British establishment, too. Consider the following, applied also to the US and Brussels (as the seat of the EU):

“It is the Gemini influence which has produced — viewing the work of the nation from the personality or lower angle — the secret and oft devious diplomacy and subtlety which has in the past distinguished Great Britain’s political activity. Gemini people are often distrusted, and the Gemini effect along this line makes of Great Britain no exception. Such distrust has been warranted in the past but is not as justifiable now, for the nation is old and experienced and is fast learning the lessons which she has had to master. As yet, from the higher angle, Gemini does not entirely control, for the soul of Britain is only now struggling for expression.”[19]

Emphases added. If Britain is only now struggling to express its soul, what then of the US, which is a young nation on the one hand, yet founded and populated in its present form by peoples from many and often ancient cultures? Well, we see a dichotomy here – in Gemini fashion – between the people of the US and the various departments and think tanks within and associated with the government establishment. The public is kept largely ignorant, purposely so, of the machinations of the government and it lieutenants, and largely via the media. The Gemini personality of the US is also expressed through the Gemini rulership of media. The same is true of the UK. Continental Europe is somewhat less coopted, but the propaganda arm of the West in Europe is still very strong. That brings us to the media, as an expression of Gemini in the US and across the West.

Journalism?: I have had some readers asking me recently what my process is and what my sources are for arriving at the analyses I make in these letters. Especially in the Taurus letter, many of the links I shared and items I had asked people if they had heard of had gone unnoticed or seemed to be completely out of the blue. There is a big reason for the latter, staring us in the face every day, and it relates to how we receive our news in the collective West, if we can even rightly call such reporting on international affairs ‘news’. We have looked at this issue many times in past letters. We shall be more pointed about it now.

True journalism in the West is a thing of the past. It disappeared with the repeal of the FCC fairness doctrine in 2011 that had been in place in the US since 1949. We need to keep in mind that the US is the dominant force in the West at the moment and the media follows the US establishment line. The repeal of the fairness doctrine was a libertarian/conservative initiative, saying the doctrine infringed on free speech. It was repealed by executive order by Obama, along with 80 other regulations. What the fairness doctrine really meant was that TV and radio stations broadcasting libertarian and conservative views had to also include opposing points of view, and the parties opposed to the doctrine wanted to be free to be able to broadcast their views unopposed. This is what they called ‘freedom of speech’. From that point onward, if anyone has noticed, our broadcast media in the US has become blatantly biased. We note here that journalism is ruled by Mercury and Gemini on the whole. So, from 2011 onward, our media in the US, and increasingly throughout the West, has become more like the ‘quarreling brothers’ than a synthesis of opposing views. But that is not all.

Most of us would like to think of ‘journalism’ as it is defined in the dictionary, as, “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation”. There are many links to true journalism in these letters, which we will get to, and many more to informed opinion, based on past real journalism and experience. These letters have been my own process of interpreting what I have read in the aforementioned articles and books. That said, very little of what we see reported in the largest part of media is ‘journalism’ either. And much of what we hear and read in media today is more properly called negative and coercive propaganda. A true journalist, reading from the preceding definition, will report on what s/he sees and experiences on the ground, at the site of events. Even that is subject to interpretation, especially if the journalist sees only one side of a story or conflict. Their reporting is also heavily edited and framed by the major newsroom editors in the West. The latter is what we see in Western media reporting on conflicts, with journalists embedded with friendly forces, rather than risking life and limb to get all sides of the story in a conflict, the latter which a good journalist would do. Reporting would then be a true Geminian synthesis of views and experiences – a very rare thing to find these days in media.

Instead, what we see in modern media comes from privatized platforms, from editorial newsrooms, compiled and edited by people sitting in offices far away from events and conflicts, and as such is often quite biased. The recent reporting in Western media on events in Israel is a case in point. Virtually the only uncompromised journalism these days is independent. You will not see it in the mainstream outlets, especially when it concerns foreign reporting. The US and the UK especially have had their news services coopted by their main intelligence agencies – the CIA and MI6 – and can no longer be trusted to give a true accounting of foreign events, such as the recent incident in Belarus, for instance. The hypocrisy in Western media regarding the grounding of that plane and the arrest of the opposition individuals in it shows the Gemini double standards to a ‘T’. The shrieks of ‘hijacking’, ‘piracy’, ‘scandal’ and ‘outrage’, along with the quick tying of the event to Russia and the rush to sanctions against Belarus by the EU, show an all-too-familiar pattern. We won’t go into the event here, as the linked article clearly shows the Western double standards in the so-called rules-based order. Western governments have done the same sort of thing as Belarus, with not a mention of that in the mainstream news.

The Big Lie or real journalism?: Many comments I have seen in independent sources now call the corporate media, the ‘Big Lie Media’. Trump actually spoke truth when he called out the mainstream media as liars, although he conveniently neglected to label media sources that supported him (such as Fox News) in the same way. Yet, most people are unaware of the extent to which our media these days ‘misrepresents the facts’ to us in a daily basis. The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, CNN, Fox, The Washington Post – all of them – lie to the public constantly. If you want the truth about events, one has to read widely and go to the true, independent journalists. Where to start, then?

My own journey (note the root word) has taken me a while to arrive at my present point of analysis. Any journalist is really taking a snippet of the journal of their life journey and reporting it to the general public. I am not in a position to travel to the places discussed in these letters to do any actual reporting, so I have had to rely on people who actually do go to and live in said places – people like Pepe Escobar, Elijah Magnier, Sharmine Narwani, Vanessa Beeley as related to the Middle East, and so forth. And these people all have their opinions, too. Everybody does. If you want a good cross-section of such independent journalism, a good place to start is with the Serena Shim laureates. One of those laureates is a site called Information Clearing House, which has had almost a daily feed of articles from independent sources for journalism from across the world until recently (illness has struck the compiler for the site), as well as mainstream sources when they warrant it or when they are singled out for propaganda alerts. Since most of the focus in these letters in recent years has been on international affairs, these sources are a good place to start getting to the truth of what is actually going on in our world. You will note, too, that some of the laureates and sources listed in the linked sites are branded as conspiratorial or untrustworthy by the mainstream and the establishments in our nations. We all have to find truth for ourselves.

How we are lied to: There is an article, highly recommended, by a Canadian author of Russian descent, living in China (dismiss him already?) that outlines what we receive daily in our mainstream news. I would have to agree with his conclusions, given my own researches. He opens by saying:

“With the English [language] media today, there is no longer any separation of fact and opinion. This is so true that many articles contain no news other than an oblique reference to some past event, and consist entirely of ideological editorialising, in fact heavily biased op-ed pieces providing primarily a political interpretation the elites want us to adopt, creating abuses of every description. Americans, Canadians, Brits and Aussies have now for two generations been exposed to this deceitful reporting and are no longer aware of the extensive propagandising even though it no longer remains hidden. As someone wrote so accurately: “Traditional journalistic news room culture determines the basic nature of a story before the facts are assembled.”

The last statement was particularly true of reporting on 9/11, which he references in the article. The editorial staff at the New York Times has the palle (Look it up. It’s a handy word to know in Italian.) to state outright, “We set the agenda for the country…”. Do they, now? Does traditional newsroom culture determine our paths as nations, as people, or does it simply play to people’s baser emotions and instincts to promote the plans of the few people who own the media outlets and their masters or donors? This is the real danger of private ownership of the media, whether mainstream or social. We see the last bolded statement all the time in the media and a long list of events, for the past couple of centuries really, show how the public perceptions of events have been molded to conform to corporate, financial and political vested interests. Recent events show the media always jumping to – framing and forcing, actually – conclusions about hacking, cyber-attacks, gas attacks and poisonings, origins of epidemics, accidents, political motivations, and on and on. Contrary views and questioning of said conclusions are rarely allowed these days, are wiped from search engine results or put way down the algorithm list, ‘moderated’ from comment sections, are subjected to vicious and vociferous trolling in comment sections, with nary a question about cui bono from events or even a smattering of common sense. When one begins to read real journalism instead of newsroom copy, the truth of the preceding quote becomes glaringly clear.

With the events of 9/11, for example, the alleged culprits were signed, sealed and delivered before the day was out. Yet common sense, looking at who stood to benefit from the event, independent and forensic analysis, knowledge of building plans and how materials behave, and so forth – any information gleaned from such investigations that questioned or contradicted the newsroom narrative – are dismissed outright as conspiracy. Questioning the events of 9/11 is not allowed, not in America anyway. To do so is unpatriotic, is insulting to the brave men and women who were sent off to fight the terrorists. To question anything about what happened on 9/11 amounts almost to heresy or blasphemy in the mainstream. Again, we have to question why. 9/11 had to be the work of terrorists, of a few fundamentalist individuals armed with little more than box cutters and extremist views. But then, look at the larger picture and where the aftermath of that event has taken us and how we have been steered to accept a certain path, to find our freedoms whittled away, to see our goodwill squandered among nations, how an entire region has been destabilized and wrecked as a result, with millions of lives lost. And what has it achieved? Are we safer? Has terrorism been routed? Are we more prosperous, happier, with better international relations, with ‘greater goodwill toward all men’? It is probably not necessary to answer. This may have sounded like a rant, but is instead put forward as an example. It represents a process I have followed with every major event. It is natural for people to question, to want to analyze, to know the truth behind events, because it is part of our very soul nature. We have minds, but it would seem often the vested interests count on the fact that few people seem to use their divine capacity as thinkers. Well, that appears to be changing.

We note the bolded nations in the quote above comprise four of the Five Eyes. The main takeaway from the article quoted, though, is how to recognize propaganda. The author lists 18 different ways in which we are commonly exposed to propaganda, now also known as ‘narrative steering’. The more familiar manifestations of those 18 methods are atrocity tales/‘atrocity porn’ (outrageous and violent stories that have never occurred), ‘framing’ (telling people how to view events and people, as in protesters for freedoms being portrayed as terrorists and vice-versa, for instance), flooding the media (endless repetition of a story, whereas most events leave the news cycle in a few days), confusion of information (this is meant to keep people from the truth and from focusing on the core issues, such as we have seen with the COVID crisis and the incompetence of Western governments in their response to it), hit pieces (Putin/Xi/Maduro are ‘thugs’, the ‘new Hitler’, etc.), polls, censorship, news items that make no common sense, and so on. Since we are inundated with this type of reporting every day it is small wonder any report that falls outside the mainstream story lines are held to be highly suspect by the general public.

Then there is fact-checking, which in itself has become a powerful tool for promoting propaganda. Sites like Snopes have been coopted for this purpose, for instance. Many fact-checking organizations today are little more than enforcers of establishment narratives. ‘Fact-checking’ is actually used to check who is contradicting the accepted narrative. These ‘guardians of the truth’ are especially to be mistrusted on social media sites. If one really wants to fact-check something, one has to do some digging, and most people either do not have the time or the inclination to do so. Photos of purported events can easily be checked by doing a Google search on the image in most cases, for instance, even though Google itself is a platform that regularly censors content. I have found many falsehoods that way. For myself, I find the process of doing my own fact-checking quite interesting, and it has led me to some rather useful side knowledge, some of which I have shared in these letters. In short, we now have to fact-check the establishment fact-checkers. Then, although there are facts, more than that there is understanding.

The road to understanding: Our understanding of events comes primarily through our own experience and applying our own capacities toward parsing the experience. If we simply accept what is presented to us in media we have only a limited understanding of events, based in an established paradigm. One of the great values of Buddhism, for instance, is mind-training – teaching ourselves how to see beyond ordinary appearances. Such mind training is excellent for dispelling the glamours enshrouding our societies, in getting to the essence of what is really important, and of marking and tracing the train of events that preceded and laid the foundation for the present events. Understanding is a capacity of the soul. We learn to see the essence of whatever stands under (under-stands) any phenomenon. It is the very basis of the science, even art of psychology, for instance. When it comes to the ‘crunch’ in analyzing any event, we have to know the historical context – the true history instead of the historical fictions written by the victors, Hollywood or special interests. True historical record gives us the basis of events leading to present events. Then we have the basis and start of a good analysis. But above all, we have to believe based in our own reason and consciousness. No phenomenon ‘just arises’ on its own. All phenomena are the result of past events. Nothing in life ‘just happens’. All phenomena/events are the result of cause and effect. This forms the basis of the idea that there is nothing new under the sun.

Getting back to the question people have about how I arrive at my conclusions, my process is as follows: The dogs get me up at the crack of dawn (they’re good for that) and after they are fed, I sit down with the phone in the midst of my morning necessities and go through the Twitter feed to see what is trending (This has been very useful for the blog site.), which alerts me to any major international news item. Now of course, Twitter is now censored and biased too, but it still has its uses. That feed has grown as I have come across any real journalism. Some of the best journalism comes from citizen journalists, like people who happen to be on the scene with a smart phone when an event happens. Then one looks for consensus and begins to ask a lot of questions. Once the necessities of the morning are done I go looking for articles in support of or contradicting/adding to what is trending. I also look at aggregate news sites, like Information Clearing House and so forth.

Israel and topical/typical propaganda: Coming back to Israel and events there, and in keeping with our theme, we do occasionally get a measure of truth through our mainstream media. In a move uncharacteristic of the New York Times, they carried a front page piece outlining how the current Israeli occupation practices had led to the current crisis and uprising. It was written by a journalist who used to work for the Times. But the linked article outlines the sort of culture that exists in the major news editorial rooms and how they are heavily biased toward Israeli interests and against Palestinians. This is also true of Western reporting on many nations and groups. We hear, for instance, that Hamas is a terrorist organization. We do not hear that Hamas is the only armed defender of the Palestinians in the 1948 borders. Reporting on Israel and the Palestinians is heavily framed in our media to see Israelis as victims of violence by Hamas. We hear about the great effectiveness of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defenses. We do not hear that almost half of the 4,300 rockets launched by Hamas were not intercepted by the Iron Dome. The damage to Israel was much more extensive than was reported. Israel was hit where it is weakest. Israelis sit there now virtually unprotected against missile attacks. Yet, we hear that we must re-supply the ‘highly effective’ Iron Dome to bolster Israeli defenses against future rocket attacks.

The US, UK and many EU states up until now have been united in their support for Israel, yet there are a growing number of people in all those nations who increasingly support the Palestinians, seeing the apartheid state for what it is. There were large marches in the UK in support of the Palestinians in response to the bombing of Gaza, at one time as many as 200,000 in London alone, and this was after the ceasefire was declared. Some mainstream papers headlined ‘thousands’ being in attendance, downplaying the numbers, while yet others headlined with police having to step in among violent clashes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators on other occasions, not focusing on the nature of the demonstrations. Jeremy Corbyn, alleged anti-Semite – so the major parties in the UK would have us believe – spoke at the largest demonstration in London. With propaganda methods in mind, watch and see how the mainstream media spins, frames stories, floods news outlets with otherwise banal stories (like the Diana interview) and tries to bury support for Palestinians. What we just saw with the short war in Israel was a first step forward for justice for the Palestinians, a major turning point in their struggle and a change of direction for the region. But it won’t be cast that way in the West. There has been too much invested in Israel’s survival and its military strength, the latter now shown to be relatively weak against what it now faces from Resistance forces in the region.

To get another perspective on what Israel, the state, actually is, it is a Euro-American transplant of white Zionists into a land that until the British mandate had been populated by indigenous Palestinians of long ancestry. To Palestinians, especially now, those Zionists are an occupying force. And as a Euro-American – actually, more a British-American – project, Israel is strongly influenced by the Geminian divide-and-rule dynamic. Mercury and the 4^th ray also play a large role in the destiny of the Jewish people, but more so via Virgo, which rules their rising sign.[20] Note the distinction between the Zionists and the Jews, though there is a strong strain of Zionism in many Jews. We see the 4^th ray of conflict and Gemini divisiveness in the 400 miles of Israeli walls, separating ‘Arabs’ from Israelis, and the Israeli apartheid system. And as the US and UK rises or falls, so will the Zionist state. That fall in Israel has just been started with the latest, brief war. It will accelerate from here.

The right-wing Zionists will fight the changes to come with everything at their disposal. The only thing that would possibly save Israel now, meaning the Zionist regime, would be either a miracle or a large NATO military action in the Levant. And from what I have read, the latter is less likely to happen than even a miracle. We will not be told why in the mainstream news. Any voices to the effect that Israel is in trouble will be dismissed and scoffed at. The West will throw money at Israel in an effort to keep it afloat, but it will be to no avail. In a combination of hubris on the part of the West and Israeli establishments, of poor intelligence, of one-sided thinking and overconfidence, and of the growing determination and inventiveness of the indigenous people in the region and a new generation of Palestinians to overthrow the occupation and Zionist regime, the Zionists will soon be shown the door. A one-state solution will ensue. It will be very difficult at first, as it was in apartheid South Africa, but justice will prevail in Palestine, for the Palestinians. This is what journalists from the Middle East and people who know the region are telling us.

All the preceding may sound far-fetched. Israel is cast as a great power in the region, with the idea being they can always overcome what resistance there is. But recent events have shown the world Israel’s Achilles heel. Efforts to divide and conquer on the part of the Anglosphere, primarily, have had to opposite effect since the turn of this century. Nations that once were divided against each other are now uniting in common interests, against common foes. Russia, China and Iran are virtually united now in purpose and shared interests. The Shia populations in West Asia have united in common resistance against Wahabist and Zionist forces. The US and UK are becoming dis-united, with strong in-fighting among factions. Southeast Asia is fairly united in view and economic cooperation. And some of this has come about or has been cemented in place since the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in Aquarius in December of last year, signaling fundamental shifts in group and international relations. These are stunning developments, yet we hear little about them in the mainstream. And the reason for talking about Israel so much in this letter, aside from the topical import, is that the key to peace in Asia as a whole lies in the ousting of Zionism and finding the way forward for equality and justice for all peoples there. The Zionists and US/UK interests have funded and abetted much of the extremism in the region. It is the people of West Asia who will decide the future of West Asia, and that will include children of more tolerant Israelis who were born in West Asia. If this view seems impossible, all I can say is to read widely and set aside any preconceived notions and hopes for outcomes, or proscriptions for outcomes. Our world is not like the powers-that-be would have us believe.

From darkness to light: In closing, if the world seems dark, if the future appears bleak, if hope seems to sift through our fingers, just keep in mind that the reality of the world around us is not as we are being told in the mainstream press and on social media. Some readers have also questioned why I remain positive about the future of the world, why I see “The Plan” being on track and so forth, and why in the world I would see nations like Russia and China in a more positive light, given the alleged evil intent of their leaders. In the preceding paragraphs I hope I have answered some of those questions, at least to some degree. There is a ‘Plan B’ aside from Western plans, and it is proceeding apace, and it will lead to an Aquarian order rather than the dystopic picture so many commentators out-picture, the result of their own lack of investigation, personal bias and misunderstanding.

Yes, there will be some painful episodes in the years ahead, like the one we just witnessed in Palestine. But rather than seeing the isolated event as being terrible, we can seek to see things in terms of process, in the context of a larger, synthetic view, with the idea and assurance that there are indeed other views and people across the world who are working toward the Aquarian future, where brotherhood will be the norm, where goodwill guides the nations and communities and when war will be a thing of the past. Call me utopian, call me crazy, call me misguided – I don’t care. It may take a century or two yet, but the process is well in place and proceeds as we go about our daily business, inundated as we are by the fearmongering infotainment at our fingertips and at the press of a button on the remote. Choose your poison, if you will, or instead seek out the views of people who really do know the world, as in some of the people mentioned previously.

If you want a good example of goodwill, take a good look at the large protests in support of the Palestinians that took place around the world as Gaza was being bombed and which are still ongoing. Didn’t hear about those? – I’m not surprised, but there were such marches and demonstrations. And they met with violence in the United States and France. Again, the latter was unsurprising, given the bias and interests of Western governments, but it goes to the extent to which the US especially is gaslighted by its media. The tide is turning, though, and demonstrations like those put the powers-that-be on notice. We have been waiting for such moments to arise, to know there is still good in humanity and that it is rising. We would not have seen such protests for Palestine even a few years ago. I mentioned blackbirds at the start of this letter. I’ll leave you with a song lyric:

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Often, what appears to be bad news or a black future veils a better future. That future may not be what we expected, it may not be exactly what we wanted, but it often serves the soul’s intent and sets us on a more secure spiritual footing. Every event carries a message. In the light of the soul, out of the dead of the night, we see the way clear.

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