The superstition of people can probably be measured well by the dangers they attribute to earthly life and the extent to which they do so.
Where the ancient belief in angry gods who unleash evil on humanity is laughed at by us moderns, we might smile at ourselves in the same manner.
What else are the disease registers and the millions of texts and descriptions of symptoms and illnesses of our time, which surpass even our ancestors in material abundance, who had less time to publish because written language had not yet been invented and probably spent only part of their existence praying or paying homage to the gods, while devoting another part to obtaining food and shelter and gathering. They might have had taken some time though in oral narratives.
But did they take as much time in thematizing the dangers of their inner and outer surroundings we do nowadays?
Seen in this light, one could even allow oneself the humour to say: Superstition has never been greater than it is today!
The sanguine minds among us are probably tearing their hair out, but already because of their self-created friendly world view, they don't waste too much energy on desperately longing for the reasonable person. You just have to want to be such a person yourself, who doesn't allow himself to be overwhelmed by the bombastic amount of doomsday scenarios and be drawn into mythical fear and rescue fantasies. Admittedly, this is quite an ambitious undertaking.
Now, the challenge is there, isn't it? Quite a huge one.
The clumsiness and obviousness, the diletantism with which those who have decided on the weal and woe of the nations do actually not decide, bring tears of laughter or anger to one's eyes.
Those who work in the self-established switching centres use themselves up after a while, they virtually consume their energies into what they call "politics" and the people want to understand as such.
If you don't want to die of boredom and bureaucracy, you do something exciting,
something that has nothing to do with committee meetings, minutes, law texts and so on. Such things are then given to hard workers. But if that is all politicians do, they have fed their ambitious egos far too little. On the open stage - like actors - they incessantly tickle the feelings of their audience and always experience emotional reactions. That is what it is all about. Whether emotions dominate the stage person more subtly or openly, they always do dominate them.
And we are constantly looking for humanity in analogies that are only analogies. We are like "ants" or "bees", we are like "wolves" or "snakes". But of course we are only human beings and the comparison of animals or insects has always had a big limp and will continue to have it.
An ant is an ant. A human a human.
The environment perceived by mice is different from that perceived by humans. Perception and its interpretation is key to what one believes is good or bad for him.
The catalogue of diseases, which weighs tons - to use a vivid image - is really very massive and made to impress.
Both the physical manifestations, which are called diseases, and the mental confusions, which are also called sick, bear witness to how fascinated, hypnotised and masochistic we humans can be if we only want to be.
Just take the Pschyrembel to see the millions of disease diagnoses alphabetically catalogued, the DSMV regarding mental illnesses and then you inevitably draw the conclusion that we are dealing with truly remarkable, massive, impressive and frightening expressions according to which man is a profoundly sick, helpless being at the mercy of natural planetary rigours. In need of rescue. Facing extinction.
1st edition 1894,
Leipzig 1901, 176 pages.
Leipzig 1927, 464 pages
268th edition 2020
The current edition comprises 2,348 pages. What does these numbers tell you?
At the same time, and here comes the paradox, the many dreadful diseases barely manage to reduce the number of humans. How so? I mean, we speak of nearly 8 billion peoples on this beautiful earth.
We stubbornly seem to be not only "survivers" but also "well livers". Despite those immense threats we tend to exaggerate.
Isn't it bordering on miracle after miracle that we are still alive at all despite these countless (invented) diseases, even that we often reach the life span of about eighty years?
"Well", cries the believing mind which sees a violation of its ego in the fact that his earthly existence punishes him with illness, "we have something to counter that! Medicine! Healing! We have, oh miracle, oh intelligentsia, achieved truly incredible things in the fight against the dangers and evil that surround us and invade us!"
The drama, of which Indian mythology also speaks, is thus opened.
I want to cite the following text which I read in @shepz1' s blog:
"As you know by now, entire industries are based on things that are pure fantasy.
In physics (photons, electrons, neutron stars, big bang, black holes, etc) and the same is true in biology.
In fact most of biology is a fabrication or partial truth. Germs are real.
The virus, along with the immune system and asymptomatic carrier bull dung were invented to subvert the rational simplicity of Kochs Postulates, of which not a single ONE has ever been satisfied, while trying to prove that germs cause disease.
The virus is an example of something that has never been directly observed or catalogued by any credible scientific process.
Genetics is another great example of scientific fraud.
DNA is just a theoretical concept. The so-called indirect evidence of the existence and structure of DNA are just completely unsustainable interpretations. No one can prove that the bands of different sizes seen on gel electrophoresis are the expression of the existence of the hypothetical structure of what is claimed to be DNA.
I would encourage anyone who believe in the idea of DNA to go back and read how it was supposedly isolated. Absolute comedy. It include actually boiling the sample. Ridiculous. There is no proof that DNA exist.
There is SOMETHING going on however, of course.
What we have is a parallel situation between physics and biology.
When confronted with field energy scientists are compelled to draw upon the radical materialism of their training and simply invent particles they believe are responsible for composing the field.
The materialistic nature of our civilization runs deep.
There is a dead end for these materialist concepts once they get past a certain threshold because, at heart, the universe is made of innately intelligent electromagnetic energy that has no points or particles.
DNA, virus, RNA, vitamins, chromosome, electron, proton, neutrino etc, all theoretical concepts with no direct observation to back their claims.
Innately intelligent electric field energy is the glue that unites all sciences and the universe comprehensively.
We must turn our attention to this as it is part of our awakening to a Natural World Order."
"Peter John Ladetto."
This resonates at least with me a great deal more than what is being held up as a holy icon of human medicinal inventions and its so called evidential basis.
Yes, "There is SOMETHING going on however, of course."
What one accepts as "evidence" of genetical findings are depicted with things like mice with human ears on their backs, like cloned sheep and external created placentas which nurture little embryonic lambs. Truly impressive, isn't it?
But I like to ask: What is more impressive than the inherent ability of living organic creatures to reproduce themselves?? I mean, think about it, entities which developed the marvelous skill to make more of themselves by and through their own bodies. Where else in the universe can we find that?
To believe that a sheer humanlike omnipotence "made us" rejects this marvel in a certain way. It ridicules evolution which - as far as we think - takes a Gazillion of time, eons and eons, in order to deliver something we named "liveliness".
Translated into numerous splittet and ever more splittet synonyms and faculties like "biosphere", "atmosphere", "heliosphere", "galaxy", "universe". And in the same way went "down" to "micro-sphere", "molecules", "atoms" and the like.
Why? Because, obviously, we had time to do so.
Because, after all, we are such a superb species in not only surviving but also in using opportunities in busying our minds. Which we now call "cognition".
So, what we did, was (re)cognizing aka "thinking".
To think - on the other hand - that all this happened out of "mere coincidence" reflects that same notion that all of this happened through architecture, a "knowing" supermind.
Why not eliminating the expressions "mere" and "sheer"? For this, obviously, are ridiculing terms, they point the outstretched finger towards ourselves (the fool laughs at himself).
Why not being impressed by an intelligence which is neither omnipotent nor coincidental but "potent" and "incidental"?
An incident causes other incidents, doesn't it? Incidents bear a potency. Action and non-action complete themselves in an un-complete way.
As far as we are here to knit the fabrics of our minds that game - or drama, as you wish - goes on.
Now, to come back to the notion that I am creating my world view, why shall I not construct it in a way which gives me more friendly tendencies? Why shall I focus on unfriendly ones?
"Belief", is it just something that hits me, grabs me, keeps me hosted or prisoned without leaving any space in choosing in what I like to believe in?
I like to choose not to believe in genetical diseases or viruses or any other kind of dangerous uneasinesses. I accept though, that my human body is a host for all kinds of inhabitants, small or even smaller and to cheerfully think of myself as a walking creature which sees itself as an open restaurant where those bacteria, parasites and you name it life forms, make a feast.
Most of them are as dependent on me as I am on them, I choose to believe. The myriads of internal and external influences, makro- or microscopic ones, I cannot count, cannot measure, cannot take into the mathematical and analytical equations all at once.
Why, for havens sake, do we accept, that all other creatures feast on each other but not us?
Like insects feast on trees and animals, fish feast on other fish, wales feast on plankton and whatnot, trees feast on the nutritions from the ground, sunshine and rain. We are all feasting on each other in such a great way.
A big tree, it stands for a huge living entity which gives nutrition to countless lives during its existence. Why are we so stingy with ourselves?
Like some grumpy mind which wants all for itself, not willing to share and care but if being asked if that is not somehow selfish shouts: "No! There are invaders, armies of greedy and hostile critters, big and small, and I will not and let not have them me!"
And then this mind pretends to act considerably, like being nice and caring in wanting others to behave in the same way, calling it "love" or other nice words. But shuts down, locks down not only itself but others and says "protection".
Question, I know, it is a pseudo-question:
Is it not a somehow friendlier life to let go of this fear of being eaten up, beaten up, insulted, repressed into an existence which constantly has to defend and fear itself?
I want to end with some other questions:
Do you think, after having had a headache, that the headache went away only because you took a pain killer pill? Can it also be that it went away because you think that a pain killer will kill your pain? When and on what occasions did pain killers not help you? Because, come on, a headache does not count if it's not a big deal. Only when things become big and you truly wanted to rely on something that let your pain being killed, it somehow did not work out to your satisfaction, no?
Have you made the habitual experience that all pain goes away eventually? Like you cannot laugh for hours in the same way you cannot cry for days, it'll all go away.
My appeal: Stay friendly to yourself and others. Which does not mean that friendliness does not include Sovereignty. It does.
picture sources:
By Laz777 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62871775
By Irwin Julius Weill - File:Weird Tales volume 36 number 02.djvu, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22454907
Fantastic article. Thank you my brother from another mother.
Call me sister and we are good :)
Thank you.
This probably isn't great bedtime reading, because I don't know how much of this I absorbed. However, these are the very things I ponder on myself. Perhaps we have too much time on our hands these days or so little to fear, that our minds need to find something to fear.
:) bedtime readings are not meine, either, I am mostly reading in the morning.
I agree, the mind needs something to busy itself, after time is something many of us do have. It's worth though to ponder about the things which affect us.
Hi erh.germany,
Visit curiehive.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.
Thank you, it's greatly appreciated. :)
Good post. I initially made a somewhat long comment but finally decided to delete it because, well, it simply sentenced the same questions you ask, namely:
I agree, and we may never be sure about that.
100% true.
Everything else you talked about reminds me of recent conversations I've had about this very topic, but I won't bring that up here because I don't think it's worth it, and in short, I agree with you.
Sorry I can't add much to the topic you brought up. Cheers!
Oh, bummer, I would have appreciated the somewhat longer comment, as I know that your formulations can shine some light on the topic. But other than that, I am fine with agreement, too :)
Yes, the fact that we can never be absolutely sure is something which we often do not think about and we tend to draw causalities in a simple way.
Having skimmed your first answer late last night, I would say that it is true that faith in healing is determinative of how well or less well people cope with an ailment. What I am hinting at in my text has to do with my view that people probably prefer to capitulate to some kind of superstition because not believing in a panacea could possibly lead them down tracks they are not ready for as it shakes their worldview (trust in others). The perpetuation of an event and the admission that one has adhered to a mistaken belief rather than having given room to scepticism is difficult for the self-image to bear.
https://www.theta.tv/video/vidryvkirnp16mvbdw9
this was confusing me.