Can a loud guttural scream damage your throat chakra?

by Not Sure

3 July 2022

“That's what the matrix is. It's the authorized version of reality.”

- Alan Watt, Cutting Through the Matrix on RBN, 25 July 2008

This is quite simply the most concise, precise explanation of “the matrix” that I have ever heard.

***

Here are other definitions:

In mathematics, a matrix (plural matrices) is a table of numbers or symbols which represent a mathematical object, a linear map.

A situation or surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained.

The womb.

The formative cells or tissue of a specialized structure such as a hair, nail, claw, or tooth.

The principal metal in an alloy, as the iron in steel.

The network of intersections between input and output leads in a computer, functioning as an encoder or a decoder.

A mold or die. (From which an object is cast or formed).

Whatever is within the substance, be it a number, a cell, a metal or you, is inside the matrix. When you are completely surrounded by something, enclosed within it, that is your universe.

***

Last week I entered the New Age and I recognized immediately that I would be here for a while. The term “New Age” has been around so long now, warned of by Christians, swallowed up by Positive Thinking and Self-Empowerment, subsumed by Spirituality, that for the purposes of this series, I am going to call it New Religion.

New Religion has crystals, vegetarianism, yoga, chakras and meditation but it has expanded to include “green”, “sustainable”, “global” (as in “think globally, act locally”), “mindfulness”, “eco-friendly”, “responsibly and ethically sourced”, “plant-based lifestyle”, “reduced carbon footprint”, “tiny houses”, “equity, diversity and inclusion”, “transgender equality”, “Black Lives Matter”, “gender based violence”, “White privilege”, “microloans for women”, “gender neutrality”, “visualization”, “wellness”, “climate change science”, “climate change denial”, “anti-vaxxer”, “transformative”, “Pride”, “higher frequency”, “social justice warrior”, “quantum”, “collective consciousness”, “woke”, “positive attitude”, “gluten-free”, “prosperity”, “infinite spirit”, “toxic masculinity”. The new terminology goes on.

The New Religion also has a new liturgy, the public worship that accompanies it. I won’t list all the ceremonial rites, but they include wearing masks when asked. Holier people can easily be recognized because they wear masks even when they are not required to, e.g. alone in their cars. You can recognize acolytes by the cloth bags they carry into supermarkets, their scrupulous attention to social distancing markers on the ground, the care with which they examine something that purports to be vegan, avoiding the use of cisgender pronouns.

Some of us have been woefully slow in our catechesis. A food magazine from 2014 was already ahead of the curve in discussing “gastrodiplomacy” to ensure that cuisine is not culturally appropriated. Evidently there is a nasty caste system in the way that “ethnic” food is categorized. There is a general assumption amongst the fully catechized that when the word “ethnic” is used, it is describing the gastronomy of more “Brown” people. We would be unlikely to use that word (if we are light-skinned) in describing Swedish or Italian cuisine. I became confused in my attempt to find the correct terminology. It may be that “exotic” should not be the word used but rather “authentic”. I was trying to describe a meal that I had which was reminiscent of the kinds of food that I have read is consumed by some people who inhabit a country which is just south of the United States of America. The meal was good but trying to describe it in an inclusive and non-appropriating way gave me heartburn.

If I could just cleanse and detox my physical body, I’m sure it would be a more sympathetic home for my soul as it yearns to throw off the negative influences of its past and journey to my true authentic self. I could try Beyond Quantum Healing hypnosis through a company called Awake and Align, and it looks like I can book a one-hour session in mid-July for £320 (that’s about $385 USD). But I’d prefer to jump start my initiation into this New Religion. Last week while researching CON-Spirituality I found an interview between Jules Evans, a “practical philosopher in the U.K.,” and Stephen Dinan, founder and CEO of The Shift Network and a member of the Transformational Leadership Council and Evolutionary Leaders.

Mr. Dinan’s credentials are stellar. He’s a graduate of Stanford University and California Institute of Integral Studies (East-West Psychology). He is also a member of the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC), which was founded so leaders of personal and organizational transformation could support each other in their contributions to the world. Members of the TLC are leaders in their field and are composed of CEOs, trainers, facilitators, thought leaders, authors, movie producers and directors, and coaches. They are focused on transformational leadership and deliver their work in the world through workshops, “trainings” (as opposed to the old-fashioned singular “training”), seminars, books, films, speaking engagements, coaching sessions, TV and radio shows, and special events.

***

Today’s Redux is from Alan Watt’s 25 July 2008 RBN broadcast:

"Hey, Have You Heard, Why, It's All the Rage?

Science, Sustainability Joined with the New Age,

The Latter, a Religion to Tie It Together,

To Bind Us as One, All Wound with a Fetter,

Dazed Devotees Simply Haven't a Clue,

That Their Creed has been Borrowed from the Hindu,

Their Collective Intellect Boils Down to a Smidgen,

As They Scoff at, yet Practice, a Belief called Religion"

In this talk, Alan read an article about a Massachusetts retreat called Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. In a delicious bit of irony, I read that the center was a former Jesuit facility built in 1957. Talk about the New Religion replacing the old.

A $15 million, six-story housing annex with 80 guest rooms, was completed in 2010. Designed by architect Peter Rose (interesting name), the annex incorporates sustainable design elements and is designed to consume forty percent less energy than a conventional building. Rose said it was designed to be "a model of environmental responsibility". I can book three nights at the center for $2000. My room will not have a view and no classes or workshops are included in the price. Enlightenment will be worth the price though.

But wait! I wanted to attend Mr. Dinan’s Shift Network retreat in the San Francisco area of California. I can “Access the Best Transformational Education, Media, and Events on the Planet”. They offer more than 230 teachers, boast 175,000 customers and a community of more than two million people. But I don’t want to give them my email address to find out the cost of their events. Hmmm. What to do? They advertise the Sacred Feminine with Sufi Dance but I can’t see the price. Perhaps I can just refer back to Rhonda Byrne’s 2006 self-help book, The Secret and I can visualize that the money I need for the event, however much it is, will manifest. I shouldn’t mock. I’ve prayed for more trivial blessings than a bit of Sufi dancing.

The Shift Network advertises Ram Dass as one of their teachers. Dass aka Richard Alpert passed away in 2019. But maybe all it takes for his continued sage advice is to “name it and claim it”. Or maybe I pay extra for the psilocybin experience.

Ahhh! This is what I’m looking for. Mr. Dinan and his wife Devaa Haley Mitchell offer a mentorship program. That’s more like it. I can be empowered to step into “full-spectrum leadership”, work on my emotional intelligence and “become a respected leader who is heart-centered and effective, philanthropic and abundant, spiritually based and practical”. What’s this going to set me back? An “activation” retreat, group mentoring, six individual mentoring sessions, group teaching and masterminds. This all takes place at the “Jewel”, Stephen and Devaa’s gorgeous 30-acre sanctuary. Faculty includes Marianne Williamson — The Call to Feminine Leadership Spiritual Teacher, New York Times Bestselling Author. Ms. Williamson wrote the introduction to Stephen’s book Sacred America, Sacred World: Fulfilling Our Mission in Service to All. Her notoriety arose from her work with A Course in Miracles, you know, the 1976 book by Helen Shucman. Ms. Shucman channeled everything Jesus forgot to say when he was alive.

Other teachers include Deepak Chopra, THE guru of our generation who can often be found doing meditation workshops with Oprah Winfrey. From the ever-reliable Wiki, “Chopra is a prominent figure in the New Age movement, his books and videos have made him one of the best-known and wealthiest figures in alternative medicine. His discussions of quantum healing have been characterised as technobabble – ‘incoherent babbling strewn with scientific terms’ which drives those who actually understand physics crazy.”

This whole retreat is a phenomenal experience and Stephen and Devaa place its value at $33,000 USD. However, if you pay in full in advance, the whole package is yours for $17,000. It seems a fair price for a “quantum leap” in my leadership capacity. I can “gain access to the latest science, theory, and best leadership practices”. Personally, I think that simply by putting the word “quantum” in front of anything, it adds several thousands of dollars worth of value.

Alan Watt said that every major player in this agenda has talked about the need to create a new religion, since religion has always been used to control and direct into the next part of the future. Gorbachev said that the new religion the elite would bring us would be a form of Earth Worship -pantheistic, feminine, Mother Earth. Long before the Beatles went to India and traded their Chelsea boots and skinny ties for Nehru jackets and paisley scarves, we had Madame Blavatsky, given a Freemasonic charter to bring Rosicrucianism and the New Age to the West. She brought us Theosophy, to popularize the occult and in particular Hinduism and Buddhism. There is a crystal-clear link between Blavatsky and David Icke who has simply rehashed all the occult mumbo jumbo and tied in patriotism and a bit of truth about this ugly ancient agenda. Voilà! CON-Spirituality. Royal Lizards breathe new life into a tired old theology.

Essential viewing to accompany this talk is Gods of the New Age, a 1985 documentary film based on the book by the late Caryl Mastriciana. This is coming from a Christian perspective, and it is well worth watching. What we are shown is that nearly forty years ago, the beliefs of the New Age were being embraced by Westerners in large numbers. Yoga had already been adopted as a healthy lifestyle choice, a way to keep limber and lean. What was not acknowledged is that Yoga in all its many forms is a religion. As is pointed out in the film and reiterated by Alan in this talk is that the system of Yoga is meant to be a way for the practitioner to bypass a few reincarnations and reach Nirvana a lifetime or two quicker.

The film reveals that each asana (or pose) within Yoga is calling down the god or demon associated with that specific movement. Further, some of the extreme breathing techniques used have been known to cause a permanent state of psychosis. All that was overtly religious was muted when the “exercise” system was initially introduced to the West, but now all of us know many people who recognize that Yoga is more than a fitness routine. Its religious component is no longer a problem, but just don’t call it religious, call it a spiritual practice.

Yoga is now institutionalized. It is ubiquitous. When this film was made in the 1980s, the filmmakers talked about how companies such as IBM were using it and various branches of the military were promoting the practice. All these decades later, there is hardly any part of the Western world that hasn’t embraced it. Everyone you meet is quick to tell you that they aren’t really religious, but they consider themselves to be spiritual. Whatever that means…

Alan suggests that anyone wishing to embrace New Age theology should first pay a visit to India. They should thoroughly understand the caste system and the very evil idea of karma: Do not help someone because they are in the situation that they find themselves because of their karma. They are paying for ill-defined shortcomings in their previous lives. To aid them in their misery prolongs their cycle of reincarnation. Charity only adds to their suffering.

Counter this harsh idea of never-ending karma with Jesus’ commandment to “love one another”, that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your brother. If someone is hungry or thirsty, feed them, give them drink. If you have two coats, give one away. Yes, there’s the oft-mentioned text where Jesus accepts the expensive perfumed ointment and says, “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me”. He was acknowledging the injustices of the cruel old money system but was allowing the woman her gesture of gratitude to him. But contrast a bit of essential oil rubbed on Jesus’ feet with the Bhagwan Rajneesh’s collection of ninety-three Rolls-Royces. Any guru that pushes sexual experimentation and erotic encounters between devotees is bound to rake in the big bucks.

There is a book that Alan mentioned a few times by Barbara Ehrenreich entitled “Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”. This 2008 book does an excellent job of showing how pervasive the idea has become that our thoughts can, in some mysterious way, affect the physical world. This is where the quantum, as in quantum physics, comes in. It’s magical thinking. It takes an awful lot of “self-hypnosis”, “thought control”, “mind control” and “elimination of all negative thoughts” to bring about the desired affect. Do not associate with negative people even if they’re family.

Anger is never okay. Even if you are battling cancer, or lose your job or a loved one, anger is not an appropriate response. You must “get out of the problem and into the solution.” Ehrenreich wrote of a woman who sent a letter to Deepak Chopra to tell him that the breast cancer had spread to her bones and lungs.

“Even though I follow the treatments, have come a long way in unburdening myself of toxic feelings, have forgiven everyone, changed my lifestyle to include meditation, prayer, proper diet, exercise, and supplements, the cancer keeps coming back.

Am I missing a lesson here that it keeps reoccurring? I am positive I am going to beat it, yet it does get harder with each diagnosis to keep a positive attitude.”

Ehrenreich writes that this poor woman was “working as hard as she could – meditating, praying, forgiving – but apparently not hard enough.” Chopra’s response, “As far as I can tell, you are doing all the right things to recover. You just have to continue doing them until the cancer is gone for good. I know it is discouraging to make great progress only to have it come back again, but sometimes cancer is simply very pernicious and requires the utmost diligence and persistence to eventually overcome it.”

What psychotic rubbish! Still selling his program to a woman whose cancer has entered her bones and lungs. I can’t credit him for having the decency not to suggest that her mental gymnastics were somehow lacking. He’s a huckster. What Chopra is selling is a religion that has been imported for us to follow. There is no real reward, just a nebulous hope that if you don’t get it right in this life, your soul can transmigrate on to the next one.

I know a woman who had a lump removed from her breast and then several years later another lump grew. A friend of hers suggested that perhaps it was her inability to elevate her thinking to a higher level that had caused these lumps to grow. That was the end of that friendship.

Ehrenreich details an interesting history of a uniquely American brand of optimism and shows how it has sprung up new industries of motivation for big business and corporate leaders and shaped a new branch of psychology known as Positive Psychology. In her chapter entitled “God Wants You to Be Rich” she shows how New Age Positive Thinking has created the corporate megachurches and prosperity theology. God wants to “prosper” you. There is very little of the old Christianity here.

Per Ehrenreich, “Even God plays only a supporting role, and by no means an indispensable one, in the Osteens’ universe. [Megachurch pastor Joel Osteen and his wife Victoria]. Gone is the mystery and awe; he has been reduced to a kind of majordomo or personal assistant. He fixeth my speeding tickets, he secureth me a good table in the restaurant, he leadeth me to book contracts. Even in these minor tasks, the invocation of God seems more of courtesy than a necessity. Once you have accepted the law of attraction – that the mind acts as a magnet attracting whatever it visualizes – you have granted humans omnipotence”.

***

A listener once suggested that Alan must have been reincarnated many times because it would take many reincarnations for one to obtain the knowledge and wisdom that he had. In the sweep of a hand (or maybe one of Lord Vishnu’s four hands), Alan’s natural, God-given talents and a lifetime of hard work, study, self-discipline and keen insights are brushed aside for his soul’s journey to Moksha. We can only hope for his sake that he got it right this time.

The article that Alan read "It's not easy picking a path to enlightenment" about the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health also mentioned Esalen and the Omega Institute. Alan made a comment about how the Central Intelligence Agency was behind these places, that the CIA had long involvement in cult programming, and they are doing it on a much larger scale now that it has been given the taint of respectability. “They call it sciences,” he said, “but the same boys run it. You need a religion for a new age”.

Here’s another little tidbit about Stephen Dinan. He helped create and directed the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory & Research, a think tank for leading scholars, researchers, and teachers to explore human potential frontiers.

***

Many countries push ahead with vaccine passports. Americans crossing the border into Canada must be fully vaccinated. Unvaccinated Canadians cannot board planes or trains. Dr. Maria van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization warns the world is “playing with fire” as a new coronavirus wave enters the U.K. With hospitalizations up, France considers a return to masks.

I read an article in The Washington Post entitled “The Pandemic Is Waning. Anthony Fauci Has a Few More Lessons to Share”. It was so fawning it read like a romance novel. The Jesuit College of the Holy Cross renamed its science complex for alumnus Tony Fauci. Alan made an interesting comment about the Jesuits. Their intelligence gathering arm is still viable, but there has been a takeover of Catholicism and the Jesuit order by Freemasonry.

A caller into this show talked about reading C.G. Darwin’s “The Next Million Years” and that Darwin said that a new religion needed to be created where it’s okay not to have children. Think about the relentless messages we get in the media about how we are destroying the planet, there are too many of us, we need to slow down the population explosion.

The caller mentioned that in the copy of this book that he found online, the term Homo Pedaphilias was used repeatedly. That is not in my copy of the book, though there is a section on Homo Sapiens. It was an opening for Alan to talk about pedophilia within the Royals, the rampant homosexuality, pedophilia going back to ancient Greece and how “Dollies” (special breeders) were the rewards for a special few. Alan mentioned the Stephen King miniseries “Storm of the Century” and the Melchizedek type character who came into a corrupt island town to choose his next apprentice, a young boy. (Look into the Freemasonic perversion of the Biblical Melchizedek.) The character’s name was André Linoge, the surname being an anagram for Legion. In the book of Mark in the Christian New Testament, Jesus encounters a man possessed by a demon. He demands to know the name of the demon and the demon replies “My name is Legion: for we are many”.

I think about that every time I hear someone in the LGBTQ/Trans world say their preferred pronoun is “they”. Someone who appears to the world to be one person (male or female) in that they have two arms, two legs and one head would like to be called “they”. Adherents of the New Religion comply.

Transcendental Meditation or TM is a form of silent mantra meditation. Refer to Gods of the New Age to gain a better understanding of what is at work in both by the use of silence and mantra. This was developed and popularized by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (the guru of the Beatles). Long-time Alan Watt listeners, take a pause. I’m not asking for a “no thought” quieting of the brain kind of silence, just a pause for “the hard of thinking”. The Beatles, Theodore Adorno, Frankfurt School, Tavistock, LSD, CIA. Okay, are you starting to make some connections?

“Yogic Flying” isn’t really a higher state of consciousness. It’s barely a higher state of one’s bum. Evidently after years of practice one can sort of bounce one’s bottom off the ground. Wow! A virtual god! Yet TM has never been laughed off the stage of the New Age. Rather it has been promoted by people such as David Lynch whose commitment to it resulted in the creation of the David Lynch Foundation For Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace. The actress Goldie Hawn is another practitioner of the technique whose self-named Hawn Foundation has supported research studies conducted by external researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of its educational program for children, called MindUP. “We are more than a program. We are a way of Life”. This is Transcendental Meditation and Mindfulness for children.

Reading about the Kripalu Center and some of the money spent on these programs, Alan sort of spat out the word “hedonism”. At the heart of the New Age, of the karmic hell of Hinduism, is that “I’m okay, Jack” notion that Alan often talked about. Another way he described it was “egosyntonic”. The world revolves around me and my needs.

As a Hindu concept, Brahman, “cosmic soul” (as well the Atman, “immortal”, “eternal”) is the sole reality, the eternal, self-born, unlimited, innately free, blissful Absolute. Knowing one's own self is knowing the God inside oneself. The Brahmans are the highest ranking of the Hindu Indian’s social caste system. They are the priest class. They traditionally have served as spiritual guides and teachers. They are vegetarian.

The caste system is based on Varna, which is color. There are Arya elite which are the light skinned minority (“Us”) and the dark skinned Dasyu majority (“Them”). Over the centuries the fair-skinned mixed with the darker skinned and so distinctions based on skin color alone became difficult. A system based on profession was introduced with Brahmans at the top of the heap; they enjoyed almost divine status. At the bottom were the darker skinned or the Untouchables. They do the work no one else will. They skin dead animals; they execute criminals and cremate dead bodies. They are one fifth of India’s population. Though some constitutional safeguards against discrimination have been on the books since the 1950s the dehumanization still exists. This is an ancient system based on the ideas of karma and reincarnation, and it excuses much that is at its core anti-human.

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote Bright-Sided after the economic “downturn” of 2007. The ugliest aspects of America’s optimism were on display. She wrote, “If optimism is the key to material success, and if you can achieve an optimistic outlook through the discipline of positive thinking, then there is no excuse for failure.” Do you recall that middle class families lost their homes and were reduced to living in their cars or in tents while Wall Street bankers were bailed out and took home fat bonuses?

When you lose your job because of hedge fund greediness or Covid madness, when you become aware that those who claim to want to help us are forcing experimental and toxic “therapies” upon us, when our food is genetically modified and, we are now told, soon to be scarce, is the appropriate defense Positive Thinking? Should we be concerned with opening our Heart Chakras and sending out Love on a High Frequency? Or should we be Sustaining a Slow Burn of Rage?

At the start of this talk, Alan said “When you realize that The Big Boys are After Your Soul, to an extent, your ability to think, all that is you, you know then that you’re in The Final War. The Big War, the only war there is, the only game in town there is. It goes beyond choosing careers and what you’re gonna do next week or where you’re going on your holidays. This is it. It’s Happening Now.”

Additional reading/viewing:

Gods of the New Age - 1985 documentary

https://youtu.be/8l9ZmAAWo6E

"It's not easy picking a path to enlightenment"

https://web.archive.org/web/20080821154904/http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/04/style/03kripalu.php

Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOHAS

The dark side of wellness: the overlap between spiritual thinking and far-right conspiracies

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/17/eva-wiseman-conspirituality-the-dark-side-of-wellness-how-it-all-got-so-toxic

‘Conspirituality’ — the overlap between the New Age and conspiracy beliefs

https://julesevans.medium.com/conspirituality-the-overlap-between-the-new-age-and-conspiracy-beliefs-c0305eb92185

The New Age Movement: Highway to Hell

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/new-age-movement-highway-to-hell-9660

Sacred America, Sacred World by Stephen Dinan

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ethical-wisdom/201608/sacred-america-sacred-world-new-book-stephen-dinan

Transformational Leadership Council

https://www.transformationalleadershipcouncil.com/

Jules Evans - Philosophy for Life

https://www.philosophyforlife.org/about

Stephen Dinan - The Shift Network

https://theshiftnetwork.com/course/ShiftMentorship02

Dinan and Evans

https://youtu.be/mB1-OiRwclg

SOUL REALIGNMENT - THE AKASHIC RECORDS HOLD THE ANSWERS

https://www.findyourselfnow.com/soul-realignment

Silicon Valley’s Crisis of Conscience

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/26/silicon-valleys-crisis-of-conscience

Sex, Drugs and Hot Tubs

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/books/review/Johnson.t.html

When US armed forces sought to master spiritual powers

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/4171-when-us-armed-forces-sought-master-spiritual-powers

What Is Cultural Appropriation?

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cultural-appropriation-5070458

Breaking Bread: Appropriation or Appreciation? The Case of Mexican Food

https://www.renderfoodmag.com/blog/2014/9/11/breaking-bread-the-politics-of-mexican-food-in-the-us

How to Appreciate Food Without Being Culturally Appropriative

https://www.thethirlby.com/thejournal/2019/7/31/how-to-appreciate-food-without-being-culturally-appropriative

Controlling The Savages: COVID, Lockdowns, Shortages, and The Great Reset

http://www.brandonturbeville.com/2022/06/controlling-savages-covid-lockdowns.html

UN chief warns of 'catastrophe' from global food shortage

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/chief-warns-catastrophe-global-food-shortage-85628783