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Audio version:
Hey everyone. Happy New Year! I hope this finds you all well. This week I am re-releasing episode 58 which was taken down on YouTube. They said it violated their “Medical Misinformation” policy. They gave no reason and upon appeal cited no source or what in the video violated the policy.
There are many cosmovisions, many ways of looking at life and the nature of reality. Some may hold more true than others, some may hold more true for some and less for others. But being able to see the world in different ways is vital.
Science is always changing. What was seen as ‘The Science’ 500 years ago is very different from 400 years ago and very different from today. The Science of 300 years ago is very different from The Science 200 years ago and today. And The Science of today will be very different from The Science of tomorrow and the future.
The idea that one group or class of people should control the narrative is, always has been, and always will be a very dangerous mentality. It has been used throughout time to create power structures that divide people and keep certain groups lower than others. It is used for power and control. It has led to class systems, systems of oppression, othering of peoples, and creating a class of people that can rule over and control others. This is happening today and it is important to stand on principle and morality and choose what is life-giving and not give into fear and divisiveness that uses power in harmful ways. Freedom and liberty are vitally important.
Questioning life is an essential part of life. It’s what allows us to evolve and grow and to learn. Seeing things from different sides is a sign of wisdom. Having hypotheses and putting them to the test is the very nature of science and of life. Science is not separate from life. This is the true scientific method, and it requires courage and also entails failing. Through this method we refine life and slowly move towards truth. Accepting things without questioning or suppressing voices is anti-science, it lays within the realm of dogma and religious fervor. And it’s why almost all of the breakthroughs of science come from visionaries, those who had courage to question reality and accepted dogma and through great vision, work, and often mockery, make change for the better. Visionaries are few and far between, in life and in science. Those who simply follow what is said will, by definition, never be a visionary, and therefore, never lead to change and evolution.
Many traditions around the world speak of a similar phenomenon. In Vedic thought it is referred to as Maya, the veil that we see life through. In Christian symbology it is the apocalypse, from the Greek meaning to ‘lift the veil and see the world as it actually is’. It is not the end of days but the end of seeing the world through our illusion, death which leads to rebirth. In many South American shamanic traditions they speak of maricación, that we become lost in the dizziness of life. And in North American native cultures they speak of wetiko, the mind-virus that does not allow us to see clearly. All of these point to this idea that there is something clouding our vision, in a literal and more metaphorical sense. And that the process of living a good life is to begin to question this and begin to find truth, cutting through this veil with knowledge, the experiential gnosis-knowledge, perhaps better translated as wisdom, that can be found through a deep desire to question the nature of reality and of ourselves.
As someone who has questioned life vigorously, has been through the medical system, lived from a deep place of personal experience, Will’s voice is relevant and powerful. We need not agree with everything someone says, but to suppress a voice is to suppress life itself, and this never is in service of the ‘greater good,’ for it is divisive, other than life-giving, and goes against principle, morality, and respect for life in all of its forms. I also have a lot of respect for Will that he took a stand to question things and to speak what he saw as true. So much of what I have seen throughout the pandemic, a fear response, censoring of voices, self-censoring, came from this place of fear. I saw many people that in private conversations would say one thing and in public conversation would stay quiet or say something else. This comes from fear. It comes from a place other than courage. And ultimately it is not life-giving. So for Will to speak up, in the face of pressure from many sides, is a testament to his will and courage and strength.
My Youtube channel now has a warning, for questioning a narrative and offering another point of view. And with a couple more of these, the channel will be permanently deleted and another voice taken down. This was essentially the practice of book burning or witch burning, suppressing dissenting voices that would challenge the heterodoxy and threaten their power and authority.
I find myself in an interesting position. As a child who came from split parents, someone who lived near a city but spent much of childhood playing in the woods, one who grew up in a “Western” world but traveled with my father to indigenous peoples all over the world, born in the East and raised in the West, raised in the North and lives in the South, from someone who is fascinated by things and knowledge but also by nature and its simplicity and beauty and laws, I find myself often justifying the “Western” system to people who criticize it and defending “indigenous” cosmovisions to those who think they know better than it. I find myself walking a line of bridge keeping, finding the thread-line that connects all things. It is, I believe, in our mariación that we see things as separate and forget the beauty of all things. That separation is based on and feeds on fear, and I have known it well. And I may dare say that I have a sense of that oneness, not just from an intellectual perspective, although that too, but from an experiential place as well. This is what calls us home, and awaits all of us as we begin to have the courage, whether by choice or by destiny, at the culmination of our lives.
I hope more of us have the courage to find principles within ourselves, to strive for truth, and then to stand on that principle when the wind blows and the foundation is threatened. I think we will find, when the principle is true, that its roots go deep and no amount of fear, pressure, or coercion can shake it from its core.
I just finished next week’s episode with Joan Wilcox, who spent a lot of time with and wrote a wonderful book about the Qero, an Andean group of people who carry a lot of wisdom. I leave you with a few quotes form the book that stood out:
“As is true in most indigenous sacred traditions, an initiate of the Andean path acquires knowledge and wisdom through personal experience. If a teaching is not grounded in personal experience, it does not hold much value for an Andean paqo [wise person/healer], so apprentices are encouraged to place greater trust in their own experiences than in the words of their teachers.”
“Call the apus [mountain spirits] and Pachamama to you and declare your new intentions by saying, ‘I am what I speak, not what I have spoken.’”
“Juan’s use of the word “power” raises an important point for Westerners—for all Westerners, not just those of us living in mystical relationship with the universe. Juan says, “In the Western tradition we are afraid of the word ‘power.’ We think that power is dangerous, that it is not good. But no! Power is only power. It is the difference between being able to do something and not being able to do it. If you want you can do good things. If you want you can do bad things, because for that you also need power. But if you want to do good things in your life and in the lives of those around you, you must have power. You need power. “But power is only power,” he stresses. “You must decide how to use it not based on your ability to use it, but based on your moral rule. Sometimes you will not do something not because you do not have the power to do it but because you follow a moral rule that tells you not to do it. On the other hand, there are people who are prevented from acting not because of their moral rule but because they do not have the power to do it. They have no choice. Understand? The thing is to have the power to do everything! Then the next thing is to have the personal morals to know how to use or not use your power. But do not be mistaken—we are looking for power when we try to establish a connection with the living energy.” “
To view the show notes for the show and Will's bio, visit episode 58. And note that to re-upload to YouTube I had to deleted what I imagine is the content that violated YouTube’s policy. So to watch the full, unedited version, you must go to my Rumble or Odysee channels. The audio version remains, for now, unaffected.
YouTube: bit.ly/YT-UW
Rumble: bit.ly/Rum-UW
Odysee: bit.ly/Odys-UW
Apple : bit.ly/Appl-UW
Spotify: bit.ly/Spot-UW
Google: bit.ly/Ggl-UW
Best
Jason
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