Part One

Managing the awakening: examples abound, even from my own life...

While living in Oxford during the 1970s I knew a certain excellent person. I think I knew him better than he did me. He was focal in the countercultural scene in Oxford while I was, true to my retiring nature, always more peripheral.

I thought he was a great guy. He was involved in organising and facilitating some of the landmark free festivals that typified the countercultural hard-core of the time. He also presented as the perfect mid-1970s countercultural hero, cool beyond cool. Slim, slightly skinny by modern norms; long dark hair flowing down well below shoulder-length; little Lennon-like specs perched on the end of his nose; worn, rather dirty flared trousers. It was a look to die for. Even his voice - softly spoken, measured in conversation, articulate - was part of the allure.

The only encounter which raised slight doubts was our last. Shortly before the commune disbanded, the four of us were strolling through Oxford centre one evening. We bumped into this guy near the Covered Market. He was pasting up posters furiously, announcing some latest political event or another. By now, I had undergone various serious inner initiations, and knew that consciousness was primary, was the thing. I was taken aback that he still considered the political fight worth investing energy in. He seemed caught in a circle, addicted to a way of going about things. "Are you still at that game?" was the question which involuntarily passed through my mind.

A few years back, while immersed in my autobio writing, I found a curiosity arising inside me. What had this guy been up to over the decades? What revolutionary activities had he been engaged in? What inspiration might I draw from his life story?

It was not difficult to search out a thing or two about him. What I discovered left me dismayed, aghast. A long stint in an inner London borough, working under the auspices of an organisation called Common Purpose. And then my erstwhile inspiration had returned to Oxford, where he had been involved with another organisation, named Community Environment Associates.

Common Purpose. You may or may not be familiar with the name. It's one of those set-ups that motors along quietly, but has a far greater influence on society than is generally realised. Having a common purpose sounds great, but it depends on what that purpose is, really.

It's a recruiting and training camp, and a bit like a World Economic Forum on a local level. You get trained up (read 'programmed'), become a 'global leader', go work in local authority, schools, local businesses, law, you name it. You learn to feel responsible, and go in with all sorts of ideas about equality, the environment, carbon and renewables, making the world a better place. You know about the UN Agenda 21/2030, and believe it to be a great thing.

You are so clued-up and so responsible that you feel it is your responsibility to ensure that your version of rightness gets put into action whatever the price. For example, the right of others to freely express their opinions that may disagree fundamentally with your own may need to be sacrificed for the noble cause, for the greater good. If such a luxury as freedom of speech - any speech - needs to be trampled upon in order for the responsible version of life to come into being, then so be it.

Common Purpose is one arm of what is known as the march through the institutions. Right thinking - basically globalist, politically correct, woke - needs to infiltrate down to the most local level. We see the results today in 'education', for example, where a compliant conformist mindset is almost all-pervasive. Over recent decades organisations such as Common Purpose have been quietly but remarkably successful. I find it scary. 

Part Two

Then there's the Psychedelic Society. I always considered this a misnomer. The psychedelic mindset seems innately anarchistic, right-brained, impervious to regimentation and organising into things like societies. But there it is...     

The Psychedelic Society organised (maybe still does) retreats in Holland, where mushroom laws were less prohibitive. They held meetings both formal and informal, did lots of hugging and smiling. The Edinburgh branch ran an illustrated talk by Graham Hancock, which I attended. It was excellent and given to an attentive and packed-out hall.

But then the Psychedelic Society got all enthusiastic about Extinction Rebellion. They seemed to decide that zero carbon and tying yourself to buses in Trafalgar Square had something to do with psychedelic illumination. It seemed impossible to be a Psychedelic Society person without giving a big 'wow' to this stuff. And it was at this moment that I stopped looking at what they were all doing. 

It took me a long time before I could accept that apparently profound psychedelic insights and realisations might be hijacked in this way - and that this process was far from being rare. It's a bitter pill, but an important lesson.

The aftermath of such paradigm-shattering experiences is prone to all manner of twisting and distorting. Those moments when the everyday familiar ego is in abeyance, thus permitting entry to many aspects of expanded consciousness; these pass. The everyday ego reasserts itself, albeit in the light of these new perceptions. It tries to make sense of it all, fatally within the confines of its own normal consciousness. 'Beyond ego' is to be interpreted by '24/7 ego' - which is logically and experientially impossible.

It is at this crucial point that interpretations come in. Struggling to understand the rationally incomprehensible, the newly fashioned but unintegrated ego is easy prey for devious notions, specifically designed to lead it astray, along false pathways. And so are the 'awake but insufficiently awake' ambushed by the agents of nefariousness.    

Typically, a psychedelic/entheogenic 'trip' will involve a drastic alteration in perception. Interconnectedness, unity, the essential inseparability of everyone and everything come to the fore. The divide between subject and object, between 'me' and 'you', becomes soft, attenuated or dissolves entirely. Cosmic union, unity, with 'Source', 'Godhead', 'Universal Consciousness', are other experiences which voyagers may talk about, in their vain attempts to communicate the ineffable. Additionally, there may be a strong feeling of reverence for, or identity with, Mother Earth, or Gaia.

So along comes somebody preaching freedom, equality; stopping prejudice and discrimination against minorities; saving the planet, which is in dire danger, by reducing carbon emissions: and there is a ready-made audience of super-receptive, energised people for these messages of salvation. The only problems are that everything stated is total bosh, and the majority of the half-awake have not investigated their belief systems or the darkness which exists within the human mind.

Thus the semi-awake become the greatly gullible, and believe they are putting into operation their expanded vision of the universe, while in reality they are simply supporting the system which has led to this goddamn mess in the first place. They've been sold 'hate, not hope' as 'hope, not hate' and they've fallen for it hook, line and sinker. Disaster.       

Part Three

A few years ago I purchased a book called 'The Genesis of Political Correctness' by Michael William. It is quite a serious book, not easy bedtime reading, and much of it is devoted to the various works that have helped to promote the notions that go to make up this system of beliefs, notably the well-known 'Repressive Tolerance' by Herbert Marcuse.

Political correctness is focal to the web of confusion and deceit that forms the basis of what I have been writing about here. Towards the end of the book, William states that the politically correct can be divided into three types. Firstly there are those who actually know what it is all about, its aims and objectives. These he calls doctrinaire communists; needless to say, they are a fairly small minority. The third group is what, according to the author, Lenin charitably referred to as useful idiots (probably better than to be one of Kissinger's useless eaters...). It is the second group who comprise the problem subjects of 'managing the awakening'.

These are the people who '....actually believe in the high-minded, pompous and flowery language; they actually believe that political correctness is about encouraging politeness and redressing all kind of social wrongs. For the wet liberals, their vanity, their desire to look good and be morally superior is clouding their judgement.....'

It is these people, who have been deceived, duped, misled, who constitute the problem. They become little totalitarians, all the while believing they are promoting freedom. They promote never-ending division, all in the name of 'unity'. They rage against those who disagree with them, all for the sake of universal love. There are some who could indeed be awake, but lack of discernment - of intelligence - has seamlessly led them to play for the other team without even realising it. Disaster....   

Images: Stonehenge free festival, 1975; ayahuasca psychedelic brew; George Carlin