By Crystal Clark

January 13, 2012

As discussed in the Part One of this article, this particular question was beautifully raised by the Shaman in the Avatar film. When an outsider wanted to spend time with her tribe, she allowed it, and succinctly explained why she agreed to do so: we’ll see if your insanity can be cured. This was one of Hollywood’s finer moments, which is a rare thing these days, and this deserves our attention.

All forms of media, not just films, are tools to communicate information, ideas and messages, to a wide and even global audience. In this sense, media is the communicative channel (such as broadcast media) for singular mediums such as art, music, literature, news and information.

In other words, through some type of singular medium such as painting, music or writing, an idea (immaterial) has expressed (material manifestation) from the individual via the singular type of medium used to convey it, and then some type of communication media like radio, television, newspapers or the internet, is then used to broadcast the original content to a wider audience.

This sounds practical, even necessary, and innocent enough, until we look deeper at how media can and is being abused to alter our perceptions of reality—globally. This includes both forms: communicative or broadcast media channels, and the original content being broadcast: what is created, and how it is shared with an audience beyond the creator. There is a third factor involved in this as well however—the way in which content/creations are presented to you.

This is where marketing enters the picture, and marketing has become a rather complex form of psychological science—this is important to recognize—there is a very fine line between science and manipulation in this regard. Successful marketing strategies include two primary things after the target market has been identified: repetition and emotional manipulation. Repetition speaks for itself, although in many ways it is a secondary form of emotional manipulation.

Emotional manipulation plays on two primary emotions: fear and love. More specifically, self-preservation (fear) and compassion (love). It might sound odd to include love, but this emotion is preyed upon every bit as much as fear, and in fact they are often connected. Genetically Modified Foods, as an example, were physically created, and then knowledge of their existence was channeled to the public via mass media. However, the marketing ploy used to increase the sales of these creations, was to play on our compassion for others. We were told that we would not be able to feed the growing global population without these creations, even though animal testing showed these creations cause far more problems than they solve.

This is a very serious problem because through intentional omission of facts and research, not only were our emotions manipulated, but our ability to use free will became polluted, limited and in fact self-sabotaging. These are important patterns to identify because this type of manipulation has become a global epidemic. This not only severely limits our ability to create and uphold abundance, but life as well. This is an exceptionally disturbing trend in terms of getting our collective and individual “buy in” to literally participate in our own demise. Below is a short list of how this trend has played out:

What’s so interesting about all of these examples (aside from the fact that they generally do the exact opposite of what we were “told”), is that in every case the same two emotions were played/manipulated. We don’t want to see people suffer or starve needlessly because we love them, and part of loving people is to ensure their preservation. We want them to have everything they need to preserve themselves and continue on, don’t we? That’s an interesting question these days, and to answer it properly, we may have to honestly define who the “we” really is.

I personally believe that the majority of the people on this planet want to do what’s right, but through this small list alone we can see that a great deal of time, money and effort have been expended to ensure that people would no longer know what right is. Hollywood movies, television shows, commercials, music, newspapers, and news agencies, keep reinforcing the same ideas to us over and over again. In this sense, we are not only emotionally manipulated to think, feel, act, and behave certain ways once, but repeatedly.

By “repeatedly” I’m not just referring to hour after hour, day after day, month after month, year after year or even generation after generation—but also lifetime after lifetime. We have done all of this before, and it has never ended any other way. Is it really so difficult to recognize that nobody wins if we’re all extinct?

We’ve come full circle now: insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome each time. How many times will we hit the same finger with a hammer, still believing it won’t be painful the next time even though the pain is still fresh? How many times will we simply hear and repeat, dutifully ignoring the inconsistencies we actually see, feel and experience around us? Those “splinters in our mind” as Morpheus so accurately called them…we know they are there, but we ignore them. It’s simply not popular (or even well-paying) to address them.

We don’t want to stand up because we’re afraid to stand out—a reflection of successful social engineering via peer pressure—more emotional manipulation. We’re afraid to say or do what we know is right, because we might not be as popular. We don’t want to make a choice because it might not be politically correct. Clearly, too many of us are concerned with all the wrong things, but to what end?

An even bigger part of this type of manipulation, goes back to the beginning of the article in terms knowing the difference between a communicative medium that channels/broadcasts a creation, and the creation itself. They appear to be different, but when a race is dealing with this kind of global mental and emotional manipulation, they no longer are—that’s the problem. Mind is the builder—the idea always comes first. When your mind (idea) is not your own, neither are your consequent creations and contributions. Perception is everything, is it not? People react to what they believe or are led to perceive is true or real, not what IS true or real.

Can our insanity be cured then? Of course it can—once we recognize that it exists. The only thing left after that, is choice. But how can we possibly use our free will productively to choose a better future that everyone benefits from, when so many things have been distorted or hidden from us?

I would say Morpheus got it right…the splinters in our minds are a good place to start—they are trying to tell us something important.

Blessings on your continued journey, Crystal Clark