"They"
Projection makes perception
It is through these strange and shadowy figures that the insane relate to their insane world. ²For they see only those who remind them of these images, and it is to them that they relate. ³Thus do they communicate with those who are not there, and it is they who answer them. ⁴And no one hears their answer save him who called upon them, and he alone believes they answered him. ⁵Projection makes perception, and you cannot see beyond it. ⁶Again and again have you attacked your brother, because you saw in him a shadow figure in your private world. ⁷And thus it is you must attack yourself first, for what you attack is not in others. ⁸Its only reality is in your own mind, and by attacking others you are literally attacking what is not there. (ACIM, T-13.V.3:1-8
There is a very well-researched article on the website of Climate Healers, which asks the question: Who are they? It is a brilliant and well-researched article, but it does not get beyond finger pointing. Leave that to the famous philosopher Walt Kelly’s Pogo: We’ve seen the enemy and he is us. In other words, projection reigns supreme.
A Course in Miracles builds on Freud’s understanding of this mechanism, and proposes a more rigorous concept, in which individual consciousness is the first problem, for it replaces the Oneness of Heaven with the duality of an observer and the observed. A false self and a world it observes, for our true Self is still always as God’s Son, Spirit and altogether one with him. Hence the world is the first projection from our new identity as a separated individual, and it is meant to blot out the memory of God. In short, the world is intended to be an attack on God.
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Fortunately for us, just because we fell asleep and are having a nightmare, does not mean reality is changed one iota, still our mind is now fully occupied in the world of the split mind, and it identifies with the ego. The Course describes this process in detail in terms of the steps of our progressive identification as the ego that wants to be separate from God, and forget our Memory of Heaven (a.k.a. the Holy Spirit), and eventually projects a body which it now identifies with and a world outside itself, where it imagines it “lives” a life.
The logic of this successive splitting off from God, our Source, is relatively easy to understand, but it gets harder to fathom how this happens in endless variations at the same time, so that we end up living in this holographic universe, which is a house of mirrors, where every individual identity reflects different aspects and is also a projection screen and a mirror to everyone else. Here, we are all broken for the ego state is about denial of our wholeness, the ego in us says emphatically that I am NOT as God created, me while Jesus/the Holy Spirit maintain that we are as God created us.
Dreams are perceptual temper tantrums, in which you literally scream, “I want it thus!” ²And thus it seems to be. ³And yet the dream cannot escape its origin. ⁴Anger and fear pervade it, and in an instant the illusion of satisfaction is invaded by the illusion of terror. ⁵For the dream of your ability to control reality by substituting a world that you prefer is terrifying. ⁶Your attempts to blot out reality are very fearful, but this you are not willing to accept. ⁷And so you substitute the fantasy that reality is fearful, not what you would do to it. ⁸And thus is guilt made real. (ACIM, T-18.II.4:1-8)
So within this sea of individuality, in which we appear as many, we project our guilt over our presumed separation from God, which never really happened in the first place, and accuse everyone else of it. First, we blame God for creating the world, and within the world, we blame people, places, and things for our misery, just so as to avoid ever looking inside.
The recent scandal with the mRNA covid injectables, is just a case in point. It made no sense at any level, but some of us figured it out sooner than others:
Walking the path of forgiveness, we would have to recognize that we opened ourselves up to this abuse from the moment we started to believe we are a body, and to accept the completely materialistic medicine that is the norm today. We simply lost all touch with who or what we are in truth and now we are blaming others for the direct consequences. All outcomes in form, on which we think our happiness depends, are idols that disappoint the moment we achieve them. This wonderful poem by Rumi expresses this very well.
WINGS OF DESIRE
People are distracted by objects of desire,
and afterward repent of the lust they've indulged,
Because they've indulged with a phantom
And are left even farther from Reality than before.
Your desire for the illusory could be a wing, by means of which a seeker might ascend to Reality.
When you have indulged a lust, your wing drops off;
You become lame, abandoned by a fantasy.
Preserve the wing and don't indulge such lust,
So that the wing of desire may bear you to Paradise.
People fancy they are enjoying themselves,
but they are really tearing out their wings
for the sake of an illusion.
Rumi, Mathnawi 111, 2133-2138
There never seems to be an end to our chasing of idols, still some day we may realize that it is pointless:
There is no choice where every end is sure. ²Perhaps you would prefer to try them all, before you really learn they are but one. ³The roads this world can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come when everyone begins to see how like they are to one another. ⁴Men have died on seeing this, because they saw no way except the pathways offered by the world. ⁵And learning they led nowhere, lost their hope. ⁶And yet this was the time they could have learned their greatest lesson. ⁷All must reach this point, and go beyond it. ⁸It is true indeed there is no choice at all within the world. ⁹But this is not the lesson in itself. ¹⁰The lesson has a purpose, and in this you come to understand what it is for. (ACIM, T-31.IV.3:1-10)
In a way, the poem by Rumi and this passage from the Course say the same thing, and letting go of our attachment to any physical outcomes any particulars is the way out of hell for us. The whole episode can be a mirror for the psychotic behavior of the ego, trying to avert a hypothetical, non-existent evil (“Covid”), they accepted a dangerous medical treatment that in the event increased risk, instead of decreasing it. The vaccine became an idol, for an imagined safety against an illness that was not of concern for healthy people and the older people could not benefit, for their immune systems would be too compromised already, so the vaccines, even if otherwise “safe and effective,” could do nothing for them.
Idol worship in any form, including this case of illusory safety from an illusory problem are always sure to lead to disappointment. Now that this horrible episode has ended in disappointment and the regrets are setting in, the first reaction is to blame someone, and if it is too hard to blame someone in particular, we blame “them,” or the military/medical industrial complex as a whole, and their allies, in this case. The path of contemplation, and the Course’s process of forgiveness, would recognize how psychosis took over, and ended up in a suicidal frenzy, where the many Jim Joneses in prominent positions were encouraging the crowd that these vaccines were “safe and effective,” and they stampeded to their death, disability and injury in astounding numbers, certainly way in excess of what would have happened if we’d done nothing. The statistics now prove that the minimalist approach that Sweden took would have kept us all a lot safer than the orgy of “don’t just stand there, do something.”
It has become a very complete parable for the delusions of the ego. Observing this, does not mean that in worldly terms accountability is not called for, but the more usual outcomes are either shoving it under the rug, or else an orgy of revenge, neither of which will solve the problem. The problem never was “they,” or “them,” or, as the old saying goes, mundus vult decipi, decipiatur ergo - the world wants to be fooled, therefore she will be. And the reason we want to be fooled, is because we always prefer the victim role, so we can blame someone or something else for our misery, and keep the game of blackjack going until we are tired of it. Individually all we can do, as per always, is to change our mind, and forgive, and do whatever you feel guided to do to be as helpful as possible.
Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. ²Its total lack of limit is its meaning. ³It is completely impartial in its giving, encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what it would give. ⁴In your tiny kingdom you have so little! ⁵Should it not, then, be there that you would call on love to enter? ⁶Look at the desert—dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless—that makes up your little kingdom. ⁷And realize the life and joy that love would bring to it from where it comes, and where it would return with you.
9. The Thought of God surrounds your little kingdom, waiting at the barrier you built to come inside and shine upon the barren ground. ²See how life springs up everywhere! ³The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust. ⁴Give them a place of refuge, prepared by love for them where once a desert was. ⁵And everyone you welcome will bring love with him from Heaven for you. ⁶They enter one by one into this holy place, but they will not depart as they had come, alone. ⁷The love they brought with them will stay with them, as it will stay with you. ⁸And under its beneficence your little garden will expand, and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone.