"I may also say that several times, over the past year or so, I've enjoyed a deep spiritual sense that I somehow "passed" something, the same way you feel when you get an exam grade and you passed."
I've had that feeling as well. I'm not sure WHAT test I passed, but it feels like I figured something out and "passed" some sort of test.
This thread feels a little bit like, "you got the right answer - now show your work!", lol
I've noticed is that it does seem like people got to the same place by a variety of different routes.
Those paths seem to include, in no particular order: 1 - Past bad experience with the medical industry that created profound skepticism; 2 - Surviving an abusive relationship and viscerally recognizing abuse and manipulation techniques when one encounters them again; 3 - Having lived in an authoritarian system in the past and knowing what it looks like when you see it forming again (not sure that one has been mentioned here, but writer Tesa Lena falls into this category); 4 - First-hand experience with psy-ops techniques leading to an ability to spot them (or trusting someone with such experience, as someone in this thread mentioned); 5 - Significant medical knowledge combined with sufficient independence of mind that enabled critical analysis of medical claims and advice that didn't add up (several commentators with medical or science backgrounds mentioned this); 6 - Religious or spiritual contact (and/or dreams) that offered warnings, some fairly explicit, as well as experience with "voices" that encouraged compliance but which were sensed to be untrustworthy; 7 - Sheer intuition / gut feelings (possibly related to the above) 8 - A personal history as an outcast or contrarian that caused one to question everything, cooties included (people have said something like 'when I see everyone going one way I take it as a sign to go the other'); 9 - Experience with alternative paradigms for health and healing, including being a practitioner of an alternative or non-western medical tradition, that provided a different framework for looking at covid; 10 - Significant understanding of history, sociology, and/or psychology that provided context for the madness (Desmet and his "mass formation" theory probably fall here), and I would also put "archetypes" theory (and Simon Sheridan) here, as a similar intellectual tool that enabled a wider perspective and critical analysis from another angle.
Obviously, many of us fall into more than one category.
My own resistance was probably due first and foremost to #2 (I survived a mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and I know deep down what manipulation not in my best interest looks like), coupled with #10 (I have an academic background in history and social science, which gave me context), with some additional contributing factors of #8 (being a black sheep due to opposing the abusive parent), #1 (I've been skeptical of the medical industry ever since a dentist tried to sell me four times as much dental work as I needed when I was 19), a little bit of #5 (I took an infectious diseases class as a science distribution requirement back in college, and retained a bit of info on how respiratory viruses do and don't work, and also listened to what the censored medical experts were saying), a bit of #9 insofar that I know from experience that herbal remedies can and do work, and, finally, #5 and #6 (gut instinct, plus I heard the evil voices, and prayed for help and guidance that I believe I received).
Many paths to the same end, and some of us probably wandered more than one of them.
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branchandroot
Re: The Epiphany (A reflection thread on pandemic choices)
Date: 2023-07-20 05:21 pm (UTC)I've had that feeling as well. I'm not sure WHAT test I passed, but it feels like I figured something out and "passed" some sort of test.
This thread feels a little bit like, "you got the right answer - now show your work!", lol
I've noticed is that it does seem like people got to the same place by a variety of different routes.
Those paths seem to include, in no particular order:
1 - Past bad experience with the medical industry that created profound skepticism;
2 - Surviving an abusive relationship and viscerally recognizing abuse and manipulation techniques when one encounters them again;
3 - Having lived in an authoritarian system in the past and knowing what it looks like when you see it forming again (not sure that one has been mentioned here, but writer Tesa Lena falls into this category);
4 - First-hand experience with psy-ops techniques leading to an ability to spot them (or trusting someone with such experience, as someone in this thread mentioned);
5 - Significant medical knowledge combined with sufficient independence of mind that enabled critical analysis of medical claims and advice that didn't add up (several commentators with medical or science backgrounds mentioned this);
6 - Religious or spiritual contact (and/or dreams) that offered warnings, some fairly explicit, as well as experience with "voices" that encouraged compliance but which were sensed to be untrustworthy;
7 - Sheer intuition / gut feelings (possibly related to the above)
8 - A personal history as an outcast or contrarian that caused one to question everything, cooties included (people have said something like 'when I see everyone going one way I take it as a sign to go the other');
9 - Experience with alternative paradigms for health and healing, including being a practitioner of an alternative or non-western medical tradition, that provided a different framework for looking at covid;
10 - Significant understanding of history, sociology, and/or psychology that provided context for the madness (Desmet and his "mass formation" theory probably fall here), and I would also put "archetypes" theory (and Simon Sheridan) here, as a similar intellectual tool that enabled a wider perspective and critical analysis from another angle.
Obviously, many of us fall into more than one category.
My own resistance was probably due first and foremost to #2 (I survived a mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and I know deep down what manipulation not in my best interest looks like), coupled with #10 (I have an academic background in history and social science, which gave me context), with some additional contributing factors of #8 (being a black sheep due to opposing the abusive parent), #1 (I've been skeptical of the medical industry ever since a dentist tried to sell me four times as much dental work as I needed when I was 19), a little bit of #5 (I took an infectious diseases class as a science distribution requirement back in college, and retained a bit of info on how respiratory viruses do and don't work, and also listened to what the censored medical experts were saying), a bit of #9 insofar that I know from experience that herbal remedies can and do work, and, finally, #5 and #6 (gut instinct, plus I heard the evil voices, and prayed for help and guidance that I believe I received).
Many paths to the same end, and some of us probably wandered more than one of them.