A commentator in an internet chatroom said: “I have a hard time believing that anyone would want to be manipulated, but you may be right.”
I have a hard time believing that as well, but I have come to accept it as a real fact that people are attracted to the religious world, either because they want to be manipulated and expect to be manipulated, or they want to be on the giving end of the manipulation.
Commentator: “*** is a wretched creature that wants nothing to do with his family or people who profess love for him if they don’t bow down to him, in fact he disowns them and reverts back to his own internal cravings to place himself above all others who have ever lived on this planet, and any other planet. His feigned piousness is as transparent as glass.”
Such manipulators, often disguising themselves as “divine messengers”, can only relate to other people in one way. They must see themselves as superior to every other person. They must never be the effect of anybody else, but everybody else must be the effect of them. In the long run, this situation is unsustainable, because in order to continue to exist, energy must transmit power, and in order to transmit power, energy must circulate freely, and must be renewed.
You can call it “religion”. You can call it “philosophy”. You can call it “metaphysics”. They are all the same. Just find a label to attract the most and offend the least. This works because few see past the labels to the reality under the label.
If a third party comes in from the outside and tries to change the equation to one of mutual respect and cooperation to further advance the “good cause” that the manipulator claims to support, he is looked upon with suspicion by both the manipulator and the flock. The manipulator sees him, first as a potential acolyte, but when the third party turns out not to be as pliable and submissive as one of the typical followers,the manipulator first ignores, and then marginalizes him. The manipulated flock see him only as a rebel or a supplanter. Why is this? Because in their state of non-thinking compliance, they see everybody as is either a master or a follower, and since the person is not a submissive follower, he must be one who seeks to replace their master.
The flock does not see that the one who comes in from the outside is forcing a new choice upon them — a choice which they do not see because, as the Oracle in “The Matrix” said, they cannot see past the choices which they do not understand.
But, that there is a counterfeit is also evidence that there is truth. There are “good causes”, which are true. There are those who bring a “true message”, and the truest message than could ever be given, is that each of us have the power and capacity to see and make our own choices, and we each have have the capacity to perceive truth and teach one another. If one person has a greater capacity to receive, perceive, and understand truth, it is because he has followed the principles that lead to such. But, together with that greater capacity for truth should come the understanding that every person has a soul which is capable of enlargement, and that true understanding is not a playground for the elite few, but a laboratory for everyone.
John144 