Ubuntu: The Essence of Being Human

"I am what I am because of who we all are." - A definition offered by Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee.

"Archbishop Desmond Tutu offered a definition in a 1999 book: “A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”

Tutu further explained Ubuntu in 2008: “One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”

“'A person is a person through other people' strikes an affirmation of one’s humanity through recognition of an ‘other’ in his or her uniqueness and difference. It is a demand for a creative intersubjective formation in which the ‘other’ becomes a mirror (but only a mirror) for my subjectivity. This idealism suggests to us that humanity is not embedded in my person solely as an individual; my humanity is co-substantively bestowed upon the other and me. Humanity is a quality we owe to each other. We create each other and need to sustain this otherness creation. And if we belong to each other, we participate in our creations: we are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am. The ‘I am’ is not a rigid subject, but a dynamic self-constitution dependent on this otherness creation of relation and distance.”~~~http://www.michaeleze.com

Speech Is Never Free in a World of Racist Surveillance and Repression by William C. Anderson

Words always matter, but they often matter more when the odds are already against you. The freedom to express oneself is supposed to be protectively enshrined in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. However, for some people this ideal has always been slippery. The freedom to speak our minds can easily transform into the freedom to be pursued by the authorities, surveilled and detained. Depending on who the speaker is, our society dictates what speech is and isn't acceptable. No matter where you look on the political spectrum, you'll find people claiming to cherish freedom of speech and also claiming to be persecuted for their right to express it. Through time, we have seen how this ideal has been strategically levied against certain people in this society.

Recently, a Guardian exclusive on Rakem Balogun detailed how the Black activist is likely the first person targeted by federal authorities under the new designation of "Black Identity Extremist." Balogun was interviewed by the Guardian after being released from prison. He was imprisoned for five months and denied bail while US attorneys attempted to prosecute him for being a threat to the police as well as an illegal gun owner. Balogun's case was tried in part based on social media posts in which he criticized police. The Guardian noted, "When he was arrested, police confiscated his .38-caliber handgun and an unloaded AK-style assault rifle -- and also, he said, took his book Negroes with Guns by the civil rights leader Robert F Williams."

The power of words seemingly shows up in two instances here. Balogun's willingness to challenge state power and undermine the police made him a target. The confiscation of Robert F. Williams's book from his possession, too, shows how the power of our words can transcend time and place. The authorities know this, and these cases are not making headlines out of pure chance. Examples are made of those who don't act accordingly, and history substantiates the claim that Black activists are doubly at risk because the judicial system is already working against them.

In the United States, the concept of "free speech" and the "right to bear arms" are thrown around very loosely. Despite their go-to nature as a defensive mechanism for people decrying the unfairness of the US government, race has everything to do with public perception.

The 2014 standoff between Cliven Bundy and federal law enforcement illustrates a distressing picture of just how blunt the difference can be. When a decades-long conflict between Cliven Bundy, his family and supporters grabbed national headlines, it was a deeply romanticized affair. Bundy became an inspiration for right-wing militias who anticipate having to prove themselves to the federal government. Bundy's standoff escalated to the point that in 2016, armed men led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy seized control of the headquarters at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon. Their occupation lasted for over 40 days and the media looked on patiently, compassionately and forgivingly.

Cliven Bundy is no stranger to bigoted, white supremacist views. He once stated that Black Americans, who he referred to as "negroes," were possibly "better off as slaves." Still, many found favor and reason with his cause because anti-Blackness is normally defended under the auspices of free speech. The Bundy family and their supporters were regularly made into heroes, reminiscent of Western settler expansion, a normally cherished form of violence in US popular culture like movies and video games. When PBS's Frontline covered the fiasco, the documentary episode was titled, "American Patriot." The New York Times went so far as to fondly announce recently, "Newly Freed, Cliven Bundy Gets a Hero's Welcome in the Rugged West." The list goes on, but a deviation away from empathy in the white mainstream consciousness for the likes of Bundy falls short.

The story has been very different for Black activists historically. Many of the most well-known movement leaders were surveilled and persecuted for daring to challenge state-sponsored white supremacy in the form of anti-Black governance. Historically, the monitoring of Black dissidents within the US extends well over the last century. Infamous programs like the FBI's COINTELPRO -- which surveilled, brutalized and repressed Black activists -- aren't necessarily things of the past when we look at the current state of surveillance and repression. Black activists who have advocated for their right to free speech and claimed the right to bear arms have been especially vulnerable to state violence. There seems to be a dangerous threat in the realization that not only can one fight with weapons, but one can also fight with words.

During the tumultuous Trump rallies leading up to his election, there were Black people targeted for protesting at his election events. So, it's no surprise that the likes of "Black identity extremism" has been exposed as a concern of this administration. In practice, even before Donald Trump was elected, violence against Black protesters at his rallies was never surprising. One person who was attacked for expressing his free speech and right to bear arms is Mercutio Southall. AL.com reported Southall "suffered a concussion after the Nov. 21 incident at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex," where he went to protest a Trump rally. Southall was both physically and verbally attacked by attendees and then-candidate Trump, who said at the time, "Maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing." What could be described as freedom of speech and the right to protest was instead framed as an offense punishable by white mob violence.

Truthout attempted to contact Southall but was unable to make contact. However, Southall's lawyer, Richard A. Rice, offered comment. When asked about why Black activists seem to take higher priority when it comes to suppression of free speech, Rice told Truthout, "It's a continuation of COINTELPRO and some of the other things that we've seen out of the FBI and the CIA to basically suppress any type of Black political organizing and/or any type of protest." Rice added that moments like the present are moments of transformation and encouraged activists to "think about it in a strategic way" because it can be a "catapult to move us forward."

Lawyer David Gespass, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, also spoke with Truthout regarding the issues of persecuted free speech. In 2010, Gespass defended US Army Spec. Marc Hall who was facing an imminent court-martial for challenging the US military's stop-loss policy in a rap song. Hall was jailed in 2009 for making a song about the frustration of being forced to remain in the military beyond his designated contract by the stop-loss policy. His case made headlines because it became an issue of free speech. Almost 10 years after that case, Gespass noted how repetitive it all is.

"The FBI has this long history of being an instrument of political repression ... a lot of that is still in the DNA of the agency," he told Truthout. He also mentioned that the Justice Department headed by Jeff Sessions would fully reflect the racism of Sessions himself. "It's just there," he said, explaining that the Justice Department holds the "ideology that those who threaten the established order need to be watched and controlled."

When asked about what activists should do to be cautious about being surveilled for repressive reasons, Gespass said, "First of all be very, very careful of social media. While it's very useful for organizing ... what you say on social media can be twisted." He went on "Never ever talk to law enforcement ... certainly not without consulting with a lawyer first. You just never talk to them. Do not let them into your home unless they have a warrant. Innocence does not protect you."

With the recent Cambridge Analytica revelations about how social media can be manipulated to influence elections, it's known that state forces are manipulating our networks just the same. The monitoring of social media has even led to what we could argue is entrapment at the behest of officials seeking to detain those in whom they take interest. The frustration of the political moment makes activists especially susceptible to being targeted because emotion can easily get the best of any of us. However, a brief lapse in judgment or a careless outburst can turn into a lengthy sentence of regret when the state sees an opportunity and takes it.

The cases we see now and the cases of the past are connected. The agenda that we know works in the interest of protecting the establishment happens nonstop. It's discriminatory and violent for the purposes of maintaining state power. This observation tells us to watch our words for the sake of ourselves and our communities. The inadvertent risk of believing that the law is equally applied puts us in a precarious position. Until we exist in a society where there's some sort of equality to rely on, all of our words are potentially fighting words; we have to make sure that we're prepared for the battles that come with that.

The United States Is a Force for Chaos Across the Planet by Mark Karlin

The United States is "incapable of producing any results other than destruction and further fragmentation across staggeringly large parts of the planet," argues Tom Engelhardt, author of A Nation Unmade by War. Since 1991, the US has been engaged in a misguided and destructive exercise of triumphalism. In this interview, Engelhardt discusses why the US is an empire of chaos.


Mark Karlin: How much money has gone to the US "war on terror" and what has been the impact of this expenditure?

Tom Engelhardt: The best figure I've seen on this comes from the Watson Institute's Costs of War Project at Brown University, and it's a staggering $5.6 trillion, including certain future costs to care for this country's war vets. President Trump himself, with his usual sense of accuracy, has inflated that number even more, regularly speaking of $7 trillion being lost somewhere in our never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East. One of these days, he's going to turn out to be right.

As for the impact of such an expenditure in the regions where these wars continue to be fought, largely nonstop, since they were launched just after September 11, 2001, it would certainly include: the spread of terror outfits across the Middle East, parts of Asia and Africa; the creation -- in a region previously autocratic but relatively calm -- of a striking range of failed or failing states; major cities that have been turned into absolute rubble (with no money in sight for serious reconstruction); internally displaced people and waves of refugees at levels that now match the moment after World War II, when significant parts of the planet were in ruins -- and that's just to start down a list of the true costs of our wars.

At home, in a far quieter way, the impact has been similar. Just imagine, for instance, what our American world would have been like if any significant part of the funds that went into our fruitless, still spreading, now nameless conflicts had been spent on America's crumbling infrastructure, instead of on the rise of the national security state as the unofficial fourth branch of government. (At TomDispatch, Pentagon expert William Hartung has estimated that approximately $1 trillion annually goes into that security state and, in the age of Trump, that figure is again on the rise.)

Part of the trouble assessing the "impact" here in the US is that, in this era of public demobilization in terms of our wars, people are encouraged not to think about them at all and they've gotten remarkably little attention. So, sorting out exactly how they've come home -- other than completely obvious developments like the militarization of the police, the flying of surveillance drones in our airspace, and so on -- is hard. Most people, for instance, don't grasp something I've long written about at TomDispatch: that Donald Trump would have been inconceivable as president without those disastrous wars, those trillions squandered on them and on the military that's fought them, and that certainly qualifies as "impact" enough.

What makes the US pretension to empire different from previous empires?

As a start, it's worth mentioning that Americans generally don't even think of ourselves as an "empire." Yes, since the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, our politicians and pundits have proudly called this country the "last" or "lone" superpower and the world's most "exceptional" or "indispensable" nation, but an empire? No. You need to go someplace off the mainstream grid -- Truthout or TomDispatch, for instance -- to find anyone talking about us in those terms.
That said, I think that two things have made us different, imperially speaking. The first was that post-1991 sense of ourselves as the ultimate winner of a vast imperial contest, a kind of arms race of many that had gone on since European ships armed with cannon had first broken into the world in perhaps the 15th century and begun to conquer much of it. In that post-Soviet moment of triumphalism, of what seemed to the top dogs in Washington like the ultimate win, a forever victory, there was indeed a sense that there had never been and never would be a power like us. That inflated sense of our imperial self was what sent the geopolitical dreamers of the George W. Bush administration off to, in essence, create a Pax Americana, first in the Greater Middle East, and then perhaps the world, in a fashion never before imagined -- one that, they were convinced, would put the Roman and British imperial moments to shame. And we all know, with the invasion of Iraq, just where that's ended up.

In the years since they launched that ultimate imperial venture in a cloud of hubris, the most striking difference I can see with previous empires is that never has a great power, still in something close to its imperial prime, proven quite so incapable of applying its military and political might in a way that would successfully advance its aims. It has instead found itself overmatched by underwhelming enemy forces and incapable of producing any results other than destruction and further fragmentation across staggeringly large parts of the planet.

Finally, of course, there's climate change -- that is, for the first time in the history of empires, the very well-being of the planet itself is at stake. The game has, so to speak, changed, even if relatively few here have noticed.

Why do you refer to the US as an "empire of chaos"?

This answer follows directly from the last two. The United States is now visibly a force for chaos across significant parts of the planet. Just look, for instance, at the cities -- from Marawi in the Philippines to Mosul and Ramadi in Iraq, Raqqa and Aleppo in Syria, Sirte in Libya, and so on -- that have literally been -- a word I want to bring into the language -- rubblized, largely by American bombing (though with a helping hand recently from the bomb-makers of the Islamic State). Historically, in the imperial ages that preceded this one, such power, while regularly applied brutally and devastatingly, could also be a way of imposing a grim version of order on conquered and colonized areas. No longer, it seems. We're now on a planet that simply doesn't accept military-first conquest and occupation, no matter the guise under which it arrives (including the spread of "democracy"). So, beware of unleashing modern military power. It turns out to contain within it striking disintegrative forces on a planet that can ill afford such chaos.

You also refer to Washington, DC, as a "permanent war capital" with the generals in ascension under Trump. What does that represent for the war footing of the US?

Well, it's obvious in a way. Washington is now indeed a war capital because the Bush administration launched not just a local response to a relatively small group of jihadis in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but what its top officials called a "Global War on Terror" -- creating possibly the worst acronym in history: GWOT. And then they instantly began insisting that it could be applied to at least 60 countries supposedly harboring terror groups. That was 2001 and, of course, though the name and acronym were dropped, the war they launched has never ended. In those years, the military, the country's (count 'em) 17 major intelligence agencies, and the warrior corporations of the military-industrial complex have achieved a kind of clout never before seen in the nation's capital. Their rise has really been a bipartisan affair in a city otherwise riven by politics as each party tries to outdo the other in promoting the financing of the national security state. At a moment when putting money into just about anything else that would provide genuine security to Americans (think health care) is always a desperate struggle, funding the Pentagon and the rest of the national security state continues to be a given. That's what it means to be in a "permanent war capital."

In addition, with Donald Trump, the generals of America's losing wars have gained a kind of prominence in Washington that was unknown in a previously civilian capital. The head of the Defense Department, the White House chief of staff, and (until recently when he was succeeded by an even more militaristic civilian) the national security adviser were all generals of those wars -- positions that, in the past, with rare exceptions, were considered civilian ones. In this sense, Donald Trump was less making history with the men he liked to refer to as "my generals" than channeling it.

What is the role of bombing in the US war-making machine?

It's worth remembering, as I've written in the past, that from the beginning, the "war on terror" has been, above all (and despite full-scale invasions and occupations using hundreds of thousands of US ground troops), an air war. It started that way. On September 11, 2001, after all, al-Qaeda sent its air force (four hijacked passenger jets) and its precision weaponry (19 suicidal hijackers) against a set of iconic buildings in the US. Those strikes -- only one of them failed when the passengers on a single jet fought back and it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania -- may represent the most successful use of strategic bombing (that is, air power aimed at the civilian population of, and morale in, an enemy country) in history. At the cost of a mere $400,000 to $500,000, Osama bin Laden began an air war of provocation that has never ended.

The US has been bombing, missiling and drone-assassinating ever since. Last year, for instance, US planes dropped an estimated 20,000 bombs just on the Syrian city of Raqqa, the former "capital" of the Islamic State, leaving next to nothing standing. Since the first American planes began dropping bombs (and cluster munitions) in Afghanistan in October 2001, the US Air Force has been in the skies ceaselessly -- skies, by the way, over countries and groups that lack any defenses against air attacks whatsoever. And, of course, it's been a kind of rolling disaster of destruction that has left the equivalent of World Trade Center tower after tower of dead civilians in those lands. In other words, though no one in Washington would ever say such a thing, US air power has functionally been doing Osama bin Laden's job for him, conducting not so much a "war on terror" as a strange kind of war for terror -- one that only promotes the conditions in which it thrives best.

 

What role did the end of the draft play in enabling an unrestrained US empire of war?

It may have been the crucial moment in the whole process. It was, of course, the decision of then-President Richard Nixon in January 1973, in response to a country swept by a powerful antiwar movement and a military in near rebellion as the Vietnam War began to wind down. The draft was ended, the all-volunteer military begun and the American people were largely separated from the wars being fought in their name. They were, as I said above, demobilized. Though at the time, the US military high command was doubtful about the move, it proved highly successful in freeing them to fight the endless wars of the 21st century, now being referred to by some in the Pentagon (according to The Washington Post) not as "permanent wars," or even -- as Gen. David Petraeus put it -- a "generational struggle," but as "infinite war."

I've lived through two periods of public war mobilization in my lifetime: the World War II era, in which I was born and in which the American people mobilized to support a global war against fascism in every way imaginable, and the Vietnam War, in which Americans (like me as a young man) mobilized against an American war. But who in those years ever imagined that Americans might fight their wars (unsuccessfully) to the end of time without most citizens paying the slightest attention? That's why I've called the losing generals of our endless "war on terror" (and, in a sense, the rest of us as well) "Nixon's children."

Trump Says Settlers ‘Tamed a Continent.’ Now for Indigenous People’s Side by Sarah Sunshine Manning

This knowledge seems rudimentary, and yet it’s not: The same ships that transported the “American dream” from 15th century Europe likewise delivered a nightmare to indigenous lands now known as America—a nightmare that would persist for centuries for millions of indigenous people, African slaves and their many descendants. But it was far beyond a nightmare. It all was callously and painfully real.

This knowledge also seems rudimentary, and yet it’s not: Indigenous communities today bear the stubborn scars and residual societal ills stemming directly from colonization: being dehumanized, disenfranchised and imprisoned in our own lands, confined to desolate reservations, and brutally ripped from the lifeways and teachings that sustained us for millennia.

Everything is Connected

Tom Chi  is an inventor (he most recently served as head of product experience at Google X developing technology such as Google Glass and Google's self-driving cars). coach & speaker and  .has worked in a wide range of roles from astrophysical researcher to Fortune 500 consultant to corporate executive developing new hardware/software products and services. He has played a significant role in established projects with global reach (Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo Search), and scaled new projects from conception to significance (Yahoo Answers from 0 to 90 million users).

This talk is quite illuminating & opens up many avenues for further study & reflection.

Africa, Stupid!

Debunking common myths and stereotypes about Africa. Marek Zmyslowski , Polish-born entrepreneur shares his personal story of why it's so cool to live and do business there. Marek focuses on online businesses in Frontier and Emerging Markets. He co-founded HotelOnline.co – a Hospitality Technology Company, and Jumia Travel – Africa's Biggest Hotel Booking Portal, with backing from Rocket Internet and Goldman Sachs. In 2014 he was chosen as one of the Ten Most Important People in Tech by IT News Africa Magazine. He is a Lead Mentor at Google’s Launchpad and World Bank’s XL Africa Program.

Artificial Intelligence in Whose Interests?

In this clip, Rana Foroohar and host Paul Jay discuss the merging of finance and big tech and the threat AI poses to working people and the economy; they also discuss the potential of AI in addressing the climate crisis and making a more rational and equal society possible.

Africa is Meat Eaten Alive by Superpowers

Renowned Kenyan lawyer and academic Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, (affectionately known as PLO) gave a riveting panel presentation at the Rwanda National Security Symposium on May 14, 2018.

This enlightened intellectual/pholospher calls it as he sees it regardless of the risks involved which I greatly respect. Africa as meat eaten alive is quite a violent metaphor for what is going on, but it is spot on. As you listen to this presentation, observe the discomfort of some members of the audience who are probably profiting handsomely from sleeping in bed with the enemies of the African continent. Professor Lumumba's voice is a clarion call for radical change in Africa. 

Corporate Media, Imperialism & People Power

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In her interview with Zain Raza, Abby Martin discussed how being critical of the American empire has been mislabeled as Russian propaganda, her interest in a free and fair media for the people and by the people, and why the label “U.S. Empire” isn’t used more widely.

On Trump, Gaza and White Supremacy in South Africa by Tafi Mhaka

“Our experiences of white supremacy oppression are real and they don't end with the end of slavery.”

On May 2, representatives of Afriforum, a controversial South African organization, traveled to the US on a mission to lobby the US government to take a stance against what they called a "racist theft" of land in South Africa .

Afriforum had launched an international campaign to stop the South African government from making constitutional changes that would allow the state to appropriate land without compensation and resettle thousands of landless black peasants. The measure would affect predominantly white South African landowners.

Afriforum CEO Kallie Kriel and his deputy Ernst Roets met representatives from USAID, staffers with Republican Senator Ted Cruz, and controversial National Security adviser and long time Republican hawk, John Bolton .

“This is part of a broader campaign around the world rewrite history.”

As their tour ended with a media storm in South Africa, Gaza came into the international spotlight. The Israeli government and its allies in the West were rushing to gloss over the mass killing of peaceful Palestinian protesters who had marched to demand their occupied land be returned. Western media rushed to parrot Israeli rhetoric that Hamas was responsible for the civilian deaths.

Palestinians, just like South Africans and other dispossessed peoples around the world, have been facing a concerted effort by ever-growing right-wing forces to obfuscate their reality. This is part of a broader campaign around the world to normalize colonialism, white supremacy and privilege, and rewrite history.

It is not a coincidence that it is now that an organisation like Afriforum is reaching out to a US government that is staunchly supportive of Israel and is engaged in applying its own racist policies.

Historical Revisionism in South Africa

Beyond lobbying against a law that could affect rich white landowners in South Africa, Afriforum has engaged through its public statements in systematic historical revisionism. In the past, the organization has called consequences of apartheid "so-called injustices."

In a recent interview, its CEO Kriel claimed that apartheid "was wrong" but was not a crime against humanity. He also appeared to believe that apartheid and the Holocaust could not be compared. He said: "[A] crime against humanity is the gassing of six million Jews in gas chambers. In my view, you cannot equate that to the 700 people that were killed by the security police during apartheid."

This wild, ingenious and unsympathetic observation demonstrates an anti-liberal attempt to amend historical truths, manufacture new moralities and retain white economic and social privileges.

“Kriel claimed that apartheid ‘was wrong’ but was not a crime against humanity.”

To "remember" that apartheid was much more than the killing of "700 people", one just needs to walk around the resource-starved black townships like Tembisa, 40km north of Johannesburg, or visit an informal settlement in Cape Town, where thousands of very poor and marginalized black people live. Then one should visit a traditionally white Johannesburg suburb like Randburg, Rosebank, or Bedfordview, and see what post-apartheid white wealth and prosperity looks like.

Colonialism and apartheid created a massive underclass of poverty-stricken folks who, despite welcoming the policy of racial reconciliation Nelson Mandela supported, and accepting the skewed economic situation that accompanied the founding of the new South Africa in 1994, must bear the incredible indignity of flimsy, hurtful and inconsistent interpretations of the violence bred through colonialism and apartheid, and its effects.

And Afriforum is not the first political actor to peddle this revisionist brand of calculated recollection. In March 2017, former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, Helen Zille celebrated colonialism and asserted how that historical injustice introduced benefits that previously disadvantaged blacks should be thankful for. She tweeted: "For those claiming legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water."

“Colonialism and apartheid created a massive underclass of poverty-stricken folks.”

Then, despite the public outcry against this and subsequent tweets, in June 2017, she went on to say: "There is a big difference between genocide and colonialism. The holocaust was a deliberate attempt to murder 11-million people. There is a difference between colonialism and a deliberate genocidal project."

Historical revisionism is one of many tools that the likes of Zille and Kriel have to continue the fight to maintain white privilege. What is worrying is that their narratives find acceptance not only within South Africa but also abroad. Kriel and his associate were clearly well received in the US.

White Supremacy and Continuing Oppression

But beyond whitewashing the reality we live in, these statements -- "Apartheid in South Africa is not holocaust," "Apartheid is not a crime against humanity,” "Colonialism is not genocide" -- have another sinister goal.

What this narrative aims to do is to dissociate South African apartheid from other crimes committed in the name of white supremacy and privilege and to whitewash them.

They aim to cover up the truth that apartheid in South Africa was just one of many expressions of a worldwide race-based system of domination and privilege that to this day feeds wealth and prosperity to the selected few whites at the top.

It is for this same reason that Zionists (despite themselves suffering from the crimes of white supremacy) rush head over heels to claim that what is happening in Palestine is not like South Africa's apartheid and that the comparison is "malicious" and "slanderous." It is for this reason that they fear and vehemently denounce the outreach between the US movement Black Lives Matter and Palestinian activists.

“South Africa was just one of many expressions of a worldwide race-based system of domination and privilege.”

It is for that reason that they insist on presenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a "religious issue," which needs "inter-faith dialogue." It is for this reason that they claim that it is religious "extremists" who are responsible for violence, that it is "terrorist Hamas" that is responsible for Israeli killings in Gaza.

Indeed, last week, Naftali Bennett, Israel's education minister, went as far as saying that unarmed protesters gathering at the fence near the border should be treated as "terrorists."

The rhetoric caught on. White House deputy spokesperson Raj Shah ascribed responsibility for the killings to Hamas and declared squarely that "Israel has the right to defend itself" from unarmed protesters. Spokespersons for various other Western governments mumbled the same accusations and called for "restraint" on "both sides" as though this is a conflict between two equals and not between an occupier and the occupied.

That Israel is finding such staunch support in the Trump administration and that Afriforum thought they'd find understanding in Washington is unsurprising.

“They fear and vehemently denounce the outreach between the US movement Black Lives Matter and Palestinian activists.”

Trump came to power riding on the wave of white fears that their privilege might be lost, and since then has fostered them. He has also not been shy about his own racism, making disparaging remarks about people of color and a whole continent , and has sought to ban Muslims from entering the US. The far right and its revisionist agenda have found plenty of support from his administration.

Curiously, there have also been people of color who have joined that project and have attempted to whitewash the history of slavery. Housing Secretary Ben Carson referred to slaves as "immigrants" last year. This year, rapper and Trump supporter Kanye West declared that slavery was "a choice" .

Indeed, one can see the same strategies of playing down crimes, of manipulating language, of systematically undermining established historical truths from South Africa to Palestine to the United States.

In the face of this powerful and deliberate campaign to recalibrate collective and individual moralities, modify historical memory, and justify heinous crimes, we have to resist.

We have to insist that our experiences of white supremacy oppression are real and they don't end with the end of slavery or the collapse of the apartheid regime. We have to make it clear that we know Gaza in 2018 is Soweto in 1976 is Selma in 1965 .

Tafi Mhaka is a Johannesburg-based social and political commentator.

The Coming Collapse by Chris Hedges

The Trump administration did not rise, prima facie, like Venus on a half shell from the sea. Donald Trump is the result of a long process of political, cultural and social decay. He is a product of our failed democracy. The longer we perpetuate the fiction that we live in a functioning democracy, that Trump and the political mutations around him are somehow an aberrant deviation that can be vanquished in the next election, the more we will hurtle toward tyranny. The problem is not Trump. It is a political system, dominated by corporate power and the mandarins of the two major political parties, in which we don’t count. We will wrest back political control by dismantling the corporate state, and this means massive and sustained civil disobedience, like that demonstrated by teachers around the country this year. If we do not stand up we will enter a new dark age.

Musings

Practice until you see yourself in the cruelest person on Earth,

 in the child starving, in the political prisoner.

 

Continue until you recognize yourself in everyone in the supermarket,

 on the street corner, in a concentration camp, on a leaf, in a dewdrop. 

 

Meditate until you see yourself in a speck of dust in a distant galaxy. 

 

See and listen with the whole of your being. If you are fully present, 

the rain of Dharma will water the deepest seeds in your consciousness, 

and tomorrow, while you are washing the dishes or looking at the blue sky, 

that seed will spring forth, and love and understanding

 will appear as a beautiful flower.
 

 ~  Thich Nhat Hanh

The Greatest Spiritual Event of Our Time, According to Rudolf Steiner by Paul Levy

Almost a hundred years ago, as if peering into a crystal ball and predicting the future, spiritual teacher and clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner prophesied that the most momentous event of modern times was what he referred to as the incarnation of the etheric[ Christ. By the “etheric Christ,” Steiner is referring to a modern-day version of Christ’s resurrection body, which can be conceived of as being a creative, holy and whole-making spirit that is inspiring human evolution as it operates upon the body of humanity through the collective unconscious of our species. Involving a radically new understanding of a timeless spiritual event, the etheric Christ, instead of incarnating in full-bodied physical form, is approaching via the realm of spirit—as close as this immaterial spirit can get to the threshold of the third-dimensional physical world without incarnating in materialized form. To quote Steiner, “Christ’s life will be felt in the souls of men more and more as a direct personal experience from the twentieth century onwards.”

A spiritual event of the highest order, Steiner felt that the incarnation of the etheric Christ is “the most sublime human experience possible” and “the greatest turning point in human evolution.” In his talks, Steiner refers to the etheric Christ as “Christ in the form of an Angel.” Christ himself can be seen as the primordial revelation of the archetype of the Angel (who, after all, are messengers), what is known as the “Angel Christos.” The Angel Christos is a nonlocal, atemporal spirit, existing outside of space and time, that is simultaneously immersed in, infused with—and expressing itself through—events in our world. Christ as an angel reveals itself for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear as it weaves itself, not only through the warp and woof of the flow of events comprising history, but through our souls as well.

To quote Steiner, “in the future we are not to look on the physical plane for the most important events but outside it, just as we shall have to look for Christ on His return as etheric form in the spiritual world.” The most important spiritual events of any age often remain hidden from the eyes of those who are entranced in a materialistic conception of the world. It greatly behooves us to not sleep through, but rather, to consciously bear witness to what has been up until now taking place mostly unconsciously, subtly hidden beneath the mundane consciousness of our species. If this epochal spiritual event, to quote Steiner, “were to pass unnoticed, humanity would forfeit its most important possibility for evolution, thus sinking into darkness and eventual death.”If the deeper spiritual process of the incarnation of the etheric Christ—“Christ in the form of an Angel”—is not understood, this potentially liberating process transforms into its opposite (into the demonic).

Steiner felt that the advent of the etheric Christ—the Parousia (the Second Coming)—was the greatest mystery of our time. He was of the opinion that the incarnation of the etheric Christ was the deeper spiritual process that is in-forming and giving shape to the current multi-faceted crises (and opportunities) that humanity presently faces. This is to say that the seemingly never-ending wars and conflicts that are taking place all over the globe are the shadows cast by spiritual events from a higher-dimension that are animating earthly happenings. One of the main reasons that these multiple crises are so dangerous is because their deeper spiritual source remains unrecognized.

The veil that formerly concealed the spiritual world from what we call “the real world” has fallen away, now making it possible to bear witness to how physical events are an outer, external reflection of a parallel archetypal process taking place on a spiritual plane. It is as if a spiritual dimension envelops, contains and is expressing itself through material reality. The seemingly mundane physical world and the spiritual world are revealing themselves to be indistinguishable, which is to say that life itself is resuming its revelatory function. More and more of us are beginning to recognize this; our realization is not separate from the increasing emergence of the etheric Christ. Consciousness of the restored unity between matter and spirit is not merely an awareness of this original unity, but is the very act that completes and perfects this unity.

The higher order of light encoded within the etheric Christ is bringing to light the darkness which is seemingly opposed to it, which further helps its light nature to be seen. The true radiance of the light can only be seen and appreciated in contrast to the depth of darkness it illumines. It is as if the revelation of something is through its opposite—just as darkness is known through light, light is known through darkness. A fundamental spiritual principle of creation itself appears to be that when one force—e.g., light—begins to emerge in the universe a counterforce, opposed to the first, arises at that same moment.

Just as shadows belong to light, these light and dark powers are interrelated, reciprocally co-arising, inseparably contained within and expressions of a single deeper unifying process. These opposites belong together precisely insofar as they oppose each other; their seeming antagonism is an expression of their essential oneness. The brightest light and darkest shadow mysteriously evoke each other, as if—behind the scenes—they are secretly related. In essence, spirit is incarnating, and it is revealing itself through the very darkness that it is making visible.

Commenting on the other—and less recognized—half of the Second Coming, Steiner chillingly said, “before the Etheric Christ can be properly understood by people, humanity must have passed through the encounter with the Beast.” By “the Beast” he means the apocalyptic beast, the radically evil. The Beast is the guardian of the threshold through which we must pass in order to meet the lighter, celestial and heavenly part of our nature.

As soon as I read Steiner’s prophecy I felt the truth of his words. I recognized how what Steiner was saying mapped onto—and created context for—what is happening in our current world-gone-crazy. The ever-increasing darkness that has descended like a plague onto humanity and is compelling us to race towards our own self-destruction is hard to face, let alone fathom. The evil of our time has become so gigantic that it has virtually outstripped the symbol and become autonomous, un-representable, beyond comprehension, practically unspeakable.

I also recognized the truth of what Steiner was saying based on my own inner experience. I have noticed that as I get closer to connecting with the light within myself, the forces of darkness seem to become more active and threatening. It is as if there is something in me—and in everyone, which is to say this situation isn’t personal—that desperately doesn’t want us to recognize and step into our light. This internal process is taking place within the subjectivity of countless individual human psyches, which is then reflexively being collectively acted out—in my language, “dreamed up”—en masse in, as and through the outside world. The dialectical tensions of the cosmos (the macrocosm)—the conflict between the opposites of dark and light—are mirrored both in the external collective body politic as well as within the psyche of each individual (the microcosm). It greatly serves us to recognize this.

In his prophecy, Steiner is pointing out that our encounter with the Beast is initiatory, a portal that—potentially—introduces us to the Christ figure. To quote Steiner, “Through the experience of evil it will be possible for the Christ to appear again.” It is noteworthy that the opposites are appearing together: coinciding with the peak of evil is an inner development which makes it possible for the etheric Christ—who is always present and available—to be seen and felt as a guiding presence that can thereby become progressively more embodied in humans, both individually and collectively as a whole species. In the extreme of one of the opposites is the seed for the birth of the other.

This is a Kabbalistic idea – for example, in the Zohar, the key Kabbalistic text, it says, “There is no light except that which issues forth from darkness…and no true good except it proceed from evil.” As I deepen my familiarity with Steiner’s work, it definitely dovetails with the insights of the Kabbalah, which is considered to be one of the most profound spiritual and intellectual movements in human history. Evil, according to both Steiner and the Kabbalah, though by definition diametrically opposed to the good, is—paradoxically—a catalyst for bringing the power of goodness to the fore.

Steiner felt that because Christ was destined to appear in the etheric body, “a kind of mystery of Golgotha is to be experienced anew.”What Steiner means by the “mystery of Golgotha” is Christ’s crucifixion, his descent into the underworld and subsequent resurrection. As a result of the first mystery of Golgotha over two thousand years ago—what Steiner considers an act of divine grace bestowed on humanity from above—Christ has been establishing himself in the unconscious dark depths of humanity’s soul. The “Christ-impulse,” in Steiner’s words, “was to penetrate to the dark depths of man’s inner being … to the deepest part of man’s nature.”

Like an iteration of a deeper fractal, this archetypal, timeless mystery now “is to be experienced anew” in a modern-day version. In no other world than the physical world can we learn the true nature of the mystery of Golgotha. To quote Steiner, “Not in vain has man been placed in the physical world; for it is here we must acquire that which leads us to an understanding of the Christ-Impulse!”

Unlike the first mystery of Golgotha, however, in the culmination of this renewed mystery, humanity becomes engaged as active participants, playing a decisive role in the cosmic drama. This too is a Kabbalistic insight: humanity co-partners with the divine so as to complete the creative act of God’s Incarnation. Instead of the Incarnation being through one man, however, in our current day it is taking place through all of humanity. The modern-day coming of the Messiah is through the transformed and awakened consciousness of humanity as a whole. In a very real sense, we are the very Messiah we have been waiting for. “By a strange paradox,” according to Steiner, it is “through the forces of evil” that “mankind is led to a renewed experience of the Mystery of Golgotha.”

The mystery and drama of the Christ event is now located and consummated in humanity, who become its living carrier. The events that were formulated in dogma are now brought within the range of direct psychological experience and become an essential aspect of the process of individuation. Whether we know it or not, we have become drafted and are being assimilated into a divinely-sponsored process. Not an effortful, intentional straining after imitation, this becomes an involuntary and spontaneous personal experience of the reality symbolized by the sacred legend.

The brightest, most radiant and luminous light simultaneously casts and calls forth the darkest shadows. Through this process of Christ manifesting in the etheric realm, humanity is exposed to evil in a way never before experienced, such that—in potential—we may be able to find the good and the holy in a more real and tangible way than was previously possible. Humanity’s highest virtues and potentialities are activated and called forth when confronted by evil.

It is an archetypal idea that ascending towards the light always necessitates a confrontation with and descent into the darkness; the Kabbalah calls this “a descent on behalf of the ascent.” There are certain points in time when humans—individually and/or collectively—are pulled down, submerged into darker powers, brought below a certain level against their will. This shamanic descent can be envisioned as a test for humanity, so that we may learn, through our own efforts, how to lift ourselves up. But we raise ourselves not without God’s help, however, who, paradoxically, is the very sponsor of our descent in the first place.

Seen symbolically, the process of descent—as universally exemplified in the myth of the hero—reveals that only in the region of danger can we find the alchemical “Treasure Hard to Attain.” Speaking of when someone goes through what he refers to as “the Descent into Hell,” Steiner says, “When this has been experienced, it is as though the black curtain has been rent asunder and he looks into the spiritual world.”

The mystery of humanity’s higher nature is inseparable from the mystery of evil. No realization of the light would ever occur without first getting to know its opposite. Whoever wants to support the sacred must be able to protect it and we can only do so when we know the forces that oppose it. The question is not whether we believe in evil, but whether or not we are able to recognize and discern, in the actual events of life, that dimension of experience that the ancients called evil. Speaking about the evolutionary stage of modern humanity, Steiner said, “now we have to come to terms with evil.” It is beyond debate that in our current age we are called to deal with evil—only those who choose to stay asleep, or are overly identified with the light (and hence, project out and dissociate from their own darkness) are blind to this.

It is of the utmost importance to recognize evil, which involves developing our capability to perceive differences, i.e., to cultivate discernment. Evil has an intense desire to remain incognito, below the radar, as its power to wreak havoc is dependent on not being recognized. If we don’t recognize evil, however, we will surely succumb to it, thereby unconsciously acting it out. We are offered a choice—to come to terms with evil or continue to avoid it (which ineluctably makes us complicit in it). Recognizing and confronting evil means getting to know its operations within ourselves without fully succumbing to it.

Recognizing the evil within us is a moment of great peril, as we don’t want to fall hopelessly into paralyzing despair at seeing the shocking depth of our own darkness. Another danger is to unconsciously identify with the evil we are seeing, thinking we are that. The key is to see these impersonal darker forces within us, recognize that we share them in common with all humanity, and then “distinguish ourselves” from them. This is to see these darker forces as paradoxically both belonging to ourselves while being other than who we are. Becoming conscious of these darker forces takes away their power (which is dependent on not being seen), liberating us from being under their thrall. It is a genuine spiritual event when we confront these darker forces in and through ourselves as if we are meeting a wholly other being.

Without being exposed to and challenged by evil we remain helpless to overcome it. The Beast is a higher-dimensional and supersensible being (beyond our five senses) that reveals itself in and through historical events in our world as well as within the inner landscapes of our psyche. A human body and soul can unwittingly (or consciously) become the vessel for acting out these powerful, darker, destructive archetypal powers in ways that further extend these forces into the world at large. In modern times the centralized, power-based state is the incorporated agency of these darker forces on a collective scale. Any of us, often with the best intentions, can unwittingly become an instrument of evil through our acting out of these darker unconscious impulses.

Encountering, recognizing and experiencing the depth of evil within ourselves helps us to develop the inner capacity to stand free of it, and in so doing, become acquainted with the part of ourselves that is beyond evil’s reach, thus enabling us to establish ourselves as free, sovereign and independent beings. Realizing this, we thereby become inoculated from being one of its carriers. Paradoxically, it is only by knowing the Beast in ourselves that we become truly human. It is to our advantage to know that our worst adversary resides in our own heart, rather than falling for the all-to-common delusion of thinking that our enemy is outside of ourselves.

Withdrawing our shadow projections from the outside world enables us to not only own and come to terms with the darkness within ourselves, but also enables us to withdraw our projections from an outward historical figure and instead discover the living Christ within. This is to recognize that Christ—symbolic of the wholeness of our true nature—has always lived in us, rather than being an external figure separate and different from ourselves. We ourselves bear Christ—the most precious treasure, “The Pearl of Great Price”—within us.

Seeing the etheric Christ necessitates the human acquisition of a newly awakened faculty of perception which enables us to recognize that a spiritual realm permeates—and is revealing itself—through the seemingly mundane physical world. The etheric Christ has an infinitude of ways, a multiplicity of guises in which it can appear. Just like a symbol in a dream, the form of the vision is custom-tailored for each soul, dependent on our state of evolution. As we each see the etheric Christ in the unique form appropriate to our soul, we rise up, lift ourselves—grow and ascend upwards, evolutionarily speaking—towards Christ in his etheric body. To quote Steiner, “those who raise themselves—with Full ego-consciousness—to the etheric vision of Christ in His etheric body, will be ‘God-filled’ or blessed. For this, however, the materialistic mind must be thoroughly overcome.”

Speaking of the power of the etheric Christ, Steiner said, “When this power has permeated the soul, it drives away the soul’s darkness.” As we stabilize our vision of the etheric Christ, we recognize that, as if looking in a mirror, we are seeing our own reflection. Christ himself (in his etheric form) says in the apocryphal Acts of John, “A mirror am I to thee that perceivest me … behold thyself in me who speak.” On the one hand this mirror reflects back our own temporal, limited and subjective consciousness, while on the other hand simultaneously reflecting back the transcendental aspect of ourselves that is already whole, healed and awake. These co-joined reflections invite us to cultivate the ability to differentiate them, and in so doing effects the requisite transformation of consciousness that feeds our individuation.

In these encounters with the etheric Christ, we are not witness to an external, material, objective event that comes from outside of ourselves, but our soul is itself the medium in which the engagement takes place. In its subjective experience of the etheric Christ, it is its own image of itself that the soul rediscovers and meets in its act of reflection. The soul is itself reflected through and reciprocally affected by the vision of the etheric Christ. Inseparable parts of one quantum system, the etheric Christ’s radiance doesn’t shine separate from humanity; its luminous clarity is our own. Humanity invariably becomes transformed when it encounters the etheric Christ, due to our consciousness becoming aware of an essential aspect of itself that was heretofore hidden and relegated to the unconscious.

The part of Steiner that was envisioning the operations of the etheric Christ was the etheric Christ himself seeing through Steiner’s eyes; the same is true for us. When we see the etheric Christ, we begin to assimilate and become the thing we are seeing. In our apperception, the etheric Christ inside of us recognizes itself, which enables us to step into who we’ve always been. Humanity is the vessel through which the etheric Christ—the spirit of Christ—takes on human form and incarnates itself.

We find ourselves playing a key role in a cosmic drama. We are not just passive witnesses, but active participants in a momentous, world-transforming spiritual event. In Steiner’s words, “The human being is not a mere spectator that stands over against the world … he is the active co-creator of the world process.” Steiner’s statement is completely in alignment with the realizations of quantum physics, which points out that we are participating—whether we know it or not—in the creation of our experience of both the world and ourselves. What Steiner is describing in terms of the incarnation of the etheric Christ and the emergence of the apocalyptic Beast is in some mysterious way related to—and reflecting—the current stage of our collective psycho-spiritual development.

The worst illness is the one which goes unrecognized, as it therefore cannot be treated. According to Steiner, awareness of the covert operations of these darker forces is the only means whereby their aims may be counteracted. The etheric Christ’s light can help us to break through our massive inner resistance against seeing to what an overwhelming extent the forces of illness and death have insinuated themselves into our organism and corrupted our soul. The same light that kindles consciousness—i.e., the etheric Christ—also illuminates the deadening and rigidifying forces in humanity’s being. If we can consciously experience the powerlessness that has become allied with the deadening forces in our soul, this sense of our powerlessness—like hitting bottom—can lead us to an experience of the etheric Christ, which itself is the revivifying light of awareness which enabled us to become aware of our powerlessness in the first place. Consciously seeing the withered soul of our time—intellectualized and materialized to death—is a crucial step which initiates the process of resuscitating—and resurrecting—the soul, bringing it to life again.

As if pouring the very essence of his being into the existential abyss, Christ concealed his light by incorporating himself in humanity’s deadened life forces, as if the higher self clothed itself in the evil qualities of humanity. To quote a student of Steiner, Jesaiah Ben-Aharon, “The Christ is seen through the metamorphosed forces of death, and is experienced through the mystery of man’s evil.” The life-enhancing etheric Christ is made out of the devitalizing forces of death that have seemingly imprisoned and obscured the eternal Christ within us. Christ’s “resurrection body” is created and forged through the descent into hell. The very fabric of the darkness are the celestial threads out of which the etheric Christ is woven.

Through his descent into the depths of the underworld, Christ merged and united himself completely with the core of humanity’s evil—becoming one with it—thereby initiating an alchemical process of transformation deep within the universe itself. Steiner’s description of the incarnation of the etheric Christ implies a progressive transmutation of the underlying etheric substructure of our world, i.e., a change in the energetic fabric of space-time itself. In dying livingly  into the abyss, Christ freely offered his life-giving heart to darkness’s infinite void. The result of Christ’s sacrifice is that his eternal being germinates and grows for humanity from within the core of all evil.

Through his descent into the hell realms, a mutual interpenetration between the lower and higher selves of the universe has taken place. Light has taken on darkness, which has a double meaning: to encounter darkness, as well as to become it. Light has transformed itself into darkness so as to know and illumine the darkness from the inside as well as to reveal itself. Evil—which on one level is obscuring the light—has encoded within itself its very opposite, i.e., it has become the revelation of the very light it seems to be concealing.If we don’t recognize this, however, the darkness will continue to manifest destructively and eventually destroy us.

Being the most problematic element in the life of our species, evil demands our deepest sobriety and most earnest reflection. It behooves us to become conscious of the ways we are unknowingly colluding with darker forces. The etheric Christ illumines not only the existence of evil as a reality in the depth of the soul, but its light also reflects our complicity in this evil to the degree that we turn a blind-eye towards it. Individual self-reflection, which returns us to the deeper, darker ground of our light-filled nature, is the beginning of the cure for the blindness which reigns today. We tend to think of illumination as “seeing the light,” but seeing the darkness is also an important form of illumination.

We fervently avoid investigating whether God might have placed some unrecognized purpose in evil that is crucial for us to know. If we become conscious of the evil within us, in our expansion of consciousness, that evil is promoting our spiritual development. We have then, through our realization, alchemically transmuted evil into a catalyst for our evolution. To quote Steiner, “The task of evil is to promote the ascent of the human being.” Once we realize our collusion with evil—making an unconscious part of us conscious, evil—with our co-operation—has fulfilled its mission of promoting our ascent.

This is once again in alignment with the Kabbalah, which conceives of evil as an essential component of the deity, woven into the very fabric of creation. Evil, according to both Steiner and the Kabbalah, co-emerges with the possibility of humanity’s freedom, as if God could not create true freedom for humanity without providing a choice for evil. To quote Steiner, “In order for human beings to attain to full use of their powers of freedom, it is absolutely necessary that they descend to the low levels in their world conception as well as in their life.” From both Steiner’s and the Kabbalistic point of view, evil is created by and for freedom, and it is only through the conscious exercise of freedom of choice—which evil itself challenges us to develop—by which it can be overcome. To quote Steiner, “This is the great question of the dividing of the ways: either to go down or to go up.”

The question naturally arises: if, as Steiner and the Kabbalah profess, freedom is actualized only through the existence of evil, is evil an expression of a higher intelligence, an aspect of the divine plan designed to bring about a higher form of good that couldn’t be actualized without its existence? In other words, is evil against God, or on a deeper level, serving God?

Answering this question involves a new way of translating our experience to ourselves. This way of seeing can only be attained if we are not stuck in a fixed, polarized viewpoint, caught in binary, dualistic thinking. The price of admission to this new perspective is being open to how the opposites—e.g., good and evil—are not opposed to each other in the way that we’ve been imagining if we’ve been imagining them as being separate. Seeing this involves a deeper integration within ourselves in which we are able to carry—and hold together without splitting—the seeming opposites in a new way. This expansion of our consciousness not only supports the incarnation of the etheric Christ, it is the incarnation itself.

How are we to live in such close proximity to evil? Steiner’s prophecy—expressed in the language of Christianity—is suggesting that a complete spiritual renewal is urgently needed. And as Steiner indicates, no spiritual transformation is possible without coming to terms with the Beast, i.e., with the inescapable factor of evil encountered both within ourselves and in the outside world. No old formulas or techniques can fit the bill; the answer of how to deal with such darkness is only to be found in the depths of the individual human heart.

The main aim of the Beast is to close, harden and seal the human heart with its negative energies. There is no greater protection against the Beast—as well as no better way to invite the approach of the etheric Christ—than to assiduously strive to cultivate a good heart over-flowingly filled with compassion. Genuine compassion is unconditioned; by its nature it is meant to be shared with all beings throughout the whole universe, most especially with the Beast within ourselves. Compassion is the only thing in the world that can vanquish the seemingly infinite black hole of evil, as compassion—due to its boundless nature—has no limits, which means the more we give compassion, the more we have to give. The etheric Christ is all about compassion, which is its true name.

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A pioneer in the field of spiritual emergence, Paul Levy is a wounded healer in private practice, assisting others who are also awakening to the dreamlike nature of reality. He is the author of The Quantum Revelation: A Radical Synthesis of Science and Spirituality (SelectBooks, May 2018), Awakened by Darkness: When Evil Becomes Your Father (Awaken in the Dream Publishing, 2015), Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil (North Atlantic Books, 2013) and The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis (Authorhouse, 2006). He is the founder of the “Awakening in the Dream Community” in Portland, Oregon. An artist, he is deeply steeped in the work of C. G. Jung, and has been a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner for over thirty years. He was the coordinator for the Portland PadmaSambhava Buddhist Center for over twenty years. Please visit Paul’s website www.awakeninthedream.com. You can contact Paul at paul@awakeninthedream.com; he looks forward to your reflections.