The Road To Radiant Health (revisited)

On his deathbed Tim Leary was asked if he had any regrets whatsoever. His candid answer: "I really should have done a lot more fucking."

The 1980s saw a puritanical backlash that came in the guise of a new scare - AIDS. In the late 1970s herpes was the "in-thing"... but somehow it didn't really catch on as a deterrent to guilt-free and uninhibited eroticism. AIDS, on the other hand, was sufficiently life-threatening to frighten a whole new generation of teenagers into accepting "safe sex" as routine practice.

There are women now in their late 30s and early 40s who have NEVER once experienced lovemaking WITHOUT a condom! How sad. Follow the money and who's laughing all the way to the bank? That's right... the condom manufacturers (who have inflated prices about 600% since the AIDS scare started).

I want to state in print that this puritanical backlash has generated a dangerous level of psychopathology amongst the overall human population - which may explain why violence, rape, and sexual murders seem to be dramatically on the rise. More police patrols and electronic surveillance are DEFINITELY not the solution.... and the rapid proliferation of porn sites won't solve the problem either. Indeed, it completely defeats the purpose of healthy erotic practice, which is Nature's most powerful prophylactic. When you're getting well and truly and ecstatically laid (in other words, utterly without fear or guilt) your immune system gets a real shot in the arm. Your hair looks and feels better, and your breath is always fresh. And you regain a wholesome perspective on LIFE... which means you will no longer tolerate any form of external authority. In short, you attain psychic and emotional maturity. I know Wilhelm Reich said pretty much the same thing 80 years ago... and was MURDERED while under custody in a U.S. jail for his efforts to free humanity of its State-induced robotism. Bless you, Willy. Long live the Fourth Reich!!!!

[First posted 3 January 2007, reposted 3 December 2018, 4 December 2019 & 1 December 2021]

REWARD AND PUNISHMENT IN THE FACEBOOK UNIVERSE (repost)

In recent years thousands of Facebook users have experienced being summarily blocked from posting for purportedly infringing something vaguely referenced as “Community Standards.” Initially the block is imposed for 24 hours. For second “offences” the block is extended to three days, then a week. Repeat offenders are blocked a whole month. I don’t know if anyone has ever been blocked for an entire year.

Terminal mammophobia, priggish hysteria induced by the mere sight of female nipples

Facebookers call this sinister form of cyberpunishment “Facebook Jail” and for those who have grown accustomed to the 24/7 flow of virtual chatter and armchair voyeurism that has made Facebook a virtual universe unto itself, being prevented from posting or even liking someone else’s post is an oddly traumatic experience.

Only the easily aroused qualify as
Community Standards enforcers

First, Facebook makes you feel connected to a vast planetary network of other humans, getting your daily dose of dopamine through likes and friendly comments... then, abruptly and without warning, it pulls the plug on you, disconnecting you from the virtual world you’ve grown accustomed to, leaving you mute, separated by an invisible wall, like a ghost.

In effect, being pounced upon by Facebook’s unbelievably prim and prudish censorbots is a painful reminder that we are ultimately powerless against monolithic algorithms generated by faceless, soulless but extremely well-paid nerds who, I wouldn’t be surprised, jerk off to glossy photos of Nurse Ratched (the personification of “community standards” in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest).

The acute sense of frustration, crushing injustice and ultimate futility reduces us to feeling like so many Winston Smith clones sipping on Victory Gin. It reminds us in no uncertain terms that Big Brother is Watching Us and there’s really nowhere to hide, no one to turn to.

Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in Miloš Forman's 1975 film of Ken Kesey's
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

And to rub salt into the psychological wound, there is no appeal to anyone or anything remotely human, even if you submit a request for a review of your punishment. Facebook remains inscrutably Faceless: a cold, impassive stone wall with no beginning and no end. It teases you into typing an explanation or protest into a tiny box on the screen… then disallows you from submitting it, because you have been blocked from posting. It’s the ultimate Catch-22 in Cyberspace. Whoever designed this cruel, tyrannical template must have read everything Franz Kafka ever wrote and then converted to radical Orwellianism.

Meanwhile, the corporate cyborgs at Facebook have been auctioning off our personal data to the highest bidder for years, turning two billion Facebook users into a data goldmine without our knowledge or permission. They are the criminals, not us. They are the ones who totally deserve to be put in jail – analog, not digital!

Antares Maitreya

14 April 2019

[First posted 14 April 2019]

Behold the faceless corporate fascism of Facebook!

The Facebook Inquisition (source unknown)

Just as the calendar rolled into December 1st, 2017, I found myself locked out of Facebook (again!) for posting a link to a book review which happened to contain a slightly ribald but perfectly harmless image - actually very amusing and hardly as objectionable as the many hideously gory images I have seen on my newsfeed.

The censorship happened INSTANTLY (within two seconds of my clicking 'POST') and the psychological effect was akin to a heavily-armed balaclava-clad inquisitorial SWAT team breaking down your front door in the middle of the night (remember that classic Terry Gilliams movie Brazil?). It was a vivid reminder on so many levels of the crazy sci-fi timelines we are all navigating and have been, especially since the end of 2012, some transcendentally numinous and others starkly ominous.

In any case, for a few moments I contemplated the option of simply turning my back on Facebook and using this as an excuse to finally detach from this artificial sense of community we have grown so attached to over the years (it's true there are so many positive features of digital interconnectivity and being part of special-focus Facebook groups, not to mention the comforting sense of being virtually in touch with everyone even if close encounters have become more difficult to manifest).

Then I realized that in actual fact nothing at all had happened. I could simply take a badly needed 4-week vacation from the Facebook Universe or I could get back in with my wife Anoora's account (which I manage, so what if she doesn't have the massive network I enjoy as Antares). As my initial sense of outrage and intense annoyance subsided I became aware that I was in a very strange place - between nowhere and everywhere, between being fully immersed in the hurly-burly world and feeling completely indifferent to any or all outcomes. Sort of like watching a football game on the screen and not bothering which team wins because I have no loyalty to any football club.

21st Century Cyber-Emperor Marcus Zuckerbergus

This can be placed in the general context of my current perspective on everything: I'm tracking developments on many different levels - from energetically supporting the anchoring of the Totally New and Unknown (as is occurring in countless spiritually conscious communities and networks everywhere) to keeping a close eye on the factional warfare that has broken out among the old-school control freaks (whether you call them the Khazarian banksters or Yahwehists or the virus-infected Zombie Apocalypse and the covert agents that have hitherto served as foot-soldiers of the so-called Military-Industrial-Financial-Academic-Religious Complex).

Although essentially an eternal optimist - and all the positive signs are to be found in the growing number of rapidly awakening, self-governing humans I have become increasingly aware of since the advent of the internet - I realize at the same time that the rot may be already too deep for the gentle transition all of us have worked towards; that the sheer inertia of our entrenched habits could be setting up too much resistance for radical transmutation to happen smoothly and painlessly.

And we have witnessed in just the last 6 months how unpredictably aggressive the elements can be when unleashed upon puny human aspirations. Fire, Water, Air or Earth can so easily erase all our fondest dreams built upon countless lifetimes - within hours, even minutes. So as we enter the final months of 2019, all I can say is: "Phew! ... we made it through all the bumpy patches so far ... and each time we successfully navigate the wild weather and scary waves and emerge intact, we gain so much more experience, expertise and maturity as individuals and as a species. It's a good time to relax and not feel so driven, perhaps? Maybe it's true that getting there is what it's actually about, not arriving?

[First posted 3 December 2017]