We're Still Living In The Dark Ages

We’re Still Living In The Dark Ages

Mainstream history tells us that the Dark Ages began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and continued until the Renaissance. Since then, the light returned to Earth and now we surpass the ancients in all forms of knowledge. The reality is that the Dark Ages never ended. We surpassed the ancients in some ways, but in others we still lag far behind.

The usual reason we’re given for the Dark Ages occurring is the Christian conquest of the Western Roman Empire.

Being unintelligent and superstitious, the Christians destroyed as much of the existing Greco-Roman culture as they could. They burned every text, sacked every temple and slaughtered every hierophant they could get their hands on. This plunged Europe into a dark age of ignorance and intellectual destitution.

Fortunately, much of the ancient Greco-Roman learning was preserved elsewhere, such as in Persia. Over time, this filtered back into Europe, kickstarting the Renaissance in medieval Italy. Mainstream history has it that once the Renaissance began, we soon caught up to – and then surpassed – the level of knowledge possessed by the ancients.

The usual story has it that we recovered all of the lost knowledge by about 1600 A.D., around the time that Copernicus published his heliocentric theory. The truth is that the Christian Dark Ages brought with them a loss of spiritual knowledge that has still not been recovered. The spiritual sophistication of the Greco-Roman world has never again been reached.

Central to this superior spiritual knowledge were the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were practiced in Greece since before antiquity. For two thousand years, people from around Greece would converge upon Eleusis, a town near Athens, and get initiated into a secret society that taught the occult truths of human existence.

Foremost of these truths was the teaching that life continues after the death of the physical body. This teaching broke the chains of gold that bind people to materialism, liberating their minds as well as their bodies. This liberation resulted in the Greek Golden Age, a time which produced luminaries such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexander.

The truths of the Eleusinian Mysteries were taught in the form of lectures, but the participants were first made amenable to learning spiritual truths through drinking a psychedelic potion known as the kykeon. The recipe for the kykeon is now lost, but researchers believe that it either contained a psychedelic similar to LSD grown on wheat, or psilocybin from magic mushrooms (or both).

Christians destroyed the Mysteries at the end of the 4th century, by slaughtering the priests and sacking the temples. This heralded the beginning of the Dark Ages, when ignorance reigned and cognitive liberty was smashed down to the absolute minimum. It would be some 1,200 years of intellectual night before the Renaissance was in full swing.

Today, Western countries are still under the influence of that ghastly Christian superstition which considers spiritual sacraments to be “drugs” that intoxicate people. The modern West, soaked through with Abrahamic sentiment, does not see any difference between psilocybin mushrooms and heroin or methamphetamine.

All are classified in the same category in almost every Western country: extremely dangerous drugs with no medicinal value. Their use as spiritual sacraments is contemptuously denied. There is no such thing as spirituality, our political and intellectual leaders tell us. Those who speak of such things are mentally ill weaklings who can’t handle reality.

As a consequence, we have fallen into the coal-black darkness of materialism. The vast majority of people in today’s West are materialists who believe that the brain generates consciousness, and that consciousness is extinguished with the death of the brain. This empty, nihilistic outlook causes them to live as if animals, without a divine spark: psychopathic.

All this is proof that the Dark Ages never really ended.

We’re still benighted, we’re still trapped in a state of spiritual ignorance, disconnected from God. The results are seen everywhere – the soulless consumerism that has replaced genuine joy, the flickering screens that have replaced community, the empty superstitious gestures that have replaced genuine spirituality, the howling depression that sees a quarter of us forced to take psychiatric medicines just to survive.

Two things must happen before these Dark Ages, which have endured for 1,600 years already, can be ended.

The first is the complete eradication of the Abrahamic cults of hate. No quarter may be given to any of them. They have to be eliminated root and branch. This means destroying every Abrahamic holy place and every copy of their evil scriptures, and, if necessary, imprisoning those who continue to promulgate the cults.

The Abrahamic cults cannot be tolerated because of their deranged compulsion to destroy all genuine spiritual traditions. As soon as Abrahamists take power anywhere, they immediately start destroying the spiritual traditions of the culture they have subjugated. They still work today, in every Western nation, to persecute users of spiritual sacraments. This level of intolerance has to be reciprocated in the name of self-defence.

The second is the revival of genuine spiritual tradition. The Eleusinian Mysteries must be reinstated, whether in Eleusis or elsewhere. This will necessitate firstly the training of a new priesthood, who will not only have mastered the mystic teachings, but will be able to initiate other people into their secrets. It will also necessitate that the priests discover how to recreate the kykeon.

With a revived mystical tradition of initiation into the psychedelic mysteries, spiritual enlightenment will return to Earth and begin to spread. Something this excellent will soon become fashionable, and, once the world’s elites come to regularly participate, its popularity will herald the end of our current spiritual Dark Age and the advent of a new Golden Age.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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National Cannot Win While They Oppose Cannabis Law Reform

The latest Reid Research poll was a disaster for the National Party. They hit their lowest polling numbers since the 2017 General Election, a dismal 25.1 percent. This result raised fears of an electoral humiliation like 2002. In order to avoid this, National will have to convince the electorate that they have learned the lessons of the past.

The Labour Party scored over 60% in the Reid Research poll, an incredible result less than two months out from a General Election. Unless there are major changes in sentiment between now and then, a second term for the Sixth Labour Government is all but assured. The same poll also suggested that Jacinda Ardern is seen as a much more competent leader than Judith Collins.

The reason why Labour and Ardern are doing so well is primarily because of their leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. It might sound simple, but when faced with a medical crisis, Ardern’s Labour listened to the scientists. The spread of an infectious virus is too complicated a subject to be understood by someone with a public relations degree, so they listened to people with medical degrees.

It does sound simple, but it’s not always that case that politicians follow the advice of relevant experts. Often they put political considerations ahead of reality.

It’s impossible to know whether a Judith Collins-led National Party would have listened to the scientists on the matter of COVID-19. What we do know is that she is currently completely ignoring the scientists on the matter of cannabis law reform. This attitude does not inspire confidence.

The scientists have been saying, for many years now, that the medicinal properties of cannabis are sufficiently well understood to know that the plant is not dangerous if used correctly. Even when used irresponsibly, it’s not worth locking people in cages over. The danger comes from prohibition, which creates a black market with no quality control.

The National Party has resolutely ignored these experts, opting instead for the politics of hate that served the Fourth and Fifth National Governments so well. National has always known that a large proportion of crusty old Boomers hate cannabis users and are happy to see the law destroy them. It is to them that Collins is signalling when she supports prohibition.

The problem for National is that many of those people are now dead.

It’s not the 1990s anymore. Opposing cannabis law reform has always been wrong, but in the 1990s it looked prudent. Back then, there was so little available science that it made some sense to err on the side of caution. Cannabis was always medicinal, but in the absence of a body of empirical evidence precisely detailing its effects, it seemed wise not to open the floodgates.

By 2020, opposing cannabis law reform seems pointlessly antagonistic and vindictive. Today there’s ample evidence that, not only is cannabis not really harmful, it’s a beneficial medicine to a great many people. It’s clear now that cannabis prohibition achieved nothing but cause misery to the many people who needed it to alleviate suffering.

If the National Party would change their approach on cannabis, from a “punishment and pain” model to one that put business interests first, they could win back a lot of the centrist voters that they have lost since the previous election. Abandoning their commitment to cannabis prohibition would signal that National is letting go of old prejudices and is ready to move forwards.

Already, some 67% of Americans want legal cannabis, and more Australians want it than don’t want it. Cannabis law reform in New Zealand is inevitable – National will not win another General Election while they oppose it. If they were smart, they’d steal a bunch of centrist voters off Labour by coming out in support of it today.

Vince McLeod is the author of The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, the comprehensive collection of arguments for ending cannabis prohibition.

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Paula Bennett’s Cannabis Stance Emblematic Of National’s Failure

Yesterday’s Reid Research poll suggested complete and utter failure for the National Party in this September’s election. Most media commentators rushed to congratulate Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party, and suggested that their steady hand during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic was the reason for the good polling. The alternative explanation, as this essay will explore, is that National are shit.

The poll suggested that Labour is currently favoured to win 56% of the vote at the next general election. This would only be a fraction lower than what the African National Congress won in last year’s general election in South Africa, a country often criticised for being a one-party state. It’s a triumphant poll for Labour supporters; their opposition lies scattered and disorganised.

Predictably, most National supporters reacted by bleating about how Reid Research was in Ardern’s back pocket and how everything will be different once the economic effects of the lockdowns are more widely understood. But it won’t be. The fact is that the country has fundamentally lost confidence in the current National leadership.

This magazine reminded everyone last year, in response to increased complaining about the human rights abuses committed by the Sixth Labour Government, that Labour were only in power because National were shit. The Fifth National Government had unmistakably demonstrated its indifference to the suffering of New Zealand’s working class and younger generations, and, subsequently, Winston Peters went with Labour after the 2017 General Election.

Nothing has changed on National’s part.

Deputy Leader Paula Bennett has announced that she’ll be voting to keep putting cannabis users in cages this September. She isn’t bothered that cannabis prohibition costs the taxpayer $400,000,000 a year to enforce, or that it causes great suffering to many of her fellow citizens for no justifiable reason. She wants to charge on with cannabis prohibition as if we’ve learned nothing at all from the past 45 years of failure.

This position is a microcosm of National’s failings.

We tried the politics of cruelty for nine years – the term of the Fifth National Government. We saw John Key and then Bill English sit on their arses as medicinal cannabis was legalised across the world, leaving desperate Kiwis to suffer needlessly. They wasted some $3,600,000,000 on enforcing cannabis prohibition during their term, with nothing to show for it at the end.

During those nine years, we saw the suicide rate climb as the mental health system was pared down to the bare bones. Banking and finance interests grew fat and wealthy, while working New Zealanders were driven first into debt and then to the wall. The National Party rejected all pleas for relief with the same contemptuous indifference that the previous National Government had shown.

By 2017, New Zealanders decided that they’d had enough cruelty. National lost so much support that they lost their grip on power, and Winston Peters dealt the killing blow. It seems that National didn’t learn much from this, however. They have continued to campaign for a kick in the guts to all the usual victims.

Bennett’s position on cannabis shows that National still don’t give a fuck at all. They don’t give a fuck about science, or evidence, or what’s happening with cannabis law reform overseas. They’re just drifting along, in their own little bubble, as if it were still the 1990s.

Things were different in the 1990s. The Fourth National Government passed a Budget in 1991 that left the children of poor families to go hungry, and were rewarded. Kiwis didn’t care about hungry kids then, so we voted National back into power – twice. In the 1990s, we didn’t give a fuck either. But we do now (at least generally speaking).

New Zealand, and the world, have moved on from beggar thy neighbour politics, but the current National leadership has been slow to see it.

Today’s National Party are so out of touch with the average New Zealander that they might as well have a Deputy Leader who wants to put homosexuals in cages. Bennett’s position on cannabis is ludicrous in the light of existing evidence. The electorate inevitably punishes someone holding antiquated positions, and cannabis prohibition is an antiquated method of dealing with cannabis misuse.

To be in favour of cannabis prohibition today is to deny reality. A person is insane if they think that, by using the criminal justice system to put cannabis users in cages, the Government decreases the sum total of human suffering. Kiwi voters can sense this, and so they have overwhelmingly chosen to support the opposition.

The National Party needs to move away from the politics of hate that have characterised it in recent decades, and accept that policies like cannabis prohibition belong in history’s garbage can. This might necessitate a clearout of their current leadership. Nikki Kaye has previously demonstrated a 21st Century approach to cannabis law reform, and the electorate might reward this good sense over what Bridges and Bennett are offering.

Vince McLeod is the author of The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, the comprehensive collection of arguments for ending cannabis prohibition.

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They Want To Cause Suffering To People They Hate

The latest cannabis referendum poll suggests that 54% of New Zealanders will vote ‘Yes’ in the referendum on September 19. According to the poll, there are significant differences in levels of support for the referendum between supporters of the various parties. Some people have found this hard to explain. For their benefit, this essay elucidates.

Paul Manning, Chief Executive of Helius Therapeutics, asked the question “What do they want?” in response to the news that many elderly and conservative voters plan to vote against the cannabis referendum. He points out that these people understand that cannabis is widely available and that cannabis prohibition is not working. So why do they support it?

The reason why most elderly and conservative voters intend to vote ‘No’ is because they hate the sort of person who uses cannabis and they want to cause them suffering. This might sound uncharitable, or even cynical, but it has to be understood that most elderly and conservative Kiwis are twisted creatures of hate.

For their entire lives, this generation of New Zealanders has been exposed to propaganda inducing them to hate cannabis users. Ever since the 1930s, when Reefer Madness came out, popular culture has normalised the idea that cannabis users are depraved, anti-social maniacs. This propaganda has had the intended effect on the elderly of the West, who mostly swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

This anti-cannabis propaganda stems from two main sources, both of which hate cannabis for its ability to induce free thinking.

The first is the Church, who have always hated freethinkers because freethinkers question religious dogma. For centuries, the Church has relied on the acquiescence of its subjects in order to brainwash them. Freethinkers were the enemy because they threatened this acquiescence, and thereby Church control – this is why the Church has always persecuted them, going back to the murder of Hypatia and beyond.

The second is the Government, which wants a compliant population of submissive worker drones. Their ideal citizen is one with an IQ of 90, who goes to work everyday and produces widgets or basic services without ever complaining. As far as the Government is concerned, they are running a tax farm, and their chief concern is to milk the livestock as profitably as possible. The last thing that want is someone rocking the boat with free thought.

The elderly have internalised almost a century of this propaganda. As such, they genuinely believe that cannabis users are dangerous radicals who threaten to destroy the foundations of society itself, and who therefore deserve all the abuse they get. This hatred, in their minds, justifies cannabis prohibition.

In America, it was admitted that the purpose of the War on Drugs was to smash people they hated. John Ehrlichman, aide to Richard Nixon during the latter’s presidency, admitted that the purpose of the War on Drugs was to target anti-war hippies and black people. In an interview with Harper Magazine, Ehrlichman is quoted as saying:

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Although it hasn’t been admitted, the same calculus applies in New Zealand.

There are almost no blacks in New Zealand, but elderly and conservative New Zealanders hate Maoris just as much as their American counterparts hate blacks. Elderly and conservative New Zealanders also hate hippies, who they associate with Communism and with the free and honest sex lives they wish they had had.

It’s well known that Maoris are strong supporters of cannabis law reform – the correlation between being Maori and voting for the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party in 2017 was a whopping 0.91. The reason for this immensely strong support is because Maoris are adversely affected by cannabis prohibition to a much greater degree than other New Zealanders.

However, this disproportionate harm is considered a good thing by many elderly and conservative New Zealanders. They see Maoris as the enemy anyway – a thieving, bludging, ungrateful, violent enemy – so if cannabis prohibition harms them, that’s a good thing.

These elderly and conservative New Zealanders also hate other cannabis using demographics, such as young people, artists, hippies and freethinkers. Elderly and conservative New Zealanders do plenty of drugs, but their drugs are sedatives, alcohol and opiates. Cannabis prohibition doesn’t target them.

This hate is why arguments appealing to the suffering caused by cannabis prohibition often have no effect. Most elderly or conservative voters think “Cannabis users are suffering? Good! Smash them, crush them, destroy them. Ruin their lives with a criminal conviction. Imprison them so their kids can’t see them. They are the enemy and should be obliterated!”

The psychiatric damage caused to cannabis users by arresting and imprisoning them is considered a bonus by these people. Appealing to the cruelty of it makes as much sense, to elderly and conservative voters, as appealing to the cruelty of shooting the enemy soldiers on the other side of the battlefield. Of course it’s cruel, that’s the point.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution to the presence of this malicious streak in New Zealand’s elderly and conservative voters. Hatred is a deep emotion – usually too deep to be influenced by reason. The sight of intelligent young people like Chloe Swarbrick speaking eloquently merely aggravates the elderly and conservative, and further entrenches their prejudice.

At the end of the day, young Kiwis and Maoris can take solace in the fact that the old bastards who hate them are dying off. No amount of hate can stop the aging process, and the old bigots will lose their ability to influence the law once Time puts them in the ground. Absent measures such as forcing the elderly to surrender their voting rights in exchange for a pension, that will have to do.

Vince McLeod is the author of The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, the comprehensive collection of arguments for ending cannabis prohibition.

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