philosophy – Page 104

Esoteric Aotearoanism

If the Spear of Destiny ever comes to New Zealand, we ought to be ready to receive it. To that end, we can act to attract it, by employing the Law of Attraction. We can do that by promoting a cultural movement that recognised the excellence of New Zealand and our future greatness. This essay describes a mystical tradition that could serve these ends: Esoteric Aotearoanism.

Elementary alchemy has it that if one combines masculine and feminine in the right manner, one achieves a combination that is greater than the mere sum of its parts. By combining the feminine clay and the masculine iron, it’s possible to get silver, an element neither feminine nor masculine but somehow both, and not just both but the correct proportion of both.

This is represented in Taoism by the Taijitu, which combines the white yang and the black yin to create a shape that has a life of its own, one that tells a story. The energy, light and life of the yang projects itself into the darkness of the yin, which in turn follows the yang in devotion. The result is a spiral that turns for eternity.

Esoteric Aotearoanism tells a similar story. This story is represented in the flag of Esoteric Aotearoanism, which consists of three vertical stripes: the leftmost white, the rightmost black, and the central one silver. It is crucial to note here that the central band is silver, and not grey, because the combination of the two parts has created something more valuable than their mere summation.

The opening degree of Esoteric Aotearoanism is that the Esoteric Aotearoan flag represents the nation of New Zealand in the Kiwi people.

The white is yang, which represents the British. This is not just because the British are white, but also because they are orderly. The British came from the West and therefore the leftmost third of the flag is white. It is from there that the energy and organisation to create the institutions of New Zealand came.

The black is yin, which represents the Maoris. As with the British, this does not simply reflect skin colour, but rather a vital, invigorating passion. Because the Maoris come from the East, the black occupies the rightmost third of the flag. It is from there that the soul of the nation comes, and how we get direction to differentiate ourselves from the globohomo masses (and from Australia in particular).

The silver stripe represents New Zealand, the space where those two ingredients meet, and where they combine to become something more valuable than either. The yang is bright but unyielding; the yin is gentle but dull. Together they are colourful, and shine as silver. As silver is more valuable than either iron or clay, so too is the combination of British and Maori more valuable than either alone.

The silver stripe also represents those who have come together under the silver fern, because they have acted to create something that is greater than either the British or the Maori components. It signifies that what we have of greatest value is that which comes from the land here. It’s not what we imported from Britain or from Polynesia – it’s what we have created ourselves here, according to the direction of our own wills and of the spirit of the nation.

It’s also a reminder that our future lies in the unity of these two forces.

Sir Apirana Ngata hinted at Esoteric Aoteraroanism being the way forward when he said:

Ko to ringa ki ngā rakau a te Pākehā

Ko to ngakau ki nga taonga a o tipuna Māori

Ko tō wairua ki to Atua

In English this means “Your hands to the tools of the Pakeha, your heart to the treasures of your Maori ancestors, your spirit to God.” The sentiment behind this was that we ought to take the best of both worlds. Both the Maori and the European world brought things that were good and things that were bad. We can take the best of both, and leave the worst of both.

This leads naturally into the teaching of the second degree of Esoteric Aotearoanism, in which the various qualities contributed by the British and the Maori are mapped onto the four masculine elements.

The clay represents the Maori. This is because he is vital and passionate, but has a dark side of sometimes expressing unrestrained violence. He is soft and likes to share, but this can sometimes lead to a lack of discipline.

The iron represents the Briton. This is because he is hard and disciplined, but has a dark side of sometimes being cruel. He is orderly but can sometimes be hard-headed, unforgiving and pedantic.

The silver also represents the Briton (this conception of silver is related to, but separate from, the conception of silver in the first degree). This is because his scientific and technological prowess made it possible for New Zealand to become wealthy and prosperous, and for us to defend ourselves without need for submission.

The gold also represents the Maori. Like the clay, the Maori is soft, but he is also colourful. This represents spirituality and an understanding of the world beyond. The Briton is intelligent but he is spiritually ignorant. The realm of gold is where New Zealanders connect to God, and the Maoris, particularly those with an enthusiasm for cannabis or psilocybe wereroa, have a vital role to play here.

Esoteric Aotearoanism considers it a tragedy for a Kiwi to identify as either a white person or a Maori. This would be like denying one of your parents. It’s a small-minded and petty thing to do. That sort of solipsistic narcissism will lead to the nation tearing itself apart down the centre. To identify as one and repudiate the other is an idiocy that is promoted by the enemies of this nation.

In reality, Kiwis are already so intermixed that as many as a quarter of us are some kind of Northern European-Polynesian hybrid. It is this sort of person – not Maoris – that is unique to these isles, the true tangata whenua. There are Europeans in Europe and Polynesians in the Pacific, but only in New Zealand can those who are a mix of the two truly say that they have a home.

This leads onto the third degree of Esoteric Aotearoanism, which deals with the future of the two contributors to Aotearoa. The fact is that white people and Maoris are interbreeding at an extremely high rate, and therefore will eventually mix into one people, who are not separated by category but only by degree. Even then, it will not be a degree of value but simply a degree of proportion of yin or yang.

This people will be a true Kiwi people, and they will best be able to channel the best of the yang and the best of the yin to create something truly precious. Many of them will be among the most excellent individuals on Earth on account of hybrid vigour. There are already plenty of examples of this, such as Buck Shelford, Shane Bond, Michael Jones and (allegedly) Dan Carter.

In all, Esoteric Aotearoanism is a new narrative for a new century, one that repudiates the nation fighting against itself, and one that encourages the nation coming together to embellish the strengths and ameliorate the weaknesses of its constituent parts. This is a narrative that, if supported, can bring peace and prosperity to all Kiwis.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 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 2017 is also available.

The Satanism to Luciferianism Pipeline

Some attention has been given recently to the “Libertarianism to Fascism pipeline”. This concept has it that adopting libertarianism causes many people to eventually adopt fascism. As this essay will examine, a similar pipeline exists from Satanism to Luciferianism, and for similar reasons.

The basic theory goes like this: libertarianism attracts people who are already a bit weird. Often these people are disaffected in some way, and don’t feel represented by the mainstream conservative and mainstream social democrat movements. The article linked in the opening paragraph calls them “kooks and grifters”, and while we wouldn’t go that far, there’s a kernel of truth in that.

If a person intuitively feels that the system is fucked, or that popular culture is meaningless, or that the mainstream media is full of lies, or that society is just a big zoo/prison/slave plantation/mental asylum, they are very likely to start identifying as an outsider. It’s not easy to watch the majority of people obsess over things that have no value to oneself, and anyone with any real spirit soon comes to reject it completely.

But standing aside from the herd like this is inherently difficult for a creature that has evolved to be social.

This leads to a filtering process, in which the people who become libertarian are not representative of the general population. They start to become comfortable with the idea of being outsiders, and may even identify with being an outsider or an opponent to society. From there, it’s a matter of small steps through ever more fringe political ideologies, until one arrives at fascism.

Satanism also attracts people who are a bit weird. Mainstream culture is still very much Christian, with opening prayers to the Christian God a lingering feature of many English-speaking legislatures. Christian morality is still embedded in many facets of our societies, particularly when it comes to laws relating to personal liberty. It’s difficult to speak of God without the assumption being made that you are referring to the masculine God of Abraham.

This means that people who come together in the name of Satanism are, much like libertarians, gathering on the basis of being outsiders. Their love of drugs, taboo thought or sexual exploration could have brought them there, or perhaps it was a refusal to submit to the overbearing social pressure. In any case, they have rejected the mainstream narrative.

When there is a large enough movement of Satanists who have rejected the mainstream narrative, there starts to form a movement within this movement that rejects some of the tenets of Satanism. Not all of them, but just some. A small number of people start to feel that Satanism is falling at the second hurdle, and replacing one set of unnecessary problems with another.

Most of these people go back to being ordinary plebs, and surrender to The Machine. A minority of them, however, find themselves desiring a more refined form of Satanism.

Satanism is a perfectly fine philosophy – for a materialist. Its admonitions against harming animals or small children make it morally superior to the Abrahamic cults, and its declaration that stupidity is the lowest of all vices provides a genuine path forward for lost people. Most people are materialists – at least nowadays – so for most people, this is enough. But for some, it is not.

Over time, some of these disaffected Satanists find themselves drifting into Luciferianism. If a Satanist is intelligent enough, they will soon realise that Satanic solutions, while immensely gratifying, are not very fulfilling. The promise of inner peace offered by Luciferianism then starts to become appealing.

There is a sense in which Satanism could be said to be an exoteric equivalent to the esotericism of Luciferianism. This is very similar to how other religions have an exoteric component that attracts ordinary people, and an esoteric component for those who are true seekers. The Satanism to Luciferianism pipeline, therefore, is powered by multiple causes.

Note that this in no way implies that most Luciferians come to their position through Satanism. As Jiddu Krishnamurti, one of the most exalted of light-bearers, reminded us: “The truth is a pathless land”. The potential avenues that lead people to Luciferianism are more multifarious than all of the different human lives ever lived. A grounding in Satanism is not a prerequisite to grasping Luciferianism.

The fact remains, however, that both Satanists and Luciferians are adversaries to mainstream people, in the same way that Satan and Lucifer are two faces of the adversary. This means that the two have very much in common. Both share a profound contempt for stupidity, but the Luciferian finds more disgust in wilful stupidity than the ordinary kind.

Many people find themselves turning to Satanism out of rebellion against the moral values that are pushed on them by the Church, by the Government and by society. Most of these people find their needs for rebellion and group identity satisfied by such an action. For a very select few, however, it will be necessary to go further, to see the world beyond.

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

The Case For Cannabis: The Punishment Does Not Fit the Crime

Proportional sentencing is supposed to be a fundamental tenet of our justice system. When a person causes suffering to another, they are given a proportionate amount of suffering intended to discourage: we are told that “the punishment should fit the crime”. As this article will argue, the punishment for cannabis offences is not commensurate with the nature of the crime.

The maximum penalty for possession of cannabis is three months imprisonment, as established by Section 7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. Most Kiwis can intuitively understand that this is massively disproportionate to any harm caused by the act of cannabis possession, but this law is on the books, and has been for over 40 years without being repealed.

Some might counter here with the fact that essentially no-one gets sentenced to prison for cannabis possession nowadays. This counter-argument misses two essential points.

The first is obvious: if no-one goes to prison for cannabis possession anymore, on account of that society has “moved on” and no longer considers cannabis possession a crime, then it’s an obsolete law. If it’s an obsolete law, then we ought to strike it from the books.

The second is that people still go to prison for cannabis cultivation, which is not any more of a crime than cannabis possession is. Brian Borland was given four years and nine months imprisonment for unrepentantly growing cannabis – an incredible punishment if one considers that no-one was harmed by his actions.

Some people were outraged by the sentence given to Devonte Mulitalo, an Auckland youth worker who groomed and sexually assaulted a 12-year old girl, coercing her to perform sex acts on him. He was given ten months home detention. Many thought this sentence was too light, and in comparison to Borland’s sentence it seems obscene.

Takaka resident Alicia Fulcher-Poole was given three and half years in prison for killing someone while driving high on methamphetamine. It’s incredible that reckless disregard for human life resulting in a death can receive a less severe penalty from the system than growing a medicine without permission. But this is the state of our “justice” system.

It’s apparent to almost everyone that 52 months imprisonment for growing cannabis is a ludicrously disproportionate punishment, when the total suffering caused by growing cannabis is compared to the suffering caused by killing someone through reckless use of a motor vehicle. Even if one assumes the most uncharitable interpretation of Borland’s motives, he didn’t kill anyone.

Borland’s sentence was getting up towards the maximum end of the scale, which is seven years imprisonment. This is a heavier sentence than the sentences that are routinely given out for killing people in motor vehicle accidents.

Moreover, the effect of having a criminal record lasts longer than the sentence, and sometimes much longer. Branding someone a criminal – even if there is such as thing as the Clean Slate Act – is to consign them to a lower class of citizen, one that is precluded from many opportunities that normal people take for granted.

Even a measly cannabis possession conviction is enough to prevent someone from being allowed to enter a variety of countries, most notoriously America. Neither will it be straightforward to work as a Police officer, teacher or other Government employee. This is a heavy, heavy punishment just for being caught in possession of a medicinal flower.

This loss of travel and employment opportunity is enough to significantly lower the quality of a person’s life. Getting involved with cannabis should never mean that a person is consigned to live as a lower class of citizen for the rest of their lives. This is a level of arbitrary cruelty that borders on barbarism.

Cannabis prohibition should be lifted because it’s not right to have such brutal punishments for actions that do not cause suffering. It makes a mockery of the supposed proportionality of the justice system. Using the criminal justice system to deal with cannabis is an absurd over-reaction to something that doesn’t harm others.

This article is an excerpt from The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, compiled by Vince McLeod and due for release by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2018/19.

The Two Fundamental Political Questions

There are a myriad of political questions under discussion, and every day that goes by there are more. All of these questions have contributed to a state of confusion. This essay seeks to cut through it, by arguing that all of those questions fundamentally boil down to two interdependent ones: Who and How Much?

Politics exists in other mammals, in particular primates, and could be said to be a cultural method of minimising violence in the distribution of resources. It’s a way of deciding who gets what, and who goes without. The first fundamental question of politics, then, is: “Who is part of the ingroup?”

All political arrangements are a way of reaching the most satisfying arrangement for the group. In cases where it’s clear who is in the group and who isn’t, such arrangements are simple. The practical reality, however, is that it’s very difficult to draw clear and distinct lines between who belongs and who does not.

It’s an easy question to answer when the subject is a family. This group derives from the strongest bond of solidarity that exists: that between mother and child. The members of the group are therefore the mother and children, plus the father, plus the parents (especially the maternal grandmother).

When it’s an extended family, or a village, it’s also easy to answer. It’s when the group size starts to exceed Dunbar’s Number that problems start to arise. Dunbar’s Number is an ethological rule of thumb that posits the breakdown of social structure once the size of the group exceeds about 150. This number is an estimation of the number of meaningful social connections a person can maintain.

Once you have a group that exceeds this, like a town, city-state or kingdom, then it becomes impossible for individuals to remember enough social connections for them to recognise every person they meet. This means that individuals start to encounter strangers. This is an everyday concept for us, but only because we are civilised – in the biological past, encounters between strangers frequently resulted in violence.

To circumvent this violence, lines were drawn to clearly delineate who was part of the ingroup and who was not. Another way to ask the first of the two fundamental political questions is, therefore: “Who counts as ‘us’, and who counts as ‘them’?”. As will be shown, this question is interdependent with the second.

The second fundamental political question is: “What does it mean to be ‘us’ and ‘them’?” Once you have a group, it then becomes a matter of what the members of the group are willing to do for each other. Are they willing to die for each other, or do they merely extend a slight favouritism sometimes?

Viewed another way, the second fundamental political question is one of solidarity. How much solidarity do members of this group have for one another? If they have high levels of solidarity, the group could be a fearsome political or military force in their region, or upon the world stage. If they have low levels of solidarity, then the name of the group might be something of a joke.

From looking at the consequences of the various ways of answering these two questions, two laws of group psychology become evident.

The first is: the larger the ingroup, the weaker the bonds of solidarity. As mentioned above, the strongest bonds are between mother and child, followed by the wider family bonds. Tribal bonds are also very strong, but once the group becomes larger than 150, bonds begin to weaken appreciably. When the group becomes too big, ingroup members start being treated as strangers. Then, new ingroups form.

The second law is: the more diversity within the ingroup, the weaker the bonds of solidarity. At one extreme is the example of a family. Such a group will co-operate so closely that individuals are happy to make extreme sacrifices for each other. At the other extreme would be a group that was comprised of one half Nazis and the other half Communists. Such a group will tear itself apart in short order.

The inverse relationship between diversity and wealth within a nation is established: the more diverse a nation, the poorer it tends to be. The reason why is clear if one considers that the most important factor in national wealth is the human capital of the workers. It costs money to make an investment in the human capital of the young, and people are less willing to pay to make that investment the less they have in common with those young people.

A loss of solidarity with increasing diversity can also be observed by comparing the nature of society in Scandinavia or Japan with society in America or Brazil. In the former countries, people are generally happy to pay taxes because they believe those taxes will help people like them. Their answer to the second fundamental political question is that there ought to be strong bonds of solidarity within a nation, like an extended family, and their answer to the first is that who constitutes ‘us’ needs to be tightly controlled.

The two fundamental political questions are therefore interrelated. The first question determines the answers to the second question, and vice-versa. It is impossible to decide how much solidarity one should have for other group members until you know who is in the group, and it’s impossible to decide who should be in the group until you decide how much solidarity is expected of each member.

But until those questions are answered, it’s impossible to decide any other question. A person’s position on issues such as how much tax to pay, what social services should be covered, immigration, defence and more, are all functions of their positions on these two fundamental political questions. Until you know who counts as ‘us’ and what that entails, it’s impossible to decide anything else.