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Notes From Gordon ~ Can You Believe This?

Notes From Gordon ~ Can You Believe This?

Gordon Phillips
January 15, 2024

Can You Believe This?

First, a word from some preeminent thinkers on the subject of belief.

"The only real tyrants that humanity has known have always been... the illusions it has forged for itself. The philosophic absurdity that often marks general beliefs has never been an obstacle to their triumph." — Gustave LeBon in "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind" (1895)

"Scientific societies are as yet in their infancy… It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have even in totalitarian countries… education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished… and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible.” — Bertrand Russell (1953)

"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is right." — George W. Bush, 43rd President of these hear United States

Gordon resuming…

I created the acronym G.R.I.D. many years ago to refer to Government, Religion, Illness and Debt as the four major centers of mind control.

Beliefs generated in these four quadrants have been controlling the minds of humankind and keeping us suppressed as a species since the dawn of recorded history.

My intent in creating the G.R.I.D. was to go beyond the Matrix metaphor.

If you can catch bullets in mid-air, you can escape the Matrix.

But to escape the G.R.I.D. you’d have to leave the planet.

Which begs asking, what does it mean to be in control of our own mind?

I’m referring to those beliefs that we each hold to be true and deeply valuable—beliefs that have been implanted in our minds since childhood.

To see these beliefs questioned would likely feel deeply unpleasant.

You might resent someone for even questioning your beliefs, perhaps to the point of anger.

But to see them disproven?

That would be unthinkable.

Here is a good question to ask yourself when you get a quiet moment.

“On a sliding spectrum between belief and reality, where is the point in my mind where belief ends and reality begins?”

Many believe what they believe because their parents believed the same things too; or because they were told what to believe by authority figures whom they deemed to be, well, authoritative.

But this can be tricky, especially if relying on historical documents that were generated by the very same parties who want you to embrace the beliefs that those documents contain.

You can see what a recursive paradox this creates.

Because it is often the case that the deepest of believers have done little to no intellectual work to validate those beliefs that they hold most dear, the sliding scale between belief and reality is shifted far towards the former since belief requires no heavier lifting than the willingness to believe, whereas it can take many years and thousands of hours of reading and research to get to the truth of anything—to either confirm or disprove one’s former beliefs.

The reader might well ask, what difference does it all make?

Can’t a person believe whatever they want to believe, so long as those beliefs don’t lead to harming another person, encroaching on their property or violating their rights?

Certainly, I would have no argument with that.

You do believe me, don’t you?

KEY POINT: But what if some of the biggest concepts and all-encompassing understandings that a person holds about government, religion, history, politics, economics, science and philosophy turn out to be partially untrue or, worse, totally false, such that their beliefs on these subjects become mental manacles that lock their mind into modes of behavior that cause them to surrender their rights and become a slave to the creators of their beliefs?

If you were to discover that parties unknown had control of your mind with regard to the beliefs that you hold most dear, what would it mean to your sense of sanity, of reality and of overall well being?

I apologize if this is getting a little ‘heavy.’

It certainly felt that way to me 40 years ago when I started heading down this path.

Along the way I encountered countless historical figures whom I had been told to respect, venerate and even worship.

The problem with reading thousands of scholarly books that explore the history that really happened is that you come away with a profound and highly-pixelated understanding of how the world really works.

You end up learning things that often revise, or even reverse, your previously held beliefs and perspectives, including about some of the most famous people in history.

Here, in no particular order, are a few who come to mind.

Aristotle, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., The Dalai Lama, Lee Harvey Oswald, Thomas Edison, Dwight Eisenhower, Rosa Parks, Walter Cronkite, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Franklin Roosevelt, Paul McCartney, Barack Obama, Osama Bin Laden, Ronald Reagan.

We have been taught so many things about these people that are not true that one scarcely knows where to begin.

Which begs asking, if every adult alive were more skeptical, more intellectually honest and more diligent about discovering the facts behind some of the biggest cultural lies, legendary figures and ingrained beliefs, would we have a populace more inclined to defend its rights, or less?