Distractions

What do I mean by distractions? well I think I mean the kind that are created to stop us from seeing something or to give us something else to do with our time and to direct our energies.

In one of my last posts I mentioned Scientology, I have since spent some time doing some research, looking at both sides, the scientology people themselves and the protestors against it. I didn't want to write anything more on the subject really, I decided that I had done my research and that now I would put that down and get back to other things. However I have found that there have been even more news reports on Scientology popping up lately and I found myself back to reading more about it. I realised that I was in a way I was being distracted from my other research and focusing too much on Scientology, it was so easy to lose myself in the videos and the websites of both for and against and I can't help but wonder if other people are being drawn in to the conflict this way?
I'll admit the whole thing is very intriguing from which ever side you look at.....but and I'm only putting this out there as purely my view on it all....but it's a distraction.
In today's world it is so hard to get by, talk to anyone or just listen to people they are all saying the same thing, things are crazy, we are being beaten down by taxes and prices and we're all getting very angry.

When people get angry they need to vent that anger, just look at the faces of people at a football match, you think that's just their anger about loosing that they're displaying? I think it's one of the reasons sport and most of the entertainment industry are such big things in our lives, if we didn't have these places to vent such energies as anger in a controlled manner we'd end up perhaps venting it through violence. (Of course many people still do that)
So in the case of scientology and the protests that go on around it, I can't help but wonder that perhaps even in part that people are using it as something to direct their anger about how the world is right now. Now I'm not talking about everyone who protests, I understand that there are some people with very good reasons to protest but there are some who I feel are either directing their anger in the wrong direction OR are being given something to direct their anger towards.

The more I look in to such things the more I learn that there are things that are created and staged as a distraction from other issues, be it news about a celebrity wedding with a tiny article hidden at the bottom about ID cards or far more sinister events. If we are distracted by one thing we are blinded to something else.
Although saying that, they are gonna need something pretty spectacular to distract everyone from the fuel prices.

Are you paying to be you?

I really don't understand the need to pay money to a religion, any religion in order to be part of that religion. Religion is surely just your own state of mind? how you see the world and interact with it? I understand why different religions are given different names so that other people can tell who you are. Although that sounds bad, having other people judge you by what religion you choose. I tell people that I believe in nature and in the seasons and in not hurting anyone, just being nice to each other. It doesn't really have a name but I guess it is my religion, I didn't need to pay any money to join it, I don't need to keep paying to learn some new skill or secret. I learn new things from the world every day for free. I don't need a book to tell me about the simple act of noticing the change of the seasons, or about holding an acorn in my hand and knowing that if given the chance it could grow in to a massive tree (That is true magic is it not?). I don't need a rule book to tell me to hold a door open for someone or to help someone carry a bag, I was brought up to be polite and I do that anyway.

I think at some point someone has realised a way to get rich by abusing people who need help, rather than being a nice person and just helping them, they lie to them and tell them that if they pay in to what ever they have set up they will be given help to change their lives.
I saw a wiccan website do just this, you paid for lessons that promised at the end you'd have powers to fix your life, how to avoid evil people and bad luck etc. I believe in magic and in the powers of nature but you really don't need to pay anything for that knowledge. The real power is in us all along, we just need to let ourselves see it and to see the beauty in the world around us and the good that is in every person.
The one thing that we need to know in life is not to hurt anyone or any thing. I know the world doesn't work like that but it would be nice if it did.

One thing though looking in to such things, please, if you are going to join a religion that does require you to pay (it is your choice if you wish to do so) do some research in to it first, look at all sides, good and bad, make up your own mind. Talk to family and friends see what they have to say, you are free to choose for yourself.

IMOGEN HEAP lyrics

Mirror worlds

I joined the internet in 1999 back then when you put in a topic in to a search engine you would find yourself with perhaps a handful of fan made websites, not the half a million you can get now for something like 'Sonic The Hedgehog'. The internet then was made up of small communities, forums and chat rooms where you meet the same people each day (and could actually read all the posts). Comparing this with the real world you could call these villages and towns where you know everyone, where the online stores are small and hand made. I miss those days, where I would spend time in my small community of 100 members, I had my small group of friends or perhaps even an internet family, which I knew I could rely on for support in this strange new world (the internet) I learned a lot from each of them and I still value their friendship.
In a very short time the internet has grown, it now copies our own world, where websites have become vast cities of people, the small stores are gone now to be replaced by massive online supermarkets. People are now just random faces in a crowd, sites like facebook and bebo have created mass-produced poor quality houses (home websites) for us all, where as once people would build their own (mine still stands to this day) and take pride in the learning of how to build it.
If you have been around the internet for a while you will be able to make other parallels between the two worlds that now exist.
The internet has become a mirror image of the real world, however the internet moves much faster than the real world, in 9 years I have seen it grow from the small villages and towns to huge cities of people.
So I can not help but wonder, that perhaps the internet may over take the real world, if the internet mirrors the real world at a faster pace then surely that means that we will see the future of the real world in the internet first?

Origins of good intentions

Scientology has been getting a lot of bad press lately, to be honest I can't say I know all that much about it, I'd come across it now and then but had never really given it much thought until some online friends had begun mentioning it in their art and such.
I'm not going to say anything about what Scientology is as I said I don't know enough about it, however I was intrigued by this one line from it's origins.

"A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology."

Reading a little about it's origins, to be honest saddened me because from what I could see this was a religion that actually sounded like it had high hopes for humanity. In that one line we are given a great deal of good points, I'm all for humanity being able to rise to 'greater heights'.
Again I don't know everything about scientology but from the sounds of it, it's not taking anyone to 'greater heights' or just it's select view at a cost to everyone else.
It makes me wonder how many religions and groups set off with good intentions only to be infiltrated by malicious agendas.

I have heard such things about the freemasons, when you look at the early history it all sounds pretty good to be honest, they were an important group and did have some important secret or knowledge that they were to protect. Sadly however it seems that they were infiltrated too and that secret has been lost leaving the group a mockery of what it once was, it now seems that it is nothing more than a place to keep the well thinking men of this world in their place, the very people that could save it from true evils.
In George Orwell's 1984 the thinkers of the world are keep under control, they are watched 24/7 and any sign of rebellion is quickly dealt with, where as the lower classes of people are left to get on with their lives as it is seen that there would never be any trouble from them.
Free thinkers in this world are always suppressed or removed from the world all together.
Any good ideas or groups are infiltrated and turned in to something black and evil, it's easy to do it that way than fight against them I guess.

I don't think such groups or religions are ever set up to be something that is going to be bad and controlling. I think someone or something finds it's way in to them and twists them in to something they were never meant to be.
I once considered myself to be wiccan, however when I look at websites about being wiccan and am told I need to pass tests to become wiccan I find that a little odd, why do I need to pass a test to prove who I am? Wiccan used to be something you just were, you didn't need a piece of paper to prove it. I think someone has taken this and decided to change it's nature in to something else and I hate where I see it going.
I chose the title 'wiccan' because it felt the closest to what I was, I now know that what I am doesn't need a title, I am what I am and no one can infiltrate that.