"Decolonizing Humanity by Reconnecting with the Earth" Emergence Theory and Social Engineering (incl. full "Overpopulation Myth" lecture: Hans Rosling)

Quote: " 

Colonization has not only disconnected us from nature, it has disconnected us from our True Selves

During a recent speaking tour in his homeland of South Africa, the Creative Director of Starseed Gardens, Dan Schreiber shared insight into the theme of “decolonization” as a pathway to bring contemporary culture back into direct connection and experience of our own true nature.

There was a story told by the Gnostics of how Aeon Sophia, the Goddess who created the earth, loved this particular creative project so much that she became the Earth. So, to the cultures pre-Christianity and pre-monotheism, the Earth was a living, sacred being. Everything was sacred. The trees, the rocks, the oceans. And the people lived in accordance with that. There was an invisible, spiritual God and a physical Goddess, which was the Earth.
The birth of monotheism marked the death of Sophia in a sense because once humanity was disconnected from the Earth as a spiritual living being, then they could lay waste to the oceans and the rivers and cut down the forests.

Seeing the Earth as a living, sacred being

Dan goes on to describe how the colonization process of the European and British empires in South Africa, Australia, India and the Americas was a process that broke down the basic, inherent connection with the Earth that the settlers themselves had before they became invaders and occupiers of new Lands. Not only were Lands colonized, but minds too.

When Europeans arrived in these lands, they had built within them a superiority complex. “We have guns, we have technology therefore we must be more civilized.” They chose a whole bunch of beliefs to support that premise. The Darwinian idea of evolution meant that they could convince their soldiers that we came from primordial ooze, through amphibians to reptiles and mammals, then to monkeys that awoken, then to black people and finally to white people. The belief of this succession meant that white people – the white male – could now have a moral and spiritual imperative. “We are the most advanced evolutionary beings on the planet so of course we can rule over everyone else.” Which, of course, is absolute rubbish.
Without that colonization of the mind of the soldiers themselves, these people wouldn’t have been able to walk through the jungles of South America and say, “Yes we are the superior race, give us your gold, before we rape and pillage.” Which they did.

Dan believes that in many ways we are “living through the karma” of this colonization and disconnection process, and sites the plant kingdom as a powerful example of this.

Take a plant like sugar. Sugar was one of the main colonizing tools. There was a huge demand for sugar in Europe. They went and they took the sugar to the tropics and they said, “You grow this. And they paid the Javanese people to have children to work in the sugar plantations. In this way, they could take over the land without actually fighting, by creating an economic imperative which ultimately lead the tribal leaders to enslave their own people in order to serve this imperative. But the karma of sugar is returning and we now have to digest that slavery in the form of alcoholism and diabetes as it sweeps the western world. Tobacco is another example, which was one of the most sacred plants on the planet. Now the karma of tobacco, misused for economic gain and control is playing out across the planet. How many people are killed each year?

The question is, as the descendants of those original invaders, how do we de-colonize ourselves and restore our loss of connection with Earth?

(This) process has been carried out by our ancestors on the land throughout the ages in the form of rites of passage, vision quests, fasts, sweat lodges. To the First Nation people of America, if one of their own was losing touch with their sense of connection they would stick out like a sore thumb and they would be brought back into the fold and taken through a process of re-connection.
Today there is so much disconnection in our western world, it is a pandemic. We often can’t even see it because we are not living in a community that is connected for us to be guided back to. We all share this cognitive dissonance, this dis-connectivity. So much so that in many cases, the connected ones seem insane!

In Dan’s view, the modern reconnection process started en-masse in the 60s, supported by the psychedelic revolution that served as a literal re-awakening of a part of the brain. There was a left and right hemisphere reconnection. East and West rediscovered each other.

Now, as I travel around the world I am struck by how many people are interested in the Gnostic practice of waking up and connecting to the Divine directly outside of religious practice, outside of the church. Outside of the hierarchy of people saying, “Well if you do this and you follow me, you get to the Pearly Gates.” This idea of a direct connection with Source, and the reawakening and re-sacralizing of the Earth becomes so important. The rebirth of Sophia is in full swing and has been prophesized for this time and each one of us plays out this awakening in our bodies.

For the descendants of settlers and occupiers of stolen land, this is a powerful time to wake up to what the indigenous people of those lands have always known, that the destructive processes of colonization ultimately serve only to separate us from each other and the very Source of life… and it must stop. It is up to each of us to claim personal responsibility for decolonizing ourselves, and to do this we must be willing to go on a personal journey of reconnection and awakening, to restore our inherent sense of wholeness and bring ourselves back into connection with the Earth.

Dan Schreiber at Starseed Gardens – Byron Bay, Australia

For Dan Schreiber, the journey back is a daily one of simple actions stemming from a deep reverence and commitment to being in genuine communion with the living energy of the Earth.

Stand barefoot on the ground. Look at the sun. Bathe yourself in the sun. Go for clean water. If you can’t drink the water around here, there is a problem. If you can’t grow crops without Round Up, there’s a problem. Once we’ve re-awoken, how we live, how we grow our food becomes a natural expression of that awakening to who we really are.

What is one simple thing you could do today (and every day) to consciously, genuinely experience your direct connection with the Earth?
WORDS BY CHIP RICHARDS
Original interview by Nyck Jeanes and Leigh Chamberlain on the Seriously Fact Up Breakfast show – Bayfm.org 
Go to:  http://upliftconnect.com/decolonizing-humanity/


Quote: "In my post "The Economics of Emergence Theory" I say, quote: "My regular readers may be wondering precisely what it is I'm talking about when I refer to "Emergence Theory" and it's applications (esp. to economics). Do I mean what have become known as "Emerging Economies" for instance? The answer is no at least not in the conventional sense whereby "emerging economy" is simply another term for the "apparent" economic growth of a formerly less/un-developed nation or region." I have been forced to revise this having seen Hans Rosling's excellent lecture (below)). I realised that the social, political and economic profile of the emerging economies is infact consistent with Emergence Theory and that I had become a victim of my own imperialist prejudices (see; "Imperialism, Eugenics and "Social-Engineering""-or “The Overpopulation Myth; Last Refuge of The Social Darwinist”-, go to:  http://gkhales.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/imperialism-eugenics-and-social.html), in that I had assumed (making the proverbial beast-of-burden out of both of us), that the developing economies were also more socially backward than our own. This ofcourse has been the mistake made by the European Imperial powers during their colonial adventures for centuries. The fact that a culture appears socially less developed than our own is merely a cultural prejudice the burden of over-population having been created by the activities of the militarily more dominant culture. There is no real excuse for this attitude and I apologise if my former assertions have caused any offence. It was infact the statistics concerning obesity rates in the emerging economies when examined in the light of Hans Rosling's observations which triggered this realisation. This subject clearly deserves a much more detailed analysis than the one I am presenting here, in my defence I can only state that it is preferable that one should appear "a witty fool than a foolish wit"." Go to: http://gkhales.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-economics-of-emergence-theory.html
.....

"In recent years the U.N has investigated the question of whether or not it will be possible to feed The World’s growing population and concluded that “organic" means (whereby emphasis is put on the locality, sustainability and employment profile of the agricultural base), are indeed more than sufficient for our needs.

  It is the myopic conceit of the civilised imperialist (and his patriarchy), that the “benighted savages” are not deemed capable of self-determination or self-sufficiency (witness the “groundnut debacle" in Kenya in the 50’s and 60’s).

(go to; http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jan/13/world-hunger-small-scale-agriculture http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_7510.cfm )" Go to: http://gkhales.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/imperialism-eugenics-and-social.html

Quote: ""Civilisation" a Refutation."
  Utilising historical evidence of environmental, ecological and sociological change and comparing the resulting information to epidemiological evidence of the density of (and disease frequency within), the coincident human population convinces one that "civilisation" has not always represented improvement in human society, quite the reverse in fact for when practiced "in exclusion" (as it were), it leads to sociological, economic, environmental, political and cultural collapse. This does not mean that (to paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi), "civilisation would (not), be a good idea", in The West (or anywhere else), if it was practiced given the understanding that the notion is not the be-all-and-end-all of political, social or cultural evolution.* It seems that "civilisation" is a function of the human evolutionary process not the process itself. Food production has always been the controlling factor in human society, the gee-gaws of the civilised world serve only to occlude our basic dependency on our environment. "Decentralisation" (a very uncivilised philosophy), maintains that all human beings deserve access to proper "Lebensraum" and that none should be forced into uncomfortable, unhealthy or over-populated living conditions. "Democracy"** may have developed it's popularity within civic society but the concept does not belong to civilisation anymore than a child does to it's parents."....." Go to: http://gkhales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/civilisation-refutation.html

Notions like emergence theory and sustainability seem so simple until you try to apply them, however; "when a man is young the mountain is only a mountain, when he is older the mountain is all things which are not a mountain, when he is older still the mountain becomes a mountain again" ("Zen" or "Chan" aphorism).

Discussion on overpopulation on MediaLens message board..

Quote: "Have to disagree with the 'no over-population' idea though, bro. We're in a classic bloom and crash

Posted by Rhisiart Gwilym [Email User] on July 29, 2015, 7:29 am, in reply to "Re: Highly Recommended.. Indeed! Many thanks, G!. This tallies perfectly with Tom Campbell's big new"

curve right now, just as lots of other species get into, for one reason or another, when their numbers happen to get out of balance. There's no mistaking the signs. And no sign that our vaunted special intelligence (hah!) is going to make it different for us. That would require special personal and collective responsibility too.

Seven plus billion is already unsustainable, even if we used the most enlightened agri- and other social arrangements. (Good luck with that!) Ten or fifteen billion, as you see some commentators project, is simply not going to happen. Not in the time of Peak Everything, and the other Synergising Global Crises.

A century from now, I imagine we'll be a long way down again even from seven. And we won't have to do a single responsible thing to get there, either. Just as well, since - clearly - we're not going to. Just one country, China, has to my knowledge an official population control and reduction policy. And it's failed. No-one else is even trying. Several indescribably ridiculous countries actually have population increase policies, even now. That's how incredibly important and valuable - and hyper-intelligent - our so-modest species is!

Just as well Mam Gaia is now saying: 'Er, no! I don't think so. Here, have a few Crises…'"....


Nb. The full Hans Rosling video on the subject is actually called; "The Overpopulation Myth"!

 Quote; "In the wonderful hour-long video above, Rosling blows up some misconceptions and misunderstandings, and convincingly makes the following points:

• Population growth should hit a limit around 11 billion within the next hundred years, as the world equalizes in health outcomes.
• In developed countries, a ratio near 2 parents to 2 children mostly exists and developing nations are getting closer and closer as their childhood health outcomes continue to improve. (And they have improved drastically.)
• Stated another way, as a result of equalizing health outcomes, low child mortality, and family planning, family sizes go down, and population growth slows in a predictable way.
• Current population trends are strong enough that by 2100, only ~10% of the world population will be in Western nations (North America, Western Europe) — Africa will quadruple in population and Asia will increase about 25%. It will be a very different world.
• After an explosion of births in the second half of the 20th century, the number of children worldwide has already leveled off at around 2 billion, and should stay there at least through the century, barring a major development. Population growth from here will mostly be determined by more 30-85 year olds existing in the future than now. (In other words, births are nicely leveling off, but population growth must continue for a while anyways as the current crop of children grow up and have 2 children each. We currently have a very young world.) Watch from minute 22:00 or so for this counter-intuitive conclusion.
• There are three or four income “groups,” roughly defined, across the planet — most of you reading this are in the $100/day or more income bracket. We’re extremely fortunate. Then, a major swath in the $10/day bracket. And then the world’s poorest, around $1/day. There’s also a big group with less than that. (Of course, there are also the super rich in the $1000/day+ bracket — it works in a power-law like fashion). One problem for those of us at the top is that when we look down, we see the people living one order of magnitude down ($10/day) and two orders of magnitude down ($1/day) as the same. The difference between the two groups is at least as big as the difference between you and someone who makes 10x as much money as you. (And probably larger.)
• An interesting way for “rich” Westerners to think about the above, which Rosling demonstrates in a genius way: The absolute poorest in the world, nearly a billion people, would love a good pair of shoes with which to walk. The people living around two orders of magnitude down from us (~$1/day) are struggling to afford a bicycle. Those living one order of magnitude down (~$10/day) are working to afford one car for the family. The richest billion fly in airplanes, and the super-wealthy fly in their own airplanes. It’s an interesting way to conceive of the stratas of the world and where we all stand.

Of course, one of Rosling’s more interesting points is that, when polled, most Westerners are fairly clueless about all of this.

For example, over 50% of Brits think that the average Bangladeshi mother births around 5 children — the actual answer is 2.5 (and declining). When they were asked what percentages of adults in the world are now literate, about half the Brits thought it was 40% or less — the actual answer is over 80% (and rising). (Not to pick on Brits — I doubt most Westerners would have done any better.)" Go to: https://fs.blog/2016/04/hans-rosling-population-growth/ 

for full article. 

"Posted by Gerard on July 29, 2015, 9:49 am, in reply to "Have to disagree with the 'no over-population' idea though, bro. We're in a classic bloom and crash"

I'm sorry to hear you say that...intrinsic to the notion that we need not either; force modes of sexual behaviour on others, leave them to perish or simply end their lives directly should they seem "surplus to requirements" is the idea that sustainable agriculture will provide enough for all our needs..it is we that need to change...
 
Quote: " "Imperialism, Eugenics and "Social-Engineering"".
(or “The Overpopulation Myth; Last Refuge of The Social Darwinist”)
One now infamous “gom-jabbar” (Frank Herbert “spur to action”), of this kind is the fabled Malthusian “J-curve”, which identifies the point as the human population of the planet increases (concomitant with the ability of man to exploit The Earth’s non-renewable -esp. fossil-fuel and agricultural -monocultural-, resources), whereby it will become impossible to produce sufficient food for the swollen masses which (Malthus argues), will result in a more or less immediate decline in the numbers of people on the planet (due to famine, natural disaster and conflict over diminishing resources) . Clearly (however), whilst it is necessary to be aware of the threat that (any -Ed.), continued rise in the current population represents to not only the human species but also every other species on the planet it is ridiculous to attempt to address this problem using a political paradigm based on the; national, regional, religious or ethnic interests of the past. Utilising redundant notions of intervention which rely solely on the public-philanthropy of those already guilty of the exploitation and misappropriation of the resources they wish to redistribute leads only to greater corruption and increased suffering for those already most disenfranchised, often creating internal conflict and fuelling international confrontation.
The result of the kind of  social-engineering that this kind of misidentification and utilitarian philosophy leads to can be clearly seen in Modern China where neo-communist expediency has clashed with ancient cultural practices and prejudices. The “one-child legislation" spawned by the Year Zero type approach of the ruling Communist elite has produced a regime under which the young (and not-so-young now), male population of China have suffered a fundamental breach of their human rights over which the rest of The World rings it’s hands (and washes them), with self-congratulatory “liberal” sanctimony.
Even the cry; “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime!” (Chinese proverb), when used by "The Developed World" to describe it's problems with those "less equal" simply rings with the condescending imperialist (and mostly paternalistic), tones of the past. In cases other than genuine national emergency wouldn’t it be better simply to “get our crap out of their river” completely?"" Posts to MediaLens message board (author's own posts edited at "Ed's" discretion).