Re: http://cgi.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=1413
Quotations from Lymerick and my responses:
“Thank you for your heartfelt response.”
I also thank you for taking interest in fostering truth and resisting disinformation.
“I agree with you completely, and I think the main purpose of RMN is to expose lies and elevate truth.”
Umm… let’s not get into this here right now. If it would be possible, I would definitely change some of the RMN policies to accomplish what you hinted at in practice. But this is not my domain, so I can’t do anything about it, except perhaps to get banned. But what good would that do to anybody?
“But, how does one know what he doesn't know…?”
Well, I know for example that playing a violin is such a thing that I don’t know. Therefore I will never write articles about how to play a violin. Also, if I would ever read such an article then I would not spread it before some experts of that art (whom I trust) could not find fault in it. I will also not torture my audience with my violin play. I will not teach people how to play that instrument either. It is just plain common sense. People generally know which field of science or art they know well enough to recognize potential deception in that field.
There is one unfortunate exception though. That is the field of spirituality, where everybody (or most of them) think themselves to be qualified to write articles, books, papers, and new bibles of new age ideologies. This is why there is so much confusion in spiritual circles, because apparently as long as you play the nice and loving, anything goes. Then the blind want to lead those who don’t see and the whole party will end up in a trap.
Does this mean that I am then banned forever from evaluating, judging, or even teaching how to play a violin? Of course not. If I would become certain that those who know how to play violin would get liberated from the bondage of reincarnation, I would become a most avid student of that art. If for any reason you want to become qualified to judge a field of science or art that you know nothing about, then simply learn that knowledge! It will not be cheap though, because becoming an expert of any subject is a time consuming enterprise.
There is a mind virus in the new age community which is very popular, because it flatters the ego of everybody. It is the slogan “Follow your heart!” It supposed to be the ”Adept’s” answer to the question “how can I know which teaching is true and which is false, when there are so many contradictory teachings spreading around?” The mind virus says: “Just listen to your heart! Do what feels right to you!” Why is this wrong? Because the “heart” in this context supposed to mean your subconscious mind, because that is the domain of “feelings” you supposed to follow. The slogan wants you to ignore the intellect and logic and follow only your subconscious mind, where the animal instincts, emotions, and feelings rule. If you go down that road you will surely get lost in the jungle of confusion and mistakes.
Your small kid comes to you in confusion asking how to decide when and how to cross the street at the intersection. He/she is confused because apparently the red light makes no difference, since many people cross the street even at red light (he/she saw that happening). Would you then teach your kid the mentioned new age “universal super key” to solving all problems, and answering all questions? Would you tell your kid to “Just listen to your heart! Do what feels right to you!”? With such “advanced spiritual wisdom” your kid would soon end up in hospital if not worse. If the “feeling of one’s heart” is inadequate to protect you kid from harm, then why would you think that it is adequate to protect you from the spiritual accident of falling into the traps of illusion, and disinformation? Why do you think that it would be sufficient and adequate to liberate you from suffering and lead you to permanent happiness?
Now some people would surely object, that the “heart” supposed to mean your higher self and not your subconscious mind. OK then; is everybody able to have a chat with his/her own higher self? Unfortunately not. The intellect does not have a direct connection with the higher self, but only an indirect messaging channel via the subconscious. The art of connecting to the higher self via the subconscious, and then differentiating between the messages of the higher self and those of the subconscious is not easy. Very few people can do that reliably. Therefore most people will mistake the stupid advices and feelings of the subconscious for the expected messages from the higher self.
So, how can we then find out the truth, and differentiate between correct and false information? There is no foolproof formula for this problem. Some good practices that may lead in the right direction:
1 Train and use your intellect, logic, and common sense! Your intellect should steer your life and not your subconscious mind via emotions and feelings. Such messages, gut feelings, intuitions may give some good input or hint about what options may be worth examining. But if those “feelings” are not supported and approved by the intellect, then you would better listen to your intellect.
2 If you want to be independent and able to correctly discern truth from falsehood in a certain field of science, art, or spirituality, then you will have to study and learn that field thoroughly. This will cost you a lot of time and effort. Just reading a few pages on the internet about it will not even scratch the surface. Otherwise you will do better if you let the experts of that field evaluate the dilemma, and offer their opinion. Then you can decide whether that makes sense to you or not, and chose which expert to listen to, and which to ignore.
3 Don’t follow the herd mentality, and don’t jump on the bandwagon of new spiritual (or other) fads! The disinformation agents rely very much on such mentality, and by their overwhelming advertising campaigns they will create the false impression, that “everybody believes this”; so you will have to do the same to fit in. A good rule of thumb is, that if something is widely promoted and accepted by the majority and still not proven to be true, then that is most probably a deception maintained by the cabal. There are some exceptions though; this is not a perfect formula.
This is not a complete list of good practices, but it should suffice to give an idea where to start.
“…and how does one attack lies/erroneous info that already is permeating the internet?”
“…Now, knowing that this information is spreading across the internet, how do we bring TRUTH back into the equation, rather than letting it expand exponentially?
Lies and false information that already permeate the internet should be exposed, and then this exposure should be spread into all the channels where the hoax is spreading. But those lies and hoaxes which are not widespread, are better left alone and ignored. Sometimes even negative publicity could serve the interests of the disinfo agents. Once a hoax has been busted, one should not promote it anymore as if the bust would have never happened. It should be either ignored or if it is necessary to talk about it, then discuss it as being a proven hoax. When the disinfo agents still tenaciously promote the hoax, then everyone in the know should resist the attempt and protest, pointing to the busting of the deception.
The convincing busting of hoaxes are better done by those very familiar with the subject. They should publish such busts as anonymous as possible using Tor, and other best practices for remaining untraceable, because the cabal will not hesitate to corrupt such people or worse. I think that the mere “word of mouth type” spreading of links to such busts on social media and via email is safe even without being anonymous, because the sharing of such links by many people are not easily controlled, or suppressed.
One could surely come up with some more good practices in this regards, but the general message is simple: Spread the truth only, but spread that as wide as you can. Unmask the deception, don’t spread links to it, resist its spreading. If something seemingly important pops up that can not be decided whether it is true or false, then be honest and tell people you don’t know. Don’t spread links to such uncertain pages endorsing them, until the evaluation is satisfactory and it has been confirmed to be true. If you are interested in the subject then put some effort into it and dig deep. Ask for expert advice, and be patient. Very often the truth needs time to ripen and fall from the tree of the experts (or dedicated researchers who work on it) for everyone to pick it up and share it with others.
People come to read alternative media, because they don’t want to read the lies of the official mass media. They are interested to read about the truth, and only about the truth. The majority is not interested in doing their own discernment (because they are not experts of that field) for every article they read, they just want the truth. If even proven hoaxes have the same right and support to be spread as the truth, then the alternative media becomes overwhelmed by disinformation, and it becomes just as useless time waster as the mass media.
Morpheus
