Esoteric Philosophy Shows
The Road to Self-Responsibility
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
Should commercial TV be considered a help or a hindrance in the process
of uprooting the Causes of ignorance?
Such a question is not too difficult to answer.
A number of thinkers, including Vance Packard in
the 1960s and more recently Noam Chomsky, have described the propaganda
mechanisms by which thoughts and emotions of whole nations are dominated through
television for the sake of power and money.[1]
The hypnotic factor in modern propaganda is
undeniable. Hypnotism typically begins by controlling what the victim looks at.
It goes on by directing the victim as to what he or she must feel, think, and
do. This is precisely what happens with the mainstream commercial television.
While reading a newspaper online, people can freely
decide which news they want to read and which news they don’t. As one watches
TV, there’s no choice. One has to see it all.
When people see a movie on commercial TV, their thoughts and emotions
are interrupted any time to let them know how wonderful is that junk food or
that new car they must buy at any cost, in order to attain a happiness which is
false, and a true slavery, to money and debt.
Thus the actual mind-content of millions of
citizens gets into a great extent submitted to the central decisions of some
unknown TV directors who happen to be at the service of someone else’s
commercial goals. These people have a message for the subconscious layers of
the average citizen’s mind, as to his priorities in life. They want him to keep
to some very specific vibration patterns in his thoughts and feelings. His
subconscious priorities must include living limited to his lower personal self;
following a habit to think about material things only, and to have his thoughts
frequently interrupted in a sudden way, so that they constantly jump from one
subject to another. This will turn his mind superficial enough, and easy to
manipulate through the means of outer stimuli to short term desire. In these
conditions it is easy to induce the citizen to buy products according to the
impulses of his distance-dominated or tele-oriented subconscious mind.
What does, then, esoteric philosophy say about
that?
According to theosophy, the motive decides the
direction of karma. From the point of view of the money invested in commercial
TV, the main intention aims at dominating ever more minds and souls in an unending
war for larger audiences and more consumers. This is so because money investments do not
aim at teaching individuals the way to wisdom. The mind-domination promoted through
TV is an instrument for private material profit.[2]
Of course, it must be said that - regardless of any
professed good intentions - dominating minds through subconscious suggestion is
always profoundly harmful in itself, and can only bring disgrace.
In the 1880s, Helena P. Blavatsky was discussing collective
hypnotism, or collective hypnotic suggestion, when she said, in an
interview with Charles Johnston:
“Whole nations will drift insensibly into black
magic, with good intentions, no doubt, but paving the road to hell none the
less for that! Hypnotism and suggestion are great and dangerous powers, for the
very reason that the victim never knows when he is being subjected to them; his
will is stolen from him, and mark my words: these things may be begun with good
motives, and for right purposes. (…) If you could foresee what I foresee, you
would begin heart and soul to spread the teaching of universal brotherhood. It
is the only safeguard!” [3]
During the middle ages, the minds of individuals
were controlled by means of the clergy and church rituals. Today the television and other electronic
media play that role.
In hypnotism, the suggestion enters the mind of the
victim. Up to 20th century, people had to go to the actual building where
hypnotism would take place, the church temple. Nowadays, the hypnotic process
goes to the homes of the people through TV. The materialistic global church of
consumer society comes to one’s living-room and directs his emotions and
thoughts through commercial channels. This is a technological sort of
theocracy. In it money and credit are the measure of all things. The Almighty Dollar could only be challenged
by a similar divinity such as the Euro (or perhaps the Chinese currency).
George Orwell wrote about that form of mind-domination in his famous novel
entitled “1984”.
Theosophy works the other way around. It uncovers this whole process of Maya, and
other illusions as well. It challenges both ecclesiastical and commercial
mechanisms of mind-domination. It teaches the steep and narrow, uphill path of
self-respect, self-knowledge and self-responsibility.
Robert Crosbie wrote about the need for taking
charge of one’s own life:
“Our complaints about our
environments are attempts to dodge our responsibility. Our belief in this God
or the other God, or this system of belief, this salvation, are attempts to
dodge our responsibility. We have to accept that responsibility, and stay with
it, first, last and all the time. For we are all bound up in one great tie; we
can not separate ourselves from each other, nor from any other being.
(.....) Savior after Savior has come to
the earth for our benefit, but no one can give us any more benefit than to
point to the truths that have been given all down the ages. We must take
advantage of that knowledge and advance out of the state in which we have
placed ourselves. No Savior can save us. No God can protect us. No devil can
torment us. For both the God and the devil are within. The devil is the
misunderstanding of our nature. The God is that place in ourselves that we come
to know and realize and see reflected in the eyes of every living being. It is
the God in us which demands self-advancement, self-induced and self-devised
exertions, and the full acceptance of responsibility.” [4]
Esoteric philosophy puts in practice solidary forms
of individual independence. Its path starts with the control of one’s own thoughts
and emotions, and the avoidance of hypnotic suggestions, including the ones
made by television and other media.
Mutual help is of the essence, but universal
brotherhood can only happen on the basis of self-confidence and self-reliance.
The theosophical movement gives people a philosophy
that makes it possible. It also tries to
provide individuals with an “atmosphere” in which they can more easily
liberate themselves from every form of attachment to the cyclic wheels of delusional
goals, frustration, and suffering.
NOTES:
[1] See for instance “The Hidden Persuaders”, by
Vance Packard, Brazilian edition, Ed.
IBRASA, 1965, under the title of “Nova Técnica de Convencer”, 248 pp.; and “What the Uncle Sam Really Wants”, by
Noam Chomsky, Odonian Press, Berkeley, California, 111 pp., 1992, pp. 93-95.
[2] At this point one must note that the Internet is in a great extent
outside the process of collective centralized mind-control, and that it opens a
new and wider horizon of opportunities for philosophy and theosophy.
[3] See the text “Helena Petrovna Blavatsky”, an account written by Charles
Johnston of an interview with H. P. B., at “Collected Writings”, H.P.
Blavatsky, TPH, Adyar, volume VIII, 1960 / 1990, p. 407.
[4] “The Friendly Philosopher”, Robert Crosbie,
Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, 416 pp., 1945, pp. 299-300.
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See also the
article “Freedom From Mind Manipulation”,
which is available in our associated websites.
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In September
2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement
worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists, whose priorities include the building
of a better future in the different dimensions of life.
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