Truth Decay



The catchy title of this post, “Truth Decay,”— an obvious pun on “tooth decay”— is not new. As a cursory search of the phrase indicates, it has been in use for a good long while.

 

Tracing it back to 1974, a book entitled “Truth Decay” refers to the dangers of fluoridation in our water supply. Fluoridation and Truth Decay, Gladys Caldwell (1974). Since then, a number of titles use the phrase “Truth Decay” in referring to various, eyebrow-raising aspects revolving around dentistry or dental issues:

 

·        Toxic Bite: An Investigation into Truth Decay, Bill Kellner-Read (2002)

·        Truth Decay: How Mainstream Dentists Are Lying Through Their Teeth!, Robert and Kerrie Broe (2002)

·        Truth Decay: How Government Corruption Caused a Political Scandal Victimizing Texas Dentists and How It Could Happen to You!, Juan D. Villarreal (2017)

 

The phrase, “Truth Decay,” has also been a popular expression among those of the Christian publishing genre:

 

·        Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism, Douglas Groothius (2000)

·        Truth Decay, Vol.1, Frank Savoy (2 Ed., 2014); Truth Decay, Vol. 2: St. Patrick and the Culdees (2015)

·        Fighting Truth Decay: The Message of Jude (Truth for Today, 3), Sam Gordon (2002)

·        Preventing Truth Decay, Barry Shafer (1998)

 

Similarly, the phrase is used in reference to a socio-cultural phenomenon:

 

·        Truth Decay: The Erosion of Traditional Values in American Culture, Steve Hale (2011)

 

It has even proposed as the title of a CD:

 

·        Truth Decay—progressive jazz by Adam Holzman and his band (release date: March 30, 2018)

 

Most recently, on C-SPAN radio I heard a researcher from the Rand Corporation use “Truth Decay” as a way to characterize and critique “fake news,” viz., Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life (2018). The study is authored by Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich. It may be worth quoting at length (what is essentially) the abstract of the study:

Over the past two decades, national political and civil discourse in the United States has been characterized by "Truth Decay," defined as a set of four interrelated trends: an increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data; a blurring of the line between opinion and fact; an increase in the relative volume, and resulting influence, of opinion and personal experience over fact; and lowered trust in formerly respected sources of factual information. These trends have many causes, but this report focuses on four: characteristics of human cognitive processing, such as cognitive bias; changes in the information system, including social media and the 24-hour news cycle; competing demands on the education system that diminish time spent on media literacy and critical thinking; and polarization, both political and demographic. The most damaging consequences of Truth Decay include the erosion of civil discourse, political paralysis, alienation and disengagement of individuals from political and civic institutions, and uncertainty over national policy.

This report explores the causes and consequences of Truth Decay and how they are interrelated, and examines past eras of U.S. history to identify evidence of Truth Decay's four trends and observe similarities with and differences from the current period. It also outlines a research agenda, a strategy for investigating the causes of Truth Decay and determining what can be done to address its causes and consequences.                    

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2314.html

 

That sounds terrific. But is it?

 

Could this be a ploy to neutralize the catchy phrase, "Truth Decay," by co-opting/subverting and re-assimilating it as an inverted mainstream idiom?

The first thing I wondered about is whether the researchers took into account a few things that conspiracy analysts would immediately ask themselves. Do they factor in the existence, infiltration by, and covert operations of various not-so-secret societies? These include:

 

·        the Vatican, the Jesuits, and associated, upper echelon “Knights" and Orders

·        the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” viz., the Judaic cabal identifying as "Jews"?

·        The Freemasons, Illuminati, Templars, neo-fascist mafias, et al.

·        the Marxists/Communists/Socialists, including the Democrat Party and the mainstream media and their surrogates on the web

·        rogue intelligence operatives (government, private, corporate, military—including government actors and contractors whose cyber and non-cyber actions are enabled via the “Patriot Act”)

·        oligarch-funded propaganda machines (e.g., George Soros organelles, think-tanks, NGOs, foundations and non-profits)

 

In fact, the list of players above presents an intertwined amalgam of the so-called Shadow Government (Senior Executive Service, et al.), the Deep State (the “corpocracy”), and the mostly unseen/unknown, Luciferian funder-handler-controllers. If we consider the existence and ongoing, inter-generational “Truth Decay” perpetrated by these dark forces since the days of Babylon, then we begin to comprehend the deep-rooted causes of the malaise of the common folk today.

 

And so, before I read this “non-partisan” Report by the (already suspect) Rand Corporation, I want to know whether this is the sort of mental-rational trance dance, intellectually articulated white-wash nonsense that may sound terrific but is instead more of the same, seemingly-incisive-but-really-only-a-survey-of-symptoms of our sick society.

 

Before I clutter my mind with the facts and figures oh-so-neatly collected, collated, and presented by these researchers with advanced degrees, that same inquiring mind wants to know why my teeth suddenly ache—why my internal anti-Christian radar alert mechanism has gone off—why I fear that I will be inundated by more evidence of Orwellian traditional-values-erosion—and how “Truth Decay” becomes a meme in the entertainment industry that only desensitizes us to truth and its meaninglessness in this, our insaniac 21^st Century.

Priestly Friends

Dear Fr. Dan,

 

Your friendship has been a wonderful gift. Think back on those Loyola days in N.O., LA and then fast forward through time like a movie; your life, my life, unfolding, as we intersect from time to time. And our friendship is the steady template that connects us like a thread. Space and time wither in the ever-present origin of our sharing bond.

I miss connecting with you. And I miss my other priest friend too, Fr. Andrew J. Cassin, who wouldn't let me serve as altar boy because my shoes weren't shined. As we were set to go out on the altar, in the sacristy, he looked down at my shoes and sent me away. It was those shoes, always those shoes, that took me down the shabby road of my scruffy life; those highway shoes, whose muddy shoes? My muddy, old shoes that walked the line, that took me so far away from myself, from my larger Self.

 

In high school at Gonzaga, Fr. William P. Sampson, S.J. believed in me just enough to help me to believe in myself as a writer. Brusque and smiley, Bill Sampson also took this hippy-in-formation, this wayward Soldier of Christ, molding-me-without-molding-me in his detached yet strong and subtle way. 

I kept wandering in those shoes for over 45 years, often forgetting to polish them, just as I rarely washed my car. Yes, his admonition would become the metaphor for my wandering, a squandered life in the wilderness of separation from the goodness of the heavenly Father and from our blessed Mother.

Funny, I've been trying to polish my shoes ever since. And now that I have returned to the proper House from whence I came, back to the place wherein I began my desolate misadventures, you and these other two padre friends have now vanished—as has Fr. Ben Garrett, the non-Catholic convert-turned-priest/U.S. Navy Chaplain, who appeared at just the right moment to help me bury my WWII Navy veteran father, and then my sister.

And the work of an ex-padre has now intersected my life to help me shine those shoes: Douglas Gabriel. He tells me of Novalis: 

https://neoanthroposophy.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/spirit-awakening-through-novalis2.pdf ...and of "Anthroposophia": https://gospelofsophia.com/2017/01/14/anthroposophia-reveals-the-second-coming-perceiving-christ-in-the-etheric/

And if we live countless lives, as did the old soul (known in the 18th Century as "Novalis"), then how many more stops on the caravanserai are left as we journey onward, upward, toward Oneness-of-being with our dear Creator? I wonder. I Google caravanserai and click on "Images" and it turns me into a Homesick James.

Take care, Fr. Daniel Lackie, O.F.M., wherever you may be!

Your friend,

Jack aka Wyman aka Stubby aka Bro. Jack Gumpus, O.4B.

The Soul of Novalis

The polymath, Douglas Gabriel, has just released his freely accessible e-book of 136 pages entitled Spirit Awakening Through Novalis (2018)(https://neoanthroposophy.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/spirit-awakening-through-novalis2.pdf ).

"Novalis"—poet, author, mystic, and philosopher of Early German Romanticism—was born Georg Friedrich Philipp von Hardenburg on May 2, 1772, in Oberwiederstedt, Prussian Saxony. Gabriel relates that according to Rudolf Steiner, Novalis was the oldest of souls among us. He had lived countless lives. Previous incarnations include Elijah, Elias, Phineas, John the Baptist—even stretching back to Adam himself.

 

Gabriel writes:

 

According to Steiner, Novalis can write about the most profound foundations of life because he was there when those foundations were laid. The most important moments in Christian history can be understood through Novalis because of his central role in the enactment of the mysteries of Christianity. Of course, the reader is free to surmise what you will out of pure study of Novalis’ work, but it is often found that an inner question about the works of this author arises, “From what source can such wisdom flow?”

 

It is worth citing Gabriel's summary of Novalis' incredible significance for humanity today:

 

Novalis is also aware of the stupendous truth that since the Event of Golgotha the Being we call Christ has been the planetary Spirit of the Earth, the Spirit by whom the Earth's body will gradually be transformed. A wonderful vista of the future opens out before Novalis. He sees the Earth transfigured; he sees the present Earth in which the residue of ancient times is still contained, transformed into the Body of Christ; he sees the waters of the Earth permeated with Christ’s Blood, and he sees the solid rocks as Christ’s Flesh. He sees the body of the Earth gradually becoming the Body of Christ; he sees the Earth and Christ miraculously made one; he sees the Earth in future time as a great organism enshrining man, an organism whose soul is Christ. In this sense, and out of his deep insight into occult truths, Novalis speaks of Christ as the Son of Man. Just as in a certain sense men are the ‘Sons of the Gods,’ that is to say of the ancient Gods who through untold millions of years have molded and shaped our planet, who have built the bodies in which we live and the ground upon which we move, so, by overcoming earthly things, man's task is to build, through his own powers, an Earth that will be the body of the new God, the God of the future.


And whereas the men of old looked back to the primeval Gods, yearning to be united with them in death, Novalis recognizes the God who in time to come will have as his body all that is best in us and that we can offer to Him. In Christ, he sees the Being to whom humanity offers itself in order that this Being may have a body. He recognizes Christ as the ‘Son of Man’ in this higher, cosmological sense. He speaks of Christ as the ‘God of the future.’ All these experiences and perceptions are so pregnant with meaning that they are well able to kindle the true mood of Christmas in our souls.


…And so, we see how in the supremely gifted Novalis, feelings free of all denominational bias quicken to life at the portrayal of this holy Mystery which was enacted at the first Christmas and is repeated at every Christmastide. It is the
Mystery of the ancient Initiates, represented by the Magi, bringing their offerings to the new Mystery. The Wise Men, who are bearers of the wisdom of times past, make their offerings to that which is to go forward into the future, that which, in a human being, will one day harbor the power by which all worlds connected with the Earth are pervaded. Novalis experienced the Christ Mystery, the Mary Mystery, in relation to the Cosmic Mystery, the light of which shone before his eyes of soul as it had shone at the first Christmas, when Beings who had not descended to the physical plane proclaimed the union between a cosmic and an earthly Power, which can become a reality in human hearts and in the Cosmos itself when the human heart unites with Christ. The Egyptian proclamation: ‘The God with whom you must be united dwells in the world that can be reached only after death’, holds good no longer. For now, the God with whom man must be united lives among us here, between birth and death; and men can find Him when they unite their hearts and souls with Him in this world. Thus, in the first Holy Night of Christendom the strain resounded: Revelation in the Heights to God, Quiet and peace through all the Earth, Blessed joy in Men.

— Gabriel, D., Spirit Awakening Through Novalis (2018) pp.13-14

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"There is no religion that is not Christianity." — Novalis

 

Far from a conceit, like thunder this proclamation of Novalis blasts and echoes an unstoppable planetary truth. 

Proclamation, Sedevacantism

What is of crucial importance in the world today is the process of purification of one's self. On the physio-mental front, I aim to keep food from over-riding my higher self (with the tell-tale belly as evidence of failure). In order to keep myself in fighting form and in "ketosis" I do not eat until @ noon, even though I'm up each day @ 4 AM. (Of course fasting is easier/more efficient when one is actively engaging the muscles of the body, as in working in a physically demanding job.) I believe this causes the body to draw caloric energy from cellulite, while freeing the mind from the lead-weight, down-rushing blood caused from ingesting foodstuffs.

 

If I eat early in the day, my food-addicted stomach begs for more so that my mind and soul become totally distracted by this devouring monster. It makes me wonder about whether this is the real lesson of being tempted by an "apple" in the Garden of Eden—the apple representing all food. (The extreme obverse of this is that if you achieve pureness of spirit you can actually live without food and only on "prana," as in being a "breatharian.")

 

The point is this: that after enough time passes, when you actually do eat, after ketosis has already kicked-in, what you do eat isn't as damaging to your body/mind because it is not adding more bulk onto bulk, as it were—at least this is my take on it.

The rest is judicious mindfulness and prayer and avoidance of "sins of impurity." In this regard, I look back almost in horror now at my past guilty pleasures!

I had, for the longest time, a bias that favored esoteric practices such as meditation over prayer. While there is a therapeutic gain from quieting the mind, finding that still-point, prayer, especially praying the rosary, is as efficacious, perhaps more efficacious and "pleasing to God" than "yogic practices." To the modern mind this sounds quaint I'm sure. But I believe that prayer actuates tremendous benefits and imparts grace.

(Now there's an odd-ball detour for this old horn-dog and all-around raconteur of all that's under the radar. Just giving you, the reader, heads up about where this old guy's intuition and interests are taking him these days.)

 

And one last observation: I mentioned in a previous post how I identify with the notion of sede vacante (sedevacantists are those who hold that the Chair of St. Peter is empty). Well, when there is an anti-Pope occupying that Chair it may as well be empty. Out of a total of 266 Popes there have been perhaps 50 anti-Popes over the past 2,000 years. However, if one holds that the "Chair is Empty" would that sever the chain of succession from (and to) Jesus Christ, similar to how, in real estate parlance, a break in a property's chain of ownership causes a cloud on title? 

 

Taking that analogy further, consider real property that is possessed despite some fraudulent acts by its occupants concerning the property, as opposed to it only having been abandoned for a short periods of time during its overall existence. Clearly, fraud adversely affects clear title, whereas abandonment may only cause the property to go into disrepair until re-occupied. Similarly, if the proper process of choosing a Pope is followed then whatever Pope is chosen by the Cardinals has been duly and properly installed; however, if most or all of the Church has been infiltrated and corrupted from within, affecting the judgment of even those at the highest levels of the Vatican, the judgment may be extremely flawed but not necessarily a fraud, per se.

 

Such thinking and analysis might be criticized as legalistic nit-picking that would only rationalize, only "paper-over" grave Ecclesiastical error and maybe it is. But, if "duly elected," I would favor begrudgingly "tolerating" an anti-Pope, however humanly flawed and dogmatically distasteful, as a bona fide occupant of the Chair of St. Peter, despite non-acceptance of his heretical pontifical teachings, i.e., rejecting his "modernist," "globalist," "mindless ecumenism and indifferentism"  as anathema. (You know, as in the political realm, you might deal like-wise with a McConnell or Pelosi or Mueller or Trump [name your political villain-of-the-moment.])

 

On the foregoing basis I conclude that the notion of sede vacante is a valid metaphor, though not a stance to be taken literally.        

The Rock-Ribbed Originalist

Speaking of those on "the other side," Breitbart writer, Delingpole, comments, "how snarky their comebacks are or how seemingly clever their analogies or how withering their contempt" (Breitbart, Dec. 31, 2017)

Add to the despised and loathsome list in the above cartoon graphic those wanna-be GI-Joe type cops who are too afraid of real combat to enlist. Constitutional advocate John W. Whitehead, in his end of year report, sums things up when he writes, "The predators of the police state wreaked havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives." https://www.sgtreport.com/articles/2018/1/2/apocalypse-now-2017-was-another-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-year

 

If you carry a firearm "illegally," i.e., no "license," should you be worried you might get arrested if you use it to defend yourself or others? I'd defer to the old saying: "Better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6."

 

In 2018 will we see the money changers being thrown out of the temple? The pedophilic elite tried and imprisoned? A public hanging of traitors? A perp walk (to compete with the Communist Chinese 1960s-style cultural revolution) wherein both corrupt Establishment/anti-Establishment figures wearing dunce caps, etc., are paraded through our streets?

 

Out in the alt-media there is lots of chest pounding going on about us having drubbed the swamp creatures and having mortally wounded the NWO globalists. It is during times of self-congratulatory over-confidence such as these that we should be most wary. It is easy to fool ourselves that the worst is behind us. Although solid progress is being made to uproot the Luciferian Communist infestation here and abroad, we have not yet seen the nightmare that is sure to be soon released upon us.

 

An occult Babylonian woe that has been entrenched for millennia will not go gently into that good night. These bloodline, Committee-of-300 families remain as the unseen,  invisible string-pullers behind those in the limelight. These dark forces will summon their light bearer, Lucifer, and rage against the dying of their cold light. Beware!

 

Be prepared to engage in spiritual warfare—and to stay alive long enough to do so (at least the "you" as currently configured in this present life).