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Meditation and Social Movements.

                        Art by Yishkah.
Yesterday I responded to a post on FB that warned of right wing influences that are occurring in what appear to be left wing and New Age groups. Today, I would like to follow up with another warning and that is groups who actively engage in meditation. Meditation is like a kind of therapy. In fact when meditation is directed towards an object, figurehead or any form of visualization that requires a script it can seem exactly like speaking to a therapist. Meditation can create a sense of calm and well being and it opens up the mind to ideas. Psychotherapy and mediation can help a person direct their life more effectively, but there are profound differences between them. In psychotherapy, the answers to questions come from without. In meditation the answers come from within. If the person is healthy in meditation any answers will reflect the individual’s values and aspirations much more accurately than if they are aided by a therapist whose ideas and values might be quite different. Meditation might also encourage a person to learn more from without by offering what is a safe place to retreat to when necessary. However, safety is not a simple issue, a lot depends on a person’s well being. Psychotherapy deals with the mundane, while meditation goes deeper and connects the mind to another dimension, sometimes called spirituality. Importantly, this shift to another dimension is also a shift in consciousness and an opening up of the unconscious, which leaves the meditating individual in a very vulnerable and gullible position. Such a person can be receptive to ideas which might not necessarily be in his or her best interest. Just as advertisers use subliminal messages to capture our custom, so too can meditation be used to indoctrinate the minds of innocent people. Clearly, this is not the purpose of genuine mediation, but in my lengthy experience of social movements, I have seen meditation used numerous times to enforce beliefs. Indoctrination is so much easier in a feel good environment and when the individual is led to believe they are in control of what is happening. Meditation induces the condition of self that appears holistic and in stasis. Psychotherapy is a way of working out problems along general lines of thinking. Meditation is a way of experiencing another dimension in life. Psychotherapy is life. The two should not be confused. There are many ways in which mediation can seem like therapy and it has all the same dangers therein. In therapy a person sets out to uncover deep and unresolved problems. In therapy the role of the therapist is to guide the person through these difficult situations in a way that the patient comes to his or her own safe and self determinations. In meditation when problems arrive there is no guide and the problems can seem insurmountable and in some cases they can invoke a breakdown and/or leave the mind open to alternative influences. The trends towards meditation in New Age groups is common and many are using meditation as a form of therapy and/or to change peoples’ thinking towards that of the group. Sigmund Freud noted this danger in the 1930s when he described how the ego of the individual is introjected into the leader of the group. We see this happen in cults quite clearly, but it is not so obvious in the movements that appear more democratic and progressive. We live in a world of discursive politics that find their way into various movements and practices and we need to be vigilant of the pitfalls and clearly invoke the appropriate checks and balances.
To be clear, I am not against meditation, indeed it can be a very powerful tool for healing and for bringing peace to mind, but like everything, motivation should always be open to question. The way to stay safe is to ask questions and to be completely satisfied with the answers. To conclude that meditation is useful because it is spiritual is not a satisfactory answer.
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Right Wing Activists in Left Wing Movements.

QAnon supporters wait for a military flyover during Fourth of July celebrations in Washington, D.C. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/The Washington Post via Getty Images. To read the original article go to

https://gen.medium.com/amp/p/d1a6ddcd7be4?fbclid=IwAR19qmtojn7z2Ezz5u_KyYnO2ziqzvkvnkSrbfGcm9XjW7iBJTxzfpBg2xM

My Response.

For a long time now, I have been suggesting that people look closely at the some of the alternative movements for their extreme and archaic idealism, which has its roots in the German Volk of the 1930s, having drawn its inspiration from the bio-organic commune of the 1800s, which in turn, was deeply involved in the advance of racial purity. In my 2013 book The Deep Green Delusion: Vitalism and Commmunal Autarky, I described how the organics movement is much broader than we imagine and as an exclusive food source it resonates with the ideas of Jorian Jenks who was a founding member of the UK Soil Association and also a member of the British Union of Fascists. The connection between Blood and Soil has a long history. My book, which is now out of print, described how mainstream social protest movements were usurped by a New Age theological cult, which made the environment movement a tool for the ruling elite. These groups separate from middle class radicalism and are deeply nationalist, isolationist and steeped in quasi-religious rhetoric that win hearts and minds through the use of positive psychology. While these groups were able to draw on the need for everyone to significantly change their consumer lifestyle, they also reiterate the ecology of scholars such as the German Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). In 1971 Daniel Gasman published a detailed account of Haeckel’s work titled Scientific Origins of National Socialism; and Social Darwinism and the German Monist League. Haeckel’s ecology played a key role in the genesis of the Volk and continues to feature is certain green movements today. Haeckel’s ideas led to the notion of closing borders and seizing land for the protection of the bloodlines, this was later embodied into the so-called protection of the environment. By 1968 the mantra was on population control, which was spirited on by Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb. The work has since been viewed as distinctly racist as Ehrilich floated the idea of temporary sterilants for easing the number of births in the developing world. Without wishing to name groups, movements or institutions, these disturbing Volkish sentiments still remain, but they are better known now for their connection to a cultural spirituality and mysticism, one that does not make the distinction between what is a genuine concern for the planet and its inhabitants and philosophies that have their roots in historical and racial self-interest. Before embarking on any alternative movement I would urge the reading of Madam Blavatsky’s the Secret Doctrine of the Atlantis, with its six root races, the master race being the Aryans, and make sure this philosophy is not being discursively promulgated by what appear to be well meaning social movements.