Rise up by kneeling down, into the soil, into Earth and into ourselves. When we garden we consume the fruits of our labors but more importantly we consume the soul of the soil and with it comes the power to live free.

- BigGreenFrog

Lots of people , usually in late teens to late 20s , in their desire to find deep meaning, absolute truths. etc turn to all sorts of things. it seems that human construction comes packaged with an acute desire to appoint god figures....people need to worship...to appoint authorities outside themselves, divine or otherwise...season to taste...to take responsibility for all the stuff they cant handle......the burden of responsibility is to great....This desire to worship and be led has been ruthlessly exploited by politicians, rock promoters, cult leaders etc etc etc for a long time. And every new generation we get a new batch of stupid seekers and suckers. Like every decade or so we get the new hybrid-hindu hustler...remember maharishi mahesh yogi?..then we get Krishna murti who tried to be a little more mainstream...then we get bhagwan shree rajneesh with his fleet of rolls royces in Oregon....( he became a father figure granting permissions and benedictions to the middle aged neurotics that entered his barrack-compounds...these were the deeply inhibited people that could only use there stunted genitalia if someone told then it was ok....and they only had to give him all their possessions to get his nod) then we get a modern hustler like deepak chopra, same crap in updated wrappers...and the idiots never wake......of course ISKON is for the truly demented...how people swallow this line of crap about a thumbnail sized blue deity with 20 arms ruling the universe...screw the metaphors...certainly sceew the literality....as i type this i have very little sympathy for the wolves or their sheep......anyone stupid enough for even a second to fall for any of these ploys deserves everything they get......if there is a god, take your pick , and he designs creatures with IQs so low that they buy these cons.....then I have nothing to say about it.....if some silly punk is lonely and sees a group of brainwashed idiots leaping around in the name of whatever deity it is that week...and decide it's a good way to get laid....and then ends up swallowing some shit he didn't expect...it's because hes a damn moron., and as for the meaning of life, it goes like this: first your force fed shit.....then you start to eat it on your own,,,then you start to like the taste...then you die from shit poisoning.....

iskon....IS a CON

people aren't merely receptive to messages and hypnotic oration.......they are also like swarms of gnats that orbit streetlights in the summer. first you start with something bright and sparkly, or sweet and sticky.....anything perceived as "attractive" and this can be a speech by Hitler or a candy bar with a garishly colored wrapper. If more then one person is attracted by the lure...even if its by nothing more then wide open blank-eyed curiosity...then another person will notice the first person and now we have 2 slack jawed cow eyed people watching. That is enough to begin the pooling effect...more will come for no other reason then that there are already 2 assembled...it isn't necessary to analyze this feature...it is already irreducible,,,it can be called part of the "genetic architecture" of the species for lack of some more precise term. and i agree that people of "higher intelligence" are often the first in the door. Lets say we have a high IQ person that is also young and /or emotionally inexperienced or volatile and experientially limited. Or like many smart people is frustrated and dissatisfied with the boring mundane options that life offers......hard work.....gradual advancement........shitty jobs etc.....so the person is looking for something "different" and is more inclined to bend the physics of common sense to adapt to his frustration and the probable lonlinesss that comes with it. and now...voila.......he finds a whole new crowd of people...and this offers the possibility of meeting pals or lovers.....and so what if it comes with a thumbnailsized blue deity with 10 arms that rules the universe by playing a flute........I think the most powerful lure for any organization that wants believers for its own ends (which are usually economic) is the simple fact of crowd magnetism...and like any growing entity...the larger it becomes..the more powerful the gravitational force...this type of social physics is just as true as the gravitational force found with inorganic objects...and anyone can see endless examples in history..or just go to a sports arena or concert etc.
One more word on money...the most dangerous cults are led bt people who are "true believers" where money actually isn't the issue...then we get the Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhites.....these are the freaks that lead their flocks right out of this world and then we get the bloated decomposing corpses.......ahh well....lets hear it for free will.

- some random internet guy

Overall, regardless of deflation/inflation, we're f**ked pretty much - either way, we don't have the localized infrastructure to do *anything* anymore, which is pretty much the only way I think we could get out of either direction in the long run.

-CZ

The Nine Steps of the Law of Extraction

1. Promise people something they desperately want, no matter how ludicrous it may be.

For example, promise to show people - for a price, of course - how to get everything without doing anything.

2. Make the process for achieving this sound as mysterious as possible. For example, call it a mystery or maybe even a secret.

3. Legitimize your process by quoting a scientist or two. This way you can claim your process is actually “based” on science.

4. Assure people your process is foolproof. That is, anyone can do it and it will work every time all the time. Calling it a universal law is helpful in this regard.

5. Include a universal loophole so that when the process fails you can place the blame elsewhere.

For example, “The reason it didn’t work is because you didn’t do it right. Fortunately, there are advanced techniques that can help you.”

Notice, this loophole not only deflects blame, but also creates additional revenue streams (see points 6 and 7).

6. Sell advanced techniques in the form of high-dollar, back-end products, seminars and coaching programs using a multi-level commission structure in order to maximize revenue extraction.

7. Offer high-dollar “Certification Programs” to license others to sell your process to others. Be sure to require your licensees to also pay you a sizable percentage of any future sales they may make.

8. Focus your efforts on the right target audience. As the old saying goes, you can fool some people all of the time and they are the ones you need to focus on.

9. Express gratitude at least three times a day for all the abundance the Law of Extraction is bringing into your life.

- Blair Warren

Ponzi schemes have been and always will be a CONFIDENCE game. Gain the confidence of your mark before you burn him.

President:I belive there is much to learn from each other if we can make a truce. We can find a way to co-exist. Can there be a peace between us?

Alien: Peace? NO PEACE!

President: What is it you want us to do?

Alien: Die... Die.

- Independence Day

I was shocked and dismayed –I think we all were- to learn that Goldman Sachs had been involved in whatever it was they did. I had always ranked them with unlicensed boxing promoters and taxi drivers in Cairo, as people who inspire one with absolute confidence.

I was visiting my poor mother in Somerset when I heard the news.

"You’re never going to believe this," I told old Longbottom the farmer. "Goldman Sachs defrauded investors out of more than $1bn by mis-marketing toxic sub-prime mortgage-related securities."

He looked at me with tears in his honest, weather-beaten old face.

"I don't understand it," he said, "but I know it's wrong".

- blog: Chase Me Ladies I'm in the Cavalry

Soon his lungs are full and he holds it the way he would hold pot smoke. He exhales and is immediately coughing. The taste is like medicine, or cleaning fluid, but also a little sweet, like limes. The smoke billows out into the living room like a great unfurling dragon. As he watches the cloud spread and curl, he feels the high at first as a flutter, then a roar. A surge of new energy pounds through every inch of him, and there is a moment of perfect oblivion where is is aware of nothing and everything. A kind of peace breaks out behind his eyes. It spreads down from his temples into his chest, to his hands and everywhere. It storms through him - kinetic, sexual, euphoric - like a magnificent hurricane raging at the speed of light. It is the warmest, most tender caress he has ever felt and the, as it recedes, the coldest hand. He misses the feeling even before it's left him and not only does he want more, he needs it.

Bill Clegg 'Portrait of an addict as a young man'

I loved something that I made up

– Scarlett O’Hara

Worship Shiva neither by day or night.
By transcending day and night, Shiva is always worshiped.

Hatha Yoga Pradipika 4.42

So this is continuous happiness. You know, I always imagined it as something more.

Feeling people cannot harm others or even harm animals. Because they can feel, they experience the impact of their every act. They can feel the Pain of others and would not do anything to hurt them.When people cannot live by feelings they must live by categories: right and wrong. For them, all behavior must be so classified.

-Arthur Janov

The United States is gone. It got too big to fail, then it failed. The hair and nails on the corpse are still growing for a while. But, the inevitable decay will commence no matter what the elitists do. It's harsh medicine, but it's the only way to exorcise the corporate demons. Starve them to death. Hopefully, a few smaller and easier to govern US's will get going again and won't be so destructive to the environment and adventurous with the lives of the poor and the marginalized.

- Illingsk

Vidal: "As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of proto- or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself. Failing that, I'll only say that we can't have--"

Buckley: "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered."

Way back when, when I heard the new president of US Steel proclaim 'We are not in the business of making steel, we are in the business of making MONEY'. It was over. Just like a steer shot in the head, yeah, they thrash around for a while, but the death blow has been dealt. It's OVER.

- net post

The small man
builds cages for everyone
he knows.

While the sage,
who has to duck his head
when the moon is low,

keeps dropping keys all night long
for the beautiful
rowdy
prisoners.

--Hafiz, 14th-century Sufi poet

Another art of the tyrant is to sow quarrels among the citizens; friends should be embroiled with friends, the people with the notables, and the rich with one another. Also he should impoverish his subjects; he thus provides against the maintenance of a guard by the citizen and the people, having to keep hard at work, are prevented from conspiring. The Pyramids of Egypt afford an example of this policy; also the offerings of the family of Cypselus, and the building of the temple of Olympian Zeus by the Peisistratidae, and the great Polycratean monuments at Samos; all these works were alike intended to occupy the people and keep them poor.

- Aristotle

After houses, cars are the biggest money sink there is- period. As long as one is able to get back and forth to work, being car-free is quickest way to get out of debt and stay out of debt, plus avoid a huge amount of stress and headaches. Perhaps most people don't realize how much of a money-sink car ownership really is. Car 'ownership' is practically slavery in my opinion. The car 'owner' is unknowingly the slave, always trying to provide their master (car) with monthly payments, routine maintenance, repairs, insurance, gasoline, car washes, custom upgrades, parking fees, etc. Yes, the cars own their drivers through a never-ending demand of servitude. Kind of like serfdom.

"When the end comes, as I suppose the end must always come, it seems it will be the stronger, deeper, more cunning, and more beautiful who will survive"

That's me a goner, then....

- Charles Lee

"It's a racket. Those stock market guys are crooked."
- Al Capone

i returned home through the snow. Crossing the road i lost my footing on a patch where cars had impacted the snow into a frictionless patina, and as i was falling i reflected that knowledge presents similar problems to snow – where many have trodden, the ground is icy, one just skids along, unable to generate the friction for a proper step; and as civilization progresses, it is harder to find fresh snow, where the foot can crunch and tread; one needs to approach the matter differently, to contemplate ancient knowledge as a modern man, or modern knowledge as an ancient – either is like wearing snowshoes – there is friction, a useful strangeness. The world is strange but accumulations of research disguise this. So academics never seem to approach the matter itself – they get as far as “what Nietzsche said” or “the Leavis position” and go no further. Hence academics are constantly citing other academics – they entirely lack the innocence one needs, to see things as they are, as strange. Everything is familiar to the academic – that is to say, false. Nothing is familiar.

- Elberry

"To be a successful copywriter, you have to appeal to your prospect’s feelings and desires. Here are seven very important ones:

Fear!

Greed!

Vanity!

Lust!

Pride!

Envy!

Laziness!

Do you recognize where these came from? If you are Catholic, you probably do. They are the Seven Deadly Sins."

- direct marketing tutorial

"I don't fight. I'm too old, have had too many broken bones, have too many scars, and have too many teeth knocked out. The best I can hope to do is make a quick, clean, kill."

- Jerry Penguin

“O God, put away justice and truth for we cannot understand them and do not want them. Eternity would bore us dreadfully. Leave Thy heavens and come down to our earth of water clocks and hedges. Become our uncle. Look after Baby, amuse Grandfather, escort Madam to the Opera, help Willy with his homework, introduce Muriel to a handsome naval officer. Be interesting and weak like us, and we will love you as we love ourselves.”

- W. H. Auden