“Anxiously we look round for collective measures, thereby reinforcing the very mass-mindedness we want to fight against. There’s only one remedy for the leveling effect of all collective measures, and this is to emphasize and increase the value of the individual.”   Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition We live in an age where two visions […]

“The real question is whether the ‘brighter future’ is always so distant. What if it has been here for a long time already – and only our own blindness and weakness have prevented us from seeing it around us and within us, and kept us from developing it.” Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless […]

“Authoritarianism in religion and science, let alone politics, is becoming increasingly accepted, not particularly because so many people explicitly believe in it but because they feel themselves individually powerless and anxious. So what else can one do…except follow the mass political leader…or follow the authority of customs, public opinion, and social expectations?” Rollo May, Man’s […]

“The State takes the place of God…the socialist dictatorships are religions and State slavery is a form of worship.” Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self Since the birth of totalitarianism in the 20th century much has been written about this form of rule and millions have read George Orwell’s depiction of it in the classic novel […]

“I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society.” Henry David Thoreau, Walking If this claim of Henry David Thoreau’s is true – that we must […]

“What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.” Alice Miller, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence In the Buddhist’s conception of the universe, the wheel of life revolves through 6 realms, each representing a different […]

In the book The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt describes the rudimentary mass surveillance system used by the secret police force of the Russian Empire. “Every suspect was noted on a large card in the center of which his name was surrounded by a red circle; his political friends were designated by smaller red circles […]

“WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?” These were the first words sent over the newly invented electric telegraph machine in May 1844. This message proved to be prophetic. For the communication technologies that followed in the wake of the telegraph, from the telephone, to the radio, to TV, computers, the internet, and now smart phones and social […]

“And the lie has, in fact, led us so far away from a normal society that you cannot even orient yourself any longer; in its dense, gray fog not even one pillar can be seen.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago Lying has always been used for political purposes. Lies cover up corruption, past mistakes and […]

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, reflecting on the Soviet Union’s descent into totalitarian rule in the mid-20th century, and all the things that could have been done to prevent it, wrote the following:  “If…if… We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation. . .we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure! … We purely and simply deserved everything that […]