How Money Stops Growth

Line up all the economists in the world, it is said, and they'll all point in different directions. And while it's true that economists do view society through the particular lens of their political or sociological ideology, there are some general economics principles that seem widely held in the field.

One is that you can point to economic performance as an indicator of a household's or a company's or even a nation's success. And therefore the need to look after the drivers of this all-important economy - banks and corporations and GDP and all that stuff.

Economic performance is even one of the most important indices when considering happiness and quality of life on those top 10 countries to live in lists that pop up once or twice a year.

But yet, there is something obviously missing in a person who gives attention only to the financial side of things in life, something out of kilter and off balance - even psychotic - in running the world based on what the bean counters have to say.

We'll explore what's wrong with this view today. How Money Stops Growth, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Final Conflict

It would be difficult to ignore the problems all around us. In fact, I was watching a disturbing video on the weekend about the serious consequences of Geo-Engineering - this manipulation of the jet streams through chem trails and the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Alaska and Russia - and how it's threatening to finish up with the Arctic ice flows in 2 to 3 years and liberate massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere and generally demolish life as we know it.

It's a horrifying scenario, and coupled with the massive damage being caused economically by the secret banking cabals, and it can really make you lose sleep.

Good to remember, then, that there's good action all around us, too. Well intentioned people working in their communities for justice and equality and environmental sustainability.

This tension has always existed between the forces of evil and the forces of good, but it seems the stakes are higher today than they've ever been. It is no exaggeration to say we're living in important, even apocalyptic, times.

The Final Conflict, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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What a Normal Life Should Be

Check out a modern photography exhibition and you'll often find disturbing pictures of conflict and misery, along with the usual justifications of "Hey man, that's the reality!"

We all remember those generation defining images of the naked girl running down a dirt road in Vietnam, the young student defying the tanks in Tiananmen Square, the vulture stalking the child in the Sudan. And it's easy, in the face of those stark scenes, to think that this does indeed show reality.

I'm not so sure about that. If we look around us, we can certainly see enough disgrace and horror to make that argument that life is suffering.

But a humble psychoanalyst and social scientist in Brazil is forcing us to re-think all that. "Evil," states Norberto Keppe, "is just the destruction of good, not the natural state."

And that profound truth, although hinted at throughout history, has never been entrenched as a core pillar of any scientific philosophy. Until now.

What a Normal Life Should Be, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Why a Better Society Isn't Happening

There is a common misconception in many parts of the world that society is improving. "Hey, we don't draw and quarter people in the public square anymore," goes that common wisdom. "We've got central heating and watch on demand."

Yes, we do. We've also got very sophisticated killing machines, and for all our vaunted technological forensic wizardry there are still some disturbingly unanswered questions about 9-11.

I could make a strong case for us not advancing much at all in some fundamental aspects of what it means to be human - especially if we compare ourselves to the first humans described in the folklore of all peoples in earth.

Development of society from misery to relative abundance for all is more than a misconception - it's wrong in a fundamental sense because we come hard-wired for peace and justice and goodness, and the hows and whys we act against that basic programming deserve more consideration. "We're good but choose to act bad" is very different from "we're bad but we're getting better."

Why a better society isn't happening, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Paradise Now and the Universal Society

Way back in English Lit class at Reynolds High School in my hometown of Victoria, I remember Mrs. Kent waxing rhapsodically about Milton's Paradise Lost, and asking us if we believed in paradise regained.

I, with my thoughts on the basketball game that night against arch-rivals, Oak Bay, thought she was a bit loopy. But something must have got through for I've found myself not infrequently since reflecting on that very question.

I have never felt completely comfortable in society as it's been elaborated, and yearned not only for something better, but for how I might play a part in improving it. And it is this, of course, that's led me to Brazil and the profound work of Dr. Norberto Keppe.

Because, I'm happy to report, there is in this science of psycho-socio pathology, both a sublime analysis of how we painted ourselves into such a tight corner, and a therapy to help us get out. If we apply Keppe's findings, we have a chance.

Paradise Now and the Universal Society, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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The Metaphysical Basis of Keppe's New Physics

In the 1500s, the scientific revolution was in full bloom. Scientists were fighting for independence from the theological dogmas that were unchallengeable. The Bible was literally interpreted back then, so when it said the sun rises and sets, that was the final word.

One of the lead revolutionaries - the scientific Che Guevara, if you will - was Galileo, who proposed that actually it was the Earth that was moving, not the sun. This caused quite the furor back in the 1630s.

Today, there is another scientific revolution emerging. There are no Inquisition trials, but Norberto Keppe's scientific perspective is receiving the modern day equivalent - silence from the scientific mainstream. His views, though, are still shaking the foundations of science just as Galileo and Bacon did 600 years ago.

Keppe doesn't make the mistake the 16th century scientific radicals did, however, of throwing out philosophy and theology from his scientific proposals. It makes for a comprehensive science that's poised to lead us to a new society.

The Metaphysical Basis of Keppe's New Physics, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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The Power of Cooperative Living

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and welcome to Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

In season one of HBO's The Newsroom, Jeff Daniel's character, Will McAvoy, launches into a wild tirade when prompted by a student's question at a college debate. The student asks the panelists to say in a sentence why America is the greatest country in the world, and McAvoy is off on a rant reminiscent of Howard Beale in the movie, Network, from the '70s.And you'll be struck if you're at all cognizant of what's going on, how right on McAvoy is.

OK, it's a TV show. But modern art, as Brazilian psychoanalyst and social scientist, Norberto Keppe says, should be about denouncing social errors. This Newsroom excerpt does that.

But it's interesting to watch the reaction. Audience members are shocked, fellow panelists are horrified. But why are we so taken aback in North America when we see any problems in ourselves? The world is in big trouble. And this monster that is our First World-imposed economic social structure is making us sick. Let's take some steps to healing this.

The Power of Cooperative Living, this week on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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The New World of Free Energy

In the early 1900s, a well-known Serbian inventor-turned-American embarked on the project of his life - the wireless transmission of electromagnetic and high frequency waves. To fund his ambitious project, he turned to the foremost financial wizard of this day, J.P. Morgan.

The inventor was the great Nikola Tesla, whose work in the transmission of electricity and the a/c motor was among the most important scientific achievements ever, and Morgan had a keen eye for a good investment, but ... wireless transmission of energy? He couldn't charge for that, and pulled the plug on Tesla's funding.

It's been a similar story ever since - a promising and sustainable alternative to oil and coal gains some headway and suddenly the lab is burned down or the scientist dies in a strange accident or the media ridicules him. And we are forced to continue with the destructive technology controlled by the sick powerful.

It's a pattern that needs to come to an end.

The New World of Free Energy, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Hope for a Better Society

Welcome to Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Martin Luther King foretold of a promised land. Thoreau wrote of a transcendent time when wise men would ennoble the population. Thomas More dreamed his utopia. Lennon imagined all the people living life in peace.

The dream of a better society doesn't easily vacate the human heart. In all ages, from all continents, come dreamers with their inner vision turned outward or upward, hopeful of a time when all men and women would be free. And this vision has been sanctified in documents and constitutions and even poetry.

Mystics and prophets and artists have convoked and lamented. And we should ask, "Why?"  Why does this impossible dream persist? Perhaps because we, all of us, know, in our quiet moments, in the deepest parts of our souls, that it's not impossible. That, as Blake wrote, we should "live in eternity's sunrise."

Hope for a better society, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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The Psychotic Separation from God

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and this is Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. When I published our most recent program, Glorification and the Christmas Spirit, I mentioned that it would be our last program of 2012.

And so I thought. But my dear friend, Bob Butler, sent along an article the other day about the quite advanced movement to take Christ out of Christmas, and I felt obligated to step into the fray to address this unnecessary and imprudent tendency.

I say unnecessary because forbidding a school to call a tree the mount in the hallway in December a Christmas tree is not in support of the tolerant and pluralistic society we say we live in. My contention is that if that's all it takes to offend someone, then I think that person's problems are a little more serious than simple indignation.

And imprudent because the psychological and social consequences of eliminating humankind's spiritual dimension are grave. As we'll discover on the journey you'll embark on in our program today.

The Psychotic Separation from God, when Thinking with Somebody Else's Head returns on the STOP Radio Network.

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Glorification and the Christmas Spirit

Another Christmas period, and all that that brings. The packed parking lots, the festive yuletide happy hours, cooking - and eating - the fatted calf.

And maybe, in a quiet, reflective moment, a spark of will catch flame inside you and for a few seconds or moments or, if you're lucky, hours, you'll feel a deep sense of place and connection with your fellow man and the universe that you recognize as the Christmas spirit.

Those tantalizing moments are tragically short-lived. Some complain that they don't like this time of year because we should have this spirit all round. "It's fake and phony," they say. But it doesn't fell that way to any who are still enough to allow themselves to receive the grace and depth of that spirit. That Holy Spirit we can call it, and we should take time to remember that this time of year is for honouring that divine presence. Yes, Christmas, of all times, is time to remember that.

Glorification and the Christmas Spirit, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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The Science of Spirits

Welcome to Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Nowadays, a conversation about spirits is looked upon in most of our western world with a high degree of suspicion. Five hundred years or so of materialistic, positivistic science has pretty much kicked the stuffing out of the philosophy that included spirituality in its precepts.

But some formidable literary and philosophical figures included the spirit world in their canon - including Shakespeare and Dickens. Some great artists even considered the purpose of arts to be a transcendental one, and included subjects like spirits and God in their everyday conversations.

It is mostly we moderns who now, in our smug self-assuredness, pooh-pooh the idea of spiritual influence as being old fashioned and passé, and dismiss any such views as superstitious and childlike.

But maybe these past geniuses had a better grasp on reality than we do. Maybe there is something from the vast pre-modern worldview that bears a further look, and could be brought back now to help us make sense of our complex and confusing modern world.

The Science of Spirits today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head on the STOP Radio Network.

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Healthy Communities and Society's Immune System

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and this is Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

Any who've listened to this program for any length of time will know that I'm not much for relativity. As in, relative truth. Although that's a new stance for me, picked up over my 11 years of work at Norberto Keppe's International Society of Analytical Trilogy in Brazil.

"I have my truth, and you have yours," is a pretty common point of view from the New Age Movement, which seeks validation from the proposals of quantum physics that there's an unlimited offering of possibilities before us, and it's our choice that determines which one becomes reality.

It's an enticing idea: I am a co-creator of the Universe and therefore essential to its evolution.

Except that this idea disappears in the spotlight of Keppean metaphysics that proclaims that we are complete beings, not becomings at all. That we are, not that we are on the way.

This holds true for society as well. Society has an essential and perfect nature that we have degraded considerably. Although now, we have a science to help us return to the natural state.

Healthy Communities and Society's Immune System, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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The Spiritual Danger of Letting Yourself Go

Freedom. It's a word that hits deep in the human soul.

Let Freedom Ring!

Thank God Almighty, I am free at last!

Give me liberty or give me death!

These powerful declarations echo through time, but always seem current. Can there be anything more relevant than freedom? Stacked up against the social justice implied by liberty, our blind focus on monetary self-interest seems petty and pathetic. In the face of the grand ambitions of the human soul, our typical daily strivings pale in comparison.

But for all its power and resonance, freedom in real terms seems dauntingly difficult to achieve. That's easy to see in places where freedom is blatantly restricted, but even in the so-called free world of the west, true freedom as Christ and King and Kennedy called for has eluded us.

Perhaps this is because we have confused freedom with being free to do whatever we want - and that, in Keppe's psychological view, is fraught with peril.

The Spiritual Danger of Letting Yourself Go, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Transcending Einstein and Materialism with Keppe's New Physics

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky writes, "You have needs, satisfy them. Don't hesitate. Expand your needs and demand more." He calls this "the worldly doctrine of today."

But true to the depth of the great writer, he acknowledges the trap we fall into when we pursue a life of singular materialism.

"The result," Dostoevsky writes, "For the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder."

So boiling that down to its metaphysical essence, Dostoevsky was basically suggesting that the popular bumper sticker, "He who dies with the most toys wins," is a lot of twaddle.

But materialism is our inheritance from about 500 years of science bent on eradicating anything to do with spirituality - which they termed superstitious - from their theories.

I don't think this was a step up. In the end, a materialistic philosophy narrows our perspective to where mere survival becomes our primary objective.

Transcending Einstein and Materialism with Keppe's New Physics, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Narcissism, Shame and the Inverted Sense of Freedom

Think of the greatest among us and a pattern will emerge. For those who've done something truly valuable in life, one characteristic that stands out. Somehow, in some way, they've been interested in doing something for others.

I'm not talking about the preening and PR initiatives that drive some accomplishment, of course - the self-promotion behind Academy Award lobbying or magazine cover stories proposed by highly paid publicists. But the true contribution of photo-op shy individuals and groups that truly makes the world a better place. For underlying all of this type of accomplishment must be a high degree of selflessness, of forgetting oneself in the service to the good of others.

And we all know people like that who put aside their own glory a little to come to the aid of a greater purpose. Even if they receive personal recognition in the process.

Erich Fromm considered the main condition for the achievement of love to be overcoming our narcissism, and it's this we'd like to dive into today.

Narcissism, Shame and the Inverted Sense of Freedom, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Vanquishing Mathematical Technology and Restoring Society's Soul

When analyzing the crises in society, it is customary to lay blame on a wide array of doorsteps. There's corporate malfeasance, of course, and political ineptitude and general apathy, to name a few. And back of them all is the corrupting influence of money and greed.

And that's about as far as we normally get. A few of the more strident truth seekers draw a bigger circle and follow the trail to the secret organizations pulling the levers and flipping the switches from high level strategy sessions behind the scenes.

But I don't think I've every heard anyone point the finger at the dominance of mathematics as a crucial flaw in our philosophical underpinnings. That's exactly what Norberto Keppe does in his magnificent work. Reading Keppe's book, Sociopathology, will be a slap in the face to calculus geeks and binary nerds of any nationality. And a breath of fresh air to any of us who need our cellphone calculators to divide up the lunch bill.

This is a complex analysis Keppe embarks on, and we'll launch off on the initial forays into the territory today.

Vanquishing Mathematical Technology and Restoring Society's Soul, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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The Occult Olympics and the Reptilian Brain

This week on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head ... most of us are pretty clueless about the occult history of humankind. To our detriment. Occult agendas have been behind many of the momentous occurrences in history, from Columbus' journeys to find the New World, to Hitler's drive for a Third Reich.

Both saints and psychotics have been moved by esoteric knowledge that has never been mainstream, and this makes analysis of the field murky and prone to extremism and fanatacism.

Some agents acting on this occult knowledge have been extremely well intentioned. Columbus and numerous Millenarists from various religious and political persuasions fall into that camp.

Others from the modern New World Order camp have been in no way well intentioned.

And deep within the conspiracy theories lies some truth: the machinations behind the scenes of history's events have remained obscured and hidden in secret meetings and occult intentions, and this is never revealed on the 6 o'clock news.

But if you know what to look for, you will see subliminal messages of this subterfuge everywhere. The Occult Olympics and the Reptilian Brain, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Corrupting Society's Divine Tissue

We who spend our lives in so-called First World countries have little idea how we got that way. We grow up in the lap of relative luxury and are not stimulated to question the luck of the birth lottery that had us being born where we were.

And as we grow up in that protected crucible, we seldom stop to question the system that gives us relative everything while millions more in other less privileged parts of our globe go without. Far from questioning, actually - we scramble frantically to carve out our little corner of paradise whee we can hunker down with families and fireplaces and frequent flyer miles in isolation so complete we rarely think about those little details like social injustice or economic imperialism.

In spite of giving a nod to the global imbalance through our sophisticated recycling programs, financial support to Third World charities and wholesome bike lanes, we don't want to rock the boat that much. In fact, it's safe to say the blame for our world's social crises can be partly laid at out feet.

Corrupting Society's Divine Tissue, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Going Beyond Sex and Passion

I was browsing through a friend's Facebook timeline the other day, and came across her New Year's message.

OK, so here we are in August and I'm looking at January, so I really was browsing. The point is, what she said really stood out to me - live with full passion is what she wrote.

And I get that. Do what you do with feeling. Imbue your activities with drive and verve. This is, of course, sage advice. Far too often we sleep walk through life, failing to grasp the magnificence that lays itself out before us at ever step. So I get her point.

But I also think it's a little more complicated than that. Passion, as the great Pablo Neruda said, is "as if you were on fire from within." And how could anyone argue against the merits of that? But it seems that perhaps passion unleashed without the tether of a good purpose can demolish rather than build. And it is here we need to explore more deeply. For a true human being must understand how to do what's really important. And that takes massive self-knowledge.

So let's go beyond sex and passion today, on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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