Prosecute the Unconscious Media

Prosecute the Unconscious Media
by Jeff Brown
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As the battle between the authentic and the inauthentic intensifies, we need to be mindful of where we focus our gaze. This is a key moment in the burgeoning battle for truth, and we must be grounded and clear in our focus, lest we fall prey to misguided reactivities and manipulations that do not serve our ultimate destination- an awakened, enheartened society.

As protestors rightfully gather around unconscionable corporations and stock markets, I want to also focus our gaze on the unconscious elements of the media. I appreciate that these systems all work together to serve their selfish ends, but media trickery often seems to fly under the radar, almost too obvious to be detected. And it is devastating in its impact. I am not speaking of the members of the media who are kind and benevolent in their intentions. We applaud their efforts.I am talking about those media outlets and individuals who work our anxiety for their own economic benefit. Enemies of the sacred, their effectiveness at stoking our fears, panic buttons and survivalist energies is so brilliant that they can cause stock markets to crash, tremendous anxiety and suffering, illness and death. We the people need to gather together to fight against them, and legislation needs to be enacted that assertively contains their manipulations.
 
On the morning of 9-1-1, my grandmother called me to share her experience. She knew she should turn the television off, but she couldn’t. She was hooked into the repeated images of the planes hitting the buildings, the people falling to their death, the alarmism and terror. Like so many of us on this planet, she had grown up with perpetual anxiety around safety and survival, and it didn’t take much to trigger her back into a state of terror. She was getting severe palpitations, but she couldn’t turn it off, as the images of horror triggered her root chakra anxieties back to the surface. She could easily have died watching those images. I wonder how many people did.
 
The unconscious elements in the media prey on the vulnerable. They are concerned with nothing more than advertising revenues, and understand, deeply, that the best way to hook people into them is through negative imagery and alarmism. Imagine waking up every day, excited at the possibility of sharing horrifying things with humanity. Thats their gig. They recognize that most of the collective consciousness is still vibrating around survivalism and fear, and that the best way to get us addicted to their news is to trigger our root chakra anxieties. Though my grandmother had no real economic worries in her senior years, childhood memories of poverty and war resided in the bones of her being. Most of us carry survivalist anxieties, in form or another.
 
I cannot even begin to imagine how many people have gotten ill, and died, because of the immunological and economic effects of the unconscious media. How many have suffered emotional and psychological problems. How many who struggle to find a reason to believe in life have been discouraged and derailed. There are studies that need to be done.
In service of their ends, the unconscious media work the dark side. They exaggerate negative weather reports, overwhelm us with negative business news, startle us with images of terror, unnerve us with that alarmist music that accompanies quick news flashes. They work the panic button time and time again until we have nothing left to buffer us. It is my view that the now ridiculously over-reactive stock markets were largely caused by the unconscious media’s effectiveness during the economic crisis in 2008. They hit our panic button so hard that we are now interpreting reality through the lens of our root-chakra anxiety, so sure that the world is falling apart that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you tell a nervous public that there is a recession often enough, it becomes a recession. It is that simple. They have us by the root now, and they know it. We have to get our root back.

 
And what is worse is that they now have more ways to get to us. It is not just the newspapers, or the 11 p.m. news. It’s on the television screens at the bars, airport luggage racks, shopping malls. It is right there when we open the internet. It is everywhere we look.
 
We will never get away from anxiety as our organizing principle, if we don’t fight back. I suggest 5 steps in particular:
 
(1) Conscious, legal, non-violent protests at all unconscious media outlets world-wide. This means at any newspaper, radio or television station, or news source that uses the principles of fear-mongering and exaggerated negativity to draw our attention. It is one thing to report tragedies and injustices, but it is quite another to misrepresent the reality of world events. There are far more positive things happening in the world every day than negative. We must protest until the news becomes more representative of reality. We want it to reach a stage where every journalist knows to check in with themselves to ensure that they are propagating information that will actually enhance humanity. The minimum standard must be world betterment and the promotion of human connectiveness.

(2) Civil litigation (law-suits) against media individuals and outlets whose negative news presentation has caused undue suffering and harm to the physical, psychological and economic well-being of humanity. Class-action suits would be most effective, as they will strike at the heart of their economic power and may cause the unconscious media to re-think their approach. They, are, after all, primarily motivated by economic considerations.

(3) Make real efforts to have criminal charges laid against the unconscious media. In law, an act is deemed criminal if two elements are present at one time: (1) Mens rea- guilty mind; that is an intention to do harm, or an intention that is so reckless or negligent as to the harm caused that it is still deemed culpable; (2) actus reas- guilty act; that is, an act that causes harm to others. It is my view that the unconscious media- individuals and corporations- demonstrate both mens rea and actus reas when they misrepresent the news in an effort to trigger our alarm button and get our attention. They surely have an unconscionable intention, and they do real physical harm- stress hormones are triggered into action, immunological and physical damage results etc. It is an assault, one that only appears inobvious until we open our eyes and see the depth of the damage caused.
(4) Do your best to not watch, listen to or read the unconscious media. They are motivated by money, so if we stop colluding, they will get the message and make the shift. Some call it a “news fast”. Only support those media individuals and outlets that are in integrity and in balance in their presentation of the news.
(5) In depth and firmly backed legislation must be put into place to ensure that the media is moving from benevolence and not exploiting our anxieties to serve their own ends. There should be legislation in every jurisdiction, with watchdogs in place who will act vigilantly to protect humanity. There are those that say that the free market should work this out on its own terms, but I do not agree with that. Perhaps that will one day be the case in the world as it ought to be, but not in the world as it currently is. Again, the collective unconscious still holds a tremendous degree of fear. Survivalist anxieties are so close to the surface of everyday consciousness. Until we reach a stage where the collective has been far removed from these anxieties for many generations, we need systemic protection against those misery mongers and purveyors of doom who seek to perpetuate our fears. They truly are enemies of the sacred.
 
We're on the cusp of a Revolution of the Receptive, a time when we welcome the heart to open, when surrender and sensitivity are honoured as gateways to the moment, when those who have the courage to live from their hearts are recognized as the true warriors on Mother Earth. The era of the malevolent warrior is coming to a close. It is time for the Benevolent Warrior, for the ones who allow their hearts to speak its truth. The benevolent warrior has shifted his focus from a localized and ethnocentric perspective to a world-centric framework of perception. Her community is humanity. Rooted in the relational, his sense of responsibility extends well beyond his localized self and community. Where possible, her choice-making is fuelled by an expansive vision of possibility for all of humankind. Not every man for himself, but every man for humanity. As we move toward a more enheartened world, we must stand our ground against those individuals and systems that seek to imprison us behind constricting walls of fear. We must fight for our right to the light.
 
I hear all the doomsayers, but I believe we've entered into a time of great promise. Although things appear to be falling apart, they are actually coming together as false structures are tumbling down, melting in the face of truth and genuine self-revealing. I don't believe the world will dissolve in 2012 or that we're facing ultimate financial collapse. We'll have challenges, but we'll work them out. I believe that sacred activists are more necessary now, not because tragedy is upon us, but because we're moving beyond survivalism as a guiding principle. We are moving, side by side, heart in heart, towards authenticity as our shared way of being. Of course it is going to get noisy as egoic walls come tumbling down, of course the energy is going to intensify and frighten us. It comes with the territory. This is a time of radical change, an up-draft of heartfelt proportions. But we will make it through, we just will. We're brilliantly adaptive, and on the deepest truest levels, we all want to lay down our arms, and move through life from the heart outward. We may be able to endure most anything, but we are built to love. That is where we are headed. We just have to fight a few more battles on the road home. The Unconscious Media is one of them.
 
 
A former criminal lawyer and psychotherapist, Jeff Brown is the author of "Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation," recently published by North Atlantic Books. Endorsed by authors Elizabeth Lesser and Ram Dass, "Soulshaping" is Brown's autobiography -- an inner travelogue of his journey from archetypal male warrior to a more surrendered path. You can connect with his work at www.soulshaping.com * Email: [email protected] *
 
 
Soulshaping | 210-639 Dupont St. | Toronto | Ontario | M6G-1Z4 | Canada  *

ChrisBowers's picture

that we cannot legislate morality.  Lawyers find loopholes, or design/embed them into new legislation.  It is the Heart of Man that must change, not the laws.  I truly believe we are in the process of this change of Heart enmasse as a Spiritually and physically evolving species.

What we do with laws in the interim is a matter of debate, but history has already shown us what a drive for new and better legislation produces (new and better shady lawyers)...

Wendy's picture

No. 4 is really the only solution. I was a little disappointed as to how this was worded. Sounds like the author hasn't completely killed his TV yet. For those of us that have already implemented this, life feels so much more abundant in both time and material wealth.

I also question the use of the word unconscious. Is all this negativity really unconscious or a conscious effort to keep us all in our places?

The unconscious are asleep to the greater Oneness and Love that is all around them.  They are concerned only with profit. 

Fairy

Wendy's picture

Good point Ffg!

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