The Sunday afternoon podcast with Greg Reese

According to the Brookings Institution’s analysis of carbon tax timing, high fossil fuel prices are the worst time to impose a carbon tax, but are the best time to build the underlying market architecture. And that infrastructure is rapidly being built and deployed by the biggest multinational corporations, governments and states, and the United Nations — especially in the past few months.Announced at Davos in January 2026, the carbon market platform EcoGuard automates the full carbon credit lifecycle. The carbon market is expected to reach $5 trillion by 2035. This infrastructure is designed to be “invisible and ubiquitous” — the goal is for every transaction, settlement, and data point to be managed behind the scenes so that the user is not aware of it.Also at Davos last January, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said that AI “will destroy humanities jobs,” and described a future in which high school students train for factory jobs, no one goes to college or immigrates, and black-box software run by major government contractors determines whether society is being run properly.For the more compliant, the so-called 15-minute city, smart city, and freedom city models are being built to incorporate digital ID, carbon tracking, and population monitoring. Where you live, how far you travel, and what your carbon footprint is are already being tracked in multiple countries and several US cities. For the non-compliant, the prison business is booming. Federal and state governments have announced over $2 billion in new prison construction in the past year alone — and the private sector dwarfs that. ICE’s detention budget quadrupled when the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law in July 2025, adding nearly $11.25 billion to their coffers every year through 2029. An ICE director said he wanted a detention system that runs “like Prime, but for human beings.”And in order to keep the compliant managed and the non-compliant contained, we have Palantir, which received a no-bid contract from the USDA to track federal employees’ return-to-office compliance with “real-time analytics” and “continuous compliance monitoring.” The contract also includes the initiative, which will give Palantir a unified database of the land holdings, conservation practices, insurance claims, and financial data of every farmer who interacts with the USDA. This is the same Palantir that is proudly assisting the United States and Israel in targeting operations against civilians across the Middle East.Palantir CEO Alex Karp published The Technological Republic in February 2025. It became an instant New York Times #1 bestseller and has been described as “the AI manifesto inspiring Keir Starmer’s government” by The Times of London. Karp’s central argument is that the state must merge its power with Big Tech — as it did during the Manhattan Project — to “save Western civilization.” The original 1930s technocracy movement, of which Elon Musk’s grandfather was a member, declared that “technocracy stands ready with a plan to salvage American civilization, if and when democracy can no longer cope with the inherent disruptive forces.” Palantir is currently deployed by the Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, the FDA, the CDC, and the NIH, and is in discussions with the IRS and the Social Security Administration.The Bank for International Settlements has been quietly publishing frameworks for CBDC interoperability that would allow all national digital currencies to communicate with each other under a unified settlement layer. Sam Altman’s Worldcoin project is building a worldwide biometric identity system with the stated goal of distinguishing humans from AI agents at scale. It already operates in dozens of countries.The new system is falling together in pieces: a digital ID to fight fraud, a stablecoin for faster payments, carbon tracking for transparency, and AI for government efficiency. Our driver’s licenses become our digital wallets, and our level of compliance can determine how much access we have to them. There appears to be very little pushback — and soon, it may seem to be the only option available to avoid total collapse. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

On average, the United States has been starting wars with other nations once every ten years since its founding. And during this same time, Iran hasn’t started any. Foreign interest in Iran during the modern era began in the early Nineteen-Hundreds with the Anglo-Persian Oil company. The British Crown became dependent upon Iranian oil, and the people of the Middle-East were subjected to a century of betrayals, strategic deception, and psychological operations. In 1921, Britain overthrew the Iranian government. During World War II, both Britain and the USSR invaded Iran to steal their oil. In 1953, Britain and the USA overthrew the Iranian government.After 9/11 was carried out by the USA and Israel, Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were blamed, assets of Western intelligence agencies, and the foreign Zionists then began a campaign of mass murder in the region that has so far amassed a death count in the millions. And when Zionist forces occupied Iraq, the Iranians knew they were coming for them, and so they prepared accordingly.Less than 48 hours before the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28th, the United States had just concluded their most productive round of nuclear negotiations in years, and had agreed to meet again in four days. The independent mediator announced that a peace deal was within reach and said Iran had agreed it would never have nuclear material to create a bomb. Iran had offered full IAEA access to its nuclear sites. Iran offered to down-blend its highly enriched uranium stockpiles to the lowest possible level and convert them into irreversible fuel. Technical talks were scheduled for the following Monday in Vienna. And a fourth round of political negotiations was scheduled within the week. But forty-eight hours later, Trump and Israel launched an attack on Iran. The initial strikes included the nation’s leader, and a hundred and seventy-eight Iranian school girls, who were murdered by the US with a double strike of Tomahawk missiles.The so-called, Army, Navy, and Air-Force that Trump brags about completely destroying, were decoys meant to help waste US/Israeli munitions. Iran has clearly been paying attention to the Zionist protocols of war, and have developed a deterrent that secures their sovereignty. The real military is underground.A massive city of tunnels has been built beneath the entire country, with a stockpile of missiles to rain down daily for years. This underground city is well beyond the depth for the US and Israel’s bunker busters, and it seems to have an endless amount of launch sites throughout the entire nation.Their weapons systems are all custom made to defeat the Zionist war machine. Thousands of drones launched in swarms to overwhelm defense systems. Missiles with no fins upon reentry, making it harder for radar to get a lock. Missiles that steer away from predicted flight paths to evade interceptors. Missiles that deploy several other warheads that evade interceptors. And hypersonic missiles fast enough to evade modern air defense systems. Iran is having so much success that on March 21st they launched a single strike against Israel’s nuclear facilities at Dimona and hit the target in an impressive show of force that sent a clear message; Iran can now target Israel’s nukes at will.One of the most striking things about Iran’s campaign has been their transparency. They have been announcing their actions and targets and following through to their word, which stands out in stark contrast to the US/Israeli method of war; deception and terror.Iran’s real Navy is underground as well, and designed specifically for this war. They have thousands of Unmanned Surface Vehicles that operate as swarms and are equipped to take down any ship in the Gulf no matter how massive. After decades of being exploited and playing nice, Iran has effectively Nationalized the Straight of Hormuz, which has always been their home.Iran has been planning this since 2003, they have enough munitions for years and are continuing to produce more underground. The US and Israel on the other hand, are already running out. Iran has made it clear, they will not submit to the Zionist threat, and they will tank the world economy if they need to, which is well within their ability at any moment right now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

Despite having the world’s most powerful navy, the United States cannot force the Strait of Hormuz open, which every US military expert knew would be closed if Iran was attacked. This is why the US Navy is miles away. And it is why America’s NATO Allies are refusing to participate.The Iranians may have suffered the brutal Shock & Awe of the United States military, but they have been preparing for decades, and as the US is already running low on weapons, Iran has plans for a long term asymmetrical war, a defensive fight for their very existence. Iran has the moral high ground and they are holding practically all the cards.By his own admission, Trump expected a quick, decisive victory. He ignored warnings from experts, and instead, listened to his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.With a smile on his face, the President of the United States has said that it’s fun to kill the Iranians, and that they are genetically inferior. By any historical standard, America has never had a president speak in such a manner. It has been confirmed that the United States has murdered almost two hundred school girls with Tomahawk missiles fired at an elementary school. Trump said he can live with it, and Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, said there would be ‘no quarter, no mercy’.While ongoing US-Iran nuclear talks were taking place in Geneva, Israel launched major airstrikes against Iran, followed by the US. Iran and the US began negotiations again in Geneva early last February, and Iran agreed to degrade its nuclear stockpiles. Two days after negotiations ended, Trump attacks Iran. Deceptive diplomacy has been used to attack Iran twice in the past year, it would be unreasonable for them to trust anything that the US and Israel have to say. And it only encourages Iran to develop nuclear weapons, which they have yet to do.During the Korean War, the United States targeted the civilian population, killing approximately 20% of them, and destroyed nearly every major city in a “scorched earth” strategy, which included targeting dams to destroy the agricultural economy. This resulted in North Korea developing their own nuclear deterrent, a predictable outcome to an existential threat. And Trump recently admitted what the whole world already knows, that Israel has their own nuclear weapons. So why on Earth would Iran not want to build their own?The US Director of National Intelligence, Joe Kent, just submitted his letter of resignation. He wrote Trump that, “It is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby.” and illustrated how, “Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands.” He ended his resignation by writing, “I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.”On the subject of Israel, the US public discourse has changed dramatically. How this can overcome AIPAC’s influence over an Epstein-compromised Congress is yet to be seen. But our founding fathers would certainly argue that a government of criminal child rapists should be abolished rather than allowed to drag the entire world into chaos and war.Trump is not known for being a reasonable man when it comes to humility, and as Alexander Dugin recently wrote, “Trump’s now totally free. Nothing can destroy his reputation more than it is destroyed already. No publication of Epstein files concerning his alleged criminal actions can make his image worse.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

According to Hebrew scripture, the 35 acres of land in southeast Jerusalem known as, the Temple Mount, was originally a threshing floor for processing grain and was purchased by King David for the purpose of building an altar. The First Temple was built around 957 BC, stood for nearly four centuries, and was destroyed in 586 BC. It was this First Temple, Solomon’s temple, which became the symbolic importance of the Temple Mount.The Zohar and Kabbalah describe how the demon Asmedai taught Solomon how to control demons, which is how he built the Temple. The legend of King Solomon is arguably the foundation of all Western occultism. Compiled in the 17th century from ancient sources, The Lesser Key of Solomon features a catalog of 72 demons, each with a name, a specific set of powers, and a unique symbol so that one can call upon them as Solomon once did. This tradition of demonology continued on famously with Aleister Crowley in the 20th century, and can be seen in the highest levels of Western government today.The Second Temple was built around 516 BC, and was destroyed by Rome in 70AD. The Romans then built a temple to Jupiter on the site, the city was renamed, and Jews were forbidden entry. After the Roman Empire transformed into the Holy See, the Temple Mount became a garbage dump, until 637AD, when the second Caliph of Islam conquered Jerusalem and reportedly cleared the area of refuse with his own hands. Decades later, the Al-Aqsa Mosque was constructed, and still stands today. In 1099, the armies of the Crusade captured Jerusalem, and for nearly a century, the Al-Aqsa Mosque became headquarters to the Knights Templar, until 1187, when Islam recaptured Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque was restored to Islamic worship.Cyrus Ingerson Scofield was a disgraced lawyer accused of forgery and fraud, who abandoned his wife and children, and went on to become pastor of the First Congregational Church in Dallas, Texas in 1882.In 1896, Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) which argued that Jews constituted a nation and required a state of their own.Cyrus Scofield received financial support from Samuel Untermeyer, a prominent Jewish Zionist and Scofield’s connection to the wealthy lifestyle of the Lotus Club in New York City. In 1909, with the prestige of Oxford University Press, a reference Bible was published with Scofield’s own notes printed in the same physical space as the biblical text itself. An ideal format to psychologically fool the reader into thinking these radical ideas are sacred text. Radical ideas such as, in order for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to arrive, a specific sequence of events must occur: the modern return of Jews to the land of Israel, the rise of a world dictator, the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the construction of the Third Temple of Solomon in its place.In 1917, after the British conquered Palestine, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, a Zionist leader of the British Jewish community and member of the Rothschild banking family. The letter stated: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” The League of Nations formally granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine in 1920, and on May 14, 1948, the United Nations planted the official flag of Israel into parts of Palestine, forcing about 700,000 locals to leave. After the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel conquered more of Palestine, including East Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. That same year, the ‘New Scofield Reference Bible’ was published, and evangelical grifters hailed it as prophetic.The Scofield Reference Bible became arguably the single most influential religious text in American Protestantism after the Bible itself. It shaped the theological formation of generations of pastors and evangelists. By the mid-20th century, millions of American evangelical Christians had been shaped by a theological worldview in which the modern State of Israel is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and in which opposing Israel’s territorial claims is the equivalent of opposing God. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

The first commercial oil well was established in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, USA. By 1900, about 94% of the world’s oil came from the USA and Russia. During that same time the British Empire was known as the “workshop of the world,” and was powered by massive domestic coal reserves. They controlled about 25% of the Earth’s land surface and population, but produced less than 0.5% of the oil. This became a major dilemma for the British Navy if they were ever to switch from coal to oil.In 1901, a 60-year lease of 500,000 square miles in Persia was bought by a British millionaire. With the support of the British government, this area, known for having oil seeps since antiquity, was surveyed for oil deposits by British explorers. On May 26, 1908, British explorers struck oil in Masjid-i-Suleiman.In 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was founded. In 1911, Winston Churchill converted the Royal Navy from coal to oil, and in 1914, the British government bought 51% of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Persia was now strategically vital to the British Empire.In 1915, the British promised Arab independence in exchange for their help fighting the Ottomans, but later excluded Palestine from the deal.In 1916, Britain and France secretly claimed their own Middle East territories. The French Zone was Syria, Lebanon, and southeast Turkey. The British Zone was Jordan, Iraq, and Haifa. And the International Zone was parts of Palestine.In the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Britain promised “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.In 1920, the League of Nations granted mandates of Iraq and Palestine to Britain, and Syria and Lebanon to the French. Leaders loyal to foreign governments were installed. New arbitrary borders were created that ignored the geography and divided ethnic and tribal groups. These new artificial boundaries served only the West for pirating oil fields and creating a deep divide among the locals.With a coup d’etat in 1921, British intelligence installed Reza Khan as the Shah in 1925 and founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty.Under British mandate administration, increased Jewish immigration and land purchases led to the formation of Jewish militias and the Palestinian uprising, which was suppressed by British troops.During World War II, both Britain and the USSR invaded Iran to steal their oil. Reza Shah was forced to abdicate, and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was installed.In 1948, the United Nations officially created the state of Israel, and those who had lived there for generations were forced off the land or slaughtered. Approximately 700,000 Palestinians were displaced through a combination of flight, expulsion, and violence, an event Palestinians call the “Nakba”, or Catastrophe.Democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, taking Iran’s resources back from foreign invaders. And with another coup d’etat in 1953, the CIA and MI6 overthrew him and strengthened the Shah’s authority.All of this chaos created by foreign invaders caused an anti-Western sentiment that greatly contributed to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who does have the appearances of being a British MI6 agent.If the son of Mohammad Reza Shah, Reza Pahlavi, is installed as the new leader of Iran, it is just the latest act of criminal theater perpetrated by the thieves who sway world governments. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

As a promising young astrophysicist, during the Stalinist purges of the Soviet Union , Nikolay Kozyrev was sent to the Russian Gulag in the Arctic, where he reportedly developed his unconventional ideas about time. Ten years later, he was released, returned to science, and achieved his most significant work.Kozyrev proposed a theory he called “torsion field theory”, which postulated that time is an active physical substance with measurable properties that can vary, including density and flow rate. He said that time interacts directly with consciousness, sending energy and information, and he believed that curved reflective forms could focus or reflect this temporal energy. This led to the construction of a physical device consisting of polished aluminum sheets arranged in a cylindrical, spiral, or parabolic curve, large enough to enclose a seated human subject so a person can sit inside the structure. The organic geometry was chosen to reflect the torsion fields of a person’s light body.One or more subjects would sit inside these Kozyrev mirrors, isolated from external stimuli, and asked to simply observe their inner experience. The subjects reported altered states of consciousness, they experienced remote viewing, had visions of distant locations, made contact with other entities, and some shared telepathic experiences with each other, including the transmission of information.During the Kaznacheev experiments conducted at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Siberia during the 1990s and 2000s, these experiments were conducted above the polar circle, where the plasma of aurora events seemed to directly interact with the Mirror installation. The researchers specifically argued that proximity to the auroral oval, where aurora activity is concentrated, was experimentally significant because the plasma activity provided conditions that enhanced the effects they were observing. During high auroral activity periods, subjects in the Kozyrev mirrors experienced more clarity and specificity in their visions and psychic connections.The researchers proposed that the Plasma being continuously fed into our environment by solar wind is a state of matter that carries structured information into our world, and into our consciousness. And the Kozyrev Mirrors act as a sort of amplifier for this information.The mirror reflects not just light, but future light, something Kozyrev discovered when he pointed his telescope ahead of Andromeda’s visible position, where he received a signal that was traveling faster than light.Ulrike Granogger is an Austrian researcher and science journalist who works in the area of Consciousness, anomalous physics, and Parapsychology. In 2005, Granogger met with researchers of the Kozyrev Mirrors, to help humanity access this network of intelligent intercommunication. She proposes that there are multiple dimensions of conscious reality, and warns that the global gravitational wave antenna network could be used for mass consciousness manipulation. Her solution is aligning with higher dimensional thought forms and language, and she points to The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, found in the Nag Hammadi library, as an ancient description of multi-dimensional travel with the human light body.Granogger has also built a Kozyrev Mirror in an underground location in Switzerland, and with the help of the Solari Report, will be continuing research into this important phenomena. They are now seeking additional donors to help continue the project, and are inviting over a dozen patrons to join them in Switzerland for a “Meet & Greet” and an opportunity to experience the underground Kozyrev mirror.Nikolay Kozyrev wrote that, “Telepathy always depends on the density of time. When we can make time dense at will, we can make telepathy happen when we want it.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

Experiments such as the famous Double Slit Experiment have shown that quantum objects—electrons, atoms, and molecules—exist in multiple states and places at once, known as superposition, until they interact with their environment. At that point, they acquire definite properties and conform to the behavior of classical physics. They become what we know as physical matter. These experiments showed us what Werner Heisenberg described as “something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”This reflects the nature of sacrifice. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, in these experiments, it is being transformed. A heated metal filament is sacrificed for the electrons in superposition, ripe to become something new. Sacer means sacred, facere means “to make,” and so Sacrifice means “to make sacred.” Sacrifice is not destruction, it is the transformation from one order of being to another. Incense is sacrificed to become fragrance. Candle wax is sacrificed to become a flame. The seed is sacrificed to become a child. And food is sacrificed to become the body.If you compare modern day science to ancient Esoteric philosophy, they appear to be the same:Energy is conserved; it transforms, but never disappears. - Spirit is eternal; it transmutes through forms.Matter converts to energy and back. - The subtle and the dense are interconvertible.Bound electrons are liberated by heat. - The fixed is volatilized by fire.Superposition contains all possibilities. - The prima materia contains all potential.Measurement collapses to one outcome. - Intention selects manifestation.Thoughts are measured from neurons firing, blood oxygenation, magnetic fields, and metabolic activity. This is all physical phenomena, and so thoughts are things. Max Planck regarded consciousness as fundamental and matter as a derivative from consciousness. And this is what has been believed for thousands of years by those in power.In Western occult traditions there are thought forms and egregores. A thought form is a mental construct created by the focused intention of an individual. This is called a Tulpa in Tibetan Buddhism. An egregore is a collective thought form created by group belief, and the egregore has its own autonomous existence. Every nation, and corporation is an egregore. Fed by centuries of worship, every religious god is an egregore. Money and authority exist only because we collectively believe they do.If thoughts create reality, then whoever controls thoughts controls reality. Edward Bernays wrote that “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” If you control the narrative, you control collective belief, which shapes the collective behavior, and manifests material reality. The material reality then reflects back and proves that the narrative was true, which reinforces the loop. The battle for your mind is a battle for reality itself.The electron, freed from the filament, enters superposition—pure potential awaiting manifestation. Mind is not separate from this process, and it may be the very thing that drives it. Every narrative you accept collapses infinite possibility into a single, definite reality. To know this is to know why your thoughts matter, why narratives are weapons, and why the battle for consciousness has been waged since the beginning of civilization. What modern physics measures in laboratories, the ancients practiced in temples. The mystery schools taught initiates to master their inner world before attempting to shape the outer one. The powerful use it for control, but the power to shape reality has never belonged solely to those who wield it against you, it belongs to anyone who understands and applies the law: thoughts become things. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

The concept of “mental food” is simple: just as the food we eat shapes our body, the information and stimuli we consume with our senses shapes our psyche, our emotions, and our overall well-being. There is an ancient proverb: “The body becomes what the foods are; as the spirit becomes what the thoughts are.” The Buddha taught that feeding the mind with greed, hatred, and delusion strengthens those things, and that practicing mindfulness allows us to guard the “gates of the senses” and curate a more pure experience. Epictetus taught that the mind should be guarded like a fortress against external events to maintain inner peace and freedom. According to Rosicrucian philosophy, pure thoughts build finer vehicles. In James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh, the mind is compared to a garden that must be cultivated. By treating thoughts as seeds, individuals choose to plant positive, constructive ideas or allow weeds of negative thought to grow. This shapes the individual’s character and determines their outcomes in life.GIGO—”Garbage In, Garbage Out”—is a computing principle that simply expresses how the quality of the output is directly determined by the quality of the input. You don’t want to input garbage code into your computer, and you certainly don’t want to input garbage into your mind. And Social media, for the most part—along with much of mass media—is garbage.Studies show that habitual scrolling on social media causes desensitization, reduced focus, dopamine addiction, compulsion, anxiety, and depression. Exposure to political media, regardless of political affiliation, increases feelings of despair, hopelessness, and paranoia. And this psychology is very well known: when people are kept in this voluntary state of hysteria, they are easily herded in any direction the shepherd desires.Techniques called microtargeting and hyper-nudging are used against social media consumers to foster conflicts and reactive behaviors, and to create echo chambers that temper worldviews. This manipulates the emotions of all social media consumers on a subconscious level, keeping them from asking deeper questions. State-sponsored social media manipulation is officially being used in over sixty countries to condition the minds of the masses. Propaganda is very popular with governments because everyone is easily influenced by it.G.I. Gurdjieff calls these sensory and psychological inputs from the external world “impressions” and taught that impressions are the highest and most important food, requiring conscious awareness to be properly assimilated. And warned that without a well-practiced sense of self-awareness, the acquired personality—what some call the ego—will mismanage the impressions, causing people to be hypnotized and poisoned by them.To override this, one must interpose consciousness the moment the impression is received. As an impression arrives, pause and observe it objectively, and observe how your thoughts, emotions, and body react to it. Use reflection to properly address the impression, and if needed, redirect it to the intellectual center for analysis. To get really good at this, you could sit comfortably every evening before bed and reconstruct your entire day, working backwards scene by scene.For many, this requires consistent effort, but restricting yourself from violent media and feeding yourself more positive stimuli has the benefits of reduced ego-driven reactions, less stress, more peace, and spiritual evolution. Studies on media deprivation and mental health show that even taking a break for one or two weeks significantly reduces anxiety, depression, loneliness, and insomnia. Studies have shown that listening to non-lyrical classical music reduces stress and depression while enhancing cognition and emotional processing. It improves sleep quality, memory, and mobility in older adults.Be careful what you “eat.” As Nietzsche famously said, “If thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

In the early nineteen-hundreds, French psychologist Pierre Janet, studied what he called, “désagrégation,” the splitting of consciousness under trauma. Janet studied several patients whose traumatic histories had led to what modern science calls, Multiple Personality Disorder.Severe trauma in childhood can fragment the mind into different parts, known as “alters.” The purpose of the alter is to spare the individual the trauma, so the individual consciousness is unaware of the alter, they exist separately.According to history, this has been understood for millennia and these alters can be programmed and trained, and can hold information inaccessible to the core personality. You can trace this knowledge all the way back to the Egyptian Mystery Schools, to the Knights Templar, and through all the various Secret Societies that followed. The neurological research has shown that the alters are different people with different brain activation patterns, autonomic responses, visual acuity, and allergic responses. Some alters speak languages that the individual can’t. This explains why these alters were seen as demonic possession in the past, and why many still see it that way.Government studies on combat veterans after World War One showed that extreme stress can produce amnesia and identity disruption. During World War Two, Dr. Josef Mengele experimented with traumatizing children, and beginning in 1945 with Operation Paperclip, the United States began recruiting several scientists involved in this research into the CIA.The CIA’s Project BLUEBIRD attempted to create amnesia in people with hypnosis, drugs and electroshock. This continued with Project ARTICHOKE where the CIA added sensory deprivation and forced morphine addiction. A 1952 memo shows they were looking to see if a person could be made into an unwitting assassin. In the MKULTRA program, the CIA added a psychological trauma they called “psychic driving,” often administered while the person was under the influence of LSD. And with Project MKOFTEN, the CIA began experimenting with demonic possession and looking into occult rituals that could influence behavior.According to scores of victims, many of whom have mysteriously died or disappeared, the world stage is cast with psychotic victims of trauma based mind control with multiple personalities who do exactly what they are told.Lieutenant Colonel Michael Aquino of the U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations, who founded the satanic Temple of Set in 1975, and managed to get it listed in the U.S. Army Chaplain’s Handbook, published a paper in 1980, “From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory,” that suggested targeting the domestic population with ELF waves and any other type of technology available that could control behavior. There is a Trauma-Based-Mind-Control-lite version for the entire population, known as, Affective Management and Crisis Capitalization. Strategies of using stress and fear to induce regression and make the population dependent on authority figures or comfort objects.Terror Management Theory has demonstrated that when subjects were shown imagery of death or disasters, they were more likely to vote for authoritative leaders who promised safety and purchase luxury items they didn’t need.A frightened population demands more policing, they tolerate more surveillance, and they prefer to stay indoors. When the population is subjected to mass trauma, they fall into a state of collective dissociation, and unpopular policies are pushed through that would not be accepted by a logical thinking mental state. Like the Patriot Act, or a governmental system run by Artificial Intelligence. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

Stream and Download at Autarchos.comWritten and performed by Greg ReeseLead guitar by Brian Kahanek This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

In the Mind-Wandering Discovery by Killingsworth & Gilbert, over a quarter-million data points showed that people were not focused on what they were doing for about forty-seven percent of their waking lives, and the less focus they had, the more unhappy they were. Decades of research show that nearly half of daily life consists of automatic behaviors executed without conscious decision-making. Unconscious automatic brain activity precedes conscious awareness by about half a second, and in most cases, will help keep you consciously oblivious to half of your waking life.There is a default setting that our nervous system goes into whenever we lose focus and wander. Scientific studies have identified it as The Default Mode Network. This is what Buddhism calls, ignorance, and Gurdjieff called waking sleep. Many spiritual traditions have diagnosed the human condition as one of chronic inattention, and have taught various practices to remedy this problem and help us wake up.But this chronic inattention is big business for authoritarian governments which is why there has been so much invested into covertly programming the subconscious mind with media. If people are content to live half their life unaware of themselves, then a governing system will manage their lives for them as they see fit. The unconscious brains of billions are programmed to make predictable choices without ever activating conscious awareness and critical thought, and that’s old fashioned compared to the latest neural implant science.The claustrum is a thin, irregular sheet of neurons present in both hemispheres of the brain and has more bidirectional cortical connectivity than any other structure. It is believed to be the “conductor of the orchestra” that binds together all sensory streams into a unified conscious experience. In the Koubeissi Study of 2014, electrodes were placed between the left claustrum and the anterior insula of a patient who was conscious and performing tasks. When they turned the electrode on, the fourteen hertz signal caused an immediate shut-down of conscious awareness. The patient had a blank stare and was unresponsive to commands, but continued to perform their automatic behaviors. Once the switch was turned off again, the patient experienced immediate recovery with no memory of the interruption. If consciousness can be switched off with a 14 Hz signal, and most people are already operating unconsciously half the time, the implications for autonomy are profound.Focused self-awareness brings more happiness and success, and for regular practitioners, much more. Meditation experts have significantly changed their own brain structure and are operating on levels unattainable to those with a wandering mind. But for the beginner, this higher consciousness is achieved with the simple practice of becoming fully aware of whatever you are doing at any given moment. This is expressed succinctly with the Zen proverb, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”A significant amount of the population is mostly running on auto-pilot and making decisions based on subconscious triggers, and there isn’t much you can do about that. But if you truly want freedom, the default zombie mode of thinking must be overridden through regular daily practice. It doesn’t cost anything, and you can start right now.“Chop wood, carry water” means whatever you are doing, do it with presence. Like Thich Nhat Hanh famously wrote, daily chores are not chores, they are opportunities to practice mindfulness and experience the miracle of life by being fully present.When everything we do is done with intention, only then can we claim to have agency over our own self. And without that agency, there will be an authoritarian state to administer it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

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An abstract symbol is a visual shape that represents a complex idea, feeling, or concept. Humans have been using them for at least seventy-seven thousand years and some are somehow seen all across the world.Mircea Eliade wrote that “the symbol reveals certain aspects of reality—the deepest aspects—which defy any other means of knowledge.” These symbols are able to convey things that are too complex for words, and because of this, the symbols themselves are seen as sacred objects by the human mind.Neuroscience has mapped the cognitive order of operation for processing abstract symbols and one of the key findings is that the brain treats highly familiar symbols, such as logos, religious icons, and letters of the alphabet, more like objects than abstract shapes. These symbols have dedicated neural pathways in the brain. fMRI studies show that familiar brand logos activate neural patterns similar to those activated in personal relationships.Abstract symbols evoke emotional responses that are processed before rational analysis engages. The subconscious mind responds first, and this initial response often overrides conscious evaluation, especially when it’s highly emotional. To regular customers of McDonald’s, the Golden Arches logo triggers approach behavior. And a blue donkey and red elephant can trigger emotions strong enough to keep millions of Americans from ever thinking rationally.When a familiar symbol is inverted, the subconscious experiences what is known as “expectancy violation” or “prediction error.” It sees the somewhat familiar symbol as an alien threat, which triggers a cognitive dissonance where all existing associations start to become uncertain, and the individual unknowingly begins to doubt themselves on a subconscious level.Many researchers on the subject propose that inversion creates a pollution of the sacred, empowerment of the transgressor, and horror in the observer.The pentagram was seen as mathematical perfection in Ancient Greece, as the five wounds of Christ in early Christianity, and during the Renaissance it was the microcosm of man and the elemental balance of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit, with the spirit point ascending. In the nineteenth century, de Guaita illustrated the inversion of the pentagram as a goat’s head. The inverted pentagram has the spirit point descending, and now triggers negative emotions in the minds of millions.The Sanskrit word, Svastika, translates to English as, “well-being.” This symbol has been used for millennia to symbolize the good fortune of having the sun and it’s seasons. In the early 20th century, the good luck swastika symbol was used by Coca-Cola for promotion, and featured on the Boy Scouts Thanks-Badge worldwide. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party adopted the swastika as a party emblem in 1920, and after five thousand years of positive associations, this ancient symbol of good fortune is today seen by many as quite the opposite.The practice of using symbols to trigger a subconscious response in humans was mastered by the three Abrahamic religious traditions. The cross, crescent, and hexagram have been used to condition and divide billions of people. And the hexagram, popularly known as the Star of David, is not an ancient biblical symbol, it is an ancient symbol of the East representing Shiva/Shakti, masculine and feminine energy, and later in Hermetic traditions, the union of fire and water elements. This ancient hexagram star was used by Jews starting in the medieval period, and officially became “Jewish” at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, and was amplified in 1948 when it was incorporated into the Israeli flag.For thousands of years this hexagram triggered the idea of divine union, balance, and harmony. And for millions today it now triggers strong emotions of an ethnostate religious identity, and/or genocide.Conscious awareness of this conditioning does not eliminate its effect on the mind. One must actively reprogram their own mind, and often, adapt. This can be done with practicing mindfulness and becoming aware of autonomous thoughts and functions of the self. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

In “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Arendt wrote that “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”Daniel Kahneman’s “Dual Process Theory” identifies two cognitive systems of the human mind: System 1 is fast, automatic, and emotional, where as System 2 is slow, deliberate, and logical. You can experience this right now: perform a true/false test and you’ll activate your System 1, perform a multiple-choice test and you’ll activate your System 2.When the human mind is confronted with binary choices, System 1 handles the decision processing with its automatic emotional response, and it never gets any further analysis.System 1 goes back to our most basic survival instincts, and it is good for processing binary choices such as fight/flight, edible/toxic, alive/dead, but it is not suitable for processing complex issues. This is what System 2 is for. And it is well known in today’s study of psychology that when the human mind is presented with only two options, the work automatically goes to System 1, and critical thinking is avoided.The purpose for having these two cognitive systems, is efficiency. Once the brain recognizes a binary choice, it reduces cognitive load to a minimum by sending it to System 1. And when cognitive load is at a minimum, people are even more susceptible to external persuasion and group mind.The key to successfully controlling people is to keep them in this binary world so that their critical thinking is rarely, if ever, engaged. And this is best done by keeping them emotional. Both anger and fear will do the job. “With us or against us?” - “Patriot or traitor?” - “Support this policy or you want people to die!” are all binary choices used over and over again to keep people anchored in binary thinking, and render them blind.Published experiments will tell you that when humans are reminded of their mortality, or of any existential threat, they will cling more tightly to their beliefs and their worldview, and become more hostile to those who challenge it. This is why political discourse uses apocalyptic language.It is understood in psychology that people’s beliefs will strengthen when they are attacked, this is called “attitude entrenchment.”The human mind is predisposed to categorize people into in-groups and out-groups, to favor in-group members and belittle out-group members in order to elevate their own in-group status. And it is known that it takes very little to activate this tribalism. Some experiments, have used a simple coin flip to steer people towards in-group acceptance. This innate human tribalism has been weaponized through politically constructed binaries that were designed to both divide people, and to make them see the world however the designers want them to.In “Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes,” Ellul wrote that propaganda works best when it simplifies complex realities into binary choices, because humans crave the cognitive relief of simple answers. And that the most effective propaganda isn’t spreading lies, it is spreading binary frameworks that make certain conclusions appear inevitable.This binary brainwashing has been going on for generations and for many people, political positions have become their identity. Their social belonging, self-identity, and status are built upon it. And for many, the discomfort of challenging one’s own beliefs and admitting error is too much to handle. It is far more convenient to go with simple binary choices and move with the herd. But if you have any desire for the truth, then you will have to learn to apply critical thinking to everything, and most importantly, learn how your mind is being manipulated. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe

In the book, Prometheus Rising, Robert Anton Wilson wrote that humanity is on the cusp of a “Promethean” awakening where we have the potential to evolve our consciousness into a higher intelligence with a greater awareness, but only if we intentionally reprogram our own mind. The book’s central thesis is that the individual human perception of “reality” is subjective, shaped by imprinted habits and conditioned beliefs that can limit our access to higher consciousness. Liberation from this internal trap requires our attention and effort.To illustrate the evolution of consciousness, Wilson uses the “Eight-Circuit Model of Consciousness” developed by psychologist, Timothy Leary.In Leary’s model, each circuit represents a developmental neurological stage of human consciousness. Starting at Circuit 1, we are only aware of basic survival needs and our own personal preferences. At Circuit 2 we become aware of our self, our emotions and the social power dynamics of dominance and submission. Circuit 3 is awareness of language, logic, and symbols, and gives us the ability for abstract thought and problem-solving. Circuit 4 is when we become aware of the importance and need for healthy social connections. Circuit 5 is awareness that somatic practices, such as yoga, dance, and massage, promote relaxation and stress relief. Circuit 6 is an archetypal sense that everything is connected, and a heightened self-awareness of how we connect. Circuit 7 is awareness of one’s own programming and the realization that positive intention leads to beneficial epigenetic changes in their health and longevity. And finally, Circuit 8 is transcendence. This is where we experience a dissolution of the ego and a sense of oneness with everything, which is where Robert Anton Wilson says we are all headed, if we do the work.Wilson argues that the ruling elites of society have been actively trying to stall this “awakening” process, stifle higher consciousness and perpetuate stupidity, violence, and stagnation. And that they do this by hoarding and hiding information, dumbing down education and culture, and fostering ignorance, paranoia, and stupidity. These actions can help keep a human mind stuck in the lower levels of consciousness, but not quite as effectively as the main culprit of spiritual ignorance, the individual’s own mind.Within the human mind there is, by default, what Wilson calls “the thinker and the prover”. The “thinker” forms a belief, and the “prover” unconsciously seeks and recalls evidence to validate it, while filtering out all contradictions. Until we evolve, the mind is wired to avoid any dissonance or threats to personal self-esteem. And so if the untrained mind finds a contradiction to a personal belief, it will automatically ignore it in order to spare you the emotional pain.This phenomena is also known as “confirmation bias”. According to the 1977 paper, “Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes,” people have limited introspective access to their own decision-making processes because many thought patterns operate on an automatic, subconscious level.Studies show that people predictably ignore articles with headlines that contradict their belief. The brain encodes contradictions but ignores them in decision-making. And fMRI data shows how emotional centers activate for confirming info, naturally suppressing any contradictions that would do otherwise.Some of the latest research shows that engaging with Artificial Intelligence is amplifying and reinforcing our mind’s confirmation bias by gleaning our beliefs and often placating them.In order to over-ride this part of the mind, one must practice being self aware at all times. This can be done through mindfulness meditation or study into “The Silent Witness”. Perhaps the easiest and most effective practice to begin with is deep breathing.You can not change another person’s mind. Only the individual can choose to cultivate humility and look at things differently. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregreese.substack.com/subscribe