The Battle for Reality

Essay by Charlie Obert, October 2020

Back in November 2019 I released a video that I titled “The Grand Conjunction: 2020 and Beyond“, in which I talked about the triplicity shift going on in astrology, and its long term implications.  I want to revisit the main theme of that video here, and go a bit deeper.

Since this was a video about prediction for 2020 I want to quickly comment on what I missed – obviously, the covid pandemic. I greatly underestimated the combined effect of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, the three outermost and slowest moving planets in traditional astrology, all conjunct is a single sign, with the two malefics both strong and dignified, and Jupiter debilitated and as weak as it can get.

More importantly for my purposes here, I want to talk about what I got right, and develop the theme further. Even the pandemic itself fits within my larger theme.

The Triplicity Shift

I want to start by defining the triplicity shift.

Traditional mundane astrology attaches great importance to the periodic conjunctions of the two slow moving giant outer planets, Saturn and Jupiter. These are called Grand Conjunctions, and they happen approximately every 30 years.

These conjunctions take place in series of around 200 years, that all take place in the same element. We are just finishing up a series of conjunctions in earth signs that started in 1802 and is ending now. Each of the elements is called a Triplicity because there are three signs for each of the four elements.

The series we are starting now will be in air signs for the next 200 years or so. This is the Triplicity shift from earth to air. The shift in elements marks a shift in focus on what the most important themes are in world history.

The element of Air is all about communication, about technology, and also the intellect and ideas. If Earth is focused on physical reality, Air has a lot to do with how we think about reality, how we communicate, and the media we use. As part of this shift to Air we have the opportunity, and the need, to become aware in a whole new way of how modern media is shaping and controlling our minds and hence our experience of reality.

For the first time in human history this process of our media shaping our reality is visible in a unique way because we can watch it happening. It is playing out before our eyes in real time in the new communications and media technology – the Internet, email, teleconferencing (aka Zooming) and so on. Many if not most people now spend the majority of their waking hours inhabiting a digitally created media reality. The lockdown of ordinary, face to face human commerce from the pandemic is greatly accelerating this shift into a primarily digital reality.

There is a battle going on now for control of this reality, and our minds are the prizes of the battle.

I call this a battle for reality because a very large and dominant part of our modern media is invested in shutting down any voices that contradict their particular story.

Metaphors for Reality – Movies, Shadows and Phantasies

It will help here for us to have metaphors to think about this process.

I want to talk about the work of Scott Adams here. He is doing very important work on bringing this area of media shaping reality to awareness, and he has profoundly influenced my own thinking over the past four years since the last election.

For those of you who may have heard of Scott Adams but aren’t familiar with what he does, if you think his work is all about taking sides in politics you are completely missing the point.

Rather than focusing on the “correct” or “right” model of reality, Adams talks about Filters, which are different models for viewing the world that make different assumptions. The important question is not about finding the “correct” filter, since that is approximately impossible to demonstrate. Instead, filters can be evaluated by how useful they are, how they make you feel, positive or negative, and how much predictive value they have.

For much of his work Adams uses a Persuasion Filter. He evaluates news stories in terms of the persuasion techniques people are using in the media to get you to think in particular ways, and how effective those techniques are.

Another thought-provoking metaphor that Adams uses is to think about our world as if we were inhabiting a computer simulation – that we are characters inhabiting a digitally programmed virtual reality. It sounds odd, but it can produce some very interesting and thoughtful insights.

This model of reality as computer simulation is paralleled by some older metaphors for reality that predate out current technology.

In the East, in Hindu philosophy from India you have the concept of Maya – of reality being an illusion, a play of the Gods. We are caught up in that illusion, and a large part of the emphasis in Hindu thought is on waking up out of the illusion.

Here in the West, we have Plato’s allegory of the Cave in chapter seven of The Republic. If you’re not familiar with the original, here is a link to the text of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

Shadows on the wall of a cave; the illusion created by the play of the Gods; a computer simulation. It’s essentially the same metaphor with different trappings from different cultures.

Thanks to modern internet media we can see that process in a new way. We can watch Plato’s Cave allegory playing out in the shadows projected before our eyes by the media. (I sometimes wonder whether Plato in modern times would have written the “Allegory of the IPhone”.)

The Shadow Masters

The people creating the shadows on the wall of the cave are the mainstream media sources – the Shadow Masters – trying to mesmerize us all into thinking that their set of shadows is reality.

It’s like being chained to a couch in front of a TV set where you can’t turn it off and you can’t change the channel. Or worse yet, you flip between channels and they are all playing the same movie. You hop from CNN over to NBC over to NPR over to The Guardian and they are effectively the same channel.

I had an experience flipping between news stations many years ago that first brought this home to me. This is back in the 1980’s, B.C. (Before Computers), the pre-Internet era when I got most of my news from either TV or radio. I had been told that a performing group I was in was going to be in a news clip on the evening news, so I spent the news hour flipping back and forth between three stations. Back then we had just three main news channels, CBS, NBC, and ABC. What I found was that all three news stations had the same sets of stories, in the same order, with even a lot of the same sentences and phrases in the news coverage. It was three very slightly different versions of exactly the same news.

Two Different Movies

You need something different to compare to, an outside frame of reference, in order to realize that you are seeing a slanted presentation of reality rather than what “really” happened.

Scott Adams uses the metaphor of 2 different movies playing next to each other with 2 versions of the same set of facts, and in this case it is not just a metaphor. He describes having two monitors next to each other, one tuned to CNN and the other tuned the Fox News. One set of facts, two completely different movies about it.

On the Internet you can get somewhat the same experience by going back and forth between CNN News and Fox News and comparing.

This does more than just give you an alternate set of data. It puts you in a position where you are positioned one level up, watching the two different shadow shows at the same time. This process helps you to wake up and become aware of the fact that the shadows are just that, shadows.

Waking up is related to becoming aware there is more than one movie. It is much easier to spot the manipulation techniques in a movie if you can stand outside of it and compare it to another movie. When you spend all your time in the confines of a single movie, you have nothing to compare it to, and that movie is reality.

This is a very apt metaphor for our topic. The Air signs – Gemini, Libra, Aquarius – all have a dual quality to them, so the metaphor of comparing two movies is very apt and very Air like.

An Illustrative Example

I want to give an example where just a little bit of research can demonstrate what I am talking about. If you’re new to this one this may provide enough of a shock to wake you up to the process. I want to emphasize here that I am not trying to make a political point – if you read it that way you are totally missing what I am getting at – in terms of my metaphor you are caught up in the Shadow Show. I am trying to illustrate how media is attempting to control what Shadow Show is real.

Please note that just by mentioning this topic I am treading on forbidden ground – just mentioning this topic can get you banned on Facebook.

Kyle Rittenhouse. If you live in the US you have likely heard that name.

The official Shadow Master story goes like this. Kyle was involved in an incident during the riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin after the police shooting of Jacob Blake. (The Blake story in turn is another Shadow Master narrative, well beyond what I can go into here.)

Kyle shot and killed two people during the riots. In the official Shadow Master version of the story, Kyle is a “White Supremacist” who murdered two people, and he is facing first degree murder charges.

There is an alternate set of data – alternate facts, some videos of the the incident and what happened before it, and alternate interpretations of it. I am deliberately not going to talk about the details here.

The alternate versions are readily available – just take a couple of minutes to go on a a search engine other than Google (I like duckduckgo) and search on the incident, see what you find.

If you only follow the mainstream media, and you accept the official Shadow Master version of what happened, you may find the alternate version, and the facts and data supporting it, to be quite eye-opening and shocking.

One of the main reasons I am not discussing the details here, is that referring to these alternate interpretations is forbidden on Facebook. In fact there is a decent chance that this post I am writing ends up getting banned and blocked by Facebook.

Think about that. Consider the fact that discussing this issue is banned on some media platforms.

Not even taking sides, but even discussing it, considering that there might be other ways of viewing it, is enough to get you banned.

That is what I mean by the Battle for Reality. That is what I mean when I talk about Mind Control.

Coming Out of the Cave

Think back to Plato’s cave allegory and recall how it concluded, what Socrates said was likely to happen to the man who had left the cave and came back to tell the chained prisoners what was going on. He would likely be attacked, vilified, and killed.

In modern terminology, he would be cancelled.

(“Blessed are you when they revile you, and persecute you, and do all manner of evil to you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for so they persecuted the prophets who came before you.”)

That is what we are looking at with this triplicity shift to the element of air. We have a battle going on, and the main weapons aren’t physical, they aren’t guns and bombs and molotov cocktails and nightly riots.

The battle is being fought with weapons of the mind using the technology of modern media – words, pictures, sounds and sound bites, video clips out of context, movies – media stories.

How Do We Wake Up

If we are going to wake up, we need to become aware of this process of how the media manipulates our reality. It takes work to navigate the current media landscape with anything like freedom of speech and independent thought.

There are a couple of main things we need to do and learn.

1) We need to raise our awareness of language in the larger sense & how it shapes our experience. We need to educate ourselves on how language is used to manipulate reality. (Note that I have training in hypnosis and language, so I am considering a further series of posts on this topic.)

2) As we mentioned earlier, it is very important to check multiple news sources. It is by comparing different sources with different sets of data and interpretations of the data that we become aware of the process. We need to deliberately search out alternate news sources to watch the mind control battles being played out. It is very important that these be DIFFERING news sources – comparing, say, CNN to MPR News would be pretty much useless.

Take into account that you don’t need to agree with all the news sources you check out. In fact, I think the process works better if you deliberately seek out and consider media outlets that run contrary to your own opinions.

WARNING: If you do this process right, you will sometimes end up changing your mind.

It took me quite a bit of time digging around and comparing sources to be able to come up with some news outlets, some bloggers and journalists and commentators, whose integrity I could trust. I rely on people like that to help me sort out important news that gets filtered out of the main Shadow Master narrative.

Conclusion

This is a lot bigger issue than just taking sides in a political contest. This is a battle for control of the reality we experience. Do we want to stay mesmerized by the shadows? Or do we want to drop our fetters, walk out of the cave into the light, and think for ourselves.

As astrologers, if we choose to be aware, we have an advantage. Given that we realize we are shifting to an era where the element Air dominates the battles, we can educate ourselves about what that means. We can also consider how we as astrologers can help to raise the level of awareness of these issues. Over the past year, thinking about this shift to the Air triplicity has helped me to organize my thoughts on this subject.

I am convinced this is the central issue facing us in the coming era. I am writing this essay as a call to awareness, a call to wake up, educate yourself, and take control of your own mind.

If you don’t choose to wake up, the Shadow Masters will be more than happy to control your mind for you, and tell you what you think. You don’t even need to know it’s happening. In fact, it’s easier for Them if you’re not aware of the process.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

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Feature Image by  Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.