Happiness Is Just A Step Away. Can You Take That Step in 2020?

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I recently read an article written by a young man dying from cystic fibrosis. Despite his poor physical health, he reports that he is filled with joy each day because he now realizes that happiness and peace are an emotional choice. Whenever fear or sorrow over his condition intrude, he is able to banish it with gratitude, wonder, and joy. Is it possible for you, too, to learn this skill?

In a recent article featured in the Active Consciousness Newsletter I wrote about how suffering arises from resistance. Does this phenomenon also provide us with a clue about how to achieve joy? What if true acceptance of what is — the opposite of resistance — is the secret sauce?

Studies have shown that although they may live in poverty, people living in primitive third-world conditions are generally happier than those of us living in the developed world. How is this possible? Is it because they are in greater alignment with or acceptance of their lives? Usually we ascribe such happiness to more intact family structures or other cultural supports that the modern world has lost. But what if it’s more basic or internally driven than that? What if they just don’t resist what is as much as we do?

That’s an idea that I’d like you to consider as you enter 2020: that experiencing happiness and peace is really about accepting or aligning to what is — the way you are physically, emotionally, and mentally; your financial situation; the way things are in the world; the way things are in your relationships. This doesn’t mean you need to like everything that is going on, or that you won’t try to do something about it. It just means that you accept that it is .

Go inside for a second. Think about something that you find bothersome. Do you sense resistance? A feeling that you just don’t, won’t, or can’t accept that troublesome thing? And now, take a deep breath and gently let go. Accept what is. It is what it is. It’s what’s true, right now. Don’t you feel some relief?

What’s most amazing about this shift — and it can be quite subtle — is that not only do you feel a bit better, but you are also in a state that enables you to take steps to move forward. Letting go of resistance also makes it easier to feel gratitude for everything that is good in your life — from the smallest flower or a smile from a stranger to the love and plenty that does come your way.

It’s all about acceptance and alignment with what is. Indeed, it’s also possible to not be in alignment with how good things are. You might ask yourself: Why are rich people so often unhappy? I ask myself the same question. I have everything I need in life. Why do I sometimes feel inexplicable anxiety and sorrow? Is it possible that I’m not truly accepting how good my life is?

So many of us living in the developed world find it difficult to feel and acknowledge how much we truly have. We are not in alignment with our reality. Instead, we live in our heads, bombarded by media that tells us we need more or aren’t enough as we are. The media also stokes our fears that some possible disaster could be lurking just around the corner. We become immersed in a kind of fog of denial and emotional turmoil that is so often baseless or focused on trivialities. How can we emerge from that fog?

There are lots of ways. Put down the phone. Get off the computer and talk to people in the flesh. Get out into nature! Commune with plants and animals who are always in the here and now. Meditate daily — the exercises in Active Consciousness can get you started. Get out of your own head trip and woes and help others through acts of generosity.

And if you (or a loved one) do have an illness, stop resisting that reality. Then you can finally start doing something about it. The same thing goes for a difficult relationship, financial woes, or a bad job situation. Breathe. Stop resisting the situation and accept that it is. You can’t move forward if you are busy running away. And what are the signs that you are, indeed, running away?
– Constant complaining
– Blaming others
– Lack of gratitude for what you do have or what others have given you
– Using drugs or other diversions and avoidance strategies

Sound familiar?

It’s common wisdom that people sometimes have to hit rock bottom before they do anything about their situation. What does “hitting rock bottom” mean? That they have finally been forced to face their situation and accept it. That they have stopped running away and now yield to what is. Once they do, they can do something to free themselves. They can also become more grateful for what they do have, and can even lend a helping hand to others.

As we enter 2020, let’s remember that accepting what is is a choice and just a step away. There’s a host of methods to get there — meditation; the releasing techniques of the Sedona Method; working on becoming more aware of what you’re saying and doing and catching yourself when you complain, blame, or run away; trying various methods for increasing self love and self-acceptance (an online search will yield many books and resources); getting out into nature; volunteering to help others; and starting each morning and ending each day with a statement of gratitude or an entry into your gratitude journal.

The year 2020. Is it a coincidence that “2020” is also our word for clear vision? And what could be more clarifying than accepting what is? Rather than making a New Year’s resolution to change something external, how about resolving to constantly make that slight internal shift and align with what is? The rest will follow.

New Mainstream Arnica Research and Flu Epidemic Updates

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New Arnica Research

I vividly remember attending a party many years ago at which a well-known New York plastic surgeon confided to me that he used Arnica with his patients. Our intrepid Dana Ullman has now let us know about new and positive mainstream research (by allopaths and published in the November 2019 issue of The Annals of Plastic Surgery — a prominent mainstream medical journal) that proves something we all know very well: how important and effective homeopathic Arnica is in cases of surgery.

As Dana writes: “Two surgeons from the immensely respected Cleveland Clinic recently published a review of research testing homeopathic Arnica in modern surgery. The researchers reviewed 21 studies (!) testing Arnica and found it impressively helpful. Further, they published this study in a respected surgery journal.” THIS LINK will take you to the abstract of the study. More detailed information is provided in Dana’s dynamically-growing ebook, Evidence Based Homeopathic Family Medicine.

What remedies for this year’s flu?

I truly value the research Paul Herscu, ND, DHANP does each year tracking epidemics and the remedies he has found effective for them. One of the key remedies he has found for this year’s flu and/or severe cold is another important homeopathic standby: Gelsemium. Here are links to his two updates for this year’s flu: Update 1 and Update 2. In both he cautions that the use of Gelsemium should be given a bit of time to work and not to switch remedies too hastily.

Synchronicity Happens!

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In my second book, Active Consciousness, I talk about the relationship between the phenomenon of synchronicity and the homeopathic principle of “like cures like.” In a synchronicity, two meaningfully related things are drawn to each other in space and time, creating one of those uncanny “coincidences” that can appear in our lives.

I recently experienced this magical phenomenon when I was visiting Wellington, New Zealand a few weeks ago with my husband Steve and my son Izaak. We were wandering a labyrinth of city streets, making our way back to our hotel. Along the way, we took a short alley-like shortcut. Suddenly I looked up from the sidewalk and saw a sign that read: “Simillimum”. At that moment I remembered that this was the name of the primary homeopathic pharmacy in New Zealand. In fact, several years ago, when my book Impossible Cure came out, they carried it as a product.

Naturally we all walked in. And there was Michael Dong, who I had conversed with online way back when. Not realizing who he was, I said, “Maybe you know who I am — Amy Lansky, who wrote Impossible Cure?” Much excitement then followed, complete with some picture-taking. Michael made me feel like quite the celebrity! Also synchronistically, it turned out he had been a homeopathic student in England with our very first homeopath.

In India, coming across a homeopathic pharmacy is quite commonplace. In a place like New Zealand, however, it is a rarity. Indeed, this may have been the only such establishment in all of New Zealand. My being synchronistically drawn to it, along a somewhat obscure street, was certainly testimony to the powerful pull between like-minded and like-meaninged things.

TAKE ACTION NOW TO SAVE HOMEOPATHY IN THE USA!!

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(NOTE: It’s still not too late to take action!)

The time is now folks. After all our efforts to keep the FDA at bay, they seem to be doing an end-around at year’s end to remove access to pretty much all remedies in the USA. Some even think these efforts may block ordering from outside the USA too. So if you want to continue to have access to homeopathic remedies, the time to act is now!

Click on this link and follow the instructions to add your comments to the FDA. The deadline is in January. But do it now so you don’t forget in the holiday rush!

For your convenience, you may use the following statement, courtesy of Americans for Homeopathy Choice. The goal now is to at least give the homeopathic community time to respond.

1. I request that the FDA grant a 180-day extension to the Notice-and-Comment Period for this Draft Guidance.

2. I am grateful to the FDA for responding to the concerns of the homeopathy community by issuing a revised Draft Guidance.

3. I request that the FDA revise the Draft Guidance to reflect the following:

• Homeopathic medicines are nontoxic and inherently safe when properly manufactured and labeled.

• Homeopathic medicines are not “new drugs.”

• The agency’s risk-based approach will be applied to the FDA’s own enforcement process by examining the relative risk of each category of products it regulates. This would almost certainly put homeopathic medicines at the bottom of the list because they are nontoxic and inherently safe.

4. The Draft Guidance threatens all of homeopathy.

• It allows the FDA to withdraw across all manufacturers any nontoxic, inherently safe single homeopathic ingredient both in single-ingredient medicines and all combination products containing a particular homeopathic ingredient even when in products that are properly manufactured and labeled.

• A review of public FDA records by Americans for Homeopathy Choice did not find a single instance of a safety concern involving properly manufactured and labeled homeopathic medicines.

• All problems cited by the FDA involved improperly manufactured and/or labeled products.

• I am concerned that the FDA intends to remove nontoxic, inherently safe homeopathic medicines mentioned in its public statements such as Belladonna, Nux vomica and Lachesis muta even when they are properly manufactured and labeled.

• The FDA’s claim that homeopathic medicines are “new drugs” is misguided and legally incorrect.

• The 1962 amendments to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act were designed to deal with inherently dangerous substances.

• The process for New Drug Applications was created to determine whether the benefits of a proposed inherently dangerous substance used as a drug outweigh the risks.

• Since properly manufactured and labeled homeopathic medicines are nontoxic and inherently safe, there is no need to weigh risks against benefits.

• The New Drug Application simply doesn’t apply to single homeopathic ingredient medicines in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States and its supplements. Those medicines have already been tested for safety and effectiveness and undergone rigorous toxicological review.

5. The Draft Guide increases risks to consumers.

• If consumers are denied access to nontoxic, inherently safe homeopathic medicine applicable to their condition, they will seek out higher-risk alternatives including pharmaceuticals which can have dangerous and even fatal side-effects.

• Nontoxic, inherently safe homeopathic medicines may no longer be available to consumers to help address infections without creating antibiotic resistance or to treat pain without risking opioid dependence and death.

• The FDA’s risk-based approach as currently conceived would increase risk to consumers overall by disproportionately focusing the agency’s enforcement resources on nontoxic, inherently safe homeopathic medicines.

Folks, even though you may know all about the growing hegemony of Big Pharma, it may seem hard to comprehend why they find homeopathy so threatening that they’re willing to spend gobs of money on all of the disinformation and political campaigns we’re experiencing. Indeed, threatened access to vitamins and herbal products may not be far behind. But my guess is that non-homeopathic products are far less threatening to the pharmaceutical industry, even though they are far more popular. And here’s why.

I believe that the truth about potentization and its ability to preserve (and make less toxic) the healing potential of any substance — even an allopathic drug — is the real reason. I wrote an article about this 10 years ago that appeared on Mercola.com. If this information gets out and becomes accepted, Big Pharma will no longer be able to exist. Imagine potentizing a blockbuster drug and making it essentially free to everyone on the planet! Given research by Jacques Benveniste and Luc Montagnier and the growing experience of several other researchers, it is very likely that potentized drug signals can be “digitized,” sent over the internet, and impregnated into water. Imagine downloading your drug of choice over the internet and creating a water dilution of it in the comfort of your own home. No wonder Big Pharma would do anything to suppress the truth about potentization.

In the meantime, we must do what we can to protect our remedies at all costs. Don’t wait — write your message to the FDA today. We’re on a short timeline folks!

When I wrote Impossible Cure — hard to believe that it first came out 17 years ago! — I devoted the final chapter (Chapter 10) to the legality of homeopathic practice and homeopathic remedies, knowing that both were essential to the health of homeopathy. But I never imagined that the FDA would become our biggest adversary. After all, the legislation that created the FDA in 1938 was written by a homeopath — Senator Royal Copeland, MD. And he wrote it specifically so that the homeopathic pharmacopeia would be protected. Dr. Copeland must be turning over in his grave right now. Let’s hope he is also pulling strings somewhere in heaven to block the FDA’s current efforts!

As the holidays approach, send out your prayers and positive intentions and visions of the continued health of Homeopathy and our access to its life-saving and miraculous remedies!

Resistance Is Futile

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As you probably already realize, I tend to write many of these articles about things that I myself am working on or experiencing. For me, my 60’s have been all about healing patterns that I established during my first ten years of life. These patterns were effective coping strategies back then, given my childhood circumstances, but now they often bring me suffering. As we age, the effects of such lifelong coping strategies tend to come home to roost and make themselves known as physical disease. Most of us respond by taking another pill. I suggest we start by looking inward instead.

One pattern that I’m working on now is a tendency to resist what is. For me, it can take the form of “free floating anxiety” — a kind of perpetual tone of mental and bodily vigilance, consciously or subconsciously bracing for possible disaster. Even when my rational mind knows that all is well, my unconscious or what Huna calls my “Basic Self” tends to remain just a little bit tense. (I’ve noticed that vacations are some of the few times I can truly let go.) Recently this tendency has caught up with me in the form of high blood pressure. Truthfully, I’m resisting acknowledging that too! The bottom line is, lifelong patterns can be extremely hard to release, even when we are aware of them.

Of course, everyone resists in their own unique way. Some people might always feel just a bit angry, impatient, or annoyed. Others are fearful and clingy. I know someone who copes by constantly looking for a “magic bullet” provided by an authority that will make things okay. Some folks simply “check out” and take drugs, alcohol, go shopping, eat too much, or get lost on the internet or in video games. Others just sit or lie in depression.

So what are we so busy resisting? What are you resisting? It might be the state of the world — politics, climate change, the economy. It might be an unfulfilling job or difficult relationship. For many, it’s sickness or aging. Or it might just be the noisy annoying neighbor next door.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you do nothing about whatever you are resisting. But being in a state of resistance (however it manifests) does not help anyone or anything. As the wise old adage goes, “What you resist persists.”

So how to alleviate this suffering?

I’m reminded of my kids’ fourth grade teacher, Aviv. This guy was amazing — a true Zen master. There were a few troubled kids in one of my son’s classes; the usual variety — bullies, ADHD kids, etc. While most teachers managed the class by yelling or by using “bribery” to get the kids to behave, Aviv was always in a perpetual state of quiet and gentle calm. Just his presence made every child relax and settle. It had the same effect on parents too! Aviv had no problem at all getting the class to behave, and the children loved him and learned easily. He never resisted what was going on in the class. He just quietly talked to a child. Somehow it worked.

I’m also reminded of the ideology of Aikido, a martial art that does not strike back at an opponent, but instead simply deflects the energy of an attacker.

So how can we be Aviv-like Zen masters in our own lives? I guess the first step is to notice that you are resisting something. Talk to your Basic Self about it — your inner emotional and often more child-like self. Acknowledge what’s bothering you and feel it. Write it down. Say it out loud. Don’t suppress these feelings (which will just tend to make them come out in other ways). Then use a variety of techniques to help loosen up and let whatever it is go, bit by bit.

Of course, there’s the old stand by: daily meditation. But a variety of other tools are out there too. They include: the Sedona Method; Byron Katie’s teaching (for example, her book Loving What Is); and self-compassion and self-love methods like Louise Hay’s mirror work or self-soothing affirmations and actions (for example, check out books by Kristin Neff). I also find that certain books help me to relax and trust, like the books by Anita Moorjani about her near death experience, the Trust Frequency by Cameron-Bailey and Baxter-Marlowe, and various New Thought writings, like those by Neville Goddard.

However you go about it, letting go of resistance to what is can help you be healthier and happier and provide an easier and more elegant path to what you want. And it will also enable you to better serve the world. The sage Lao Tsu gave us many wise words about this topic:

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.”

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”

“Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?”

“To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”

An Excellent New Interview with Amy about Homeopathy for Autism

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I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Karen Thomas for her podcast show called Naturally Recovering Autism. I think this interview went particularly well and covered many important ideas.

Check it out! (It’s show number 60.)

Manifestation Works! The RuLaToon

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What can I say? Manifestation works, and not always how you expect. In fact, it works best if you don’t try to expect how an intention will be fulfilled.

This summer, my husband Steve and I manifested a pontoon boat. This is how it happened, along with some lessons you can learn from our little manifestation miracle.

Steve and I are lucky to be able to spend time every summer at our small cottage on a body of water. We’re one of the few people who largely operate “manually” in the water — i.e. using our kayaks or canoe. However, a few years ago when I was nursing a shoulder injury, we bought a used aluminum fishing boat with an 8-horsepower motor. The motor was always a bit flaky, but the boat served our purposes for many years.

Last year, our 8-hp motor finally gave up the ghost. So this summer, we had to make a decision. Do we buy a new motor? Do we abandon motorized boating entirely? Or do we enter the world of the pontoon boat, the preferred water vehicle for “older folks” like us, now in our mid-60s? Steve and I spent some time in contemplation and discussion and decided to try and find a used pontoon boat. After all, my shoulder just can’t deal with the pull cord on an outboard motor anymore, and getting in and out of a fishing boat wasn’t getting any easier either.

Next, we decided to try and use manifestation on the issue. One of my favorite New Thought teachers, Neville Goddard, recommends the following:

1) Visualize a scenario in which you already have what you want. Make it as vivid and complete as you can, especially the emotions you are experiencing.

2) Do not try to imagine or think about how this scenario is going to be achieved. Just keep visualizing being within it and your enjoyment of it.

In order to manifest our pontoon boat, we first discussed our target visualization and performed it together by describing it out loud. In it, we have our pontoon boat in time for our son Izaak’s arrival from Australia two weeks later. We have a sign I’ve created for the boat that says “RuLaToon”. (We joke-name some of our possessions with an initial “RuLa” — since my last name is Lansky and Steve’s last name begins with “Ru”.) In our scenario, we bring Izaak down to the water and enjoy his surprise at seeing the RuLaToon. We then motor around our body of water in it, having a great time.

Of course, it was still pretty hard for us not to think about how this might be achieved. The next day, Steve started calling around to see where we could buy a used pontoon boat. However, it turned out that a) they were much more expensive than we had anticipated; and b) they weren’t generally available until the end of the summer season, when people were more prone to sell them.

That evening we had dinner with friends and asked them how much they paid to store their pontoon boat each winter. That too was a bit more pricey than we had anticipated. So at this point, we were pretty doubtful we would be able to manifest a pontoon boat. But in my mind, I kept visualizing the little RuLaToon sign I would paint and what it would look like.

So how did it happen?

The next day we happened to see these same friends at a local event. They came up to us and said: “We’ve decided to share our pontoon boat with you!” What?? We never imagined this happening at all. In fact, we’ve never heard of people sharing boats on our body of water.

We agreed and Steve and I came up with a routine that enabled our friends to have their pontoon boat at their dock whenever they were around (which was only every other weekend or so). We would retrieve it after they left and return it to them before they returned. We were thrilled because this arrangement was also very “eco” and in alignment with the principle of sharing instead of buying. Our friends were happy because we improved the boat significantly by repairing and cleaning it. Although the RuLaToon also has some motor issues (it’s at least 20 years old), we’ve agreed to pay for tuneups in the future.

Of course, I also managed to paint my RuLaToon sign in time for Izaak’s arrival. And boy was he surprised when we took him down to the water! The RuLaToon truly added a new and wonderful dimension to our summer at the cottage.

So what can we learn from this manifestation experience?

1) Only visualize your state after your wish is already fulfilled.Try to focus especially on your happy emotions.

2) It’s quite helpful to visualize details, like the existence of the “RuLaToon” sign, what it looks like, bringing Izaak down to see the RuLaToon and his happy surprise.

3) Try not to limit your manifestation by thinking about how it will be achieved. Doing so can block it from happening, because you’re not only narrowing the possibilities, but possibly adding in your own doubtfulness into the process.

4) It’s also helpful to practice manifesting things that you believe could happen. For example, having a pontoon boat was definitely in the realm of “possibility” for us. The more impossible something seems to you, the more doubt you will introduce into the process, which serves as a blocking force.

5) Also try to remove emotional blockages. For example, during our discussions about the boat situation, I had to try to remove some emotional negativity I had about having a pontoon boat. Remember that emotional negativity about a goal may be subconscious, so it’s really important to be honest with yourself and dig deep. For example, many (if not most) people have some negative feelings about financial or relationship goals. These feelings need to be faced and released if you want to manifest more easily.

I hope you enjoyed this little miracle from my own life! And don’t forget to read all about how manifestation might actually work in my book Active Consciousness. In my experience, hearing other people’s manifestation stories and experiencing one or two of your own minor miracles helps to bring them more easily into your own life.

A New Approach to the Vaccine Impasse (or Similar Attacks on Health Freedom)

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It’s been a while since I’ve written a newsletter. Lengthy summer travel, letting myself settle in back home slowly, and downright ennui got the best of me, I suppose. It’s also been hard to face what’s going on these days, especially when it comes to vaccine legislation.

As many of you know, I’m a big believer in the fact that our thoughts and beliefs create our reality. So I’m well aware that the fear and anger so many of us have about forced vaccination and other intrusions on personal health freedom affect not only us, but also affect the world around us. Yes, most of us know that living with anger and fear isn’t very good for our physical and emotional well-being. But do we truly acknowledge that these emotions also serve to perpetuate the very obstacles we face?

Leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King understood this well. They knew that violence only breeds push back and more violence. Anger only breeds more push back and anger.

When I attended the 2015 protests in Sacramento, California against the passage of SB277 (the legislation that truly set the forced vaccination movement into motion), I was thrilled by the huge crowds, but I was also a bit worried about the chosen uniform of red shirts and the palpable anger among the protesters. Yes, we were all filled with self-righteous indignation! I was able to sit in the main hearing room because my husband Steve was one of the people chosen to testify about VAERS (the US government’s vaccine injury database), which he maintains. Just before the hearing began, one father in the crowd was removed by guards because of his threatening demeanor and anger over his child’s injury. Understandable, but in the end, unproductive.

So once again, is our anger and fear really helpful?

Think about it. How do you react when someone, especially a stranger, gets angry at you? You get defensive. You write them off as “nut cases.” You don’t believe a word they say. It also becomes much easier to scapegoat them, blame them, and dehumanize them.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But how can we fight the power of Big Pharma? They control the media. They control the politicians.” That’s true. But didn’t Gandhi and Martin Luther King face just as huge obstacles?

Gandhi figured out the secret sauce, so to speak. By taking a nonviolent approach, with as much love in your heart as you can muster, you maximize the chance that the “other side” will instinctively feel your inherent benevolence. This makes it easier for them to believe you and sympathize with you. It also becomes harder for them to write you off. For instance, it’s much harder for a soldier to shoot at a young person who is holding out a flower in their hand than it is for them to fire into an angry, fear-instilling mob.

And let’s face it, the vaccine debate, though it may be fueled by the money interests of Big Pharma, is really all about fear. Fear of contagion and disease. And what are the instinctual human reactions to fear? First, denial. Convince yourself that nothing is wrong, that there is no such thing as a vaccine injury. If you hear about the existence of government databases and payouts to victims, ignore it; blank it out. Or convince yourself that such injuries are incredibly rare. Convince yourself that vaccines are perfectly harmless, like taking a sugar pill.

The second defense mechanism, especially when the media stokes fear of contagion (a common tactic now used by Big Pharma), is to circle the wagons. Project your fears onto others outside the circle and blame them. Scapegoat the already beleaguered parents of autistic children or other vaccine-injured children — the so-called “anti-vaxxers.”

Finally, if you happen to feel the least bit guilty about your scapegoating, rationalize your guilt by shouting “the greater good!” It’s not your kid after all.

So what can we do?

First of all, as much as possible, try to check your anger or at least any outward manifestation of it. Approach legislators and authorities in a spirit of harmlessness. Evoke their sympathy and connection to you. Be kind. Be human. Be conscious of their understandable fears and defenses.

Second, consider deeply: Why are people so fearful that they have to deny, project, and rationalize? The answer is that the following thought is going through their head, whether they realize it or not:

If vaccines aren’t the panacea that I’ve been told they are, then what am I going to do to protect myself and my family??

Because so many people are thinking this, any insinuation that vaccines aren’t a panacea tends to evoke a defensive reaction. Such an insinuation makes people feel backed into a corner. It’s too hard for them to face and, in fact, they’ll do anything not to face it — even take away your civil rights.

But what is the one vaccine that people are willing and even wanting to forego? The flu vaccine. Why? Because people have now grown to believe two things about it (from their own experience): 1) It doesn’t really work that well; 2) It makes a lot of people sick or even gives them the flu. In other words, to an increasing number of people, getting the flu vaccine is just not worth it, despite all the media hype and indoctrination.

So how can we use this information to help us penetrate through the vaccine impasse? Here are some ideas.

1) Convince people that vaccines don’t really work as well as people think they do. There is plenty of evidence for this. Talk about outbreaks among fully vaccinated populations that cannot be blamed on the unvaccinated. Let people know that vaccines don’t “take” for many people. Let them know that fairly stable illnesses like measles are beginning to mutate and become a moving target like the flu — because of the overuse of vaccines. This is an important point, especially when it comes to diseases that are generally benign, especially for children, in the developed world. (After all, nearly everyone in the US over the age of 60 experienced measles, chicken pox, and mumps as children — to no ill effect. And they now have true immunity and a more robust immune system as a result.) The more people begin to question whether vaccines are truly effective and necessary, the less “worth it” they will seem.

2) Convince people there are other approaches that can help them, both to prevent disease and treat it. This is true for the flu; most people know about various home remedies, vitamins, and alternative therapies (like homeopathy) that do work. (Just check out some of my Impossible Cure newsletters to learn more.) In other words, try to convince people that they do have some kind of recourse or safety net besides vaccines.

3) Gently educate people about the side effects. Emphasize that vaccines actually spread disease because of shedding. (I’ve even read reports that the flu is spread more each year by the vaccinated than by the unvaccinated!) And let’s face it. As more and more people are injured by vaccines, convincing them about the inherent risks will become easier.

Well, those are my thoughts. What do you think?

The Revolution Is Within

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Many of you know that I went to graduate school at Stanford to study computer science and later did research in artificial intelligence. In the last issue of the Stanford Magazine, a feature article about various recent applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in China painted a chilling picture.

Do you realize that a great deal of information is constantly being gathered about you all the time — from your movements (gathered via your cell phone location and credit card card charges) to your shopping choices, from your email contents (think Gmail) and social media posts to the words you speak? I hope you also know that those “dots” or listening-devices you bought and sprinkled around your house are actually listening to everything you say all the time. How else can they know when to respond to you when you say “Alexa” or some other keyword?

All of this information is now being combined and analyzed statistically to infer quite a lot of surprising things about you. And many of these inferences may not even be true. Unfortunately, countries like China are already using these conclusions about who you are, what you’ve done, what your personality is like, and what you are likely to do next, to silently blacklist its citizens.

Gone are the days when the secret police had to knock down your door and bodily haul you off to some unknown prison for some unknown reason. Today, all that needs to be done is to flip a digital switch. Suddenly you may not be able to use your credit card, buy a plane ticket, or get medical treatment. You’ve become a virtual prisoner with no recourse. And it’s already happening in China. What next?

Back in the day when I was doing AI research, it was all a very different kind of thing. We were trying to encode human knowledge and reasoning abilities, not draw conclusions from huge data sets about people. This was long before smart phones and social media appeared on the scene, and that kind of data wasn’t even available. In fact, most of the early efforts at AI were generally considered to be a colossal failure. Today, however, AI is all about gathering lots of information from all the devices in our lives and making educated guesses about what it means and what can be inferred from it. For example, that’s how Google and Facebook know which ads to display to you — it’s based on guesses about what you are likely to buy. It works too.

Most people fear that the danger of AI is the sci-fi horror story: robots becoming conscious and imprisoning or killing us. The truth is, we are very far from that kind of thing. It may never happen. However, the real danger of AI is that we will trust these statistical algorithms too much; that societal forces will use all of the information that we ourselves have blithely made available — even paid to make available — and use bogus inferences to make some serious decisions. In other words, the real threat is that governments and other authorities will use statistically derived guesses to control us. And it isn’t just happening in China.

Google, for example, changed its search algorithms in June to essentially “disappear” from their search results pretty much every website that provides information about alternative approaches to health and diet. Just think about how Google searches control world opinion and behavior. As a result of these very recent changes, formerly top-ranked websites like Mercola.com, GreenMedInfo.com, and even the websites of organizations like the National Center for Homeopathy (HomeopathyCenter.org) or my own websites, have essentially dropped from view. Personally, I stopped trusting Wikipedia years ago, but I still trusted Google search results enough to use it many times a day. Now I’ve switched to a new and increasingly popular search engine, DuckDuckGo.com. It seems pretty much just as good as Google, it doesn’t collect information about your searches, and sites like Mercola.com and Homeopathycenter.org still appear on the first page when you do a relevant search. Check it out!

So what’s my message here?

Wars with guns and bombs may be on their way out. They are being replaced by information-based control over our movements, thoughts, beliefs, and access to services like airports, hotels, stores, the internet, banks, hospitals, schools, and more. As many of you know, children who are not fully vaccinated cannot attend any school in California or New York and possibly soon Florida. States are even trying to eliminate or severely curtail medical exemptions. What’s next? When your entire medical record is placed on a chip embedded in your body (people are already voluntarily embedding credit payment chips in their arms in Europe), how will it be used to curtail your freedoms?

So what can we do? Is all hope lost?

First, we can learn some lessons from the past. Even when the KGB was bugging (and likely is still bugging) apartments and following the movements of people in the Soviet Union, people were still able to find some personal forms of freedom. They only spoke in private to those they trusted. They maintained outward appearances of conformity. They played loud music to block the bugging devices.

Similarly, in our own private lives, we can still maintain various forms of control. We can turn off our smart phones and unplug those “dots”. We can stop using Google and Facebook and be a bit more discreet about who we share our beliefs with (although I realize I’m violating that dictum just by writing this article and making it available to you online). And there are plenty of people who care about preserving their freedoms. We just need to find them and work with them when we can.

There are also reasons for hope.

Clearly, our world is becoming increasingly polarized. Not just politically anymore. More and more people, for example, are seeking out medical and food alternatives. That may be the reason for the recent clamp down and media control over alternative health information — the corporations are getting scared. In fact, Google is now getting into the Big Pharma business itself. Perhaps that’s the reason why they changed their algorithms.

But increased polarization is also a sign that big changes are coming. That’s why things get polarized — one side wants the change, and the other side is fighting tooth and nail to stop it. So the increased polarities might mean the shift is getting nearer. It’s darkest before the dawn!

Another reason for hope lies in the power of the people. Despite the fact that so many of us are being lulled into complacency by entertainment and addictions, when enough people are suffering, they will not put up with it anymore. When people can’t physically survive anymore, big revolutions occur. In the past it was access to food. That’s what finally sparked the French Revolution. Today it is the scourge of chronic illness that is even affecting our children.

A final reason for hope is that the true revolution and the true power lies within.

Remember: even in a prison camp, even in Siberia, people still have their own internal beliefs and thoughts. And the more control we have over own beliefs and thoughts, especially via practices like the meditation and manifestation techniques I described in Active Consciousness, the more power we have to manifest change in the outer world.

Folks, I truly believe that we can collectively change the world — not just using our outer actions, but by using our minds and consciousness. Ultimately, the revolutionary action is within. It begins there and then moves outward into the world we experience around us. Let’s focus our collective beliefs and attention on a positive vision and make it happen!

How Do You Suffer?

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

There is a woman in a spiritual community I participate in that seems to be in a constant state of suffering. Her large eyes openly plead for some kind of rescue. When any of us interact with her, we usually hear about her illnesses, her depression, her financial woes, and how it all began when a relationship ended over ten years ago.

Any kindhearted person would feel sympathy for such a person, and I initially spent a lot of time talking to her and offering support. However, over time and with repeated exposure, I began to feel the urge to avoid her; I found her constant clinging and complaining to be energetically draining. And I’ve noticed that others in the community have begun to pull away as well.

Ironically, this particular community is guided by the idea that each person creates a life that is molded by what they focus on, talk about, and believe. So perhaps this woman is our teacher. She is a living example of what happens when thoughts and words are constantly negative, hopeless, and self-limiting.

But I’ve also asked myself, is my increasingly negative reaction to this woman unfair and unloving? Aren’t there people in the world who endure suffering beyond their control? What about people living in war-torn countries? Victims of the Holocaust and other ethnic purges and massacres? What about the sick and dying? And what about those gray areas? Are addicts (including people suffering from the newer varieties like food, sex, and shopping) suffering from something completely beyond their control? What about the mentally ill?

Recently, I’ve been rereading the second half of Victor Frankl’s amazing and transformative book, Man’s Search for Meaning. The first half of the book recounts his experience of survival in the concentration camps of World War II. Rather than focusing on the horror, however, he describes how those few who survived tended to be individuals who found some form of meaning to sustain them — perhaps hope for reunion with a loved one, or in Frankl’s case, a desire to rewrite the manuscript he had just completed before his whole life was torn from him. As Frankl points out, having a purpose that provides meaning can help an individual to survive even the most dire illness or hardship. Will power may truly be the ultimate power.

The second half of Frankl’s book outlines a branch of psychotherapy that he created after the war — logotherapy. Instead of seeking pleasure (Freud’s take on the goal of humanity), Frankl believed that what makes us truly human is our perpetual quest for meaning. He says that meaning can be found in one of three ways: 1) through achievement or some form of action in the outer world, such as work, family, or service; 2) by learning and experiencing things; and 3) through suffering.

But, as Frankl emphasizes, not all suffering is created equal. To provide meaning, it has to be unavoidable suffering. If one’s suffering can be alleviated, then not doing so is merely a form of masochism.

Hence the gray areas. Is an addict actively and earnestly trying to do something in order to address their addiction, or are they merely wallowing in it or using it as an excuse? Those who do nothing to address their addiction tend to not win much sympathy from others.

The same can go for those suffering from mental illness. This is an area in which I have some personal experience. My brother has suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder almost his entire life, and he is probably on the autism spectrum too. Yes, he has suffered tremendously. What could have been a productive and successful life was destroyed by an illness that was not his fault. But the truth is, my brother also tends to use his problems as an excuse — often when he wants something or doesn’t want to do something.

Happily, there have been better times too. When my brother has truly made an effort, he has tended to do much better. These are the times when his lifelong suffering has found some kind of meaning. They are the times when my brother slowly grew in wisdom and dignity through his suffering. And the same thing happens when an addict seeks help and truly makes an effort in some meaningful way.

As Frankl points out in his book, even in the concentration camps, where inmates were stripped of every vestige of their humanity and lived in constant filth and hunger, often on the verge of death, there were those who somehow found meaning and dignity in their situation. These people underwent a personal transformation that sometimes enabled them to survive. But even if they didn’t survive, at least they died with greater dignity and served as an inspiration to others around them.

So how do you suffer? Do you complain endlessly to those around you? Do you make an earnest effort to alleviate your suffering? Do you try to find some meaning in your situation and try to at least learn and grow from it? Are you able to find a way to push beyond your suffering, maybe even create a vision of a better life (perhaps even use active consciousness to help shift your situation)? You may discover that how you handle your suffering can make all the difference — not only in your relationships with others, but also in the nature of the life you begin to experience without and within.

“To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward conditions… Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.” — Victor Frankl