.::.Easy Mind Reading.::.

There's something going on. Something almost intangible that's not right with the world. If you look carefully you can sense a few sparse clues that something is out of joint, and what's more someone knows it. Someone is manipulating our world to their own ends.

How about the idea of an artificial framework imposed on our existence - imposed, moreover, not by any god or gods, but very ordinary human beings with a knack for controlling people and a sense of how to influence our society? These people are the cream of the crop when it comes to manipulating our impulses.

We exist within a matrix, a structure which encompasses and gives shape to all our lives. What is remarkable is not so much that such a structure can exist, but that it has existed for thousands of years, surviving the rise and fall of many a civilisation and the seemingly unstoppable advance of technology and discovery down the years. How is this possible? Because the matrix in question relies on three basic aspects of human nature which have always been with us.

The first characteristic is the search for authority. Although we all possess the capacity for free thought, most of us prefer not to use it except as a last resort. Most of the decisions we think we are making consist of little more than a reaction against our surroundings. Thus our daily routines have less to do with choice and more with convenience and necessity: we must eat, work and interact with others, but we generally avoid making any dramatic decisions.

Instead we shift from one trance-like state to another. Every activity in which we engage requires us to conform to some pre-existing norm, and we oblige. It is only when we encounter something new or different that we snap into full wakefulness and engage our minds. As this requires us to expend energy, we tend to avoid it unless it is absolutely necessary. This unwillingness to think for ourselves says a lot about the way in which The Game works, and the reasons which cause us to surrender to the control of The Players.

In short they fill a vacuum - doing our thinking for us. Naturally they must conceal what they are doing, or we would resist the idea of someone else controlling our minds. The deception they use to circumvent this problem involves an elaborate version of reality constructed from a series of inter-connected myths. These myths form the constituent part of an overarching meta-myth: the Linearity myth. This prepares our minds to accept the many minor myths propounded by the Players. So intricate is this system, and so well-concealed, that we simply accept it as the norm.

If we are to understand this artificial reality we must accept that it is impressively intricate. So closely are the myths connected that it is almost impossible to isolate and discredit a single one without dealing with all the others at the same time.

As individuals we are all held in check by our own narcissism. This allows us to accept the myth that the world revolves around us - that we are entitled to view ourselves as the be all an end all of our existence, rather than members of a community of equals. That community becomes a tool - a way of adding to ourselves, rather than a self-sustaining end in its own right. For the Players, the ultimate narcissists, this is how the view reality the whole time. For the rest of us it is a myth which we accept only subconsciously, and only some of the time. Nevertheless, the fact of this narcissistic inclination has a profound impact on our contribution to and vision of society.

The zeitgeist of this century is narcissism. The world as it is today is not merely narcissistic; narcissism has become its defining feature. It captures the very essence of twentieth century man; the way we think, the way we relate to each other, the way we see the world. Ubiquitous, it has been integrated into our reality to such an extent that most of us are completely blind to the degree to which it permeates our lives. It has become the background to our existence.

To take it a step further, I would argue that what in the past was referred to pejoratively as narcissism, has been elevated to the status of a religious faith. The enlightened selfishness prescribed by the eighteenth century philosopher and economist Adam Smith has been distorted into a moral justification for wanton greed and personal indulgence.

So much for the myth of narcissistic supremacy. Now we must turn our attention to the tribal identities perpetuated by our society. Human beings, who are naturally social creatures, tend to define themselves as members of a group or groups, and to organise themselves accordingly. Every group to which we belong has some impact on the outlook of its members, and it is fair to say that our group affiliations more often than not come to define who we are and the views we subscribe to.

Finally there comes the societal trance, comprising a series of myths such as the myth of scarcity and the myth of law and order. While any one of these myths could be challenged - even exposed as fraudulent - in isolation, taken together they are seemingly inviolable.

The Myth of Linearity, which claims that sequential logic is the ultimate authority in world affairs, predominates over all these other myths. This is the basis for the web of myths which stifles our society, and it argues that everything can be accounted for by an endless cycle of cause and effect.

It is time to bring about the end to this trance and reject the myths surrounding us. We cannot know what society will look like when freed from these myths, but I for one would like to find out.