If you lived in Thailand, every day you would greet people with, "Sawasdee krab!" A form of the word 'swastika.' If you get an invite to a Buddhist or Hindu wedding, you are likely to see the this symbol all over the invitation.
In fact, it is one of the oldest symbols in human history. It appears in cultures all over the planet. Except in post-WWII Europe and America, this symbol communicates good luck and good fortune. It has many forms and has been found scratched in petroglyphs in North America, ancient jewelry in Europe and in religious art in Asia. It can be 'left-handed' or 'right-handed.' I've seen old buildings built in the 20s, in Texas, that had swastika tiles all around the main entry. It's still there, on Milam Street in Houston.
Signs and symbols are all around us and we are indoctrinated to have certain reactions and thoughts and feelings when we see them. It's a major part of how we are controlled, and how we are lied to about reality.
Edgar Allen Poe's poem, The Raven, is one of the finest verbal uses of symbology I have ever encountered. I've frequently used it in my language classes as a way of teaching connotation and interpretation. The bird itself is a cultural symbol of death, but the poem goes on to include winter, purple colors, ghosts of dying embers, and so forth. Every line contains some reference, overt or covert, to death.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more."
Symbols are not only visual, but verbal. In some ways, the verbal symbols can be much more powerful than the visual, though it is often repeated that a picture tells a thousand words.
Try this one on for size...
- Revelation 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: Revelation 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Revelation 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
Ignoring the fact that everyone always interprets the last line as a real number, let's look at the verbal symbols. The mark is placed on the hand and forehead. Symbols? He controls their labor and their thinking. When you want to start a business, what is the first thing you do? Get a license, right? When you want to travel, what is the first thing you do? Get a license, right?
You are already owned and controlled. Sorry to tell you, but you can't even imagine driving your car without premission from 'the beast.' You can't even imagine opening and operating a business without a license, or incorporating. You are already owned and controlled. Your mind can't even conceive of things that used to be a foregone conclusion. It used to be, if you wanted to start a business, you hung out a shingle and started. If you were good and had a fair price, you thrived. Now you need a license, documents, tax information, insurance...the list goes on. You are owned and controlled, even as you sit reading this.
Let me challenge you again. What was that line? He shall cause all to take the mark on their hand and head? Hmmm...how about this photo?See any marks/symbols on this soldier's head and hand? It's called tefillin. I'm even willing to bet your very first reaction is denial, and the second involves the word "anti" somewhere in it, right?
Everything you think, everything you feel, all your reactions have been implanted in you. You don't even notice them any more. When you were a kid, you most likely questioned these things, because you had never encountered them before. Now, you just react without even thinking. You see a picture or hear a word, and you immediately feel some emotion and react in some way. You have been programmed and controlled.
In Thailand, elephants are work animals, just like horses in my dear native land of Texas. When an elephant is born, it's training begins. It's right-rear leg is tied to a stake, which is driven into the ground whenever the animal is not working. By the time it reaches adulthood, the owner has only to slip a rope around it's foot, and this massive, powerful animal will not move for love nor money. In it's mind, the rope means that it is staked to the ground and it cannot move until the rope is taken off.
When I train my cats, I use a spray bottle full of water. When they do something I don't want, I spray them in the face. Perfectly harmless, but they hate it. After three or four times, I just have to show the bottle, and they react, out of pure fear. They are owned and controlled.
This is not to say that some symbols are helpful. Certainly, stopping at a stop sign prevents damage to property and injury to life and limb. But do it consciously, not just because you are a trained circus animal.
The pigs, oops, I mean cops, these days are out of control. We have deep-seated fear of them because they wear certain symbols that we have been trained to fear and dread. Those uniforms and badges and the funky Bat-belts with all the gear on them. It just strikes dread into you, doesn't it? When you see the flashing lights in the rear-view mirror, you panic, right? You are owned and controlled.
The pigs, I mean cops, use trained dogs to do their dirty work. If the pigs, I mean cops, want to search your car, but you stand up for your rights as a human being, they bring in the trained dogs. Even if the dogs don't smell anything, their master can give a subtle sign, like raised eyebrows or a pointed finger, and the dog will go ape-shit on the trunk of your car. That dog is owned and controlled, just like you.
The point here is to start being conscious of how your are being manipulated. Stop looking at the rope around your leg as having any more power than what you give it. The most evil and insidious chains are the ones around our minds. The first step in removing them is to realize that they are there. The problem with these mental chains is that they can be so effectively hidden, and yet so powerful.
It took me 15 years to uninstall the Catholic training I had received as a child. I had so much guilt and fear that I couldn't function effectively. Once I realized what was happening, I could begin to re-train myself. Eventually, I could choose my reactions rather than turn into a quivering bowl of jelly at the mere symbols that had been programmed into me.
When you looked at the symbols in this article, you had immediate and subconscious reactions to them. I can guess at what they were by cultural similarities, but I have visitors here from 88 countries. They will all react differently, but they will react. The important thing is that you notice what you felt at the first moment you looked at the images. Then figure out why you did that. Then uninstall it.
Stop letting flags and uniforms and badges and other symbols of power control you. Take away that power. A dollar bill is just paper and ink. It has no value but what has been installed in your mind. Locks only stop honest people.
You first taste of freedom is when you can look at your money and just see paper, or start a business and the only permission you need is your own.
You are your own master, and as such, only you can choose to be a slave.
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