GOD AS THE BELIEF, THE SIMULATION, THE MODEL
In the modern world the distribution of the written and spoken word and the distribution of motion pictures and videotapes has become so widespread that those in charge of these media have constructed a new god, the God of Belief, the God of Simulation, the God of the Model. As was demonstrated by the owners of newspapers in the beginning of this century, God as Power can be controlled and expressed through the belief, the simulation, and the model as expressed in language. Those in control of the distribution of ideas through the media have access to manipulation of power such as the world has never seen. The modern communication satellites, modern radio and TV, are demanded by masses of people. In most metropolitan areas the most commonly stolen objects are TV sets. The believers in the media want to be sure they stay in contact with what the media are saying.
Language can be used in many different ways; it is one of the most flexible instruments ever invented. It can be used to transmit essential information, to predict, to give instructions, to program individuals or large groups, to express very precisely very precise ideas; it can be used to harangue crowds, to excite war and its concomitant activities, to construct computers, to control the human species.
However, language is not universal. There are too many languages on the face of the earth to allow of universality. Therefore, there are discrepancies across language barriers: discrepancies in belief, in simulations, in models of reality and in models of one another. The devil is buried in language, as is God. As linguists have shown over the last fifty years, there is no primitive language left among humans. Every language which previously was called primitive, when looked at more carefully and studied more deeply than before turned out to be an extremely sophisticated instrument for communication of man’s inner states.
Language itself contains mysteries. The study of semantics, of logic, of proto-logic has led ever deeper into theories, the science of the human, all science. As semantics becomes polished, as mathematics matures, our beliefs, simulations, and models and their power are all improved—the power to dissuade from a belief, to construct a belief to take the place of another belief, to acquire simulations “as if true.” The power of models to take over one’s thinking machinery to the point where one’s life is sacrificed in the service of models is also present in the advance of semantics, linguistics, and mathematics. God as the Word, God as the Sentence, God as the Meaning, God as the Belief rule our social reality.
Poetry seems to be the expression of that which is inexpressible by any other means. It has been said that poetry is “that which is left over, that which is left out in the translation.” Poetry is a very special kind of simulation in that it permits the rules of language to be broken in order to better express a feeling, a mood, a state of being in injunctive situations. Poetry can express the irrational, the ineffable, the inexpressible, the unknown: poetry can express my ignorance. And yet poetry is generally thought of as the least effective of the media. Poets are very badly paid for their work.
In certain states of consciousness one receives unequivocal messages of Immense Authority. Some people call these messages “the voice of God” and proceed on the belief that a God Out There is communicating with Him in Here. As I stated in The Human Biocomputer, in certain states of consciousness one tends to project the voice of God into the noise of his own thought processes. In solitude, isolation, and confinement he can receive such messages. If he proceeds on the belief system that these are “real” messages, not generated only in his own bio-computer, in his own noise level, he opens up whole areas for new investigation. To get beyond his belief, his simulations, his model of God, one must in these states of consciousness open himself to the unexpected, the surprising, the unbelievable. If one remains open-ended he is sure that in the vast areas of his own ignorance there are, there will be, there must be surprises. Getting beyond his current belief systems, his current simulations, his current models, one must demote the current belief system, current simulation, current model to a position less than that of God. To remain open-ended one’s God must be greater than this; one’s God must be huge—in order to include one’s ignorance, the unknown, the ineffable. Instead of God as the Belief, the Simulation, the Model, one adheres to God as Mystery, God as the Unknown. The explorer of the inner spaces cannot afford the baggage of fixed beliefs. This baggage is too heavy, too limited and too limiting to allow further exploration.
All one has to do is spend a day looking at TV programming in a metropolitan area in the United States to realize the paucity, the poverty, the futility of this programming itself. The strictures placed on what can be said, on what can be shown, are so huge that one gets incredibly bored with the repetitions in the narrow information channels which are allowed. The sentimental attachment to old movies, the premium placed on horror presentations of modern war, of modern riots, turn one away from this medium as not expressing anything of use either on one’s planetside trip or in terms of one’s investigations and explorations.
The science shown on television is elementary and childish. The belief of the networks that they are sending information to twelve-year-old minds in the mass is complete and utter nonsense. The belief that the networks cannot show certain things because they are “beyond” the viewers is also utter nonsense. With the proper simulations, with the proper beliefs, with open-ended models, TV could be an exciting medium for all concerned—viewers and producers alike. Once in a while a worthwhile script does sneak by networks’ and the advertisers’ censors.
Because of the belief of the media that they are dealing with twelve-year-old minds, they generate twelve-year-old minds. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead of expanding these minds to be fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, eighty years old, they worship God as Youth, God as the Uninformed. Their compassion is misplaced, their education is limited. We need more open-minded programming in television in order to increase man’s understanding in general. If we are going to program out our own total destruction we need the knowledge to fill the place left by the old tape-loops which we see again and again and again involving God as War, God as Power, God as Money, God as Science, God as Death, God as Sex, God as Drugs, God Out There, I Am God, God as The Group. There are the simulations which TV insists on playing back to us again and again and again.
There is great modern music among the young. There is great modern poetry, modern mathematics, semantics, linguistics. There are new mysteries showing up in the space program—mysteries edited out by NASA and the networks. Things have happened to the astronauts of which NASA does not make any mention, and the networks join in the conspiracy in the typical patriarchal view that they are “Daddy” in charge of “all us children.” We ask why do ex-astronauts become mystical, as did Mitchell and White.
If there was an invasion from outer space by subtle extraterrestrial agencies and it was first discovered by the media, I am sure the invasion would be so underplayed that the picture presented by the media would be rejected and others would seek the truth.
Our Department of Defense, our CIA, FBI, and other government agencies, through the use of what is called “secrecy in the service of national security,” construct a belief that these agencies are patriarchs allowing only certain kinds of information to the public who are supporting these agencies with their taxes. In the various flaps about UFO’s there have been such statements by the Air Force and by others that if the truth were released the public would panic. This seems to be one of the limiting beliefs, one of the limiting simulations for the control of beliefs, putting God as the Belief in front of everything else.
The automatic programming in of panic, simultaneous with public knowledge, is nonsense. Any message can be transmitted as long as it has a basis in fact and will be accepted by the public without fear, without panic in any organized way. This particular form of groupthink—thinking for the public, thinking for everybody else—is insidious; it is not the way to encourage mature thought and action in large numbers of people. My father had a saying, “You don’t know if a man can take responsibility until you give it to him.” I am sure, as are many others, that the American public is much more mature than the media seem to believe.
Those who look upon the media as God must be educated by the media to dissolve that belief. This is the ultimate test of maturity of those in control of the media. Can they delegate responsibility to their audiences? Until they do the experiment, they won’t know the answer. They tout the reception of Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” as an example of the way the public reacts. What they forget is that we have stored up the “War of the Worlds” episode; we have also stored up Pearl Harbor—and we have learned and gained maturity from them. We cannot live in the past; we must move on to whatever future awaits us.