"They must find it difficult...Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority." - Gerald Massey

Now I have found the past readings stimulating, however, this book could not be more true to form for me. Ever since I saw the movie Zeitgeist (www.zeitgeistmovie.com –its free to watch online, watch it!!) I have been absorbed with “metanoia” as Pearce would put it and how our ideas and values are not only shaped by society, but how society is shaped from our ideas and values. It’s more than a circular argument in the way that we as individuals decide what is relevant, and in turn, what is relevant shapes the rest of society.

I was very moved by many ideas in the book; the first one was when the author described how “Robert Frost saw civilization as a small clearing in a great forest.” At first it seems the space was garnered by society out of a desire to escape “the dark out there.” It, I would hope, was meant to be a haven, and established under the ideals of growth and understanding amongst the human race. In primal times, I can see a reason for community as a sense of security. However, this circle has turned from a haven to a prison. It never occurred to me that building a civilization would limit the use of free thought. (As I wrote that sentence it just became clearer.) I guess in order for a society to exist, there must be rules placed on its’ citizens, but also on their intentions. There must be a common understanding and thought process in order to keep the momentum going. The easiest way to do that is take the obscure “autistic thinking” and ban it to the dark forest. As Pearce states, “Each person is a potential line capable of breaking through the circle of reason. Yet the circle is an accomplishment of no small order. An enormous force bends all lines into circles. Each new mind threatens the structure but ages of pressure weigh on the infant to win from him agreement with, modification to, and help in sustaining his cultural cycle.”

I have always found people to believe in freedom, however, I have always thought there was no such thing; seeing that if we all just did what we wanted, there would be no society; therefore society and freedom could never be one in the same. What I didn’t realize is that this society is only possible by resigning our freedom of thought as well. Even our deepest conscious thoughts are no match for the overall directive that has brought us to this state of mind.

When Pearce goes on to talk about our clearing and our “ideation, cataloging, and indexing” of it, it made a lot of sense to me. When you see all the magazines, movies, television media, games, phones, ringtones, ringback tones, etc, etc, etc, we realize how small our worlds have become, yet how full of junk they are. I think Peace put it perfectly when he said “A mind divided by choices, confused by alternatives, is a mind robbed of power.” I feel like society has become so consumed with society (itself) that it no longer cares about the forest at all. However, there are also those in power who help this along i.e. the government/big business (aren’t these one in the same?).

Anyway I want to end with a quote from Pearce which is “ I saw that the only “truth” for us is the process of questioning what truth might be, and receiving the answers in keeping with the nature of our questions.”