The antidote to Uri Geller's 11:11 assault upon democracy
On 22 March, Uri Geller wrote an "open letter" to Teresa May on Facebook saying "I will not allow you to take Britain into Brexit".
He explained further, on CBC radio on 25 March, that he would be visualising May revoking Brexit at 11:11 every morning and evening, and called on millions of people over the world to join him.
On 26 March, there was a coup d'état in the House of Commons, whereby MPs from both major parties plus The Independent Group, which broke away from Labour, expropriated Government of the tasks involved in the Brexit process. They thus overthrew the democratic process in Britain, whereby the electorate entrusted the Conservative Party to enact their four word instruction in the 2016 referendum, "leave the European Union".
The 11:11 "movement" is in reality a diffuse cloud of speculations as to why sometimes people think they see these numerals more often than chance would explain. There are no dominant schools explaining why, and there are barely any cogent explanations.
What Geller has done, therefore, is apply signification to something that has been crying out in some time for meaning to be imposed upon it. In the minds of many people hereafter, 11:11 will mean the destruction of democracy.
And that is Geller's genius. He doesn't try to persuade his audience, because that would cause their discriminatory faculties to come into play and kick against him. Instead, he works from the assumption that his audience are already persuaded, and surprisingly many of them go with that. He is a past master at influencing large groups of people.
He's not the only one. From 1996, Tony Blair encouraged his followers to repeat phrases like "young country", "new Britain" and "joined-up government", often without any explanatory context. He won the 1997 general election. Following his lead, Barack Obama had his followers focus on one phrase, "yes we can" which, meaningless in and of itself, played a great part in his 2009 US presidential election.
What Blair and Obama did was to trick large amounts of people into effectively casting a spell: associating a group of words with an image - said politicians victorious - and repeating the association so many time it lost meaning to the conscious mind and operated in the far more efficacious unconscious level. This is what Geller has done, and already it has arguably played a part in an anti-democratic political coup.
But we can strike back. If you are still reading this, I would guess that you are at least open-minded regarding the proposition that we live in a participatory Universe. In other words, the Universe is the matrix of cause, effect and synchronicity whereby we get back what we give out.
This is the basis of cosmic ordering, which is where somebody concentrates fiercely on something they desire and, ore often than not, they get that thing. We can, for instance, concentrate on the desired aim:
But concentration is not enough. What is also needed is a process called "pivoting", whereby we spin narrative from what is desired, creating a little story that the Universe can spin into a web of reality.
Geller's followers simply oppose Brexit. As efficacious as this has been, the Universe works even harder for those who want something to happen, doubly as much if it is something good, and exponentially so if it is something good that encompasses others. This is my intended pivot:
Adopt this pivot. Adapt it, if you want. We might just prevent a political crisis from spiralling into civil war, by returning the bloodless revolution of our time: democracy.
And the best time to remember to affirm our pivot? The same 11:11, thereby rescuing the phenomenon from sinister political associations.
He explained further, on CBC radio on 25 March, that he would be visualising May revoking Brexit at 11:11 every morning and evening, and called on millions of people over the world to join him.
On 26 March, there was a coup d'état in the House of Commons, whereby MPs from both major parties plus The Independent Group, which broke away from Labour, expropriated Government of the tasks involved in the Brexit process. They thus overthrew the democratic process in Britain, whereby the electorate entrusted the Conservative Party to enact their four word instruction in the 2016 referendum, "leave the European Union".
The 11:11 "movement" is in reality a diffuse cloud of speculations as to why sometimes people think they see these numerals more often than chance would explain. There are no dominant schools explaining why, and there are barely any cogent explanations.
What Geller has done, therefore, is apply signification to something that has been crying out in some time for meaning to be imposed upon it. In the minds of many people hereafter, 11:11 will mean the destruction of democracy.
And that is Geller's genius. He doesn't try to persuade his audience, because that would cause their discriminatory faculties to come into play and kick against him. Instead, he works from the assumption that his audience are already persuaded, and surprisingly many of them go with that. He is a past master at influencing large groups of people.
He's not the only one. From 1996, Tony Blair encouraged his followers to repeat phrases like "young country", "new Britain" and "joined-up government", often without any explanatory context. He won the 1997 general election. Following his lead, Barack Obama had his followers focus on one phrase, "yes we can" which, meaningless in and of itself, played a great part in his 2009 US presidential election.
What Blair and Obama did was to trick large amounts of people into effectively casting a spell: associating a group of words with an image - said politicians victorious - and repeating the association so many time it lost meaning to the conscious mind and operated in the far more efficacious unconscious level. This is what Geller has done, and already it has arguably played a part in an anti-democratic political coup.
But we can strike back. If you are still reading this, I would guess that you are at least open-minded regarding the proposition that we live in a participatory Universe. In other words, the Universe is the matrix of cause, effect and synchronicity whereby we get back what we give out.
This is the basis of cosmic ordering, which is where somebody concentrates fiercely on something they desire and, ore often than not, they get that thing. We can, for instance, concentrate on the desired aim:
I want Brexit.
But concentration is not enough. What is also needed is a process called "pivoting", whereby we spin narrative from what is desired, creating a little story that the Universe can spin into a web of reality.
Geller's followers simply oppose Brexit. As efficacious as this has been, the Universe works even harder for those who want something to happen, doubly as much if it is something good, and exponentially so if it is something good that encompasses others. This is my intended pivot:
I want Brexit, because a return to democracy, equality and fairness will be good for all people who are of goodwill towards others in Britain and beyond.
Adopt this pivot. Adapt it, if you want. We might just prevent a political crisis from spiralling into civil war, by returning the bloodless revolution of our time: democracy.
And the best time to remember to affirm our pivot? The same 11:11, thereby rescuing the phenomenon from sinister political associations.
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