Dear Members,
As you know, I am dead set against remote "diagnosis", especially by
non-professionals.
Only a qualified mental health diagnostician can determine whether someone
suffers from NPD and this, following lengthy tests and personal interviews.
I am offering you these two articles, with the kind permission of the
author, not because of the "diagnosis" offered - but because of the
well-written and accurate descriptions of malignant narcissism embedded in
them.
Sam Vaknin
=============
Also read these - click on the links:
http://www.narcissis...use.com/15.htmlhttp://www.narcissis....com/faq11.htmlhttp://www.narcissis.../journal54.htmlhttp://www.narcissis....com/faq47.html====================================
GEORGE BUSH IS A MALIGNANT NARCISSIST
by Paul Levy
Psychologically speaking, Mr. George W. Bush is what is called a 'malignant
narcissist.' A narcissist is someone who has become hypnotized and entranced
by their own inflated self-image. They have become so self-absorbed that not
only are they not in genuine relation with others, but they relate to others
(including the environment) as objects to satisfy their own need for
self-aggrandizement. A 'malignant' narcissist, however, is a narcissist who
reacts sadistically to others who don't support and enable their narcissism.
For example, instead of self-reflecting and taking in critical feedback, the
Bush administration reacts with ruthless contempt for anyone who disagrees
with them. Like a mean and cruel-spirited malignant narcissist, Bush and Co.
deny the accusation and try to destroy the messenger. Ultimately, a
malignant narcissist wants to annihilate anyone who in any way threatens
their illusory self-image and self-serving agenda.
Malignant narcissists can be very charismatic, and are very adept at
charming and manipulating others. They are clever at camouflaging their
malevolent agenda, even to themselves, and can appear to be very normal,
regular, and seemingly loving people. To quote the great doctor of the soul,
psychiatrist C. G. Jung "only a very small fraction of so-called psychopaths
land in the asylum. The overwhelming majority of them constitute that part
of the population which is alleged to be "normal."" And, I might add, that
many of these so-called seemingly 'normal' psychopaths are drawn to
positions of power. Malignant narcissists are very skilled at entrancing
others, at putting other's under their spell. They are master hypnotists.
They are like 'black magicians,' in that they are very talented at hooking
others through their fear by using 'mind-control' techniques such as lying
and propaganda to control them.
The narcissism of a leader such as Bush resonates with the narcissism
inherent in his supporters, who identify with Bush's seeming certainty and
lack of doubt (it never occurs to them that, to quote John Kerry "You can be
certain and wrong."). This creates a very dangerous and pathological
situation called "group narcissism," in which a large group of people have
dis-connected from their critical faculties and entrusted their power to
their narcissistic leader. This is a perversely symbiotic, co-dependent
relationship in which all members of the group are colluding with and
enabling each other's narcissism. For example, George Bush, in his utter
narcissism thinks that God speaks through him. Instead of being seen as
deluded, his supporters reflect back to him that they, too, think that God
speaks through him. This, of course, just reinforces Bush's narcissistic
delusion. Seeing Bush as God's instrument concurrently fulfills in the Bush
supporters their adolescent fantasy of having someone who is playing the
role of the divine leader to protect them. This mutually interdependent and
reciprocally reinforcing delusion is what is called a 'collective psychosis.
' By playing with people's fear, Bush is hypnotizing people to give their
power away to him. Unfortunately, by doing this he has hypnotized himself as
well, which is to say he is deceiving himself in the process of his
deceiving of others. Malignant narcissists are pathological liars. They are
very adept at both lying and then believing their own lies. The conviction
they carry in this act of self-deception can easily 'entrance' people. To
quote Jung "Nothing has such a convincing effect as a lie one invents and
believes oneself, or an evil deed or intention whose righteousness one
regards as self-evident." A malignant narcissist plays with people's fears
so as to gain their trust and control them, which is based on the abuse of
power over others that is the signature of a true dictator.
At their core, a malignant narcissist's desire is to dominate and have power
over others. The perverse enjoyment of complete domination over another
person(s), which involves transforming a person into an object (a 'thing'),
in which their freedom is taken away, is the very essence of the sadistic
drive. Their sadism is a way of transforming their feelings of powerlessness
and impotence into an experience of omnipotence.
A malignant narcissist is the incarnation of the separate, alienated self
spinning out of control to a pathological degree. They are unconsciously
identified with and will protect at any cost an imaginary 'separate self'
that is alien from the rest of the universe. Paradoxically, at the same time
that they experience themselves as separate from others, the malignant
narcissist lives in a state of 'unconscious fusion' with others. To a
malignant narcissist, other people don't truly exist as autonomous beings.
Other people only exist as disposable pawns to feed and support their
narcissistic, masturbatory fantasies. A malignant narcissist hasn't
developed a sense of their own authentic self, which is why they are unable
to be in genuine relationship with others. Psychologically, malignant
narcissism is a very primitive and un-evolved state, one which is totally
lacking in eros (relatedness).
Because they don't relate to other people as independent and separate from
their own inflated, narcissist self, the malignant narcissist doesn't
respect other people's boundaries. Their self-serving, narcissistic illogic
allows them to justify, even in the name of God, transgressing other's
boundaries, be them an individual's civil liberties, or another nation's
sovereignty. Interestingly enough, etymologically, the word "evil" is
related to the word "transgress."
Malignant narcissists are not conscious of the interconnectedness between
themselves and others. They are unable to feel empathy for others and have
an overwhelming lack of genuine compassion (so much for compassionate
conservatism). Concerned about nothing other than themselves, malignant
narcissists are indifferent to other people's suffering, all the while,
though, professing their compassion. Malignant narcissists are unable to
genuinely mourn, for they are ultimately only concerned with themselves.
They will show grief, however, just like they will try and appear
compassionate, if it is politically correct to do so and, hence, to their
advantage, as they are master manipulators. They are a true 'wolf in sheep's
clothing.' Malignant narcissists are unconsciously possessed by the
power-drive of the archetypal shadow. Being possessed by an archetype means
that the malignant narcissists have lost their freedom, as a more powerful
transpersonal, archetypal force has so unconsciously taken them over that it
compulsively acts itself out through them. They themselves are being used
and manipulated like puppets on a string by the more powerful archetypal
force. Becoming possessed by an archetype like this, to quote Jung, "turns a
man into a flat collective figure, a mask behind which he can no longer
develop as a human being, but becomes increasingly stunted." Jung continues
"Since nobody is capable of recognizing just where and how much he himself
is possessed and unconscious, he simply projects his own condition upon his
neighbor, and thus it becomes a sacred duty to have the biggest guns and the
most poisonous gas."
Malignant narcissists can seem confident and self-assured, but are, in
reality, covering deep insecurities and fears through an inflated
self-image. Intense feelings of revenge, fury and rage verging on insanity
manifests when their fear is exposed, and their narcissism threatened. At
the core of their process is self-hatred, as malignant narcissists split-off
and dissociate from a part of themselves. As Jung points out, "a habitual
dissociation is one of the signs of a psychopathic disposition." Jung talks
about this condition by saying it may even result in "a splitting of the
personality, a condition in which quite literally one hand no longer knows
what the other is doing...Ignorance of one's other side creates great
insecurity. One does not really know who one is; one feels inferior
somewhere and yet does not wish to know where the inferiority lies, with the
result that a new inferiority is added to the original one." A malignant
narcissist falls into an infinite regression of being in denial about being
in denial and hiding from their own lies. A malignant narcissist such as
Bush is continually in a state of hiding from himself.
Malignant narcissists have contempt for and flagrantly violate the rule of
law, which, in their inflation, they believe themselves to be above.
"International law?" Bush arrogantly smirked in December 2003, "I better
call my lawyer." Malignant narcissists, like a true bully, abuse their power
simply because they can. They can endlessly 'talk' about taking
responsibility, but they never genuinely face up to and become accountable
for their actions.
Malignant narcissists are unwilling and unable to experience their sense of
shame, guilt or sin, as their narcissism doesn't allow these feelings. This
inability to consciously feel their 'negative' feelings is at the root of
the dynamic in which they dissociate from their own darkness, blaming and
'projecting the shadow' out there onto some 'other.' This splitting-off and
projecting out their own evil results in always having a potential enemy
around every corner, which is why malignant narcissists tend towards
paranoia. Malignant narcissists continually 'need' an enemy and will even
create new ones to ensure that they don't have to look at the evil within
their own hearts. They react with aversion to the reflection of their own
evil, going so far as to want to exterminate evil from the world. Or as
George Bush would say "to rid the world of evil-doers." This is an act that
can never be attained, however, as by projecting the shadow, malignant
narcissists themselves become the very evil-doer that they see out there and
are trying to destroy. Caught in the vicious cycle of the repetition
compulsion of the traumatized soul, malignant narcissists create more of the
very evil that they are fighting against, as is evidenced by the way George
Bush is fighting terrorism. In essence, malignant narcissists are at war
with and trying to destroy their own shadow, which is not only a battle that
can never be won, but is a form of insanity.
Thai intellectual and social critic Sulak Sivaraksa likens Bush to two other
malignant narcissists, Hitler and Stalin, pointing out that Bush's "axis of
Evil," Hitler's "Final Solution," and Stalin's "pogrom of peasants" were
actually analogous attempts "to perfect the world by destroying the
[projected] impurities." Interestingly enough, another modern day malignant
narcissist is none other than Saddam Hussein.
If left in power, malignant narcissists ultimately destroy themselves and
everyone around them. Malignant narcissists are what are called
'necrophiles,' in that their impulses are perversely directed against life,
the spontaneity of which they are afraid of, and towards death and
destruction, which they are secretly attracted to. To quote the psychologist
Eric Fromm, this "severe mental sickness..represents the quintessence of
evil; it is as the same time the most severe pathology and the root of the
most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity." The 'force' used by malignant
narcissists to achieve their ends, to use Simone Weil's definition, has the
capacity to turn a man into a corpse- literally. To quote Eric Fromm "Just
as sexuality can create life, force can destroy it. All force is, in the
last analysis, based on the power to kill. I may not kill a person but only
deprive him of his freedom; I may want only to humiliate him....behind all
these actions stands my capacity to kill and my willingness to kill."
Malignant narcissists have a sadistic 'willingness to kill' so as to protect
their own self-serving delusions, which makes them particularly dangerous,
as they will literally stop at nothing to hold onto the position of power
they find themselves in. Malignant narcissists are murderers who are
criminally insane.
Malignant narcissism is a deadly illness that deserves our genuine
compassion. However, it is an extremely dangerous situation if the malignant
narcissist, like George Bush, is in a position of power where he can create
endless, unnecessary suffering and destruction. If we fall under Bush's
spell and elect him to be our leader for another four years, we would be in
a situation similar to the Germans in WWII, who, to quote Jung "allowed
themselves to be driven to the slaughterhouse by their leading psychopaths
like hypnotized sheep." It is time to wake up from our spell. We need to do
everything and anything in our power to remove George Bush from office, for
God's sake, as well as our own.
Paul Levy is a spiritually-informed political activist. He can be reached at
paul@awakeninthedream.com. Please visit his website at
www.awakeninthedream.com, where his article "The Madness of George Bush: A
Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis" is available. Please feel free to
pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. © Copyright
2004.
THE MADNESS OF GEORGE W. BUSH:
A REFLECTION OF OUR COLLECTIVE PSYCHOSIS
by Paul Levy
George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual dis-ease of the soul, a
sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live
in. It's an illness that has been with us since time immemorial. Because it'
s an illness that's in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the field
and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which makes it especially
hard to diagnose. Bush's malady is quite different from schizophrenia, for
example, in which all the different parts of the personality are fragmented
and not connected to each other, resulting in a state of internal chaos. As
compared to the dis-order of the schizophrenic, Bush can sound quite
coherent and can appear like such a "regular," normal guy, which makes the
syndrome he is suffering from very hard to recognize. This is because the
healthy parts of his personality have been co-opted by the pathological
aspect, which drafts them into its service. Because of the way the
personality self-organizes an outer display of coherence around a pathogenic
core, I would like to name Bush's illness "malignant egophrenic (as compared
to schizophrenic) disorder," or "ME disorder," for short. If ME disorder
goes unrecognized and is not contained, it can be very destructive,
particularly if the person is in a position of power.
In much the same way that a child's psychology cannot be understood without
looking at the family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not
exist in isolation. We can view Bush and his entire Administration (Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell, Wolfowitz, etc), as well as the corporate,
military industrial complex that they are co-dependently enmeshed with, the
media that they control, and the voters that support them, as interconnected
parts of a whole system, or a "field." Instead of relating to any parts of
this field as an isolated entity, it's important to contemplate the entire
interdependent field as the "medium" though which malignant egophrenia
manifests and propagates itself. ME disease is a field phenomenon, and needs
to be contemplated as such
Being a field phenomenon, malignant egophrenia is non-local in nature, which
means that it is not bound by the limitations of time or space. Being
non-local, this disease pervades and underlies the entire field and can
therefore manifest anywhere, through anyone and at any moment. The disease's
non-local nature makes the question of who has the disease irrelevant, as we
all have it in potential. It is more a question of whether or not we are
aware of our susceptibility to fall prey to the disease. This awareness
itself serves as an immunization that protects us from the pernicious
effects of this insidious illness, thereby allowing us to be of genuine help
to others.
Bush, like all of us, is both a manifestation of this deeper field and
simultaneously an agent affecting this field. He's become so fully taken
over by the disease, all the while not suspecting a thing, that he's become
a "carrier" for this deadly disease, thus infecting the field around him. He
's become a portal through which the field around him "warps" in such a way
as to feed and support his pathogenic process. A non-local, reciprocally
co-arising and interdependent field of unconscious denial and cover-up gets
constellated around Bush to enable and protect his pathology.
Falling victim to one's own deception as Bush has can have a very
mesmerizing and gripping effect on others, as he appears so convinced of
what he is saying. To quote C. G. Jung, one of the greatest psychiatrists of
the twentieth century, "Nothing has such a convincing effect as a lie one
invents and believes oneself." Bush has the seductive coherence of someone
who is fanatically identified, like the typical fundamentalist, with only
one side of a polarity. Thomas Merton, commenting on the case of the
obviously demented Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, points out "One of the
most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a
psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane." A key feature
of malignant egophrenia is that it is very hard to recognize when someone is
a carrier, because the person can seem so normal and even endearing. The
person afflicted can be very "charming" and have a certain type of charisma
that can entrance those who don't see through their subterfuge
People who don't recognize Bush's illness and support him are colluding with
and enabling in the co-creation of the pathological field that is birthing
itself through him into the human family. People who vote for Bush are
somehow blind to what is very obvious to others. It's as if they've become
hypnotized and fallen under the spell that Bush is casting. People who
support Bush become unwitting agents through which this non-local disease
feeds and replicates itself. By supporting Bush they are collaborating with
and becoming parts of the greater, interconnected and self-organizing field
of the disease.
The situation with Bush is analogous to when seemingly good, normal, loving
Germans supported Hitler, believing he was a good leader trying to help
them. The German people didn't realize that the virulent pathogen malignant
egophrenia had taken possession of Hitler and was incarnating itself through
him. By not seeing this and supporting Hitler, they became agents used by
this non-local, deadly disease to propagate itself. This was a collective
psychosis, and this is what is taking place in our country right now.
Whereas Hitler's evil was more overt in its cruelty and sadism, Bush's dark
side is much more hidden and disguised, which makes it particularly
dangerous.
Just like Hitler struck a chord deep in the German unconscious, Bush is
touching something very deep in the American psyche. Bush is acting out on
the world stage an under-developed psychological process that deals
simplistically with issues such as good and evil. It's as if he hasn't grown
out of and fully differentiated from the realm of mythic, archetypal fantasy
that is typical of early adolescence. This immature aspect of Bush's process
speaks to and resonates with those voters who support him, as it is a
reflection of their own under-developed inner process.
At the root of Bush's pathology is a deep dissociation. Like the terrorists,
he has split-off from his own darker half, projecting the shadow "out
there," and then tries to destroy this dis-owned shadow. By projecting the
shadow onto each other, Bush and the terrorists are each seeing their own
shadow reflected in the other. They see each other as criminals, as the
incarnation of evil. By projecting the shadow like this, they locate the
evil "out there," which insures that they don't have to recognize the evil
within themselves. Ironically, by fighting against their own shadow in this
way, they become possessed by the very thing they are trying to destroy,
thereby perpetuating a never-ending cycle of violence.
Projecting the shadow like this, to quote Jung, "deprives us of the capacity
to deal with evil." By projecting the shadow, Jung continues "evil has us in
its grip...for only the fool can permanently disregard the conditions of his
own nature. In fact, this negligence is the best means of making him an
instrument of evil." By projecting the shadow, Bush is unwittingly being a
conduit for the deepest, archetypal evil to possess him from behind, beneath
his conscious awareness, and to act itself out through him. At the same
time, ironically enough, he identifies with the light and imagines that he
is divinely inspired. People afflicted with extreme cases of egophrenia like
Bush can become so inflated that they believe that any action they desire is
justified in the name of God, as they can rationalize it as being God's
will. Unable to self-reflect, they are convinced of the rightness of their
viewpoint, which they consider non-negotiable. They react to other people
who don't agree with them and who don't support their narcissism not just
with aggression but with sadism. They have contempt for and flagrantly
violate the rule of law, which they believe themselves to be above.
Bush has fallen into a state that is the embodiment of arrogance. Succumbing
to the temptation of power, he has become corrupt, which is the inevitable
consequence when one prefers power over truth. Bush has fallen into a
vicious cycle where he is compulsively driven to do everything and anything
he can to hold onto the position of power he finds himself in. He has become
addicted to power, which generates a counter-incentive to self-reflect.
Underlying this resistance to look in the mirror, whose inner meaning is
"shadow holder," is an unwillingness and seeming inability to experience his
own sense of sin, guilt and shame. It is as if he is afraid of being
exposed, of being found out. To quote Jung, a person stricken with a
pathology such as Bush "cannot endure his own guilt, just as he could not
help incurring it. He will stoop to every kind of self-deception if only he
can escape the sight of himself...which consists essentially in one hand not
knowing what the other one is doing, in wanting to jump over one's own
shadow, and in looking for everything dark, inferior and culpable in
others." All of these factors set in motion a self-perpetuating cycle of
denial, cover-up and projecting the shadow, all of which are based on a lie.
Bush then falls into an endless loop of hiding from his own lie, which is to
say, from himself. This process allows Bush to becomes a conduit for
egophrenia to take him over and incarnate its malignant aspect through him.
Malignant egophrenia is crazy-making. It induces a very hard to recognize
form of insanity. It's a world where up is down, as its flawless illogic is
convoluted and inverted at its core. People with egophrenia do not recognize
the mirror-like nature of reality, so they accuse other people of doing what
they themselves are doing. For example, Bush is talking about himself when
he accuses Saddam Hussein of being "a man who has defied the world," and "a
man who has made the United Nations look foolish." When we fall prey to
egophrenia, we are unable to recognize that we are taken over, as we become
bewitched by our own projections. Part of the disease is that when we point
at it and call it by its true name - as being a form of insanity called
ignorance - people who are stricken with the disease will see us as the
one's who are crazy. Unless we recognize the insidious nature of this
non-local disease, there is a crazy-making field around it that will make us
a part of itself. Collective psychosis is like that.
One of the signatures of ME disease is that it hooks people through their
unconscious blind-spot, so when people are afflicted by this deadly disease
they are truly asleep to what is getting acted out through them. Bush doesn'
t suspect a thing about his pathology because the field around him
unconsciously conspires and colludes with and enables his psychosis. Bush
himself is being manipulated, used and victimized, like a marionette on a
string, by a deeper matrix of cover-up and deceit that has been perpetrated
by him and his very regime, and has now taken on an autonomous life of its
own. This disease, if it gets out of control, means self-destruction for
both victim and perpetrator. There are no winners. The entire interconnected
web that supports Bush can be recognized to be tentacles of this virulent,
non-local pathogen that, to the extent that it is not seen, is potentially
gaining more and more sovereignty. Like a sci-fi movie, we have dreamed up a
higher-dimensional Frankenstein monster that has taken on a life of its own
and truly threatens all of us.
Malignant egophrenia is both an expression of and at the root of the extreme
polarization and dissociation in both the human psyche and the world process
at large. We can even say that it's the "bug" in the system that has
in-formed and given shape to all of the conflict and disharmony of human
relationship. ME disease is as old as the human species. However, we're now
at the point in our evolution where we can finally recognize it, see it,
give it a name and diagnose it.
The recognition of the disease is itself the beginning of the cure. By
recognizing the nature of this collective psychosis, we snap out of being
part of it. Malignant egophrenia, unrecognized and misdiagnosed until now,
has wreaked havoc all throughout human history, and is at the very root of
our current world crisis. To the extent we are unaware of the nature of this
collective psychosis, it has us in its grips and will unconsciously get
acted out through us in a destructive manner. The choice is truly ours.
The prescription for this disease is simply for enough of us who see it to
connect with each other in lucid awareness so that it can be (alchemically)
contained. The pathogen then can't possess us from behind, beneath our
conscious awareness, and act itself out through us. Seeing the nature of the
disease we know its name, which takes away its omnipotence and autonomy. The
pathogen is then anchored to consciousness so that it can't vaporize back
into the unconscious. This de-potentiates the disease, beginning the process
of metabolizing and re-integrating it back into the profound unity of the
psyche. The energy that was bound up in the compulsion to endlessly
re-create the disease becomes liberated and available for creative
expression. This is an evolutionary impulse from the universe in which we
are invited to participate.
Malignant egophrenia forces upon us the responsibility to come to terms with
the evil inside our own hearts. If we solidify Bush as being evil and react
with righteous indignation, we are guilty of the very same thing we're
accusing Bush of (i.e, projecting the shadow). We then become a conduit for
the very evil we're reacting to. Who among us has not been guilty of being a
channel for ME disease at one time or another? If, when we see this virulent
pathogen, we contract against it and react in any way, be it in judgment,
hatred, anger or revulsion, we're helping to perpetuate the diabolical
polarization that is the signature of the disease. Our reacting in this way,
which is typical of many political activists, is itself an expression that
we ourselves have the disease, or to say it more clearly, the disease has
us.
Jung says "Everything could be left undisturbed did not the new way demand
to be discovered, and did it not visit humanity with all the plagues of
Egypt until it finally is discovered." Malignant egophrenia is a modern day
plague of Egypt. If we don't see what it is symbolically revealing to us,
malignant egophrenia will destroy us. It's a gesture from the universe,
beckoning us, demanding us to integrate it and thereby receive its blessing.
By prompting, pressuring and challenging us to come to terms with it and
receive its gifts, malignant egophrenia has the potential to awaken us,
thereby furthering the evolution of the species.
The question is, do we recognize what is being symbolically shown to us by
egophrenia, or not? The inner meaning of the word apocalypse is "something
hidden being revealed." Will these apocalyptic end times we are in be an
initiation into a more expansive part of our being? Or will it destroy our
species? How it will manifest completely depends on us.
Malignant egophrenia has so taken over President Bush as its living
embodiment that this deadly disease could be said to be incarnating itself
through him. Because of his position of power, Bush is able to act out and
give shape and form to his inner pathology in such a way that his inner
process is both literally, as well as symbolically, getting played out as
the world process. Bush's process, as well as the world's process, is a
reflection of our own process. ME disease is unique in that it collapses the
boundary between inner and outer. Egophrenia is an inner disease of the soul
that expresses itself via the medium of the outside world.
Being a non-local field phenomenon, malignant egophrenia is something all
six billion of us are collaboratively creating and dreaming up together.
Bush is an embodied, mirrored reflection of a part of ourselves, just like
we, reciprocally, are a reflection of a part of him. His disease is our
disease. Bush and his regime are a living embodied reflection of our
collective shadow. We have all dreamed them up to play out these roles, in
full living color, so that we can see and integrate these parts of
ourselves. Compassion spontaneously arises when we recognize these
fear-ridden parts of ourselves.
The malignant egophrenia epidemic is happening right in front of us, for all
who have eyes to see. If we don't look at what's happening, if we turn away,
ignore it, and contract against it, we are lying to ourselves. Then we're
colluding with and unknowingly feeding the disease. Our looking away is a
form of blindness. Our looking away is a form of ignorance. Our looking
away, our contraction, IS itself the disease. Our resulting complacency and
inaction is, in fact, an expression of our lack of compassion. To quote
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. "One who passively accepts evil [allowing it
to happen] is as much involved in it as the one who perpetrates it."
Compassion is sometimes fierce, though. Sometimes it says "no," and sets a
boundary. Genuine compassion is not always smiley-faced, otherwise known as
"idiot compassion," which just enables and reinforces asleepness. Genuine
compassion is not passive. It propels us to act for the benefit of all
beings. True compassion demands us to be willing to consciously step into
our power, mediated through the heart, and to find the courage to speak our
true voice. The Bush administration is breaking the moral code, the law of
the planet, what Thomas Jefferson called "a decent respect for the opinion
of mankind." Like a bully who is in a position of power and privilege, the
Bush regime abuses its power simply because it can. What the Bush regime is
doing is truly criminal. The malignant egophrenia epidemic has induced a
form of criminal insanity in the entire Bush regime that we are all
complicit in by allowing it to happen.
Being truly patriotic and compassionate in our current situation involves
doing everything and anything we can, however big or small, to remove Bush
and his regime from office, for their good, as well as our own. It's our
responsibility to recognize the extreme danger of our situation and to do
something about it. This is what Al Gore was trying to tell us in his speech
when he ended with the quote by Abraham Lincoln, "We- even we here- hold the
power, and bear the responsibility." Now is the time to act before it is too
late. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. says "Our lives begin to end
the day we become silent about things that matter."
A healer, Paul Levy is a spiritually-informed political activist. He is in
private practice, helping other people who are also spiritually awakening to
the dream-like nature of reality. He can be reached at
paul@awakeninthedream.com. His website is www.awakeninthedream.com, where a
longer, more in-depth version of this article is available. Please feel free
to pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. © 2004.