I had a light-bulb moment a while back; it enabled me to look at some very painful experiences in a new light.
Robert Sheckley describes such moments of illumination far better than I ever could:
“A thought had crossed his mind, a thought so tremendously involved, so meaningful, so far-reaching in its implications that he was stirred to his depths. Caswell tried desperately to shake off the knowledge it brought. But the thought, permanently etched upon his memory, would not depart.”
From Bad Medicine, available to read online in Project Gutenberg.
This is a very amusing story about someone who, when prevented from taking revenge in one way for his – completely imaginary – injuries, finds another way to destroy his enemy.
The revolutionary idea that slipped into my mind was that the injury was not all one way; it was symmetric. Although some people, perhaps operating under the control of unseen influences, had devastated me by leading me to believe I was going to get something I really wanted then taking it away at the last moment, I had in a sense done exactly the same thing to them – or to whatever was working through them.
A particular type of injury
Some people have been treated very badly; they have received such a shattering blow that they feel they have been smashed to pieces, impaled on the cutting edge of reality, attacked by a hit and run driver and left to die. This devastating, shattering blow has been described as a kick from the devil’s hoof, which is exactly what it feels like.
Many experiences can cause such feelings. I am thinking of a particular type of injury, one where something that someone wants more than anything else is offered to them, appears to be within their grasp then suddenly vanishes, leaving them devastated and wondering what hit them.
It doesn’t matter what the desired object is: it could be anything. For example, a dream job or even a chance to start working after a long, demoralising spell of unemployment; an opportunity to show what they can really do; the chance to travel and get some excitement and adventure in their life; an opportunity to make big money; the one chance to make something of their life; meeting someone they want to spend the rest of their life with after having long given up all hope of ever finding the right person…
A very important point here is that the obtaining of the desired object must be reality-based in every possible way.
The chance of getting it must not exist only in the injured person’s mind: someone must have said or done enough to give the injured person good reason to believe that they were going to get what they wanted, and the person or persons who did the encouraging must be have been able to help them get it.
Not only that, but the desired object must be a realistic one in terms of what is available in the world, supply and demand, and the candidate’s suitability. Some people are so overwhelmed by wishful thinking, need, greed, self-interest or desperation that their critical thinking faculties are completely bypassed. Their hopes are based on fantasy and are completely unrealistic. It is important to be sure that this does not apply in this particular case.
Even where the possibility of getting what they wanted did not just exist in a person’s mind, hindsight may show that the whole affair was very one-sided. Perhaps the injured person was manipulated into putting huge efforts into doing things in the hope that this would help them to achieve a successful outcome. They may have put in far more than they got out, believing that this would help to advance their cause. For example, they invested a lot of time and money in training for the wonderful job that they had been led to believe was just around the corner.
The end of the dream
Then comes the time when it all vanishes. Specific cases may be very different, but the underlying scenario is the same.
The injured person may realise that they have been cheated and lied to, strung along, tricked and made a fool of, even led to disaster and destruction. They may be left penniless and broken-hearted, with shattered nerves and unable to care about or cope with anything or anyone.
They may have no chance of getting an explanation never mind justice and compensation.
They may see no hope for the future.
Some common reactions
The injured person may go through some of the stages of grief, most likely getting stuck in the depression phase. They may go into denial, refusing to believe or accept that everything has turned to dust; they may make frantic attempts to find out what went wrong and why; they may scour their mind for ideas, frantically looking around for things to say and do that might salvage the situation, believing that if they could only use the right words to explain how they feel the situation might be redeemed…
They may feel anger and outrage when a full understanding of the way they have been treated and the realisation that no one cares or will discuss it comes into their mind.
They may lose the will to live when they are forced to accept that the last ship really has sailed.
This is the point where the long dark night of the soul begins.
What to do when there is nothing left to do
What do we do when we finally realise that we are not going to get what we wanted?
All our efforts in the outer world may have failed, but we can still deal with the inner world.
I am speaking from experience when I say that by far the best way to deal with such devastating disappointments is to try to understand exactly what happened and why, what sort of people we were dealing with, why we invested so much into something that we didn’t have much control over and why we care so much.
This is much easier said than done, and involves a very long inner process that can take years or even decades. There are some thoughts about what this involves – in general – in this article.
If we are honest about everything, work through all the possibilities, admit our mistakes and take responsibility where appropriate, interesting new ideas may surface after we have dealt with and removed all the personal elements.
The treasure is always concealed and guarded, and enlightenment must be earned.
In my case, processing and clearing away a lot of personal stuff took many years. I had to face some very painful facts and ideas; I had to admit that there had been a large element of wishful thinking in my case; I realised that I had ignored many warning signals; I realised that I had been set up for some of what happened by not dealing with unfinished business from my early life. Worst of all, it occurred to me that even if I had got what I wanted at the time, I might not have been too well equipped to deal with it.
In my case, there was much more to come once I had dealt with the personal aspects: a series of revelations emerged to take their place. I had some ideas about unseen influences that added a new dimension to my experience; this aspect was followed by the big light- bulb moment; finally, I realised what the best possible revenge could be.
Were unseen influences at work?
Clearing the personal material makes way for the metaphysical aspects.
Something I recalled gave me a whole new angle to consider.
I remembered reading some articles, by David Icke and Matthew Delooze in particular, about the obelisk and dome combinations and other monuments that are set in key places to channel and absorb energy.
‘By coincidence’, I had been to gatherings in many such places, drawn by the hope of seeing someone I wanted very much to see. The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin was one, St. Peter’s Square in Rome with its obelisk and dome was another. I remember sitting outside a large building in Vienna, next to a pile of various people’s luggage that I was keeping an eye on. I learned that it was the Hofberg Palace, a name that sounded vaguely familiar. I was tired from travelling overnight, but eventually remembered that this was the home of Adolf Hitler’s Spear of Destiny.
I felt very stressed and tired on these visits; at the time, I assumed that it was just because I wasn’t really well enough to travel and was personally unhappy. Later, I suspected that I was being affected by bad energy.
The Washington Monument was the scene of a very painful encounter. I can still see the long vista in Washington, with the white dome on Capitol Hill at one end. Someone said some very hurtful things to me while I was standing there, so I fed a lot of pain into the area. This was the same person who had encouraged me to go to Washington. I began to wonder whether I had been lured there just to be made into a kind of sacrificial victim. Much of my hope for the future died on that day.
More about Washington and other places with sinister associations here.
Timing may be a factor, and sabotage may be involved.
For example, was the offer made soon after someone started investigating metaphysical subjects? Did they then let themselves be distracted from the path, putting their studies aside in favour of pursuing their dream?
Yes, in my case.
Did the loss of the dream result in total apathy, with neither inclination nor ability to resume the studies?
Yes, in my case.
Did the victim provide huge amounts of food and fuel in the form of pain and negative emotions?
Yes, in my case.
It may be very gratifying for some people to believe that they were set up and targeted by sinister forces and evil powers because they were seen as a threat.
It makes sense to believe that they were punished for trying to escape from captivity and speaking out about subjects such as energy vampires.
It may be productive and enlightening to look on apparent victimisers as pawns and puppets, fellow victims even.
Perhaps acceptance of the idea that the human race is being farmed and experimented on makes suffering less meaningless.
Feeling paranoid may be preferable to feeling powerless, humiliated and ashamed for making a fool of oneself.
Self-deception, face-saving rationalisation and explanations and avoidance of personal responsibility are very common defences. On the other hand, in my case the personal element definitely doesn’t cover and explain everything.
It does seem strange that the venues I just happened to go to are mentioned in conspiracy theory articles. It does seem more than just chance that I was distracted and disabled for many years just as I was making a lot of progress in my studies of unseen influences.
The light-bulb moment at the end of the tunnel
After reviewing everything from a different, more objective, viewpoint, taking possible unseen influences into account and trying to put everything into the context of the total picture, came the major breakthrough.
I had an illuminating idea. It made everything shift such that what had happened came to seem symmetric, symmetric like the silhouette of a vase, one of those vases that look like two profiles.
I realised that whatever certain people had done to me, I had in a sense done to them:
They gave me hope; I gave them hope.
They led me to believe that what I wanted was within reach; I did the same to them.
They gave me enough encouragement, positive feedback and ‘food’ to keep me going; I unwittingly did the same to them.
They suddenly withheld everything, and I eventually did the same to them.
The symmetry only existed up to a point. It then diverged because I evolved and the people who treated me badly devolved.
They hid behind ideology and became avoidant; I was honest with myself and faced up to things.
I developed and grew; they seemed to shrink and diminish, in several ways. I left them behind in the remedial school.
I was suffering but they obviously were too. I had the strange idea that they were being punished by unseen influences for their failure to complete their mission.
Realisation and revenge
Once we realise that we may have injured them just as much as they have injured us, we need to decide what to do next.
We need to understand that the very best possible revenge is to not do what ‘they’ want us to do and not give them whatever they want from us, or at least not give them any more. This will return the favour, redeem the situation and hit them where it hurts most.
I suspect that their best hope is to get our souls. The highest return on their investment, their ideal outcome, is for us to ‘turn’ and go over to the dark side.
Maybe they would like to see a shooting spree ending in suicide. Jumping off a high bridge would work well for them too.
Or maybe they would prefer it if we became very bitter, twisted and negative, acting against and having a very bad effect on the people around us. They might just settle for our wallowing in self-pity and despair for the remainder of our lives.
Whatever they want from us, they are not going to get it. The best revenge is to live well – and positively.
They haven’t won, we have.
Synchronicity
This article grew and grew; I decided to take a short break, switched on the TV and saw some announcement about Revenge: the complete fourth season. I had never seen or heard anything of this series before.
Robert Sheckley describes such moments of illumination far better than I ever could:
“A thought had crossed his mind, a thought so tremendously involved, so meaningful, so far-reaching in its implications that he was stirred to his depths. Caswell tried desperately to shake off the knowledge it brought. But the thought, permanently etched upon his memory, would not depart.”
From Bad Medicine, available to read online in Project Gutenberg.
This is a very amusing story about someone who, when prevented from taking revenge in one way for his – completely imaginary – injuries, finds another way to destroy his enemy.
The revolutionary idea that slipped into my mind was that the injury was not all one way; it was symmetric. Although some people, perhaps operating under the control of unseen influences, had devastated me by leading me to believe I was going to get something I really wanted then taking it away at the last moment, I had in a sense done exactly the same thing to them – or to whatever was working through them.
A particular type of injury
Some people have been treated very badly; they have received such a shattering blow that they feel they have been smashed to pieces, impaled on the cutting edge of reality, attacked by a hit and run driver and left to die. This devastating, shattering blow has been described as a kick from the devil’s hoof, which is exactly what it feels like.
Many experiences can cause such feelings. I am thinking of a particular type of injury, one where something that someone wants more than anything else is offered to them, appears to be within their grasp then suddenly vanishes, leaving them devastated and wondering what hit them.
It doesn’t matter what the desired object is: it could be anything. For example, a dream job or even a chance to start working after a long, demoralising spell of unemployment; an opportunity to show what they can really do; the chance to travel and get some excitement and adventure in their life; an opportunity to make big money; the one chance to make something of their life; meeting someone they want to spend the rest of their life with after having long given up all hope of ever finding the right person…
A very important point here is that the obtaining of the desired object must be reality-based in every possible way.
The chance of getting it must not exist only in the injured person’s mind: someone must have said or done enough to give the injured person good reason to believe that they were going to get what they wanted, and the person or persons who did the encouraging must be have been able to help them get it.
Not only that, but the desired object must be a realistic one in terms of what is available in the world, supply and demand, and the candidate’s suitability. Some people are so overwhelmed by wishful thinking, need, greed, self-interest or desperation that their critical thinking faculties are completely bypassed. Their hopes are based on fantasy and are completely unrealistic. It is important to be sure that this does not apply in this particular case.
Even where the possibility of getting what they wanted did not just exist in a person’s mind, hindsight may show that the whole affair was very one-sided. Perhaps the injured person was manipulated into putting huge efforts into doing things in the hope that this would help them to achieve a successful outcome. They may have put in far more than they got out, believing that this would help to advance their cause. For example, they invested a lot of time and money in training for the wonderful job that they had been led to believe was just around the corner.
The end of the dream
Then comes the time when it all vanishes. Specific cases may be very different, but the underlying scenario is the same.
The injured person may realise that they have been cheated and lied to, strung along, tricked and made a fool of, even led to disaster and destruction. They may be left penniless and broken-hearted, with shattered nerves and unable to care about or cope with anything or anyone.
They may have no chance of getting an explanation never mind justice and compensation.
They may see no hope for the future.
Some common reactions
The injured person may go through some of the stages of grief, most likely getting stuck in the depression phase. They may go into denial, refusing to believe or accept that everything has turned to dust; they may make frantic attempts to find out what went wrong and why; they may scour their mind for ideas, frantically looking around for things to say and do that might salvage the situation, believing that if they could only use the right words to explain how they feel the situation might be redeemed…
They may feel anger and outrage when a full understanding of the way they have been treated and the realisation that no one cares or will discuss it comes into their mind.
They may lose the will to live when they are forced to accept that the last ship really has sailed.
This is the point where the long dark night of the soul begins.
What to do when there is nothing left to do
What do we do when we finally realise that we are not going to get what we wanted?
All our efforts in the outer world may have failed, but we can still deal with the inner world.
I am speaking from experience when I say that by far the best way to deal with such devastating disappointments is to try to understand exactly what happened and why, what sort of people we were dealing with, why we invested so much into something that we didn’t have much control over and why we care so much.
This is much easier said than done, and involves a very long inner process that can take years or even decades. There are some thoughts about what this involves – in general – in this article.
If we are honest about everything, work through all the possibilities, admit our mistakes and take responsibility where appropriate, interesting new ideas may surface after we have dealt with and removed all the personal elements.
The treasure is always concealed and guarded, and enlightenment must be earned.
In my case, processing and clearing away a lot of personal stuff took many years. I had to face some very painful facts and ideas; I had to admit that there had been a large element of wishful thinking in my case; I realised that I had ignored many warning signals; I realised that I had been set up for some of what happened by not dealing with unfinished business from my early life. Worst of all, it occurred to me that even if I had got what I wanted at the time, I might not have been too well equipped to deal with it.
In my case, there was much more to come once I had dealt with the personal aspects: a series of revelations emerged to take their place. I had some ideas about unseen influences that added a new dimension to my experience; this aspect was followed by the big light- bulb moment; finally, I realised what the best possible revenge could be.
Were unseen influences at work?
Clearing the personal material makes way for the metaphysical aspects.
Something I recalled gave me a whole new angle to consider.
I remembered reading some articles, by David Icke and Matthew Delooze in particular, about the obelisk and dome combinations and other monuments that are set in key places to channel and absorb energy.
‘By coincidence’, I had been to gatherings in many such places, drawn by the hope of seeing someone I wanted very much to see. The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin was one, St. Peter’s Square in Rome with its obelisk and dome was another. I remember sitting outside a large building in Vienna, next to a pile of various people’s luggage that I was keeping an eye on. I learned that it was the Hofberg Palace, a name that sounded vaguely familiar. I was tired from travelling overnight, but eventually remembered that this was the home of Adolf Hitler’s Spear of Destiny.
I felt very stressed and tired on these visits; at the time, I assumed that it was just because I wasn’t really well enough to travel and was personally unhappy. Later, I suspected that I was being affected by bad energy.
The Washington Monument was the scene of a very painful encounter. I can still see the long vista in Washington, with the white dome on Capitol Hill at one end. Someone said some very hurtful things to me while I was standing there, so I fed a lot of pain into the area. This was the same person who had encouraged me to go to Washington. I began to wonder whether I had been lured there just to be made into a kind of sacrificial victim. Much of my hope for the future died on that day.
More about Washington and other places with sinister associations here.
Timing may be a factor, and sabotage may be involved.
For example, was the offer made soon after someone started investigating metaphysical subjects? Did they then let themselves be distracted from the path, putting their studies aside in favour of pursuing their dream?
Yes, in my case.
Did the loss of the dream result in total apathy, with neither inclination nor ability to resume the studies?
Yes, in my case.
Did the victim provide huge amounts of food and fuel in the form of pain and negative emotions?
Yes, in my case.
It may be very gratifying for some people to believe that they were set up and targeted by sinister forces and evil powers because they were seen as a threat.
It makes sense to believe that they were punished for trying to escape from captivity and speaking out about subjects such as energy vampires.
It may be productive and enlightening to look on apparent victimisers as pawns and puppets, fellow victims even.
Perhaps acceptance of the idea that the human race is being farmed and experimented on makes suffering less meaningless.
Feeling paranoid may be preferable to feeling powerless, humiliated and ashamed for making a fool of oneself.
Self-deception, face-saving rationalisation and explanations and avoidance of personal responsibility are very common defences. On the other hand, in my case the personal element definitely doesn’t cover and explain everything.
It does seem strange that the venues I just happened to go to are mentioned in conspiracy theory articles. It does seem more than just chance that I was distracted and disabled for many years just as I was making a lot of progress in my studies of unseen influences.
The light-bulb moment at the end of the tunnel
After reviewing everything from a different, more objective, viewpoint, taking possible unseen influences into account and trying to put everything into the context of the total picture, came the major breakthrough.
I had an illuminating idea. It made everything shift such that what had happened came to seem symmetric, symmetric like the silhouette of a vase, one of those vases that look like two profiles.
I realised that whatever certain people had done to me, I had in a sense done to them:
They gave me hope; I gave them hope.
They led me to believe that what I wanted was within reach; I did the same to them.
They gave me enough encouragement, positive feedback and ‘food’ to keep me going; I unwittingly did the same to them.
They suddenly withheld everything, and I eventually did the same to them.
The symmetry only existed up to a point. It then diverged because I evolved and the people who treated me badly devolved.
They hid behind ideology and became avoidant; I was honest with myself and faced up to things.
I developed and grew; they seemed to shrink and diminish, in several ways. I left them behind in the remedial school.
I was suffering but they obviously were too. I had the strange idea that they were being punished by unseen influences for their failure to complete their mission.
Realisation and revenge
Once we realise that we may have injured them just as much as they have injured us, we need to decide what to do next.
We need to understand that the very best possible revenge is to not do what ‘they’ want us to do and not give them whatever they want from us, or at least not give them any more. This will return the favour, redeem the situation and hit them where it hurts most.
I suspect that their best hope is to get our souls. The highest return on their investment, their ideal outcome, is for us to ‘turn’ and go over to the dark side.
Maybe they would like to see a shooting spree ending in suicide. Jumping off a high bridge would work well for them too.
Or maybe they would prefer it if we became very bitter, twisted and negative, acting against and having a very bad effect on the people around us. They might just settle for our wallowing in self-pity and despair for the remainder of our lives.
Whatever they want from us, they are not going to get it. The best revenge is to live well – and positively.
They haven’t won, we have.
Synchronicity
This article grew and grew; I decided to take a short break, switched on the TV and saw some announcement about Revenge: the complete fourth season. I had never seen or heard anything of this series before.
