Chapter Two: Culturally Normalized and Institutionalized Trauma
“Every one of us has the capacity to be an oppressor. I want to encourage each and every one of us to interrogate how we might be an oppressor and how we might be able to become liberators for ourselves and for each other.” — Laverne Cox
In the heart of ancient mythology lies a story so captivating and profound that it continues to resonate with us even today. The tale of Theseus, the Minotaur, and the labyrinth serves as a metaphor for our human and spiritual journey—a journey filled with challenges, self-discovery, and the quest for personal growth. Theseus is the embodiment of human potential. He is the courageous hero who embarked on a treacherous mission to slay the Minotaur and free his people from its grip. His journey symbolizes the human potential for growth, self-realization, and transformation. Like Theseus, we are called to navigate the labyrinth of life, facing challenges head-on while embracing the opportunities for personal development.
The labyrinth, a complex and intricate maze, represents the twists and turns of our collective consciousness and our personalized version of it that we experience as our self. In mythology, the labyrinth was not only a physical construct but also a psychological and spiritual space for transformation. It symbolizes the journey we embark upon, filled with both triumphs and tribulations. We have taken many dead end paths, yet our hope has always been to find that one route that takes us to our greatesf good. We all must find our clue, or we will remain trapped forever in our unawakened minds. In mythology, the labyrinth was not only a physical construct but also a psychological and spiritual space for transformation.
At the heart of the labyrinth lurked the fearsome Minotaur, a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man. It was the creation of a goddess and a beast, a perfect metaphor for mankind still struggling with its image of itself. Are we just human bodies with limited awareness or are we also.divine in nature? This Minotaur will continue to devour our creative nature until we fearlessly face the entirety of ourselves. Thus, the Minotaur represents the fragmented being, the person not experiencing wholeness and healing. It is our inner demons—the fears, doubts, lack of belief and understanding of our noble nature, and subsequent insecurities that can hold us captive. Like Theseus, we must confront and conquer these metaphorical Minotaurs and reintegrate them back into our innate wholeness, to unlock our true potential.
For me while growing into a 31 year old man, my Minotaur was internalized wounding from familial and societal traumatic wounding, anxiety, rejection of religion and other societal standards, social disconnection and a lack of self esteem. The Minotaur changes form, though it’ fundamentally revolves around the way we face ourselves internally while regarding ourselves as purely separate biological beings careening through the chaos known as human society and the world . If we don’t find our true liberated selves through facing our issues, we continue to travel down dead end paths. But to escape the labyrinth, we must face these long ignored, misunderstood or denied aspects of our multi-dimensional being. I have faced my share of labyrinthine challenges. There have been moments when I felt lost and overwhelmed, much like Theseus navigating the dark corridors of the labyrinth. However, through perseverance and self-reflection, I have managed to overcome my own inner Minotaurs, emerging stronger and more self-aware. My unaddressed trauma, unconscious attitudes, fear, and anxiety paralyzed me, preventing me from pursuing my true passions. I eventually confronted all issues head-on, some very late in life, just as Theseus confronted the Minotaur. By doing so, I found the courage to unlock more of my full potential.
We each carry both a social organizing and a self-organizing principle within us. In the depths of our existence, a silent force molds and shapes our thoughts, beliefs, and actions as a response to both principles. The socialized or collective consciousness is an invisible web of shared experiences that intertwines individuals within a society. Our individual consciousness is our unique creative response to all of life, including our collective consciousness. While our social web carries the potential for unity and progress, it also bears the weight of collective trauma—deep wounds, or Minotaurs, that have been etched into our collective psyche across countless generations. These Minotaurs are the most resistant to change, and are rarely confronted without great motivation, such as from desire to be freed from the impact of pain, grief and suffering.
To understand the impact of collective trauma, we must first acknowledge its historical roots. From the horrors of war and genocide to the scars of colonization and oppression, history is marked by events that have left indelible imprints on our collective consciousness. These traumatic experiences become embedded within the fabric of society, shaping our perspectives, relationships, and even our sense of self.
Collective trauma has profound psychological effects on individuals. It permeates our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, often manifesting as anxiety, depression, and a sense of disconnection. Moreover, the repercussions extend beyond the individual, influencing social dynamics, cultural narratives, and intergenerational patterns of trauma transmission. It becomes part of a nearly inescapable labyrinthine structure of the human mind.
The labyrinth of the human mind has many aspects to it, and it has been recognized for its creative abilities to entrap the unwary traveler or to provide pathways to transcendence from its wayward inclinations. If we each were truly independent beings and not involved in a nearly infinite collaborative effort with other members of our species, our path would be a simpler one, as we would be beholden to no one, and thus distracted or diverted by no others. Alas, we are social beings, and we have major hardwired centers in our brains that encourage us to associate with each other and work toward our common good. It is important to understand how biological hardware, as well as cultural software, work together to try to keep our natures directed more to order than to chaos. Yet, many of our ordering social algorithms are counter-productive, incite our unaddressed minotaurs to riot, and induce further imbalances into our cultural and personal realities.
Through a process that has existed since verbal consciousness was first formed in humanity, we develop verbal constructs to represent the outside world in our internal universe. Yet, none of these internalized assessments are 100 percent accurate, nor could they ever be. As the Zen saying goes, the finger-pointing at the moon (verbal creation) can never be the moon (object of observation).. The words may attempt to represent the reality but are not the reality itself.
The entirety of human consciousness shares in the temptation to believe that not only do we see accurately, but we communicate accurately, misunderstandings, arguments, murder, and war notwithstanding. Our ability to communicate in a verbally concise manner is often hindered by the effects of our misunderstanding of our fellow human beings. And, in an unconscious or semi-conscious experience as a human being, how can our infinite spiritual heritage ever be adequately measured through words? We tend to grab ready-made, familiar containers already pre-packaged or made by others for the others’ spirit, which we call judgments, but they are often poor, outdated creations, and contribute to our second-hand experience of reality. In our ignorance and insensitivity to others and our rote understanding, we, unwittingly or intentionally use verbal constructs that often oppress, repress, and deny the other, all the while unconsciously honoring the culturally inculcated process of mutual oppression and repression.
The human collective consciousness is the process whereby we have internalized the verbal understandings of all others throughout our history, often where ignorant, judgmental, limiting, obfuscating, damaging, soul-destroying concepts of self and others can become socially acceptable modes for assessing ourselves and others. This is internalized and socialized, and this knowledge becomes a collectively shared experience. And, we all know that everybody else knows what we know, while we know what everybody else knows.
The idea that we are all corrupt human beings, being born through original sin certainly is an inaccurate, deplorable assessment of our natures and human potential, but it is common knowledge within several Christian communities. Prophets typically don’t become deities until they have been dead for a long, long time, as Jesus did not start being regarded as a deity until Constantine’s council of Nicea in the early 4th century. Prophets, and average people, always look a lot better in the rear view mirrors, eh? A deity of over 300 years in the making, hmmm?! We all should be promoted as deities as if from a divine birth. Instead, our cultural common knowledge game of poor self-esteem and mutual putdowns makes sure that does not happen, at least until the obituaries, eh? I think I will avoid “religious reasoning”, which is a true oxymoron, for the rest of eternity.
The human collective consciousness has been called many other names by seers and seekers over the millennia. The word “Maya” has been given as the name from Hinduism and Buddhism for the tendency to both individually and collectively create a fragmented perceptual universe, where in truth there is only the unity of the universe. In the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, he mentions that “My father’s house/mansion has many rooms,” “My kingdom is not of this world,” and, “Be in the world, don’t be of the world.”These point to the fact that there are two possibilities for living: as a sleeping being in a dark, disfigured world, or as an awakening being in a multi-dimensional human relationship with infinity. The sleeping beings are those who live in the world of Maya without being aware of the many illusions of thought that dominate their minds and lives.
This adaptation and acculturation process has become so ingrained in consciousness, so accepted, so standardized, and so normalized that the individual who even casually practices its dark side continues to contribute to the collective imprisonment of all of mankind through this process. The human collective consciousness informs our understanding of our own lives, how we see others, and how to use its oftentimes twisted knowledge of poor self-esteem and negative judgments of others to help inform our decisions about actions we can take in our own lives. The human collective consciousness can provide both a blessing and a curse, depending on the messages that we mine and how we conform to its social principles. But, regardless of the messages that we hear and apply, we are still directly influenced by all messages, no matter how much in conflict they may be with each other until we have had enough insight into this process to heal ourselves of unconscious adherence to its confusing, conflicting principles. We each have an internal pendulum that swings gently, or erratically, between all of the poles, and our shared consciousness reflects those sometimes divisive inner rhythms.
Our human collective consciousness is the medium through which people make gains for themselves, at the expense of others, through socially acceptable forms of violence. One of which we call comedy. The hullabaloo at the 2022 Academy Awards show between Will Smith and Chris Rock is the perfect example. Badinage, persiflage, repartee, and mutual put-downs are part of the tool kit that the human race employs to keep us focused on the failings of others while also building up our sense of worth. We laugh at the acceptable insanity that manifests itself through this disparity in self-valuations.
The Common Knowledge Game, Gossip, and The Lemming Effect
Common knowledge is a form of consensus social understanding used in collective consciousness since humans started using language to communicate. Gossip is a term that characterizes verbal exchanges that are defined by our curiosity about each other, and the judgments that often arise and are shared within our social networks Both common knowledge and gossip can influence our actions because we naturally want to follow and fit in with our peers, and their combined energy often takes the form of peer pressure. The interplay of this cultural phenomenon with our developing sense of our identity helps to create our individual realities. We are both ourselves as individuals and as parts of society.
An item of information is common knowledge if all of the relevant citizens of a community know it to be so (it is mutual knowledge), and all of the citizens know that all other citizens know it, and all other citizens know that all other citizens know that all other citizens know it, and so on. This is much more than simply saying that something is known by all but also implies that the fact that what is known by me is also known by all, etc. Thus, common knowledge implies not only that we all know some piece of information, but we can also be confident that the rest know it, and that the rest know that we know it, and so on. Common knowledge essentially keeps us trapped as it keeps us together.
Effectively, there are two sides to the Common Knowledge Game (CKG), dark and light. What sets up the darker side of the CKG in our minds and hearts is continuous internal access to our negative assessments, or judgments of others and ourselves, of our physical form and our spiritual essence. These negative assessments also include our perceptions of what we believe others think negatively about us as well, which is another self-defeating component of the CKG. This becomes one of the pillars, albeit a dark one, for the CKG, and the reason for the spiritual imprisonment for all of us. What might set up a liberating side of the CKG is the potential energy of a shared belief that we are all good people at heart, and/or that we are all practicing the spiritual understanding that the word “namaste” represents. These internalized collective beliefs are social processes of consciousness that may become culturally inculcated into our awareness, and thus we all might share in the benefits, and the detriments, of collective consciousness as well as collective unconsciousness.
In environments like prisons, the education system, the military, and larger groups up to, and including, American society, behavioral decisions based on private information are almost always weaker than behavioral decisions based on common knowledge. The latter has more binding power, because, in effect, the students, the recruits, and the citizens themselves end up enforcing the warden’s (or society’s) rules. Even if you privately believe that you and your fellow prisoners could escape, so long as you believe that everyone knows that you will be punished for breaking the rules, then you do not believe that you will receive any support from your fellow prisoners (fellow citizens or friends). It is irrational to even raise the subject with your fellow prisoners, as you will mark yourself as someone who is either too stupid or too dangerous not to recognize what everyone else knows that everyone else knows. And because everyone is making a similar calculation, no one ever makes an escape attempt and the common knowledge grows stronger over time, as does the no-escaping binding attitudes. This is why public punishment has been so widely used throughout history.
I first consciously encountered the darker side of the CKG in my employment with the U.S. Postal Service from 1975 to 1985. There were several boundary conditions of the Common Knowledge Game for my continuing employment with that agency. Many of my co-workers, as well as myself, worked there because we failed to achieve our dreams, felt that we could do no other work, and believed that we did not have the skills, qualifications, competency, or motivation to try anything else. Everybody knew that truth, including members of the management team, not only about ourselves but also about all of our co-workers, which in turn, was what the co-workers understood about each other, as well. It was part of a shared story that we told ourselves and joked about with each other on many occasions.
As an apprentice electrician in 1989, I also encountered this common knowledge limitation. Due to the requirements of the Local 48 union apprenticeship, I had to rotate through various employers to diversify my experience. In one company, I was a highly regarded electrician, but then at another, I was ignored and disparaged. The foreman gave me the most menial jobs, and put down “humor” permeated the exchanges between many long-term workers and those not considered to be company insiders, which was me and a few other new hires. When I was laid off, a short time into my employment with this company, my foreman, as he gave me my layoff slip, said, “Don’t be so fucking good, Bruce. You need to learn how to just blend in with everybody else as they could give a shit about what you know or what your skills are.” The common knowledge here is that in this kind of environment, excellence is not rewarded but punished unless you are in the “in” group.
In addition to the CKG, many of the people I worked with also shared a common foe, chemical dependency, which adds several critical internal self-defeating calculations to the CKG. These baseline understandings helped to define my relationship to the Post Office career, as well. I enjoyed my time working as a machine clerk, because of the fast pace and the fact that it was a lifetime-guaranteed job. These kept me from feeling too bad about my personal and employment decisions. Even though I felt trapped by my insecurities and dysfunctions, I escaped and delayed the inevitable crush of despair through the use of drugs and alcohol. The common knowledge here is that drugs and alcohol can mask the pain of a suffering or empty life, and continued use allows the abuser to wait for a better day if it does not kill them first.
Consider a sexually abused woman, for example. There are many common knowledge parameters to be considered in an abusive relationship, but the following are several items to consider, from the victim’s perspective. Everybody knows that…
- I must be subservient to the male, whatever he says, I must obey. I dare not raise my voice against any man.
- I will bring shame to my family by being truthful, so I must keep silent about the abuse.
- Nobody would believe my word against a powerful man, so I must keep silent.
- I should have known better than to wear that dress, or to place myself in such a defenseless position.
- I should have known better than to be in this person’s presence, and it is my fault that I was attacked.
- If I speak out against this man, I will be crushed by him, and be considered a whore, or a person of poor morals by others.
And on and on it could go. This is the foundational logic embedded within the Common Knowledge Game that would keep a woman silent in the face of sexual abuse by another.
Consider competitive work environments where jealous or resentful office workers seek to demean a common foe, be it a boss or a motivated co-worker, through practicing racism, sexism, religious persecution, etc. This can be several employees practicing typical mutually inaccurate assessments of a party not currently in their presence, such as through ageism, racism, and/or sexism. These behaviors are also typical of what happens in big companies, politics, high school, or in church.
The participants will not attack unless they are sure that the other will attack or be silently supportive at the same time, as nobody wants to be the lone attacker, becoming vulnerable and thus exposing their intent for aggression. This is indicative of the “bully mind” or “mob mind” and how it acts in the real world. The first person sends out a “feeler” (verbal exchange of internalized culturally inculcated negative assessments of others, or even self) to the other parties with the message, such as, “You know, I am unhappy with Mr. X. He is problematic.” This is like warming up for the attack by gently degrading the third party while awaiting the other’s reply within the group physically or emotionally present, which hopefully affirms our intent. Our verbal or written means of attempting to communicate with the other conspirators may be misinterpreted, so we initially have no collective security in adopting the attack mode. If however, the message of attack is received simultaneously by others within the group, which it does in common knowledge modes of thought, then the attack is on. Note that all parties already know the message. If they are all sexist, racist, or fundamentalist religious fanatics, the judgments against others are already built into their shared social algorithms. They all knew in advance that the other attackers had the message as well because it is common knowledge that others share at least some of their negative perceptions. And they will attack the other, because they always have before, and they have already prepared their internal fortifications, as well as their verbal and social weapons for such an experience.
This is the classic attack/defense posture or mechanism that the entirety of the human race is now participating in. Anybody who has worked in the construction trades, or work areas dominated by men, knows this process quite well. Repartee is one of the kind names given to this culturally accepted and sometimes revered process, whereby we make the appearance to others that we are lightly and without intentional malice impugning the dignity and reputation of others, though our internal motivation may be to bring harm. We call this humor, and some may feel almost hurt when others do not engage in this behavior with us. In schools, the wimps, greasers, jocks, nerds, eggheads, goths, transsexuals, homosexuals, hippies, outcasts, or whatever name that defines the “out-group” outside of the popular, socially accepted standards of behavior that characterize a grouping, can be quite susceptible to aggression, antagonism, and bullying. I think that everyone who has attended school has experienced this phenomenon. It follows standard paths of aggression, hostility, belittlement, and debasement, and somehow the aggressor becomes elevated in stature at the expense of the victim. This has been an accepted standard of behavior, though we are finally awakening to darker aspects of this by identifying hostile work environments and instituting regulations for reducing persecution, racial discrimination, age discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual discrimination in the workplace.
Gossip
Gossip has been with the human race from the beginning of time. Though gossip may have a negative connotation, it certainly has its good side, as well. For early humanity, it was gossip that helped a community understand who was the best hunter, gatherer, and/or provider. As a survival imperative, it was essential to know who were the role models and who were the ones not to follow and learn from. Our ancestors used this community sharing or gossip, and it was a way to create a community or common knowledge. This gossip helped to socialize newcomers or young people by resolving ambiguity about group norms and values. Listening to the gossip, or judgments of others, helps the community to maintain a certain stability around what it finds to be acceptable, and what isn’t.
When gossip is about a particular individual, we are usually interested in it if we know the person being referred to. There is a distinction between strategy learning gossip and reputation gossip. Yet some gossip is interesting no matter whom it is about. This sort of gossip may revolve around stories about life-or-death situations or remarkable feats. We pay attention to them because we may be able to learn strategies that we can apply to our own lives.
We all know from our present-day experience of gossip that it is not always benign, and it often serves the purpose of keeping a person in line or actually shaming or guilting a person out of a certain behavior, or even out of the community. So the main point here is that gossip around all community individuals is a mechanism for the community to remain in control while making it common knowledge what the expectations of the community are for each individual. Successful gossiping entails being a good team player and sharing key information with others in ways that won’t be perceived as self-serving. It is about knowing when its appropriate to talk, and when it is best to keep your mouth shut. Yet, as we all know, gossip can bring the mightiest, the weakest, the guiltiest, and the most innocent down to their knees.
The Lemming Effect
A great allegory for the social behavior of humans is that of the story of the life cycle of some populations of lemmings. Lemmings are little rodents that live near the cold northern Arctic regions. They are focused animals by nature, meeting only to mate and then going their separate ways. But like all rodents, they have a high reproductive rate when food is plentiful. When population density becomes too high, some of the lemming species migrate in large quantities, and since they can swim, they choose to cross the water in search of a new habitat. Lemmings have been known to follow each other as they plunge off the edge of cliffs into the water below. Even though lemmings are swimming migrants rather than victims of collective suicidal ideation, the myth of mass suicide is still called the Lemming Effect.
Regardless of the lemmings’ real intentions, the lemming story has become a metaphor for people who go along unquestioningly with a group with potentially dangerous consequences. The Lemming Effect is an innate psychological phenomenon, a survival trait, and an inborn instinct in the majority of people. We see this happening in many occurrences from bad collective decisions, such as investing in the dot com boom of the late 1990s, craving the latest Apple iPhone releases, consuming excessive alcohol at a party, following theological assertions like the blood of Jesus is the sacrifice to God that saves our soul, to obsessing over modern-day automobile and fashion trends. This Lemming Effect enables entire segments of a society to lose their sense of judgment and the application of personal wisdom all at the same time. It can be linked to the “mob mentality” phenomenon inherent within collective consciousness itself. If you have ever been a member in good standing in the problem-drinking division at the local bar, you understand the suspension of wisdom and good judgment with your drinking decisions.
We don’t realize how often our decisions are based on other people’s behavior. The Lemming Effect depicts a negative side of the conscious following of the crowd, especially when following leads to falling off the cliff. In real-life situations, it could mean losses of money, self-identity, and slower spiritual development. As it might sound easy to grasp the concept, it is difficult to notice in our own actual behavior. Moreover, social togetherness is sometimes very pleasant and valuable, for instance at a rock concert when one man starts to dance, then more and more people join in until massive amounts of people are dancing together. It is a pleasant example of a positive manifestation of the Lemming Effect. However mass behavior does not always result in a positive experience for the individual.
The Lemming Effect can create pleasant, life-affirming social togetherness, but the effect has some potential negative effects that we need to be aware of at all times. It is healthy and wise to participate in social movements, but we must not lose our heads in emotions. We must be critical of the movements of the crowd that are going against our vision and values. Also, we must do the research, and even experiment with unpopular ideas, before deciding that any massive new movement is for us. We can’t ignore the “leading edge” movements, and we can’t exile people we don’t share ideologies with by dismissing them with “woke” or “libtard” labels, because accidentally standing in the way of the movement could bring harm to us or others. Our politicians, marketers and advertisers, and religious leaders have harnessed the power of the Lemming Effect, and our entire world civilization continues to be manipulated, for good or for evil, by these practitioners.
As Krishnamurti suggests, it’s possible to think that we’re spiritually and mentally healthy because we share our mistaken values and understandings with those around us. Collectively, our ill minds create social circles, or society that is itself ill, and we consider ourselves healthy because we see our values reflected in our spiritually sick fellow travelers.
Living in the Human Collective Consciousness
Now that we have thoroughly investigated human collective consciousness, we have found there are many unconscious or unwritten rules for engagement between all members of society, in addition to the conscious and/or written ones. The unconscious rules have been with us from the beginning, well before the introduction of mega-cities and civilizations, when mankind first falteringly attempted to explore, define, and control inner experience. The conscious rules or laws have been developed over the last two hundred or more generations to establish and maintain the best order and harmony for the ever-enlarging populations congregating together into the structure of cities or settlements. Interesting studies of aggregations of humans into communities have shown quite conclusively that once a group’s population gets above a 170-member threshold, normal socialization begins to break down, as mutual accountability wanes. We, as humans, can hold less than 200 other members of humanity in our loving awareness, thus the need for laws to help enforce social norms beyond this critical threshold, where gossip, peer pressure and social conformity no longer can keep the crowd under control.
Hammurabi’s code of conduct and the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament are two great examples from our distant past of the documentation and implementation of rules defining acceptable conduct. As the famous psychologist Carl Jung has pointed out, and beloved author and spiritual explorer Joseph Cambell has extensively commented upon, we are also influenced by collective archetypes that will attempt to define and control us, so it is important to scratch under the surface of our conscious minds to see what unconscious algorithm may be operative. The human race may continue to evolve in spirit and truth as long as it can provide a minimum foundation of safety and security for all of its members, so it is important to remember that not all requirements to conform are misguided or evil in intent.
Because of the Common Knowledge Game and the Lemming Effect, there is enormous power in making a public spectacle out of information. We can’t resist crowds. The crowd doesn’t just need to see the event, the crowd needs to see the crowd seeing the event. This lesson in behavioral influence is why religious revival events, rock concerts, and so many of our modern social institutions are staged in front of live audiences. When you sit in front of your TV set and watch, say, a national political convention, you are infinitely more engaged with the event when you see a crowd than when you don’t. We can’t help ourselves. It doesn’t even matter if the live audience is faked and we know that the audience is faked; have you ever listened to a sitcom without a laugh track? It’s just not as funny. The fact is that humans are social animals. We are hard-wired to look for and respond to common knowledge, and smart people—from political leaders to religious leaders to business leaders and concert organizers—have taken advantage of this for years.
What happens when the diseased family structure (alcoholism and drug addiction, physical and sexual abuse, psychological abuse of all types) in many situations of discipline and control exactly parallel the Common Knowledge Game? Eventually, the children learn not to attempt to act out or break free from the oppressive qualities of an abusive parent, or parents, their church and its interpretation of religious thought, or their educational experience. Breaking the spirit of the abused child, and making sure that other members know that such punishment will also come their way, keeps children under control, but also victimized and traumatized. Children entering the school system where bullies are allowed to run free get to experience this process once again in a bigger social setting. And children who attend a church where the dignity of the individual is constantly degraded and threatened with hell through their religious philosophy also will feel the horrific abuse of the Common Knowledge Game. They live in fear that if anyone were to speak out against the oppressors, they would be punished severely, and they would be smacked down.
There are two great acts of insanity that members of our family and culture engage in, and the Common Knowledge Game of human perception:
- There is the perception that if an authoritative and/or beloved political or religious leader or family member brings harm or damage to another, the victim must have somehow deserved it, and they should not expect an explanation, change of behavior, or apology from the aggressor. The victim of the aggression will be judged and punished even more harshly by calling a foul or claiming harm, from the offensive behavior.
- There is a perception that everyone is of questionable origin and value, except for, maybe, ourselves, depending upon whom we are unfairly comparing ourselves. This is a classic component of the Common Knowledge Game. Depending on the needs of the tribe we belong to, and how much we are acculturated within the group, we may devalue ourselves and all others, until we heal, and find our unique voice and true value.
Our Common Knowledge Game keeps all of us in some sort of order, albeit one that affirms the false truth that we are all broken human beings, with our only hope for salvation lying with chaotic and insane orders of unreality that continue to be inculcated into our collective consciousness. In other words, unless we march to the drummer of our religious and cultural past, we will be judged, persecuted, marginalized, and otherwise thrown to the wolves, with little hope for our redemption. Woe to the brave individual that strikes out on his own, and attempts to find a new way of being in this world of chaos, distraction, and torment.
Implicit bias and unconscious discrimination against others is an autonomic response and shields the practitioner from their malfeasance of attitude and behavior. This is the unconscious knowledge component that supports and advises the Common Knowledge Game. Those who believe that they are the chosen of God, to the diminishment and detriment of others of differing racial, ethnic, or national origin promote and perpetuate the biggest, most heinous lie ever told. White supremacist pseudo-Christians use their filiality to Judaism through the Jewish prophet Jesus to justify their illusions of importance and placement in the eyes of their mistaken understanding of the divine energy of our universe. Either we all are chosen by God, or none of us are.
If you watch the news or get on social media, it’s easy to see our country is in a downward spiral, where telling the truth is no longer a virtue. Instead, the truth is bastardized and spun into alternate-reality fantasies, becoming just another tool to be abused by propagandists. Propagandists are masters at manipulating fear, distrust, lies, half-truths, and specious reasoning, which also help to create new channels of control in the Common Knowledge Game.
How to Step Outside the Game
If we are ready to embark on new paths of consciousness, we must be prepared to leave our old minds and ideas behind. The Common Knowledge Game must be seen for what it is, and its capacity to diminish our sense of self and others must be dealt with consciously. The CKG has become so inculcated into societal norms that we must break free from the mob mind that would have us make self-destructive choices while being carried by their rivers of ignorance and darkness. Changes must happen within consciousness itself, and the Common Knowledge Game that we all unconsciously play must be examined and re-examined again and again until we are no longer subjugated to its darker sides of oppression and repression of the human spirit.
The healthy, sane, spiritually inspired individual steps outside of the Common Knowledge Game and practices seeing him or herself through a new lens with few or no verbal constructs from our personal pasts or our culturally damaged memories. This is the only place where a heart-centered experience of the other becomes possible. Ultimately, if there are any words to be shared about what is experienced, it serves only as a temporary bridge to understanding. These can be discarded at the earliest possible moment, as truth reveals itself from moment to moment, not through the shared verbal constructs of a dead past. When two people are observing the same beautiful sunset, there is little need for words, other than to affirm one’s joy in witnessing it.
To ultimately transform the Common Knowledge Game of mutual imprisonment, we need to become aware of how we see others seeing ourselves. Changing the way we allow our perceptions of how others expect us to behave opens the door out of our own uniquely created prison cells. This is not to say that others’ intentions are always bad or nefarious toward us, as most of us want what is best for us as individuals, and we hope that our best expectations for ourselves are also good for others. Seeing how we have ignorantly been controlled by others, or, more insidiously, how we have used our perceptions of how others expect us to behave and believe, grants insight into the whole process. And it opens the door to a new way of seeing life and being in life with others in a more supportive, holistic, and healthy manner. Our words can then carry all of the potential of the love behind the collective good heart of mankind.
It is also of greatest importance to realize that no man, or woman, is an island in this vast universe and that our perception of harmony and balance is inextricably intertwined with the rest of humanity. No matter how healed, balanced, or empowered we become, we are eternally linked with the rest of humanity and the universe in our attempts to create order or balance out of our unique versions of the collective chaos known as human knowledge. The temptation to follow the herd, or to swim with the lemmings, is built right into the foundational nature of our socialized existence.
When we finally see the complete matrix of the CKG within our consciousness and awareness, we will no longer be unconsciously controlled by its oftentimes imprisoning parameters. In seeing the labyrinth, you can liberate your mind from its bondage to other people’s opinions and your wayward ideas. Breaking free of the Common Knowledge Game and the Lemming Effect gives us our greatest clues for finding our uncommon knowledge, where wonder, awe, love of each other, love of self, love of the earth and all of its animals, and the desire to help alleviate all suffering in the world spontaneously arise within consciousness itself and guide us to our own unique promised land. We finally can leave the world of our pseudo-knowns to explore the real world, where newness, love, and truth’s unfolding goodness predominate.
As I reflect on my own journey, I cannot escape the tendrils of collective trauma that have woven their way into my being. I have witnessed the lingering effects of historical injustices on marginalized communities and felt the weight of societal narratives that perpetuate pain and division. Yet, within these stories of struggle and resilience, there is also a glimmer of hope—a testament to the human spirit’s capacity to heal and transcend.
In the words of Bessel van der Kolk, “Trauma is not just an event that took place; it is an experience that lives on within us.” This sentiment echoes the wisdom of Peter Levine, Carl Jung, and Sigmund Freud, who recognized the profound impact of collective trauma on the human psyche. Gabor Mate and Socrates remind us that healing from collective trauma requires acknowledgement, compassion, and a commitment to personal and societal transformation. Healing from collective trauma is a multifaceted journey that demands individual and collective action. It begins with acknowledging the wounds that bind us and creating spaces for open dialogue and empathy. Engaging in trauma-informed practices, such as therapy, mindfulness, and community support, can serve as catalysts for healing, fostering resilience, and promoting a sense of belonging.
To truly thrive as individuals and societies, we must confront the ghosts of collective trauma that haunt the labyrinth of our collective consciousness. By embracing our shared stories and experiences, we can begin to dismantle the walls that’d keep us trapped in cycles of pain and division. Let us embark on this journey together, holding space for healing, compassion, and the transformative power of collective action. Only then can we find our clues for a great escape, and rewrite the narrative of our collective consciousness while paving the way for a future built on resilience, understanding, and unity.
The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur still holds profound relevance in today’s world. In our modern lives, we encounter our own labyrinths—wounding from family and social ills and traumas, making complex career choices, rejection or reconciliation with our divine or noble natures, dysfunctional relationships, and other personal struggles. Through the symbolism of the myth, we are reminded that our journey is not simply about reaching the destination but about the growth and self-discovery that occur along the paths we take. As we navigate the labyrinth of life, let us embrace the lessons of Theseus, the Minotaur, and the labyrinth itself. Let us face our inner demons, conquer our fears, and strive for personal and spiritual growth. Just as Theseus emerged victorious, we too have the power to transcend our limitations and reach our human and spiritual potential. As we focus on clearing the effects of intergenerational and familial trauma, let us also remember to find gratitude and claim our strengths derived from our relationship to the past. Our ancestors and our families gave us much more than just wounds.i
Remember, escaping the labyrinth is not meant to be completed in a single stride. It is a lifelong journey of self-discovery and continuous transformation. We can embrace the challenges, relish the triumphs, and allow the clues we find to release us from the labyrinth and guide us towards a more profound understanding of ourself, the world around us, and even the divine.
