The Opportunity of Uncertainty
Second Matrix Navigation: Avoiding "Divide & Conquer" Schismogenesis in Conspiracy Research, Part 2 of 3
(Art by Michelle Horsley)
Parasocial Networks & Audience Cults
To sum up perhaps the main point from last week’s piece: trying to understand organized malevolence on a global scale without the necessary grounding in insider knowledge plus metaphysical wisdom may be like trying to draw a map of Dallas County Jail based on the inside of a single cell.
The 2nd Matrix, like the 1st Matrix, depends on tidy, linear narratives. These narratives can be communicated quickly and simply, and then easily picked up and passed around by average minds (go viral), on the rumor mill of the internet.
They can then be used as foundations to build “ministries” upon, to create substack followings, and so on.
Previously, I mentioned the problem of loneliness that comes from having a worldview that is difficult, or impossible, to communicate to others. When we lose our footing in one reality construct, a natural urge arises to try to find a new reality construct to stand in.
The “fore-ordained” move is to hop from 1st to 2nd Matrix—finding and securing a new consensus and surrounding ourselves with people who believe roughly the same narratives we believe
Audience cults (a term coined by William Sims Bainbridge)—which includes Children of Job—can be loosely bound together for individual members to create a larger matrix (a parasocial network) in which to live and breathe. While human connections can be made, and research checked and evolved thereby, delusions can also be fortified, and missions can creep ever further from their original objectives.
Not long ago, I reached the point where I wanted to just stop looking at 2nd Matrix materials at all, and spend time in the 1st Matrix again, by reading conventional history books. I sought “grounding” in more official narratives, to help me get unstuck from the unofficial 2nd Matrix ones, and to feel less estranged from “collective humanity” (if there is such a thing; I explored this explicitly in my series on The Beatles/Tavistock conspiracy theory).
This is only a temporary measure, because the problem with the official 1st Matrix narratives is the same as it ever was: they invariably depend on leaving out—or obscuring—all the anomalous facts that point to a deeper layer of reality, and that completely change the surface reality once we allow them into the narrative.
Narrative Mimesis
Yet the same is true of the 2nd Matrix, ironically enough: many of its narratives—such as the one about the Beatles/Tavistock —fall apart when exposed to 1st Matrix data-sets.
My own tendency is no different from most researchers, but I think it is a temptation to be resisted: to assume the 2nd Matrix viewpoint trumps completely the 1st Matrix one—that it blows it apart, like Neo being unplugged or the RayBans in They Live, and leaves nothing but rubble.
The temptation is to go “all in” to whatever 2nd Matrix reality tunnel we are mapping, and give it the same sort of rock-hard certainty we previously afforded to our 1st Matrix framework. To a great degree, I think this misses the whole point of the exercise, which is to enter into a liminal space—a “chapel perilous” where uncertainty only increases the more we find out about where we are.1
The reason people join cults (and to a lesser degree audience cults) is that finding and fraternizing with other people who share our new viewpoint—or can be persuaded to adopt it—can greatly reduce the cognitive dissonance of trying to hold two opposed points of view simultaneously.
Children of Job is a somewhat self-impeding enterprise, to this extent, since part of my endeavor (cognitive bridging) requires a constant shifting between seemingly opposing viewpoints.
Thus, the affinity found here is a rare sort of affinity: that of an appreciation for the opportunities of uncertainty.
Stations on the Way
Finding, co-creating, and spreading clear, tidy, linear narratives about what we believe is like learning the language, and acquiring the local currency, of a new land before entering. It is how we find our way around and eventually get settled.
To repeat: Narrative-building to create a platform—and/or subscribing to other people’s platforms—is a legitimate way to connect to people. Short of some spontaneous, God-given awakening, the only way out of the 1st Matrix is through the 2nd Matrix. The problem is when we think we have reached our final destination.
All narrative platforms are stations on the way, peripheral to the ultimate journey. They are just temporary rest stops to grab some lunch, fill up the tank, or use the toilets. Some of them we can even sleep through. They are maps that are not the territory and never will be. They become useless as soon as we move into new terrain.
In a similar way, having a Christian viewpoint may or may not be helpful in mapping and finding our way out of hell. Like anything else, it all depends whether our viewpoint is sufficiently grounded in genuine understanding, as compared to half-baked beliefs. Understanding generally only comes via a careful sifting, checking, application, and testing of data, i.e., via experience.
Whether faith is truly a means to spiritual salvation depends on whether it is sufficiently experienced, at a heart level, bodily, as well as a mental one.
Otherwise, it is matrices all the way down.
(Over Paywall: The Pros & Cons of a Christian Viewpoint, Corpses of Evidence)
