THE BATTLE FOR THE MIND

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind… Romans 12:2

Like many, I have been struck by the increasing prevalence of mental health problems in recent years. When I was growing up, one seldom heard the term “mental health” – in fact it probably was a term that was never used. There were mental hospitals or mental asylums but the words “mental” and “health” were not used together.

My father was diagnosed with a disorder in the early 1950s they termed “manic depression” but these days is called “bipolar disorder”.  The problem has a range of presenting symptoms but in my father’s case, he would become so severely depressed that he refused to get out of bed for weeks and sometimes months. This was a major problem for my father who was a farmer and so my mother had to run the farm and do much of the work, which in those days wasn’t work that women undertook. Then, with my father, there would be a recovery period when his mood would swing to the opposite side so that he would want to travel to social functions, drink and be the life of the party. This was a puzzle to me and very traumatic for the family as we sought to understand the problem and live with its effects. Even as I write about the impact of this, I feel the sense of trauma, which has been buried for many years. Clearly traumatic events stay with us somewhere in the depth of our souls and continue to have an influence in ways that we probably don’t know.

The tools available to psychiatrists in the 1950s and 1960s were limited and one of the principal methods of treatment was “shock therapy” or “electroconvulsive therapy”.  Electrodes are attached to the skull and a seizure is induced by electricity and this generally lasts for less than 1 minute. In my father’s time, patients were given a sedative and then strapped to a bed and not surprisingly, it was difficult to convince patients to present themselves again for treatment,  after they had experienced this “therapy”. Now, muscle relaxants and anaesthetics are used but it still seems horrific that this treatment, which must have impacts on the body and mind that no-one understands, still is being used.  

Many years later, as I was seeking to understand mental health problems and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which were challenges in our family, a friend suggested I read The Body Keeps the Score – by the eminent psychiatrist from Boston University School of Medicine, Dr Bessel van der Kolk.

This is truly an eye opening book and is really a “must read” for anyone who seeks a better understanding of mental health. Dr van der Kolk was born during WWII in the Hague and his father had a miraculous escape from a Nazi death camp. His father’s experience had left him prone to rage and Bessel did not have an easy childhood. However he found his way to the US in the early 1960s and eventually trained in psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. Dr van der Kolk’s professional journey is compelling reading because it parallels the increasing availability and now almost universal use of psychiatric drugs, almost unknown until the 1970s. For example, Dr van der Kolk did the first study on Prozac for the treatment of PTSD (Note: he found that it did not work very well). He traces the history of psychiatric treatment using various psychoactive medications and I was staggered to find that in the US, the number of people treated for depression has tripled over the last 20 years and as of 2017 when the book was published, 1 in 10 Americans took antidepressants. This is likely to have at least doubled since the COVID-19 tyranny. Of even greater concern is the widespread prescribing of antipsychotics, with $3.6 billion being spent by the government in 2008 which had doubled from the previous data in 1999. More than half a million children in the US are taking antipsychotic drugs. Dr van der Kolk notes:

 “These medications make children more manageable and less aggressive, but they also interfere with motivation, play, and curiosity, which are indispensable for maturing into a well-functioning and contributing member of society. Children who take them are also at risk of becoming morbidly obese and developing diabetes.”

I was stunned to find that 77 million people or almost 25% of the US population are receiving some type of psychiatric drug and this includes 418,000 children between 0 and 5 years of age.

Truly, this is a scandal that should have us all asking questions about how such widespread use of potentially neurotoxic drugs has gained hold in Western societies?

As I was contemplating the significance of a “drugged and dazed culture”, I came across a helpful interview by Catherine Austin-Fitts with Dr Peter Breggin called “Mass Formation: A Decoy for Digital Concentration Camps”. Both Breggin and Austin-Fitts are very critical of the concept of “mass formation”, which has been widely promoted recently by a Belgian psychotherapist, Professor Mattias Desmet. Dr Breggin is an eminent psychiatrist who has been at the forefront of mental health issues for almost 70 years. He was one of the first psychiatrists to draw attention to the dangers of using brain surgery (so called “lobotomy”) to treat behavioural problems. Such treatments became popular in the 1980s and 1990s and were advocated by some eminent psychiatrists for “treatment” of violent young black people in the inner city. Dr Breggin also highlighted the damaging effects of various psychoactive drugs, developed in rat experiments, and which he says all have a toxic effect on the brain.

Both Dr Breggin and Dr van der Kolk emphasize the danger to individuals and society when there is such widespread use of potent drugs that affect brain function. It seems that many doctors prescribe psychoactive drugs as a type of band-aid, without understanding the potential negative side effects. This seems to be yet another case, as with the COVID-19 vaccines, where Big Pharma has hijacked the medical profession to do its bidding. Given the complexity of mental health issues, one can also see that for doctors it is easier to reach for a prescription pad than to seek an alternative and live-giving approach.

Trauma is part of everyone’s lives and for some, the events involved are severe and disabling. Dr van der Kolk reports on case studies in The Body Keeps the Score where alternative approaches such as physical movement, dance, yoga, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) - have yielded positive results in cases of severe trauma. This 4 min YouTube clip provides an overview of some of the ideas in the book:

The battle for the mind is a real battle and is being waged every day as we are bombarded with messages that seek to influence us. There is a master deceiver at work and we need to be alert and pursue the truth, which often is difficult. In considering the battle for the mind, I thought that I would research the Hebrew approach to the mind, which I had learnt from my Hebrew studies was very different to our ideas today.

In Hebrew there is no word for “the mind”. Where there are English translations of the word “mind” in the Hebrew Old Testament, the Hebrew words are actually heart, soul or spirit. Our modern ideas of the mind as the source of thinking and the heart as the centre of feelings are unknown in Hebrew thinking and writing. In the Hebrew concept of the mind, there is a sense of the “inner person” and the word most commonly used -  לֵב transliterated as lēb,  is often translated as “heart”. For example, early in the Bible in the Book of Genesis, it says “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart (לֵב or lēb) was only evil continually” Genesis 6:5. The word “heart” here could also be translated as inner person, the will, feelings or even the intellect.

The Greek concept of the mind was different as viewed from the New Testament where the mind and reason are linked (Greek word nous) and convey the idea of what we today would call a worldview. There also is the Greek word phren which also is translated as mind but can mean understanding. The Greek concept of thinking and the mind was different from Hebrew understanding where the heart, soul and spirit are all part of a whole – the inner man. Thus the concepts of the mind are quite different and not surprisingly, the various translators of the Hebrew Old Testament found it challenging to interpret what is meant by the commonly used Hebrew word  לֵב or lēb – which is translated as “heart” but probably more often means the inner person. In the New Testament, where the English word “mind” is used, the sense is often conveyed of opposition and hostility to God. Our “minds” can stand in the way of knowing God. So the battle for the mind, linking together Hebrew and Greek ideas, is a battle for the very inner soul of man and the worldview that we have, which by default is hostile to God.

There is only one solution for us as we face the ideas and trauma that can assault us in our daily lives – it is a renewed mind – the Greek word for mind here is nous which means - the mind, comprising alike the faculties of perceiving and understanding and those of feeling, judging, determining (Strong’s Greek Lexicon).  St Paul writes in the letter to the Romans: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is” (Romans 12:2). The Greek word for renewal is anakainōsis and implies a renovation or change for the better. I have thought about this verse over the years and realized that the first step is resisting conformation with the world. This is difficult because as I wrote last week, we are drawn to the ”Burger Ring door” where there are many great things that look attractive. The media, social media, movies and television all seek to conform us to the world. Not only that but these mass media tools try to direct us into a way of thinking that suits a global narrative through propaganda techniques first popularized by Edward Bernays in the 1920s. This short 12 min video provides a great overview of Bernays work and you can see how propaganda and social influencing have made their way into all areas of society.

Resisting conformation to the world requires an active effort to avoid various forms of media that seek to propagandize or conform us to a world view – increasingly, that of a one world system. The worldwide government propaganda to vaccinate the entire population with a dangerous and potentially gene-altering medicine is a precursor to many other challenges to come, to conform us to the world. The question then for each of us is how are we transformed – in Greek metamorphoō - literally to metamorphose, to change or transfigure? The New Testament writers tell us that we do this by “having the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:18), which itself is a mystery but is the pathway to a “sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Jesus is the great healer and with all the traumas of life, asking Him to heal and restore us and giving us a sound mind, is a path to life much more than psychiatric medicines or psychotherapy. One of the best pathways to a “sound mind” is the Word of God, the Bible. It is like taking a dose of preventative medicine and the Book of Proverbs tells us “My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh.” (Proverbs 4:20-23).

The battle for the mind will be fought relentlessly by the powers of darkness as will the attempts to conform us to this world. The mind or our “inner man” is a prime target to sow confusion and despair. It is important to recognize that at its heart, this is a spiritual battle and one that we definitely can’t fight in our own strength. Putting our trust in Jesus gives us a hope beyond this world and a certainty that we are headed for eternity – amazingly a kingdom where Jesus will be king and as it says in the Book of Revelation “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). We need to look beyond the world and the media that assails our “inner man” and turn to the source of life in eternity, through prayer – which is simply conversation with God. Paul’s letter to the Philippians tells us how to do this:

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;  and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7. Remarkably, the God of Creation, hears our prayers and will bring us a “peace that passes understanding”, which psychiatric drugs will never do.

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WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP

A Summary of Some Significant Events Around the World in the Last Week

USA

One of my favourite moments in Trump rallies in 2016 on the election trail was when he would mention “crooked Hilary” and the crowd would call out: “lock her up, lock her up”! This was a vain hope and the Clinton machine seems to be able to find its way out of any legal difficulty and millions continue to pour into the Clinton Foundation coffers. The Republicans could see that this was a dangerous path to tread and so Hilary remained free, despite illegally storing classified documents on her private server and then “scrubbing” it when the server was impounded. Democrats, who have control of the entire Justice Department, had no hesitation in using all the resources of the FBI to move against President Trump. Not only did they use illegal surveillance when Trump was running for President but also gained access to servers in the White House after he was installed. From there it is only a short step for the Attorney-General Merrick Garland, to arrange a raid on Trump’s private residence in Florida, Mar-A-Lago. This is another giant step – not for mankind – but towards totalitarianism.

To me, the FBI raid on Trump’s Florida home  - is a signal of an inexorable path towards chaos and conflict in the US as citizens become aware that there is no such thing as equal justice under the law. Even in the media, there is one rule for the left-wing agenda and another rule for conservatives. Cities would have been up in flames if the FBI had raided Barrack Obama’s house after he left the Presidency - for example to gain access to records relating to his administration using the IRS in a partisan way.  One wonders if the forces of darkness within the “Deep State”, planned this raid to provoke Trump supporters and cause civil unrest. It is remarkable that the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, has said nothing about the horrifying spectre of FBI agents raiding a former President’s home but rather has railed against “deplorable and dangerous” threats that he says are being made against law enforcement. This makes you think that the raid was undertaken to provoke Trump supporters. There is no doubt that agencies like the FBI and CIA are being used in a secretive and partisan way to target conservative supporters. Most Americans can see this and have lost confidence in the independence of the Justice Department. The only good news is that Merrick Garland, the outrageously partisan Attorney-General, was not appointed to the Supreme Court, after his nomination by President Obama in 2016.

What seems to be more clearly in view is the mid-term elections in November. Biden’s policies which have resulted in soaring inflation and increased fuel and food prices, illegal immigrants pouring across the southern border, profligate spending, promotion of transgender ideology and decimation of the oil and gas industry, will result in voters turning against the Democrats. The only solution for the Democrats is to put into place a distraction or “false flag” operation together with implementation of postal voting which can easily be rigged. I think that we can expect the unexpected! Undoubtedly though the US is heading into perilous waters and lawlessness is at work fuelled by the forces of darkness. God save America!!

United Kingdom & Europe

Heatwave and drought continues to affect the UK and also Europe. Meanwhile Boris Johnson continues to be Prime Minister although he has just had a belated honeymoon in Slovenia at a fashionable eco-hotel, where you find bear on the menu and you can “harmonise your rhythm and inner balance”. It seems to me that Boris should have gone there much earlier as his rhythm and inner balance are shot to pieces. The UK Parliament Privileges Committee seem intent on finding evidence that Boris misled Parliament but I don’t think that UK Labour has the vindictiveness and hatred for Boris that the US Democrats have for Trump.

The Conservative Party leadership race continues around the country, with various meetings or “hustings” (an event where election candidates or parties discuss policies and answer questions from the audience). There have been 6 of the hustings to date with another 6 to go before voting of Conservative Party members is finalized in early September. The key difference between the 2 candidates is that Rishi Sunak believes that inflation is the greatest threat to the economy whereas Liz Truss thinks that recession is a greater danger and she believes in cutting taxes.   More Members of Parliament have come out in support of Liz Truss in the last week. Most commentators believe that while Sunak is more slick and confident, Truss is getting more support amongst those who will vote.

Whoever wins, it is a poison pill. A recent article in the Spectator magazine by Nick Cohen made the following assessment

“Education, law and order, the justice system – wherever you look, you see neglected and dilapidated services. The average wage earner has not had a real-terms pay rise since 2008, and understandably will be agitating to ensure that inflation does not lower their living standards. On top of all this, the big fact about Britain and so many other advanced economies remains that the healthcare and pensions needed to support the growing elderly population make Thatcherite dreams of a small state impossible to fulfil.”

It looks as though the loser in the leadership ballot will be the fortunate one.

Russia and Ukraine

Sanctions against Russia have been assessed as having “limited impact” by the International Atomic Energy Agency. While there have been decreases in Russian oil exports to Europe and the US, sales have increased to India, China and Turkey. Prices for oil also have increased and the Russian ruble has strengthened against the US dollar. So despite the extraordinary sums of money and quantity of arms supplied to Ukraine by the West, the Russian economy seems to have strengthened.

Corruption in the Ukraine has been recognized for a long period before the Russian invasion - and it is likely that this corruption has worsened during the conflict. It has been estimated that 70% of the weapons to Ukraine “disappear” - because there is no register or tracking. Remarkably, the West seems to have shot itself in the foot in relation to Russia, with a recent assessment that the German economy will be negatively impacted to the tune of UK£230 billion and 240,000 Germans being put out of work because of the conflict and the response by the West.

Now there is concern about a potential nuclear disaster as fighting continues around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. So there appears to be no real gain and lots of pain from the Ukraine conflict, except for the weapons manufacturers and corrupt politicians.

China vs The West

China has unmistakably thrown down the gauntlet to the West and made their intentions in relation to Taiwan completely clear. Following the US House Speaker’s visit to Taipei, 11 ballistic missiles were fired over and around Taiwan and the Chinese navy conducted blockade manoeuvres.

The Chinese ambassador to Australia spoke to the Australian National Press Club this week. He complained that media coverage of China was “not positive” and declared that “the future of Taiwan will be decided by 1.4 billion Chinese people”. China has long sought to marginalize Taiwan and the West has gone along with a policy that pretends that diplomatically, Taiwan does not exist. This policy to deliberately create a “gray zone” about Taiwan’s sovereignty has now come to a head and the ambassador has declared that China is “ready to use all necessary means”. China understands the weakness and lack of resolve by the West in relation to Taiwan and now it is just a matter of timing in relation to what the ambassador calls “peaceful reunification” and “national rejuvenation”. Plans for “reunification” must be on the table in Beijing and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see something significant happen around the time of the 20th Party Congress scheduled in the northern hemisphere autumn.

Israel

Conflict continues between Israel and terrorists in the Gaza region and there has been the targeting and death of a number of leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A failed Palestinian rocket exploded in Gaza last week and killed a number of children.

Operation Breaking Dawn was launched by Israel on 6th August in the Gaza Strip. This is a very small piece of land (25 miles by 6 miles) with 2 million residents. Operating there are the following terrorist organizations: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al Aksa Martyr Brigades, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, The Palestine Liberation Organization and many others. Hamas is the biggest of these organizations with the best funding, largely from Iran. Amir Tsafarti outlines the operation of these organizations in his latest video update. It demonstrates the forces arraigned against Israel and how remarkable it is that the country still exists.

Reports have also come to light of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard planning to kill former Trump National Security Advisor, John Bolton and US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. It is extraordinary that the US is trying to negotiate a nuclear treaty with Iran, which is a terrorist state. Israel is under constant threat and it is remarkable that their secret service manages to prevent many terrorist events. Islamic Jihad has been firing hundreds of rockets into Israel but fortunately the Iron Dome has been able to intercept 95% of these.

Summary

The raid targeting President Trump at Mar-a-Lago seems to be a shift in the strategy of the forces of darkness. This event will continue to have significant fallout and even if “evidence” is produced to substantiate the legitimacy of the raid, it is unlikely that most Trump supporters will believe it. The raid will continue to resonate and have an impact around the world as the US is the “light on the hill” for freedom. The US has the strongest constitution asserting its national sovereignty and this sovereignty must be undermined by those wanting to bring in a “new world order”. The rule of law will become a focus in many Western countries as increasingly we see what is evil promoted as good and what is good promoted as evil.