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Morpheus: ‘The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us … it is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.’
Neo: ‘What truth?’
Morpheus: ‘That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage; born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch; a prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to experience it for yourself.’
–The Matrix
Each time a byronchild is published, I am changed. The articles, the subject matter and the process of editing and working with the people who are passionate about their work, all conspire to dig deep into my unconscious and bring about something new. This issue is certainly no exception. In a new way, I am encouraged to claim personal sovereignty within a social system that has much to gain by robbing me of it. What is notable on this subject is the presence of two articles in particular which point remarkably to our deteriorating civil rights and the lies we are told by our institutions. We have given ourselves over in blind faith. We must reclaim ourselves. Sovereignty, the ability to self-govern and take responsibility for that self-governance, will short-circuit this stealthy coup over our lives.
One article — Child Safety: Who Chooses? (pp. 51-3) — describes the ordeal of Mandelaine Dagan who was recently reported to Queensland child welfare authorities when she chose to deliver her baby naturally. When she was not supported to have a vaginal birth after caesarean (VBAC) at one hospital, she switched to another hospital that was more sympathetic. But the previous hospital felt that this was reason enough to consider her a threat to her baby. The law protects a woman’s right to choose for herself and for her baby. Ideally, modern maternity care is meant to support and respect informed consent. But this story would suggest otherwise.
When I began to ask questions about a mother’s legal rights in such a circumstance, I discovered that there lurks an entire culture of bullying towards pregnant women by doctors. Like other kinds of bullying, most goes unreported. The Queensland government and some doctors defended the action taken towards Ms. Dagan. ‘This woman in this particular circumstance has got away with it,’ said Dr. David Molloy, president of the Australian Medical Association Queensland, in an interview with ABC radio.
Since when are rights and choices something we must ‘get away with’? Apparently, since now.
The other article — A Dragon by the Tail (pp. 10–16) — is an exclusive byronchild special report. It’s an extraordinary piece exposing the institutional agendas and corruption behind the vaccine industry and the medical bodies who supposedly are to safeguard public health. While rates of autism skyrocket, a leaked Institute of Medicine transcript reveals that research behind vaccine safety is corrupted by vested interests. That same research is being used to create a multi-billion dollar global vaccine campaign as well as to justify a federal bill that will protect vaccine manufacturers against litigation.
Between these two stories we can see clearly that the informed consent ethic is under threat and that as big business grows, our rights diminish. Those institutions that we might expect to uphold and protect our rights are actually undermining them. Their relationship to big business has compromised their purpose, leaving us no alternative but to assume responsibility and self-governance.
We do not have a history of self-governance. We come from millennia of tyranny, slavery and oppression. Our ancestors neither ruled nor exercised any real responsibility over their lives. If they did have some control, it was short lived, eclipsed by the next war or epidemic.
With the emergence of democracy, ‘unalienable rights’ became a growing ethical precept, though the full actualisation of those rights, even in countries like the US and Australia, have yet to be fulfilled. Nevertheless, the right to life, freedom, and safety is ingrained in many constitutions.
Generally speaking, as we began electing our representatives and leaders, and they in turn began creating the institutions, we trusted those officials and institutions to lead us and look out for our best interests. Medical bodies were supposed to safeguard our health. Political bodies were supposed to safeguard our democracy. Educational bodies were supposed to safeguard our minds. Military bodies were supposed to safeguard our peace. Religious bodies were supposed to safeguard our soul. Perhaps we thought this could have worked well for us. We could relinquish our responsibility and be looked after at the same time! We wouldn’t have to think, discern, do our research or own the consequences of our choices because those institutions would do that for us.
It’s the kind of world that I imagined as a child, a sort of fairy tale existence (think Stepford Wives ) where presidents are saintly, doctors save lives, fruit comes from nature and farmers milk their cows. Priests give sermons while down the street firemen save kitties out of trees and policemen help the old lady cross the road. It’s a world where things seem straightforward, free from any dark subterfuge or nasty twisted agenda.
But the bubble has burst. Firemen have other things to do than save kitties. And sometimes priests abuse children. And fruit comes from a laboratory. And farmers are actually corporations. And sometimes a police officer would just as well extort money from the old lady than help her cross the road.
And sometimes doctors bully young mothers, and researchers are paid by vaccine manufacturers, and a senatorwhose campaign contributor is Eli Lilly, fast-track a federal bill to protect them from litigation.
Like in The Matrix when Morpheus offered Neo the red pill or the blue pill (to know or to remain ignorant), we are being encouraged to see what is really going on. It’s not about becoming a conspiracy theorist or about being really radical, it’s about simply putting denial aside and opening our eyes. All is not how it might appear and jumping out of the lie requires courage and faith in ourselves.
And when we open our eyes to see that until now we have not really exercised our rights and we have not really had informed consent because we have never been told the truth, we then can step out of that reality by taking our sovereignty.
I recently did a Google on the term informed consent . According to the University of Washington School of Medicine website, it is defined as the process by which a fully informed patient can participate in choices about their health care. It originates from the legal and ethical right the patient has to direct what happens to their body and from the ethical duty of the physician to involve the patient in their health care.
The truth is that informed consent is a myth. It does not exist. As one doctor in the IOM transcript declared, ‘That is the other big hang-up we have here. We are talking about human communication to people…with various abilities to understand statistics probability and scientific information.’ He said it all had to be done in 1.6 minutes (the average time a doctor has to consult with a patient) in a way that they could make an informed decision. ‘That, of course, is threaded through all of our vocabularies, this great notion of informed choices that patients make.’ In other words, it can’t be done. Not only is there not enough time for authorities to give us the information, but our ability to understand the research is limited, as well as our access to all the information needed.
The largest hurdle to informed consent is dissemination of information. Facts we are given by authorities, on which to base our choices, do not necessarily represent the whole picture. In most cases, it is a particular slant on a subject depending on the outcome that authority wishes to have. Throughout the entire IOM transcript, for example, the Immunisation and Safety Review Committee members’ aim is to prove the safety of vaccines to the public so that the rate of vaccination will not decline . This is all under the guise of ‘research into vaccine safety’. We find this kind of agenda in nearly every choice we make — from food, to education, to where it is safe to travel. It is a culture, a paradigm. Quite simply, it is just the way it is and always has been.
The second hurdle is educating ourselves to understand research information, and understand how to search for the whole story in an intelligent and unbiased way. If we set out to research our choices, knowing beforehand that in the end we will anyway choose one way or the other, then we too are creating the same slant but in reverse.
Sovereignty means taking that responsibility and becoming the creators of our own lives rather than the victims of another’s agenda. Sovereignty also takes a sharp jab at the lawsuit mentality that arises from seeing ourselves as a victim. When we take responsibility for choosing a natural birth, we cannot, in our sovereignty, turn around and sue the doctor or midwife should something go wrong.
When we claim power over our own lives and choices, we mature into the understanding that institutions have failed and always will fail us. For this we can be grateful because if they didn’t fail us, we would never be pushed into this next level of personal growth.
Think of what it could mean collectively when we begin to use our intelligence more and engage in active participation with the choices that present themselves each day. We become architects to our existence. Authority is sought inwardly. In an esoteric context, this is exciting.
The next revolution is not in changing anything out there. It is not in engaging the governmental juggernauts and institutional giants. It is not in peace marches, burning bras or signing petitions, though they all serve their purpose. It is far more simple, and yet deeply profound and powerful. It is in simply choosing to see what is actually happening — in taking the red pill. And in that seeing, taking dominion away from those institutions and placing them in the appropriate places of servitude.
The great news is that we needn’t wait another moment. We can do that right now, we can do it immediately this instant. It doesn’t take money or time. It only takes a moment to see, and a moment to say ‘yes’ to our selves. From there it takes care of itself because we begin to unhook from a symbiotic relationship with external authority, to disengage from a hurtful dynamic.
It will require effort, however. Sovereignty requires that we read more, learn more, do our research and practice discernment.
Another article in this issue of byronchild gives us practical guidance in how to reclaim our lives. In Regaining Sanity (pp. 40–5) — we are shown the basics behind ‘downshifting’. Downshifting lifts us out of the consumer paradigm by encouraging us to question the benefit of each and every one of our purchases, as well as critically analyse how we use our time. Downshifters are claiming their sovereignty and in it move from being consumers to being creators.
In a way, sovereignty is a rigorous spiritual practice, of turning inward, following original thought and standing alone. It is the beginning of the end of slavery, and the beginning of our greatness.