The Art of Self-Empowerment by Nowick Gray

THE POWER TO CREATE YOUR REALITY IS WITHIN YOU

All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination. It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems! (Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King)

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. (Albert Einstein)

—quotes from Jon Rappoport, “The realist vs. the artist”

The Art of Self-Empowerment, From Language to Truth

Empowerment and the art of self-empowerment, whether personal or collective, depends upon seeing and speaking truth. In today’s hyper-contentious political environment, no use of language is safe from critical attack. Thus attempts to identify and communicate truths, facts, evidence, documentation, testimony… all are doomed to a weird subjectivity, whereby the dons of society are also the lords of language, the supreme and unchallengeable arbiters of what is truth and what is heresy. Their views and theirs alone are awarded the stamp of objectivity. Everything else is banished to the doghouse of “conspiracy theory” and “dangerous disinformation.”

I would like to call such an overview metapolitical—“beyond politics”—but in such a vortex of control, that’s a futile claim, since the whole arena of discussion has been sold to political influence; the whole argument transcribed and translated into artificial political intelligence. Claiming any truth brands us a stakeholder of a data-identified tribe. Defining a stance, however much it may be supported by evidence, invites a contrary “interpretation”—a universal solvent of any certainty.

Our very language has come to be weaponized against us. Yet the truth remains free, unregulated as our currency of communication. When we refuse to play by the rigged rules of digital monopoly, political scrabble, this becomes the foundation in the art of self-empowerment.

Curing The Obfuscation Blues with the Art of Self-Empowerment

Take 1: “Anthony Fauci and others have argued that those who are vaccinated still need to follow lockdown mandates and wear masks. This policy completely ignores the scientific FACT that the death rate of COVID is only 0.26% for anyone outside of a nursing home. It ignores the fact that masks have been consistently proven to do nothing to stop the spread of the virus. It ignores the fact that hospitals across the US have remained mostly empty, with only 15% of capacity in use during COVID. And, it ignores the fact that the vaccines are barely tested experimental cocktails that even the former VP of Pfizer has warned might cause dangerous autoimmune reactions and infertility.”
— Brandon Smith

Take 2: “Even the New York Times and the Washington Post felt obligated to admit, the major clinical trials of the vaccine are not designed to prevent serious cases of COVID. Instead, they are structured to prevent minor COVID chills and fever, or a cough. So the whole vaccine program is a joke.… Furthermore, no official scientific group is claiming the vaccine prevents transmission of the virus from person to person. It’s yet one more ‘we don’t know.’
— Jon Rappoport, “Immunity certificates and health-passes are a hoax”

Take 3: Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them…. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary.
— George Orwell, 1984.

Truth and The Art of Self-Empowerment: Art versus Politics

Change your relationship with mental narrative (and thus your relationship with propaganda narratives and power-serving cultural mind viruses) by learning to appreciate beauty at every opportunity with increasing skill. — Caitlin Johnstone, “How To Practice Beauty Mindfulness”

Beauty carries its own truth. Poetry or fiction, well composed, conveys hidden truths arrayed in figures of speech, or played out by costumed characters all as creative expressions in the art of self-empowerment. Paradoxically, it is the purposeful prose of political speech that risks falling afoul of fact. In its very arrogance of advertising truth, it belies it.

Art conveys truth through and below the senses, in a felt sense of knowing, a recognition of reality in faithfulness of form and function. Politics relies on subterfuge and obfuscation, eradicating clues instead of planting them, misrepresenting instead of representing, misdirecting instead of harmonizing.

While Facebook’s cheeky motto speaks for our current governance—“Move fast and break things”—the artist’s subversive response is to move slow and make things.

Political Art

Can there be such a thing as true political art? I would suggest that artists who serve the state, or any other paying patron, to satisfy their agenda, are trading in art for political capital.

The politically-minded critic doesn’t hesitate to challenge any artist on political grounds: consigning them to the arena like unwilling gladiators, or like Kafka’s misunderstood Hunger Artist. To the political person, seeing the world through a political lens, the tautology comes natural: “Everything is political.”

Fair enough, says the artist; but then grant me my lens through which to render the world beautiful or true, or both, as I happen to see it. In fact, why not credit my creed as well: “Everything is art.”

Art as Metapolitics – The Art of Self-Empowerment

One of the most important aspects of aesthetics, of the study of art at all, is that it teaches the viewer or reader how to see and experience more deeply, with more sensitivity, and this in turn (among other things) leads to the ability to recognize the fraudulent. In other words you come to recognize propaganda.

— John Steppling, Anteroom of Our Own Extinction

True art, I propose, resists propaganda from every side, and is therefore, a superior demonstration in the art of self-empowerment. Reality is king, imagination the queen of art’s domain. In between is the stuff of drama, unfolded not just for entertainment but also our enlightenment, whether grandiose or minute.

A more or less random pick from the roadside free stall illustrates the point. The Pilot’s Wife charts a human drama of tragedy and intrigue, following a downed airliner. In the course of the film, the viewer comes to know the facts about the case, up to a point. At the end, the aggrieved wife—spoiler alert— carries on despite not knowing all the answers, nor a final determination of which side was to blame for the bomb in the cockpit: was it the IRA, or its opponents seeking to discredit the IRA?

It is enough to entertain, outside either narrative line, both possibilities. We might call this kind of art metapolitical, or apolitical. A closer look at historical examples of such acts of terrorism shows ample evidence of false flags, planned atrocities blamed on one’s opponents. Which only makes sense in terms of who stands the most to gain from the story. Public exposés by now have outed the anti-communist CIA with its Operation Gladio, Israel’s bombing of the King David Hotel and blaming it on Arabs, or the orchestrated fiction of Syria’s Assad “gassing his own people.”

In such a world, is it irresponsible not to take sides, not to blow the whistle unequivocally on crimes against humanity?

Certainly. But the power to argue and advocate directly on evidence is by definition political. Art can and should address vital issues in depth; but the approach and methodology is different. Art includes and also goes beyond politics. In that sense it is, by definition, metapolitical.

The Art of Self-Empowerment and The Power to Create

Beyond government’s reach is the power to create beauty from truth, the art in self-empowerment. This creative realm is the playground of the artist, the prayer rug of the mystic. It’s not about talent or credentials or chosen craft. The inner artist, the silent mystic, is the knowing soul in each live denizen of earth.

Both paths, of art and spirit, can fuel resistance on the political plane, but from a higher, deeper place, in service of common harmony and not divisive ego. The true artist is not about fame or status, audience or adherents; they are dedicated to passing on truth, ultimately inspiring and empowering others to create their own reality.

The dark side of reality creation is that it can be perverted and inverted for opposite ends: precisely for those rewards of status, power, reach and control; undermining truth so as to destroy with impunity; commercializing beauty for profit; disempowering and disallowing individual creative expression if it doesn’t serve the state or its corporate patrons.

In an era when television is a digitalised opiate and “the news” is 100% controlled propaganda, millions upon millions are being drawn into a suicidal dependency on quasi-political “authorities” whose scripted words and instructions constitute the poisoned arrows of genocide. This is not a film. We are already in a preplanned real-time scenario initiated by a small cabal with the intention of reducing the world population by 75 to 90% and, in the process, stealing all possessions in private ownership and using weaponised EMF technologies to create a 24/7 surveillance and mind control state. If there is one outstanding element that runs through all aspects of this control agenda, it is its dark intent. This is a satanic operation.

— Julian Rose, “Kracking the COVID Ghost Code”

Caitlin Johnstone has detailed the evil methodology in “The Illusory Truth Effect: How Millions Were Duped By Russiagate.” Martin Geddes similarly unpacks the current “War on Objectivity” in the essay “The Wars of Perception of Heaven and Hell”:

A total inversion of reality is needed… Only by re-engineering the baseline to be completely upside-down can you then create the endless “subjective virtual reality caves” by re-injecting selected parts of objective reality… As I understand it, this total inversion of right and wrong, fact and fiction, is the essence of the Satanic doctrine.

The good news is that creative humanity can slough off the fake reality being imposed upon us, as soon as we choose to re-learn or remember the art of self-empowerment. Collectively that’s taking far longer than anyone imagined, in the context of the COVID deception. On the other hand the civilizational charade has hoodwinked humanity for millennia, and it is only now at its apogee that all its sins are exposed for all to see… if we but open our natural eyes and contact our common sense, our intuitive discernment of what’s true, beautiful and real, and what’s false, horrific and manipulated for coercive gain.

In the meantime, we can continue to practice our creative skills in the service of a more fulfilling life, individually and collectively. The magic is there for the taking: whether “white magic” or “black magic” is the life-and-death choice before us.

The Art of Self-Empowerment Through Reality Surfing

A focus on creation and creativity might conjure the godlike notion of creating something out of nothing… every work of art, a little bang echoing the Big Bang. Or willing oneself from rags to riches, by the power of affirmation. But what about that alternate theory of the universe, the steady state model?

Maybe there is no beginning and no end; no such thing as nothing. Here on planet Earth we begin where we are; our creative materials are what we have on hand. To create a new life or design a revolution, we deal with what is.

In this mode, creating is also coping: riding the waves of reality. I call it “reality surfing.” If we don’t exactly steer the thing, we balance the board to make the best of it.

I don’t claim originality for the concept. DuckDuckGo (alternate search engine for reality/web surfing) turns up a book I sampled a few years ago (2012, obviously): Reality Transurfing, by Vadim Zeland. His Amazon bio confirms the ongoing lineage of the concept of living in a “world where the impossible becomes possible”:

Reality ceases to exist as something external and independent. and becomes manageable if you follow certain rules…. Transurfing is the art of controlling reality using our freedom of choice. The world always reflects our perception of it. People can choose any variant of the development of current reality and thereby find themselves in circumstances they find desirable.

Some readers will recognize this principle of reality creation as “the law of attraction” or the Law of One. Another self-help author, Brian Scott, expands the work of Zeland and others under the rubric “The Reality Revolution,” with a book, podcast and Facebook following.

A simple illustration of Scott’s premise is the profound observation, “You meet people who are reflections of what’s going on inside of you.” More to the point of creating a reality of choice, Scott says, “Whatever you focus on, you create.” By focusing on something, you bring it into your experience from the parallel reality where it already exists.

First we have to become fully awake to our waking dream; then, with practiced intent, we can manifest our desired dream. “Become aware of the script you’re in,” says Scott. “Become awake enough to choose what you want to do—to choose the reality you want to have.”

Quantum theory is relevant here too, with its emphasis on the decisive role of the observer in what is observed. As fundamentally creative beings we inhabit “the amplifying universe.”

The universe is benevolent and entirely neutral — it magnifies whatever you focus on; it only wants to give. From that wider perspective, it should be possible to conclude that our reaction to any given event will signify what we can expect to receive more of — if you are a victim, then you will receive more validation of that standpoint. If you insist that all experience is self-generated and therefore merely a mirror on our own processes, then you can embrace the event as a configuration that is designed to bring you opportunities, awareness and information that will serve your higher good. The benevolent quantum mechanics of the universe, or multi-verse, then follows that program on your behalf — and you can find peace in the inevitable pay-off that will ensue…. The mantra of the sage in the quantum age might be: “This situation serves me for my highest and greatest good. I trust the universe to deliver fortune to me always.”

— Corey Lynn

Creation, in other words, is participatory. It’s not a spectator sport—unless you choose to sit out the action and watch TV.

Which is probably why, for those who prefer you leave the creating to them, TV is the best thing to come along since… well, Propaganda Radio and the Hearst newspapers.

A common critique of the law of attraction is that many try and fail to manifest their dreams; and many more suffer misfortune or injustice or random bad luck for no fault of their own. Call it karma? Or blame the victim?

I don’t dwell on that debate. The metaphor of surfing seems more apt. It doesn’t lay blame or rely on false hope. It takes what comes and tries to make the best of it.

That can be a duty of survival, and it can be more: an act of co-creation, a dynamic partnership with what is, toward what can be next.

And in that full spirit, there is no trying—just balancing, holding the tension, relaxing, riding the wave. Becoming immersed, again, when that one’s done, and swimming back to catch the next.

The Art of Self-Empowerment and Walking on the Edge

In my writings I explore what it’s like to walk the line between reality and possibility; expressions and impressions in the art of self-empowerment. Where does freedom meet its limits? What consequence does each choice have?

Caught in a whiteout like a mountain dream, with life or death behind every door. (Rendezvous)
Hacked by an AI beta bug, Norton gets schooled in choice outcomes, tough love. (PsyBot)
Exactly how might this drum part fit? Is it really “all good?” (Friday Night Jam)
At each stop on the journey: Am I there yet? Is she the one? (My Generation)
A pilgrimage of our own creation, walking where history meets freedom. (Red Rock Road)
Traveling light, keeping warm, digging deep, finding the world. (The Last Tourist)

Stories and narratives, like the characters themselves, demand alternative solutions, or angles of representation. Parallel timelines, doses of magic.

Tales within tales, like tracks in the snow: the hunter, and the hunted. (Hunter’s Daughter)
All the virtual worlds are real, if we choose them (and when they choose us). (PsyBot)
The world his oyster… till Felix Krull’s precocious ka came crashing through the Lifelines database, landing him in the limbo of Bicentennial America. (The Last Book)
Spiraling cycles, dancing with fate… my turn to lead? (My Generation)
First person, third; present, past; fiction, nonfiction… Who is the child of this breath, this moment? (Red Rock Road)
Threading past the crowds, to temporary tribe, spirit paths, home. (The Last Tourist)

In the true misadventures I have survived many a threat to my living freedom—some caused by carelessness, some by compromised contentment. And in turn, I’ve been bailed out, time and again, by fate, or by dogged persistence in finding a new path… a new balance of health and home, a deeper dive into love and nature.

For any person of similar intent, your path will open to invite who you really are.

Nowick Gray writes from Salt Spring Island, BC. His books of genre-bending fiction and creative nonfiction explore the borders of nature and civilization, imagination and reality, choice and manifestation. Connect at NowickGray.com to read more. A regular contributor to The New Agora, Nowick also offers perspectives and resources on alternative culture and African drumming, and helps other writers as a freelance copyeditor at HyperEdits.com. Sign up for the “Wild Writings” email newsletter for updates and free offers.

Image Credits & References

(Featured Image): dolphins1: dolphinfoto.com
Elite: @seabusmemes
Lockdown: Steve Hunter
Blaylock: healthyprotocols.com
Cartoon: madebyjimbob
Orishas: Nowick Gray, New World Haiku
Quote: Van Morrison
Weatherman: OffGuardian.org
Dolphins2: telegraph.co.uk
Tiger: facenfacts.com
Niger: earthasart.gsfc.nasa.gov