On Religion and Addiction

I've been thinking about the similarity between addiction and fake religion (as opposed to true religion) lately.

The difference between being an addict and living Life normally is very much like the difference between fake religion and real religion.

In both addiction and fake religion the underlying problem is the inability to recognize the beauty in Life and feel reverent awe for the holiness of Life and all existence. And so, in order to feel something intensely, we begin to make a facsimile and do a parody, a ceremonial representation, an exaggeration to the point of grotesque reenactment of the elements of Life. Eventually the caricature of Life becomes a mockery of Life.

It is painful for me to admit, but nonetheless true, that Judaism is the most guilty of having created an elaborate ceremonial travesty. This farce is based on not understanding what Torah is really saying and, as a result, Jews perform ceremonies when we should be living Life in the full awareness of the indwelling sanctity. Then, not being satisfied by these artificial enactments of Life, just as those who are addicted to refined sugar instead of eating fruit and those addicted to opioids instead of living Life in such a way that the normal levels of dopamine will be produced in the brain, and like those who are addicted to sex because they do not know how to make love; so the Jew finds only emptiness in the ceremonial re-enactment of what he has not understood. Instead of rethinking his understanding, he compounds the ceremonies with additional strictures and customs. Finding himself even more separated from his Soul and feeling ever more starved for what he really needs and desperate, he becomes rigid and adamant and intolerant.

The Catholics learned to perform ceremonies instead of living Life from the Jews. They are doing re-enactments of the re-enactments of the Jews compounded by their complete removal from the Source.

It is good that the Protestants rejected the many ceremonies of Catholicism. At least, they are not burdened with re-enacting re-enactments on top of further misunderstanding the misunderstandings of the Jews.

Both addiction and fake religion derive from some occlusion in the Soul that does not allow the natural appreciation of the greatness of Life and they are  hyperbolic experiences of what should be normal Life experiences for those who are occluded and numbed to the point of not seeing the obvious, ambient sanctity of Life and wonder in all that is.

The torments of addiction eventually lead the occluded Soul to force himself or herself to look at the Universe and ask what is wrong. Eventually, the addict is brought to his or her knees and surrenders.
Dare we be as hopeful for the Rabbis?

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Belief System

A Belief System is not so much about the beliefs, but the System. When you enter into a Belief System, you enter a Covenant with all of the others who have adopted and devoted themselves to the same Belief System. It is, therefore, imperative that you observe how the people who adopted this Belief System comported themselves in actuality, not what they claimed to believe in, because your Soul is now intimately tied with all of them.

Don't let the beauty of the claims of the beliefs influence your decision whether or not to join - ask yourself if you are honored and dignified by the Society.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel

DoreenDotan@gmail.com

MANUFACTURED THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS

Your emotions and thoughts are, in the main, manufactured by the image makers. You cry when they push your buttons. You laugh when they push your buttons. You become indignant when they push your buttons. And all it takes to push your buttons is to put before you a cleverly-crafted, striking image. You have been subjected to systematic Pavlovian conditioning over many years. You salivate when the media tell you to.

There is another aspect of manufactured emotions that the public should be made aware of. In addition to making these images very startling in order to arouse the desired emotions in the public and steer them down blind alleys to non-action; those who are controlling society are also doing their best to make people's everyday lives as grey, banal, boring and marked by drudgery as possible. Against the grey background of the public's manufactured lives, the manufactured images are all the more startling - and the public is all the more hungry for some color, some excitement - to feel something.

I know it's unpleasant to admit that we've been conditioned. I went through the process of admitting that, bright a bulb as I thought I was; I too had been duped and conditioned It's humbling and disturbing to realize that the techniques developed in labs on animals have worked on me too. But there is no getting free of the manipulation until we admit this to ourselves. Once we get over the ego hurtle of realizing what has been done to us and accepting that we fell prey to it, the conditioning becomes painfully obvious and we are no longer subject to it. We can work our way out of a trap only if we realize that we are in a trap.

I cannot stroke your egos and tell you what you want to hear about this. You must become the Masters of both your thoughts and your emotions. Until you master your emotions and your thoughts, you will be slaves to The System.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel

DoreenDotan@gmail.com

CORPORATE BRANDING



Now realize this has been done to your Psyche not by one brand, but my countless brands since your birth. It is done again and again, every day, everywhere you go. You cannot go out a day in your life without having your Psyche assaulted by a hot Brand.
It is done to your children too.
Do you see now how much scarification has been done to you and to those whom you love? Are you outraged enough yet to stop the assault?

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Aim HIGH - Think Highly of Yourself

Aim HIGH. Aim very high when confronting those who are corrupt.
If you concern yourself only with your national politicians, you are concerning yourself with clerks. Their job is not policy determination - it is simple on-the-ground implementation. The corporate press pumps them up in the public's eyes. So, they look very important. But a President or a Prime Minister is really just a glorified clerk - of little importance.
Your level of Freedom is directly proportional to the highest level in the Chain of Command that you are willing to confront.
Think highly of Yourself. Very highly.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel

DoreenDotan@gmail.com

DOREEN ELLEN BELL-DOTAN'S ANTI-WAR SPEECH CENSORED HEAVILY

ON FACEBOOK

Sept 7, 13

Knowing in advance that my position is staunchly ANTI-WAR, I've been pre-empted on Facebook.

For the last two days, my ability to post has been severely reduced on Facebook.
I cannot send messages, receive messages, comment on others' threads, share posts or delete posts and my ability to comment on my own posts is severely limited.
Also I cannot see any details about photos whatsoever and cannot comment on them. The whole right side where those functions should be is a blank.
I also have no Older Stories function either on my page or on others'.
I can only see a few items on my page, only three on others' and no more.  

Revolutionary Meditation

There is nothing that rulers like better than people who focus their energy on their belly buttons and are therefore rendered ineffectual or who chant mantras rather than Propagandizing to the purpose of Awakening Others.

Intentional Action with Others to the purpose of serving the Highest Ideal you Visualize in Common is the highest form of Meditation. It involves you and others, together, on the level of your Souls, your Psyches, your Minds and your Bodies.
It is, therefore, the most comprehensive form of Meditation, which you do on every level of Being *and* it is done Collectively, thus amplifying the power manifold.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

ב"ה

מלך – יועץ ולא שליט

שׂוֹם תָּשִׂים עָלֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ, אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בּוֹ:  מִקֶּרֶב אַחֶיךָ, תָּשִׂים עָלֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ--לֹא תוּכַל לָתֵת עָלֶיךָ אִישׁ נָכְרִי, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-אָחִיךָ הוּא.
– דברים י"ז: ט:ו

התואר מלך בתורה הוא במובן של יועץ, ולא שולט

פרוש שרש מ-ל-ך הוא גם ליעץ וגם להועץ

עתה, אנו יכולים להבין את הכתוב בתורה אודות מלכים.

כאשר אנו יועצים לאדם ו/או מקבלים עצה ממנו, אנו מלכים

מלך = 570 = לי לך = מכנסת = נסמכת

דוד = 14 = אוהב = אהוב

דוד מלך = אוהב לי לך

דוד הוא היועץ האוהב והאהוב, ולא השולט

המלכה = 100 = ק

המובן של המלכה הוא אינו אשת השולט בתורה, אלא העצה

נמלך = 620 = כם = כתר

יושם אל לב: מובן זה של שרש מ-ל-ך מופיע הרבה בספרות הציונית – אך כמעט נעלם בזמן קום המדינה

דורין אלן בל-דותן, צפת
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

B"H

The Hebrew Root M-L-Kh Means Adviser or Counselor, not King

For thirty-one years I am in Israel and did not know until this Shabbat that the Hebrew word Melekh, which is usually translated 'king' has another, more original, meaning: Counselor or Adviser.

The meaning of the word that is usually translated as 'king' in Torah, does not mean ruler, but rather Adviser or Counselor.

Interestingly, the same radical  m-l-kh means both to advise and to be advised by.

This, correct, use of the radical M-L-Kh was common in the original Zionist literature, but was silenced when the State was established.

Now, the name David, as is commonly known, means beloved.

In Hebrew Gematria, it also equals 'the one who loves'.

So King David in Hebrew means: Loving Adviser and Beloved Advisor.

The name Shlomo (Solomon) comes from the radical sh-l-m which means: Perfection.

King Shlomo, then, is Perfect Counselor or Perfect Adviser.

So, now we know the true understanding of everything that is written in Torah about what we thought are, but are actually all those who Advise and Counsel us in Love.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel

DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Someone on LinkedIn asked in the Spirituality and Consciousness Group:
How is consciousness different from thought?

This is my tentative answer, which I hope will make the greatness of Humanity eminently clear to our detractors.

Thought is talking to consciousness. Consciousness is unwavering and above language. Thought is language-dependent.
Thought is a conference, deliberation and negotiation between unlimited possibility (Consciousness) and thought which issues from the desire of the heart to bring about a specific reality.

There is One Consciousness that contains everything that can be, everything that is potentially can be and everything that cannot be.
In Human form, we have taken it upon ourselves to examine only certain aspects of the One Consciousness.
To use the terminology of the day: it is a "‪#‎Fractal".
We are "zooming in" to consider certain parts of the pattern. Sometimes we "zoom out" for what seems like an instant in retrospect and see the whole One Consciousness, but it is not differentiated and we don't see all the possible details - just the fact that it is infinite. So, we return to our current consciousness and look at it detail by detail, in accordance with our abilities as Humans.
There is something else that happens in the "zoom out" - we can't relate to anyone in particular, because we don't see the particulars.
Thoughts are the considerations of part of the pattern (the "zoom in"). Consciousness is The all-Encompassing (the "zoom out").
The All is contained in the particulars, of course. We can see this when we perceive the meaning of the particulars and what they represent. This is a "Fractal" after all. Yet, we are still able to observe differentiated particulars in the Human "zoomed in" focus.
It's hard to put into words what I mean. I try very hard not to use flowery language and terms that are overused.
First, when we understand things; we are able to express them in our own words.
More importantly, the sublime has to line up with the ordinary flow of life. If we sound too fancy, we have not merged the sublime and the mundane - and do so is what Life is all about.
The word "spiritual" makes me uncomfortable. Actuality is where the action is happening.
When we see the sublime in the mundane we feel the urge to Morality strongly and want conditions of Justice and Compassion for all Creatures - conditions within which they can fully actualize their potential.
If I strive for Anarchy in socio-political structures it is only because I know that Anarchy is an Ontological principle and only in Anarchy can we be the Everything we are meant to be.

Above I wrote: There is something else that happens in the "zoom out" - we can't relate to anyone in particular, because we don't see the particulars.

I'd like to elaborate on this point.
The judging Human limitation, frailty, incapability in negative terms is not understanding that we are taking on Human form precisely in order to be able to perceive only a small part of the entirety that is Consciousness.
In Human form we create the illusion of "other" in order to be able to relate, to learn from, to help, to play with. All that does not exist when we are in full-on God mode.
Our exalted greatness resides precisely in our willingness to sacrifice the Omniscience and Omnipotence that is our true Self in order to create particulars to be able to relate to "Others".
"Others" and "Limitations" are the illusions We create in order to be able to give.
The alternative to being limited and fragile in order to be able to give is to be Omnipotent and Omniscient and Eternally All Alone.
Everyone you see around you is God who made the decision to become a Human and accept all the pain and travail that entails in order to be able to do some act of kind for another, because we have to become limited in order to an Other to exist.

The price we pay for not living lovingly and morally is that the frailties and limitations we took on in order to be able to relate to an Other remain - but the original Purpose for taking on the trials and travails and vulnerabilities inherent in being Human are not realized. So, we find ourselves limited, vulnerable, frail - and lonely and unfulfilled.
It is only in the relating to others lovingly and morally that the Sacrifice of giving up our Omnipotence and Omniscience that we made when we took on Human form is worthwhile.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel

DoreenDotan@gmail.com

HYPOTHESIS:

Is Unrequited Desire the Progenitor of Potential Realities?

As a young Philosophy student, I pondered the status of potential worlds. What, I asked Myself, is a potential world? Does it exist? If it does exist, then is it potential properly? Are potential worlds generated? If so, by what?
I think that now, decades later; I have some of the answers I sought so long ago.

We are all familiar with the experiences of unrequited love and disappointment.
We tend to think of these experiences as negative and undesirable because they cause us great discomfort.

To make matters worse, we have been taught to believe that the resulting ruminating, fantasizing, wondering what might have been are unhealthy, "obsessive" ways of thinking that should be eschewed. We are admonished for "brooding".
We are told to "buck up" and "accept reality" and "cope".
We are told that to imagine that which is not, is "magical thinking", which we are told is the weakness of children and the feeble-minded. We are taught that brooding is futile.

But is pain the measure of whether or something is undesirable?
Birth, for instance, is very painful for most women. Should it be eschewed, then, and considered undesirable?

Perhaps the thought process that we well-nigh universally experience as the result of not having that which we desired, of having our hopes dashed is not called "brooding" spuriously. Perhaps, indeed, we are hatching something. Perhaps the pining for that which we wanted and lost, or never realized, is a species of birth pangs.

When we get that which we dearly and urgently desired, our reality lines up fairly neatly with how we visualized and hoped things would turn out. The pretty blonde who moved in next door accepts our invitation for dinner. We ace the interview for the coveted job. Our fantasies and hopes and visualizations become concrete reality. All is well with the world – this world.
What has actually happened is that what they call a "Quantum Collapse" in modern sort-of-scientific jargon has occurred. One reality has come into being and our minds do not visualize alternatives because we are satisfied with the results.

What happens, however, when our hopes are dashed? What happens when the neighbor next door, who we have come to really like, does not wish to begin an intimate relationship or we do not get the job in the office with a view that we wanted, and perhaps need, so very much?

We begin to brood. We begin to visualize how we wished the event had turned out, but did not. We begin to second-guess the person's motives for not granting us our heart's desire. We begin to weigh all sorts of possibilities as to why the rejection occurred. Maybe the boss already has someone else in mind for that job and interviewing me was only a formality. Maybe the boss wants his nephew to have the job. Maybe I wasn’t qualified enough. Maybe I said something offensive during the interview. Maybe my suit is not fancy enough…

Maybe the girl next door is interested in someone else. Maybe she is gay. Maybe I had bad breath. Maybe she wants someone richer than I. Maybe I am more intelligent than she feels comfortable with. Maybe….

Each one of those possible scenarios - *exists in a potential world*.

The satisfaction of our desires creates an actual world. Our visualization and reality lined up and there is no reason to visualize alternative scenarios. A "Quantum Collapse of a cloud of possibilities", as they are wont to call the phenomenon nowadays, occurred.

Not having our desires fulfilled, however, generates a virtual tsunami of thought. We begin to examine every possibility we can think of looking for an explanation of why we did not get what we so fervently wanted.

Now here is the beautiful part. Each of those scenarios that we imagine is but one potential event *in an entire potential world*. No individual event can occur without having an entire world as a support system for that scenario. If we imagine, for instance, that we lost the job because someone was better qualified than we, we are creating a potential world in which there must be potential qualification, and potential methods of acquiring those potential qualifications, and, therefore, in that world the concept of acquisition potentially exists...A potential scene in a potential world must be supported by all sorts of potential phenomena.

Now here's the part that's even more beautiful: Some of the potential elements in that potential world may be just what someone in an actual world might want or need. Maybe that which the person wants or needs does not exist in that person's actual world, but it is a necessary element in the world which is the support system for one of our ruminations, our brooding. We have hatched a world in which someone's desires may be able to be fulfilled, including our own.

If that which exists potentially in our imaginary world, as part of the support system of that which we hoped existed, are things and circumstances that many others embrace, perhaps that desire is enough to make our potential world into an actual world.

And if that is the case, then the non-fulfillment of some of our desires in this world is not only positive, it is immensely productive. Unrequited Desire might be the Progenitor of other worlds – worlds that begin in potential might just might be actualized if enough folks need or want it so.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Is There Life on Other Planets?

I've come to the (tentative!) conclusion that there are no "other planets" - that what we are looking at are alternate combinations and permutations of our own world that we see diffracted when we consider space - which is another way of saying observe our own consciousness.
If we were a hundredth the size of a pore in skin, it would be eminently clear to us that there is no inner and outer space.
When we look "out" into space, we are looking "in" as well, as there is no inner/outer space dichotomy as it appears to us because of our skin.
When we look at "other worlds" we are looking at alternative ways of understanding our own consciousness and our own world.
Therefore, there is life on every planet *precisely because there is life on this planet* and this planet is but one of innumerably, if not infinitely, large number of alternative realities of One Realty.
The life that exists on "other planets" is us - in alternative forms.
Aliens then, are us in forms we have not yet come to recognize as ourselves.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel

DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Sex and Anarchy on YouTube

In this video the subject of Sex is discussed from the Anarchist perspective.
The subjects covered are:
Monogamy and Non-Monogamy,
The Sex Industry,
Age of Consent
and
What It Means to Be "On the Spectrum".

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

#‎Sex
‪#‎Anarchism
‪#‎Anarchy
‪#‎GLBT
‪#‎LGBT
‪#‎Monogamy
‪#‎Marriage
‪#‎Age
‪#‎Spectrum
‪#‎Polyamory

#Syndicalism
#Work
#Job
#Industry

Video: Sex and Anarchy

In this video the subject of Sex is discussed from the Anarchist perspective.
The subjects covered are:
Monogamy and Non-Monogamy,
The Sex Industry,
Age of Consent
and
What It Means to Be "On the Spectrum".

Sex and Anarchy from Doreen Dotan on Vimeo.


Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Sex and Anarchy
In this video the subject of Sex is discussed from the Anarchist perspective.
The subjects covered are:
Monogamy,
The Sex Industry,
Age of Consent
and
What It Means to Be "On the Spectrum".

Sex and Anarchy by Doreen_Dotan

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

ANARCHISTS IN SOCIAL WORK- Known to the Authorities

I highly recommend this free, on-line book to anyone who has any interest in the problems surrounding Social Work.
It is a compendium of articles written by a number of Anarchist and Radical Social Workers.
Reach out to them as sources of critical information and all-around allies in your struggle against Social Work Corruption.

"Some of the most damaged people are in positions of social work authority...(pg. 52)....I found in my experience that some of the upwardly mobile career women were the worst for this carrying on barely concealed vendettas against other female clients and social workers who disagreed with their decisions. All in the name of 'professional decision' (pg 83). [sic]"

"So brazen are the managers, that social work is called 'Cash-Led', and 'Best Value'...the client is not only neglected but actually violated by this system." (pg. 54)

Newns writing about one of his bosses: (He) knew how I felt about doing Sections - that is removing someone's person liberty by law. He would wait till I was on duty, and 'save' a child abuse investigation just for me, and 'order' me to remove the child. I was quite prepared to use this authority when no other means was available, but it was so often the case that statutory power was invoked as an exercise in arse covering, because of lack of imagination or risk-taking. "(pg. 60)

The above quotes were excerpted from ANARCHISTS IN SOCIAL WORK - Known to the Authorities' "Anarchist Ideas in Action, by Mark A. Newns.
Newns, now retired, was a long-time Anarchist and Social Worker.

http://anarchistsinsocialwork.org.uk/index.php

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel

DoreenDotan@gmail.com

The End of an Eire

THE END OF AN ÉIRE (full length documentary)

Highly recommended documentary by Thomas Sheridan.

Rethinking the Idea of Ownership of Prisons – 

Cooperative Ownership

Through the Eyes of Women: What a Co-operative Can Mean in Supporting Women During Confinement and Integration

http://usaskstudies.coop/socialeconomy/?page_id=1495

This is a tremendously promising idea.

One of the things that always disturbed me most about Anarcho-Capitalism was the promulgation of the idea of privatized prisons and police forces.  was stuck in the concept of private ownership when I rejected the idea out-of-hand. We see the results of private ownership of prisons and militias and they are nightmarish.

However, the integration of the concept of Co-Operative in the ownership of prisons and police forces is entirely different.

Let's concentrate in the space of this preliminary discussion on prisons.

If prisons are Cooperatively owned, they will be owned by a group of people who are essentially different in their weltanschauung than are Capitalists. Moreover, there will be a number of people supervising the project. Additionally, that Cooperative will no doubt be part of a cooperative Network, which will provide moral, as well as economic, checks and balances.

Earning shares in the Cooperative prison can be integrated into the Rehabilitation process. As prisoners show more identification with society and willingness to be part of society, they earn the right to be owners, and therefore decision-makers, in the prison.

Training in various other types of Cooperatives can be offerred in prisons and job opportunities in Cooperatives will be part of the process of release from prisons.

This discussion was initiated in a group called Cooperatives on LinkedIn.

The idea is not just for women, of course. I'm offerring this article because it is the only article I know of that considers the idea of Cooperative prisons.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel

DoreenDotan@gmail.com