The Church of Programmed Perception

“Consider something you take for granted, something everyone takes for granted. Now back up from it, back up far enough and you begin to realize it’s arbitrary—it doesn’t have to be that way. It could be another way, or it could vanish and not exist at all.” — Jon Rappoport, The Underground.

The logic of space and time is the system/arrangement in which we find ourselves; the way we perceive reality.

Objects are next to each other, behind each other, in front of each other. And wherever they are, they are in space.

This space. Earth. Sky. Stars. We are here, and this is the deal, the contract, the set up.

A building 50 feet away from us looks bigger than it does when it’s a mile away.

Space endures. It doesn’t suddenly fold up. It doesn’t fall apart. There may be wormholes and black holes, but generally there are no visible exits from space. The fabric doesn’t tear and rip in the wind. This space doesn’t suddenly find itself superseded and replaced by another space. We don’t walk out of space.

Of course, most people would say, “How could things be otherwise?”

Actually, this question speaks to the rigidity of the perceptual arrangement. It’s a much denser version of “how could my opinion be other than true?”

And time is just as bad. Events must proceed is sequence. There are “before” and “after.”

We might notice there are days during which time crawls along and other days during which it speeds by, but confidence remains that a working clock is the final judge and makes no such subjective distinctions.

However, the passage through space and time appears to contain exceptions or anomalies. For example, if we accept the notion of quantum entanglement, two particles, quite far apart, both register an impact visited on one particle at virtually the same moment.

But not to worry. We don’t see that happening with the naked eye. As far as we’re concerned, space-time is “uniform” in all respects.

Then there is the issue of the composition of matter. A vase on a table is made out of tiny, tiny particles in motion separated by enormous amounts of space. We don’t see it that way.

The spectrum of human perception is limited, and we are catching only the “gross aspect” of What Is.

All matter is un-solid energy moving in space, but we’re only given a perceptual system that allows us to deal with solid objects.

And this deal is so embracing, we can strike the vase with a hammer and break it into smaller solids.

In terms of ordinary experience, all bases are covered.

Operating systems, programmed perception, endure across the range of all possible conditions.

And now comes the wild card.

Imagination.

A painter invents something on a piece of canvas. A writer writes a novel. A composer writes a symphony, which is not a language in any terms with which we are familiar, and yet we sit in a hall and listen to it, and afterwards, we talk about the effects it had on us.

We say art is weaker than every-day space-time reality, but is that true?

Or are we just sticking to the contract we signed, the deal?

The modern surveillance state is only one way in which people are urged to “remain normal.” The whole apparatus of perception is a programmed norm.

Imagination ignores the apparatus. All it does is invent realities.

The human race acts as if it’s constrained from believing in imagination.

But what if that constraint were broken?

What would happen then?

One reality, indivisible, with injustice for all, would fall by the wayside.

The stranglehold would be destroyed.

Most realities are created by imagination.

Actually, if you understand that the program of human perception was also created by imagination, you can simply say:

Imagination creates reality.

Consider a museum. You have the building and the hundreds of paintings hanging on the walls. Then you have the realities in those paintings which the artists imagined. We say the reality of the building is stronger and more uniform than what the artists imagined.

Why?

“It just is. And also, the building and the pieces of canvas can be measured, but what the artists imagined is open to interpretation.”

Consider a measurable symphony hall vs. the music the audience hears in it. Aren’t there moments when the symphony—however many ways it is being “interpreted” by the audience—is so strong it virtually blots out the perception of the hall?

What’s the substance of this contract into which we’ve entered?

“Okay, here’s the deal. The physical world is certainly there, but we’re going to program you so you only see it as we want you to see it. And you’ll also believe imagination is a ‘secondary tool’, a weak sister. For example, the content of a painting will never assume the importance of a wall or a car or a cloud—unless you move outside your program. To keep that from happening, we’ll have gangs of experts who label you as sick and insane. Have a nice day.”

When people say, “Imagination? I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t have any imagination,” they’re saying, “I’m loyal to the program.”

Groups applying peer pressure, experts, governments—they all define spaces over which they assert ownership, and they claim you’re in their spaces and therefore you must perceive the consensus they establish.

This con extends all the way up to the logic of space and time: you have to see the way you’re programmed to, and you have to ignore anomalies—especially the grand anomaly called imagination.

And eventually we get to this: the life you have was given to you; the he, she, it, or they who presented you with that gift of life have the right to tell you what you can see and what you can’t see. You have no life of your own.

Therefore, at the highest possible level, you’re in debt, you’re a debt slave.

And right next door to debt is guilt. Amorphous guilt.

And then you have organized religion.

Perhaps you’ve noticed these religions invent and promote their own cosmologies, their own pictures of the universe, the cosmos.

This is what they want you to see. This is part of their programmed-perception operation.

“Hi, I’m from the Church of Programmed Perception. I’m here to give you your booster shot. You’ll see more clearly, and you’ll bury that annoying and distracting thing called imagination ever deeper. Roll up your sleeve. This’ll only take a second.”

Jab. Inject.

That second then becomes forever.