FALLING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
4/5/07
I’m certain we have all had a friend or relative who virtually lost their minds over some conspiracy issue or some religious or ethnic hatred. It is a difficult position to be in when you believe with all your heart that something is wrong, but the rest of the world could care less or doesn’t believe you. When this happens we already have one foot in the rabbit hole, and are about to plant our second foot in it and take a great fall.
One of my first falls down a rabbit hole was when I accepted the theory, that Christianity was the way and the life, and all other religions were the wrong way to God. Every religion begins brainwashing their young at birth. Christians baptize their young in water, Jews circumcise them, other religions have other traditions to brand their children with the mark of their beliefs. Foods, music, church services, religion classes, etc. are all used and designed to train the young , impressionable mind to be a devout and guilt ridden follower of the “chosen” religion. A Jesuit priest once remarked to a close friend of mine; “If we can teach a child Catholicism before his sixth birthday he will be ours forever.” I found that statement to be quite frightening. It isn’t just Catholicism that practices this mind controlling technique. Every religion does the same thing. What makes the Jesuit’s statement most frightening is, when one considers the vast number of pedophiles in the Catholic priesthood.
I was raised a Catholic, by learning to make the sign of the cross , confessing my horrid, six year old’s crimes to a priest and not eating meat on Fridays. I remember having to say ten Hail Marys and 3 Acts of Contrition to purge my soul of the great crime of fighting with my sister. By the time I was seven I had decided that fighting with my older sister was self defense, and I’d said enough Hail Marys and Acts of Contrition to last the rest of my lifetime. I began to understand, that if I confessed every sin I’d supposedly committed to some weird guy, who wanted to hear every “sinful” thought of a six and seven year old,then I had to be crazy. Hell I was only seven years old ! By the age of reason on or before my seventh birthday I found a way to climb out of the rabbit hole of Catholicism. I suffered through all the sanctimony, sacraments and Sunday clothes that I could stand. I had started smoking by the time Confirmation came around. A friend and I got caught by the parish priest, as we were sharing a cigarette behind the church, after Confirmation practice. We offered to do 100 Hail Marys each if he didn’t tell our parents. After he told our parents my friend and I caught hell for it, but it didn’t stop us from smoking.
I guess I carried the mark of the big, bad, beast and was damned and excommunicated by the church by the time I was 12. I was entering puberty then, and discovered the delights of pretty girls and Playboy Magazine. My father seemed to be going through a crisis of faith as well, and would often skip church for an overtime check. My mother finally gave up damning my soul and his, and took the rest of the family to Sunday Mass.
I discovered in my late teens, that there were many other rabbit holes I had to be careful not to fall into. The most mind blowing was infatuation. Girls, Girls, Girls. Wow, I couldn’t get enough of them. I fell in love every week. The minute a pretty face would flirt with me I was swooning. By the time I was 17 I realized I had fallen down a rabbit hole at 12 and didn’t know it. I had dated and fell in and out of love with every pretty girl in town. By my high school graduation I had spent most of the goodwill the good people of the town had for me, and I decided it was time to move on.
I thought I had escaped the rabbit hole again when I went to college. It was there that I realized that everyone I met was in a deeper rabbit hole than the one I had just climbed out of. I found that many of my professors were so far down their rabbit holes, that they would never find their way out. Students were into everything , drugs, booze, sex, politics, fraternities, sororities, hazing, hunting, fishing, philosophy. Name it and someone was into it. Their rabbit holes were all of different widths and depths and led somewhere underneath the ground that I was walking on. It didn’t take me long to see that the campus grounds were full of rabbit holes and I would have to step carefully not to step on someone’s head.
I have side stepped many rabbit holes since then. I have fallen into a few as well. For all I know I may still be in one and not realize it. Falling into a rabbit hole is easy to do. Even the smartest people I’ve ever met still fall into them. The one rabbit hole that I am most careful not to fall into is the one I have fallen into and climbed out of several times. They are the most dangerous, because they are always the best camouflaged. Often times someone who is in a hole invites you in to join them. You may think that you are on a clear path and are making great strides towards achieving your goals, and you may just be visiting a friend. Suddenly you realize that you are standing on a hole, or already in the hole with someone else. You may be quick enough to jump to solid ground, or you ignore it because the ground looks solid, or your friend doesn’t seem to be worried and is trying to convince you that you are not standing in a hole with him or her.
This happened to me recently, when a friend of mine fell into a rabbit hole, and tried to convince me to join him. He tried to convince me that I was going the wrong way, and that the truth I was seeking he had found. He told me how he had dug deep down into his hole to find this great secret. He was convinced that it was the key to the kingdom of all understanding. He was convinced that after all his years of searching he had found the answer, and the key to unlocking the secret to all the ills and problems in the world.
I had known my former friend for several years. He had been correct about many things, and had brought many truths to light for me. I trusted him to the degree that I could , so with some reserved excitement I was very anxious to hear about his discovery. He teased my curiosity with a few questions and leading clues to see if I might have known the secret already and was keeping it from him. By his questions I sensed where he was leading me , yet I let him go on so I could be certain. I feared that he might have taken the ancient bait, that has deceived so many throughout time. I feared that he was becoming tired and frustrated by his life long quest and was retiring by accepting Christ or Buddha or Mohammed or some other prophet as his key to all understanding. I had always hoped that he was wiser than I was, and more cautious of falling into rabbit holes. My former friend was not. He had led me to believe he had found the secret, until he told me what it was. He said with a self satisfied grin; “JEWS, ITS THE JEWS ! YOUR A FOOL IF YOU CAN’T SEE IT ! THE JEWS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE WORLD ! EVERYONE IS A PUPPET TO THEM! THEY OWN AND CONTROL EVERYTHING! I’VE FINALLY FOUND THE TRUTH. I DON’T HAVE TO LOOK ANY FURTHER !”
My first thought when he said this was, how the hell did he come to that conclusion? I thought he was a rational man with some unique theories, but this was not unique nor was it original. This was not a theory equal to his natural intelligence. This was totally out of character for him. He had always been a defender of tolerance. He had always taken the side of the downtrodden and humanity’s victims. He always spoke out against racism and was in favor of protecting human rights and the natural dignity of humanity. How could he have fallen so far down the hole of Jew hating that he seethed . He reminded me of the character of Golom in the Lord of The Rings, who greedily held on to the ring of power even though it was destroying him. He said that he looked at everything, referring to evidence to convince himself and me, that he held the “precious” secret.
I have known many Jewish people in my life and none of them were or are conspirators. They would like me to say; that they were extremely smart and all knowing , but I have to admit my Jewish friends are much like myself. Some have been more successful at avoiding rabbit holes than I have, and others have been less successful. To blame all the world’s problems on these guys would be absolutely ridiculous. No one can blame all Americans for G.W’s crimes against humanity. Nor can anyone blame all Jews or all Israelis for their leaders’ crimes. Every race and religion have committed crimes against one another and against other races and religions. To blame one race and religion for all the suffering of humanity absurd. Jewish paranoia is warranted by the Jewish people and expected. Any person would understand their fears based on their history of persecution. The paranoia of Jews is a rabbit hole occupied by millions. Millions place the tragedy and losses of their own lives and fears of existence conveniently into hatred and scapegoat their guilt and shame upon an entire race and religion, who have defied the world’s hatred against all odds, and have continued to exit.
The Jewish people would have no power without the aid and cooperation of non Jews. It is too easy to blame the Jewish people for the ills of the world. It is always the men and women in power who create or end the ills of their nations. It is the religious and political leaders and zealots, who by their insatiable greed for power and control create the divisions amongst religions and nations by brainwashing their followers, to close their minds and hearts from having sympathy, compassion and tolerance towards their fellow men.
I hope my former friend will eventually find his way out of his hole. I will not visit him there again. I hope he opens his mind to understanding; that all the ills of the world are created first by each person from their indifference to or intolerance of their fellow man. No one group of people , or one person can control all worldly events without the complicity of billions. The secret to ending world suffering must first be looked for in ourselves. We must ask if we are guilty before we can blame anyone else. Are we guilty of indifference or ignorance and bigotry, or are our deliberately deluded daily actions adding to world suffering?
L.A. STEEL
Recent Comments