02 March 2022

’Idál, 01 ‘Alá’ (Loftiness), 178 B.E.

Seen

Signaling a right hand turn ;-)

Done

Responded to the community moderator on WT.Social about the censorship of the article I posted. I include it below as a matter of record:

Thanks for owning the act of censoring my posts taken by you and other content moderators. The conversation can’t move forward if I don’t know with whom I’m speaking.

Thanks, too, for stating what you found offensive in Johnstone’s article which informed the rationale you used in doing what you did. It takes courage to make one’s thought processes open for challenge. Yet, to do so publicly invites others participating on this platform to offer their interpretations of Johnstone’s points. This gives sway to different (not wrong!) conclusions such as what Eric Dynamic so eloquently stated in his response. That’s how meaningful conversations — the sharing of personal narratives to find common ground, areas of disagreement, moments of “Aha!” when gaining new insights from one another — start. And having those exchanges, like this one we’re in now, constitutes the essential point of this platform (as I understand it) versus Facebook or Twitter.

Thanks, most of all for assuming that my intentions bore no malice toward any individual for group, as that is, indeed, the case. When I reposted the article I appended a couple of paragraphs from it in an effort to explain where I was coming from:

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Humans are storytelling creatures, so whoever can control the stories the humans are telling themselves about what’s going on in the world has a great deal of control over the humans. Our mental chatter tends to dominate such a large percentage of our existence that if it can be controlled the controller can exert a tremendous amount of influence over the way we think, act, and vote.

The powerful understand this, while the general public mostly does not. That’s all we’ve been seeing in these attempts to regulate ideas and information as human communication becomes more and more rapid and networked. An entire oligarchic empire is built on the ability to prevent us from realizing at mass scale that that empire does not serve us and inflicts great evil upon our world. The question of whether our species can awaken to its highest potential or not boils down to whether our dominators will succeed in locking down our minds, or if we will find some way to break free. ¹

I assumed this platform as a place where we can break free of that which locks down our minds, think for ourselves, investigate truth, awaken our highest potential, share our narratives, learn from each other, etc.

Over the past three days, I’ve been censored twice by community moderators for the same posting. I’ve never been sought out to clarify my rationale for the posting. I’ve been deprived of the opportunity to engage members of this platform in conversations about the points raised in the posting. Now, I’m left wondering if I’ve assumed wrongly about the intent of the platform or if I’ve misunderstood the guidelines for behavior on it as well as the roles of and license given to the moderators to control it. Hopefully, you are willing to respond to this and keep the conversation going.

That said, I’m moving on to other matters of importance. But will keep you posted on this as it unfolds.

Noted

Astral Prospecting on Instagram and Astral Prospecting on Facebook

Marc Bosserman on Instagram Marc Bosserman on Facebook, and Marc Bosserman Music and Musings on YouTube

Tab’s Galaxy on YouTube

Quoted

We are conscious that there are some regions and countries where the Faith remains at an early point of development, and there is a pressing need to ensure that what the Bahá’í world has learned about accelerating the growth process benefits these places as well. One important lesson that has become clear is the immense value, to a region, of a cluster where the third milestone has been passed. Once the friends in a given cluster have developed the range of capacities that such progress implies, and the means to disseminate insights and share experience about community- building endeavours are in place, then a swift acceleration of the work of expansion and consolidation in surrounding clusters becomes possible. With this in mind, it is imperative that during the Nine Year Plan the process of growth reach this level of intensity in at least one cluster in every country and every region. This constitutes one of the Plan’s chief objectives and it will call for the concentrated effort of many a consecrated soul. The International Teaching Centre is ready to work with you to implement several strategies to bring this about. Foremost among these will be the deployment of teams of international and homefront pioneers who are familiar with the framework for action and are prepared to dedicate significant amounts of time and energy to serving the Cause over a number of years. You will need to impress upon National Spiritual Assemblies and Regional Bahá’í Councils the urgency of encouraging believers who, following in the footsteps of so many heroic souls of the past, can arise to ensure that the light of the Faith shines bright in every territory. We look in particular to countries, regions, and clusters where strength and experience have accumulated to generate a flow of pioneers to places where help is needed, and also to provide support by other means. This flow of support is one more way in which the spirit of collaboration and mutual assistance, so essential for progress, manifests itself in systematic action. ²