13 Reasons Why I Need To Withdraw From Substack Now
Plus my final longform rant about Globalism, Religon and Spirituality
Like so often, this Substack was triggered by another Substack I read. This time it was from Igor Chukov, a writer I admire much.
I was fascinated by it because it mirrored my own process: The process of moving away from Substack and writing. In the past few days, the thoughts of writing my last Substack occupied my thoughts more and more.
In my head, I drafted a list of reasons why I not only want to stop but need to stop spending so much time on Substack. Not only writing but also reading. Here is the list:
I had to admit to myself that I am addicted to the Substack news cycle and that I fooled myself for a while by thinking that this was any different to the “mainstream news cycle” regarding addiction potential. Maybe it is even more so because it is perceived as more true and therefore more essential.
I had to admit to myself that I was deeper in a paranoid rabbit hole than I thought I was. It doesn’t mean I discard all “conspiracy theories”. I just move them from “absolutely true” to “lots of facts support it“, and “certainly gonna happen” to “there is a possibility it will happen.” Following from that shift:
I need to drop the doomsday glasses and enjoy a lighter innocent in-the-moment life again. This is not the “I-don’t-want-to-know-head-in-the-sand” approach many too traumatized people need to do to not go crazy. I can’t unsee what I have seen. I can’t unlearn what I have learned here. But I feel I know enough for now, maybe forever, because human nature and cycles of history seem to repeat themselves. And I feel I worked through most of my own trauma. All this leads to the realization: Yes it is bad, yes it could get worse but I don’t know if and I don’t know when and there is not that much I can do about it anyway. I feel I do what I can and the rest is not up to me. And I don’t have that many years left - so I might as well enjoy them as long as I can.
I joined Substack to deal with first the Covid lies and then the threat of global transhuman totalitarian rule. But the vast majority of authors don’t cover that. They cover everything but that. For example, I am so over American politics and the upcoming elections. As if that changes anything for the globalists. These are all distractions and I am tired of them. Next stop - radically trimming my writer’s list.
I do less real relationships and real work and hobbies out there while being addicted to Substack. It doesn’t improve my marriage or the relationship with important real people who matter. I isolate myself socially in real life.
It helps me to procrastinate.
It keeps me in my head
It stops me from my spiritual practice
It feeds my ego and seduces it with superficial unreal “like” dopamine kicks
In short, it doesn’t bring the best out of me anymore
It is happening already anyway - as so often, I overestimate my “free will”
It already happened. These are the dying convulsions of my finite mind that hasn't fully realized it. I lately have those weird thoughts that things already happened in some other realm and my mind tries to come to terms with it. (This covers the esoteric angle)
I am not sure yet how this withdrawal will pan out practically. There is a very strong intention to reduce my online time with Substack but I don’t think I am ready to go cold turkey yet.
This is mainly because, despite the 12 points above, I also feel some real value in it. I feel a real connection with a small number of writers and readers. They feel more like real friends than readers and writers. And I would miss them.
I also have this cathartic urge to express my opinions - no matter how flawed, self-absorbed and ultimately insignificant and, absolutely speaking, untrue they are. It just feels good to say what I feel to say and to not care much what others think about it. It doesn’t mean I am not interested in being challenged on them or debating them.
In fact,
The lack of true debate on Substack
is another reason to leave.
I love a true and friendly clash of opinions and constantly find myself baiting writers but either no one takes my baits.
A recent example. I baited Jeff Childers publicly on notes several times now - nothing ever comes back. None of his fans got triggered. I suck in baiting, obviously.
I don’t expect Jeff himself to respond - he is busy becoming an influencer and increasing his subscribers. In the process playing the Christian card, as, according to him, do Rogan and Brand these days. Yes, Jesus is “hip” again and lots of Christians can be captured by throwing the odd Bible quote in without really understanding what it means.
PS: Despite my anti-Christian deposition I actually like Jesus, I have zero beef with him. He once helped me greatly.
I see Jesus and Christianity as two completely different topics. I have immense respect for Jesus but he (and the Bible) is simply not my favorite teacher. I need a different approach, that’s all. (More on that later)
Ok, so here are the 13 reasons why to stop Substack articles and unaddict myself from Substack. I try the measured approach first. I am not ready for cold turkey. I will stop posting out Sustacks but I simply can’t make myself shut up for good - yet.
Therefore I will still post on Notes. In the unlikely event that my rantings interest you or at least amuse you, you can see all my Notes on my homepages if you choose the “notes tab”.
So is this the final goodbye to MaMu’s Substack long-form articles?
Yes, but not without one final long-form indulgence. This one started as a direct response to Igor in his comment section but ballooned out dramatically into a final swan song.
My final swan song
Igor, you are one of the very few authors here I trust. While I enjoy every article you write, I don't have any expectations on how little or much you publish. I fully support your path that you only write when you find a write-worthy story. Quality trumps quantity at any time.
I feel you when you muse about paid subscriptions. I am a much smaller fish and don't have many paid subscriptions, but I paused them a few months ago and feel much better because of it. It took all the pressure off me.
I seriously think about the consequences for society of monetizing and patenting everything these days.....especially ideas and information. JC Hopkin’s musings about how extreme unchecked capitalism turns everything into a commodity and destroys it by doing so have been playing a lot on my mind recently.
That doesn't mean I support any form of communism. There is a lot of workable space between these two extremes, and I felt a few nations were going towards that healthy middle-ground e.g. Scandinavian countries and even Germany back in the seventies and early eighties. But the least checked American greed for wealth and power has infected the whole world.
Monetizing everything, especially information and ideas, eventually will lead to the death of our societies. I find it increasingly strange that so-called activists for human rights like Schellenberger and many others put paywalls up. I don't respect them at all and think they are hypocrites.
If you really care about democracy and human rights and freedom of speech, you don’t put your written protest behind a fucking paywall. A little anger there, forgive me.
A paywall is literally limiting freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not only about the right to express but the right to listen to everything that is expressed. Censorship is not only restraining the author but also the reader.
Yes, full-time writers have to make a living. But if you are good enough and have your heart in the right place, plenty of people will take out paid subscriptions without the need to block out the rest. Anyway, I am digressing, sorry.
Your process mirrors mine and, judging by the comments, that of an increasing number of people here. Which only shows that you have your fingers on the pulse of your readers.
I have been contemplating writing my last article for a few weeks now and removing myself from Substack. It started beautifully when Substack was a genuine freedom movement for people from many ways of lives and opinions that all united against the totalitarian overreach - left and right, young and old.
But over time - and especially in the past 6 months - I feel more and more that I am on a right-wing, Christian, Trump-promoting propaganda platform only.
More and more people are also trying to make a buck or two and behaving not much differently to big pharma in principle, e.g. using fear to sell products that might or might not help, not covering similar products that do or not do the same (good old house remedies that work against viruses and parasites) and are available for a fraction of the price. (I am talking about "The Wellness Company" and its promoters)
And politically speaking, another typical and fairly moderate example (there is much worse), was Dr. Malones recent article about his speech in Romania to "Make Europe Great Again". An American importing stale right-wing slogans to Europe? Give me a break.
Saying this, I think Malone is also excessively demonized. In my view, he is just an ambitious man who secretly feels cheated out of a fortune for his mRNA contributions. Now he tries to be an influencer with ambitions to be part of some sort of power position in a future government, Trump or Kennedy.
He is just one example of many who try to profit in one way or another from being on Substack and therefore fertilizing the materialistic greedy cancer of monetizing whenever there is an opportunity to do so.
When gaining power and influence is just a stepping stone to personal wealth and power, we support this system that the global transhuman materialistic philosophy is built on. We are so used to this now, that it feels normal and legitimate to do so.
All this, in my opinion, really works for the Globalists. They want division and heated national tribal politics to divide and distract people. And they want lots of greedy and power-hungry people only thinking of themselves. Such people will never unite against them.
There are not many writers left that research and investigate the mechanisms and intentions of the Globalists. You asked for ideas Igor - this is one - as actual and pressing as ever. You mentioned the lull at the WEF.
I believe that the lull at the WEF that you mentioned is not a coincidence. I think they deliberately keep a very low profile atm because they made a few mistakes during Covid. They got greedy and overplayed their hand, especially Klaus Schwab. "By 2030 you will own nothing and be happy", and "We infiltrated many national cabinets" hit a nerve even with the most subdued and brain-dead masses. Despite their tight control of the media, that did get mainstream. It spooked a lot of people and that also explains the current pushback against the WHO.
However, these organisations will always have the upper hand as long they exist and have power because they think much more strategically and long-term than the average Joe on the street. They are incredibly patient. This globalist movement started in earnest with Henry Kissinger (at least the latest instalment) in the late sixties.
Laying low for a few years means nothing. There is a lot to research to explore and write about - especially the secretive doings and power of the international bankers who are still hiding in the shadows. @Neoliberal Feudalism is a great starting point. I know you are more of a science writer but I would love to have your analytical mind applied to the banker conspiracy theories and proof or disproof them.
Klaus Schwab himself isn't that patient because he is getting older and personal ambitions flood in and make him rush. I wouldn't be surprised if Klaus Schwab will be replaced very soon because he is spoiling the Globalist’s progress.
Anyway, hardly anyone speaks of the Globalist anymore on Substack. To me this is the biggest and by far the most pressing issue because it can lead to transhuman totaliarism and immense suffering.
Instead, the so-called thought leaders on Substack are either too stupid to recognize this threat and get distracted with politics, or deliberately pull the audience towards meaningless political division that serves their own ambitions but also serves the Globalists.
I don't believe many deliberate Globalist actors on Substack are put there on purpose. It is not needed and is a waste of resources. The greed and power hunger of many writers who want to make it and gain influencer status are causing enough divisions and distractions without any Globalist prompting. In short, they know that we are too greedy and selfish and will never unite and they are exploiting that masterfully.
And there are also bigger historical forces at play that have to play out, no matter what. These also work in the Globalist’s favour. Sometimes I think we overestimate the influence of certain people or organisations. Yes, they scheme, manipulate and sow division deliberately.
But they only can do that because societies are ripe for it. I think Mattias Desmet is touching on that in his latest article regarding a suicidal society. I do believe that there are powerful forces that actively prefer depopulation (and they are convinced that it is "a good thing" and that they are good people that do humanity a favour and humanity just doesn't see this yet but they will be thanked for it and receive hero status in a few decades for it). These people exist and they send out these signals to vulnerable people (and let’s face it - that's the vast majority these days - vulnerable, unstable and manipulated people who have lost their sense of their own true being and are pushed around by the winds of propaganda). These perpetrators and their actions exist.
But any seeds - including seeds of destruction and decline and death - have to fall on fertile soil to sprout and grow.
And it appears, the soil has been prepared over the past half-century. Actively prepared, no doubt, but these things are also governed by bigger, long-term, historical waves of construction and destruction. That's just how the universe works. It isn't a linear growth.
New, better civilisations are built on the ashes of old civilisations. But are they better? Was the Roman Empire worse than the British or the American Empire?
Doesn't that assessment depend on who you ask?
If you ask Americans and their Western allies - of course the American Empire is better than any Empire before. If you ask people in other parts of the world - those who were ruled and exploited (often indirectly and covertly) by the American Empire probably think differently. I am sure, the people living in Iraq would have preferred to live in the Persian Empire, not the American.
So it is not all Klaus Schwab, and the WEF and the WHO and the billionaires and the international bankers. It is convenient to allocate a face and name to this approaching misery the historians will call "the great decline of the American Empire" because that's what is happening. The most obvious attributes of a declining empire are:
1. Decadence (The Romans put bird feathers down their throats to induce vomiting after a feast so they could eat more; nowadays, more and more fat people have their stomachs stapled because they can't control their eating addiction)
2. Widespread corruption which is closely related to the monetizing of everything which is closely related to
3. Extreme materialism which is expressed in the new religious status of science, leads to
4. Extreme human arrogance that perceives itself at the core and in control of the universe and results in people seeing themselves as mere body-minds with no other purpose than to be born, recreate and die. In German, there is this fitting proverb: "Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall", meaning "Arrogance precedes the downfall" and results in
5. Nihilism instead of true spirituality. At this point, the main religions are also completely corrupted and function as limited hang-outs for those who still have spiritual needs but never intend or can satisfy these needs. In fact, I could write an article that gives numerous examples that the religions undermine and disapprove of true mystical exploration of their members (The Christians tend to kill and torture those who don’t oblige and find God for themselves e.g. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhardt etc)
There is a certain mood of destruction in the air and studying history will enlighten and console the brave ones that are ready to see reality as it is. Like always and everywhere - love/awareness is the key to peace and happiness. Living in any kind of illusion will cause suffering earlier or later.
On a personal level, the challenge, as I see it, is not necessarily to fight this upcoming destructive phase of history at all costs until exhaustion because that is ignoring our personal resources. We should leave that to those who have a calling to be a martyr, like JC Hopkins, for example. He is taking on the whole new normal Reich of Germany and I can’t see a happy ending for him, sadly. I hope very much I am proven wrong.
We all have to play our roles until we see them as what they are: Roles, compulsions, and unconscious enactments of unresolved psychological needs which we often transfer to social situations and politics. I therefore deeply mistrust any activist or ideologist - from far left to far right and anything in the middle. And no matter how noble the cause seems to be. No matter how pure the intentions seem to be. I said it before and say it again: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It is not the intentions or causes or motivations or integrity of the activist that concerns me - it is their illusion of believing that the world can be bettered for all. Someone always pays a price.
It is their lack of wisdom that causes more suffering despite genuinely trying to wipe out suffering. They don’t know (yet) how much they don’t know. They never looked into the belly of the universe and its myriad of cause-and-effects.
If they would, it would immediately wipe out their belief that anything useful or meaningful can be added to that by an individual act of power or agency if such a thing even exists.
Saying this, there is also a spiritual form of martyrism that is not based on or intending to change anything by victim power. It is simply a true spiritual awakening and full realization that we are not the body-mind we believe we are.
This eliminates every fear of death and sets us truly free. The enlightened person, as reported by many such people from all times and cultures, has completely dis-identified from this biological entity we call body-mind and does not really care if it lives or dies, because it also realizes that this is vastly dependent on the universe and circumstances. They often report that the body-mind can perfectly look after itself when left alone, like anything else in nature (e.g. plants and animals).
So they speak absolute truth without fear. Sometimes that gets them killed by authorities who feel threatened by this truth. Jesus is the most famous example but there are several similar cases not well known. They are seen as martyrs, but none of them chose to be killed and none of them had any intention to use this as a victim power play to bring social or political change.
With all due respect, the Christian belief that “Jesus deliberately died for our sins” is one of the biggest pieces of propaganda ever unleashed on humanity. He told the truth and they killed him for it. That’s it. He didn’t choose that. He wasn’t the first and he won’t be the last. The belief that he deliberately sacrificed himself was fabricated to make Christians feel guilty and inadequate. People who feel like that can easily be manipulated. But I digress. Let’s move on from religious propaganda to real spirituality.
There is a lot of real spirituality out there and it often starts with first following a traditional path or technique or practice we feel drawn to. We should follow that calling, whatever it is. Then we should see if it improves our lives in general. That doesn’t mean it is all joyful times.
Sometimes we have to dig up a lot of dirt to find the gold. But overall it should be fun. The whole Christian idea that spirituality is suffering, because Christ suffered for us on the cross, is propaganda. It is much easier to rule guilty people who are prepared to suffer than joyful truth-speaker types like Jesus himself, for example. How perverted to use a torture and killing device (The Cross) as your symbol for your religion?
Nothing of that has anything to do with Jesus, by the way. Did he ever say: “I will sacrifice myself for you and I want you to pray to my torture device?” Did he really have the choice not to be nailed to the cross? Was he any different to them than any of the other poor souls they nailed to the cross?
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t feel empathy for him. Deep empathy and sadness. It is a horrendously cruel act to kill someone like that. But to fabricate a story that he deliberately wanted to die for our sins doesn’t make any sense.
Every mystic’s only purpose is to help others to self-realize their true nature. A Jesus that would have lived another 50 years could have done that so much better than one dying on the cross.
I suggest people choose positive, life-affirming and ultimately blissful spiritual pursuits.
Non-dual spirituality (Advaita Vedanta) is one of them that I know myself intimately. And it is growing rapidly at the moment. Rupert Spira, one of the growing numbers of Western teachers, has almost 500.000 Subscribers on YouTube alone. He is a brilliant teacher and this is an avenue that can help some people to readjust themselves from the social conditioning of our times and embark on a journey of true self-discovery.
However, like everything else, non-duality can also be used and abused to promote nihilism. In a bigger context, any teaching of a mystic can and will be abused by charismatic people on the way. And, to make things worse, it is extremely difficult to judge if a spiritual teacher is genuine.
Good advice on which guru to trust (often translated as spiritual teacher but literally means “the dispeller of darkness”), comes from a much-loved and admired non-dual guru himself, Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Q: How can I make out whom to follow and whom to mistrust?
M: Mistrust all, until you are convinced. The true Guru will never humiliate you, nor will he estrange you from yourself. He will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection and encourage you to seek within. He knows you need nothing, not even him, and is never tired of reminding you. But the self appointed Guru is more concerned with himself than with his disciples.
Nothing could be further from standard Christian attitude and advice:
“never humiliates you” vs “you are born a sinner”
“your inherent perfection” vs “you are born a sinner and die a sinner”
“you need nothing, not even a guru vs “The only way to God is through Jesus”
“seek within” vs “pray to God”, although Jesus himself said, “The kingdom to heaven is within you”.
It is not what Jesus taught that is the problem. It is how the Christian churches have twisted and corrupted it over time.
But that is a danger for every institutionalized spiritual movement. Non-duality is no exception.
It is a very fine line between nihilism and non-dual spirituality and there is a real danger that the Globalists use it as their official new global religion. Like all other religious systems, it can be corrupted and abused to subdue and manipulate people.
Therfore, is should be made very clear by these teachers - over and over again - that if the practice of non-duality doesn't lead to loving the self, loving the other and loving all of existence - it is not done correctly.
In that sense, it is no different to true Christianity vs lipservice Christianity. I still have to meet a Christian who truly "loves his enemies as he loves himself." Are you listening Jeff Childers?
Matthew 5:43-48
Love for Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
I do not blame Christians for not being perfect. I am not perfect, how can I? But I blame them for being arrogant and ignorant. Almost all of them call themselves Christians for two egoic reasons: To belong to a tribe and to take the moral high ground.
Hypocrisy is rampant among nowadays Christians. I could write a book on it. And it comes as no surprise because they subscribe to a corrupt religion.
To be fair, there is a fair amount of people who earnestly try to go back to the source of what Jesus said with a pure heart and they take much wisdom and enlightenment from the source.
I just want to suggest to them to stop calling themselves Christians, because they are not Christians. They love Jesus and are disciples of Jesus, a legitimate enlightened prophet. And Jesus never was and never will be a Christian. While he technically was a Jew by birth, he made it clear what he thought about the corruptness of Judaism at the time. So I would not call him a Jew either. The truth is that no mystic ever was or will be religious. It just doesn’t go together.
Jesus was not religious. He didn’t subscribe to any religion. He was a purebred mystic who walked his own path of suffering to gain enlightenment. And so should we all. Nothing less.
His amazing story was then used to found an organisation called Christianity that possibly started with pure intentions to provide a path to enlightenment but was soon hijacked and corrupted like most organisations. Anyway, I digress once again, but this is my last day writing Substack, so forgive me for my indulgence.
To finish this part, people must be aware of the danger of non-duality also being institutionalized and captured by the transhuman globalists as their new world religion. Because of its scientific approach, non-duality is a perfect match for them.
But the scientific approach (self-enquiry) is not the path of Advaita Vedanta. It is simply a tool, a technique. Similar to prayer which also is just a tool and technique. Or mediation. Or Yoga. Or mantras.
They all serve a purpose but they are not what we are after when we try to find our true nature, find God, dissolve our egos - or whatever you want to call the mystical experience that will change our lives forever for the better.
Once again, if it doesn’t increase and end in love, it ain’t spiritual. And I am not talking about love “for” objects or people. I am talking about love as an independent aware state we can also call - “awareness /love”. It doesn’t depend on what happens to us or in the world - good and evil don’t apply.
Only in that context can we follow Jesus’ demand to love our enemies. The only way to do that is by stopping to distinguish - the favourite past-time of our mind - between “good and evil”. As long we label and see a person as our enemy, there is no way of being able to love him. In that sense, it is impossible to love our enemies, because categorizing them as enemies is based on being afraid of them and hating them. Why else would we call them enemies?
The only way to truly love our enemies is by knowing the true nature of ourselves first - pure love/awareness. As soon we see that we also know the true nature of our egos - a cloud of illusionary thoughts, beliefs and habitual conditioning that is not real and solely playing out in a mental game we are addicted to.
As soon we see that our imperfect egos are really not our true selves, we also see that in every other person. We see them acting out mental games they take for real. But we know and see their real nature - “love/awareness” as well. So we ignore their ego trips and relate and respond to their real nature, which is the same as our real nature: love/awareness. That’s what Jesus meant when he said: “Love your enemies.”
The Bible is full of spiritual wisdom, no doubt. But I think it is inferior to many other spiritual texts and teachings because of several reasons:
There was a lot of Chinese Whisper going on before Jesus’ words were written down - depending on scholar - between 50 and 100 years after his death
When it was written down, humans soon started to meddle with it for political reasons to beat the Romans. Not everything in the Bible is from Jesus and a lot of quotes have been changed.
It has been 2000 years and a lot got lost in translation.
Quotes and language are part of a particular culture and context. We are vastly removed from the original context and culture.
No disrespect to Jesus - but his body-mind wasn’t particularly educated and he wasn’t a gifted teacher, IMHO. Being a mystic - finding your true self or God (the same thing) - has nothing to do with being a good teacher. Being a good teacher is a worldly gift and training, and some mystics are better at it than others.
Many enlightened people don’t teach at all. Some, like Ramana Maharshi, teach but hardly ever talk. And some don’t teach through words but through chanting and smiling (Hari Krishna). All of them are acutely aware that the truth about God can never be expressed in words. Words are always misleading. (Another reason why I feel the urge to stop writing - not progressing well in that though :-) )
Ok, I want to wrap this up now. (My great weakness).
Apologies for not having the energy to trim and edit and spell check this wild last writing trip. This is another reason why I need to stop doing this - lack of discipline.
Thank you for your support and encouraging words, comments and ideas over the past year and a bit. It was a great and healing journey for me.
As I said, I will keep on ranting in the short form on Notes and in the comment section for a while and see if that works for me but I instructed my wife to shoot me if she ever sees me starting a long-form article ever again.
Take care.
Man, I totally get where you are coming from.
At first substack felt like a refuge filled with intelligent people unpacking all the crazy shit going on around us and, after 30+ years being out in the wilderness as someone opposing vaccination, it was nice to suddenly not be alone anymore.
I was definitely an enthusiastic and vociferous participant in the beginning until I began to ask myself if anything I said was doing anything to move the needle or making a difference. It wasn’t.
I also started to notice substack (or something) was editing my comments in real time and the usual agitators were popping out of the woodwork, especially once Israel /Palestine conflict started ramping up.
I ended up dropping a lot of my subscriptions to various stacks (including Igor’s) because it was all beginning to feel like a lot of noise with rival factions tearing each other down. Aside from this it’s impossible to support everyone who’s put their work behind a paywall.
I get it. They have to eat too. Still, I’m with you - if the message is so important to humanity’s future, why would you paywall it?
In any case, I have appreciated your writing and appreciate you allowing me to read your content for free.
I hope whatever you put your time and energy into next brings you joy.
❤️
👏👏🤣😂😉 Understand completely, but I shall miss you MuMu 😊
Be well, in all things.
🙏🙏