PREFACE

from 

Undreaming Wetiko:
Breaking the Spell of the Nightmare Mind-Virus 

Unmasking Ourselves

This is a time of incredible uncertainty and existential anxiety. Stress seems to pervade the very air we breathe. Fear is being endlessly produced by the mainstream media, infecting the minds of the masses. Propaganda has so insinuated itself into our sources of information that it has become harder than ever before to discern truth from falsehood. There are massive mis- and disinformation campaigns whose purpose is nothing other than to confuse and muddle our minds. We are truly in the middle of a war that, to the extent it is successful, most people don’t recognize: a war on consciousness. There is a massive spell being cast all around us by people and institutions that are themselves under the very spell they are casting.

Many among us have become numb and desensitized to the overwhelming nature of our crisis. People are inwardly checking out, becoming more zombielike by the day. It has become challenging to stay connected with our humanity. One of the major problems happening in our world today, amplified by the global lockdowns, is an epidemic of isolation and loneliness. Many people are depressed, despairing, pessimistic, and feeling utterly helpless and hopeless. Mental disorders are trending through the proverbial roof. Diseases of the skin (the organ that expresses the state of the psyche) are on the rise. Widespread homelessness is an undeniable manifestation of the unraveling of our society and our previously held sense of a well-ordered world. It’s as if the house of cards that has been our so-called civilization is collapsing in on itself, and whether we consciously realize this or not, our unconscious undoubtedly registers this fact.

The world is aflame, as are our psyches. The collective unconscious is in an uproar. It takes real courage to keep an open, compassionate heart in times such as these. Instead of building more nuclear bombs, we need to develop nuclear compassion. And yet, hidden within the very darkness that has befallen our world is a primordial light. Due to the nearly intolerable pressure in the alchemical vessel of humanity’s psyche, never before has there been such a real possibility of mass awakening, a process that always starts with people like you and me.

We are confronted by a darkness that has been living inside of us, a darkness that has been keeping our unconscious wounds, traumas, and unhealed abuse issues alive. We’ve been able to postpone looking at these shadow energies, but now they are not only in our face, they are behind it as well, which is to say that we are confronted on a soul level by the darkness of the world we live in, a darkness we all share. The question is: Do we indulge in our usual coping strategies to keep these seemingly darker, wounded parts of ourselves at bay (food, drugs, Netflix anyone?)—which is ultimately to avoid an authentic relationship with ourselves? Or do we unmask ourselves and unflinchingly face the darker, wounded parts within us?

I can speak for myself. Since the advent of the global pandemic I have felt even more intensely both the light and the dark aspects of myself, as if they are interdependent parts of a deeper process wherein one is evoking the presence of the other. Due to the urgent feeling that there’s no time to waste, it’s as if the creative, light-filled part of me has gotten more vibrant, while at the same time the deepest darkness embedded in my unhealed wounds also seems stronger than ever. The tension between the light and the dark parts of myself has intensified to a practically unbearable degree. As my light increases, the darkness within me is simultaneously coming to the fore, making itself known to the point where it’s getting harder and harder for me to look away.

It’s as if the light is illuminating everything in me that is not of the light, everything that is dark, which makes sense, as the purpose of light is to reveal darkness. As I more deeply connect with the light of my true nature, my subjective experience is that there is a seemingly dark force within me—wetiko—that wants to prevent me from connecting with the light at all costs. This book is about shedding light on that darkness in order to allow our light to shine.