Here is an important refresher on the Trivium method of critical thinking, with the steps placed in the correct order. I use the various synonyms for each step interchangeably, so please use the following as a foundation for understanding the rest of the article.
- Grammar (information, data, knowledge, input): asks/answers what (who, where, & when) questions
- Logic (reasoning, understanding, processing, processor): asks/answers why questions
- Rhetoric (image, wisdom, output): asks/answers how questions
IMAGES
An image is how something is packaged and delivered in order to be assimilated by a viewer; it is rhetoric (wisdom), and thus the third phase of the trivium. However, when the pretty wrapping is all that is being delivered, where it is devoid of grammar (knowledge) and/or logic (understanding), it is a false image and empty rhetoric. People have been trained to look to the external packaging as their means of validating information and truth; they will accept it if it looks pretty, and they will discard it if it does not line up with their image of how they think it should be.
Discernment is where a person is able to gain enough information, process it correctly, and discern whether or not the output is pure and aligned with truth, whereas judgment is only examining the output to determine whether or not it is true. ~Nathan & Aline
Social engineering has made particular images look appealing to the public consumers, so that they might desire to either possess it, or be it in relationship to others in order to be possessed. There are many false images available to the public for purchase, and in may ways, they have become archetypes that narrow our thinking to only rhetoric, where any reasoning (logic) we might have, or knowledge we might acquire, is only used to attain or justify the experience of taking on the image as an identity. There are a myriad of images to choose from, intended to be used to construct an identity around, such as doctor, healer, religious leader, religious adherent, professional, hero, author, blogger, knight, whore, masculine man, feminine woman, good parent, spiritual guru, spiritual adherent, messiah, and many more.
For example: I acquire the knowledge necessary to become the image of a doctor, and I use my reasoning to justify why I should be a doctor, why I should be paid well as a doctor, and why I should be treated well for being a doctor. However, my reasoning is not used to understand why building my identity as a doctor may not be beneficial for myself or my supposed patients. Once I am a doctor, the knowledge I have about being a doctor, in my specific field of expertise, is then used to perpetuate the rhetoric that doctors are more qualified as an external authority to their patients, to both diagnose and treat them with the latest and greatest cures and therapies. My identity is that of having attained the priesthood of the medical industry, giving me authority over the lives of others.
As mentioned, people will discard true information if it is not wrapped in effective rhetoric, especially if it does not match their image of how they’ve been trained to perceive it should look, or if it does not offer the possibility for them to benefit the image that they have shaped their identity around. People and companies compete to make the most useful false rhetoric, to sell a product that people perceive will best allow the attainment of possessing or being any particular image. Product X competes with product Y to be the best at granting the status of image Z, but to do so, the sophistication around the packaging must be tried and tested to deliver the best results; being good at creating and selling the products that support a false image is what is known as being successful in this reality. The various images, and the competition to compete for crafting the best products to support the image, is a counterfeit version of free will, where people are given many images to choose from, and many products to enhance a person’s ability to be or possess an image.
AN ESOTERIC EXAMPLE
The notion that an image is rhetoric, and that a false image is empty rhetoric, brings the following passage in Revelation into better context, as it states:
Because of the signs it [the second beast] was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. ~Revelation 13:14-15
It can be deduced that the first beast is a governmental system, probably something like the United Nations, and that the second beast is an influential person who speaks on behalf of the world religions, or maybe a coalition of religious leaders, who give power to the first beast to speak rhetoric on their behalf. In context of what we’ve been saying about empty/false rhetoric, bowing down or worshiping the image of this governmental system would then be people forced to submit to this morally corrupt (empty) government or face death.
WHY?
The reason that people make poor choices is because they weigh their options based upon whether or not it lines up with their pre-programmed rhetoric that they learned from their family, society, schools, religion, and governments of origin, rather than upon sound grammar and logic. All of their choices are geared towards giving them the rhetoric they’ve been conditioned to desire, where even their grammar and logic are used to grant them their expected outcome. Because of this methodology of incorrect thinking, they are forced to cook the books when contradictions arise between their knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and the more that they invest in their fraudulent bookkeeping, the deeper into the lie they must journey. They continue on with their creative accounting schemes due to their emotional attachments to their perceived need for gaining approval or avoiding rejection.
An attachment is when a person is attached to attaining a particular outcome and image of rhetoric that they think they should have, and they then channel their mental energy towards it with supporting knowledge and reasoning. This causes them to be goal oriented and living in a future expectation of attaining their desired image, rather than allowing their input and logic to create their outcome (rhetoric/image) free from contradictions, which is living in the truth of the present moment, and therefore in the flow of life. When somebody tries to be present but is still using the old thought pattern of relating to rhetoric as an empty package, what they are doing is seeking the image of presence, which makes presence an expectation that they are striving for as a future goal and not something they are truly experiencing in the present moment. Presence only occurs when grammar and logic precede rhetoric, not when it is seen as rhetoric; presence is the byproduct of the methodology of right thinking, and not the goal to channel one’s thinking towards.
GREED & LUST
All in all though, what is being sold is an empty package, as the image is void of knowledge (data) and understanding (logic), as any knowledge and understanding it does have is merely used to support the selling and crafting of the empty package. Those who choose to wait long enough to deliver a package that contains both the proper initial knowledge and understanding, without any contradictions between them, are seemingly at a disadvantage to those who are able to go into action faster with their false images. While those who act without having first processed (logic) the correct knowledge (input), have an apparent advantage over those who must wait to act until after collecting enough knowledge and understanding, since they appear to actually get things done right now. However, since those with false rhetoric are acting with contradictions present between their input and logic, their manifestations are flawed and susceptible to external destructive forces.
In reality though, those who wait long enough to acquire the necessary knowledge, and take the time needed to ask “what” and “why” enough to remove the contradictions between their knowledge and understanding, have a distinct long term advantage over those who jump into action faster. The dark side acts faster without the proper knowledge and understanding, thus causing many contradictions, while the light side slows down their actions to ensure that all of the contradictions are removed, thus manifesting purer creations. The dark side gets around this weakness by occulting knowledge from the masses, through conditioning the masses into emotional attachments, and by social engineering people into the belief that they must act in order to keep up with the actions of the dark side.
When an individual or organization tries to act faster, without all of the planning, processing, and care that the dark side has accrued through their systematic plans throughout generations, they place themselves in the position to live and die by the dark side’s sword, since they are trying to play by the rules that the dark side created. In gambling terms, they’re trying to beat the house at the house’s rules, which just isn’t possible. When an individual or being takes the time to slow down though, to gain the necessary data (grammar), and to process it correctly (logic), they can transcend the house rules and play the game (rhetoric) that exists beyond the limited game (false rhetoric).
If a light being is given an ultimatum to act or lose something valuable, such as act or die, they may feel that they do not have a choice, but they actually do have a choice, because the dark side does not have the power to actually kill or harm somebody who has not consented to it in some way. Those who are attached to the survival outcome become vulnerable to death, and their actions motivated by their attachment is their consent to playing by the dark side’s rules, which causes them to be vulnerable to harm from an external source. Nevertheless, they do have the free will to wait and gather more data (grammar), and process (logic) out their contradictions prior to acting, for as long as they are not actively manifesting, they are safe from being harmed by the dark side, but once they do act, they are back on the same playing field, so they better make sure they’ve done their homework and risen above the ‘house’ rules.
In addition to being threatened into acting too fast, a light being can also be seduced into acting too soon, and this is done to exploit a susceptibility to an attachment to something seen as beneficial, such as money or intimacy. Greed and lust are the byproduct of improper thinking — being greedy for the perceived safety of rhetoric — and of lusting after the perceived freedom offered by those who seem to have attractive rhetoric; but as discussed, they are mere shadows and empty packages compared to the truth. Abundance is the truth while greed is its false image, and satisfaction is the truth while lust is its false image. Acting too soon from fear is what causes one to indulge in greed, while acting too soon from seduction is what causes one to indulge in lust, but if they were to think in the correct order, by building their rhetoric on the foundation of sound grammar and logic, and wait until all of the contradictions were removed before they acted, they could instead experience a life filled with abundance and satisfaction.
Those who are still experiencing problems in their own rhetoric/output, are either unaware that they are still attached to particular outcomes / images/ rhetoric, and/or still operating with contradictions between their grammar and logic. If they were pure and without contradiction between their knowledge and reasoning, and thinking in the correct order without emotional attachments, they would experience both satisfaction and abundance in their lives, and their rhetoric would flow easily and effortlessly from their right thinking. It is the responsibility of each individual to renew their mind and reprogram how they think and perceive life, nobody else can do it for them.
CONCLUSION
While most people validate information and truth by looking at the external packaging of rhetoric, they still have the capability of learning how to actually discern the truth, by instead founding their rhetoric on grammar and logic. Rather than using their knowledge and reasoning to provide their desired rhetoric, they can allow their rhetoric to be the product of their knowledge and reasoning — this change in how they think will cause them to shift from expecting a potential future outcome, to living in the purity of the present moment.
**For more information on Dark or False Rhetoric, please see the articles “Dark, Negative and Limited Trivium – Language and Reality Pt.4” and “Dark Rhetoric Addendum” at Evolve Consciousness.
