What is the Fundamental Difference Between Kids Who Resist Propaganda and Those Who Don't?

What can we learn from the Pandemic regarding how to raise kids who won't drink the Kool-Aid?

I’m interrupting my 3-part series on the Divine Feminine and Masculine to posit an answer to a question many of us have been asking since the Covid lockdowns—What is the overarching psychological difference between people who comply and people who don’t? Why did so many people suck down the Kool-Aid of pandemic propaganda without a second thought, while others were suspicious from the start?

The difference between the two mindsets was especially bewildering when it existed between siblings who were raised by the same parents, went to the same church as children, and attended the same schools.

We know that propaganda pushers study the psychology of how to make their audience more compliant. So, why aren’t we making a study of how to be more resistant to mass marketing and brainwashing?

In 2020 I had a theory. But it wasn’t until I heard Joe Rogan’s recent interview with Oliver Anthony that I decided my theory was ready to propose to you, dear readers. After you read it, I welcome your ideas in the comments.  

Oliver Anthony, whose real name is Chris Lunsford, is a country/folk singer-songwriter who rose to stardom in August with his song "Rich Men North of Richmond". He was an unknown musician who did not do gigs, with an unpolished, unproduced tune that went viral so fast that it hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 list, making him the first artist to debut atop the chart without any prior charting history in any form. As of today, he’s had 52 million views since he posted the song on YouTube on August 13.

Why? Because the song hit a nerve for Americans. He sings with raw authenticity. Have a listen here, or read the lyrics:

Oliver Anthony, "Rich Men North of Richmond" Lyrics

I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day / Overtime hours for bullshit pay / So I can sit out here and waste my life away / Drag back home and drown my troubles away.

It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to / For people like me and people like you / Wish I could just wake up and it not be true / But it is, oh, it is.

Chorus:
Livin' in the new world / With an old soul / These rich men north of Richmond / Lord knows they all just wanna have total control / Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do / And they don't think you know, but I know that you do / 'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end / 'Cause of rich men north of Richmond.

I wish politicians would look out for miners / And not just minors on an island somewhere / Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat / And the obese milkin' welfare.

Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds / Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds / Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground / 'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down.

Just a couple weeks after Chris rose to fame and caused quite a commotion with the Left and the Right, Joe Rogan gave him a voice on the most listened to podcast in the world.  

Chris is an average 31 year-old blue collar working man, who lives on his land in a camper in Virginia with his wife and three dogs. He struggles with the same challenges that almost 60% of Americans are dealing with right now—the inflated cost of living is slowing killing our will to live. The nonsensical policies of out-of-touch politicians have turned our children’s futures into the American Pipe Dream. Our government seems to lie more than it tells the truth, and our attempts at fixing the problem have proven futile thus far.

In short, the whole country is collectively depressed and confused.  And that’s sayin’ something, given that the US is supposed to be the greatest country on Earth.

Only a small minority of us can see the pinprick of a light at the end of the tunnel.

We know it’s there, but most don’t.

Something about the way this young man sings transformed his lyrics into our country’s collective cry for help.

The good news: Chris also sees the light at the end of the tunnel.

His story, which includes a beautiful upswing of redemption and ascension, could be America’s story, too.

In his conversation with Joe Rogan, he shared that up until just a few months ago he had been managing anxiety and depression by using alcohol and weed more than he knew was healthy. He was going through the motions of going to work every day and keeping his head above water, but he was losing his will to do even that.

One day, less than a couple months ago, his anxiety grew to a crescendo and he found himself having a full-blown panic attack—the kind that feels like a heart attack. He’s a young man who can run miles, so he knew his heart was healthy.  But the pain was real. He drove himself to the ER to get help.  After they assured him that there was nothing physically wrong with him, he sat in his truck and had a moment that changed everything.

It was the kind of moment that I believe our collective American ego is on the precipice of experiencing as well.    

In his words, he described it: “I had a breakdown moment. I was just crying, I felt hopeless…almost like a child feels hopeless when you can’t find your parents. Like a four-year-old who can’t find his parents…I just didn’t have anything left in me. I decided right then and there that I couldn’t do this anymore. But I knew there were things I needed to do, so I just told God…just let me do it….”

He went on to describe an experience I’m familiar with as well. After fully admitting that he felt cut-off from some sense of a Divine parental energy that he absolutely yearned for, he reached out for it with all his heart and asked for help. He gave up the ego, surrendered his fears to something greater than his own mind, and unabashedly begged for connection and guidance. 

What then washed over him was the most beautiful experience of warmth and love that a human can feel.  Something stepped into his awareness and assured him that he was cared for. It gave him a different perspective. He asked this presence to help him act from a place of service to others, instead of his own ego.  He gave up alcohol and weed. He resolved to stop being so angry.

As he told the story he made it clear to the listeners that this was not conversion to a religion. It was just a man sitting in his truck having an experience that changed his whole life.

And then a few weeks later, he shot to the top of the Billboard charts and got invited to talk to Joe Rogan.

Joe listened to his story with grace and curiosity, and Chris spoke not like a preacher, but like a humble young man whom anyone could relate to. He said his relationship with God and his decision to make his life about service to others is what gives him the will to make it through this crazy time in the American story.  

Not everyone has had the sort of supernatural meeting with the Divine that Chris had in his truck that day, but many have experienced something that connects them to something reassuringly bigger than their own frail human mind.

You might know what I’m talking about.

These experiences cement in our awareness that the human ego is truly a child compared to the greater Intelligence that over-lights life on Earth.

This awareness, dear readers, is what I believe is the key difference between those who sucked down the Kool-Aid of Covid propaganda and those who had the courage to question it.  I’m not talking about those who have religion and those who don’t.

I’m really not.

Direct Experience, or Nothing At All

There is a vast difference between people who talk about God and those who have had every atom of their being shaken to the core with the direct experience of Divinity. Once you have had it, you’ll never question it again.   

It’s my theory that this concrete experience gives people the ability to take the risk of questioning the “authorities” in our lives like government, societal norms, etc.  When you know that there is a Greater Intelligence in charge it’s easy to keep from putting government and science on a false pedestal.

In my work fighting the vaccine mandates for children in Washington schools, I worked side by side with hundreds of people so opposed to government overreach that they were willing give up their jobs to stand against the mandates, or pull their children out of school to keep their kids from being forced to get the shot. Many of them did.  Over 55,000 children left the public school system in Washington during the pandemic.

I looked for what these people had in common, and it was not religion.

It was depth.

They had depth of experience, depth of wisdom, depth of heart.  Many if not most had overcome big challenges earlier in their lives, which was probably why courage came more easily to them.  All of them had a curiosity and willingness to question the accepted narrative and look at the bigger picture.

I also observed a healthy dose of hard-earned humility in this crowd.

Contrast this to the people who believed the propaganda without question and proceeded to not only preach it to others, but impose it on others. What I observed they had in common was an edge of fear in their voice, or a frenetic anxious energy running in the background of their daily lives.

The people who are the most susceptible to the government propaganda are, in my estimation, the people who deep down feel orphaned from a power greater than the human mind and who are too numb or scared to let themselves feel that.

Asking big questions and being willing to dig for answers is not easy.  What is easy (and mind-numbing) is believing that the greatest power on Earth is the human intellect.  If this is true, than must believe that there is no problem too challenging for the human to “science” it’s way out of. Thus, the religion of science is compelled upon the masses.

If one venerates the human intellect as a demi-god, as many of the sleeping masses unconsciously do, then one can comfortably assume that life is like a superhero movie. Big Government and Big Science will fix pandemics and “climate change”. Big Government and Big Science have our children’s best interests in mind in public school.  To question this narrative means the whole scaffolding of human existence, as they have built it, would fall apart. 

If you unconsciously make Government and Science your god, and then come face to face with their self-serving corruption, where does that leave you?

A cosmic orphan?

Are we nothing but meaningless space dust?

That question is so scary that most humans don’t let their minds even brooch the query. But if you’re scared that it might be true, you will follow anyone who says they have authority over you.

Sit down and have a good think about the people in your life who seem the most compliant when it comes to the mass media narrative about Covid, or the Ukraine war, or the superhero status of guys like Anthony Fauci or Bill Gates?

Do they live their life like they ask big questions? How have they managed big losses like deaths, divorces, and job loss? How deep do their waters run?

Why is this line of inquiry valuable?

If you’re a parent than you might be interested in raising children who have the spiritual stamina to make it through whatever is next in the American saga.  You have probably done your best to shield your children from the pain of big loss, nevertheless you want them to have the skills to navigate bone-shaking challenges when they inevitably happen.

What can you teach them now that they might draw upon in the future?

Connect Them to a Power Greater than Your Authority

My father died when I was 19—right as I was launching into the “real world”.  When I had my first real heart break, my first job loss, my first experience being without a home, my first sexual assault, my first divorce…he wasn’t there to share with me the wisdom of how he got through similar losses.

Human parents are supposed to be emissaries of our Divine Parent. They are supposed to love us like our Creator loves us, so we have a bridge to that Divine Love when we need it most. I didn’t have that bridge, so I had to learn it the hard way.  This makes me think a lot about whether or not my son could navigate loss if I also died early.

Have You Given Your Kids a Roadmap?

The only way I know how to do this is to open up to them about your own life, in a way that they can understand. Share stories of how you overcame a vulnerable time with your faith in something greater and more infallible than your own mind.

Last Spring I lost my job, and I decided that my son was old enough to be made aware of the truth of our situation.  I told him exactly how much savings I had to get us through the transition, and how long I could go without a paycheck. I asked for his assistance in being conservative with our resources. I assured him that I had been in similar situations before and had always prevailed, so I was not afraid. But when we got to the end of the summer and I still had no bites on my resumes, I was in uncharted waters.  Being unemployed is one thing. Being unemployed as a divorced single mother is quite another, especially in the era of Bidenomics.

Deep down, I knew we would be okay, though I didn’t know how. Our situation was an opportunity to show my son how the principles of faith and surrender really work. I didn’t sugarcoat the truth. I told him I had two weeks left to find September’s rent, and I was out of ideas. But I still assured him that we’d be okay. His father does well, so he knows he can move in full-time with his dad if things get dire on my end and I’m forced to surf couches. Of course I had tears and moments of panic, but I kept those private or saved them for phone calls with my mother and my best friend. 

He saw me meditate. He saw me pray. He saw my conversations with God written in notes on my bathroom mirror. Every day after school I shared with him where I was in the job hunt so he could witness how much action and willingness it takes to keep the bills paid.  And when the job offer I needed came through just in time, he got to see the fruits of our faith. 

Live in the Silver Lining

I have shared with my son stories about how my father’s death changed me for the better, and how tragedy can be a blessing if you have a spiritual perspective.  We talk about the afterlife, and whatever he’s curious about.

I don’t point him to a book or a dogma. I share direct experience. In turn, he has started having his own experiences that suggest he’s noticing the moments when he’s in a “flow state” with the Divine, and getting answers to his own big questions.

Connect the Dots

If you can recall stories in your life when you let your intuition and faith guide you and it worked out well, be sure to share these stories with your children.  Show them that when the human ego/mind is fallible, Divine Intelligence will have their back.

Be Willing to Be Wrong

Are you the kind of parent who can never admit when you’ve made a mistake?  Can you apologize to your kids when you misinterpret their actions, or accuse them of something they didn’t do?  Being comfortable with making mistakes (and owning them), models to your kids that your superpowers as a parent come from something greater than your own ego.

The Pinprick of Light at the End of the Tunnel

Just like I knew, deep down, that I’d make my rent on September 1, I know that America will pull through this spiritual state of emergency.  I’m not referring to Biblical prophecy or Hopi Prophecy or the vision of some psychic on YouTube.  I just know it, from a wellspring of knowing that I believe connects all humans who are aware of their Divine origins.

When I was a little girl, sometime between the age of 8 and 10, I don’t remember…I had a very powerful knowing wash over me that my father would die an early death. I tried to picture him as an old man, like a grandpa, and I could not see it in my mind’s eye.  This scared me because I had a very powerful inner eye. I spent hours every day building imaginary worlds in the movie of my mind.  But try as I might, I could not see him as an old man.

I knew the truth of his early death so intently that I crawled up into his lap at the kitchen table and started crying. I told him what I knew. It shook him, naturally. He got upset and sent me to my room, still crying. 

He was 43 when he died.  

I have come to rely on my ability to picture the future. And I can very clearly feel and see a new Earth, and new America around the corner.  Not soon. Not next year. Not for awhile. We haven’t even hit rock bottom yet, in my estimation. But I know my son will live in a country that is rebuilt into something more peaceful, abundant and more free than the country we live in today. 

I know it in my bones.