written 25 July 2021
published 1 Aug 2021
Every disaster we are confronting results from an error of perspective: believing the illusion of separation within the unity of reality.
I recently encountered the concept of "Wetiko", from "Columbus and Other Cannibals", by Jack D. Forbes. “For several thousands of years human beings have suffered from a plague. The Algonquin and other Indigenous First Nations identified the mental illness of the white man, upon his arrival to their native homelands, as “Wetiko,” literally translating as cannibalism: the consuming of another’s life for one’s own private purpose or profit. Brutality knows no boundaries. Greed knows no limits. Perversion knows no borders. This is the disease of the consuming of other creatures’ lives and possessions. This disease is the greatest epidemic sickness known to man” Forbes concludes.
Buddhist Paul Levy writes: "Wetiko is a virus of the mind that cultivates and feeds on fear and separation. A psycho-spiritual illness, it is a psychosis, a sickness of the spirit. It is a form of mind-blindness that renders us blind to our blindness (i.e., we don’t realize we are blind, but fancy ourselves as clear-seeing). Becoming aware of wetiko simultaneously dispels its power over us while empowering ourselves. This is why healing the “cancer of mind blindness", and seeing wetiko, is of such importance."
"Wetiko is at the very root of every crisis we face: climate change, the threat of nuclear war, social injustice, political malfeasance, financial corruption, endless war etc. Called by many different names throughout history, the spirit of wetiko renders every other issue secondary, for wetiko is the over-arching umbrella that contains, subsumes, informs and underlies every form of self-and-other destruction that our species is acting out, seemingly uncontrollably, in our world today on every scale. The less wetiko is recognized, however, the more seemingly powerful, and dangerous it becomes."
This is what wetiko looks like in America.
Jeff Bezos, worth more than $200B, spent millions successfully preventing his employees from unionizing for a living wage, but paid $100M for his recent 11-minute space jaunt.
The Supreme Court strengthened rules allowing zombie corporations to buy elections, while making it harder for real people to vote.
A majority of Americans want affordable single payer health care, like every other advanced nation, but Republican leadership zealously opposes this, protecting the profits of the health insurance industry.
It is another record hot summer. Massive water shortage threatens the western states. Smoke for western fires darkens the skies along the east coast. The northeast cleans up from devastating floods. Climate change is now the second highest concern with the public. But Republicans in the Senate held firm to remove every dime proposed to mitigate climate change.
Covid cases have increased by a factor of five in the last month, entirely within the unvaccinated population, who's refusal puts them and their family at greatest risk. Fox News demands their employees carry a Fox Clear Pass (a vaccine passport) to be employed, even as it rails against mandatory vaccine passports as "Nazi intrusion".
Lack of empathy is a key component for cannibalism, but when a person starts eating their own body, it passing into true insanity. We are all infected, but we can each start to heal by beginning to notice wetiko operating within ourselves.
In spring 2020, peace researcher Martin Winiecki wrote: "Wetiko propagates the deep-seated illusion of seeing oneself desperately confined to the cage of a separated ego. From this perspective of isolation, others appear either as competitors or as prey. In a worldview in which fear is the basic condition, fight and exploitation seem rational, empathy ridiculous and sentimental. We accept an economic system celebrating the biggest-possible devastation of the natural world as “success” due to our own infection with the virus. Wetiko has numbed our hearts, blurring our ability to perceive both the sacredness and the pain of life, both outside and inside ourselves. Innumerable beings are perishing due to this chronic inability to feel empathy."
"But if we begin to see Wetiko playing out within ourselves, it loses its grip on us. Compassion opens our eyes to understanding that which we previously could only fear, judge or hate. Compassion and trust are the ultimate anti-viruses of Wetiko. To awaken from Wetiko is to awaken to the interdependent web of Life, and experience the unambiguous truth that all life is sacred."
