Introduction
Q’uo describes the nature of group minds, focusing on their similarities to and differences from individual minds. They then introduce thought-forms as a means of communication between minds, whether group or individual. Thought-forms, Q’uo reminds us, are not always consciously or even coherently assembled. But when they are consciously formed by a polarized entity, they will have different features and target different realms of activity depending on which polarity produces them.
Group Question
What is the nature of group consciousness and the effect of thought-forms upon this consciousness, both in the sense in which this consciousness can be manipulated in a negative way through thought-forms, and in the sense in which it can be influenced in a positive way through thought forms?
Channeled Message
(Joseph channeling)
I am Q’uo. and I am with this instrument. I am pleased to have been called again to your circle. I know that it is with a somewhat heavy heart that you carry on with your concerns about lost time and worries about health. We encourage you, however, to remind yourself of the bigger picture. There is no great hurry. And wellness once again will find you.
I have asked to speak upon the topic of a shared mind and its potential to be affected intentionally through polarized activity. We would ask that you keep your own counsel, that the words we offer you are taken as a single perspective among many, that you filter them through your own critical faculties and your own feelings of resonance. In so doing you put at ease concerns that we might have for being treated with undue authority. Each of you is ultimately responsible for the judgments that you make.
What then, my friends, is the group mind? It may help to consider the individual mind. In the individual mind there are many aspects of self that are not yet intelligible to one another, do not communicate readily. It’s not merely that there is a self on the one side of the veil and a self on the other side of the veil, but that there are pockets of selfhood that each offer their own contribution, some on the one side, some on the other side. And they appear now and again. And your existence as a single mind is a coordinated activity among these pockets of individuality or isolated agential activity. If it ever seems like on some occasion, you have a different set of concerns or you are taken over by a set of concerns that may be surprising or come out of left field or that some catalytic event changes your entire inner comportment, this is in a sense, the activation of one part of the self as prominent among the parts of self that compose the whole.
Now there is a special kind of unity within the mind/body/spirit complex. Though there are many disparate parts of self that reflect the separation of the creator as manifest in third density, but the special unity of the mind/body/spirit complex comes from its unique link to the One Creator, the conduit of the spirit. And in this unique link, there is an abiding unity that synthesizes all of the many parts into a coordinated whole. One of the distinctive features of the mind/body/spirit complex is that the spirit is attained through the reaching of the mind/body complex over the course of many experiences in second density for an abiding, consistent, enduring and repeating unity in self-consciousness.
But the case for the social memory complex is both a reflection of this activity of transition from second to third density and a reversal of this activity. You in third density are reaching for the unity of the social memory complex to attain to a link to the Creator that is shared among you and not merely a singular atomized link that you as an individual entity has. And in this shared link to the Creator, the new synthetic unity arises. In this sense, it reflects the previous density transition. But the difference between the two is that you are already a manifest agent of the Creator itself, a microcosm of the infinite with access to the macrocosm. So there is a pulling and a pushing. There is a feedback between these two interacting parts of the infinite, though perhaps the word “part” is inappropriate.
So, with this in mind, we can think of the group mind as a rehearsal or a smaller scale manifestation, perhaps even an incomplete manifestation of the larger scale reaching toward the social memory complex through collective attainment to connection with the infinite.
And how does this proceed? Where does the agency of a group mind come from? Consider a group of three people. Each has their own particular interests. Each wants to go in a direction and each conceives of the group as assisting in moving in that direction. How do they coordinate their activity? Well, they might share their thoughts, discover their disagreements, discovery the possibilities for coordinating at all, be open and transparent as much as possible, lay out any values that are shared, accept disagreements. They might even in the process decide to break away from one another and disband the group. What makes for the group mind in this sort of case is the not necessarily explicit but in any case self-aware sharing of intentions, of value, of concerns, and perhaps even of an aesthetic appreciation for a way of life. And in this shared space, coordinated activity emerges almost as a matter of course. Each is self-aware of these shared features and offers what they have, offers what they can to the group activity. And in so doing, produce a larger whole.
Now, we could consider, as well, the opposite. And keep in mind that these are two ideals that we describe. The opposite being, as you know, the service to self version of a group mind. Suppose the same three people have their own individuated intentions and see the others as a convenient way of attaining to their own ends rather than in the first case where the ends are negotiated collectively and settled transparently, in this second case, those ends are in some ways shielded from the other. Were the others to be fully aware of the ends then they might subsume the self under the greater power of the other. What makes the situation work effectively is that each can conceive of it as ultimately in service to their own ends regardless of the benefits to others. But notice that the similarity in these two cases is a coordination of activity, recognition of a shared project and a desire to engage in that coordinated activity, for the sake of something down the line.
With these two ideals in mind, the more common scenario can be articulated. Everywhere you turn, you will find individuals interacting with one another in groups, each with their own desired ends, each attempting to make use of the other people in achieving those ends. Some within a group will be more transparent with one another. They will find solidarity. Others within the same group may attempt to engage in power plays. This makes for a fairly mixed kind of scenario. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a group mind active. In this mixed scenario, it is common that different attitudes, different levels of trust will manifest depending on who the individual within the group is interacting with. Some you will trust, some you will trust less. And those you trust less might pull you into or bring out of you an attempt at a power play. The group mind, then, is often as confused and multifarious and even ambivalent as the individual mind that has not reached purity. But the difference with the group mind is that the impurities of the group mind are laid bare, as they are reflected in the interactions between individuals. Within the individual mind these interactions would be hidden, hidden both from other and typically from self. The group mind has many different levels of hierarchical scale. We discussed the very small group mind, the three person group mind. But, of course, it can get as large as there are individuals interacting. And, in your case, with the onset of what has been called the Internet, group minds can get very large indeed.
We should point to an additional aspect of the group mind that is salient. This aspect is the voice that individuals can take or can command under the guise of the group mind. And in taking on the voice, in commanding the identity or leading the body, we might say, of the group mind, the one who has such a voice is thereby more capable of dictating what the contents of the group mind will be. Again, you can liken this to the relationship of conscious mind to unconscious mind. The same asymmetries will be reflected in the larger whole. Because in your world there is not equal access to vocalizing on behalf of a group mind, especially in your media, the relationships among individuals within such a group will not be equal. But this you well know.
We would now like to transfer the contact to the one known as Jeremy to continue one this most interesting question. I am Q’uo.
(Jeremy channeling)
I am Q’uo, and I am with this instrument at this time. We encourage this instrument to heed the advice of his gatekeeper and not to exceed those limits that feel appropriate, given the degraded state of the body complex. We are quite satisfied with any effort made, and the effort expended by this group has been heroic, should we say.
The dance of the group mind is one that, in your third density, individuals may perform in harmony with the other mind/body/spirit complexes with which they share a planetary influence, better or worse, depending on activations and blockages, attitudes, and much more; to enumerate them all would take too much time. The uniqueness of the individual is valuable to the group mind, but it requires a good deal of coordination, and you see the results of those bundles of straw that become frayed at the edges, even though you see how tightly knit they are in the middle. On these edges, metaphorically speaking, there is great desire for the harmony that prefigures the social memory all feel pulled towards. There is desire to harmonize, as well as desire for others to be in harmony. But because each thread has not fully developed, has not fully opened up to the vast ocean available to it, there are training wheels available, there are rudimentary aids. We would like to stress that these aids are not by any means a replacement for the totalizing influence of the social memory complex. They simply are ways to become more comfortable in letting walls crumble, letting divisions that individuals cling to fall away and express their full individuality as, yes, partially a group project from the get go.
It is here that we would introduce the thought-form. It would be easy to think of this as a powerful tool wielded by those with great degrees of will and articulation of more subtle energies, but this is in fact not always so, my friends. The thought form is as sophisticated as the mind that made it, or minds which made it, and the power that redounds to those who can work with [it], whether this be a manipulation or a skillful practice of interpolation, is part of the nature of the mind.
We state this because if you are to look at the polarized use of the thought-form you must not be fooled or mistaken in thinking it always the work of a great magician or clever intellect. Some of the most powerful thought-forms are byproducts of the shared longings, aspirations, even resentments that pool underneath the feet of your third density entities as they dance in the rain. It is important to state the true egalitarian nature of the thought-form so that you may understand how both the positive and the negative may act on the mass mind through this device of subtle configuration. We know many negative thought-forms which are byproducts of simple grief, simple pleasures, some tending towards the atavistic or basic.
We would only point out that those who wield the power of symbol have a certain advantage, and this advantage is one that does not carry such broadband power. It is a finer touch, and it is not an effect that any in third density can deny, whether or not you acknowledge the broader metaphysical situation, so to speak. There are distinct differences in how thought forms are used on the mass mind to corral and direct it, and how one may provide a thought-form that elides the need for manipulation by calling deep within the individual.
This gives you a view of two types of harmony that are possible when the form attains a focus, a crystallization that acts as a quite powerful magnet to any entity. This instrument recalls the phrase “don’t think of a pink elephant” and we believe this is an elementary example of how thought excels in positive reaching and struggles much more with abstention, exerts more energy to avoid the gravity well that thought forms can present to the mass mind.
And to elucidate further this interplay between these constructs that range from the crude and unsophisticated to the needlepoint that an elephant stands upon, we would relinquish this instrument’s contact at this time, thanking him for keeping his mind single, and now ask to transfer to the one known as Steve in love and light. We are those of Q’uo.
(Steve channeling)
I am Q’uo, and I am with this instrument. We continue on our theme of the group mind as it may be influenced by thought-forms, and as it may reveal, within itself, a structure of thought-forms constituting its foundation. Through this instrument we would like to address the question upon a slightly different level now, a level in which the address made to the group mind through the thought-form is of a more conscious and deliberate nature.
We would stress what we have said through the one known as Jeremy that by far the greatest number of ambient thought-forms, if we may put it in that manner, within your social energy complex are produced by the uncoordinated, often vagrant, contradictory, and vexed fears, aspirations, longings, and tribulations of your planetary population. There are thought-forms everywhere you look, and since these thought-forms are not well integrated typically with one another, the result of this fact, with respect to group minds, is that of fragmentation.
And it is not only the case that group minds can be dissociated from one another in such a manner that you have completed little group minds, hither, thither, and yon, but group minds can be in themselves incomplete, and overlapping other group minds likewise incomplete. So, you have a fragmentary resource that those who participate in these group minds have to draw upon, and this fragmentation very often reflects back into the individual mind/body/spirit complexes that seek to become whole, that seek to become healed, and that seek to open themselves to the presence of others in such a way that there may be a group mind.
Now, from time to time there emerges within your social energy complex, those individuals that you may call leaders. We don’t place an exalted sense upon this concept, we merely mean to suggest that, for one reason or another, individuals may find themselves in the position of influence with regard to directing the fragmentary array of group minds, and in some cases this direction does indeed yield a certain type of integration. The types of integration can be variable, and we will not delay our course long enough to describe all of the possibilities in this regard. Your imagination will suffice for that task. But they can be variable and they can be variably effective in the sense that in some cases they are able to integrate much more than in other cases.
Now as you well know, and as we have made clear, the direction of integration is duple. That is to say, there are two possibilities at work here. They can be integrated in such a way as to create a mind-set, if you will, favoring elitism and a concentration of power and authority in the hands of a few. Or, they can be arranged in such a manner that they tend to create a more inclusive environment, which invites a more general participation of all who belong to these evolving group minds.
So, we have the usual split, then, in ways in which efforts may be registered in integrating the structure of group mind activity. We would pause momentarily to delve a little bit more into the nature of the difference that is at play here. For purposes of doing so, we would call to mind the chakras of which you are very familiar. As you know, the transition to positivity in energy expression goes through the heart chakra, the green-ray center, as we have called it, and once the great transition is made from those lower levels of animating energy to the higher levels of animating energy, it becomes possible to radiate a sense of love and acceptance to others, and this can be positively infectious in the right circumstances, and it tends to bring out the best and highest hopes and aspirations and expressions of self among those who are able to receive the gift of energy vibrating at this level.
However, it is true that upon your planet, not every mind/body/spirit complex has attained to the level of the green ray sufficiently to make effective use of it in such a circumstance. And so, even if it turns out to be the case that there is a genuine effort being made on the part of these selves, to attain the green ray manifestation, individuals of this nature are vulnerable to the “gifts,” shall we say, of those who do not wish to see this planet evolve upon the basis of green ray energies. And there are some fairly well advanced mind/body/spirit complexes within your planetary sphere that are of this disposition. As indeed, there are a good number of mind/body/spirit complexes that are working in the green ray spectrum and above, primarily in blue ray. Few there are who have attained the capacity to function in indigo ray positive interaction. But there are some.
Now, as it happens, since everybody on the planet, whether they have attained to green ray or not, has also at the same time, red, orange, and yellow ray embodiment, all are susceptible to greeting in these rays. And when an individual is not balanced within any of these rays, that individual becomes more susceptible to the influences that might be exerted upon it by others who are consciously attempting to stimulate those imbalances.
Now we would say that for the most part, in the case of those individuals who are contributing to group minds in the negative sense that the mechanics of the process are not consciously known. In fact, what tends to happen for the most part is that those who exert a manipulating influence upon others in creating negative orientation, do so by projecting their own disorders upon those who are receptive to them. They feel, very often quite earnestly, that they are functioning in a positive way in so doing. So, we will not say that all of the difficulties that arise in making the transition to positive energy experience, and positive energy assimilation, are due to conscious efforts to prevent that transition from happening. In fact, the few cases in which there is such a conscious effort are somewhat rare upon your planet.
Having said that, we will now say that, though they are somewhat rare, they are not unheard of, and in this particular time, they have increased, both in number and in intensity. In part, this increase is due to the approximation to harvestability that some entities upon your planet have currently undertaken. No leaf is left unturned, no stops are left unpulled, to achieve polarization sufficient for harvest upon the negative path for these comparatively few individuals.
By the same token, there is, on the other side of the equation, a fairly goodly array of social energy complexes that are feeling more and more strongly the call to positive polarization, to universal love, and you would think that because the numbers in the latter case are far greater, that they would more or less easily overwhelm the comparatively few who are functioning in the negative register.
Now, this is where the situation becomes somewhat vexed. For, as we have said, there continues to be a constant vulnerability within the social energy complex to the extent that the lower energy centers, both upon an individual basis and, if we may so speak, upon the level the various group minds, that these energy centers, to the extent that they are not balanced, leave vulnerabilities which can draw even those which are in the midst of making the transition to green ray energy, back into a reactive posture, back into a feeling of fear or resentment, or a feeling of not being loved, or of not being able to love. Now such individuals do not make good recruits, shall we say, to the negative path, and in general they do not go upon the path of negativity in any resolute way. However, it is sufficient for those who are polarizing to the negative to de-polarize such individuals in order to prevent the kind of magnetic pull to the positive from having its full effect.
Now, as we say, for the most part, the ambition to prevent this from happening is not fully consciously known. It’s more of an instinct, and registers as a desire to put the planet in order, or some such thing. But there are a few, a few natively produced souls, capable of functioning to the production of the chaos that serves their purposes in a fully conscious way. These souls are able to work in the element of negative thought-forms which have been somewhat effective in de-tuning a planet that bursts with the desire for positive polarization. And we must add one more element to the equation, and ruefully admit that not all of those who have advanced to higher density work have done so on the side of positive polarity. And in fact, they are contributing to the formation of negative thought forms on this planet as we speak.
These false friends, shall we say, are, moreover, quite adept. And they can present thought-forms that are quite fastidiously paired to circumstances already underway upon your planet, energies war-like and power-hungry of old. They are able to do so more and more effectively the more advanced certain individuals upon your planet become upon that path. The techniques are familiar: the stimulation of fear, the development of pockets of hatred that come to amalgamate with other pockets of hatred, and so on and so forth. You know the story. It is as old as this planet itself.
We are those of the Confederation of Planets in Service to the Infinite Creator. And we, too, routinely gift this planet with thought-forms. Thought-forms of love, thought-forms of acceptance, thought-forms of healing. These blend with and supplement those thought-forms offered by those native planetary beings who are likewise contributing to the positive side.
Now there is a big difference in the ways these thought-forms work, whether they are negatively polarized or positively polarized. Negatively polarized thought-forms attempt to insinuate themselves into the structure of consciousness in the fledgling group minds as well as in the mind/body/spirit complexes considered individually. They insinuate themselves in without regard to the free will of the individuals or groups involved. Those of us who operate on the positive side of the ledger, however, must take as our first principle the fact that free will shall be respected right down to the very core. That means that the thought-forms generated by us are offered as gifts to be freely accepted by any who have been able to find within themselves the inclination to this acceptance. And we would say that while it is true that the majority of the planet longs to cross over that divide between the positive and negative manifestation of energies, because what feels right, what feels natural, what feels good to them is love. But love doesn’t have the same kind of power, or grip that those feel who are caught in the repetitive cycles of energy expression, who are caught in the lower energy centers. And so, the net result is somewhat frustrating for those who had hoped for a harvest strongly inclining toward those who embrace universal love.
The contest, we might say, has a kind of ontological resonance, and what we mean by that is that the creation itself vibrates, shakes almost to the core of its being, with this dehiscence, with this split, and we ourselves cannot say what the ultimate lesson for the Creator will be, from this division between what upon your planet has been called good and evil. It is an experiment within the creation itself, in which the Creator comes to know itself, in a manner we ourselves do not fathom. We stand with one foot outside the division and one foot inside the division, and can, with you, only reflect on the mystery of that division.
Meanwhile, our commitment is clear: that we have evolved upon the path of the way of serving others in the light of universal love, as we know those who seek here do also. And, as we offer to you our thought-forms as you go about the business of aiding your planet by projecting your love and your light in the purest way that you are able to do in the hope that somewhere, sometime, someone may be thereby helped just a little bit upon their path.
We are those of Q’uo, and at this time we would transfer the contact back to the one known as Joseph.
(Joseph channeling)
I am Q’uo and I am again with this instrument. We would like to offer an occasion for optimism. It may seem that your planet is inundated with thought-forms that are largely upsetting, that your fears are being wielded against you, that your worries are being powered, that more bad than good seems to occur, that your world is further than ever from achieving a fourth density manifestation, that group harmony is a distant dream, and that war will be endless. But we would remind you that thought-forms of this negative register are more attention-grabbing, they are more dramatic and so seem thereby more salient, more prominent.
Your social sphere of activity is designed to play upon the attention-grabbing nature of worries, since activating your anxieties is profitable. But the most prominent or outwardly available thought-forms – the most codified into your media representations – are not necessarily thereby the most efficacious at the level of the individual who integrates thought-forms into their life. It all depends on where one places attention. The great weakness of these codified thought-forms is at the local, the interpersonal, the small-scale level. If the negative side of the leger places its bet on imposing control from the top down, so too does the positive side of the leger place its bet on emergence of its priorities from the bottom up.
Consider a thought-form that you might offer to a friend. Your friend speaks to you of a disappointment in life. And you have thereby an option to respond. You could commiserate with the disappointment; you could perhaps suggest a way of overcoming the disappointment; you could offer a strategy for reinforcing your friend’s uplifting aspects of life; or, instead, you could set aside your planning or your clever attempt to make your friend feel better and attempt to be a conduit to them for something personal and unique. You can attempt to connect to them at the level of the heart and transmit to that friend a thought-form needed in this moment, whatever it might be, rather than fall back upon an old habit or a socially condoned way of relating. The power of a thought-form need not operate at the highest levels; each of you is an agent, a source of thought-forms and, if things go well, an instrument for the One Original Thought to pass through you and connect to the other. The potentials for affecting another or affecting a group at the level of the local are profound and should not be dismissed casually.
Remember that because the power on the negative side of the ledger places its bet on the efficacy of the top down mode of transmitting thought forms, that you are tapping into these communications, these codifications of thought forms in such institutional or even personal, in the case of an especially powerful person, your tapping into the thought forms codified from these sources is awakening a vulnerability to being affected in the lower energy centers by the thought forms that would attempt to stir in you the kinds of anxieties that are profitable to their ends. The power of the service to others path lies in the present moment and in your effect on the people and the creatures most immediately in your circle of influence. The great desire of this planet for positivity is moving like an undercurrent beneath the surface. It is strong and forceful, but difficult to see. It may not be outwardly or obviously coordinated, but the love of one for another coordinates on its own. So we encourage you not to lose hope and to redouble your efforts, especially toward those in your immediate circle of influence.
We thank you for inviting us again to your circle and with this, we take our leave in the blessing and the peace of the One Creator, we are those of Q’uo. Adonai.