The Spell of Control: How the Matrix Hijacked Consciousness and How to Break Free | Part 1

A field guide to perception warfare, mind architecture, and spiritual individuation.

Controlled Perception: The Invisible War for Your Mind (Part 1 of X)

How intelligence networks, tech platforms, and predictive algorithms turned propaganda into software.

This is Part 1 of X. This series will have at least 2-3 parts, and it could grow to 5 parts, we’ll just wait and see where it goes.

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Preface

Social media has been weaponized for quite some time.

This piece dives into the phenomenon known as Controlled Perception — a psychological mechanism rooted in Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), cognitive science, neural science, and clinical psychology.

It’s the modern recalibration of Edward Bernays’ century-old framework from Propaganda — only now, it’s been reconfigured, redesigned, rebooted, and re-engineered into the social media networks themselves.

What used to be persuasion has become prediction. What used to be manipulation has become interface design. And what used to be a message is now a machine — one that quietly controls what billions of people see, think, and feel.

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Intro

What is written here is not up for debate. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree.

It is simply irrelevant. This is not a matter of opinion. We are dealing with fact. The mechanism exists. It is real. It is not an idea. It is not imaginary. It is as real as the invisible air you breath. You can either face or ignore it. That is your choice.

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The Nature of Controlled Perception

Controlled perception is not just propaganda in the old sense of the word, it’s something far more elegant, invisible, and effective. You can say it’s a new digital propaganda on steroids — like Super Shredder.

Instead of forcing beliefs, controlled perception shapes the very field of what people see and think. It doesn’t need to argue or persuade, it simply creates the environment in which your conclusions feel self-chosen.

That’s the beauty. That’s the elegance. That’s the art. That’s the dark occult craft. The tactics deployed are:

• Shadowcraft (subversion) — mastery of secrecy, influence, and psychological manipulation.

• Illusioncraft (fabrication) — the art of making others believe what isn’t; constructing convincing falsehoods.

• Mindcraft (psychology) — shaping thought, attention, or belief through suggestion or framing.

• Spellcraft (incantation) — the manipulation of language or energy to influence outcome; enchantment as persuasion.

Our world is now mediated through controlled screens, and if you’re not fully aware, the screen becomes the lens through which you see the world. The feed becomes the world itself. That’s why two people can live in the same country, even the same street, and yet occupy completely different realities — both believing they’re awake while living inside their respective engineered dream.

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Make sure you have a daily gratitude practice!

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How It Works

How does the mechanism of controlled perception work?

ᛏ the friendly viking ᛏ posted part of the video here on Substack. You can find the full video along with other evidentiary support at the end of this piece in the Appendix section.

So, how does it work?

Every human nervous system is a feedback loop. We act to keep our experience aligned with what feels true. It works the same for each one of us until you’ve broken the spell.

If you can influence the inputs — what people notice, fear, desire, or dismiss — you can steer their behavior without them knowing it. Think of the brain as a biological computer which connected to a computer model. Lets say it’s a financial model, one that you can influence simply by adjusting the inputs, such as, the interest rate, the revenue growth percentage, the rate of inflation, etc., etc.; you get the idea.

That’s what controlled perception does. Except it operates through rhythm and relevance, learning what holds your attention, what triggers emotion, and what you scroll past without thought. That data then becomes training fuel for algorithms designed to predict — and then direct — your behavior… and our collective behavior.

Because it does not matter if one, two, twenty, two hundred, two thousand, twenty thousand, two hundred thousand, or even two million people break from the programming.

What matters is the vast majority adheres to it. The Matrix has a tolerance for the occasional Neo, Trinity and Morpheus. I wrote about the origins of their names in this piece called: What I’ve Learned about Love — search Neo, Morpheus or Trinity.

The result of the controlled perception system is that it doesn’t need to shout — ever. It just adjust one of its infinite inputs.

Take a moment to truly think about it and grasp the totality of the inverted elegance of this system. A system that doesn’t shout but whispers. It builds invisible walls made of what you see, and more importantly, what you never see.

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The Architecture Behind the Screen

Just like controlled opposition teams, and you can take your pick — Alex Jones, David Icke, Joe Rogan, it doesn’t matter. Any of the big names. They’re all playing for team false light. 😉

In the same way, the intelligence community deploys controlled opposition assets, witting or unwitting, governments use controlled perception for influence and control and not only in war on foreign populations… they’ve actually turned it on the domestic public and society en masse.

And corporations use it for profit and predictability. It’s a financial strategy just like the film Network told us in Ned Beatty’s speech written by Paddy Chayefsky.

But it’s the tech platforms — the quiet architects of the modern mind — who run it at planetary scale. Your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and even Substack, believe it or not.

Because what’s actually being permitted to grow on Substack is the false light awakening. It’s not the real Oneness campaign as Jonathan Adampants informed us about as far back as 2008 — nearly 18 years ago.

DARPA had long been working on its own social network when Facebook came along. Naturally, they happened to fund it and ride along, bringing it in house. They did the same thing for Google via CIA.

WhatsApp is American.

TikTok is Chinese.

Telegram is Russian and arguably western as well.

But the truth is this: at the higher occult level… they all play for the same team. 😉

So the intelligence community mapped the blueprint in unison with Silicon Valley which operationalized it. And now? The whole thing is a joint venture.

Peter Thiel?

Marc Andreesen?

Here is an interview with Peter Thiel and Ross Douthat from the NYS. Ross is telling you to do that. That’s what his name actually encodes.

You think these guys are just independent venture capitalists? What? At that level?

Through CIA venture capital arms like In-Q-Tel, agencies seeded and supported companies like Google, Facebook, and Palantir — all designed to harvest, model, and monetize human behavior. It’s true, and it’s all public info.

As journalist Nafeez Ahmed revealed in How the CIA Made Google, intelligence assets funded and oversaw early research at Stanford that directly led to Google’s creation. (I don’t know anything about the author.)

But what began as academic innovation became the backbone of global surveillance capitalism. The same networks later invested in Facebook, YouTube, and Palantir — turning data collection into the new arms race.

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Palantir and the Modern Mind Grid

Peter Thiel’s Palantir — built on intelligence-grade data systems — is the clearest embodiment of this model. Even the name is from the Lord of the Rings… the Palantir which is the orb that can see and influence the future based on the user’s intentions.

And isn’t it funny? That’s exactly what Palantir does. It analyzes and predicts behavior across entire populations to quietly steer public perception, policy, and even sentiment.

Palantir’s software doesn’t need to tell anyone what to think because it shapes what decision-makers see as reality. That’s controlled perception at scale.

And lately, Thiel’s public remarks on faith, apocalypse, and the “Antichrist” hint at the deeper ideological theater beneath it all which is nothing short of confusion as a method with chaos by design.

They’re almost thumbing their noses at you, saying: we can do it in public and you’re too busy binging on the next Netflix show we tell you to watch that you think is your idea.

It’s absolutely 22D chess. And it works like clockwork.

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The Method: Confuse, Overwhelm, Clarify

The blueprint is simple: confuse, overwhelm, then offer clarity.

This is the same technique used in interrogation by the military, intelligence operatives and the police — flood the subject with contradictions, noise, and sensory overload until they reach for stability. Then, hand them the narrative you want them to believe.

When the mind is overstimulated, it will grab the first coherent meaning it finds.

That’s why confusion has become an industry with chaos providing the very means of control.

Once someone finds relief in a clear story, they’ll defend it, even if it enslaves them. It’s classic cognitive dissonance.

It’s digital Stockholm syndrome at its finest. Clarity is the new cage.

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Cognitive Dissonance and the Cage of Comfort

People cling to their paradigms because the alternative — uncertainty — feels unbearable. We can’t sit in uncertainty and we can’t be with discomfort. The Ego simply loathes theses states. It wants to know, it seeks to control.

It must. That’s the operating system of the Ego, and because they know the Egoic programming like the back of their hand, they can manipulate any way they deem fit. It’s like taking candy from a baby. And they get off on it.

Once you’ve been traumatized by this technique, you’ll protect the story that was installed because it gives you comfort, even if it’s the one keeping you bound inside the false programming.

Again, it’s the equivalent of digital Stockholm syndrome.

Controlled perception works because humans don’t control reality, we only control our experience of it and our response to it.

And if the framing can be shifted, by altering the timing, then "reality” can be rewritten. That’s how you rewrite what feels true.

That’s why two people can share a street and live in completely opposite worlds. It’s not madness — it’s social engineering. And it’s working like planned.

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The Machine That Runs Itself

There’s no single villain. No mastermind behind a curtain.

It’s not just the Rothschilds, or the Vanderbuilts, or the Black Nobility families of Europe or the ancient elite bloodlines like Fritz Springmeier wrote about. And forget what David Icke says. He’s another bobble-head. They give him space to run around just like Alex Jones.

If you haven’t figured that out yet, you’re still in the false light or back-up Matrix. This has nothing to do with being black-pilled. It has everything to do with seeing reality ‘as it is’ by lifting the veil of deception.

“Throughout history, those who controlled the resonance fields controlled perception itself.”

—Sean Black

And perception is all about lifting the veils.

Because there are numerous veils.

There’s the veil of perception.

The veil of illusions.

The veil of reality.

And the veil of deception. And many more.

Veils within veils… Russian matryoshka dolls nestled within dolls.

Image credit: MagickMica

The machine now runs on its own momentum:

• Algorithms optimize for engagement,

• Engagement creates data,

• Data refines prediction,

• Prediction tightens control.

Every click sharpens the model. Every pause tells it more about you.

And as the system learns, it doesn’t need to push — it just gently nudges. It makes you desire what was already chosen for you. That’s what Edward Bernays outlined in his book Propaganda.

It’s merely Bernays’ Propaganda reborn… perfected, digitized, and disguised as choice.

The only choice is making the third choice and that’s reconnecting with the Creative Spirit. Because when you’re operating in Ego, everything you do is predictable. Why? Because that’s how the hive-mind system works. The Ego is the hive-mind.

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The Only Antidote

Awareness.

That’s it. Conscious awareness is the only defense.

You have to set your own reference points before the system does it for you.

• Decide what matters.

• Slow your inputs.

• Diversify your sources.

• Learn to feel what’s engineered.

Cultivate intuition, it’s your original intelligence.

Because whoever controls perception controls the story, and whoever controls the story, controls the world.

“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past“.

—George Orwell, 1984

And that’s exactly what’s happening today.

The only way out is to see reality as it is — to become unspellbound.

Break the fucking spell!

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How You Break the Fucking Spell

It is completely possible to de-program from the Matrix and the Egoic mind-control programming. This system is fear. Fear is Ego. Fear is the mind.

And there is a completely different way. It’s been called by different names.

The Third Way. Not choosing their choices. Stop picking what they give you. You make yourself predictable this way. But this is not something you cease egoically. You’ll have to authenticate your Authentic True Self and I will cover this in Part 2.

• Or the Fourth Way, as Gurdjieff called it.

• The Middle Way as Buddha told us.

• The narrow path or the narrow gate as Christ said.

• Or simply, the Way, as Lao Tzu described.

Those are all the names for the same thing.

Reconnecting with God, Divinity, the Creator, the Creative Spirit, the Tao, the Logos, the Pleroma, the Father, the Monad, the Universe, Christ Consciousness, or simply Consciousness. The “ AM” goes by many names, and many more.

“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

—Max Planck, the father of quantum mechanics and the man who discovered Einstein

Three Things

You see, there are three critical things one needs to do.

If you only do one or two of them, it’s simply not enough because they are ALL intertwined and interconnected. It’s a bit like going to compete in a triathlon but finishing after the swim, or stopping after the bike and calling it all good. You didn’t complete the full circuit; hence the circuit remains incomplete and the energy can’t cycle through to completion.

That’s not awakening. That’s not enlightenment. That’s giving up half-way.

That which is good for the Soul is not easy.

And that which is easy is not good for the Soul.

I don’t know who said it. It doesn’t really matter. Somehow, with this one, I prefer the mystery. These words are internalized and integrated for me… they might as well be my own.

But just what is this complete circuit?

There are three streams: 1) Individuation 2) Empowerment 3) De-Programming

Each of these streams requires the others. That’s how the spell is broken.

Well then, what’s required?

Individuation

What does that word mean? It means you’re broken off from the collective hive-mind and you’ve brought your fragmented Shadow back home. It means you’re whole — for the most part.

This phase is shaped by several factors and it goes by many names.

• The Hero’s Journey (or the Heroine’s Journey)

• The Dark Night of the Soul

• The Philosopher’s Stone

• Shadow work and integration

• A rite of passage

• Or the initiation

There are many other names, but these will suffice.

Okay, what do you do?

You’re going to need to initiate your Self.

Initiation

There are different ways to be initiated. But if you want to be initiated into Truth which is Love, you’ll have to be self-initiated. Forget about any of the groups or occult societies. Forget about Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Gnosticism and all the rest. Forget about following some laid out path prescribed in another book.

You’re going to have to go inward.

If you’re waiting for another to initiate you, you’re not completing one of the three key phases of the circuit. Empowerment. You can’t step into radical personal power without initiating yourself.

You’ll need to make your own system. That’s what it means to walk your path. You must blaze your own trail.

Whose path did Lao Tzu walk? Whose did Buddha follow? What about Christ? And Rumi, did he take the path of another mystic?

You see how that works?

Welcome to your Magnum Opus.

Carl Jung called it individuation, and alchemically, it consists of four parts:

1. Nigredo (Blackening) — the dissolution and death of the false Egoic self.

2. Albedo (Whitening) — purification and self-honesty through awareness.

3. Citrinitas (Yellowing) — illumination, integration of shadow and light.

4. Rubedo (Reddening) — embodiment, divine union, creative rebirth.

The next piece will dive deeper into how to integrate the circuit with all three parts:

1. Individuation

2. Empowerment

3. De-Programming

And we’ll start with the process of shadow work and integration via individuation.

The process does not necessarily follow that exact linear order. For many people, de-programming was initiated first but it’s not truly completed until the spell is broken.

In truth, for many people on their path, all three parts are entered into simultaneously. One part might be the gateway that opens the door, but usually you’re walking them all in unison… all at once. A little hear, a little there. Two years focused on X. Another on Y. That sort of thing.

Of course there are exceptions. There are many people who have ventured onto the path of empowerment, and while they may have opened the door to de-programming they haven’t actually stepped inside the house.

The vast majority of New Age somatic healers and psychologists fit into this category. I’m sorry if that upsets you. Grow up. Deal with it. Because it’s true. It’s only when you’ve truly broken the spell that you are able to clearly see what a fraudulent science psychology actually is.

Jung and alchemy all the way. 🖤

… to be continued.

[This is arguably one of the most important posts I’ve written. Please share it and consider a dāna donation to support the cause.]

Aho y Ubuntu.

—MLS 🖤

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Appendix: Evidentiary Support

Videos

Be Inspired: Itzhak Bentov Cracked Reality Then the CIA Took His Work

Ethereal Wisdom | They Will Break Your Understanding of Everything

Articles

How the CIA made Google

Did You Know The CIA Has a Venture Capitalist Wing?

Uncovering the CIA’s Funding of American Literary Journals

Project Stargate

Books

Stalking the Wild Pendulum

Dhammapada: The Saying of the Buddha | Thomas Byrom Edition and you can buy the Shambala Pocket Classics version here.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu | Stephen Mitchell Edition and you can buy the Harper Perennial pocket version here.

Gospel of Thomas by Jean-Yves LeLoup and you can buy the book here.

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Aho y Ubuntu.

—MLS 🖤

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About Me

I help people remove the masks, integrate the shadow, and reconnect to their true creative source — the place where presence, power, and peace become one.

How do I do that?

By guiding you to peel back the layers that keep you performing instead of being. I’m not here to make you a better actor in someone else’s play. I’m here to help you remember who you are beneath the roles — because when you do, the game starts playing by your rules.

See the difference?

And I know the game better than most. I’m a former investment banker and entrepreneur who’s lived on both sides of the hustle — the one that wins on paper, and the one that quietly costs your soul.

MLS&Co.

Schedule your call:

https://calendly.com/michaelloganshur

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Dāna is an ancient Pali word and practice of truly giving from the heart. We do that when we make a free offering, in trust and generosity, to support and sustain what we value.

You are the giver. I the receiver. We are two sides of the same coin. And I receive your generous offering with the deepest of gratitude.

Give whatever amount feels right in your heart. 🙏🖤

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In gratitude,

Aho y Ubuntu.

—MLS 🖤