This is a difficult one, you cannot be betrayed by people you don’t care about, it is only people you hold dear that can betray you. Someone you placed your confidence in or love. A brutal thought, but true.

This right here is why one of the adages I strongly subscribe to is “look a little deeper”. What you see is not always true and may be a manipulation to score political points, ego desires or instil fear.

This is one of the reasons I despise religious institutions, all of them.   They use false piety to divide and separate, destroy those they consider “unclean”, or “evil”. They define what is good or evil and punish anyone who doesn’t submit.

This card could also be pointing out self-deception and not really looking deeply enough into your actions and motivations.

When we are faced with a life-changing decision, or even general discussions, we often get very heated “defending” our argument, always look at both sides of the argument. No-one says or does something that they do not believe is the right thing for them to do at the time.

Listen to hear, not to argue against, but to truly understand why other people think they do, what are they motivated by, maybe they are seeing or experiencing things differently to you. Maybe you are basing your stand on false reports, and other’s people’s manipulation of the truth for their own ends?

A neat trick to use here is called “follow the money” or “skin in the game”. Putting aside your belief in the rightness or wrongness of the situation and look at what the “seller” of the idea has to gain by saying what they are saying. Another way of looking at it is to ask yourself if the person presenting has defended that position a lot and passionately.

Often people keep on making the same “mistakes” or spouting the same “truths”, not because they really believe them any more, they may have even seen empirical evidence, but because they have spent so much time and energy defending the concept, or their entire job, or image would collapse if they allowed themselves to question anything, even if absolute truth is presented to them, they will make excuses, destroy the bearer, shoot the messenger so to speak to protect their “castle”.

You can test this by challenging the idea, if the “defender” gets heated, shouts over you, or gets particularly “vague” quoting studies that they cannot produce, an influencer they were listening too etc. without empirical data or facts.

The louder someone screams to defend a position, the more incensed they get, the less actual factual information they are 100% confident about they have. They are screaming louder at you so that no-one looks to them and the crowd attacks you while they slip away, clean hands, no blood on them.

If you find yourself getting overly passionate about something, pay attention, do you have facts or personal experience to back it up or are you relying on what other people have said, people you may trust, but you haven’t checked their knowledge? You are going on hearsay.  Have you seen the so-called studies?

A quick note on scientific studies and non-scientific studies. Neither is 100% effective as human nature does step in, but the scientific method is generally more accurate.

A scientific study is performed by an unbiased and objective person or team with no “skin in the game”, i.e. not to prove that something exists so they can benefit, but to observe to see if the hypothesis plays out naturally. The funding is also important, does the “funder” have “skin in the game”, if so, the results could get skewed to maintain the funding.

The hypothesis should also be repeatable by any other group too. This is where the peer review process comes in. The testing is also done in different situations with different participants in many different scenarios which is why they take so long.  All subjective practices are actively avoided.

A non-scientific study is performed by a group or person biased in a certain direction. The funding normally comes from a group that has a vested interest in the outcome. Not only will the study be set-up with a subconscious bias and manipulated to prove the hypothesis, but the participants will also be primed either through their own bias, or those of the group running the study. Coercion, obvious and subtle could be part of the process.

What can also happen is that the researcher’s “desperation” to prove something will lead them to make erroneous conclusions because it fits the narrative they are promoting. A simple example of how agreements can influence conclusions from my own experience illustrates how this works.

So, growing up in a strict catholic home, I was taught that men only fall in love with women and vice versa, sex was only possible between men and women – period. So my first sexual and emotional experience with a man, while I was completely sure I was doing the right thing for me, threw me into a tailspin, love and sexual attraction between two men was impossible in my perception of the world so god messed up and put a woman’s soul in a male body to punish me for something, it was the only thing that made sense to me at the time, my behaviour and perception was also more feminine in nature, so is this what had to have happened – oh shit – no what!

With much exploring and self-examination – remember we didn’t have the internet then, yea I am old – I accepted that my perception was off and trained into me, but if I accepted that I was attracted to men, and it was perfectly natural, in fact maybe essential to curb population growth, or to free me up to be a priest without the hindrance of family responsibility etc.

Thinking back now it is almost inconceivable that I thought along those lines, but when I discovered the theory of agreements in the Toltec path, it all made sense.  I was making decisions and drawing conclusions, based on the previous agreements I had.  When I changed those agreements, suddenly it made sense.

An interesting example of non-scientific studies that were completed in the seventies.  The pasta makers were trying to increase their market share, so they funded studies to prove that pasta was healthier than rice. The studies were published and marketed widely that this was the case. The rice growers realised that their market share was decreasing, so they funded a study to prove that rice was better than pasta, they proved it, and marketed it widely, shifting the market share back towards them.  The same thing happened with red wine, initially considered unhealthy, the industry funded studies proving red wine effective in assisting with heart disease etc.  Look around there are thousands of stories like this.

You would think that spiritual people who preach love, light and acceptance would NEVER use these tactics – wrong – they are the experts, why because they have an unprovable, illogical but terrifying threat, that of the after-life, heaven, hell, nirvana, underworld etc. etc. – the thing is that the more afraid people are, the more they believe bullshit to make themselves feel better.

They programme us from birth so that there are certain things we never question, like the belief in good and evil, right and wrong, the concept of god. Sacrificing our experience of the truth of others etc. and when you do question something, you are shouted down, considered “possessed”, or evil and you are ostracised – cancel culture is a good example of this concept expanded onto a wider scale.

It is this concept that is behind social media platforms “banning” certain content, and blocking or destroying pages etc. The main stream media parroting fake news and controlling narratives etc.

Whew a bit of a walk on the wild side there, back to the focus of the card. Look around you and within you. Are you being manipulated by yourself or others to behave in ways contrary to your truth, and is your truth actually true, or a truth that you have been programmed into?