Deadly? Diary of a Buddhist Yogi: retreat

• What is Buddhist "mindfulness," Ven. Analayo?
• Beware: Wrong mindfulness can be bad (Psych Today)
• 10-day silent meditation retreat experience 🧘‍♀️
• Two people have died after attending ‘vipassana’ retreats with intense 11-hour meditation in silence
• 5 mind-blowing vipassana meditation facts that will change the brain forever
• Vipassana Walking Meditation at Wat Pa Tam Wua, Mae Hong Son, Thailand

Diary of a Buddhist Yogi: Vipassana Meditation Retreat

Diary of a Buddhist Yogi (Kindle Edition)

Author Dhammaloka ("Dharma-world" or "Dharma-light or white") Viriya ("energy") knows that liberation (vimutti, moksha, vimokkha) from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) comes from the Awakening (bodhi-ification) of the (ennobling = enlightening) Truths.

To be awakened, one needs to practice mindfulness-meditation (satipatthana) by relinquishing attachment to the six senses, which will eradicate the clinging to all [of their attendant] phenomena, before the Dhamma (Truth, Teaching, Doctrine) eventually reveals itself to the practitioner.

Once the practitioner catches a glimpse of the Dhamma, the Ultimate Truth, through direct knowing-and-seeing, the practitioner will know there is no more falling back into the mire of this mundane world.

The Buddha pointed out the way to end of all suffering through mindfulness (sati) practice, and many practitioners since the Buddha’s time have reached that bliss and release from practicing in accordance with it.

• Who is S. N. Goenka, and what course did he set up at countless meditation centers?
• What to expect at a Ten-Day Silent Goenka Retreat #vipassana
• Vipassana (bare awareness) meditation anytime anywhere, starting with the breath right here right now
• 10 days as a lay-monk | vipassana meditation | Dhamma Khetta, Hyderabad, India (Goenka course, dhamma.org)
• Julia shares her first vipassana (insight) meditation retreat | Wellbeing Journeys

However, in the author’s observation, although practitioners in this age find the practice fulfilling, they do not experience the awakening moment and therefore do not see the fruition as they hope to.

• What are the challenges of an intensive insight meditation (vipassana) retreat?
• What enables a practitioner to experience bliss (piti) from meditation?
• What does the practitioner experience when the Dhamma finally appears as direct knowledge and vision?
• Vipassanā ("special seeing") Meditators’ Questions

Find out in this book, which is the first-hand experience of a yogi ("practitioner") who went through the trials and tribulations of a vipassana ("insight") meditation retreat at a forest monastery to see for himself the ultimate truths of

1. non-self (that all phenomena are impersonal),
2. disappointment (that all phenomena are unsatisfactory and unable to fulfill),
3. impermanence (that all phenomena are constantly hurtling toward destruction).

Directly knowing-and-seeing these Three Universal Truths produces a life-changing experience.

• NOTE: Not all vipassana meditation retreats are affiliated with Indian S. N. Goenka (dhamma.org). Burmese monk U Ba Khin's star student and businessman just popularized it worldwide with a free, volunteer-based, 10-day structure.

You can do "mindfulness" wrong? - Yes.

WISDOM QUARTERLY COMMENTARY

There are dangers in this Wheel?

The Buddha in the usual list we call the Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Eightfold Path called one of those factors samma-sati not sati. What's the difference? One might think one is being mindful, but is it what the Buddha or the noble ones call "right" mindfulness? (If there's a right, that implies there's a wrong way to go about it or fool oneself that one is doing it at all). If "mindfulness" only meant awareness, then I'm being "aware" (conscious) right now, right? Yes! Am I being mindful? Probably not. There's a difference, a big difference. Retreat leaders and personal teachers should talk about it more and stop taking it for granted that one will just figure it out or that it is so patently obvious that it needs no defining or delimiting. It does, at least for over-thinkers. Sure, there are some people who will just take to it like guppies or ducklets to water. (They've likely extensively and successfully practiced in past lives).

• Wrong mindfulness can be bad (Psychology Today)

We don't know what we're doing, but we got a groupon

Therefore, the most important thing before embarking on a vipassana retreat (whether it's Goenka-based or not), know that it is being defined as satipatthana. That means the fourfold setting up of mindfulness, which is explained in great detail in two sutras (Pali canon discourses or suttas). However, and this is the maddening part, almost nothing is said to define mindfulness (Buddhist sati). That is the most important thing to know, but it gets taken for granted. Or very weak definitions are offered, such as defining it as "awareness." We are aware right now, and more than 99% of us are not being mindful about it. For an extensive definition, see the academic work of Western Theravada professor-monk Ven. Analayo.

The Buddhist version of "mindfulness" called sati, as we understand it, is "bare awareness" with detachment, looking on, dispassionate watching. Sounds easy, but it is very hard because it goes against our deeply ingrained habits and traits. Usually when we are aware of anything, we taint that awareness with the Three Poisons of the heart/mind: liking, disliking, indifference (from the roots of all bad karma poorly translated as "greed, hatred, and delusion."

Three Poisons mutually supported wheel hub

Look up lobha, dosa, and moha. And what becomes apparent is that Pali and Sanskrit terms have wide valence, a range of meaning for a single word. "Greed" or lobha does not mean our idea of greediness. It means liking, preferring, welcoming, grasping, attaching, and getting clingy about pleasant phenomena. "Hatred" or dosa does not mean intense fury or anger; it means disliking, having an aversion to, fearing, avoiding, repressing... It is our customary reaction to any and everything we find unpleasant.

Then there's "delusion" or moha, the worst one, the most embedded one, the hardest one to see. It refers to all the wrong views we hold, consciously and unconsciously, distortions of reality, perversions (seeing what is unpleasant as pleasant, what is repulsive as attractive, what is transient as lasting), confusion, not knowing, not understanding, not fathoming, not knowing, not seeing. This is practically our whole existence, if we think about it, but it might be summarized as failing to notice the Three Characteristics of Existence in all things -- that they are ultimately radically impermanent, eventually disappointing (unable to ever fulfill us), and (no matter how impossible it is to conceive, believe, fathom, or accept) altogether impersonal.

I think I get it, Lisa. - Beginner's luck, Bart!

So to be mindful (to see clearly, which is to practice vipassana) is to look on, watch everything without giving in to the unconscious pull of these old habits. Just watch. Just notice. Just maintain attention. Note how when something is pleasing, greed for it arises. When something is displeasing, aversion with regard to it arises. When something is neutral, dull, confusing, hard to grasp, or boring, delusion arises, which is to say we space out, fall asleep, wander to something more interesting, even if it is a very unpleasant memory. Better than boredom. We do everything but be here now when this is the only real place there is to be. There's only now. The past is done. The future will take care of itself. But all our power is here, now. Let's attend to it. Let's finally see it for what it has always been so as to be liberated by the truth. The truth will set us free. What truth? The Truth, sometimes summarized as the Four Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Truths, the ultimate (paramattha) Truth, the true nature of existence (personally penetrating the Three Marks of Existence already mentioned). Need a list? There are the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment (the bodhipakkhiyādhammā). That Truth sets one free here and now, immediately.

But there's something every and anyone who embarks on Buddhist meditation needs to know beyond a good grasp of the meaning of "mindfulness" (sati). And that is that one will meet Five Hindrances whenever one tries to sit still or rest the mind or walk and move about with constant attention to the here and now, which does not involve "thinking" about the here-and-now, just watching it dispassionately.

How Siddhartha reached enlightenment? Details all wrong but nice point @DroppingInPodcast

The Five Hindrances one will meet in meditation (and their antidotes)

This is stupid! It doesn't work! Buddha was wrong!

The historical Buddha taught that there are Five Hindrances (pañca nīvaraṇa, Pali pañca nīvaraṇāni), mental factors that hinder, obstruct, derail progress in meditation and ruin daily life [1].

The Theravada Buddhist tradition identifies these factors as specific obstacles to "meditation," which is defined as jhāna (eight stages of stillness, unification, samadhi, concentration, coherence, superconsciousness) in practice.

Contemporary insight meditation teachers identify the Five Hindrances as obstacles to mindfulness meditation and obstacles to samma-samadhi ("right concentration," though "concentration" is problematic because we have many assumptions about what that means). "Stillness" is better, when the heart/mind has settled out, is silent, lucid, observant, directly knowing-and-seeing. But concentration is sometimes useful because ekaggata (singlepointedness or one-pointedness) is a factor of jhana.

The Five Hindrance are part of two types of obstructions (Sanskrit āvaraṇa, i.e., obstacles to insight, realization, awakening, buddhahood), afflictive obstructions (Sanskrit kleśā-avaraṇa, which include the Five Hindrances) and cognitive obstructions (jñeyā-avaraṇa, which bodhisattvas are trying to uproot) [2].

The classic list of Five Hindrances is [3, 4, 5, 6]

1. craving, desire, lust (kāmacchanda): seeking pleasure through the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and tactile sensation
2. aversion, ill-will, annoyance, anger (vyāpāda, byāpāda): feelings of hostility, resentment, hate, bitterness
3. sloth-and-torpor (thīna-middha): mental-and-bodily lassitude, laziness, weakness, lack of energy to strive, half-hearted action with little or no effort, attention, concentration
4. restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca): the inability to allow the mind/heart to calm down, relax, become tranquil (passaddhi), serene, unflappable, steady, restful, undistracted, attentive, and focused, diligent, vigilant, energetic
5. Skeptical doubt (vicikiccha): lack of confidence, conviction, faith, trust that one has understood the instructions, the path, or one's abilities to successfully proceed. More

The antidotes are called the Five Factors of Absorptions, the jhana-anga (limbs or factors). By the way, right mindfulness immediately dispels delusion instantaneously.

• 10 days of silence, self-reflection, and inner peace at the Dhamma Laddha Vipassana Meditation Centre in Leh, Ladakh, Buddhist India, Himalayas, near Tibet. #Vipassana
• Five-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat in Umbria, Italy
• 55 years of Dhamma - First Vipassana Retreat - Dhamma Arunachala (3/7/24-13/7/24)
• Meditation Center in India #Dhamma Giri Vipassana Meditation Center, Igatpuri

• Vipassana: How Buddhist meditation helped me heal from trauma and loss
• Insight meditation in India | Dhamma Sota Vipassana Center in Delhi, India
• I cried intensely during my last sit at a 10-day Silent Vipassana Retreat
• 💵💰💴But how much does this experience COST? They are all FREE 10-day courses. What you need to know #free #dana #bydonation

Bring your beloved truck to the retreat

Or psycho girlfriend might try something crazy like (pushing it off cliff to convert to ad campaign)

• Dhammaloka Viriya (diary); Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (commentary), Ashley Wells (editor) and Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) selection of video shorts, Wisdom Quarterly

Japanese boy: we inherit parents' memories

([X] SCOPE) Discovery of 10-year-old Japanese genius boy shocks adult scientists all over world

Magic 'Soul Retrieval' in Taoism/Buddhism

Native wisdom: soul retrieval (Monroe Inst.)

(Benebell Wen) Soul dualism in Eastern mysticism and Chinese Folk Medical Philosophy

• Chinese folk religion
• Shen (Chinese folk religion)
• Tao Te Ching (Book of Changes)
• Shingon (Esoteric) Buddhism
• Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism)
• Ceremonial magic
• Taoism

Taoist alchemy of breathing for life

(Benebell Wen) Taoist secret to cultivating personal power: Inner Alchemy

• Esoteric Buddhism (book)
• East Asian Buddhism
• Traditional Chinese medicine
• Eastern philosophy in clinical psychology
• Feng Guifen or Linyi

Rebirth is real, sometimes we remember

(Buddhism Podcast) Who were we BEFORE we were [re-]born? Buddhism explains

5-year-old Amercian boy says he was Black woman: The Ghost Inside My Child (S1 Flashback) | LMN

If I were a white man, I'd bring down the Patriarchy and White Power Structure. - How?

My name was once "Pam"!

(LMN) When 5-year-old Luke told his mother his name was "Pam" in the "time before" [this current rebirth] when he was Black and he "was pushed out of heaven [by god sending him back to earth to be reborn as a boy]," Erika became nervous. Then things escalated when Luke began to recall dying a fiery death in this clip from Season 1, Episode 3, "Orphan Trains & Hotel Flames."

Uh-oh, does this mean that a privileged white male now can die and be reborn as an oppressed Black female -- or someone suffering famine and other deprivations in the Third World? Oh, is that what the Buddha was talking about when he warned about karma? #GhostInsideMyChild #Tulku

• Rebirth (Buddhism)

American kids reveal memories of picking their parents (compilation)

• Ghost Inside My Child, LMN, Jan. 9, 2023; Buddhism Podcast; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Power of Salt (Edgar Cayce)

Edgar Cayce revealed: Why SALT is a spiritual key hidden in the Bible and body

Unlock Spiritual Benefits (Spiritual Center)

(Soul In Reflection) Aug. 4, 2025: Edgar Cayce shocked the world when he revealed salt as humanity's hidden spiritual technology. In 1936, he saved a dying child using sacred salt rituals that doctors called impossible.

This video exposes why biblical texts encrypted salt as divine connection, how our tears contain crystallized prayers, and the specific techniques Cayce used to unlock psychic abilities through salt work.

Salt Room (Above and Beyond Yoga)

Discover why ancient civilizations guarded salt secrets, how salt bridges physical and spiritual realms, and the documented healing cases that prove salt activates dormant spiritual DNA.

Learn Cayce's salt meditation methods for accessing past lives, receiving divine guidance, and accelerating consciousness evolution.

The kitchen cabinet holds the key to spiritual awakening that mystery schools protected for millennia. Based on 14,000 documented psychic readings and A.R.E. archives.

• Benefits of Pink Himalayan Salt Lamps in Meditation

Salt: A World History

Salt: World History (Kurlansky)

Best-selling author Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency (Latin sal, which gives us our word "salary," our ration of life-sustaining sodium chloride used as wages), salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Salt is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece. More

• Himalayan salt
• sea salt
• Kosher salt
• salt cave

#EdgarCayce #SpiritualAwakening #PsychicAbilities #AncientWisdom #Consciousness #Metaphysical #Healing #Meditation #SaltMagic #BiblicalSecrets #PastLives #DivineGuidance #SoulPurpose #AkashicRecords #NewAge #Spirituality #MysticalWisdom #CosmicConsciousness #ViralSpiritual #SacredKnowledge

Me, Myself, and Mine: Anatta (Not Self)

First 40 days after death; Bardo Thodol

Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?

Edgar Cayce was once America's "Sleeping Prophet," a healer who channeled many healers, guides, and a mysterious consortium of helpful beings trying to give a message to humanity and those who came seeking cures and answers as to why they were sick. The cures were provided in many case studies preserved by the A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment) in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The reason for strange illnesses that didn't seem to have a cause was often found to be past karma from past lives. Cayce was a Protestant Christian. He didn't believe in past lives, as that did not seem biblical nor in line with the belief system of the official church. He, however, studied the Bible and saw that it did teach that there were past lives and it certainly taught that karma (sowing what we reap) was real and an official position of the church today. His psychic abilities were present from childhood, but his greatest power came when he stepped out of the way in a trance like state (mistaken for sleeping) when he channeled information for those seeking it for themselves or others. He worked on much more than health and wellness. He predicted wars, discoveries, stock market trends, and even engineering through remote viewing, once going through a bridge to find defects in its construction. Cayce, who live a century ago, is alive and well today, reborn as David Wilcock (divinecosmos.com). You or anyone can talk to him and ask him questions about that life or this, as he is glad to answer. We almost traveled to Egypt with him to see the pyramids. He is now very busy with his ongoing research and his show on Gaia.com TV. (How can we know Cayce was reborn as Wilcock? Author Wynn Free proved it in his book on the subject, The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?: Interdimensional Communication and Global Transformation).

The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Bardo Thodol

(ReligionForBreakfast) What is the "Tibetan Book of the Dead"? The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Bardo Thodol, is arguably the most popular Vajrayana Buddhist text in Europe and the United States. Freud's protege Carl Jung loved it. So did Beatle John Lennon. But why? What is this text all about?

Sources

• Lopez, Donald S. Jr. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.
• Coleman, Graham, and Thupten Jinpa, eds. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: First Complete Translation. Translated by Gyurme Dorje. New York: Penguin Random House, 2005.

Sponsor

• Thanks to Wondrium for sponsoring today’s video. Signup for FREE trial to Wondrium: ow.ly/BBou50N4T0f. Join Patreon community: religionforbreakfast. One-time donations: paypal.me/religionforbrea... Check out favorite religious studies books by following this affiliate link to Amazon page: amazon.com/shop/religionf...

Edgar Cayce via AI; Religion for Breakfast, March 23, 2023; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Life in a white cell: 'La Valigia'

LA VALIGIA || stop motion short film

Life in Hell (Matt Groening)

(Studio Croma Animation) BOLOGNA. An old man is sitting on the edge of a bed in a bare room with stoned walls, his face furrowed with deep wrinkles and his unkempt beard, gnarled hands still full of life, curved shoulders: he is alone and thoughtful. A small and ramshackle window with bars is the only outlet to the outside.

In front of him he has a mysterious suitcase. Opening it the man finds himself in his hands the photographs and the personal effects of a whole life. Thus begins the sequence of memories and visions, synapses of the mind that come to life and invade the room of the elderly bringing him back in time, first adult then boy, finally child.

It took me 40 years to realize what I'll tell you in 8 minutes

Baz Luhrmann - "Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen"

• UnJaded Jade: 10-day silent meditation retreat 🧘‍♀️
• Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (tergar.org)

Better than other La Valigias. PRIZES: -BornShort Film Festival 2014: Best Animation Award Corto Dorico 2014: Best short film -BazzaCinema 2015: Best Screenplay -Lo Spiraglio FF 2015: Best Film -Premio Morandini Corti d'Autore: Winner Nastri d'argento - Corti 2015: Fifth finalist David di Donatello 2015: Fifth finalist Kalat Nissa Film Festival 2015: Best Animation Film ShorTS Int. Maremetraggio 2015: Best Italian Production Cast Film Festival 2015: Special Award Best movies Pázmány Film Festival 2015: Best Italian Film Arno Stream Fest: Best short movie Genova Film Festival 2015: Critics Award Toko Film Festival 2015: Best Screenplay Metricamente Corto 2015: Best Screenplay Corto di Sera 2015: Special prize. F.N.C. Gold frame Ke Corto Film Festival 2015: Best animated short film Parma Intl. Music FF 2015: Best Renaissance 2.0 soundtrack DIRECTOR Pier Paolo Paganelli SUBJECT AND SCRIPT Laura Castaldini, Pier Paolo Paganelli WITH Roberto Herlitzka Rodolfo Bianchi Alex Polidori Riccardo Suarez PRODUCED BY Ivan Olgiati, Stefania Marconi, Daniele Paganelli ASSOCIATED PRODUCER Gloria Giorgianni per Anele PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Gianmarco Rossetti EDITING Davide Rossetti ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Guglielmo Trautvetter ANIMATION Giacomo Giuriato SOUNDTRACK Matteo Malferrari PUPPET MACKER Matteo Burani POST PRODUCTION Jacopo Gaustini, Luca Lazzarin DIGITAL VIDEO EFFECTS Sara Passuti SOUND Giovanni Frezza PROMOTION Stefania Marconi, Chiara Galloni DISTRIBUTION Paolo Pellicano.

• Studio Croma Animation, "The Suitcase," Jan. 24, 2021; Ven. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche; UnJaded Jade; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

What happened to 1980s' California?

The California of the '80s that is gone forever

The good, the bad, and the phony. Seriously?

(California Rewind) May 21, 2025: The California that disappeared — and why it matters. Imagine this: It's the summer of 1985. You're cruising down Sunset Boulevard with your Walkman blasting The Cure. Neon lights flicker above. Skateboards scrape through empty pools. And your biggest worry? Getting home before dark.

That California — wild, rebellious, full of soul — is gone. This video goes back to a time when California wasn’t curated, polished, or priced out of reach. From skate culture in Dogtown (Venice Beach) to punk clubs on the Strip…from mall arcades and middle-class dreams to a Silicon Valley built in garages not glass towers, this is the story of a California that was messy, electric, and alive.

Discover:

• How the streets of LA once belonged to teenagers, skaters, and artists
• Why arcades and shopping malls were the heartbeat of a generation
• How radio, not algorithms, shaped identity and sound
• The Silicon Valley that existed before billionaires
• And how California’s bohemian soul was slowly erased

This isn’t just about nostalgia. It’s about remembering the culture we built — and how it was quietly taken away. Did you grow up in that California? Or do you wish you had? What do you miss? Say it in the comments. We’re listening. 👇 Like, comment, and subscribe if this hits a nerve. Let’s keep the memory alive.

Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day '25

Live: Israel marks 80 years since the Holocaust with national memorial day

(The Independent) Streamed live April 24, 2025: Israelis commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day. The country comes to a standstill at 0700GMT when a siren sounds in memory of the six million Jews allegedly killed by the Nazis. Israeli Dictator Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the main wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

Israel is doing WHAT to Palestinian children? - Manufacturing consent

Watch more on Independent TV: https://tinyurl.com/yc7ukx9n The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking newsbrand, providing global news, commentary, and analysis for the independently-minded. Subscribe: https://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-Independent. Find on social media: TikTok / / independent Instagram / / the.independent X (Twitter) / / independent Facebook / / theindependentonline Download the iOS & Android app: https://tinyurl.com/2s3ts5dh. Sign up to newsletters: https://tinyurl.com/2bmw565x. Help to support truly independent journalism. Every dollar contributed will directly fund additional special reports and investigations from a free-thinking, award-winning newsroom that can be trusted: https://www.independent.co.uk/donations

• The Independent, April 24, 2025; Sheldon S., Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Dead Internet Theory: Glitch in Matrix?

A Glitch in the Matrix (free with ads TV-14)

(YouTube Movies & TV) A Glitch in the Matrix, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Rodney Ascher (Room 237, The Nightmare), is a multimedia documentary that dives into the great existential question: Are we in fact living in a simulation?

• [Was the "simulation" called Samsara by the Buddha?]

Using a seminal 1977 speech from Philip K. Dick as a jumping-off point, Ascher presents compelling scientific evidence and philosophical musings through interviews with real people shrouded in digital avatars, as well as samples from cultural texts like Minecraft and The Matrix, to support the idea that the [world within this cakkavala, this prison planet, this Empire of the City, or] universe is a highly advanced computer simulation.

Part sci-fi mind-scrambler, part true-crime horror story, A Glitch in the Matrix is an eye-popping, open-minded, and highly entertaining journey to the limits of radical doubt that leaves no stone unturned.

The Dead Internet Theory

Whoa, I know I played Neo, but I feel my most important role in life was like playing Budda.

.

There is an online conspiracy, speculation, explanation, proposition (with evidence) that asserts that, due to a coordinated and intentional effort, the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity not of real people.

This activity is automatically generated content, manipulated by algorithmic curation, to control the population and minimize organic human activity [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

Proponents of this "theory" (explanation of how things actually are) believe social bots were created intentionally to help manipulate algorithms and boost search results in order to manipulate consumer [6, 7], and no one can doubt that -- just as spam ruined email and junk calls ruined answering the phone when it's from an unfamiliar number.

Dog teleports in. Man's legs switch as he slips.

Some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies (like the CIA, NSA, NSC, DHS, DARPA, FBI, IRS, ISI, KGB, Meta, Google Corporation/Alphabet Inc., FB, Apple, AI, CCP, SpaceX, Amazon] and many more we do not know about) of using bots to manipulate public perception [2, 6].

The date given for this "death" is generally around 2016 or 2017 [2, 8, 9]. The Dead Internet Theory has gained traction because many of the observed phenomena are quantifiable -- one such quantifiable is increased bot traffic.

But the publicly available literature on the subject does not yet fully support the theory [2, 4, 10] but aspects of it are not in doubt.

• This is where-when it becomes crucial to have read George Orwell's warning Nineteen Eighty-Four, to have a language or metaphor to refer to. In it the protagonist, Winston Smith (the Everyman), works in a cubicle at the Ministry of Truth manipulating reality, and all life is hounded by a "Telescreen." The screens are everywhere, always watching. Whether they are always all monitored, that is unknown, but one never knows when one is being watched. (Now, thanks to recording technology, we are always being watched not in real time but at any time authorities want to review the footage they are amassing for A.I. to go through). Sadly, most attempts to "rebel" are manipulated by police to preemptively (sting operation) undermine resistance, much as happened to the Occupy Movement, which was evaporated so that no one even seems to remember it now. It was big at the time. And the mainstream media was all for destroying it

Origins and spread

The Dead Internet Theory's exact origin is difficult to pinpoint. In 2021, a post titled "Dead Internet Theory: Most Of The Internet Is Fake" was published onto the forum Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe esoteric board by a user named "IlluminatiPirate" [11], claiming to be building on previous posts from the same board and from Wizardchan [2], and marking the term's spread beyond these initial imageboards [2, 12].

The conspiracy theory has entered public culture through widespread coverage and has been discussed on various high-profile YouTube channels [2]. [It has? This is the first we're hearing about it from a poorly done video by a man who can barely pronounce English words.]

It gained more mainstream attention with an article in The Atlantic titled "Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet 'Died' Five Years Ago" [2]. [Yes, thank you, we had missed it, though we suspected something was off, and it all started from the time we first surfed the Internet.] This article has been widely cited by other articles on the topic [13, 12]. More