For students of reality, and physics and metaphysics in particular, being explicitly aware of how cognitive dissonance can hinder your progress is essential. Sometimes reading more information on these topics is used to fill in what you already know, putting new pieces into an existing puzzle. This is comforting and comfortable, and there is little risk of experiencing cognitive dissonance, that sensation when your subconscious, mental models, and belief systems make objections to whatever it is that you are reading or experiencing. Having this constant check between perceptions and your own inner sensemaking is usually beneficial, but we always have to keep in mind that the existing world view we all have is part of What Is Not, that is, your own inner reflection of reality which has all been created through limited perception and filtered through existing limited experiences and views.
Because of this there will at times be situations where what you read and experience goes against your inner view, your personal slice of What Is Not, and you have to decide whether to go along with the objections, or whether to expand your understanding and interpretation of What Is, or at extreme points in life toss away entirely what you thought you knew because reality is overwhelming you with new thoughts, insights, observations, and experiences.
In this article we, meaning myself as Blue and Archangel Metatron, are going to present a metaphysical understanding of cognitive dissonance, and show a model of how to think about it that can help you better deal explicitly with such situations. I am then going to explain my own techniques and principles with how I deal with this problem consciously, and finally I am going to do my best to induce cognitive dissonance in you and help you observe your reactions to that.
As all people are different, and have a different existing sensemaking mechanism, it is impossible to treat you all as the same, because you are not. For some what we will present here is self-evident and intuitive, and for others it will be preposterous, outrageous and everything in between. I’m going to do try my best to trigger all of you, more or less, for the purpose of illustration. My apologies in advance, but it’s the best way to get these concepts across I think.
For the purpose of this writing I am going to define physics as all ideas that relate to the holographic projection you see around you, and which some of you may perceive as reality in totality. This holographic projection is simply a shadow, a visualization of energy movements for the purpose of generating experience and allowing interaction with that energy. Metaphysics is the understanding that What Is consists of sentient energy, and nothing else, which expresses itself through polarized versions, including consciousness, souls, and the energy contained within the holographic projections as light and similar. Metaphysics is a superset of physics, keeping in mind that our physics only describes our own holographic projection, and that there are other universes within this system which have completely different rules and habits, for various reasons and purposes.
With that preamble and disclaimer out of the way, I will hand over to Archangel Metatron to give his take on cognitive dissonance from a metaphysical point of view.
The topic of cognitive dissonance can be addressed at several different layers and levels, and so we will attempt to give it justice by touching on all of them, while not making this exercise overly complicated and dragged out.
We will first begin with perhaps the most obvious and commonly referred to notion of cognitive dissonance, which is the idea that as human beings perceive the world around them they always compare and contrast it with their inner mental model of the world, and whatever belief systems have been constructed in order to make sense of perceptions and experiences.
In the case that such observations and experiences drift too far from acceptable internal models and understandings the person is faced with a choice. Whether to acknowledge that the inner mental model either is wrong or is incomplete, that somehow the observation or experience is misunderstood, or to insist that whatever existing views are correct, and so therefore the observation or experience must be flawed or faulty, and the tendency then is to lunge out against it. This would be a typical understanding of cognitive dissonance, and it is certainly valid as a basic understanding of the concept.
But this you can read about in any typical journal or writings on this subject, and so we will immediately dive deeper into it, and instead focus on how this process can be understood from the point of view of the Nature of Consciousness series of books which we have authored. We will shift our lens to understand that everything is sentient energy, and that the only thing that separates one thing from another is the polarization of this energy, and the locale and context which it finds itself in at the moment.
It is like a giant jigsaw puzzle where all pieces can be understood to be the same, as parts of cut up wood or plastic, but yet at the same time they each fit into a very particular place, for very particular reasons. All pieces are not meant to be the same, for then the puzzle would not be a challenge to solve.
Life is very much the same, whereby various souls are crafted and designed along a number of fundamental design dimensions, as we have outlined in the Types of Souls chapter and expansion in the series. The dimensions of light/dark, chaos/order, masculine/feminine, and a whole host of minor archetypal design options decide the point of view which each soul will have, and the purpose it will fill in the greater jigsaw puzzle.
When we look at cognitive dissonance from this starting point we can understand that it is quite impossible for everyone to agree on mental models of how the universe works, and how to navigate it, because a large part of said mental models will be individual and unique. Yes, there are overlapping parts, as in any Venn diagram which we could construct to describe all mental models, but at the end of the day all beings perceive and experience reality differently, and this is not a flaw but an explicit design choice to achieve maximal generation of novel experience. In some sense you can argue then that cognitive dissonance is a feature and not a bug, fundamentally.
This is the big picture understanding of the reality and need for cognitive dissonance to exist, as an expression of the variability of understanding and existence within the realms that you perceive inside the holographic projection you think of as the universe.
From this overview sense of why things are the way they are we can now zoom in to another way of understanding cognitive dissonance. As we have outlined in the chapters on Shared Consciousness and Halls of Learning it is a fundamental feature of reality to allow beings to share and cooperate on building mental models and understandings of concepts, including reality itself. If this was not the case then the amount of repetition would be mind numbingly boring, and this is not optimal for the purpose of reality, which is generation of novel experience.
So since these features exist, whereby beings can cooperate on constructing shared consciousness which they add to by having consistent thoughts and learnings around a subject, what happens with cognitive dissonance is that not all shared consciousness constructs describe reality, or What Is. They are always filtered through the perceptions and understandings of the beings which generate these structures, and so by definition they are part of What Is Not. Sometimes What Is Not fits well with reality and the observations and experiences that you have, and the friction and dissonance between what you see in front of you and your inner mental model is relatively minute.
Sometimes however, and especially during periods of great change, these distortions and dissonances between the patterns of belief you hold in your mind and what you see in front of you is so great that it feels like reality is collapsing around you, and that everything you thought was true and solid is melting into a pool of unpredictability and randomness.
The period which we are about to enter now on this planet is one such period, and so these words are hopefully timely and can assist in making this transition easier for everyone, or at least that is the intent, no matter which part of the spectrum of being you are on.
Knowing what to expect, and having a meta model of understanding how understanding works can assist in more gently shifting out from no longer working perspectives and thought, and into newer variations which more accurately help you discern and dissect what is going on around you.
Part of this is to explicitly understand that your mental models are part of a shared consciousness, and the larger they have grown, the more participation they have, the more rigid they are. In times of great stability and lack of change this is a good thing. It makes life easier.
However, in times like these when everything appears to change, and old wisdom does no longer apply, the dissonance between reality and the shared consciousness which you are holding onto will most likely tear you apart. Mentally, emotionally, and sometimes even physically, as these issues manifest as diseases and sickness of various kinds. You have most likely seen it in friends and family, and various public figures, but have not thought about it as I am now presenting it. Many such chronic issues, sometimes fatal, are due to cognitive dissonance on an epic scale, leading to the malfunction of the entire being.
This is why we wish to express these words, so that you can be aware of this process, and make it easier on yourself as we move forward. Know when it is time to hold on to a particular belief system, and know when it is time to let go and allow yourself to acknowledge that what you are experiencing is real, and does not need to be discarded as false simply because your mental model cannot cope with it.
Knowing when to take this step, and when not to, is key. We wish you the best of fortune in navigating this idea successfully from here on out.
Archangel Metatron
So that was Archangel Metatron’s take on how to think about cognitive dissonance as essentially a feature of the system, which encourages maximum generation of novel experience. Which is ultimately the purpose of reality itself. To entice more sentient energy into the system, rather than staying put or be drawn into some other more fascinating system similar to ours.
In all likelihood some people reading this are already experiencing cognitive dissonance, and can hear the voice of “no, that can’t be right, this is stupid”. There are plenty of existing mental models where the ideas presented above just don’t fit in. For these people the challenge is all the greater, and if they overcome it the generation of novel experience is maximized. It is an accomplishment of great effort.
With this as background, I will now describe my own techniques and principles for how I deal with cognitive dissonance explicitly, and how I allow myself to push the boundaries of my own mental models, while staying as grounded possible.
The first principle is to divide perception when it comes to these issues into three levels: observation, analysis, and judgment.
Observation simply means to take in new information, either through reading, listening to someone else, or experiencing it first hand. Analysis means taking existing observations and try to extract patterns that one might be able to perceive. Judgment is about making a decision, mentally or emotionally, of how to relate to the analysis of observations, and whether to accept or reject it with regard to one’s own personal belief system.
If the analysis conforms with existing beliefs, this is easily accepted. If the analysis conforms but expands on existing beliefs, this is also fairly comfortable. But if the analysis contradicts one’s existing beliefs then the decision becomes much more difficult, and this is true both for mentally oriented people (who think in terms of true/false) or emotionally guided people (who think in terms of like/don’t like).
The key to my take on this is to understand that making judgments is an incredibly costly operation. If I judge an analysis to be correct and incorporate it into my existing belief system, but in actuality the analysis was wrong, this has huge costs in the future as I will be rejecting newer analysis of newer observations for the wrong reasons. Similarly if I reject an analysis because I think it is incorrect and in actuality it was accurate there is a tremendous cost to be paid. So the key point here is to be very cautious about judgment, meaning accepting or rejecting analysis of observations in relation to your existing belief systems.
What is then the technique to help us with this? What I do is to ensure that my focus is mainly on observations, both from reading, other people, and personal experience. But without analysis in the moment. Just make a mental note “Hm, that was interesting”, and nothing more. Stash it for future use. Then when I think I have enough observations about something to try and analyze it to see if any patterns emerge. But this should be fairly rare in comparison to the effort of taking in observations. Finally, only make judgments about said analysis if I think it is necessary to update my inner belief system because it will impact future actions. If this is not the case I will avoid judgment completely, because I know the cost of incorrect judgment, especially when dealing with metaphysics and related topics, is incredibly high.
My time is therefore mostly spent on observations, sometimes on analysis, and rarely on judgment. Because of this careful approach to new thoughts and ideas I very rarely experience cognitive dissonance, because either my existing belief model is solid enough to handle it, or I simply stash the new thought into my bag of observations for later analysis.
The mistake I see many people do is to have an almost one to one correspondence between these three layers. They observe, immediately analyze, and then make a split second judgment. There is a very small set of specialized circumstances and contexts where this can work for any extended period of time, and the fields of physics and metaphysics are definitely not part of it. For some this behavior is a personality issue, for some it’s a professional hazard of needing to take quick decisions, but as a consequence these people will generally have a harder time with cognitive dissonance and are forced by their own behavior to reject new ideas, often loudly so as to preserve their own ego and belief system.
The second principle I use is a variation of Pascal’s Wager, which can be incredibly powerful if you actually have to act on new ideas, rather than just consider them hypothetically without consequences. I will use a practical example to illustrate.
In our book series the Chronicles of Blue Bell we outline memoirs of a series of past versions of Blue and Bell (our twin flame soul names), whose names are probably familiar to most people reading this. Our own personal story in this epic adventure effectively began in March of 2019 when we were approached by a person claiming to be a seraph who said essentially the following:
“I need your help to rebuild the Holy Grail, and then help me operate it to remove the reptilian parasites that have been terrorizing this planet for a very long time. You are the reincarnations of Arthur and Guinevere, so you will have knowledge on how to do this deep inside. Oh, and if you don’t do this the planet will explode.”
That is the extremely short version of what happened, and how this journey began for us. Now, at that point I had to make a decision on how to react to this. What would you do?
Here’s what I did. First of all I already knew about the reptilians and how they have influenced the planet in the past and present. Books such as Marciniak’s “Bringers of the Dawn”, Cayce’s books on Atlantis, and Castaneda’s many references to the “flyers” who have been feeding on humanity are but a few examples of this. So I had a sense of the reality of these beings, the terror of the situation, and that getting rid of them would be incredibly helpful.
I had absolutely no idea about any of my past lives, and those two in particular, and no idea whatsoever on how to build a grail, much less operate it. I also had no idea how a planet could explode if this was not taken care of in a timely fashion.
I do now understand that all of that was true, that Art and Guin were just two of many many previous versions of Blue and Bell who had struggled with this very quest, and that yes, the planet would have actually exploded if we had not succeeded. But back then I was pretty clueless about all this, and the underlying mechanics.
So I made a choice. I decided to apply Pascal’s Wager to the situation in the following way. What we were told could be either true or false, so that is one dimension. Whether we accepted or not was the other dimension. With this you get the four options of the Wager.
The thinking then went as follows: if this person was not telling the truth, and we accepted the challenge, then the worst possible case would be a couple of months of intense LARPing. It would be a fun time with friends, and nothing more.
If this person was not telling the truth, and we did not accept the challenge, then nothing would happen except our relationship might be a bit awkward going forward.
However, if this person was telling the truth and we accepted the challenge, the potential payoff was liberating the planet from the reptilian parasite who had been described in numerous texts all around the planet, throughout time. Pretty good.
And finally, if the person was telling the truth and we did not accept, then the planet would blow up. Very bad.
With all this in mind I explicitly made the decision to accept in accordance with the Wager, because the overall potential upside was enormous and the potential downside was enormous.
Once we had accepted the challenge I asked: “Now what? I still have no idea how to build a Holy Grail.” At which point the seraph gave me a memory trigger word, Vegvisir, which I had never heard of before. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it took me all of five seconds to realize the following: “This is not a symbol. It’s a blueprint. And I know how to read it. WTF!?”
The rest of the story will be covered in the Chronicles, but I thought it would be a good example of how to apply Pascal’s Wager to deal with situations where you have to make a judgment and decision that potentially could trigger cognitive dissonance, in a way that you leave it open whether to actually accept the analysis into your mental models and belief systems.
For myself, with all of the above, it actually took me about a year and a half, well into 2020, to collapse the Wager into the conclusion that what the seraph had told us was true, and that this person was indeed a seraph to begin with. I went one and a half years not really knowing whether we were doing something that had an actual effect in the real world, or whether we were just doing an extremely complex LARPing session.
After all that time I finally had enough observations, and enough analysis, to conclude that it was all real and I could make a judgment to incorporate it into my mental model of the world, and discard the other parallel set of analyses where it was potentially all made up.
How about you? Have I managed to induce cognitive dissonance in you yet? What mental models do you subscribe to which can help you deal with all of the above? Atheism? Christianity? Materialism? Buddhism?
When it comes to the extreme complexity of observation and action needed to get through this adventure I think it is safe to say that no existing view of reality would have helped me in the slightest. Only the techniques and principles I outlined above were what I could use as an anchor to keep me grounded and yet expose myself, as well as Bell, to these challenging ideas and experiences, none of which had any form of explanation in mainstream thought.
With the latest release of the Nature of Consciousness Series books, which I scribed (typed/edited/published) for Archangel Metatron, there is now, finally, at least a starting point for a mental model that makes it possible to comprehend and discuss these kinds of experiences. This is novel indeed, and I am so happy that we managed to make this available.
With all of this I am not saying that you need to believe a single word written above. Remember, avoid judgment if it is not required for action. But, as I have a reasonably good idea of what kinds of changes are coming to this planet in the not too distant future I would only suggest that you stash this in your own bag of observations, and come back to it when reality starts to become overwhelmingly confusing and not conforming to existing belief systems. When you see high definition videos of starships in formation, and can observe dragons soaring through the skies, know that there is a perfectly rational and logical explanation waiting for all of it.
Until then.