Q: I’m concerned about the attempts to control education that conservative governors and legislators have been advocating and enacting recently. What is going on here?

A: It is important to understand the levels of education. These fall into three categories:

• Miseducation
• Intellectual education
• Existential and spiritual education

Miseducation includes:

1. Training in criminal and terrorist skills, such as how to perform acts of violence, extortion, fraud, and intimidation; learning to hate others.
2. Education that indoctrinates in political or religious beliefs based on deliberate attempts to misinform and control those students’ beliefs, values, and behavior.

Intellectual education comprises:

3. Education that trains students to remember key concepts and prove thy have learned them through testing (rote learning).
4. Education that trains students to utilize the problem solving abilities of the intellect, and applies these skills in the areas of mathematics, writing, and speaking; and through the modeling and manipulation of symbolic and abstract ideas (deductive, analogical, inductive, and dialectical reasoning).

Existential and spiritual education consists of:

5. Education that trains student to reflect upon the meaning of ideas and their implications; to perform critical thinking and introspection; and to evaluate the outcome of choices.
6. Education that trains students to study the levels of the levels of their mind, to activate the Self, and the immortal principles of consciousness—attentional principle, spirit, and ensouling entity—to work on the issues of life, to enhance achievement of personal goals and dreams, and actualize their spiritual potentials.
7. Education that trains students to develop their abilities in their Superconscious mind and to understand arcane and esoteric knowledge; this aims to promote spiritual wisdom and discernment through meditation upon archetypes layered on track through the Continuum of Consciousness.

Terrorist and White Supremacy groups, for example, adopt educational strategy one. They turn those who receive this type of miseducation into warriors and criminals, and emissaries of hatred and intolerance. They attempt to control others through violence and intimidation.

Dissemination of misinformation and propaganda to shape values, beliefs, and behavior is characteristic of educational strategy two. The governors and legislators you cite advance this educational strategy.

You learn strategies three and four during your academic education. You learn to remember facts and to use intellectual problem solving strategies to answer questions and solve problems. This prepares you for adult functioning and enables you to carry out the tasks of your career. It trains you in the skills of learning, so you can continue your education to acquire new knowledge and skills throughout your lifetime.

Strategy five dawns when you can reflect upon your life, and identify what are your genuine values and what you want to achieve in your life. Psychotherapy and coaching catalyze your ability to get in touch with your authentic Self, and to make congruent and life-affirming choices for your life.

We teach you strategy six in Mudrashram®. You learn to study the levels of the personal and transpersonal zones of the mind, and recognize the landmarks upon the Continuum of Consciousness. You learn to awaken and function as the three immortal principles—the attentional principle, the spirit, and your ensouling entity. This enables you to work on your personal issues. It also helps you awaken, transform, and actualize your spiritual potentials. [We teach you how to do this in our intermediate mediation classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.]

Those who study metaphysics and Mystery School teachings utilize educational strategy seven. They use different methods to uncover and understand mythic, symbolic, and archetypal ideas, and to tease out correspondences, inter-relationships, and hidden truths.

Those who have been misled and indoctrinated through exposure to strategy-two miseducation can activate their internal strategy five to carry out deep processing to evaluate the impact of misinformation on their values, beliefs, and behavior. Miseducation disseminates distorted information, which aims to make students obedient and unquestioning.

Though insight, inventory, and critical thinking, you can uproot these mental programs that condition you to follow a political or religious agenda—and to reflect upon meaning, and empower yourself to think and make decisions independently.

If those who promulgate these programs of indoctrination into half-truths—and sometimes, outright lies—could instead train students to think for themselves, we might see fewer people caught up into the fever dreams of conspiracy theories and delusion. They would also be less susceptible to the influence of demagogues, cult leaders, and authoritarian leaders, who demand implicit obedience and continually manipulate their beliefs, emotions, and behavior.