In the previous episode I touched on the human fascination with uncovering what lies beyond the reality we perceive, because from time immemorial we have intuited that we are not the masters of our own destiny. Be it the Illuminati, Bill Gates, International Communism, Satan, or the extraterrestrials, many believe there is an elite that manipulates and exploits us for its own benefit.
A fundamental part of many schools of initiatic knowledge or mystery cults has been precisely to try to discover who these beings with the power behind the scenes are, and to find a way to rebel against them and free ourselves from enslavement.
I, however, consider that, as I expressed on that occasion, our tendency to believe in conspiracy theories about powerful people who control and enslave us is based to a large extent on our own tendency to control and manipulate those who are under our influence. There is, however, historical evidence of groups that have set out to systematically create structures of control over the population in order to exploit and manipulate it. We have seen examples of this in many countries in which the economic or political elite has taken power, in some cases even perpetuating itself there, in order to serve primarily its own group of interests.
Without going any further, there is the case of Venezuela, a country where power is in the hands of a small group of military and former military men, sympathizers of the Chavismo and a few other allies. In Colombia we know that since the time of the Colonia there have been elites of landowners, cattle ranchers, and more recently businessmen and politicians who take turns in power, steal, patronize illegal armed groups, and strip the poorest of the poor in order to keep growing their power.
The point is that these phenomena never have a global reach. That is the first thing, but moreover, they are not really hidden conspiracies either. Those exercises in the abuse of power are always visible to everyone, among other things because, to be efficient, they require the complicity of a great many people at all levels of power, from police officers and enlisted soldiers to ministers, passing through public servants, teachers, and so on.
Of course there are also conspiracies, and of those there are many with international reach. The example I am going to give you is not a secret, but very few people know it: this story is called 'The Diamond Conspiracy.' The diamond has always been considered a precious stone, for its beauty but above all for its scarcity. The gems were traded among collectors and used to create jewelry that was within reach only of royalty and millionaires. However, this was on the verge of changing at the end of the nineteenth century when enormous diamond mines were discovered in South Africa.
Production from those mines turned out to be so abundant that the producers immediately realized that competition among them would bring the diamond down to a stone on the same level as zircon or quartz. What they then did was form a cartel called De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd, and devote themselves to extending control over every stage of the commercialization of diamonds around the world.
The most remarkable thing is that De Beers manipulated not only the supply but also the demand. In 1938, in the midst of the ravages of the Depression and rumors of war, Harry Oppenheimer, the son of the founder of De Beers, recruited the N.W. Ayer advertising agency to polish the image of diamonds in the United States, where the practice of giving diamond engagement rings had been gaining traction in an uneven way for years, but where the diamonds being sold were getting smaller and of lower quality.
Meanwhile, the price of diamonds was falling all over the world. The people at Ayer set out to persuade young men that diamonds (and only diamonds) were synonymous with romance, and that the measure of a man's love (and even his personal and professional success) was directly proportional to the size and quality of the diamond he bought. Young women, in turn, had to be convinced that courtship concluded, invariably, in a diamond.
The agency implanted these messages in the very heart of popular culture. What they were commercializing was an idea, not a product or a brand:
They went to Hollywood to hand out diamonds to producers, directors, and actors, so that they would include diamond engagement rings in the most important moments of films with romantic themes. In addition, they also offered stories and photographs of high society to selected magazines and newspapers to reinforce the bond between diamonds and love. The stories would emphasize the size of the diamonds that celebrities presented to their loved ones, and the photographs would show, thus, well and large, in close-up, the shining stone on the hand of a famous woman. Fashion designers would talk about the 'tendency toward diamonds' on radio programs, and so on.
Well, the cherry on the cake was that, at the end of the 1940s, a creative at Ayer registered the slogan 'A Diamond Is Forever' and created the myth that diamonds cannot be scratched or broken, which is totally false. The strategy was to create the relationship between the supposed eternal resistance of the diamond and the promise of eternal love.
The corollary of this story is that between 1939 and 1979, wholesale diamond sales, that is, from De Beers to its distributors, in the United States alone, increased from 23 million to 2.1 billion dollars, and the advertising budget for the agency in question increased from $200,000 in the first year to 10 million a year during those 4 decades.
Of course, diamond sales went into a bit of a stall little by little as most engaged and married women already had theirs, so the company invented the concept of a new ring every time the couple renews their wedding vows, which as we know, became customary every 5 years at the famous Wood, Aluminum, Crystal, etc., etc., weddings, until reaching the 60th anniversary, which if you guess what it's called? Yes, ladies and gentlemen: diamond weddings.
This is a cute story because it's about a seemingly trivial conspiracy. It's not about mind control through subliminal messages to hide crimes and steal from the people, but a ingenious marketing strategy to sustain an important industry... or is it?
The way I see it, the diamond conspiracy is indeed about mental manipulation, precisely through subliminal messages, and it is indeed to steal our money. Or does the diamond have some intrinsic value that makes it more valuable than zircon, for example? Whoever says they can recognize a diamond from miles away is losing money, because the jewelers I know have to put a magnifying glass to their eye and turn the stone around for like 5 minutes to be sure.
So, paying $1,000, $3,000 or $10,000 dollars for a diamond seems to me very close to a scam. Keep in mind that popular wisdom says the fiancé has to spend between 3 and 6 months of salary on the wedding ring, so do the math.
Well, fine, but at least there's no crime in it, right? Well, I don't know if you've heard of blood diamonds. There was even a movie around 2006, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, that showed how the diamond industry relies heavily on the exploitation of mines located in war zones, where war lords dominate extraction and use the profits to buy weapons, control private armies, and keep thousands of workers from the mines in slavery, in conditions of enslavement.
Of course, between recruitment, wars for territory, and settling of scores, a lot of blood has been shed in many of the diamond-producing countries, to keep the high price of the precious stones with which we demonstrate our eternal love to the lucky fiancée. As my Latin American compatriots will have noticed, a more sophisticated version of the drug cartels that have brought so much pain and so much death to our communities.
By the way, there's another very recommended movie that shows this terrible reality, apart from the Blood Diamond one. It's 'Lord of War', from 2005, starring Nicolas Cage and Jared Leto.
My dear friends, real conspiracies are much less complicated but sometimes much more atrocious than the fake conspiracies we spend our time sharing on WhatsApp or on Facebook. As I told you before, the latter are stories we invent to entertain ourselves and attract attention. But the most ironic thing is that, by paying attention to and wasting time on the flat earth, the vaccines that cause autism, 5G for mind control, and the reptilians, we go along like lambs to the slaughter of the real global conspiracies and destructive illusions.
There are many science communicators who take the trouble and have the patience to debunk conspiracy theories, even the most ridiculous ones. But I, on the one hand, don't have that much patience, and on the other, I'm not a scholar in most of those topics, and I respect scientific research too much to set out to dismantle hoaxes and fake news. For that, I'm going to recommend three YouTubers who do this difficult task: Javier Santaolalla, José Luis Crespo, and Rocío Vidal, all three Spanish science communicators. I'm going to put the links to their channels in the comments of this episode.
My task is another: I promised you I would show you the real matrix, and as you saw with the diamond example, its edges and traps are found in unsuspected places. The conspirators are usually low-profile, but in some cases totally identifiable and in others impossible to determine. Along the way we'll talk about tricks to be able to see what is hidden, weapons to defend ourselves, strategies to awaken, and dangers that will come stalking us.
This encounter with reality is not going to be easy or pretty. If you are a woman and you're listening to me, are you willing, from now on, to reject a diamond? Or perhaps better yet, sit down and knit a lovely commitment bracelet with your partner? Or are you going to pretend you know nothing about the blood mines in Africa and let yourself be flattered by a rather dashing Swarovski?
If you are a man, well, perhaps you're already smiling thinking "Oh, I already have the argument to talk my way out of buying the ring". But don't worry, I have surprises for you too! The only thing is, my promise is that everything I'm going to tell you will first pass through the filter of science, so as not to keep playing along with the saboteurs of true spirituality.
I'm not telling you it will be easy, only that it will be worth it.
Remember that now you can follow me on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Play Music. The links are on my page "EspiritualidadYCiencia.com". See you there.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how-an-ad-campaign-invented-the-diamond-engagement-ring/385376/
I am referring to three excellent science communicators who have devoted part of their time to dismantling hoaxes and conspiracy theories. Here they are: