Some months back, I encountered something interesting - a mass prayer/meditation event called Fire The Grid. The basic premise is that you meditate on peace and love and plenty of food for all for an hour at a specific date and time.
At first, I liked the idea, and had planned on participating. But one day, while getting back to the site via Google search, Google's auto-finish feature suggested something I couldn't ignore: fire the grid scam. Scam? Why were people declaring this a scam? I figured I owed it to myself to find out.
Initially I supposed that I would find links to skeptical sites where people explained why they thought the whole thing was silly and pointless. (For the record, I do have a lot of respect for skeptics - without them, we'd still be in the dark ages in many ways.)
While perusing a forum thread where people argued their various points of view on the matter, I found a link to a website with some very concerning information.
I learned that the woman who coordinated Fire The Grid, named Shelly Yates, was in a car accident in 2002 while driving to a friend's house with her 4-year-old son. Her car hydroplaned off the road and fell into a frigid lake. Shelly was in the water for perhaps ten minutes; her son was in the water for around twenty.
Today, Shelly now claims that while she was submerged, she had a near death experience during which she met beings of light who instructed her not to struggle. She also says that her son was braindead after the accident and that her beings of light instructed her to have visitors see her son and leave healing energies - and that he miraculously came back to life.
But let's rewind back to 2002: shortly after the accident, Shelly wrote an article to a couple of local newspapers titled Not All Angels Have Wings. The article states two very interesting things: Shelly completely lost consciousness attempting to find her son's body. This is at odds with her claim that beings of light started speaking to her before she stopped struggling in the water. Also, her 2002 story says very plainly that her son was not braindead.
Let's compare articles. BOTH were written by Shelly Yates.
Not All Angels Have Wings - The Chronicle Herald, 20-11-2002
My last thoughts were to miraculously find my sweet baby so we could at least die together. His small body eluded me, and I gave myself over to the murky water.
The Story - from the Fire The Grid website
I wanted my baby back and I swung my arms feverously about in an effort to find his body. I couldn’t, and I needed to breathe again. That is when I heard a voice, a calm majestic voice, directing me to relax. This voice cooed in my ear, reassuring me that all would be well.
Not All Angels Have Wings - The Chronicle Herald, 20-11-2002
The doctors held out little hope. They said he was almost brain-dead. "Almost," I said. "Well, almost is not definitely."
The Story - from the Fire The Grid website
The team of emergency doctors and neurologists were waiting for me. They assured me that my sweet little boy was indeed brain dead, and in addition to this, his internal organs were full of blood.
The full articles can be compared here and here.
Anyway, I couldn't ignore this. My philosophy is that if you need to lie to promote your truth, then it wasn't true to begin with. And it seems to me that every "good cause" based on lies goes bad eventually.
I went to YouTube and left a few comments on FTG promotional videos, pointing out what Shelly had done and asking for peoples' thoughts. The backlash from these so-called "lightworkers" gave me was disturbing, to say the least. They completely refused to acknowledge or explain the discrepancies in the two stories. Instead, I was told that I was dishonest, that my username was childish, that I was stupid, that I obviously had a mental disorder, and that I should go out and play on the freeway. I was also accused of "playing judge, jury, executioner, and maybe even God."
This sent up even more warning flags. Personally, I believe in egregores and thoughtforms (y'know, a chaos magic type philosophy), and it appears to me at this point that the egregore these people are nurturing in the name of world peace is shaping up to be an ugly beast indeed.
Some argued that you can't go wrong with FTG because as long as it's done in the name of love and world peace it's all good. My experience indicates that just because you do something out of love and whatnot doesn't mean you aren't being manipulated by or feeding something whose goals aren't as noble as yours. (See: Scientology.)
Other things I've noticed is that FTG puts off a very attractive aura. I don't know if there's anything paranormal about it or not (it might partially be the site's music, which has a very lulling, hypnotic quality), but when you go to the site something about it feels so right and it just seems to pull you in. I have a suspicion that FTG's believers are hooked on that feeling and therefore refuse to face anything that might make them question FTG.
Now, I respectfully ask you people for your thoughts and feelings on the matter, since you are probably far more experienced with this kind of thing than I am.
