Memory is a double-edged sword -the source of all our problems and all our accomplishments. When we use the past to merely confirm what we already think, it is a destructive force. When we use the past to clarify and to generate awareness, it is a constructive force.

The mind is filled with unconscious cognitive processes like perception, emotion, will and imagination. Memory consulted by mind gives completely different answers to memory consulted by intelligence. In essence, the mind reacts to memory, intelligence interrogates memory.

Thought is like a current or a wave of information that pollutes or liberates the predisposed mind. If prejudice is not intercepted by clarity and awareness, people are very easy to manipulate. For example, when advertisers trigger a response in the subconscious mind, consumers purchase products and even vote for political candidates without being aware of what is motivating them. and thta should not be too difficult to understand. When we purchase something we do not need, we are potentially reacting to the predisposition of mindful prejudice. If we pause for cognitive reflection, we exercise the opportunity to examine our perception and to either confirm or reassess the validity of knee-jerk reactions.

We are subject to being manipulated when we make up our minds through perception and interpretation rather than through fact and reason. Accurate information is essential to the task of delivering deliberative, discriminating intelligence, and there is good reason for the fact that we frequently fall short of developing that capacity.

Clearly, as long as our heads are filled with toxins that cloud our vision, it is not possible to attain a perspective which is objective until the impaired mind is liberated. And that is what the exercise of free will is all about. Anything more or anything less is an ingrained pattern of behavior and that is not the exercise of free will whether we acknowledge it.

If you think about the facts that this website exposes and compare them to what you knew about the situations in question, read the above paragraphs again and I have no doubt that you will have expanded your perception to be able to get somewhat closer to the actual truth -and that is important.