WTM Mahikeng
SOUTH AFRICA

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Transcript of Refentse Molosiwa’s WTM Mahikeng Centre video

Tony Miall, Sydney WTM founding member: Tell me a bit about yourself. How long ago did you come across the information?

Refentse Molosiwa: About maybe a month and a half ago. I was on YouTube ironically searching a video on existentialism and one of the adverts was THE Interview. I’d seen the advert before one time, but I ignored it, I didn’t click on the link the first time. Then the second time I was like, ‘hey, maybe there’s something here’ because the way Craig Conway said ‘Stop what you’re doing, this is a very important interview, you have to check out.’ I was like ‘Okay, let me give it some attention’, because naturally I’m a very curious person and I like reading.

And when I watched THE Interview my mind was blown away instantly. I was shocked, and luckily for me, how I was raised meant that I didn’t suffer from the ‘deaf effect’ when I immediately read the books [see The Great Guilt that causes the Deaf Effect for explanation of the ‘Deaf Effect’]. Because after watching THE Interview, all I did was download all of Jeremy Griffith’s books. I started with Death By Dogma and then I went straight to [Jeremy’s definitive presentation] FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition. Death by Dogma was a good introduction. It was nice and short—straight to the point. Nice and punchy, I liked it. I highlighted almost the whole book because it was just so shocking—specifically, because ever since COVID started I was not very aware of liberalism and everything that comes with it, or the dichotomy between left and right—so when Death by Dogma was talking about liberalism and the ‘feel good’ nature that the liberal way of life is trying to impose, it made absolute sense because that was one of the biggest things I felt about COVID. There’s this ‘feel good’ factor that is trying to be imposed on the world; that we must all follow this ‘everything is good’, virtue signalling type of situation. And that really hit me hard and I was like ‘man, this actually makes so much sense to see what’s really going on’; and how the Right is so much about pushing individualism and ‘climbing the mountain [finding understanding]’, if I may put it that way. And then the Left is the very opposite; it meshed so well.

And then I went on to FREEDOM, which was just ‘wow’. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Because it went into so much more depth with everything, like everything, everything, everything. And the deep things I’d been looking for the answers to for so, so, so long. It’s unbelievable. And it makes sense when Jeremy says we have been on this journey for 2 million years. Because just in my own life I’ve been looking for these answers and it feels like it’s been an entire million years in just one lifetime!

So I just kept going, kept going, and when I found FREEDOM, wow. I really can’t describe how earth-shattering it was, if I’m to be honest. Especially when he was speaking about the bonobos [see chapter 5 of FREEDOM or Freedom Essay 21], and how we got our consciousness [see chapter 7 of FREEDOM or F. Essay 24].

Every time I tried to ‘resign’ in my life and give up the search for knowledge it was very difficult [see chapter 2:2 of FREEDOM or F. Essay 30 on ‘Resignation’]. It was very, very difficult. I became very obsessed with trying to understand why humans behave the way we do. I was always questioning why do we do this? How is this possible? How can we be so mean to each other? It just didn’t make sense to be honest. It just did not make sense. And honestly, Jeremy’s book…out of I don’t know how many books I’ve read or pieces of information I’ve looked into trying to understand human nature…nothing comes close to Jeremy’s work. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s true when they say Jeremy is a prophet in that book. It sounds like an exaggeration, but it’s absolutely true. It’s absolutely true. And when he broke down the meaning of God, oh my goodness gracious, Integrative Meaning—oh! [see chapter 4 of FREEDOM or F. Essay 23.] That was like being hit, like running into a wall, and it was just like, wow! I really have no words to describe the profundity of the understanding. It made my life make sense.

It made my life make absolute sense. Specifically the process of Resignation, which I think everyone can relate to. That’s one of the most easy things to relate to because I think almost everyone goes through that. That was one thing that I thought, ‘Okay, cool’; I genuinely resonated with that so much. I can really understand now why people give up, because a lot of my own journey was very difficult. It was very, very difficult to keep going. I’m just glad I had the strength to go on. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for Jeremy to actually have been pushing all this knowledge for so many years alone. Like, wow. That takes an immense amount of strength for him to have even released a book. It’s just incredible; it’s incredible.

In my life at least, I was fortunate that growing up I was surrounded by many books. So I remember the first book I read was The Child Called It by Dave Pelzer [about child abuse]. And I would say that was probably the first time in my life I really encountered the upset of the world through that book in particular. And from then on, I was just so curious to understand why, especially in the context of that book—which was a true story—I was so shocked. How could a mother do this to her child? And from then on, I think that book made me question more than anything else, why do people do what they do? It doesn’t make sense for a mother to be so terrible to her own child. It was just so shocking and it made me keep asking ‘Why?’

The metaphor of the sun [see F. Essay 45] is so tremendous and it makes sense now because when I was in my first year at University of Pretoria, I did philosophy and that’s when I came across Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ for first time—but I really didn’t understand it to the depth that Jeremy describes it [see F. Essay 11]. Specifically, that once you can understand Resignation, it’s incredible because once you at least are able to absorb Jeremy’s information it’s shocking how resigned humans are and how hard the human condition has hit us for so long. And man, we’ve been heroes inasmuch as we have done wrong in many aspects but for the fact that we’re still here, still fighting—wow, humans have been so heroic. We didn’t give up. You know, like Jeremy didn’t give up, and the few people out there that didn’t give up and that in itself is something that should truly, truly be celebrated, because I honestly don’t know how we can go forward in the world without Jeremy’s information. No, I don’t see a way, it’s so important. I honestly don’t know of any other way—Jeremy’s book is the greatest book ever written in my opinion. I can’t think of any greater piece of information out there that is so healing and reconciling because that word ‘reconciling’ is very big because all aspects are involved in the human condition.

I don’t think there’s a part of life that the human condition doesn’t affect, especially when it comes to human relations and how we behave. From relationships to everything. Specifically, another reason why this understanding hit me so hard was I had broken up with my girlfriend just before COVID, which made my search even more like ‘Why is this happening?’, ‘Why is it so difficult for men and women to connect?’, ‘Why are relationships so difficult?’ [see chapter 8:11B of FREEDOM or F. Essay 26 and 27 on men and women.] All this stuff. So when Jeremy explained it in the books as well, I was like, ‘My goodness gracious, how is it possible for one man to have all these answers? This is just so crazy and it makes so much sense!’ That’s what makes it even more incredible. Wow! There’s no dogma, there’s no belief system, there’s no ‘You must believe this’, or something like that. No, it’s just ‘Use your mind.’ You have to just think. And I was like, ‘Wow, this makes absolute sense, this makes absolute sense.’ I’ve never looked back ever since, to be honest. I don’t know how to put it in words. It’s just profound.

I was afraid that if I didn’t continue searching for knowledge and just resigned [to living in denial of the whole issue of the human condition] that I was going to commit suicide. The moment I stopped looking for the answer I know deep down that I’m going to be living a tremendously superficial life. I wouldn’t know how to go on. Without answers, there’s no way I’ll be able to go on just living the 9 to 5, putting my head down and just giving up the search; I couldn’t, I couldn’t deal with it. That to me was more scary than searching for the knowledge, because at least there was some hope with the knowledge. As long as I keep going, there’s something out there. Because I remember some quote by Buddha that always kept me going was ‘The only two mistakes you can make on the path of truth: one is not starting; two is not going the whole way.’ And since I started, I cannot stop. I have to go the whole way and even if I die trying it’s better than resigning and giving up the whole search because to me giving up was death. Giving up was suicidal in my mind.

The healing understanding that Jeremy Griffith has given us is the only way. And I was like, there has to be some sort of way because there was no other explanation because nothing made sense, nothing made sense. And all the different types of philosophies—New Age; I went into economics, education, conspiracies; I read people like David Icke. I went down the rabbit hole of almost all the things that you can find. Politics, religion. I was once deep into Christianity, but I got out of that. I went into other Eastern religions, I got out of that. So wow, I truly cannot really sum up how powerful Jeremy’s work is. As an African specifically, when he talked about Integrative Meaning [see chapter 4 of FREEDOM or F. Essay 23], the selflessness, living together, it clicked immediately because here in South Africa we have the term ‘Ubuntu’ [‘humanity’]. And in one of the other videos that I watched, there’s another guy from Eastern Cape called Reginald Khotshobe and he spoke about the same thing [Reginald is the founder of the WTM Eastern Cape Centre]. And I was thinking this makes a lot of sense because when I was reading about Integrative Meaning and it was talking about the selfless love, the word ‘Ubuntu’ came to mind immediately, and I was like, ‘wow, this makes a lot of sense’. And also having grown up in the village with my grandmother, my cousins, that ‘Ubuntu’ lifestyle was what we grew up in. All of us were together. We all lived sharing things; it was very communal. So it made a lot of sense, it’s just natural. This Integrative Meaning/​idea of God literally makes a lot of sense. Even my life, this makes a lot of sense. It makes rational sense. It’s logical, it makes sense.

One of the things that I also experienced as a black South African living in South Africa, given our history of apartheid, was that as I was going down the rabbit hole of trying to search for the truth, and especially if you’re going to go down the path of studying African history, you invariably develop some sort of animosity toward white people. But the wonderful thing about Jeremy’s work is it was just so healing, so reconciling that every form of animosity I ever had to white people or anything like that, it was all wiped away in an instant! Everything made sense. Racism actually made sense [see chapter 8:16E of FREEDOM or F. Essay 28]. Okay, this is actually what it is: different ethnic groups in the whole human race have different levels of psychological upset, and ethnic groups with less psychological upset may be antagonistic towards another ethnic group with a higher level of psychological upset. That was one of the most reconciling explanations I’ve ever heard in my life, to the point where I don’t see colour anymore—not in the sense that we’re not different, but we’re suffering from one thing, we are suffering from the human condition. This is actually what’s going on. And once you can understand that, then the borders we have in terms of not even just physical borders, but colour borders or prejudicial borders—all these sort of artificial borders we’ve made that stop us from connecting with one another, all those borders—literally disappear through that understanding.

Which is so incredible because I remember reading this Indian philosopher called J. Krishnamurti—probably in my mind he is right up there with Plato—he didn’t come up with the [Cave] Allegory but he’s right up there. And one thing he always used to say was ‘and only through understanding can man heal’. No amount of meditation, no amount of yoga, Reiki, whatever, all these different things, can heal us—he was very adamant about that. He said that’s just creating another system. The moment you start necessarily saying ‘meditation is going to give you all the answers’ or yoga, yada, yada, yada, you’re still not understanding the human condition. And having tried yoga and all these things, I’m like, ‘yeah, that’s very true inasmuch as I meditate and all these things, which calmed the mind like a relief mechanism, but it did not give us a healing explanation to the human condition’. And actually why, why do you even have to get over your mind? Why do you even have to stop your mind and overcome it and transcend it? Why can’t we just understand it in the first place and through that understanding, and heal? And that understanding is definitely provided by Jeremy’s book. It’s incredible.

Tony: It’s just amazing to hear all that, Refentse. Honestly, it’s just a such a clean take on it all. Where do you live? What’s your background?

Refentse: I live in the capital of North West [Province], Mahikeng. I’m from a Tswana background. I went to the school here, at the International School of South Africa, which is a pretty good school here in my town. A fortunate thing is that since it was an International School I grew up with many different people, of many different races. I played cricket growing up—I was pretty good at it, just short of playing for the under-19s South African team. When I look back at it now, that was one of the best experiences I’ve had, because I grew up with many different people—Afrikaners, Englishmen, Indians, other black people. It was a very nice melting pot. So I really got to experience many different sides of life, if I may put it that way.

But as I got older, from probably Form Two [age 14], that’s when my love for sports was still there, but that’s when confronting the human condition became more and more of a thing. That’s why I started reading more, being more isolated, spending more time alone. That’s when the real change happened. That’s when I started writing a lot and I’d say it was that period of time, from 13–14 onwards, when I really started dedicating my life to writing, to becoming a writer. And when I look back at it now, the main reason I became a writer was simply because I wanted to find out the truth. I wanted to understand the truth. I wanted to get to grips with it and reading, writing and questioning were the only three ways that I really knew how to do it. I didn’t know any other way on how to go forward. Because every time I would ask myself questions, no one around me had the answers. So my friends didn’t have the answers, my parents didn’t have the answers, my teachers didn’t have the answers. So I was like, ‘Wait, where can I go for the answers?’ And the one place I found was books. So I started reading the classics, you know. The Great Gatsby; The Idiot, The Gambler, all these Dostoevsky books; Bukowski; Hemingway; Albert Camus; Samuel Beckett. I really went down that rabbit hole. Aldous Huxley. All these guys, I even read [Darwin’s] Origin Of Species, but it was just too thick for me and I couldn’t really understand it at that time when I read it. I even went into astronomy, watching Cosmos, reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan; Neil deGrasse Tyson; Stephen Hawking, as well, his book A Brief History Of Time. I was really trying to reconcile everything. That was why in Reginald’s [WTM Eastern Cape Centre] video when he was explaining his life, trying to connect this piece and that piece and that piece, I related because I really tried to do the same thing and it was just so difficult. It was just so difficult. That’s why having seen Jeremy do it, it’s absolutely mind blowing. I’m like, ‘wow!’ For one man to be able to really go that whole journey and write it down in such a clear, concise way. Whoa! I cannot understate the point of what Jeremy did. There are no words that can describe that book, no! FREEDOM is the ultimate. There is no other book like that. That knowledge, I gave it hands down, even 10 out of 10 is not enough.

Honestly we’re living in the greatest time of man’s history. The fact that we are living in the time with the explanation having been found, that’s just beyond words to be honest. And just understanding Christianity—even that I got from FREEDOM and it’s so incredible because, growing up, my grandmother was such a deep Christian. She used to make us go to church, all my cousins, and at that time I just didn’t understand. It felt so forced. Even as Jeremy was saying in the book, our religions first started with monotheism and then prophet-centred religions from Abraham, Moses, and then Jesus going forward. Now it makes so much sense that to a large extent, once I got out of religion and became an atheist, I sort of disliked religion and looked down on it for a while; I was like, ‘It’s almost foolish, who would believe such a thing?’ But once you really understand it, those words, everything Jesus and others in the Bible said, it’s profound beyond measure and just even to think that Jesus actually made the biggest sacrifice one man could make for truth—I can’t even wrap my mind around how huge of a sacrifice that was just to emphasise Integrative Meaning and all that. Wow. It’s truly getting out of [Plato’s] Cave. Getting out of that cave, it’s amazing. [See F. Essays 38–41 on Christ explained and the demystification of religion.]

So starting a Centre is something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to. Going forward that is something I would really like to do, because once you understand the human condition there is really nothing more; there is nothing more important than the human condition to be honest, so I’m willing to dedicate a good chunk of my time towards it.