About the Author
by Bobby Garner
March 2, 2004

The oldest of seven children born to a poor farmer who himself was unable to progress beyond the fifth grade due to family economic hardship in the 1920's, I learned early the importance of being able to do my own thinking, and questioning everything I was told. I learned later that this is the essence of self education. I was not so concerned with education however, as I was with satisfying the deep curosity about everything.

At the age of sixteen, I quit school near the end of the tenth grade and found work at one of the local shoe factories running a Goodyear stitcher for $1.00 per hour. That was in the early spring of 1957. In '58, I began a corroespondence course in radio and television repair. In 1960, I had completed the training, quit the factory job, and opened my own shop in the heart of my small midwestern hometown.

I will try to address a few of the possible questions about myself and circumstances which brought me to this point in my life. I have never considered myself to be a "born again" Christian, but I do subscribe to the tradition established by the life and death of Jesus Christ. Having said that, I do not consider myself to be a "believer", although I have been baptized twice. You may have to stay with me for a while to make sense out of that, but for now let's just say that belief is the single most crucial element of deception. Every deceiver hopes that you will believe, because otherwise he will fail!

I had my awakening in the interval of 1986-88 after the third failed marriage, and three more or less alienated children. That is a story often told by my generation, so I'll not bore you any further with the details. I just finally had the time to look up and take some notes on my whereabouts, and there was not much I could recognize. None of the things I had learn from my parents about family and child rearing had worked, everything I saw appeared to be upside down, backwards, and inside out.

In 1993 I presented a Bible to my oldest son at his wedding shower. As part of the presentation, I read the first five verses from the book of Proverbs, Chapter two. I had been intrigued by it's implications, and I wanted to stimulate the interest of my son and his new bride. I'm not sure how successful that was, but somehow it had a most profound effect on me by focusing my attention on some of the problems with trying to implement it's recommendations, not to mention what it promises for the successful effort, "the very knowledge of God", the ultimate reality.

I soon understood that deception had to be at least a contributing factor, and after thinking on that for a while, I realized I really didn't know enough about it to make a determination. In early 1994, I began a serious study determined to understand how it works, and if possible, avoid being one of it's victims. I began paying more attention to the methods of communication, between individuals, groups, in the print media, radio, and television. I bought a short wave radio and tuned in and listened to a lot of viewpoint discussions, debates, and interviews. I studied the Genesis account of deception in the Garden of Eden. In Revelation 12:9 I read that in the "last days" deception would be the global norm.

If that was true, and I knew of no evidence which would suggest that it was not, then this was a very tall mountain indeed, that I'd decided to climb. How could it be possible to deceive the whole world? Think of the implications. All our social institutions, governments, churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, and universities, families even, and individuals. All organized society was deceived globally. Was there anyone who was NOT deceived? I as well as probably most people felt that deception was something of a pit which one might accidentally fall into, and with a reasonable amount of caution, it would be easily avoided. But, is that really true?

One of the first understandings I came to, was that belief is something nearly everyone shares in some form, yet belief is the very thing the deceiver depends on absolutely. When faced with such a contradiction, the course of sanity is to find a solution to the contradiction, or paradox. A paradox arises when two things, both of which appear to be true, are however, mutually exclusive. That is, if one is true, the other cannot be true. There are work arounds, but they only dress up and gloss over the problem, they are not solutions. The correct solution will be the one which provides an environment where the two observed phenomena can simultaneously exist side by side without conflict.

What to do?

It seems rather obvious that we need not waste time trying to change the way deception works (see Deceivers Tool Kit), so there is only one other possibility. That is of course, change the way we believe. The fact is, we believe only those things which we are convinced are true. So, the logical conclusion that we come to, is that we must take a serious look at the ways in which we become "convinced". We must stop being such easy pushovers for deception.

The paradox is solved when we substitute knowledge everywhere beliefs exist. In other words, we must stop believing. Ask yourself; When did people first believe? Did God ask Adam and Eve to believe anything? He told them in no uncertain terms that they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit. Science is in pursuit of the ultimate reality, God. When we find him, will we not have mastered all knowledge? Isn't that what Adam and Eve had? Perfect knowledge of God? Satan said they would be a lot wiser if they ate, but he was a liar.

Here is where it began for me, so it seems fitting to end on this note; "My son, If you will receive my sayings and treasure up my own commandments with yourself, so as to pay attention to wisdom with your ear, that you may incline your heart to discernment, if, moreover, you call out for understanding itself and you give forth your voice for discernment itself, if you keep seeking for it as for silver, and as for hid treasure you keep searching for it, in that case you will understand the fear of Jehovah, and you will find the very knowledge of God." — Proverbs 2:1: 5

I am not there yet, but I feel that I'm way ahead of the pack and I have no interest in looking back. My hope is that I may be able to offer some assistance to those who are struggling to find their way out of the matrix.