If you turn on CNN anywhere in the world where it is televised, two things are certain: First, the anchors will tell you that CNN is the best in the world’s news business, with the most news, and the best qualified team of reporters and analysts. Second, each news item will be presented as the most recent, most important story, one you just have to know about. It’s not just news, it’s “breaking” news. It’s not politics, it’s “raw” politics.

Sensationalism is what CNN, Fox News, and the tabloid newspapers are all about. We know that we love to hate them—they are addictive. We flatter ourselves that because we have an enquiring mind—we’ve got to know. The result of widespread, shallow thinking of this kind has become predictable. News for some people is a schizoid obsession: schizoidal because we tend to fantasize about the importance of our knowledge and our viewpoint; obsessional because sensational news is something we find difficult to live without.

Do I hear shouts of “No!”? People can do without sensationalism; I do, you say. So answer me: how did Jacko die? Why did Tiger crash his car? From which country did a father bring home his little boy whose mother had died but whose relatives sued to keep him? Most people in the West, plus large numbers throughout the world, know all three answers.  Didn’t you?

When the media makes a practice of emphasizing the most lurid, shocking, and emotive aspects of something, that is sensationalism. But does it have to be lurid and shocking? (It’s not so easy to shock people these days.) No, it may be an emotional response to everyday events and ideas. What about the campaign, recently staged in the USA by opponents of the healthcare bill, suggesting that under the legislation, “Death” committees would be set up which would be able to terminate elderly patients’ lives? There was no such provision in the bill.

So we have sensationalism, a fact of life. But who are the sensationalists? Who is boiling up these stories for us to gobble down while we sit square-eyed on the couch consuming our TV dinner? They are not all called Rupert Murdoch. Well, Murdoch’s News Corporation is clearly the leader of the pack, but, in truth, it might be anyone—Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck included. Sensationalists are not elected; democracy does not operate here. They are not appointed by the state except in countries, like Iran, where the media isn’t free.

Sensationalism exists because we buy it. We the People love it. It sells newspapers, adverts on the box, and places in the pews. What! you gasp, now you (a worn-thin deity) would dare to attack religion. Of course, because it’s part of the grand sin-sationalist tradition. Who controlled the administration of law in ancient Rome? Answer: the priests. The Christian church controlled her adherents for centuries by the threat of eternal punishment—and she still does. Where would the war on terror be were it not for sensationalism?

WODEN SAYS: Count the apples on your tree.

Listen up! Woden is an Anglo-Saxon god, so he knows all about power. He knows about hurling lightening bolts: sun-sational! Do you think we could make it an Olympic sport? Just kidding.

One of the greatest and most commonplace life-lessons human beings encounter is to find and “take back” their power. Power resides equally within the human soul, for all souls are equally fragments of the energy of Source. Most of us believe in the myth that fast talkers, flashy individuals, and people who wear suits and exercise power are somehow better than we. And so we let them exercise power over our minds and hearts sensationally.

Not so. The humblest woman sweeping out her mud hut in a remote village in Africa has a soul that is the equal to the soul of the chairman of the board of the largest international corporation, who may spend more in a millisecond than she will possess in a lifetime. It just happens that her soul chose poverty while his chose opportunity. She can believe in herself and in her ability to shape her own life just as readily as he.

Taking back our power means understanding that nobody can think for us or feel for us. In the apple orchard of our lives we have responsibility for our own fruitfulness. No one has the right to make us think or feel in a way that is uncomfortable, unproductive, or abhorrent to us. Our lives may be painted on a larger or smaller canvas, but they belong to us.  Always.

In respect of sensationalism we have a choice. We can allow our minds to be seduced, attracted, or compelled by those who would talk us into believing what is best, most important, most needed for our living and thinking. But we can turn to another channel, cancel our subscription, vote the way we feel is right. We can be free of sensationalism.

The world is waiting to make you conform. Remember the apples on your tree and choose the one that appeals most to you. It has the best taste because you grew it.