<B>By Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

I saw a movie the other day. It?s called ?Zeitgeist?. I sat through the film with my eyes wide open all through. You can download it for a small fee from the Internet; I only have one advice to you - do it! It will be money well spent.

It?s actually a documentary film about conspiracy theories relating to the ?myth? that Christianity is supposed to be, about the 9\11 attacks on the World Trade Center and about the Federal Reserve Bank of the US.

The makers of ?Zeitgeist? start with a premise - that we are all being lied to by the "men behind the curtain" because those people want to control us. And to achieve this, they need to scare us.

First we are controlled through religion. The main message of most religions is that we need to act in a certain way and do certain things or else we?ll pay for our "sins"- by going to hell. They decide for us, what is right and what is wrong. And in the end we so totally embrace this fear or faith, whatever you might want to call it - that we welcome the control they have on us and thus make them all powerful.

Also according to the documentary film, whoever is pulling the strings in the US, has orchestrated the bombings and thus created the fear and the hatred that have characterized Americans since 9\11 and that has justified the US? invasion of Iraq.

And what do you think the Federal Reserve Bank gets out of it? Ha! Like I said you absolutely need to watch the movie. It might put the whole international financial crisis in perspective.

The gist of the message of ?Zeitgeist? is that we are encouraged not to think for ourselves and not to question anything and we readily give in to this invitation to dumb us down, by embracing all the lies that are fed to us.

A word of caution though you will get offended if you have totally surrendered your discerning powers to the powers that be. But if you haven?t, the theories put forward by the makers of ?Zeitgeist? will scare you to death and hopefully, it will be the wake up call that we need.

I?m perfectly aware that the movie is about conspiracy theories and that conspiracy theories should be treated with the utmost caution.

But what if those theories held more truth than the official information that is fed to us?

Anyway, shortly after I?d seen the movie, I came across reports that the Church in Mauritius was resisting Government?s proposition to introduce the concept of amicable divorce. And it reminded me how the Church has always pronounced itself against abortion, against contraception even going to the extent of opposing the use of condoms!

That?s the extent of the attempt to control your life. And of course the same is true for all other religions.

But here?s a thought-what if it were really all a big lie?