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Tuesday Roundup 19-02-2008

A strange assortment to get you through the week…

  • Michael Prescott discusses how a skeptic’s debunking of crisis apparitions was completely off the mark.
  • Kevin Booth writes about “UFOs, Bill Hicks and the Harmonic Convergence” (he should know, he was there).
  • This week’s Binnall of America audio interview is with Cristo Louw, discussing UFOs in South Africa (available as mp3/podcast download, or streaming via Flash).
  • In his latest ‘Skeptic’ column for Scientific American, Michael Shermer shows how neuroscience shows that it’s easier to believe than to be a skeptic. Going by Michael Prescott’s blog entry above, more so than Michael Shermer might think…
  • Filip Coppens has a podcast interview with John Major Jenkins on the ‘Mayan Cosmogenesis’.
  • The Societe Perillos travels to “An Enchanted Valley” near Rennes-le-Chateau, which featured as a locale in the recent bestselling novel by Kate Mosse, Sepulchre.
  • Skeptic James Randi will travel to the ends of the Earth to pursue Uri Geller…or at least, to Germany, going by his latest newsletter.
  • Anthony North heads to the sunken city of Atlantis at Beyond the Blog.
  • Last week’s Dreamland radio show featured Michael Luckman talking about rock stars and UFOs (no mention of somniferous almond eyes as far as I could make out). Look up the top right of the page for the link to the show (‘Listen Now’).
  • UFO Casebook #294 is now available.
  • The MAPS February Email Update fills you in on all the latest psychedelic research news.
  • Whitley Strieber’s latest journal entry features plenty of high strangeness happening in Whitley’s life at the moment, including ‘contact’ with others.
  • The Hilly Rose Radio Show features Steven Sora discussing hidden secrets of the history of America (Real Audio or streaming mp3).
  • At Cabinet of Wonders, Emps fills you in on the connection between a new Crowley movie and Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson.
  • At Reality Sandwich, Charles Eisenstein writes of “Truth and Magic in the Third Dimension“.
  • Daniel Brenton offers a eulogy on his blog: “Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, Dies at 96“.
  • Filer’s Files #7 for 2008 has the latest ufological roundup.

Enjoy!

Editor
  1. Shared drug experiences
    There is a Darklore link in the Bill Hicks story as Adam Gorightly’s piece discusses a shared UFO experience he and a friend had when on drugs.

    You can share such hallucinations – my on personal observations suggest this can be down to a greater suggestibility but if everyone remained silent all bets are off.

  2. …easier to believe than to be a skeptic
    It is no easier for a skeptic to not believe his is right than it is for the ‘common’ folk.

    To really not believe does not mean to be in a state of denial but it rather means to be neutral.

    Denial is simply a negative belief.

    So, the believer positively believes something while the skeptic of the debunker type negatively believes something.

    So you have:
    I believe this.
    and its opposite:
    I believe it is not this.

    But the debunking skeptics’ argument then is:
    It is not that I believe it is not this, but that I don’t believe this.

    And this is a cop out since its is pretty obvious that a neutral mind is an open mind, and that for the simple reason that there is no belief system to protect.

    The very fact of trying to convince someone of anything, like convincing them to join a cause, that of the skeptics for instance, that very fact is based on the need to convince others of being right.

    And trying to convince others means asking them to believe in our position.

    And to support this, I will add that if someone was totally anti-belief, he would never ask someone else to join his cause, he would never seek to convince, he would only explain but never justify.

    Not believing is central to a spirit that frees itself from the memory of a thought system and from the influences of his civilization’s parameters that rule his way of thinking. This means that not believing means not even believing what the thinker may be thinking.

    Not believing is an absolute, not a relative.

    If I cannot believe what someone else thinks, I certainly cannot believe what I may think.

    Thoughts proceed from the same mechanical functions. So, anything that comes from that process cannot be believed.

    So, it is not because thoughts came from someone else that they should be less believed than those that came from oneself.

    In any case, the other guy will not believe what you thought anyway but will believe what he thought. So, what makes one thoughts more believable than the other guys’ thoughts? The fact that we are the one receiving it or not?

    Thoughts are perfectly adjusted to the program that is customized to the experience of an individual and link with the emotional to make it pulsate as a very personal and intimate phenomena.

    So long as we believe what we think, we are far from being skeptic, we are being sodomized and we like it. Then we ask others to bend over to receive the truth of our own thoughts.

    Oh the humanity!


    1. [quote=Richard]So long as we believe what we think, we are far from being skeptic, we are being sodomized and we like it. Then we ask others to bend over to receive the truth of our own thoughts.[/quote]

      …OUCH! 😀
      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

    2. Alrighty then…
      I don’t believe any of that tripe.

      But I don’t not believe in it either. Sometimes. Sort of. But not on Fridays.

      ————————————–
      My apologies go out to all who were just offended by this hostile, confrontational and completely unreasonable post.

    3. This is the essence.
      [quote=Richard]And to support this, I will add that if someone was totally anti-belief, he would never ask someone else to join his cause, he would never seek to convince, he would only explain but never justify.[/quote]

      So true. Problem is when someone tries to point out that the solution begins in recognizing yourself as the thinker, those who have yet to do so interpret the message as advocating anarchy and chaos. Or they visualize spending decades in a Zen monastery to achieve it.

      It’s inconceivable for anyone who’s yet to really experience true clarity of mind to understand the limitless nature, depth and positive solutions that naturally appear to a mind freed of the limitations of belief.

      1. Grrr…
        [quote=Michael H]It’s inconceivable for anyone who’s yet to really experience true clarity of mind to understand the limitless nature, depth and positive solutions that naturally appear to a mind freed of the limitations of belief.
        [/quote]

        Show-offs 😉
        —–
        It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
        It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

        Red Pill Junkie

      2. You bet!
        [quote]It’s inconceivable for anyone who’s yet to really experience true clarity of mind to understand the limitless nature, depth and positive solutions that naturally appear to a mind freed of the limitations of belief.[/quote]

        Hey, as long as you believe that, it’s good enough for me.

        ————————————–
        My apologies go out to all who were just offended by this hostile, confrontational and completely unreasonable post.

        1. No beliefs
          I like to think I have no beliefs, but in reality I only believe that. Indeed, is it possible to think anything outside a belief?

          I’m certain of only one thing. Nothing is certain

          Anthony North

          1. Nope
            [quote=anthonynorth]I like to think I have no beliefs, but in reality I only believe that. Indeed, is it possible to think anything outside a belief?

            I’m certain of only one thing. Nothing is certain

            Anthony North[/quote]

            I think we’re always boxed within belief systems to one degree or another. I think all we can do is try to recognize that, try to act and speak from a positive state of mind when we’re there, and try to be quiet when we’re grumpy.

            Of course, if everybody followed that, it would be awfully quiet. 🙂

          2. Belief systems
            Thoughts are beliefs, if we give them any value.

            Look at what thoughts can do to a person in times of crisis.

            Debunking thoughts and its system will be the key to freedom from beliefs.

          3. Moderate
            Maybe the answer is to be a moderate believer … and moderately grumpy 🙂

            The balanced adult retains an inner child

            Anthony North

          4. Belief
            Richard said:

            ‘Debunking thoughts and its system will be the key to freedom from beliefs.’

            That may, or may not, be a good belief. But it IS a belief.

            Reality, like time, is relative to the observer

            Anthony North

          5. Jumping comments
            These posts are jumping over each other tonight 🙂

            What would a moderate belief be worth? ‘Moderate’ does not mean a belief cannot be exciting, intuitive, original, ground-breaking, or anything else. The moderation comes in placing it amongst other beliefs. The moderation comes in not deciding yours is the only belief, but one among many others to be tolerated, if not necessarily believed.
            A moderate belief is worth a lot less blood, antagonism, strife, war, suffering …

            All the philosophy in all the world is not worth the spilling of a drop of blood

            Anthony North

          6. Ok
            Here Anthony. I do say and insist that this is not a belief. That is the whole point I am making. If it were a belief, it would be self defeating.

            On the other hand, since the individual is the only proof an individual will ever really are, you cannot believe the above statement.

            But saying ‘it is a belief’ is denying that it may not be one, and it automatically cuts you off from the potential realization of the full meaning this otherwise simple principle bears in its consequences. And you will consider me to be philosophizing.

            I ‘believe’ you know what I mean.

          7. I believe…
            I believe you guys are making me dizzy 😉

            —–
            It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
            It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

            Red Pill Junkie

          8. Dizzy or not, it’s an important point . . .
            I understand Anthony’s quest for moderation, but what Richard’s suggesting parallels almost exactly something I had to say to an Ayn Rand supporter who had informed me that I was claiming that A is simultaneously not A, along with a plethora of other Rand-speak. Objectivists are many things, moderate not among them:

            What Rand and her followers do not grasp is that all of these assumptions that are professed to be absolute are not, but that cannot be understood until one penetrates beyond the intellect and begins to actually see what their own intellect is up to.

            The problem is, until someone makes that experiential shift within, any attempt to show them otherwise will be met with extreme resistance by the very intellect they need to be cognizant of, and will be seen as nothing more than ‘mystical intuition’ from their point of view.

            The reason that is, as I tried to point out before, is that it’s always point of view.

            I’m honest when I say I don’t want you to believe me. Just look and see if it’s true or not. You don’t need to spend a decade in a Zen monastery – it’s just a thought away.

            I didn’t hear back from him. Probably too dizzy to respond.

          9. Loved it
            Loved that, Michael.
            Richard, I still don’t get how you can say you don’t have a belief. There is belief, belief and belief. ‘Truth’, in as much as it can ever exist, comes only from consensus, so even here ‘truth’ is a ‘lie’.

            Reality, like time, is relative to the observer

            Anthony North

          10. On ‘Truth’
            [quote=anthonynorth]’Truth’, in as much as it can ever exist, comes only from consensus, so even here ‘truth’ is a ‘lie’.
            [/quote]

            It appears that absolute truth does exist, but is forever ineffable. The problems come about from a failure to understand the ineffability. As a consequence, both Richard Dawkins and the Pope insist they “know the truth”, lemmings on both sides buy into their pronouncements, and we have alternative versions of “consensus truth” at war with one another. All over the world, in multiple manifestations.

            We’re all nuts, and the only way out is in beginning to see our own nuttiness. And that’s the truth. In the meantime, best to stay amused. 🙂

          11. Or …
            Either that, or just accepting that another ‘truth’ may not be as nutty, threatening, dangerous, pride bashing … well, that an alternative view can just be tolerated.
            Ah, for commonsense. Or is it naivety?

            I’m fanatical about moderation

            Anthony North

          12. dizzy

            I hope you guys realize I didn’t mean no disrespect. I was just pointing out that, at least for me, there comes a time where it is very difficult to follow your lines of thought, because they are beyond my level.

            Please, do take pity of us novices 🙂

            —–
            It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
            It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

            Red Pill Junkie

          13. Simplicity
            [quote=red pill junkie]I was just pointing out that, at least for me, there comes a time where it is very difficult to follow your lines of thought, because they are beyond my level.[/quote]

            It’s in complicating things that people trip themselves up.

            As I tried to point out to the Objectivist, it all seems hard to figure out as long as one tries to figure it out and keeps their inner focus within the intellect and on the ‘content’ of their thoughts.

            The simplicity of it is just in shifting the inner focus to seeing thought as thought, and watching what the intellect is up to. It’s not about following a line of thought, it’s about noticing that you’re trying to follow a line of thought.

            Sigh. In my second blog post I wrote about how limiting language is. What Richard and myself are both trying to say is not in the words used to say it. It’s in the feeling beyond the words.

            As Syd Banks says, it’s about looking for a positive feeling. Anyone reading this will know they’re on the right track when an insight arrives to them alone, a glimmer from within themselves. It isn’t along the lines of “Syd Banks said this”, or “Eckhart Tolle said that”. It’s about “Syd said this, and Eckhart said that, and this just occurred to me.

            It’s the “Ah-ha” moment we’re all looking for: The wisdom worthy of discovery is our own, not anyone else’s description of wisdom. If anyone claims wisdom for themselves, they haven’t genuinely discovered it.

          14. Aha
            I’d say this is spirituality as opposed to religion; intuition as opposed to research – the stuff of genius. That inner ‘self’ placing its razor light on reality. But it is only ‘truth’ in terms of the person. Something with which they can find identity, meaning, purpose – or maybe just being able to survive in the world.
            Occasionally someone with such an insight will change the world. The rest are just dismissed as cranks. Infact, I’d say that’s the difference between the genius and the crank. Acceptance.

            Reality, like time, is relative to the observer

            Anthony North

          15. Spirituality
            Spirituality is a necessary manipulation to pull humanity out of the basic trap of materialism, showing materialist illusions, but by means of other illusory forms.

            It remains seated on psychology but is higher in vibration.

            But to meet reality, the illusions of spirituality will also need to be seen.

            When the initiates of the past changed the world, it was because the world was susceptible to be influenced. Had the world been evolved already, instead of changing the world, they would have worked with the world. So, what was really changed was not the world but the way the world would think.

            All thought schools and ideologies that were imprinted by the initiates of the past served the purpose to end a necessary but obsolete epoch of mind penetration of matter. And all these epoch were the result of an imprinted collective program that was perceived as free will. And as such, all those programs run their courses and at one point must be replaced by a new program, adjusted to the general state of consciousness of the peak of humanity, because the base is drawn by the peak.

            But comes the day when the individual must break free of his shell and become his own light. This is what was described by the ancients as the passage between involution and evolution. The future initiates will not come to change the consciousness of the masses but this time it will be to institute an arbitration between a young civilization and the old civilization.

            But this young civilization will not be young in the sense of being naive, rather it will be young only in age as it will not be possible to influence it, because it will not be capable of believing.

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