-MAD: Paul and Phillip, thank you so much for engaging in this
discussion today, I’ve been looking forward to it. I recently had
the opportunity to finish an e-book copy of your work THE ASCENDANCY
OF THE SCIENTIFIC DICTATORSHIP (which you so graciously sent me),
and it was a highly researched and impressive read. While we might
have some differences of opinion regarding the religious aspect of
things, I pretty much agree with the technical information you are
providing, and think you’re right on the mark with the great
majority of your conclusions. A highly recommendable book which
deserves as widespread a readership as possible, it’s hard to argue
with the copious amount of perspective you so articulately provide
in this tome. Regular contributors at CONSPIRACY ARCHIVE and
RAIDERS
NEWS NETWORK, could you give us a little bit of background on some
of those events which first gleaned your interest in the Scientific
and Occult methodology that’s swiftly emerging today in the myriad
forms of a New World Order?
-Paul: My background begins in my late teens when we were living in
Colorado. That particular state really rubbed off on us. At that
time (the early 90s), Colorado was made up of people who were rugged
individualists with a healthy suspicion of government. However, they
were also real salt of the earth people who would give you the
shirts off their backs. So, the whole anti-authoritarian environment
really rubbed off on us. It was everywhere, including school. While
we were in high school (we graduated in 1993), there was a sizeable
anarchist crowd that was part of the school population. Cliques were
frowned upon at our school and everyone was pretty close, your
particular walk of life (e.g., metal head, hippy, preppy, anarchist,
etc.) not withstanding. So, we were close to a lot of those
anarchist kids. We didn't really share all their views on how
society should be arranged, but they did point out some very
legitimate flaws with modern government (Clinton was President at
the time, and they cut him absolutely no slack). Everyone at the
time had a sense that something was not quite right, and that
included myself. So, I got some books and began to read.
However, my epiphany really didn't come until we relocated to Ohio
in late 1995. At that time, I began taking classes at a local
community college (I had started college in Colorado, but I began to
get serious about earning a degree when I relocated). It was there
that I met the judge who taught me Constitutional Law and Criminal
Justice. When he wasn't running his court, he was contributing his
time to teach at the college. I’d heard he’d had an interesting
background, but I didn't know just how interesting until he gave a
talk in a different class entitled: “American Issues.” He stated
that he had been a CIA asset during his college days. He was also
reenlisted by the Agency when he was in the Marine Corp over in
Vietnam. The Agency wanted him to gather intel from the indigenous
population. His legend (i.e., trade rap for your cover that is
supposed to hold until you slip away) was that he was a Canadian
national running a trading post and doing trade with the natives.
When he asked what his job would involve, they told him, "You're a
nice guy, talk to people." And that is what he did.
V.C. and N.V.A. would warm up to him, tell him what hill their
uncles, cousins, brothers, fellow soldiers, etc. were on and my
teacher would report back to his handlers. Lo and behold, the
locations he reported ended up being bombed.
My teacher ended up making good friends with an N.V.A. general. The
general wanted my teacher to visit Hanoi with him. My teacher wasn't
thrilled at all with the idea. His Agency handlers, however, thought
the opportunity to gather intel in the heart of enemy territory was
too good to let slip by. So, they told him to do it. And he did it,
but not too well. Imagine being the only white guy in Hanoi. It was
a very stressful time and my teacher just could not function. So he
came back with some very poor intel.
Someone in the Agency wasn't pleased with my teacher's performance,
and blew his cover. The Valerie Plame affair is nothing new. The
intel business is very dangerous, especially when things get
politicized. To make a long story short (too late), my teacher found
himself in danger and, if it wasn't for his NVA general friend, he
wouldn't be alive today.
This man basically taught me that deep political practices and
conspiracy are a reality. So, I started looking into it a lot more
then. But, I didn't start writing just yet. My first great love was,
and still is, acting and the stage. So, my time was mostly spent
doing plays.
That changed in 2001 when the local theatre scene started to dry up
and 9/11 happened. I actually wrote my first book and started to
actively engage this topic seriously.
-Phillip: Like Paul, my first passion has been theatre and the
performing arts. I have acted in several plays and one independent
film (which, sadly, was shelved). I also play guitar and absolutely
love music. However, Ohio is not necessarily the cultural Mecca of
the United States, so neither of us have had a very supportive
climate for these interests. We still pursue them, but we have
devoted more time to research concerning elite criminality and
conspiratorial history.
I really became interested in these particular subjects as my
studies in media criticism and philosophy progressed. Media
criticism, which concerns itself predominantly with semiotics, makes
no bones about the role of the mass media’s role in sculpting public
opinion and, in the words of Noam Chomsky, “manufactures consent.”
During my studies in philosophy, I was introduced to deceased
philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault’s work, particularly in
‘Discipline and Punish’, affirmed the Orwellian contention that
society was experiencing a tectonic shift towards a carceral
culture. Although some of Foucault’s historical research was
questionable and his ideological propensities tended to blur his
analysis, ‘Discipline and Punish’ succinctly demonstrated the mass
diffusion of the panoptic schema throughout society. While
conspiracy tends to be a rather taboo topic in academia, there’s an
impressive body of scholarly work that affirms the reality of a
conspiratorial dimension to human history. Foucault was one such
source.
The basic thesis of ‘The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship’
began to develop while I was in a course over science and religion.
For me, the course affirmed the contentions of controversial
thinkers like Charles Fort and Thomas Kuhn. In that course, which
should have been more appropriately titled Scientism 101, I had
firsthand experience with what Fort called “the orthodox
conventionality of Science.” I recognized the epistemological
rigidity with which modern science approached phenomena and the
sociological considerations according to which certain conclusions
were made. All of these conclusions were made to affirm a particular
Weltanschauung, which was inherently technocratic and morally
anarchistic. Many scientists were acting as priests in lab coats,
providing authoritarian paradigms with scientific legitimization.
The theoreticians who were virtually canonized in my science and
religion course all advocated some pretty dubious, if not downright
anti-democratic, forms of governance. In short, I had a brush with
what could only be characterized as an epistemological cartel
-MAD: I too share your love of theatre and music, at least aspects
of the arts, and have a background in these areas as well. And I
agree with your statement Phillip, that while conspiracy might seem
“taboo” to some, or extremist paranoia, there is undoubtedly a
reality to the conspiratorial dimensions of human history.
Especially when concerning $$$, politics or religion. Aside from
those things we could debate upon in concerns to how religion plays
into the whole structure, it might be a good time to get the
controversial topic of Evolution VS Creationism, and if there is a
middle ground that can be met between theory and faith, science and
religion, matter and spirit. While we can conclude that there’s a
Scientific Regime at work behind the scenes, ruled by corporate
interests and deceptive governmental agencies, would you agree that
there is some truth behind evolution and merit to the vast array of
scientific discoveries which have changed the landscape of our world
over the past few hundred years? Whatever gaps and holes might be
within the current models of evolutionary theory, can we really
throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to the
calculative logic and reasoning of science and natural selection?
Can there be reconciliation between science and religion, that’s not
controlled by New Age special interest groups?
-Phillip: Well, let’s examine one of the patron saints of our modern
epistemological cartel, Charles Darwin. Technocrats, elitists,
racists, and Freemasons surrounded Darwin. Such men shaped Darwin’s
thinking and, in turn, his theories. As Miguel De Cervantes put it
in ‘Don Quixote’, “Tell me what company thou keepest, and I’ll tell
thee what thou art.” Proffering a form of elitism that was now
premised upon biology, Darwinism affirmed this maxim.
Darwinism represented an attempt to scientifically dignify a
Weltanschauung that was politically and socially expedient to the
elite. Darwin sculpted his theory along the contours of his own
Weltanschauung, which was strongly influenced by several
questionable ideologues like T.H. Huxley (a racist, a Freemason, a
fellow of the Masonic Royal Society, a member of an oligarchical
dynasty, and one of the individuals responsible for the formation of
the Rhodes Round Table Groups), Erasmus Darwin (Charles’
grandfather, a Freemason, a member of the technocratic Lunar
Society, and a supporter of the radical, Illuminist-bred Jacobins),
Harriet Martineau (a Comtean sociocrat, Positivist, an apologist for
the corporate interests of the Whigs, and an advocate of eugenical
regimentation), and Herbert Spencer (a theoretician of the
technocratic social sciences and an advocate of Britain’s genocidal
colonial warfare). All of these individuals acted as hosts for
ideational contagions that were endemic to the ruling class. They,
in large measure, shaped Darwin’s thinking. I guess you could
characterize it as a memetic transmission belt of sorts.
Adrian Desmond and James Moore most eloquently synopsized the
results of this hideous ideational amalgam:
“Social Darwinism is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly
concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event,
tarnishing Darwin's image. But his notebooks make plain that
competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and
sexual inequality were written into the equation from the
start--“Darwinism” was always intended to explain human society.”
Darwinism was always meant to be a social theory, not a scientific
one. The type of society that it was designed to explain was that
type of society that Darwin saw continually advocated by the
dominant sociopolitical interests of the time, which were purely
oligarchical in character.
Of course, the historical tide of Darwinism did not rise in a
completely organic fashion. There was a conspiratorial element
behind the dissemination and popularization of Darwinism. The
Masonic Royal Society would bestow Darwinism with institutional
accreditation, which is the secular equivalent of a religious
blessing. Now, one could consider the Royal Society a collection of
naïve Baconians who believed in an oversimplified epistemology of
empirical science devoid of intention, devoid of hypotheses
(Newton’s hypothesis non fingo). However, there was an inner circle
within the Royal Society, which Adrian Desmond and James Moore
characterize as “a sort of masonic Darwinian lodge, invisible to
outsiders.” This inner circle was the X Club. Its members wielded a
substantial amount of influence over every famous scientist at the
time. All of its members except Herbert Spencer were secretaries or
presidents of “learned societies.” T.H. Huxley presided over the
group, which would manipulate the scientific press.
One of the most prevalent examples of the X Club’s media
manipulation was its obfuscation of the Bathybius haeckelii. When it
was discovered that Bathybius haeckelii was gypsum and not the
missing Monera in Ernst Haeckel’s phylogenetic tree, the X Club
suppressed almost every revelation of the debacle. Remember, the X
Club was presided over by T.H. Huxley, a Freemason and a participant
in the formation of the Rhodes Round Table Groups. The Round Table
Groups were devoted to the formation of a British-ruled socialist
totalitarian world government. Out of the Round Table Groups would
come the Royal Institute for International Affairs. The RIIA would
establish a stateside branch here in the United States known as the
Council on Foreign Relations. This organization has acted as
America’s premiere foreign policy cartel and a major catalyst for
globalization. Globalism, in the words of the late Malachi Martin,
qualifies as “sociopolitical Darwinism.” It is premised upon the
belief that global governance is the natural corollary of man’s
alleged political evolution.
Mind you, T.H. Huxley was instrumental in establishing the
organizational infrastructure that would lead to the modern network
of institutions devoted to the promulgation of sociopolitical
Darwinism. Given his Freemasonic heritage, Huxley probably embraced
many of the technocratic Utopian ideas of the Enlightenment. He and
many others probably viewed Darwinism as the scientific foundation
for the oligarchical vision that they were hoping to tangibly enact.
The crusade for a New World Order is neo-Gnostic in character. All
modern sociopolitical Utopians seek to realize the Gnostic vision of
an immanentized Eschaton. Communists, fascists, socialists,
Transnationalists, Internationalists, and the like constitute
secular Gnostics who envision an Eschaton (‘end of days”) within the
ontological plane of the physical universe. Darwinism promised to
edify the adherents of this vision. Darwinism functions as a Gnostic
myth, affirming the Gnostic claim of “self-salvation” with the
metaphysical claim of “self-creation.”
By the way, metaphysical claims have always been the province of
religion. The theme of “self-creation,” which is encapsulated within
the Darwinian thesis of abiogenesis, can be found in other older
occult belief systems. For instance, the Kabalistic legend of the
golem presents a living man that arises from dead matter. As Albert
Pike pointed out in ‘Morals and Dogma’, Kabbalism was one of the
occult belief systems that formed the core of Masonry. Given the
considerable number of Masonic personages surrounding Darwin, it is
very possible that occult concepts like the golem found its way into
Darwin’s thinking and his theory.
-MAD: Sorry to interrupt for a moment, but in relation to the Golem
ideal, we also have the distinguished and esoteric laden story of
Frankenstein’s Monster, written by Mary Shelly in 1818. Also known
as 'The Modern Prometheus'. Her husband, the romantic poet Percy
Bysshe Shelley, is perhaps most well known for his work 'Prometheus
Unbound'. To take this even further, it is connotative to the
proposed powers and talents of the ancient Alchemists, transforming
lead into gold, or temporal life into eternal life. We still see
this motto, this practice, in widespread use today with the Catholic
ritual of transubstantiation. In many ways this also relates in a
more modern and scientific representation as the ideal of “Free
Energy”, of which people like Nikola Tesla and Wilhelm Reich were
greatly interested in. A "Primordial Mound" of consciousness,
creation and energy; a sort of Self-pollination from the cosmic
ether. Some might call it the awakening of 'Kundalini' or the 3rd
Eye, but that's a whole different discussion.
-Phillip: You’re correct and that is a very adequate summation of
these same basic occult beliefs and intellectual uniformity which is
evidenced in the role of the Golem. Transmutation, and mastery over
either the metaphysical or the scientific. And ultimately, alchemy
or the occult, have always been related in some form or fashion to
the scientific explanation and understanding of natural events.
-MAD: We might wonder if SCIENCE and SÉANCE have the same root
function? Or SION for that matter, which is not only a prominent
capital city in the Bible, but is also associated with THE SUN.
-Phillip: It could be. As for the so-called conflict between science
and religion, we tend to agree with Rama Coomaraswamy (who we quote
extensively in our book). The conflict is not between science and
religion, but between two attitudes. The traditional attitude
recognizes science for what it is… a system of quantification. As
such, science must occupy itself predominantly with quantifiable
entities. Science is derived from the Latin word scientia, which
means “knowing” or “knowledge.” Modern science, which is dominated
by the Baconian method and empiricism, can only provide knowledge of
what is quantifiable. Thus, it can only offer a fragmentary glimpse
of the totality of truth. To assert that science alone will bring
the totality of truth into clear focus is the epistemological
dogmatism known as scientism. There are other epistemologies that,
when placed in a hierarchical system of application along with
science, can provide a greater understanding of the truth.
For instance, take man’s innate ability of abstraction. From the
sensible objects of the physical world, man is able to extrapolate
universal principles. In turn, these universal principles
gesticulate toward a universal directive principle. That directive
principle is God. Paul the Apostle demonstrated the process of
abstraction with a wonderful economy of words in the Scriptures:
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his
eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." (Romans
1:20)
Grasping this reality would be impossible within the
epistemologically rigid parameters of radical empiricism. The senses
only play a passive role in knowledge. The active role of knowledge
acquisition is provided by the mind and the principles that it
extrapolates from sensible objects are supra-sensible. Certainly,
accepting this reality is difficult for those laboring under the
paradigm of radical empiricism. However, the reality of those
supra-sensible principles derived from sensible objects is
irrefutable. Mathematical principles are supra-sensible, but they
are no less real and can be tangibly manifested through
architecture. How many times have greater possibilities been
overlooked because of the epistemological rigidity of scientism?
As a Christian, I strongly believe that the Lord reveals certain
truths to us. No doubt, many will raise a skeptical eyebrow. Yet, I
would caution anyone who would rush to judgment. Science’s purely
empirical approach is no less mystical in character. To demonstrate
the mystical nature of radical empiricism, I will quote directly
from our book:
Yet, an exclusively empirical approach relegates cause to the realm
of metaphysical fantasy. This holds enormous ramifications for
science. What is perceived as A causing B could be merely a
consequence of circumstantial juxtaposition. Although temporal
succession and spatial proximity are axiomatic, causal connection is
not. Affirmation of causal relationships is impossible. Given the
absence of causality, all of a scientist's findings must be taken
upon faith. Ironically, science relies on the affirmation of such
cause and effect relationships.
So, a purely empirical approach is no more reliable. Radical
empiricism overemphasizes the passive component of knowledge and
completely overlooks the active component, which is the intellect.
The intellect and abstraction are extremely important. They reflect
man’s universal position of imago viva Dei (created in the image of
the Creator). Radical empiricism really stems from a somewhat
Gnostic dissatisfaction with cognitio fidei (the cognition of
faith). It comes as little surprise that Jesus rebuked Thomas for
his radical empiricism, admonishing “Thomas, because thou hast seen
me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet
have believed” (John 20:29).
Moreover, the radical empirical approach holds significant
ramifications for human dignity and liberty. Henri de Saint-Simon,
who was the mentor of August Comte and an early advocate of a
scientific dictatorship, extended radical empiricism to questions of
governance. This extension led to the physiological or organic
interpretation of the state. Thus, we have sociology’s concept of
the “social organism.” According to this sociological concept, the
state is one enormous social organism and the citizens are mere
cells. As such, citizens are subordinate to the collective. This is
vintage collectivism, which was the political doctrine of both Nazi
Germany and communist Russia. It comes as little surprise that Ernst
Haeckel, Hitler’s mentor in social Darwinism, contend that each cell
of an organism, “though autonomous, is subordinated to the body as a
whole; in the same way in the societies of bees, ants, and termites,
in the vertebrate herds, and in the human state, each individual is
subordinate to the social body of which he is a member.”
Of course, there is always an elite who occupies the developmental
capstone of the physiological state. For Haeckel, it was the Aryan.
For the sociopolitical Darwinian elite of today, it is whoever
occupies their own layer of socioeconomic stratum. Darwinism was
designed according to such elitist presuppositions. Haeckel said
that natural selection was “aristocratic in the strictest sense of
the word.”
I’ve said this in other interviews, but it is worth repeating… Have
you ever contemplated the etymology of the term "religion"? It means
"to bind." Any belief that binds the adherent through a system of
ritualized practices qualifies as a religion. I once had a guitar
instructor who admonished me to practice my scales "religiously."
Football fans could also qualify as members of a "religion." I
submit to you the ongoing jihad between Ohio State and Michigan
fans. Now, there is a religious war that I think might even make the
most ardent Islamic jihadist cringe. Consider Bob Dylan... now there
is a deity that has enjoyed being the center of the largest secular
religion around.
I have argued throughout most of my work that even the most
stridently secular Weltanschauung invariably becomes religious in
character. That is because all Weltanschauungs must proffer some
core metaphysical claim. Metaphysical claims have always been the
province of religion.
And, one could argue that secular Weltanschauungs are conceptually
and philosophically predisposed to follow religious trajectories. In
the article "Nothing Beyond the Flesh: The Theocracy of Prima
Materia," I argue that anti-theistic, anti-spiritual Weltanschauungs
are merely camouflaged variants of the same anthropocentric
religion. That article can be read at the following URL: (
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Prima_Materia.htm ).
So, either way, religion enters the picture.
By the way, neither Paul nor I are what you would call
“Creationists.” We are Christians and we believe that the Lord
created man in His own image. However, we do not subscribe to a
majority of Creationist theories, which tend to exalt entropy as
some sort of universal principle and also attempt to explain the
miraculous within the context of metaphysical naturalism. In hopes
of offering some naturalistic explanations of what are clearly
supernatural events, Creationists fall into the same metaphysical
trap as evolutionists.
-MAD: I agree that the Creationists and Evolutionists fall into
similar traps. While it might sound ‘Illuminist’ of me, and I
realize there is ‘evil’ in the world, I’ve come to the conclusion
that there is no difference between that of Entropy and Order, that
they are both equal and opposite functions of the universe, which
are unilaterally serving the same inevitable outcome. This
ultimately all comes down to Creation working on indefinite levels
of time/space and reality, in a never-ending and divine balance
which is both harmony and discord. Though, those unscrupulous among
us, who might abide by the more ‘negative’ aspects of life,
considering themselves magicians, will take it from the old “Ordo Ab
Chao”, and create the Chaos they need, in order to offer us
solutions and give us their version of Order. Classic
problem/reaction/solution techniques where the EL-ites are trying to
make themselves into “Gods” of the New Jerusalem, or the New
Olympus, New Atlantis, etc….
In your well written and informative article THE ALCHEMY OF WARFARE
you make the following statements:
“Darwinism was but one more permutation of an ancient occult
doctrine of transformism. This occult belief originated in
Mesopotamia roughly 6000 years ago and was actively promulgated by
the various Mystery cults. It also comprises the ruling class
religion of today. At the heart of the doctrine is the claim that
man is gradually evolving towards apotheosis. Throughout the years,
the religion of apotheosized man has recycled itself under numerous
appellations. Darwinism was but one more installment in this
seamless ideational continuum. In this series, I am going to examine
one of the chief facilitators of man's purported evolution: war .
“ In hopes of fulfilling their occult Darwinian doctrine, the elite
intend this war to last for a very long time. After all, war is
evolution.”
Would you conclude that the primal ideals and understanding of
eugenic methods and evolutionary theory has been with us since at
least the times of ancient Mesopotamia, some 6000 years ago? For
instance, there is much speculation and evidence suggesting that
Neanderthal was heralded into extinction not only because of the
nature of their environment, but also due to a “race war” with the
emerging Cro-Magnon, and other competing tribes (some 75,000B.C.).
Do you believe that the tactics of eugenics have been employed, in
one form or another, since the dawn of human civilization?
Phillip: You are absolutely correct about eugenical practices dating
back much further into human history. Sparta, for instance, employed
hideous practices of infanticide and euthanasia in hopes of
maintaining the “superior stock” for its militaristic society. Men
like Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Galton would simply dignify such
concepts with pseudo-scientific theories. Arguably, several
scientific paradigms of the late 19th century were merely engineered
to affirm the practices and doctrines of the ruling class. The elite
needed a new ecclesiastical authority to legitimize their new
theocracy, which was premised upon the same anthropocentric religion
that originated in Mesopotamia 6000-years ago. Theoreticians like
Galton and Darwin served this purpose.
-MAD: The famed Greek philosopher Plato, was also a promoter of
superior or “noble” bloodlines and genetics, claiming they were more
valuable and worthy than those of the “lesser races”.
Quote from ‘Republic’:
"[459a] You have in your house hunting-dogs and a number of pedigree
cocks … do not some prove better than the rest? Do you then breed
from all indiscriminately, or are you careful to breed from the
best? [459b] And, again, do you breed from the youngest or the
oldest, or, so far as may be, from those in their prime? And if they
are not thus bred, you expect, do you not, that your birds and
hounds will greatly degenerate? And what of horses and other
animals? Is it otherwise with them? … How imperative, then, is our
need of the highest skill in our rulers, if the principle holds also
for mankind? … [459d] the best men must cohabit with the best women
in as many cases as possible and the worst with the worst in the
fewest, [459e] and that the offspring of the one must be reared and
that of the other not, if the flock is to be as perfect as possible.
And the way in which all this is brought to pass must be unknown to
any but the rulers, if, again, the herd of guardians is to be as
free as possible from dissension. [460a] Certain ingenious lots,
then, I suppose, must be devised so that the inferior man at each
conjugation may blame chance and not the rulers [460b] and on the
young men, surely, who excel in war and other pursuits we must
bestow honors and prizes, and, in particular, the opportunity of
more frequent intercourse with the women, which will at the same
time be a plausible pretext for having them beget as many of the
children as possible. And the children thus born will be taken over
by the officials appointed for this, men or women or both, since, I
take it, the official posts too are common to women and men."
In the piece entitled ENGINEERING EVOLUTION: THE ALCHEMY OF
EUGENICS, you quote:
“In the dark past of human civilization, the ruling class controlled
humanity largely through religious institutions and mysticism.
However, the turn of the century witnessed the epistemic
transformation of the elite's religious power structure into a
"scientific dictatorship." The history and background of this
"scientific dictatorship" is a conspiracy, created and micro-managed
through the historical tide of Darwinism, which has its foundations
in Freemasonry...
“ A common misnomer that has been circulated by academia's anointed
historians is that the alchemists of antiquity were attempting to
transform lead into gold. In truth, this was a fiction promulgated
by the alchemists themselves to conceal their ultimate objectives .
. .the transformation of man into a god. Among one of the various
occult organizations that aspired to complete this alchemical
mission was Freemasonry...
“ Before its popularization, evolutionary theory was the
intellectual property of Masonry. Freemason Erasmus Darwin, Charles'
grandfather, "originated almost every important idea that has since
appeared in evolutionary theory" (Darlington, p. 62, 1959). It is
hardly a coincidence that many of Charles Darwin's chief promoters
were Freemasons, not the least of which being T.H. Huxley. It is
even less of a coincidence that Charles Darwin's cousin, Sir Francis
Galton, would become one of the early expediters of Masonry's
alchemical agenda.”
Though I would agree with you that Darwin’s presentations were
incomplete and somewhat rudimentary, and the man himself was tied to
the Freemasons as well as the birth of the Eugenics Movement, I
don’t necessarily think that negates the evidence for evolution, or
prove that the theory itself is false or part of an elaborate hoax.
I completely respect individual beliefs and religious faith,
people’s right to choose their own path, but do you see the
capability for “evolution” and “spirituality” to coexist? Are we
dealing with a false paradigm altogether?
-Phillip: You’re right about not throwing the baby out with the
bathwater… if the baby is not bad to begin with. Again, the
neo-Darwinian contention has been that Social Darwinism and eugenics
were later additions to the “pure” evolutionary doctrine. However,
Darwin’s own personal history clearly demonstrates that this was not
the case. Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, is considered the
founder of the modern eugenics movement. Darwin dignified Galton’s
ideas, commenting that “genius tends to be inherited.” Darwin quoted
from Galton extensively in ‘The Descent of Man’. In fact, Descent
opens with quite a candid endorsement of selective breeding. I’ll
quote Darwin directly for the edification of the audience:
“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and
those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We
civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process
of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and
the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their
utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There
is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who
from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox.
Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind.
No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will
doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is
surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads
to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of
man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst
animals to breed.”
Darwin himself practiced selective breeding. In hopes of maintaining
the “purity” of his seed, Darwin married the youngest granddaughter
of his maternal father. The results of this inbreeding project were
disastrous. Three of his six sons were chronically ill and regarded
as “semi-invalids.” His last son, Charles Jr., was born retarded and
died only nineteen months after birth. Two of his daughters also
died at very young ages and his oldest girl, Henrietta, suffered a
serious breakdown at fifteen. No doubt, the company that Darwin kept
inspired such experimentation in selective breeding. Surrounded by
technocrats, Freemasons, oligarchical progenies, and other
individuals of an elitist pedigree, Darwin was inculcated into many
of the morally bankrupt practices of the ruling class. Darwin’s own
theories were designed to legitimize this sordid tradition. Of
course, Darwin never openly advocated medical sterilization, but
that’s only because those eugenical methods had yet to be developed.
Given his woeful assessment of races that he believed constituted
“lesser stock,” Darwin would have had little objection to many of
the practices of the later eugenicists.
In regards to the so-called “evidence” for evolution, all that
Darwinism has ever been able to demonstrate is adaptations and
variations within species. Darwinism has never been able to
demonstrate speciation. Moreover, the theory contradicts itself. On
one hand, it represents an open rejection of any teleological
Weltanschauungs. On the other hand, it presents processes and
mechanisms that imply some teleological elements at work. Darwin
himself always invoked anthropic attributions when speaking in
regards to nature. Lyell gently rebuked Darwin for these
anthropomorphic proclivities. Today, neo-Darwinians like Richard
Dawkins proclaim, “Nothing happens by accident in evolution.” Gee,
statements like these sound awfully teleological!
In regards to the concepts of “evolution” and “spirituality”
co-existing, I think we have already seen such a synthesis. It was
called Theosophy and it was one of the underpinning religions of
Nazi occultism. Bear in mind that any theory of progressive
biological development is going to be hierarchical in nature.
Invariably, this implies a political doctrine that is inherently
elitist. Ernst Haeckel, Hitler’s mentor in social Darwinism,
correctly observed that Darwinian natural selection was
“aristocratic in the strictest sense of the word.” The addition of a
spiritual dimension merely provides a neo-Gnostic rationale for
violent political activism and the Utopian hubris that humanity
itself will immanentize the Eschaton.
Those who want a comprehensive overview of eugenics and evolutionary
ethics should check out Richard Weikart’s seminal book, ‘From Darwin
to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany’. On
November 15, 2004, Weikart delivered an outstanding lecture at UC in
Santa Barbara, which can be viewed at the following URL:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5942999411137186951&q=eugenics
-MAD: And very interesting that at roughly the same time as the
sprouting up of the Theosophical Movement, we also have the
emergence of groups like the Yale Skull and Bones Society, or the
Bohemian Grove, both of these tying into far elder groups and cults
coming out of Germany and parts of the Middle East. Which further
connects into the indoctrination of the proclaimed “New Age”
movement, endorsed by Blavatsky, Crowley, Cayce, Fortune, and on and
on. However, just because racist and ill-intentioned people were the
first to promote these theories of evolution and the synthesis
between Spirituality and Science, does not necessarily mean that the
information itself is completely invalid. It is in extremism either
way where we find the problems, and we should try to seek that
harmonious middle ground where we can logically examine the
evidence, and try to rectify past mistakes. I don’t see science and
religion itself to be the enemy, rather who is controlling and
manipulating these factions for their own benefit.
In terms of Darwin and evolution, I tend to believe that the
implications of evolution, as well as eugenics, was already known
within many scientific and genealogical circles for many hundreds,
if not thousands of years before Darwin’s version of these theories.
It was only a matter of time before someone brought forth
‘evolutionary’ sciences to the masses, and the idea is so obvious
and observable, at least on finite levels, that it might have been
the masses, not the socio-scientists, who began promoting the
concepts of adaptation and natural progression on a species to
species scale. As with everything, the “Illuminati” often take
obvious truths, put their own spin on it, and claim that it was
their idea in the first place.
While highly influential, do you believe that the Freemasons are
themselves somewhat subordinate to higher authorities who have
always been pulling their strings? Religious, political and
corporate powers for instance. Are the Freemasons, in the totality
of their organization, merely scapegoats and middle-men to more
powerful groups and organizations?
-Paul: We don't subscribe to monolithic conspiracy theories. People
need to dislodge their brains from the Ian Fleming idea that sitting
behind this whole thing is Donald Pleasance stroking a cat. The
global oligarchical establishment is a network based on the precepts
of elitism. It allows elites to consolidate their power and
interface with other elites that share common goals. That being
said, there is a lot of factionalism involved. Old money hates new
money, and old dynasties look at new ones as intrusive
“Johnny-come-lately” prototypes. Carl Oglesby captured the situation
pretty accurately in his book ‘The Yankee and Cowboy War’.
Freemasonry's role in this arrangement is problematic. Some lodges
are elitist conduits, others are not. Some subscribe to the occult
ideas that make up the power elite's religion, others could really
care less about it.
There are lodges that had a period where they were quite active in
deep political practices and covert to politics, but then, later on,
went dormant. Some lodges remain little more than fraternal lodges,
while others become temples of religion and/or part of the deep
political system. It is a mixed bag.
-MAD: As we’ve recently passed the 10 year anniversary concerning
the strange suicides of the Heaven’s Gate cult, I’d like to bring up
another detailed and well researched article entitled MJ-12:THE
TECHNOCRATIC THREAD, which covers the gamut of what we consider to
be “UFO Cults”, and the sociological methods by which to institute a
technocratic dictatorship based upon such longstanding New Age
ideals as extraterrestrial contact and alien visitation. In
particular this impressive piece discusses the mysterious MAJESTIC
TWELVE DOCUMENTS, which claim to pertain to decade’s worth of
communication between alien races from other planets, and the
governments of Earth.
“The MJ-12 documents portray just such a state of affairs. Whether
authentic or phony, the purported Majestic group represents the
technocratic conception of totalitarianism. Its alleged members
constitute a coterie of policy professionals. Yet, most UFO
researchers fail to identify this thematic thread of technocratic
thought. Preoccupied with aliens and flying saucers, Ufologists
overlook the technocratic implications of the MJ-12 documents.
Interestingly enough, many Ufologists do not even object to the
notion of policy professionals circumventing America's democratic
processes and presiding over decision-making. Instead, they merely
object to the obscurantism surrounding such cults of expertise.
Evidently, some Ufologists do not fear authoritarianism. They only
fear secrecy, which, ironically, is a natural correlative of
authoritarianism.”
This question is a bit off the beaten path in regards to your
article, but briefly keeping on the subject of the Heaven’s Gate
cult. Is there a likely possibility that groups such as Heaven’s
Gate, or even Jim Jones, David Koresh or Charlie Manson, might have
started off as government mind control projects which outgrew their
usefulness? This thread could further run into political
assassinations, or the manufacturing of events such as OK City,
Columbine, or even 911. How deep to you see the rabbit hole going in
regards to mind control and the cult connection?
-Paul: The excellent investigative researcher Daniel Hopsicker has
revealed that the 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult that
committed suicide were staying at the mansion of Sam Koutchesfahani.
Koutchesfahani was a retainer for the Shah of Iran, an arms dealer
and an informant for the San Diego FBI at the time of the cult
suicide. We also know that the FBI was running an Operation:
Heaven’s Gate in the San Diego area. To say this is all coincidence
is to strain credulity. That whole cult suicide had many of the
trademarks of a government mind control operation.
Jim Jones is an even more profound example. At a very young age,
Jones had hooked up with a man named Dan Mitrione. Mitrione was a
Navy veteran who became part of the Richmond Police Department. He
would later go to work for the CIA under a cover of working for the
Agency of International Development (USAID). After a U.S.-sponsored
coup led to Goulart’s ouster in Brazil, Mitrione went to work there
for the CIA teaching torture techniques to Brazilian police. I
believe Mitrione was Jones’ CIA handler and probably taught Jones
the advanced hypnosis techniques he used on his followers.
Congressman Leo Ryan believed Jones to be a CIA agent. Ryan’s
daughter even filed a lawsuit that named Jones as a CIA operative.
But, the whole thing was covered up with what was labeled “mass
suicide.” Personally, I am not convinced. National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski ordered the bodies at Jonestown stripped of all
personal identification. Investigative reporter Joseph Trento has
revealed that Brzezinski was recruited by Ted Shackley as a CIA
asset during his years as a young Polish college student. Guyana’s
chief medical examiner, Dr. Leslie Mootoo conducted a medical
examination on the bodies at Jonestown and concluded that more than
700 of the people were murdered.
Manson was connected in several ways to the Process Church of Final
Judgment. According to David Berkowitz, one of the Son of Sam
killers who were associated with Process, the cult provided drugs
for sex parties held at Roy Cohn’s Connecticut residence. Before his
death from AIDS, Cohn admitted in an interview with former NYPD
detective James Rothstein that he was running a sex/blackmail
operation that employed children as a means of compromising
pedophile politicians. CIA agent Edwin Wilson continued the very
same operation. Sex and drugs are often employed to program people
through abuse. It goes on and on. People wanting to know more might
want to check out part two of our article "The Deep Politics of God:
The CNP, Dominionism, and the Ted Haggard Scandal,” which can be
found at the following URL:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/CNP_Dominionism2.htm
I just went the long way around the barn to basically say that the
rabbit hole in regards to intelligence mind control projects and
their connection to cults goes very deep. Probably deeper than we
will ever know.
-MAD: Regarding Jim Jones, he was also connected to the Disciples of
Christ organization, and had many connections with high-up members
of the John Birch Society. Unfortunately, I completely agree with
you on this. We could have a 3 part discussion just on the
connections of mind control cults, and the probable connections of X
to Y. Continuing with your article on UFO’s and the implementation
of a New Age technocracy based on deception and social engineering:
“Yet, Ufologists and others associated with the UFO phenomenon
(e.g., contactees, abductees, and cults) are becoming increasingly
agreeable towards anti-democratic paradigms, particularly
Technocracy. Thus, the MJ-12 documents have proven instrumental in
the promulgation of the technocratic paradigm. It is the thesis of
this essay that the enshrinement of the technocratic paradigm was
the intended corollary underlying the revelation of Majestic 12
documents. The specific variety of Technocracy towards which the UFO
community is gravitating is the scientistic theocratic order of a
sociocracy.”
In their own way, the MJ-12 documents are like the PROTOCOLS OF THE
ELDERS OF ZION to the Ufology community. We cannot firmly confirm or
deny the authenticity of either, yet we would be foolish to
completely toss them aside without considering the deeper
implications expressed within both of these puzzling and detailed
texts. Would you care to further elaborate on your personal thoughts
regarding the MJ-12 documents, as well as reiterate some of your
research on how “The Alien Agenda” ties into the establishment of a
scientific dictatorship?
-Phillip: The MJ-12 documents are conspicuously technocratic in
character. When they were released, they helped to promulgate a
technocratic paradigm. Notice that most Ufologists did not take
issue with the idea of a coterie of policy professionals making all
of the decisions concerning the UFO phenomenon. All that they
objected to was the obscurantism surrounding such a cult of
expertise. The MJ-12 documents helped to ease the public conscious
into the technocratic paradigm.
Moreover, the MJ-12 documents also affirmed the beliefs of UFO
cultists, who are actively engaged in religious engineering. The
religion that is being engineered by these cults is inherently
technocratic, scientistic (i.e., derivative of the religion of
scientism), and neo-Gnostic in character. William Sims Bainbridge,
who is a sociologist and a member of the National Science
Foundation, has encouraged social scientists to begin to actively
experiment with UFO cults in religious engineering. He believes
that, through such experimentation, social scientists could sculpt a
religion that will facilitate the rise of a galactic civilization.
Bainbridge calls the scientistic theocracy that he wishes to see
presiding over this future society the “Church of God Galactic.”
Bainbridge contends that one of the most promising models for this
“Church” is Scientology. Of course, Scientology founder L. Ron
Hubbard was a disciple of the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley.
While Scientologists correctly identify the more dubious elements of
psychiatry and the field’s history of psychocognitive manipulation,
Scientology merely offers another form of brainwashing as an
alternative. Given his background as a sociologist, it comes as
little surprise that Bainbridge would look upon Scientology so
favorably. The social sciences have always been technocratic in
nature, a reality underscored by their origins with August Comte and
Henri de Saint-Simon.
Bainbridge’s mandate for social scientists to become religious
engineers reiterates the Comtean concept of a sociocracy. A
sociocracy is a theocracy where social scientists act as the
dominant priesthood. The religion that this priesthood sculpts is
inherently anthropocentric, venerating “Humanity” as symbolically
represented through the “Grand Being.” Such an anthropocentric
religion is really nothing new. History is replete with doctrines of
the emergent deity of “Man.” Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, Hegel’s
Weltgeist, and Freemasonry’s “Great Architect of the Universe” are
just a few cases in point. Today, UFO cults proffer an
exotheological Christ who could help man unlock his purported
intrinsic divinity. Just like the ancient Mystery religion that
originated in Babylon and Egypt roughly 6000 years ago, the UFO
religion promises the same thing… apotheosis. Of course, someone
else made the same promise in man’s murky past. It was a serpent
whispering, “…ye shall be as gods…” Conceptually and
philosophically, this is a slippery slope leading to Luciferianism,
which is the ruling class religion. Thus, you begin to see how
religious engineering with UFO cults is instrumental in the mass
inculcation of people into the ruling class religion.
In a sense, the UFO community is already becoming a quasi-sociocracy.
Intelligence operatives like Richard Doty have vigorously promoted
the concept of an exotheological Christ. Doty’s neo-messianic
assertions enjoyed mass dissemination through Ufologists like Linda
Moulton Howe. Intelligence operatives employ psychological warfare
strategies that originated with OSS social scientists. So, in a
sense, social scientists have already acted as the priesthood for a
new religious consciousness and an emergent theocratic order that is
sociocratic in nature.
-MAD: Staying on the topic of the MJ-12 documents for a moment if we
could, do you have any further information you might share regarding
the enigmatic figure of VANNEVAR BUSH, who has not only been named
as being the head member of such infamous governmental groups as the
Majestic Twelve and PROJECT BLUEBOOK, but is also credited as being
one of the main founders of the Human Genome Project, as well as a
variety of secretive Pentagon projects which led to DARPA NET, and
eventually gave birth to our modern day Internet and the World Wide
Web. He’s credited by many as being the ‘Father of the Information
Age’ and is well known for his involvement in the MANHATTAN PROJECT.
Undoubtedly a fascinating individual (and incidentally a 33rd degree
Freemason), have you run across Vannevar Bush very often in your
research, and would you agree that he is a prominent figure not only
within the realm of UFO’s, but also within the territory of genetic
modification and eugenics?
-Paul: Vannevar Bush should be admired for his opposition to Nazis
that were being imported under Operation Paperclip. He correctly saw
them as a threat to democracy. But, Bush had a shady side as well.
He was one of the primary architects of the military-industrial
complex. According to Frank Fischer, the military-industrial complex
was central to the technocratic restructuring. He was also a
proponent of technocratic democracy. That is quite different from
Jeffersonian democracy. Technocratic democracy was described by H.G.
Wells. He stated that the “educated population” should be allowed to
vote. In other words, democracy is consolidated in the hands of
policy professionals, not the common people. So a cult of expertise
directs society and manipulates social change. That is hardly what
you or I have in mind when we think about the democratic
institutions that are supposed to be part of our Republic. The
Founding Fathers established a system where the common person would
receive a say in how their nation was ran.
-Phillip: You will consistently find technocratic themes surfacing
with Ufology. Again, you can see the socially and politically
expedient purposes that the UFO community is serving.
-MAD: Regarding the UFO phenomenon, including all the facets that
come along with this research (sightings, abductions, cattle
mutilation, crop circles, etc), what is your purveying outlook on
what’s really occurring with all of these diverse reports? Is it a
case of mass delusion and hysteria, or something else? While it’s
not easily definable, and there are ample hoaxes, it would be hard
to deny that some of this footage and these accounts definitely have
some elements of truth to them. Exactly what that truth entails is
still up for debate.
-Phillip: Ultimately, we don’t know. There is a sizable body of
evidence to support the contention that UFOs are part of a
manipulation. Given the technocratic character of many individuals
in the UFO community, this contention seems stronger. However, we
cannot say for certain. There have been many compelling arguments
made by those in the Christian Ufology camp. Michael Heiser and
Chuck Missler are two cases in point. But, it is still difficult to
say. Personally, Paul and I find the Christian Ufology somewhat
irksome. They have made a virtual doctrine of the idea that the
Watchers and UFO occupants are one in the same. Yes, there are some
interesting synchronicities. But, it is still a stretch to state
with absolute certainty that UFOs are the Watchers from the ‘Book of
Enoch'. We don’t reject the possibility, but many people have
embraced this thesis as the sole explanation.
Comment From
Gnostic Liberation Front:
William Sims Bainbridge was also deeply
involved with THE PROCESS,
SCIENTOLOGY
and THE CHILDREN OF GOD which is now known as
THE FAMILY. He also
wrote a book about THE PROCESS
with the title "Satan's Power"(1978 University of California Press)
in which he changed the name of the cult
from THE PROCESS to THE POWER.
Here is some correspondence I had concerning
The Process Church,
Best Friends and William Sims Bainbridge:
Watch this YouTube
video with excerpts from
Stanley Kubrick's
Masterpiece "Eyes Wide Shut."
At 2:23 time of the video
please notice the heavy wooden doors with
embossed Process Church symbol.
From : T
McKinney
Sent : Thursday, February 5, 2004 10:36 PM
To : "Holger W. Haffke" <discoverer73@hotmail.com>
Subject : Re: The Process Church
Interesting about Bainbridge!
No, I didn't know that. I wholeheartedly agree with you about his
....................... I also agree with most of your NWO views. I knew so
little when I started this and now nothing surprises me. I also tend to think
that several intelligence agencies have recruited megalomaniacs and perhaps
taught them how to create Manchurian Candidates. It sounds so paranoid, I hate
to even mention it, and usually don’t. Only when one understands the workings of
the Illuminati/NWO/elitists/Royals, and their agenda, can there be even a remote
chance of understanding what these people are about.
About me ... I’m a retired
small-business owner. About a year ago a dear friend spent time at the sanctuary
and came back with horror stories. I started looking into some of these
allegations and who these people really were. Having owned businesses a red flag
went up when I looked at some of the public records and found businesses that
board members/founders owned, said to be non-profit, that in fact were
for-profit and funded by a not-for-profit organization receiving millions in
donations. These for-profits are also receiving millions in grants from who
other than The Jewish Foundation, Software billionaire David Duffield, the
entertainment industry and other questionable people. To me it looks like a
money-laundering front.
So I decided to visit Best
Friends, took their bus tour, mandatory for anyone wanting to see the sanctuary,
and stayed for awhile. I began putting things together, talking to the experts
and somehow ended up with an unwavering determination to expose them for who
they really are. I’m an animal lover and something that really bothered me were
the articles that talked about animal mutilations and sacrifices.
Everyone I met there has been
influenced by mind-control and are punished if they say anything negative. These
are employees, not cult members! They have to portray it as “Heaven on Earth”,
so visitors leave euphoric and committed to supporting them. They are so good at
it!!
The compound I mentioned can’t
be seen from the sanctuary. Recently, they constructed a wall along the road so
no one can even walk to where they can see it. Interestingly, it’s a county road
and no permit was ever applied for. It looks strange because there’s seemingly
no reason for it and it keeps travelers from seeing a great view of the desert.
They say they’re not a religious group any more but, according to a witness, the
compound has a stained glass window of “Fire and Brimstone.” And inside is a
round altar and ritual symbols and items. No reporter has ever been allowed in
and rumor is that they have enough weapons stored there and in caves to help
start a helter-skelter.
There’s not one black person
working at the sanctuary. The staff of 250 +- have moved to the small town of
Kanab, population 3500, given up their homes, friends and families to help
animals and live at the only heaven on earth. Before anyone is hired, they spend
2 weeks there to see if they like it and if they are “suited” for the job.
During that 2 weeks I believe they weed out the ones that aren’t easily
controlled. The ones that are hired soon find out that something is terribly
wrong, but they are now stuck and have no options. It doesn’t take long for them
to become complacent and follow the rules no matter how controlled they are. If
one gets out of line and complains or tries to talk to another staff member
about something negative, they are punished by taking away the job they know and
the animals they have come to love and put them in a job they hate. They are
constantly asked if they are happy, what they like to do and what they don’t
like to do. Once they show that they will behave, they are often given their job
back. In some cases, employees that really need money are cutback on their hours
and usually not returned to full-time with benefits. Others see what happens if
they aren’t always positive and soon learn.
Well, I could go on for hours,
but I’ll save it for another time.
Thanks for everything, T.P.
BTW ... I heard that they
consider both you and me as “a thorn in their sides” and as causing them a lot
of problems. Cool, huh?!
A comment from Holger (Gnostic Liberation
Front):
The "Bainbridge" reference in the letter is to the author of a sociological
study of "The Process" written by William Sims Bainbridge who was an assistant
Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington at the time when he
analyzed and wrote about "The Process" but calling them by a different name in
his book. To me his interest in The Process seems to be more than just a
sociological study and he still seems to be a link to some Processeans out
there. I have written him and hoped for some real information but he seemed very
reluctant to reveal anything of substance. It is my conviction that The Process
came under the control and "guidance" of the CIA or another "government
spy-agency" either while they were still in England or when they began to
attract a lot of converts and followers here in the United States. To me it
appears obvious that they
were involved in mind-control experiments and were also used as "shock-troops"
to create chaos and fear, just like Manson and his "family" was along with "The Founders" in
Washington DC and the Jim Jones cult in California and Guyana. Since Bainbridge
also studied and wrote about the "Children of God" who later became "The
Family," it seems to me that he had more than one "iron in the fire" and
functioned as a link to whoever it was and still is, that uses these
observations in cultist mind-control behavior to learn from them how to control
the masses. Do I need to make myself any clearer? The usefulness of
"Religion" as a tool to manipulate and control the masses has been known and
used since the early days of mankind's existence. So why should it surprise
anyone living in these days of the Luciferian New World Order? Nothing is
surprising here and everything possible.
There is no
doubt that I still have strong sympathies for The Process. Is it not a Gnostic's
dream, intelligent, artsy and rebellious people who in it's early stages created
a "Church" for outsiders just like me? How could I not be attracted to them?
But, alas, as in almost all human organizations, the power hungry, crafty
manipulators who have neither scruples nor honor pervert it into something of their
own desire. And this seems to be the problem with most "Gnostics," as they are too
naive and honest for their own good and thus end up in something as deceptive
and corrupt as The Process eventually became. There is a website which carries an article
by a Father Malachi called "The Process is...."
which is simply sublime reading to a Gnostic outsider like myself. This seems to
be the same "Father Malachi" who wrote some horrendous stuff on the before
mentioned French website which I can no longer find on the internet. What a
disparity between these two articles! Just like The Process itself coming across
in such a tempting and appealing way on one hand and having spawned such utterly
Satanic malevolence shown by its
various splinter-cults. What seems to me quite obvious though is that the style
and word construct seem to be coming from Genesis P-Orridge who has incorporated
much Process thought and material into his
"Thee Psychic Temple of Youth."
Nevertheless, even though these people, undoubtedly born Gnostics, talk so
eloquently of freedom and liberation, I believe that they are neither free nor
liberated but have knowingly or unknowingly surrendered to the yoke of Satan.
One only needs to go through their various websites to be convinced of this
fact. They speak so freely of love, "love under will" (as Crowley put it), but
it is sex which they seek and exploit. These people are so brilliant and gifted
and yet they have wasted their very being in servitude to the adversary of man
and Christ. Gnostics are never Satanists nor Occultists. Gnostics, and I mean
Christian Gnostics worship the spark of the true God in every being and want
nothing more than to uplift mankind towards their spiritual inheritance.
Satanist hate mankind and want nothing more than bring mankind down to the
lowest level possible to mock and destroy the divine spirit within. True
Gnostics will never strive after power over others or after earthly possessions.
Liberation from these very temptations is the Gnostic's goal and hope. Yes,
Gnostics are outsiders, heretics and rebels to the established Satanical order
of this world in the same sense as Jesus Christ was, but they would never
surrender knowingly to evil. And that should say it all.
******
Here is an article
about the "Animal Sanctuary" from the Rocky Mountain News which seems like a
wonderful public relations piece contrived by "Michael Mountain" who is heir to
a British TV fortune:
Friends find their
calling
By Lou Kilzer, Rocky Mountain News February 28, 2004
One of the world's most admired animal sanctuaries has a skeleton tucked deep in
its closet - one with a history worthy of its own miniseries. The Best Friends
Animal Society runs the nation's largest "no-kill" shelter in Utah and raised
$19.9 million last year alone. But more than three decades ago, its key founders
formed a movement that was accused - falsely, they say - of being a satanic
cult. Best Friends President Michael Mountain, 57, says The Process, Church of
the Final Judgment, was just a group of young people searching for spiritual
truth in the crazy atmosphere of the late 1960s and early '70s. Satan was one of
four entities they studied - the others were Lucifer, Jehovah and Christ - says
Mountain. Satan was more a metaphor for a human personality trait than a god to
be worshipped, he says.
Though several of the founders have stayed together all
these years, they long ago gave up their purple robes in favor of leading the
charge to save American pets from destruction, Mountain says. All the same,
Mountain was not overjoyed when asked about a series of corporate records that
link Best Friends to the 1967 incorporation of The Process in the French Quarter
of New Orleans. If he had it to do over again, Mountain says, he would have let
The Process dissolve and incorporated Best Friends as a new nonprofit with no
links to the church. With 250 staff members and 250,000 contributors, the
pre-eminent "no-kill" advocate does not need any religious bones kicking around.
No longer known as Father John, Father Aaron, Mother Ophelia and the like, many
of the founders live modestly near the small town of Kanab, Utah.
Mountain, who
has a daughter in Denver, is divorced and lives at the sanctuary, making about
$30,000 a year from the proceeds of a private business that sells Best Friends
merchandise. Gone are the days when members interviewed mass murderer Charles
Manson in jail for the "death" issue of their magazine. There's no more talk
about doomsday right around the corner. No more screeds about "Satan on War." "A
lot of it was really rather juvenile," says John Fripp aka Christopher Fripp aka
Father John. Now, instead of begging for handouts in London, New York or New
Orleans, Best Friends founders are as likely to attend a Hollywood fund-raiser
graced by Ron Howard, Drew Barrymore, Robin Williams or Bill Maher. A book
available for $15 on one of the group's Web pages professes to be a complete
history. It's called Best Friends - The True Story of the World's Most Beloved
Animal Sanctuary. It recounts how a ragtag group of animal lovers turned a
canyon where the Lone Ranger was filmed into a vacation magnet for like-minded
people willing to devote time to abandoned cats, dogs and rabbits. The Process
Church is never mentioned. Mountain says that was the author's choice, not an
attempt to keep it quiet. Mountain readily acknowledges the group's history when
asked about it, and he seems almost anxious to give it the proper spin.
After
meeting with a reporter, he called together the shelter's staff to disclose the
founders' history. He says he's even considering a book that would chronicle the
wacky days of this group of educated and mostly British young people whose
adventures included moving to the Yucatan, surviving a hurricane, then donning
capes in Louisiana, California, New York and Boston. It is a tale of enduring
friendship, growth and a search for their real goal, Mountain says, a goal they
found amid 33,000 stunning red acres in southern Utah. Headed for a hurricane It
began in the 1960s when people were dropping out and turning on. Michael
Mountain, born Hugh Mountain, was part heir to Great Britain's largest
television empire when he dropped out of Oxford at age 17 to begin navigating
the vast smorgasbord of counterculture offerings then available. Disinherited
for his vagabond ways, Mountain says he met a group of other young seekers of
life's truths. "We would go around and visit all of the different religious and
astrological groups," Mountain says. He even attended sessions of the Flat Earth
Society. Little was off-limits. Mountain was most taken, however, by a group
organized by Robert Degrimston and his wife, Mary Ann, who had both dabbled in
various movements, including Scientology.
It was not, in the beginning,
religious, he says. "These days, it would be considered a kind of cheap,
out-of-date pop psychology," explains Mountain.
William Bainbridge, who is now
deputy director of Information and Intelligent Systems at the National Science
Foundation, joined the group in the early 1970s to study it. He chronicled the
group in a 1978 book, Satan's Power: A Deviant Psychotherapy Cult. Although
little of the group's beliefs were set in stone, Degrimston believed human
nature took on aspects of four deities: Lucifer, Satan, Jehovah and Christ.
Bainbridge says at times Christ was considered the synthesis of the other three.
Whatever the beliefs, the group bonded. In June 1966, members headed to the
Bahamas on the first leg of a journey to seek utopia. Three months later, they
were scouring Mexico's Yucatan peninsula for the right place. They found what
they were looking for at a Mayan ruin named Xtul. Nearby was a huge abandoned
salt factory that the group thought could be an ideal home. Mountain headed to a
nearby village, and, in halting Spanish, telephoned the property owner. "He
said, 'I dreamt that you were coming last night. You can have it for a dollar a
month,' " Mountain says. "So if there was any time when we felt that there was
probably something mystical there, that was probably it." The church was born.
Villagers told them Xtul meant either "little rabbit" or "the end." The group's
doomsday world view began to take shape, says Mountain. The feeling would deepen
when monster Hurricane Inez bore down on the Yucatan in September 1966 and
residents were urged to evacuate. Some left, but a core group stayed. "The idea
that we would abandon Xtul was out of the question," says Mountain. If the storm
meant the end, so be it.
Members of what was by then called The Process sought
shelter behind a wall at one end of the building. The wall at the other end
collapsed. If they had sought refuge there, "we would have all been gone,"
Mountain says. Inez took an estimated 1,000 lives. The idea that they had
witnessed something fundamental set in. After helping to rebuild some of the
neighboring villages, the group took off to spread their message. In late 1967,
they found their way to the French Quarter in New Orleans. There, things went
from somewhat odd to outright bonkers. A caped crusader The group decided to
incorporate as a nonprofit to handle finances. Mountain says a rotund former
lawyer for the Catholic Church was intrigued by the group and drew up the
necessary papers. Mountain showed up at his home one Sunday morning. "I'm
greeted by a completely naked lady," Mountain recalls. "And she says, 'Oh, come
on in.' So there he is, an extremely large person, in bed with this cluster of
equally naked ladies around, and he leaps up naked and says, 'Here are your
articles of incorporation. Your church is complete.' " And so formally began The
Process, Church of the Final Judgment.
Mountain winces when he is reminded of
the language in the papers repeatedly stating that the group's mission is to
conduct "spiritual and occult research." The papers declare: "The latter days
are upon us for even now the Lord Christ is in the world and gods walk amongst
men and there are signs and wonders foretold in prophecy in preparation for the
final judgment of man." Mountain says the lawyer supplied most of the words, but
the group didn't particularly care in those days. "We were not trying to be
sensible at that point in time." Mountain was 21. "I was dressed in white with a
purple cape with a white dog in one hand and a black dog in the other - a German
shepherd." He showed up at Louisiana State University with a message about the
end of the world. Students told him to come back Tuesday. "And when I got back
there, there was this giant banner over the gate to the university, saying
'Caped crusader visits.' "This was wonderful fun. It was nutty." He gave a
speech, the contents of which he forgot long ago, to a packed auditorium. The
satanic part of it all is a bad rap, he says. No one prayed to Satan.
Degrimston,
now a business consultant in New York, declined to be interviewed. However,
Mountain says the core philosophy was that Christ was the unifying element of
mankind. "In theological terms, as he explained it, the ultimate reconciliation
of opposites would be a reconciliation between Christ and Satan. Christ said,
'Love your enemies.' In the end, even the most negative, the most evil can be
redeemed with the power of love." Bainbridge, who taught at Wellesley College
and Harvard University before joining the National Science Foundation, agrees
that the group didn't pray to Satan, who to the group bore little resemblance to
the Satan of the Bible anyway. The four deities, he says, were mostly symbolic,
with God as "the totality of all four." The group had trouble gaining traction,
no matter how outrageous they acted. Mountain chalks this up to their philosophy
of abstinence from sex and drugs - not overly popular notions in the 1960s.
At
its height, membership ranged from 50 to 100, Mountain says. Naturally, the
group was drawn to California, where members produced magazines on fear, sex,
love and death. It was while doing the death issue that the group stumbled.
"Charles Manson had been in prison for about a year, and somebody had the bright
idea that we would go in and interview Charles Manson," says Mountain. "We
thought it would help sell the magazine. We didn't have much money. "It was a
mistake." There was another reason for the visit to Manson: They thought it
would put to rest rumors of their connection to him. Instead, it only stoked
them. John Fripp, who was one of the two Process members who visited Manson,
says simply: "We were naïve."
Linked to Charles Manson In 1971, a book on the
Manson family's role in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca slayings speculated on Manson's
possible connection to the Process Church. The book created a sensation and gave
the Process Church a permanent place in occult lore. Mountain and others were in
Britain at the time, and when they returned to the United States, Mountain went
to see a Chicago lawyer. Members really didn't want to sue, but they didn't want
to be called murderers, either. The lawyer was blunt: "If you do not sue,"
Mountain says he told them, "you will be stuck with this for the rest of your
lives." They sued. The publisher apologized, recalled the books and issued
subsequent editions without the offending chapter. But the toothpaste was out of
the tube. And with the birth of the Internet, the legend has only grown.
Mountain says The Process essentially stopped operating in the 1970s, and many
members began to go separate ways. Then Robert and Mary Ann Degrimston split up.
Mountain says members who left Robert Degrimston felt he was becoming too
authoritarian and structured in his beliefs. Degrimston went to the Northeast to
try to keep The Process alive. It didn't work.
Some members of the remaining
group, first known as The Foundation - Church of the Millennium, eventually
gravitated to a ranch in Arizona. Gone was all talk about the occult, but the
religious part was still going strong. The incorporation papers said the church
"has been called into existence by God to be made known to all men that the
Latter Days are upon us, and there are signs and wonders foretold in prophecy in
preparation for the coming of the Messiah and the entry into the Millennium."
Group members kept their religious names, having abandoned all or part of their
given names. Bainbridge says the group began concentrating on one God, rather
than one with four personalities. And the group discovered its mission.
Some
members had been animal advocates for years, and German shepherds had been
associated with them since they first left London in 1966. Mary Ann Degrimston,
for one, had been active in the anti-vivisectionist movement. Although members
had worked in a variety of charities for humans, they came to realize that love
of animals was one thing they all shared. "Mahatma Gandhi had a saying," recalls
Mountain: " 'A society can be judged by the way it treats its old people, its
young people and its animals.' " The group, renamed The Foundation Faith of God,
began taking in strays and unwanted pets, but soon found its Arizona property
too small.
Members went prospecting, researching coastal California and even
visiting an island for sale off Honduras. One day in 1982, a group founder,
Francis Battista, was driving through southern Utah and happened to visit Kanab
Canyon - the backdrop of several Western movies. Battista fell in love. Other
members soon visited and agreed: This was the spot. They sold the Arizona ranch,
and, in 1984, used proceeds from the down payment on the purchase of 2,269 acres
in the canyon. The group would acquire additional land and lease some 30,000
more acres from the Bureau of Land Management.
Soon, The Foundation gave the
acreage a new name: Angel Canyon. Founder Paul Eckhoff, an architect, designed
one of the first buildings - a large home outside the sanctuary. First planned
as a retreat, it has become home to Mary Ann Degrimston and her new husband,
founder Gabriel DePeyer. Located by a pond, the Lake House has become a local
legend, rumored to be a religious site. But it is only a home, says Mountain.
A
movement takes off Members began building the sanctuary on a razor-thin budget
raised through various cottage industries and monthly payments from the
purchaser of the Arizona ranch. They began taking in unwanted pets, first from
the Kanab area, then from around the state and region. By 1991, the founders
were swamped with animals and faced a crisis: The purchaser of the Arizona ranch
had gone bankrupt and his monthly payments dried up. "We were way in over our
heads," Mountain says. "We didn't have the staff, the resources, the money to
have the number of animals that were coming in." A call went out to former
members, who were by then spread across the nation. Many came to help. Cyrus and
Anne Mejia, who were running a clown ministry for children in hospitals, left
for Utah from their home in Golden. The problem wasn't complicated. The group
needed money, and getting it seemed to require a certain amount of begging,
which the group called "tabling." They would go to Denver, Salt Lake City, Las
Vegas and Los Angeles, set up tables outside supermarkets and pass out brochures
about the sanctuary. People began to fall in love with the idea of the sanctuary
and soon the group could barely keep track of its donors.
By 1993, Best Friends
Animals Sanctuary was incorporated as a nonprofit. All religious language was
removed from corporate papers. The group now includes practicing Christians,
Jews and Buddhists. Tax records show Best Friends took in $1.17 million in
contributions in 1993. And the money kept coming. In 1994, $1.8 million flowed
in. The next year it was $2.7 million. In recent years, donations have grown by
about $2 million to $3 million every year. Today, about 250 full-time staff
members work around the country, and one - the editor of Best Friends Magazine -
works from London. Last year, 4,054 volunteers worked for Best Friends in Kanab
and the nationwide volunteer network numbered more than 11,000. There are
full-time vets, spay and neuter programs in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, and
plans for programs in 10 cities. Best Friends' 2002 tax returns show it spent
$10.9 million on program services, including $6 million for animal care, $1.9
million for its magazine, brochures and Internet services, and $2.9 million for
outreach programs. Another $2 million went to raise funds. Still, Best Friends
had a $5 million surplus.
The sanctuary is now built out - including modern
structures with such names as WildCats Village, The Triple "R" Rabbit Retreat
and Dogtown Heights, "a gated community." There is even a pet cemetery. The
animals pretty much have the run of the place, moving at will from indoors to
large outside pens. During an interview with Mountain, a cat named Butch jumped
on a reporter's scribbled notes. No one made a move to remove him. The sanctuary
houses about 1,500 animals, with no plans to go much higher. Instead, Best
Friends will fund efforts to build such no-kill programs elsewhere. In 2002,
Best Friends took in 736 dogs and placed 633 in private homes. For cats, the
number taken in was 558 and the number placed was 517. Only six of the 21
rabbits found new homes. No More Homeless Pets in Utah - a Best Friends venture
with Maddie's Fund, a pet rescue foundation - is spaying and neutering thousands
of Utah pets and helping to find homes for thousands more. Best Friends Network
handles some 24,000 calls and e-mails a year requesting pet and animal help. In
fact, Best Friends' reach has grown so far that it renamed itself again as Best
Friends Animal Society, reflecting that it is not a mere sanctuary anymore.
The
'no-kill' mission Can no-kill zones work, or are they just the dreams of some
crazy folks who have stuck together for more than 30 years? "The big old
organizations with whom we work quite closely now, in the early days said this
can't be done," says Mountain. But it can, he insists, pointing to the sharp
decline in animals killed in shelters - from 17 million in 1987 to 5 million
today. "We have taken on a job that the humane movement should have been doing
years ago," he says. Best Friends, he says, has "become something of a flagship
for this whole movement." To keep the flag flying, Mountain says he needs to
define Best Friends' past as well as its future - The Process church and all.
He
now says he wants not only to help write a book about the affair, but to put it
all on a Web page, warts and all. Mountain says he hopes the openness might
dispel rumors that a few conspiracy theorists continue to spread. One person has
been contacting Best Friends partners with tales of the group's checkered past,
says Best Friends communications director Bonney Brown. One charge is that the
group was and may still be a cult - a word even Bainbridge uses to describe The
Process. Mountain doesn't agree. "The definition of cult is something that
follows a single charismatic leader telling everybody what to do, and that never
happened with this. It's just the opposite," Mountain says. "We looked into many
cults and found them all to be, frankly, ridiculous." With the past behind them,
Mountain says, Best Friends has a bright future. The $5 million surplus is good
for only half a year of operating expense, he says. But it is an indication that
more might be around the corner. Says Mountain: "There is even talk of building
an endowment." kilzerl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2644
Satan's Power
by William Sims Bainbridge
From rnewman@cybercom.net Fri Nov 24 03:20:37 EST 1995
Article: 132798 of alt.religion.scientology
Path: casaba.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!
From: rnewman@cybercom.net (Ron Newman)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: William Sims Bainbridge on CoS Training Routines (TRs) (REPOST)
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 02:20:30 -0500
Organization: CYBERCOM Internet Services (617) 396-0491
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Message-ID: <rnewman-1911950220300001@dial2-26.cybercom.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: dial2-26.cybercom.net
[Note to a.r.s. old hand: this is a repost of a book excerpt that
I have posted several times before. -- Ron N.]
"Satan's Power", by William
Sims Bainbridge (University of California Press, 1978) is a largely
sympathetic sociological description of a short-lived cult called
the Process Church, which could be considered a splinter group from
Scientology. The author actually joined the Process cult and was a
participant/observer for several years. Before that, Bainbridge also
spent 6 months as a participant/observer in Scientology itself.
In a rather silly attempt to
protect the privacy of the people he studied, his book used
pseudonyms, not just for the individuals, but also for the names of
the cults. In his book, Scientology is "Technianity", L. Ron Hubbard
is "Gordon Rogers", and The Process Church is "The Power Church".
The two founders of the
Process Church met in an auditor/client relationship while both were
active in Scientology. I'll pick up Bainbridge's narrative here.
[ on page 32 ]
"Because they doubted Rogers
and because they were intelligent, exploring individuals, Kitty and
Edward chafed at the rigid system of therapy demanded by their
superiors. One of Rogers' favorite slogans, simultaneously a boast
and a demand, is `100% Standard Tech!' This means, Technianity's
spiritual technology is to be followed exactly, without the
slightest variation. Kitty was especially anxious to experiment in
the sessions she ran, changing the questions slightly or departing
from the established order of procedures. Edward says he was less
inventive than she at first, but both of them wanted the freedom to
try out their own ideas. They did not want to be mere robots in
Rogers' science fiction world.
"The doubt and constraint
they felt in Technianity became focused when Kitty discovered to her
immense anger that the session rooms were bugged. She accused her
superiors of listening in on her sessions through hidden
microphones. If they were in fact doing this, it was to make sure
that she and other therapists performed correctly and gave their
clients 100% Standard Tech. There had been no complaints about her
or Edwsard. Both of them were considered excellent therapists. They
felt the bugging was an invasion of their privacy which neither of
them could accept. They left Technianity, according to Edward
parting amicably with the Technianity organization."
[ pages 204-206 ]
Several activities [of the
Process Church] were clearly derived from Technianity, although the
meaning given to them and the exact procedures were changed
radically. Examples include: Acceptance, Reflexes, Articulation, and
Acknowledgment.
The first was derived from
the very basic Technianity exercise TR-0 (Training Routine Zero), in
which one is instructed to sit for up to two hours, motionless,
unresponsive, eyes glued on the eyes of another student who is
sitting three feet away, following the same instructions, gazing
back. TR-0 trains a student to "be there". In 1961, Gordon Rogers
wrote, "Anything added to BEING THERE is sharply flunked by the
coach. Twitches, blinks, sighs, fidgets, anything except just BEING
THERE is promptly flunked, with the reason why. Patter: Student
coughs. Coach: `Flunk! You coughed. Start.'" The Training Routines
involved very strict discipline.
A second part of TR-0 was
called "bull baiting." The student sits in the catatonic immobility
of TR-0, and the coach tries to make him react against his will.
Rogers says, "This TR should be taught rough-rough-rough and not
left until the student can do it. Training is considered
satisfactory at this level only if the student can BE three feet in
front of a person without flinching, concentrating or confronting
with, regardless of what the confronted person does."
In theory, the student is
said to be vulnerable at certain points, to have "buttons" which if
pressed will make him react. Sensitivity about being overweight, for
example, may cause the person to blush when his fat is poked. These
psychological buttons are to be found and "flattened." Sometimes, it
seemed to me, the student himself was flattened by bull baiting. At
the very least, this and the other TRs are successful in flattening
the affect of the student, reducing his emotional responsiveness and
his emotional resistance to control by Technianity.
TR-0 could also produce an
altered state of consciousness. One time I did it with a young man
from Kentucky, an English teacher I happened to like. We sat staring
at each other for two hours, which is 120 minutes, which is 7,200
seconds. A long time to stare into someone's face, allowed to
breathe and blink occasionally, but never look away, never smile or
fidget. Afterward my partner exclaimed excitedly that he had seen me
change before his very eyes! I had become different persons -- a
savage with a bone through my nose, then a decayed corpse covered
with filth and cobwebs. He was sure these were glimpses of my
previous incarnations. Everyone in the Technianity center was
pleased and complimented him on his perceptions. His interpretations
fitted the cult's ideology exactly.
I did not tell him what I
had seen. He, too, had changed. A halo of light had grown around his
face. He had become pale and two-dimensional, shimmering, covered
with dark spots. Of course, I interpreted what I saw as simple eye
fatigue. He and I had experienced the same stimuli but understood
them differently. Unusual experiences like his, perceived within the
definitions provided by the cult, are powerful conversion
mechanisms.
Technianity converts people
slowly to its perspective, following a _reality gradient_. This is
Rogers' own terminology, but idea for social scientific use as well.
A reality gradient is a gradual introduction into a new ideology,
step by step through a series of ever more alien experiences and a
progression of ever more deviant ideas. The therapy processes of
Technianity gradually committed my friend to ever more deviant
levels of cult belief, drawing him into its reality and away from
that shared by conventional outsiders.
[ pages 206-207 ]
I remember the exam I passed
in Technianity to prove I had mastered TR-0 The secretary of the
center, a pleasant young woman who happened to be the daughter of a
dean at the university I was attending, gave me a "check-out" on
TR-0. We sat in straight chairs, facing each other, our knees almost
touching. "All right," she said, "Start." I sat upright, my hands on
my knees, gazed into her eyes, and went into TR-0. "Hi, Bill! How
'ya doin'?" She bounced up and down in the chair and waved. She
pretended to be insulted and hurt that I wouldn't react to her. She
acted mad. She pouted, then cracked a few stale jokes. Smiling, she
brought her face close to mine and rocked from side to side.
She took my hands in hers
and waved them through great circles in the air. She let my arms
drop, and they fell at my sides. She said she was going to poke out
my eyes and described how she was going to do it. She remarked she
hadn't had the fun of poking out an eye since last week. She said
the poor fellow she had blinded then was still in the hospital. She
pretended to gouge out my eye with her thumb. She held my fist,
pretending it was an electric shaver. "Bzzzzz." She shaved my face.
She placed my hands on my knees, then played with my sideburns. She
fluffed them up and said I was a bear. She took my hand, noted it
was sweaty, and said, "Ah--a wet palm! Do you come from Wet Palm
Beach, Florida?" Through all of this, I gazed straight ahead and
reacted not at all to anything she said or did. "Okay. It's a pass.
That's it."
Some participants say they
"exteriorize" while in TR-0. When a person exteriorizes, his spirit
leaves his body temporarily, perhaps hovering a short distance from
his head. The concept is akin to "astral projection." Rogers [i.e.
Hubbard] suggests that the ideal relationship between the spirit and
its body is one of moderate exteriorization. The spirit should be
outside the body, but near it, operating the body at arm's length,
so to speak. In psychiatric terms, this seems to be a state of
general dissociation. When deep in TR-0, I noticed that my physical
sensations were greatly attenuated. A feather lightly brushing
across my face did not tickle. An itch did not matter. I was only
dimly aware of the existence of my legs. It seemed as if my personal
boundary had contracted. When my hand was touched to my face, I
sensed the contact in my cheek, but not in my fingers!
[ pages 207-208 ]
Power [i.e. Process Church]
exercises _Articulation_ and _Acknowledgments_ were derived from the
Technianity procedures TR-1 and TR-2. This pair was also called
_Alice Games_ by Gordon Rogers, because they drew upon _Alice in
Wonderland_ for material. In TR-1, the student is supposed to read a
quotation from _Alice_, memorize it, and, while "holding his TRs,"
speak the sentence to the coach as though it were his own
contribution to some hypothetical conversation they were having.
Sometimes we used actual copies of _Alice_, back in 1970, and at
other times we read from sheets of excerpts. How many dozens of
times did I say these crazy sentences? I will never forget them!
I'll give them a new pair
of boots every Christmas.
Four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen.
The question is, what did the archbishop find?
You insult me by talking such nonsense.
You're enough to try the patience of an oyster!
What a number of cucumber-frames there must be.
The master says you've got to go down the chimney.
I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned.
She doesn't believe there's an atom of meaning in it.
However, I know my name now, that's some comfort.
I found it singularly
appropriate to quote the Cheshire cat at my Technianity coach:
"We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." Alice asked, "How do you
know I'm mad?" The cat replied, "You must be, or you wouldn't have
come here." There is a subtle brainwashing and propaganda effect
here. The student becomes inured to crazy ideas. He treats them as
detached words, bleached of their meaning, absurd, unconnected to
his surroundings. He is confronted by madness and sees it as a
beneficial game. He plays the game. After he has accepted the words
of Wonderland, he has no difficulty accepting the words of the cult.
The student submits to the discipline of the cult, merely by going
through the exercise. If he performs poorly, the coach shouts
"Flunk!"
TR-2 is a reversal of TR-1.
This time the coach recites a quotation from _Alice_, and the
student tries to acknowledge it in such a way as to bring the
dialogue to a full stop without encouraging the coach to continue.
Acknowledgment is a means of control. The student was permitted to
use one of the following five acknowledgments: alright, okay, thank
you, good, fine. Rogers said that a properly delivered
acknowledgment is so powerful it "can take a client's head off." "An
acknowledgment is a very, very powerful sixteen-inch gun,..." and
"it actually staggers people to have an acknowledgment come to
them." But, Rogers warns, "We're not trying to reach the ultimate in
an acknowledgment, because that would be the end of the universe. If
someone could say, `Yes' -- `Good' -- `Okay' with enough intention
behind it, all communications of this universe from the moment of
its beginning would then be acknowledged, totally." Technianity
seems obsessed with the idea of power.
This groundbreaking analysis of the
controversial religious group, The Family, or The Children
of God, uses interviews, observational techniques, and a
comprehensive questionnaire completed by more than a
thousand Family members. William Sims Bainbridge explores
how Family members infuse spirituality with sexuality,
channel messages that they believe emanate from beyond life,
and await the final Endtime. He also examines attempts by
anti-cultists and the state to deprogram members of the
group, including children, by forcibly seizing them. The
book's blending of theoretical analysis with vivid accounts
of this remarkable counterculture poses a fascinating
question for social scientists and society-how is it that
The Children of God both differ from the general public and,
in other ways, are so surprisingly similar to it?
"Bainbridge is unquestionably
among the most able scholars in the sociology of religion
today. In The Endtime Family, he skillfully weaves
significant theoretical ideas together, presenting the best
inquiry to date into the heart and soul of this
controversial group. Bainbridge has written a marvelous book
that both dispels many myths and gives the reader more than
a glimpse of a 'cult' with a human face." --Jeffrey K.
Hadden, co-editor of "Religion on the Internet: Research
Prospects and Promises"
The author, William Sims Bainbridge, earned
his doctorate in sociology from Harvard University in 1975. He has
published fourteen books and more than 100 essays in such journals
as American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology,
Social Forces, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
Sociology of Religion, and Review of Religious Research. He
currently is Director of the Management and Planning Division of
Social and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation.
He is the author of numerous books,
including The Sociology of Religious Movements (1999), Satan's Power
(1978), Social Research Methods and Statistics (1992), and Religion,
Deviance, and Social Control(1996).
******
Debunking the Myth of Mind-Control
William Sims Bainbridge
Synthesis of researches done.
Seven major flaws with the programming or brainwashing perspective.
(This Article deals with his research in Scientology)
(Quite a busy fellow, wouldn't you say?)
From the book "The Sociology of Religious Movements," by William
Sims Bainbridge. (New York: Routledge, 1997)
As soon as deprogramming became
widely publicized, social and behavioral scientists began
criticizing its scientific premises as well as its ethical
propriety. Bromley and Shupe (1981: 211) observe, "The centerpiece
of the anticultists' allegations is that cults brainwash their
members through some combination of drugging, hypnosis,
self-hypnosis, chanting or lecturing, and deprivation of food,
sleep, and freedom of thought. If this argument were true, the new
religions would not have such a sorry recruitment record, the
defection rate among those who do join would not be so high as it
is, individual members could not be counted upon to work with the
zeal they do, and ex-members would not be able to recall in such
exquisite detail how they were brainwashed. Social scientists have
largely repudiated the concept of brainwashing as the anticultists
have used it. Certainly it is possible to break people down
physically and psychologically through coercive techniques. But
there is no evidence that people so abused will show the kind of
positive motivation and commitment that converts to the new
religions manifest."
There are at least seven
major flaws with the programming or brainwashing perspective.
First, it is not clear
that effective non-biological techniques for controlling a
person's mind exist at all, and the chief classic case of
alleged brainwashing of American prisoners in the Korean War
resulted in few if any successes (Schein et al. 1961).
Second, a very high
proportion of people who attend some activities at new religious
movements fail to join (Barker 1984).
Third, substantial
numbers of long-term members of new religious movements leave of
their own volition (Bainbridge 1982, 1984a; Wright 1983).
Fourth, many
researchers have carried out long-term observational research
inside a variety of new religious movements, including all those
frequently accused of brainwashing, and their reports do not fit
the brainwashing model (Bainbridge 1978; Taylor 1983).
Fifth, sociologists
have developed some highly plausible theoretical models of how
people join new religious movements, and they all combine
several factors, notably the motivations of the individual and
the structure of social relations around the individual, so
there seems no need for the brainwashing hypothesis.
Sixth, the concept of
brainwashing seems designed as a rhetoric to discredit new
religious movements and to excuse the individual of any
responsibility for joining them. Thus it has the effect of
legitimating action against the group or individual that in any
other context would be considered a violation of civil rights
(Bromley 1983; Kelley 1983).
Seventh, the
brainwashing rhetoric is "anticollectivistic and antitotalistic."
(Richardson and Kilbourne 1983), assuming that a mentally
healthy person must be autonomous and failing to recognize the
importance of religion and community in human society (Hargrove,
1983).
