From Séance to Science:
A Brief History of Social Control


Interview W/ Phillip and Paul Collins
MAD- www.nwowatcher.com

-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."

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Quotes/plato.htm 

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.

Reproduced gratefully from: http://www.raidersnewsnetwork.com/full.php?news=5387

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:
(Please be aware that all of this was written before my conversion from Gnosticism to Christianity)

Also Read On This WebSite:
The Ultimate Evil:
Mind Control, Satanism, Assassinations
and the Son of Uncle Sam

Fiction as a Precursor to Fact: Sci-fi "Predictive Programming"
and the Emergent World Religion
by Phillip D. Collins

Immanentizing the Eschaton:
The Gnostic Myth of Darwinism
and Socio-political Utopianism
by Phillip D. Collins

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.]

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.

******

http://www.thefamilyinternational.com/dossier/books/book11/book11.htm

The Endtime Family

The Endtime Family By William Sims Bainbridge 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" Order a copy of The Endtime Family, from Amazon.com. The Endtime Family was published in February 2002 by State University of New York Press. ISBN: 0-7914-5263-8

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?)

http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/mc3_bainbridge.htm

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).