Mark Booth, Secret History Includes Angels and Demons |396|

It is indisputable that the core message of Jesus is true to a mystery tradition. A.B. Kuhn argues that the resurrection has been inverted from the Egyptian (Osiran) mysteries in that physical life of thought of as 'death' - the underworld - and 'true' life is in the spiritual dimension. This accords neatly with Plato's prisoners in the cave image. But whether this was part of the original Jesus message, rather than the subsequent Pauline embellishments isn't clear. Some say that Paul, who seems to have been Jewish, Greek and Roman, was exposed to the Greek mystery traditions, which would have been based on the Egyptian. Its all very muddled and messy.
Nice. Thanks. I like the part about Messy. To me, the messiness suggests conspiracy. It suggests what seems to be obvious and screaming out from all this and that is -- Social spiritual engineering. control people as an alternative to killing them all in war.
It's awesome / magical that true spirituality can Arise from all of this, but it's wrong in my opinion to conflate the two.
 
This is the part of Atwills thesis which I struggle with as well. The morality of the New Testament is strikingly incredible. It’s occurred to me that one couldn’t write it without believing it. And if one believed it, it’s hard to imagine them using it against people.

UNLESS, they convinced themselves of these truths, believed them, AND believed (also) that the Jews should behave. And of course this would influence their thinking either consciously or sub-consciously. But then how does the truth or non-truth of the historical crucifiction play into this. That was either flat out made up or it happened.
I don't think it's an either-or thing.
Like feminism being Coped By the CIA.
It doesn't mean that there wasn't a just cause for the feminist movement. It just means that it was co-opted and turned into a social engineering project. I think this is exactly what the Romans did... they were smart :)
 
I don't think it's an either-or thing.
Like feminism being Coped By the CIA.
It doesn't mean that there wasn't a just cause for the feminist movement. It just means that it was co-opted and turned into a social engineering project. I think this is exactly what the Romans did... they were smart :)

It took Roman goverment several centuries to co-opt Christianity and turn it into authoritarian imperial cult of Catholicism. Before it, it was a genuine liberation and innovation movement, a main threat to the imperial power, and thus a subject of intense repression.

It took American government several decades to co-opt Libertarian Left of 1960s - 1970s and turn it into authoritarian imperial cult of "politically correct" SJWism. Before it, it was a genuine liberation and innovation movement, a main threat to the imperial power, and thus a subject of intense repression.

Genuine liberation and innovation movements, such as Christianity or counter-cultural uprising of the mid-20th century, are never work of some small bunch of elite conspirators, but an authentic work of people's will and vision.

Understandably, elite conspirators would always do their worst to discredit, disrupt and destroy such movements - and, when it fails, to bribe them, manipulate them, institutionalise them and to turn them into yet another form of support for their power, wealth and fame.

Yet it always takes them a lot of time to achieve their goals - and before they succeed, such movements always produce some real, enduring change in society, a change that was not a part of elite conspirators' plans. To the contrary, these are elite conspirators who had to adjust and rewrite their plans to survive yet another actual uprising against them, to adopt to the new situation and to use it for their own benefit.

Some day they will fail to adopt, and their reign will end.

P.S. It is always an important part of the elite conspirators' discreditation work to try to persuade people that the protest and resistance movement was their work from the very start, and therefore there is no sense to participate in any protest or resistance.

P.P.S. Nothing work best for support of the elite conspirators' reign than the persuation of the population that their power is superhuman in its undefeatable greatness, that they are some kind of evil mages commanding demonic forces, knowing and controlling everything, etc.

While, in fact, their power is largely based on fabrication of illusions.
 
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It took Roman goverment several centuries to co-opt Christianity and turn it into authoritarian imperial cult of Catholicism. Before it, it was a genuine liberation and innovation movement, a main threat to the imperial power, and thus a subject of intense repression.

It took American government several decades to co-opt Libertarian Left of 1960s - 1970s and turn it into authoritarian imperial cult of "politically correct" SJWism. Before it, it was a genuine liberation and innovation movement, a main threat to the imperial power, and thus a subject of intense repression.

Genuine liberation and innovation movements, such as Christianity or counter-cultural uprising of the mid-20th century, are never work of some small bunch of elite conspirators, but an authentic work of people's will and vision.

Understandably, elite conspirators would always do their worst to discredit, disrupt and destroy such movements - and, when it fails, to bribe them, manipulate them, institutionalise them and to turn them into yet another form of support for their power, wealth and fame.

Yet it always takes them a lot of time to achieve their goals - and before they succeed, such movements always produce some real, enduring change in society, a change that was not a part of elite conspirators' plans. To the contrary, these are elite conspirators who had to adjust and rewrite their plans to survive yet another actual uprising against them, to adopt to the new situation and to use it for their own benefit.

Some day they will fail to adopt, and their reign will end.

P.S. It is always an important part of the elite conspirators' discreditation work to try to persuade people that the protest and resistance movement was their work from the very start, and therefore there is no sense to participate in any protest or resistance.

P.P.S. Nothing work best for support of the elite conspirators' reign than the persuation of the population that their power is superhuman in its undefeatable greatness, that they are some kind of evil mages commanding demonic forces, knowing and controlling everything, etc.

While, in fact, their power is largely based on fabrication of illusions.
I’m not sure I’m navigating my way round this site well, but I’d like to comment on this post and Alex’s above it.
No doubt about it there are corrupt elites who conspire to accrue unfairly money, power and other benefits such as sexual exploitation. (I was unaware of the pizzagate material before I checked into Skeptiko, which isn’t reported in the UK, perhaps because of different libel laws. Extraordinary!)
Social engineering by the CIA? Why not? The same isn’t true of MI6 which wouldn’t have the funds even if it was that way inclined!
But in my book I’m talking about something very different. The secret societies I’m talking about had to be secret- which is not in itself a good thing, of course- because they were cultivating ideas which the economic and political elites including the organised religions held punishable by death. They were not in a position to impose any form of engineering but could only seed ideas, exemplify good behaviour- eg free healing for the poor - and increasing the amount of food in the world and work towards transformating it by spiritual practice. In a sense evil cabals are the dark shadows of the societies I write about. I think it’s good to dwell on these, because if don’t stop thinking about the bad conspiracies it will surely drive you mad.
 
Social engineering by the CIA? Why not?
glad yr open to this... because the details are well-established, little-known, and stunning:

Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall

February 28, 2011 at 11:34 pm

I love your analysis of Steinem’s role in convincing American women that they were being “liberated” by doing double duty in a 40 hour a week job and 20+ hours a week taking care of their husband, children and elderly parents. In my view, her intelligence role in decimating the feminist movement was even more destructive. I (like Betty Friedan, who confronted her publicly at a national meeting) hold her personally responsible for the organizational chaos in the National Organization for Women that drove working class women out of the movement and caused the Equal Rights Amendment to fail.

Less well known is another operation Steinem ran to plant so-called “black feminists” in grassroots African American groups to break them up (see http://rah.posterous.com/black-feminism-the-cia-and-gloria-steinem-fwd). I ran across some of these nasties in Seattle, while working to set up an African American Museum in the late eighties. I write about it in my recent memoir: THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY ACT: MEMOIR OF AN AMERICAN REFUGEE (www.stuartbramhall.com). I currently live in exile in New Zealand.
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2012/05/01/black-feminism-the-cia-and-gloria-steinem/

===

you have to really dig to find this. the head-fake is NYT
The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America - Hugh Wilford ...

but the real story is of a lifetime player who last yr jumped back re "women's rights" in Syria
 
I was intrigued that Mark had written a book that maybe pulled together some useful and new insights. I was keen to buy. But - can buy a hardcopy, which I don't want (I have a disability which now makes reading paper books very difficult). The kindle version is "unavailable" for sale in Australia. Why? The Audible version is available free if I sign up for a new membership, but impossible to buy otherwise. WTF?

You may enjoy reading my recent paper on a related topic: https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/IJoDR/article/view/41217
 

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hi Andy... Great to see you prowling the form again :) just read the abstract to this looks great
Thanks! It took longer than I expected to get through my recent move, but I'm all set up now. The PhD took all of my spare time for a long time, but now that King's awarded it (last year, June, I can start thinking of what life will be like when I have that time back again. I'm still not used to having this time but it is slowly sinking in.
 
Thanks! It took longer than I expected to get through my recent move, but I'm all set up now. The PhD took all of my spare time for a long time, but now that King's awarded it (last year, June, I can start thinking of what life will be like when I have that time back again. I'm still not used to having this time but it is slowly sinking in.

Welcome back, Andrew! For a time, you have almost disappeared. It's understandable, however, knowing how busy you were.

I, myself, had a greatly diminished online activity in 2018 (sad...), because of some negative changes at my workplace (that lead to a substantial increase of my workload, compared with a relatively relaxed time before), combined with the learning of another foreign language - taken toghether, these two activities devoured a notable amount of the free time I had before, thus reducing the possibilities to engage in online disputes.

But my free time problems do not look that harsh, if they are compared with yours. Becoming a PhD might have been a true challenge.
 
Becoming a PhD might have been a true challenge.

Much more than expected, to say the least. I got it from King's College, London, which is very strict about quality standards (they rank between Columbia University and Yale in international rankings). As my examiner said to me, "This thesis will be printed, bound, and placed in our library permanently. You wouldn't want any mistakes, would you? We certainly don't, because it reflects badly on the university." She then proceeded to go through the thesis for the next four hours to create a huge list of modifications, several of which were not minor but required another dive into the literature and rewriting several sections. Not only that, but my doctor had advised me I wasn't well enough to travel to London for my viva and I was miserable during those four hours. Right up until the end, it was an arduous experience. Glad it is over now.

For the last six months I haven't wanted to do anything but I am rested up now, so am eager to get back to research and other creative endeavors (spelled the American way for a change--so glad I no longer have to write everything with British spellings!).
 
Indeed, I am now Dr. Paquette. Not that the new title from a top-notch school will have any effect on the skeptics. They're happy to describe Nobel prize winners as deluded if they support psi, regardless of any research they conducted.
To add something to this, I'll mention something that happened a few nights ago. I was at a birthday party where I was introduced to a somewhat successful author. Two of his books have been turned into films, one of which was popular enough that almost any American would be familiar enough with it to quote at least one line from it. This man's specialty is writing about economics. The fact that I had written on paranormal subjects came up. He responded by asking for figures. How many dreams total (expecting no response) and how many precognitive (expecting a low value). I actually have those numbers thanks to my database. As soon as I gave them, he said that statistics make bad arguments.

What this meant to me was that statistics made for a perfectly fine argument as long as he thought I didn't have the numbers, but when I did, suddenly statistics are no good. Another interesting point was that he clearly didn't know how to make a statistics based argument. He seemed to think that unless something much higher than 50% of all dreams were found to be precognitive, or seemed to be, they wouldn't be significant. I pointed out that the significance of dream content being related to real world events is related to their probability, not just how many events there are in the sample. The number of events can increase the confidence levels, but if probabilities are very low, then a small percentage, say 3%, could still be significant if the sample is large enough.
 
I pointed out that the significance of dream content being related to real world events is related to their probability, not just how many events there are in the sample. The number of events can increase the confidence levels, but if probabilities are very low, then a small percentage, say 3%, could still be significant if the sample is large enough.

Yes Dr. Paquette, this is one thing I learned in counter-intelligence. Probative information (falsified unlikeliness is very informative) is vastly more valuable than is 'reliable' or 'plentiful' information. Your party friend was conflating the two. One faces the choice of taking reliable and plentiful information, and forcing it be probative - or taking probative information and increasing the reliability of the inference which can be drawn from it. The latter is vastly more effective at breaking a case.
 
To add something to this, I'll mention something that happened a few nights ago. I was at a birthday party where I was introduced to a somewhat successful author. Two of his books have been turned into films, one of which was popular enough that almost any American would be familiar enough with it to quote at least one line from it. This man's specialty is writing about economics. The fact that I had written on paranormal subjects came up. He responded by asking for figures. How many dreams total (expecting no response) and how many precognitive (expecting a low value). I actually have those numbers thanks to my database. As soon as I gave them, he said that statistics make bad arguments.

What this meant to me was that statistics made for a perfectly fine argument as long as he thought I didn't have the numbers, but when I did, suddenly statistics are no good. Another interesting point was that he clearly didn't know how to make a statistics based argument. He seemed to think that unless something much higher than 50% of all dreams were found to be precognitive, or seemed to be, they wouldn't be significant. I pointed out that the significance of dream content being related to real world events is related to their probability, not just how many events there are in the sample. The number of events can increase the confidence levels, but if probabilities are very low, then a small percentage, say 3%, could still be significant if the sample is large enough.
great story. Must have been really frustrating especially since I know how you sweat the stats. Statistics are a beautiful thing. Thinking of people who should know their stats I'm reminded of:

Michael Britt - ThePsychFiles - Dr. Daryl Bem and the ... - Skeptiko
 
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