Alex
Administrator
true enough... but there is a historical reality there also.This was before he became an industry and the subject of a lot of pointless and 'salacious' commentary.
true enough... but there is a historical reality there also.This was before he became an industry and the subject of a lot of pointless and 'salacious' commentary.
thx. great/horrible stuff. hard to imagine it differently... especially given the obvious dark-culture drive to obfuscate/deny/dismiss. the dark edge of Occam's razor requires us to accept the horrors as true until proven otherwise.The claims of his most vicious detractors aren't particularly wild and do not take much of a stretch of the imagination, from my perspective. Members of the Thelemic and wider Occult community who are "in the know" are simply afraid of discussing the topic of human sacrifice and child abuse openly, but not without reason... If one were to openly discuss one of the more potent transgressions of taboo in which they partake - the power gained from it would be diminished if not lost altogether. Needn't I mention the legality of the matter? Like you, Michael I have been embedded in occult communities for a good period of my life. I've been close with people who performed quite horrific blood magic, illegally kept trays of human skin to bind books with, and worse - I shudder to think of what acts they could have done which they did not inform me of. You needn't look further than the recommendations of taboo transgression in some of the manuals of the Order of Nine Angles to see what people are up to and are being influenced to do. I too have met large swaths of the occult community that think about Crowley in the way you and those you ran with did. I don't claim to know what he really thought or how he acted, but I don't think it is too outrageous to entertain the possibility that he was up to the most heinous things we can imagine.
horrible stuff... thx again for sharing. yr helping others heal everytime you do... but we all resepct yr right re the limits of this.You miss my point. If its not real - i.e. there is no actual FMS - why bring it up unless they do? If there is no actual evidence such a syndrome actually exists why give it credence in any discussion? Why even introduce it as a topic?
But we have to be careful here and not conflate FMS with false memories generally. I hadn't read on FMS for quite some time, so I paused to have a quick look at Google. There seem to be 2 issues - repressed memory and recovered memory - and then problem of whether the recovery of a memory is equal to the repressed memory.
As a victim of childhood sexual abuse myself I recovered the memory of what I experienced not through any therapy but through my own struggle to comprehend things I sensed in myself but could not put words to. What I call a memory is a series of coherent images and emotions. My abuse came about when I fled the home as a 4 year old to escape domestic violence, and was comforted by a 12 year old I had seen earlier having sex with a farm hand. For a long time her abuse was conflated with comfort and safety. I had repressed that memory because it had no context. I did not understand the trauma it generated. I do now.
I also know about false memories. I have shared childhood stories with siblings and we have been surprised, sometimes shocked, about the degree of divergence between our recalled experiences. One of my sisters once said that she had to doubt whether we had grown up in the same home. Two sisters had a flat out disagreement about an event. One said her father had thrown her through a pane of glass. The other said she slipped and fell as she struggled with her father who was trying to stop her from leaving the house. Yes, crazy Christian madness - very abusive and traumatic. Push or fall makes all the difference to the emotions 'memories' evoke.
FMS is really about whether some or all 'recovered' memories under therapy are real - and there seems to be evidence that not all 'recovered' memories are genuine. That's what abusers cling to in order to weaken the accusations against them and deny they have validity. We give them then right to cling to 'reasonable doubt', regardless of the magnitude of their crimes.
As a person who accepts reincarnation I find myself asking whether all 'memories' are necessarily in this life, and whether a 'repressed' memory of sexual abuse may not belong to a previous life - but, in asserting the validity of the memory, and in the absence of any theory of a past life, current life perpetrators are necessary. It could be that a current life accused was a past life perpetrator.
We need to make a choice about how we think the world works. If we bring memories, and the trauma they induce, into this life we cannot agree that any memory that is induced is necessarily one seeded in this life - that's the materialist's assumption - and one that dominates psychology and law.
From what I could find there's no widely agreed position on FMS. The more thoughtful comments such as below seem to me to well balanced:
"Most therapists use techniques such as trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy, which aren’t aimed exclusively at recovering memories of abuse. The royal commission has heard evidence of the serious impact of being dismissed or not believed when making disclosures of abuse and seeking protection. The therapist should be respectful and guided by the needs of the survivor."
You can read more at http://theconversation.com/do-traum...s-and-can-therapy-induce-false-memories-84998
When I was writing my thesis I had to deal with memory in then context of auto ethnographic writing. How could I be sure what I was writing was so? I came to understand that memory is not about 'the facts' so much as the 'moral issue', which is 'clothed' in a contemporary drama to give it meaning and substance. That is to say that a memory can be factually wrong in an objective sense, but morally right. This is, after all, what matters. We have memories so we can preserve a moral truth. We have cameras to record objective truths.
I was abused and I was injured by that abuse. That fact remains even if my telling of the story fails to mesh exactly with the objective reality of the time. That objective reality is fleeting. It is the experience and the memory of it that endures - as does all that flows from it.
I don't know what to think about FMS now. I am inclined to think it is uncommon, and now that it exists as a meme it will be invoked to derail genuine testimony.
I get your point, but in this case I think the most difficult part is fully accepting the reality of this reality / horror rather than splitting hairs on the number of occurrences or whether the satanic cult Ted Bundy joined was fully sanctioned :)
because to fully accepted means also fully accepting the complicity of our media / political / legal system... one that is happy to relegate these discussions to a "Skeptiko forum" level of public awareness.
Hi Alex, I had a chance to read a bit on this. No, the MKUltra is horrific behaviour! It confirms for me (and why I hate the 50's) the true nature of the CIA, fs, penetrating minds by chemical means, and shock-treatment etc with a putrid motive. Thank goodness LSD pulled the rug. Lol. I hope I'm not advocating similar intentional manipulation of humans. I actually wonder how much of todays society has already been created by the CIA's covert use of Skinner's project. (and what's going on with vaccinations, not another conspiracy theory!) I'm sure it is behind social behaviours like our attachment to the commercial market, as well as in schools(!)just saying that some of the MKUltra stuff was what was considered "real psychology" at the time. some of these guys who were into BF skinner and cybernetics stuff thought that you could program the human brain the same way you program a computer.
No darling! You know I dearly love a laugh, and needed it. Hey, we're the Australians! I was just jesting back (phew, what a gut-wrenching topic! I hope I wasn't being too light, in the light of it)T'was in jest! I was about to agree until I saw the pale emojis. Perhaps it was a poor jest?
that's not what Jim Rothstein and other have said... they're saying human compromise is widespread. and, of course it is... why would the power seekers not make this their go-to. but here's the evil twist -- those who have been compromised are preferred by those that play this game... they are promoted and groomed into power because they can be controlled.Where clarification - hair splitting, if you prefer - becomes necessary is when we start introducing conspiracy theories (e.g. most of the govt is controlled by child sex ring participants and they want to keep the practice alive).
I disagree... this is a court of public opinion thing. the power and influernce of many of these folks makes them untouchable. our repososibiblty to keep our own score.My point is that the conspiracy theory must be proven by court room standards before being accepted
I suspect (but don't know for sure) that what you were hearing was someone (sarah) who isn't regularly called on to do these kind of interviews... and in particular from someone who she couldn't exactly figure out.This was indeed an interesting interview! Interesting as in disturbing on too many levels to count.
Though I ‘like’ both Alex and Sarah and listen to both fairly regularly for maybe going on a couple years now, this interview sticks out to me as one particularly ‘off’.
... I heard Alex and Sarah fulfilling roles in this interview, and it felt shallow and artificial.
Why does it seem atleast on the surface that most sexual abuse is directed towards young boys throughout cultures and institutions?John you make a powerful case. Some researchers make the case that sexual abuse is endemic in human culture. I am thinking of Lloyd deMause for example, as well as some commentary in the esoteric literature. But some of that sense of 'abuse' is framed in contemporary terms - and not in the context of the culture of the time. But I think that's a distinction between an outcome that is neurotic as opposed to being traumatic. From deMause I get the sense of persistent self perpetuating neurosis travelling through generations as a rule.
The routine sexual exploitation through religious institutions is wider than the Christian history we know about. I was surprised to read about the level of abuse against boys in Islamic madrasas in Pakistan a few years back. I didn't know about Buddhist's abuse.
Ritual sacrifice of children is another matter, I think, at least in the sense that I am not aware that there was torture or sexual abuse connected with it. Ritualised abuse extends into elite educational institutions and the military, so we must not think that it is related to anything occult - not all ritual is occult or religious - a lot of it is secular.
I think there is a dark reality about complex cultures, in sympathy with deMause's notion of psychohistory - abuse across a spectrum is normal and it will manifest in extreme forms in some cultures and sub-cultures, There will be expressions of depraved predatory conduct in our culture, as well as less toxic manifestations that are no less harmful.
Australia conducted a Royal Commission into institutionalised sexual abuse that revealed not only the acts of predatory priests and clergy but systemic and wilful abuse by carers. The focus was on children and adolescents and did not touch psychiatric hospitals where patients were abused or the abuse of young adults in institutions like schools, police services, prisons or the military.
For me a culture that accepts prostitution and pornography blurs the line between psychologically healthy sexuality and a willingness to accommodate two abusive industries because we are mislead into thinking that they are engaged in via free and and informed choice.
Abuse is perpetuated through generations because it is normalised on the one hand, and part of a degraded and deranged cultural interpretation of power and privilege on the other.
I don't think there is 'an answer' that does not begin with our personal choices.
I disagree... this is a court of public opinion thing. the power and influernce of many of these folks makes them untouchable. our repososibiblty to keep our own score.
Who are the others? Ronald Bernard and Robert David Steele are two I can think of right now - neither with much credibility in my opinion. We really need to catalogue these people and claims. I know you are really persuaded by Rothstein - but he just doesn't sit right with me on an intuitive level. If we're playing the court of public opinion game - when I watch him and listen to him - I get a real palpable sense of speculation, sensationalism, and downright ignorance. Do we have records that corroborate any elements of his story?that's not what Jim Rothstein and other have said... they're saying human compromise is widespread.
I encourage you to do a deep dive into the case.Didn't Epstein get arrested and convicted?
consider looking into the above links re the franklin affair. it's a lot of staring into the abyss kind of stuff... very dark... soul-crushing... but an undeniable reality imo.Normally, when a politician or other big shot gets busted, I usually ask "Why did this happen" - not "how" - who did they piss-off?
open to be proven wrong about jimmy boots. show me the data and I will change course.Who are the others? Ronald Bernard and Robert David Steele are two I can think of right now - neither with much credibility in my opinion. We really need to catalogue these people and claims. I know you are really persuaded by Rothstein - but he just doesn't sit right with me on an intuitive level. If we're playing the court of public opinion game - when I watch him and listen to him - I get a real palpable sense of speculation, sensationalism, and downright ignorance. Do we have records that corroborate any elements of his story?
That cuts both ways. We have a video of a guy sitting in a room saying something - and we're basing on that a belief that at least 35% of our leaders are blackmailed by recordings of them abusing minors?open to be proven wrong about jimmy boots. show me the data and I will change course.
Agreed. If you familiarize yourself with the affidavits and proceeding transcripts that aren't sealed in the various Epstein cases, you'll quickly see that the bad behavior was not just limited to Epstein himself. The whole Miami Herald expose / video series is a good place to start if anyone is interested in educating themselves on the matter.I encourage you to do a deep dive into the case.
Agreed. If you familiarize yourself with the affidavits and proceeding transcripts that aren't sealed in the various Epstein cases, you'll quickly see that the bad behavior was not just limited to Epstein himself. The whole Miami Herald expose / video series is a good place to start if anyone is interested in educating themselves on the matter.
Not only was his deal a sweetheart deal in terms of his slap on the wrist of the sentence but in that it limited investigation of the ring he was clearly operating with Ghislaine Maxwell.
iceberg effect... all indications suggest we're just were seeing a very small portion of what went on. the larger story seems to be in new york and offshore at epstein's island. I also encouraged anyone who's interested to look into alan dershowitz's involvement / denials. an impenetrable wall of bullshit. not suggesting he's a key player, but I think it speaks to the kind of people who will find themselves ensnared in this... and the lengths they'll go to get away from it.Agreed. If you familiarize yourself with the affidavits and proceeding transcripts that aren't sealed in the various Epstein cases, you'll quickly see that the bad behavior was not just limited to Epstein himself. The whole Miami Herald expose / video series is a good place to start if anyone is interested in educating themselves on the matter.
Not only was his deal a sweetheart deal in terms of his slap on the wrist of the sentence but in that it limited investigation of the ring he was clearly operating with Ghislaine Maxwell.
How the legal side of all of this is going down is indeed interesting and not easy to suss out. Yes it is "Trump's" Justice Dept re-opening the case... but it also "Trump's" Labor Secretary that gave Epstein the slap on the wrist in the first place when he was Florida AG.However......the Justice Dept (Trump's Justice Dept) has re-opened the case as of Feb 2019. They are looking into how the sweetheart deal occurred. Time will tell what is going to happen, but my first thought is that it's pretty weird for a pack of conspirators - if such they are - to bring attention to their conspiracy.