The Emergence of Conspirituality

[elfismiles]

No trouble ... and no forgiveness required ... I luvs ya, all!

Do you think I really want to do AD's job for him however easy that may be? Like I don't know this OP was posted here a year ago

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35358&p=475261&hilit=Conspirituality#p475261

but thanks for checking that out for me...sorry that I troubled you

can you forgive a girl her grudges?

[American Dream]

These sorts of threads have all been very educational. I have seen how "true believers" in David Icke and other such global spiritual/conspiracy systems tend to use a fairly narrow repertoire of techniques to avoid dealing with substantive criticism that would require them to actually think about these criticisms of their cherished belief systems.

The thought-stopping techniques they use are intended for themselves and others- and are comparable to those which are used by members of destructive cults to police thinking and behavior. Unfortunately these methods are so cliché that the true believers are in danger of becoming themselves the worst sort of cliché, of embodying that clichéd identity, as someone detached from consensus reality and the critical thinking skills needed to engage with the consensus and effectively challenge it in a positive way.

Thus people in the cultural majority like to make fun of the true believers, making derisive references to "conspiratards" (I hate that word), tin foil hats, truthers and all the rest. This provides the more extreme Icke fans and other such conspiritualists with a perfect foil: they can then just rail against their common enemy and stay stuck exactly where they are. If they have become cliché's, living caricatures of the positive instincts which first brought them towards radical ideas- they either don't notice- or care.

It's hard to do much with that- they are in a self-sealing system and may never really change. Unfortunately, the Icke lovers and others of that ilk are really, really bad for the greater movement. So it's important that we not let them make it look like most of us who are interested in conspiracies are the same as them.

So there's the rub: how to sustain goodwill towards individual people who are perpetuating misguided ideas, while also distancing more credible movements from them and while challenging those who have the potential to change to do a little better.

My worst fear is that the majority of people drawn to Icke and other such systems will be unable to accept that their peers may have strong criticisms of their belief systems because their self identity depends on it and because it is their "religion"...

[norton ash]

Let's just say certain people always make problems...

[brekin]

Sounder wrote:

The conspiritists [sic] may be wrong in many particulars while still being right with the general idea that a shadowy elite controls governments and that consciousness evolves.

To me this seems straightforward. I would consider myself a Conspiritualist somewhat using their definition:

From OP:

We argue that conspirituality is a politico-spiritual philosophy based on two
core convictions, the first traditional to conspiracy theory, the second rooted
in the New Age:

1. A secret group covertly controls, or is trying to control, the political and
social order (Fenster).

2. Humanity is undergoing a 'paradigm shift' in consciousness, or awareness,
so solutions to (1) lie in acting in accordance with an awakened 'new
paradigm' worldview.

I believe at times a "shadowy elite" tries to control or influence the political and social order.
I think history bears this out. And humanity is undergoing a 'paradigm shift' in consciousness but I'd
be hard pressed to say this is some type of global awakening and the shift is mostly facilitated through
changes in communication. So, I guess I'd probably lean more towards the conspiracy then the spirituality side.

But I think the core issue is whether or not "the particulars" one is wrong regarding a general trend are more in the realm of unsupported magical thinking. L. Ron Hubbard and The Honorable Elijah Muhammad were no doubt right about certain realities about modern societies which "straight society" may have minimized or avoided but their main thesis for why things are the way they are rests on total fantasies.

Dig Scientology first principles:

Xenu (/ˈziːnuː/ ZEE-noo),[1][2][3] also spelled Xemu, was, according to Scientology founder and science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions[4][5] of his people to Earth (then known as "Teegeeack") in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology scriptures hold that the essences of these many people remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm.[1][6]

These events are known within Scientology as "Incident II",[7] and the traumatic memories associated with them as "The Wall of Fire" or the R6 implant. The narrative of Xenu is part of Scientologist teachings about extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in earthly events, collectively described as "space opera" by Hubbard. Hubbard detailed the story in Operating Thetan level III (OT III) in 1967, warning that the R6 "implant" (past trauma)[8] was "calculated to kill (by pneumonia, etc.) anyone who attempts to solve it".[8][9][10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu

Dig Nation of Islam first principles:

Wallace Fard Muhammad taught the original peoples of the world were black and that white people were a race of "devils" created by a scientist named Yakub (the Biblical and Qur'anic Jacob) on the Greek island of Patmos. According to the supreme wisdom lessons, Fard taught that whites were devils because of a culture of lies and murder that the black man Yakub instituted on the island to ensure the creation of his new people. Fard taught that Yakub established a secret birth control policy among the ruling class on the island. They were to kill all dark babies at birth and lie to the parents about the child's fate. Further, they were to make sure that the lighter-skinned children thrived in society. This policy encouraged a general preference for light skin. This was the establishment of the idea of White Supremacy. It was necessary to allow the process of grafting or making of a lighter skinned race of people who would be different. The idea was that if the light skinned people were allowed to mate freely with the dark skinned people, the population would remain dark-skinned due to the genetic dominance of the original dark-skinned people. This process took approximately 600 years to produce a blond-haired, blue-eyed group of people. As they migrated into the mainland they were greeted and welcomed by the indigenous people wherever they went. But according to the supreme wisdom lessons, they started making trouble among the righteous people, telling lies and causing confusion and mischief. This is when the ruling class of the Middle East decided to round up all the troublemakers that they could find and march them out, over the hot desert sands, into the caves and hillsides of Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam

O.K. now the above organizations and founders probably speak a lot of truth to power but if their man argument is bogus then ultimately they are as destructive as anything they are criticizing. Now, can someone explain to me how Icke's central thesis is any more valid or invalid then the two posted above? How is Icke's less or more fantastical then the other two? What evidence is there of what he claims that isn't as spurious as the above?

Reptoid hypothesis

Icke introduced the reptoid hypothesis in The Biggest Secret (1999), which identified the Brotherhood as descendants of reptilians from the constellation Draco, who walk on two legs and appear human, and who live in tunnels and caverns inside the earth. He argues that the reptilians are the race of gods known as the Anunnaki in the Babylonian creation myth, Enûma Eliš.[40] According to Barkun, Icke's idea of "inner-earth reptilians" is not new, though he has done more than most to expand it.

Lewis and Kahn write that Icke has taken his "ancient astronaut" narrative from the Israeli-American writer, Zecharia Sitchin, who argued – for example in Divine Encounters (1995) – that the Anunnaki had come to Earth for its precious metals. Icke argues that they came specifically for "monoatomic gold," a mineral he says can increase the carrying capacity of the nervous system ten thousandfold. After ingesting it, the reptilians can process vast amounts of information, speed up trans-dimensional travel, and shapeshift from reptilian to human form.[43] They use human fear, guilt, and aggression as energy. "Thus we have the encouragement of wars," he wrote in 1999, "human genocide, the mass slaughter of animals, sexual perversions which create highly charged negative energy, and black magic ritual and sacrifice which takes place on a scale that will stagger those who have not studied the subject."[44] Lewis and Kahn argue that Icke is using allegory to depict the alien, and alienating, nature of global capitalism.[45]

Icke writes that the Anunnaki have crossbred with human beings, the breeding lines chosen for political reasons, arguing that they are the Watchers, the fallen angels, or "Grigori," who mated with human women in the Biblical apocrypha. Their first reptilian-human hybrid, possibly Adam, was created 200,000–300,000 years ago. There was a second breeding program 30,000 years ago, and a third 7,000 years ago. It is the half-bloods of the third breeding program who today control the world, more Anunnaki than human, he writes. They have a powerful, hypnotic stare, the origin of the phrase to "give someone the evil eye," and their hybrid DNA allows them to shapeshift when they consume human blood.[46]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_icke

I really would like someone to explain to me how Icke's core belief is less or more credible than the two above.

[worldsastage]

What AD said..

There are myriad problems with that article and the authors fall into the same trap that those they are criticizing often do; polluting the issues by linking reasonable voices with the loonies. While the marriage between conspiracies and spirituality includes sincere researchers who are more likely to see how each component influences the other, there are some real (for lack of a better term) kooks out there even in the "mainstream" arena. Among the self-identified skeptics, conspiracy theorists and spiritualists, there are some who approach their subject matter in a rigid, dogmatic manner akin to a cult, all the while claiming open-mindedness. Another thing, being open-minded does not mean every idea has equal merit but you all know that quite well here. When I say cult it is not in the sense of a group's beliefs and departure from orthodoxy, but cult as in how an individual or group goes about getting others to buy into and maintain their ideas and beliefs. Our society as it stands today is quite cultic. The article is a good example of this cultic way of operating that exist in academia, government and many walks of life. The gathering of true believers with thought stopping cliches, denigration of competitors in the marketplace of ideas, doctrine over person etc., etc. Been there done that...I'm biased. At the same time there has to be a better way to have dialog and find a way toward truth and the ability to use those truths in a manner that help rather than harm.

I rather liked Searcher08's suggestions. and agree with this:

Perhaps the way forward is not through argument at all.
These are big issues, because IMHO organised fundamentalist Skepticism is MUCH more powerful than the whole of Paraculture. If you want examples -ask yourself - does this show aspects of 'control over' in the real world. These are the same folks who squash research into areas that are non-Orthodox and label them as pseudoscience.
One of the issues left out of that article is that challenge to the Orthodoxy of scientism that is taking place, so I see the 'system-in-focus' in a very different way than Voas.

Such a challenge is good. As someone steeped in aspects of scientism and having been a part of paracultural groups, both of which are/were cultic in dynamic, I try to be aware of my biases. They might be showing here, but what the hey.

Deikman's Them and Us: Cult thinking and the terrorist threat after describing the more extreme cases, lays out how prevalent cultic dynamics are in society. Even if I don't necessary agree with all of the terrorist threat bit, there is a threat indeed. A synopsis and the book's intro from the author's website describes the process.

To heighten our awareness, Them and Us identifies four basic cult behaviors that influence our thinking: 1) compliance with a group, 2) dependence on a leader, 3) avoiding dissent, and 4) devaluing the outsider. These forces operate in all aspects of society. The core process is devaluing the outsider, resulting in Them-versus-Us behavior.

"Leader" doesn't have to be leader in the normal sense. It could just be the alternative research celebrity du jour a la Icke et al or someone with a wide audience. At the same time, it is important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater and lump everyone who thinks beyond the ordinary as a crazy conspiritualists. I would not equate a David Icke with Richard Dolan, for example. Yet, the latter in his openness has moved in some of those same cultic circles, thus providing others who wish to paint everyone who raises similar issues with a broad brush and dismiss anything he has to say. It's a win for the true believers as they claim support from credible individuals but who then are no longer deemed credible in the larger sphere. I would not call Dolan a cult follower or leader, however. It is a delicate matter, not helped by individuals who use cultic techniques to get people to listen. No matter how good the message, if it is used as a way that narrows one's outlook to a basic set of premises it ultimately serves those who wish to keep us limited and controllable. Regardless of the message, I'd say a number of participants in the conspirutainment complex do just that because of the cultic methods used. Although anecdotal, I've hung out at enough alternative and mainstream conferences on politics, religion, science and spirituality not to mention my former cult to have experienced a lot of this us and them thinking first hand.

[Elvis]

Without intending any offence whatsoever Elvis , might I humbly request that you go back and read it more thoroughly if you have the time, and see if you dont arrive at a different conclusion?

Hi Slimmouse, for what it's worth I did closely re-read the article a few times (I meant to mention that, but omitted for 'brevity'), to try to minimize my own kneejerk bias in understanding it, make sure it was saying what I thought it was saying, and write at least somewhat objectively about it. I can't say I find the article very even-handed (unless that means evenly casting all 'conspiracy theory' proponents in the same mold.

It should be noted that during times of social ferment, new ideas are often crude in their nascent forms. However the substance that generates these ideas ought not to be discounted simply because the forms of expression are crude. That only discourages schismatic expressions in favor of orthodoxy.

The conspiritualisists may be wrong in many particulars while still being right with the general idea that a shadowy elite controls governments and that consciousness evolves.

Sounder, interesting points, and I agree with you on both.

Rather than saying that conspiracy culture is all "bad" or all "good" and letting it go at that, isn't there much more subtlety, paradox and detail than all that?

If we just become knee-jerk defenders of any and all conspiracy mongers, then we feed the perceptions of the nay-sayers who think it's all flaky, fascist or just insane.

If we tar all conspiracy investigations with the same "bad" brush, we miss all the valuable material that's out there.

AD, thanks, I take your above points well, it's the article I find to be an unsatisfying way of making them, lacking nuance and 'tarring all conspiracy investigations with the same "bad" brush'. In my opinion, if the authors can't discern the relative values of, say, the work of John Perkins and the work of David Icke, then they should probably find something else to write about.

David Voas publishes in the CSICOP's The Skeptical Enquirer and works with fellow Skeptics in the area of secularisation research amongest others.

Aha.


(more replies later, thanks.)

[Searcher08]

These sorts of threads have all been very educational. I have seen how "true believers" in David Icke and other such global spiritual/conspiracy systems tend to use a fairly narrow repertoire of techniques to avoid dealing with substantive criticism that would require them to actually think about these criticisms of their cherished belief systems.

Which true believers? - I have not seen anyone at R.I. who doesnt treat Icke in the same way as you hope that people treat your TIDS thread - dip in and out, think about it, experience paradox, speculate, think about it etc.
I am unsure what you embody in ONE thread - a sower of interesting cognitive seeds, and make room for people to do what they will, turns into a person who doesnt reply to considered responses, seems to ignore feedback, sees people as Icke 'disciples'. R.I. surely isnt a place where there are disciples of anything or anyone.

The thought-stopping techniques they use are intended for themselves and others- and are comparable to those which are used by members of destructive cults to police thinking and behavior. Unfortunately these methods are so cliché that the true believers are in danger of becoming themselves the worst sort of cliché, of embodying that clichéd identity, as someone detached from consensus reality and the critical thinking skills needed to engage with the consensus and effectively challenge it in a positive way.

What do you say about my assertion that the above applies much more to the culture of scientism than paraculture. I think Icke actually comes with his own built in baloney detection structure - your underlying recurrent metaphor about Icke is 'drinking poison'
That implies that there may be no antidote, make one extremely ill, destroy ones health irreversibly. Bloody hell - is that really a useful frame?

What about a metaphor as Icke is a 'noisy signal'?

There is more to filtering than 'critical thinking'.

Thus people in the cultural majority like to make fun of the true believers, making derisive references to "conspiratards" (I hate that word), tin foil hats, truthers and all the rest.

I think that the cultural majority are too busy watching ball games, Big Brother Series 19, Kim Kardashian and Katie Price.
A couple of years ago Icke ran as an MP. He came 12th, lost his deposit and got 110 votes.

The people who demonise people interested in R.I. subjects in this way are much more likely to be pseudoskeptics.

This provides the more extreme Icke fans and other such conspiritualists with a perfect foil: they can then just rail against their common enemy and stay stuck exactly where they are. If they have become cliché's, living caricatures of the positive instincts which first brought them towards radical ideas- they either don't notice- or care.

Who are the more extreme Icke fans?? I would say that you appear to be accusing others here of worhipping Icke, when that doesnt fit the available evidence.
I think Icke is a decent person, who sometimes says wacky stuff that turns out to be false and sometimes says wacky stuff that turns out to be true. I remember thinking when I heard him accusing Jimmy Saville of being a paedophile as thinking 'what a nutjob!'.

It's hard to do much with that- they are in a self-sealing system and may never really change. Unfortunately, the Icke lovers and others of that ilk are really, really bad for the greater movement. So it's important that we not let them make it look like most of us who are interested in conspiracies are the same as them.

I assert that judging by the conversation on the David Icke forum, that there is a level of rational exchange that most of the time would be of a comparable quality to R.I. Years ago, I tried to get Jeff enrolled in the idea of a much more activist R.I. - that time has come and gone, but by far the best grass roots parapolitics activism I have seen was on their forum about NOT letting the Jimmy Saville case get buried.

Sticky: Jimmy Savile OUTED as a PAEDO OCT 3rd 2012
anders7777 started it while he was dying of cancer and died within a few months
19-06-2013 08:26 PM 70,254 posts 8,157,193 views

There is a torrent of information on that thread - it is truly magnificent and it has exposed an absolute cesspit of child-abusing politicians at the top of UK political life.

So there's the rub: how to sustain goodwill towards individual people who are perpetuating misguided ideas, while also distancing more credible movements from them and while challenging those who have the potential to change to do a little better.

It is unclear from this which people and which misguided ideas - do you mean in general or on R.I.? (it is unclear to me about your context)
What specifically are these 'more credible movements'?
Who decides whether a person has the potential to change?

MIsguided: Having or showing faulty judgment or reasoning:
which comes back to your baseing this endevour on the 'Right / Wrong' adversarial system that values 'judgement' above all else.

My worst fear is that the majority of people drawn to Icke and other such systems will be unable to accept that their peers may have strong criticisms of their belief systems because their self identity depends on it and because it is their "religion"...

What would be the worst thing that could happen to those people whose self-identity depended on it and viewed it as a religion if they are unable to accept criticism of their belief systems from their peers?

In the same way that the identity of pseudoskeptics depends on seeing thinking as purely a 'truth seeking' activity? Analysis does not create new ideas - creative and design thinking does.

Beliefs are most probably patterns of nerve traces in the brain. Because of how the brain gives rise to perception as a self-organising patternng system, these networks are inherently self-reinforcing - new input is NOT filed in a new box, rather the existing structure of nerve networks itself determines where the information goes - in the same way as a rain in a rainforest is organised by by the patterns of rain and waterflow already in existence.

There is a couple of mechanisms in the human brain for cutting across perceptual patterns. The self-organising systems model predicts it's existence.

One of those mechanisms is... humour



[/quote]

[Canadian_watcher]

some really great stuff going on here. thanks everyone for taking the time.

[Wombaticus Rex]

What specifically are these 'more credible movements'?
Who decides whether a person has the potential to change?

Yes. The "credible movement" concept is very problematic to me because organizations are only allowed to be "credible" to the extent they participate in the kayfabe of American Exceptionalism.

For instance, is Occupy a "credible" movement? If not, why not?

Is Samantha Power a "credible" advocate for human rights? If not, why not?

[American Dream]

These sorts of threads have all been very educational. I have seen how "true believers" in David Icke and other such global spiritual/conspiracy systems tend to use a fairly narrow repertoire of techniques to avoid dealing with substantive criticism that would require them to actually think about these criticisms of their cherished belief systems.

Which true believers? - I have not seen anyone at R.I. who doesnt treat Icke in the same way as you hope that people treat your TIDS thread - dip in and out, think about it, experience paradox, speculate, think about it etc.
I am unsure what you embody in ONE thread - a sower of interesting cognitive seeds, and make room for people to do what they will, turns into a person who doesnt reply to considered responses, seems to ignore feedback, sees people as Icke 'disciples'. R.I. surely isnt a place where there are disciples of anything or anyone.

The thought-stopping techniques they use are intended for themselves and others- and are comparable to those which are used by members of destructive cults to police thinking and behavior. Unfortunately these methods are so cliché that the true believers are in danger of becoming themselves the worst sort of cliché, of embodying that clichéd identity, as someone detached from consensus reality and the critical thinking skills needed to engage with the consensus and effectively challenge it in a positive way.

What do you say about my assertion that the above applies much more to the culture of scientism than paraculture. I think Icke actually comes with his own built in baloney detection structure - your underlying recurrent metaphor about Icke is 'drinking poison'
That implies that there may be no antidote, make one extremely ill, destroy ones health irreversibly. Bloody hell - is that really a useful frame?

What about a metaphor as Icke is a 'noisy signal'?

There is more to filtering than 'critical thinking'.

Thus people in the cultural majority like to make fun of the true believers, making derisive references to "conspiratards" (I hate that word), tin foil hats, truthers and all the rest.

I think that the cultural majority are too busy watching ball games, Big Brother Series 19, Kim Kardashian and Katie Price.
A couple of years ago Icke ran as an MP. He came 12th, lost his deposit and got 110 votes.

The people who demonise people interested in R.I. subjects in this way are much more likely to be pseudoskeptics.

This provides the more extreme Icke fans and other such conspiritualists with a perfect foil: they can then just rail against their common enemy and stay stuck exactly where they are. If they have become cliché's, living caricatures of the positive instincts which first brought them towards radical ideas- they either don't notice- or care.

Who are the more extreme Icke fans?? I would say that you appear to be accusing others here of worhipping Icke, when that doesnt fit the available evidence.
I think Icke is a decent person, who sometimes says wacky stuff that turns out to be false and sometimes says wacky stuff that turns out to be true. I remember thinking when I heard him accusing Jimmy Saville of being a paedophile as thinking 'what a nutjob!'.

It's hard to do much with that- they are in a self-sealing system and may never really change. Unfortunately, the Icke lovers and others of that ilk are really, really bad for the greater movement. So it's important that we not let them make it look like most of us who are interested in conspiracies are the same as them.

I assert that judging by the conversation on the David Icke forum, that there is a level of rational exchange that most of the time would be of a comparable quality to R.I. Years ago, I tried to get Jeff enrolled in the idea of a much more activist R.I. - that time has come and gone, but by far the best grass roots parapolitics activism I have seen was on their forum about NOT letting the Jimmy Saville case get buried.

Sticky: Jimmy Savile OUTED as a PAEDO OCT 3rd 2012
anders7777 started it while he was dying of cancer and died within a few months
19-06-2013 08:26 PM 70,254 posts 8,157,193 views

There is a torrent of information on that thread - it is truly magnificent and it has exposed an absolute cesspit of child-abusing politicians at the top of UK political life.

So there's the rub: how to sustain goodwill towards individual people who are perpetuating misguided ideas, while also distancing more credible movements from them and while challenging those who have the potential to change to do a little better.

It is unclear from this which people and which misguided ideas - do you mean in general or on R.I.? (it is unclear to me about your context)
What specifically are these 'more credible movements'?
Who decides whether a person has the potential to change?

MIsguided: Having or showing faulty judgment or reasoning:
which comes back to your baseing this endevour on the 'Right / Wrong' adversarial system that values 'judgement' above all else.

My worst fear is that the majority of people drawn to Icke and other such systems will be unable to accept that their peers may have strong criticisms of their belief systems because their self identity depends on it and because it is their "religion"...

What would be the worst thing that could happen to those people whose self-identity depended on it and viewed it as a religion if they are unable to accept criticism of their belief systems from their peers?

In the same way that the identity of pseudoskeptics depends on seeing thinking as purely a 'truth seeking' activity? Analysis does not create new ideas - creative and design thinking does.

Beliefs are most probably patterns of nerve traces in the brain. Because of how the brain gives rise to perception as a self-organising patternng system, these networks are inherently self-reinforcing - new input is NOT filed in a new box, rather the existing structure of nerve networks itself determines where the information goes - in the same way as a rain in a rainforest is organised by by the patterns of rain and waterflow already in existence.

There is a couple of mechanisms in the human brain for cutting across perceptual patterns. The self-organising systems model predicts it's existence.

One of those mechanisms is... humour

In general, I'm less interested in the personal here, more interested in big ideas. This is why I tend to focus more on posting some of what I'm reading more than engaging in conversations here. As I said to Six Hits of Sunshine today on the Icke thread regarding RI:

I think there's a certain culture at play- one where working together for a higher purpose takes a back seat.

Instead, we get self-indulgence, the projection of personal issues, "fight club" dynamics, and all the rest.

Not to gloss over the huge differences in who we each are and how we see things but I would like more of a community of researchers and activists guided by both clear thinking and by imagination, myself...

I do think that Icke is a problem but not the fount of all evil, more the canary in the coal mine, showing us that some things are really, really off in the conspiracy community...

As to poison Kool Aid and whatnot, I'm more focused on what Icke-based ideology does to social movements as with Alice Walker and the struggle for Palestinian Liberation, to name just one example.

Regarding activism, I would be frightened if the David Icke crew were too active and visible on important issues like paedophile rings and the like. It's the same old "With friends like these, who needs enemies" Principle. Too easy for the perps to slough off all the criticism by saying "Look at those wingnuts! Do you know what they believe in?"

If the zealous defenders of Icke do not change-, it's too bad for them as individuals but I'm really concerned about the damage they will do regarding all sorts of critical struggles: yes, Palestine/Israel, yes, abuse survivors but really all of the efforts to expose conspiracies, to create social justice.

Ultimately though I do hold out some measure of hope for everybody- those dismissed as "conspiratards" by skeptical people and those dismissed as clueless squares by those who embrace wilder ideas about things. That said, it's also a matter of odds- and some people seem more likely to change and grow than others. Ultimately, we each have to decide what are credible movements and who are more credible people. I do have my opinions on all that but I don't really want to "name names" because I already have enough of "personal" stuff and want more the ideas the efforts for social change. Suffice it to say that all the problems I find in Conspiracy Land are here at RI but also go well beyond it...

[coffin_dodger]

I felt very uncomfortable reading many parts of the 'conspirituality' broadcast in the OP. Much of it rang true. But I have to keep reminding myself that the majority intrinsically (though teetering) like things just the way they are. Generally, people are frightened of great changes and our system and media are quite content to promote that view - it's in their interest. A powerful system isn't going to sit back and watch whilst events unfold - historically, it has been extremely pro-active (although more reactive of late) and won't allow transition without baring it's teeth and, if neccessary, lashing out at those it sees as dangerous. Removing thorns from one's side via accidents, heart attacks and suicides works well enough, but how to poison the well of dissent of mind is another matter.

And this is where it has a major problem. Pieces like the OP are almost perfectly crafted to create a 180 degree turn in the mind of the 'conspiratorial' reader, at the same time reinforcing the ridiculousness of such thinking to those unencumbered with these troubling thoughts. It's a great example (perhaps the best I've seen so far) of what 'the normal' has left in it's arsenal to throw at the consciousness of dissenters.

Thank you AD for highlighting a newer 'upstepped' stage in the highly delicate, intricately managed and partially-visible war raging across our beautiful planet.

[slimmouse]

Hi Slimmouse, for what it's worth I did closely re-read the article a few times (I meant to mention that, but omitted for 'brevity'), to try to minimize my own kneejerk bias in understanding it, make sure it was saying what I thought it was saying, and write at least somewhat objectively about it. I can't say I find the article very even-handed (unless that means evenly casting all 'conspiracy theory' proponents in the same mold.

Hey Elvis, thanks for your thoughts. I did say that I felt it to be an even handed piece "as far as these things go". Perhaps Ive been reading too much opinion from all ADs sources lately, and found it refreshing that here was an article which focused more purely on what Consprirituality stands for, thereby missing some of the more subtle nuances and inferences in the piece that the rest of you have picked up on.

I kinda reeled myself on beggining the piece to see the reference to David Aaraanovitch. But If we want to look at the disturbances created in the minds of ordinary men, by the various systems that have evolved whilst the planet is in the hands of the 0.000001%, then I reckon Aaraanovitch, along with so many of the other official talking heads are easily identifiable cases in point.

This results in the kind of knee jerk reactionism to all things conspiritual or paracultic that we find all around us. As Searcher has rightly pointed out, these are far more dangerious social forces at this present time, than the worst that paracuture can currently offer. Until people understand more fully how this works, then this is the best that the mainstream will ever be able to produce. And as aside, If that in itself isnt a cause for concern, then I wonder what is.

And speaking of how this works, I thought the article also made a very fair point about how people are turning away from organised religion, despite their innate sense of sprituality, which I attribute to more people seeing these particular systems, especially the Abrahimic strains, for what they more accurately are- namely a method to empley the interjection of a pack of manipulative and generally very destructive middle men to use people, whilst at the same time removing all focus by the abused on the fact that ones own connection with the divine ( if we accept such a concept) is a very personal thing, and that we ourselves are an integral part of the divine as opposed to some third party who requires their stewardship.

I mean, hows that for a tool of manipulation and personal disempowerment, right there

Its a con of the highest order, and it has generated much of the mess this world is in at this moment in time.

An interesting thread all in all I think.

[Searcher08]

These sorts of threads have all been very educational. I have seen how "true believers" in David Icke and other such global spiritual/conspiracy systems tend to use a fairly narrow repertoire of techniques to avoid dealing with substantive criticism that would require them to actually think about these criticisms of their cherished belief systems.

Which true believers? - I have not seen anyone at R.I. who doesnt treat Icke in the same way as you hope that people treat your TIDS thread - dip in and out, think about it, experience paradox, speculate, think about it etc.
I am unsure what you embody in ONE thread - a sower of interesting cognitive seeds, and make room for people to do what they will, turns into a person who doesnt reply to considered responses, seems to ignore feedback, sees people as Icke 'disciples'. R.I. surely isnt a place where there are disciples of anything or anyone.

The thought-stopping techniques they use are intended for themselves and others- and are comparable to those which are used by members of destructive cults to police thinking and behavior. Unfortunately these methods are so cliché that the true believers are in danger of becoming themselves the worst sort of cliché, of embodying that clichéd identity, as someone detached from consensus reality and the critical thinking skills needed to engage with the consensus and effectively challenge it in a positive way.

What do you say about my assertion that the above applies much more to the culture of scientism than paraculture. I think Icke actually comes with his own built in baloney detection structure - your underlying recurrent metaphor about Icke is 'drinking poison'
That implies that there may be no antidote, make one extremely ill, destroy ones health irreversibly. Bloody hell - is that really a useful frame?

What about a metaphor as Icke is a 'noisy signal'?

There is more to filtering than 'critical thinking'.

Thus people in the cultural majority like to make fun of the true believers, making derisive references to "conspiratards" (I hate that word), tin foil hats, truthers and all the rest.

I think that the cultural majority are too busy watching ball games, Big Brother Series 19, Kim Kardashian and Katie Price.
A couple of years ago Icke ran as an MP. He came 12th, lost his deposit and got 110 votes.

The people who demonise people interested in R.I. subjects in this way are much more likely to be pseudoskeptics.

This provides the more extreme Icke fans and other such conspiritualists with a perfect foil: they can then just rail against their common enemy and stay stuck exactly where they are. If they have become cliché's, living caricatures of the positive instincts which first brought them towards radical ideas- they either don't notice- or care.

Who are the more extreme Icke fans?? I would say that you appear to be accusing others here of worhipping Icke, when that doesnt fit the available evidence.
I think Icke is a decent person, who sometimes says wacky stuff that turns out to be false and sometimes says wacky stuff that turns out to be true. I remember thinking when I heard him accusing Jimmy Saville of being a paedophile as thinking 'what a nutjob!'.

It's hard to do much with that- they are in a self-sealing system and may never really change. Unfortunately, the Icke lovers and others of that ilk are really, really bad for the greater movement. So it's important that we not let them make it look like most of us who are interested in conspiracies are the same as them.

I assert that judging by the conversation on the David Icke forum, that there is a level of rational exchange that most of the time would be of a comparable quality to R.I. Years ago, I tried to get Jeff enrolled in the idea of a much more activist R.I. - that time has come and gone, but by far the best grass roots parapolitics activism I have seen was on their forum about NOT letting the Jimmy Saville case get buried.

Sticky: Jimmy Savile OUTED as a PAEDO OCT 3rd 2012
anders7777 started it while he was dying of cancer and died within a few months
19-06-2013 08:26 PM 70,254 posts 8,157,193 views

There is a torrent of information on that thread - it is truly magnificent and it has exposed an absolute cesspit of child-abusing politicians at the top of UK political life.

So there's the rub: how to sustain goodwill towards individual people who are perpetuating misguided ideas, while also distancing more credible movements from them and while challenging those who have the potential to change to do a little better.

It is unclear from this which people and which misguided ideas - do you mean in general or on R.I.? (it is unclear to me about your context)
What specifically are these 'more credible movements'?
Who decides whether a person has the potential to change?

MIsguided: Having or showing faulty judgment or reasoning:
which comes back to your baseing this endevour on the 'Right / Wrong' adversarial system that values 'judgement' above all else.

My worst fear is that the majority of people drawn to Icke and other such systems will be unable to accept that their peers may have strong criticisms of their belief systems because their self identity depends on it and because it is their "religion"...

What would be the worst thing that could happen to those people whose self-identity depended on it and viewed it as a religion if they are unable to accept criticism of their belief systems from their peers?

In the same way that the identity of pseudoskeptics depends on seeing thinking as purely a 'truth seeking' activity? Analysis does not create new ideas - creative and design thinking does.

Beliefs are most probably patterns of nerve traces in the brain. Because of how the brain gives rise to perception as a self-organising patternng system, these networks are inherently self-reinforcing - new input is NOT filed in a new box, rather the existing structure of nerve networks itself determines where the information goes - in the same way as a rain in a rainforest is organised by by the patterns of rain and waterflow already in existence.

There is a couple of mechanisms in the human brain for cutting across perceptual patterns. The self-organising systems model predicts it's existence.

One of those mechanisms is... humour

In general, I'm less interested in the personal here, more interested in big ideas. This is why I tend to focus more on posting some of what I'm reading more than engaging in conversations here. As I said to Six Hits of Sunshine today on the Icke thread regarding RI:

I think there's a certain culture at play- one where working together for a higher purpose takes a back seat.

Instead, we get self-indulgence, the projection of personal issues, "fight club" dynamics, and all the rest.

Not to gloss over the huge differences in who we each are and how we see things but I would like more of a community of researchers and activists guided by both clear thinking and by imagination, myself...

I do think that Icke is a problem but not the fount of all evil, more the canary in the coal mine, showing us that some things are really, really off in the conspiracy community...

As to poison Kool Aid and whatnot, I'm more focused on what Icke-based ideology does to social movements as with Alice Walker and the struggle for Palestinian Liberation, to name just one example.

Regarding activism, I would be frightened if the David Icke crew were too active and visible on important issues like paedophile rings and the like. It's the same old "With friends like these, who needs enemies" Principle. Too easy for the perps to slough off all the criticism by saying "Look at those wingnuts! Do you know what they believe in?"

If the zealous defenders of Icke do not change-, it's too bad for them as individuals but I'm really concerned about the damage they will do regarding all sorts of critical struggles: yes, Palestine/Israel, yes, abuse survivors but really all of the efforts to expose conspiracies, to create social justice.

Ultimately though I do hold out some measure of hope for everybody- those dismissed as "conspiratards" by skeptical people and those dismissed as clueless squares by those who embrace wilder ideas about things. That said, it's also a matter of odds- and some people seem more likely to change and grow than others. Ultimately, we each have to decide what are credible movements and who are more credible people. I do have my opinions on all that but I don't really want to "name names" because I already have enough of "personal" stuff and want more the ideas the efforts for social change. Suffice it to say that all the problems I find in Conspiracy Land are here at RI but also go well beyond it...

Well, I read carefully what you said and have a few things to say which I hope are taken with goodwill, because that is my intention. My perception of R.I. is that there are very few physical activists of the type that are out in the street, traditional union stuff, social justice campaigns - and my understanding is that that is the sea in which you swim. I remember years ago you asking about activism here and there was a pause on the board and... tumbleweeds blew in from the desert... and I realised that your perspective was probably informed by that - in a way that many of us here were not.

I looked over our conversations going back years and we have been reenacting variations on the same conversation - an insolvable conversational 'knot'.

Your values are truth and consequences (to self and others and organisations)
"Is this thing Icke says true? If it is NOT true, why defend Icke? Why do you not see the negative consequences of defending someone you know is speaking untruths?!! Would you defend Nazis by saying I dont believe what they say?"

When you say
How can you believe this Icke nonsense about shape shifting reptiles?!
My first thought is
Firstly, why are you mocking Southern African shamanic tradition?
Secondly, I dont believe it or disbelieve it. I regard it as an interesting idea - I think many shamanic traditions are a mix of literal and metaphorical.
Third I wonder where the idea leads to... and I think of reptilian brain people and the whole area of Ponerology / leadership by psychopaths.


My values are - does it lead to changes in perception, personal growth and challenging orthodoxy-
"Does this provoke my thinking and lead me to do worthwhile investigation and ultimately to be a more effective, kind and loving person day to day, empower people by my actions?"

Your TIDS thread exactly fits my values - it led me to changes in perception, seeing others in patterns I had been in and actually set me off down the Adam Curtis path, whose work changed my perceptions, reframed personal growth and above all challenged orthodoxy.

You said you are most interested in ideas for social change - for me that means you are most interested in what will produce good ideas and what will help their implementation - is that accurate?

If it is, well that is one of my abiding passions too - maybe we can focus on what empowers each other...

I hope this landed with the goodwill and peace with which it was sent.

[Sounder]

It would seem that most folk try to ‘spend’ their energy in the most profitable way that they are able to conceive at any given moment. Yet we all seem to be making enormously bad decisions individually, collectively and on an ongoing basis.

I attribute this chiefly to a society with a conceptual structuring system that promotes coercion as a measure of credibility. Ours is currently a world owned by the PR machine, where for instance, some capitalists realized that with a good bit of money one could not only whitewash a (Ludlow) massacre, one could , with the same money buy the allegiance of a whole class of intellectuals. Talk about cultic, they got a twofer with one hundred to one or better returns. But hey come on, they work hard for that cash.


brekin wrote...

I really would like someone to explain to me how Icke's core belief is less or more credible than the two above.

I for one would never do that, (and I hope others, in the future are more careful in the manner chosen to address the Icke issue). No, no, my issues are more general with questions about how one belief set rises to being a cult while normative belief sets use coercive tactics and marginalizing of the outsider as or more effectively than do the (essentially) schismatic offshoots. (In the future folk may look back and see our normative thinking as not much less 'crazy' than the thinking of the outcasts. In my opinion they exist on a similar level of 'crazy'.)

I do not care for charismatic types of personalities. (This is not true, as I seem to associate with disproportionate number of this type, myself included. A paradox of life perhaps?) They strike me as willing participants in the promotion of our existing vertical authority distribution system.

For me beliefs lead to coercion. It’s an implicit claim that the map is the territory.

Replacing beliefs with possibility factors might help cure the autocrat that seems to lurk in each of our psyches.


Thanks for dropping in worldsastage, you sound like someone that has put your experience to good use.

worldsastage wrote….

When I say cult it is not in the sense of a group's beliefs and departure from orthodoxy, but cult as in how an individual or group goes about getting others to buy into and maintain their ideas and beliefs. Our society as it stands today is quite cultic. The article is a good example of this cultic way of operating that exist in academia, government and many walks of life. The gathering of true believers with thought stopping cliches, denigration of competitors in the marketplace of ideas, doctrine over person etc., etc. Been there done that...I'm biased. At the same time there has to be a better way to have dialog and find a way toward truth and the ability to use those truths in a manner that help rather than harm.

I rather liked Searcher08's suggestions. and agree with this:
Perhaps the way forward is not through argument at all.
These are big issues, because IMHO organised fundamentalist Skepticism is MUCH more powerful than the whole of Paraculture. If you want examples -ask yourself - does this show aspects of 'control over' in the real world. These are the same folks who squash research into areas that are non-Orthodox and label them as pseudoscience.
One of the issues left out of that article is that challenge to the Orthodoxy of scientism that is taking place, so I see the 'system-in-focus' in a very different way than Voas.

Searcher08 wrote:David Voas publishes in the CSICOP's The Skeptical Enquirer and works with fellow Skeptics in the area of secularisation research amongest others.

Re-placed here to point to the coercive and therefore cultic inspired OP.
Damn it’s hard to get away from that shit.

worldsastage wrote…

….Such a challenge is good. As someone steeped in aspects of scientism and having been a part of paracultural groups, both of which are/were cultic in dynamic, I try to be aware of my biases. They might be showing here, but what the hey.

Deconstructing ones programming, while disturbing, is central to learning to live with constructive engagement with ones surroundings and experience.

Deikman's Them and Us: Cult thinking and the terrorist threat after describing the more extreme cases, lays out how prevalent cultic dynamics are in society. Even if I don't necessary agree with all of the terrorist threat bit, there is a threat indeed. A synopsis and the book's intro from the author's website describes the process.
To heighten our awareness, Them and Us identifies four basic cult behaviors that influence our thinking: 1) compliance with a group, 2) dependence on a leader, 3) avoiding dissent, and 4) devaluing the outsider. These forces operate in all aspects of society. The core process is devaluing the outsider, resulting in Them-versus-Us behavior.

Yeah it’s like a virus with Icke, Alex, Randi, et al being pharmaceutically approved vaccines that encourage the festering of other low grade symptoms so as to continuing the feeding of our system of dysfunctionality.

Elvis wrote….

AD, thanks, I take your above points well, it's the article I find to be an unsatisfying way of making them, lacking nuance and 'tarring all conspiracy investigations with the same "bad" brush'. In my opinion, if the authors can't discern the relative values of, say, the work of John Perkins and the work of David Icke, then they should probably find something else to write about.

Exactly


Coffin dodger wrote….

but how to poison the well of dissent of mind is another matter.

And this is where it has a major problem. Pieces like the OP are almost perfectly crafted to create a 180 degree turn in the mind of the 'conspiratorial' reader, at the same time reinforcing the ridiculousness of such thinking to those unencumbered with these troubling thoughts. It's a great example (perhaps the best I've seen so far) of what 'the normal' has left in it's arsenal to throw at the consciousness of dissenters.

He,he,he, good call dodger. This was good, but there ain’t nuthin left in the quiver.

And damn you all, now I'm late for work.

[coffin_dodger]

...there ain’t nuthin left in the quiver

Alas, Sounder, I fear there are many arrows still to be drawn.

Not least that of the ultimate last resort of the scoundrel - proper war.

Not the kind of war that citizens of the West experience from their couch, detached from harsh realities, but the kind of war where you are personally convinced that you must take up arms against an enemy that is coming to your home, to kill you and your family, without mercy. The very mindset that we have inflicted upon large parts of the rest of the world in our relentles pursuit of power. Last seen here in WW2.

Injecting that mind-set into the population of the Western World has become difficult - since old-style, wholesale-slaughter land wars have been superceded by WMD. However, it worked for eons - thus I'm keenly watching for any sign that these tactics, in whatever form they may take (and they'll have their best minds working on it), are being implemented. I feel the threat of invasion of a Soveriegn nation of the West, either amongst themselves or by some 'asiatic/barbarian/insert your predujice here horde' is the last-ditch, quell the dissent in one fell swoop and "give them something to really worry about" last throw of the dice for a desperate few.
This must not be allowed to happen. There are more tricks to be played before we reach that point, (including the possibility, as disgustingly ugly as it is, of race vs race within a Western state) - but things are moving so quickly along the path to different consciousness that I now consider it an ever-present danger.

As tiring as it can be, putting myself in the mindset of my opponent can help steer me a path towards an effective countering (with compassion and understanding, of course!) of the arguments within that mind. Honestly, I don't enjoy going there.

Just thinking about proper war makes me feel like curling up in ball and being very quiet.