Red Pill Junkie — February 2, 2014

[red_pill_junkie]

trainedobserver, replying to Jeff Davis:

Jeff Davis
Whereas I fully agree that Castaneda became a mess as his life progressed, I am honestly not so certain that there is not great intrinsic value within his first several books.

Those early book were lies too Jeff. He started out as a liar and remained so until his death. What wasn't concocted was plagiarized from other people's work. That he put together an interesting or inspiring narrative doesn't detract from the fact that he not only lied about where he was born, but that he also lied about native people and their traditions.

Jeff Davis
In the realm of Castaneda he is self descriptively terrified by the drugs initially, and then comes to understand that the drugs are in no way routinely necessary, but rather used to invoke the perceptive gateways required to attain the alternate realm of perceptions that he did.

It was discovered that on the day Castaneda claimed to be undergoing a peyote ritual with Don Juan, he was actually in the university library reading a paper someone else had written about a peyote ceremony.

Castaneda was a fake and a liar who fraudulently obtained his Phd., which was later revoked for the deception. He was a con-man who deceived millions who not only did major damage to anthropology in general, but also to the native people he lied about. He was a cult leader morally and intellectually indistinguishable from the like of L. Ron Hubbard or Marshall Applewhite.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

trainedobserver replied to the comment I made --that I lost-- in which I tried to express how to me it doesn't matter whether the Castañeda books are all fiction or not. The same way a real Buddhist would put little stock in whether there really was a man named Siddhartha Gautama, or a Taoist wouldn't obsess whether the Tao-Te Ching was really written by a man named Lao Tsu.

red_pill_junkie
...But for us Westerners, we find ourselves obsessed with the 'veracity' & 'credentials' of the things we're emotionally invested in.

Really? I'm thinking that perhaps if more people were expressed a rational concern with the veracity and credentials of their objects of veneration and sources of "wisdom" there would be fewer cults, fewer deaths, and fewer ruined and wasted lives. There would also be a lot less bullshit being passed off as "spiritual truth" as well.

Touting Castaneda as a source of wisdom or knowledge is absurd. He did no real anthropology to write his books and his "trips" to the Infinite were complete fabrications.

You might as well be holding up Dan Burisch as a good source for information about Area 51 or L. Ron Hubbard about psychiatry.

The Vallee quote below applies directly to this subject.

Don't have your Vallee quote on my files, amigo. Sorry.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Chris made an appearance on the thread to commend nameless for his creativity

nameless
...I swear I will rip two assholes out every single one of your meaningless , petty regurgitative narrow cliché minded fake sceptic, pedestrian chemist store psychology high school science bull sheet ego inter web trawling nothingness...

People—now THAT is creative flaming and I think it should be nominated for the Flame Hall of Fame!

 

[red_pill_junkie]

trainedobserver responded to me, after I had replied back that what I do with Castañeda --and everything else-- is take from his philosophy that which resonates with me --e.g. taking responsibility for your actions, trying to live an impeccable life, follow the warrior's patch, etc-- and then I move on. In other words, don't throw the baby with the bathwater.

A broken watch is right twice a day. Does that mean that we can trust the watch or our ability to discern when those two points in time occur?

Everyone has to suss out the mess for themselves. I just absolutely have a major problem accepting any rationale that paints proven liars, frauds, and fakes as noteworthy (except as cautionary tales), or contributing to the general well-being of humanity in any way.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

But then trainedobserver showed what a gentleman he is:

My disagreements with you aside RPJ, I really enjoyed the episode and thought you did a marvelous job. You speak very well and have a great radio voice.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Wade Ridsdale jumped in the Paracast camaraderie :

Agreed, and thank you for hanging in there and not vámonosing

on us despite your other obligations.

Speaking of which, my obligations dictate that I stop this retrieving exercise for now. To be continued, amigos --Vámanos!

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Speaking of which, RPJ, I really appreciate everything you've done to restore the essence of this thread.

 

[Burnt State]

Wade Ridsdale jumped in the Paracast camaraderie :



Speaking of which, my obligations dictate that I stop this retrieving exercise for now. To be continued, amigos --Vámanos!

RPJ, you are like a mad genius or something. This is wonderful re-narration - thanks so much. It was like reading Calvino.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Ok, continuing...

Stonehart commented on nameless' post:

nameless
Not everything can be defined/divined from the fricking internet people.

Read different books, watch different films, have different experiences, pray to new gods, DO SOME FUCKING DRUGS.
Bravo!!! nice post!

nameless
But as always we digress and turn this into some slanging (slagging?)match or other BS based on word context, ego and some bullshit political stance.

Oh man ain't that the truth!

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Jeff Davis commented on Chris's pun:

Christopher O'Brien
People—now THAT is creative flaming and I think it should be nominated for the Flame Hall of Fame!

Tell me that this person wouldn't be a MONSTER writer, I wonder... I've read vitriol before, but if the chewin' two won't do, you really don't have a clue. Nuff said.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Burnt State replied to nameless:

nameless
Burnt your evocation of Woody Allen was wrong on so many levels.

Art is art and people are people and never the twain shall meet? Either way, i have a problem with dudes who adopt daughters and then marry them, even less time for them when they bring up scenes from Chinatown in my head with their manipulation of the younger female populace, but oh well, i can always go and watch Repulsion when i need a reminder.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Jeff Davis showed trainedobserver his appreciation:

trainedobserver
A broken watch is right twice a day. Does that mean that we can trust the watch or our ability to discern when those two points in time occur?

Everyone has to suss out the mess for themselves. I just absolutely have a major problem accepting any rationale that paints proven liars, frauds, and fakes as noteworthy (except as cautionary tales), or contributing to the general well-being of humanity in any way.

I actually want to to sincerely THANK YOU for taking the time and energy to take this where you did. Because of it, I am sadly more so familiar with Castaneda's shenanigans than ever. I swear to you that a part of me wants to believe that he may have had some real connection there over the course of those first four or five books.

However, I feel that due most largely in part to your ardent position on the matter, as disgusting as some of the revelations are in the link that you provided, it is at this point impossible for me to point to Carlos and feel solid, or good about the matter, so I am going to dig as deeply as possible and reflect on the matter. I do have the DJP book so maybe I'll start there and go through that again.

It really is disturbing for me to hear of him referred to as an out and outright research and literary thief. That's simply too potential for me to dismiss, and frankly, I feel the level of your convictions here.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

So this is Polterwurst's reply to the answer I gave to one of his questions --i.e. my opinion on NDE's & that type of phenomena, which I consider them to be incredibly important & worthy of further scientific scrutiny. I mentioned the work of Dr. Jim Tucker, who's carrying on the legacy of the late Dr. Ian Stevenson in the field of reincarnation & how small children seem to recall events & circumstances of their previous live (something which could be the subject of a future Paracast show IMHO):

Seconded. With emphasis.

I absolutely agree that Stevenson's work was groundbreaking and thoroughly scientific. He could have made like a guru, write sensational books, playing on the hopes and beliefs of people who just want to be told a story so that they don't have to be afraid of death any more. And he could have used regression hypnosis. But he never did (the latter reportedly because he thought that statements under hypnosis might stem from an unleashed imagination) . He continued gathering data, talking to the children and their relatives and if there was enough evidence, going to the places where the children said they had lived. And although some of his cases were quite astonishing, he never stated that he had found "proof of reincarnation", instead he talked about cases suggestive of it, which includes the possibility of other explanations.

But I have to admit, if it hadn't been for my own experience with children who make strange remarks, I would probably never have read one of his books or considered him a scientist at all, because here in Germany, his books are titled "Proof of Reincarnation" (misrepesenting the original title) and they stand in the Esoterics department in bookstores, complete with psychedelic bookcovers, which don't do the (at times tediously) scientific content much justice.

So yeah, I think this deserves to be scrutinized more closely. And I agree that the explanation will probably be more complicated than just "we live, we die and then we live again" and most definetly definetly more complicated than "just the kid's imagination, fraud and parental imprinting".

 

[red_pill_junkie]

In a follow-up comment to Polterwurst, I included this clip from the movie Insignificance, which IMO captures perfectly my personal approach to all these topics:

(juicy part starts at 8:56 approx.)

Polterwurst replied:

Great movie. I'll have to rewatch it now.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Burnt State jumped in:

red_pill_junkie
This movie scene (starting at 8:56) explains a lot of how I'm choosing to address this whole Fortean enchilada

I'm sure you'll appreciate it as well.

Unfortunately, I keep thinking but I haven't found any deeper understanding yet. I'm probably not doing it right. The thinking, that is.

Hey, are you aware that your Doppelgänger is busy posting all manner of strangeness over on the question thread?

My Doppelgänger will try to retrieve the info from that other thread at a later time

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Burnt State marveled at my mastery of Bilocation :

I know that the training for the Sacred Order require much discipline so I congratulate you on moving past the Initiate's Flying Humanoid stage having now successfully moved on toBilocation - well done.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Aand... that's all I've got from the 'RPJ on the P'cast' thread. As you can see some info is missing --ironically, the posts *I* wrote, which are absent from the automatic replies I received on my inbox whenever a member added a new comment in the discussion. So feel free to complete the thread if you happened to save those missing messages, amigos

I'll continue with the info I have from the thread 'Questions for Red Pill Junkie' later. So... later!

 

[Burnt State]

Talk about a super ninja.

He road into town and told it like it was.

Who was that masked man, daddy?

That was The Junkie son, The Red Pill Junkie. Beware his words, as you might get addicted.

 

[Charlie Prime]

My main response to Charlie Prime is that, if the CIA somewhat masterminded the psychedelic counterculture, then it was a program that epically backfired.

I responded that the CIA's counter culture program did not backfire, but was successful. The program accomplished the goal of eliminating a threat to the hierarchy of predation we currently live under. I gave several examples of this threat diffusion.

RPJ's evidence that the program backfired was the fact that a politician found it expedient to give lip service to drug decriminalization, and Arpanet developed into the World Wide Web.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Once more into the breach, dear friends...

So on the other thread --'Questions for Red Pill Junkie'-- commented on the photo examples I mentioned during the show:

I'm not familiar with the ghost photo you mention, but I think you were talking about the Solway Firth or Cumberland Spaceman photo. It has been a while since I looked into that one, but I recall reading several good explanations for it. It's one of those that the photographer doesn't remember seeing through the viewfinder.

The fact that there are so many photographs being taken in any given location at any given time now where people are present makes me seriously wonder why more "accidental" alien, ghost, bigfoot, UFO, or what have you photographs aren't taken. The odds of accidentally catching something like exponentially increase on a yearly, perhaps, monthly basis as more cameras of various types go "on line" and start taking snap shots and CC camera footage. We should be seeing more "Cumberland Spaceman" photos if taking random or unintentional photos of these things yields the best results or is even possible. The fact that no one can remember to take a photo when seeing something weird manifest in front of them should preclude the event being captured by other cameras aimed in the general direction.

I don't know, just seems odd to me. Instead of a proliferation of fakes on youTube we should be seeing an ever increasing number of genuine articles.

To which I replied something to the effect that, perhaps, we should consider the possibility that all UFO sightings are somewhat staged.