the unlikely story of how America slipped the surly bonds of earth & came to
believe in signs & portents that would make the middle ages blush
this site is a labor of love. i.e., if you love me enough,
I'll be able to complete it. send proof of love via button above. please. if you can. this is my sole means
of support at the moment, which is more than a little spooky. so thank you.
YET ANOTHER BIO
|
brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous
The following is from a page titled Luminary: Marianne Williamson...
Marianne is perhaps most widely known for the following quote from her book A Return To Love, often misattributed to Nelson Mandela:
 Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
My question is why anyone would imagine that Nelson Mandela had ever been concerned about being gorgeous? Because (as most of you will immediately grasp), while no one would ever mistake Nelson Mandela for a Total Babe, very few (including you gals, which is at least half the point) would fail to so identify Marianne Williamson. In fact, she bears a strong resemblance to a brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous woman I once thought I knew.
But let's dig a little deeper, shall we? That page is on a site called Shift in Action, which seems to be a project of The Institute of Noetic Sciences. Here's how the latter describes itself...
The Institute of Noetic Sciences is a nonprofit membership organization located in Northern California that conducts and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness — including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The institute explores phenomena that do not necessarily fit conventional scientific models, while maintaining a commitment to scientific rigor.
Read that last sentence again. Uh-huh, it's doublespeak. This is typical of the New Age narrative, a world seen through the looking glass, in which concepts such as "consciousness" and "scientific rigor" can mean whatever you say they mean, neither more nor less. Well, um, that is, actually, probably a lot less.
The INS (for short) got started when astronaut Edgar Mitchell saw God out the window of his Apollo 14 space capsule, a flight on which he engaged in ESP experimentation with pals back on terra not so firma. To quote near-equally out there pop-culture luminary icon Sting: "Giant steps are what you take / Walking on the moon..."
To wit, Wikipedia tells us...
Dateline NBC had an interview with Mitchell on April 19, 1996, during which he discussed meeting with officials from three countries who claimed to have had personal encounters with extraterrestrials. He offered his opinion that the evidence for such "alien" contact was "very strong" and "classified" by governments, who were covering up visitations and the existence of alien beings' bodies in places such as Roswell, New Mexico.
That was 1996, true. But he was still peddling the same line last month: "The 77-year-old said the deception began after the alleged alien landing in Roswell, N.M., in 1947."
If I may be permitted a personal note here, 1947 is a very special year for me. Yes, it was the year I was born, but more than that (and I've never told anyone this), it was the year the aliens brought a very powerful pathogen from Alpha Centauri. This pathogen has infected everyone on Earth, resulting in a form of genetically transmitted psychedelic derangement that makes DMT look like Gatorade. The effects of this chemically induced and permanent psychopathy include the belief that everything is perfectly sane and normal. Now, what is significant here is that, right after I was born, my Mom hid me in a hermetically sealed lead-lined dumpster while she was out looking to score more crack cocaine, and thus I remain the only living human being who was not affected by this alien mind plague. Which is why you all look so fucking weird to me.
But enough about Edgar Mitchell and the scientifically rigorous Institute of Noetic Sciences. We know Major Thom's a junkie. Let's get back to Marianne, down by the seaside sifting... something.
You can click on that graphic if you want to sign up. In which case, don't forget to bring sunblock and plenty of "Gatorade." For yes, it truly is an Age of Miracles, and for as little as $1,105 (steerage) you too can Return to Love on the Good Ship Lollypop!
Perhaps I should explain. A Course in Miracles has been very, very good to our Marianne. She rose to international New Age stardom by promoting the living shit out of it in her 1992 blockbuster A Return to Love, such that "The Course," as it is called by its fans, has become an essential element in the ideological armamentarium of the approximately 99.6 billion current members of AA, NA, OA, GA, DA, SLAA, CoDA, ACOA and Al-Anon. This is why I stopped going to meetings. The Program was driving me to drink.
So far, this all sounds pretty sane and normal, right? Sure it does. To you.
But now let's poke into The Course itself. It was the brainchild of one Helen Schucman, who, at the time she was channeling Jesus Christ, was a failing Ph.D. candidate nutcase psychology professor at Columbia. The Wikipedia page includes this...
J. Gordon Melton notes that it [The Course in Miracles] has been most popular among those who have been disillusioned by organized Christianity.
Well, OK, fine. As long as you know that J. Gordon Meltdown is an academic whore who would say anything for another hit of the "social science research" funding pipe. He once rushed to Tokyo to defend Aum Shinrikyo as a harmless "New Religion" after they'd dosed the subway system there with deadly sarin gas. But that's another story for another time perhaps.
Far more important is the scribe who recorded Helen Schucman's channeling sessions, one William Thetford. His Wikipedia entry includes this little gem, which I don't think was there when I first discovered this particular factoid...
From 1971 to 1978 Thetford, along with David Saunders, headed the CIA mind control Project MKULTRA Subproject 130: Personality Theory.
Oh, really? Isn't that curious.
One of the references given to this delectable data crumpet by its Wikipedia author links to a version of Thetford's curriculum vitae cached on the Internet Archive WayBack Machine. The "same" page on the official Miracle Studies site no longer includes the MK-ULTRA reference. It merely says: "1971 - 1978 Professor of Medical Psychology 'Personality theory' research project." Gee, I wonder why "CIA MK-ULTRA" was deleted. Must be another miracle.
Even more interesting are those quotation marks (in both versions) around "Personality theory." Do they indicate that the phrase, as used, was maybe some kind of euphemism? Hmmm, could be.
Check out this excerpt from The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions by Rolling Stone contributing editor Randall Sullivan. Or even better, this post of December 20, 2007: Mind Control, MK-ULTRA and A Course in Miracles. Here's a clip...
[Father Benedict Groeschel, a Catholic priest and popular speaker] also knew Thetford during his time at Columbia University and described him as "probably the most sinister person I ever met" and "the most religious atheist I have ever known." Groeschel stated that Thetford was very excited about A Course in Miracles and personally arranged for its publication. It seems Thetford was quite a mystery at the University and none of his colleagues knew, until after he retired, that he had also been working for the CIA during his employment.
Also, don't miss the link from the above post to this richly documented online paper: BLUEBIRD - Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists by Colin A. Ross, MD. Wikipedia says of Project Bluebird:
BLUEBIRD was the cryptonym for a CIA program involving special interrogation methods, including the use of drugs, hypnosis, and isolation. It lasted from 1949 to 1950 when it was renamed "ARTICHOKE," and would eventually become the infamous MKULTRA. Responsibility for the project mainly lay with the Office of Scientific Intelligence.
I can't, of course, vouch for how much of those posts is... er gospel, and caveat emptor is always a good policy in such matters. However, I'm inclined to believe at least the main outlines. The MK-ULTRA program included all manner of criminal weirdness, including invasive "mind control" techniques and the surreptitious administration of psychedelic drugs to unwitting subjects. For more on the subject, check out Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream by Jay Stevens, and Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control by Dominic Streatfeild.
Other than that, you know, I'm just saying...
never judge a book by its cover
"It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us."
Second that.
|
 |
|
|
<< Home