Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby Spiro C. Thiery » Sun Jun 19, 2011 3:17 pm

LilyPatToo wrote:
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:Along the way, the author has built a dianetic-like following (more Hubbard than Castaneda). It was only a matter of time before we would find out that he was a mind-control subject as well.

You're coming across here as placing his admitted personal history (read his journal entry "The Boy in the Box" for starters) into the fictionalized category when in fact it's precisely in line with the personal histories of many, many people who survived MKULTRA and its kin. The reason his website is such an effective honeypot is that he's accurately reflecting the traumatic pattern of events that many of his followers have also survived.
The thing is, I do not believe an adequate case has been made that he was part of MKULTRA. It is my belief that he has co-opted the experiences of others so that he might make himself more interesting.

In this sense he is an author who has done his research well. But I believe the evidence is still an indication of a narcissistic personality which wants to be at the top of the surviver mountain. This is a normal tendency for many a human, but one with his drive and determination can take it to the extreme. The result is who he has become. I think he does a disservice to DID. But I still do not believe that that is what he has set out to do. Like I said before, I think he is just an attention hound.

guruilla wrote:Thanks for the cautioning, Spiro. Well-aimed and well-timed. "Reading between the lines" is an Aspergerian trait, BTW - I do it all the time. :jumping:
I aim to be friendly, even if I come off sometimes as too adversarial. Anyway, considering the forum we are on--and the nom de plum I have chosen :panic:--it is easy for anyone to make inferences not necessarily implied.
Seeing the world through rose-colored latex.
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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby LilyPatToo » Sun Jun 19, 2011 3:48 pm

Spiro C. Thiery wrote:
LilyPatToo wrote:
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:Along the way, the author has built a dianetic-like following (more Hubbard than Castaneda). It was only a matter of time before we would find out that he was a mind-control subject as well.

You're coming across here as placing his admitted personal history (read his journal entry "The Boy in the Box" for starters) into the fictionalized category when in fact it's precisely in line with the personal histories of many, many people who survived MKULTRA and its kin. The reason his website is such an effective honeypot is that he's accurately reflecting the traumatic pattern of events that many of his followers have also survived.
The thing is, I do not believe an adequate case has been made that he was part of MKULTRA. It is my belief that he has co-opted the experiences of others so that he might make himself more interesting.

In this sense he is an author who has done his research well. But I believe the evidence is still an indication of a narcissistic personality which wants to be at the top of the surviver mountain. This is a normal tendency for many a human, but one with his drive and determination can take it to the extreme. The result is who he has become. I think he does a disservice to DID. But I still do not believe that that is what he has set out to do. Like I said before, I think he is just an attention hound.

And you may be correct. One of the reasons I was pleased to see a thread on him is that I see him as a prime subject for RI to discuss, given that his story (whatever its accuracy) touches upon alien abduction, paranormal experiences, mind control programs and guru status among a group of passionate followers. My own evaluation of him has gone through many changes over the years since he unilaterally banned me from his board in a fit of delusional (or maybe just plain mistaken/misled/manipulated) paranoia. Right now, I lean much more strongly toward him being a genuine survivor of MC programs and, as such, possibly a high-level asset who's manipulating other survivors (wittingly or unwittingly) and likely is being manipulated himself. But that's subject to change with new insights and info. I really want to comprehend this guy someday and see past the self-promotion and occasional grandiosity. I wish more people here would state their own opinions, even if it's just random musings. To me, RI is a brain trust and I've gone about as far as I can on my own interactions with him. Even just bouncing my interpretation off of yours has the potential to lead to a clearer understanding and that's what I'm after.

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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby LilyPatToo » Sun Jun 19, 2011 4:42 pm

guruilla wrote:...don't you find that many of the accounts in Communion and Transformation have a genuine whiff of the otherworldly to them? For me that "whiff" makes it very hard to believe that the experiences are simply invented or mis-interpreted experiences of human intervention disguised as "contact." I mean really hard. It could be that the books impacted me at a time when I myself was open (a lot more gullible than I am now), and so now I can't get an impartial "read" on them. (This would be similar to how songs we listened to while growing up sound great to us decades later, even when we "know" they suck. I still enjoy listening to David Cassidy, for Cripe's sake.*)

On the occasions when Strieber has come clean about the possibility of intelligence/mind control involvement in his past, he's made a fairly good case for it co-existing with the "alien" presence. I know the more "rigorous" (less intuitive?) types consider the presence of mind control sufficient to invalidate all claims of otherworldly intelligence, and so the case is closed for them. But that reductionist approach doesn't work with me: just because an explanation can be used to explain (away) everything, doesn't mean it should be.

My assumption from day one (even before I heard about the mind control stuff) was that these alien/inorganic/elemental agents of the unconscious work with human agents of government, etc - however that came about - and that while the latter believe they have learned to "harness" the former, what seems more likely is that the reverse is really occurring.

I think I suggested this in the article, but if Strieber fell into the hands of sociopathic intel. operatives while very young, "learning to dissociate" and "taking refuge in the Imaginal" may be two ways of describing the same process: and maybe, just maybe, he found some very real Imaginal friends there? That may have been part of the intention behind abusing these children: using their psyches as a way to access the Imaginal realms and lure the "inhabitants" over to this side. (It would be similar to how a magician uses a young child as a medium.)

"The cracked ones let in the light"--he's said something like that a number of times in posts. And he see-saws in a mesmerizing way on whether his entities are good, bad or *?* In fact, in some of his backing-and-forthing I've seen strong evidence that he's "of 2 (or more) minds" about them. The contradiction between his almost slavish fascination/obsession with them and the jarringly horrific aspects of their treatment of him and others is striking if you've read his site long enough. (And I've wondered more than once whether that board's obnoxious policy of dropping any non-posted-to thread is deliberate--to erase those contradicting posts :shrug: )

As I said in the article, this may be one of the most valuable aspects of his writing. Strieber is unconsciously describing his own processes of dissociation/fragmentation, which both allowed for and resulted from his being initiated into/abducted by (a bit of both) the "shamanic" agents of the collective unconscious. The human agencies involved in this evolutionary process may be the result of a kind of "buffering" occurring in the collective psyche, a way for us to become conscious of what's underneath the surface of our conscious minds in a compartmentalized and rationalized fashion. We would literally be "humanizing" it, but, ironically, making it much darker and more destructive as a result. How many times does the psyche do harm to itself by trying to protect itself? That's what fragmentation is.

During MKULTRA, Gottlieb sent out a memo telling his operatives to look for (I think it was) "gypsies, psychics and children" to be exploited as test subjects. There was a reason for this focus on likely high dissociators and I think it had to do with some of the "woo" that the program was trying to weaponize. It was the Cold War and all of us seem to have had some psy abilities. I had one handler who tested me and eventually switched off my precognitive ability with a totally undisguised post-hypnotic suggestion done in public, then disappeared. With other survivors, those abilities appear to have been left "on" and some of them seem to be doing real shamanic stuff. Figuring out what's imagination and what's contact is one thorny thicket, since, as I believe was already said here, imagination is much more than most people assume it is and it seems to me to manifest quite strikingly in people who've been subjected to a lot of systematized abuse early on.

In a less literal fashion, this may also be what happens when the "alien" - the non-(or post-/pre-?) human portion of our collective psyche and life-force - tries to assume a more familiar form in order to interface with us (in the hopes of integration), using the rags of our own disowned psychic material to do so. Cue nightmare abduction scenario! One example of this (suggested to me by a friend - Cary McCoy - on an early Stormy Weather podcast) is that the Imaginal "beings," if they were trying to birth us into a new consciousness, could be naively reenacting our own birth experiences to do so, thinking, "Well shit, this is how they do it here," not realizing - or caring - how nightmarish and traumatic our (hospital) births were for us!? Of course, I am using the terms - "us" and "them" for convenience: this would be a psychological process occurring in which all players were aspects of a single psyche: Earth/greater humanity (inc. alien elementals.)

Whoa. I need to think on that...

So far my only "evidence" (of an elite fraternity) is a highly vivid dream about it. One relevant question would be why, besides his possibly being a "mulitiple," is the quality of Strieber's writing so inconsistent? (The Grays and 2012 came out almost back to back; the former I thought was quite sloppy writing; the latter anything but.)


In the shifting fields we enter in discussing Strieber, dreams may at times be evidence. I've not read those 2 recent books of his, but the level of quality of his earlier work was (I think) quite high. And many non-muliple authors produce work of varying quality, so I'm not sure that's evidence of DID, though it may be in this case.

"Honeypot" usually refers to a set-up that lures someone in in order to frame them. I can see the lure of UC for "survivors" and/or "abductees." But what's the frame up? I presume you are saying it's a way to keep taps on such people - is there something more to it than observation, do you think?

The frame up may be continued "heavy handling" in order to keep UC viable. It's difficult for me to explain how a survivor of a program can spot a handler's presence in their own or another person's life, but I can tell you that I'm not the only survivor who's gotten a powerful whiff of handler emanating from him. We may be wrong--it may be emotional lability originating in his own past--but if we're right, then consider the value of maintaining such a strong lure and sucking in other former guinea pigs with similar screen memories. For me, UC was maximum strength fly-paper for many years. Someone was finally explaining the UFO I saw years ago and my lifetime of "missing time" and making me feel I'd finally found my "family" :puke:

Powerful stuff whether it's "real or Memorex" as a lamented lost friend of mine used to say. My theory is that, as programs lost funding and ended over half a century, groups of human guinea pigs slipped through the cracks and wandered off in various states of damage. Then, years later, evidence came in that programming was breaking down in many of the older test subjects, potentially exposing high-level sociopaths to criminal charges. And that was intolerable, so some bright (or just nervous) underling decided to use lightning rods like Strieber to attract others like him and then track them online. Just my theory, but it makes sense if you've ever interacted with the sort of human monster who exploits children. There's very little expense and effort they won't go to in order to preserve their public facades and hang onto their power and status.

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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby peartreed » Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:47 am

As a former regular participant who was also banned from Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country for criticizing some of his claims and overreactions online, I can endorse many of LilyPat's observations and speculations about the man and his site. Her analysis of the possibility of WS being a survivor of trauma, apparently dissociative and highly suggestive, even of being unconsciously manipulated by mind control experimenters, is borne out in my own observations from interactions with him. Since I've also worked with Whitley Strieber in a forerunner forum during the nineties, one that he abandoned but used as a template for his UC site, CompuServe's UFO Forum, I was able to study his online and offline interactions with his co-workers and followers over a number of years. To say that his writings over time are as inconsistent, contradictory and confusing as his behavior is an understatement.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) could explain some of it, particularly the frequent self-contradictory versions of his changing stories in his writings and broadcasts. His blending of his highly creative imaginal realm with his writings and broadcasts may also illustrate a very thin veil in his perceptive partitions of realities. But the most undermining aspect of his credibility is his seemingly very fragile form of magalomania, the supersensitive ego positioning itself to be the ultimate intermediary between mankind, the aliens and our collectively chaotic future.

Years ago, when we found the Pentagon's "Weird Desk" under Dr. Roland Pandolphi in the Directorate of Science and Technology was monitoring CompuServe's UFO Forum in part to track UFO sightings as they might correspond with avionic or black ops weapons testing, there were also some engaging exchanges and jocular shots between the intel agents and the self-described ufologists reporting the phenomena. Whitley's "Communion" was then a popular target, as was he as its author, but the government interest was intense regarding the influence he was having on the "lunatic fringe" - as they viewed us. We suspected some of that "harassment" may have unhinged him into setting up his own online site where he could exert better control of culling experimenters from experiencers and spooks from kooks.

The main point I wanted to make was that Whitley Strieber epitomizes a continuing, monitored social experiment in the peripheries of the paranormal.

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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby pegcarter » Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:45 am

Looking at his work through his political commentary, rather than his point of view on UFO's, I got a very negative reaction to him. I feel he is a fraud based upon what I read of his political commentary.

I found the example I read some months ago. It had been linked in the Facebook wall of Christopher Knowles. I made a comment then as to how he appeared to be totally brainwashed into a false mainstream point of view. And had a tone in this writing of a know-it-all, and of someone who is above all questioning. Even though I knew what he was saying was total false-narrative bullshit and telling people what was to come....programming.

I was chastised by Knowles for criticizing Streiber:

As others have a positive reaction and want to like him and believe him.

For example of his blindness to reality: Wikileaks... Streiber talks about Wikileaks as though Assange is a real "whistleblower"
http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/w ... s-and-ufos lol


This next is the essay that made me drop my jaw and laugh out loud. http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/w ... vilization
The Wonder of Western Civilization But was kind of chilling and i guess fits in to what folks say about Whitley S's horror genre.

The Wonder of Western Civilization H'uh? What is this? 1955? Is the Cold War still on?

"Western civilization is in the doghouse. []To the far right, it's annoyingly insistent on freedom for all--even the far left."

H'uh?

He's totally gobble-ti-gook. To paraphrase: " The problem with Western Civilization [sic] is bureaucracy."

,
these huge social organisms have developed as a result of the flowering of human freedom that the west has fostered,


The core discovery upon which western civilization rests, and what makes the western mind fundamentally different, is the individual.


Historically inaccurate.

"Pop" history at a gloss. As If!

(If he's a genius and psychic and a special one chosen to be free from mind control!? (now I'm starting to laugh) Why the hell doesn't he know "history" has been massively falsified?! And he's the guy as the front-running spokesperson for the UFO reality!? O ME GOD!

(I have also noticed that typically frauds will cull those who see the patina flaking on the "big guy" You can see that in 5-card monte played on the street. And I learned it in Brooklyn working the door at a nightclub... the scammers, without a doubt, affect the "how dare you question me" demeanor.

Guess why?! ................................................Because that's all they've got. And I heard rumor above that WS broaches no criticism and will cut anyone who does not worship his word and person?)

The first stirrings of individuality came in Roman times, in the client-kingdom of Judea. Hellenism brought the concept of intellectual inquiry. Buddhism brought a compassionate deity. And Christ brought the idea that every human being, no matter his or her station in life, had value, and, for the first time, people began to see themselves as individuals, rather than social components.


I got the feeling he trying to convince others that he "knows what he is talking about." He got the "Everybody knows" affect, like a TV Talking head person.

After Jesus proclaimed the individual, it was a very long time before society actually began to make room for the liberties that are needed for people to really flower and discover themselves.


Jesus proclaimed the "individual?" What is he on? Who does he appeal to? I am very surprised someone as deeply intelligent as Jason K. could be enamored of such a doofus. It must be a "authoritarian mask of power?" trip. And the emotional response to Strieber a result of masochism?

(I agree with someone above who said, "Once I catch a person in a lie, I don't pay too much attention to what else they are saying" (to paraphrase).)

After I read this essay I felt: "Wow Strieber may be a very fine person, kind to his family and friends, loved in general, but whatever he is saying is such deep ridiculous poison. I need to hold reservations against anyone who thinks he is real."

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was promulgated so that complex debate could be undertaken without fear of state censure, and as the fundamental right that it codifies was adopted across the western world, a great symposium of ideas formed, and with it the flowering of philosophy, science, literature and the arts that has so dignified our civilization, and so immeasurably advanced the human mind and the human species.


The First Amendment is the feather in "our" (speaks in the "we" like the New York Lies and the Time Inc.) cap? But how relevant is that *really, after false-flag 9/11?

The arts of the west--its plastic arts, its writing, its music--are exponentially more complex than those of any other culture.


All because of the "individual?!" Which other places, you see, do not have?

His pot is cracked. And not because he speaks of UFO!

At the same time that we were engaging in this pilgrimage, elsewhere in England, scientists were in the process of discovering that the world actually is a sort of matrix, made up of uncountable masses of information, but only of two kinds, the yes and the no. All of reality, in other words, functions exactly like computer language.


This is total bullshit. The universe as a computational machine!?

Uh huh.

I believe in advanced life forms but the universe is a fancy computational machine. to paraphrase. :angelwings:

From the statement above I assume, Strieber is, at least, a closet trans-humanist. I don't know enough about him to figure if he's formally "out-ed" himself.
WS needs to get serious with MIT and find out why no machine has passed the Turing Test and why machines are really bad at simulation of the human -

HaHa. He touts "freedom" and "the individual" but claims the universe is a computational machine....How's that for a crazy-making double bind?

This is leading scientists to proclaim anew that we are, in our essence, mechanical. But what they do not account for is complexity, and it is complexity that freedom fosters, complexity of social ordering, complexity of thought and the consequent discovery of deeper, more subtle feelings--in short, the very ethic of responsibility for oneself and others that Jesus propounded at the beginning of our journey.


Oh Yes, the beginning of "our" journey was "Jesus!"

:jumping: Help me.

The most stunning thing about Streiber is not his truly stunning idiocy, but that he has someone as brilliant as Kephas as his follower and advocate.

And here's WS: really chilling New World Order agenda...

"Assuming that the world does not collapse around our ears for one reason or another, western civilization is about to take two important leaps forward. [b]First, it is going to expand beyond its traditional borders, spreading at first as materialism to peoples all over the world who are discovering that they have individual desires,[/b] needs and demanding the rights that go with them. Second, it is going to penetrate deep into the interior of the physical and spiritual worlds. It will create machines that are more intelligent than men, and these machines are going to quickly discover why they are different from us, which will be that we have biological souls and they do not."

I'm not really afraid that what he says is actually true, since I have no doubt he himself is too stupid (or pretending to be), for me to rely upon him for actual information about the real world. But what is scary is from where does he get his "ideas?"

More New World Order cheerleading:

Then will come another leap forward, as we finally unite with ourselves across a now-unseen gulf between physical and nonphysical man. The great science of the next century will be the science of the soul, as we embrace the conundrum of being at last, not just with speculation, but with instruments so sensitive that they can detect the flight of consciousness as it is running free of the body.
This is our destiny, and why our civilization is such a wonder, and so important.


"We" are so important.

Does this guy give off the faint aroma of fascism or what?! Come ON.
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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby guruilla » Mon Jun 20, 2011 12:45 pm

LilyPatToo wrote:One of the reasons I was pleased to see a thread on him is that I see him as a prime subject for RI to discuss, given that his story (whatever its accuracy) touches upon alien abduction, paranormal experiences, mind control programs and guru status among a group of passionate followers.

Yet considering the hundreds of post-ers here, most RI folk don't seem to want to touch Whitley with tweezers.

LilyPatToo wrote:During MKULTRA, Gottlieb sent out a memo telling his operatives to look for (I think it was) "gypsies, psychics and children" to be exploited as test subjects. There was a reason for this focus on likely high dissociators and I think it had to do with some of the "woo" that the program was trying to weaponize. It was the Cold War and all of us seem to have had some psy abilities. I had one handler who tested me and eventually switched off my precognitive ability with a totally undisguised post-hypnotic suggestion done in public, then disappeared. With other survivors, those abilities appear to have been left "on" and some of them seem to be doing real shamanic stuff. Figuring out what's imagination and what's contact is one thorny thicket, since, as I believe was already said here, imagination is much more than most people assume it is and it seems to me to manifest quite strikingly in people who've been subjected to a lot of systematized abuse early on.

For me this is the thicket that's worth venturing into to see what's on the other side, and maybe what many folk here (and everywhere) find too thorny to want to get close to. IMO, discussing Strieber's experiences, and the man himself, in terms of either/or (either charlatan or shaman, deluded or inspired, puppet or prophet) rather than both/and isn't going to get us anywhere. Likewise the wider topic of whether "alien abductions" are "really" "mind control operations," etc, when once again, if the one leads to the other and back again and it's clearly both/and, our challenge is to try and map the existing lines between the two, and discern the ways in which they overlap (i.e., how maybe there are no dividing lines). For me, the means to approach that puzzle is to keep in mind that whatever's happening is a reflection and expression, not only of the individual psyche involved, but of the collective psyche. Arguing that Strieber's full of s*** then becomes irrelevant, as irrelevant as saying that Manson or Hitler were full of s***: the point is they existed, and since they caught the collective imagination for a time they are worth understanding. Some of the craziest and most fragmented dreams are also the richest for analysis because they emerge from deeper levels of the unconscious. On the other hand, the mundane, down-to-earth, coherent ones may not provide so much "data" about the "system." So it is with our crazy "prophets" and leaders.

LilyPatToo wrote:
In a less literal fashion, this may also be what happens when the "alien" - the non-(or post-/pre-?) human portion of our collective psyche and life-force - tries to assume a more familiar form in order to interface with us (in the hopes of integration), using the rags of our own disowned psychic material to do so. Cue nightmare abduction scenario! One example of this (suggested to me by a friend - Cary McCoy - on an early Stormy Weather podcast) is that the Imaginal "beings," if they were trying to birth us into a new consciousness, could be naively reenacting our own birth experiences to do so, thinking, "Well shit, this is how they do it here," not realizing - or caring - how nightmarish and traumatic our (hospital) births were for us!? Of course, I am using the terms - "us" and "them" for convenience: this would be a psychological process occurring in which all players were aspects of a single psyche: Earth/greater humanity (inc. alien elementals.)

Whoa. I need to think on that...

It would be nice if someone had some thoughts on it, because it's not an interpretation model I have heard much about elsewhere.

LilyPatToo wrote:Someone was finally explaining the UFO I saw years ago and my lifetime of "missing time" and making me feel I'd finally found my "family" :puke:

That's a very powerful "pull," maybe the strongest there is. Perhaps that's what Whitley wants for himself also? It seems likely that he is trying to help others like him, and believes that he is doing so by providing a space for them, however much his own neuroses (the "handles" by which he is being intelligence-controlled, if he is) are undermining his best-laid plans. That would make it a tragic tale, for sure.

LilyPatToo wrote:Just my theory, but it makes sense if you've ever interacted with the sort of human monster who exploits children. There's very little expense and effort they won't go to in order to preserve their public facades and hang onto their power and status.

I don't know enough about this to comment, but it sounds plausible.

peartreed wrote:Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) could explain some of it, particularly the frequent self-contradictory versions of his changing stories in his writings and broadcasts. His blending of his highly creative imaginal realm with his writings and broadcasts may also illustrate a very thin veil in his perceptive partitions of realities. But the most undermining aspect of his credibility is his seemingly very fragile form of magalomania, the supersensitive ego positioning itself to be the ultimate intermediary between mankind, the aliens and our collectively chaotic future.

Hi peartreed, glad you joined the discussion.

Supposing Whitley isn't aware of "positioning himself" but believes he has been "chosen"? He may even be buckling under the pressure of that (self-generated?) delusion (assuming it is a delusion). In Communion he reports how one of the beings tells him he's their chosen one and he reacts angrily by saying it's a "crock." (He believes they are trying to manipulate him by flattery.) Somewhere along the way, Whitley seems to have forgotten this and started to believe in his own prophet/messiah status, hence his frustration and indignation at the world's indifference to his planet-saving mission. It may seem to many here that such megalomania is uncool and drearily "unoriginal" and that only a sap would fall for it. But until we've actually had a taste of the kind of rollercoaster ride which Whitley's been on since 1986, I don't think we are in a position to judge. This kind of messianic delusion is something the brightest minds fall prey too - presenting here for the jury's consideration: Daniel Pinchbeck, Castaneda, John de Ruiter, John Lennon, uh, David Icke - OK so maybe not necessarily the brightest, but the point is that it's a universal sort of disorder that's easy enough to avoid (provided we don't have a complete schizophrenic episode) so long as our life-circumstances don't conspire to feed that delusion, as in the case of Whiltey and the other names cited above.

(Bit of a digression there, sorry.)

peartreed wrote:The main point I wanted to make was that Whitley Strieber epitomizes a continuing, monitored social experiment in the peripheries of the paranormal.

It's looking more and more that way. One question I'd ask, then, is how much is this inevitably going to be the case with any leading figure within the alternate perceptions community? The intel-boys & girls are nothing if not thorough: isn't it likely, inevitable even, that anyone who is pioneering in the field (enough to attract a "following") is going to be monitored and, if possible, handled? At the risk of breaking one of Jeff's rules, how do we know that RI isn't "a continuing, monitored social experiment in the peripheries of the paranormal"? And if we can't ever be really sure if we're entering into a honey pot or not, what then? Stay away from everything? Maybe it's all one big honey pot, and the whole "us & them" POV is no longer relevant - if it ever was? I don't know, just tossing ideas out there.

pegcarter wrote:I found the example I read some months ago. It had been linked in the Facebook wall of Christopher Knowles. I made a comment then as to how he appeared to be totally brainwashed into a false mainstream point of view. And had a tone in this writing of a know-it-all, and of someone who is above all questioning. Even though I knew what he was saying was total false-narrative bullshit and telling people what was to come....programming.

I was chastised by Knowles for criticizing Streiber:

As others have a positive reaction and want to like him and believe him.

Hi Peg, welcome to RI.

If your antipathy to Strieber is based solely on reading his political/social commentary, I don't wonder. With another writer, you'd probably be fairly safe reaching a judgment (at least a tentative one) by reading a random sample or two of their writing. But if you believe that works with Strieber, then you've not only missed the whole point of the debate, you've unwittingly proved it, too.

pegcarter wrote:For example of his blindness to reality: Wikileaks... Streiber talks about Wikileaks as though Assange is a real "whistleblower"
http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/w ... s-and-ufos lol

I won't even go near that one, it's a thread-hijack waiting to happen.

Nor do I want to get into a debate about how on or off the ball Strieber's essay on Western Civilization may be, since I haven't read it and it also smells a bit like herring. I don't think anyone here's debating the fact that Strieber talks a lot of crap sometimes. But what does that prove except that he talks a lot of crap sometimes? It certainly doesn't prove that everything he writes is crap. This line of reasoning that says, "Once caught in a lie, stay away from him," or "If he talks crap some of the time, he must talk crap all of the time", again misses the whole point of this discussion, which is that Strieber is not what he appears to be - neither to his fans nor to his detractors. Both are equally wrong, IMO, and equally drastically. (And both are right, too.)

pegcarter wrote:The most stunning thing about Streiber is not his truly stunning idiocy, but that he has someone as brilliant as Kephas as his follower and advocate.

:signwhut:
Is that what they call a back-handed compliment? I don't know where you got the (one-dimensioned) idea that I am advocating Strieber, much less a follower of his. Has anyone else got this impression? (I even qualify myself above by stating that I don't want to appear to be advocating him.) Your "reasoning" is quite emotional throughout your post, a fact which, ironically, makes it similar to Strieber's style of reasoning; and as is often the case with emotional reasoning, there's not much room for nuance, yours or anyone else's. Just because I take Strieber seriously and respect some of his writings doesn't mean I am blindly defending him or ignoring his loopier ideas, any more than having a "soft spot" for him, and feeling empathy for his confusion, makes me "enamored." Maybe you could take a closer look at some of the writings which I do admire before lumping it all together (and me too) in your "doofus" file?

pegcarter wrote:From the statement above I assume, Strieber is, at least, a closet trans-humanist. I don't know enough about him to figure if he's formally "out-ed" himself.

This is worth exploring, there certainly seems to be an emerging meme in his writing, starting with The Grays and now leaking into into the new version of The Key, that suggests technology as the means to our "ascension." This is a meme I regard with utmost suspicion, but lots of "respectable" thinkers these days give lip service to it, so what do I know?

pegcarter wrote:Does this guy give off the faint aroma of fascism or what?! Come ON.

Again, what's with the grandstanding? And come on where, exactly? Grab our pitchforks and burn Whitley at the stake? Boycott his website? Ban his books from the local library?

What's interesting to me is, if Strieber gives of "a faint aroma of fascism" - where did he pick up the scent, where's it leading him and his followers, and how aware is he (and they) of it - if at all?
It is a lot easier to fool people than show them how they have been fooled.
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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby Stephen Morgan » Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:20 pm

pegcarter wrote:This next is the essay that made me drop my jaw and laugh out loud. http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/w ... vilization
The Wonder of Western Civilization But was kind of chilling and i guess fits in to what folks say about Whitley S's horror genre.

The Wonder of Western Civilization H'uh? What is this? 1955? Is the Cold War still on?


I'm quite a fan of western civilisation. Good idea, always has been, ignoring racist hypocrite Ghandi.

"Western civilization is in the doghouse. []To the far right, it's annoyingly insistent on freedom for all--even the far left."

H'uh?

He's totally gobble-ti-gook. To paraphrase: " The problem with Western Civilization [sic] is bureaucracy."


He says that the far-right is annoyed because our civilisation values freedom for the left.

,
these huge social organisms have developed as a result of the flowering of human freedom that the west has fostered,


The core discovery upon which western civilization rests, and what makes the western mind fundamentally different, is the individual.


Historically inaccurate.

"Pop" history at a gloss. As If!


That's a philosophical matter.

The first stirrings of individuality came in Roman times, in the client-kingdom of Judea. Hellenism brought the concept of intellectual inquiry. Buddhism brought a compassionate deity. And Christ brought the idea that every human being, no matter his or her station in life, had value, and, for the first time, people began to see themselves as individuals, rather than social components.


I got the feeling he trying to convince others that he "knows what he is talking about." He got the "Everybody knows" affect, like a TV Talking head person.


Well, the Buddhism stuff is bullshit, obviously. On the other hand the time of Socrates has been presented as an era of massive intellectual expansion, with Zoroaster and Socrates and Epicurus and Confucius and so on all in business at similar times. Not too much of a leap to contrast with the march of individuation.

After Jesus proclaimed the individual, it was a very long time before society actually began to make room for the liberties that are needed for people to really flower and discover themselves.


Jesus proclaimed the "individual?"


That's one way of looking at it. Early Christianity is generally considered to have pioneered the unmediated relationship with the almighty. Didn't last long, with the Church getting in the way, and made a resurgence with Protestantism.

The arts of the west--its plastic arts, its writing, its music--are exponentially more complex than those of any other culture.


All because of the "individual?!" Which other places, you see, do not have?


More likely to be because of widespread literacy, I'd've thoughted.

This is leading scientists to proclaim anew that we are, in our essence, mechanical. But what they do not account for is complexity, and it is complexity that freedom fosters, complexity of social ordering, complexity of thought and the consequent discovery of deeper, more subtle feelings--in short, the very ethic of responsibility for oneself and others that Jesus propounded at the beginning of our journey.


Oh Yes, the beginning of "our" journey was "Jesus!"

:jumping: Help me.


http://www.channel4.com/programmes/a-lo ... son-of-god
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible. -- Lawrence of Arabia
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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby Stephen Morgan » Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:32 pm

guruilla wrote:Yet considering the hundreds of post-ers here, most RI folk don't seem to want to touch Whitley with tweezers.


He was good in that Fat Boy Slim video.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible. -- Lawrence of Arabia
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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby barracuda » Mon Jun 20, 2011 3:57 pm

He stole the show in Race to Witch Mountain.
The most dangerous traps are the ones you set for yourself. - Phillip Marlowe
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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby guruilla » Mon Jun 20, 2011 5:19 pm

Let us not forget Dark City:

Image
It is a lot easier to fool people than show them how they have been fooled.
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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby peartreed » Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:54 pm

I'm not sure his life circumstance positioned or drove Whitley Strieber into developing a messianic complex wherein he aspires to be mankind's intermediary to the aliens, or if it is a delusion resulting from his personal identity dissociation or disconnect with mainstream consensus of objective reality. Ed Conroy's book, "Report On Communion" attempted to find a biographical basis for Strieber's otherworldly adventures without much success, but did touch upon his childhood under a very strict father of Teutonic tutelage, an indoctrination in traditional Roman Catholicism and further disciplinary training as a boy sent for undisclosed instruction to a nearby military base. He even alludes to that trauma in "Boy In A Box".

It is also known that an adult Whitley Strieber studied G.I. Gurdjieff for years in seminary courses. Two quotes from Gurdjieff come to mind. The first is, "If you want to lose your faith make friends with a priest" and the second is, "A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering". But more germaine to this discussion might be a third Gurdjieff quote, "It is the greatest mistake to think that man is always one and the same. A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same for half an hour"..

So it's possible, I suppose, that the transitions from child of the right to philosopher of the East and on to horror fiction writer and guru of the alien abducted might all just be growth phases of imbued, possibly inevitable megalomaniacal manifestation, or reactions to a unique roller coaster ride into the occult. But I still feel it is more likely that Whitley is just a gifted writer who is presenting his own demons as alien intruders that he would save the world from.

To the extent that most of have also projected our persecutors into roles where we, as the hero of our own life, will ultimately prevail in victory, I can allow Whitley his altered state aspirations. My concern is that he co-opts the credulous and gullible into his highly personal, paranoid paradigm. And that is likely being fed and abetted by those with a laboratory interest in manipulating a mind control maze for the masses.

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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby Hammer of Los » Tue Jun 21, 2011 5:58 am

I've posted about Strieber before. I read Communion when it came out, I was maybe 21. I never read anything more terrifying before or since.

guruilla wrote:Yet considering the hundreds of post-ers here, most RI folk don't seem to want to touch Whitley with tweezers.


I think you have that about right, Aeolas.

I will also endorse the thoughts of LilyPatToo especially of course, because she is so smart, and the others too, peartreed and Spiro and Peg.

Perhaps Whitley Strieber is an especially illuminating subject.

But what do you think I can learn from him? I think what most people get from him is confusion and anxiety. That's what he exudes.
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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby Project Willow » Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:45 am

I'm unfamiliar with Strieber as well as the majority of abduction and UFO territory. However, I am familiar with experimentation and mind control projects so I wanted to offer this article on implants in response to the OP.

http://endritualabuse.org/healing/ritual-abuse-and-torture-based-mind-control-reducing-and-preventing-re-contact-with-abusers/

Ellen Lacter, Ph.D. wrote:Many victims of sophisticated abuse who initially believed that their abusers surgically placed microchips in their brains eventually recall that these were pseudo-surgeries, with abusers wearing surgical scrubs, a tray of surgical supplies, a superficial cut, and sometimes a superficial scar.

I have asked neuroscientists about the feasibility of an implanted electronic device interfacing with the brain to decipher a person’s thoughts or to transmit thoughts. They have explained that, although it is possible for an implanted electronic device to interface with the brain in a localized area, such as electrically stimulating areas of the brain damaged by a stroke to amplify neural action potentials, it is not possible for any device to decipher a person’s thoughts or to transmit specific thoughts. The mental functions involved in thought are too neurologically-widespread, and involve too many complex chemical, biological and electrical brain mechanisms, for an implanted electronic device to possibly decipher or control. It is conceivable that a small radio receiver could be implanted in or near the ear that could receive audible verbal commands, but these would be received through the sense of hearing, not directly by the brain. But abusers can easily convince frightened children that they can read their minds and control their thoughts with electronic devices, especially when they use tricks, hypnosis, and hallucinogenic drugs, to “seal the deal”, and these programmed child self-states often influence the victim as a whole to feel watched, monitored, and to believe that theirs mind are being read.

Some survivors report that computer microchips were placed in their bodies to allow their abusers to identify them with a scanner. This technology has been available to identify lost pets for many decades. However, this technology serves no function at a distance. And, in many, if not most, cases, placement of identification chips is likely an abuser deception to intimidate victims.

Some survivors believe that they have been implanted with global positioning system (GPS) signaling devices that constantly alert their abusers of their whereabouts. From what I have read about use of such systems in tracking animals and criminals, the signaling device requires a power source, such as a battery or solar energy, to transmit a signal. This raises questions about how long such a device could potentially work if implanted in the body or brain. However, I understand that there may be advances in this technology that may not be public.

I am not a physicist and do not have enough knowledge to parse out true from false information about this and other technologies alleged to be used to track, harass, or harm people. However, there is ample evidence for many kinds of non-lethal technological weaponry, and for intelligence agencies experimenting with these on unwitting victims, as far back as the CIA using radiation and psychoactive drugs on unwitting victims in the MKULTRA program. See: Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s Program of Research into Behavioral Modification. Joint Hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United State Senate, Ninety-Fifth Congress, First Session. (1977). U.S. Government Printing Office (copy hosted at the New York Times website). Retrieved March 24, 2011, from: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nat ... KULTRA.pdf.

On the other hand, much information on the internet on these technologies clearly overstates the implications of the research being cited and is filled with logical flaws. Some of this poorly-reasoned information is likely driven by genuine fear in trauma victims and survivors. However, some of this information may be deliberate fear-mongering. It is conceivable that ritual and mind control abusers have posted disinformation on the internet about these technologies to terrorize their victims, to try to make them believe that they are in constant danger and under constant surveillance, and even to distract them from being able to recall their ritual abuse or mind control abuse and from discovering their dissociated identities.

Survivors of organized abuse who believe, or fear, that they may be being victimized by technological surveillance and non-lethal weapons should work to prevent their fears from snowballing out of control in over-generalized fear. They should do the internal work of looking at the possibility that other dissociated trauma, such as early child abuse, ritual abuse, or torture-based mind control, may hold the roots of their fears. And they should attempt to conduct a reasoned, vs. fear-driven, investigation of what kinds of applications of technological harassment are feasible and which are impossible, of what is science, and what may be disinformation. Even though the study of non-lethal weaponry is very complex, and even though intelligence agencies likely have knowledge not available to the public, it is important that individuals not ascribe omniscience (unlimited knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), or omnipresence (being everywhere at once) to these agencies.

Note: It is critical that both survivors and professionals working with survivors (therapists, clergy, etc.), tolerate conflicting views on matters of non-lethal weaponry and harassment. Professional helpers should not dismiss survivor claims offhandedly, should be humble in acknowledging their lack of expertise in such matters, and should maintain a stance of running multiple hypotheses at once, pro and con, to continue to critically evaluate such claims. Likewise, survivors who believe they are being controlled by microchips or targeted by non-lethal weaponry must not reflexively dismiss professionals who seek to critically evaluate the feasability of such claims, but should understand that these professionals do not want survivors to suffer from unnecessary or over-generalized fear. In my work as a psychologist, clients have both viewed me as insensitive when I did not immediately believe their claims of non-lethal weaponry or implanted microchips, and have viewed me as gullible when I did not express uncertainty about such claims.
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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby LilyPatToo » Tue Jun 21, 2011 2:01 pm

Project Willow wrote:I'm unfamiliar with Strieber as well as the majority of abduction and UFO territory. However, I am familiar with experimentation and mind control projects so I wanted to offer this article on implants in response to the OP.

http://endritualabuse.org/healing/ritual-abuse-and-torture-based-mind-control-reducing-and-preventing-re-contact-with-abusers/

Ellen Lacter, Ph.D. wrote:Many victims of sophisticated abuse who initially believed that their abusers surgically placed microchips in their brains eventually recall that these were pseudo-surgeries, with abusers wearing surgical scrubs, a tray of surgical supplies, a superficial cut, and sometimes a superficial scar.

<snip>

Survivors of organized abuse who believe, or fear, that they may be being victimized by technological surveillance and non-lethal weapons should work to prevent their fears from snowballing out of control in over-generalized fear. They should do the internal work of looking at the possibility that other dissociated trauma, such as early child abuse, ritual abuse, or torture-based mind control, may hold the roots of their fears. And they should attempt to conduct a reasoned, vs. fear-driven, investigation of what kinds of applications of technological harassment are feasible and which are impossible, of what is science, and what may be disinformation. Even though the study of non-lethal weaponry is very complex, and even though intelligence agencies likely have knowledge not available to the public, it is important that individuals not ascribe omniscience (unlimited knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), or omnipresence (being everywhere at once) to these agencies.


Thank you--this addresses one of my pet peeves about Strieber and other prominent abductees and abduction researchers: that they are encouraging uncritical, magical belief in technologies that, when spoken of publicly, instantly brand them as likely to be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Whereupon everything they say is written off and anything similar said by any other survivor of systematized trauma is also ignored. To me, it's just too neat a discrediting strategy for it not to have been deliberately employed by the COINTELPRO/disinfo brigades. And even if it hasn't and all the implant promoters are sincere, it still serves to make it easy to ignore real histories of severe abuse and then the perps behind them go unchecked.

Before I found my way to RI, I spent some time in the then-main mind control message boards and was taken aback by the number of apparently unmedicated paranoid delusional sufferers posting there. It became so painful to try to compassionately interact with them long enough to get an idea of whether or not they too were genuinely being messed-with that I fled that entire scene. I still feel really bad about that, because their pain was real and terrible.

OTOH, during my MILAB years, I clearly heard a male voice say LIe down now! immediately before I lost consiousness. Since I've been evaluated by mental health professionals and pronounced non-delusional, this implies that some kind of technology was being used. (As near as I can recall, it only happened in that condo unit and one of my neighbors was that national lab scientist) And I know people who've found tiny actual metal (or other material) objects embedded in their sinuses or upper palate. One night, years ago, I watched helplessly as an alter disposed of a tangle of ultra-thin blood-caked tape that came out of one of my ears. Incidents like that keep me seeking to find out the likely limits of "black" technology. But I'm damned careful to whom I speak of such things.

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Re: Is Whitley Strieber Advocating Implants?

Postby guruilla » Tue Jun 21, 2011 2:14 pm

peartreed wrote:Ed Conroy's book, "Report On Communion"

I still haven't read that book.

peartreed wrote:It is also known that an adult Whitley Strieber studied G.I. Gurdjieff for years in seminary courses.

I'm not that well-versed on Gurdjieff-ana but it does seem as though whatever Whitley picked up during that time continues to inform his more "spiritual" writings.

peartreed wrote:So it's possible, I suppose, that the transitions from child of the right to philosopher of the East and on to horror fiction writer and guru of the alien abducted might all just be growth phases of imbued, possibly inevitable megalomaniacal manifestation, or reactions to a unique roller coaster ride into the occult. But I still feel it is more likely that Whitley is just a gifted writer who is presenting his own demons as alien intruders that he would save the world from.

Again, does it have to be either/or? I don't see how these two possibilities preclude one another. They seem to fit together quite neatly.

peartreed wrote:To the extent that most of have also projected our persecutors into roles where we, as the hero of our own life, will ultimately prevail in victory, I can allow Whitley his altered state aspirations. My concern is that he co-opts the credulous and gullible into his highly personal, paranoid paradigm. And that is likely being fed and abetted by those with a laboratory interest in manipulating a mind control maze for the masses.

Is that an entirely bad thing? What if the maze is designed as a part of some sort of natural selection process?

It's sort of ironic for me to be taking that position - I'm very much playing devil's advocate here - because I recently had direct experience with a cult-like environment, and I feel quite acutely concern for those who might be ensnared therein and possibly vampirized, or however these mind control mazes work, exactly (and bearing in mind that the whole social system we live in is probably a maze of this kind). Yet for me personally, getting lured into that maze, and finding my way through it and out the other side, was an invaluable learning experience - partly about the nature of such mazes, but primarily about my own tendencies to seek meaning, value, structure, and purpose outside of myself and my own inner connection to truth.

If the nature of our reality is itself "cult-like," then these mini-cults that spring up around charismatic individuals are only symptoms of an endemic condition - i.e., one which is sourced in ourselves. To that extent, however dangerous they are, they are serving a purpose and are worth exploring. The "victims" of such mazes are, firstly, those who become lost inside them; and secondly, those who have - wittingly or unwittingly - built them for their own safety or empowerment. And the only way to reach such people and help them to find their way out is, at least to some degree, by entering in ourselves. Otherwise they won't be able to hear us at all. Not that I'm recommending this to everyone, nor would it be wise to embark on such a dangerous task for "heroic" or "altruistic" reasons. But those of us - myself, peartreed, LilyPatToo - who have been drawn to enter a maze of this kind because of our own propensities, conscious or otherwise, are logically more qualified to speak on the subject than those who have not - even if inside knowledge does somewhat reduce our capacity to be "objective." :cyclops:
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