new age Archives | Technoccult

Occult Secrets Of the Avant-Garde

December 4, 2012 / Klint Finley

From a “document presented to individuals who have been invited to join the Neoist Alliance,” probably from early 1990s:

Anyone who has allowed the scales to fall from their eyes can see that the world’s top occultists are to be found among the ruling class and that those New Age groups who attract disciples by offering training in ‘chaos magick’, ‘creative visualisation’ or ‘rubbing the Buddha for money’, are worse than mere rank amateurs, they are shameless charlatans. Indeed, many of them are quite consciously working to prevent the development of a system of symbol manipulation that is completely autonomous of the state. Currently, Masonry is marshalled in defence of the status quo, but as the Bavarian Illuminati demonstrated in the eighteenth-century, power always flows in two directions and it rarely emanates from what is widely misperceived as constituting the ‘centre’. The cellular form of secret societies devised by the founders for the security of the movement, can as readily be used to hoodwink the leadership, who thus become unwitting front men for activities they would never countenance. By infiltrating the Lodges of Masonry, it is possible to spread a heretical message of freedom across the world.

Stewart Home Society: Occult Secrets Of the Avant-Garde

Not that there’s much power in the lodges these days. But the organizational model is still alive and well at the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormon Church). Alcoholics Anonymous is pretty interesting as well.

Previously: Occult Battles On The Streets Of London, 1993

Synesthesia May Explain Aura Reading

June 18, 2012 / Klint Finley

From Science Daily:

In basic neurological terms, synesthesia is thought to be due to cross-wiring in the brain of some people (synesthetes); in other words, synesthetes present more synaptic connections than “normal” people. “These extra connections cause them to automatically establish associations between brain areas that are not normally interconnected,” professor Gómez Milán explains. New research suggests that many healers claiming to see the aura of people might have this condition. […]

Many local people attribute “paranormal powers” to El Santón, because of his supposed ability to see the aura of people “but, in fact, it is a clear case of synesthesia,” the researchers explained. According to the researchers, El Santón has face-color synesthesia (the brain region responsible for face recognition is associated with the color-processing region); touch-mirror synesthesia (when the synesthete observes a person who is being touched or is experiencing pain, s/he experiences the same); high empathy (the ability to feel what other person is feeling), and schizotypy (certain personality traits in healthy people involving slight paranoia and delusions). “These capacities make synesthetes have the ability to make people feel understood, and provide them with special emotion and pain reading skills,” the researchers explain.

Full Story: Science Daily: Synesthesia May Explain Healers Claims of Seeing People’s ‘Aura’

(via Matt Staggs)

I’ve long suspected this to be true. I’ve met a couple of people who claimed to be able to see auras and didn’t seem to be liars or crazy.

2012 claims debunked

November 12, 2009 / Klint Finley

2012

Information is Beautiful examines several claims made by 2012 believers and finds their claims lacking.

Information is Beautiful: 2012: The End Of The World?

2012 – a crock of shit

November 12, 2009 / Klint Finley

Mark Dery writes:

Pinchbeck, like New Age thinkers all the way back to Madame Blavatsky, preaches a refried gospel of ancient wisdom and mystical, supra-rational knowledge. In 2007, he told The New York Times that “the rational, empirical worldview…has reached its expiration date…we’re on the verge of transitioning to a dispensation of consciousness that’s more intuitive, mystical, and shamanic.”

Well, somebody say “Amen”! There’s entirely too much rationalism and empiricism clouding the American mind these days, in a nation where, according to the Harris and other polls, 42% of Republicans are convinced President Obama wasn’t born in the United States, 10% of the nation’s voters are certain he’s a Muslim, and 61% of the population believe in the Virgin birth but only 47% believe in Darwinian evolution. […]

When I asked her what she thought of Pinchbeck’s invocation of Mayan beliefs, and of the 2012-ers’ use of the Maya in general, she was blunt. “What makes me angriest about Pinchbeck’s bogus, profiteering bullshit isn’t so much him, but the fact that that many people are racist enough to believe any asshole white guy who declares himself an expert in Mayan culture. Did it ever occur to anyone to ask practicing Maya priests out in the villages? […] It absolutely enrages me that while people I know in Guatemala, traditional priests, are struggling to figure out how to provide clean drinking water to their families, how to feed their communities, how to avoid being shot by the gangs and thieves that plague the roads more than ever—while they’re struggling to survive and keep their communities intact, assholes like Pinchbeck are making a buck off of white man’s parodies of their culture.”

h+: 2012: Carnival of Bunkum

(via Chris Arkenberg)

Fact checking The Men Who Stare at Goats

November 10, 2009 / Klint Finley

first earth battalion manual

Danger Room has an article posted fact checking the claims made in the new The Men Who Stare at Goats movie:

Hippie Army? True. Lt. Col. Jim Channon dove deep into the New Age movement, and came back to the military with a most alternative view of warfare — one in which troops would carry flowers and symbolic animals into battle. In the movie, Channon is played by Jeff Bridges. His First Earth Battalion is renamed the “New Earth Army.” But the ideas are the same. Much of the artwork from the New Earth manual is lifted straight from the Channon original.

Channon has been taking advantage of the publicity for his cause; this week he has a column in the Guardian newspaper, suggesting (among other things) that armies should be used for reforestation and navies to control over-fishing.

The military’s interest in Eastern and alternative practices is once again on the rise. “Warrior mind training“, apparently based on ancient Samurai techniques, is being taught at Camp Lejeune as a possible treatment for PTSD. Elsewhere the Army has a $4 million initiative exploring other approaches including Reiki, transcendental meditation and “bioenergy.” The Air Force is looking into acupuncture for battlefield pain relief.

Danger Room: Psychic Spies, Acid Guinea Pigs, New Age Soldiers: the True Men Who Stare at Goats

As pointed out at Danger Room, you can download the original First Earth Battalion Manual from Jim Channon’s web site

Previously:

Psychic Warfare from 1981-2008

Real life DHARMA Initiative # 1: SRI (Stanford Research Institute)