November 4, 2009

Vyzygoth Keith Hanson


The Knoll

11/13'09
Apropos Corsi and "The Bush legacy? European socialism.", can anybody perhaps associate that on April 30, 2007 signed agreement about "a transatlantic economic council" with the new cabinet? Because it can't be the one with Skull and Bones Goolsbee, and I'd like to presume that this "agreement" – never heard of it again since then – could have been something much bigger than C-Span had told about with regard of the Queen's visit only a few days later and the proclamation of the most ominous "Loyola Day" on May 1, the day after.

By the way, great interview, Vyzygoth!
If I may ask you a particular question about the "locked head" you spoke of: why do you think, "the truth" would be something that has to be believed? Because of its religious nature?
You know, McKenna's phrase was: "If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed." The same thing, isn't it?
I don't see it that way, I can't.
("The Conspiracy is us" because "the conspiracy" is a fractal phenomenon.)
And the thing with this "peering-behind-the-veil" channel of Greg, the "Rochester" guy, seems to me to be an almost openly Catholic/Freemasonic/Theosophical/Scientological – what cultish ideologies/memestreams have you – podcast when you listen, for example, to episode 71.

@22min, Mitch) To me, this material really humanizes Joseph Smith. It explains to me a little bit of where he comes from, helps me see him as a fuller figure, and that was a great surprise, and in many respects a delightful surprise, to find him, and to be able to locate him within the occult history that I explore in Occult America. And I would suggest that, you know, all this material to me deepens and broadens the person that he was. I think, he was a remarkable man. And some of this material is offensive and challenging to people within LDS today, but I would say that this is material that enriches and deepens – it doesn't in any way detract from who Smith was. It helps set him in a context, a great American context. And people can have the virgin beliefs about the figure he was and the man he was, but it's not necessary for any of the richness of his background to be seen as something that detracts or compromises his greatness. In fact, to me it builds it.
Greg) Yeah, I agree completely by viewing it in this context, as you mentioned it. It definitely – as you said – humanizes him. It allows us to see what he did, the life he lived, the church that he helped found.
Mitch) Many outsiders to the Mormon Church have a hard time understanding where some of the ideas, the concepts, the historical timeline that you find in the Book of Mormon, where all this comes from. To some people it seems very alien.

2 comments:

Tosco said...

07/07'09 The Pharaoh: "Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way."

St. Loyalty on March 26, 1553: "I beseech you by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ [...] bestir you to subjugate (expugnare) and subdue (subicere) the most highbred and difficult part of your mind: reason and judgement."

Tosco said...

Bruce Crocker)
Chris Mooney delivers a well-written, but depressing, message in The Republican War on Science. Instead of arguing policy after looking at the current scientific consensus, politicians, mostly far-right and religious-right Republicans, are manipulating the science to fit the desired policy. For a student of science and a science teacher who sits firmly in the "decline to state" (that's how small-i independents register here in California) position politically, Mooney's first tome is over 250 pages of well-documented frustration. My job as a science teacher in the State of California is to teach my students the California science standards – standards that are based on the current scientific consensus. (The students never have to believe a word I say, they just have to become informed about mainstream science.) This can be hard to do when the students hear seemingly reasonable adults talking about intelligent design and a lack of evidence for human-induced global warming.
I taught my students about Kepler on Friday - how he truly believed that a geometrically-oriented supreme being would make planetary orbits perfect circles, but how Tycho Brahe's excellent observational data led Kepler to the correct answer – that planetary orbits are elliptical. Scientists are trained to follow the evidence no matter where it leads – the universe is the way it is, whether we want it to be that way or not! I wish the title had been different – The Politicization of Science or the Far Right's War on Science might not have been as sexy or sold as many books – but I'm hoping that this well-researched and well-argued book will be read by moderate Republicans and science abusers on the left (see Prometheus Bedeviled by Norman Levitt) – two groups that need to hear this argument the most. I can't say that I enjoyed The Republican War on Science – it's not the kind of book one is supposed to enjoy – but I can recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in science and politics. This is not a book for Democrats only – the criticism applies equally to science abusers at any point along the political spectrum!