This blog represents the cybernetic remains of Ben Nisetar, who has departed from the realms of the internet in order to pursue that elusive and legendary state of being known as a “real life.”

On his blog yesterday, Doug Rushkoff let us know the good news-

Thanks to your spontaneous generosity, we raised over $80.000 on behalf of Robert Anton Wilson in less than a week. This means he can be taken care of by family at home or, if need be, in a managed care facility for over six months.

If at the end of six or eight months all of this money has been spent on care – and Bob has chosen to carry on living – we’ll see about what other financial solutions might be possible, including another plea to his reading public.

But for the time being, save your pennies and pence, give yourselves and each other a hearty “job well done,” and get back to the good work of helping people think smarter and act kinder.

All I can do is smile.

You may have noticed the new button in my navbar- if you don’t know what I’m talking about then please click on it (or click on the pic to the immediate left). I’m doing my bit to help support writer-philosopher-bard and pioneer of guerilla ontology- Robert Anton Wilson- in what could possibly be his last days on Earth. This man has given so much to so many people- I can’t even describe it- but I do know this: If I hadn’t read his books I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

Speaking of today there’s a recent update at boingboing that includes a note from Bob and another from his daughter Christina. I’m thrilled to report that so far the collective internet fans of RAW have Paypal’d over $68 thousand to Bob, but WE AIN’T STOPPING! Click the button and send the ol’ wizard a few bucks. May I suggest $23?

Sure I’ve bought many of his books (and I highly recommend you do the same, starting with Cosmic Trigger* or Illuminatus!* or Prometheus Rising)- but I bought many of them at USED Book Stores- therefore no money actually went to the author himself! That’s something I just recently realized and I felt guilty about it- so I’m glad to have a chance to make it up to him.

* These are RAW’s own Amazon links. If you purchase the books through these links, Bob gets the commission.

Wouldn’t you know it- right in the middle of an unexpected flurry of work and bills- I got an unexpected flurry of web traffic. An email from Martin soon informed me of the cause- it seems David Icke has included a link to They-Live in his newsletter! (Yes that David Icke!) He included the picture of Bush through the “They-Live” glasses (scroll down til you see it) and he linked straight to my video for “We Are Not Alone”.

Well as you might expect… Since then I’ve had a rush of traffic and emails- as well as quite a few comments (mostly positive- thank you very much!) In one of these comments I was informed that Icke has seen the video personally. Seems he likes it! (I also learned that some people call him “Ickie”.)

What’s up with the video now: Well the video got mentioned on a whole bunch of new blogs- which is always cool- and we got a nice little review over at the “Spaces” blog. And there’s BIG news too- Martin Noakes (composer and producer of the original “We Are Not Alone”) has some contacts who may be able to help us get it aired on a satellite TV station in the UK. So- among other busy busy things- I’ve been gathering up some replacement images for the fullscreen version (don’t want to go all pixelly on our TV audience now do we?) I’ll be cranking up the mixer and rolling up my sleeves shortly- get ready for Version 2.0!

PS- the old one ain’t going anywhere. You can still watch the original video mashup of here: We Are Not Alone. Or (choose your poison)- at YouTube or Google Video.

“In the beginning doth the Magus speak Truth, and send forth Illusion and Falsehood to enslave the soul. Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption.” - Aleister Crowley, Liber B vel Magi

Aleister Crowley was the most famous magickal practitioner of modern times, and aside from Merlin himself, quite possibly of all time.  His name is known worldwide, his works have been published and continue to be republished decades after his death, and his fame places him far above and beyond any other candidate for the title (although “infamy” may be a better word, because when asked what they know about Crowley, the typical person’s response is practically guaranteed to include a negative moral judgment and no small amount of disdain).  The following article examines the reasons for this popular “blackwashing,” providing a counterpoint to the popular conception and a basis for further studies.

NOTE: This article was written for (and originally appeared at) Book-of-Thoth.com, where it is under consideration for inclusion in the upcoming book “Wisdom of the Ages”

The Devil You Know

Despite his global renown, it turns out that very few people have actually taken the time to read Crowley’s works before forming their opinion – assuming they might be capable of understanding the man at all.  Instead, the majority base their derision on a handful of dog-eared anecdotes, third-hand propaganda, and that oft-repeated epithet: “The Wickedest Man In the World.”

Yes, it seems that everyone has an opinion of the man, and very often the same opinion: an almost exclusively negative one foisted upon his memory by the popular press and willingly abetted at times by Crowley himself.  Since the reader has no doubt been exposed to this popular conception, there is no need to reiterate it here.

He was wicked, debauched and miserable to be around, sure, when such moods took him, yet rapturous, passionate and breathtakingly beautiful at his opposite extremes.  In other words, “beyond good and evil.”  More than any other writer of his time, his willing embodiment of psychological relativism made him a great danger to morality as the word is commonly understood.  Viewed from the perspective of those who defend the status quo of banality and dogma, steering to the middle of the road, how could such an exceptional creature be anything other than villified?  Any attempt to marginalize him would be doomed to failure from the outset, thanks to his immense contributions to the western mystery tradition.  There was no choice, it seems, but to paint him black.

Paradox and Perspicacity

Those who dismiss Crowley on such simplistic data are doing themselves (not to mention the man) a great disservice – and yet that may have been exactly what he had intended. For Crowley was not only a well-known ceremonial magician, founder of the AA and reformer of the OTO, agile philosopher, prolific writer, erotic poet, world-class mountainclimber, shameless self-promoter, fearless drug experimenter, exceptional chessmaster, and enduring researcher into the myths and magick of man – he was also a born contrarian who often placed deliberately false messages, images, and correspondences into his work, in order to protect true understanding from the casual reader.

At the same time, he was the scatterer of the secrets in the public square, the progenitor of the “New Age” as we know it today.  This would present a paradox for any man of less complexity and capacity.  His copious explanations of mystical practices and esoteric symbols were literal handbooks of ceremonial ritual touching on every western tradition (and many eastern ones).  For the creation of his classic book “Liber 777″ alone, Crowley should be held in the same high regard as Sir James Frazer.

But academia was not his style. Indeed, Crowley refuses to be confined to any single style or genre at all.  Hardly a sentence in his entire body of work is without at least two connotations – a trait he deliberately cultivated and obviously enjoyed.  At times blazingly insightful, uproariously humorous, brutally honest, poigniantly poetic and deadly serious, he defies easy categorization.  He worked hard, played hard, and partied hard – and still found time to make monumental contributions to esoteric literature.  Every one of Crowley’s multiple magickal personas has its own important teachings for the diligent student.

Cerebral Celebrity

Early in his career Crowley rocketed through the ranks of the Order of the Golden Dawn to end up publishing and popularizing its innermost secrets, and his subsequent writings covered a range of difficult subjects in meticulous and dangerously revealing detail – subjects like tantric magick, altered states of consciousness, the creative power of morbidity, hedonism and bisexuality – decades before these things were considered valid (or even legal) subjects for self-expression.

His works (whether credited or not) have inspired whole generations of mystics, artists and musicians to explore realms they might have never known if not for this Promethean character.  The influenced include such notable personages as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Kenneth Anger, Phil Anselmo, Piers Anthony, Clive Barker, David Bowie, Neil Gaiman, Ian Fleming, John Frusciante, Iron Maiden, Marilyn Manson, Somerset Maugham, Ministry, Alan Moore, Mudvayne, Ozzy Osbourne, Jimmy Page, Terry Pratchett, Throbbing Gristle, Dennis Wheatley, Robert Anton Wilson, Rob Zombie, and many others.

Such a combination of creativity and will is something we have a very hard time comprehending in our culture, unless we’re talking about our rock stars – the only people in our culture who are “allowed” to live that way.  But that wasn’t always the case – Lord Byron, anyone? 

In that half of the last century which could still sustain such a thing, Crowley lived as something of a “cerebral celebrity” – from his publicized world travels and oft-quoted mystical correspondencies to the Equinox magazine, to his voluminous output of self-published books, to his public performances of ancient rites – he was every inch a Superstar as much as he was a Magus.

Certainly he had a very healthy ego.  But it was every inch his own, both to build up and tear down, and both he did.  His means and ends went far beyond the grasp of average men – both upward to his Holy Guardian Angel, and downward to the depths of the Abyss – and his courageous explorations of human potential left behind a written map of all territories he conquered.  To regard Crowley as a mere egotist, one would have to forget all one knows about personal transformation, the politics of occultism, secret societies, illuminism, the Aquarian Conspiracy, the “New Age” movement and the New World Order – and forget just about every book written on the subjects of magick, mysticism, sorcery, divination, astrology, tarot, meditation, tantric sex, the astral planes, qabala, western ceremonial ritual, ancient godforms or occult symbology since the 1950’s.

A Tour of the Crowley Library

The astounding breadth and depth of Crowley’s literary legacy is daunting, and helps to explain why so many choose to accept the popular “Reader’s Digest” condemnation rather than doing the research for themselves.  In the words of Israel Regardie, who served as Crowley’s personal secretary from 1928 to 1932: “The intellectually lazy, the merely uninformed or the sexually lame and halt will find little in his writings to appeal to them. Far too many demands will be made upon what they know and what they are intrinsically.”

When recently asked to suggest a good place for interested beginners to start reading his works, I found that it was a tricky question to answer.  The man wrote on so many subjects, and in such detail, that choosing a starting point depends on what your ultimate goals are.  But I can tell you this much with certainty: Very little of his work may be approached casually.

The sole exception may be Moonchild – Crowley’s only actual novel.  (Diary of a Drug Fiend was published as a work of fiction, but is actually autobiographical.)  A briskly-paced mystical adventure story, Moonchild is a surprisingly good read along the lines of Dennis Wheatley, and also explains many magickal secrets in “human” terms.  As a slight criticism it may be noted that the ending of the book was tacked on rather quickly as the world rushed to war, although 90% of it is an excellent romp.

If you’re seeking subjects for mystical medititations – read The Book of Lies (Falsely So Called). A few other works in the same class of Crowleyana would be Liber Aleph (“The Book of Wisdom or Folly”) and The Soldier and the Hunchback. As your magickal studies progress, you will find more and more information hidden in these books each time you read them – and yet they can also be enjoyed just for themselves. This is occult philosophy so abstract and pristinely worded – it’s practically poetry.

Speaking of poetry, Clouds Without Water is a beautiful, erotic and sometimes shocking record of love and heterosexual magickal practice – told as a paean to the beloved/obscene – and The Scented Garden of Abdullah is a similar work of homosexual nature (much harder to find since most copies were destroyed by British Customs on grounds of obscenity).

For those interested in the psychological and metaphysical aspects of Yoga (of which Crowley was a master practitioner), he provides an account in very straightforward language entitled Eight Lectures on Yoga.  In this small book, Crowley takes on some very abstract eastern concepts, making them easily accessible to the western reader.

Theory and Practice

And then there’s what we might call the “hardcore” stuff – best described by the motto of The Equinox: “The Aim of Religion, the Method of Science” - the massive annex of initiatory writings in the Crowleyan catalog of theory and practice.  Reading Crowley for practical purposes – i.e., to study magick as an aspirant – is very much like reading advanced works in the soft sciences.  Many terms and definitions are taken for granted as having been covered in the course of student’s “normal” studies, and progress will be difficult (or potentially dangerous) until these core concepts are understood. 

When studying these advanced magickal works, the astute reader must bear in mind that some passages have been deliberately obfuscated, and therefore the true meanings will become apparent only after long meditation and comprehension of the symbols involved. This is part of the hermetic tradition of protecting Sophia – the sacred knowledge – from the casual reader.

If you’re serious in pursuing a working knowledge of magick, no list of recommendations would be complete without mentioning the classic Magick in Theory and Practice as a good starting point – although it will take years of reading and meditating before many of those passages make sense to you.  Still, right here in the beginning section, this work provides a categorical battery of definitions to work with – Crowley’s overview of what magick is all about: “The Law and Science of Causing Change to Occur in Accordance with Will.”  This was my personal introduction to the works of Crowley and it serves as a useful “filter” against intrusion by the mundane, for if you cannot wrap your head around the tenets and philosophical ramifications of his basic thesis, you will not fare very well (or go very far) in your pursuits.

To support and round out your early studies, Magick Without Tears is a fascinating collection of Crowley’s correspondence with various students on the details of their independent magickal studies and personal difficulties along the path – very illuminating in that regard.

However, such books should not be tackled alone.  You will need a foundation of “traditional” study in the Qabala and the teachings of the Golden Dawn – because Crowley’s works are originally based on that body of knowledge. Crowley’s own The Qabalah and On the Tarot are not bad for starters, but you’ll need a very direct and simple understanding of the Tree of Life to make much headway against the advanced books – and the G.D. can provide that better than Crowley himself. Likewise, the works of more prosaic writers like Dion Fortune and Israel Regardie will be immeasurably helpful in providing this foundation.

If you are interested in joining a magickal order such as the OTO, The Book of the Law should be read early on, because everything about the order and its methods will be reflections of that work (and again, read and meditate on the teachings of the G.D.).

If you’re simply looking for a basic overview of Crowley and his works from a “safe” psychological distance, I would recommend Regardie’s biography The Eye In The Triangle over any of Crowley’s own works.  Regardie possesses a keen eye for detail and a well-balanced perspective.  His writings are clear and easy to follow, and he was a prominent practitioner and historian of western mysticism in his own right.  His observations of his former employer are sometimes critical, sometimes kind, but always objective.

Playing with Fire

It cannot be denied that many who begin traveling this path do so for petty or egotistical reasons, which are entirely beneath the level of devotion and refinement required by the task.  Still, I would be remiss not to address this audience, if only because of their sheer number.

That said; if you want a “quick start” in creating your own magickal rituals, 777 is the touchstone – the magickal “filing cabinet” against which everything in the universe is indexed.  Most modern reprintings also include the full texts of Gematria and Sepher Sepheroth.  At root this book is an examination of Gematria (a form of qabalistic numerology), but its main course consists of the brilliant and massive “Tables of Correspondence” linking the vibrational forces of all mystical traditions – letters, numbers, shapes, sigils, names, spirits, elements, gemstones, colors, numbers, planets, animals and gods – to their corresponding values on the Tree of Life.  It is a “Rosetta Stone” of mystical understanding, and is vital for an understanding of the Crowleyan Tarot deck.  777 is an absolute must for any magickal library – but treat it with respect and caution (like fire) – for there is so much knowledge crammed into these tables they can be used blindly (and at your own peril).

Finally (and for the aforementioned audience in particular), I must give council not to take any of this work lightly, or to proceed through your studies hastily.  At core, we’re talking about religious texts of the most esoteric variety.  Like a powerful drug, reading Crowley’s mystical doctrines with clarity and focus will literally change the structure of your mind.  Contrariwise, reading these books without such diligence will simply make you batshit crazy.

I will leave you with these words from Crowley himself, from Liber RV vel Spiritus:

“Let the Zelator attach no credit to statements that may have been made throughout the course of this instruction, and reflect that even the counsel which we have given as suitable to the average may be entirely unsuitable to his own.”

As I explained in the previous post August 27th was an interesting day. The press release about the alleged theft of the “Eye to the Sky” photos had struck a nerve- not just because it looked like a covert action waiting to be investigated- but because it rang a bell on other levels. The similarities between the two cases turned out to mostly nothing- but the timing of these events made me wonder whether I was looking at two datapoints in a larger structure.

The night before all the Thorney Croftery began, I received an email from a company called Truthseeker TV. I imagine many other webmasters received similar emails as well (if they happen to mention David Icke a lot on their websites). The reason? They wanted to know if I would be interested in advertising their new movie- a documentary in which Icke is featured.

Now personally I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of selling advertising on my site- it raises all sorts of potential ethical/editorial questions I would rather simply avoid- so I politely turned them down. But I also contacted some friends and started doing a little research…

From what’s available online TSTV is a small LA-based production company which apparently had a network deal to air a new conspiracy/reality TV series when everything went SNAFU. A page on their website explains:

“TruthseekerTV was all set to air on Television. We finished up our first episode and delivered it to the network. The first episode was called “The Brandon Corey Story” and we were very proud of it. But when the network saw that it was about Vice President Dick Cheney and his alleged connection to Satanists, blood drinking ceremonies, 9/11, and Aliens, the network CANCELLED us. We lost our deal!! Then, things got really scary, two weeks after losing our deal on TV, our offices in Los Angeles, Ca. were ransacked and robbed.”

They say they were able to reconstruct the episode by using footage which was kept in alternate safes, and now they want to sell it on DVD, bypassing the networks completely.

Who are these guys? I turned to Google and queried. I found that thousands of sites link to them. Most of these links are obvious “link swaps” (a practice in which two webmasters trade links to each other’s sites in order to boost their search engine ranking and traffic). Supporting that theory is the fact that most of them appear on “link pages” and many of them use the exact same words-

“Truthseeker TV, hosted by Jimi Petulla, is an all new Reality Show
that dares to go where other shows fear to tread.”

However it is also of note that many of these link swaps are 2 years old.

According to the Internet Movie Database, Jimi Petulla wrote, produced and acted in a wrestling movie called “Reversal” in 2001. His company “Jimi Petulla Productions” has a link at IMDB but it directs you to the “Reversal” site. He also played roles in two “B-movies” of the 90’s: a sci-fi thriller called “The P.A.C.K.” (which I actually saw- it was fun in a totally B-movie way) and a comedy-romance called “Silk n’ Sabotage” (also entitled “Wild Child 2″) which apparently involved a lot of topless women doing things like showering and bathing while (one assumes) some sort of sabotage is going on.

The TruthseekerTV site itself does not mention Petulla. In fact it doesn’t provide any credits at all- but it does show that David Icke is in the movie.

So now I have a lead- but it’s a pretty weak one. I still know nothing about the person or people who wrote Petulla’s paycheck. At this point I’m wondering “Who is behind TruthSeeker TV?” “What is their connection to David Icke?” “Have they really been burglarized?”- and the biggest question beyond all of those…

We all know how much difficulty Icke has been having lately. Is there a chance that this “burglary” (unlike the last one I investigated)- might actually turn out to be something? In other words-

Is the suppression of this film related to what seems
to be an organized, ongoing attack upon David Icke?

I next did a WHOIS search on the domain name and discovered a mystery even more unsubtle-

TRUTHSEEKERTV.COM
Registration Service Provided By: SPIRITDOMAINS/IAREGISTRY

Registrant:
None
John Doe (yiu879z@earthlink.net)
124 naub ave
Taos
null,90265
US
Tel. +1.8187840922

Creation Date: 25-Apr-2003

Administrative Contact:
xxxx
Joan Doe (yiu879z@earthlink.net)
123 naube ave
Roswell
NM,67895
US
Tel. +1.232999999999

Technical Contact:
xxxx
John Doe (yiu879z@earthlink.net)
124 naube ave
Roslyn
null,65745
US
Tel. +1.123456999999

John and Joan don’t live together anymore, it seems. Perhaps that’s because he won’t share his two addresses. But of course I appreciate the Roswell joke.

The last two phone numbers are obviously fakes, but the first one is in the 818 area code, which is in the San Fernando Valley (the northern part of Los Angeles). I called the number and got a voicemail box- it belongs to someone named “Michael” at makemywebsitework.com. On the night of Aug 31st I left a message and asked for Michael to call me back. So far he hasn’t.

Let me back up to when this most recent line of questions began…

Last week, while doing research for my upcoming installment- “Conspiracy Theory Is Not A Thing”- I was working down several lines of research at once. What I was looking for were examples of various types of actions and events which are often considered to be “proof” of one or another conspiracy. Troll attacks, flip-flops, sudden silences, organized suppression/intimidation, suspicious suicides- things like that.

On August 27th I came across a press release from NewsWire Today which caught my attention. It was entitled “Strange Goings-on Follow Discussions About Potential UFO Evidence” and the summary read “Publisher and Author experience interference and other phenomena since discovering strange images in UFO footage related to new book.”

The release read in part:

The book, Eye to the Sky: A Paranormal Odyssey, by Paula Thorneycroft, recounts the author’s amazingly frequent and vivid interactions with both craft and extraterrestrial beings, but it is the footage she submitted to substantiate her manuscript that seems to have caused a stir already – and this has not even been released, yet.

Since signing contracts and discussing, superficially, the fact that the footage does appear to contain some very intriguing material none of us has seen the like of before, the author has had her entire photographic files and emails uploaded by at least one hacker, perhaps more. EcceNova has had particular telephone conversations ‘scrambled’ for no apparent reason, and an interview with the Editor on a well-known radio show was mysteriously “lost” immediately after being recorded.

In an effort to advise potential viewers and readers of the veracity and importance of the images we are planning to reveal upon publication of the book, we feel it necessary to release news of this material now.

I believe they mean “downloaded” instead of “uploaded.” Otherwise we go from weird to sublime and the cat collapses instantly (i.e., “Hello, I am an evil hacker and I broke into your server in order to give you some free footage you can use in your book.”) The release continues:

We have taken the precaution of copyrighting the entire footage, and have copies of it in several safe places. Should any hacker(s) attempt to reveal the images before EcceNova is ready to do so, we want to let the world know that they only had access to a fraction of the material, and that the ‘best’ images were not held on the computer at the time of the theft.

Now honestly, do you call that a threat?

The whole thing smelled weird. I started searching for possibly-related terms, information and stories. The big search engines turned up nothing at the time (they’ve spidered it by now). But the Eccenova website itself now had a second release, which mentioned the first. It read in part-

We sent out a Press Release in an effort to counter any effect the hackers might have had, but judging by all the so-called “UFO sites” out there who condone and eagerly await stolen property, there is little discretion anyway, so perhaps we have been a little naive in this. Luckily, as we said, the thieves did not get the best of the footage or stills, as we had anticipated such an eventuality and removed the most important images from the computer. Those stolen were/are going to be released soon, anyway.

Ok- let’s tally this up. They’re naive- but they’re also prescient enough to have anticipated the theft as an eventuality. And they’ve been hacked- that is, illegally entered and burglarized- but if someone releases their photos before the publication date they’ll let the world know that the quality is less than optimal? The logic of this narrative is so broken the mind starts wandering. Frankly right now I’m wondering about the scare quotes around the words “UFO sites”. Is this really the best time for gangta bravado and chest-puffery? Shouldn’t they be filing a report with the police or something?

I did a WHOIS search on the domain name “Eccenova.com”. I learned that it’s been around for over three years- and not much else-

Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Status: ACTIVE
Dates: Created 12-mar-2003 Updated 06-feb-2006

Of course I also searched on “Paula Thorneycroft”- Google returned only copies of the press release itself- no other pages referred to this author. I then tried alibris.com (my personal favorite online bookseller) and amazon.com- but neither site carries any books by this person. Her bio page at Eccenova says she is a scriptwriter and Reiki practioner who has been employed as a consulting psychic. It also says that her July 2006 sighting is posted online at www.ufosnw.com- although I could not find it there.

Ok- it’s a marketing hoax, right? Sure, ok. Looks like a dead cat. So let’s try one good attempt to keep it alive- to see if we can collapse it the other way.

If this is a marketing hoax it’s a very strangely-performed one. For the very next day when I hit Technorati- bingo. I found a fresh blog entry at a site I had noticed several months prior- a place called Alien Video (yes I was lured in by the name, but it was not what I expected). This new entry- dated August 25th- not only indicated that these guys had read the same press release I had, but added a bizarre semi-admission…

Hackers Leak UFO Video
Some amazing new UFO Footage may soon be available for viewing right here on AlienVideo… just as soon as the hackers upload it to us. Apparently, hackers have infiltrated the computer of Paula Thorneycroft – author of a yet to be released book about her vivid interactions with alien craft…

“As soon as the hackers upload it to us?”

Excuse me- WTF? The words themselves practically implicate AV in the alleged crime. Is there not some sort of investigation going on? Why would the AV people write this sentence?

I next ran a WHOIS report on “Alienvideo.net”.

Domain Name: ALIENVIDEO.NET
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc.
Created on: 04-May-06

This may look like more information, but it’s actually about the same. “Domains by Proxy” is a complete dead-end- they won’t release any information to the likes of me. But it does show us that Alienvideo.net is only 3 months old.

Surely the two sites are connected somehow? Ok- let’s postulate that. But if the two sites are connected in some way, then the AV blog post stands out even more starkly- as if one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. And this is true whether the alleged crime actually happened or not (in fact it’s even stranger if the crime didn’t happen). Such inter-departmental confusion is more common in coverups and post-facto actions than in pre-planned, linear actions like marketing campaigns. In other words: this type of error usually indicates a situation in which two or more autonomous agents- each with incomplete data- are all scrambling to cover an obscured item- and generally their own asses as well. The sense of incongruity arises from the fact that the various agents are all making different assumptions about the overarching narrative or timeline. Their internal communications are incomplete.

If we postulate that Eccenova and AlienVideo are connected, then we have to explain why the execution of this maneuver is so bizarre. Perhaps we are looking at two parties- both of which believe they are operating in the same overarching narrative structure- but without any intercommunication. So if we go down this path we have to accept that any such connection is a very poor one.

Update 1:

On August 31st Eccenova published another press release on EYE TO THE SKY. It reads in part-

Having experienced a number of attempts to steal the video footage, attack our computers, tap our phones, follow us, and bribe us, we finally decided that it would be prudent to get the images out into the public domain as quickly as possible, while still remaining true to our original plan to release the most profound images in concert with the book, to ensure integrity and create context.

We had planned to post certain images online, from the start, and today we have done so. About 25 new stills are posted on the website, revealing just a glimpse of the brilliant light show and ‘morphing’ that was evident on the first of the two night’s shooting.

One of those stills is reproduced above left. In addition the publication date of the book has been moved up from December 26th to October 31st.

Update 2:

On Sep 2nd Eccenova released the following note on their press release page: “We have acquired the services of a professional paranormal research and filmmaking team to assess the video footage independently.”

“If I keep speaking out like I am, maybe God will give me the life to talk my head off. I will break every law that it takes to talk my head off. Eleven of my best friends in the last 22 years have been murdered. Eight of the murders were called suicides.”

- US Government Engineer and UFO Whistleblower Phil Schneider, who was found dead seven months later with the piano wire still wrapped around his neck

There is a time for silence, and a time to speak. I’ve been incommunicado while researching some strange events over the last several days- and for my unexplained absence I do apologize. I considered it unwise to say anything before I had some more pertinent information- however that void will be filled by this entry and the next few to follow.

As I wrote last week- “modeltesting proceeds both deductively and inductively, projecting its hypotheses both forward and backward.” It’s a two-pronged process and to keep his/her balance the investigator must have the ability to hold in mind multiple possibilities at once. Often, the moment you make a “normal” assumption is the moment you get off track- you’ll end up wasting your time wandering around in circles, or get stuck to someone’s tar-baby. Motion and balance are essential. And for a well-balanced investigation to move forward to a conclusive terminus, its final eigenstate or “wavefunction” must remain uncollapsed as long as possible- Schrödinger’s Cat must remain both alive and dead.

Re-evaluating the Valuations

Of course there are times when it’s easy to do so- and times that are less so. For instance let’s consider the black helicopters photographed over the home of anti-NWO historian Alan Watt a couple weeks ago. This looks like a classic intimidation campaign (although of course there’s always the possibility that he faked this story with a couple photographs taken nowhere near his house). However, if you’ve heard any radio interviews with Watt over the last year or so, you’ll know that he’s had far worse things happen- last year someone tried to burn his house down by dropping a white flaming powdery substance (probably phosphorous) down his chimney. Once you know that story exists it’s rather hard to imagine him setting up this new story himself- it would be anticlimactic if nothing else. So Magic Eightball says “more likely true.” While it remains technically uncollapsed the Watt cat is distinctly leaning in one direction- and it’s beginning to strain logic and narrative arc if you try to push it the other way.

On the other hand, we have the dual break-ins of peak oil activist Mike Ruppert’s home and offices several weeks ago- the latest in a series of attacks which seem calculated to destroy him and his work completely. Ultimately these attacks resulted in Ruppert fleeing the country, as he describes in his lengthy but fascinating piece “By the Light of a Burning Bridge.” However there are many who say that Peak Oil in general- and Mike Ruppert in particular- are mere fictions designed to explain rising gas & energy prices, allowing for further control of the clueless public as we slide further and further into fascism. This scenario would technically make Ruppert a “counter-agent” or “COINTELPRO” (although apparently they’re not called that anymore these days)- a person who appears to be an activist against the status quo when in actuality he serves its interests. His backstory is certainly suggestive: LAPD detective successfully investigates government drug-smuggling into Los Angeles, busts the CIA on national television, then has a breakdown, quits the force, and becomes an anti-government activist and publisher. The arguments both for and against this theory are numerous (and they go far beyond the scope of this post) but the story is even more convoluted than I’ve just described. It’s an espionage novel come to life- and one can see how easily it might be pushed either way. For me, the Ruppert cat is definitely uncollapsed.

Each time you come to a branch point- an uncollapsed wavefunction- you need to step through all the known facts again and re-evaluate them in terms of both antipodes. If the cat is alive, then X¹ Y¹ and Z¹. If the cat is dead, then X² Y² and Z². In not too long you generally start finding that some of these projected conditional effects break the laws of logic or physics- straining probability beyond the ridiculous. This allows you to back up and prune that particular line of reasoning. This has an effect on the entire structure of course- so you go back to the beginning and start re-evaluating again. Sooner or later you’ll get to one that collapses the cat so much that it’s impossible to push it in the other direction.

That’s my approach to this whole post-modern mishmash we call “reality”. Everything is a continually-measured and re-evaluated experiment in postponed cat-collapsation.

The tools at my disposal include nothing more than my knowledge of human nature and the nature of social engineering, COINTELPRO or “psyops” tactics, along with all sorts of observable facts as reported by fellow humans- plus of course the laws of nature as revealed by science. Am I an expert in all these matters? Unfortunately, no. Otherwise this whole thing would probably make a lot more sense. But I’ve been observing in silence for a while and now I’m speaking.

Part One – Modeltesting

I often find myself wanting to disagree with Pop Occulture’s Tim Boucher, although I am consistently swept along by his reasoning. The general thesis that we live in a technocratic paradigm seems pretty supportable- as are the corollaries which would logically seem to arise from it- resulting in a state of affairs in which “Technocracy exists to manage humans as though they were machines.” I also anjoy reading his essays on the blurry areas between pop culture and occult symbology. He makes some really interesting observations and does a lot of good research. But I guess what bothers me is his take on “conspiracy theory.” I often get the impression that Boucher wishes to retain the ability to distance himself from “it” as though it were an actual thing- like a physical object, or a vocation or a school of thought- to determine whether there’s any point in engaging in it.

I like your work, Tim. But “conspiracy theory” is not a thing. It is not a methodology, or a particular school of thought, or a system of belief. Everybody does it differently. There is no “body” of Conspiracy Theory, and until we’re all connected in a nanotech hivemind, you will never find two “conspiracy theorists” who agree on all the same datapoints.

In a modern techological democracy, any plans which are not revealed to a public media outlet are by definition “undisclosed” and are therefore “secret” (whether this secrecy is deliberate or not). This happens all the time of course- but it’s only really important if many people are affected by these plans, and especially if those plans happen to involve an illegal act. Meanwhile, if these plans involve any undisclosed communication between two or more parties (as well they would)- then the whole thing may be called a “conspiracy.”

The “official story” is comprised of disclosed plans and communications, which taken as a whole should yield an internally-consistent model connecting and accounting for all logically related events both observed and deduced, contradicting no observed events, and leaving out no observed events. Any violation of these standards constitutes a “missing piece” or a “loose thread.”

People- no matter where they stand on the scatter-grid of the population (see illustration)- are internally motivated to fill any logical gaps and connect any loose threads they observe in ways that fit their existing models. If the number of missing or loose elements in one’s model reaches a critical mass (probably differing from individual to individual) there will occur a state of cognitive dissonance which is generally perceived as uncomfortable by the individual- causing corrective action to be taken by switching to another model- one which better supports all observations (including especially those regarding elements which were originally perceived as missing or disconnected).

People also share their observations with other people in their social networks- gradually filling in the missing parts in everyone’s models- which may take some time. But when the asbestos settles and all the observations are spread throughout the entire populus, any official story which still possesses significant observable missing pieces or loose threads will generate some speculation, and the amount of speculation proferred will be in direct relation to the number of such anomalies- as observed by the population as a whole. Any such speculation which results in an alternate and internally-consistent model may be called a “theory.” Granted, many of the theories you hear are even more illogical than the stories they propose to replace, but that’s the nature of exploratory endeavors such as science and detective work. Without theories, there could be no tests, no investigations, no progress, no closure.

Paying deliberate and corrective attention to the veracity and applicability of one’s model- what some call “modeltesting”- is a fundamental trait of intelligence and a big part of what it means to be conscious. Like science itself- the ultimate embodiment of collective human intellectual power- modeltesting proceeds both deductively and inductively, projecting its hypotheses both forward and backward. Like science it is constantly “retuning” itself and receiving feedback from outside sources, simultaneously providing feedback for the models of other individuals. Such an act would only be ridiculed by an anti-intellectual, and would only be discouraged by a criminal.

[to be continued...]

NOTE TO DEBUNKERS: Instead of tossing out the attempted perjorative “conspiracy theory” all the time, the skeptical advocate might try substituting the phrase “suspicion of undisclosed communications.” What this phrase lacks in brevity- it more than makes up for in tact.

It’s a hit! “We Are Not Alone – The David Icke Video Mashup” has been viewed 743 times as of this writing (August 17, 2006)*, and that’s only counting the ones that came through my version of the OTM link. To all you webmasters and Icke fans out there who are distributing the video, I give my heartfelt thanks- you are helping this video reach more people than I could by myself- and that means that David’s words are reaching a whole new group of people. It is good to know- indeed- that I Am Not Alone.

More Ways to Get It:

Not that I’ve been slacking off, however! I’m making sure that “We Are Not Alone” is available in a variety of formats for different systems. Here are the latest versions:

iTunes:

“We Are Not Alone” is now available in the Videos section of iTunes. For more information on downloading the mashup to play on your iPod, go to http://www.apple.com/itunes

YouTube:

The mashup is now also available at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYtqHqyrfvo

Big Fat MP4:

If you want to download the MP4 file (26mB)- click HERE (Rightclick / Save Target As).

Your Website:

And of course, you are welcome to insert the mashup in your own website! To do so, just copy and paste the following code into your page:

<CENTER><embed src=http://www.onetruemedia.com/share_view_player?p=fbdd24ea1b260756baaa3 quality=high scale=noscale width=388 height=317 wmode=transparent name=FLVPlayer salign=LT flashvars=&p=fbdd24ea1b260756baaa3&skin_id=1008&host=http://www.onetruemedia.com type=application/x-shockwave-flash pluginspage=http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer></embed><br /> <div style=padding-left:2px;font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:6px;color:#000;padding-top:0px;height:11px;text-align:center;width:388px>Video Mashup: Ben Nisetar<BR>Home: <A href=http://www.they-live.com/ target=_blank>they-live.com</A><BR>Music: Martin Noakes<BR>Spoken Word: David Icke<BR><a href=http://www.onetruemedia.com/create?&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=embed target=_blank >www.onetruemedia.com</a></div></CENTER>

Old-School:

If you just want to view the original version, you’ll find it HERE.

UPDATE:

* Make that a little over 7,000 times (October 11, 2006). Can I get a woot woot?