Cults and you
Not long ago the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? arrived on the shelves of video stores here. For some reason, Hastings had quite a few copies available for rent, though happily the vast majority of them were in when I looked. I’ve been sort of torn about whether to rent it and watch it, contributing money in some minor way to the people that made it, or to just ignore it. At this point, I probably won’t rent it, but it is fun to point and laugh at the central figure (more so behind the scenes): J.Z. Knight.
Skeptico has a long review, with links to other articles about it. It’s quite thorough and I’m not exactly going to point out anything new here, but it’s just so bizarre to me that anyone takes this seriously and I wanted to share the silliness.
Who is J.Z. Knight? Just some lady from Washington. However, she has an interesting ability. She can channel Ramtha. Who is Ramtha?
Ramtha is a 35,000 year-old spirit-warrior who appeared in J.Z. Knight’s kitchen in Tacoma, Washington in 1977.
Ramtha is, of course, from Atlantis.
Knight not only has rewritten the book on neurology, she has also rewritten the book on archaeology and history. The world was not at all like the scholars of the world say it was 35,000 years ago. We were not primitive hunters and gatherers who liked to paint in caves. No, there were very advanced civilizations around then. It doesn’t matter that there is no evidence for this, because Knight has rewritten the book of evidence as well. Evidence is what appears to you, even in visions and hallucinations and delusions. Evidence is anything you feel like making up.
If you decide you want to have a personal conversation with Ramtha, you’ll have to go through J.Z. Knight. Not just because this is all a sham, but because Knight has copyrighted the right to contact him:
VIENNA — A medium and author has won the sole right to “contact” a 30,000-year-old spirit.
Judy Z. Knight, an American, claims to have close spiritual ties with Ramtha, who she says has relayed messages to her since 1978.
But in September 1992, she claims, her psychic channel became ”disturbed” by Judith Ravell of Berlin, who says she started contacting Ramtha about that time.
The legal battle has been dragged through Austria’s courts for three years.
The country’s supreme court has awarded copyright to Knight and ordered Ravell to drop her claim to be in contact with Ramtha. Ravell has held several seminars and festivals in Salzburg at which she has passed on what she claims to be the spirit’s messages.
Carl Sagan wonders:
And if Ramtha came from the “high civilization” of Atlantis, where are the linguistic, technological, historical, and other details? What was their writing like? Tell us. Instead, all we are offered are banal homilies.
But hey, maybe Ramtha is on to something. From the movie:
No woman who had an abortion has sinned against God. Fuck all those assholes who tell you that.
Well, shit. Ramtha thinks abortion is ok, he must be real.
Knight has set up a school for Ramtha’s wisdom, called Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment. Hey, introductory talks are free! Also, Knight apparently sells Elfin Magical Capes, as linked on the bottom of the SoE page.
Ramtha’s SoE appears to be, essentially, a cult and Bleep an infomercial for it. If this is “a film for the religious left” (according to the director), the religious left is even sillier than that religious right (though not as dangerous).
A friend recommended What the Bleep to us, and the only thing we found more ridiculous than Ramtha was the chiropractor doing quantum physics and biochemical neurology.
Dr. Joe Dispenza, right? He’s a “student” of Ramtha, also.
Knight’s been around for ages (almost 35,000!) … back in 1987 Garry Trudeau made fun of her and Ramtha when Boopsie channelled a 21,355 year old warrior named Hunk-Ra. From August 3, 1987:
Narrator: “Lord Hunk-Ra, very good-looking both on and off the field of battle … is slain, ignominiously by a treacherous manservant. 21,000 years later, Hunk-Ra, like so many of his peers from ancient civilizations … surfaces in California.”
Boopsie/Hunk-Ra: “Heed me, O Women of Malibu! Get Good Help!”
BD: “That’s it Ladies. Make your checks out to the Hunk.”
Later, Boopsie wants to start Hunk-Ra’s world tour on August 16, because of the Harmonic Convergence that was supposed to occur.
BD: “She wants it to coincide with some big New Age event. I forget the name, something like ‘Moronic Convergence.”
Ramtha, or JZ if you prefer, is all about empowering people. We all interact with the quantum field every day. We choose our lives experiences, by the thoughts we entertain on a moment to moment basis. Ramtha teaches his students that they are divine beings, the creators of their lives, rather than the Innocent victims of circumstance. Personally I think that’s a rather noble occupation. He/She should earn a good living.I have a lot more respect for someone like that than any Lawyer the makes victims of innocent people, or sets murderers free.
So, what? There are plenty of self-help therapies that don’t resort to claims as absurd as Knight’s.
You don’t have a shred of evidence for that. Just for fun, explain “quantum field.”
So what? She doesn’t have any evidence for it.
If it were true, maybe. We’re nowhere near that point, however.
I’m sure Knight does very well for herself. I guess she does have to eat for two.
You know, the last person I had on here defending supernatural nonsense had an irrational dislike of lawyers, too. Strange. Eh, everyone hates lawyers until they need one, I guess.
This phenominon seems vaugely similar to the Salem witch hunt days where 3 young girls worked themselves into a frenzy and actually began to believe what they were doing was real.
It is very interesting that people, who A) Have no idea what they are talking about, and B) no insite view, are judging something that they haven’t even experienced for themselves. You need prove, that is only because you doubt and you have no understanding. But let me tell you, if you want prove go to the school and find out for yourself and you will be able to see and experience the truth and evidence on yourself. But I think it is more noble to brag about something that you have no idea of just to have an opinion. Well show some very interesting mind set. Might ponder that a bit. I call that ignorance.
I have no idea what I’m talking about, yet you don’t point out where I’m wrong? Cute.
“You need prove, that is only because you doubt and you have no understanding.”
What, exactly, am I misunderstanding? Way to make vague, unsubstantiated claims.
What’s wrong with doubt? Without doubt, good ideas are overrun by nonsense.
“But let me tell you, if you want prove go to the school and find out for yourself and you will be able to see and experience the truth and evidence on yourself.”
Sorry, I don’t like wasting my money. I would have to see a reason why Knight isn’t like all the other mediums, who offer nothing but generalities and trite advice to spend that kind of money. The fact that “What the Bleep” appears to be quite a scientifically illiterate movie and that Ramtha’s pontifications are contradicted by the evidence indicate that Knight is the same as all the others.
“But I think it is more noble to brag about something that you have no idea of just to have an opinion. Well show some very interesting mind set. Might ponder that a bit. I call that ignorance.”
Assuming I’m interpreting your butchering of the English language correctly, I call it gathering the facts (which you don’t seem to take issue with), then forming an opinion. If Knight was really channeling some being called Ramtha, she would do a lot better on initial inspection. She did terribly, so I’m fairly satisfied she’s a fake.
But hey, if she came around here and did demonstrations for free, I’d go. Just don’t expect me to ignore the evidence I can gather without doing so.
well, the physics behind most of the movie is true, and if you don’t think so then start reading books written by the physicists who back up this information. As for the the claim that Ramtha and his/her/it’s school of enlightenment, does it really matter if SHE is legit or not?? besides, who do you think the movie creators think they are fooling?? they KNEW it was controversial, they KNEW people would be looking up every small detail about their movie, and they KNEW there would be people trying to disprove every facet of the movie itself. But really, whether you believe in this Ramtha character or not, Transcendental Meditation is very real, and is indeed a way to get in touch with the physical FACTS in this movie. Also, to live a healthy life, you must have faith in SOMETHING or else your entire life is all about disproving theories that you believe are insubstantial bullshit…well i mean there’s no PROOF that Jesus walked on water, or was the son of God yet Christianity is one of the widest-spread religions in the world and why?? because in time, it has grown to become a vehicle that help people live healthy lives. at its time it was ridiculed as well, as was every religion to come about. they were all unaccepted. now im not using this as an excuse, but just render it as a possibility, and im not talking about Ramtha, im talking about the principles in the movie, not talking about going to Ramtha’s school. If it works for certain people, let it work, it has nothing to do with you so why should you care? So you can tell people that they’re following something false? At least they have faith in something that makes them want to become better people. i respect your doubt because you’re absolutely right, without doubt good ideas are overrun by nonsense, i agree with that. but seriously man, i’d MUCH rather believe in this so called “left” of religion than support the obviously treacherous right side of politics, and i think that right now, that right side of politics is certainly more harmful to the mind than any kind of following whether it be religion, spirituality, or existentialism that at least advocates a happy, eye-opening lifestyle.
Can you name a physicst who supports the “science” in that movie? I sorta doubt it, considering the one real physicist used in the movie absolutely disagrees with the content and was dishonestly edited to make it seem like he did.
Of course it does. Knight uses Ramtha to give her crackpot ideas authority.
Yeah, but they don’t really care about those people. They care about the New Age yuppies who’ll lap it up. Besides, they can always say skeptics are close-minded and leave it at that, and plenty of people will be satisfied.
TM is a crock. Meditation is fine, why cloak it in psuedoscience?
You need faith to live a healthy life? Honestly, where do you people get this stuff?
Because believing in things blindly is a bad thing. If you throw out evidence and reason, you’re open to all sorts of frauds, fakes, and dangerous ideologies. You might lose your money, you might get yourself killed, you might get someone else killed. I’d rather not see that happen to innocent people. That’s why I care.
Why do you need to have faith to become a better person? Are secularists terrible people?
That sounds a lot like “I’m a skeptic, too, but…” If you agree with me, why are you not in favor of applying it?
I do agree that right-wing fundamentalism causes more direct harm, but this left-wing New Age claptrap is, in the end, almost as dangerous. If we give up critical thinking, we’re doomed.
I’ll close with this: if you think all that matters is that something “works” for someone, then drop the pretense of these things being backed up by factual information. You defended the movie as being factually correct, but then attacked me for wanting these things to be based on facts. Either the truth of their claims is important or it isn’t. Why not advocate that these kinds of people be honest and defend their practices soley on the grounds that it makes your life better. If it’s a good thing, it doesn’t need lies and distortions to support it.
Brain Dead
Ralph Bianco
Concerning Dr. Joe Dispenza’s “Evolve Your Brain” presentation at Pagosa Springs High School this past weekend, there is considerably more about the inner workings of the human brain that the doctor failed to reveal.
It is unfortunate that so many of the mentally and physically disabled are exposed to alleged miracle breakthrough technologies promising incredible remediation that conventional medicine has yet to attain. Indeed, has Dr. Dispenza actually discovered a method to regenerate neural cells that has evaded the world’s leading laboratories and scientists in the field at Columbia and McGill Universities, The National Institute of Health and the Barrow Neurological Institute? One need only look at the facts that a simple Internet Google search might provide.
Doctor Dispenza has no advanced degree in the field of neurology and, in fact, has a degree in chiropractic from an unaccredited institution (Life University, Atlanta). He is an acknowledged disciple of “Ramtha,” the 35,000 year-old goddess of enlightenment. Dr. David Albert, a leading authority in theoretical physics and referenced in “What the Bleep…” disputes Dispenza’s assertions and claims his work was misrepresented.
Insofar as the local Pagosa Springs promoter is concerned, Ms. Suzin Daniel has past promoted numerous New Age concepts including psychic surgery, inner-child therapy, and various mind enlightening protocols. As a distributor of an untested and unapproved “brain food” supplement, she was sanctioned by the FDA and ordered to cease all sales and marketing of the product.
For the chronically disabled and their families, the canard of potential miracle cures is irresistible. But to not clearly articulate the background, facts and probabilities of success surrounding such claims only serves to inflict further unnecessary emotional pain and suffering. Moreover, it is imperative that full disclosure precede or accompany any and all such revelation. Dr. Dispenza’s failure to do so indicates his brain has not evolved to the extent he needs.