Blog — September, 2005

The only time I can think that there vaguely was that kind of ["third form"] breakthrough [of being your own person, not needing to rely on the systems that are in place, and being successful and finding your audience in popular music] ... was in the late sixties, literally the sixties. Now, most of what people call the sixties was the seventies, but I'm talking about 1966, 1967, 1968. There was such a rush of raw rock-and-roll energy that you could almost get that third form. You could get some groups like Ray Davies and the Kinks that were just genius, and had a fair bit of commercial success.

—Ken Wilber, speaking with Billy Corgan (~12:20 - 13:05)

The worst thing about the [Kinks' self-titled 1964 debut] album by far was its liner notes. In the early sixties, music fans were patronised beyond belief—the record companies considered them almost as ignorant and uneducated as the groups themselves! So the idea was hatched ... to create a humorous sketch on the letter K. It went cringingly like this: "The Kinks, when they are knot making records or doing one-knight stands, are kampaigning to restore the K to its right and knoble place..." and continued even more embarrassingly; "First, the letter K should never be silent in words such as knee, know and knockout; secondly, where possible, K should be substituted for C in pronunciation...."

—Neville Marten & Jeffrey Hudson,
The Kinks: Well Respected Men, p. 44

So that's where Ken/Cen Wilber gets his "kosmic-with-a-k" fixation from!

Note that that same debut album from Ray and Dave Davies contained the songs "Bald Headed Woman" and "I've Been Driving On Bald Mountain."

Coincidence?

(The scary thing is that pure coincidences and mere after-the-fact pattern-finding like the above, if they occur in any spiritual context, are invariably taken as indicating kosmically meaningful "synchronicities." In Integral Wilber World, as everywhere else.)

Isn't that how they made 54*40's Neil Osborne, too?

Well, at least Kermit can sing; not so for Mr. Osborne, as his wildly unpitched performance of "One Gun" in The House at Wilber Corner has demonstrated. On every chorus, he's vocally sliding up to the notes rather than hitting them directly ... if he hits them at all.

Three cheers, then, for the studio wizardry that makes it seem like people such as Osborne and Bryan Adams can actually sing. (I've only heard Adams live once, doing the national anthem for a sporting event. The thinnest, tinniest little voice you'd ever want to have to sit through. Yet, he's actually sung with Luciano Pavarotti, as has Meat Loaf. Peter Gabriel was invited once, too, but didn't feel he was worthy.)

But then, apparently even one of the "three tenors" needs to have in-studio pitch correction done on his voice. (No, I don't know which one is the culprit, among Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras. It was at a public demonstration of a superior-to-Autotune Pro Tools plug-in that that information was given.)

This is why it's so important that scientists get enough sleep.

Nice, huh? Not only was the "saint" sleeping (platonically) with teenage girls, chances are that he was hooked on (natural) tranquilizers, too. What's amazing, then, is not his calm public face, but his documented private temper!

Well, at least he wasn't hopped-up on whatever the active ingredient is in Viagra. Unlike some people....

On the Howard Stern show in the States in early 2002, [Ozzy Osbourne] revealed that he was addicted to Viagra, taking up to fifteen pills a day. He had started using them to boost his flagging sex life after being unable to make love for a month, but said he enjoyed the taste so much that he couldn't stop chewing them.

—Sue Crawford, Ozzy Unauthorized, p. 173

Betcha didn't know that "The Beatles were brought to the United States as part of a social experiment which would subject large population groups to brainwashing of which they were not even aware." Or that the Fab Four "had Theo Adorno write their cult lyrics and compose all the 'music.'"

Did ya?

Well, more realistically, I didn't know that Aleister Crowley (the one-time "Wickedest Man in the World") is placed right next to Sri Yukteswar (Paramahansa Yogananda's guru) on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's.

From False Testament: Archaeology Refutes the Bible's Claim to History:

Not long ago, archaeologists could agree that the Old Testament, for all its embellishments and contradictions, contained a kernel of truth....

That is no longer the case. In the last quarter century or so, archaeologists have seen one settled assumption after another concerning who the ancient Israelites were and where they came from proved false. Rather than a band of invaders who fought their way into the Holy Land, the Israelites are now thought to have been an indigenous culture that developed west of the Jordan River around 1200 B.C. Abraham, Isaac, and the other patriarchs appear to have been spliced together out of various pieces of local lore....

Not only is there no evidence that any such figure as Abraham ever lived but archaeologists believe that there is no way such a figure could have lived given what we now know about ancient Israelite origins....

Although Johnson writes that the story of Moses had to be true because it "was beyond the power of the human mind to invent," [oy vey!] we now know that Moses was no more historically real than Abraham before him.

Sigh. To quote Steve Martin, "I don't think I'd believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch."

If a group of pathological liars, desperate to believe in Santa Claus, were to start a religion, and have it credulously inherited by their children, and by their children's children, what would it look like?

Just look around you: Whether you're in the midst of Christians, Yogananda-ites—his Autobiography of a Yogi is a fine piece of ghost-written fiction, little more than that—Wilber-ites, or whatever, it's all, as they used to say back on the farm, "Same shit, different pile." (Yes, I know that ancient people had a different concept of history than we do. The point is that they might as well have been pathological liars. And in the case of Yogananda and Wilber, well, they can't even hide behind that [ancient] idea to excuse their many deceptions, can they?)

And also this:

Back in the days when archaeology was buttressing the old biblical tales, the relationship between science and religion had warmed considerably; now the old chill has crept back in.

See? What'd I say?

There is more insight demonstrated by Natalie on this page, regarding the nature of cults, just from using her common sense, than you will find in a full week's worth of postings by the "experts" on the average cult discussion or rationalists' board.

Natalie, "whoever" you are: You rock! In all seriousness, the average "expert" in cult studies—invariably wedded to the foolish idea that his or her "safe, orthodox" religion can't have anything meaningfully in common with any "dangerous groups"—doesn't see things even half as clearly as you do.

Anyway, I stumbled on that page trying to find out whether the question "Did you ever go Clear?" in Leonard Cohen's (1971) "Famous Blue Raincoat" is a Scientology reference. It is:

Cohen's dislocated situation in New York led him to exploring different sexual, spiritual and pharmaceutical pathways, and one was scientology. In 1968, as he was driving down sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, with Joni Mitchell, she spotted a building with a number of women wearing saris and handing out material. Above the door a large sign which read "Scientology". "What is Scientology?" she asked Cohen. "Oh, some crackpot religion," he replied. A few weeks later, he called form New York to say that he'd joined them and that they were going to rule the world. But a few months later, Cohen told Mitchell he was disenchanted and that he'd had some difficulty extricating himself from it. Initially, Scientology offered the goal of a "clear path", ("Did you ever go clear?" he asks in "Famous Blue Raincoat"). Cohen had also heard that it was a good place to meet women. On June 17th, 1968, Cohen received a Scientology certificate awarding him "Grade IV - release." (Ira Nadel, Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen, p. 160).

Tori Amos does a jaw-dropping piano-and-vocal cover of the song on the Tower of Song: Songs of Leonard Cohen tribute album, by the way. Which I only found out about because Peter Gabriel contributed a cover of "Suzanne" to the same disc.

And I only found out about that because it's listed in Scott McMahan's Genesis Discography.

I've been slogging through that 475-page PDF because it has clues as to the meaning of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, even though most of the interpretations miss the mark quite badly, forcing an exoteric Christian interpretation onto a storyline which was written from an esoteric yogic perspective.

Oh, and it's been suggested that the character of Suzanne mentioned in the title song for that album is an allusion to Cohen's classic song.

Yeah, that's how that all got started....

From the Skeptical Investigations website:

The False Dilemma between Neo-Darwinism and Intelligent Design

In a new paper Ted Dace contends that the dispute between the rival views of evolution is between two failed theories. The mechanistic ideology of Neo-Darwinism weakens the case for evolution and leaves the field clear for Creationism. Sheldrake and Elsasser have found a basis for the inheritance of adaptations making this endless clash of ideologies redundant.

Exercise for anyone with even a high-school knowledge of how evolution works: Poke SUV-sized holes in the following, embarrassingly wilber-esque objections to neo-Darwinian evolution, from the same paper:

The Hyacinth macaw can crack a nut with its beak that you or I would need a sledgehammer to open. Is all that colossal strength nothing more than a side-effect of a chance mutation in the macaw’s genetic toolkit? How many millions of such coding mistakes had to come and go before the right one announced itself, and at last the bird got its meal?

So stupendously unlikely is the perfect mutation at the perfect time that calculating the odds against it taking place even once exceeds our imaginative capacity. It is, in fact, a miracle.

Note that Wilber has since (unconvincingly) claimed that he was deliberately oversimplifying his comparable presentation of the mechanism of evolution—and thus intentionally deceiving his readers—in a book intended for the general public (A Brief History of Everything). Yet, his cohorts in "integral skepticism" (ha!) quite clearly believe exactly what he claims to have purposely wrongly presented.

Whether or not any of the other avant-garde claims made in Dace's paper are valid, when perfect nonsense (or deliberate lies, take your pick) like the above is presented as if it were insightful wisdom, one is being generous in even reading further.

It is frequently not at all easy to tell which side of the skeptic vs. believer debate is telling you the truth (cf. Sheldrake vs. Richard Wiseman, or Sheldrake vs. Randi). Blatant misrepresentations like the above from Dace, though, make it a little easier.

Interestingly, Sheldrake, Brian Josephson, Larry Dossey and Gary Schwartz are all "Associates and Advisors" of the same Skeptical Investigations group. Dossey and Schwartz are also both founding members of Wilber's Daffy Integral Institute.

So, presumably we can look forward to Dace's paper being proudly featured on Wilber University, when that institute of unlearning finally goes public ... somewhere near the end of time, perhaps.

Phrase of the day:

... showing about as much respect for the band name as Paul Revere of the revered Paul Revere and the Raiders has shown for the name Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Eat some crackers, then say it fast ten times.

For an excellent satirical take on the response of George Bush and company to the Katrina hurricane tragedy in New Orleans, be a dear and do check out the website of "America's Best Christian," Betty Bowers.

This is also very good. And this.

George Bush: The "Ken Wilber of politics." If there are two bigger experts in North America on "fucking up in public," at least they have brains enough to cover their tracks. Not so for those two.

Well, the reviews of my chapter on Vivekananda in STG are in. And they don't look good:

I just now read your artical [sic] on Swami Vivekananda. This is really the first artical [sic] I have been able to find where someone has attempted to criticize Vivekananda. You have really disappointed me. You could not find anything in his life to criticize—you actually praised him. Better luck next time.

Huh? Huh?? No: you see, the "praise" in that article (sp, ok?) was just the absurd claims to divinity and the world-saving plans, etc., which have been made by Vivekananda himself and by others on his behalf. And in the context of 40+ other similar figures throughout the rest of the book, each of whom was just as "divine" and world-saving (and just as dysfunctional) as the Great Vivekananda, that "praise" (from others, not from me) might actually rightly be seen by even a minimally astute reader as being somewhat ... oh, I don't know ... friggin' ironic, maybe?

Well, I'll try to be more relentlessly negative in the future, if that's what trend-setting fellows like this want; but it won't be easy.

There's just no pleasing some people. And, of course, God forbid that such "experts" should know enough to keep their displeasure to themselves. Sheesh.

What it reminds me of is when Peter Gabriel was listing the credits for drums, vocals, etc., in one of his solo albums. Some hayseed critic in Kansas took him to serious task for having listed "Prophet" for himself. Cause obviously PG was no old-testament prophet, and he had no business claiming to be one! Never mind that Prophet was also a best-selling brand of synthesizer, back in the analog day.

It always helps to get one's elementary facts straight before spouting off about how others have "failed" to meet one's own "stringent standards."

Ever heard the phrase, "The easiest way to prove a man a fool is to let him speak his mind"? It applies to Vivekananda, as to all gurus; and apparently to some of their critics, as well.

Other skeptical critics, of course, have dissed my ironic/sarcastic asides in STG as ostensibly making me sound like I'm tiresomely "complaining about my ex-wife after a nasty divorce." Now, this opinionated bugger can't get enough!

Can't ... fucking ... win. 'Cause you may recall that just a few days ago the editor of the Wikipedia entry on Vivekananda nixed my attempt to link from his precious page to the same "praising" chapter, as it evidently wasn't nearly praising enough for his "believer" tastes.

I have not "praised" Vivekananda. But, like the clue-deficient (but nonetheless vocal) man says, "Better luck next time." Sigh....

Best things about singer/songwriter Stuart Davis?

• He's Ken Wilber's best friend (awww....), to the point of marrying his (third) ex-wife, Marci

• He's got Rupert Hine producing his forthcoming album

• In his "Universe Communion" song (from the Self-Untitled album) he makes it clear that he genuinely believes that the Dagon (actually Dogon, but anyway) tribe in Africa independently obtained knowledge of the existence of the Sirius B star without the use of telescopes, etc. (The standard "explanation" for that dubious "fact" is that they learned of the existence of that companion star either via contact with amphibious aliens, or via their claimed "telescopic vision." That hypothesized vision was ostensibly due to the peoples' high concentrations of melanin. The former amphibious-alien conjecture comes largely from Robert Temple's book The Sirius Mystery, first published in the mid-1970s.) Even better, Davis' credulous exposition is given alongside an utterly ignorant diatribe against the limitations of "arrogant science" to account for such acquisition of knowledge as the Dogon supposedly demonstrated

The Sirius B idea has been debunked in so many places it's almost funny. Start with The Skeptic's Dictionary, Ridpath's 1978 article from the Skeptical Inquirer, even the aspects of Wikipedia that aren't under Goethean's control. (He also administers the Stuart Davis page, there.)

Interesting accusations about James Randi having fabricated some of the "data" in his own (Flim-Flam!) debunkings of the Dogon claims, though. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if he had. The more I learn about that man and his work, the more he strikes me as being the "Wilber of skepticism." That is, as being someone who is seen as working at the very top of his field, who will nevertheless make things up out of thin air at the drop of a hat, even in his edited writings, if it allows him to be "right" and to "prove" others wrong.

Anyway, human potential is supposedly being "choked under the scientific yoke," in Davis' uninformed view. Yet, it's only that same "scientific yoke" that allows one to sort fact from fiction ... and to place the Dogon-related claims firmly in the latter category. (Never mind that if the Dogon or anyone else had actually been in contact with amphibious aliens, the latter could only have come to Earth in spaceships which were simply applications of their own science! Or have our own world's mystics ever succeeded in materializing a spaceship for their travels?)

And Lord: Davis says that "Universe Communion" was "inspired by John E. Mack's wonderful book Abduction, which I recommend to anyone open to new possibilities of what we perceive as reality."

John E. Mack? Oh, dear.... It ain't reality, Stu. If you think it is, it's no wonder that you can't see how kw is bullshitting you. "With best friends like that...."

"Is our [scientific] arrogance a deafening fear of what we'll have to hear?" Uh, no. The "deafening fear" of the arrogant integral community (including Mr. Davis) when confronted with things which they don't want to hear, though....

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