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Micah Hanks, H. P. Lovecraft Accused of (Separate) Efforts to Suppress Truth about Giants, Theosophy

8/11/2014

176 Comments

 
Today I have two topics to discuss. The first is rather amusing in its way. You’ll remember Micah Hanks, the researcher into “giants” who published some criticism of me just about one year ago in which he took exception to my evaluation of claims for a Smithsonian conspiracy to suppress the existence of giants, not because there was any conspiracy but because giants are real. Anyway, a year later Hanks returned to Coast to Coast AM to discuss giants, and he was surprised that listeners accused him of being part of the conspiracy to suppress the truth about a lost race of Bible giants when he declined to endorse the most wide-ranging conspiracies:
Some have even tried to assert that I’m working to aid in a “scam of disinformation,” as one listener put it in an email, while others still have reported that I’ve intentionally overlooked discussion of skeletons that exceed nine feet in height, perhaps as part of some personal agenda I’m withholding from the public.
Hanks found himself in the position of defending the claim that humans between six and half and nine feet tall once existed in “numbers greater than today,” but not as a separate race, while denying that there was a genetically separate race of giants, or humans over nine feet tall.

This is very similar to Dr. Greg Little’s claim that the “giants” were between six foot six and roughly eight foot six, though he prefers to see them as a separate race.

I wonder what’s behind the move to downgrade the giants. For Hanks, it is plausibility: “Sadly, in my opinion many Americans are riddled with a variety of pathological thinking that caters to learning what we want to hear, rather than what the facts entail… and this leads to conspiracy theories.” But why should we necessarily trust an account from 1874, and not this one from Giovanni Boccaccio from 1374? “…those who can determine the total height of a man from the size of even the smallest of his bones calculated from this remnant that his size was two hundred cubits or more” (Genealogia deorum gentilium 4.68, my trans.). There were witnesses, after all. You don’t believe in a 300-foot giant? Absent the bones in both cases, what makes one old record claiming abnormal height more believable than another except for your trust in people making the record, trust that other errors and problems with Victorian science may not bear out?

Hanks believes that newspapers are untrustworthy, but earlier Smithsonian records are. Hanks discusses how believers in the giant skeletons are wrong to use old newspaper accounts, but that evidence exists in the form of “actual records for large skeletons in the Smithsonian archives that corresponded with newspaper reports.” The trouble is that those records from the late 1800s may or may not correspond to actual bones as we might measure them today. The people who collected them and wrote the records were, by and large, not professional anthropologists and often enough not formally trained in science or medicine, and we have no idea how they measured the overall height of a disarticulated skeleton. Accession labels often reflect whatever was given in the field report, whether or not it corresponded to reality. And when these records are corrected—as in the case of the famous Arkansas stone coffins that were relabeled (correctly) as wooden troughs—fringe writers cry conspiracy, as David Childress did when Frederick Pohl found that the stone coffins had been wrongly labeled.

A Cthulhu Conspiracy
On another topic,Christopher Loring Knowles, author of Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes (2007), wrote a piece on the origins of the Cthulhu Mythos that made two unusual claims and then used them to “shovel dirt on” what Knowles wrongly sees as (apparently) my claim that Lovecraft invented ancient astronauts. He didn’t invent them; he popularized them and gave shape to a nebula of half-formed earlier claims from Theosophy to Garrett P. Serviss to Charles Fort. He was instrumental, though, in creating the specific version of the ancient astronaut theory, as developed by Pauwels and Bergier and their copyists.

Knowles’s Spandex attempted to make the case that superheroes emerged from a combination of ancient mythology and Theosophy during the pulp era. He therefore has an interest in promoting the primacy of Theosophy, as we shall see.

The first claim is that Lovecraft derived much of the plot and color for “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926) from Jack London’s “The Red One,” an early ancient astronaut story that ran in Cosmopolitan magazine in October 1918. I discussed this claim briefly last year when I added “The Red One” to my Library. The long and short of it is that Lovecraft certainly did read stories by Jack London, but there is no specific evidence that he read this one, though it is likely he did. How much he took from it, though, is debatable since the “unique” elements Knowles points to—the island setting, the strange carvings, etc.—were already present in Lovecraft’s story “Dagon,” written in 1917 (but not published until 1919) and widely acknowledged to be a dry run for “Cthulhu,” and the concept of cosmic beings coming to earth and leaving tribespeople in awe was already the subject of J.-H. Rosny aine’s “The Xipéhuz.”

The second claim is less secure. Knowles claims that Lovecraft was more deeply familiar with Theosophy than the evidence warrants. Knowles asserts similarities to the work of Alice Bailey, the Theosophist who claimed that aliens from Sirius had induced the evolution of humans from the apes. Lovecraft himself was quite clear that he had very little direct knowledge of Theosophy beyond what he read in W. Scott-Elliot’s omnibus edition of The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria (1925), which contained all of the alien intervention claims one would need to generate the Cthulhu Mythos. It is the reason he referenced Theosophy seven times in “Cthulhu.” He read the book in early 1926, just before writing “Cthulhu,” which is fairly strong evidence of influence.

Scott-Elliott, for example, had written of “Beings who came from the Venus system as rulers and teachers,” who brought wheat to the earth, ruled over its people as gods, and raised cyclopean cities and statues to their own honor in the most ancient of days. He wrote of how the alien races could transfer their consciousness to earthlings—a theme Lovecraft recycled frequently! Sound familiar? Lovecraft did not hide this borrowing.

Anyway, Lovecraft made quite clear that he had little other direct knowledge beyond what his correspondent E. Hoffman Price provided to him long after writing “Cthulhu,” as he admits in a letter of February 18, 1933 to Clark Ashton Smith:
Price has dug up another cycle of actual folklore involving an allegedly primordial thing called The Book of Dzyan, which is supposed to contain all sorts of secrets of the Elder World before the sinking of Kusha (Atlantis) and Shalmali (Lemuria). It is kept at the Holy City of Shamballah, and is regarded as the oldest book in the world—its language being Senzar (ancestor of Sanscrit), which was brought to earth 18,000,000 years ago by the Lords of Venus. I don’t know where E. Hoffmann got hold of this stuff, but it sounds damn good…
Now we have a problem. Lovecraft claims in 1933 not to have known about Theosophy and its myths, yet he wrote “Cthulhu” in 1926. Thus he could not have explicitly based “Cthulhu” on Alice Bailey’s work, except for the parts that filtered to him (largely unknowingly) through Scott-Elliot. Only later did he learn more from Price. That later influence is especially strong in Price’s contributions to the joint collaboration “Through the Gates of the Silver Key,” which is markedly more Theosophical than “Cthulhu,” describing chains of beings and other supernatural claptrap familiar from Theosophy. (Price’s role vis-à-vis Theosophy can be seen by comparing the published story to Price’s original draft, later published as “The Lord of Illusion.” The Theosophical material is all his.)

So how does Knowles deal with the chronological trouble?
I would suggest that it's highly probable Lovecraft had access to this literature and it's possible he was keeping it secret from his circle of correspondents (or at least some of them), most likely to safeguard a source for material.
Yes, it’s a conspiracy. The man who wouldn’t shut up about every possible source for weird fiction supposedly conspired to keep his vast knowledge of Theosophy secret—from his correspondents, like Price, who already knew of it!

Knowles goes on to cite Lovecraft’s professed excitement at discovering Theosophical material (secondhand) in 1933 as evidence that he somehow used it in 1926. Knowles even has the gumption to suggest that elements of Theosophy that appear in Besant but not Lovecraft or Scott-Elliot were purposely rejected by Lovecraft! Parsimony would suggest he borrowed instead directly from Scott-Elliot.
Amazing. Lovecraft must have been confident his audience—young, male, nerdy—would never go near Theosophist literature, which was written for a largely older, mostly female audience. How else can you explain such brazen appropriation?
Well, it’s fiction for one thing, and fiction makes use of all sorts of influences to tell stories. (The plagiarism allegations against True Detective from taking influence from the non-fiction philosophy of Thomas Ligotti are ridiculous for similar reasons.)

But what takes the cake is that Knowles cites Robert M. Price’s article on Lovecraft and Theosophy which refutes Knowles’s own thesis with much of the evidence I just presented above!

Nevertheless, all of this, Knowles says, proves that Lovecraft borrowed the idea of ancient astronauts from Besant and thus did not, as he (without mentioning me by name) claims I say, invent ancient astronauts. (He cites Twelfth Planet as a favorite book and seems to have an interest in establishing a nonfiction basis for ancient astronauts.) But I don’t believe Lovecraft invented the concept. Even in my Cult of Alien Gods (2005), written long before I knew half as much as I do today, I specified that he derived the concept from the ancient astronauts of Charles Fort and Theosophy. What Lovecraft did was to give them a scientific-materialist (rather than spiritual-occult) cast and package them in a way that allowed them to transmit Theosophy’s claims to other artists, writers, thinkers, and hucksters. This is how the ancient astronaut theory ended up in Morning of the Magicians (1960), in which Pauwels and Bergier cite Lovecraft explicitly.

That’s why, for example, Lovecraft is more important to understanding ancient astronauts than Jack London or J.-H. Rosny aine. They didn’t inspire a nonfiction bestseller about ancient aliens. But if you are going to try to make an argument about Theosophy and Lovecraft, having your facts straight should be a prerequisite to rewriting a half century or more of Lovecraft scholarship based on a hunch and a gut feeling.

176 Comments
.
8/11/2014 08:18:06 am

i do feel that FDR did his darn*dest in the Oval Office to bring
into being issue One of SUPERMAN but then was bemused
when Batman arrives in GOTHAM. --- trust me, duckies... FDR
knew how to quote ole Nietzsche, too! he could be paternalistic
and patronizing in an Optimate manner. he has to have thought
it way coooooooool that HPL ends up voting for him! HPL has
had to have followed the Scopes Monkey Trial down in TENN
via H.L Mencken's magnificent prose poems to the universe!

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/430565/Optimates-and-Populares

Reply
.
8/11/2014 08:27:34 am

"That’s why, for example, Lovecraft is more important to understanding ancient astronauts than Jack London or
J.-H. Rosnyaine. They didn’t inspire a nonfiction bestseller
about ancient aliens. But if you are going to try to make
an argument about Theosophy and Lovecraft, having your
facts straight should be a prerequisite to rewriting a half
centuryor more of Lovecraft scholarship based on a hunch
and a gut feeling."

Jason's game, set and match point. Ken Ham's flooded
Edenic orchards were once in Doggerland and now are
no more. Once again, by comparison to LUCY of 3 million
plus years ago... ole Homo Heidelbergensis must have
seemed like and looked like a giant!!! lets don't namedrop
Gigantopithicus in this thread or blog area too often, folks!

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 08:46:19 am

Jason, I'm surprised you didn't point out (what I'm sure you're aware of) that Knowles's claim that

"Lovecraft must have been confident his audience—young, male, nerdy—would never go near Theosophist literature, which was written for a largely older, mostly female audience."

is historically unwarraned. Theosophy and related movements were sufficiently mainstream at the time to make unfounded any such hypothetical hope on Lovecraft's part. I don't know if there is any basis for claiming that Theosophist and related literature was written "for a largely older, female audience" (especially since a lot of it was written by men who were engaging in disputes with each other), but that in no way precludes Lovecraft's target audience from also having sufficient awareness of it. In fact, it sounds like a red herring. For the same reason, the claim that

"it's highly probable Lovecraft had access to this literature and it's possible he was keeping it secret from his circle of correspondents... most likely to safeguard a source for material."

is even more absurd. It would be like you deciding to keep "Worlds in Collision" a secret from the readers of your blog!

Reply
Gregor
8/11/2014 09:48:10 am

Obviously those statements *have* to be true, else Knowles' whole argument would fall apart!

...er ... wait ...

Reply
spookyparadigm
8/11/2014 09:57:23 am

To be fair, Theosophy did have a lot more followers/activists who were women in it, and that seems to have been part of its appeal. What the actual full demographics of those who followed it were, would be fascinating to know.

But among the several "really" moments is the author suggesting Lovecraft was thinking about his audience.

But really, I don't think you're going to get much traction. Unless you creatively play with the material to make it more ooky, you're going to be a "neckbeard" or "academic". I'll cop to the latter, and I probably qualify for the former, though I'm seriously considering shaving my beard off this weekend (for real).

Anyone focusing on Lovecraft's works and fan community and decrying neckbeardism is hilarious, given that if he and it existed today, that's _exactly_ what they'd be. They were fantasy nerds, and when others tried to suggest something more mystical to their works, Lovecraft and friends laughed at him. Example, William Lumley.

The only trickery by Lovecraft I'll buy is maybe Mariconda's idea that as he was in with Weird Tales, he was able to use both is own works and the revisions to try and fool his readers into thinking some of the creations were real. But again, that makes sense with how Lovecraft acted.

I'd love to see what guys like the Knowles makes of HPL asking for help finding more occult material since he had no idea what he was doing.

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EP
8/11/2014 10:33:35 am

"To be fair, Theosophy did have a lot more followers/activists who were women in it, and that seems to have been part of its appeal."

I don't know the demographics, but let us grant it for the sake of argument. That's what my "red herring" comment is in reference to. Just because the main market, so to speak, is one group, doesn't mean that another group (especially one that is MUCH smaller!) isn't sufficiently up to speed. What the intended or main audience was is irrelevant to whether "nerdy" young men were also sufficiently aware that ignorance could not have been sensible to presume.

spookyparadigm
8/11/2014 10:02:25 am

Now, as for Hanks, I'd give him a bit of a break. Yes, there is a logical inconsistency. But he's modifying his ideas to fit the evidence better and being more cautious than he was. That's good.

If I was cynical, I'd suggest he's trying to drop the giants because they're getting heavily incorporated into certain religious ideologies. They have their roots as Nephilim etc., but for much of the 20th century after Moundbuilders had largely disappeared but before our current runaway radical conspiracy culture merged with politicized religion, they were treated as archaeological anomalies not much different than the Loch Ness Monster (which at one time wasn't beloved of Creationists, at least not in a big way) or other "mysteries."

But a lot of "Fortean" stuff is being pushed out of a more secular or at most New Ageish frame, and into an anti-science one aligned with politicized religion. And that's not Hanks' beat.

But that's cynical. Like I said, cut the guy a little slack.

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spookyparadigm
8/11/2014 10:04:08 am

Oh, and as anyone who has watched or participated in conspiracy culture will tell you, being accused of being part of the conspiracy is a guarantee unless you go along with the most batshit out there theories.

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Gregor
8/11/2014 10:10:01 am

You either die a Zecharia Sitchin, or live long enough to see yousrelf become Bob Lazar.

For what it's worth, I appreciate your posts.

EP
8/11/2014 12:16:30 pm

"For what it's worth, I appreciate your posts."

Seconded. Just don't slack off, or else you might end up like Mr. Knowles right here... Who am I kidding, you'd never fall that low...

Christopher Knowles
8/11/2014 10:25:22 am

"The second claim is less secure. Knowles claims that Lovecraft was more deeply familiar with Theosophy than the evidence warrants. Knowles asserts similarities to the work of Annie Besant, the Theosophist who claimed that aliens from Sirius had induced the evolution of humans from the apes"


Annie Besant? Did you even read the piece? It's ALICE BAILEY. I'm not going to bother arguing with your circular reasoning- I already set out my arguments. Lovecraft cited the Dzyan material as a major interest and it's clear that Bailey's Dzyan stanzas show clear precedent for the Cthulhu Mythos. There are numerable unique aspects of Bailey's work that Lovecraft includes. Again, I'll let people read for themselves. I already got into this with you about The Red One.

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Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 10:59:19 am

This has to be some kind of record for a response... How often do you Google your own name?

My fault on the name... You wrote about Bailey, but I mistyped Besant's name because I'm more familiar with her work and they share the same initials. I've fixed it above.

My argument isn't circular but chronological. Wishing away the evidence that Lovecraft based "The Call of Cthulhu" on material from "The Lost Lemuria" won't change anything.

I don't recall "getting into this" with you over the "Red One." When was this?

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Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 11:05:43 am

I knew there was a reason I mixed up the names! "Besant" was too close to "Bassett," the character from "The Red One." I got the name stuck in my head... Sheesh!

.
8/11/2014 11:20:21 am

Jason, your Id is wondrously Freudian!

I think Mr. Knowles can see your leaps

concerning the synaptic associations!

tis an honest mistake. a major gaffe is

confusing edgar rice burroughs with

william burroughs. even your Id is neat.

EP
8/11/2014 11:24:22 am

"I took screenshots and printed a PDF, Jason"

Ooooh, this is going to be good!

.
8/11/2014 11:43:46 am

i went into the wiki about J.London's story and encountered
a reference to GEORGE STERLING, the poet who passes
away at about the same time Harry Houdini did. the story does
have the same degree of vintage Sci-Fi many of the old OUTER
LIMITs scripts did. orbs being worshipped. big round thingies.
has anyone any opinion about the very late and often great poet
who was a very close friend to Jack London? a few rarified ideas
might actually add a dimension to this discussion! the guy had
been a well known regional poet who is to Northern California
a true celebrity in a manner rather like New England's Robert
Frost. Jack London was not known for penning volumes of SF.
the ethereal nature of the orb blends the occult into fantasy into
classic Sci-Fi. its a legit starting point when we are delving past
either literate Burroughs. Call of the Wild is often namedropped.

Christopher Knowles
8/11/2014 11:53:57 am

Well, there's *my* mistake- it was one of your friends on SF Signal. Either way, until you've actually read Bailey, you really can't debate this issue. And arguing that HPL was unfamiliar with Theosophy- well, I don't even know where to start. But I appreciate your adversarial piece here- it definitely clarified my position. Cheers.

Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 12:13:57 pm

SF Signal? I wasn't aware I had friends there. Or that it existed, actually. Who said I hadn't read Bailey? I've read most of the major Theosophists, and edited an anthology of Theosophical writings on ancient astronauts--all of which pre-dated Bailey's version. Again, Blavatsky in Secret Doctrine 2: Anthropogenesis at Dzyan 9.43-46 gives nearly all the material about the Old Ones you attribute to Bailey, which was later recycled and expanded by Scott-Elliot in "Lost Lemuria." So, yes, I can quote chapter and verse.

Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 11:10:29 am

I should also add that Bailey's Dzyan stanzas simply expand on Blavatsky's. You'd have a better argument for the Dzyan stanzas in Secret Doctrine Anthropogenesis at 9.43-46, which essentially tell the story of the Old Ones, including the incorporeal beings, stone images, and sunken islands. But Scott-Elliot knew that when he included the same material in "Lost Lemuria." It's not unique to Bailey.

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Christopher Knowles
8/11/2014 01:00:58 pm

If you read that Lovecraft quote carefully, you'll see it perfectly proves my point. Thanks again.

EP
8/11/2014 01:06:06 pm

Yeah, but does it COSMICALLY prove it?!

Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 01:06:20 pm

Which Lovecraft quote?

Gregor
8/11/2014 01:21:50 pm

@Jason

From his blog:

"UPDATE: And here's exactly why. Colavito includes the full Lovecraft quote to Smith:

Price has dug up another cycle of actual folklore involving an allegedly primordial thing called The Book of Dzyan, which is supposed to contain all sorts of secrets of the Elder World before the sinking of Kusha (Atlantis) and Shalmali (Lemuria). It is kept at the Holy City of Shamballah, and is regarded as the oldest book in the world—its language being Senzar (ancestor of Sanscrit), which was brought to earth 18,000,000 years ago by the Lords of Venus. I don’t know where E. Hoffmann got hold of this stuff, but it sounds damn good…

Doesn't know where he got hold of it? At the time there were only two sources for Dzyan texts- Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine or Bailey's Treatise on Cosmic Fire. Did Price tattoo the material on his chest? This exactly proves my point- Lovecraft is hiding the source for this material from Smith.

Remember, this is pre-Internet. Smith couldn't exactly do a Google search. Case closed."


Remember: no one could do research before Google (specifically, Google's link to Wikipedia)

EP
8/11/2014 01:28:33 pm

Also, and especially before Google, everyone must have relied on primary sources. Otherwise, I can make no sense of the claim:

"At the time there were only two sources for Dzyan texts"

Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 01:44:16 pm

Say what? Does he know how many Theosophy magazines, newspapers, and even skeptics' books reprinted the Stanzas? I've come across dozens myself. None of this changes the fact that even if Lovecraft did read Bailey, we are talking about him discovering this in 1933, seven years AFTER he wrote "Cthulhu"!

Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 01:45:50 pm

And maybe the part where Lovecraft says "I don't know where" Price got his material would be relevant in this discussion.

EP
8/11/2014 01:48:52 pm

Jason, this is a man who says things like: "My work needs the tools of academic publishing- footnotes, bibliographies, indices, appendices- otherwise it's too easy for skeptics to dismiss out of hand." Shhhh... I don't think he knows how do conduct reasearch.

EP
8/11/2014 11:22:25 am

"Amateur gadfly/debunker Jason Colavito is on the case!"

Ya hear that, Jason? Christopher Knowles basically called you Socrates. (And may or may not think it's an insult...)

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Gregor
8/11/2014 11:33:12 am

Easy there, EP... this guy cited Wikipedia *and* is "cosmically certain" of his own intellectual ascendancy, how could one prevail?! As Ancient Aliens has shown, circumstantial arguments flooded with qualifying terms like "might", "could", and "possibly" are virtually impenetrable!

EP
8/11/2014 11:39:29 am

Apparently any otherworldly fantasy is Ancient Astronaut theory... Holy shit, Knowles is an Ancient Astronaut meta-theorist!

Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 11:51:32 am

If I'm an amateur, what does that make him? Is there life experience credit in ancient astronautics for being an artist and writing an X-Files tie in?

EP
8/11/2014 12:00:39 pm

@ Jason

Like I said somewhere, he's applying the methodology of Ancient Astronaut theorists to the history of Ancient Astronaut theory. That makes him an Ancient Astronaut meta-theorist!

EP
8/11/2014 12:01:15 pm

Durrrr! It was the comment right above yours! :)

.
8/11/2014 10:25:56 am

there are days when i contrast the Mars of Ray Bradbury
to the one Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about or even
the one implied by the arm of one of H.G Well's Martians
in the old Gene Barry flic from 1953. When Tom Snyder
bought into ideas like that now found on H2 he sounded
urbane and wise as he wondered in an old interview if
our species had reached the Martian surface aeons ago.

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.
8/11/2014 10:38:16 am

Simon Newcomb was one of the brainier Newtonians of the
late 1800s and his feud with A. Conan Doyle + all Spiritualism
or table rapping ideas is legendary. Doyle created Dr. Moriarty
in his image, and resented his skepticism. The Urantia Bible
also predates the ROAR of the TWENTIES, and HPL's better
ideas. Theosophy was all over the map, proverbially. More so
than either Edgar Cayce's ideas or those of Charles Fort...
i admit there is a Victorian invalid shutter'd vibe to HPL but he
kept his literate connections active via snail-mail. he did read
things well and thoroughly. six degrees of separation, yes...
a very young FDR is in an old photo taken up on Oak Island.
http://www.urantia.org/urantia-book/read-urantia-book-online

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.
8/11/2014 11:05:32 am

Harry Houdini went on a crusade to expose the major con
artists of the Roaring Twenties who had picked up on the
patter of the Spiritualists of the Victorian?Edwardian Era.
Theosophy was not merely an isolated intelligencia "ghetto"
or purely inside only one unique demographic, it included sane
people, and fringe cultists of the "true believer" persuasion.
http://www.thegreatharryhoudini.com/occult.html This is how
someone like good ole Harry Houdini can be praised by Simon Newcomb's close friends despite their dissimilar backgrounds.

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EP
8/11/2014 11:37:19 am

Christopher Knowles, ladies and gentlemen:

"The Call of Cthulhu... displays a familiarity with esoteric literature that belies his self-image as a hard-bitten materialist."

Literally the same argument that's been made about countless scientists and writers including the likes of Newton.

"a story I am cosmically certain he read"

I'm convinced. Case closed.

"most Lovecraft fans seem to think Helena Blavatsky was the only Theosophist who ever picked up a pen"

...but Christopher Knowles is about to drop some science on y'all's ignorant behinds!

"Oh, and by the way, Jason... Just because Von Daniken caught the wave doesn't mean he got the ball rolling. The Beatles didn't invent rock 'n' roll either."

Ya hear that, Jason? For more on this topic, see countless posts on your own blog.

"Remember that his correspondent here- Clark Ashton Smith- was a competitor. A friend but also a rival. Think like a professional here."

lol @ "professional" applied to Lovecraft.

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Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 11:48:47 am

Wow, I frankly expected Knowles to be a bit more professional than this considering that he wrote a book on Theosophy and comic books. Notice that he ran to his blog to carp about me rather than deal with the problem that Lovecraft explained his sources and "Lost Lemuria" contains all of the Theosophical material found in "Cthulhu."

I have no idea what he's saying about von Daniken, who certainly wasn't the first or last ancient astronaut theorist, just the most important. My Library is full of earlier stuff, from Blavatsky to FBI reports of 1950s religious ancient astronaut theorists and Soviet ancient astronaut claims.

Apparently after accusing me of not doing my homework, he wants to avoid doing his. I love the part where the claims Lovecraft was competing with Smith! Lovecraft would spin in his grave. Apparently Knowles is unconvinced that one can use occult material without believing in it!

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Gregor
8/11/2014 11:54:16 am

@Jason

Clearly you hurt his feelings by not remembering the previous blood-feud!

EP
8/11/2014 11:58:27 am

Take a screenshot, man. It's what all the cool kids do.

lurkster
8/11/2014 01:35:39 pm

Poor guy. Apparently, his cosmic certainty was threatened.

.
8/11/2014 11:51:50 am

john maynard keynes's essay on Newton's accurate alchemy
explains to me why price's contribution to the SILVER KEY is
the one HPL novella that is an "easy read" for me.,, i opine...

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EP
8/11/2014 11:57:51 am

"Lovecraft makes a point- exactly as we see in Initiation- that astrology determines the success of their travels. Remember now that Lovecraft claimed not to believe in any of that claptrap. Why would he include that detail? Because he was following someone else's script."

Lovecraft's "when the stars were right" equals astrology, everybody. Nevermind that it makes much more sense to read it in terms of astronomical positioning or configuraiton, which the Old Ones are able to exploit.

Also, putting words in a a character's mouth in a story of supernatural horror suggests believing the content of those words. (Steven King is terrified of clowns, from what I hear...)

"Lovecraft undoubtedly knew that in the ancient traditions, angels- or Cherubim- were chimeras, made of many different parts of animals (Just like Cthulhu!)."

No comment.

"You can imagine your stock voodoo cult in a horror story, but for Lovecraft to cite an ancient Mystery cult so specifically- and within the context of all the other parallels- suggests to us he was reading Bailey."

So wait, what's the criterion for who can imagine what? Your imagination? Or how desperately you want your argument to work?

"like most academics he tends towards the misconception that media-appointed figureheads represent the totality of heretical movements"

Your market is the poorly educated, we get it. But do you at least know this isn't true?

OK, I'm bored now.

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EP
8/11/2014 12:11:37 pm

OK, I feel better now:

"I don't have any evidence (at the moment -this is a work in blogress)"

So your modus operandi is basically (1) decide what you want to believe, (2) write a smug and condescending blog post, (3) look for evidence, (4) ????, (5) PROFIT

"Given the weight of the evidence here, that would be my guess."

This is literally the third sentence down! Are you even trying?!

"there's also the possibility that he simply may not have always distinguished the Theosophists from each other"

I guess you at least acknowledge the most obvious explanation in the last line. Too bad it doesn't really let you show off your "erudition" and "professionalism", eh?

Reply
Gregor
8/11/2014 12:15:40 pm

I think you crossed the line with #3 - when you're "cosmically certain", you don't need evidence!

In all seriousness, I did find it hilarious how many times he had to say "I can't prove...." or "I don't have evidence for..." in the process of asserting his claims. Pontification ad nauseam.

EP
8/11/2014 12:25:51 pm

Christopher Knowles self-identifies as a Symbologist, everybody. He is literally living in a Dan Brown novel.

Also, he's the kind of guy who names his ideas "Knowles' Laws". Of which there are three:

(1) "Whenever a controversy over symbolism erupts in the media, it's usually disguising another hidden symbolic message altogether."

(2) "The probability that a UFO story is a deliberate hoax or intentional misidentification is correlative to the amount of mainstream media coverage it receives."

(3) "The more convoluted or abstract the motive or the objective in a conspiracy theory is, the less likely that theory is to be true."

I suppose "Knowles' Laws" are also cosmically certain. And cosmically original.

Gregor
8/11/2014 12:27:58 pm

Wait... doesn't "Knowles' Rule" #3 invalidate the reasoning in his own HP Lovecraft "work in blog-ress"?

EP
8/11/2014 12:32:38 pm

Also (1) is borderline ungrammatical and (2) is subject to a truckload of famous counterexamples.

UFOs ARE HERE...
8/12/2014 09:22:44 am

HIS RULE TWO ASSUMES POOR WHITLEY STRIEBER IS
LYING OR GIVEN TO HALLUCINATIONs THAT DO PACE
THEMSELVES WITH THE INCLUSIVENESS OF VIRTUAL
REALITY. I ADMIT MORE OBSCURE BLUEBOOK INCIDENTs
ARE OFTEN MORE HONEST ON A DEEP LEVEL THAN THE
FAD OF THE HOUR. CHARLES FORT's CHARM IS OBVIOUS!

EP
8/11/2014 01:10:30 pm

Christopher Knowles's blog is a gift that keeps on giving.

A frank admission:

"My work needs the tools of academic publishing- footnotes, bibliographies, indices, appendices- otherwise it's too easy for skeptics to dismiss out of hand."

The Crackpot Index calleth:

"The Work (as in the Great Work) continues on... all I can say for now is that it's been rather stunning and has seriously fucked with my previously held beliefs in causality, agency and whatever hell else you want to throw in. And this is from a guy who's been messing around with Synchronicity and the rest of it for decades now."

Encyclopedic knowledge in service of The Great Work:

"a major diaspora of Gnostic peoples- Mandaeans, Ismailis, Yezidis, Druze- looms as Obama's ISIS mad dogs run rampant through Mesopotamia and Syria."

See how many historical errors you can spot:

"2000 years ago Gnosticism and Christianity struggled for the hearts and minds of an Empire, but the world wasn't yet ready for Gnosis and Gnosis wasn't yet ready for the world. Then too the Empire's cosmopolitans and sophisticates shunned all gods and mysteries, only to see their legacy wiped forever from the face of the earth."

Reply
.
8/11/2014 01:43:08 pm

...by Constantine in 333 A.D

the decades took their toll on the Imperator

who liked his wine, and he sadly said "bye-bye"

to Auld Zeus and all mysteries of Jove as another

Civil War loomed like the one he ended. He thought

by dividing things into THREE he'd done the right thing.

His sons were lesser beings by comparison to he,

save for Crispus who he had executed due to a conspiracy.

Constantine revitalized the Roman Empire briefly as he

some of the early texts of the Church of the Martyrs. His

armature archaeology inspired others, soon sacred relics

were abundant.... each with their own confusing story.

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Gregor
8/11/2014 02:02:45 pm

A neat bit of verse. For what it's worth, the "Empire in the East" / Eastern Roman Empire / Byzantine Empire remained cohesive until the 15th century... roughly a millennium after the demise of the more classically famous "Western" half.

.
8/11/2014 02:17:11 pm

literally a very large cannon + cannonballs in tandem with an
improved formula for gunpowder brought down many of the
ancient walls Constantine the Great had ordered built. we then
see the apex or zenith of the Ottoman Empire. i think that the
texts found in 1947 are reflective of a dissident faction of early
Christianity, the paragraph I added to is not wrong, but is a
very specific critique of the way Constantine goes through the
conversion Edward Gibbons talks about in his big long tome.
We tend to forget the East was very stable, and a cultural
conduit for a much older knowledge. the petty kings in the
West and the decentralized nature of feudalism ushers in a
new era. Knowledge almost has to be again "imported"
into the Western half of what was once the Empire in full.
I think Constantine put back in place many of Augustus's
reforms and then waded into Church doctrine. We can have
our doubts and ambivalent feelings over the wisdom of
further hiding or banning THE HIDDEN, assuming the
Gnostic lore was indeed significantly part of the culture,
but we have to also look at the political arena as it changes.

Screaming Eagle
8/11/2014 01:55:38 pm

Wow. You all had me lost with the HPL and Theosophy references, but that last quote I can get in to. Did someone really say that?
I'm confused as to what is real, what is Knowles and what is...I don't know what.

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EP
8/11/2014 02:00:08 pm

I know, right? Reading his blog is like reading the high school essays of Erich von Daniken and Sylvia Browne's illegitimate love child.

.
8/11/2014 01:46:29 pm

insert one of the three choices below
into my bland paragraph continuation
of the last paragraph in the previous
posting. i did another gaffe of a typo


a. censored

b. read

c. could not understand

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Screaming Eagle
8/11/2014 02:07:08 pm

@EP
Too much to comprehend in that visual. Can you imagine how big said child's eyes would have been?

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EP
8/11/2014 02:10:43 pm

@ Screaming Eagle

I don't know if I can. We should ask Christopher Knowles. He's the self-proclaimed expert on who can imagine what under which conditions.

.
8/12/2014 03:11:30 pm

my corrective answer to my own trick question
about Saint Constantine, i feel that he may have
censored the Gnostic texts that he found confusing
but that he really was not known for being a heavy
handed censor. technically if his view of J.C is
Arian at times as he is into the wise teacher thingie,
then he is not being doctrinaire or judgmental.
i think Jove or Zeus worship to him was ancestor
worship, and he may have thought that humanity
after the Fall, Flood and the Tower of Babel was
greatly inferior to the Edenic perfection glimpsed in
GENESIS as in early. He did not have a "pipeline"
to Jove equal to the one William Jennings Bryan
had to our Creator Being, that we encounter inside
his rhetoric of the time. I hope i am not confusing...

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Gregor
8/11/2014 02:13:04 pm

@Jason

An updated objection, I guess:

"UPDATE: And here's exactly why. Colavito includes the full Lovecraft quote to Smith:

Price has dug up another cycle of actual folklore involving an allegedly primordial thing called The Book of Dzyan, which is supposed to contain all sorts of secrets of the Elder World before the sinking of Kusha (Atlantis) and Shalmali (Lemuria). It is kept at the Holy City of Shamballah, and is regarded as the oldest book in the world—its language being Senzar (ancestor of Sanscrit), which was brought to earth 18,000,000 years ago by the Lords of Venus. I don’t know where E. Hoffmann got hold of this stuff, but it sounds damn good…

Doesn't know where he got hold of it? At the time there were only two sources for Dzyan texts- Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine or Bailey's Treatise on Cosmic Fire. Did Price tattoo the material on his chest? This exactly proves my point- Lovecraft is hiding the source for this material from Smith.

It couldn't have been one of the separate Dzyan booklets (which I can't find in print prior to 1941) since they don't mention any of the mythical material Lovecraft cites. The books do.

That's the key here- the combination of the Stanzas and the additional material that Lovecraft cites. And judging from the citations it sounds like he had access to both Doctrine and Treatise. And it doesn't sound- contra Colavaito- that he's referring to a jumble of clippings from Theosophical newspapers (and "actual folklore" sounds like another red herring for Smith).

Remember, this is pre-Internet. Smith couldn't exactly do a Google search. Case closed."

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EP
8/11/2014 02:18:55 pm

"it doesn't sound- contra Colavaito- that he's referring to a jumble of clippings from Theosophical newspapers"

This is the best thread! :D

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Screaming Eagle
8/11/2014 02:23:42 pm

Still confused but thoroughly entertained. Great thread indeed!
By the way, since we now have the internet, I Googled Sylvia+Erich+baby and a picture of Giorgio popped up...

EP
8/11/2014 02:26:02 pm

@ Christopher Knowles

"I Googled Sylvia+Erich+baby and a picture of Giorgio popped up"

Fuckken owned!

Gregor
8/11/2014 02:38:38 pm

I think EP means "@Screaming Eagle" above.

EP
8/11/2014 02:41:53 pm

No, I mean Christopher Knowles, since I wish to say onto him "Fuckken owned!" :)

Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 02:23:02 pm

I'm getting increasingly confused. Does Knowles not want to deal with what was in "The Lost Lemuria," Lovecraft's actual and acknowledged Theosophical source?

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EP
8/11/2014 02:24:14 pm

No, he literally doesn't.

Screaming Eagle
8/11/2014 02:29:42 pm

I think he does but in his own way. It appears he may be a "Theoretical Theosophist".

Gregor
8/11/2014 02:32:01 pm

@Jason

If I had to guess, he doesn't like addressing anything that is devastating to his bullshit "sounds like, therefore is" method of argumentation.

I honestly am not sure what he hopes to gain by any of this, given that he's already admitted he lacks the academic, intellectual and evidential wherewithal to close this argument in his favor (if such evidence were even to exist). I think the biggest issue is that he apparently makes his living hocking "the secret ______ of ______" pieces, and doesn't like it when someone who has knowledge of the matter contradicts his poorly sourced claims.

In a way, it almost goes back to yesterday's blog post (yours) regarding clearly evident claims vs. potential-but-not-as-clear claims. It's not enough (apparently) to show - as is clear - that HP Lovecraft sourced his material from elsewhere. For some reason, Knowles will only be satisfied with "proving" that HPL sourced Alice Bailey specifically.

If I had to venture even further, I imagine there's some need to be the "first" to make such a claim (and, ostensibly, prove it).

Jason Colavito link
8/11/2014 02:23:55 pm

And why is he posting his half of the conversation as blog updates on his blog without referencing them here? It's hard to keep track of who is saying what when.

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EP
8/11/2014 02:27:14 pm

Call me simple-minded, but after

"My work needs the tools of academic publishing- footnotes, bibliographies, indices, appendices- otherwise it's too easy for skeptics to dismiss out of hand."

these questions just don't arise for me :)

.
8/11/2014 02:29:26 pm

i'm agreeing with Knowles. inside Iraq there is a religious
war that is becoming more fiercely shrill and genocidal...

"a major diaspora of Gnostic peoples- Mandaeans, Ismailis, Yezidis, Druze- looms as Obama's ISIS mad dogs run rampant through Mesopotamia and Syria."

Reply
.
8/11/2014 02:33:58 pm

technically B.H. Obama walks into the war between
the "W" and Osama B.L as we fail to leave a stable
structure behind when we pull our equivalency of
Rome's Auld Legions out of the fray. the weapons
we left behind for the new govt's army in Iraq has
armed the ISIS militants better than their foes...

Reply
.
8/12/2014 04:56:46 pm

ISIS = wise goddess

ISIS = militant 21st century movement

Obama's Isis~mad "dogs" (of war) run rampant

Obama's ISIS "mad dogs" (in human form) run rampant

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 02:43:06 pm

Anyone keeping track of all the ninja edits to Knowles's blog post? It's pretty hilarious. He's not replying here because he is too busy correcting some of his more obvious howlers as they are being pointed out in real time.

Reply
Gregor
8/11/2014 02:45:35 pm

@EP

SHHHHHHHH!! It's almost as if you're implying his "cosmic certainty" was bullshit?!

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 02:48:17 pm

The reference to Lovecraft's professionalism and Jason's implied unprofessionalism is gone. Told you to take a screenshot! :)

Gregor
8/11/2014 02:50:03 pm

@EP

lol... how delightful

.
8/11/2014 02:52:13 pm

be nice to him. we know those texts found in 1947 were
hidden away by a very literate and thoughtful person who
lived in a very illiterate time. we also know books with pages
made from wood pulp and or vellum goes to dust some
500 to 1000 years after they were written on. copper corrodes
but gold is very expensive. clay crumbles if not fired properly.
tender loving care and careful penmanship did keep a few
of the Pagan authors from being forgotten totally. If Constantine
the Great censored less often than i think he did, or even
perhaps Augustus originally had, he's not a total thug. He has
a level of literacy or he would not be able to rule the empire.
The Church was inside a period of extreme change. The
calling out of heretics actually happens much later. The theme
is that knowledge is either greatly hidden or very forgotten
and misunderstood. He tends to be poetical in Joseph
Campbell manner and less into statistics or economic trends.

Reply
Christopher Knowles
8/11/2014 02:56:05 pm

I'm not correcting anything- I said from the beginning this was a work in progress and I've been updating constantly since I first posted. Jason's comments have only served to bolster my convictions as to my thesis. I have zero interest in convincing anyone here of anything- you're not my audience and judging from the traffic coming in from here there doesn't seem to be very many of you. I'm getting thousands of visitors on this article and I can only thank Jason for helping me prove my point.

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 02:58:54 pm

Tell us more about The Great Work, pretty please?

Reply
Gregor
8/11/2014 03:02:41 pm

He's got too much to do already with "bolstering" his "convictions", which is in no way similar to editing his previously "cosmically certain" diatribe. He's a very busy man! Too busy to come here and answer direct criticisms... though he has time to stop by on occasion and wax conspiratorially about his struggle and the inevitable right-ness of his thoughts. Besides, what's a few infantile pot-shots between friends... right?

Up next: The Secret Bullshit of Works-in-Blogress!

Screaming Eagle
8/11/2014 03:02:33 pm

Very good sir. Please continue to refrain from corrections, your posts are pristine as is. Many of the readers here do not post unless specifically moved by a thread. There is much written by the host to explore.
Also, I would speculate that many of your visitors are BECAUSE of this blog.

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 03:08:23 pm

Remember everyone, we are dealing with a man who can say

"I'm not correcting anything- I said from the beginning this was a work in progress"

and not realize the inherent contradiction.

EP
8/11/2014 03:03:35 pm

"I have zero interest in convincing anyone here of anything"

Suuuuuure you do...

"you're not my audience"

Yeah, we get it, your audience is semi-educated hipsters.

Reply
Gregor
8/11/2014 03:04:47 pm

>> semi-educated hipster

Is there any other kind of Hipster?

EP
8/11/2014 03:09:09 pm

I'll have you know I was into Gnosticism *before* it was cool!

.
8/11/2014 03:11:08 pm

the only other varmints are quasi-semi-educated as in

"plastic hippies" so semi-educated hipster is less of an

insult and more of an indirect compliment. Jason's books

will be quoted by students at our big universities inside

their term papers fifty years from now because he footnotes.

.
8/11/2014 03:16:00 pm

EP --- in the tyme before Constantine, at about 150 A.D

we see Gnostic Thought being said to be "way cool" so

I am indeed surprised to learn you are way older than I am!

spookyparadigm
8/11/2014 04:58:18 pm

Hey, it worked for Peter Lavenda/Simon.

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 05:14:02 pm

Sad thing is, one of Knowles's cheerleaders holds an endowed chair at Rice...

EP
8/11/2014 03:31:01 pm

The writing is getting sloppy (suggesting anger or frustration):

"I don't have to prove what Lovecraft was saying in 1933 was true or not. What I have to prove is in the texts themselves."

Also, Knowles may or may not have suggested that the Bible is a work of Ancient Astronaut theory. Which would pretty much establish my claim that Knowles is himself a first cousin of the Ancient Astronaut theorists.

Reply
Gregor
8/11/2014 03:36:00 pm

That comment (about what he has to "prove") has been in at least the last few versions (read: last few hours) of that post.

As for his connections... he's linked to Nick Redfern's blog - I imagine that's fairly damning evidence. The Secret Poverty of 1st Cousin AA Theorists!

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 03:44:57 pm

Christopher Knowles is a sensible and balanced individual:

“I did look into the origins of the name, but stuck with the "Old One" since it gave me the most bang for the buck... Stuff like that tends to give some critics easy targets for tangents so I kept it to a minimum, realizing the knives will be out already.”

(I can’t afford intellectual integrity when the knives of the skeptics are out to get me!)

“my current thesis is this all did start as a dark satire and took on a life of its own.”

(Lovecraft got in too deep! Knowles’ Law #4: When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you!)

“Reading Theosophical material- especially Bailey's- makes me feel like it's all written to tun off the brain and put the audience into a suggestible state. It's just this blizzard of buzzwords thrown at you without any sense of reality… Kind of like the crap going on inside a lot of college campuses these days, come to think of it. Makes me think that it's all being orchestrated by the same people up top.”

(Why are you looking at me? You’re ALL crazy!)

Reply
Gregor
8/11/2014 03:53:53 pm

I'm waiting for Jason to break out the "Culture of Conspiracy" checklist...

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 04:02:58 pm

I keep wanting to adapt this for the humanities, but always forget:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

Gregor
8/11/2014 04:10:24 pm

"50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions. "

...this seems so familiar... like I just read it earlier today...

EP
8/11/2014 04:51:51 pm

Freemasons? Check:

"Sex. Drugs. Loud music. Wild costumes. Dazzling light shows. These words can all describe a great rock concert or a hot dance club, but they were also part and parcel of the ancient cultural phenomenon known as the “Mystery religions.” In this book, author Christopher Knowles shows how the long-dead Mystery religions got a secular reincarnation when a new musical form called rock 'n' roll burst onto the scene. Knowles shows how the Mysteries prefigured subcultures as diverse as Santeria, Freemasonry and Mardi Gras, and explains exactly how ancient rituals and music found their way to the New World."

Gregor
8/11/2014 05:00:24 pm

>>subcultures as diverse as Santeria, Freemasonry and Mardi Gras

"Lo, and the Great Architect of the Universe said unto Hiram: show me dem titties!, and much beads were bestowed upon him."

EP
8/11/2014 05:03:21 pm

You just don't get it, man! Synchronicity! Archetypes! Argh... I don't have to prove anything to you! Put your knife away!

Gregor
8/11/2014 05:07:18 pm

It's in the books, man! I'm not editing, I already said this was a work in blogress!!! YOU AREN'T MY AUDIENCE ANYWAYS! I'M TAKING MY CRACKPOT THEORIES AND GOING HOME!!

EP
8/11/2014 06:01:14 pm

"If Star Trek is indeed inextricably linked to the human potential movement and a bizarre flying saucer cult, why is that so? What is the purpose of programming these strange themes into what is one of the most successful sci-fi franchises of our time? For all its nods to political correctness over the years, Star Trek is about one thing and one thing only: the militarization of space."

Gregor
8/11/2014 06:05:58 pm

>>Star Trek is about one thing and one thing only: the militarization of space.


http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfb6obUPF61qzln9ao1_500.jpg

EP
8/11/2014 06:37:52 pm

Yeah, like, what does he think it is? Mass Effect? :P

Gregor
8/11/2014 06:53:14 pm

Y-you don't know what I was thinking!

....

I DON'T HAVE TO PROVE IT WASN'T TALI'ZORA VAS NARAYYA'S SWEAT! ALL I HAVE TO PROVE IS IN THE GAMES! YOU'RE NOT EVEN MY AUDIENCE!

EP
8/11/2014 06:57:09 pm

Ever wonder what Tali's Admiralty places her in charge of?

(I just blew your mind, admit it!)

Gregor
8/11/2014 07:12:52 pm

I must admit, I always thought they had an awfully high number of Admirals for the number of vessels at their command. Who knows - maybe it was to keep the ratio of Admirals-to-Captains relatively low.

Clint Knapp
8/11/2014 06:18:14 pm

I sat down tonight expecting a grand drama when I saw over 90 comments. I was not disappointed.

Most everything has been covered already, but let's take a little deeper look into this startling bit of cosmic certainty: "I have zero interest in convincing anyone here of anything- you're not my audience and judging from the traffic coming in from here there doesn't seem to be very many of you. I'm getting thousands of visitors on this article and I can only thank Jason for helping me prove my point."

At the time I'm writing this, I will be the ninth unique individual among 101 comment posts (unless there are more before I hit submit) while Mr. Knowles has 20 comments on his article- half of which are his own.

If anything, such statistics only show that the commenters here are more willing to thoroughly examine claims and the people behind them than Mr. Knowles's audience.

Of course, this is not the same as web traffic at all, and we cannot know for certain whether those "thousands of visitors" are real or just conflation; but then, neither can Mr. Knowles know anything about Jason's traffic stats.

Mr. Knowles's audience may not find itself so burdened by the desire to adhere to standards and definitions, of course. But then, I suppose that catering to such a lack of discernment is exactly why he feels the need to complain about those nasty "tools of academic publishing".

Damn you, academics! Damn you for your insistence on showing the work! Why isn't cosmic certainty enough for you?!

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 06:23:22 pm

More importantly, this thread is now a relatively permanent public record of my new favorite Symbologist's blogress (more like bogress, am I right?).

His work is literally a goldmine i hope Jason doesn't entirely neglect in the future.

Reply
Clint Knapp
8/11/2014 06:40:49 pm

Honestly, I hope he does- if only to limit the number of people who become regular visitors to Knowles's site and thus give him the inflated perception of his relevance through web traffic. There's no critiquing magical thinkers who can't even remember whether they had a conversation with the right person or not.

Gregor
8/11/2014 06:46:45 pm

Another "favorite" of mine:
--------------------------------
I. Dall6:28 PM

"Lovecraft was not a creative person as the term is commonly understood- he was a great synthesist of other people's material. And that would provide a very clear motive for keeping his discovery of books such as Initiation, Human and Solar secret from his circle of fellow pulp fictioneers." That is simply not the way the man worked, Mr. Knowles. It may be more profitable for you to examine his main source of Theosophical lore, E. Hoffman Price`s, degree of exposure to Baileyism.


Christopher Loring Knowles6:48 PM

I'll tell you what- that's your job. I've done my job so why don't you tell us about Price and how it pertains to Bailey. Give us specifics. This is what I was talking about when I said I wanted audience participation here.

---------------------------------

The arrogance and laziness is truly verging on the incomprehensible.

EP
8/11/2014 06:55:19 pm

"The arrogance and laziness is truly verging on the incomprehensible."

Par for the course for a third-hand, fifth-rate Marshall McLuhan knockoff like Knowles.

Clint Knapp
8/11/2014 06:27:21 pm

Oh, and in case there was any question, Mr. Knowles: One of those "thousands of visitors" was me, and I certainly only donated that hit to you so I could see what all the fuss was about. Kindly put that one in the "From Jason Colavito" column when you next decide to compare web-traffic penises.

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 06:29:55 pm

(Sorry Klint, I don't mean that what I have to say is more important than what you have to say. I mean that the public record is more important than who's more willing to examine him.)

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 06:31:31 pm

I mean, Clint... I fail...

Clint Knapp
8/11/2014 06:47:15 pm

No worries, EP. Never considered it a slight in the first place.

Gregor
8/11/2014 06:42:38 pm

+1

Reply
EP
8/11/2014 06:51:37 pm

So what's the over/under on there being AA-style Neo-Nazi-related shenanigans involving Mr. Knowles?

Gregor
8/11/2014 07:02:18 pm

The over/under? Pft, given your penchant for managing to dig up every last thing under the sun, I side with Joshua (supercomputer) from WarGames:

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

EP
8/11/2014 07:05:15 pm

That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me since that unfortunate called me "a little lap-dog for conventional physics" over in that other thread!

Gregor
8/12/2014 05:53:10 am

... I finally found the comments you were referring to - OMG, how did I miss all that?!?!?!

666
8/11/2014 10:10:53 pm

The real truth lies in the Bible
That shinanagan of spam

Reply
Only Me
8/11/2014 10:21:04 pm

Claire Hardaker explores the psychological motivations of trolls in her Ph.D. thesis Trolling in Asynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication. She concludes that "trolls intention(s) is/are to cause disruption and/or to trigger or exacerbate conflict for the purposes of their own amusement."

666
8/12/2014 01:56:07 am

Now compile a list of sceptics who take the Bible seriously

666
8/12/2014 01:58:02 am

Perhaps James Randi and Joe Nickell were trolls
Perhaps even Bertrand Russell

I look forward to seeing the list

666
8/12/2014 02:20:43 am

Bertrand Russell
Why I Am Not a Christian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I_Am_Not_a_Christian

Clint Knapp
8/12/2014 02:20:52 am

Shenanigan.

I'll use it in a sentence. You know what sentences are, right? They begin with a capital letter, end with a punctuation mark, and observe some semblance of grammatical structure that might suggest the person writing them is capable of coherent communication:

"The troll who calls himself 666 leans heavily on his Bible-bashing and unqualified statement shenanigans to feign intellectual discourse."

Clint Knapp
8/12/2014 02:33:15 am

Further, let us observe the fact this thread was not about the Bible at all (or your hatred of people who adhere to it). Rather, it was a discussion of the conflation of the definitions of web-traffic and comment posting.

Of course, you believe none of this would be here if it weren't for "Microsoft scientists" doing drugs. Perhaps you are attempting to enlighten us to the Biblical revelation of web statistics now?

Only Me
8/12/2014 02:05:12 pm

@666

Thank you for proving my point. Now that you've sprayed your spittle across the blog, I'll tell you this: I made an observation, based on your behavior.

The absence of a denial, the injection of off-topic, anti-Christian intolerance and the continued violation of the comments policy are duly noted.

You are now free to search the Internet for a forum where your presence is met with applause. To paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi, "This is not the audience you're looking for."

EP
8/12/2014 02:12:17 pm

@ Only Me

Well said, Sir.

.
8/12/2014 02:58:44 pm

Don't Y'all think you are being sorta rough on TripleSix

just because his Atheism is profoundly equal to that of the

very late Clarence Darrow of Scopes Monkey Trial fame?

Personally, in one of my past lives I had a very profound

respect for William Jennings Bryan even though I do not

refer to Ken Ham as Mr Science Guy!!! I am more into

being intelligent about Intelligent Design. I tend to give

Sir Isaac Newton full credit for that idea even though

Modern Calculus actually came into being in full in

Auld India between A.D 1350 and A.D 1650!!! I thought

it only fair to opine that Newton did a few tweaks and

improvements on an ancient lore and then Herr Leibniz

did a reverse engineering like a computer programmer

on one of Sir Isaac's student papers. Letz be quite honest.

EP
8/12/2014 03:02:31 pm

Could you be more into being intelligent about your posting instead?

.
8/12/2014 03:18:45 pm

you're right, i'm trying to "dumb myself down" as it is
in order to sound more intelligent and then i shift my
focus. i then end up sounding like a total idiot. you do
have to admit i am correct about Sir Isaac Newton
having the idea that the Good Lord had I.Q points on
him. here i am with an I.Q that is average in terms
of the few here who actually say intelligent rather than
clever things, yet i am either MENSA or almost MENSA.
Jason draws the gifted, the clever, and the young to this
here blog. i have high hopes. KIP tends to be a posting
hydra. he has used more than 200 separate identities
over the past year. i'm now trying to get him to own up...

Not the Comte de Saint Germain
8/12/2014 03:18:51 pm

Probably a lot of the people here are atheists. It's not atheism that's objectionable. It's the determination to denounce Christianity at nearly every opportunity, no matter how off-topic it may be. In the comments sections for some blog posts, 666 posts so often it amounts to spam. When it comes to Christianity, I'm an inveterate grumbler myself, but I don't spam my gripes randomly in online comments sections.

EP
8/12/2014 03:25:05 pm

"i am either MENSA or almost MENSA"

This remark alone shows you can't possibly be very bright. But sure, whatever, keep doing what you're doing. It's not my blog. I wouldn't claim to know better than Jason how to run his.

.
8/12/2014 04:06:12 pm

duckie, if i said i wuz an aspie and very special but
had my Flowers For Algernon moments when i do
things others find impossible... if i said i was rather
like Temple Grandin in real life but more way obese,
would you treat me LIKE a retard in a condescending
manner rather than being rather rude & abrupt with me?
if Sir Isaac Newton was also an Asperger's Syndrome
person, then i am in good company. Temple Grandin
has written about her Autism, she also thinks Thomas
Jefferson is on the Autism Spectrum. I think she is not
as aware of John Adams, his social skills were worse
than Jefferson's! Newton is a poster boy for all Autistic
and/or Asperger's Syndrome people, he's brilliant, brittle
and reclusive, yet has the nice habit of indulging in very
intense academia aspected feuds! the Great Calculus
War of the late 1600s is a fascinating event, it is not about
the stuff that accumulates on one's teeth! Fox's COSMOS
tried to do the time period justice, i feel. they are not PBS!

EP
8/12/2014 04:14:35 pm

I am already treating you like a retard. LOL if you think this is me being rude.

.
8/12/2014 04:26:08 pm

actually... EP --- lets again be 100% honest.
auld Plato clearly had 200 I.Q points and had
at least 100 I.Q points on his fellow Athenians.
you leaped to a conclusion faster than he ever
did or would have. the rapidity of it has me in awe.
i actually tend to test rather well but do not really
have social skills or tend to play out a complex
social game. i can be insular and reclusive or
very loud and obvious. Lovecraft is simply a normal,
average "nerdy" male. his habits got exaggerated.
he does fit the profile of a "momma's boy' and the
family at least when educating him ensured he was
less hazed by his peers than George Orwell was at
Harrow. Harrow was often very harrowing, trust me!

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

"i am either MENSA or almost MENSA"

This remark alone shows you can't possibly be very bright. But sure, whatever, keep doing what you're doing. It's not my blog. I wouldn't claim to know better than Jason how to run his.

.
8/12/2014 04:30:41 pm

luv... by comparison to what we might be saying,
we both have been very polite? my aspie nerve
endings are about to go into overdrive as i prepare
a series of vintage newtonian zingers! you should
have told me before this moment that you are more
of a bloody awful,churlish and conceited lout than
Herr Liebniz ever was! i have clearly found my flamewar
opposite via a John Locke set of "fight club" rules.
Me Irish is up and we are about to go donnybrook!!!

EP
8/12/2014 04:31:38 pm

"i actually tend to test rather well"

I'm sure you make your mother proud. I doubt anyone here cares, however.

round one ---------- by "."
8/12/2014 04:36:58 pm

TITUS OATES LIED LIED LIED LIED...

HERR LIEBNIZ IS A THEIF THIEF THIEF!!!

by comparsison you when quoting my own
words back to me actually failed to make a
simple but obvious neo-platonic statement
that is highly accurate and is by definition
"stand-alone" and to prove me wrong, you
actually needed to create a long turgid paragraph
that manifests at least five I.Q points above my score.

.
8/12/2014 04:42:02 pm

please please please prove to me that Titus Oates was
a very honest witness or that Gottfried Leibniz never ever
plagarized in his 1600s into 1700s eventful Hanover era life!
my given bias is that Liebniz was a very well paid and well
connected rip-off artist and that poor robert hooke had kin
on WIGHT. again, Titus Oates clearly lied and set off things.

Only Me
8/12/2014 05:50:29 pm

@ "."

No, I don't think I'm being rough with 666. I have no problem with beliefs that aren't my own. I have no problem with atheism. Everyone is free to make their own personal choices.

Jason has said before he has readership that spans the globe. That means there are readers representing many faiths or no faith at all. Since the start of this site four years ago, only one individual has made it a point to attack religion and those that follow it. Yes, it's 666.

I DO have a problem with a fucker that can't seem to get it through his/her pachycephalosaurid skull that my personal choice, and that of others, needs neither justification nor filing of the proper approval forms. My choice doesn't affect anyone but me...so what's the beef?

666 claims to be "100% neutral", without "an agenda". His/her comment history says otherwise. He/she seems to be threatened by and intolerant of everything and everyone that does not mirror his/her personal views and values. And frankly, the only thing worse than a bad movie, is someone who states their opinion as fact.

It saddens me that I even respond to something that stupid.

.
8/12/2014 07:36:18 pm

i often do not accuse posters of "hydra-heading" 200 to 1000
separate net identities at a given website i am at but it hit me
that KIP could have done this over six to ten months by claiming
to be a character from a novel & then making a joke or comment.
i've been on websites where admin lists 20 to 30 names and
ends up banning one passworded posting identity. i asked KIP
to go honor code and own up. it was the "nessie" remarks that
set me off and going thru older blogs. KIP has a way he words
short postings. it reduces the casual remarks in some threads
to half their number had he chosen to make 50 quips at once...

EP
8/12/2014 06:49:02 am

Christopher Knowles thinks the Roman legionnaires were the first straight-edge kids and that the straight-edge X is Mithraic in origins.

This is not me being funny. This is what he actually says in his latest book!

Reply
.
8/12/2014 07:50:53 am

i dare not ask Mr.TripleSix if he has read John Milton's 12 books
that tried to eclipse both the initial neat one in the Torah and the
first FOUR of the NewTestyment. i'd look like i'm biblethumping.
Mark Twain's Anti-Imperialism was a profile in courage, totally.

Reply
. link
8/12/2014 06:59:51 am

Gregor --- i risk revealing my age by saying i remember well
the trendy decade that has Star Trek fans in space~amoeba
innocence separating out and apart into trekkers and trekkies.
Be kind to his prose. like i can do a rewrite on it like Hollywood._______________________________ would.




Another "favorite" of mine:
--------------------------------
I. Dall6:28 PM

"Lovecraft was not a creative person as the term is commonly understood- he was a great synthesist of other people's material. And that would provide a very clear motive for keeping his discovery of books such as Initiation, Human and Solar secret from his circle of fellow pulp fictioneers." That is simply not the way the man worked, Mr. Knowles. It may be more profitable for you to examine his main source of Theosophical lore, E. Hoffman Price`s, degree of exposure to Baileyism.


Christopher Loring Knowles6:48 PM

I'll tell you what- that's your job. I've done my job so why don't you tell us about Price and how it pertains to Bailey. Give us specifics. This is what I was talking about when I said I wanted audience participation here.

---------------------------------

The arrogance and laziness is truly verging on the incomprehensible.

Reply
.
8/12/2014 07:19:44 am

my rewrite ---- like Hollywood circa 1930


Another "favorite" trekkie fixation of mine was STAR TREK
and although GENE RODDENBERRY was not a creative\
person as the term is commonly understood by wise ole
Freddy~NIETZSCHE- he was a great MOOG synthesist of other people's material.

would he EVER have confused Alice Bailey with her
Theosophy rival in their mutual unglamorous "catfight"
and did he ever contrast Milton's Ten Books with the
Urantia bible from 1909? And would that have provided
a very clear motive for limiting the circulation of the OX_MIX
BIBLE? keeping his discovery of books such as Initiation, Human and Solar secret from his circle of fellow pulp fictioneers spares the general public who almost looked at LOST IN
SPACE but we all know that trekkies write books in crayon
but trekkers utilize magic markers or ballpoint pens.That is
simply not the way the man worked, Mr. Knowles... perhaps
It may be the way all team players "worked" in the IKE era.
Wendell Willkie's ONE WORLD was the best Theosophy book ever and the Urantia Bible is a close second, if you agree that
JOHN MILTON pens an almost Teutonic turgidly churlishly long
prose~poem that is almost as "dry" as any of John Dryden's
better plays. Maybe itZ more profitable for you to examine his main source of Theosophical lore, the many versions of the
book of GENESIS, all of Charlie Darwin'z better brain~freezes
and William Warren's better POLAR ideas from the late 1800s.


Christopher Loring Knowles6:48 PM

I'll tell you what- that's your job. I've done my job so why don't you tell us about Price and how it pertains to Bailey. Give us specifics. This is what I was talking about when I said I wanted audience participation here.

---------------------------------

The arrogance and laziness of the current crop
of diplomahhh'd college students is truly verging
on the incomprehensible for all who never went to
school here. are the standards always slipping over
my long lifetime, i pensively wonder as i debate reading
Jason's books in e~text form! i think i'd prefer 'em as
hardcovers at my local town library! time marches on!!!

Reply
.
8/12/2014 07:45:00 am

today i wake up. i decide to look at the 2o14 remake
of the B~flic circa ronnie ray~GUN eighties happily.
the senator in the thingie who seems technophobic
about robots that are sorta like the one's Will Smith
co-stars with kinda reminds me of Rand Paul when
he went and did that drone aspected filibuster in the
senate chamber. okaaaay. peter weller was very cool
but the A-list remake paces like a film noir B-flic yet i
am still happy. the movie ends on such a patriotic note that
brings to mind the raspy voiced actor in the movie PATTON.
i go online after playing the DVD in the lil tray area on my
laptop. yesterday i chuckled at a cartoon that contrasted
Kirk + Spock's communicators with today's cellphones...today
i see this blog trying to eclipse the G.T one that went over
a 100+ postings. usually bloggings here about Scott Wolter
do that, i actually look forward to Rev. Phil's missives even
though S.W has evidently done more photo-ops with both
crypto-fascists and/or neo-nazis than has either Ron or Rand
Paul. we know of the Spanish Civil War and fifth columns.
i must be fair. our current POTUS may have been in photo-ops
with Stalin~oids or Stalin~ists. well we know Mitt Romney to
be rather centrist. enuff said about our factions and the under
side of our politics. lets think STAR TREK and opine on root
races + a long dead Russian lady and i don't namedrop AYN
RAND. okaaaaaaaay... LUCY + ARDI + TOUMAI were cousins
as in almost kissin' cousins Elvis style up on the same branch
of the tree a complainin' about Elaine Morgan's AQUATIC apes
when into their frolics and splashings about? say something!!!

.
8/12/2014 08:02:23 am

the Empiricist that i am when functioning like a William James
era Pragmatist assumes this is comment number 131 here,
but MY Neo-Platonist Id is not totally certain this is indeed the
case. Even so... only two or three bloggings by Jason C in a
given month top 100+ comments. the topic is not about S.W!

Reply
.
8/12/2014 08:04:18 am

this is now comment number 132
and i shall go off-line or elsewhere

Reply
spookyparadigm
8/12/2014 12:13:14 pm

Just read the X-Files review post over there. I'm far more disturbed that he has a hate-on (almost) for Jose Chung and Darin Morgan because he's a "skeptic." He's quite right that the episode brings the Keel magnificently. But it only works because it isn't up its own ass.

I'll give him "Deep Throat", though. It was about as subversive as US TV could get in the early 1990s. Makes me want to go back and watch some of these episodes, even though I have gotten to the point in my life that I can't really enjoy things I've seen once before.

Reply
EP
8/12/2014 12:38:49 pm

"It was about as subversive as US TV could get in the early 1990s."

What about China Beach and Picket Fences?

Reply
spookyparadigm
8/12/2014 06:33:14 pm

I didn't watch China Beach.

Picket Fences always seemed a bit less realistic than the X-Files. Yes, really. The ridiculous plot twists, all happening weekly in the same town, combined with the oddly conservative nature that reverberated through it (I haven't seen it in 20+ years, so bear with that), plus the preachiness, just didn't work. It seemed to veer between being another Cicely, AK (which did at times handle serious material, and better though still quirky) and the most nail-on-the-head episodes of Law & Order or early seasons TNG.

By contrast, in Deep Throat, the Best of the Best who served his country top gun test pilot had his memory and personality lobotomized by government thugs who would grab you on the side of the road and beat the shit out of you if they didn't like you. All to protect weapons for which there was no obvious enemy. No apologies, no comeupance, no victory for the "good guys."

The show was never super daring, but it definitely had its fun playing on both specific events of the day, and channeling the general question: what the hell is all of this security apparatus still for if we won the Cold War? Eventually, it would come to excuse the actions of the conspiracy as it was revealed that their enemies were Lovecraftian in scope and they were fighting the doom of humanity. But early on such easy outs were not provided.

EP
8/12/2014 06:50:18 pm

I defer to you about 1990s TV. I am somewhat surprised you found Knowles's discussion sufficiently interesting to comment on. I mean, sure he occasionally says things that aren't obviously false... but is what he says about "Deep Throat" original? (I ask because I wouldn't know.)

spookyparadigm
8/13/2014 07:12:58 pm

Original? No.

But nostalgia is what about the best I expect out of most punk occultists who usually relive the 1970s and 1980s. Having one relive the 1990s is a bit of a novelty, and a sign I'm getting older.

.
8/14/2014 06:06:05 am

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/deep-throat-1973

http://www.tv.com/shows/deeper-throat/

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/10/reopening-the-x-files-deep-throat


" Ah, the military. Big. Complex. Hierarchical. And, best of all! Secretive. The perfect place to hide a conspiracy, if you’re a television program, particularly if you’re a television program taking place in the early 90s, and there aren’t any wars or any other nonsense like that going on. Maybe the odd conflict? But overall, if you really want to date The X-Files’s first season, you needn’t bother with Mulder’s brutally large cell phone or Scully’s brutally large shoulder pads. You need only bother with the scene in “Deep Throat” where a long-haired, pre-Buffy Seth Green waxes on about how the lights in the sky over the local Air Force base are most likely a “Star Wars cyber-tech” meant for “Desert Storm 2 or something like that. Cruise right over Saddam’s house, you know, be like, ahahaha.” Indeed!"

.
8/14/2014 05:57:20 am

EP ---- upon reading "Deep Throat" in the sentence i at first
thought y'all were talking about LINDA LOVELACE and the
porn flic or J.Edgar Hoover's sidekick, MARK FELT. the 90s
tv series contemporary to China Beach was not on my radar.
jelly donuts and hello brad. loose lips sink ships. i thank my
lucky stars often when i think over how Barry Goldwater got
Richard Milhous Nixon to resign by being logical. I am glad
that the Watergate Scandal had a finite end. Nixon fired Cox
but he'd have hanged Felt for High Treason. Hoover was gay.
Want me to go into how much porn FELT looked at? duckies,
at least the 90s were semi-computer-literate. i am a Dexter fan.

Reply
.
8/14/2014 06:12:54 am

i admit the X-Files was not on my BatCave radar,,, it was on
my inter~species Aquatic Ape Whale GENUS sonar.. i liked it.
EARTH FINAL CONFLICT was subversive, CHINA BEACH was
often more banal and blander than M*A*S*H and as to TWIN
PEAKs or PICKET FENCES, its like debating cherry or apple pie.

Reply
EP
8/14/2014 01:14:11 pm

@ spookyparadigm

I googled "punk occultist". The only two regular results are John Constantine and Genesis P-Orridge. It should totally be more of a thing! :)

Reply
EP
8/15/2014 09:58:55 am

In case anyone still cares, Knowles keeps revising and updating the work-in-blogress.

"It's funny, I was leaning away from Lovecraft keeping this material secret, but Colavito has now convinced me that's exactly what he was doing."

"Remember again- this is pre-Internet and most public libraries wouldn't be caught dead carrying this stuff."

And my favorite:

"UPDATE: I should add that a source involved with HPL fandom suggests that some of the hostility towards this thesis might be driven by, oh, just a tad of sexism. I've seen this for myself; there's been a desperate attempt to deny any connection to Blavatsky and lay any connection to Theosophy at the feet of Scott-Elliott, which only goes to show no one's actually read him. But it makes sense in that there's apparently a certain emotional investment in keeping Lovecraft free of the stain of Eve."

There you go, everybody. We are criticizing Knowles because we are a bunch of sexist nerds!

Reply
spookyparadigm
8/15/2014 04:21:16 pm

Not sure which is worse:

That a guy who searches for secret hidden mystical meanings in The X-Files and superhero comic books in his blogspot blog is calling people nerds.

Or that we're still wasting any time on him.

Reply
EP
8/15/2014 04:30:35 pm

Definitely the former! As an archaeologist you must appreciate that occasionally there's great deal to be gained from going through literal garbage :)

EP
8/15/2014 06:50:11 pm

@ spookyparadigm

...sometimes, alas, garbage is just garbage...

spookyparadigm
8/16/2014 01:55:51 am

I do, but at some point, there is a limit.

Also, there's the Ed Wood factor, which I apply to a lot of the occultists and esotericists and such. Ed Wood movies are something to watch because he was actually trying to make good movies, and in his failure exposed some of the undercurrents of his time and place that might otherwise have been covered over with artistry.

Once you realize a bad movie is being made either knowingly with "irony" or because the creators don't give a shit, its usually not fun, especially if it is still bad.

Once the creators of occulture give up the game as either a lame fuckaround for a bit of money or fame, or as a "clever" game for people with a bit more sophistication to roll their d20 to Save vs. Modernity, I don't really care. I think Ms. Young puts it best when she describes her work (in the middle of this), as well as her enjoyment of narratives about unusual individuals :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v8DbLWAXvU

EP
8/16/2014 07:00:51 am

I agree that it's probably a lot more attention than he's worth, but I'm kinda curious which one Knowles is really...

spookyparadigm
8/16/2014 09:01:20 am

Definitely the latter. From the UFO set, he reminds me a lot of Greg Bishop of The Excluded Middle, with touches of Christopher O'Brien. But with more of that occult comic book sensibility thrown in (Moore, Morrison, etc.) but not as dedicated to detail. Contrast with Moore's excellent footnotes in From Hell, where he points out where he's deviating from the historical record for the fun of it, and where he isn't.

EP
8/16/2014 04:00:10 pm

I know it sounds like a juvenile and vicious ad hominem, but I can't help getting creepy, distinctly sexual vibes from Christopher O'Brien's obsession with cattle mutilations...

Had to look up Greg Bishop... It's more of that Majestic 12 nonsense, isn't it?

spookyparadigm
8/16/2014 05:30:37 pm

Greg Bishop wrote Project Beta, which is a history, informed by Richard Doty, of the Paul Bennewitz disinfo case that got Bill Moore so hated when he admitted to being a participant. Which therefore likely ties it all back to MJ-12 (I generally tend to think Moore was involved, and whatever Doty was up to a lot of it may have not been official).

But I know him better as the host of Radio Misterioso, and for a time a blogger at the site he shared with Nick Redfern and others on the occult UFO angle, UFO Mystic. He was part of a batch of GenX ufo "thinkers" including O'Brien (who is a bit older), Redfern, Bishop, Mac Tonnies (a bit younger before he died), Paul Kimball, and a handful of others. While not the first in the ufo community to use the internet by any stretch of the imagination, they were some of the first Internet 2.0 folks to do so, blogging, podcasting, etc.. Rather than Kehoe or NICAP and their ETH, this crowd favors Vallee and Keel and the more esoteric approach that was popular in their youth in the 1970s, before ufology followed the wider culture and threw back to the more conservative ETH but with new angles such as crashes and abductions.

Problem is, other than O'Brien's mutes (which he at least in the past has speculated are connected to both extradimensionals and secret quasi-military occult groups, so he still fits the bill), this kind of approach doesn't really lend itself to classic pseudoscientific "investigation." One either writes long-form journalism and gets a feel for a place (like Keel) or one writes thought pieces and the occasional historical text (like Vallee). Amusingly, this mirrors the impact (in both timing and effect) of postmodernism and deconstruction in the humanities, and has likewise receded outside of certain niches.

Anyway, I link them in my mind with the punk sensibility (again, generational) that one also sees in chaos magick and related circles.

Knowles gives this away in one of his comments (highlighted in the reddit rebuttal) that "he's trying to expand the reader's Lovecraft experience" or something to that effect, vs. all the "neckbeard fanboys" who can't stand to watch it grow. Maybe its his comics community background, but he entirely misreads the critiques (which are similar to those mentioned in the reviews of his book) he's getting because he's not even working in the same paradigm. Rather than historical accuracy, he's going for what feels right. Lovecraft becomes more awesome if he's part of a mystic conspiracy, so let's fudge him into being so. Which if you're writing a fictional story, fine (and a number of authors have taken this exact tack, mostly in web and paper comics, as well as a few prose stories, and one or two films). But I don't think that line between symbol and material reality is all that important to his analysis.

.
8/15/2014 06:21:23 pm

EP --- admittedly Alice Bailey got her good sci-fi printed on

theosophy's own version of a vanity press and it was read by

the very few, but we know that for years that george elliot

was female and folks do weird things to get into print. even

so, sexist nerd is lookin like a fairly accurate description...

Reply
.
8/15/2014 06:32:20 pm

you young guys who are 'sexist nerds" are probably

dumping on an older hippie/dippie male because

because our species is still wet-wired for turf wars and

courtship rituals. you are trying to tell the old bull

to retire, to give it up. his angst is over the fact he

never ever set up his own hippie commune + harem.

he reacts like an old alpha male. trekkers be less sexist!

EP
8/16/2014 06:27:48 pm

@ spoookyparadigm

"(I generally tend to think Moore was involved, and whatever Doty was up to a lot of it may have not been official)."

There are degrees of "offcial", of course. I can totally see Doty's immediate superiors telling him to lie to Senators, or even to break into Benewitz's place, but that would still have been unofficial (and quite likely undesirable) as far as the higher reaches of the government were concerned. He's certainly not some ingenious puppetmaster many are making him out to be (often to make themselves appear less idiotic in hindsight). I also don't think that anyone acting in official capacity ever deliberately pushed the NJ-12 nonsense (because it's too ridiculous and because there already was clear sense among the relevant agencies that the fringe should be given as little ammunition as possible). There could also have been legitimate worries about some UFO research serving as cover for seriuos espionage activity, which merited at least investigating.

"Amusingly, this mirrors the impact (in both timing and effect) of postmodernism and deconstruction in the humanities, and has likewise receded outside of certain niches."

Read literally, this is way too pessimistic a view of pre-postmodernist humanities. It is also something of a pet peeve of mine when people lump deconstruction with postmodernism (since that's really a category mistake, in spite of the word really being used as a bit of pseudo-intellectual jargon most of the time).

I think there is a separate current of style (for lack of a better word) in the humanities and their various popular derivatives - one that has to do with always trying to be ahead of the game. A lot of it grows out of "media studies", though there are ties to "big picture" historicism and depth psychology. (McLuhan is an important early practicioner, and people as different as Fukuyama and Baudrillard are more recent.) Anyway, I don't know how this current ties into broader phenomenon of "the postmodern condition", but that's the vibe I get from Knowles and people like him.

"Knowles... entirely misreads the critiques (which are similar to those mentioned in the reviews of his book) he's getting because he's not even working in the same paradigm."

See, that's where I'm not sure. I think he wants to at least give the impression of responding to them, which suggests that he thinks he ought to. I also don't know to what extend he misreads them because he is simply not bright enough and to what extent he genuinely doesn't understand why they are serious. In other words, paradigms are all well and good, but one may still be a charlatan half-consciously hiding behind such excuses.

"Rather than historical accuracy, he's going for what feels right. Lovecraft becomes more awesome if he's part of a mystic conspiracy, so let's fudge him into being so."

This sounds a lot like what AA does (or used to do, I guess) with ancient history. But I don't see anything short of infinite charity allowing us to dismiss them as "working in a different paradigm", as opposed to being stupid/crazy/dishonest (which does not a paradigm make).

Reply
spookyparadigm
8/17/2014 02:18:08 am

re: academia. That's why I separated deconstruction and postmodernism into two words. Intellectually, they're different. But at least from the perspective of anthropology and how the two spread there, they both arrived at roughly the same time, the first peeks in the 1970s, raging in at the cutting edge in the 1980s, and then surviving in varying strength largely based on the rhetorical or political power of various individual researchers and their bodies of students. I am not demeaning the approaches (they have value, as did what came before) but I normally think of these things less as ideas and more as practice within the community. And that's particularly so in this case as I see a parallel with the GenX ufologists.

re: Doty. I need to read Bishop's book someday. It's been on my shelves for years, and is one of the few that survived Katrina. But I would agree that the "disinfo" angle has been oversold. But yes, the Bennewitz case is clearly more about fears of foreign intel than anything else.

I don't think Knowles is a charlatan in the AA sense. I just think he sees all of it as akin to entertainment. Look at his bio: he worked in comics. He's published two books looking at the occult undertones of The X-Files and Superhero comics. And in his current blog piece, he keeps referring to "fandom."

In this sense, he's the other side of Walt's coin. Rather than saying ignore X because it is just entertainment (even though in reality many people don't take it that way, including some of X's creators, making it a major impact on public perceptions of science and history), he's saying that it's all entertainment, and it's very important because it is.

Reply
EP
8/17/2014 05:25:55 am

"I am not demeaning the approaches (they have value, as did what came before) but I normally think of these things less as ideas and more as practice within the community. And that's particularly so in this case as I see a parallel with the GenX ufologists."

I can certainly agree with all this; the rest is hair splitting. Well, except for the part where I would have no problem being demeaning of these approaches :)

"Bennewitz case is clearly more about fears of foreign intel than anything else."

Not just his case. I think there was general sense of apprehensiveness about the ragtag bunch of weirdoes hanging about top-secret facilities with amateur spy equipment and a cover story that's really difficult to take seriously. Whatever attention they received from the government was really to be expected.

"Look at his bio"

I did. While it certainly helps with the big picture, I don't think it's evidence on its own. It's like saying that Jason thinks it's all entertainment because he wrote short stories. And he does say, things like

"My work needs the tools of academic publishing- footnotes, bibliographies, indices, appendices- otherwise it's too easy for skeptics to dismiss out of hand."

which are hard to reconcile with intepretation of him as (explicitly or implicitly) a mere entertainer.

spookyparadigm
8/17/2014 07:15:10 am

I see that last quote less as the calculated work of a charlatan and more the humblebrag or complaint of someone who thinks they have advanced _beyond_.

EP
8/17/2014 07:23:09 am

Perhaps. Like I said, his exact ratio of fraud, stupidity and delusion are a mystery to me. It doesn't sound like someone who thinks that it is "all entertainment".


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          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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