The Water-Pepper Wind?

Aboard a Boat on a Moonlit Night
Tai Fu-ku

Moonlight fills the boat and floods an empty sky
night air pours across the green and glassy water
ideas for a poem sway in the shadows of the mast
my dream spirit rows to the sound of the scull
stars are scattered on the jade-colored lake
wild geese cry out in the water-pepper wind
a few fishing lanterns mark the ancient shore
dew drips from paulownias on Broken Arch Bridge

from Poems of the Masters translated by Red Pine (2003)

Han Shan (Cold Mountain) Poem #218

People who meet Cold Mountain
they all say he's crazy
his face isn't worth a glance
his body is covered in rags
they don't understand my words
their words I won't speak
this is for those who come
visit Cold Mountain sometime


from
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
translated by Red Pine (Bill Porter)
Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2000

Your Daily Random Zen Quote

Where I'm at in my Buddhist training now is examining reality and the nature of delusion (or possibly delusion and the nature of reality - I'm not sure yet).  To this end, Reverend Daishin Morgan's Buddha Recognizes Buddha (Throssel Hole Press, 2010) is one of my favorite books for dipping into. I've never formally studied psychology, but much of Zen practice involves the observation of shifting states of mind.  Having experienced the devastating effects of serious depression, learning how to do this was a matter of survival for me.  Anyway, here's a thought to chew on from pp 75-76 in this diminutive book:

When we perceive, our perception involves all of our experience and a great deal of the culture and history within which we live.  We can only recognize something, even when we do so without words, because of a complex interaction between our senses, the object and our mind.  Our mind is shaped by our experience and, indirectly, by the experience of our culture and of humanity as a whole.  We see with our memories as much as we see with our eyes.  It is a fiction to believe that we can simply ‘see’ with no projections from the past.  Enlightenment does not consist in some idea of pure perception devoid of these influences.  We should not see our perceptions as tainted, even though they are not pure in this idealized way.

There is no reality, in the sense that at a moment in time there is the truth, existing purely without containing all of the past and the potentials of the future.  It is enough to sit still, meaning to sit with the mind of zazen that is aware when it engages in fantasy, memory and projection.   The enlightened person is capable of these things, he or she is free to utilize them as needed and to know that is what he or she is doing.  The enlightened person is not looking outside for some thing that he or she is lacking.  By sitting still, we can see what is required.  Even this is not absolute; we will never have perfect perception – that really is a fantasy.  Yet we may have a deep connection with what is through having the faith to dwell within it without reliance upon fantasies.

There ya go!

Blood Splatter of the Gods!

It turns out that Bloodline of the Gods has very little discussion of actual biology or science when it comes to Rh negative blood factor and how it relates to anything paranormal.  Apart from that, though it has everything - and I do mean everything:

Adam

Alien gene splitting

Andreasson, Betty

Annunaki

Basques

Black Helicopters

Black-eyed children

Changelings

CIA

Clovis society, extinction of

Collective unconscious

Corso, Phil

Crash retrievals

Cro-Magnons

Cryptids

Drones

Eve

Fairies

Hill, Betty and Barney

Hybrids

Immorality, secret of

Incubi

Jacobs, David

Lilith

Mack, John

Mammoths, extinction of

Men in Black

MILABS (military abductions)

Mind control

Missing Time

Neanderthals

Niburu

Night Hag

Nuclear attack

Organ transplants, unusual memories after

Owls

Pascagoula River (Hickson/Parker abduction)

Psychedelics

Pyramids

Quetzalcoatl

Reptilians

Rhymer, Thomas the

Simonton, Joe

Slave races

Sleep paralysis

Sodom and Gomorrah

Strieber, Whitley

Succubi

The Flood

Tonnies, Mac

Turner, Karla

UFOs

Vampires

Vilas-Boas, Antonio

Walton, Travis

(If you don’t know what any of this means, congratulations.  You have been spending your time better than I have been spending mine.)

The other thing I would like to note about this book is that it does have an index and a fairly extensive bibliography.  The index looked like a normal index, but the bibliography is almost entirely composed of references to web pages.  This made me feel simultaneously old and as if instead of standing on firm ground I suddenly found myself halfway up a teetering staircase.

The fact that the author’s treatment of the Rh factor didn’t match my own line of interest was a little disappointing, but not a big deal.  What really rocked me back on my heels was seeing credulity with a tinge of hysteria (e.g., chapter subheads like When a Mother Attempts to Kill Her Baby) where I had come to expect credibility and sagacity.  However, when something strange like that pops up, I have a rule of thumb I rely on: it can either be explained by ball lightning or by marketing.  This clearly wasn’t an instance of ball lightning, so obviously the marketing department was behind it.

At any rate, I’d often heard Paul Kimball remark (Kimball, 2015*) that aspects of paranormal experience can usefully be understood in terms of an art form or movement, so I decided to approach Bloodline of the Gods in that vein.  Viewed that way, what the author is doing in Bloodline is akin to what Nesta Webster did for conspiracy theory.  According to conspiracy theory historian Martha F. Lee (2011), prior to Webster conspiracy theories concerned specific events like Freemasons or the Illuminati:

“Like those who first adopted conspiratorial thinking, Webster was concerned about social change that threatened her political community and her place in society.  Webster, however, did not perceive conspiracies as a limited political strategy.  Instead, as global power shifted away from Britain and toward America, Webster saw conspiracy everywhere, working through every possible facet of human existence … In this way of thinking, Webster fundamentally changed the nature of conspiracy theory … her work – linking numerous groups and plots in an international plan for control of human existence – allowed a whole new world of conspiracy thinking to develop.”

Webster repainted the conspiracy theory picture she inherited into one that accounted for the failure of her own life expectations, and by doing so inadvertently created the now familiar narrative of all-encompassing superconspiracy.  

https://books.google.com/books?id=yPylkGSFrl4C&lpg=PA69&ots=Pv3Yn0Fdg_&dq=conspiracy%20rising&pg=PA69#v=onepage&q=conspiracy%20rising&f=false (I apologize, Dr. Lee, for citing a Google page scan when people should really be buying your book to add to their library.)

In Bloodline of the Gods, the author attempts to craft a cohesive and continuous narrative integrating Rh negative blood factor lore into diverse categories of other paranormal fare whilst retaining the imprimatur of science.  In this respect, he’s following in the footsteps of other totalizing fringe theoreticians like Alex Jones, David Icke or Bill Cooper – all of them Nesta Webster’s children.

In the next installment of my review, I’ll explore this idea in more depth.

Sources:

Kimball, Paul (my iPod, 2015).  A podcast. *Or it might have been Greg Bishop on the same or a different podcast.

Lee, Martha F. (2011) Conspiracy Rising: Conspiracy Thinking and American Public Life (Santa Barbara: Praeger)

Understanding Suicidal Mass Murderers with Dr. John Liebert

I'm reading Suicidal Mass Murderers by Dr. John Liebert and find myself completely gripped by the book.  You know how when something like the Virginia Tech massacre happens, the news never seems to give enough information and you are left asking, "Why?"  Actually in this particular book Dr. Liebert explains why in a great amount of detail and adds a considerable amount more than that.  His account (with co-author Bill Birnes) also serves up a political, institutional and social history of medicine, specifically psychiatry, focusing on the impact of the community mental health/deinstitutionalization movement of the 1970s.  In reading the book, I'm reliving my intellectual history and seeing how the ideas I toyed with as an undergrad have played out in real world events.  Maybe I'm being a total fangirl, but I'm really impressed with the work Liebert has done.

If you want to download a very interesting and articulate discussion of criminal psychology, check out Steve Warner's interview of Dr. Liebert on his Dark City podcast:

https://soundcloud.com/darkcityfm/dr-john-liebert

Paranormal Rh Factor, Part I

Completely by accident, I happened to be listening to Nick Redfern talk about his latest book Bloodline of the Gods on Future Theater.   From time to time I’d heard people who are into the paranormal claim that being Rh negative means you’re more mystical or something, and I’ve always wondered where that belief came from.  If there was one person I’d hope to have tackle the whole question, it would be Nick Redfern.  He’s always struck me as a grounded researcher of strange topics, an excellent writer and careful about making wild generalizations.  I clicked over to Amazon and requested the deros in the fulfillment unit there to ship me his book forthwith.

Apparently the guy who whips the back of the deros’ calves to make them work faster was taking a break to lick the blood running off said calves, because I did have to wait a day and a half before receiving the book.  In the meantime, I troubled myself – but not too much – to look up Rh factor on the web.  There was the usual Wikipedia page, but then there was this unexplained-mysteries.com thread titled The Rh Neg Blood Type – Nephilim Bloodline:

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=179790&st=0

The thread, started in April 2010, weighs in at 22 pages and spans more than five years.  In the name of research, I read the whole thing.  It’s a gem; reading it was like listening to one of the classic Art Bell shows from the 90s for the first time.  The original post was nutty in a determined, grammar-be-damned way.  Scattered throughout the years of responses were the occasional stray fact (e.g., blood cells have walls) or critical insight (e.g., the underlying message concerns claims of racial supremacy) plus one or two straight up, whacked-out Christian (?) rants.

And now I see that apparently my recent post in the thread has caused a site administrator to close the discussion for good.  Story of my life!  You can still enjoy reading the entire thing.

What’s the big deal about Rh factor in relation to the paranormal?  The big deal is that the whole Rh factor mythos that’s apparently been endemic to fringe ideology and science has a defined starting point in the recent past.  This means the propagation of rumors and myths can be traced back to that starting point.  By way of example, I refer you to a New York Times editorial about the first mention of the Rh factor in 1944:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/health/04first.html?_r=3&scp=1&sq=Alexander+Wiener&st=cse

On January 3, 2011, Nicholas Bakalar wrote,  'The presence or absence of the blood protein Rh (for rhesus, the monkey in which it was discovered) can lead to runaway immune reactions in Rh-positive babies born to Rh-negative mothers, or in people receiving transfusions of incompatible blood.

‘So in hindsight, The New York Times’s first mention of the Rh factor, on Sunday, March 26, 1944, should have made bigger news than it did — in a brief article at the bottom of the “Science in Review” column on Page 9 of Section 4, The News of the Week in Review. “The recently discovered Rh factor in human blood,” it said, “need not cause infant deaths and childless marriages.”’

Bakalar’s editorial goes on to say that the first mention of a preventative treatment for newborns came in 1947, but the treatment (including the blood test to determine Rh factor) was not widely available.   It was not until the late 1960s that the New York Times reported that the drug Rhogam was available to treat women giving birth.  Rh was no longer a blood disease; it was now just a factor that had to be taken into account.

I have lots of problems with the whole Rh Neg idea vis-a-via the paranormal, but one thing I do like about it is that it appears to be a very low-hanging fruit.  Like alien abductions leading to aborted pregnancies, this is an area where the science is pretty clear.  I don’t have to really wonder what’s going on when people misunderstand blood science; I’m pretty sure I already know.  This is unlike other areas of paranormal research, where despite your best attempts to stuff something into a rational framework it keeps stepping outside the box to sneer and quote Raymond Chandler (if you’re lucky) at you.

The other thing about the whole Rh Neg narrative dynamic is that besides being implicitly anti-science it’s also explicitly racist.  By that, I mean that it both denies what we’ve learned about the human animal that is us and insists on creating new, even more artificial constructs to differentiate between types of humans.  Maybe it’s the Jewish part of my DNA (METAPHOR!), but I do get a little nervous about people going after other people with knives and pitchforks because they’re different.

So here’s the plan: I’ll tweet, blog and Soundcloud as I read Nick Redfern’s Bloodline of the Gods.  I’ve already dipped in a page or two, and it doesn’t look good.  Frankly, it looks like it’s been written by . . . an alien.  And the Nick Redfern I know would NEVER have started a sentence with an “and” . . . .

Anyone interested in this kind of thing who has scientific chops in blood science, biology, evolution, obstetrics, the social history of medicine, etc., please join in.   Email me at spjohnson93@gmailcom.

Tea Time Is Any Time

I thought the knock on the front door might be from a neighbor, so I answered it. Still, I looked out the little window first. Some kid was already starting to leave the porch. I opened the door anyway because I wanted to know what he was up to. The kid greeted me by my first name and confirmed that I was registered to vote.

He had a petition signature clipboard and asked for my signature on the Richmond mayor salary initiative. The initiative turned out to be real but his patter was wrong. I asked him who was sponsoring the petition; he said, "Some political group." "Which one?" I asked back. "I don't know," he said, "it's somewhere on the back of the page. Here, look for it."

He handed me his clipboard. As I flipped through the different petitions, he crept up closer, peering around me into the house. "That's a nice X you have," he said. "Uh," I replied, still flipping through the pages on the clipboard. The petitions looked real enough, but I couldn't find one about the topic he had mentioned.

Now he was physically close to me, right on the door step. The clipboard was between us, but his head was peeking around it and he was staring straight into my eyes - at a close distance, but as if he didn't expect me to notice. Flipping through the petitions on the clipboard, I had to decide what to do.

It was a real weirdo move, no doubt about it. Physically I figured I could take him. I would have the surprise factor working for me in addition to my weight, training and whatever deep reservoir of recklessness that might kick in.

I looked into his crazy eyes, handed the clipboard back to him and moved a half-step forward. He was slick. He said, "Sorry, did I freak you out? I didn't mean to," or something BS like that. Of course he meant to freak me out, and if I had been freaked out he would have tried to move in on me. You don't act like he did unless your're a fucking psycho searching out weaknesses in people and looking for a victim.

However, I moved in on him a half step and he backed up a half step, so I just continued to close in. He seemed to like it subtle, so I gave it to him subtle. "Yeah, you did freak me out." I said, taking another half-step forward as he retreated a half-step. "You don't really want to do that kind of thing" I said, moving in another half step, "because you could get yourself really hurt doing that."

At that point, he was definitely at a less threatening distance and also just chirping instead of replying to my comments. Still, before he turned and ran off the steps, he asked me once more to sign whatever petition he had on his clipboard. Psychopath,

It seemed silly, but it also made me worry about other people, so I did report it to Richmond police. Whoever hires the people who solicit petition signatures for the Richmond Mayor's salary reduction initiative might want to clean house, too. And if Junior comes back to my house, the kettle is always ready and I have lots of kinds of tea.

Working Security 1

In truth, it was a difficult day, as any fool could plainly see.  First there was the dead deer, which required a police escort (two cars), which in turn required a security vehicle to guide the police to where the deer was.  My partner took his vehicle to meet the police and I took mine to locate the dead deer.  The dead deer turned out to be a live fawn doing what fawns do (i.e. lie perfectly still without moving).  Clearly, someone had NOT been paying attention in second grade, because I remember that exact class, as well as the pictures of fawns we all drew on construction paper.  (You never appreciate the white crayon until you actually need it for something, and then war breaks out.)

I radioed my partner to apprise him of the sitch and found he was now reporting to a dead rattlesnake in a different location altogether.  At least, on first report the rattlesnake was dead; then we were advised via radio that it was alive.  All kind of resurrection was going on!  A live rattlesnake outranks a dead deer (especially one that is actually a live fawn), and events now required the personal presence of the Security Operations Manager (SOM).  Since my partner was busy securing the rattlesnake scene and acting as escort to the two police cars, I was dispatched with my ride-along trainee to pick up the SOM and proceed to the location.

With the two of them in my vehicle, I pulled up to a loading dock wedged between two buildings set against a hillside.  We were greeted with the sight of two police cars, a security vehicle and about a half dozen people peering into a plastic garbage can from a safe distance.  The three of us piled out of the truck and joined this group.  It turned out that the building manager had caught the snake quite a while ago and put it in the tall can in order to take it further up the hill and let it loose. He did this all the time, because snakes were attracted to the mice that were attracted to the garbage dumpsters on the loading dock.  However, he thought we might like to see the snake first, so he called security.  Everyone chatted for awhile, and then went back to work.  I wrote up a full report, and this is it.