We know we covered this already, but we think it's worth returning to, just for clarification - from Reason.com's The New Age Assassin:If you're trying to decipher Loughner's worldview,...The best label would probably be "New Age paranoia."NewAge. Just as we - alone - have been saying since the very beginning. Except for Reason.com, and Robert Stacy McCain, there's no evidence anyone else is picking up this narrative yet - the only one to emerge with any truth to it.
Oh well, they must think the blood-on-Sarah-Palin's-hands thing works better. (It definitely keeps the heat off of themselves if they, too, share insane NewAge beliefs with Loughner and the rest of the world-wide Left,...) 
But is any of that covering up, hiding, misdirection, etc., really what we have a news media for?UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers, and thanks, Professor.
You know that Time Magazine cover is fake, right?
ReplyDeleteMark M said:
ReplyDeleteI think the article was real:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
I understand the comments about Loughner...but why did you post that picture of Uncle Fester?
ReplyDeleteFirst time here, by way of Instapundit.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right about the overlap between the professional Left and the friggin-bonkers set.
Just a look at the post-Soviet Pravda tells the tale -- ab it of old Pravda mixed with a gigantic helping of the Weekly World News tabloid plus anything under the sun conspiracy-wise.
Could you concisely explain your theory about the role of New Age beliefs in this incident? I keep clicking back through the posts you link, but they all just say, "As I've been explaining from the beginning..." without ever really explaining it. I grant that I may have missed your summary, so apologies in advance if so.
ReplyDeleteThomas Deautrane,
ReplyDeleteCould you concisely explain your theory about the role of New Age beliefs in this incident?
NewAge (rhymes with "sewage") is the umbrella term for a whole host of beliefs held by the New Age Movement (more recently referred to as "Mind/Body/Spirit"). Not all NewAgers hold all of the beliefs - they pick and choose, even from religion, science, and other disciplines - but few of them have a basis in reality - most were believed by the Nazis. Many of them, today, lead to the death of others - which is how I discovered it.
NewAge beliefs desensitize one to the world around them, cutting them loose from the ties that bind. It doesn't surprise me that Michael jackson is dead when his "friends" were people like Deepak Chopra, Uri Gellar, and Tony Robbins. or that NewAge 'guru" James Arthur Ray stands accused of killing three people in those famous "sweatlodge" murders. Those involved in NewAge do not have all their pistons firing correctly.
In the case of Loughner, while everyone else focused on the bogus Sarah Palin-hating political angle, it was the NewAge stuff that stood out for me:
2012, lucid dreaming, U.F.O.s, brainwashing, mind control, the Buddha book, the shrine, and finally the Zeitgeist cult.
I've been on this subject for some time and once I saw that stuff I knew the media was on the wrong track - this was a NewAge murderer, just like all the others I've followed, except this time the movement had claimed the lives of people the nation would notice.
it's a shame that it takes the death of a judge and a congresswoman being shot in the head to finally get some attention for this subject - considering (with Oprah's help) it's so widespread - but, if that's what it takes, then so be it.
I hope that helps, and "Thanks for writing".
>>>2012, lucid dreaming, U.F.O.s, brainwashing, mind control, the Buddha book, the shrine, and finally the Zeitgeist cult.
ReplyDeleteCrack emcee might be onto something here.
It is amusing to see the rantings of a paranoid schizophrenic elevated to the level of rational discourse. Starts to make you wonder if there are enough sane people in the US to make it work.
ReplyDeleteM. Simon,
ReplyDeleteIt is amusing to see the rantings of a paranoid schizophrenic elevated to the level of rational discourse.
keep in mind that JLL hasn't actually been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic yet - that's just a theory - a theory I think is inaccurate. He's a NewAger - a species of human given very little critical investigation until now - and, from what I've seen, they don't have to be clinically insane to kill.
I was among the Newest Of New Agers. I was an acolyte of the late great Aleister Crowley. I still love his stuff.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet I'm a libertarian Republican.
So I guess the new meme is "the shootings in Arizona were caused by (fill in the blank) which I personally hate."
E. Goldstein could not be reached for comment.
Proof positive that it is not only Loughner who was off his meds. We have a whole nation which is undermedicated.
PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System
I blame the PTSD epidemic.
Crack,
ReplyDeleteI have lived with a paranoid schizophrenic (a close relative). I guarantee you the symptoms are distinctive and unmistakable. I know what they are like when they go off their meds. Loughner is a Classic Case.
M. Simon,
ReplyDeleteI was among the Newest Of New Agers. I was an acolyte of the late great Aleister Crowley. I still love his stuff.
And yet I'm a libertarian Republican.
So I guess the new meme is "the shootings in Arizona were caused by (fill in the blank) which I personally hate."
Who says you can't be a Republican and not into NewAge? (Michael Savage is a homeopath.) And why are you ignoring the killing NewAgers are up to?
Even more important, why should I like something that leads to killing? Shouldn't something that leads to killing be something "which I personally hate"?
And finally, just because you like Aleister Crowley, does that make his ideas good? His friendship with L. Ron Hubbard gave us Scientology AKA "The world's most dangerous cult" - which has also killed people - can you defend that?
Next you'll be telling us you like Charles Manson and that makes him O.K., too.
I have lived with a paranoid schizophrenic (a close relative). I guarantee you the symptoms are distinctive and unmistakable. I know what they are like when they go off their meds. Loughner is a Classic Case.
ReplyDeleteThree things:
1) The man hasn't been diagnosed.
2) I was married to a NewAger who killed three people.
3) Anyone who's into "the late great Aleister Crowley" is hardly an authority on the *negative* aspects of NewAge.
Nice try, though.
Michael Savage has been railing against the use of "Salvia" (Salvia divinorum) by Loughner. Salvia is a hallucinogen ("lucid dreaming"), is generally legal, although I don't know what proof Savage has that "Loughner" was a user. Savage is claiming Salvia drove Loughner to go on his killing spree. If so, sounds NewAge to me.
ReplyDeleteNaw, from what I've seen, salvia would've made it impossible for him to catch a cab and/or destroyed his aim. I could be wrong (I've never done it) but it doesn't sound plausible.
ReplyDeleteSavage is a homeopath, anyway - a first class charlatan - so I'd hardly trust him for accurate information on anything NewAge.
"His friendship with L. Ron Hubbard gave us Scientology AKA 'The world's most dangerous cult'"
ReplyDeleteThat L. Ron Hubbard was a friend of Aleister Crowley is false. Hubbard may have said so, but the two never met, and Crowley despised him.
Saying Crowley gave us Scientology is like trying to pin Fred Phelps on the Baptists. Bit of a stretch, to put it charitably.
"That L. Ron Hubbard was a friend of Aleister Crowley is false. Hubbard may have said so, but the two never met, and Crowley despised him."
ReplyDeleteNot so much.
http://www.mt.net/~watcher/crowleyhubbard.html
In the words of ElRon himself, "My very good friend"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3yfsbi4L70
What are the exact "new age beliefs" that caused this guy to shoot his victims?
ReplyDeleteAstrology? Yoga? Reiki?
You make some pretty wild (even, dare I say it, conspiratorial) claims here, but provide nothing in the way of evidence to back them up.
unconev,
ReplyDeleteWhat are the exact "new age beliefs" that caused this guy to shoot his victims?
Astrology? Yoga? Reiki?
You make some pretty wild (even, dare I say it, conspiratorial) claims here, but provide nothing in the way of evidence to back them up.
They're neither wild or conspiratorial, just largely unexamined - except by the blissed out types already under their spell because they aren't critical thinkers or natural skeptics.
Loughner indicated several he was into - including lucid dreaming (which I think is key) but, rather than trying to read his mind - since all NewAgers pick and choose from a hodgepodge of nonsense - I'll first give you this description of the NewAge cult mind from Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman's deprogramming book, "Snapping":
IN ALL THE WORLD, there is nothing quite so impenetrable as a human mind snapped shut with bliss. No call to reason, no emotional appeal can get through its armor of self-proclaimed joy.
We talked with dozens of individuals in this state of mind: cult members, group therapy graduates, born-again Christians, some Transcendental Meditators. After a while, it seemed very much like dancing to a broken record. We would ask a question, and the individual would spin round and round in a circle of dogma. If we tried to interrupt, he or she would simply pick right up again or go back to the beginning and start over.
Soon we began to realize that what we were watching went much deeper. These people were not simply incapable of carrying on a genuine conversation, they were completely mired in their unthinking, unfeeling, uncomprehending states. Whether cloistered in cults or passing blindly through the world, they were impervious to the pain of parents, spouses, friends and lovers. How do you reach such people? Can they be made to think and feel again? Is there any way to reunite them with their former personalities and the world around them?
Once a person has been programmed (or in some cases, self-programmed) to be "completely mired in their unthinking, unfeeling, uncomprehending states" as a NewAger, and "impervious to the pain" of others - including "parents, spouses, friends and lovers" - killing strangers is a walk in the park.
Just ask the Jews. Many have never questioned my view of this. As a matter of fact, they've been some of this blog's biggest supporters. They know how this works, since Nazi Germany was a hotbed of what we call NewAge beliefs.
Is that sufficient?
@Anonymous, as none of the evidence you have adduced contradicts---even slightly---any of my statements, your "not so much" is baffling. Excluding self serving --and false--- statements by Hubbard referring to Aleister Crowley as "my very good friend", what do you have? Nothing. The two never met, never corresponded, and Crowley disapproved of Hubbard from the beginning of his association with Jack Parsons. As for Crowley's attitude to Hubbard, this quote of his should suffice: "Suspect Ron playing confidence trick -- Jack Parsons weak fool -- obvious victim prowling swindlers."
ReplyDeleteTry again.
What you are asserting here is not that L is a "new ager" but rather that he somehow willed himself into an "unfeeling, incomprehending" state - a state which (as the article you quote notes) is also typical of "born-again Christians"
ReplyDeleteWould this also explain abortion clinic bombers and snipers, or even would-be lone wolves like Byron Williams?
Once you stop trying to force the facts to fit a pre-conceived article of faith and instead broaden your consideration to include disparate data points, then you might actually begin to be on to something useful here.
(That is, assuming you're really trying to understand what motivates people to go off like this, and not just taking the piss or scoring points.)
unconev,
ReplyDeleteI hate talking to your type because you're so ignorant, but have some kind of chip on your shoulder about what you don't understand, it makes it almost impossible to get through to you and, frankly, I could give a shit if I do. Your first question -"What are the exact "new age beliefs" that caused this guy to shoot his victims?" - reveal your ignorance of the topic because, as I said, every NewAger collects them higgly-piggly, doing whatever they "feel" is right for them. How is anyone, who doesn't know L personally, supposed to say what "exact" beliefs drove him to kill?
Long-story-short, if you want to understand the NewAge cult phenomena, I've got a whole blog for you to investigate. if it's too substance-free at times, I'd recommend my friend Chris Locke's site, Mystic Bourgeoisie. Whatever you do, get off my nuts:
I ain't got time for you.
You're positive the shooter was motived by "new age" beliefs but can't say what those beliefs are - because ultimately all "new agers" collect their own beliefs.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the only real common thread these people have is that they do (in your own words) what "feels right" for them.
So if we look at
1) people who "do" things, and then
2) subtract all the ones who it didn't "feel right" for, then
3) New agers = everyone else
Makes perfect sense to me.
One more time, because you seem to be too slow to have gotten it the first time:
ReplyDeleteYou're too slow for me to fuck with.
Now just stop it. If you're confused, then so be it. Accept it. I owe you nothing. Do your own investigation. if you think I'm wrong, fine. Just leave me alone.
Clear?
This cannot have effect in actual fact, that is what I think.
ReplyDelete