Lucy In The Chocolate Factory

"Spiritual leader" JZ Knight looks a lot different (from when TMR first started covering her exploits) but her heart's the same:

“All Mexicans are not worthy of conscious thought.”

Her heart's still the same as the culture's, anyway:

  "Wernher von Braun -- a former Nazi -- was much a much easier fit than [Jack] Parsons. A lot of people would be shocked to find out that the space programme was founded by a man who held orgies in his Pasadena mansion."

JZ Knight - "What The Bleep Does She Know?" - amahright? Culture is found in real sources:

  "I’ve had affairs. If you want to know if it involves your spouse, you can talk to me."

I said real sources, not authorities - big difference:

"Metro Calgary Quotes Anti-Vaccine Homeopath [One] Day After Measles Outbreak Declared"

If you live long enough, culture changes slow, but without rhyme or reason:

  "FDA Cracks Down On Autism Quackery"

Really, after all these years, it's shocking to think reason might've ever been anything to expect:

  "10 Questions To Distinguish Real From Fake Science"

Believe It: It's Always A J.Z. Knight Somewhere

We guess this answers the "What The (Bleep) Do We Know?" question once and for all:

"How many of us could survive for 48 hours away from prepared food, shelter and a tarred road?"

The answer was six days, in the case of French fugitives Dr Philippe Meniere and his partner Agnes Jardel, who died at their Karoo hide-out this week.

Among the reclusive couple's belongings was Don't Die in the Bundu, an ex-Rhodesian army survival guide published in 1967, which opens with the question about survival.

Meniere, 60, and Jardel, 55, evaded capture by nearly 100 police with tracker dogs and helicopters on a 3000ha farm in the Northern Cape in a six-day drama which gripped the country.

They covered the soles of their hiking boots with cloth to disguise their tracks and carried a small arsenal of weapons.

Rough terrain and windy conditions contributed to the length of time it took to find the couple, said the man who headed the search, Colonel Tip Brink.

In the end it was thermal imaging equipment fitted to a helicopter and a tip-off from a resident which led police to their hide-out - a building just 500m from the farm house where they had lived rent free for a decade, and prepared for the end of the world.

Hawks spokesman McIntosh Polela said yesterday that a postmortem would take place in Kimberley this week. Officials from the French Embassy were tracing people in Paris - where Meniere practised before registering as a general practitioner in South Africa in 1983 - to help identify the bodies.

Investigations are under way to determine whether the couple committed suicide or were killed by police.

When Meniere and Jardel moved to Sutherland, they were heeding the word of Ramtha, a man they believed lived 35000 years ago. They stockpiled food and had a collection of guns, ammunition, survival books and literature from the Ramtha School of Enlightenment. They joined the school in 1997 and attended seminars held in Johannesburg in 2004.

A US woman, JZ Knight, has claimed that Ramtha channels his wisdom through her; she has persuaded thousands of people around the world to join the school. Knight this week scrambled to distance herself from Meniere and Jardel, saying they had had no contact with her school since 2004.

"To link the two is preposterous," she said. "RSE is not a survival doomsday cult."

But the school's website tells a different story. Teachings from Ramtha on the site include:

• "One should not live in the cities ... in the days to come not only are the plagues to run rampant ... there will be murderers on the street who will rob your cupboards and slay you for only a sliver of bread";

• "You should learn to plant seeds, grow and harvest your own food without chemicals, and then prepare food storage for at least two years and more";

• "You will find storms that unleash a violence that you have never seen before ... seek dry ground, higher ground, away from that which is called the oceans"; and

• "Put up food and become sovereign and have lots of water ... work towards a point that regardless of what would happen with the world, you could continue to sustain yourself".

The school is advertising retreats in Rustenburg in North West in May and October, at a cost of up to $1350 a head.

Well it's a good thing J.Z. Knight's Ramtha School of Enlightenment isn't "a survival doomsday cult" - as opposed to just an ordinary cult - or else the old broad might have something to answer for. As long as it's just a cult, then everybody can relax and go back to whatever "perfectly normal" thing they were doing before all this started - like watching Oprah sell "The Secret", or movies that attempt to get you worried about the world ending in 2012.

To assume there's any connection between all these things is, of course, "preposterous". Surely, as preposterous as suggesting NewAgers are killers.

J.Z. Knight's Bodyguard Says Her Ramtha School For Enlightenment Is Nothing But A Cult? I'll Bite First: What The Bleep Does He Know?

“[Glen Cunningham] said he decided to do the interview as a way to help people.

'There’s a lot of people who have approached me about their decision to get out of the [Ramtha] school,' Cunningham said. 'I tell them my stories and it helps them.'

'(Knight) is a very charismatic person,' he said. 'You want to be around her until you get to know her.'

'(But) she’s a drama queen; she likes to have drama in her life.'

...Cunningham also said that he considers RSE to be a cult.

'It’s just like any other cult,' he said. 'All the things they do now are cult activities.'

'I saw 1,200 people who would drink the Kool-Aid,' he said in the online video.

Since leaving RSE, Cunningham has kept fairly quiet on his experience.

Occasionally he warns people how it is so they 'don’t waste their money.'

'I think people have been disenchanted with things,' Cunningham said. 'There are too many dead people who came here to get cured.'

He recalls when a woman suffering from cancer arrived at the school hoping to be cured. In front of everyone, Ramtha hugged her and told her she was free of the disease.

'The whole school is a lie and she’s dead,' he said. 'I saw a lot of them that thought this was going to be their answer, but it wasn’t.'

Through all his experiences, Cunningham doesn’t hold any harsh feelings towards Knight.

He refutes claims made by Knight supporters that he hates the channeler.

“I don’t, because she’s a very brilliant woman,' Cunningham said.

'I just feel sorry for her.'

'She’s got herself in this thing to where she can’t get out. It’s the rest of her life.'”

-- Glen Cunningham, J.Z. Knight's former bodyguard, backing up everything J.Z. Knight's ex-husband said, to Megan Hansen of the Nisqually Valley News.

Yes, kids, once again, little by little, it's all starting to unravel. And this should speak volumes about Knight's chief competitor, the evil Shirley MacLaine, and everyone who helped Knight make those two stupid movies, "What The Bleep Do We Know?", and "What The Bleep Do We Know?: Down The Rabbit Hole," too. It's all a lie - especially the claim to love others.

I remember my ex-wife went to see those movies, and though she wasn't swept away by them, she still returned a changed woman, emboldened by knowing this was a mass cult phenomena, and determined to disrupt everything around her - especially me. (I had no idea what was going on, which was the whole manipulative point.) That's all this stuff is about. That's all it's ever been: pick your level and fuck with the innocents. Just as Cunningham describes here, my ex-wife, too, started compulsively listening to mind control tapes on headphones, and, eventually, became convinced she - a secretary with massive gold fillings in her teeth, and who needed glasses so badly she didn't feel comfortable driving at night - was somehow a god. As you can tell from watching this video, things tend to get very weird when someone gets into cultish thinking, but that's nothing compared to what it's like for those of us who aren't in it. I mean, I knew my wife had lost her mind, I just never had any idea how or why. Now, I'm practically an expert on these subjects, but then? I knew nothing except I wasn't into it.

Anyway, we're divorced now - and my life has finally been disrupted beyond my wildest dreams. In that, they have (all) been successful. They've "changed the vibration of the planet" - so I'm a conservative now, determined to rock their world. I hope they're happy.

Goodness knows, I am.

NewAge Quantum "Bleeping" Does It Again!

"The race for the Democratic nomination—"race" is hardly the right word, is it?—now feels like a quantum physics problem."

-- John Dickerson, throwing out the 'Q' word - as in LQF - for Slate.com

Knight Of The Living Dead

The normal-looking guy above is Jeff Knight, former husband of J.Z. Knight, the cult leader whose bullshit fuels the hit movies What The Bleep Do We Know? and What The Bleep Do We Know?: Down The Rabbit Hole. This is an interview he did in 1992, after his divorce and realization he had been involved in a cult.

Check out the crazy scene he paints for us: How he was told he and J.Z. were "soul mates" - by her then-current husband. ("Soul mates" is a cult phrase that's wound it's way into the larger culture's vocabulary.) How he actually believed she could channel "Ramtha" (or "Ram") a 35,000 year old space being who could predict events on earth. How she brainwashed him and took away his business. How she cheated on him, lied to him, divorced him, and then left him with nothing but her delusional ideas. How she, and Shirley MacLaine, talk of peace while viciously competing for followers. How, years later, he still couldn't "move on".

Check out the crazy scene he paints for us. And then ask yourself:

Why are filmmakers trying to spread J.Z. Knight's influence in What The Bleep Do We Know? and What The Bleep Do We Know?: Down The Rabbit Hole?