July 30, 2012  

We’re On Hiatus!

Even debunkers need a rest once in a while. Most of the civilized world (translation: northern and western Europe) goes on vacation during the month of August, and as August is almost upon us, I am going to be moving a bit slower on this blog in the next few weeks.

As much as I believe it is vitally important to demonstrate the factual errors, inconsistencies and downright falsehoods contained in the egregiously inaccurate and deceptive conspiracy theory film Thrive, when the computer is switched off, my family is the only thing that matters in the world. I want to thank those of you who’ve helped me with this endeavor–both the contributors to articles and also blog commenters who have alerted me to some very important issues regarding the film. The fact that this blog is now the go-to source on Thrive linked from Debunkatron, the RationalWiki article on Thrive and Winnipeg Skeptics tells me that we have much to be proud of. With all due modesty, I would say that collectively we’ve done an outstanding job in demonstrating to the world the deficiencies and shortcomings of this film. Thrive has been totally discredited in the minds of the rational public, and empirical statistics demonstrate that this film is less popular at this point in time than it ever has been at any time since its initial release in November 2011.

Posting of articles and approval of comments will, consequently, be much slower in the coming weeks. We’ll return to full strength in good time. Until then, enjoy the Olympics, the political conventions, and the days of good weather that remain to us, and have a great rest of your summer.

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15 responses to “We’re On Hiatus!”

  1. Hollywood Tomfortas says :

    Wait, Muertos! How can you possibly take a break during this fateful year of 2012 which only has 5 months left before the end of the Mayan Calendar and possibly the end of the world as we know it? You just can’t take a vacation during a time of impending Apocalypse! (Unless of course you really ARE a government disinformation agent, in which case, you already know what’s coming and your agency has prepared you for Doomsday.)

    On that note, may I give here a kind of bird’s eye perspective on your work debunking THRIVE. I made this comment on Suzanne Taylor’s blog where she makes the plea: “Brother, can you spare a paradigm?”

    Unfortunately, as much as I laud your efforts at debunking THRIVE and brining some kind of rationality to bear upon it, I’m afraid the future does not portend well for rationality. You and your rationalist ilk are quite an endangered species, especially if this “Mad Pride” movement takes hold, as it seems to be doing.

    Read on, MacDuff!

    Here is Suzanne’s latest entry on her blog

    http://theconversation.org/blog/getting-from-here-to-there-or-brother-can-you-spare-a-paradigm.org

    I submitted this comment but of course she is blocking it, so you may only read it here and not there.

    ————————

    Hollywood Tomfortas

    Your comment is awaiting moderation.

    July 29th, 2012 at 7:21 am

    Suzanne, Your timing could not be more perfect! You put out a call for a new paradigm and voila! one appears, as if by magic.

    Tonight’s guest on Coast to Coast is Seth Farber, a radical psychologist who has come up with a new paradigm for the mentally ill called “Mad Pride.”

    Here is the blurb from the C2C website
    http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2012/07/30

    ———————————-
    Madness & Spirituality
    Date: 07-30-12
    Host: George Noory
    Guests: Dr. Seth Farber

    Dissident psychologist and co-founder of the Network Against Coercive Psychiatry, Dr. Seth Farber, will discuss how the Mad Pride movement developed in the last ten years as the successor to the mental patients’ liberation movement, and teaches that many forms of “mental illness” are actually spiritual and supernatural experiences.
    ———————-

    Here is the page on his website about the new book and I quote from a review which mentions it as a new paradigm:

    The Spiritual Gift of Madness: The Failure of Psychiatry and the Rise of the Mad Pride Movement

    http://www.sethhfarber.com/the_spiritual_gift_of_madness_the_failure_of_psychiatry_and_the_rise_of_the_mad__113226.htm

    This revolutionary book tells how the Mad Pride movement developed in the last ten years as the successor to the mental patients’ liberation movement. It includes interviews with leaders in the movement as well as an interview with Paul Levy author of Wetiko, spiritual educator and ex-mental patient. Dr Farber believes the most important innovation to emerge from this movement is the proposition that madness is a dangerous gift.

    To explain this movement Farber has developed a new paradigm of madness and cultural transformation that builds upon the work of leading theorists in the existentialist, Jungian, Christian and Hindu traditions—including R.D. Laing, John Weir Perry and Sri Aurobindo. This paradigm helps to explain why this movement of “schizophrenics” and “bipolars” could change the world.

    Here is the Amazon link, and I copy the book summary.

    The Spiritual Gift of Madness: The Failure of Psychiatry and the Rise of the Mad Pride Movement

    Seth Farber Ph.D. (Author), Kate Millett (Foreword)

    A bold call for the “insane” to reclaim their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural transformation

    • Explains how many of those diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other forms of “madness” are not ill but experiencing a spiritual awakening

    • Explores the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement

    • Reveals how those seen as “mad” must embrace their spiritual gifts to help the coming global spiritual transition

    Many of the great prophets of the past experienced madness–a breakdown followed by a breakthrough, spiritual death followed by rebirth. With the advent of modern psychiatry, the budding prophets of today are captured and transformed into chronic mental patients before they can flower into the visionaries and mystics they were intended to become.

    As we approach the tipping point between extinction and global spiritual awakening, there is a deep need for these prophets to embrace their spiritual gifts. To make this happen, we must learn to respect the sanctity of madness. We need to cultivate Mad Pride.

    Exploring the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement as well as building upon psychiatrist R. D. Laing’s revolutionary theories, Seth Farber, Ph.D., explains that diagnosing people as mad has more to do with social control than therapy. Many of those labeled as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other kinds of “mad” are not ill but simply experiencing different forms of spiritual awakening: they are seeing and feeling what is wrong with society and what needs to be done to change it.

    Farber shares his interviews with former schizophrenics who now lead successful and inspiring lives. He shows that it is impossible for society to change as long as the mad are suppressed because they are our catalysts of social change. By reclaiming their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural revitalization, the mad–by seeding new visions for our future–can help humanity overcome the spiritual crisis that endangers our survival and lead us to a higher and long-awaited stage of spiritual development.

  2. Rui Viegas says :

    “… Most of the civilized world (translation: northern and western Europe)…”

    Just shows how arrogant you are!

    Hope you have a nice holiday (NOT), and that you don’t get eaten by a shark or something (…sarcasm…)!!

    Kind regards (NOT again),

    RV

  3. Torsten Pihl says :

    Hehe on the “civilized wold” snipe. I had to work at the same employer for over 10 years to get any reasonable vacation time here in the USA. Universal/transferable vacation time has yet to be considered. Heck, it’s hard enough to implement reasonable health care cost pooling.

    Anyway, safe travels and warm fuzzies, but not too warm in August.

  4. Professor Pious says :

    2012 – Last Chance To Cash In

    After a decade or so of recycled New Age literature marketed under the brand “2012 Mayan Calendar”, only about 3 months are left to cash in on the most lucrative New Age product so far. So what could be better than to observe the long awaited magical date, than a 4 day hippie music festival at Chichen Itza? Only $1999 per person (not including airfare), event limit 2000 persons–or $250 general admission…I wonder how many Mayans in Mexico will be able to afford the minimum $250 ticket to attend?

    http://synthesis2012.com/

    Naturally the 4 day festival includes such distinctively Mayan activities as yoga, numerology, reggae music, Tibetan chanting, meditation, Theosophy, karma, the Age of Aquarius, pyramid power, reiki, sound healing, ETs, a screening of the movie “Thrive: What On Earth Will It Take?”, and among the keynote speakers are “luminaries” Foster and Kimberly Gamble. Seriously though, making a movie that endorses every New Age belief, no matter how wacky or spurious, and releasing it on 11/11/11 is your lifetime free pass to esoteric events. At any rate, the Gambles are clearly wooing (pun intended) the New Wage crowd for promotion of the Thrive agenda.

    The only authentically Mayan aspect to this gathering is the location: Chichen Itza. Other than that, all of the speakers, wisdom keepers, and ceremonial leaders are well-known new age personas, although some of them incorporate pop notions about Mayan culture, or market themselves successfully as Mayan spiritual leaders. They promote Hunbatz Men (aka Cesar Mena Toto), for example, as an authentic Mayan Elder and Wisdom Keeper; he actually promotes non-Mayan notions such as crystal skulls and Atlantis. Traditional Mayans do not recognize him as Mayan or an elder at all:

    http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=1035

    One big underlying theme is that of “shifting into a new consciousness.” Of course, there’s nothing Mayan at all about that, it’s a completely New Age notion that dates back to at least 1971, popularized in part by New Age author Vera Reid in her book “Towards Aquarius.” Sadly all the pop spiritual notions and pseudoarchaeology associated with the 2012 cult phenomenon has led to an incredibly distorted picture of Mayans and their culture. Archaeologist Johan Normark has an excellent blog debunking many of the pop 2012 authors and their claims here:

    http://haecceities.wordpress.com/

    The 2012hoax web site debunks various 2012 apocalypse predictions, and has a useful discussion forum:

    http://www.2012hoax.org/

    • Hollywood Tomfortas says :

      Hey don’t forget the Mayan cruise ship! Be on board with such new Age luminaries as Colin Andrews, Richard C. Hoagland, Fred Alan Wolf, Robert Bauval, Michael Cremo, even convicted stock swindler Sean David Morton.

      Of course Hunbatz Men will be on board too. He really gets around, doesn’t he?

      http://www.mayancruise2012.com/

      Mayan Galactic Alignment
      Once in 26,000 years
      Celebrate the end of the Mayan Calendar,
      the Sun aligning with the center of the Galaxy,
      and the 2012 Winter Solstice.

      Join us on a spectacular Cruise and Seminar-At-Sea to the sacred Mayan sites of the Yucatan, where we will gather in grand ceremonies and rituals that close a 5000-year era of darkness, and open a new eon of light – the ascension of humanity.

      This is “the place to be on Dec. 21, 2012.”

      The Carnival Triumph takes us to Chichen Itza and Cozumel, where we will honor this Time with ritual and ceremony, participate in seminars and healing while at Sea, and celebrate on a world class cruise ship.

      On December 21, 2012, the Great Long Count Cycle, which began in 3114 BC, will end. The Fourth World will pass, and the “World of the Fifth Sun” will be born.

      Now add your momentum to the vibrational energy that culminates in the peak spiritual event of the Millennium – the Winter Solstice of 2012, at the incredibly auspicious hour of 11:11 a.m. Universal Time on December 21, 2012.

      At that time, on that date, everything we know will change. We will enter a new world – a world of Ascension.

      • Professor Pious says :

        The TRULY FAITHFUL only need to buy a 1-way ticket to Chichen Itza. Heck, put that $2000 entry fee on a credit card, who will need money after the long anticipated ascension event?

        I wonder how the New Wage community is going to move the goalposts when they all wake up on 12/22/2012, and nothing extraordinary has taken place. Oh sure, plenty will log in to Facebook and Twitter, and boast about how they all “feel the energies,” but that will only last a few days, and then what? At some point they’ll notice Afghanistan is still occupied, free energy devices still haven’t hit the stores, global warming is still kicking in, the Pentagon’s budget is still a trillion dollars a year, millions continue to starve in Africa, money doesn’t magically appear in bank accounts by visualizing it, people still can’t levitate, read minds, or pass through walls, and the post-ascension planet looks pretty much exactly the same as before. Surely HAARP and Chemtrails will take some of the blame. More importantly, what’s the next gimmick to pull in the money? Will it be sacred Phoenician physics, the numerology of irrational numbers, Aztec alchemy, Maori interstellar travel, quantum reincarnation secrets to the afterlife? There are still hundreds of native cultures to be misappropriated and homogenized into an even more complex and self-contradictory New Wage mythology. Maybe they’ll get really creative, and make Disney characters into deities. Better yet, some might explore the challenging world of objective reality.

      • Wyboth says :

        Tom, this trolling by pretending to be a conspiracy theorist thing isn’t helping anyone. If anything, it will spread even more confusion. Unless you aren’t trolling, and you’re actually a conspiracy theorist.

      • Hollywood Tomfortas says :

        OK, but before I address the issue of my trolling, are you not going to go after the Big Fish here, namely Muertos?

        Might you not consider him to be an “uber-troll” given that everything he has written on this blog is predicated on the pretense that he is NOT a paid government disinformation agent out to destroy the magnanimous humanitarian work of Foster Gamble and the Thriveteers?

  5. Sotreum says :

    Amazing!! what a incredible blog you have created here ! You must have an incredible amount of time on your hands to waste …I just wasted an hour going thru this drivel – what an extraordinary waste of creative energy I’m just
    amazed that people just keep responding … GAMBLE +1 MUERTOS -4 …

    • Wyboth says :

      How are any of Muertos’s articles “drivel?”

    • Wyboth says :

      No answer? Just another empty “Fuck you!” comment with no argument behind it, I suppose.

      • a rational person says :

        like all conspiratards…srsly these people are robots…i think listening to alex jones fart out his mouth corrodes their brain cells…then they sit around watching bullshit movies like thrive and get off watching glowing purple space donuts…yea right like a purple space donut is the answer to all the world’s problems…but thats what these asswipes believe…makes me sick.

      • Wyboth says :

        Same here. I think that if they applied their energy to practical issues, there would be a lot more good done in the world. Sadly, this won’t happen.