As I look at what passes for responsible economic policy these days, there’s an analogy that keeps passing through my mind. I know it’s over the top, but here it is anyway: the policy elite — central bankers, finance ministers, politicians who pose as defenders of fiscal virtue — are acting like the priests of some ancient cult, demanding that we engage in human sacrifices to appease the anger of invisible gods.

What’s amazing is that if you go to David Icke’s site, you’ll find the exact same sentiment – except replace “invisible gods” with “reptilian overlords.”  Saw a conspiracy video recently where it said the “elite” hoard money because this is the closest thing we have right now to omnipotent power, which is an interesting concept.

I keep looking at media now through the lens of UFO disclosure.  If it were to happen, it would put op-eds like this is in a different light.  Basically, it would place everyone in the realm of bottom-dwelling conspiracy theory.  “What do we really know about our new visitors?” reasonable people might ask.  It would upend discourse, so that much of the media would revolve around how the economy/environment/war/etc. relates to disclosure.

Remember this, and how people thought this logo was another Muslim conspiracy?

If people can see connections where there are none, imagine how they’d react to literal evidence.  Aliens=Muslim invaders is not a far leap, when people are already making connections with dubious evidence.  People can twist evidence in any number of ways – see: the Global Warming debate.

Perhaps we’d adapt very quickly – there’d be hysteria, but then we’d all go on with our lives no differently than the death of Michael Jackson.  Everywhere in the news for two weeks, but now only followed by the devoutly faithful.  People can’t really afford to spend every waking moment thinking about this issue – they have jobs to go to.  Still, it would change everything in the media, and blow open everything for religion and science.  Both of which need to be blown open.

Would the apocalyptic change of UFO disclosure really be worse than the slow move towards the apocalypse that’s happening now? While the response to UFO visitation would be hysteria and over-reaction – a culture war that might turn into a literal war – it’s not like we live in paradise today. So I think I’ve amended my idea that UFO disclosure would be too large a wrench in the social fabric. That social fabric is fraying regardless, so disclosure might be the kick in the head society needs.

I don’t know, still working on this – hence, my work on Part II of The American Book of the Dead. I’m free to speculate in fiction without claiming to have the final answer about what UFOs are about.  That’s what gets many of the “non-fiction” books about UFOs into trouble.

RA Wilson calls some conspiracy theorists “adrenaline addicts.” Think that describes AJ. He wants there to be a conspiracy more than he wants there to be a solution. His stupid bullhorn is all about calling attention to himself, thereby making some reasonable questions about govt. seem like the product of the wacko fringe. Funny how the people who talk most about “liberty” are proto-fascists.

That led me to books by the person who runs the site, Laura Knight Jadczyk:

Signs of the Times, or SOTT.net, was launched on March 26, 2002 by Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

A historian and author of repute in her own right, Laura Knight-Jadczyk is the wife of renowned theoretical physicist, Arkadiusz Jadczyk, one of the world’s few living experts in hyperdimensional physics.

Since its early days when it was just a one-woman operation, SOTT.net has evolved into one of the leading news sites for those tired of the “news” that is “reported” by the mainstream media.

The original idea behind SOTT was to track what was going on socially and politically in terms of global energies in much the same way that a physicist attempts to track and measure more subtle energies – the theory being that society is like a macro-quantum system that follows certain laws of the Universe, and can be predicted in the same way that the quantum world can be statistically analyzed and predicted.

About her book, The Wave, she says,

I began writing the Wave Series and other articles as a way of collecting excerpts together in general subjects. As I did this, a truly extraordinary thing began to happen. The Cassiopaean Experiment had resulted in transmissions from myself in the future, and I realized that by doing the suggested research, by digging for the answers based on the clues given me, I was becoming myself in the future – a cosmic self. I began to see what I had been trying to convey to myself from this superconscious state. The years of experimental work had created a new circuit wherein it was possible to simply ask a question in my mind about the subject at hand, and the answer would flow through my fingers onto the keyboard. I was often as amazed at what came out as anyone.

As I’ve mentioned, this is the premise behind The American Book of the Dead – that I was channeling myself in the future. As I’ve also mentioned, I don’t actually believe I’ve done this because I think my writing of the novel was too self-conscious and self-reflective in the here and now. Interesting to think it’s possible – and who knows, maybe I did.

I’m hoping that the forums of Cassiopaea are not overrun with deranged teabaggers, as is the case with places like Godlike Productions and Above Top Secret.  I did a bit of digging and some accuse the group of being a cult.  Not surprising, given that Laura Knight Jadczyk claims to channel beings from Cassiopaea with sessions such as:

Q: (L) Are there alien bases on the Moon?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Who do the bases belong to?
A: Grays.
Q: (L) Was there ever at any time such a thing as mermaids?
A: No.
Q: (L) What is the origin of this legend?
A: Sailors delirium.
Q: (L) Are there alien bases on Mars?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Whose?
A: Grays and Lizards.

More:

Q: (L) What procedure or technology do the Grays use to pass
through solid matter?
A: Transdimensional atomic rearrangement.
Q: (L) How do aliens transport themselves or others on beams of
light?
A: By electron focusing and previous answer.

Q: (V) Do I have an implant in my right ear?
A: Yes.
Q: (V) It has been going off a lot lately.
A: Caused by your interactions with these powerful channels.
Q: (V) What do you mean by powerful channels?
A: Laura and F***.
Q: (V) Are they Lizard implants?
A: Yes. Monitoring heavily lately.
Q: (V) When did I get the implants?
A: Age 3.

etc.

Is this group a cult? I don’t know. But I think “cult” is wielded in the same way as “conspiracy theory” – to automatically discredit an idea. Is this a singularly weird spiritual framework? No doubt. But a cult involves brainwashing, abuse of believers, and generally being holed up in the same place. Selling books is not quite the same thing.  If every strange spiritual practice is labeled a cult – even if it is led by someone with a propensity for high strangeness – this could tamp down people’s attempts at spiritual exploration.

No doubt someone who follows that road is “out there” but the question isn’t whether or not a channeler is actually channeling something real, the question is if the result is interesting. Same thing with UFOs – so much rides on “proof” but the important question is, What’s this all mean if it’s true. That there’s no hard proof doesn’t mean that issue’s been resolved.  A channeler may just be inventing fiction – but fiction isn’t a lie just because it’s made up.  Even if the channeler believes too strongly that they’re tapped into the real thing (as most channelers seem to) that doesn’t disregard everything they put to paper.  Fact is, we don’t know exactly where it’s coming from any more than we know where artistic inspiration comes from and what makes some artists tapped into something beyond themselves and some artists not.

And I’m no Icke-ite by any means – and Laura Knight Jadczyk subscribes to those sorts of ideas. But I do see a fundamental weirdness in how the world is devolving. As a friend wrote to me recently:

The whole situation is indeed so weird and crazy that even the most “absurd” explanations can seem plausible.

Profit? Doesn’t make sense, as you point out.

“Progress”? Nope.

Power? Over a despoiled ash heap?

Vampiric shape-shifting reptiles from outer space? … well… maybe…

The Venus Project clearly separates the Zeitgeist movement from other conspiracy theorizing from the likes of Alex Jones or David Icke – who seem mainly to be fear peddlers without any real answer to moving on from that fear. That’s what disturbs me about them. Obama may be a disappointment who is tasked with rescuing an unsustainable system, but he is not equal to the Bush legacy. The sheer fact that he’s a black man with the name Barack Obama shows that we’re inching closer to a more open society. I don’t think you can underestimate that, even if his promise of change is not really arriving – and most likely can’t because “rescuing banks” is the process of rescuing something that caused the problem. But Jones and Icke want to see totalitarianism everywhere and then sell that fear, so they will look for evidence wherever they can. Their terror alert level doesn’t seem much more honest than the one perpetrated by the Bush administration.

The Venus Project is in part what makes Zeitgeist so convincing, because it offers a level-headed alternative amidst some very far out claims. What this vision of utopia doesn’t see to emphasize is our potential for spiritual evolution, as well as economic and technological progress.  Daniel Pinchbeck, in 2012, rails against the concept of the Singularity, as it sees technology as solving all our problems, when his more-New Age stance is that a kind of mind technology is more important for our progress than literal technology.  If we see technology as the savior, we’ll be less inclined to explore and expand consciousness and tap into the greater world of outer and inner space.  There’s something to this.

Perhaps the Venus Project could usher that in because only until we become less warlike we’d be given access to other worlds.  Otherwise we might abuse the privilege, as we abuse everything.  What’s attractive to me about a techno utopia is that it satisfies both needs – technological and spiritual, as the technological would free us to spend more time with spiritual and creative pursuits.  And it’s more practical and feasible to create a sustainable environment than waiting for an evolution that never comes.

The Maya, after all, were technologically advanced, and going “back to nature” doesn’t necessarily mean being free from technology.  The Na’vi from Avatar are nice and all, but I don’t want to sleep in a hammock in a tree – I like my computer and the copy of Logic that allows me to record music.  That’s not a distraction like TV, it enhances the potential for creativity. So on that front I agree with the Venus Project and its aim to use technology to create an environmentally sustainable world that frees people from the mindless and unnecessary work that makes up most people’s workdays.  If a true Theory of Everything incorporates both the religious and the scientific (determining the “why” as well as the “how”), then it would seem an advanced society would incorporate both as well.  My worry is that our entire structure needs to fall apart first in order for it to be rebuilt as something better.

I’m currently reading (among other things) A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit, which makes the supposition that people are at their best amid total catastrophe.  Most people have no doubt seen this, even if they’ve never been part of a disaster, as the collective support after 9-11 shows how disaster can inspire goodwill.  That’s not entirely a positive prospect, as it may just be the case that the world system needs to collapse in order for us to start over with a better blank slate.  The environment might go to war with us before we go to war with each other as a form of self-protection.  Either way, we seem to be headed in that direction, and troubling as it may be, how else do you reform a world of 8 billion people that needs instant reforming?  I suppose everyone could take Ayahuasca at once, and blow everyone’s heads open, but somehow I don’t see that happening.

Whatever the case, Zeitgeist and the Venus Project are literal manifestations of my novel and the soundtrack so I’ve been glued to finding out new information about these two developments – “The New City is my home and I love all I know.”  Cool to me too that the filmmaker writes and records his own music.

More: Who is Peter Joseph?