Carl Sagan on Ramtha and Other Conspiracy Lunacies

By AnonyMaker

Strange, even somewhat dangerous concoctions or treatments almost seem to have a certain place in high control groups or cults, where pseudo-science is rife.

It’s also the sort of weird half-baked thing that comes out of the imaginative processes of the mind that actually produce what passes for “channeling” or “past lives.”

Here’s what a real renowned scholar from some of the most prestigious institutions has to say about J. Z. Knight and Ramtha in general, taken from the book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark –

The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
by Carl Sagan

“J.Z. Knight of the State of Washington claims to be in touch with a 35,000-year-old somebody called “Ramtha.”

He speaks English very well, using Knight’s tongue, lips and vocal chords, producing what sounds to me to be an accent from the Indian Raj. Since most people know how to talk, and many — from children to professional actors — have a repertoire of voices at their command, the simplest hypothesis is that Ms. Knight makes “Ramtha” speak all by herself, and that she has no contact with disembodied entities from the Pleistocene Ice Age. If there’s evidence to the contrary, I’d love to hear it. It would be considerably more impressive if Ramtha could speak by himself, without the assistance of Ms. Knight’s mouth. Failing that, how might we test the claim? (The actress Shirley MacLaine attests that Ramtha was her brother in Atlantis, but that’s another story.)

“Suppose Ramtha were available for questioning. Could we verify whether he is who he says he is? How does he know that he lived 35,000 years ago, even approximately? What calendar does he employ? Who is keeping track of the intervening millennia? Thirty-five thousand plus or minus what? What were things like 35,000 years ago? Either Ramtha really is 35,000 years old, in which case we discover something about that period, or he’s a phony and he’ll (or rather she’ll) slip up.

“Where did Ramtha live? (I know he speaks English with an Indian accent, but where 35,000 years ago did they do that?) What was the climate? What did Ramtha eat? (Archaeologists know something about what people ate back then.) What were the indigenous languages, and social structure? Who else did Ramtha live with — wife, wives, children, grandchildren? What was the life cycle, the infant mortality rate, the life expectancy? Did they have birth control? What clothes did they wear? How were the clothes manufactured? What were the most dangerous predators? Hunting and fishing implements and strategies? Weapons? Endemic sexism? Xenophobia and ethnocentrism? And if Ramtha came from the “high civilization” of Atlantis, where are the linguistic, technological, historical and other details? What was their writing like? Tell us. Instead, all we are offered are banal homilies….
People pay attention to these puerile marvels mainly because they promise something like old-time religion, but especially life after death, even life eternal.”

Sagan’s point about Ramtha’s supposed age is an interesting one – and a good catch, by truly clever, inquiring and rigorous mind. One of the typical tricks of gurus and leaders is to project an aura of false authority by asserting things with certainty, specificity and detail that sound scholarly or scientific, when they’re just pulled from nowhere. We assume that everyone knows their age (though even in primitive cultures that is not necessarily true), and so Knight’s credulous followers are unlikely to think to stop and question what point of reference Ramtha would have for calculating that.

Conspiracy Lunacy

Many of the articles supporting conspiracy theories are lengthy not because they are packed with solid information but because they use the old rhetorical trick of trying to substitute a mass of innuendo and implication for solid evidence.

As the old saying goes, ‘if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.’

They’re just more evidence of the shoddiness of conspiracy theorizing – which obviously beguiles and fools some, just as do cults and gurus which, of course, typically have their own baseless conspiracy theories that followers breathlessly buy in to and then tout.

Conspiracy Theories and Roger Clinton

If they were “documenting” anything, the piece would be full of references to actual documents or other evidence, including footnotes. There are no factual “details” from which we could draw any conclusions, other than our own speculation layered on top of the author’s.

One of the first quick and easy fact check opportunities that show up is the claim that “Clinton’s half-brother Roger was busted for cocaine smuggling.”

Roger Clinton’s conviction was actually for “social” cocaine distribution and possession, after haplessly selling a tiny amount to an undercover officer, apparently as part of the furnishing of recreational cocaine within social circles of the young wealthy, that was common at that time – I can remember going into the bathroom of a bar that catered to that crowd, and finding the floor littered with the “bindles” used for small amounts of cocaine that were snorted.

Wealthy Indicted in Alleged ‘Social’ Drug Distributing
https://www.apnews.com/070bcb4361b1d2f831664668a1020568

The younger Clinton, who was apparently only included in such circles because he was the then-Governor’s brother, became known as “headache” to the Secret Service, and continued his hapless career of trying to trade in on his family relationship:

“A close look at Mr. Clinton’s effort to help Rosario Gambino secure early release from prison, based on interviews and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, portray him in a different light: a tireless, if inept, advocate whose persistent pleas annoyed and worried parole commission officials.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/us/roger-clinton-s-dogged-effort-for-drug-trafficker.html

Bill Gates did not conspire with Jeffrey Epstein for sexual perversions

Bill Gates Donation to Epstein Was Small

The soliciting of a comparatively small donation doesn’t necessarily mean “socializing” involved – and Bill Gates indeed, and plausibly, denies any social relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein did apparently get a meeting with Gates to pitch some philanthropy, but had to work his connections with people who might actually have rubbed elbows with Gates:

Jeffrey Epstein directed allies to aggressively lobby for a meeting with Microsoft’s Bill Gates – he eventually got one

For Gates, $2 million is literally like $2 to the average person. The average American’s net worth is just under $100K, so that’s actually the proportional representation.  The money Bill Gates gave to Epstein is the sort of money you’d give to a bum to get them to stop bothering you.

It does seem to illustrate how Epstein worked, however, worming his way into the sort of circles where that kind of money is the type of small change that people wouldn’t bother to chase after if the wind caught it – pick up some of it yourself, and before long you’ve got real money by most people’s standards, if not Gates’.

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