Category: Uncategorized

David Kupelian’s article on psychotropic drugs has an interesting section on “hallucinations”:

a quarter century ago, the chief psychologist at a major California mental hospital conducted an extraordinary study of the inner voices patients heard. Wilson Van Dusen worked among the mentally ill for 17 years at the Mendocino State Hospital – originally Mendocino State Asylum for the Insane – established in 1889.

In his treatise, titled “The Presence of Spirits in Madness,” Van Dusen provided a window into the inner experience of his patients’ “hallucinations.” Note that these were not criminally insane people who had perpetrated violent acts, but rather were simply “mentally ill” individuals who had been committed to the institution. So their condition was not as serious or dangerous as that of the criminal perpetrators referenced earlier.

“Out of my professional role as a clinical psychologist in a state mental hospital and my own personal interest, I set out to describe as faithfully as possible mental patients’ experiences of hallucinations,” he wrote:

The average layman’s picture of the mentally ill as raving lunatics is far from reality. Most of these people have become entangled in inner processes and simply fail to manage their lives well.

After dealing with hundreds of such patients, I discovered about four years ago that it was possible to speak to their hallucinations. To do so I looked for patients who could distinguish between their own thoughts and the things they heard and saw in the world of hallucinations. The patient was told that I simply wanted to get as accurate a description of their experiences as possible. I held out no hope for recovery or special reward. It soon became apparent that many were embarrassed by what they saw and heard and hence they concealed it from others.

Also they knew their experiences were not shared by others, and some were even concerned that their reputations would suffer if they revealed the obscene nature of their voices. It took some care to make the patients comfortable enough to reveal their experience honestly. A further complication was that the voices were sometimes frightened of me and themselves needed reassurance. I struck up a relationship with both the patient and the persons he saw and heard. I would question these other persons directly, and instructed the patient to give a word-for-word account of what the voices answered or what was seen. In this way I could hold long dialogues with a patient’s hallucinations and record both my questions and their answers.

One consistent finding was that patients felt they had contact with another world or order of beings. Most thought these other persons were living persons. All objected to the term hallucination. Each coined his own term such as The Other Order, the Eavesdroppers, etc.

For most individuals the hallucinations came on suddenly. One woman was working in a garden when an unseen man addressed her. Another man described sudden loud noises and voices he heard while riding in a bus. Most were frightened, and adjusted with difficulty to this new experience. All patients describe voices as having the quality of a real voice, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, than normal voices. The experience they describe is quite unlike thoughts or fantasies. When things are seen they appear fully real. … Most patients soon realize that they are having experiences that others do not share, and for this reason learn to keep quiet about them. Many suffer insults, threats and attacks for years from voices with no one around them aware of it. Women have reported hearing such vile things they felt it would reflect on them should they even be mentioned.

… Lower order voices are as though one is dealing with drunken bums at a bar who like to tease and torment just for the fun of it. They will suggest lewd acts and then scold the patient for considering them. They find a weak point of conscience and work on it interminably. For instance, one man heard voices teasing him for three years over a ten-cent debt he had already paid. They call the patient every conceivable name, suggest every lewd act, steal memories or ideas right out of consciousness, threaten death, and work on the patient’s credibility in every way. For instance they will brag that they will produce some disaster on the morrow and then claim honor for one in the daily paper. They suggest foolish acts (such as: Raise your right hand in the air and stay that way) and tease if he does it and threaten him if he doesn’t. The lower order can work for a long time to possess some part of the patient’s body. Several worked on the ear and the patient seemed to grow deafer. One voice worked two years to capture a patient’s eye which visibly went out of alignment. Many patients have heard loud and clear voices plotting their death for weeks on end, an apparently nerve-wracking experience. One patient saw a noose around his neck which tied to “I don’t know what” while voices plotted his death by hanging. They threaten pain and can cause felt pain as a way of enforcing their power. The most devastating experience of all is to be shouted at constantly by dozens of voices. When this occurred the patient had to be sedated.

All of the lower order are irreligious or anti-religious. Some actively interfered with the patients’ religious practices. Most considered them to be ordinary living people, though once they appeared as conventional devils and referred to themselves as demons. In a few instances they referred to themselves as from hell. Occasionally they would speak through the patient so that the patient’s voice and speech would be directly those of the voices. Sometimes they acted through the patient.

The interesting thing is that the current state of science insists that these things cannot exist, even though by the current state of science, there is no material evidence for the primary consciousness to which these other “voices” are attributed. The Biblical explanation of demons is not the only one, of course, it is theoretically possible that everyone has multiple “programs” in their brain but most people only run a single thread while those who hear voices are capable of multi-threaded operations.

Anyhow, if I was studying consciousness, this is one of the areas where I’d be focused. Science, I am increasingly beginning to suspect, is somewhat like weightlifting. It tends to focus where the results are easiest and the gains come most quickly instead of where it is least competent. This is natural, but it does tend to lead to the mistaken impression that scientage is more developed across a broad spectrum than it actually is.

Which is why it shouldn’t be surprising when post-Christians and/or non-Christians bring it back:

A total of 1,340 people, 367 of whom are mentally handicapped, have been rescued from forced labor since the notorious brick kiln forced labor scandal came to light in June, a joint investigation group reported on Monday afternoon….

The use of forced laborers hit the headlines after more than 400 parents in central China’s Henan Province posted an online petition, calling for help in rescuing their children who had been kidnapped to work in small brick kilns in Shanxi and Henan as forced laborers.

I’m not sure if it is more amusing or pathetic that some people still point to the Christian continuation of a pre-Christian practice that Christians, with significant internal debate, brought to a temporary end in the Christian-dominated world, while ignoring the fact that more people are in various forms of slavery today than were enslaved in the American South.

From the Washington Post:

Chavez and her immediate family members have used phone banks and direct-mail solicitations to raise tens of millions of dollars, founding several political action committees with bankable names: the Republican Issues Committee, the Latino Alliance, Stop Union Political Abuse and the Pro-Life Campaign Committee. Their solicitations promise direct action in the “fight to save unborn lives,” a vigorous struggle against “big labor bosses” and a crippling of “liberal politics in the country.”

That’s not where the bulk of the money wound up being spent, however. Of the $24.5 million raised by the PACs from January 2003 to December 2006, $242,000 — or 1 percent — was passed on to politicians, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal election reports. The PACs spent even less — $151,236 — on independent political activity, such as mailing pamphlets.

This is why I recommend giving to churches – although not the big showy ones where the pastor owns a Mercedes, or worse, a plane – rather than charities and political action committees.

Chavez, of course, is the charming woman who recently accused everyone who opposed immigration limits of being racist Mexican haters. I can’t imagine this is going to make her any more popular with conservatives. The problem really isn’t that she and her family were making a mint off their actions – they weren’t greedy considering the money that was passing through their hands – but that the entire operation is just one big churn, fundraising for fundraising’s sake.

It’s interesting to note that their one attempt to operate in the real world failed.

Not that the rest of the nation cares, but the Village Voice reports that the self-styled “America’s Mayor” did not, in fact, save New York City:

1. ‘I think the thing that distinguishes me on terrorism is, I have more experience dealing with it.’ This pillar of the Giuliani campaign—asserted by pundits as often as it is by the man himself—is based on the idea that Rudy uniquely understands the terror threat because of his background as a prosecutor and as New York’s mayor. In a July appearance at a Maryland synagogue, Giuliani sketched out his counterterrorism biography, a resume that happens to be rooted in falsehood.

It’s a pretty serious revelation of Giuliani’s fundamental dishonesty about who he is and what he has done. Or as is more accurately the case, not done.

When the numbers don’t add up:

One survey, recently reported by the federal government, concluded that men had a median of seven female sex partners. Women had a median of four male sex partners. Another study, by British researchers, stated that men had 12.7 heterosexual partners in their lifetimes and women had 6.5.

But there is just one problem, mathematicians say. It is logically impossible for heterosexual men to have more partners on average than heterosexual women. Those survey results cannot be correct.

First, I’m skeptical about the accuracy of these numbers anyhow. All self-reporting is somewhat inaccurate, people can’t even be relied upon to correctly identify their own religion, or in many cases, political party. If you’ve just voted the straight party ticket for the fourth straight election, you’re not an independent even if you aren’t a literal, card-carrying, registered party member. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that the two studies don’t add up either.

Second, I have never once known a woman to tell the truth about the number of men she’s been involved with, except for the occasional religious woman for whom the answer is zero. Never. In my experience, men are far less inclined to exaggerate than women are inclined to minimize. Tara Parker-Tomlinson even has an amusing system for justifying this undercounting, for example, a woman cannot possibly be expected to count unconventionally attractive men whose picture would be embarrassing to her self-regard. If I recall correctly, this female tendency to minimize has already been demonstrated in another study, wherein the woman’s count increased when she thought she would be lie-detected, whereas the male count did not change.

And then there’s the famous Clintonian problem of defining “is”. Perhaps the studies accounted for this, but given how poorly most sociological studies are worded, I very much doubt it.

If you don’t like the tone, please remember who set it:

Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out.
– Richard Dawkins

I quoted it after Beslan, my moment of having had enough of being polite.
– Ken MacLeod

It was just the time for the atheists to take the gloves off.
– Lynn Garrett, Publisher’s Weekly

I say, screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It’s time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots.
-PZ Myers

Metallica put it well:

Careful what you wish
Careful what you say
Careful what you wish you may regret it
Careful what you wish you just might get it

I find it amusing how many atheists are very quick to whine when they treated in a similarly impolite manner. They’d better toughen up quick, as the backlash hasn’t even begun yet. Can you imagine how much they’ll cry when people laugh at them for quoting Dawkins or Harris? There’s a reason Russell fell out of favor, after all, and once you’ve read Russell and Meslier, you realize that the New Atheists aren’t saying anything new at all.

Their strategy, such as it is, is arguably worse than George Bush’s; I wonder where they think they are going to find an atheist Charles Martel in the 21st century in the battle for Europe’s soul? Of course, you can’t expect much out of any group dumb enough to pick a fight with literally everyone when they are somewhere between .5 percent and 10 percent of the population. Of course, these are the same people who think that telling others how stupid they are is the best way to win them over.

I initially used it in a metaphorical sense, but the more I learn, the more I suspect my theory of social autism will turn out to be correct. I predict the end result of all this is going to be more agnostics and fewer people willing to admit their atheism. I mean, I never once wrote about atheists in two full years of column writing, now, thanks to Dawkins and company, I actually put the fiction aside long enough to write an entire book ripping them apart.

From the Washington Post:

Still, the result, with Romney easily outpacing his rivals with 32 percent of the vote, helps elevate him from relative obscurity six months ago to the top tier of the GOP field — despite his relatively low standing in national polls….

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee finished second with 18 percent of the 14,302 votes cast, and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas ran third with 15 percent. Huckabee and Brownback had waged a fierce battle for the allegiance of Iowa’s social and religious conservatives. An ebullient Huckabee said Saturday night that the outcome will give his campaign a significant boost and vowed to coalesce those conservatives in Iowa and other early-voting states.

Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, the most outspoken opponent of current U.S. immigration policy, finished fourth with 14 percent. Former Wisconsin governor Tommy G. Thompson was sixth at 7 percent.

So, who finished fifth? No one? Was it Giuliani? Fred Thompson? John McCain? Can anyone solve this mystery?

And isn’t it interesting that the “front runners” for the Republican nomination can’t win an actual vote? Actually, it makes sense, because neither of them can win in November either. It’s a fix, folks, this is all just a distraction.

The announcement of tonight’s straw poll results has been delayed due to what one informed source says was a voting machine malfunction. About 4,500 ballots had to be re-run.

They probably had to change the Ron Paul votes to something else.

Raker wants to know how she can help:

That is, how do bookstores and chains learn about a newly published book, and, what can the 5th column do about it?

The regular bookstores and chains will hear about it, in fact, most of their buyers have probably already ordered it. What you can do is let the CBA bookstores know that this is a book which might be of some interest to their customers since the publisher is secular and won’t be marketing directly to them. Taking a page from Richard Dawkins, I’ll be preparing a pair of flyers in the next few weeks which you can download and print out; one will be for Christian institutions, the other will be for secular ones and public places. If you’d like to spread a few of those around, that would be great.

Another thing you can do is to save a few dollars for the book surge which will be organized as per the OC’s direction when the book comes out. I know a lot of you have already pre-ordered the book, but I’d encourage you to consider participating in the surge anyhow and giving your extra copy away to a church leader or Christian radio station in the area. I was really surprised at how many of you participated in the RM test and bought a book that you didn’t need or intend to read. (To say nothing of the fact that it’s available in two ebook formats right here.)

I think I can safely say that TIA will make the biggest impact on the sort of individual who regards any of the New Atheist’s books as being somehow meaningful. Atheists and agnostics who think as little as I do of Dawkins and company will be unimpressed, Christians who have never heard of them will be a little bewildered and those who are looking for a theological dissertation will be disappointed. The book is a dissection of atheism – or as one reader put it, a vivisection – it is not a rewrite of the Bible or a Christian apology. It may be best suited for nominally Christian college students who are meeting the first serious test of their faith and tend to be a little too overimpressed by the novelty of old ideas that are new to them.

I cannot disagree with his take on the final Harry Potter. If anything, he’s too kind:

In this final volume there is a good deal of loose-end gathering to be done. Which side was Snape really on? Can Neville Longbottom rise above himself? Are the Malfoys as black as they have been painted? Unfortunately — and with the solid exception of Neville, whose gallantry is well evoked — these resolutions prove to possess all the excitement of an old-style Perry Mason-type summing-up, prompted by a stock character who says, “There’s just one thing I don’t understand. …” Most of all this is true of Voldemort himself, who becomes more tiresome than an Ian Fleming villain, or the vicious but verbose Nicolae Carpathia in the Left Behind series, as he offers boastful explanations that are at once grandiose and vacuous. This bad and pedantic habit persists until the final duel, which at least sees us back in the old school precincts once again. “We must not let in daylight upon magic,” as Walter Bagehot remarked in another connection, and the wish to have everything clarified is eventually self-defeating in its own terms.

I lost interest in the series after the Goblet of Fire, but I did manage to slog through the others. The only thing deathly about the final volume was the tedium.