Mick West Webinar

 

I've taken part once again in a skeptic online meeting. Mick West is the director of the Metabunk website, see: https://www.metabunk.org/home/. He has made a name for himself in UFOlogy these last few years for his dedicated dismissal of the AATIP footage and all its subsequent revelations, for example see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/04/new-triangular-ufo-clip.html. Most of the time he is wrong and I am one of his biggest critics. In fact I'd have to say, he's not even a particularly original skepper; most of what he said has been said before by people like Michael Shermer or Prof. Chris French. He began his skeptic career with chemtrails and eventually moved into other areas. He lives in the USA and his nationality is stated as American, but he speaks with a strong English accent and may come from the other side of the Atlantic. In this event West focused on psychology. His talk was about what to do if you have somebody close to you in your life, a friend or family member, who is a conspiracy theorist. How do you talk them down off that woo-woo ledge? He has created a "spectrum of craziness" with what he considers the more sensible and possibly true conspiracy theories at one end, such as the US government passively allowing Bin Laden to carry out 9/11, to the far end with the allegedly most extreme and outlandish viewpoints, like the earth being flat, which even I don't believe in. He warns us that the deprogramming process takes a long time and you need a lot of patience. Keep a line of communication open with your friend or family member. Don't get angry with them or insult them because this will just drive them away, further into madness! He cites Dr Phil Plait's famous "Don't be a Dick!" speech, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2012/08/skeptics-evolution-and-revolution.html and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrFRbGjUtJk. West does seem to have an open and appreciative manner to him that is rare for a skeptic. He doesn't stoop to the usual slurs and fixation on ad hominem that most skeppies do. On his YouTube channel he regularly interviews non-skeptics, or ex-believers who are new to the skeptisphere, see: https://www.youtube.com/user/mickword. I do the same, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/04/ben-emlyn-jones-on-be-reasonable.html and: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2015/12/programme-166-podcast-bolerhatman.html.
 
This webinar was hosted by Leighann Lord of the Centre for Inquiry and its recording is available, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqt5ai3qrWQ. I registered for this event for the same reasons I attend other skeptic meetings, both in real life and online; to learn about the other side of the argument, which I consider essential. I also feel that somebody needs to "show the flag" so to speak for the woo-woo contingent. I was joined by my good friend and comrade Colin Woolford. This webinar was not as fun as the media one, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/12/crazy-conspiracies-theories-event.html, because there was no public chat and only the hosts and guest were visible. The communication from the audience was private and one-way with the host. We submitted questions to her and she read out the best ones. As you'll see, Colin had that honour. What I found amusing about this lecture is that every single point Mick West made could be inverted and applied by the UFO/paranormal/conspiratorial position. I could write a transcript of his entire address and by merely substituting "skeptic" for "conspiracy theorist" it would sound equally coherent. I have indeed been in that exact equivalent position with my own family and friends. I did indeed convert a few people, mostly colleagues at my hospital; I've given up on my family. I learned for myself the same lessons West has. I was polite and respectful. I took my time, planting mental seeds and seeing if they grew. I sought common ground and tried to keep our relationships active. I addressed my challenges to their skeptic beliefs on their own position within the "skeptic spectrum". Watching this webinar supports my own observation of the skeptic movement, that it is a kind of mirror image of our own world, the UFO/para/con community, see background links below. I'm glad I joined this webinar; it was interesting. Let nobody claim I live in an echo chamber!
See here for background: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2021/04/programme-414-podcast-skeptics-2021.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2019/04/ben-emlyn-jones-live-at-truth-seekers.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2018/09/prof-karen-douglas-at-greenwich-sitp.html.

Flatliners 2017

 

I have a prejudice against movie remakes. This partly because it frustrates me that Hollywood has so lost its creative spirit that they can no longer think of new stories; and also because remakes, with a few exceptions, are far worse than their originals. I'm a big fan of the 1990 psychological horror film Flatliners and I've just watched its 2017 remake by Neils Arden Oplev; and I was impressed. Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039338/. The plot is pretty much the same; a group of medical students decide to research the near-death experience phenomenon by putting themselves into cardiac arrest. This is totally unrealistic and would be far too dangerous ever to work in real life, but both films allow me to suspend my disbelief quite well. After their experiments the students suffer terrifying ordeals in which manifestations of people they know attack them and cause them to have nightmarish visions. Only two of the four students see people who are dead. In those cases the students killed the people, but the acts were of negligence rather than malice. The two other experimenters are haunted by living people who they both harmed on purpose. It seems that the experiment released a tulpa like physical monster from within the experimenters based on their own guilt. They all badly mistreated people they knew in the past, either deliberately or through neglect, and feel very sore about it. The two whose victims were living escaped their fate by apologizing to them. One of the characters is killed by her inner demon. Both films star Kiefer Sutherland. In the original he plays the lead experimenter who is haunted by the manifestation of a boy he bullied to death as a child. In the remake he is the dean of the medical school. It is quite common for remakes to include a cast member from the original, usually in a different role. In fact Peter Jackson tried to bring in an elderly Fay Wray for his 2006 King Kong, but she died just before production. That King Kong is one of the exceptions to remakes being worse than the originals and I'd say the same for the 2017 Flatliners. The 2017 one is actually better in some ways, mostly due to improvements in special effects. It also involves the experimenters using a PET scanner to examine their brains while they're having their NDE's, indicating that they do not eliminate the brain function hypothesis. It's an interesting new angle. However, despite their foundational objective, the characters, and therefore the film's theme, never really go into detail about their primary subject matter, the NDE itself; although there is a brief attempt in the original. I'm fascinated by the NDE mystery and it came up on the most recent Third Rail Radio, which led me to want to watch this film, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2021/04/third-rail-radio-programme-103.html.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/10/return-from-dead.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/10/new-research-on-brain-at-death.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2014/10/proof-of-life-after-death.html.

The Mind Set Podcast Programme 446

 

I have been featured on Programme 446 of the Mind Set Podcast.
See here for the show: https://soundcloud.com/mindsetcentral/msp446.

And: https://archive.org/details/msp-409.
Subjects discussed include: Lucid dreaming, sleep disorders, out of body experiences and much much more. Subscribe to Mind Set Central on Patreon for bonus material and early bird access to the public content, see: https://www.patreon.com/mindsetcentral.
See here for my previous appearance on The Mind Set Podcast: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-mind-set-podcast-programme-445.html.

Kurten vs Fox

 

London mayoral elections tend to be somewhat more interesting than most and this year's appears to be rather curious even by its own standards. London's population has been changing considerably from the mid 20th century to today. Most people in the capital do not have native roots. They primarily have a racial background from the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean; and, more recently, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Unlike the ethnic British, most of those Londoners feel no shame in voting for somebody who they believe will represent their racial interests. As a result Labour have a huge majority and the incumbent Sadiq Khan appears unshakeable, despite numerous corruption scandals and a reportedly contemptuous, arrogant attitude to his citizens, for example see: https://heritageparty.org/david-kurten-questions-sadiq-khan-on-blm-and-grooming-gangs/ and: https://twitter.com/Michael57055027/status/1384957993972899842. However Khan has two popular and respected libertarian conservative voices challenging him for his seat. Laurence Fox is an actor who became infamous for standing up to a wokeist thug on BBC's Question Time in one of the few scenes on that cowpat of a programme worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re7K2SGMmHU. David Kurten was formerly in UKIP, but has recently left and founded his own organization, The Heritage Party. He is the AM who attacked Khan over grooming gangs and BLM in the above link. Kurten in particular has proved a formidable enemy for the SJW's because, as you can see, he is not white. The usual ad hominem abuse therefore won't work on him. It may be partly down to Kurten that the cultural Marxists have come up with their new theory of "multiracial whiteness" to explain why a large number of non-white people are supporting what they call "white supremacy!" I don't live in London and I personally will not bother voting in the 2021 local government elections. There's no point. Since the fall of BoJo we've gone back to the bad old days of politics I'm afraid, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/01/happy-brexit-anniversary.html. If I lived in London I would definitely vote, but I'd like to vote for BOTH David Kurten and Laurence Fox. It's a problem the Tories and the Brexit Party had in the last general election; vote-splitting. The two libertarian populist candidates are competing against each other when they should be competing only against Sad Git Khan, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-penny-drops.html. Therefore I recommend that they form a coalition, if the rules of the London mayoral allow it. Alternatively if one gets into office he should select the other as his deputy mayor or something. It's time for people who feel a sense of "whiteness", whether multiracial or otherwise, to join forces against the gibbering hoards of wokeism. There's another problem; the election website's biggest headline is about applying for a proxy vote, see: https://www.londonelects.org.uk. I expect the familiar spectre of postal voting will rear its ugly head again; a reminder that the road to freedom is going to be long and twisted with many potholes along the way. However, let's take the first step. Vote for either Laurence Fox or David Kurten on May the 6th.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2019/10/brexit-portal.html.
And: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/01/donald-trump-portal.html.

MSM Deletes Bad Program

 

The BBC has declined to comment on why one of its presenters has left after being "exposed!" as a "Covid denier!" Jemma Cooper had a long and illustrious career as a newsreader, reporter and weather forecaster for BBC Points West, the regional news programme that covers the entire West Country. "A woman matching Ms Cooper's likeness was pictured at rallies in Birmingham last summer and Cardiff in October." warns The Daily Mail... Is she armed and dangerous? She is certainly supposed to have reduced a colleague to tears in an argument in the studio, for disagreeing with her. Damn snowflakes! It appears there was a lot of backstabbing from the complicit individuals in the corporation, which is sadly what always happens. It did to me too, see background links below. Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9474129/BBC-weather-presenter-leaves-job-attending-anti-vaxxer-march-drink-driving-conviction.html. Jemma has voluntarily stepped down from the BBC, which she calls "the Devil"; and that is probably being too kind. However, she merely jumped before she was pushed. I'm aware of the background to this story because I know Jemma. She is the woman I call "Jenny" in my reportages of conferences, for example see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2015/08/bases-2015.html. She also introduced me at AwakeCon, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2017/12/ben-emlyn-jones-at-awakecon-2017.html. I gave her a false name to try and protect her from exactly what has happened to her. Really, it was only a matter of time before she was spat out of her institution the way I was spat out of the NHS. State and corporate bureaucracies are merciless to subversives. Jemma was in the business of propaganda and psychological warfare which is a bit like making Richard Dawkins the Pope. I have long predicted the forced end of her TV career. Yet, like David Icke when he was in an identical situation, she is getting on with her life. She is now free to do what she does openly and without threat of professional persecution. I wish her all the best.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2014/10/probe-autumn-2014.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2018/03/probe-2018.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2017/07/odo.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/11/ben-emlyn-jones-at-bases-2016-video.html.

Ben Emlyn-Jones on the Kev Baker Show 69

 

I have been interviewed again on the Kev Baker Show (aka MrGlasgowTruther) on Truth Frequency Radio, see here for the podcast: https://tfrlive.com/ben-s-x-files-108008/.
And here for the illustrated YouTube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeaEdtMxasI.

And: https://archive.org/details/bej-on-kbs-52.
Subjects discussed include: the return of Indrid Cold, football in the pandemic, Mars helicopter takes flight and much much more.
See here for my previous appearance on the Kev Baker Show: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/03/ben-emlyn-jones-on-kev-baker-show-68.html.

The Mind Set Podcast Programme 445

I have been featured on Programme 445 of the Mind Set Podcast.

See here for the show: https://soundcloud.com/mindsetcentral/msp445.

And: https://archive.org/details/msp-409.
Subjects discussed include: Is Gareth's new home haunted? British pubs finally reopen, social media for experiencers and much much more. Subscribe to Mind Set Central on Patreon for bonus material and early bird access to the public content, see: https://www.patreon.com/mindsetcentral.
See here for my previous appearance on The Mind Set Podcast: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-mind-set-podcast-programme-444.html.