Peterson, Priestcraft, Profits and the Paranormal

[Kishkumen]

This Paul fellow would be an interesting person to talk to. His personal history is pretty unique. Won’t be paying for remote viewing courses, however.

[malkie]

In the comments Peterson is asked… He has not yet answered the question.

To quote Wikipedia on the subject of ‘remote viewing’ It’s just more make-believe. Why does a seemingly educated man get drawn in by such nonsense?

You have to believe in a spiritual realm where disembodied intelligences communicate across the eons of time to places like Lake Wobegon to fully accept Mormonism. That allows for things like dowsing and ESP but heaven forbid we cross the line and accept voodoo, crytozoology or scientology. Granted Rodney Meldrum's brother studies Bigfoot and is a professor and other Mormons visit psychics proving that once your baloney detector has a short circuit magical thinking is ready and waiting.

Rivendale, before you go any further with these ideas, I beseech you not to dis Nessie. Or Morag. Bigfoots, Chupacabras, and Abominable Snowmen, however, are fair game.

[drumdude]

In the remote viewing subreddit, there is a serious discussion going on about solving the Epstein conspiracy with remote viewing. Several members are attempting to remote view the jail cell the day of the suicide. Apparently remote viewing is not only able to see through vast stretches of space but time as well.

If Peterson really believes this stuff is possible, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona he may be interested in.

[Rivendale]

You have to believe in a spiritual realm where disembodied intelligences communicate across the eons of time to places like Lake Wobegon to fully accept Mormonism. That allows for things like dowsing and ESP but heaven forbid we cross the line and accept voodoo, crytozoology or scientology. Granted Rodney Meldrum's brother studies Bigfoot and is a professor and other Mormons visit psychics proving that once your baloney detector has a short circuit magical thinking is ready and waiting.

Rivendale, before you go any further with these ideas, I beseech you not to dis Nessie. Or Morag. Bigfoots, Chupacabras, and Abominable Snowmen, however, are fair game.

Nessie, Morag, Bigfoot, Chupacabras, and the Abominal Snowman are much more likely to exist as contrasted with a reanimated levitating native American. The latter of which could transform himself into various small amphibians capable of hiding under frontier buildings in silent wait for Mary Whitmer. Stranger than fiction if you will.

[Physics Guy]

If a defense budget is limited, military attention has to be restricted to the most likely threats and opportunities. If a nation directs more resources to its military, on the other hand, citizens can expect preparations to be made for more unlikely contingencies. No matter how unlikely a threat or opportunity may be, there is some high level of military funding above which a national defense force has a duty to consider it. Give the Pentagon enough money and it will have people working on pushing enemy units over the edge of the flat Earth, just in case that should somehow turn out to be a possible thing.

The US armed forces are an enormous bureaucracy, furthermore. Even when their budget is actually nowhere near lavish enough to warrant expenditures on such ludicrous nonsense as remote viewing, some little cell of over-promoted morons somewhere may wangle itself a mission to walk through walls and kill goats by psychokinesis, even just as part of some general’s personal empire-building game.

Remote viewing is utterly idiotic. It’s so extremely implausible that only the most compelling evidence could justify taking it seriously, and the evidence that has actually been presented for it, although hyped by shysters and hacks, has instead been childishly flimsy—exactly as incompetent as one would expect, in fact, for a subject without a shred of reality. It’s prime-grade pseudoscience, up there with dowsing, telekinesis, and yogic flying.

[Dr Exiled]

I've been using my psychic powers for a while and keep seeing a bleached out DCP laying in the sand on Newport Beach, CA, after having devoured a huge meal at one of the fine restaurants there.

He needs to do the "pink salt trick" that keeps invading my feeds on the net. I don't know if it works for weight loss like they claim, but he needs to do something quick so my psychic feed will turn to something better. I'm tired of seeing him in beached whale mode and can't seem to get it out of my head.

Help me DCP!

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I've been using my psychic powers for a while and keep seeing a bleached out DCP laying in the sand on Newport Beach, CA, after having devoured a huge meal at one of the fine restaurants there.

He needs to do the "pink salt trick" that keeps invading my feeds on the net. I don't know if it works for weight loss like they claim, but he needs to do something quick so my psychic feed will turn to something better. I'm tired of seeing him in beached whale mode and can't seem to get it out of my head.

Help me DCP!

Dr. Exiled,

The good news is that soon after DCP hit the sand on Newport Beach, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) soon arrived and, with the help of several volunteers, were able to roll DCP back in the ocean.

[Dr Exiled]

I've been using my psychic powers for a while and keep seeing a bleached out DCP laying in the sand on Newport Beach, CA, after having devoured a huge meal at one of the fine restaurants there.

He needs to do the "pink salt trick" that keeps invading my feeds on the net. I don't know if it works for weight loss like they claim, but he needs to do something quick so my psychic feed will turn to something better. I'm tired of seeing him in beached whale mode and can't seem to get it out of my head.

Help me DCP!

Dr. Exiled,

The good news is that soon after DCP hit the sand on Newport Beach, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) soon arrived and, with the help of several volunteers, were able to roll DCP back in the ocean.

I still keep seeing the vision, my first vision and hopefully my last of that sort. I'll have to concentrate on some magic beads that I have and an old seer stone that I keep handy. Then I might have to say some magic words to my local witchdoctor and randomly shake a stranger's hand and give the sign of the stone. Then, perhaps then, I will rid myself of this travesty or anti-vision.

[drumdude]

Remote viewing is utterly idiotic. It’s so extremely implausible that only the most compelling evidence could justify taking it seriously, and the evidence that has actually been presented for it, although hyped by shysters and hacks, has instead been childishly flimsy—exactly as incompetent as one would expect, in fact, for a subject without a shred of reality. It’s prime-grade pseudoscience, up there with dowsing, telekinesis, and yogic flying.

DCP and his remote viewing friend took great offense at this awful mischaracterization of their completely legitimate and very real science.

You have to email him so he can personally convince you that, despite not having any explanation for the mechanism by which remote viewing works, and despite not being useful for anything practical, and despite being abandoned by the organization with the largest budget and incentive to research it…. He will be able to convince you.

Do you also have a second to talk about the Jews who sailed to the Americas in 600BC, and the thetans in volcanoes?

[I Have Questions]

Remote viewing is utterly idiotic. It’s so extremely implausible that only the most compelling evidence could justify taking it seriously, and the evidence that has actually been presented for it, although hyped by shysters and hacks, has instead been childishly flimsy—exactly as incompetent as one would expect, in fact, for a subject without a shred of reality. It’s prime-grade pseudoscience, up there with dowsing, telekinesis, and yogic flying.

DCP and his remote viewing friend took great offense at this awful mischaracterization of their completely legitimate and very real science.

You have to email him so he can personally convince you that, despite not having any explanation for the mechanism by which remote viewing works, and despite not being useful for anything practical, and despite being abandoned by the organization with the largest budget and incentive to research it…. He will be able to convince you.

Do you also have a second to talk about the Jews who sailed to the Americas in 600BC, and the thetans in volcanoes?

A remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person, or location hidden from physical view and separated at some distance.

Why hasn’t Paul won the lottery?

This lack of successful experiments has led the mainstream scientific community to reject remote viewing, based upon the absence of an evidence base, the lack of a theory which would explain remote viewing, and the lack of experimental techniques which can provide reliably positive results.

That’s not a glowing endorsement.



This^ is the best example of a remote viewing class that Paul could find for his website. Some people are really really gullible. That there are people who are taken in by this nonsense is why Joseph Smith was successful, and why people still attend the Mormon Church today. Mormons believe not only can some blokes in SLC perform above and beyond the kind of snake oil that Paul H. Smith is peddling, but they think they can do it too (only they label remote viewing as “the Holy Ghost”).

The Men Who Stare At Goats is worth a watch.