Thanks everyone for responding. You have been most helpful!

Back in the 1970's I got involved in a home church type of thing that may or may not have had connections with Berg's Family of God. As groups go it was probably one of the more benign ones, but the experience showed me how easy it is to get wrapped up in something and put your critical thinking aside, especially if you are seeking acceptance. One of the things they used to do a lot is sit around talking about the Rapture and the Second Coming which they believed was about to happen any minute. How I got out of that group and why is another story, but it all came back when I was sitting at that last Transition group meeting, the one that got all weird. They were talking about the collapse of civilization due to Peak Oil and how it was going to happen any minute now etc., and that is what brought back the memories, that hey, I have been down this road before.

Anyway partly because of the experience I had with that group back in the 1970's and partly because I work in a field (biomedical research) that has often been targeted by activists, I have learned to ask questions about the origins and philosophy of any organization that I am involved in that does not have a well-known track record. The last thing I want is to be questioned by my employer about being associated with individuals or groups that they are monitoring! Yes, the Transition websites sound very attractive but they do not tell the whole story. When they talk about strengthening communities in the face of peak oil, climate change, and economic uncertainty, what exactly do they mean by that? I am involved in an internationally known and well-respected service organization and the difference between it and the Transition movement is like night and day. If you asked me what my group stood for I could tell you in concrete terms who we are and what we do. There is none of this "refer to the handbook" nonsense.

Organic--I think it very interesting that you were "kicked out." I have a feeling that had I not resigned that would have happened to me, too. You see, I thought that Transition was interested in practical solutions to the issues facing our communities, such as how does one get around in a mostly rural area when there is little or no public transportation; how does one shop for clothes when the nearest clothing store is 10 or more miles away, if we can no longer take our cars for granted. And so these were the kinds of questions I was raising. I have studied a lot of history and it seems that these people want to turn back the clock without any appreciation of the consequences. Or maybe they are aware of the consequences. Google something called the Big Die-off. The dirty little secret behind "natural" remedies and "organic" farming is that these practices are far less efficient and effective than our so-called "non-sustainable" methods. This month's issue (April) of Foreign Policy magazine has an interesting article about African farming--everything the Transition Townies admire, organic, slow, local. And yet Africa lags behind other areas of the world in food production. According to the article, if US farmers all went organic it would be a disaster on many levels! The current controversy over crops for food or crops for fuel would pale in comparison if you had to add rangeland for animals (to provide the needed manure). These are things I tried to bring up but I felt they were not listening. Now I understand why. They are pushing a philosophy rather than solutions.

"You see, I thought that Transition was interested in practical solutions to the issues facing our communities, such as how does one get around in a mostly rural area when there is little or no public transportation; how does one shop for clothes when the nearest clothing store is 10 or more miles away, if we can no longer take our cars for granted. And so these were the kinds of questions I was raising. I have studied a lot of history and it seems that these people want to turn back the clock without any appreciation of the consequences. Or maybe they are aware of the consequences. Google something called the Big Die-off. The dirty little secret behind "natural" remedies and "organic" farming is that these practices are far less efficient and effective than our so-called "non-sustainable" methods. This month's issue (April) of Foreign Policy magazine has an interesting article about African farming--everything the Transition Townies admire, organic, slow, local. And yet Africa lags behind other areas of the world in food production. According to the article, if US farmers all went organic it would be a disaster on many levels! The current controversy over crops for food or crops for fuel would pale in comparison if you had to add rangeland for animals (to provide the needed manure). These are things I tried to bring up but I felt they were not listening. Now I understand why. They are pushing a philosophy rather than solutions."

Not to make this a political thread, but there is a lot to challenge in your last paragraph. I've been involved with sustainable development and related issues for going on 20 years. I studied this stuff in university and have been actively following the issues ever since. I have no connection to Transition Towns, but I can tell you that there are many, many legitimate organizations working on the exact same issues and proposing the exact same solutions. One article on African food production in Foreign Policy magazine is hardly the last or best word on sustainable agriculture. And the "efficiency and effectiveness" of industrial food production is a myth, because it's not sustainable, not when you consider timelines of a thousand years or more. Traditional agriculture, despite its many drawbacks, has lasted for 10 000 years or more and got us from hunter-gatherers to what we are today.

Consider too that you had one experience with one TT group. It may be led by some zealots who may not be representative of the entire organization.

As for the vagueness of the organization's goals.... well, welcome to the world of environmental activism. There is vagueness on all sides of the issue ("we're going to try lowering this dome over the oil leak and see if that works").

Re: Peak Oil, yes, there are the "the end is nigh" freaking-out types and there are the "this energy source isn't going to last forever, we should work on reducing our dependency on it so that when it does run out, it's not a catastrophe" types. Extremists and moderates, like any other political movement.

One weird meeting with one chapter of one organization does not add up to a cult. Go to a Critical Mass ride sometime and try slagging off the movement because not everyone everywhere can a ride a bike - you will get shut down right quick.

By all means stay away from TT if it doesn't sit right with you. But let's not jump to conclusions that they are a cult because a few people didn't see things your way. We just don't know yet.


(By the way, here's how you shop for clothes when you live in a rural area with no car: mail order. Mail is delivered by a person on a bike with a small trailer attached or a cargo hold built in. [Their are bikes like this all over The Netherlands and Denmark.] You send back stuff that just doesn't fit or look right, or get a local person to make alterations to the stuff you want to keep. Maybe someone in your household will make simple items at home. You buy clothes less often, and clothes are made to last. It worked a treat for generations.)

I was unable to attend the TT potluck dinner but a very good friend did, with her very skeptical husband, and they had a lovely time. Her husband pointed out that this group was established in Europe, and the questionnaire reflects that. It wants to know specifically who does what and how they know how to do what they do. The TT group used the questionnaire as a guideline but they host of the dinner actually expressed some embarrasment over it and didn't want it to scare anyone off.

They will not be using the 12 Steps, and overall, my friends said it was a very welcoming, diverse group of people without the snobbery that is very common in our neck of the woods when it comes to saving the planet/oceans, waterway/food supply/fossil fuels.

The nicest part of it? They just want people who are isolated from each other to be able to get together once in a while, i.e. a potluck picnic or a group bike ride, perhaps a New Year's Eve first night - all low cost/free events where people can either share ideas or newcomers who have no clue about conservation can learn.

My friend and her husband are well versed theosophy, anthroposophy, and even discussed it with the guy who set up the event (he's a 20-something college student). But despite all this, it is great to have all the input here so my friends were on the lookout, and we'll also know what to look for as things progress.

Margarets, I couldn't agree more with everything you said in your last post. Not to start a political debate, but there was news recently that so many Monsanto seed crops had failed in Africa that they ended up paying restitution of over $1 million to farmers there.

The rational Greens urgently need to separate themselves from the ’spiritual’ ones.”


One of the co-founders of Transition Town, Rob Hopkins, is listed as having taught a discipline called Permaculture at Kinsale College in Ireland.

Looking more closely at Permaculture via Google, there turn out to be many, many
cited links between Permaculture and projects and persons affiliated with Rudolf Steiner/Anthroposophy due to Steiners method of Biodynamic farming which is an outgrowth of his religious, Theosophically based belief system.

[www.google.com]


However, not all students and practitioners of Permaculture believe in Steiner.

So...to evaluate the Transition Town movement as a whole and also to evaluate individual separate Transition Town projects, it will be adviseable to keep a very close
eye and see whether the Permaculture pracitioners root their work in Steiner or are
committed to utilizing the methods of science and--open communication of all agendas
with no distinction between an exoteric, sanitized doctrine for outsiders and a hidden teaching, based on elitist and occult principles witheld from outsiders and kept only among the elite.

Here is a blog entry from a man committed to Permaculture and recorded a variety of dialogues with Steinerians. The article and all of its comments are well worth reading.

[www.google.com]

This comment is especially fine

Quote

Hamish:

Thanks for your support, really appreciated; great links, yes I have also looked at other Waldorf expose websites, there is a lot of darkness behind the fluffy image of Steiner schools, it does really worry me that they seem to be unquestioningly accepted as a standard piece of “alternative” culture; many people would be shocked to even hear criticism of them.

“The rational Greens urgently need to separate themselves from the ’spiritual’ ones.”

Well, this is a strong statement, one which perhaps in my naivety I have been avoiding for a long time, thinking instead that the power of rational argument might make a difference (see the debate on Transition culture: [transitionculture.org] But maybe it is just time to jump ship altogether and have an explicity “rational/skepticl environmentalism. I certainly believe that underneath these differences (of evidence vs faith) are fundamentally irreconcilable differences in values, politics etc..

One correspondant wrote that Steiners biodynamics 'made sense' to him and that was enough.

Quote

Graham - 8 October 2009
Hi Jack Actually I have read Steiner’s “Agriculture Course”- I participated in a biodynamic study group some years ago and worked alongside biodynamic growers. There is nothing scientific in Steiner’s work because none of it was tested scienctifically. Even today there is no scientific evidence that it works, which is hardly surprising as the whole project of anthroposophy is inherently unscientific. Biodynamics is based on Steiner’s bizarre view of astrology, in his version the planets do not even orbit the sun! There are a few quotes from “Agriculture Course ” on this site: [sites.google.com] if you think Steiner was in any way scientific you know nothing about science- which is a great pity. You are wrong about permaculture- it is indeed based on established scientific theory, which means that although it is experimental it does not take flights of fancy or engage in religious or pseudo-scientific ideologies. Mollison was quite explicit about this:
[permacultureireland.org] and Holmgren’s work is clearly rooted in ecological systems theory. It is essential that as permaculturalists we work to increase the public understanding of science and hold to the scientific methods that have taught us all we know of value about ecology. When you say permaculture and biodynamics can be used together, you are saying that reason and unreason have no conflict with each other.

How to make sure Transition Town is Community Building--make sure it is not indoctrinational.

Because I found so very many google references associating Transition Town projects with Rudolf Steiner and his system of gardening and soil conservation, a system based on Theosophical principles, not science, I thought to supply a few study materials on Steiner.

That way, those who do decide to explore the Transition Town movement can see for themselves, whether a local T-Town project welcomes science or shows signs of Steinerian ideology/indoctriantion. One cannot diagnose the presence of a Steiner agenda unless one has learned something about Steiners belief system--and one that has become influential via the Waldorf Schools. Time and observation are needed before we can tell whether T-town is independent and just happens to attract persons already committed to Steiner, or may be in some cases, an application of Steiner/Anthroposophy at community level.

If so--tell the community who Steiner is.

Here is some material from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner.

Based on this lecture, given by Rudolf Steiner himself, two significant holidays in the Anthroposophical calendar are Saint Johns Day (summer) and Christmas until January 6th/Epiphany.

Quote

"Legends have preserved for us the manner in which the Christ impulse can assert itself within the Western spiritual tradition.

"In part, these legends refer generally to ancient pagan ages, but they take us back to those heathen times in which an understanding of Christianity was beginning to germinate.

"If the soul does not consciously seek initiation as delineated in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, but becomes saturated with the Christ impulse as if by way of natural initiation, then the most favorable period for this process is from December 25 to January 6.

(Corboy note: this sentence which follows demonstrates that Steiner rejected science, with this 'it is evident that the earth is not only what geologists decribe." Steiner is speaking as an infallible seer, as a guru whose words are to be taken as santified teachings.

"We can understand this clearly by realizing that for occult knowledge it is evident that the earth is not only what geologists describe. Geologists conceive the earth's components as being similar to the skeleton of man. Yet the spiritual also belongs to our earth whose aura has been permeated by Christ. During the day's twenty-four hours, this earth sleeps and is awake just as we are. We must familiarize ourselves with the fact that the state of wakefulness on earth occurs during the winter, and the state of sleep during the summer.

The earth spirit is most awake in these twelve or thirteen days from Christmas to the Epiphany. In ancient ages when, as you know from the various presentations in my lecture series, human beings elevated themselves to a sort of dreamlike clairvoyance to reach a spiritual understanding of the world, in those ages the most favorable time for this process was summer. Thus, it is quite natural that whoever wants to elevate himself to spiritual heights by means of a more dreamlike clairvoyance will have an easier time of it during the summer, when the earth is asleep.

Therefore, St. John's midsummer-day was in ancient ages the most propitious time to raise the soul to the spiritual level. The old way of spiritual interaction with the earth has been replaced by a more conscious elevation that can best be reached during the earth's wakefulness.

'For this reason, legends inform us that unusually endowed people, who are particularly suited by their karmas, pass into an extraordinary state of consciousness that resembles sleep, but only on the surface. its inner quality is such that it can be inspired by those forces that elevate human beings to the domain we call the spirit world. A beautiful Norwegian legend (see Note 2) tells us that Olaf Åsteson, in church on Christmas Eve, falls into a sleeplike state and when he awakens on January 6 is able to relate the experiences he had in this condition. This Norwegian legend does in fact describe the experiences that one perceives first as the soul world — and then as something that feels like the spirit world, but with everything being expressed as images, as imaginative forms.

'This time of year has been most favorable in those epochs when human beings were not as advanced as they are in our time. Now it is no longer possible for the Christ impulse to penetrate the souls of men in this way, as if by natural initiation. Nowadays man must make a conscious effort and climb to initiation in a way similar to that achieved through the instructions given in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. We are living in an age when natural initiations are becoming increasingly rare and will eventually disappear.

and...warning:

Quote

I want to explain these facts in order to instill in your souls a feeling for the fact that the external preception must take into account unknown forces and connections beyond what we ordinarily call history. European history has been guided by the Christ impulse since the Mystery of Golgotha, whereas Asia retained a world view that is not vet fully sensitive to the Christ impulse. To be sure, Europeans have been led into considering the wisdom of India as something especially profound. Not only is it characteristic of Hindu thought, if not of all Asian religious perception, however, that its entire attention is directed to the time preceding the appearance of the Christ impulse, but also that the state of religious perception is preserved as it was in those days. If something remains behind in the evolutionary process it can be interpreted to have absorbed something luciferic, and for this reason Asian religious evolution is the carrier of a luciferic element. A glance at the religious development of Asia will inform us that it contains much of what mankind as a whole once possessed but was later forced to abandon. We must in part cleanse Western culture of the luciferic remnants and in part we must elevate them in such a way that the Christ impulse can enter.

[wn.rsarchive.org]


A US Transition Town project has this

[webcache.googleusercontent.com]

In the section "Working toward a better Sandpoint-More sustainability groups"

"In addition to the Sandpoint Transition Initiative (STI), the community has experienced a rush of new and exciting projects and working groups. Though not directly related to STI, they complement the mission of working together toward a healthier, more vibrant and abundant Sandpoint. Here are a few of the most promising:"

There is this description of Biodynamics:

Quote

Interested in biodynamic agriculture? Want to find out what in the world it is? Join the Sandpoint Biodynamic Working Group and bring the etheric forces at the center of BD down to earth for you. The workgroup formed in spring 2008 to combine the energies (pun intended) and experience of a handful of local individual BD practitioners to help spread the practice to our community. Biodynamics goes beyond organic gardening. It uses the other-worldly recommendations made by Rudolph Steiner, an Austrian-born educator and philosopher, to address methods of using natural forces to enliven our gardening efforts. Practitioners swear by it. The workgroup meets to study related lectures in the winter, and to get their hands dirty making garden preps in the warm months. If you're open, biodynamic agriculture introduces you to a whole other world of gardening. There are no membership fees. All you need to join the group is an interest in understanding this unique school of agriculture. On a related note, many practitioners feel that a biodynamic farm or garden is incomplete without beehives. The honeybee was highly regarded by Steiner, and Sandpoint has a working group that helps locals new to the world of apiculture get their hives up and running.

So very many Transition Town events seem associated with persons or at least take place alongside Steiner related projects, that it would be very good for anyone interested in Transition Town to read
some material about Steiner's own philosphy so that they can be prepared to identify it --precisely because persons most committed to this world view do not usually share the more sensitive parts of it with 'outsiders'

This is a complaint that has been raised for years by parents who entrusted their children to Waldorf schools, and were later distressed to learn that the actual Steinerian belief system behind these schools had been witheld or minimized.

So we will have to sit back and see if Transition Town will welcome the resources of science, as recommended by Graham (above) or whether all or a few TT are a sort of Waldorf education for adults. More information will be needed before we can reach this conclusion. But...it would be wise to learn how to research elements of Rudolf Steiners belief system, for it has become influential even when not mentioned by name.

[ukanthroposophy.wordpress.com]

[steiner.thruhere.net]

Doublespeak: Sharon Lombards article at this site is especially haunting--she eventualy took her daughter out of a Waldorf school only after her daughter became dangerously ill under the care of an Anthroposophical physician using Steiners methods of medical treatment.

Quote

Conclusion
Leaving Waldorf was a very difficult time for my family. Our world was turned upside down and inside out. Although some people have positive experiences with the schools, others have troubling encounters with the movement. Years ago an ex-Waldorfer observed:

I think most parents get "attached" to their kids being in the Waldorf schools and they just want to look the other way when something uncomfortable comes up. Or, they view the teaching as somehow -superior- because it is not of this "materialistic" world we live in. Especially when a parent starts their child in the younger grades. By the time the child is in the school for a number of years, the school has become -so- much a part of their -identity- that they cannot face the possibility of letting go. It's very subtle but one begins to feel it is more and more difficult to relate to others outside the Waldorf circle. Eventually I felt I was living on some sort of "Anthroposophical island." This alienation, coupled with my troubling questions finally convinced me that something was very wrong (Heather, private fax to Dan Dugan, May 8, 1996).

and

Quote

An ex-Waldorf teacher who has recently filed suit against the New York Waldorf School for racial discrimination, Charmaigne Usher-Paulson, expresses her feelings of loss on a private Internet forum of ex-Waldorfers:
I realized today, that we all are in mourning. We mourn the loss of what could, should have been. The sorrow, anguish, and anger that are laced within our words demonstrate the sincerity of our aspirations for true community and our reaction to deception.
I believe that we will utilize our strength, integrity, vision and hope towards true renewal. The Waldorf movement does not "own" beauty, art, songs, and the idea of reverence for the earth.

These ideals belong to us all and we will impart these principles to our own family and community. Furthermore, we will impart these things to others in a way the Waldorf movement could never do. We will impart these things with love. That is the thing that is missing from them, love (Usher-Paulson, 2002, October, 20. Hello from Charmaine, waldorf-survivors-only@yahoogroups.com private communication).
You cannot love people if you are duping them. Ms. Paulson also writes: When you are involved in the movement you are either in or out. If you do not espouse and adhere to the group, then you are out (2002, October, 21. Lawsuits private communication).

"Recently, Waldorf parent Nicole Foss reflected:

Quote

If Anthroposophy were only a church, our paths would never cross, but Anthroposophy does not restrict itself to its circle of True Believers. Instead it sets up schools where these disguised beliefs are foisted upon unsuspecting parents whose opinions can be disregarded because they don't "know the path." These parents are expected to follow unknowingly the requirements of a religion which denies to them that it even exists, and may be criticized in their ignorance for anthroposophical incorrectness. No wonder so many parents initially feel bewildered and later angry for having been deceived (Foss, 2003, March, 16.Percedol, [www.waldorfcritics.org] ).

"

"A pluralistic society allows room for all, but Waldorf needs to be more open in clarifying its esoteric base. Prospective parents are entitled to be informed of the concealed Anthroposophic mission of this schooling system. Some may experience the warmth of belonging as freedom; I was scorched by the harsh light of Anthroposophy. You are either a moth drawn to the light, or you are instead drawn to the porch. As a friend observed, You are drawn to Waldorf not because of what it is, but because of what it is not.
"

[steiner.thruhere.net]

'The Sun at Midnight

[sun-at-midnight.com]

GREAT thread here! Had heard about this movement and had some suspicions but didn't really know much until now. Some things to consider...

Rob Hopkins appears to be basing his whole schtick on the "Peak Oil" movement that popped up a few years back. Now I'm not arguing that "oil replenishes itself" or even arguing against "peak oil". I'm agnostic on the science and not interested in that debate. What DOES interest me is the number of cults, fascists, and other creepy-crawlies lurking around the Peak Oil MOVEMENT. I am an ardent environmentalist, which is why I take these things seriously. I am PREDISPOSED to supporting something like the Transition Town movement and agree with many of their ideas! But there is something fishy going on here and I suspect the Waldorf/Steiner angle is just the tip of the iceberg.


1. Who the hell is Rob Hopkins? I have yet to read a bio that shows his higher education or career in the field of petroleum geology. Yet, we are supposed to take him as some kind of "expert" and follow a movement based on his "expertise"? From what I can gather he merely teaches permaculture classes at the British equivalent of a diploma mill. Sorry, not trying to be condescending, correct me if I'm wrong. This is not to say that I'm not impressed that "some guy with a blog, a permaculture class, and no petroleum geology degree or oil experience" could turn himself into some kind of "world-renowned" expert on "Peak Oil". It IS an impressive achievement, in a sense! If I'm way off the mark, and somebody has a link that shows something like "PhD with honors from Cambridge School of Petroleum Geology", then send it to me so I can apologize to Mr. Hopkins.

2. Even if there is something to "Peak Oil", the main person that Hopkins (and many of the other Oily Peakers) cite is... Richard Heinberg! I've got a LOT on Richard Heinberg. And guess what? He's not an oil expert either! But he sure knows how to act like one. Like the old TV commercial with the guy from General Hospital put it "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV".

"I'm not a petroleum geologist, but I play one on the Web!"

First of all, according to his wikipedia entry, he went to college for two years, no mention of course of study. HOWEVER, we do find that he was an aide to Immanuel Vellikovsky. Vellikovsky was a "catastrophist" whose hypothesis was that major events in religious history were based on astronomical events. However, like Heinberg and Hopkins on oil, he is NOT an astronomist, he was a psychologist!

So, let's review:
-we have a new movement spun out of peak oil... lead by a non-geologist, Hopkins... whose main influence Heinberg is also a non-geologist and non-academic.
-we have Heinberg as an aide and ally to Vellikovsky, a guy who tried to change astronomy to his liking... but who is not an astronomist! Are we seeing a pattern yet?

From Vellikovsky's wikipedia entry:

[en.wikipedia.org]

Velikovsky's ideas have been almost entirely rejected by mainstream academia (often vociferously so) and his work is generally regarded as erroneous in all its detailed conclusions. Moreover, scholars view his unorthodox methodology (for example, using comparative mythology to derive scenarios in celestial mechanics) as an unacceptable way to arrive at conclusions. Stephen Jay Gould[33] offers a synopsis of the mainstream response to Velikovsky, writing, "Velikovsky is neither crank nor charlatan — although to state my opinion and to quote one of my colleagues, he is at least gloriously wrong ... Velikovsky would rebuild the science of celestial mechanics to save the literal accuracy of ancient legends."

So, we have Heinberg not only acting as Velikovsky's aide, but also writing his own books on "catastrophism" based on Velikovsky's non-science for YEARS before he became King of the Oily Peakers. In other words, Heinberg specializes in being WRONG over long periods of time.

[en.wikipedia.org]

"This book grew out of his May 31, 1980, address at the Kronos Princeton Seminar, "Velikovsky: The Decade Ahead" which was titled "The Garden, the Fall, and the Restoration".[5] He began publishing his alternative newsletter, the Museletter, in 1992. His next book was published in 1993: Celebrate the Solstice: Honoring the Earth's Seasonal Rhythms through Festival and Ceremony. In November 1994, he presented "Catastrophe, Collective Trauma and the Origins of Civilization" at the conference "Velikovsky, Ancient Myth and Modern Science", sponsored by Kronia Communications in cooperation with Aeon: A Symposium on Myth and Science in Portland, Oregon."

(Continued in next post)

(continuing with Heinberg)

[en.wikipedia.org]

So, looking further at Heinberg's CV, we find that his main experience as an academic was several years at the "New College of California" diploma mill. Let us check out the academic status of that FINE institution, shall we? First off, note that not being approved and certified by WASC pretty much means you're not really a school. Also, I should point out that what happened here was not Heinberg's fault, and as faculty, he was probably a VICTIM of the corrupt management. Second, note that the Jesuit founder of the school was a sexual abuser. This will not be the only time Heinberg will be found close to people "accused of sexual abuse".

[www.metroactive.com]

School for Scandal

New College of California closes its North Bay campus amid accusations of mismanagement and deep financial woes

By Leilani Clark

...T he North Bay Campus of New College of California has come a long way from its heady early days in 1998. At the time, academic director Michael McAvoy celebrated the opening of the Center for the Study of Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Community as the most hopeful learning center for studying social activism in the country. Ten years later, the gates to the building sit locked, and the demise of the North Bay campus and possibly New College altogether are imminent.

The closing of the North Bay Campus is only one consequence of a crisis that began in July 2007 after the private liberal arts school based in San Francisco was put on probation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). The nonprofit accrediting agency cited the school for numerous violations of institutional and academic integrity stating that the school had a "culture of administrative sloppiness and arbitrariness." On Feb. 26, WASC officially stripped New College's accreditation.

"It's a complicated story," says faculty council chair Carolyn Cooke. "New College has always had an uneasy relation with WASC, with rules, with record-keeping, with structure. It hasn't operated like other colleges—building endowments, scholarships, tenure for faculty."

College president Martin Hamilton resigned in August 2007 amid accusations he had altered the transcripts of an international student on the promise of a $1 million bribe. This combined with uproar over lax record-keeping revealed by the WASC report proved to be the deathblow to Hamilton's administrative powers.

The situation deteriorated as the Department of Education (ED) entered the fray, moving the college to a heightened cash monitoring system that required approval of documentation before reimbursement. Years of incorrect paperwork came back to haunt the school. As of January, at least $1 million in federal student aid is being held by the ED, and until the school can demonstrate fiscal sustainability, the funds will remain in limbo.

Faculty haven't been paid since November, students have not received desperately needed financial aid and a semester that should have started Jan. 8 has been indefinitely postponed. In addition, the school is functioning without a certified registrar, meaning students are unable to access transcripts or diplomas.

...This is not the college's first brush with probation. After being accredited by WASC in 1976, the school was found to have violated substantive change policy. In 1980, New College was placed on warning, and in 1984, it was placed on probation for numerous curricular concerns. Accreditation was reaffirmed in 1985 with "the expectation of continued progress in addressing fiscal and curricular issues," according to a WASC report.

Following a 1988 visit, the school was again placed on warning for concerns of governance, faculty and finances. In 2005, the accrediting agency noted concern about long-term financial stability. The college's already shaky ground was not helped by a 2006 revelation from the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus that Father John Leary, the Jesuit priest who founded New College, holding the very first classes in a Sausalito living room, had sexually abused minors during his tenure at Gonzaga University, where he had taught in the 1960s.

How did a school with a mission statement that espouses sustainability end up in such deep straits? Members of the board of trustees believe that the financial crisis is the result of an administrative system that couldn't keep up with the college's rapid growth. "The delivery of a wider spectrum of programs needed a bigger structure to be sustainable," Swan says.

In a Feb. 15 letter to Ralph Wolff, the executive director of WASC, the board lists a series of tactics to ensure the college's survival. The action plan calls for the closing of the North Bay campus in Santa Rosa effective Feb. 25. Potential sales of properties on Fillmore and Valencia streets, including the school parking lot, are listed for a total of over $6 million. Program directors are formally authorized to move towards a "teach-out" or to move students to other institutions.

"The primary reason the school needs to be scaled back is to demonstrate our fiscal sustainability by running financially sustainable programs. For a period of time, the college has offered some degree emphasis in undergraduate and master's programs that are very important to our mission but currently don't have the number of students to be financially viable," Swan says. She explains that another strategy for fiscal sustainability includes building an endowment to diversify revenue sources so that the school is not so dependent on the ED.

Some critics believe the quagmire is a result of years of financial mismanagement and ill-planned real estate investments on the part of Hamilton and other members of the school's leadership. In addition to its campuses, New College owns San Francisco's Roxie Cinema and the Casa Loma, an old "flophouse" purchased with the intent of turning it into a "green living center" for student housing. That never came to fruition.

"I believe it doesn't take a team of auditors to figure out that with all the bad business investments [Hamilton's] made over the years, no amount of student tuitions could keep us afloat," says Genny Lim, a long-time member of the humanities faculty. According to Lim, the actions of the former administration have resulted in "low pay and gross inequities in salary."

Master's degree candidate and student council member Janet Ector agrees. "In my opinion, the so-called leadership was more interested in real estate speculation and other financially questionable acts to care about providing students with services or faculty with adequate resources."

One other thing to point out about Heinberg's CV on wikipedia.

[en.wikipedia.org]

"In February 2007 Heinberg addressed the Trade Committee of the European Parliament and served as an advisor to the National Petroleum Council in its report to the U.S. Secretary of Energy on Peak Oil."

An advisor to the National Petroleum Council? The group that represents the OIL INDUSTRY in its interaction with the US Gov? That's not a bad gig to get for a guy WHO ISN'T AN OIL EXPERT! This is a common thing with the well-intentioned, naive Oily Peakers, they hear "we're running out of oil!" from oil guys, oil brokers, well drillers, and assume that they share the same ideas: moving to alternative energies and changing our lifestyles so that we don't consume so much in the first place. Well, is that REALLY the agenda of the oil companies? Or is it more likely that their response to "peak oil" will be to advocate MORE drilling, MORE exploration in "easy to get to areas that have been closed off to exploration..." like national parks. Wildlife preserves. Wilderness areas.

Now consider WHY a guy like Heinberg, who knows zilch about oil in a professional sense would be useful to the "oily powers that be". He is a catastrophist, his specialty, even if based on the "non-science" of his idol Velikovsky. He has IMAGINATION, he can concoct horror scenarios that will scare even the most adamant environmentalist into giving up their "anti-oil" biases and advocate more drilling, more exploration, all based on people's fear of their lifestyle collapsing. Not attached to that idea, but it does make some sense, right?

Now let's get into the meat of the matter and why this is a VERY appropriate topic for a "Cult forum"...

I first heard of the group "Emmisaries of Light" from a CESNUR conference held in San Diego a few years back. Massimo Introvigne, who should be very familiar to all serious cult researchers and anti-fascists, conducted a "field trip" to the Emmissaries of Light" compound at Glen Ivy Hot Springs.

CESNUR is too big a topic for this thread, but to sum them up "cult apologists who do fake academic work on the payroll of the cults they investigate".

I had studied both CESNUR AND Peak Oil around 2005/2006, and I was fascinated to see them link up in the form of... Richard Heinberg!

[www.theoildrum.com]

in his own words...

" In the early ‘90s my wife and I moved from an intentional community in Southern California called Glen Ivy up to Santa Rosa and I decided from that point on I would make my living completely as a writer."

[www.factnet.org]

Sexual abuses and cover-up's were made public during the first "open" council (described earlier). Exeter (leader of group) and his wife denied knowing about the abuses, though I personally knew two people who had informed them in writing about particular abuses. Women have told me they were seduced, coerced, threatened, and even stalked by men in leadership positions. They have told me about sexual abuse of children. I have heard that in central and eastern regions of the U.S., teenagers were forced to lose their virginity to their group leaders, with the explanation that this guaranteed a spiritually sound beginning to their sex life. I don't know if this was done in all regions and in Canada.

...(From Interview with former member...not Richard...no confusion) I was told it was vital to confide everything about my life, including my finances and sexual life. At first it was spelled out completely, to whom I was to tell what. Later the instructions were revised and one could communicate to anyone "upwards." After that I discovered that reports were written about us locally and sent to regional coordinators, who then reported to Exeter . Class faculties also wrote reports about each student. I don't know if these practices continue.

More on Heinberg, particularly his fascist associations in Russia. This is all very strange stuff, but, hey, Nazi/Indo-Aryan philosophy is INHERENTLY strange stuff!

This whole thread can be found here and should be read by ANYBODY skeptical of Richard Heinberg and the Oily Peakers in general.

[rigorousintuition.yuku.com]

Heinberg is fascinated by "shambala", the lost tibetan world that obsessed the Nazis.


By RICHARD HEINBERG (linked from his page here: www.museletter.com/archive.html)

THE SITE OF PARADISE

Some paradise myths seem to describe a specific place, a lost homeland. Many legends speak of a sunken island or a great world mountain as the original paradisal home of humankind.

In Memories and Visions of Paradise, I mentioned the Tibetan legend of lost Shambhala a mystical kingdom hidden behind snowy peaks somewhere to the north where a line of enlightened kings is guarding the innermost teachings of Buddhism for a time when all truth in the outside world is lost in war and greed. Then, according to the prophecy, the King of Shambhala will emerge with a great army to destroy the forces of evil and bring in a new Golden Age.

Tibetan and Western scholars have looked everywhere for Shambhala from the Gobi Desert to the North Pole. Three recent books offer relevant new information and insight.


Quote:A coterie of fascist cultural scholars sprang up asserting that Buddhism, the Vedas, the Puranas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, yoga and even Tantrism were intellectual remnants of a vanished, global, indo-Aryan, anti-Semitic religion. There were also borrowings from Tibetan culture and especially from Japanese Zen and Samurai traditions
... The inventors of the Nazi mysteries, French occultists Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels, and the Englishman Trevor Ravenscroft. All three authors saw National Socialism inextricably linked to the Indo-Tibetan Shambhala myth.

---------------------------snip-------------------

SS-Ahnenerbe researchers were especially interested in the Kalachakra Tantra.

The Shambala vision recorded in the Kalachakra Tantra has become a central pillar in the mythology of religious neo-Nazism.

Many of the themes raised in the Kalachakra Tantra (a cyclical view of the world, global domination, the use of super weapons, magic and ritual in sexual practices etc) are key themes in religious fascism.
www.trimondi.de/H-B-K/inhalt.hi.en.htm

.

or this maybe will help:

Quote:
Shambhala, Agartha, and The Hole at The Pole.

That there was some further mystery related to the Boreal region, is indicated in the myth of Shambhala, which is supposed to have emanated from the early lamas of Tibet. It is thought to have been an ancient realm once located somewhere in Asia - possibly in the Gobi - when what is now an arid desert was still the Gobi Sea. It was thought to have been an island realm, called the Sacred Island which, in many respects, seems to have been strangely similar to Thule or Hyperborea.

The mystery deepens when we learn that its inhabitants were the last survivors of the White Island which had perished long ages earlier! According to Madame Blavatsky, the inhabitants were descended from her Lemurians, but, since this information was alleged to be from a Theosophist, spiritual origin, we might be wiser in concluding that they were more likely to have been from Hyperboria-Thule!


Shambhala.

"Heinberg wrote for New Dawn. Here is one fan of New Dawn:

Quote:
"New Dawn magazine is one of the best sources of realistic information on the state of things in our world as it nears its inevitable and predicted end. For some people it could seem to be a little bit strange and weird, phantasmagoric... But the reality in which we live is itself something strange and weird... New Dawn magazine helps us to persist. And gives us hope for the better world that is coming..."
ALEXANDRE DUGIN, leader of International Eurasian Movement


NOTE: Here we have Heinberg giving outright support to fascist theoretician Alexander Dugin.


Here is Heinberg ABOUT Dugin:

Quote:
Meanwhile, in Russia political theorist Alexander Dugin was gaining increasing influence with anti-American geostrategic writings. In 1997, the same year Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard appeared, Dugin published his own manifesto, The Basics of Geopolitics, advocating a reconstituted Russian Empire composed of a continental bloc of states allied to cleanse the Eurasian land-mass of US influence. At the center of this bloc Dugin posited a "Eurasian axis" of Russia, Germany, Iran, and Japan.

While Dugin's ideas were banned during Soviet times for their echoes of Nazi pan-Eurasian fantasies, they gradually gained influence among post-Soviet Russian officials. For example, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently decried the "strengthening tendency towards the formation of a unipolar world under financial and military domination by the United States" and called for a "multipolar world order," while emphasizing Russia's "geopolitical position as the largest Eurasian state." Russia's Communist party has adopted Dugin's ideas in its platform; Gennady Zyuganov, Communist Party chairman, even published his own primer on geopolitics, titled Geography of Victory. Though Dugin remains a marginal figure internationally, his ideas cannot help but resonate in a country and continent increasingly hemmed in and manipulated by a powerful and arrogant hegemonic nation on the other side of the globe.

Outwardly, Russia - like Germany, France, Japan, and China - still usually defers to the US. Even dissent from the Bush buildup to war on Iraq has remained fairly muted.

But in private, leaders in all of these countries are no doubt making new plans. Few would yet go so far as to agree with Alexander Dugin's view that Eurasia will come to dominate the US, not the other way around. Yet in just three years, many Eurasian leaders' attitudes toward American hegemony have shifted from quiet acceptance to biting criticism to a serious examination of the alternatives.

The American Dilemma

Dugin and other Eurasian critics of US power begin from a premise that would seem ludicrous to most Americans. To Dugin, the US is acting not out of strength, but of weakness.
www.museletter.com/archive/132.html

NOTE: Dugin is upfront and unapologetic in his fascism and anti-semitism

Old Dugin:

Quote: The Jews are the carriers of a religious culture which is deeply distinct from all historical displays of Indo-European spirituality - from ancient Aryan heathen cults to Hinduism and Christianity. The voluntary or forced seizure of the Jewish diaspora from the Indo-European peoples cannot be a casual episode of history, and no Orthodox Jew will ever deny the theological underlying basis of Jewish "peculiarity". The Jewish question, no matter by whom and how it was put, should begin with a recognition of this fundamental fact - "the Jews are a community which keeps the secret of its radical differences from other peoples". If we do not admit distinction, then it is simply senseless to speak about the Jewish problem.

...The world of "Judaica" is a world hostile to us. But our feeling of Aryan justice and the gravity of our geopolitical situation require comprehension of its laws, rules and interests. The Indo-European elite stands today before a titanic task - to understand those who are not only culturally, nationally and politically, but also metaphysically different. And in this case, "to understand" means not "to forgive", but "to defeat". And "to defeat with the Light of Truth".

www.arctogaia.com/public/eng/defeat.html

"These are deep and perilous waters.Do you see? Can you see the nexus? Heinberg. New Dawn. Shambala. Indo-European Golden Age. There is more. Much more. Do you want to know? Will you hear?"


NOTE: This part is key as we see who is endorsing Heinberg's book:

"It is clear. Clear.

Heinberg has a page for his book. On his page are endorsements. At the top. Yes!! www.museletter.com/partys-over.html

David Pimental. Wife Marsha on board of Carrying Capacity Network.

Virginia Abernathy. Racist. Occidental Quarterly. She is WELL known. No mistake there. theoccidentalquarterly.com/ No mistake.

Heinberg writes in "New Dawn" about lovely myths. Indo-European Golden Age. Yes!

I posted this. It is Nazi mythology. Well known. Shambala, yes. Hitler sent men to find it. They did not. Maybe Heinberg did?

Maybe you don't know these myths?


Hyperborea. Hyperborea.

Quote:Hyperboreans consistently play a large role in Nazi, neo-nazi, and proto-nazi mysticism.

Miguel Serrano was a Chilean diplomat and major proponent of Esoteric Hitlerism. He believed that Hitler fled to Shambhala, an underground centre in Antarctica after World War II (formerly at the North Pole and Tibet), where he was in contact with the Hyperborean gods and from whence he would someday emerge with a fleet of UFOs to lead the forces of light (the Hyperboreans, sometimes associated with Vril) over the forces of darkness (inevitably including, for Serrano, the Jews) in a last battle and inaugurating a Fourth Reich. He also connected the Aryans and their Hyperborean gods to the Sun and the Allies and the Jews to the Moon.

Julius Evola believed Hyperboreans were Nordic supermen, originating in the north pole. He felt they had a crucial hand in the founding of Atlantis.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperborea



Richard believes in this mythical land to the north. Yes.

Quote:In Dawn Behind the Dawn: A Search for the Earthly Paradise (Holt, 1992), cultural historian Geoffrey Ashe theorises that the idea of a lost paradise began with a goddess-worshipping cult in the region of the Altai-Baikal region of northern Asia some 25,000 years ago. The book is erudite and impressively researched, touching on subjects ranging from Near Eastern mythology to Indo-European philology to modern feminism. Ashe summarises his reconstruction as follows:

Tens of thousands of years ago, shamans in Siberia and Mongolia held the seven-star constellation [Ursa Major] in reverence. It was all the more important because the pole, which it ruled, was not marked then by a separate polestar of conspicuous brightness. ...The chief deity was a powerful Earth Mother and Mistress of Animals, with whom female shamans were closely associated. Her cult and symbolism, passing from tribe to tribe, played a part in forming the Paleolithic Goddess substratum across Siberia and Europe. Her chief animal form was a bear....

The constellation built up a unique numinosity, partly because of its relation to the pole and hence to shamans ideas of comic centrality, expressed in the image of a central tree or world-mountain, which they climbed in their trances to meet superior spirits. In the Altai region, actual gold that gave the range a name, and an actual mountain cult, helped to evoke the divine world-mountain as golden....

Late in the fourth millennium B.C., around the Altai, Indo-European groupings such as the Afanasievo came under shamanic influence and acquired a mythical package comprising some of the ancient themes, which in the hands of these new people took on a rekindled life and energy. The package included the golden world-mountain... this eventually evolved into golden Meru, central to the universe, a paradisal abode of gods. It also included the seven stars... and something of the connected [mystique surrounding the number seven]. The mythical package was carried south and southwest in Indo-European expansion. Ashe cites the Tibetan Shambhala legend as referring to the original Altaic homeland.

Victoria Le Pages Shambhala: The Fascinating Truth Behind the Myth of Shangri-La (Quest, 1996) is an esotericists view of the same materials. Le Page has read Ashe carefully as well as earlier scholars on the subject, such as Ren Gunon and Nicholas Roerich. Gunon interprets the paradise mountain Mount Meru in Buddhist lore as not a mountain at all, but a metaphor for a conduit of terrestrial energy constituting the earths primary power source whose nature, location, and function is presently unknown to us. [Gunon] suggests that the knowledge of this fact belongs to a most arcane and little-known branch of the tantric science that is concerned with cosmic Shakti and the building of worlds, and which for that reason has been jealously guarded from the public view for many thousands of years.

Le Page follows occultist Nicholas Roerich in his quest to find the true geographical Shambhala in the Altai mountains. But she has more than a historical interest in decoding the myth. For her, Shambhala the realm of jewel lakes, wish-fulfilling trees, and speaking stones is central to the new world model, the ideology of the New Age. Shambhala has had many locations, many names, many forms; over the ages it has been known as a taboo region of Paleolithic magic, a vast Megalithic sanctuary, a sacred kingdom, and underground Wisdom center, a modern complex of ashrams and training-schools.... Its credibility has probably never been so severely tested as in this age of high technology, dense population and intensive exploration; and yet in another sense we have never been more open to transcendental ideas, to the possibility of dimensions unseen, of higher-order beings and energies and presences celestial, of guidance from above.

Olga Kharitidi, M.D., provides still more insight into the Shambhala myth in her recent book, Entering the Circle: Ancient Secrets of Siberian Wisdom Discovered by a Russian Psychiatrist (Harper Collins, 1996). This riveting autobiographical narrative is the latest entry in the New Age/shamanic adventure genre pioneered in the books of Carlos Castaneda and Lynn Andrews (and more recently in the Celestine Prophecy and Mutant Message from Down Under). Fortunately, Entering the Circle is not just an attempt to cash in on a publishing trend; in fact, it may be the best-written book of its kind so far.

The author, formerly a psychiatrist in a Siberian mental hospital, is invited by a former patient to meet his new teacher, a female shaman who lives in a remote village in the Altai mountains. The curious but skeptical psychiatrist soon finds herself launched into a chain of events that will forever change her views of healing, science, and consciousness.

Like Castaneda, Kharitidi is taken into apprenticeship by a magician with baffling powers, illogical habits, and a bizarre sense of humour. But Uma the authors spiritual teacher offers more than the standard lessons in transcending time, space, and rationality; she also unlocks a gateway to what could be the fountainhead of the worlds spiritual truths.

Nearly every culture maintains some vestige of shamanic rituals, practices that date back to Paleolithic times. In his classic study of shamanism, historian of religion Mircea Eliade traced the phenomenon to the natives of Siberia. And as we have just seen, Geoffrey Ashe and Victoria Le Page, in their books, have suggested that the universal ancient myth of a lost paradisal kingdom the birthplace of civilisation and religion may refer to a site somewhere in the Altaic mountains bordering Siberia and Mongolia. Thus when Kharitidis Altaic spiritual guide begins to tell her about Belovodia (the local name for Shambhala), one gets the sense that a tremendous secret may be on the verge of disclosure.

Back in the city of Novosibirsk, Kharitidi meets a nuclear physicist whose research into the fringes of human consciousness dovetails with her own exploding interest in the mysteries of the soul.

Working together, they retrieve more knowledge about the fabled Belovodia. There have always been people within each [spiritual tradition] who were directly in touch with Belovodia, writes the physicist during an exploratory trance session. From time to time, knowledge from there has been opened up to your own civilisation. This has happened at moments of real threat to humanity. It is becoming open to you again now, because the power and energy you have accumulated are capable of causing many different kinds of catastrophes. Belovodia is becoming accessible to your consciousness to protect you by showing you other ways to live.

Kharitidis story convincingly told seems destined to become a classic and deserves at least as wide a readership as the spectacularly successful (but fictional and clumsily written) The Celestine Prophecy.


www.newdawnmagazine.com.a...adise.html

Heinberg-----Golden Age-------Siberia-----Hyperborea.

Why important? This mythology belongs to the Thule Society. yes.

Quote:A primary focus of Thule-Gesellschaft was a claim concerning the origins of the Aryan race. "Thule" was a land located by Greco-Roman geographers in the furthest north. The society was named after "Ultima Thule" (Latin: most distant Thule) mentioned by the Roman poet Vergil in his epic poem Aeneid, was the far northern segment of Thule and is generally understood to mean Scandinavia. Said by Nazi mystics to be the capital of ancient Hyperborea, they placed Ultima Thule in the extreme north near Greenland or Iceland.

The Thulists believed in the hollow earth theory. Thule had among its goals the desire to prove that the Aryan race came from a lost continent, perhaps Atlantis.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society



Heinberg---mythical Golden Age from the North. Indo-Europeans. Aryans. from the north. from the north. Another name is Hyperborea. It is clear. Clear!

Richard writes for New Dawn. Richard talks of Eurasianism. New Dawn talks of Eurasianism. Richard talks of Alexander Dugin. Dugin writes for New Dawn.

Quote:"New Dawn magazine is one of the best sources of realistic information on the state of things in our world as it nears its inevitable and predicted end. For some people it could seem to be a little bit strange and weird, phantasmagoric... But the reality in which we live is itself something strange and weird... New Dawn magazine helps us to persist. And gives us hope for the better world that is coming..."
ALEXANDRE DUGIN, leader of International Eurasian Movement
www.newdawnmagazine.com.a...wdawn.html



But I have posted this. Who is Dugin? Richard says this:

Quote:Meanwhile, in Russia political theorist Alexander Dugin was gaining increasing influence with anti-American geostrategic writings. In 1997, the same year Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard appeared, Dugin published his own manifesto, The Basics of Geopolitics, advocating a reconstituted Russian Empire composed of a continental bloc of states allied to cleanse the Eurasian land-mass of US influence. At the center of this bloc Dugin posited a "Eurasian axis" of Russia, Germany, Iran, and Japan.

While Dugin's ideas were banned during Soviet times for their echoes of Nazi pan-Eurasian fantasies, they gradually gained influence among post-Soviet Russian officials. For example, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently decried the "strengthening tendency towards the formation of a unipolar world under financial and military domination by the United States" and called for a "multipolar world order," while emphasizing Russia's "geopolitical position as the largest Eurasian state." Russia's Communist party has adopted Dugin's ideas in its platform; Gennady Zyuganov, Communist Party chairman, even published his own primer on geopolitics, titled Geography of Victory. Though Dugin remains a marginal figure internationally, his ideas cannot help but resonate in a country and continent increasingly hemmed in and manipulated by a powerful and arrogant hegemonic nation on the other side of the globe.

www.museletter.com/archive/132.html



Eurasianism. Dugin. Richard.

Dugin preaches Hyperborea. (From New Dawn. Richard likes New Dawn. Richard likes Dugin.)

Quote:
Madame Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophical Society, claimed the second root race originated in Hyperborea, before the later races of Lemuria and Atlantis. The Russian metaphysician Alexandre Dugin says that it was the home of the solar people, connected to what is now northern Russia. Solar people, Alexandre Dugin explains, are a cultural-spiritual type who are creative, energetic and spiritual. They are the opposite of lunar people, a psycho-spiritual type who are materialistic, conservative and wary of change.

www.newdawnmagazine.com/a...nnium.html



Did you read above. Miguel Serrano talks of Shambala too. Like Richard. Who are moon people? Who are sun people?

Quote:He (Serrano, from quote on Hyperborea) also connected the Aryans and their Hyperborean gods to the Sun and the Allies and the Jews to the Moon.



Thule is the capital of Hyperborea. The mythical land of the North. Dugin says:

The ancient Greeks spoke about Hyperborea, the northern island with capital Thule. This land was considered as the motherland of the bright god Apollon. And in many other traditions it is possible to detect most ancient tracks, often forgotten and become fragmentary, of a nordic symbolism. The basic idea traditionally linked to the North is the idea of Centre, Immobile Pole, point of Eternity around which the cycle turns not only of space, but also of time. North is the land where the sun never goes even at night, a space of eternal light. Any sacred tradition honors the Centre, the Middle, the point where contrasts appease, the symbolical place not subject to the laws of cosmic entropy. This Centre, whose symbol is the Swastika (stressing both immobility and constancy of the Centre, and mobility and changeability of the periphery), received a different name according to each tradition, but it was always directly or indirectly linked to the symbolism of North. Therefore it is possible to say that all sacred traditions are in essence the projection of a Single Northern Primordial Tradition adapted to every different historical condition. North is Cardinal Point chosen by the primeval Logos in order to reveal itself in History, and each of its further manifestations only restored that primeval polar-paradise symbolism.
www.geocities.com/integra...acgeo.html


Can you not see? Richard preaches the end of the West. Richard praises Eurasianism. Richard praises Dugin. Richard speaks of mythical land of the Golden Age in the North. Shambala. Hyperborea. Thule. Why is this hard? Why is this not clear?

Eurasianism is rightwing nationalist movement based on myth of an Aryan Golden Age. Thule. Hyperborea. Shambala. Richard writes for New Dawn Magazine. Many articles for them. He links to them. He is not ASHAMED. It is not an ACCIDENT.

Richard writes of the decline of the West because he desires it. It is time for the Eurasian ascension.

Apocalypse is his Messiah."

NOTE: Yes, I know it is long and complicated, but it all adds up. Heinberg is a Nazi symp. He believes in the Indo-Aryan myths. He supports Dugin who supports a new fascist age based on a merging of the former Axis powers with the former Soviet Union to bring down the US. Still want to join up with "transition town?"

Whoa.

Let's take a few steps back.

The Peak Oil concept was developed in 1956 by M. King Hubbert, who was an expert on oil and geology, and an award-winning scientist. It's a totally legitimate concept thought up by someone who knew more about the subject than pretty much anyone.

Richard Heinberg is a journalist who has made his career on peak oil and related issues. Very few journalists are experts on any of the things they write about, but that doesn't mean they're wrong or ill-informed.

And as I said in an earlier post, we don't expect everyone who is anti-smoking to have a medical research background.

The connections between Richard Heinberg and the New College mess; it might be a lousy school but is RH responsible for that? The founder was a sexual abuser but what is the connection between the founder and RH, besides the school? We don't know how "close" Heinberg was to the founder. They may have never even met. Abusers know people, most of us have probably met several without knowing it, that doesn't make us guilty of anything.

Rob Hopkins quotes Richard Heinberg. That may be because Heinberg has written many books on the subject (I'm not saying they are good books, but they do seem to be very well-known). So have many other people.

Heinberg may be dodgy as hell but just quoting from his books doesn't make Hopkins a cult leader or even a bad guy.

You could take both these guys and Transition Towns out of the equation altogether and still have a very large movement to reduce oil dependency. You'd still have thousands of books, blogs, groups, meetings, etc about all these exact same issues. Both Heinberg and Hopkins are rather late to the party, actually. This stuff wasn't new when I first got interested in it in the early 1990s.

I still don't see the cult angle with Transition Towns itself. No one is reporting that they use mind control techniques, that they exploit members in any way, that there is a guru of any kind, that anyone is forced to do anything. The connections between Transition Towns and culty types is more tenuous than the connections between mainstream religions and their culty offshoots and sects.

I agree that the environmental movement could be exploited by cults, there is potential for that. But we need stronger evidence before determining that TT is a cult.

As it happens, I'm going to my local TT group's event tonight. I'll report back tomorrow.