Tell me about the rabbits, George...

Uh... I guess there's not much I can say...
except I'm tired of seeing you dicks
searching for Kim Kardashian's ass.

There's something I just heard about lately.  Honestly, it's serious this time - although the outcome makes me laugh my ass off.  It's called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect says something like: the dumber you are, the more confident you feel in all you do.  Conversely,the smarter you are, the less confident you are.

Here's an example: some dummy in Pittsburgh robbed two banks in a single afternoon.  He did not wear a disguise nor did he do anything to hide his appearance.  When he was arrested moments after the second robbery shocked the police found him, he muttered over and over: "but I wore the juice".

It turned out the man spread lemon juice over his face, believing it would prevent the bank's cameras from photographing him.  In his case, belief was actually a delusion.

You see, the incompetent have no ability to recognize their own mistakes.

So how about we just rub their faces in it - show them their mistakes and they'll realize how stupid they are?

That actually had the opposite effect.  Dunning and Kruger tested that theory with students.  As expected, the incompetent thought they performed well above average while the competent well underestimated their performance.  Dunning and Kruger found when the incompetent students were shown how well the competent performed vs. the incompetent, the incompetent thought they performed even better than estimated earlier.

It turns out the incompetent were unaware, oblivious to what a good result looks like.  So showing the incompetent his actual standing vs. a real result just reinforced the incompetent's delusion he did well.

Don't think grabbing the incompetent by the shirt collar and giving the idiot a good shake around the room will help, either.  The incompetent have no way to become aware of their shortcomings until they become more competent.  All you'll do by arguing with him is reinforce his belief he's a lot better than he is.

How about that?


Now how about the most incompetent of all:  The Academy for Psychic Studies.

Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, The Academy for Psychic Studies presses forward with their own brand of psychotic information and their own brand of delusion.

Yes, they fervently, devotedly and unfailingly believe in all the things they teach.  Their confidence in their teachings are so strong, so sure that the teachings must be true and they must have a warm and nourishing presence here on Earth.

If you believe that, I have a few lemons you can squirt on your face.


Look at the facts:

• Membership has dwindled from nearly 50 active members to maybe 14 8 2 or maybe just the old guy who curses while he sweeps the grounds - and only a few none of them take part in Academy-sponsored activities regularly.  The rest are just too weary beat down to keep marching stick around.
  
  
• Public interest in the Academy for Psychic Studies is at an all-time low.  How many students attend the Clairvoyant Training Program?   How many attend the ISHI Hypnosis Training class?  How many members of the public attend any damn classes at all?  Nearly none.
  
  
• The Academy has been pulling back their public outreach efforts.  Their newspaper is no longer published, the blog is abandoned, the YouTube videos are erased, the public-access cable programs are gone, the website says even less about them and presents them as even more secretive and isolated than ever.  Their silence leaves this blog as the main source of information on the Academy.  What idiot would want to do that?  Oh, right... the Academy for Psychic Studies.
  
  
• People are listening to our side of the Academy story.  Despite the passage of time, page views on this blog have remained steady.  There is just plain nowhere for the Academy for Psychic Studies to hide.

Of course, those facts are meaningless to the Academy.  In fact, they are fully aware of all of the items I listed (how could they not?) but they remain ignorant and as unaware of their plight as an ostrich hiding in the sand.

Sure, reality has kicked them in the head and shook them by the collar.  They lost their lawsuit against this blog.  They face the reality that almost no one is interested in their poison.  They are feeling the effects of mind control going out of control.

But like the idiots Dunning and Kruger encountered - hell like that lemon-fresh bank robber, the Academy for Psychic Studies are ever confident their psychosis is the right psychosis for a world in need of the psychosis only they provide and they are carrying on peddling their poison to the unknowing public as if they are more popular than ever.

Not only are they carrying on pretending nothing has happened, they remain iconoclastic and unwilling to make even small adaptations to their approach to make them more relevant and accessible.

Is there hope?

Well, Dunning and Kruger took those same confident but incompetent students and taught them how to solve the tests and problems given.  It was like a light bulb turned on.  The students finally realized how dumb they really were.

Only when the incompetent became, well, less incompetent did they begin the step of realizing their real standing in the world.

With some simple learning and education, the incompetent were able to embark on a path that would help them increase their awareness, raise their skills and become competent, humble, even considerate.

So I guess in the Academy for Psychic Studies' case, there is no hope.

  

The Spiritual Rights Foundation - This is your brain on SRF

I think we all looked like this after a day with the
Witches of Ellsworth Street.

Today I am welcoming two new commentators to the blog.

"Anonymous" and "A person of Interest" have deposited erudite and insightful commentary befitting themselves as thoughtful and peaceful persons of spirit. They are so thoughtful, I could have removed them for cause.

I also know the following about them:

• They were online from about 10:00PM to about 10:38PM Saturday the 22nd of August, 2009.
• They share the same IP address: 76.103.87.108
• IP geolocation shows they connected from the East Bay area - from the Oakland/Berkeley area or thereabouts.
• Their ISP is Comcast.
• There appears to be two of them. One browses with Firefox 3.0 on Vista and has a screen resolution of 1280 X 1024. The other also browses with Firefox 3.0 but runs on XP on a screen resolution of 1024 X 768.
• It looks like Windows XP guy was the one doing the commenting. Windows Vista Kid did a little reading.
• Vista Kid kicked it off by looking up my Blogger profile then going to the blog's first page. Apparently, Vista Kid is someone who may know me personally. The only ones in the East Bay who would look up my Blogger profile then comment on my SRF-critical blog are current and former SRF-ies.
  
• They only read ONE of my articles, ignoring or unable to understand the rest (this seems like a pattern for the naysayers, doesn't it?). The other was a re-print from Provender, where they spent six minutes time reading (it takes longer to read when you have to move your lips, you know).

Here is a link to the Nasty Comments file folder. It holds a text file of the comments as they appear on this blog and a file of the blogging activities our two friends.



Despite the nature of the comments, I will keep them on the blog, at least for now. In fact, I think these comments (which are here, as well as listed below) should receive the attention they deserve. So, I decided to post them prominently on the front page for everyone's enjoyment.

These two commenters never quite figured out that nearly a hundred people a day read this blog and their comments aren't read only by the author - everyone gets a chance to see them drool and defecate on themselves.

Reading commentary like those below is something like watching a drunk vomit on himself. One the one hand, it is disgusting and somewhat frightening. But on the other, it's just so damn funny to see someone defile and embarrass himself in public, you just can't stop laughing.

As these spiritual and enlightened people are anonymous, I really don't know who they are - their true identity can be only be disclosed through a subpoena. However, the tone is much more aggressive than the comments left by others. I would guess the commentators are either as a member, a relative of a member or spouse of a member.

That makes for a pretty small pool of people to choose from. Add to that the stupidity of posting aggressive comments in a way that leave a clear track back to them personally makes the pool of suspects, well, pretty much the same.

These comments are juvenile, sophomoric, ill-advised and ill-informed. There's not much more for me to say about them. However, they do fit the pattern the other adverse commentators have: attack the messenger and ignore the message. It's a pattern with the Spiritual Rights Foundation leaders and those affiliated with them. The addled followers have been under the influence for so long, they just don't have enough functioning brain cells left to construct any kind of response but personal attacks and insults.

Steve Sanchez was personally horrified when he realized that kind of conduct was not only sanctioned but was embraced as a core doctrine of SRF-ie behavior. The SRF belief that they are "the spiritual elite" empowers the leaders and members to belittle and debase anyone outside their circle (as well as those within it) as sub-human infidels, allowing the morally guided SRF faithful to pummel their opponents with verbal abuse while ignoring the issues at hand.

The below comments should amply display the effects of that organization on the human mind and spirit. While I have no way of knowing if the below responses are official commentary from the Spiritual Rights Foundation (and presumably, they wish they could do this and get away with it publicly - but they settle for demeaning you behind the iron gate of the cult compound instead) it looks to me exactly like the kind of writing and attitude that comes from a brain addled from too much Spiritual Rights Foundation detritus over way too much time.

Somehow, I feel excited and vindicated with every hostile comment from an SRF-ie. After all, while every one of the commentators shout and cry about me concocting ludicrous observations about the destructive effects of the environment at the Spiritual Rights Foundation on the human spirit, their own comments easily give us all the support necessary to show my observations are right on the money.

The Spiritual Rights Foundation has always said, "don't play prove it". Oh, and "if you want to blow your own horn, use someone else's lips." So, I would like to thank "Anonymous" and "A person of Interest" (who may be the same person, actually) for providing support to the cause of Truth, Justice and the American Way represented in this blog and for the erudite and insightful commentary befitting themselves as thoughtful and peaceful persons of spirit.

It that a horn, I hear?


Update: one of these guys came back to where he left his comments on Sunday the 23rd. I think he or she was hoping to see me or someone else leave equally crude and juvenile comments. There aren't any on that page. However, neither of them has bothered to look at this post and it's a sure bet they've since left the cult and renounced their affiliation with it.

Typical. Their actions, their words never fail to disprove their posturing as enlightened and divine angels in human clothing. I give them the chance to speak and they always wind up with a foot in their mouth and a "kick me" sign on their back or for these two, they give the finger, fall on their face then piss themselves.

I would like to thank those who support the Spiritual Rights Foundation for showing their true colors in this blog. You have allowed me to illustrate my point without playing "prove it".

Interestingly as there are only TWO lame and mentally deficient followers left at the Academy for Psychic Studies and the "kids" of former followers are for the most part disillusioned with Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin, the odds the persons responsible have left the cult or are in the throes of resolving their unrestrained and ill-advised support of the cult with their current disgust of the cult's practices are pretty good.  So once again, even while the addled and deluded brain-dead current  and former followers of this cult continue to jump up and down while running in circles shouting at me to prove all the things I say here, their behavior and the cult's circumstances provide all the support I need.


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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "How to gaslight for fun and profit. ":

You are a fucking Bastard! Go to hell bitch

Posted by Anonymous to The Spiritual Rights Foundation Cult at August 22, 2009 10:19 PM


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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "How to gaslight for fun and profit. ":

Garbage, worst story ever, this is ridiculous, get a life!!!

Posted by Anonymous to The Spiritual Rights Foundation Cult at August 22, 2009 10:20 PM


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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "How to gaslight for fun and profit. ":

I can't believe you've done this! Mike Kawahara, if you are so religious, why do you talk mad shit?

Posted by Anonymous to The Spiritual Rights Foundation Cult at August 22, 2009 10:21 PM


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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "How to gaslight for fun and profit. ":

Posted by Anonymous to The Spiritual Rights Foundation Cult at August 22, 2009 10:25 PM


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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "How to gaslight for fun and profit. ":

This is how we know you dont have a life "Posted by Mike Kawahara at 12:26 AM " That's dam early!

Posted by Anonymous to The Spiritual Rights Foundation Cult at August 22, 2009 10:27 PM


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A person of Interest has left a new comment on your post "How to gaslight for fun and profit. ":

Why dont you write in a book like a normal person, instead of blogging about stuff that is not your business. Get the facts straight before you publish something like this to the public

Posted by A person of Interest to The Spiritual Rights Foundation Cult at August 22, 2009 10:33 PM


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Some Quick Hits

I rounded up some short notes for the blog. I'd take them a little farther but I figured they would stand on their own.

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"Freedom is the Essence of Life"

That is the slogan painted on the wall and festooned on everything SRF. It was a key dicta. A fundamental concept. The basis for the teaching and belief system of the Spiritual Rights Foundation.

When asked, the leadership could not give a straight answer. They gave the slogan as the answer and the meaning is up to you.

When a student graduates to be a minister they are hauled before the Ordination Review Board (O.R.B.) to ensure the ministerial candidate has the necessary knowledge (which SRF calls "certainty") of the fundamental principles.

A lot of the questions were softballs. Things that were really easy to answer because of the clear and direct definitions of those concepts. Things like "how do you use (this concept)?" After ten years of indoctrination, you tend to know that stuff in your sleep

Occasionally, the candidate would get a real question that makes them think. A question that promotes deep thought and reflection. A question like: "What does the phrase "Freedom is the Essence of Life mean to you?"

In the Ordination Reviews I witnessed, none of the candidates could answer that question. Almost all of them mumbled or giggled or fumbled for words. Usually the answer was something like: "uhhh, freedom is like, you know, uhhh, life and uhhhhh, that's freedom and that's uhhh, you know, ummmm, essence errrr, I mean, the life errr, the essence of uhhh, you know, uhhh yeah that's it."

And that was it. Everyone passed the ordination review. No matter how incomplete and incomprehensible the answers.

That's part of the game. You were never given answers, only questions to fuel your own deep thought and reflection. And of course none of that deep thought and reflection ever really helped you to get the answers you needed.

Well, if you keep asking yourself a question to which you have no answer, what would your mind do after a while?

-------------------------------------------------

I've heard tails of Bill's outrageous antics from various sources that made what's left of the hair on my head curl like Piglet's tail. These aren't just the goofy antics of a stand-up comedian (which is one of his claimed former occupations), they are more like the unimaginable acts you'd hear of in San Quentin.

They don't bear repeating here. A few have been memorialized by others.

I can see why there are people who are upset, even angered about that disclosure.

None of them would want to hear it. It's like finding out the Tooth Fairy is your dad; finding a dominatrix outfit in your maiden aunt's closet; discovering your kid watches FOX News.

------------------------------------


Our contracts for the Clairvoyant Training Program were for 9 month terms. Why was it that we were all kept there for one hell of a lot longer?


What makes it worth the money we paid?
Where did all that money go?

-------------------------------------------
Can anyone tell me what kind of charitable activities the Spiritual Rights Foundation conducted?
I mean, more than buying motor homes, luxury cars and real estate for the leaders.
-----------------------------------------
One of the more celebrated "retreat spaces" for the Spiritual Rights Foundation is their vacation house in Lake Tahoe. It came to them by way of a former member's largess. Or maybe he just dumped it on them. Well, the roof leaked, the floor was a mess and it needed a crazy amount of maitenance that no one could ever get around to doing. But other than that, it was a delightful place where you can't get a moment's peace unless you were sleeping outside under a tree.

Anyway, there were several weekend retreats held at the Lake Tahoe house. In preparation of one such event the leaders made some kind of arrangement with some person unknown to have the door key left somewhere at the house. When all arrived, the key was nowhere to be found.
So, instead of trying alternatives (trying to jimmy the door open, come in through a window, try the back door) they decided to call a locksmith to come pick the lock.
The locksmith arrived after some time, unlocked the door and let everyone in. Then he presented the bill. $200 for his time, travel and expenses. He was paid by the leaders, then left.
As soon as the locksmith left, the leaders approached the retreat attendees (who had already coughed up $200 of their own just for the privilege of being there) and demanded money to pay for the locksmith.
It didn't matter to them that it was not the attendees fault that the key was lost. It never occurred to the leaders to spend a couple of bucks for some extra keys and BRING ONE WITH THEM. And it wasn't even a consideration that the leaders who were ultimately responsible for conducting the retreat. They never took any responsibility for the issue at all.
All that mattered was that a key was lost, it cost them money and, by God, someone is going to pay. And those someone's are anyone at this event.
How is this even conceivable? There no proof any attendee lost the key.
It is because the leaders don't have to prove anything. They don't have to be fair to anyone. And they certainly do not have to work for a living like we of the Great Unwashed.
Instead, they demand money. Your money. To punish people who did absolutely nothing and for no reason except they were in a bad mood.
So, if you are considering joining those huddling in fear at the SRF gulag for a relaxing retreat weekend, bring some extra money, in case the leaders lose something else.

That Damn Orpheus Movie

I found that damn Orpheus movie online! Below is the real, honest to goodness bona fide version of that impenetrable French homage to the underworld we were forced to watch again and again and again:

Fooled you.  This is Take On Me from A-Ha.
For all the good it did, we would have been better
off watching A-Ha than Cocteau.
At least you can dance to A-Ha.

For those of you who were spared the dreadful, boring and unenlightening experience of being forced to sleep through the Cocteau film "Orpheus" during your "Year Class" session, I'll give a brief roll-up of the "significance" "Orpheus" to has the Spiritual Rights Foundation.

According to the flights of fancy from Bill Duby's mind, on the spirit level, there are entities called "cosmic cops". These entities are attached to embodied spirits for the purpose to concealing the "pictures" and other personal characteristics of someone receiving a reading. It was these "cosmic cops" who were responsible for a psychic reader's inability to "see" a "mental image picture" during a psychic reading.

The cops were responsible for other items as well and the appearance of real cops near the site of a reading fair or jamboree was a sure sign that some of the victims of said fair would be somehow accompanied by cops of the energy kind.

To illustrate the effect and purpose of "cosmic cops", we Clairvoyant Training Program students were shown the film, "Orpheus" from the French auteur Jean Cocteau. The film is considered a classic and is either hailed as a magnificent conversion of myth and poetry to the screen or condemned as a total waste of film.

Either way, "Orpheus" didn't have a damn thing to do with "cosmic cops" or any other kind of entity from the astral plane or in fact, anything remotely spiritual. Cocteau intended the film as a modern adaptation of the Greek Myth of Orpheus, with characters passing through mirrors, which acted as doorways to the underworld. People passed into the underworld through mirrors either in a one-way ride or back and forth, traveling between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Two of the characters are grim, leather-clad motorcycle riders who represent the Princes of Death. When they show up, someone takes a one-way trip through a mirror. And Cocteau vividly illustrated that in "Orpheus".

However to the narrow mind of Bill and his many wives, the story wasn't about Greek Myth or flirtations with the underworld or even that of WWII Paris, where the picture takes place.

Bill became fixated on Cocteau's Princes of Death as the image of law enforcement officers since their costumes resembled that of motorcycle cops. The tall tale of cosmic cops was concocted from there.

Now, what "Orpheus" or leather-clad motorcyclists has to do with anything else on the cosmic, astral, or any other plane of existence or non-existence is anyone's guess.

What do I think?

I think that Bill had a tremendous ability to present concepts and ideas stolen from others as his own. His presentations of doctrine based on other religions, beliefs or wacky organizations (the Berkeley Psychic Institute was only one of them) had a veneer of lucidity to them and could pass as valid (but just).

But when Bill tried to come up with a new concept, one from his own damaged mind, he just couldn't sit still and concentrate long enough to build a plausible back story for it. Bill's weakness was simple: he could play a con but he couldn't create one.

As far as "Orpheus" goes, he needed an explanation for those times when your mind just goes on the fritz and you can't think of the one thing you wanted. My niece calls them "brain farts" and endlessly taunts the fart-er (usually ME). Bill called "brain farts" "cosmic cops" and after stumbling on "Orpheus" realized he can illustrate his concept with a thick and incomprehensible French movie.

Of course, Bill and his henchwomen presented the movie with such an air of mystery, exclusivity, and the sense that they and only they understood the true meaning and purpose of "Orpheus". We lowly students, who knew nothing about anything, were made to feel privileged to be given this holy, enlightened and deeply spiritual information.

 After all, almost no one there spoke French fluently and my French is so feeble, when my niece says "Comment allez vous?" I can only croak out "Je vais bien, uh, El Pollo Loco." How could we really know what was going on in "Orpheus" and how would we know if Bill was telling the truth or if his brain was on an orbit around Mars?

In fact, as Bill not only spoke not one word of French and belittled and expressed disdain for any language apart from his native language: "bullshit", there had to be no damn way for him to understand any of this film.  There's no way Bill would have taken the time to thoroughly review and research the film nor would be have been likely to compare and contrast the tall tale of "cosmic cops" with the myth and legend of "Orpheus" (which, by the way, isn't French at all - it's Greek) even if he had someone to translate it into bullshit for him.  Oh right, he translated it into bullshit himself.  My bad...

Well, as Bill claimed to be insane, Angela never made it past fifth grade and has a brain addled from too much alcohol and drugs, and Robin too occupied with counting quarters to care, how deep, meaningful and spiritually fulfilling could this information be?

But more important, you should ask yourself: what was the impact on your spirit and your mental well-being when you realized that watching "Orpheus" in your "Year Class" wasn't the learning experience you thought it was?

And how about those cosmic cops?

Me?  I want my MTV.  And A-Ha.