Jonathan Zap's comments on the
exchange with the astronomer
I.
That was a classic (if emotionally toxic to engage in) dialogue with
a debunker priest of the scientism religion. You'll find the identical attitude
at Psycop and the Skeptical Inquirer. As I'm sure you realize,
a debunker is not a skeptic, but a true believer in a negative. Scientism is
their religion, and they have a brittle, neurotic power complex that feeds off
of this identification. They are the aristocrats of truth wearing a purple mantle
and carry the imprimatur of science (in their neurotic imagination). Those who
are representatives of the vast truths and areas of perception that their brittle
and hollow neurotic persona cannot bear to engage are the subject of such comic
shadow projection that, like a Medieval Monarch who cannot bear even the thought
that a commoner should gaze at them or directly address them, the very thought
of an actual dialogue with a member of this group makes them squirm with nauseated
distaste. You have violated this man's core psychic intentionality by daring
to engage in a rational discourse with him (as they see rationality as their
soverign territory that those not part of their priesthood can't dare to trespass
on). You have forgotten what your role is supposed to be in their mind: Passive
Straw Man. The esoteric person is supposed to make a series of absurd points,
be a cliché or stereotype with no rational ability to engage challenges,
and they are supposed to be the monarchs of objectivity, authoritatively casting
down idols and buffoons for the general public. With the comical and unwarranted
disdain with which he addresses you as "a" John Major Jenkins and
"your kind"—a phrase so often appliled by racists to blacks and
Jews—this guy completely reveals the intense irrationalism and psychological
projection that are at the core of his point of view. This type of debunker
is more brittle and irritable than even many fundamentalist religionists because
even their worldview has more depth than that of debunking scientism. Psychologically,
someone of this type is a humpty-dumpty teetering on top of a slippery wall
above an abyss. Their own unconscious is so aware of the vast hollowness of
their affectation of objectivity that they live in a toxic world of irritated
disdain of most of reality, projecting their own intense irrationalism on most
everyone else, and even their power complex takes on a nerdy, introverted and
impotent form—instead of being real scientists, actually taking bold strides
into the unknown, all they can do is take pot shots at the straw men of their
own imagination.
II.
Another aspect of your exchange with the debunker is its obvious connection
to the documentary and to the 2012 phenomenon in general. The 2012 field, in
the collective psyche, is heating up and attracting irrationalisms. A classic
aspect of this debunker is that he wants to be a bottom feeder. He wants to
find the most inferior version of esoteric material to suit his purpose of having
a straw man to knock down and thereby inflate his shakey ego identity. This
is a parallel theme related to the TechTV interview you wisely backed
away from. Lots of people want to either deify the esoteric person into a cult
figure (as in some of José's disciples) or conversely put clown make-up
on them as they lead them to the gallows. This is true of celebrity in general—kick
em' while they're up, kick em' while they're down. We love to deify celebrities
and we also love to see them deflated and shamed by scandals or other crashes.
A giant kundebuffer is being set up (in unconscious cooperation) by two groups: The ungrounded cheerleaders of 2012 and the debunkers. There is the potential to create a Y2K fiasco for esoteric research by setting up 2012 for inflated expectations which (because inflated expectations are almost impossible to realize) can be a great triumph for the debunkers. Your position on the subject is, therefore, anathema to both camps, which despite their differences of style are two sides of the same coin, two version of the ego playing a masturbatory game with itself.
I feel that the documentary should prominently and explicitly show the probable fallacy of focusing narrowly on some specific date, while at the same time show that we are in a zone of extremely accelerated transformation right now, a zone that is registering in the collective unconscious, and that in its present phenomena reveals trends and evolutionary themes.