Seriah Azkath

04:22 am: To the Ones Lost...
To peer across, and lose something so close to you, that was never where you are now. Clearly words fail. Old friends from another world, another probability. Real, as anything, I suppose. Gone, though, fleeting like a dream. Is it all dream? Is it all as real? And why that tease of connection. Even the memories remain, memories that were not formed here. Is it because I stand now on a precarious cliff? I know I am supposed to go this way, the directions were quite clear, but maybe I reached out as an escape, and found them again. But only for a moment. An eternity, but not this eternity. I think the cliff is crumbling. I am sure it's fine, I mean overall. I just have to walk carefully. Very carefully. Getting through is as important to me as anything ever has been, but I fear the damage done to me in the past may be too much. That my balance is not perfect anymore, that my patience wears thin. My faith in the directions is both absolute and in doubt. Not a good combination. I think there is a long way yet to go, and I have to take it slow, and careful. I know where the outcome should be, and I want to just jog along and get there, so I can move beyond it to something new, but I can't. And I can't go back. The cliff there is gone. There is fire below. I have always had a fear of severe burns, or burning alive. I am out here, in the darkness, alone. As always. With these damned directions. It seems hopeless. Depressing. I don't know how to give up. It's not in me. This step caused some crumbling away, the one before did not. Who knows how solid the next is. Maybe they found me. I remember now. They reached through the veil. Somewhere, I hope, I will see them again.

01:07 am: Ancient Children
Age is such a strange thing in our society. It really is meaningless. I truly wonder if we were all unaware of our ‘age’, how it would affect us. Would two people the same physical age, be very different? Would one 70 year old be bent and decrepit and another still be somewhat youthful and energetic, simply because they didn’t have that definer to force them into a behavior? I mean, even with our age obsessed culture, you see people like William Shatner or Terry Funk doing things that people half their age can’t do, while other people hit 40 or 50 and look like they’re dead. What if we didn’t know? We all go through the opening for our lives, childhood, where we learn how to function and interact. Some of us do it better or quicker than others. And there is a point, where the body fails to reproduce the cells needed to survive any longer and we die of old age. But the mind is the power behind it, and a strong mind, creates a strong life and body. Some people seem to WANT to be old, so they can… I don’t know. They hit like 26 and start complaining that they can’t do things like they used to. In what sane world is 26 old and feeble? Seriously, at 26 you have only just begun your adult life, if you are having problems functioning, you are probably doing something wrong.

Then there are age limits. If you are 16 you can drive a car. You know, there are some 13 and 14 year old’s that I have met that could probably drive a car responsibly. On the other hand, there are people 40+ that should not be allowed near the driver’s side of a car. It’s ok though, cause they are old enough to drive. There shouldn’t just be a driver’s test, but a competency test, and maybe one that has to be repeated here and there just to make sure, because I am pretty sure that behind the wheel of a car is where some of the most stupendously stupid decisions are made. Age is not a factor. Age does not make you a good driver. How long you’ve been driving does not either. Yet, here is another example of how age obsessed our culture is.

I think what really ages us, is not years, but what we do with them. I look around, and I see the people who are ‘old’, regardless of their physical age, are the people who stopped learning. Stopped creating. Just stopped. Many of them as soon as they were done with whatever schooling they were involved in. The minute you stop delving into the new and novel, is the moment you start to die. So many people are caught up in their past. They still look at the world the same way they did in college or high school, and still listen to the same music, and even watch the same movies. Nothing against nostalgia, but if that is all your life is, you are on your way out. No matter how old you live to be. The people who keep going are the ones who don’t stopping learning and creating things. They have something to drive them forwards. They want more out of life, and age doesn’t present that much of an obstacle to them.

Grow up. A coupling of words people throw around easily. I think, however, the best definition of this, is that of responsibility. Not the responsibility of a house or kids or anything like that, but simply the responsibility for ones actions. A grown up is someone that is responsible for what they say and do. Most people never grow up, and in this respect, that is part of the problem with the world. Most people won’t accept blame when they screw up. It’s an insecurity that does no one any good. I find that no matter how angry I may be about something, if the person who is responsible just owns up to it, it tends to dissipate that anger… unless of course it’s something they do again and again, in which case it doesn’t mean much. It’s hard to be angry with someone who comes right out and admits they screwed up or made a mistake and apologizes for it. Being ‘Grown Up’ is not about what clothes your wear or what you do with your life. Being ‘Grown Up’ is taking responsibility for your life, and what you do with it. Really, that is all it is.

Unfortunately, we seem to live in a land of old children…

Tags: age, life, philosophy

05:15 am: Lost as Ritual
Most people see only the small picture. Even when they think that is not the case, because really, most people won’t say that they only see the small picture, because it doesn’t sound complimentary. However, it is an accurate way of describing life, day to day. It is how human beings develop normally. Our day to day existence preoccupies us, and most people don’t look beyond it.

In order to truly be able to see any kind of BIG picture, you need a lead, someone to bring you along and initiate you. The reason being, is that with rare exception, you can’t find the big picture alone. It’s invisible. You can’t see the forest for the trees, oftentimes because you need help to get that full view. Initiation and Ritual are means to show that big picture. Now, today, mostly, these things are trivial. They lead to nothing more than people feeling special because they are part of a group. Often it’s used as an ego boost, to make individuals feel like because they belong to said group, they are better than others who do not belong. This is the draw of the secret society, or the religious group. The rituals are banal, and there is not concept of a big picture.

Lost. The TV Show, however, works as an analogy to this. The show starts small and ends big. At the start, there is no real hint of where the story will be a couple seasons down the road. You’re only seeing the trees. As the story evolves you learn new perspectives and new ideas, and eventually you realize that where you started was just a small tree. It is so rare to see something like this on a popular television show. Such media has always been relegated to short attention spans, but over the last decade or so, more shows have worked on this idea, but none with the ritualistic perfection of Lost. What so many people do not understand, is that you can’t skip to the end. Just like you can’t pick random episodes of Lost and understand them, true initiation, true ritual, prepares you to understand bigger concepts. Concepts that you can’t just skip to the point and understand, concepts that require those steps, because they ARE the initiation. Thus Lost becomes a symbol of what has been lost in our world. The big picture. Shamans and wise men who can really initiate someone into the bigger picture, are few and far in between any more. Wisdom isn’t dispensed like belts in Karate. Wisdom is absorbed and becomes a part of who you are. There are no awards or grades or certificates of Wisdom. There are no titles. In the end, seeing the big picture, comes only to the wise, who can not directly impart this to the people still lost in the trees. The gap is too big, and the road not seemingly relevant to day to day life. It is not something that can be labeled.

So to most, Lost is the closest they will come to understanding how that works. They may not realize it, but it’s there. Lost doesn’t just tell a story, it initiates you, it works in a ritualistic fashion to reveal the many secrets the story possesses. Secrets that would make no sense from watching just the first few episodes. And just like a true teacher, it brings up more questions than it answers. Of course, in our world, obsessed with gratification as it is, that can aggravate people. Questions are the key, being able to ask questions is key. Earning the answers makes them mean something.

Tags: lost, philosophy, religion

05:00 am: Earth Day Thoughts
Earth Day Thoughts

Perhaps the biggest thing that people seem to miss when it comes to environmentalism, is what the real problem is. Quite simply, there are WAY to many of us. Everyone is so concerned about 'going green' and protecting the planet, but the truth is, it's too late to stop things. The tipping point was reached quite some time ago, and as we always do, we missed the big picture then, just as we are now. I don't think that anyone can honestly say that our filthy, polluting ways are good, but the biggest problem is how many of us there are polluting. We are over polluting because we are overpopulated. If we all died tomorrow, the planet would recover. In the end, no matter what we do, the planet will recover. So let's be more specific. The planet does not need us to save it, we need to save ourselves... from ourselves. And maybe, from the planet. There is currently not enough food and water to sustain the population that exists on this planet. With an exponentially increasing population, that fact is going to become more and more clear. This is not something that our reliance on technology can save us from. In the next few decades, this will be all too clear, and the next wars will not be over oil, but water and food.

Humans are still in the mindset that we have to reproduce as much as possible. This was true 6000+ years ago when the end of the ice age wiped out most of the human population. But in the last 100 years, we have gone way to far. And it's not that hard to fix in short periods of time. Consider, if every two people have one child. And of those children, every two have one child, ect., by the time we all start dying off, the population level will start to drop. We can't reverse global warming, but we can affect how many people are here at once. The problem is that so many people have multiple kids, because they want to, because they think they are supposed to, because they are too stupid to use birth control, because they love children, because they want a big family, and so on. But does anyone want a big family that will starve in a couple decades? Global warming is reducing our food and water supplies, and we keep making more and more people who are going to need said supplies. I get seriously upset when I see people with multiple kids, and people mistake that for me not liking kids, but that is not it at all. It is simple math. Too many people, too few resources, not enough space. I don't want future generations to pay for our selfishness. Unfortunately, they will. Because we will continue to act just the way we do, with people having 6 and 8 kids, because they want to, or are too stupid to figure out how not to. And within 10-20 years, overpopulation will be the big issue, just like environmentalism is today, and once again, it will be far too late to do anything about it, because we never learn to see the big picture.

Tags: earth day, environment, population

03:27 am: Sirius, Nibiru, and more...
Sitchin makes some interesting points in his books. There is, however, lots to be debated. I find that one of the things that’s impressive is his translations of the Sumerian texts describing the planets accurately. An accuracy that was against scientific thought o the time, but later proven correct by the Voyager probes. What this says, is that to some degree he was either lucky or his translations were accurate. Which would mean, the Sumerians knew more about our own solar system than we did. Just like most ancient cultures. Not to mention the absolutely mind boggling possibilities that recent discoveries like Nabta Playa in Egypt bring up. If the data is correct and Egyptians 8000+ years ago could create an accurate map of the Milky Way, then... I guess the question, “How?”, just opens up some incredible answers. It doesn’t mean ET’s were here, either. Maybe they understood the connection between consciousness and reality far better than we do, which wouldn’t be hard, and could go where they wanted. Maybe the map is of an inner space that is as above. Maybe they had a technology more advanced than ours, after all, to this day we could not build the great pyramid, even with all our technology. The Dogon tribe knew of Sirius and it’s Triary nature before we even knew it was a binary star, and we can’t even confirm the Triary star system yet, we just suspect it now. The examples go on and on. It occurred to me, though, that although Sitchin’s theory of Nibiru is likely wrong, maybe it was just mistranslated wrong. It has been suggested that Nibiru is Sirius. But what if Nibiru is merely a planet around Sirius? Ok, so let’s think this out, one of the main problems with the theory is that any planet with a 3600 year orbit is unlikely to support human like life, of which the Annunaki are supposed to be. But, if said planet was in a different star system, it’s ability to support life would be different. What if, Nibiru orbits Sirius. And Sirius, well, there is a GOOD amount of evidence to prove that we are a gravitational binary of Sirius, aka, Sol and Sirius make a binary system of their own, both orbiting a shared center of gravity. This connection successfully explains the precession of the equinox, which current science can not, although they pretend otherwise (kind of like how they can’t explain the existence of the moon). So, maybe, just maybe, the Annunaki do exist, and they do exist on a planet called Nibiru, it just isn’t orbiting our Sun. Just a thought.

I am myself unconvinced in any ancient astronaut theory, as I believe it is unnecessary to explain things. I think a thriving ancient culture existed that was more advanced by far than we are now. I think to understand that you have to open your mind as to what constitutes an advanced culture. Their line of progression may have been far removed from ours, which would explain how they knew so much more. What we see in Egypt, India, and almost everywhere else in the distant past is a record of that. Information to be kept for the future when it could be understood again. And to every moron who says something like the following; “Well, if there was some advanced culture in our past, why don’t we find their coke cans and other garbage?” I think the simplest answer is, they didn’t have any coke cans to find. We are stupid. We are wasteful. We put money and commerce over enlightenment and wisdom. There is no reason to believe that they were the same way. They were clearly smarter than we are, so why demean them with such a question. I am sure they had their own problems, but just because we make a horrid mess of the place, doesn’t mean they did.

Tags: ancient technology, archeology, astroarcheology, nibiru, paranormal, sitchin

05:29 am: Moon
Thing is, the Moon is hollow. It's amazing inside, and no one on earth knows. There is a key here. A key to their very existence. A key to their future. It was wondrous to find. Numinous. Now, however, I am stuck here. I can't get back. Outside is frigid and airless, and inside so amazing. But I am alone here, and I want to share this wonder with someone. I can't. It isn't possible. There is no one else here. And no one is coming. They don't even know I'm here. They don’t even know there IS a here. Such wonder amongst such loneliness. I don’t want to leave, but I don’t want to be alone. I would say it’s not fair, but to what avail. Nothing, is around to hear...

Tags: darkness, philosophy, weird, writing

09:20 am: The Two Year Old in the Room...
At times, people have accused me of being cold and unemotional. I would say that this is quite definitely not the case. The thing is, emotions are like a 2 year old running about experiencing life for the first time. We all go through it, we need to. A 2 year old bases it’s judgment on emotions. And that is about all. It likes something it goes for it, something scares it, it runs away and hides. It, of course, deals with the reward / punishment idea quite well. The problem is this; too many people in this world never develop beyond that 2 year old level. They use their emotions to make decisions, and that is about as wise as asking a 2 year old for advise on important matters. I never let my emotions make my decisions. This doesn’t make me cold, it’s just a matter of putting things in their proper perspective.

This isn’t just something that women do, either, as the phrase ‘overemotional women’ isn’t exactly rare. Men are just as bad, it just takes different forms. Greedy people are run by their emotions, as are insecure women. The woman who wants to go through her life always being in love with someone, will end up lonely and alone. Why? Because where as Love can be a deep emotion, the sense of ‘being in love’ is transitory and more than likely an evolutionary urge to procreate. It may feel nice, but you live you life that way, and you’re miserable and alone in the long run. They lose the comfortable content feeling of love for another fling, another addiction to ‘being in love’. Again and again. People get married because they are ‘in love’ and that can’t be wrong, can it? Sure, 2 year olds are usually wrong, and the divorce rate shows that. They don’t love each other, they are in love, and that isn’t worth a thing in the end. It may be nice to enjoy, but it is not something to get married over, or cheat on someone because of, or hurt someone because of. Yet, so many people do it. If people only married and stayed with the ones they Love, rather than worrying about being In Love, society would flow along much better.

Then you have the bitter and angry guy, who acts like the whole world is against him and owes him something. You can break this down psychologically quite a bit, but in the end, he’s allowing the 2 year old to dictate behavior, and again, will end up miserable and alone in the end. 2 year olds can only tolerate the presence of other 2 year olds for so long. After a while, they chase the others away.

It also shows through in the attention grabbers. Although, slightly different, they are the type of people who need constant attention, and really, use the same techniques that 2 year olds use. Some are subtle, and some you want to punch, but they are the people that make too much noise, comment on everything, even when they don’t know what they are talking about, and generally do whatever they can to stay on everyone’s radar all the time. Like a 2 year old.

People also wonder why I have such a fascination with the End of the World and major disasters and such. It really comes down to a wake up. People really do need to stop being 2 year olds. Our life is so safe, that it allows people to behave like this. Our perspectives are so skewed that we think any discomfort at all is worthy of being complained about. It really will take something near earth shattering for people to grow beyond this. It will take a worldwide Near Death Experience to awaken people from their childlike behavior.

We look at Wall Street over the last few months and how everything collapsed. They were warned, but they didn’t want to hear. The 2 year olds in them stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted so they couldn’t hear. Then it collapsed, and they went to mommy and daddy, and asked for more money than most of us could fathom. Of course, being bad parents, many really 2 year olds themselves, they gave it to them, and they immediately continued on their way without learning a thing. Still driven solely by emotion, this time Greed, these people, many of who make more in a day then a lot of people make in a year, continued to throw their money away. Hell, AIG threw some parties and then went back to ask for more, which, if I remember right, they were given.

Why does anyone think this will improve? As long as they take it for granted, and as long as emotions run things, it will happen again. The richer you are, the less money means to you. Women in our society are often more overrun by self deprecation and insecurities than anything else. Over conscious about their weight and they way they look, they end up being objects more than people, and then get upset when they are treated as such. The powers that be know how to prey on such attitudes, and make millions off of it. Again, this would not happen if we could control the 2 year olds.

And the worse thing about this all, is the one thing we could take away from being a 2 year old, is the one thing most people do not. The ability to play. As we falsely become adults, despite letting emotions dictate our bad decisions, we shun the idea of play. We decide that we are grown up now, no time to play. Instead time for Greed and Lust, and Selfishness and Ego, and Obnoxiousness and Vanity. Play, however, we are too old for. So imagine you take a 2 year old, a real one, and you make it make decisions, and when it wants to play, you tell it no and punish it. A simple analogy to be sure, but yet, how that child would feel is how many people today feel. The time to stop the child is before they do something catastrophic. Let them play, but when something serious comes up, sit them down and teach them to be quiet. It takes time for anyone to learn patience and logic and understanding, but you can not do it when your 2 year old is tugging constantly at your shirt just to get some attention. A nice balance of logic and intuition goes a far way. Eventually even into wisdom, but emotions leave us barren and desolate. Not that we should ever deny them, repression is even worse, but we need to grow up as a race. We need to be rational as a whole. Not emotional. We feel how we feel, but we shouldn’t make decisions based on how we feel, we should make decisions based on which choice is best. Our own government used that against us after 911 to take away our freedoms. A rational people would not have allowed it. As a majority, a rational people would have demanded answers that made sense about such a serious event as 911. We were given emotionally charged nonsense, and enough children went along with it.

You hear someone taking a survey, and so often they say; How do you feel about... They don’t often ask; What do you think about... And that is because people decide on emotions not thought. We are emotional creatures to be sure, and sometimes it’s overwhelming, but if we don’t start putting the two year olds to bed when serious decisions need to be made, things are not going to get better.

06:05 am: Last Exit Presents... 12/12 at Castaways!
The Last Exit for the Lost presents...
The Concert at the End of the World

9pm - Rabid - Moravia Thrashers making their return - myspace.com/rabid666
10pm - He the Hero - Metal / Hardcore from Auburn - myspace.com/hethehero
11pm - Product of Hostility - Brutal Metal / Thrash from Hornell - myspace.com/productofhostility
Midnight - Angels Beneath Me - Chaotic Death Metal from Moravia - myspace.com/angelsbeneathme

Hosted by Joe and Dave from The Last Exit for the Lost - www.thelastexit.org

$5 Over / $7 Under at the door
Castaways, Ithaca, NY
www.castawaysithaca.com



Tags: concert, death metal, hardcore, live, metal, old-school, thrash

06:38 pm: UFO and Ghost Hunters - What makes someone an expert?
You know, I don’t put much value in TV shows for real information when coming to the paranormal. I watch these shows, hoping that some useful piece of information will filter through. Now you have shows like Ghost Hunters, and Paranormal State, and UFO Hunters, and because they are on TV, they get called experts. They are not experts. They may have some experience, but it is hard to even define what an expert in the paranormal would consist of. I think very few people could qualify. Someone like John Keel or Jacques Vallee who have done years of research and broken new ground and formulated new ideas would qualify. Myself, I have researched the paranormal for most of about 3 decades, I have read more books than most people will in their entire lifetime, and have had a plethora of unexplained experiences that fall outside the ‘normal’ paranormal experiences. I am also an open minded skeptic, which I feel is the only way to truly evaluate this type of material. We have even made a movie based on some of the events that have formed my opinions on the paranormal called “Gateways to Magonia” and have another planned. I do consider myself somewhat of an expert on this material, both because of my own experiences, and my widespread knowledge of the phenomenon. I expect that the people who do these TV shows have some overall knowledge of the particular field they are dealing in. So, when watching the latest UFO Hunters on The History Channel, and the cop they are interviewing talks about how his car stalled when the object got close, and then restarted when it moved away, I thought, ok, common enough in UFO sightings. In fact, one of THE most common things involving sightings of that type, likely caused by an EM field that halts the engine, but kicks it back in when the field is removed. It’s weird, but it has been replicated using an EM field. However, one of the investigators on the show says, “I’ve never heard of anything like that happening…”. Really?!? Seriously?!? So, one of the most common effects in a UFO encounter, documented probably thousands of times, and you’ve never heard of it!!! WTF. Pick up a book. Do some goddamned research, or better yet, have someone more qualified on the show. How do these people get a TV show as experts on UFO’s when they don’t seem to know anything about the history of the phenomenon. I can accept that these various Ghost shows don’t seem to have a wider grasp of the paranormal, it’s typical of our society to try and break things down into parts rather than understand it as a whole, and you often see ghost hunters sneer at monster hunters or UFO researchers as hacks, and vice versa. But it is all same phenomenon, and they will never see it. Nonetheless, I feel that shows like this can have value, and are at least entertaining to watch. Until I hear a comment like that. Then I have to vent. Sadly, it was one of the guys on the show that is generally a bit better about the research, too. Never heard of a UFO shutting down and restarting a car. Wow. Maybe his UFO research started with this show.

On another tack, I have been watching Grant and Jason from Ghost Hunters defend their potential hoaxing on their blogs. I WANT to believe them, I do. Maybe they are telling the truth, but the fact is, it LOOKED and SOUNDED fake. It doesn’t mean it was. But two things in a short period that look suspicious do not help their cause. They can’t come out and say they faked it. If they did fake these events, the only thing they can really do is forge forwards and NEVER do it again. I however, will not be able to watch it with as much interest as before, but maybe over time that will change. I mean it is very possible that Grant is an encounter prone personality, and all these things really are happening to him and they are as honorable as I had once believed. I guess we will have to wait and see where they go from here.

Tags: ghost hunters paranormal trickster tv uf

04:20 am: Ghosthunters and Ghost Adventures
Ok, so after my last blog we have finally reached the ‘reveal’ on the Live Ghosthunters. You know, seeing this stuff again, the tug and the fake voice, makes it seem even more so. You can see Grant walk expecting to be tugged. Dammit. And the voice, god that is bad. And then they follow up with an investigation that comes off almost as bad. There are some interesting knocks, ok, perfectly ‘normal’ for real paranormal activity. Nothing amazing or spectacular. Easily faked if they wanted to, but insignificant. Then we come to the suspicious and ‘incredible’ material. First, the door slams on the camera man, well, not quite ON, and that is the problem. If the door were to slam shut on it’s own, it would have surprised and hit the cameraman. All we get is his view, and it would be very easy for him to have pulled it shut and backed out at the same time. What you would expect would be the door hitting him or the camera and then him backing out. Grant can’t be blamed here, he wasn’t near the door. But then, the hanger. As Jay and Grant sat in a room that supposingly had lots of activity, a hanger suddenly flings itself into the middle of the floor. Ok. Odd. Grant picks it up and puts it back in the closet. They then sit down and wonder if it will happen again. Instead of aiming the camera at the closet, the aim it back at Jay. Then, shockingly, it happens again. You see it come flying in this time. And you know what, it seem to come from where Grant was sitting. Impossible to tell for sure, but come on. In the past, GH would have aimed a camera right at that closet and left it there the rest of the night. Fuck. If they are not faking the evidence, they are very much sucking at investigating, beyond any good excuses. More likely, they are faking evidence to keep people watching. I do believe it’s starting to insult my intelligence.

On another channel is Ghost Adventures. A few people have mentioned this to me and said it was good, so I decided to check it out. I can say that it is miles ahead of Paranormal State, at least the last time I gave that joke a chance, and I can definitely say that I don’t think they faked anything. They did a nice job production-wise of bringing a high intensity level to the show. The format seems more open, and they have just three people investigating, no extensive camera crew or anything else. I like the way they are doing it. As far as what they caught... Well, cold spots in an open area like that are less impressive than ones in small, insulated houses, but they did catch some interesting EM spikes and temperature drops. They had one interesting, but inconclusive photo, and a few EVP’s. They called them Class A. In reality, they were pretty awful. There was nothing enunciated in them, just noises. They heard words, appropriate for a prison. This is the problem with EVD’s, most of them are just noises you can make words from if you try hard enough. Their ‘experts’ concluded that these were GREAT EVP’s. Yeah, ok. Maybe the sounds were paranormal, but without clear cut enunciation you can’t say they were words. And maybe it was just something quiet in the background. Then they had the sounds from the cell area, faint howls and scratches and such. Hmmm… Can you say animals? I mean this is a large abandoned prison after all, it would be surprising if there weren’t some animals flitting about. Regardless, it was interesting, and better than GH this week. Definitely a show to watch for the time being.

05:57 am: Ghost Hunters Live 2008
So, last year, the Ghost Hunters Live show was pretty interesting. This year, well, it was something… else. First off, the production on the show was horrid. From the constant glitching all night long of the feed, to the horrid audio in some of the main sections where there was a terrible echo, to the terrible timing on switching shots. At one point you see Steve bitching about the countdown and such and then they just stand there for a moment before starting to walk and investigate. Clearly, their cues were off, or someone switched the camera early. Really lost any feeling of spontaneity. This happened a lot. You would think someone would be paying attention and not let it happen more than once. Then there was the audio overlays, where you could hear someone else over what was going on in the current view. Like the time where you can hear, I believe it was Amanda Tapping, saying something about a flashlight while they are showing Jason and Grant. Sure, it’s a live thing, it makes it a bit harder to get perfect, but this was a production train wreck. Then you had the point where someone called Kristin over to tell her to ask The Miz about how wrestling was like ghost hunting. She seemed like she was confused by the question, but went back to ask it as told, and the Miz seemed to also think it was a dumb question. And this was done right while they were supposed to be tracking the sound of a door slamming. Obviously, someone in production thought they weren’t talking about ECW enough. And, man, couldn’t they have picked someone better than The Miz? I mean I understand the cross promotion ideas, but at least pick people who seem to care about when they are doing there. The other guy from Estate of Panic and Amanda Tapping did fine.

It wasn’t just the production, though, that was sub par here. It seemed overall to be a quiet night, and the paranormal does not work on request. I mean, if it did, we would know what was what by now, wouldn’t we? I have read some theories that Grant may be ‘creating’ some of the evidence (see skepticalviewer.com for some good examples from this season in detail). There is a dual problem here. There is definitely some suspicious activity revolving around Grant. You can’t rule out that he may be ‘faking’ some of the evidence, but that doesn’t prove that he is. I would prefer to believe that these guys are above that. It does, however, generate ratings. This is always the problem when things like this translate to entertainment. It’s that whole, not performing on command thing. Even the clearly gifted psychics have done things that make people suspicious of these things. It doesn’t mean that they are any less psychic, just that they can’t always be good enough to keep people interested, so they have to fake it now and again. This season for some reason, the group seems to be catching a lot of ‘fake’ sounding disembodied voices. Now mind you, that does not mean that they ARE fake, but a tinny voice that sounds like it is from a small speaker does not sound all that convincing. You can easily see how it COULD be fake. Grant is singled out most of the time for the fact that so much impressive stuff seems to happen only to him. Not only did he catch a very fake sounding voice saying ‘you’re not supposed to be here’, but he caught it twice. Like a replayed recording. It seems fishy. Later his jacket was tugged, numerous times, and it was caught on tape. Could he have faked something like this? I suppose, yes. On the other hand, if something was to tug on his jacket, it does seem like that is just what it may look like.

Now, in Grant’s defense, and something that most ‘ghost hunters’ don’t seem to know, is that some people draw these things in. As a student of all aspects of the paranormal, you find this to be true time and time again. Sometimes these people are termed ‘encounter prone personalities’. There has been a decent amount of research done on this, and it IS very possible that Grant is one of these people. Unless he gets caught red handed faking something, he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Of course, then there is that bit with the candle going out, conveniently while only Grant was by it with no camera around...

As for the KII Meter. It’s interesting, and it has been suggested that they can be manipulated. I don’t know enough about them to know how easy that would be. No one seems to have a definite way in which it could be done. And there are cases in which it has not gotten a response, and perhaps many more that they have not bothered to show on the heavily edited TV show. Basically, it leaves us to trust that what they are showing us is real and genuine. Oddly, they felt the need to show when Kris Williams took it on her own and got no results, so... Speaking of which, why was she not on this investigation? It seems that this fact made some people happy, but I am unsure why as she seems to be a fairly solid investigator.

In the end, this was a letdown. Maybe even a black eye to the show. And it definitely will not do anything to convince anyone that some of their anomalies are not being faked. You didn’t see this stuff early on. Maybe they feel that they need to up the ante to keep people interested, even if it means faking things here and there. And honestly, watching the behavior of Jason and Grant, grant behaved... oddly, when the fake sounding voice occurred, and when the lantern went out. It seemed like he was trying to oversell it. It didn’t seem genuine at all. Jason seemed almost annoyed. I would say, Jason seemed like he didn’t know whether to believe Grant or not. No one else on the show displays any indication that they would fake anything, which makes Grant stand out that much more when these things happen.

Coming from the view of someone who is not focused on just Ghosts, I would say that what they are genuinely finding now and again are not ghosts. They follow the pattern of the trixter, like most of this phenomena, and thus does not point to ghosts, per se. But that is for another article. What I am surprised by is how early they quit. Again, as far as paranormal patterns go, they are more likely to find things occurring after 3am till dawn. They quit at 2am. Is that normal for them? How much longer to they go after the camera stops? I hope that they improve from this, it would probably do them good to expand their field of research and see where their ‘ghosts’ overlap other aspects of the paranormal. I like this show, and I would like to continue to feel that way. It will be interesting to see how this gets edited on Wednesday’s show…

Tags: ghost hunters paranormal trickster tv li

01:30 am: Balls of Light, Ghost Hunters, and the Mind’s Logical Dilemma
When the Sci-Fi channel started their Ghost Hunters show a few years back, I assumed it was going to be another in a long line of crappy paranormal shows. Usually you have the true believers or the closed minded skeptics running these things, and they usually suck beyond belief either way. The former will site anything as evidence of a ghost or paranormal activity, no matter how obvious the real explanation is, and the latter will never accept anything, no matter how truly paranormal something is. It leaves you no where good, and the shows last a season, if that. But Ghost Hunters does it right. TAPS approached things with that open minded skeptical attitude that is so important in this type of thing, and yet is found so rarely. I think the success of the show indicates how valuable this approach really is. They look for explanations, they try to explain what is happening, and very often do. But when left with no other options, they reluctantly admit that something paranormal may be going on.

The show, I think, can be trusted to be honest. TAPS seems to have a sense of honor and care about what they are doing. Honestly, I could do without the ‘reality’ aspect of it, but it is acceptable since they usually keep it to a minimum. What they catch is, however, sometimes very interesting. When they did their most recent Halloween show, they were in that long tunnel and seeing balls of light move around at the far end. When they would move down towards it, it would reappear back where they were before, essentially leading them up and down the tunnel, yet not getting any closer. They regarded this as a possible ghost. Why? This is where the show’s weakness lies. They are ghost hunters. If they see a ball of light in a ‘haunted’ local that evades easy explanation, then it must be a ghost. Why? The place is haunted, that’s why. Yet, balls of light are present in many paranormal phenomena. If the ball is in the sky, it’s a spaceship, if it’s in a stone circle or on a fairy mound, it’s a fairy. If it’s just outside Marfa, Texas, then they are Marfa Lights. Basically, there is no logical connection between seeing a ball of light and ghosts. Just because they are in a haunted location, does not mean they are dealing with ghosts.

Today, so many things are separated. People seem to only be allowed one thing they can be an expert on. You don’t see many Doctor / Lawyers for example. Or Biologist / Geologists. You pick one thing and that is what you concentrate on, you keep the boundaries there and intact. And that is just the same often in the world of paranormal research. Ghost Hunters don’t deal with UFO’s. UFO Researchers don’t deal with Cryptozoology. Everything is separate. Not to mention that one field often derides the others as silly and such. Those silly ghost hunters looking for spirits, while we pursue the real science of alien research. Yes, well, this of course, just obscures the whole picture. When you watch those lights play games, you realize that there are volumes of cases of lights playing games. From UFO’s to Willow Wisps. Earth Lights to Fairies. They play games. They lure, they hide, the lure again. They exhibit what is called Trickster behaviour. Ghost Hunters had another prime example of this. A year or two ago they were in a lighthouse and they heard a woman’s voice cry out to them, and they saw a shadow lean over the railing. They got both of these on tape. It was actually quite impressive. The thing gave every indication of wanting them to come to it. They bolted up the stairs, only to have it move a couple of flights up the stairs and do the same thing. Puzzled, they chased it again, ending up at the top of the lighthouse, with the only exit being a padlocked door. It was fascinating to watch, and understandable why they would call this a ghost encounter. I behaved like a ghost encounter is expected to. But it also behaved like a trickster. It lured them on and vanished. If it had indeed been a ghost looking for help as it appeared, why did it keep going up the stairs when they came to it?

You find the trickster in all facets of the paranormal. It may be one of the keys to finally understanding all of this, but it can’t be looked at as separate parts. Read John Keel’s work to see just how active the trickster element is in UFO lore. And most people have at least a passing familiarity of fairy lore, if even from children’s stories, to know that they also possess that trickster mentality. Ghost Hunters is one of the only paranormal shows I watch, and that is because it is a damned good show, run by excellent researchers. They have earned my respect, but I wish they had more info overall. I wish they could recognize these patterns, and maybe stop going into a place assuming that it is the spirit of a dead person haunting it. In one of their other recent cases, they were thrown by a very clear, and seriously creepy EVP. They were in a baby furniture store, and the owners thought it was being haunted by a dead employee who really loved the store. Reasonable, human assumption. EVP’s are questionable most of the time. They are usually sounds that sound like possible voices, but it’s like finding shapes in clouds. Just because you think you hear something, doesn’t really mean that is what is there. However in this case, this was clear and in response. The dead employee’s name was Jean. They were talking to Jean asking her why she was still there, etc. A very clear EVP in response says “There is no Jean here”. Later a less clear one captured says “Leave us alone”. They thought it sounded unthreatening, but I disagree. I would have had serious qualms about playing that EVP for those people. The point in this, again, is that they are assuming ghosts, and when the evidence supports something paranormal, they stick with ghosts, rather than examining whether or not there could be another path to try. In this case, the person who was supposingly haunting the place, was not. Why assume that it is a ghost at all. Maybe it is something else. Maybe it too, is playing games.

The point where they will remain stuck in their research is where they need to understand the wider picture. There is a lot out there that we can’t explain or even perceive. This things can interact, and they have certain patterns to their interaction. These patterns pervade UFO’s, Ghosts, and various other aspects of the paranormal. Kenneth Ring in his book, “The Omega Project”, shows the similarity of aftereffects of people who have had UFO abduction experiences and those who have had Near Death Experiences. There is no obvious reason why that should be the case, yet it is. There is no obvious reason that ghosts should have anything to do with UFO’s, or UFO’s with fairies, yet the patterns are the same. People who have UFO encounters often experience poltergeist activity afterwards. Cryptozoology is seemingly separate from UFO’s, until you look at The Mothman Prophecies, which has elements of the UFO’s, Monsters, and various other things. There is a reliable report or three of Bigfoot’s being seen in the vicinity of UFO’s, and even one report of someone seeing one being taken into one. Stranger than fiction is an understatement.

Maybe it would be too much for a national audience if TAPS started venturing outside the set confines of what ghosts are supposed to be. However, it could be damned interesting...

Seriah Azkath
November 8, 2007

Tags: ghost hunters ufo paranormal trickster o

04:16 am: Dead Heart in a Dead World
Where has all the originality and creativity gone? What has happened to our world? I went into Game Stop today to ask a question about Dead Rising, which is a pretty cool game. I have played it maybe 5 times since I got it about a month ago. Video games to me are an occasional break. Overstressed, well, go kill some Zombies, or Wrestle someone for a bit. But I guess I forgot that games are everything to some people. Not only did the guy behind the counter know the game, but spent some time bragging about how good he was at it. Then someone else, who seemed to just be a customer chimed in trying to help. In the end neither of them knew how to fix my problem, but I realized that these guys probably spend WAY too much time playing games. And then they go to work, where they deal with games. And you know, there is really nothing wrong with that, but it makes me realize, that most people are like this. Most people don't have a creative outlet, they don't exercise any artistic expression at all. They are so plugged into society, that they are like users, they give nothing back, they contribute nothing. They are not required to, it's ok, but it seems like more and more people follow that plot. It may not be video games, perhaps it's movies, or TV shows, or sports. Or the necessity to be out drinking whenever they are not working. Or the obsessive way people collect things nowadays, I mean I understand that there have always been collectors, but today it seems more like a neurotic compulsion for some people. I guess to me, it's just a thing, it has no real value outside of whatever I can get from it in the sense of it's use. I get no value from a CD that I can't open, or a movie I can't watch. A toy you can't play with, ceases to be a toy. Have we really reached this barren point of materialism, that even the materialistic things have to be made even more materialistic?

People wonder why more and more movies are remakes. Why TV Shows keep coming out with the same premises. Why what passes for humor are shows like Family Guy, where there is very little actual humor, and lots of pop culture references, which I have never understood why people take as funny... Music becomes carbon copied, cookie cutter material. A rebellious persona is whatever is cool at Hot Topic this week. What the hell has happened to us as a society? Is there really a need for ANOTHER movie about Vampires? Seriously? Does no one have a better idea? How about a new concept, something that hasn't been done to death already? Most people don't read anymore, and when they do, it's something like Stephen King, books from a guy who has had about 3 or 4 concepts that he keeps reworking in different settings. Of course, that is 3 or 4 concepts more than the average person. Everything is so... typical. No one stretches boundaries, takes chances. Harry Potter sells... And yet it's nothing new. It's the same old thing, perhaps written better, but the concept, is old. Tired. Yet people eat it up. Not that they have many choices. Not that they would care if they did. Asinine reality shows pull in huge ratings while the few original shows suffer. Talented local and indie bands pull few people, but a generic cover band, well, they can pack the house. What is wrong with this? Why is this?

I can't imagine not creating something. Life has more meaning when you build something into it. Everyone has a talent. An artistic spark. Yet less and less look for it anymore. And it's not like you have to do something monumental, you can create something for fun. It's ok. Really, it is.

Then you have the people whose life seems to exist and revolve around relationships. I don't mean the people who temporarily may be fascinated by someone new they are involved with, but the people who spend an inordinate amount of time flipping out about how they NEED to be in a relationship, and how they will be miserable until they are, like it is the only thing that can make them happy. They are never the ones happy in a relationship, of course, because no one lives up to their standards, and besides, the problems are with themselves, so either way, they have the same problems, and they aren't happy. These people are usually also the ones to preach this philosophy to everyone that will listen. No one should be single. And then there are those who need a relationship, but follow the shallowest path. Where looks are what matter. And they wonder why they have such bad relationships.

And then there is the age thing. I may have to kill the next 25 or 26 year old who complains they are too old. Seriously. I was re-reading The Mothman Prophecies and Keel talks about how back in the 50's the CIA used to employ very young men for certain missions. His definition of very young was 19-25. Today, I do believe very young is defined as more like 9-12. A few decades ago, if you asked to talk to the manager of a store, you were introduced, usually to someone at least 40 years old, usually older. Because it took time and experience to earn a manager position. Now they are handed out to 19 and 20 year olds, who are never qualified to be a manager. Not that being older makes you competent, but at least you have a better chance of having some real world experience, and MAYBE being able to make a competent decision. Simple fact is that a 21 year old does not have much real world experience. Of course, it seems like people now feel that 26 is old, so you have such a narrow corridor, I guess… Wait. No. What the fuck is wrong with people. You are not old at 26, you are not old at 36, you are not old at 46. Maybe at 56 you are getting old, 66, ok, now you are definitely getting old. 76, yeah, now you are old. Is it just that people are abusing themselves with cigarettes, and alcohol to such an extent that they are worn out by 26? Maybe, or perhaps they are just being idiots. I know in some cases there are people I know who are simply lazy or introverted to an extent, who use that excuse to not go out and do things, but that is a small percentage. Some people are in better shape in their 40's then they were in their 20's.

I think it breaks down to cycles. You have the infant cycle for the first few years of your life, followed by childhood. Then puberty. That for everyone starts and ends at different ages. Then SHOULD be adulthood, which, ideally should last anywhere from 19-21 to 65-70. Then you get to be old. So many people hold on to puberty for far too long, and then as soon as they start to get over it, they decide they are old. The only real difference between 21 and 31 is experience, and since most people are too oblivious to learn anything, there isn't much of a difference. What is the rush to get old and die? Why the need to limit abilities with a false sense of old age? And why does society encourage this stereotype? This is a recent thing, and it's not a good thing. You are not capable of driving a car just because you've managed not to die as the earth revolved around the sun 16 times. I seriously wonder how age would work if we didn't keep track of it. If people didn't know how old they were, if they had no preconceptions of how they should be at a certain age, how would we all be? I think it would be vastly different than it is now. In this age obsessed culture, we die young.

We have a world that is dying, and no heart to creatively revive it… Dead heart. Dead World.

01:27 am: Boundaries...
Those who follow the rules, that learn only that which is taught, will never drive forward the world. Only those willing to ignore boundaries, discard the rules, and kick dogmatic tradition to the side will ever make real progress. Institutions are death of progress. Schools only teach what is already known, and they teach to stay within those bounds. Society imposes it's moral values on the masses. Moral values that are neither agreed upon or all encompassing. It seems that as our society 'advances', deviation is curbed all the more. Stay within the lines, and follow the plan set out for you... and everyone else. And it is engrained so early, that even those seeking to push away from the 'norm' can't gain a proper perspective. If not for a push against dogmatic knowledge, we would still believe the sun to revolve around the earth. We would never have flown. And the theory of relativity would have never taken hold. We all know this. But we don't see how it affects us now.

Watch a movie about the end of civilization, and do the survivors try to build something new? No. They try to keep the traditions of this world instead, no matter how irrelevant. Why? This is what is engrained into us. Procreate, despite the fact that the planet can no longer support the population it now has. Go get that new PS3 or iPhone RIGHT AWAY! Waste no time, there is nothing more important. Make the rich richer, and yourself poorer. It's fine, just don't think critically about it.

Watch a movie done by a film student, and more often than not, see a lifeless thing with no real creativity or passion... Why? They are told how to do things. How to make it. And what is acceptable. Once in a while, someone breaks the boundaries and they make something amazing. They throw out the textbooks and create from the heart.

Did you know that the more psychologists study psychology, the less effective they are in actually helping people? Not that most of them are that effective anyways, but the more textbook they become, the less they matter.

Einstein did not make the breakthroughs he did because he studied extensively. He made them by daydreaming. He made them by imagining. And that is simply not acceptable.

Tags: boundaries, philosophy, society

08:56 pm: Aethyric Whispers - Sony and The Big Picture
Written by Seriah Azkath (The Demon Azkath, radio show host), originally posted on, and copied from myspace-

So a few years ago, I used to write a column called Aethyric Whispers. It was a music column for a cool publication. I am planning on continuing that here, based on the fact that people have been requesting that I do some reviews and such, and I sometimes have some things I would like to express, AND get feedback on. This is the perfect forum for that. So, if you like what I am trying to do, subscribe to the blog so that you will know when I have a new column up. And let me know what you think. You will always be able to add comments, and it is encouraged.

Something that has been in the news lately, that I think impacts a good deal of us, is the situation with Sony and its rootkit copy protection. For anyone who does not know what this is and why it is bad, well, it is a program that installs itself onto your system when you put certain CD's in. It then hides itself so that you don't even know that it is there. This, to begin with, is borderline illegal. Secondly, it opens up security holes that hackers and virus authors can exploit. This was pretty much where the whole rootkit thing came from to begin with. What brain trust at Sony thought this was a good idea should be shot. They already have some lawsuits pending, and today a news story revealed that even the patch they release to fix the security hole, has an exploit that they have had to release another patch for. So what is all this about anyways? Well, they don't want you to be able to make more than a few copies of the extremely overpriced CD that you spent your money on. The rootkit has a program that will limit what you can do with the CD. To me that seems like someone selling you a car and saying you can only drive it certain places.

Record companies have been screaming now for years that music downloads and CD copying have been hurting their business. But lets take a look at this is a different light. They made the same claims about recordable cassette tapes when they first came out (and movie companies complained about VCR's the same way), and it didn't really hurt them. When they forced the turn to CD's, they claimed that once CD's were the main music form that the prices would drop far lower than tapes and records since manufacturing costs were so much lower for CD's. Needless to say, they never dropped. But it sounded nice, didn't it. As far as downloading and copying CD's, it has been shown that the way Record Companies have presented the proof that their sales are hurting, is questionable to say the least. For one, they have never counted sales based on, well, sales. They count it on how many units they ship out to stores. It doesn't matter if they say. This is how albums can 'ship gold' and such. Truth is, they are now actually selling MORE CDs than before, but not shipping as much. Basically, the number shipped is more accurate to the number sold. Yet, they maintain that downloading has caused their sales to slip. This is very similar to oil companies this last year spiking prices for oil claiming that it was necessary only to show record profits at year-end. Gee, what a coincidence. It was necessary, but only for them to rape the population even more than they already are.

If anything, music downloading seems to have increased CD sales, probably due to exposure and that fact that many people would rather own a real CD than a copy. But while falsely complaining their sales are down, they spend a fortune creating anti-copying technology that ultimately fails, and is circumvented within days of being released, or in the latest debacle, they have actually put genuine consumers, people who have legally bought their CD's, at risk and invaded their privacy. You know, that being the case, it seems safer to just download the MP3's, at least you usually know what you are getting.

The other reason, however, that the big corporations want to hurt downloading especially, is that it prevents them from controlling the market. People from around the world can share whatever they want. The big companies only want you exposed, or should I more appropriately say, overexposed to their current sales project. Music to them has become simply a product. That's it. One band is interchangeable with any other, and they all pretty much sound the same. I think this type of over blasting the market seems to have started back in 1999 or 2000, when months before the Kid Rock record was even recorded they were over saturating the media with how this was the best record of the year. And it worked. A guy, who was a complete and total joke to that point, became hugely popular. Not because of excessive talent or originality, but simply because of marketing. Since then, that has been their plan. Payola may be illegal, but that doesn't stop them from buying airtime for their songs on various radio stations and labeling it as advertising. And you know what? It is. It's not art, it's product. And it's not the band's fault, they are as much victims as anyone else.

Super-Sonic-Hydro-Matic. It's the newest and the best, you have to love it and everything about it. Till next month when you should toss it out and get the brand NEW Super-Sonic-Hydro-Matic. That is really what mainstream music is about now, isn't it? This is why we at The Last Exit for the Lost have always sought to seek out the best bands and releases, and ignored what the big labels shove at us. I don't know if people understand why we feel that way, but if things continue the way they are, truly inspiring music will be harder and harder to find.

Music affects people on deeper levels than they realize. Even if you think you don't care that much, it affects deep levels of the brain. And what you are getting from the corporate levels, is really meant to dull you. And it does. With few exceptions, they only provide the safest, most marketable product. That which is shown to be accessible to the most people, and will be just different enough from the last thing it sounding just like to keep people interested. And, they will market it as risqué' and extreme. Hawthorn Heights being marketed as true hardcore as one commercial said is a great example. They know what you want, and they are doing their best to make you think that you are getting it. Sad when even a formerly respectable company like Victory Records plays that game. And a sad sign of the times.

So what can you do? Well, don't buy into the crap. Don't buy the garbage they sell. If you really want it, download it. Especially anything on Sony. Don't be fooled into thinking you are hurting an artist at that level, because the only people really profiting are the executives at the record companies. Today, we don't really need them anymore. With the Internet, bands have the ability to be successful without selling their souls. And while there are good, honest labels out there (one example: The End Records), the corporations are not needed. Support the smaller labels, and better yet, support the indie bands that have no labels, because when you buy something from them, they get all the money. Which is only right, since it is their creation. And, aside from rare exceptions, most bands do not overprice their CD's.

And isn't it funny, that the richest people in the world, are the ones who make the most noise when they think they may be losing a few cents to the middle or lower class? They don't just want to rape you, they want to get every last bit they can. And this is true of the ones screaming the loudest right now. Oil Companies, Record Companies, and Movie Companies. Greed is a sickness, and it infects our world deeply. Don't feed into it...



Seriah Azkath