Many people e-mailed us to tell us that their TV Guide did not show that tonight's Politically Incorrect show is the one I taped. The TV Guides are not always up to date so I called the show. I'm on tonight following Nightline on ABC TV. The subject is religion and my book How We Believe.
Every year I wish Newton a happy birthday on December 25, and every year people send me letters explaining about the calendar reform and the "correct" date for Newton's birthday. I guess I should post a disclaimer every year that I'm aware of the calendar reform and the changing dates. The "Newtonmas" stuff is all just in fun and not meant to be some historically accurate statement. In any case, here is one reader's explanation.
"Newton was born on Jan. 4, 1643, not on Dec. 25, 1642. Great Britain's obstinate refusal to adopt the Gregorian calendar was largely due to its anti-Catholic attitude, and so it continued to use the incorrect Julian calendar until 1752, when it finally threw in the towel. It makes a pleasant story to pretend that Newton was born on Dec. 25, but why should we promote a calendrical error, especially when it is a result of religious bigotry?"
From J. Gordon Melton's book FINDING ENLIGHTENMENT: Ramth'as School of Ancient Wisdom (Hillsboro, Oregon: Beyond Words Publishing, Inc.):
"In the end, the choice to believe in Ramtha constitutes a leap of faith. It's in the same category as believing in Jesus' resurrection or Muhammad's meeting with the angel. It is simply not the kind of question about which science is prepared to make authoritative pronouncements."
Well, maybe. 20/20 did a piece on Knight/Ramtha, in which they interviewed Sandy Fallis, an old friend of Knight, when her name was Judy Hampton, then Judy Zebra Knight, then J.Z. Knight, then Ram, then Ramtha, in which Fallis told a story about a prayer meeting in which Knight suddenly began speaking in a male voice that called himself a demon named Demias (Knight denies this event). They also interviewed Steven Bakker, a former Knight advance man, who told how on a hike Knight was smoking and practicing the Ram's gestures, slipping in and out of her Ramtha personality without trances. Newsweek interviewed Pamela McNeeley, another disenchanted Ramster, that she quit because Ramtha began saying how the country should "get rid" of homosexuals. "We thought she did a better job of doing Ramtha than Ramtha. In fact, we couldn't tell the difference." According to McNeeley, in 1985 the Ram predicted that in three years there would be a great holocaust in which cities would be destroyed by disease before the coming of "Twelve Days of Light." Three gods: Yahweh, Ramtha, and Id will arrive in great ships of light to battle the evil Old Testament god Jehovah (Knight seems to be confusing Yahweh and Jehovah for two different gods). AIDS, says Ramtha, is nature's way of eliminating gays.
Reportedly, 300+ people pay $400 each for a lecture, $1,500 each for a weekend seminar (that's a cool $120,000 for an evening, $450,000 for a weekend).
Interestingly, a few years ago a German medium named Julie Ravel began channeling Ramtha. Knight did not take kindly to this and promptly sued her, and won. "Ramtha feeds his thoughts and energies through me and me alone. I am his keeper." At those prices should we be surprised that Knight wishes to protect her copyright? By the way, are not copyrights given for CREATIONS!
Some reader's comments on J.Z. Knight and Ramtha:
"Come up with a better scam, why let Knight be the only one to cash in on the family member's gullibility."
"I suggest your reader buy a horse farm and learn how to 'channel'; maybe then the attention of the relative (and, more importantly, the thousands of dollars) might be redirected (closer to 'home'). Apparently your reader has not yet learned that intelligent argument directed to the religiously delusional is merely good breath wasted."
"Melton is known to many cult experts as a cult apologist - someone who defends cults and cultists. He does a lot of, well, bunking, and very little - if any - debunking. Documentation:
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/m06.html
Joe Szimhart has reviewed Melton's book on Ramtha:
http://www.users.fast.net/~szimhart/ramtha.htm
Szimhart's scathing review provides some insight into Melton's views and research tactics. Enlightening indeed. On my page about Ramtha (one of many pages that needs to be expanded...):
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/r09.html
I refer to the Skeptic's Dictionary entry on Ramtha:
http://skepdic.com/channel.html
It, in turn, links to this article, in which Melton's enamored views of Ramtha are mentioned:
Into The Mystic: Ramtha Meets the Scholars by Steve Diamond http://www.thenewtimes.org/issue/9705/97-05-jz.html
Melton knows a lot. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to draw the wrong conclusions and to join the wrong team (Scientology, Aum, Ramtha, Children of God/The Family, etcetera). He runs the USA version of CESNUR. But don't me started..."
"Within the last 10 years a European claimed to be able to channel Ramtha. JZ took court action in Europe somehow claiming exclusive rights to Ramtha and won (bizarre unless the court realized Ramtha is her creation).
As a lawyer I am interested in what possible legal reasoning the court could have used. Are you aware of whether a transcript of the decision is available?"
This article has been making its rounds on the net. It will be of interest to this list.
The Sirius Lie
Extract of a Lecture for the Turn of the Millennium
by FILIP COPPINS
http://www.templarlodge.com/stargate.html
Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. What some consider to be the best evidence for extraterrestrial beings coming from Sirius is therefore dealt a devastating blow. GO TO THE ADDRESS ABOVE FOR THE ARTICLE.