From: Alex Ramonsky (alex@ramonsky.com)
Date: Sun Jul 28 2002 - 06:04:58 MDT
>
> His website http://www.davidicke.com/ details various conspiracy
> theories that Mr Icke whole heatedly believes and has
> "Investigated".Mr Icke is currently offering his services as a speaker
> and is "enlightening" people around the world.
Those of us who have actually met the guy tend to believe that Mr Icke
whole heartedly believes (or has merely experienced the religious
revelation) that a lot more money can be made by ranting about god /
conspiracies etc than is currently paid to sports commentators.Since he
is quite a gifted actor, no contest about career prospects.
>
> I'm not by any means saying that I believe him, Quite the
> contrary, But I am interested in why I and many others are drawn to
> this kind of extreme conspiracy theory?
Same reason you get annoying pop songs stuck on the brain...there are
ways of saying things that produce some very attractive 'catchy' memes.
If you saw a book labelled 'absolute crap' you may still have to look at
it out of sheer curiosity. This kind of technique dedicates human
curiosity to the maintenance of someone's bank account.
>
> Does any one on the list have any solid Psychological
> explanation as to why people, even educated, highly intelligent people
> are sucked in by this kind of thing?
See above. However, I would draw a line between educated and highly
intelligent. I don't believe highly intelligent people go for this sort
of thing because I consider the ideas mutually exclusive. I find a lot
of 'educated' people are emotional cripples. Highly intelligent people
seem not to be. But perhaps you judge people more liberally than I?
>
> I would class this kind of attraction along with cultism and religion,
> who would agree?
> I can immediately see the attraction to people who feel "hard
> done by" for the world not seeing their potential, Achievements, etc.
> But does this group include everyone? or is the attraction to this
> kind of thing more widespread?
It doesen't need to be. There are vast fortunes to be made from ufos,
cosmic healing, government conspiracies etc. There is an ex-NASA
physicist out there right now (you know who you are : ) ), charging
people $5,000 each for a twelve-week course on 'channelling the
communications of the aliens to earth for spiritual healing purposes.'
Smart girl. She just spent some of it on a face lift and a rather nice
house in San Fran. She does get sick of having to pretend all the BS but
she'll have enough to retire soon.
Those who do the course get a diploma so they can go out and start their
own courses and con people all by themselves. The only difference
between this and religion / cult stuff is that it's always based on
paying a lot of money, whereas some religions / cults are not.
...Think I'll start a series of books on the occult..."The Amazing World
of Alex J Ramonsky's Bank Account"
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