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Thread: Magical Realism and Information Operations

  1. #21
    Council Member marct's Avatar
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    Hi Slapout,

    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    Almost all types of serial criminals will believe they are directed by some type of higher power and of it can only be understood by them. The movie "Red Dragon" has a lot of fact in it. Point being if somebody believes in something and it causes them to "act" out that delusion it is very real and very dangerous. The crime of Stalking in particular is often completely based upon delusional or magic beliefs. In my own case the guy used to go to the graveyard where my wife's mother was buried and talk to her for advice, he also left small stuffed animals on the headstone, why he did this we will never know but he did it. Believe it or not this is not that unusual in stalking type cases.
    That's a weird one A sacrifice? Company? Offering? It's always easier to understnd these actions when they are part of a system <sigh>.

    Marc
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
    Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
    Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
    Senior Research Fellow,
    The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
    Carleton University
    http://marctyrrell.com/

  2. #22
    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    Sometimes they are part of their own system. The trick is cracking their system.

  3. #23
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    marct, I don't know but as you say it would be easier to understand as a system, but that is part of the problem with these guys they act alone, but are good at recruiting Innocent people to help them without there knowledge. But the process or method of operation is actually called "telling a story" they make up whole scenarios in there head and they just keep adding to it, they often write them down or document them in some way until they reach the breaking point. Another thing is there are a lot of similarities between stalkers and suicide bombers especially the rituals they go through before they commit the attack, often spending the night in the graveyard before the attack.

  4. #24
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default If somebody believes in something and it causes them to "act"

    Tom, Marc, Rob and Slapout, Greetings !
    First and foremost, Tom, I didn't believe the Mama so much as I hated the fact she shafted me on the exchange rate Afterall, she was living in front of the embassy and why should I walk another hundred yards for a better rate Secondly, why did you send the same post three times ?

    Slapout, God I have no idea where to start I may indeed take an Anthro class at this rate. All the real criminals in Estonia (former Russian and Estonian kingpins) during 95 and 96 also held religious sessions (we normally call it extortion) with large amounts of TNT and ammonium nitrate with tiny detonators They had no stuffed animals, but they also lacked sufficient knowledge with blast effect and often used too much - hence the religious experience. I have some friends in the Estonian Central Criminal Police that would love to make your acquaintance.

    Marc, are there any stuffed animals in that symbols book you offered to send me ? I'm no longer sure I want to read that book !

    Rob, we have gone decidedly off track and I hope some of this was a least helpful.

    Regards, Stan

  5. #25
    Council Member Rob Thornton's Avatar
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    Following up on the interpreter who told me he was going to explain more about Djinn - his brother was telling me about his experiences while we were visiting one of the big US FOBs. Another of our interpreters was also with us who is Yizidi. I had thought Djinn was pretty much an Islamic belief, but it our Yizidi interpreter told me they are real as well. We went through several stories of houses occupied by good and bad Djinn, and of honking the horn on certain roads so that they could avoid running over a Djinn. We've got a pretty diverse team of soldiers and they were not sure what to make of all this - they'd just kind of assumed besides the obvious Muslim, ethnic and cultural differences they's seen it all - that the teams's interpreters were telling them they absolutely believed in the supernatural was kind of a shocker for them.

    I related the story of the urban legend email that went around about the former soldier in the comparative religion class where the professor defies God to strike him down - the former soldier gets up and breaks the professor's nose and says "God told me to break your nose"! He said he'd strike you down next time though. The Holy Spirit comparrison only worked on the Assemblies of God guy - all the rest had no real comparrison.

    Marc, I'm still tracking down someone who can tell me about the story of the Green man and Moses.

    Regards, Rob

  6. #26
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default defies God to strike him down

    Rob, In Zäire if you were to hit and kill a local with your vehicle (without any doubt no fault of your own), the embassy's instructions were straight forward, get out of there or be pummelled to death by chance spectators who also believed they would be responsible for retribution.

    Regards, Stan

  7. #27
    Council Member Rob Thornton's Avatar
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    Default Its all good (off topic for a moment myself)

    Stan,
    I have no problem with going off track - SWC helps me think through other problems I encounter here - sometimes its direct, sometimes its just by asking questions or making observations and seeing where it takes me. I have to be semi -serious enough of the rest of the time, so I try not to be serious at all when I don't have to. I've always thought its not really serious unless somebody is shooting at you - even then I've found the opportunity to smile at some of the crazy stuff I've seen (it helps when the other guy is a really bad shot).
    I like the banter back and forth. I like that most everybody in SWC has nothing to prove and is willing to share for sharing's sake. I enjoy the jest and I enjoy learning. There are few places where you can make an observation or comment and see it take off in a direction that while different from where you thought it would go, still provides you useful insights and analysis.
    The only thing we could do better is figure out how to do it with free beer

    Regards all, Rob

  8. #28
    Council Member Rob Thornton's Avatar
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    Stan,
    I remember in Addis a lady appeared to have flung herself infront of our Suburban - our driver (a guy from Asmarra we called Pop Smurf for looking after a buch of young Marines) -banked to the left a little I heard a THUMP and I thought for sure we'd run over a crazy woman - when I looked back there were people gathered around her, pointing and laughing as I we crested the hill she got up - she'd faked the whole thing. Damndest thing I'd thought. Later on I'd see allot of other wild stuff.

  9. #29
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Stan, where in the hell is Estonia.........North Alabama some where?

    Crime and War are more related than may first appear, there are common threads through every post here if you view it through the framework of Motive,Methods and Opportunity.

    Small stuffed animals are often used to conceal things in the crime world and COIN environments to I would think, examples: drugs,bombs, listening devices and other bad stuff. Ask your friends at central Estonia police they probably have a lot of stories to tell. If they ever come to Alabama tell them to give me call. Do they speak southern?

  10. #30
    Council Member marct's Avatar
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    Hi Folks,

    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    marct, I don't know but as you say it would be easier to understand as a system, but that is part of the problem with these guys they act alone, but are good at recruiting Innocent people to help them without there knowledge. But the process or method of operation is actually called "telling a story" they make up whole scenarios in there head and they just keep adding to it, they often write them down or document them in some way until they reach the breaking point.
    Yeah. We have them in religion, too - we call them "cults" . Actually, the story telling aspect is really the key to the entire thing. Stories follow patterns and those patterns seem to be fairly "universal", at least in some ways. It's also the reason why I was suggesting that if Rob wanted to use the djinn et al., he should get some practicing magicians who also happen to be in the US forces - they know the general patterns of the stories.

    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    Another thing is there are a lot of similarities between stalkers and suicide bombers especially the rituals they go through before they commit the attack, often spending the night in the graveyard before the attack.
    Hmm, I didn't know that - interesting! Some of the suicide bomber ritual aspects struck me as being similar to the concept of jurimentado (I'm not sure about the spelling). It's Turkish, I believe, and basically means a man who has decided that he is already dead, wraps himself in scarlet clothes with tight bindings, and then goes berserk in a killing rage at a particular target. Hmmm, now that I think about it, it probably is close also to the Norse berserkers ("baer - sarker" - bear skin, becoming a bear).

    Quote Originally Posted by Stan Reber View Post
    Tom, Marc, Rob and Slapout, Greetings !

    Slapout, God I have no idea where to start I may indeed take an Anthro class at this rate. All the real criminals in Estonia (former Russian and Estonian kingpins) during 95 and 96 also held religious sessions (we normally call it extortion) with large amounts of TNT and ammonium nitrate with tiny detonators
    That's what my friends in the Craft community call the "material component" of a spell. I once asked about fireball spells and, with all seriousness, my informant gave me the secret word of power ----- RPG. .

    Quote Originally Posted by Stan Reber View Post
    Marc, are there any stuffed animals in that symbols book you offered to send me ? I'm no longer sure I want to read that book !
    LOLOL. Damn, that would be a best seller! "The Magical LIfe of Teddy B"!

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob Thornton View Post
    Following up on the interpreter who told me he was going to explain more about Djinn - his brother was telling me about his experiences while we were visiting one of the big US FOBs. Another of our interpreters was also with us who is Yizidi. I had thought Djinn was pretty much an Islamic belief, but it our Yizidi interpreter told me they are real as well. We went through several stories of houses occupied by good and bad Djinn, and of honking the horn on certain roads so that they could avoid running over a Djinn. We've got a pretty diverse team of soldiers and they were not sure what to make of all this - they'd just kind of assumed besides the obvious Muslim, ethnic and cultural differences they's seen it all - that the teams's interpreters were telling them they absolutely believed in the supernatural was kind of a shocker for them.
    <grin>I remember hearing about a couple of cops in Toronto visiting the Occult Shop there (run by a friend of mine). The were carrying a stuiffed doll with them in a box. Aftre one of them took it out of the box, my friend commanded him to go wash his hands with industrial grade cleaner. His partmner asked why, and she said - "Well, that's a death doll". The cop got a look on his face like "get seriously, lady!". She smiled and said, "they cover them with a contact poison, so if the curse doesn't kill the victim, the poison will."

    Outside of fun, spooky stories, I think the work "supernatural" is the key, here. Every since the Enlightenment, we, in the West, have tended to class all sorts of experiences (and explanations) as "supenatural". I think it comes from Descartes' little sop to the Church in his man the machine model. Anyway, "supernatural" in most of our societies tends to be viewed as "not natural" meaning it doesn;t follow "natural laws". Many other cultures believe that many of the phenomena we call supernatural does follow natural laws (magic, prayer, honking a horn...).

    This is where things get fun for symbolic anthropologists like me. This is what we are looking both for and at in a lot of our fieldwork; the rituals, the systems, the stories and, most importantly, what they say about the culture's perceptions of reality and what technologies they have developed. I spent a couple of weeks, about 10 years ago, looking at "heat control" technologies - fire walking, playing with burning coals, rolling in the fire, being doused in cold water at sub-zero temperatures, etc. Quite neat stuff on the whole and, what they all appear to be doing, is using symbol systems to internally activate pre-existing capacities of the human mind and body (like a plecebo, but replicable).

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob Thornton View Post
    I related the story of the urban legend email that went around about the former soldier in the comparative religion class where the professor defies God to strike him down - the former soldier gets up and breaks the professor's nose and says "God told me to break your nose"! He said he'd strike you down next time though. The Holy Spirit comparrison only worked on the Assemblies of God guy - all the rest had no real comparrison.
    Okay, that's weird! I would have expected more comprehension from them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob Thornton View Post
    Marc, I'm still tracking down someone who can tell me about the story of the Green man and Moses.
    I'll see if I can find the reference for it with some more details.
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
    Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
    Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
    Senior Research Fellow,
    The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
    Carleton University
    http://marctyrrell.com/

  11. #31
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default All Good Reasons, Stan

    Secondly, why did you send the same post three times ?
    So it would sink in?

    Because I am old and I twitched?

    As a test to see if you would correct me?

    Tom

  12. #32
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default Where the hell is Estonia and the material component of a spell !

    Folks !
    First off, Slapout, Estonia is one of three Baltic States (former Russian property, et al). Situated 55 miles south of Helsinki, Finland and less than 200 miles west of the Motherland. Or is that the Fatherland ?

    For 700 years a small German trading town and transition point for cargo, people, whatever. Too good for the Russians to pass up on their way through and decided to stay. In 92 the Estonians broke free and claimed once again (22 times since the 11th century) independence.

    Marc,
    This is not good, we spent all of last evening convincing Rob there are no ghosts and now explosive use has become the material component of a spell ?????

    Stan,
    I remember in Addis a lady appeared to have flung herself infront of our Suburban
    That's ala Zäirois in a nutshell until your timing with age gets a tad off and the Suburban takes the lead. I too often wondered on my way back from the airport was my snow-white blazer easier to spot with CD plates and why did that guy throw himself into the road. I missed him and many more.

    Marc will no doubt find some spooky Bravo Sierra herein, so I guess I'll log in again and see what's cooking with this thread.

    Regards, Stan

  13. #33
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default Tom, you are not that old !

    Carl is quite a guy. We wrote over thw weekend and I info'd you.
    What normally takes 10 years, if at all, for a State puke to learn (with intense training), Carl did it in two.

    Great reading. Still trying to reply to the thread, but Marc keeps putting ghosts in and I almost convinced Rob there are no ghosts under his bed

    Regards Pal, Stan

  14. #34
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default Estonia and the USSR

    First off, Slapout, Estonia is one of three Baltic States (former Russian property, et al). Situated 55 miles south of Helsinki, Finland and less than 200 miles west of the Motherland. Or is that the Fatherland ?
    Also to be remembered is that the Soviets took Estonia and Latvia as part of the land grab under Stalin's surprise treaty with the Germans, which allowed them to carve up Poland. Said treaty and occupation was negated--temporarily--by the Nazis invasion of the USSR after they decided to not invade the UK.

    Not surprisingly the Estonians and Latvians contributed at least a division's worth of volunteers to the Waffen SS. Of course the Sovs reoccupied the country as they drove westward into Germany.

    All of this explains why the Estonians love Russians so much.

    Best

    Tom
    Last edited by Tom Odom; 01-16-2007 at 05:51 PM.

  15. #35
    Council Member marct's Avatar
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    Default "Magic: the art and science of changing consciousness in accordance with will"

    Hi Stan,

    Quote Originally Posted by Stan Reber View Post
    This is not good, we spent all of last evening convincing Rob there are no ghosts and now explosive use has become the material component of a spell ?????
    <quoth he with a straight face>Of Course!!!!!!!

    <chuckle>After all, think about all of the "spell work" DOW goes through to produce them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Stan Reber View Post
    That's ala Zäirois in a nutshell until your timing with age gets a tad off and the Suburban takes the lead. I too often wondered on my way back from the airport was my snow-white blazer easier to spot with CD plates and why did that guy throw himself into the road. I missed him and many more.

    Marc will no doubt find some spooky Bravo Sierra herein, so I guess I'll log in again and see what's cooking with this thread.
    Hmmm, let's see if I can get my Spidey-senses tingling..... Nope, have to BS it .

    Folks, this is actually one of the things that I find hardest to teach when I am talking about it in classes. I've spent slightly over 20 years working to get a simple model of it, and I still don't have a good one (maybe I should go back to model planes...). I've found that I can do a condensed version in about 10 hours or so to first year students, but that only scratches the surface. If anyone there is into theory, the problem is in phenomenological topology, and I'm still trying to work out the trasforms on that <wry grin>. I think what is truly frustrating is I can tell people "what" to do or look for, but I can't seem to tell them "why" <sigh>. Maybe Stan has the better solution .

    Marc
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
    Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
    Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
    Senior Research Fellow,
    The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
    Carleton University
    http://marctyrrell.com/

  16. #36
    Council Member marct's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stan Reber View Post
    Great reading. Still trying to reply to the thread, but Marc keeps putting ghosts in and I almost convinced Rob there are no ghosts under his bed
    Nah, not his bed! They're all "in the machine!!!!!"

    Marc

    ps. If you want to see some neat stuff, you should get out into the back woods villages while you are in Estonia. I had a friend from here who told me some really interesting stories <evil grin>
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
    Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
    Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
    Senior Research Fellow,
    The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
    Carleton University
    http://marctyrrell.com/

  17. #37
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Well Stan, I think it safe to say Estonia is out of my jurisdiction. You or Tom said there is another country over there named Latvia??? Stan be careful I don't know who these people are but Bubba says something is wrong with folks that live in Latvia. It's a good bet there are ghosts in Latvia, probably a lot of other stuff to. Stan like your bike. marct, you brought up some good points I will talk about later. I have to go to a meeting now. Later guys.

  18. #38
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default Ghosts in Marc's lesson plan - Go figure

    Marc, I do have a better solution, but nowadays you would be placed into a mental institution for doing so. In 74 our Nike Hurcules electronics instructor was so fed up that he wire our metal top desks to a very large and fully charged capacitor. You rarely went to disneyland, went to sleep or for that matter saw ghosts under Rob's bed

    Honestly, I had to pay for my follow-on education and took it seriously. I have no clue what young folks today consider significant. Even here, it's hard to find someone that can even write using a pencil and pad. The internet managed to teach these folks how to type, and spell checkers preclude the need for an expensive dictionary.

    Slapout,
    Latvia and Lithuania are indeed part of the three Baltics. That's were it begins and ends. All three have very unique customs and languages. Latvia and Lithuania have fewer problems with Russians than that of Estonia. But Estonia's economy and crime problems are far fewer and the US agencies were so confident, they let George come here in November.

    I have no idea if there are vampires in Latvia, but the women like in Estonia are dead knockouts. We use 9.5 as the benchmark and that includes ladies over 40.

    Regards, Stan

  19. #39
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default My Bike

    Slapout, thanks !
    She's a 1990 FXR Superglide with a net worth of 37K. Only the frame is original. The engine is a highly modified 116cid with 168 rear wheel hp and a very expensive 6-speed transmission. My best AHDRA time in Street Pro is 10.22000 at a little over 130 mph 400 yards later. Bungee jumping from a perfectly good bridge - you must be kidding. We say...No straps, no chains, no harnesses, just balls !

    Ride Safe Race Fast !
    Regards, Stan

  20. #40
    Council Member Rob Thornton's Avatar
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    Default

    Nope I just checked- only duffle bags, hand grenades and dust bunnies. I thought Marc had said Djinn weren't ghosts

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