#625: Maxine Dietrich

A.k.a. Andrea Herrington (real name)

Maxine Dietrich is the founder of Joy of Satan, which is a noe-nazi satanic UFO cult, and yes, you read that right (the website is here), and off we go. According to Dietrich, her brand of spiritual Satanism differs from other religions in that everything can apparently be explained scientifically, including the astral plane, our souls, telepathy, magic experiences, and the very real, anthropomorphic deity she worships (Satan is not “evil”; “good” and “evil” are “nothing more than cultural concepts; Satan transcends this,” which, though it is a feeble attempt at postmodern relativism, makes no real sense). How does science explain her religion? “Our limited understanding of Quantum Physics has revealed a bit about the human soul.”

Ah, I see.

“How”, you may ask – though you probably won’t, since you probably suspect that you won’t get a particularly informative answer. Anyways, here goes Dietrich”s scientific, quantum explanation of it all: According to Dietrich “Kirlian Photography” reveals “the fact that we have an aura. Kirlian photography is a specialized form of photography, along the same lines as x-ray imaging.” I don’t suppose it really surprised you that Dietrich would be unable to distinguish science from incoherent woo, or distinguish scientific evidence from idle speculation (there is also this)?

Furthermore, according to Dietrich, “the U.S. Government and other world powers are well aware of this ability within humans and the reality of psychic warfare, though they keep much of this from the public.” The Catholic Church, for instance, is a Jewish conspiracy – according to Dietrich, all of their leaders are really Jews, and aliens are behind Christianity – in particular, Christianitly was instigated by a group she refers to as “the Intergalactic Federation (IGF)” (these guys – they don’t seem very nice). Christianity itself was their program “for the destruction of Aryan peoples”. Furthermore “Satan and the Original Gods are from Orion. The IGF is at war with Orion.” I guess that explains a lot. Poor Orion.

I think I’ll let readers rummage through that webpage for themselves (this quote is telling). Its crazy is fascinating in a Gene Ray-sense. It is admittedly hard to find any reliable information about the size of Dietrich’s church or the extent of her brand of theistic satanism, but it doesn’t seem to be too influential.

Dietrich’s husband, Clifford Herrington, used to be the leader of the National Socialist Movement. The connection between Herrington and satanism has at least made Hal Turner uncomfortable, but then Turner was an uncomfortable man to begin with.

Diagnosis: Fascinating, though her webpage design really gives her away from the start.

#604: Ed Dames

A.k.a. “Dr. Doom”

The absolutely legendary Major Edward Dames is a retired US Army soldier who worked as a remote viewer in Project Star Gate and was trained by the equally legendary Ingo Swann (though Dames quickly became known as “extreme”, having target sessions on Mars, Atlantis, and alien spacecrafts). After he left the military Dames founded the company Psi Tech to offer his remote viewing services to the general public. Much hilarity would ensue, though Dames has not yet quite got the joke.

For these purposes Dames teamed up with Harry Deligter, a guy who ran a company producing videos on paranormal subjects. The companionship ended in a court settlement after Dames ran off with some of Deligter’s material and tried to produce them with his own employee F.M. Bonsall. After the court case Dames was apparently forced to retire, and his ex-wife Joni Dourif took over Psi Tech (no, I haven’t quite managed to disentangle the various intertwined narratives here). So Dames founded another company, the TRV intstitute. Somewhat later, according to Psi Tech’s new CEO Dane Spotts, Bonsall would break into Dourif’s house and steal lots of material that he would bring to Dames.

Psi Tech is still running, though, and offers paranormal assistance for instance to criminal investigations, as exemplified by (Spotts, Dourif, and others) making profound fools of themselves in the Elizabeth Smart case (also here). Their product is demolished by Randi here, but they nevertheless continue to offer educational opportunities, in more or less complete disregard of the fact that no remote viewer has ever been close to figuring out anything whatsoever.

Ok, that’s the rough background story. Remote viewing apparently involves viewing not only distant locations but also the future, and Dames has made a name for himself predicting large-scale disasters and destruction (hence the “Dr. Doom” alias, though something in the vicinity of “Nostra-Dames” would have been equally daft). Among the more interesting predictions is the claim that the world would be destroyed by alien fungus spores in 1998, as well as “the killshot: […] a series of powerful, deadly solar flares which will be impacting the Earth in the near future.” As evidence that he actually has the ability to see the future he offers the alleged fact that two remote viewerseach won the “Texas Pick Three” lottery twice. In 1993 Dames declared that he and his team had remote-viewed UFOs landing in the New Mexico desert, and that the desert is home to colonies of hibernating aliens. Furthermore, there were alien-human hybrid children in existence “not far from Earth.”

Dames is of course a mainstay on Coast to Coast AM, and particularly respected for his continued commitment to “evidence” for various theories that Art Bell has admitted to having fabricated (though it is easy to see Dames’s predicament: Bell makes a claim, Dames concurs and claims that he has remote-viewed what Bell claims to have seen; then Bell admits that he made it up … what is Dames supposed to do?)

If you want to do some remote viewing yourself, you can always buy TRV’s Magical Technical Remote Viewing Pen (now “anyone can learn this formally top secret skill and for less than a dollar convert an ordinary pen into a magic pen worth millions”). There is a fair and balanced review of said item here). On TRV ‘News’ you can furthermore learn that if you attend TRV University “… you will be trained along with the best and brightest minds on the planet” to use your Magic Pen to be able to “accurately sketch a nuclear weapon located inside a mountain in China, thousands of miles away” (wtf?) and “probe the mind of Osama bin Laden in real time, uncovering his current intent and next move.” (this was written before bin Laden’s demise, but I am not sure that would have mattered much). The “university” offers you a certification: “Having the Technical Remote Viewing Certification guarantees you a certain level of credibility amongst the law enforcements, amongst science and technology – who already know about us by the way.” I suppose. Whatever.

A too generous but comprehensive description of the failures of Ed Dames can be found here.

Among Dames’s pupils and, I suppose, TRV University alumni you will find the absolutely incredibly insane Aaron C. Hanson.

Diagnosis: Incorrigibly out of touch with anything but his highly incoherent imagination, Dames still manages to collect money enough to keep things going. Dangerous insofar as he panders to people in desperate situations, although the world would admittedly be a less colorful place without him and his helpless attempts to locate himself anywhere close to reality.

#575: Clifford Clift & MUFON

The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) is one of the oldest and largest organizations devoted to investigating cases of reported UFO sightings, and it operates a worldwide network of regional directors for field investigation, holds an annual international symposium, and publishes the monthly MUFON UFO Journal. Its stated mission is “the scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity through investigations, research and education,” but the “scientific” part of it is, shall we say, not unencumbered by confirmation bias and crackpottery (their website even provides its own Humpty-Dumpty definition of “scientific study”, just to make sure). The organization is currently based in Ohio, and directed by Clifford Clift (actually, as of present the presidency seems to have been yielded to one Dave McDonald, so I suppose Clift must count as ”former director”). They also have various state chapters and regional directors, and it is not unlikely that Barbara Delozier, listed as State Section Director Northwest, is the same as Barbara Delozier, Dolphyn Wisdom of the Ancient, Metaphysical Minister, who runs the My Psychic Friends network.

It is in fact rather charming how MUFON in their communications try to dress up their already given conclusion in a language that is notionally open to skepticism, without really allowing for the possibility that their conclusions are wrong (an example is here, and another one – presented by one James Carrion – is here, though Carrion has later left MUFON and denounced the project because of its badly conducted investigations, a total lack of evidence, and less than scientifically-minded approach to the questions). Now, MUFON does like to complain that they aren’t taken seriously by mainstream science, just like cryptozoologists, bigfooters, and the Intelligent Design crowd are not taken seriously by the scientific establishment and for equally obvious reason. The problem is of course that despite their official stance MUFON is in practice little more than an UFO cult for the crazy and the conspiracy theorists (i.e. the crazy). A report from one of their meetings is here, and illustrates that point rather splendidly. Another fasinating five-part expository of one of their meetings can be found here.

Diagnosis: Cultlike collection of crackpots who desperately try to pass as rational inquirers. Their failure is pretty complete.

#574: J.R. Church & Gary Stearman

J.R. Church was a ravingly, frothingly mad fundie who “has a passion for discovering the deeper truths in the Word,” which means that Church peddled the delectable combination of hardcore Taliban fanaticism with hardcore conspiracy theories that might have made even Alex Jones pause (though his companion Gary Stearman has actually appeared on, you guessed it, the Alex Jones show). As a matter of fact, Church appears to have passed away relatively recently, though we decided to include the entry anyway given that his stalwart companion and faithful disciple Gary Stearman is still promoting the madness.

Among Church’s numerous books you’ll find such gems as Hidden Prophecies in the Psalms, Guardians of the Grail: And the Men Who Plan to Rule the World, Hidden Prophecies in the Song Of Moses, and Daniel Reveals the Bloodline of the Antichrist. Guardians of the Grail is his most famous one. In it Church explored the legend of the Holy Grail and deluded himself into imagining links between the Knights Templar, Priory of Sion, the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, House of Theosophy, and modern Mormonism. The book also discusses the way mankind will be deceived into accepting worldwide enslavement under the guise of “peace and prosperity” by the Antichrist and his establishment.

With Gary Stearman (author of the probably fascinating Time Travelers of the Bible: How Hebrew Prophets Shattered the Barriers of Time-Space) Church used to run the website Prophecy in the News (also a magazine), where you can read about the 200 fallen angels that according to the Book of Enoch descended to the top of Mt. Hermon before Noah’s flood – these corrupt angels entered Earth through a “space portal” and proceeded to pollute the human genome, and they are connected to the UFO crash in Roswell. The website also offers you some astrology under the title “the Gospel in the Stars”. Bob Ulrich’s book reviews are also interesting if you ever considered paying them a visit.

In the August 2011 issue, for instance, you can read about Stearman’s UFO experiences, followed by “What does the Bible say about UFOs”. I’m not sure any commentary is needed.

Here’s J.R. Church raving on the “Blood Moon Eclipse”, together with our old friend Mark Biltz,

Diagnosis: Ravingly insane, both of them. Probably relatively harmless when push comes to shove, however.

#532: Courtney Brown

Courtney Brown is a social scientist at Emory University also known for promoting the use of nonlinear mathematics in social scientific research but, more widely, the use and efficacy of remote viewing, a form of extra-sensory perception explored featured in the documentary Men who stare at goats.

Brown's research into the latter has received notable positive reviews from other advocates of psychic powers such as Fred Alan Wolf, William A. Tiller, and Daryl Bem. The claims have been dismissed by all serious scientists, of course, and Brown’s supporting evidence has been described as “singularly unimpressive” by his colleague Scott Lillienfeld (the link is to a pretty darn good assessment). Brown has refused to subject his ideas and his own purported psychic powers to independent scientific testing on what has been described as “curious” grounds (see previous link)

In his book Cosmic Voyages: A Scientific Discovery of Extraterrestrials Visiting Earth, Brown claims to use powers of remote viewing to visit Mars and observe the actions of aliens. He purports to have uncovered indisputable evidence that two races of extraterrestrials, Martians and Greys, left the red planet centuries ago and have taken up residence in the dark recesses of Earth. His powers have furthermore revealed that Adam and Eve were architects of a genetic engineering project and that numerous Star Trek episodes were written with the assistance of aliens; he claims to have “entered the mind” of an extraterrestrial and investigated its psychological make-up, and to have conversed with Jesus about various topics.

By contractual agreement Brown is not permitted to mention his affiliation with Emory during interviews about remote viewing.

Brown has augmented his scientific training with studies of Transcendental Meditation, the TM-Sidhi program, as well as Yogic Flying (also here) at the Golden Dome of Pure Knowledge at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield. He himself directs the “Farsight Institute” in Atlanta, where he promises to provide attendees with the psychic abilities he himself has mastered.

Diagnosis: Since “fraud” has a clear legal definition and should not be applied lightly, we will instead suggest that Brown’s actions – insofar it is not the case that he does indeed believe his own claims – are borderline ethically questionable.