#627: Joseph "Joe" Dispenza

Joseph Dispenza is an author of several fluffy New-Age snowflake bullshit self-help books, and is particularly notable for his appearance in the deranged piece of pseudo-science delusion “What the Bleep do we know”. Dispenza, who presents himself as "Dr. Dispenza", is the proud possessor of a “Doctor of Chiropractic degree” from Life University, and currently seems to be in the “miraculous healing” business. He is also a follower of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, and has produced several Youtube videos in which he talks about quantum physics the way he sees it, which has nothing to do with quantum physics (Dispenza really doesn’t even have the faintest idea what quantum physics is), but a lot to do with gibberish centered around various ridiculous forms of woo and crackpot spirituality crap.

If you enjoy torturing yourself with fluffy fogbanks of pink-tinged drivel, you may check out his DVD series “Your Immortal Brain,” which allegedly “looks at the ways in which the human brain can be used to create reality through the mastery of thought” – which does not mean anything (alludes to the Secret), but that doesn’t seem to matter much to Dispenza; like quantum physics linguistic meaning appears to be just whatever Dispenza fancies it to be at any given moment.

Diagnosis: Pretentious, delusional puddinghead who is apparently convinced that what he thinks becomes reality in virtue of him thinking it. Otherwise Dispenza doesn’t care too much about reality.

#218: Judy Zebra “JZ” Knight

A.k.a. Judith Darlene Hampton
A.k.a. Ramtha

Ramtha is, according to the press releases, a dead guy who led a huge army to conquer two thirds of the earth some 35,000 years ago. His main opponents were the Atlanteans, and the battle apparently led to huge, cataclysmic disasters. As a token of his goodwill, Ramtha is currently warning us about similar cataclysmic changes in the near future, so apparently we have to prepare. Ramtha also seems to have remarkable insights into various conspiracies, illuminati-type, ruling the world at the moment, and very up-to-date (read “trendy”) new age fads, including quantum woo and “the Secret”-style fluff and snowflakes magical thinking (“you are God” is one of Ramtha’s messages to mankind).

Being dead is no hindrance to spreading the word, and Ramtha is letting himself be channeled by JZ Knight (of Yelm, Washington), who makes a living selling books containing Ramtha’s advice and various healing trinkets (with her husband, James Flick). More here.

To help spread Ramtha’s important messages to mankind, Knight also opened Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment (rather a cult, really) which takes approximately 6000 students yearly and teaches them to utilize their inner wisdom and create their own reality (post-modernism is the best friend of stuff like this). Among the important courses offered is “breathing”, which seems less interesting than the various classes focusing on drug use (through which the students are sent on their to becoming as "enlightened" as other shamans, or even "real magicians" who can alter the world and reality at will). Among the powers good students will obtain are (seriously!) raising the dead, freezing a rocket in mid-air, make gold appear out of thin air, and predicting the future. It is unknown whether the school has produced any GPA above 2.0 yet. Eventually psychic progress will lead to "ascension" of the body into the "Void", what Knight calls the ultimate spiritual state (an uncanny version of “graduation” it seems). Students also learn psychokinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance, other ESP skills, and that HIV is nature’s way to get rid of homosexuality. To ensure obedience, the school teaches that “unless students remain faithful to Ramtha, they will become prey of the "lizard people", and that the ancient figure of Jehovah would return to earth accompanied by lizard people, in a spaceship” (no kidding!). The school’s official webpage is here; their newsletter is here. It’s a little difficult to find the school’s faculty and staff, but former teachers have included the Wayne Allen Geis, Ruth Beverly Martin, spiritual teacher Whitewind Weaver (whom Knight later sued), and school administrator Mike Wright.

Somewhat controversially, Knight has encouraged her students to engage in tax evasion (since the government is an illusion and the US will be invaded by Chinese communists right away).

Among the school’s more successful ventures was the creation of the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know”.

J.Z. Knight was previously heavily promoted by the clinically delusional Shirley MacLaine.

As an interesting aside, Don & Carol Croft (covered earlier) seem to think that she is some kind of front for alien lizard people, Tavistock and the Rothschild family, and (like many psychics) is secretly working to open some time tunnels or other. They talk about “Ramtha hives” of lizard people. It is not completely clear and has something to do with Montauk and Al Bielek (also covered earlier) – try to make sense of it yourself; also covered in this, uh, remarkable diary.

Diagnosis: The very queen of new age insanity, one step up from Deepak Chopra. Severely mentally challenged, and in fact rather dangerous.

#68: Betsy Chasse

Producer, director and screenwriter for “What the bleep do we know” (together with, among others, the irretrievably lunatic William Arntz), Betsy Chasse is also an escapee from Ramtha’s school of enlightenment. She also runs Eloramedia, ”which offers spiritually oriented, motivational books, videos and music for children of all ages – adults included! She is a highly sought after speaker on such subjects as spirituality, the blending of science and spirituality, and marketing to the cultural creative demographic.”

A sympathetic interview can be found here. Among other things, it reveals that Chasse is ”infamous For: Driving scientists up the wall by claiming water's atomic structure can be changed by bad thoughts - and heavy metal music”. Indeed.

Chasse admits that before she started the film she didn't know anything about quantum physics. She learned from this film is that it's up to her, however: ”I am the creator of my own reality. I am responsible for my own self. By taking on that responsibility it's really empowered me to do great things in my life.” In other words, everything she knows about quantum physics she’s learned from the film she made about it without knowing anything in advance. A potent recipe for creative belief formation. A fair and succinct review of the movie is found here.

Diagnosis: Chasse lives and breathes on confirmation bias in its most purefied form – indeed, the whole message of What the bleep can be summed up as a defense of confirmation bias as a method of inquiry. The impact of the movie was big, but Chasse is probably soon forgotten. All the better.

#7: William Arntz

Our seventh loon is the unfortunately influential filmmaker William Arntz.

Arntz is the Producer, Director, and Screenwriter of the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know”, perhaps the most influential piece of dreadfully cranky quantum-woo ever produced. It's complete gibberish; confirmation bias, lunacy and wishful thinking dressed up in pseudo-scientific language. Arntz is a graduate of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment (yes: channeling, pyramidology, numerology, tinfoil hats, you name it), and a radical, utterly flaky New-Ager whose dishonesty is presumably a consequence of solid confirmation bias and gullibility rather than malice.

Diagnosis: Flapdoodler with a clinical lack of critical thinking skills, complete idiot; currently enjoys rather large influence through his work, however.