What the **** do we know?
WARNING: mild spoilers for “What the BLEEP Do We Know” follow.
Last night I was feeling very ancy after work. I had just read a political
story that that really irritated me and I was having a hard time winding down.
Kelly called up and asked if I’d like to come over and watch a movie she had,
“What the BLEEP do we know?” I’d heard good things about it so I grabbed some
stuff to make dinner and went over there.
It was a great movie, just what I needed. It was about the mysteries of quantum
physics, probability and free will and the effects of self-determination on our
lives. Plus it featured Marlee Matlin, who has got to be one of the most
attractive actresses I’ve ever seen.
It had the format of an extended documentary/after school special kind of piece.
They kept flashing to interviews with various people who spoke with the air of
authority on whatever subject they were discussing. Some of them were
professors or researchers. One was this very imposing woman who spoke with
great conviction and persuasive force. I commented to Kelly at one point that
the woman could easily be a cult leader - she had a very simple but charismatic
way about her.
Well, when it got to the end of the movie and the showed who each person was,
that woman was billed as Ramtha. Ramtha! Dude! It’s been years since I’ve
heard from you! Where you been hiding, man?
I heard about Ramtha about fifteen years ago when I was in college and going
through my cult interest phase. “Ramtha” is not the name of the woman, but of
the spirit she channels. Ramtha is actually a guy, one of the high priests of
Lemuria and ruler of Atlantis or something like that. He’s been dead for 35,000
years, but he found this nice woman in California to channel through.
But then things got kind of ugly, because a German began channeling Ramtha too,
and the human conduits had to have this ugly court battle which ended up with
the German courts giving what amounts to copyright of Ramtha’s spirit to the
American.
(I am not even making any of this up.)
But, all whackiness aside, it was a great movie. And the comments that Ramtha
made can be judged on their own merits. But it was kind of funny to find
her/him speaking alongside physicists.
You really should see this movie, if only for the “Party Time” sequence that
happens about 3/4 of the way through the movie. It’s priceless.
April 2nd, 2005 at 10:15 pm
Oddly enough, I just finished watching that movie too. Definately contains much for the “not only is the universe stranger than we imagine… ” file.
April 3rd, 2005 at 3:23 pm
Haven’t seen the movie, but everything I have heard about it says that they play fast and loose with science.
Example:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic10-01-04.html
And there was a good review of the science in a copy of Scientific American that came out about 6-7 months ago.
Ciao!
April 3rd, 2005 at 3:44 pm
Dave, I hate to be the devil’s advocate, but take a look at this: http://skepdic.com/channel.html#bleep. I thought the reviewer’s final comment was extremely revealing. I haven’t seen the movie, but have read and heard quite a bit about it (it was, as you might expect, a big hit in Santa Fe).