Pat Parker: "Psy-Ki-Do"

Anybody else seen the movie "The Men Who Stare At Goats"?
While I have read the book, Pat Parker from Mokuren Dojo saw the movie last week, so he wanted to team up and do a little guest posting here on Dojo Rat.
Here's my last post on the book, reposted on Zimbo (I don't understand why, but the previous Blogger post only comes up in some kind of html).
--So here's Pat Parker from Mokuren Dojo:

Psy-ki-do - Inciting Blind Rage

Pat Parker here from Mokuren Dojo. Dojo Rat has been kind enough to agree to let me pollute his blog with my crazy ideas. Today, inspired by the movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats, I have an interesting little experiment in psychological violence for you.

Have you ever noticed that blog comments that contain direct quotes more often seem like an attack? When someone quotes what you say (or write) but slightly twists the inflection or connotation or meaning of of your words, you tend to perceive that more negatively and you tend to respond more vigorously to that sort of blog comment? You can use this phenomenon to your advantage.
Have you ever noticed that the scariest, most troublesome attackers are the calm, cool, collected, ruthless, careful ones - the ones that carefully dissect you? The ones that leap at you in a blind rage are relatively easy to deal with. You can use this phenomenon to your advantage.
If a conflict is imminent and you want the attacker to have greater energy and commitment (perhaps even to the point of blind rage), then repeat whatever they say to you verbatim, but change the tone or inflection of 1-2 words at random. Perhaps rephrase everything they say as a question. It works like this:
Them: "Hey, jerk!"
You: "Hey _jerk_?"
Them:" Yeah, you! I'm gonna kick your ass!"
You: "_You're_ gonna kick _my_ ass?"
Them: "You'd better kiss your ass goodbye!"
You: "You want _me_ to kiss my ass goodbye?"
If you practice this a few times on your buddies then you should be able to see the tension level in them rising after 1-2 of these exchanges and you can probably have them literally hopping mad after about 3-4 exchanges. Even if you hope to never get into a fight and you know for certain you'd never do this to anyone, it can be fun and instructive to try this with your buddies. If you don't learn anything else from it, it will make you more aware of this funny glitch in your wiring so that you don't explode on someone next time they throw some direct quotes at you.

Disclaimer - Don't get into fights - nobody ever really wins them. But if you do get into a fight you might be better off if the guy is in a blind, unthinking rage. If you make that decision then this technique might work for you. But if you try it, don't blame me if you get your ass handed to you. When you sew the wind, you may reap the whirlwind!

(D.R.)-- Aw Pat, don't get into fights? Nobody can see it when you hit them with your mind!

Be sure and swing over to Mokuren Dojo for some of the best Aikido and Judo analysis on the net!

Movie: The Men Who Stare At Goats

Oh my freakin' DNA, I gotta see this movie!
A while back I read Jon Ronson's "The Men Who Stare At Goats", and loved it. For some reason the original Blogger post can't be recovered but it is mirrored on Zimbo HERE
--Obviously the movie doesn't follow the same thread as the book, but it looks hilarious. Here's a copy of my original book review from several years ago:

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Pat over at Mokuren Dojo posted This Review of Richard Strozzi-Heckler's book "In Search Of The Warrior Spirit", a book I had recommended because Aikido is part of the theme. As Pats review suggests, the book touches on the difficulty of an Aikido instructor's experiance teaching a group of Green Berets in a special military program. This program used sensitivity and bio-feedback in an attempt to create a super-soldier. Heckler obviously did not realize how deep the entire program went, which is detailed in Jon Ronson's "The Men Who Stare At Goats". Ronson gives the entire (unclassified) background of "The First Earth Battalion", which used Psychic Spies and other unorthodox warfare with mixed results. For instance, assassin training included developing photographic memories, to walk into a room and know at an instant where every pencil, chair, ashtray or other potential weapon lay, down to minute details. The title refers to a special lab, "The Goat Lab", where a large group of goats were kept. The subject would concentrate his psychic energy on one goat, and kill it while sitting in a room nearby. It is not exactly clear how well this worked, but Ronson's sources said at times it was performed successfully. You can see the obvious implications of this. Ronson travels across the country, interviewing people who were involved in the secret program, including martial artists that train assassins.
Now, most of us don't go for this Woo-Woo side of the martial arts, which borders on the occult. None-the-less, the military (and not just ours) is involved in this stuff. Here is a post from last January I did on "No Touch Knockouts" Which I have witnessed, performed by various Masters, with mixed results. There is a guy on YouTube who is offering thousands of dollars to anyone who can do one of these "no touch knockouts" to him, and I don't think he has had any takers.
The bottom line is, the U.S. military thinks this stuff may work, and has been involved in these types of training programs. I have read accounts of the Russians, who have been ahead of the Americans in all things Psychic, training their elite killers in this also.
Ronson's book opens a view into a dark world of Psuedo-science and the military-occult industrial complex. It takes up where Heckler's "In Search Of The Warrior's Spirit leaves off. "The Men Who Stare At Goats" is a quick read and is suprisingly humorous, considering the subject. It's also chock-full of martial artists that he interviews along the way.

And for those who are fans of Stephen Colbert, check out his interview with Jon Ronson, where Stephen attempts to stare a goat to death!

Psychic Warriors

"The Men Who Stare At Goats" by Jon Ronson

Well, for some reason the original post I did on this subject has disappeared into cyberspace, but I will try to rescue it and repost it here.
******
This week in Las Vegas there will be a meeting of psychic spies, a classified military unit that had mixed results but broadly expanded the role of metaphysics in the U.S. military.
The book above, "The Men Who Stare At Goats" refers to a lab where Army psychic soldiers attempted to kill goats with mind power, and author Ronson details many other tests and programs - some that included Martial Artists.
The Las Vegas meeting will be hosted by retired Col. John Alexander, who has mixed feelings about the new movie coming out that is based on the book, there is a link to Alexander's thoughts and more details at THIS LINK.
Another man involved in the project, Col. Jim Channon, was tasked out to go to Guru's, Hippie Communes, Martial Arts schools and other modes of esoterica to study technology that would allow the military to "think out of the box".
Here's part of an interview with Channon:

--I look foward to seeing the movie, which stars George Clooney, and it should be out soon. Here's the previous post I wrote on Ronson's book, as I said it has disappeared into cyberspace (interesting, eh?):
*******
The Men Who Stare At Goats

Pat over at Mokuren Dojo posted This Review of Richard Strozzi-Heckler's book "In Search Of The Warrior Spirit", a book I had reccomended because Aikido is part of the theme. As Pats review suggests, the book touches on the difficulty of an Aikido instructor's experiance teaching a group of Green Berets in a special military program. This program used sensitivity and bio-feedback in an attempt to create a super-soldier. Heckler obviously did not realize how deep the entire program went, which is detailed in Jon Ronson's "The Men Who Stare At Goats". Ronson gives the entire (unclassified) background of "The First Earth Battalion", which used Psychic Spies and other unorthodox warfare with mixed results. For instance, assassin training included developing photographic memories, to walk into a room and know at an instant where every pencil, chair, ashtray or other potential weapon lay, down to minute details. The title refers to a special lab, "The Goat Lab", where a large group of goats were kept. The subject would concentrate his psychic energy on one goat, and kill it while sitting in a room nearby. It is not exactly clear how well this worked, but Ronson's sources said at times it was performed successfully. You can see the obvious implications of this. Ronson travels across the country, interviewing people who were involved in the secret program, including martial artists that train assassins.
Now, most of us don't go for this Woo-Woo side of the martial arts, which borders on the occult. None-the-less, the military (and not just ours) is involved in this stuff. Here is a post from last January I did on "No Touch Knockouts" Which I have witnessed, performed by various Masters, with mixed results. There is a guy on YouTube who is offering thousands of dollars to anyone who can do one of these "no touch knockouts" to him, and I don't think he has had any takers.
The bottom line is, the U.S. military thinks this stuff may work, and has been involved in these types of training programs. I have read accounts of the Russians, who have been ahead of the Americans in all things Psychic, training their elite killers in this also.
Ronson's book opens a view into a dark world of Psuedo-science and the military-occult industrial complex. It takes up where Heckler's "In Search Of The Warrior's Spirit leaves off. "The Men Who Stare At Goats" is a quick read and is suprisingly humorous, considering the subject. It's also chock-full of martial artists that he interviews along the way.

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Pat over at Mokuren Dojo posted This Review of Richard Strozzi-Heckler's book "In Search Of The Warrior Spirit", a book I had reccomended because Aikido is part of the theme. As Pats review suggests, the book touches on the difficulty of an Aikido instructor's experiance teaching a group of Green Berets in a special military program. This program used sensitivity and bio-feedback in an attempt to create a super-soldier. Heckler obviously did not realize how deep the entire program went, which is detailed in Jon Ronson's "The Men Who Stare At Goats". Ronson gives the entire (unclassified) background of "The First Earth Battalion", which used Psychic Spies and other unorthodox warfare with mixed results. For instance, assassin training included developing photographic memories, to walk into a room and know at an instant where every pencil, chair, ashtray or other potential weapon lay, down to minute details. The title refers to a special lab, "The Goat Lab", where a large group of goats were kept. The subject would concentrate his psychic energy on one goat, and kill it while sitting in a room nearby. It is not exactly clear how well this worked, but Ronson's sources said at times it was performed successfully. You can see the obvious implications of this. Ronson travels across the country, interviewing people who were involved in the secret program, including martial artists that train assassins.
Now, most of us don't go for this Woo-Woo side of the martial arts, which borders on the occult. None-the-less, the military (and not just ours) is involved in this stuff. Here is a post from last January I did on "No Touch Knockouts" Which I have witnessed, performed by various Masters, with mixed results. There is a guy on YouTube who is offering thousands of dollars to anyone who can do one of these "no touch knockouts" to him, and I don't think he has had any takers.
The bottom line is, the U.S. military thinks this stuff may work, and has been involved in these types of training programs. I have read accounts of the Russians, who have been ahead of the Americans in all things Psychic, training their elite killers in this also.
Ronson's book opens a view into a dark world of Psuedo-science and the military-occult industrial complex. It takes up where Heckler's "In Search Of The Warrior's Spirit leaves off. "The Men Who Stare At Goats" is a quick read and is suprisingly humorous, considering the subject. It's also chock-full of martial artists that he interviews along the way.