Coming, Fall 2008 - Earth Pilgrims, the beginning of a documentary series about a global pilgrimage to sacred sites featuring the world’s most respected environmental gurus and “alternative” thinkers.
This is fancy stuff: a very slick website, and contributors such as the much-admired Jain monk and anti-nuclear activist Satish Kumar whose Resurgence Trust has the support of some of Britain’s leading rich chatterers.
Who else is on board? Noted ethnobotanist Wade Davis, who is National Geographic’s “explorer in residence” (sic); the musician and sociologist Tito la Rosa; and the poet and expert on Sufism Coleman Banks.
And Graham Hancock. Uh-oh.
Something tells me this pilgrimage might lead us deep into the land of Counterknowledge – and, yup, so it turns out.
The director of the series, Echan Deravy, is a Scottish-born former real estate developer and acupuncturist who has made a good living out of taking Japanese tourists to Machu Picchu.
This is how his website describes him:
He was the first to bring remote viewing training to Japan and to teach it to hundreds over the next nine years in Japanese. Long before crop circle books were being written he was in the ‘field’ with Japanese actually feeling the crop transformation up close and personal. Whether it was diving with cetaceans or exploring ancient temples his adventurous spirit drew literally hundreds to participate in world seminars and literally millions to hear his message via the internet and television.
Since 2002 his corporation Maranatha Japan has done translation, interpretation, publication, and media appearances as part of his mission to assist Japanese in becoming sovereign individuals capable of making theor own informational choices. The ongoing central work of public speaking has resulted in much more high profile creativity. Audiences around Japan now look to Echan for hints about what is likely to be happening in the next few years as human consciousness obviously has to evolve if we are to survive. I mean if this is not obvious then there would in fact be no market for Echan’s unique brand of transformative communication. He is a “talking shaman” who takes the job very seriously yet evokes a great deal of laughter at his events.
I’ll bet. I’ve been having a good laugh, too, finding out about the “Earth Pilgrims”, though the more I read the queasier I feel.
Stay tuned for more information.
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14 responses
From the website:
“The pilgrims are wanderers in the invisible landscape of the heart.”
Real Crocodile Dundee stuff.
Echan’s blog is a classic - you try finding a piece of Counterknowledge bollocks that *isn’t* in there.
The one uniting factor in this sort of thing is the insistence that ‘Mother Earth’ isn’t feeling at all well. The implication is that the entire planet, to its hot, radioactive core, is an organism. Either these people don’t know life is a very thin layer on a big ball of non-living matter, or more likely they don’t care about a boring old fact.
That said, I just watched a DVD of the old Hammer movie ‘X The Unknown’ , in which it turns out that the earth’s core is full of life. Perhaps I should refer the pilgrims to it.
Colonialist elitist racist attitude to the “lesser” races who are clearly underdeveloped and incapable of looking after themselves: “part of his mission to assist Japanese in becoming sovereign individuals capable of making theor own informational choices”.
Newage enlightened attitude to other peoples: “part of his mission to assist Japanese in becoming sovereign individuals capable of making theor own informational choices”.
Yup, the racism is staggering – I think this guy needs plenty of exposure, but not of the variety he normally enjoys.
And yet this highly evolved mind doesn’t know how to use a spell checker, apparently. Or is ‘theor’ a new age term?
@valdemar: well, my Northern cousins used to address me as th’Eor…
‘He is a “talking shaman” who takes the job very seriously yet evokes a great deal of laughter at his events.’
Two responses come to mind:
(1) Are other shaman (shamen?) trappists?
(2) Do people laugh at him or with him?
Thanks for the link to the website, Damian. Cant wait to read it.
Rifty
To be perfectly honest, I think Satish Kumar and the Resurgence Trust sound very dignified and not at all the sort of thing I’d clasify as counterknowledge. Or the sort of thing I’d feel comfortable ridiculing at all. Now as for Graham Hancock……
No, I’m not claiming that Satish Kumar disseminates counterknowledge - I’m asking what the hell he is doing lending his name to this enterprise, some of whose “pilgrims” peddle garbage.
oo err, i see the film is due out in Spring 2009, will it be competing with the new Star Trek movie?
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