Stranger in a Strange Land - Printable Version

Stranger in a Strange Land - Printable Version

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Stranger in a Strange Land - EndtheMadnessNow - 12-08-2023

I intended to post this last month but got sidetracked, so here goes.

How long until it begins answering questions with slurs and quoting sections of Mein Kampf? What a coincidence that Martian Elon names it "Grok".

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Hitch Hiker's Guide??

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The book title is a quote to the phrase in the King James Version of the Book of Exodus 2:22, "And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land". According to Heinlein, the novel's working title was The Heretic.

In 2010, feminist sci-fi fantasy Welsh-Canadian author Jo Walton denounced the book as sexist, smug and weakly plotted, saying she would not recommend that others read the book. She also won the Hugo award for her 2012 fantasy novel Among Others.

Here is an unflattering review of the Heinlein biography on the Tor Books site by Jo Walton.

Walton was also active in online sci-fi fandom, especially in the Usenet groups rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.sf.fandom. Her poem "The Lurkers Support Me in E-Mail" is widely quoted on it and in other online arguments, often without her name attached.

The Lurkers Support Me in E-mail (To the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean") akin to "How To Participate In An Internet Flame War."

Ok, enough about her...back to the book...

In the preface to the uncut, original version of the book re-issued in 1991, Heinlein's widow, Virginia, wrote: "The given names of the chief characters have great importance to the plot. They were carefully selected: Jubal means "the father of all", Michael stands for "Who is like God?".

Maybe some of you read the book long ago, but this took me off down a left-hand path of mystery hocus pocus as you'll soon see.

The book tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with and eventual transformation of Earth culture. In 2012, the US Library of Congress named it one of 88 "Books that Shaped America".

The character Valentine Michael Smith known as Michael Smith or "Mike", the "Man from Mars" becomes a celebrity and is feted by the Earth's elite. He investigates many religions, including the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation, a populist megachurch in which sexuality, gambling, alcohol consumption, and similar activities are allowed and even encouraged and considered "sinning" only when they are not under church auspices. Smith has a brief career as a magician in a carnival, in which he and Gillian befriend the show's tattooed lady.

Mike starts a Martian-influenced "Church of All Worlds", combining elements of the Fosterite cult with Western esotericism. The church is besieged by Fosterites for practicing "blasphemy", and the church building is destroyed, but unknown to the public, Smith's followers teleport to safety.

One of the characters in the book is Dr. "Stinky" Mahmoud. A semanticist, crew member of the Champion and the second human (after Mike) to gain a working knowledge of the Martian language but does not "grok" the language. He becomes a member of the church while retaining his Muslim faith.

The word "grok", coined in the novel, made its way into the English language. In Heinlein's invented Martian language, "grok" literally means "to drink" and figuratively means "to comprehend", "to love", and "to be one with". The word rapidly became common parlance among science fiction fans, hippies, and later computer programmers and hackers, and has since entered the Oxford English Dictionary.

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Heinlein was surprised that some readers thought the book described how he believed society should be organized, explaining: "I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers ... It is an invitation to think – not to believe."

Now, apply that book to X-Elon fantasies & obsession with Mars and today's UFO cult belief system that is being propagated on our culture which is also steeped in Nazi mysticism which originated well before they came into power and has been churning in our culture for decades. It's nothing new and the only thing new is how our gov't the past 6 years is so engrossed in it.

Of course over the decades all this gets twisted into new cult religions in which Youtube/Twitter/Fakebook/History Channel, etc, etc is saturated with this crap, though some of it when presented/narrated correctly is interesting in a mythos manner.

The 1961 version which, at the publisher's request, Heinlein cut by 25% in length. Approximately 60,000 words were removed from the original manuscript, including some sharp criticism of American attitudes toward sex and religion.

The 1991 version, (3 years after Heinlein died) retrieved from Heinlein's archives in the University of California, Santa Cruz, Special Collections Department by Heinlein's widow, Virginia, and published posthumously, which reproduces the original manuscript and restores all cuts. It came about because in 1989, Virginia renewed the copyright to Stranger and cancelled the existing publication contracts in accordance with the Copyright Act of 1976.

"Stranger in a Strange Land" is included in Billy Joel's 1989 song "We Didn't Start the Fire."

Heinlein himself remarked in a letter he wrote to Oberon Zell-Ravenheart in 1972 that he thought his shorter, edited version was better. Letter from Robert A. Heinlein to Oberon Zell, Green Egg magazine, Vol. XXII. No. 85 (Beltane, 1989).
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Polyamory, Robert Heinlein, and his definitive new biography (scroll down near bottom in comments section)

Green Egg is an active Neopagan magazine currently published quarterly by the Church of All Worlds (CAW). Founded in 1968 by Neopagan writer, speaker and religious leader Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, it became dormant in 1976, before being revived in 1988 by Zell's two wives, Morning Glory Zell and Diane Darling. After ceasing in 2001, the magazine was restarted as an ezine in 2007 and produced 26 issues. In 2020, it was relaunched as an online only publication.

There is mind-boggling number of editions for "Stranger in a Strange Land" from 1961 to 2018, including audiobooks. Between 1961 and 1991, all published editions of this novel contained 160,000 words. From 1991 on, revised editions contain 220,000 words. According to Virginia Heinlein's preface to later editions, the longer text is what Heinlein originally wrote before publisher-requested abridgements.

The 220,000 word version can be downloaded from Archive.org. There are PDF copies all over the web.

STRANGER VS STRANGER: Comparing Versions of Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” - The Heinlein Society

Sects Ed PODCAST Episode 8: Grok and Roll (Church of All Worlds)

The CAW is the first (legal) Pagan Church founded in the US. It was incorporated in 1968 by Tim Zell (now Oberon Zell) and recognized by the IRS in 1970. Oberon read "Stranger in a Strange Land" and was so inspired by the vision of a Nest — a close-knit group seeking a deep knowing of each other — that he brought his vision alive with the CAW. He continued his vision of forming community by founding Green Egg Magazine and the Mythic Images statuary company.

While CAW members express a broad spectrum of personal magicks and beliefs, and among its members are people of various faiths, including the Abrahamic traditions. They have a shared set of values: immanent divinity (expressed as "Thou art God/dess"); self-knowledge and personal responsibility; deep friendship and tribal intimacy; positive sexuality; living in harmony with the natural world, and appreciation of the diverse nature of human beings.

The Church of All Worlds (CAW) operates its own website which you can visit here. Keeping true to its aquatic motif inherited from Stranger in a Strange Land, the website invites you to "Enter and Drink Deep." As mentioned in the podcast, church co-founder Oberon Zell-Ravenheart also founded The Grey School of Wizardry.

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In writing this episode (the vid above), they consulted the following primary and secondary sources, see Grok and Roll Show Notes.

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Plenty more: Sects Ed Podcast Playlist

More wizard talk...
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Episode 26: Oberon Zell-Ravenheart on Paganism, Polyamory, Unicorns, and more

Brother & Sister Rogues you're invited to this Harry Potter school. Well, why not? Invite will be sent to each of you via astral dream. Unfortunately, not all of you may receive, which might be a blessing. LOL!

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Continue...

RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - EndtheMadnessNow - 12-08-2023

The Grey School maintains a virtual campus within the "Second Life" simulation. Dubbed "VGSW" and a physical campus located at 123 Poultney St, Whitehall, New York, which just so happens to be the birthplace of the United States Navy. Behold, the wizard school...

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I was expecting an 18th century gothic Hogwarts style castle. Not impressed.

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"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" plot: The Moon is ready for a revolution, and only a supercomputer with a sense of humor is smart enough to lead it.

If you made it this far I'll leave you with...

Church of the Cosmic Skull - Sorcery & Sabotage (British rock band from Nottingham)

RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Ninurta - 12-09-2023

You know, I've read a lot of Heinlein, but never read Stranger in a Strange Land. I bought a copy of it once, but never got around to reading it, and now that copy has been lost to the mists of time.

However, I consider a review from a feminist that pans the work as "sexist" to be a resounding review and a sterling endorsement of the book as fit for only kings and gods to read.

So I'm going to read it now, secure in the knowledge that it will rise completely over my plebian, merely mortal and explicitly un-royal head.

As far as the AI "Grok" goes, I couldn't give less of a shit and remain breathing. I have no truck with AI, although I am supremely amused by the world's current fascination with it. You'd think it's the 21st century version of pet rocks the way folks slobber all over it!

I don't deal with AI. I did, one time, and that sonofabitch lied to me with a straight face - and I KNEW it was lying - and then it started spamming my e-mail. I can give it enough credit that it knew after a while to stop spamming my e-mail as a wasted effort when I just trashed the communications without bothering to read them. If I want to be lied to, I can just turn on the news.

Matter of fact, the inclusion of AI in a product or service - a rapidly accelerating occurrence these days - is a touchstone I use when deciding whether to buy that product or service. If it includes an AI, and especially if it touts that inclusion as if it were something to be proud of, I automatically pass on it. Like I said, if I wanted to be lied to, I can just turn on the news.

AI is "trained", or "machine learns", the same way any other child does - by sitting quietly and listening as the adults around it talk, and then parroting what it hears them say. Like those other children, it has not yet learned to evaluate a statement for "truth" or veracity. It has not learned to think for itself. So it will lie to you, keeping a straight face, thinking it is telling you the truth... even when it isn't. It's not stupid, it just doesn't know any better, It is like a child.

I'd hate to be around when it hits the teenage years! I'm sure as hell not going to invite it into my house or give it a key to the refrigerator! I have enough problems already!

I can only imagine the "facts" that Grok is going to "learn" by scraping X-Twitter posts!

.

RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - BodhisattvaStyle - 12-09-2023

Okay..., great post with a lot of information.
However,
Ive read this 3 times both top to bottom, as well as bottom to top.

We start with AI.
Then jump to some books.
Then we end up at some wizard school/church.

It's almost feels like three different posts wrapped into one.

I know you've pieced together something truly enlightening here, but for a dyslexic, such as myself, I am unable to piece together what the point is to all of it. Or how it all connects and why.

Could you do me a personal favor and dumb this down for me, and explain how thos all fits together, and why it's relevant to our lives, outside of a good book, a wizard school, and a new self teaching AI, please?

I know this is profound in some way. I'm just lost after reading all of it. Not quite sure how this all fits together, and why we'd want to know.

Why is this important to us? I know you've got something good here. Some of us just aren't that smart. Lol

Thanks, EndtheMadnessNow!

RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Ninurta - 12-09-2023

(12-09-2023, 11:45 AM)BodhisattvaStyle Wrote: ...

We start with AI.
Then jump to some books.
Then we end up at some wizard school/church.

It's almost feels like three different posts wrapped into one.

...

For me, it's like swinging along the vines in the treetops. We have an AI named "Grok". The name "Grok" connects it to the book "A Stranger in a Strange Land", with a lot of information on the book, including where to find a PDF copy of it. The word "grok" is the vine connecting those two trees.

The we have the third tree, the "Wizard School" tree. The connective tissue there is another vine running from the second tree to the third... the guy that founded the school has a new and very weird name from the one he was born to, but he had a friendship with the guy that wrote the book. That friendship is the second vine connecting the second tree to the third.

I'll read the book, but I ain't about to fiddle around with no AI or attend any "Wizard School" All the same, they have connections. It's just a matter of following bread crumbs, but not eating those same crumbs.

Eating the bread crumbs is what got Hansel and Gretel into a world of hurt.

.

RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - kdog - 12-09-2023

The answer is 42

RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - EndtheMadnessNow - 12-10-2023

(12-09-2023, 11:45 AM)BodhisattvaStyle Wrote: Okay..., great post with a lot of information.
However,
Ive read this 3 times both top to bottom, as well as bottom to top.

We start with AI.
Then jump to some books.
Then we end up at some wizard school/church.

It's almost feels like three different posts wrapped into one.

I know you've pieced together something truly enlightening here, but for a dyslexic, such as myself, I am unable to piece together what the point is to all of it. Or how it all connects and why.

Could you do me a personal favor and dumb this down for me, and explain how thos all fits together, and why it's relevant to our lives, outside of a good book, a wizard school, and a new self teaching AI, please?

I know this is profound in some way. I'm just lost after reading all of it. Not quite sure how this all fits together, and why we'd want to know.

Why is this important to us? I know you've got something good here. Some of us just aren't that smart. Lol

Thanks, EndtheMadnessNow!

Sorry about the discombobulated flow. Dovetailing off of Ninurta's post the point is all of it is connected and really nothing new. The only new piece (or new to most of us) is the fancy AI algorithms. Both the black & white magicians new tool for control. If you follow the "bread crumbs" you will end up back in the 50s with all the Gov/mil propaganda, newspeak, UFO religion cults and those making $$ off it.

What we have going on today summed up in a picture is take the Mona Lisa painting and slap a Paul Jackson Pollock 'drip' painting over the top of it.

That's your 2020 Renaissance. All the information is still there amidst the chaos, but how does one make sense of it? Truth, facts become very blurry. How does one find the signal in the noise? Oh, and they been changing the language as we speak too. Even Western esotericism is becoming a new age sludge stew of mysticism.

Whomever is running (financing) the global stage knows that you cannot get a large majority population to accept something that has not yet been revealed. So multiple public facing groups, Orgs, Entertainment sorcerers, to religious & science factions are required to drive people to that one agenda objective. Right, Left, morals & values, Socialism, Fascism, Commies, Populism, all the 'ism's and the Abrahamic religions are the same to the controllers and they finance all sides, use who ever to do their bidding to meet their goals. Manipulation, chaos, misery, poverty, death are all part of their chessboard tools.

What exactly that is (the Endgame, assuming there is one) I do not know, but in time it will be revealed and/or become very obvious to most all. However, prior to any of that happening only you as an individual can awaken, not by force, or coerced, nor by family/friends, only you. For some it takes several years, others a decade, and still others many decades. Usually a true awakening is very painful & depressing but it all depends on one's beliefs & harmony with the real natural world.

And then you'll realize you're "A Stranger in a Strange Land" and just accept it or not. Remember the ruling elites work on generational plans, not like you & me planning a summer vacation. The land of Have's & Have-not's.

The Have's believe they live in utopia but is really dystopia.
The Have-not's live outside the dystopia bubble, free, fresh air but no services. Suits me just fine.

One my favorite 21st century movies on just such a dystopia world is "The Giver" (2014).

Also, I believe people who are age 45-50 & over are not part of the plan. Never were. Social engineering tends not to work very well.

If the so-called AI tools (Grok, ChatGPT, Dall-E, DeepMind, etc.) being deployed on the masses does not work in their favor they'll do something else. Those tools basically collect (scrape) everything from the Internet (conspiracies, dis/misinfo, fantasy fiction to novels, newspeak, white papers, etc.) and most importantly what people are saying (about anything considered hot topics), fed into a giant collection beehive for triage, then dumped into a nuclear powered centrifuge and spewed back out all over the Internet for your consumption. Eat the bugs, and be happy, citizen.

Don't get me wrong, I do try to remain an optimist and believe much of it will fail, morph into something else for better or worse, life will go on albeit some minor annoyances. My posts are more about awareness and not so much about what I think or feel should be important to you or anyone else. What is important is whatever you believe to be important to yourself. We're all human and we're all different, but similar, some are obviously a lot different.

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Oh looky what just showed up on the X menu:

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No, I still will not go paying bluecheck.

RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - BodhisattvaStyle - 12-10-2023

(12-10-2023, 03:52 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote:
(12-09-2023, 11:45 AM)BodhisattvaStyle Wrote: Okay..., great post with a lot of information.
However,
Ive read this 3 times both top to bottom, as well as bottom to top.

We start with AI.
Then jump to some books.
Then we end up at some wizard school/church.

It's almost feels like three different posts wrapped into one.

I know you've pieced together something truly enlightening here, but for a dyslexic, such as myself, I am unable to piece together what the point is to all of it. Or how it all connects and why.

Could you do me a personal favor and dumb this down for me, and explain how thos all fits together, and why it's relevant to our lives, outside of a good book, a wizard school, and a new self teaching AI, please?

I know this is profound in some way. I'm just lost after reading all of it. Not quite sure how this all fits together, and why we'd want to know.

Why is this important to us? I know you've got something good here. Some of us just aren't that smart. Lol

Thanks, EndtheMadnessNow!

Sorry about the discombobulated flow. Dovetailing off of Ninurta's post the point is all of it is connected and really nothing new. The only new piece (or new to most of us) is the fancy AI algorithms. Both the black & white magicians new tool for control. If you follow the "bread crumbs" you will end up back in the 50s with all the Gov/mil propaganda, newspeak, UFO religion cults and those making $$ off it.

What we have going on today summed up in a picture is take the Mona Lisa painting and slap a Paul Jackson Pollock 'drip' painting over the top of it.

That's your 2020 Renaissance. All the information is still there amidst the chaos, but how does one make sense of it? Truth, facts become very blurry. How does one find the signal in the noise? Oh, and they been changing the language as we speak too. Even Western esotericism is becoming a new age sludge stew of mysticism.

Whomever is running (financing) the global stage knows that you cannot get a large majority population to accept something that has not yet been revealed. So multiple public facing groups, Orgs, Entertainment sorcerers, to religious & science factions are required to drive people to that one agenda objective. Right, Left, morals & values, Socialism, Fascism, Commies, Populism, all the 'ism's and the Abrahamic religions are the same to the controllers and they finance all sides, use who ever to do their bidding to meet their goals. Manipulation, chaos, misery, poverty, death are all part of their chessboard tools.

What exactly that is (the Endgame, assuming there is one) I do not know, but in time it will be revealed and/or become very obvious to most all. However, prior to any of that happening only you as an individual can awaken, not by force, or coerced, nor by family/friends, only you. For some it takes several years, others a decade, and still others many decades. Usually a true awakening is very painful & depressing but it all depends on one's beliefs & harmony with the real natural world.

And then you'll realize you're "A Stranger in a Strange Land" and just accept it or not. Remember the ruling elites work on generational plans, not like you & me planning a summer vacation. The land of Have's & Have-not's.

The Have's believe they live in utopia but is really dystopia.
The Have-not's live outside the dystopia bubble, free, fresh air but no services. Suits me just fine.

One my favorite 21st century movies on just such a dystopia world is "The Giver" (2014).

Also, I believe people who are age 45-50 & over are not part of the plan. Never were. Social engineering tends not to work very well.

If the so-called AI tools (Grok, ChatGPT, Dall-E, DeepMind, etc.) being deployed on the masses does not work in their favor they'll do something else. Those tools basically collect (scrape) everything from the Internet (conspiracies, dis/misinfo, fantasy fiction to novels, newspeak, white papers, etc.) and most importantly what people are saying (about anything considered hot topics), fed into a giant collection beehive for triage, then dumped into a nuclear powered centrifuge and spewed back out all over the Internet for your consumption. Eat the bugs, and be happy, citizen.

Don't get me wrong, I do try to remain an optimist and believe much of it will fail, morph into something else for better or worse, life will go on albeit some minor annoyances. My posts are more about awareness and not so much about what I think or feel should be important to you or anyone else. What is important is whatever you believe to be important to yourself. We're all human and we're all different, but similar, some are obviously a lot different.

Oh looky what just showed up on the X menu:

No, I still will not go paying bluecheck.

You just summed up so much more than an OP for me and my quest for truth.

I knew this had more meaning to me than I was seeing when I first read that.

All I can say at this time is, the Lord sure does work in mysterious ways.

Thank you. This was more help than you know.