Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[LMNO]

4) i'd like you guys thoughts about the thing he says somewhere further in the book, about that mass religious experience that 100.000 people saw and was some sort of 5th or 6th circuit mass illumination that was supposedly well-documented and explain by carl sagan as "100.000 people hallucinating the same thing" .. if it is true what he says, it's quite amazing. what exactly happened?

No one knows.  That's the point.

[Cain]

That was Fatima, right?

[LMNO]

Either that, or something much like it.


Personally, I think RAW's point was, "the EXPERTS can't possibly know everything that goes on in this world."

[Cain]

True, but that also doesn't mean we should take the word of a sexually frustrated bigot who believes he is the representative of an imaginary Jewish superhero that lives in the sky and his adoring cultists as to the events, either.

[LMNO]

Unless that person is ME, of course.






[edit: of course not.  I don't think he was saying that, either.  "I dunno" seems to be the closest he gets.]

[Triple Zero]

4) i'd like you guys thoughts about the thing he says somewhere further in the book, about that mass religious experience that 100.000 people saw and was some sort of 5th or 6th circuit mass illumination that was supposedly well-documented and explain by carl sagan as "100.000 people hallucinating the same thing" .. if it is true what he says, it's quite amazing. what exactly happened?

No one knows.  That's the point.

no, but what sorta happened?

was there really 100.000 people believing something with bright lights and ecstacy and stuff?

when was this again?

he keeps on going on about how well-documented this event is, but i never heard of it.

[Cain]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Fatima

[Cramulus]

I dug Prometheus Rising as well. I'd been listening to a lot of Wilson's mp3s about the 8-circuit model and Prometheus summed it up very well. But to compare it with Illuminatus is kind of an apples/oranges comparison since one is fiction and one is nonfiction.

I'm still looking for that damn quarter.

Incidentally, I had been a Discordian for about 6 months when I randomly picked up Illuminatus at the bookstore because I thought it had a cool cover. When it turned out to be about Discordians, I pretty much freaked out.

I just finished reading Phillip K Dick's Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, which is the first PKD I've ever read. Very enjoyable, but I'm still not comfortable with his explanation of what was really going on. Next: Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep?

[LMNO]

You really can't go wrong with PKD.

[Cain]

Unless you allow his thinking to infect you and you have a mental breakdown.

[LMNO]

You mean ZEBRA isn't real??????????

[That One Guy]

Man in the High Castle is a great PKD read (one of the first ones by him I read). Ubik and Time out of Joint are fascinating reads regarding the perception of time, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (while a bit tough to get through at points) is a great religio-philosophical book. Although, as LMNO said, you really can't go wrong with any of his stuff 

[Cramulus]

Okay - opinion poll
I'm borrowing both The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep right now. Which do you think I should read first?

[Thurnez Isa]

Androids

My opinion

[That One Guy]

Hmmm ... tough call. I'd say go with The Man in the High Castle, although they're both excellent. However, if you've seen Blade Runner, I'd go with Androids, since you're missing out on about half the story from the (admittedly excellent) movie version and deserve to get all the interesting bits