The Liminalist # 16.5: The Red End of the Animal (with Neil Kramer)

kramer

Part two of a candid dialogue with Neil Kramer, on meth-head living without the meth, Neil’s racial ideas, Jasun’s path of disillusionment, how the 2nd matrix was built, speaking to newcomers, Neil’s reasons for doing Red Ice, the deterioration of information in the Alternate Perceptions Community,  mainstreaming the underground, shrinking audiences, the fate of Ufology, getting past the crust of spiritual knowledge, fruitless research vs. unmediated development, building mental Cathedrals of metaphysics, Neil’s model-scavenging method, making your own path, the opposite of a pep-talker, house renovating and self-empowerment, the will to power vs. the path of disillusionment, Neil & Jasun’s advantages for the end times, status-free advancement, the spiritual GPS, communication difficulties, complementary poles of dissolving and building, the many paths of Neil Kramer, Shoshin & the beginner’s mind, being a liminalist, false ceremony masters, being hoodwinked by charisma, how to teach autonomy, separating from teachers, the dangers of transference, the singular path, a parapolitical focus, Whitley Strieber’s shady connections, intelligence operatives in the APC, co-opting researchers by shuffling the stats, web traffic divergence, Julian Jaynes and unconscious conditioning, Alan Watts’ CIA connections, Empire vs. individuality, Alan Green’s concerns, immigration in the UK, Carlos Castaneda-as-assassin, Neil’s second career choice.

Neil & Jasun Outtakes:

 

Songs: “El Mariachi” and “Monkey Said” by The Freak Fandango Orchestra; “No Home,” by Cullah; “The Devil At My Side” by Paul Wild.

43 thoughts on “The Liminalist # 16.5: The Red End of the Animal (with Neil Kramer)”

  1. Good one guys.. I feel like Kramer’s ‘killer’ energy worked you into a softer position; it was unusual and interesting to hear that side of you. Make the matrix work for you.. don’t waste time dissecting it.

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        • is it curious to anyone but me that NK expresses concern about being co-opted while his 2nd career choice is to be a paid assassin?

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          • “curious”? More like unmitigated hogwash of the first water!

            How is individualism working against ‘the empire’ when same individualism leads one to killing people for hire? Who exactly pays assassins, again? And who are the employers of assassins interested in having killed?

            Can a person be co-opted if the co-opter is simply paying them to do what they explicitly claim is their earnest desire?

          • It’s a big relief to hear someone respond honestly and sanely to Neil’s admission; I confess to being quite triggered by the lack of shocked expression up till now. I was starting to feel that my listeners exist in the same dissociated nihilist dream world as NK appears to, and that he was counting on that fact to ensure his big reveal caused no ripples.

            NK’s point about individuality being the enemy of the Empire is def. salient here. Doesn’t The Empire thrive on enemies?

          • “I confess to being quite triggered by the lack of shocked expression up till now. I was starting to feel that my listeners exist in the same dissociated nihilist dream world as NK appears to, and that he was counting on that fact to ensure his big reveal caused no ripples.”

            yeah. obviously, anything i have to say about this should be served up with heaps of salt. i’m not reading your audience’s collective mind 😉

            But in ‘alternative thinking’ circles, even more so than the rest of life, there seems to be a tacit agreement that even while we constantly emphasize the life and death importance of our conversation, really its’ all a bunch of windbags talking shocking talk, resting safe in the knowledge that no one’s bluff will be called. This talk stirs up a frisson of rebelliousness whilst containing an ‘easy cop out clause’; as NK is claiming to be a wisdom teacher, if a person does call him on it he can back out of it with the old ‘well i was just confronting you with your own preconceived ideas/shadow material/blah blah blah.”.

            This deceitful dynamic is one reason that i return to your material over time. It IS important to you, and you DO try to be honest with yourself and your audience.

            Your point about empire and enemies is well taken. It is a fine line. Avoiding the whole dividing and conquering game is important, vitally so. At the same time, people get imprisoned here in the USA for feeding homeless people in public parks – that type of enemy of the empire i can really get behind.

            Anyways, just my two cents. Again, i truly appreciate your honest intentions in these conversations – it is hard to put yourself out there ‘warts and all’ as the saying goes. But this listener is grateful you did so, in the process shining some well-needed light on a darker corner of our minds.

          • Well-expressed points, much appreciated. Especially about the cop-out clause. Is that what’s known as the Guru’s Get Out of Jail Free Card?

          • “At the same time, people get imprisoned here in the USA for feeding homeless people in public parks – that type of enemy of the empire i can really get behind.”

            If they are feeding the homeless because they want to help them rather than because they want to defy the Empire, sure. That’s not enemy action; that’s compassion in the face of increasingly impossible odds.

          • hi Jasun! oh i am all for feeding anyone who wants some. Just on the topic of slippery-word-smithing, i would not get too worried about what the empire is labeling it.

            Off to read more comments.

      • Personally, I’m wondering how long it took the NSA to transmit his offer to the appropriate party. I can almost picture it, except I don’t know if it would be a knock on his door, or a phone call, or someone sidling up to him at Starbucks… and could he then, properly terrified, be able to say “just kidding” or is he already doomed?

        Of course, karma would have to care about him for that to happen and I imagine it doesn’t.

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  2. interesting that early on Neil drew the distinction between your path of dissolution/destruction and his building/construction and then later admits his secret desire to be an assassin (something I had forgotten/blocked out from his Red Ice talk. he spoke of tailoring his message to suit the audience which is practical advice for a teacher who wants to get his point across but then didn’t seem to adapt appropriately to you and your audience. He seems to often linger on a point much longer than necessary as if he needs three examples when one or often times none are needed. as if he was stuck in a mode after his years of practice as a teacher but I found it patronizing. and I thought you showed tremendous patience and good will in spite of the obvious difference in mode of communication- something I’ve noticed and appreciated on earlier episodes as well.

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    • I generally like Neil and admire his tenacity in a dying field.. but the whole bit about needing to create your own job because it doesn’t exist yet.. it’s far from revolutionary, it’s actually pretty common place. How do you weigh the worth of that invented job? By the amount of money/energy it generates for you or the amount of people it confuses/enlightens? Everyone wants to make something from nothing.. or more specifically take something from nothing. The founders of the Federal Reserve for instance knew this method and applied it better than anyone who has ever dwelt or ‘worked’ in the alternative perceptions community. Truth doesn’t need to be peddled anymore than a spicy taco from taco bell, it just needs to be felt. So why are all these alternative perception researchers still talking.. haven’t they said everything they think they know already? What more is there to tell?

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    • “forgotten/blocked out”… Can you say more about that? Does it relate to NK’s method of delivery do you think?

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      • I have no idea. I think it was just so shocking to me to hear him say something like that. I used to see him as a kindred spirit but either he or I or both of us have changed. Listening to his talk with you I was almost always completely bored and just waiting for him to stop talking. I don’t ever remember this happening years ago.

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          • well, not exactly cuz I was in direct communication with Knowles and he eventually slammed the door in my face. in this case I feel like I have no other choice than to walk away. but in a more general sense, yes, a feeling of betrayal or more accurately a mistrust of my own ability to read people and gauge affinity. are my instincts and powers of perception really that far off the mark? taking that realization fully to heart seems so scary because I feel without it I would be completely lost but there it is staring me right in the face, again.

          • that’s quite a naked admission; I am just typing about discernment over at the forum, as happens.

            we only learn it by discovering the ways in which we lack it, it seems.

  3. First comment here. May be an odd moment to join the discussion, but here we go.

    Not sure that I want to “defend” NK and his dream of being an assassin, but I do want to weigh in with a comment that says, more or less, “I’m not terribly bothered by it.”

    I feel I am a rather gentle and pacific soul, but there’s a part of me too that can sense the appeal of being an assassin. Well, maybe not actually being one, with all that it would actually entail, but there’s something about the precision, the use of uncompromising force, the well-trained efficiency, the acting outside the boundaries of conventional law and order (in order, hopefully, if this were possible under the circumstances, to bring about a greater good) that does have its appeal. Is NK just giving voice to this, while taking the opportunity to be a bit edgy and provocative?

    He definitely brings a kind of “fuck off” energy to a lot of what he puts out there, I feel (this came through for me in the Red Ice interview for sure), which I think on the one hand is something healthy that I could learn from (coming from a history of suppressing anger and having rather porous boundaries), especially because it seems it’s not the whole story with him (he also has his sensitive and poetic side, from what I can see of him, and some wisdom that makes him something other than a raging anger-fueled maniac), but on the other hand this energy does put me off at times and leaves me thinking, “that’s all well and good; and sure, nobody tells you what to do; but isn’t it all just a bit more nuanced than telling people where to get off, even if you do know what’s what due to all your super-duper mystical and esoteric perspectives?”

    I mean, I think he realizes that it is more nuanced than that, but perhaps because of that “emphasis on the red end of the spectrum” that he speaks of, he gives more play to that take-no-prisoners attitude than I am used to witnessing in intelligent, insightful people who possess a degree of wisdom. He still comes across as too measured and attuned and intelligent in his speech to be on an out-and-out tirade, in my opinion, but his voice is definitely not the emollient that, say, Eckhart Tolle’s might be. I do think there’s a place for such a voice as his in this sphere, “assassins” and all. And if it does get to be too much for me, I feel empowered to send a hearty “fuck off” right back in his direction, which (ironically enough) seems right in keeping with his notion of empowering people to walk their own path. Eckhart Tolle never got my back up in quite the way that Neil Kramer has, so does that also mean that Tolle was not able to get me to claim and stand by my own (emergent) perspective the way that Kramer has?

    Also, let’s not forget that Kramer also talked about how he’d like to be an ornithologist. Can you imagine him missing his opportunity to terminate his quarry because he had his rifle scope trained on a hawk circling some distance off, quietly observing it?

    On preview, I just read what mrs. eccentric wrote about the “cop out clause,” and am wondering if that’s what I’m granting NK use of here.

    I don’t know. It’s also a kind of transparency that he demonstrates, isn’t it, what with owning up to his cruder, more violent impulses, when nice, spiritual people might be tempted to distance themselves from same, in a manner that is sometimes termed “spiritual bypassing”?

    This shouldn’t be construed as a license to irresponsibily act out on the promptings of any one of your demons however, just because you might say you were only holding up a mirror for people to recognize their own biases and too-tame assumptions about what a spiritual teacher or wise cultural commentator should be.

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      • agree with you. have been listening to neil since 2006, and i’ve noticed that chameleon-esque -ness more & more in the past year. i was surprised when he went on redice a a few months ago — didn’t expect him to be down with the white supremacist that henrik had let come out of the closet.

        then he comes back to redice a couple of weeks ago, and this time the talk is harder hitting and he seemed to be reassuring henrik most of the time. just after that interview, he did one with an australian couple, who were obviously newbies at interviews , and neil led the conversation the whole time. it was interesting to observe.

        you caught him off guard with your questions and conversation — it was more obvious when i listened the second time. he said twice that he would ditch the spiritual philosopher/teacher gig if he was given the chance (orinthologist, then assasin) — i found that odd…yet revealing.

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        • Yes; he also said that his work wasn’t important to him; but later (in outtakes) quoted (the very suspect) Stephen Fry on loving your work being the key to happiness. There are other contradictions peppered through the talk; enough to make a game out of it, almost, like those comic books puzzles of “Find the gnomes” hidden in a seemingly ordinary landscape.

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      • I noticed some contradictions also, with ornithologist vs. assassin being only one of them. He also seemed to contradict himself when at first he said Jasun was about tearing down and Neil was about building up, while later on, around the big assassin’s revelation, he said something about an important aspect of his explorations being a focus on death and destructive elements.

        On the other hand, who is without contradictions? I sometimes feel chameleon-esque under my own observation, and there seems to be something mercurial about me, the way my perceptions shift. If I spoke to you openly, and as truthfully as I was capable of doing, wouldn’t we notice over time certain contradictions arising, in the opinions, preferences, ideas, feelings I expressed? I think we would. I’d be changing, I’d be remembering things I’d forgotten and forgetting things I’d remembered, I’d be answering questions with varying degrees of solemnity and jocularity, coming from different departure points in the face of different framings and assumptions.

        Personally, I like NK’s chameleon-esque quality. I don’t feel it’s dishonest, or trying to mislead anyone for selfish or manipulative reasons. Possibly he realizes that he can’t communicate what he wants to communicate in a dead-flat, perfectly straightforward way, because it’s more of a way of regarding life and relating to it than any particular information or technique, and so he tries to hint around at it and simply offer glimpses of himself as an image of one person’s way of doing things. (And also, there’s far more that could be said than can be said in two hours, and possibly if it were all said, some of the contradictions would seem less contradictory, because of additional exposition/explanation filling in the gaps.)

        If his life has become something of a koan during his time on the Oregon coast, and he feels there’s a certain quality emerging from that that he’d like to share with his “niche audience” as he called it, perhaps there’s no better way (apart from spending time with someone one-to-one in the flesh) of getting something of it across than the way he’s found of speaking. I personally think it’s great that he’s willing to go out and speak as he does. Sure he’s not perfect, but I still find his a very interesting voice, and one that is somehow heartening to take in.

        (However, I also find the criticisms expressed here very interesting, and as I certainly don’t want to become an NK cultist, I am keen to take them in. It must be admitted, it is possible I am wrong about him.)

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  4. I enjoy listening to Misters Horsley, Kramer and Palmgren. Anything they say in a relatively unrehearsed interview will not keep me from searching out their opinions. I wish many others would listen to these men as well. They talk about things that are important. Their varied opinions have given me food for hours of contemplation over the years. These musings have dramatically changed my worldview, mostly for the better. I don’t want to open another can of worms but I think Henrik is largely misunderstood. His current work points out how prone we all are to knee jerk reactions. Which I think the comments on this topic are. Jason and Neil were both vaccinated with phonograph needles as my grandad would say. Both are extremely articulate and verbose. They can come up with an answer or opinion to a very complex question with warp speed wit and eloquence. Misspoken thoughts and contradictions (though rare from these gents!) are bound to occur.
    My wit is so quick that I didn’t even react to Mr. Kramer’s comment about quitting his current occupation and becoming an imperial assassin until I woke up from a sound sleep ten hours later! It was an odd thing to say. Here is what I thought after thinking about it in a near sleeping state.
    I have always had a fear of hurting others, or obstructing their free will inadvertently. I decided at a young age to stay at the fringes of community and be as innocuous as one can. I’ve worked at menial back breaking labor for almost 40 years. Never confronting anyone. When I became a member of the alternate perception community, I realized that I had been duped into becoming an assassin among other villainous characters. Even though the compensation for my hard work was meager more than half of it went to empire. Empire that likes bombing innocent people and making films like American Sniper. Who is more despicable (I won’t go into karmic consequences) the assassin or the people who finance and glorify him? I don’t know about JH or HP who live outside the United State, but NK actually goes to the tax man and pays the IRS (as he stated in the interview). My employers face penalties for not attaching my wages. I feel the assassin who has to do the dirty work and bear the brunt of the cosmic consequences is at least more honest than all the folks that support him and ignore that fact.

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    • I can see a superficial logic in the above argument but if it is meant as contextualizing defense for NK’s comment, it seems about as solid to me as wet toilet paper.

      Are you suggesting that NK was trying to make an elaborate, multi-leveled meta-point and gently nudge us towards confronting our own complacent hypocrisy? 😀

      If you just mean it as an unrelated point to a public speaker and spiritual teacher endorsing murder for enjoyment, then I suppose it’s valid; the enablers are us.

      As for being listed with NK and HP as part of your infotainment menu, I take it as a warning, of sorts, to separate myself from the APC crowd as quickly and as efficiently as possible! Either that or end up in attack dog mode. :/

      ALL THAT SAID, I am happy to have many different voices piping up, not least coz I know Mr. Kramer will be reading these comments (whatever he may claim about being indifferent to it all), and because, let’s face it, he is a very likable guy. (Like Henrik.)

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      • I am barely intelligent enough to defend myself. I was just relating the thoughts that NK’s comments made run through my mind. I was not defending NK and don’t think there is a need for anyone to defend him. I am sorry you feel you have to separate your self from people of my ilk. Complacency is my worst quality. I’ve never felt I was a hypocrite but it wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong. My crux was that the comments were a bit of a knee jerk which I also experienced.

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        • not separate myself from “people of your ilk” (my comment may have come out harsher than I intended), but from other spokespeople out there in “your” minds; and not by saying it either, but by looking at the ways I may be similar; and of course identifying seemingly suspect or questionable aspects of what other people are doing, always the call is to see how they parallel one’s own unconscious behaviors, subterfuges, and so on. Hopefully the most recent podcast goes a way to clarifying my “position” (feeling).

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          • I will listen to all your future podcasts for sure. I don’t feel you are similar to anyone else I enjoy listening to. That is why I listen. I think your position is abundantly clear already. I was just posting my thoughts. I certainly will refrain from that in the future. I meant no insult. I am extremely sorry if that is what my post accomplished.

          • Not at all; I’m sorry if I gave that impression; if it rankles to be grouped with individuals I don’t feel much affinity with then it’s up to me to bust a move towards finding a different “niche” ~ or none at all if only it were possible. Expect to see such in the coming weeks.

  5. Hey Jason,

    Have you or your like minded audience considered and noticed that both Henrik and NK started to vear off a sort of established path of truth & wisdom seeking in the months ( years ) after relocating to the US?

    I have a growing hunch that all is not as it seems now with both these boys who previously held integrity on their paths.

    Anyone on a path of emergence would note the intense and secretive co opting of wisdom that happens inside the psychic dome that is the USA these days.

    Have these boys been co opted inside the dome of Amerika?

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        • i had a similar thought, regarding marrying american women and relocating to the states. i was digging into redice last year, when it became clear that they had made a sharp, right turn — i was trying to figure out how they segued from what they were into what they had become. i went back and listened to ri shows and could see where the switch had come (clever the way they did it) . i also listened to henrik & lana’s interviews with renegaderadio, as well as older ones they’d done with other radio programs. i also asked myself what happened to henrik’s brother, fredrik? he was supposed to have been part of the redice set-up from the beginning (i’ve been listening to ri since 2006), but he’s nowhere to be found now. he doesn’t have an fb page (not suspect, but unusual in this case), and i couldn’t find any info on search engines about him. there are many fredrik palmgrens (it’s a fairly common name), but none of them connected to henrik or redice. there’s a couple of old links, but then the trail goes cold. i also think henrik & lana are living in the states, at least for part of the year, but they are not announcing it. furthermore, i found inconsistencies with stories lana was telling in interviews and i got this feeling that there is more to the story than what is presented. that’s to say: i wouldn’t trust them as far as i could throw them. seeing that nk is still invested with them gives me pause.

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      • He and Lana moved to the area around South Carolina sometime in the last few years and may still spend time in Sweden too ( unsure ).

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  6. It is possible that the whole “assasin” thing is just part of his Virgoan humour delivery failure. My husband is also a Virgo, and I have noted similar failed attempts at ” humour” on occasion – very dry and sort of dark.

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  7. I didn’t read all the comments but isn’t the discussion basically ‘Jesus in the desert”? I could see myself being a very heartless killer, a sniper optimally. The discussion ranges into a much broader field though. Is all life sacred? What is your intention? What is power? etc.

    All life is sacred and at the same time life feeds on life of course. If your intention is to have power over your fellows, and nature itself, then all means can be justified (and are). If your intention is to enable those around you to empower themselves then it’s much more an act of self-sacrifice and an appreciation of the unfolding beauty (which is beyond control). Some people beat their children down, some raise them up to discover their own potential. One is ugly the other beautiful, reality usually bleeds one into the other. Expectations are a strange construct.
    Beneath the Wheel
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Wheel

    I think Kramer has lost himself in between the self and the Self. One, the All. Two, Duality. Three, relationship. It’s not that good and evil does or doesn’t exist, they can represent two poles that we surf between in relationship. Choosing to be an assassin, while within the realms of the tolerable/acceptable, is choosing one pole over the other. self/bias/survival above all.

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  8. Sounds like a psychopath (your guest ). Great show Jason . I’ve also taken the wrong left hand path in the past . I read your book Prisoners of Infinity . Important research . As Jesus says there’s nothing hidden that will not be revealed . I’m listening to your podcasts in sequence

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