The Grand Tour
 
With only a few minutes left before he was scheduled to begin his presentation on Antigravity to the audience, Nick could only spare a few minutes to discuss his latest research with us while he waited for someone to arrive with his slideshow presentation. We talked briefly about Ning Li -- Nick favorably echoed my sentiment that the thing that made Li's work so interesting was that it involved very conventional physics from a very conservative part of the scientific establishment. Nick and I had a very similar understanding of the situation regarding Ning Li's early work, and her subsequent disappearance from public view to pursue a secret project for the Department of Defense. I did envy his description of attending the High-Frequency Gravity Wave Conference that he'd met her at in 2003 ... as it turns out, there are a number of people working on the same concepts that she is, and this conference was the best location to make contacts in this community.
 
While Nick finished preparing his slides, Mike gave Colby and myself a quick tour of the Ramtha School. I'd like to say that I'm one of the few insiders to see the inside of the school, but realistically that would blow the entire thing out of perspective. The Ramtha School was apparently converted from an old horse-ranch, most likely to find inexpensive buildings with the kind of space required for school activities. From what I'd seen it was operated a bit like a fairground -- during the 10-day retreat people had parked their RV's in a parking lot off to the back of the school, but ordinarily the school only had a minimal number of people visiting during the day. It wasn't packed, but obviously more active than normal.
 
I actually felt quite at home touring around the Ramtha School -- most likely because it's reminiscent of a college campus. My wife attended Evergreen in Olympia, and prior to that both of us had gone to Western Washington University in Bellingham, and the cultural "feel" of the Ramtha school really just paralleled the dress and social patterns that you'd see at most major Universities. Simple clothing and natural fibers prevailed, and because of the heat most of the people milling around behind the main conference building were wearing either tank-tops or sleeveless shirts. Parasols were set up at regular intervals to provide some isolation from the heat, and I noticed that most of the students were carrying daypacks to contain whatever essentials they didn't want to leave in the main conference building. Compared to The Evergreen State College, the Ramtha School is seems quite mundane...
 
Mike walked us through the auditorium that Nick would be speaking at -- it's an enormous building, easily as large as my high-school gymnasium. The entire building was constructed from wood, and poorly lit due to a lack of lighting on the ceiling. It had been converted from what looked like an old barn, although it had a more modern era room that was supported by very durable-looking moon-shaped beams providing support for the roof. The floor of the building was the most interesting area, because instead of folding chairs it appeared that the attendees had all brought individual seating -- usually pads or pillows. That was actually the only real 'cultlike' element that I saw in the entire place -- imagine some uncountable number of pillows and pads, of all shapes and sizes, arranged on the floor in a rough approximation of audience seating at a gymnasium-presentation.
 
The walls were adorned in moderation -- near the ceiling on the west wall were a gigantic red pentagram and what appeared to be a paper-cutout of Michelangelo’s "David touching God's Finger" mural from the Sistine Chapel. On the wall was an equally large Star of David, made from an overlay of a red-triangle onto a blue one.
 
Colby picked up on the more interesting piece -- little collages lining the walls at eye-level, composed of photographs with hand-drawn pictures plastered around them. The scale of the presentation building was large enough, and the room itself was visually crowded enough from pillows and pads that it would be easy to miss these murals -- but it was a good thing that Colby hadn't.
 
"What do these represent?" Colby asked, pointing vaguely to one of the hand-drawn pictures. Mike replied, "Those are orbs". As I was a bit behind both Mike and Colby, I missed part of the exchange due to tripping over someone's seating pillow, but I listened intently as Mike described what the murals represented. "People meditate to visualize the orbs, which are nonworld-entities -- they're intelligence, but they have no bodies. The human eye can't see them, but with meditation people can draw an accurate representation of what our camera filter later photographs. Essentially they appear on film as a plasma, although we've had to modify the shutter and exposure to capture them because they're in a slightly different spectrum than the eye can see."
 
From Mike's description, this appeared to be a very prolific endeavor -- people would meditate for minutes or hours to 'communicate' with the orbs, and then draw a representation of their mental image of the orbs construction. The patterns on paper were quite unique, and interestingly enough the photos seemed to show many of the same unique variations in color an intensity that the drawings had captured. My question to Mike was whether or not the school was collecting metrics on these experiences -- after all, its a unique enough experience for one person to go through, and after looking around the room at eye level I realized that there were literally hundreds of orb-pictures and photographs posted all around.
 
After finishing up his description of the orbs, we followed Mike outside and he showed us a field surrounded by horse fencing, and explained that students used it to practice a variety of meditation techniques. He described one activity in which students write symbols on cards, and then place them in the field. This is done as a group activity, which means that at any one time a collection of cards are placed at miscellaneous locations in the field, which itself is several hundreds yards both in length and breadth. By concentrating on sending a mental image of the card to their peers, the claim is that students are able to assist other students with locating specific cards in the field by thought alone. Imagine trying to find an upside down postcard in an area the size of a football-field, while not accidentally grabbing someone else's card, and you begin to get the idea.
 
We began to witness another activity in the field while standing in front of it -- a middle aged woman walked through the fence-gate into the field, and began a breathing technique that sounded like a loud, repeated "swooshing" noise. Mike indicated that this allowed her to effectively meditate while she walked through the field, and told us that this could sometimes create 'teleportation' or 'bilocation' effects. His claim was that students sometimes literally vanish into thin air, and other students occasionally 're-appear' out of thin air in the field (sometimes carrying suitcases).
 
Walking back to the prep-room where Nick was putting the finishing touches on his slide show, we were able to see vendors with temporary food-stands selling a variety of consumables, and Mike showed us a very college-looking bookstore literally packed with people trying to buy copies of Ramtha literature. A micro culture at work....

The Presentation
 
I've heard Nick Cook speak on several occasions, and despite the nervous tension that he displayed during preparation, none of us were prepared for the response that he got at this one. I've seen Nick in two television specials, and heard him on-air with Art Bell at least 3 or 4 times over the last two years. Those are both very controlled media formats, though -- not open to public response except via on-air Q&A during his Art Bell appearances.
 
The auditorium was nearly full when Colby and I arrived -- Mike had disappeared with Nick, but pointed Colby and I to the guest seating in the back of the auditorium. Fortunately for us, the guest seating was in folding chairs -- because other than that we hadn't brought pillows or pads to sit on. Imagine an auditorium full of people dressed very casually, dressed in neo-hippie outfits and loose fitting clothes, either sitting on their pads & pillows or milling about getting ready to be seated. Now picture two very out of place people in back -- two men dressed in slacks and button-up shirts, sitting on folding chairs -- that's Colby and myself. Needless to say, a rather uncomfortable position to be in.
 
In a fortunate turn of events, only seconds before Nick was to begin speaking, I heard a familiar voice and looked up to see Bruce Smith squeezing past people to sit down in the empty chair on my right. I hadn't seen Bruce since we arrived, but I quickly introduced him to Colby before the event began. Having Bruce sitting next to me helped eliminate some of the nervousness -- after all, I've known Bruce for over a year and had him over to the house twice for Lifter demonstrations.
 
Despite the rather earthy-feel of the Ramtha School's auditorium, it contains a very sophisticated sound and light-system, hung from the crescent-moon shaped supports by heavy-duty steel chains. Mike stepped onto the podium and began a brief introduction of Nick, and I must admit that it was an impressive stage to be standing on -- even though it was nearly at ground level, gigantic 50 foot speaker-racks were hanging on all 3 sides of the speaker, providing a definite center of attention on the stage.
 
The part that stunned me was when Mike finished his introduction and finally Nick stepped onto the stage -- before he could even begin to speak he was met with an immediate applause that turned rapidly into a standing ovation at least a full minute in length. The applause had begun to subside after the first 30-seconds, but when Nick raised his hands to motion the audience to quiet down it had the opposite effect, make the applause that much louder.
 
I guess that it makes sense, when you think about it. Something about Nick Cook's writing resonates in a very unique way with the public. I think that its because he's not only writing about technology, but also about a personal transformation of mind that happens along with his journalistic research. It's the same journey that anyone interested in alternative-science undertakes at some point or other -- the realization that the textbook version of reality doesn't explain everything. I think is also the reason that Cook's book, "The Hunt for Zero Point", has done so well.... in short, its a book that anybody who's ever wondered about the limits of science can identify with.