Jered Loughner, Arizona Shooter

[Hawkeye Crow]

Hello to all.
It is not my habit to post news items on this forum, but, I came across this today, and it seemed worthy of examination. I can't think of any other time I have heard of anything like it concerning any situation that comes to mind.
The authorities speak of  mental illness in this case, and that may be true. I tend to think that such observations may be limited. We might call it possession' by the Foreign Installation. For Loughner to refer to Dreaming is astounding, to me, at least.
Sorry about the small font. I can't always control it.


Exclusive: Loughner Friend Explains Alleged Gunman's Grudge Against Giffords


Jared Lee Loughner's mug shot. (Pima County Sheriff's Office)But Loughner did, according to Tierney, believe that government is "fucking us over." He never heard Loughner vent about the perils of "currency," as Loughner did on one YouTube video he created.

Tierney, who first met Loughner in middle school, recalls that Loughner started to act strange around his junior or senior year of high school. Before that, Loughner was just a "normal kid," says Tierney. When the two friends started hanging out in sophomore year of high school, "there was nothing really dark about Jared," Tierney says. "He was playing drums, doing band things, playing sax. He was raised on writing and reading music." Loughner also did a lot of creative writing in his high school days, Tierney says, and he used to carry around a copy of a short story he wrote involving a character named Angel; he'd ask people if they would like to read it. "It had a lot of hidden metaphors in it," Tierney says.

As Loughner and Tierney grew closer, Tierney got used to spending the first ten minutes or so of every day together arguing with Loughner's "nihilist" view of the world. "By the time he was 19 or 20, he was really fascinated with semantics and how the world is really nothing—illusion," Tierney says.

Loughner would tell Tierney and his friends that life "means nothing."

Once, Tierney recalls, Loughner told him, "I'm pretty sure I've come to the conclusion that words mean nothing." Loughner would also tell Tierney and his friends that life "means nothing," and they'd reply, "If it means nothing, what you're saying means nothing." Other times, Tierney says, Loughner acted like any teen: "We'd go to concerts, play music, get into trouble."


 

Tierney believes that Loughner was very interested in pushing people's buttons—and that may have been why he listed Hitler's Mein Kampf as one of his favorite books on his YouTube page. (Loughner's mom is Jewish, according to Tierney.**) Loughner sometimes approached strangers and would say "weird" things, Tierney recalls. "He would do it because he thought people were below him and he knew they wouldn't know what he was talking about."


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In college, Loughner became increasingly intrigued with "lucid dreaming," and he grew convinced that he could control his dreams, according to Tierney. In a series of rambling videos posted to his YouTube page, dreams are a frequent topic.
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In a video posted on December 15, Loughner writes, "My favorite activity is conscience dreaming: the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don't dream—sadly." In another video, he writes, "The population of dreamers in the United States of America is less than 5%!" Later in the same video he says,  "I'm a sleepwalker—who turns off the alarm clock."


"When you realize you're dreaming, you can do anything, you can create anything."


Loughner believed that dreams could be a sort of alternative, Matrix-style reality, and "that when you realize you're dreaming, you can do anything, you can create anything," Tierney says. Loughner started his "dream journal" in an attempt to take more control of his dreams, his friend notes, and he kept this journal for over a year.


In October 2008, Tierney was living in Phoenix, and Loughner came to visit. They went to see a Mars Volta concert with friends, and Tierney was surprised when Loughner said he had quit partying "completely." Loughner, according to Tierney, said, "I'm going to lead a more healthy lifestyle, not smoke cigarettes or pot anymore, and I'm going to start working out." Tierney was happy for his friend: "I said, 'Dude, that's awesome.' And the next time I saw him he was 10 pounds lighter." Tierney never saw Loughner smoke marijuana again, and he was surprised at media reports that Loughner had been rejected from the military in 2009 for failing a drug test: "He was clean, clean. I saw him after that continuously. He would not do it."


After Loughner apparently gave up drugs and booze, "his theories got worse," Tierney says. "After he quit, he was just off the wall." And Loughner started to drift away from his group of friends about a year ago. By early 2010, dreaming had become Loughner's "waking life, his reality," Tierney says. "He sort of drifted off, didn't really care about hanging out with friends. He'd be sleeping a lot." Loughner's alternate reality was attractive, Tierney says. "He figured out he could fly." Loughner, according to Tierney, told his friends, "I'm so into it because I can create things and fly. I'm everything I'm not in this world."


"He figured out he could fly."


But in this world, Loughner seemed ticked off by what he believed to be a pervasive authoritarianism. "The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar," he wrote in one YouTube video. In another, Loughner complains that when he tried to join the military, he was handed a "mini-Bible." That upset him: "I didn't write a belief on my Army application and the recruiter wrote on the application: None," he wrote on YouTube. In messages on MySpace last month, Loughner declared, "I'll see you on National T.v.! This is foreshadow." He also noted on the website, "I don't feel good: I'm ready to kill a police officer! I can say it."


One of the last times Loughner and Tierney saw each other, a mutual friend had recently purchased a .22-caliber rifle. Until then, Loughner had never shown much interest in guns, Tierney says. "My friend had just gotten a .22, and Jared kept saying we should go shooting together." But Tierney and the friend who had bought the .22 demurred. "We were sketched out," Tierney says, "and we were like, 'I don't think Jared's a good person to go shooting with.'" That was in February or March 2010. After that, Tierney didn't hear much from Loughner.


Since hearing of the rampage, Tierney has been trying to figure out why Loughner did what he allegedly did. "More chaos, maybe," he says. "I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what's happening. He wants all of that." Tierney thinks that Loughner's mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: "He fucks things up to *** **** up, there's no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: 'Another Saturday, going to go get groceries'—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in."


Tierney dwells on the phone call he missed early Saturday morning. But it was late, and the TV show Tierney was watching was creeping him out. So he didn't pick up. "I sort of wish I would have," he says. "I wonder what would have happened if I answered it."


*This sentence has been corrected to reflect that August 30, 2007 was the date of the letter, not the date of the event itself. The event was on August 25.


**Tierney says Loughner's mom is Jewish. But a columnist who researched the subject doesn't think that holds up. Tierney also said that Loughner himself was definitely not religious.


Nick Baumann covers national politics and civil liberties issues for Mother Jones' DC Bureau. For more of his stories, click here. You can also follow him on twitter. Email tips and insights to nbaumann [at] motherjones [dot] com. Get Nick Baumann's RSS feed.

[Turin Otzaki]

Hawkeye, very interesting.....I agree, possession for sure!!

[alien]

Interesting article, Hawkeye, thanks for posting.  I'd heard some scuttlebutt about Loughner being into Dreaming and lucid dreaming, and when combined with this article, it really seems like this is the kind of thing that can happen when someone with natural ability tries to become a "master" without the benefit of a mentor.  Unfortunately, the story told here isn't uncommon.  There are far too many Don Juannabes out there - people trying to be Carlos without a don Juan to guide them, trying to be Luke Skywalker without a Yoda, trying to be Neo without a Morpheus.  Sure, there are those who would argue vehemently against any sort of 'teacher' but that's usually because they are the very ones who could most benefit from a mentor/benefactor, at least until such time as they become proficient as sorcerers, and then somewhat automatically (whether one likes it or not) becomes the mentor/benefactor for another sorcerer who crosses his path... and so begins or continues another form of linege.
The thing is... the information is "out there".  Any human being with sufficient intent can get the information of sorcery (or anything else) through silent knowing - but processing that information into Knowledge is where it gets tricky, and probably where people like Loughner run afoul.  They mistake the voice of the foreign installation for the voice of their own inner teacher (call it whatever you like: the double, the higher self, the infinite One), and end up doing all sorts of crazy stuff believing it to be from divine/higher guidance, when the reality is that it is the foreign installation all along.
Here's how I see it.  Dreaming is truly a phenomenal gift/ability - yet because of Loughner's actions and words, Dreaming itself will now be considered weird or scary by the public at large, and will even escalate into things like "He was into all that weird stuff like Castaneda used to write about back in the 60s."  Think about it.  That's exactly how the FI works - by scaring people away from the knowledge that might actually help them find their way out of the illusion which the FI is so adept at creating.  It's a flawless system because it works on every manner of human weakness - and it knows our weaknesses better than we know them ourselves (thus the need for stalking).  So while Loughner may have believed he was acting from a "higher realm", he was actually playing directly into the hands of the consensus (he was playing the role of "madman" in a world that needs to be able to explain things by such pat statements as, "He was just crazy"), so in that way, the guy who wanted to be a rebel sorcerer has become the poster child of The Foreign Installation's Citizen of the Month.
How would things have been different if he had managed to connect with a mentor?  Maybe that's the wrong question, but it's what came to me as I read the article.  Many of the things he allegedly said aren't "wrong" - but the conclusions he drew and the actions he took as a result of those erroneous conclusions clearly illustrate (to me anyway) how anyone on a path of sorcery really does need some manner of guidance - if for no other reason than to teach one how to know the difference between **** and shinola.
My guess is that Loughner probably had plenty of opportunity to connect with a mentor, but chose not to do so, for whaever reason.  It's been my experience that the old saying is true:  "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Of course, that should probably be followed with, "And if the student turns his back, the teacher will again disappear."  Somewhere along the line, I'm guessing Jared Loughner turned his back and chose his own path.  Dark as that may seem, we create our own reality. The real tragedy is that Loughner seemed to know that, yet chose it anyway.

[Turin Otzaki]

I agree with much of what you say Alien, I think that guy gained way too much 'power' for his level of emotional intelligence and recapping.....and would have benefitted from a teacher/mentor type.



I have had the benefit of several mentors....but I think there comes a point where you are on your own, and the mentoring happens in a less visible tangible way.



Your pro mentor view suggests that you are a bit of a teacher/mentor yourself with 'students', is that the case? You say its often those that most need a teacher that are anti teacher, well Ive found that those that fancy themselves as teachers and looking for students are often those most 'pro-teacher as necessity'.

[Gonzo]

Are you all ignoring this key comment?
Tierney thinks that Loughner's mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: "He fucks things up to *** **** up, there's no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: 'Another Saturday, going to go get groceries'—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in."

[alien]

Turin Otzaki wrote:
Your pro mentor view suggests that you are a bit of a teacher/mentor yourself with 'students', is that the case?
No longer in any official capacity.  I used to be more of a "teacher" but now I confine my mentoring to those who cross my path.  And my goal isn't to teach, just to share my own experience.  If anybody learns anything, great.  If not, that's okay, too.  And it works both ways, of course. Teaching and learning are the same experience, if one is open to it. 
You say its often those that most need a teacher that are anti teacher, well Ive found that those that fancy themselves as teachers and looking for students are often those most 'pro-teacher as necessity'.
Whether I "fancy myself" as a teacher or not is actually irrelevant.  I'm not looking for students, so I have nothing to gain by voicing my opinion.  I have simply come to believe, based on my own experiences, that those who don't have some form of mentor/benefactor often end up drawing erroneous conclusions (whether dangerous or benign doesn't matter) that could easily be *seen* and confronted by some manner of benefactor.  Just as teenagers truly think they know everything (but don't), so it is with a lot of wannabe sorcerers/warriors.  I would never turn down the input of an "elder" or "wise man" or even somebody had walked the path before me.  Doesn't mean I would become a follower... just means I'm not too proud to listen.

[alien]

Gonzo wrote:
Are you all ignoring this key comment?
Tierney thinks that Loughner's mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: "He fucks things up to *** **** up, there's no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: 'Another Saturday, going to go get groceries'—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in."Since the comment did not come from Loughner himself, it's just speculation - maybe even someone getting their 15 minutes of fame by being The Former Friend of The Crazy Guy.  But even if that isn't the case - even if Tierney is right in his assumptions (and they are assumptions), it would tend to validate my earlier point - which is that humans can come to all sorts of erroneous conclusions based on few (if any) facts.  IF Loughner just wanted to watch the world burn, what brought him to that state of mind and caused him to act on it?  What manner of self-importance would give him the (so-called) right "to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in"??  Put another way, who put him in charge of anyone else's life or death?
Somewhere along the line, he came to a lot of conclusions that ultimately resulted in a lot of chaos and personal tragedy - maybe inevitable in the view of some, but altogether unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.  It did not have to happen.  It was made to happen by the actions of a single individual.  Maybe with a guiding hand (even one good parent), the outcome could have been different.  By and large, madmen aren't born.  They are created.  A warrior knows this and stalks himself ruthlessly so as to create a survivor rather than becoming a victim of his own false beliefs.
Watching the world burn is one thing.  Starting the fire is something else altogether.
Respectfully,

[alien]

Turin Otzaki wrote:
I have had the benefit of several mentors....but I think there comes a point where you are on your own, and the mentoring happens in a less visible tangible way.
Since I can't find an edit button, just wanted to add that I agree with you 100% here!  I think we often start down the path with mentors, benefactors and such, but it's only when we end up on our own that we begin to develop the ability to be our own teacher and our own guide.  A truly good mentor may be of some assistance in getting us to that point, but ultimately it is a solitary path and the mentoring occurs largely at the level of silent knowing.
Absolutely true - just wanted to add that.

[Jessicar.parallelperception]

This is sure a piece of journalism!  Look how it directs the reader along a route that slowly but surely leads one to have a fixed POV of this guy.  I'm on my way out the door for work and would much rather like to underline those experiences or points of view here that aren't any different for many a fine sorcerer in the making---dreaming, emphasis on words and their power, life as meaning something different than for the average person, illusion vs. reality, flying, feeling trapped in societal norms, etc.  All of these things, I've experienced and felt and thought.  So where did Jered cross the line?  I'm not sure he did, really.  He fulfilled the meaning he'd assigned to his life and although he pulled others into his "darkness" and tragically denied them life, he's on the path he's chosen.  CC might say, "he lost his marbles" and now society will spend days, weeks, even years trying to figure out what went "wrong".  He entertained a handful of "tricks"---tricks in the practice of sorcery, much like we all do---yet, his prescription for those skills and practices ended on the end of the spectrum that all of us work at never crossing.

[Hawkeye Crow]

Oh so wonderful!


All have touched on important issues related to this event. I especially liked Alien's remark about all information being 'out there'.
 I have found knowledge embedded in the most unlikely places. Currently, author Anne Rice, in her non-vampire work, and  Andre Norton , have resonated with me as to Sorcery abilities . There are others; some who advanced ideas from Buddhism  and magic , generations ago. The odd thing about it all, is that this knowledge was common , until erased by the rationalism of Christianity and Islam.


Jessicar, I realize that this whole event is sensational, and journalist do advance their own agendas. It touches upon other thoughts, political and social, not appropriate to this forum. My concern is that, over the years, I have noticed certain attitudes and poses taken by Nagual practitioners. Some of them seem to be dark and destructive. I even have questions about the purposes and ends that Castaneda himself arrived at, which, having nothing to do with those who observed him from the outside, and seem to be evident in his own books. Example: 'The Second Ring of Power'. Why did the witches want to destroy him? Why is it that he was not a full 4 sectioned Nagual luminous 'egg'? What does that say about later events and Cleargreen?


Again, I am gratified by the conversation this thread has created.

[Guest]