Da: R.Labanti@ads.it
Data: Mer 9 Apr 2003  11:53:55 Europe/Rome
A: easystyle@easystyle.it, mmantovani@cniinformatica.it, marianoantoniono@yahoo.com
Oggetto: Gardner e Krishnamurti (WAS: Re: IL  CASO ROL)

[Spedito ieri a Forum: evidentemente c'era qualcosa che non piaceva a
Majordomo, giacche' non e' stata veicolato... Ciao, R.]

Dario Villone wrote on 08/04/2003 14.48.14:

Mi riesce difficile anche trovare il fascicolo di SK
visto il caos esistente in casa mia. Tuttavia, se
esiste in una libreria CICAP una serie dei fascicoli,
la ricerca non dovrebbe prendere piu' di dieci minuti.

Dovrebbe trattarsi di:

Gardner, Martin (2000, July/August). David Bohm and Jiddo Krishnamurti.
Skeptical Inquirer, 24(4), 20-23.

di cui accludo il testo (ma vedi anche in fondo):

(sorry per il politichese, non voluto dal sottoscritto...)

***
David Bohm and Jiddo Krishnamurti.
Martin Gardner

My previous column was about the guided wave theory of David Bohm, and its
growing acceptance by many of today's quantum theorists. In this issue I
will
sketch Bohm's sad life and his strange relationship with the Indian guru
Jiddo
Krishnamurti.

Bohm was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1917. When he obtained his
doctorate in physics under J. Robert Oppenheimer, at the University of
California, Berkeley, Bohm was a dedicated Marxist and a strong admirer of
Lenin, Stalin, and the Soviet system. These opinions drew the fire of
Senator
Joseph McCarthy. Bohm's refusal to name names resulted in his indictment
for
contempt of Congress. Princeton University, which had hired him, let him
go.
No other university in America wanted him. After brief periods of teaching
in
Brazil, Israel, and England, he finally became a professor at London's
Birkbeck College where he remained until he retired.

As Bohm grew older, he became increasingly preoccupied with Eastern
mysticism
and parapsychology. The Indian philosopher Krishnamurti became a good
friend.
The "All is One" aspect of Buddhism and Hinduism, and the pantheism of
Hegel
and Alfred North Whitehead, strongly influenced Bohm's view of the
universe.
He became convinced that being is multidimensional, with infinite levels in
both directions--levels far beyond our comprehension. On Newton's level the
universe is deterministic and mind independent. On the quantum level it
rests
on uncertainty and chance, with tinges of solipsism. Below the quantum
level,
Bohm believed, is a subquantum world in which determinism and reality
return.
And below that? The levels are endless. Ultimate truths are forever beyond
our
grasp. I do not know whether Bohm believed in reincarnation or personified
the
Unknowable as the Hindu god Brahman, the ultimate ground of being about
whom
nothing can be said.

"If Bohm's physics, or one similar to it," Gary Zukav writes in his popular
New Age book The Dancing Wu Li Masters (1979), "should become the main
thrust
of physics in the future, the dances of East and West could blend in
exquisite
harmony. Do not be surprised if physics curricula of the twenty-first
century
include classes in meditation."

For another typical example of how occult journalists have latched onto
Bohm,
see Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe (1991). Talbot buys just
about
everything on the paranormal landscape including palmistry, UFOs,
poltergeists, and dermo-optical perception--the ability to see with
fingers,
nose, and armpits. His book's main theme is that Bohm's quantum potential
field accounts for all paranormal wonders. Curiously, Talbot doesn't
mention
astrology, even though Bohm's quantum potential might offer a good basis
for
it.

Bohm's disenchantment with Soviet Communism did not come until 1956 when
Nikita Krushchev delivered his blistering attack on Stalin, and the
magnitude
of Stalin's purges and the slave labor camps became widely known. It was a
crushing blow that plunged Bohm into the second of his periodic
depressions.
(The first began when he was 26, and lasted two years.) For six months Bohm
underwent intensive Freudian psychoanalysis before this second depression
lifted.

Ex-Communists and fellow travelers have a habit of turning from Marxism to
another ideology, often Catholicism or some other religion. In Bohm's case
it
was a bounce toward Buddhism and Hinduism, and the teachings of
Krishnamurti.
After decades of close friendship, with unbounded admiration largely on
Bohm's
side, the two had a bitter falling out. Krishnamurti always had a low
opinion
of physics, and Bohm's pilot wave theory in particular. He had a cruel way
of
treating Bohm as if he were a stupid child unable to fully appreciate his
(Krishnamurti's) vast wisdom.

Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was one of the most peculiar gurus ever to come
out
of Mother India. In 1908, this thin, frail, shy lad, of Brahmin birth, was
discovered by Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, the most famous
disciples
of Madame Blavatsky. They became convinced that young Jiddo was the new
messiah, or world teacher, and the incarnation of Lord Bodhisattva
Maitreya,
the fifth Buddha. Leadbeater, who claimed to be clairvoyant, saw all this
when
he viewed Jiddo's aura. Besant adopted him as her son and raised him as a
theosophist. In 1910, Krishnamurti's first book, At the Feet of the Master,
was published by England's Theosophical Society. It was said to have been
written by Krishnamurti who used the pseudonym of Alcyone, when he was 15.

In 1911, Besant, then the international president of the Theosophical
Society,
founded the Order of the Star of the East. Krishnamurti was the rising
Star.
In 1922 Annie purchased six acres in Ojai, California, where Krishnamurti
eventually settled, and which became the headquarters of the
still-flourishing
Krishnamurti Foundation.

Jiddo's father lost a lawsuit trying to regain custody of his son. His
Lawsuit
accused Leadbeater, who was probably gay, of having had sexual relations
with
Jiddo.

In 1922 Krishnamurti had a spiritual awakening which Harper's Encyclopedia
of
Mystical and Paranormal Experience, edited by Rosemary Ellen Gulley,
describes
as follows:

He suffered excruciating headaches, visions, and convulsions, shuddering
and
moaning, and semiconsciousness, much as a person possessed. These seizures
and
spiritual manifestations lasted for several years and formed the basis for
Krishnamurti's later orientation. He called the ordeal "an inward
cleansing."

Krishnamurti tried to enter Oxford, but failed its entrance examination. He
never got a college degree. In 1929 he made a cleansing break with his
theosophical upbringing by disbanding the Order of the Star. A year later,
to
Annie Besant's sorrow, he resigned from the Theosophical Society.
Henceforth
he would travel around the globe, giving talks and conducting dialogues in
which he taught a vague form of consciousness raising unrelated to any
religion, and based on his own techniques of meditation and
self-improvement.

As Bohm's friend and collaborator David Peat tells it in his biography of
Bohm, Infinite Potential (1997), young Krishnamurti actually believed for a
time that he was indeed the incarnation of Lord Maitveya, and the true
successor to Jesus. His consciousness and that of Maitveya had merged; the
"beloved" spoke through him. Although Krishnamurti outgrew the theosophical
nonsense Besant and Leadbeater had drummed into him, he never stopped
believing that he and he alone among living mortals knew the truth about
everything. His teaching was a mix of dull platitudes and murky phrases
such
as "the observer is the observed," "thinking is the thought," "choiceless
awareness," and that to be transformed one must "die to the moment." He was
convinced that when a person was radically changed through proper
meditation
there were actual mutations in the brain!

Krishnamurti's name was on more than forty books, as well as
on endless audio and video tapes. The Ending of Time (1985) was a book
coauthored with Bohm. I have done my best to try to read some of these
books
without falling asleep. It is hard to understand how the author of such
vapid
ideas could have mesmerized listeners, most of them women, when he
lectured,
and to have captured the admiration of a great physicist. His lines are
like
those in Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky." As Alice remarked, they seem to
mean
something, but it's hard to pin down just what. There is never a hint in
Krishnamurti's writings of a personal God or the survival of personality
after
death. He almost never refers to or quotes from any other thinker. His
vision
is a kind of watered-down Buddhism in which the key message is that
everything
is interconnected and one must live in the moment, without fear, and accept
everything that happens with resignation and tranquility. The same
infuriating
vagueness permeates books written by his admirers.

To give you a glimpse into Krishnamurti's vagueness, here are a few typical
excerpts from his talks:

... There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom.
You
are free and from that centre you act. And hence there is no fear, and a
mind
that has no fear is capable of great love. And when there is love it can do
what it will.

Death is a renewal, a mutation, in which thought does not function at all
because thought is old. When there is death there is something totally new.
Freedom from the known is death, and then you are living.

When you love, is there an observer? There is an observer only when love is
desire and pleasure. When desire and pleasure are not associated with love,
then love is intense. It is, like beauty, something totally new every day.
As
I have said, it has no yesterday and no tomorrow.

As long as there is a time interval between the observer and the observed
it
creates friction and therefore there is a waste of energy. That energy is
gathered to its highest point when the observer is the observed, in which
there is no time interval at all. Then there will be energy without motive
and
it will find its own channel of action because then the "I" does not exist.

To see what you actually are without any comparison gives you tremendous
energy to look. When you can look at yourself without comparison you are
beyond comparison, which does not mean that the mind is stagnant with
contentment.

You can face a fact only in the present and if you never allow it to be
present because you are always escaping from it, you can never face it, and
because we have cultivated a whole network of escapes we are caught in the
habit of escape.

We might be able to modify ourselves slightly, live a little more quietly
with
a little more affection, but in itself it will not give total perception.
But
I must know how to analyse which means that in the process of analysis my
mind
becomes extraordinarily sharp, and it is that quality of sharpness, of
attention, of seriousness, which will give total perception. One hasn't the
eyes to see the whole thing at a glance; this clarity of the eye is
possible
only if one can see the details, then jump.

It was not just Bohm who fell under the sway of Krishnamurti's charisma. He
strongly influenced such writers as Joseph Campbell, the poet Robinson
Jeffers, Henry Miller, Aldous Huxley, and Alan Watts who churned out
popular
books about Zen Buddhism. George Bernard Shaw once called young
Krishnamurti
"the most beautiful human being" he ever saw. After visiting Krishnamurti's
castle in Holland, Campbell wrote in a letter: "I can scarcely think of
anything but the wisdom-and-beauty-of-my friend." In another letter he
said,
"Every time I talk with Krishna, something new amazes me."

There were two Krishnamurtis. One was the persona presented to the world
through lectures and books; a man without ego who led a sanctified life of
celibacy and high moral purity. The other Krishnamurti was a shadowy,
self-centered, vain man, capable of sudden angers and enormous cruelty to
friends. He was also a habitual liar. Krishna, as his friends called him,
freely admitted his compulsive lying. He blamed it on simple fear of having
his deceptions detected.

[Graphic omitted]Krishna's closest associate was Raja, whose full Indian
name
was Desikacharya Rajagopalacharya. A native of India, Raja was as handsome
as
Krishna, and for almost thirty years a devoted disciple who served as his
master's business manager, secretary, literary agent, and editor. It was
Krishna's good friend Aldous Huxley who introduced Raja to his editor at
Harper and Row, the firm that published Krishna's many books. Krishna had
little interest in writing or publishing, but he allowed Raja to cobble
books
out of his talks and notebooks, and to edit this material into volumes.

Raja's wife Rosalind was a beautiful American Caucasian who grew up in
Hollywood, a friend of movie stars, who almost became a professional tennis
player. Toward the end of Krishna's life an astonishing revelation came to
light. For nearly thirty years, unknown to Raja, Rosalind had been
Krishna's
mistress! As such, she had undergone a miscarriage and several abortions,
all
miraculously kept secret from her husband.

Raja forgave his wife and never ceased loving her, but a rift between Raja
and
Krishna grew steadily wider until finally they became bitter enemies. Twice
Krishna unsuccessfully sued Raja for mishandling funds, and Raja in turn
sued
Krishna for slander. All three lawsuits were finally settled out of court.
The
two former friends never reconciled.

Rosalind's passion for Krishna cooled when she discovered he was having
another secret affair, this time with a shy, beautiful young woman, Nandini
Mehta. Raja's passion for Rosalind also dimmed when he fell in love with
Annalisa Begha, a Swiss-Italian who was twenty-three years his junior.
After
he and Rosalind finally obtained a Mexican divorce, Raja and Annalisa
married.

You can learn all the sordid details about these surprising events in a
splendid biography of Krishna, Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti
(1991), by Radha Rajagopal Sloss, the daughter of Rosalind and Raja. Now
married to mathematician James Sloss, a professor at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, Radha is also the author of India Beyond the
Mirror
(1988).

A story in Mrs. Sloss's book reveals how little Krishnamurti understood
science. America's funniest and nuttiest medical quack was Dr. Albert
Abrams.
You can read about him in my Fads and Fallacies. Abrams invented a bizarre
electrical machine which he claimed could diagnose all ailments from a drop
of
blood, and could cure terrible diseases by electrical rays. Like the writer
and socialist Upton Sinclair, Krishna became convinced that Abrams's
machine
did everything he claimed it did. He sent Abrams a blood sample, and was
told
he had cancer in his intestines and left lung, and syphilis in his spine
and
nose. After being treated for a while by Abrams's machine, Krishna said he
felt much better.

Radha likens her father to the Hindu god Vishnu, the preserver, and Krishna
to
Shiva, the destroyer. "The division between Krishnamurti himself will cast
a
very dark shadow on all he has said or written," Radha concludes. "Because
the
first thing the readers will say, is: 'If he cannot live it, who can?'"

After learning about Krishnamurti's secret love affair with his best
friend's
wife, Bohm felt betrayed. Perhaps this plunged him into his third and final
deep depression. Hospitalized, suffering from paranoia and thoughts of
suicide, Bohm underwent fourteen episodes of shock therapy before he
recovered
sufficiently to leave the mental hospital. Earlier triple bypass surgery on
his heart had been successful, but his death in 1991, at age 75, was from a
massive heart attack. Krishnamurti had died six years earlier, at his home
in
Ojai, of pancreatic cancer. His body was cremated.

Bohm's creative work in physics is undisputable, but in other fields he was
almost as gullible as Conan Doyle. He was favorably impressed by Count
Alfred
Korzybski's Science and Sanity, with the morphogenic fields of Rupert
Sheldrake, the orgone energy of Wilhelm Reich, and the marvels of
parapsychology. [1] For a while he took seriously Uri Geller's ability to
bend
keys and spoons, to move compasses, and produce clicks in a Geiger counter,
all with his mind.

Bohm also flirted with panpsychism, the belief that all matter is in some
sense alive with low levels of consciousness. "Even the electron is
informed
with a certain level of mind," Bohm said in an interview published in
Quantum
Implications: Essays in Honor of David Bohm (1987), edited by Basil Hiley
and
David Peat. Bohm's later writings swarm with neologisms such as
holomovement,
rheomode, levate, enfoldment, soma-significant, and implicate and explicate
levels of reality.

In his biography of Bohm, David Peat tells how Bohm carried with him a key
bent by Uri Geller as if it were a holy relic. When the key later
disappeared,
Bohm took this to be Geller's psychokinetic powers at work from a distance.
When the key was found an hour later, he believed this to be another
paranormal event! Bohm's close associate Basil Hiley at once recognized
Geller
as a charlatan. He often warned Bohm that if he appeared to endorse Geller
it
would damage their work. Bohm agreed to back away from Geller. As Hiley
said
to Peat, Bohm often had to be saved from idiots.

Bohm's Eastern metaphysics, even though it helped shape his interpretation
of
quantum mechanics, should not be held against the potential fruitfulness of
his pilot wave theory. In a similar fashion Isaac Newton's Biblical
fundamentalism and his alchemical research cast no shadows over his
contributions to physics. Nor did Kepler's belief in astrology throw doubts
on
his great discoveries.

Einstein once said that his misgivings about the Copenhagen interpretation
of
QM came from something he felt in his little finger. For decades his
intuitions were ridiculed by Bohr and his followers. They never ceased to
express sorrow over how the great man had deserted them by refusing, in his
senior years, to view QM as a beautiful, complete theory, in no need of
being
replaced or modified.

It is too bad that Einstein did not live to see an increasing number of top
physicists, such as Roger Penrose, Jeffrey Bub, and John Bell, who
suspected,
and today suspect, that the old maestro may turn out to be right after all.

Martin Gardner's two-volume Annotated Alice has recently been reprinted in
a
one-volume edition.

Note

(1.) Sheldrake's latest book, published by Crown in 1999, is titled Dogs
That
Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home And Other Unexplained Powers of
Animals. The other animals with psychic powers include cats, parrots,
horses,
monkeys, sheep, pigs, rabbits, and even chickens! On Sheldrake's earlier
bizarre claims, see Chapter 15 in my 1988 collection of SI columns, The New
Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher.
***

L'articolo produsse diverse lettere di protesta da parte di lettori di SI,
_alcune_ delle quali furono pubblicate nel numero din November/December
2000 della rivista con una breve replica di Gardner:

***

Bohm and Krishnamurti

A comment on Martin Gardner's article "David Bohm and Jiddo Krishnamurti"
(July/August 2000). As I understand it, the present problem with David
Bohm's quantum potential is that a relativistic version of it has yet to be
found. In fact, it may not be possible to find a relativistic version of
Bohm's quantum potential. (See the May 1994 Scientific American, "Bohm's
Alternative to Quantum Mechanics," by David Z. Albert, page 58.) For this
reason David Bohm's ideas on quantum mechanics are probably incorrect.
Traditional quantum field theory does not have this problem, but I agree
with Gardner that the last word on quantum theory hat yet to be stated.
Also, in the interest of historical accuracy, Jiddu Krishnamurti (not
Jiddo)
never claimed celibacy or to possess the truth about everything and he
never
tried, nor took an entrance exam, to enter Oxford. Sloss does not claim
there was an affair between Krishnamurti and Nandini, and Gardner's remarks
on the claimed lies, pregnancies, and abortions are also dubious; see
Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals by Mary Lutynes. Martin Gardner's writing
is
usually very good and I thank him for the information on David Bohm. It is
sad that people can be so gullible as to accept theosophy, likewise for
David Bohm's uncritical acceptance of Uri Geller's claims. It is also sad
that David Bohm's depressions eventually broke his spirit and this might
have been what killed him.

Randy Geri

Redmond, Washington

Readers of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER are done a great disservice by Martin
Gardner's superficial and wrongheaded analysis of Krishnamurti.

A careful reading of Krishnamurti will show him to be quite unique and one
of the great skeptics in the search for true knowledge. He is not just
another phony, self-serving guru who mystifies followers by repeating vague
platitudes. Granted, he is nor easy to understand at first glance (but
neither is Newton, Einstein, etc.).

He warns his listeners against following any authority (including his own).
He urges them to become aware of the filter of conditioning through which
we
see the world. This task is not easy. There are no methods because any
method itself is a form of conditioning! A free mind sees directly and
stands completely alone without the second-hand "truths" foisted on it by
culture, religion, and the latest fad. One must try to become aware of the
too easy security that imprisons the conditioned mind. Scientists too have
often fallen into the trap of relying on the old paradigms and too quickly
rejecting the new. Martin Gardner is guilty of this.

Fred Ackerman

Washington, D.C.

Neither a professed "guru" nor "mystic," Krishnamurti was a profound
skeptic
of the mind and influenced many thousands of thoughtful people throughout
the world. How disappointing to finally see mention of this remarkable
thinker in SI and find it within the context of a superficial tabloid-type
sketch.

The article is so misleading that one must question Gardner's motives and
preconceived notions. Of the thousands of clever ways Krishnamurti
rephrased
some intriguing insights, why did Gardner choose only to include some
obscure, befuddled quotes in his article?

Krishnamurti admired science and technology, but his interest was
psychology. To Krishnamurti, religion was the skeptical inquiry into
consciousness. His key message was not that everything is interconnected
and
one must live in any certain way, but perhaps the more practical message
that through serious self-observation one will discover (among other
things)
that there is no one home.

It may have surprised Mr. Gardner to discover that the king has no clothes,
but for those who are more familiar with Krishnamurti, his humanness has
never been in question. He stayed on message for sixty years, lived simply,
had friends at many levels, and never tried to garner fame or fortune. And
like Bohm and the other physicists mentioned, his all-too-human and
sometimes inscrutable side never interfered with his consistent themes and
challenging questions about life during his long teaching career.

Larry Boyce

Durango, Colorado

Your article on the Indian mystical philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti was very
disturbing. I was looking forward to that article because I had just read
his First and Last Freedom and I thought it would he a positive view of him
since he seemed humble and not into the paranormal or theism. But instead
you attacked his personal life, and didn't present his ideas fairly. I had
just finished reading his book, which has an introduction by Aldous Huxley,
one my favorite authors. Admittedly Huxley does have some far-out ideas,
but
I thought Krishnamurti was very humble, and original in his presentation of
"mystical" type ideas.... Far from being "vague" I thought he was the most
direct philosopher I've ever read! But it was a shock to hear about his
personal life, so I guess I'm thankful for the article. It made me feel
better about not living up to his standards.

Jason Wimpey

jwimpey@email.msn.com

I was saddened by the harsh treatment Krishnamurti received....

Many Eastern disciplines ... are rife with metaphysical constructs, just as
Western disciplines are. I have no issue with Mr. Gardner tackling these
claims--in fact, I would expect no less from the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER--but a
little fairness and compassion might be in order. Yes, much of
Krishnamurti's work is vague, and the adulation and mysticism that
surrounded him are rather useless. However, the man had an agile and
inquiring mind, and he seemed to be for the most part gentle in his
approach. I have read indications of his personal weaknesses. Regardless,
how much does his personal life bear on his professional life? While it is
hypocrisy for a philosopher or religious individual to speak of one thing
and do another, it is also human nature. Let's take what's useful and work
from there, discarding anything irrational along the way.

Neil Barnes

knowarete@email.msn.com

Martin Gardner replies:

I apologize only for misspelling Krishnamurti's first name. What surprised
me most about the letters was that admirers of Krishnamurti read the
SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. Evidently our magazine is doing more than just
preaching
to the choir!

***