Totally far out New Age, Kung Fu, and the Jedi nights all rolled into one! Just read about this in Jon Ronson’s book [i]The Men Who Stare at Goats[/u]. Great book, and a very scary work on how US Army officers seemed rather gullible. In 1979, dispirited by his experience as a lieutenant in Vietnam, LTC Jim Shannon wrote what turned out to be a somewhat influential “field manual” and thought experiment based on various religious, social new age movements and the pop culture of Star Wars. The legacy lives on with various interrogation techniques (on the dark side) and with nonlethal weapons more in line with his intentions and principles of benevolence…
Principles
LTC (Jim) Channon believes the Army can be the principle moral ethical basis on which politics can harmonize in the name of the Earth. Since “Earthkind” has grown from pack to village, to tribe, to territory, and then to nation, LTC Channon envisions going from nation to planet next, and thereby declares the First Earth Battalion’s primary allegiance to the planet.[1] Making the planet whole requires the ethical use of force based on the collective conscience. In his operations field manual titled Evolutionary Tactics,[2] LTC Channon lists some of the important missions of the Earth Battalion as:
* 1) Urban pioneers * 2) Counter hostage force * 3) Disaster rescue * 4) Eco pioneers * 5) Animal rescue
The First Earth Battalion will organize itself informally: uniforms without uniformity, structure without status, and unity powered by diversity, since its members will be multicultural, with each race contributing to “rainbow power.”[3] As a guiding principle, members of the First Earth Battalion seek nondestructive methods of conflict resolution because their first loyalty is to the planet.[4]
The Warrior Monk Ethos
Service members of the First Earth Battalion would practice meditation, yogic cat stretches and primal screams to attain battle-readiness, and use tui na or shiatsu as battlefield first aid. First Earth Battalion trainees would learn to fast for a week drinking only juice and then eat only nuts and grains for a month. They would be able to: fall in love with everyone, realize the different paths of spirit, perceive the auras of living organisms, attain the power to pass through objects such as walls (phasing), bend metal by using the power of the mind (i.e. psychokinesis), walk on fire, operate based on spirit communications (e.g. mediumship), become a peacemaker, actually change a violent pattern in the world (e.g. the Maharishi Effect), organize a tree plant with kids, calculate faster than a computer, control their heart rate—including making it stop—with no ill effects, intuit information from the past (retrocognition) or future (precognition), have out-of-body experiences, live off nature for twenty days, be 90%+ a vegetarian, and be able to intuit other people’s thoughts and feelings via telepathy. LTC Channon coined the term “warrior monk” for these new service members of the First Earth Battalion,[5] which is anyone who has the presence, service and dedication of a monk and the absolute skill and precision of a warrior. In “The Warrior Monk’s Vision,” Channon imagines an Army made up of awakened warriors.[6] Channon’s ideal warrior monk would be proficient at every level of force.[7] The warrior monk will learn different self-defense systems of martial arts (such as taiji, aikido, etc.), which are based on the notion of using the force of their attackers against themselves. To alleviate negative stressors and promote healing in self and others, the warrior monk will employ various affirmation, relaxation and visualization techniques, as well as a number of methods like yoga [8] qigong and reiki [9] to help strengthen and improve the mind/body connection with spirit.
The Credo
According to the book Mind Wars by Ronald McRae, each member of the First Earth Battalion is sworn to uphold the credo of “high commandos and guerrilla gurus:”
* I have the capacity and therefore the duty to contribute to the development of myself, my associates, and our planet, simultaneously, now! * I will organize a self-supporting high commando group that will create and perform evolutionary breakthrough actions on behalf of people and planet. One people, one planet. * I will then pass on this concept to others who are capable of generating further self-organizing commando teams. * I will await the time when my group can connect naturally with others at higher and higher levels of awareness and performance—the Natural Guard.
