Technically, I shouldn’t disclose that I was ever a member: but here’s the letter I received today kicking me out of the IR Guild:-
Dear Mr Pelling,
I am sorry to inform you that the Independent Researcher Guild’s Ethics and Behaviour Committee has recommended your honorary guild membership be withdrawn. The specific grounds cited are:-
- Treating facts as “useful stepping stones towards the truth“. This is wholly incompatible with Guild Article #2, which explicitly states that facts are to be viewed as “politically motivated deceptions designed to hide doubts“.
- Attempting to frame “research questions“. While it is acceptable for Guild members to grandstand using scientific-sounding phrases (particularly in TV interviews), actual use of the scientific method is expressly prohibited under Articles #18 and #19.
- Trying to actively falsify parallel research hypotheses, particularly those of fellow Guild Members. The committee suggests you meditate further upon the Guild’s founding principle of The Cornucopia of Truths: that history only makes sense as a church broad enough to accommodate everyone’s individual truth.
- Your reaching out to mainstream academics is plainly wrong-headed: their primary responsibility – even in the postmodernist wing – is to close down debate, the diametric opposite of what the IRG stands for.
- Preferring probability and human judgment over possibility – really, you should be fully aware that, as Guild Article #7 clearly states, probability is the primary tool used by academics to forcefully silence historical dissenters such as us. This is the line in the sand we draw to separate Them from Us: it seems that you are now on Their side.
- Finally: the committee notes that your proposing a bourgeois (even, dare we say it, ‘middle class’) reading of a mystery object (and with no heresy and no centuries-long political conspiracy behind it) is just plain ludicrous. ‘Lone gunmen’ should be the subjects of our collective derision, not of our individual research.
You now have 7 (seven) days to remove all the IRG logos and graphic devices concealed in your website graphics. Your invitation to our 2010 secret conference in Aldwych Underground Station has also been withdrawn. Your ability to use the IR Guild’s copyrighted phrase “independent researcher” in conjunction with your name has also been revoked. We now suggest you look to Academe for accreditation: certainly, you are no longer welcome here.
Yours in equal parts sadness and annoyance,
<scrawly signature>
Senior Membership Services Manager
Independent Researcher Guild
Honestly, could my year have got off to a worse start? I think not! 🙁
My simpathy to you, Nick 🙁 C’est la vie – conflicts betwen grops and persons often hurts us. But as one wisdom American said, nowhere at this world exist monuments to research groups or committees, only for persons :). Good luck.
Errrmmm… perhaps I should point out (before people start applying for the slot I’ve just vacated) that the IRG may possibly not be a real organization. Of course, I might just be saying that to stop it from suing me: you’ll have to make your own mind up. 😮
I know what’s going on– the true nature of the IRG is revealed in the Voynich Manuscript, and they don’t want you finding *shot rings out*
Emily took an IRG bullet for me! I am not worthy!
Hmmm… I just sent you a note about the RC and how they’re involved with the Georgia Guidestones… and now this? Could there be a connection? Ya think? Mebbe you were getting too close to the truth!
I suppose that you’re not asking us to help you by
providing evidence to them that you _really_
belong in this circle… 😉
I’ll post about the Rosicrucians separately, thanks for the links… but watch out, they’ll be onto you next… 😮
Rene: unless you know any members who could pull some strings for me, I do now think I’m out for good. I can certainly think of plenty of people who ought to be members… 🙂
Strange they didn’t mention that you refuse to wear their KKK style hood on the Tube, in favour of the VMs style archer’s beret.
Just because I attend secret conferences in Aldwych Station doesn’t mean I travel on the Tube. But yes, the cut-out eye-holes never really worked for me. 🙂
As an aside, I don’t think the Sagittarian crossbowman is wearing a beret, or even a gugel (great word, even if it is also not the right kind of headwear). Perhaps 2010 will bring a renewed Voynich-centric interest in the history of dress 1400-1500…
I found especially cheerful that the “Guild”‘s Articles provide that facts are to be viewed as “politically motivated deceptions designed to hide doubts“. Consider that their recommendation to withdraw your membership is now a fact (as confirmed by evidence in writing). Is there a hidden agenda to it?
Luis: I have indeed wondered whether there is a hidden agenda at play here. Do you think that the IR Guild Vice President’s recent divorce from my cousin might have something to do with it? Or perhaps it was because I accidentally pranged the Guild Membership Secretary’s BMW just before Christmas?
Or maybe their affiliate, the Independent Research Society, or the American one with the same initials, is after you? If so, this is just the beginning of your troubles! 😉
Don’t be fooled, the IRG can be a powerful enemy if it so wishes. Ummm.. if such an organization exists at all, that is. 🙂
🙂
no change.