My Thoughts on The Men Who Stare At Goats

(I apologize for the multiple week-long hiatus.  There's no real excuse for it except procrastination.  I'll get after myself for it...tomorrow)

One of the subjects I’ve always had a love for over the years is the supernatural.  Can’t get enough of it.  From ghosts and monsters to more new age-y concepts like mystic places and shamanism, I love reading about it.  Do I actually believe any of it?  I tend to try to stay on the fence about any paranormal views.  It’d be nice if it were.  I’d feel it’d make the world a little more exciting if there was a Bigfoot prowling around American woods.

So a book and movie about how the U.S. military was trying to train soldiers with psychic powers definitely caught my attention.  Also, the book is nonfiction.

The Men Who Stare At Goats is a 2004 book by journalist Jon Ronson, who after being told that a military base has hundreds of de-bleated goats for experimental purposes, finds himself headfirst in a world of psychic spies, subliminal sounds and using the"I Love You" song from Barney the Purple Dinosaur as torture.

 

Just imagine this for hours and hours...

The book is an utterly fascinating read.  It made me wish that the “supersolider” unit, the First Earth Battalion, was actually being used in the war today, using non-lethal, hippy-ish techniques.  I’ve been reading it over the past few weeks on my lunch breaks at work and had a hard time putting it down when I had to clock back in.  One of the chapters I found particularly interesting was how because of one former solider in the First Earth Battalion had been indirectly responsible for the Heaven’s Gate cult’s mass suicide.

If there was any complaint I had for the book is that there was no real ending.  It just sort of teeters off.  But as I understand according to the book that, despite the First Earth Battalion being disbanded, the U.S. military still uses the techniques for some uses, particularly torture.  I’d love to see a follow-up by Ronson especially since it’s been 9 years since the book was published and see if there’s been any new developments.

 
I first became aware of the book, though, because of its 2009 movie adaptation of the same name starring Ewan McGregor, George Clooney and Jeff Bridges.  Although the book has no real chronological order, the movie does an excellent job of bringing the book to life, speaking about and demonstrating many of the book’s bizarre subjects and generally, being a good summation of the book's themes .

The movie is about a journalist named Bob Wilton (McGregor) who tags along with a toilet contractor named Lyn Cassady (Clooney) who claims that he was a psychic spy for the military.  As they get into many hairy situations in war-torn Iraq, Lyn talks more and more about his time in the “New Earth Army”.

While it has some embellishments when compared to the original book, I really enjoyed the movie.  Even if you’re not interested at all in the supernatural like I am, it’s still a really funny movie.  One of my favorite scenes being this one:

You can actually buy a predator if you like at this website