• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Ninjas and remote viewing

wjousts

Critical Thinker
W
Joined
Mar 15, 2004
Messages
324
I was watching "Unsolved History" on the discovery channel last night and they were talking about the truth and myths about ninjas. Most of the program was quite entertaining until the last 10 minutes or so when they started talking about the Ninja's psychic abilities, in particular, remote viewing. They then set up an "experiment" with modern self-proclaimed "viewers" to try and remotely view another experiment they were doing 9 miles away where they were playing a war game type thing to see how ninja tactics compared to modern special forces tactics (the setup envolved a target guarded by two guys on the top floor of a house - the navy SEALS had to try and capture the target and then the "modern day ninja" had to try the same).
The supposed psychics were briefed (which the TV viewer saw and heard little of) and then they went ahead a filled up some notepads with crude sketches (one guy drew a corridor - wow, that's amazing, there was a corridor in the house!). Then they visited the site and congratulated themselves on how well they'd done. The sum total of skeptical balance to this woo-wooism was one guy saying "I don't believe the ninja had a sixth sense because I don't believe it exists". Nice work Discovery!
On another point, it occuried to me, how come not a single one of these "viewers" can actually draw? Surely at least one might be able to produce a half decent picture instead or a vague scribble that could be anything?
 
I love ninjas with all of my body (including my pee pee).

Now that that's out of the way, I don't really see why you're surprised at this. Seems like pretty standard procedure for TV: their purpose is to capture viewers, and they can capture more viewers by including stuff like this. People like to have their POV confirmed.

(edited because I hit 'Submit' instead of 'Preview')
 
I agree, wjousts, the show was, for the most part, entertaining though, I could have done without the last bit. I was especially annoyed about how they used the amount of money that the CIA spent on the RV program as evidence that it was a functional phenomenon. Nary a word though on the results of those experiments...

About the drawings, they had a bunch of different folks drawing a bunch of different things. They then took their drawings to the location to see if any of it matched up! Well, no ◊◊◊◊, some of these scribblings can fit to some of the object in, around or on the house. Oh, look, I drew a staircase, this house has a staircase!



Prester John, carrot:

Pretty much what I found out was, when ninjas are not flipping out and killing people they spend a lot of their time flying but sometimes they stab.
 
Hmm...

Seems as though they didn't spend much time researching the history.

The "psychic powers" of the ninja assasins are one of historys best examples of psychological warfare. Sadly, because most of the original ninjutsu clans were exterminated (Iga and Toga-Kure were the only two to leave remnants, IIRC), the myths lived on as truth. Most ninjas were themselves responsible for spreading rumors of mystical and psychic powers. Contrary to the last 20 years of TV and movies, ninjas are not warriors. They are spies, scouts, and assasins. Stealth, not combat, is their forte. Anyone who has studied ninjutsu under traditional teachers can tell you that almost every move and kata is designed to break away, immobilize, or disable your opponant and allow escape. It's focused to getting away from your attacker ASAP. Just look at the weapons: Again, despite what the TV shows, it's d**n hard to kill anyone with a throwing star. If you hit the neck or some other major, close to the skin artery, maybe. The purpose was more to slow and halt an attacker so the ninja could jump over a wall or get a head start on running.

Anyway, to get back to the point, most ninja clans had three or four different categories. They had footsoldiers, managers, and spies. The footsoldiers are what most people think of when they hear ninja, and their job was to be scouts and assasins. The managers ran the schools and families at the clan headquarters. The spies made up the bulk fo a clan. They basically lived in society as any normal person, but made certain reports to the clan members at various times. They could perform various actions as needed, but typically they were eyes and ears. It was this tactic of using a profound number of spies, ,many in service positions within the houses of various nobility, that led to the idea of remote viewing ninjas (a rumor spread and supported by more of these same ninjas).

The psychological warfare of the ninjas worked; many believed them possessed of superhuman powers, with demons fighting for them and the ability to walk through walls, fly, burrow through the ground, and various other nonsense. Use of gunpowder to create explosives and even bamboo mortars added to this image.

In short, this is pure sensationalism for ratings, not based in accurate history.
 
Huntsman, your post just very closely echoed much of what the Unsolved History show had to offer. The main focus of the show was the parts about the ninja clan’s perpetuation of their own myth, their reliance on stealth and their sneaky battle techniques (the show stressed that the ninja style was diametrically opposed to the samurai). In fact, the show spent time on debunking some aspects of ninja myth, including: invisibility, walking through walls and supernatural fighting ability.

It was not until the last bit that the show went off its rocker. This, of course, made me doubt how much research they had done for the rest of the show.
 
One other thing to bear in mind is that there really isn't any very compelling evidence to connect any of the modern ninjutsu schools to the historical ninja clans.
 
Camillus said:
One other thing to bear in mind is that there really isn't any very compelling evidence to connect any of the modern ninjutsu schools to the historical ninja clans.
Click to expand...

Yes, and I can't repeat this enough.

Most modern "ninjutsu" schools are nothing more than ways to take your money. Instructors usually teach basic defense moves or an entirely different art altogether, but calling it "ninjutsu" means more income.

As another aside, "ninjutsu" is not a martial art, but an entire package. The fighting style taught in ninjutsu is actually taijutsu. Ninjutsu includes not only the fighting, which is actually a small portion of the training, but also movement, stealth, observation, chemistry (specifically fashioning the various pyrotechnic devices), uses of various tools and weapons, psychological warfare, disguise, and a host of other techniques.

One can find schools that are closer to the original ninjutsu than others. There used to be a non-profit called "Shadows of Iga" that tracked ninjutsu schools and would provide information on those thought to be authentic. Not sure if they're still around or not.

One thing I'd like to add is that precisely because the ninja was not a fighter, taijutsu developed into a very effective art for self-defense. The ninja did not have time to stand and trade kicks and punches for 5 minutes. The majority of maneuvers taught lead to either misdirecting your opponent or disabling his senses so you can run, or disabling a limb so he can't catch you, or just putting him into an awkward position, again so you can escape. This, IMO, makes it good as a self-defense art: it focuses on a quick end to the conflict, and most of the easiest escape moves do not involve killing or maiming an opponant. Good to prevent legal troubles :) I have taken some training in taijutsu, so I know a little about the history and technique. Of course, that's been years ago (God I'm old, I turn 30 tommorrow, I feel 80, it's depressing).

Anyway, just thought I'd add some more info. I hate the mischaracterizations and false beliefs many hold about the "superhuman ninja warrior." One thought that always pops up is ninjutsu's definition of a master:

"A master is one so in tune with himself, with others, and with his environment, that he never allows himself to be in a position where violence is his only option."
 
Huntsman said:
I hate the mischaracterizations and false beliefs many hold about the "superhuman ninja warrior."
Click to expand...
Dont patronize the superhuman ninja warriors! Everybody knows that ninjas have extraordinary abilities! Especially those from the silver ninja empire.. I also have evidence to prove that ninjas can cheat death, right here!

Happy birthday :)
 
I saw all of the show except the last fifteen minutes. Fortunately, I missed the crap about the remote viewing.

For the part I saw, they were pretty good at defusing the ninja myths. What was annoying is they kept referring to the ninja's abilities as "superhuman" and "mystical" even as they debunked them. It was really sloppily written, although very interesting.
 
Ninjas!! They're everywhere, like flies. -- paraphrased from The Tick Comics.

Yes, there is alot of nonsense about ninjas and my understanding is that anyone who trained to fight in feudal japan that was not Samurai were considered ninja. I could be wrong, but this seem much more believable than guys in pajamas running around throwing smokeballs. The ninja is a romantic fiction anymore that represents stealth and resistance to oppression. Anyone that claims to teach ninjutsu today is pretty much an idiot.

However, I did find the last of the remaining ninja clans at www.ninjaburger.com
 
thaiboxerken said:
Ninjas!! They're everywhere, like flies. -- paraphrased from The Tick Comics.

Yes, there is alot of nonsense about ninjas and my understanding is that anyone who trained to fight in feudal japan that was not Samurai were considered ninja. I could be wrong, but this seem much more believable than guys in pajamas running around throwing smokeballs. The ninja is a romantic fiction anymore that represents stealth and resistance to oppression. Anyone that claims to teach ninjutsu today is pretty much an idiot.

However, I did find the last of the remaining ninja clans at www.ninjaburger.com
Click to expand...

I must confess a weakness for Sho Kosugi movies. His name shows up as performer, writer, or advisor on almost all things Ninja in the film industry. He claims to have studied ninjutsu. If he didn't then what was it he studied?

Interestingly, just after reading this thread I went to my martial arts class last night and heard a discussion about ninjutsu. Somebody was describing a test where a team of SEALS and a ninja separately attempted to attack somebody in a simulated safe house. The SEALS went in with guns blazing, succeeded in their mission in a couple of minutes. The ninja used disguise and deceipt to talk his way in, stealth to get close to the witness, and then (according to the guy telling the story) would have been killed in the actual attack. Whole process took four hours.

Your post leads me to ask, if there's no school of ninjutsu anymore, where do you get a "ninja" for a test like this?

By the way, a search for "ninjutsu dojo" led me to www.ninjutsu.com, which claims to be teaching ninjutsu but also calls its style "bujinkan".
 
rppa said:


I must confess a weakness for Sho Kosugi movies. His name shows up as performer, writer, or advisor on almost all things Ninja in the film industry. He claims to have studied ninjutsu. If he didn't then what was it he studied?
Click to expand...

There's lots of places that call themselves "ninjas," as the field of martial arts instruction is rife with frauds and simple bad history. I could easily set up a training hall, teaching "blue firefly style ninjutsu," claiming I had learned the secrets from master Sapporo Ramen on a trip to Japan, and my students would be none the wiser.

Fifty years from now, if I'm good enough, I'll be dead or retired, my students' students will be teaching, there will be a chain of Blue Firefly Ninjutsu studios at strip malls all across the country, and the film industry will be phoning my senior disciple to ask for historical details to use in "Firefly vs. Dragon IV."
 

Your post leads me to ask, if there's no school of ninjutsu anymore, where do you get a "ninja" for a test like this?

This is much like asking where one gets a medium to do a spirit reading. You simply search for someone that calls themselves a ninja. Those that call themselves ninjas are generally idiots.
 
rppa said:
Interestingly, just after reading this thread I went to my martial arts class last night and heard a discussion about ninjutsu. Somebody was describing a test where a team of SEALS and a ninja separately attempted to attack somebody in a simulated safe house. The SEALS went in with guns blazing, succeeded in their mission in a couple of minutes. The ninja used disguise and deceipt to talk his way in, stealth to get close to the witness, and then (according to the guy telling the story) would have been killed in the actual attack. Whole process took four hours.
Click to expand...

That was the Discovery show and also the part that they claimed to be trying to remote view. The SEALS whole raid, from the moment they entered the "hot zone" to the moment they captured the target took about 30 seconds and they took no casulties (although there were 5-6 SEALS and only 2 guards). The "ninja" took about 4 hours of constantly trying to wander into the "hot zone" by claiming to be a production assistant. He did get the target and knocked his hat off (this was the objective) but he ended up on his ass in a bathtub with both guards, gun drawn in front of him. I think it's fair to say he would have ended up being killed, even if he completed the mission. The show claimed this as a resounding success!
The "ninja" in question was some old guy who they claimed was in the "black belt hall of fame" if that means anything to the martial arts types. I don't remember his name.
 
wjousts said:


The "ninja" in question was some old guy who they claimed was in the "black belt hall of fame" if that means anything to the martial arts types. I don't remember his name.
Click to expand...

This hall of fame doesn't really mean crap. It is pretty funny how it took this guy 4 hours to "kill" his target. This was a simulated situation as well, so the guards were just playing along with not noticing that there was a stranger in the area that wasn't supposed to be there. Real situation guards would ask for ID right away, or they should.
 
thaiboxerken said:
This was a simulated situation as well, so the guards were just playing along with not noticing that there was a stranger in the area that wasn't supposed to be there. Real situation guards would ask for ID right away, or they should.
Click to expand...

To be fair, at first the guards immediately drew their weapons and sent him back when he tried to come in. Anybody entering the "hot zone" was supposed to be announced to them first so after first sending him away they were cursing about him not being announced. Then the "ninja" sent some woman up with donuts and they turned her away. Then he came back up saying he just needed to adjust the light that's right by the door and so on. He gradually put them off guard by constantly hassling them with stupid stuff like that. Finally he gained a lot of trust from the guards by giving them an answer to a trivia question (the guards where periodically instructed to go find the answers to trivia questions in order to stop them from simply camping out and waiting for the assault and to put them off guard). Eventually the "ninja" got into the room next to the bathroom where the target was held but another guard was standing in the doorway. The "ninja" opted to just lunge past the last guard and grab the target which I thought was pretty lame after all the time he'd spent getting that close.
 
Dont patronize the superhuman ninja warriors! Everybody knows that ninjas have extraordinary abilities! Especially those from the silver ninja empire.. I also have evidence to prove that ninjas can cheat death, right here!
Click to expand...

What a strange comic. This may be the scariest thing I have ever seen.
 
Ryu Hyabusa can shoot lightning bolts from his fingers.

That beats any crappy remote viewing stuff any day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom