The truth is out there

After a quick scan of a list of the past lectures presented by the Eclectic Viewpoint, it's hard to resist the temptation to denounce the organization as mere coattail riders, snake-oil salesmen preying on the neo-conspiracy theorists who spend their time prowling anti-government chat rooms and their money on X-Files collectibles. It's an easy assumption to make. After all, almost half of the lectures have concerned UFOs, and several others have dealt with government conspiracies.

While that might be the most obvious supposition, it is far from correct. Launched in January 1992 with a presentation on the mother of all conspiracies--the assassination of JFK--the Viewpoint predates The X-Files by almost two years. Since its inception, the Viewpoint has provided locals an opportunity to discuss a wide range of topics, including UFOs, near-death experiences, alternative medicines, government conspiracies and spiritual matters.

The Viewpoint's latest happening, a presentation by Dannion Brinkley and Dr. Len Horowitz, combines several of the group's standard motifs.

Best-selling author Brinkley makes his fourth appearance at the Eclectic Viewpoint, this time speaking about his third(!) near-death experience. His first brush with death (in 1975, he was struck by a bolt of lightning) turned Brinkley into a sort of latter-day Nostradamus. According to him, he was taken to a "cathedral of knowledge," where 13 angels gifted him with 117 revelations about the future of the world. So far, several of these "revelations" have apparently come to pass, including the nuclear plant accident at Chernobyl and the Gulf War. Even so, his story still sounds pretty dodgy.

That's where Horowitz comes in. Recently, Brinkley heard one of Horowitz's lectures about AIDS, emerging viruses, and biological warfare and found many similarities in Horowitz's scientific evidence and his own prophecies. In Horowitz's portion of the presentation, he will back up Brinkley's predictions with hard evidence that implicates the U.S. Department of Defense's top weapons contractors, the National Cancer Institute, and the world's leading pharmaceutical companies in the development and transmission of AIDS and the ebola virus, among other things. Decide for yourself.

The event happens on Sunday, March 22, from 1:30-5:30 p.m. Admission is $25. Renaissance Hotel, LBJ and Midway Road. For more information call (972) 601-7687.