Forum V: Archive
Compiled: Wed, Mar 01, 2000 at 03:09:57 (GMT)
From: Feb 13, 2000 To: Feb 26, 2000 Page: 4 Of: 5


DJURO -:- DJURO 2 -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 17:27:24 (GMT)
__ Mike -:- I know.... you can't spell 'guess,' right? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:26:45 (GMT)
__ AJW -:- Don't tell me... -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 17:33:43 (GMT)
__ __ Gregg -:- Wate! I no wat's cumming next: Satsang! -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:53:14 (GMT)

Jean-Michel -:- New requirements in order to do Service -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 14:40:56 (GMT)
__ DOD -:- New requirements in order to do Service -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 15:43:36 (GMT)
__ __ JB -:- New requirements in order to do Service -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:07:07 (GMT)
__ Anon -:- New requirements in order to do Service -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 00:53:43 (GMT)
__ __ bill burke.....*>* -:- 'enemy' tag shows a lot -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 03:47:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Don't be so arrogant, Billy boy -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 18:15:17 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ bb -:- er, ahh, um -:- Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 05:58:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- And where'd you learn THIS? -:- Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 16:46:17 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ bb -:- And where'd you learn THIS? -:- Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 02:44:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ Anon -:- 'enemy' tag shows a lot -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:34:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ bb -:- anon -:- Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 05:35:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Anon -:- anon -:- Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 19:42:55 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ bb -:- anon -:- Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 02:46:54 (GMT)
__ __ Susan -:- Wow. -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:49:23 (GMT)
__ __ Steve -:- New requirements in order to do Service -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:28:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ To Steve from Anon -:- New requirements in order to do Service -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:21:18 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Steve -:- New requirements in order to do Service -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 17:35:15 (GMT)
__ __ JB -:- Empathy for Anon -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:42:37 (GMT)
__ __ __ Anon -:- Empathy for Anon -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 23:22:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ JB -:- Quote missing above post -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:26:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Brian -:- Quote missing above post -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:53:36 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ JB -:- Thank you Brian, (nt) -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 16:19:36 (GMT)
__ __ kmdarling -:- SUPPORT FOR YOUR FRUSTRATED FEELINGS -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:09:46 (GMT)
__ __ __ kmdarling -:- 2nd TRY:SUPPORT FOR YOUR FRUSTRATED FEELINGS -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:19:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Anon to KatyD -:- 2nd TRY:SUPPORT FOR YOUR FRUSTRATED FEELINGS -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 16:42:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Susan -:- If he were a real master he could command respect -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 17:16:11 (GMT)
__ __ __ JHB -:- Answering Maharaji's Letters -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:16:38 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ kmdarling -:- Answering Maharaji's Letters -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 04:11:42 (GMT)
__ __ G -:- 'a qualitative leap' -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:06:07 (GMT)
__ __ Lee -:- Beautiful words -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 23:35:34 (GMT)
__ __ SB -:- Thanks for your post! -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 19:53:16 (GMT)
__ __ JB -:- Empathy for Anon -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:04:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ cqg -:- or 'Burt Hadley'? (nt) -:- Sat, Feb 19, 2000 at 19:10:54 (GMT)
__ __ DOD -:- New requirements in order to do Service -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 15:53:51 (GMT)
__ __ Nigel -:- Definitely ** BEST ** -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 13:24:13 (GMT)
__ __ Charlie -:- Excellent post Anon -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 11:17:07 (GMT)
__ __ Robyn -:- Anon -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 07:46:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ cqg -:- Might I suggest ... -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 19:47:33 (GMT)
__ __ I feel -:- your pain -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 04:45:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Yeah? When was the last time you tested it? -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 20:05:32 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ I'll be -:- the first to admit... -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 22:53:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Anon -:- Beliefs and knowledge are two different animals?? -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:52:10 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jack -:- Beliefs and knowledge are two different animals?? -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 04:19:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Are you -:- Jack Leviton? -:- Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 02:12:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ JHB -:- You're rambling..... -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:52:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Compared to you -:- my words are precision smart bombs (nt) -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:05:55 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ JB -:- my words are precision smart bombs (nt) -:- Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 16:40:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Anon -:- my words are precision smart bombs (nt) -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:09:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Or break the mold -- be creative -- use real name! -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:25:55 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Time for a name, fella -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:27:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Sure...bring out the 'got -:- to get a name' strategy just when your opponent.. -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:23:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- End of discussion -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:42:12 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ You heartbreaker -:- you! (nt) -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:10:51 (GMT)
__ __ __ Anon -:- your pain -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 10:53:46 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ What I mean -:- is this... -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:51:17 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Anon -:- is this... -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 21:19:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ You do NOT Feel -:- your pain -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 07:17:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Sorry but -:- you are not in a position to know -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:31:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ So tell us if you see -:- anything wrong about m(nt) -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:42:34 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ JHB -:- you are not in a position to know -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 18:55:23 (GMT)
__ __ Brian -:- Thank you Anon -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 03:08:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ Ms. K/Katie -:- Thanks from me too, Anon -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 03:46:45 (GMT)
__ __ VP -:- Best of the forum, Anon -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 02:17:15 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- EXCUSE me! What's this gotto do with Run and me?? -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 01:13:48 (GMT)
__ __ __ Anon -:- EXCUSE me! What's this gotto do with Run and me?? -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 01:34:14 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Helen -:- Best post I've ever read... -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:41:01 (GMT)
__ Jean-Michel -:- And here's a participation questionnaire -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 14:54:15 (GMT)
__ __ JHB -:- Coordinates??? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:40:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ Robyn -:- Coordinates??? -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 09:55:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ Peter Graves -:- Coordinates??? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:52:16 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- Let's do it! -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 15:52:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jean-Michel -:- Let's do it! -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:35:13 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ AJW -:- Oh no! -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 17:24:49 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jean-Michel -:- Marianne? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:02:46 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ AJW -:- Oooops. -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:12:44 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jean-Michel -:- and furthermore -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:21:14 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ cqg -:- J-M, ... about that Knowledge review ... -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:31:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jean-Michel -:- about that Knowledge review: U'RE CONFUSED! -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 21:44:06 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Mike -:- Hey JM, how about an online one? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:01:09 (GMT)

Lee -:- Likes and dislikes -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 21:24:38 (GMT)
__ DOD -:- Likes and dislikes -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:23:04 (GMT)
__ Harry -:- Likes and dislikes -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 05:45:43 (GMT)
__ A Former Premie -:- Likes and dislikes -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 05:22:29 (GMT)
__ Robyn -:- Likes and dislikes -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 01:35:12 (GMT)
__ __ cqg -:- Likes and dislikes -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:24:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ Robyn -:- Likes and dislikes -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 23:27:42 (GMT)
__ __ JB -:- Likes and dislikes -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:46:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ cqg -:- - wot? ... a good Catholic boy like you? (nt) ;] -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 21:02:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jerry -:- - wot? ... a good Catholic boy like who? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:11:32 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ cqg -:- Ooops, my mistake - thought JB was JHB :o[ (nt) -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 18:43:41 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ JHB -:- Ooops, my mistake - thought JB was JHB :o[ (nt) -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 19:14:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ cqg -:- Ooops, my mistake - thought JB was JHB, sorry John -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 19:58:02 (GMT)

Haldor -:- I've been thinking -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 20:28:23 (GMT)
__ AJW -:- I've been thinking -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:09:36 (GMT)
__ __ AJW -:- I forgot... -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:16:25 (GMT)
__ Jim -:- May I suggest the Recent Ex's forum? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 01:00:15 (GMT)
__ __ Helen -:- May I suggest the Recent Ex's forum? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 15:05:43 (GMT)
__ __ Haldor -:- May I suggest the Recent Ex's forum? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 05:37:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ kmdarling -:- HEY YOU GUYS! HE ASKED HOW TO GET TO RECENT EXES! -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:40:48 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ JHB -:- Getting on RecentExes. -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:25:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- Toggle your caps lock (nt) -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:01:12 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- May I suggest the Recent Ex's forum? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 15:43:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Helen -:- My opinion re: Jim's big fight -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:22:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Runamok -:- statement -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:35:22 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Good points, Run -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:40:32 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Helen -:- statement -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:47:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- statement -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 06:38:55 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Helen -:- statement -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 16:45:32 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Well said, Helen -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:47:22 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Helen -:- Well said, Helen -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 23:11:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Well said, Helen -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 23:14:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ JB -:- My opinion re: Jim's big fight -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:58:15 (GMT)
__ SB -:- I've been thinking -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 00:14:21 (GMT)
__ JHB -:- I've been thinking -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 20:59:03 (GMT)
__ cqg -:- I've been thinking -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 20:33:43 (GMT)
__ __ Mike -:- well said, cqg and might I add -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 21:45:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ AJW -:- argumentative and opinionated posts -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:28:31 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Mike -:- noted, and quite correct! -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:06:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ cqg -:- noted, and quite correct! -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:46:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Mike -:- Absolutely! -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 20:04:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ cqg -:- Yer in yer head bruvver -now go and meditate;)[nt] -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 20:19:10 (GMT)
__ __ __ Helen -:- Lee and Haldor -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 15:24:41 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Lee and Haldor -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:37:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Mike -:- Lee and Haldor -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 18:43:49 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Helen -:- automatic pilot -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 17:55:27 (GMT)

Jim -:- G's 'modern myths' reposted and commented upon -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 19:24:36 (GMT)
__ Mirror, mirror -:- on the wall... -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:57:00 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- Are you cracked? -:- Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 02:27:46 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- Sorry, do I know you? -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:04:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ G -:- 'Mirror, mirror' is not me - just so you know (nt) -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:27:44 (GMT)
__ G -:- G's 'modern myths' reposted and commented upon -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 20:49:47 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- G's 'modern myths' reposted and commented upon -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 21:27:38 (GMT)
__ __ __ G -:- Hawkingism -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 03:24:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ JB -:- New website of interest -:- Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:48:38 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- Hawkingism -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 03:54:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ G -:- Perception of chance -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 15:09:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Perception of chance -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 20:44:27 (GMT)
__ Nigel -:- Has esp been verified? : No way, Jose... -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 19:55:55 (GMT)
__ __ Jerry -:- Has esp been verified? : No way, Jose... -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 22:08:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ Nigel -:- Has esp been verified? : No way, Jose... -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 22:43:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Runamok -:- 'Scientific research' -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:42:34 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- 'Scientific research' -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:52:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Runamok -:- I predict -:- Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 02:22:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Corrections to previous post... -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 20:01:38 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- Case in point? For who? -:- Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 23:28:54 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ VP -:- Case in point? For who? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 01:30:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Michael -:- Case in point? For who? -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 03:46:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ VP -:- Thanks, Michael -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 04:08:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Mike -:- Are you OK? (off topic) -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:10:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ VP -:- Are you OK? (off topic) -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 21:46:12 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Mike -:- Thank goodness! -:- Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:06:59 (GMT)


Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 17:27:24 (GMT)
From: DJURO
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: DJURO 2
Message:
Gues what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:26:45 (GMT)
From: Mike
Email: None
To: DJURO
Subject: I know.... you can't spell 'guess,' right?
Message:
Only guessing, of course!
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 17:33:43 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: DJURO
Subject: Don't tell me...
Message:
Don't tell me DJURO, the straps on your straight jacket have come loose and you've got near a pc?

Anth Reader of Minds In Cyberspace And Seer Through Time

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:53:14 (GMT)
From: Gregg
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: Wate! I no wat's cumming next: Satsang!
Message:
Dear Premies: blah, blah, blah and kiss my ass. My feet, I mean.
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 14:40:56 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: New requirements in order to do Service
Message:
Here is a copy of what EV's now seending to premies wanting to be involved in service:

----------

Dear inquirer,

Thank you for your recent interest in attending a training session.

Currently many new opportunities are opening up to help M in his efforts to make Knowledge available to people all around the world. This will require a qualitative leap in the way we work together.

In the future, people will be invited to attend training sessions that focus on how to work together in synchronization as a highly functional team.

If you are interested in participating and you have time, whether it's two hours a month or two hundred – we invite you to complete the 'Participation Questionnaire» and «Strength, Attitudes, & Predisposition Survey», and to send them to us, along with a digitized photograph, in the manner described below.*

Please attach your completed forms and photo to a First Class message addressed to
N.Am.Participation Questionnaire
or
email them to ParticForm@aol.com
If you need technical help submitting the questionnaire, call (781) 320-9979.

The dates of training sessions have not yet been determined. Once dates have been decided and potential participants selected, you will be contacted.

Best regards,
The Training Team

*Electronic procedures for photograph and forms: We would like a recent color passport-size photograph. The necessary resolution is 72 dpi [dots per inch] or 220 pixels by 250 pixels. (You can bring a photo and a disk into Kinko's and they will scan it onto the disk for you.) The file should be saved as a JPG file. Forms saved as Microsoft Word or RTF files. For the forms: name the «Participation Questionnaire» with your 'Last Name, First Name QST' and the «Strength, Attitudes, & Predisposition Survey» with your «Last Name, First Name STR,» and save them as either Microsoft Word or RTF files.

---------------

This new procedure and training system is not known to old exes.

I've been particating in one of those a few years back. Anyone else ?

I'm sorry EV's officials are going to get mad at me once again ... My last k review filled me with a lot of bliss and grace will protect me against their spell.


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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 15:43:36 (GMT)
From: DOD
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: New requirements in order to do Service
Message:
Imagine all this red tape to go work as a slave for free!
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:07:07 (GMT)
From: JB
Email: None
To: DOD
Subject: New requirements in order to do Service
Message:
And then to work next to mean premies aka The Gestapo.

JB

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 00:53:43 (GMT)
From: Anon
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: New requirements in order to do Service
Message:
Currently many new opportunities are opening up to help M in his efforts to make Knowledge available to people all around the world. This will require a qualitative leap in the way we work together.

This sort of rhetoric is so familiar. How often has the word come down from above that new wonderful opportunities for involvement are around the corner? The promise of being invited to be involved so often boosted my hopes. I spent years working in boring jobs in ashrams, looking forward to such promises coming true, only to gradually face the reality that there would be no great new era of involvement. Besides if you were an 'expert' or 'skilled' person, you would probably need some attitude adjustment. You may remember that this was because any egoistic 'attachment' to one's skill would need to be well and truly crushed. Thus by the time you ended up doing your much longed-for service, you would most likely be pretty traumatised and you may not even derive any satisfaction from the job. That is, of course, apart from the notion that your experience now transcended the selfish reaping of mundane rewards that usually come with the fruits of labour.

I think I mistook feelings of intense personal detachment for experiences of my higher self. I often underwent a lot of mind crushing satsang, as a precursor to doing service, and the disorienting effect of this made it all the more important to hang on to the suggested source of comfort -ie the breath coming in and out of my body. There is no doubt that the process of service frequently depersonalised me to such a degree that such experiences could take on an almost desperate importance. Not always pleasant either.

'This will require a qualitative leap in the way we work together.'

So it is a requirement that there be a big improvement in the quality of service. What's new?

This statement seems to reflect that old attitude that we never measured up, and thereby constantly needed to remind one another that we should make more effort. It smacks of guilt and self-effacement. I remember that 'Extra Effort' was a key phrase for a long time . I sense that the 'So...we should do this that and the other' wording of the past has been altered yet again, maybe giving the false reassurance that things have moved on. There is still the implication that service is an obligation, something you have to do, rather than it being a personal choice.

Am I being paranoid? Reading too much into the current language? Maybe a little...but it is hardly surprising, given that I suffered years of being preached to and often made to feel guilty about the amount of dedication I should make to Maharaji.

I think that the fact that it was frowned upon to gain personal or material satisfaction from one's service was a way that a sense of depersonalisation, or 'being dead while you're alive' was achieved.
When you think about it, one of the motivations for receiving Knowledge was to find an experience that is 'beyond death' so to speak. I trusted, for many years, that the chastisment that Maharaji often gave us and we, in turn, heaped on each other (sometimes to the degree of being plainly abusive) was to be accepted as a necessary way of having one's ego destroyed. I became more suspicious about the divine origin of this practice as the years rolled by and, as I noticed that the resulting crop of supposedly 'egoless' premies were remarkably lacking in some of the more obvious virtues (despite having been sucessfully transformed into Maharaji obsessed automatons).

I suppose a defining moment was after one weekend of particularly unrelenting and heavy 'Ashram' satsang. After subjecting ourselves to a devastating barrage of repetitive, mostly untalented, speakers we had achieved a dizzying pinnacle of group brain-death. I recall that my main 'residual'conscious experience was indeed that of my breath pumping away strongly-headily - 'Holy Name.' The problem was that I also was acutely aware that I was literally losing my mind, and I was horrified that the 'Knowledge' experience was not taking away that terror. Far from it, I knew that I was losing touch with all the good things that had blessed my life up till then- all my motivating inspirations and values. My trusting heart felt terribly confused. In reality I now think it was being abused.

I am well aware of the peacefulness and poise that can be achieved through the occasional practice of meditation on the breath but this degree of involvement, dedication to Maharaji had led me, a deeply inspired and sincere teenager, to a moment of real horror and desperation.

In my heart I could not have been a more willing or faithful student. I was also probably, to be frank, blessed with a little too much awareness to easily ignore the abounding hypocrisies and transparent ways. I had a sense that I was dying to the world and yet nothing loving or beautiful was replacing it (as I had been led to believe would come with a life of dedication to the Perfect Master). Certainly Maharaji or Knowledge were of no comfort then. Maharaji may well have been holidaying on his yacht somewhere with his family- oblivious to my inner turmoil. But I was in some dreary hall in London, having given up my friends, a wonderful family and home, and had become (for some years by then) one of Maharaji's order of renunciate monks . No matter what anyone says to the contrary, I know that I had made a supreme sacrifice of my life, in good faith, to Maharaji - for real. The fact that I was miserable was then not so much disillusioning as just plain ghastly. It took a long time to question things.

I had no pleasures at that time except maybe food. Even my physical circumstances in the ashram were very depressing. I was very very dismayed that my sincere prayer to be an instrument of the Lord in my life was turning out to be an apparent waste. There was no way I could construe that my life was of any use other than to be earning way below my potential, to contribute for Maharaji's work. I knew I was not being used to my full potential and I was frustrated. My circumstances could not have been better designed as a means of torture.

OK, there were plenty of stories about past devotees who underwent dreadful cirmustances for long periods of time for the good of their souls. Maharaji often cited such tales to illustrate how the Master would test his devotees . He said once (in response to the question 'What does the Lord give his most beloved devotees?') that the Lord gives his most beloved devotees difficult circumstances in their lives, misfortune, so that they will turn to him all the more.

I 'm afraid I couldn't take the pain. My feelings of isolation from goodness, and that life was passing me by, were overwhelming. Maybe if I had some joys in my life then I could have endured it better. However I was destined to look back at this time as being a dreadfully unhappy part of my life and nearly a disastrous waste. I say nearly because when the ashrams closed down I was still younger than the average Ashram Premie and I pulled myself back from the brink of material disaster with an extreme effort on my own part and no help from Maharaji.

How am I supposed to have any faith in Maharaji as a Master when following his instructions to the letter resulted in such unhappiness? When the only pleasure and satisfaction I have redeemed from my 'diverted' life were through my own struggles to do something else with my life other than to dedicate it to him? How can I trust a man who has no remorse for toying with my life- my precious life?

Maharaji was the object of my utter devotion for so long, it's even now hard to listen to him refer to the likes of me as his enemy. I don't consider I am his enemy. If he knew how much I had loved him he could never, even now, dismiss me as his enemy. That is most demeaning. I feel he has abused my love and owes me an apology.

I could never be the namby pamby, bliss-ninnie, current follower - who maybe had an easy ride in the old days- who maybe didn't 'surrender the reins of their life' and has 'fitted knowledge (or their concept of it) into their life-retaining their pleasures and their own goals- who can turn a blind eye to the injustices, the wrongs, of the past- who can happily comfort themselves with the belief that they are experiencing the best life has to offer-that they are destined maybe for Maharaji Heaven in the afterlife even- or who can resist the natural urge to question things that worry their conscience - who prefer a simple life of blind faith.

I feel it is most unfair that having given so much and consequently having seen so much of the real Maharaji's world - we are now, by some perversion of justice, considered the most negative and insincerely motivated of Gods creatures. It's kind of ironic that we who were once prepared to once give more of ourselves, are now spat upon as liers and misrepresenters of the truth- we who were right there in the thick of it.

I consider it a duty to my soul to continue to question Maharaji. If I just forget the whole thing I cannot rest. My shot at devotion to Maharaji was the best I had to give in the prime of my life. My sincerity was absolute-my faith still unspoiled and childlike. (which can hardly be said about me now-I feel very battle-scarred and wordly-wise) If no divine doors open when a human yearns for truth to the degree that I did, then there is no God. You know, I might flatter myself after years of talking about this here and elsewhere, that I have achieved some sort of recovery. I sometimes doubt it. There is definately still a lot of unresolved hurt and emotion flying around in me when I remember where I was coming from and what happened to me.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 03:47:27 (GMT)
From: bill burke.....*>*
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: 'enemy' tag shows a lot
Message:
Hi there anon,
Lots to comment on in your post, maybe I will hit some of it

To me, the limits of the dna reasoning and the oneness
reasoning is reason enough to suspect that there is a
god or a self aware power.

Certainly people think god is this way or that and they behave
roughly in accordance with thier ideas.

But, no one is able to get beyond thier human nature no matter
what they believe or how hard they try to. They can lean
more to one side or another.

Everyone is bound to failure in various ways. no exceptions.
Even if they staunchly believe that it's all one and there
is no failure.

What is my best weapon or tool to operate in this arena that
has very definate boundries in it's vastness?

Reason, to erect boundries of my own to the wild gyrations
of everyone elses views and (mis)perceptions and
recognise all the various 'sins' that affect human behaviour.
You know, greed, hate, lust,ect, however you want to define them.

Attitude, I get to chose my basic operating view that I can
construct and fall back on all the time as I veer off it
as I cannot help but do.

Follow small shards of the best advice around.
One primary favorite is the concept that the self aware power
has it in its own head that all I got to do to be successful
in life is try to 'love' life, others and myself.

Then, having handled the 'god' issue by trying to do that,
I am completely free to try to follow my dreams and do
what I want and even fight for it.

If god wanted us or others to spend all our time 'praising'
and worshipping like we did and others do in various ways
today, then certainly SOMEONE SOMEWHERE would have shown
some evidence or result for us as a guidepost.
Instead, no matter what religion or thought is embraced,
people are left limited and away from themselves unless they
just take religion or beliefs (dna) in glanceing blows
and keep moving ahead.

That our devotion didnt result in some other reality is not
evidence that there isnt a god, or a self aware power,
but shows us as others in other religions show us, that it is
a dead end if you are too into it. But, even though it is
a dead end, those at the dead end will lie in thier foolishness
to avoid facing the truth of thier actual dilemma.
I say that those eastern 'inner' types are fantasizing
and are caught in a trap. How human.

Dont regret the wall, it is there to let us know to stop
and turn around, your own life is waiting......
moderation in everything.

There was love in YOU anon, that is the message of your past.
There is love in you now anon, trying to love is a real
battle and really a worthy one to engage in.

Those that want stillness and peace will find it in death.
Now is for action. Fight to make your little world a place
of love. It is a real challenge and a heck of a real adventure.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 18:15:17 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: bill burke.....*>*
Subject: Don't be so arrogant, Billy boy
Message:
To me, the limits of the dna reasoning and the oneness
reasoning is reason enough to suspect that there is a
god or a self aware power.

Bill, you know I lvoe you but what is this shit? This is what pisses me off. You a genetic biologist? Hey guess what, neither am I. Do you think they're mostly smart guys and girls? Yeah, me too. Do you think that they use their smarts to consider all the reasons theories gain acceptance, if they do, in their field? Good, that makes two of us.

So, now, do you think these guys see the 'limits of dna reasoning' (which, I take, means something akin to dna being able to have evolved without a conscious designer)? Because if not, Bill, it sounds like you're saying that you're smarter than the experts. Are you?

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Date: Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 05:58:01 (GMT)
From: bb
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: er, ahh, um
Message:
Hi there St James,
I could cave in on all the issues, and say that dna is
pure and simply THE structure or process for living body
design and evolution period.

However, there is a limit that the dna has.
Instinct in all the animals seems like a dna controlled
situation. Human conciousness runs completely outside the
dna box and runs contrary to most all of the fundamental
dna primary directives.
Either dna got exhausted by the whole effort of doing all
these life forms for so dang long or it just went nuts and
lost control. The human is loaded with human nature that
is on the other side of the fence from the dna controlled
world of life forms.

Evolutionary psycology is an apologist attempt to try and say that, no, the dna didnt screw up and lose control, it
sort of just, well, (hand-waving) MEANT for us to be like
this! Dammit! Give us time! we will figure out what the
dna is trying to do with us.

ummm.......oooops, it has a limit, unless the buddhists are
right, you got a god on your hands.

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Date: Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 16:46:17 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: bb
Subject: And where'd you learn THIS?
Message:
Human conciousness runs completely outside the
dna box and runs contrary to most all of the fundamental
dna primary directives.

A) What do you mean?

and:

B) How do you know?

Bill, you just keep coming up with these pronouncements. Based on what?

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Date: Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 02:44:52 (GMT)
From: bb
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: And where'd you learn THIS?
Message:
Well, I just thunk it up!
If you want the full mental discharge on it, it cant be
tonight, Im in a sat night mood!
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:34:04 (GMT)
From: Anon
Email: None
To: bill burke.....*>*
Subject: 'enemy' tag shows a lot
Message:
There was love in YOU anon, that is the message of your past.There is love in you now anon, trying to love is a real battle and really a worthy one to engage in.
Those that want stillness and peace will find it in death. Now is for action. Fight to make your little world a place of love. It is a real challenge and a heck of a real adventure.

Hey Bill! I was wondering when you'd show up again! Thanks for that! I'm going for it!
Did you know that you share your name with the actress from The Wizard of OZ who played Glinda the Good Witch!
(Billie Burke)

nice to hear from you Bill
Anon

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Date: Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 05:35:27 (GMT)
From: bb
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: anon
Message:
Hi again anon,
I have been trolling underwater here at the forum and your post
got me to slip up to the surface.

Of course, I don't know what I am talking about.
The only add-on I thought today was that in that choice
of building a viewpoint, I kind of embraced the idea that
life likes me and will try to back me up in my pursuits.
Not that I can lean on that, but it kind of adds to the
fun edge as I clumsily move through my days' many demands
and many chances for me to deal with the people around me
in fresh and slightly enthused ways.
Maybe prozac does that sort of thing without the effort?
If only...

I see St James wrote a note above yours, the title made me
laugh, I havent read it yet, I know you have way too much
heart orientation to embrace the rather cold dna methodology.
Part of the attraction of the dna/materialist religion is
that it helps some avoid the whole god tar pit.
But, it flunks the limit test.

I met a man tonight at the gym, he is a professor on a
fellowship grant and his field of study is English architecture
globally. All the works done during the globe spanning
empire days. We both had a laugh talking about the english
tv shows we liked and your great advertising humor.
He said that the caste system was imported from india
to england. Before that happened, England had a more fluid
society. I suppose the effect he is refering to is lessening
over time.
By the way, I heard the queen mum is 99 and that she has
TWO shots of gin a night!
Im tempted to add two shots of something to my otherwise
health foodish diet. What do YOU drink?

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Date: Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 19:42:55 (GMT)
From: Anon
Email: None
To: bb
Subject: anon
Message:
Hi Bill,
I'm just going to the pub for a meeting where I shall have a pint of Bitter (beer). I just had a long chat on the phone to Mark Appleman and his wife so I'm a bit late. Nice to hear from you.
Anon
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Date: Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 02:46:54 (GMT)
From: bb
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: anon
Message:
Mark A has helped me also.
YOU certainly did many times.
Enjoy the bitters! In your honor I will now go get one.
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:49:23 (GMT)
From: Susan
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Wow.
Message:
Wow. That was an incredibly hearfelt post. Thank you so much for writing that.
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:28:30 (GMT)
From: Steve
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: New requirements in order to do Service
Message:
I wonder do I know you -I recognise your mac, location and other stuff.
If You are who I think you are then maybe you remember me, or maybe not. Steve Boynan from Newcastle 1982-ish. You were in the ashram same time as me, (if it is you).
Now, this is funny:))
<--start quote-->
'I spent years working in boring jobs in ashrams,'
<--end quote-->
Man you didn't even have a fuckin job HaHaHa!!!!!

<--another quote-->
'The promise of being invited to be involved so often boosted my hopes.'
<--end quote-->

You were so famous for refusing to to do a single thing other than sitting on yer ass doin nothing that big F----- finally gave you the boot. - and here's another beauty - hehehe

<--start quote-->
'I had no pleasures at that time except maybe food.'
<--end quote-->

You stuck out like a sore thumb you poor thing you cos of all the gear you had
eg. yer own car for running around doing yer own thing (unheard of at that time) now I remember your portable music studio and your abundance of tapes etc. In fact you lived like royalty compared to the rest of us - if you are who I think you are:))

I can't be bothered going thro the rest of it nor have I the time, but it sure does demonstrate to me that a huge pinch of salt is the least that is required with regard as to what is presented as fact in the snakepit here. Ok now, let's have some hissing:))))
ROTFLMAO

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:21:18 (GMT)
From: To Steve from Anon
Email: None
To: Steve
Subject: New requirements in order to do Service
Message:
I wonder do I know you -I recognise your mac,location and other stuff. If You are who I think you are then maybe you remember me, or maybe not. Steve Boynan from Newcastle 1982-ish. You were in the ashram same time as me, (if it is you).
Now, this is funny:))
<--start quote-->
'I spent years working in boring jobs in ashrams,'
<--end quote-->

Man you didn't even have a fuckin job HaHaHa!!!!!

Yes I did! My time in Newcastle was extremely short (a few months at the most) relative to the overall time I spent in ashrams. I spent a considerable amount of time in the Newcastle Job Centre as I recall, aspiring to be a coal-miner with little success:-> I was concerned that I should find the best job so I could a) maximise my potential b) not be bored stiff.

I had previously been sent to London to do music service and if I remember rightly, I continued to put that to good use by actually getting a PAID job for a Manchester studio, doing some soundtrack. That was better than doing some menial job in some Newcastle bakery or whatever Big Frank thought in his dreams would be more appropriate for me. Let's face it, that guy wanted me to SUFFER!

I knew that everyone thought I was too 'attached' to my service. But, you know what, I thought that was so naive. As a matter of fact, at that time Dick Cooper (The National Co-ordinator) had told me in so many words that he was sending me, and Danny Ellis (another so-called 'spacey muso') to Newcastle so that Big Ginormous Frank (who had a reputation for being a bit of hard nut) could indeed put our devotion to the acid test. It was really a foregone conclusion that he would sling me out! It was kind of a conspiracy to weed out people like me.

The whole ashram criteria and ethic was in confusion by then anyway. Maharaji clearly knew it too. It was a mess. As I remember the ashrams officially closed just after I was kicked out anyway. That whole scenario was a sad joke. Believe me I had done my time kowtowing to various co-ordinators by then, and it didn't really feel like M's ashram anymore to be honest. It felt more like Big Franks concentration camp sometimes! I was too horrific a prospect for words to assume that guys like him were agents of God's work. There was a lot of personal agendas going on everywhere. I didn't really respect these individuals so much by then. Nothing personal, just thought they were as confused as the next man.

Of course, I started in the ashram, and continued for a long time with a totally different attitude - By the late stage in ashram history to which you refer, it was emminently the conscienscious thing to do to stand up to the repressive, callous regimes that premies were making of the whole set up. I eventually took it as an amazing grace to have been expelled from such a bizarre scene.

<--another quote-->
'The promise of being invited to be involved so often boosted my hopes.'
<--end quote-->

Yes, what's the matter with that??-everyone hoped that including you I am sure.

You were so famous for refusing to to do a single thing other than sitting on yer ass doin nothing that big F----- finally gave you the boot.

Yes, a lot of the people there suffered sour grapes because I was holding out to do something that was both useful and enjoyable. I had some vision left- it had not all been stomped out of me. That made those who were resigned (in that Northern Fashion!) to their regular dull lots jealous. I may say that when I was in another ashram I had myself been the Ashram Coordinator and had held down a steady (but rather boring) job for years. I don't recall 'refusing to do a single thing' either.

To the contrary, I remember being very gainfully employed as a PUPPET DUCK SALESMAN, which was the most imaginative and gainful profession that Frank managed to drum up for me.

- and here's another beauty - hehehe
<--start quote-->
'I had no pleasures at that time except maybe food.'
<--end quote-->

I was referring to an earlier time OK??

You stuck out like a sore thumb you poor thing you cos of all the gear you had eg. yer own car for running around doing yer own thing (unheard of at that time) now I remember your portable music studio and your abundance of tapes etc. In fact you lived like royalty compared to the rest of us - if you are who I think you are:))

Royalty! That's a good one. Did you guys aspire to live poorly then? Since when did having the tools of one's trade amount to living like royalty. This is ridiculous. Also plenty of people ran their own cars. Maybe not in poverty-stricken Newcastle- but in less paranoid places-yes.

It seems you were suffering some sour grapes about me, with some misunderstanding thrown in too.

As I said, I was COMMANDED to do music service before being in Newcastle ashram, - When I arrived in London to do this service, nobody even had an instrument for me to play .

GUESS WHAT??

I was advised to approach my father (whom I hadn't been allowed to have anything to do with for ages) to buy this now much needed gear. He was very happy to oblige. He then became ill and died.
During his illness, my mother, naturally hoping to see more of me, very generously offered to buy me a brand new car just so as I could visit her. Something that the ashram co-ordinator was happy to allow knowing that it would be a useful asset.
Moreover it was suggested that it was a good idea for me to be it's official 'guardian' as it were. There was some trust by that co-ordinator that we had gone beyond the need to be constantly paranoid about being attached to these sort of things. Not for long though. Especially not in medieval Newcastle-Domain of Baron Von Frank (enstein).

Some hypocritical coordinators who were blatantly feathering their nests very nicely, were quick to reinstate their claims for this car when it suited them, without much sensitivity either. Frank was desperate for me to give it to him. Admit it! You must remember that! No way. That kind of insult to my mother was intolerable to anyone with any conscience. Big Frank gave me the boot because I dared to resist his authority. He was in Maharaji's chain of command right? He believed he was divinely inspired to claim that car!

Anyway, surely you remember Big Frank was hardly an example of someone with no possesions-he was installed in the prime rooms of the building, had settled quite nicely thanks, and even had his own motorbike!

I can't be bothered going thro the rest of it nor have I the time, but it sure does demonstrate to me that a huge pinch of salt is the least that is required with regard as to what is presented as fact in the snakepit
here. Ok now, let's have some hissing:))))
ROTFLMAO

You see there are really no pinches of salt required old chum. I am telling the truth.
Oh, by the way you forgot to mention that I dared to enjoy a good book from time time in that ashram. I believe I was absorbed with Mein Kampf for a spell! I don't think that went down too well either.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 17:35:15 (GMT)
From: Steve
Email: None
To: To Anon from Steve
Subject: New requirements in order to do Service
Message:
No I don't remember anything particularly about you and F----
must have been too absorbed by Myself and F---- :))HeHeHe
Ok dude - points taken - don't take my posts too seriously - just
teasing:))
Now I missed that 'Mein Kampf' book - you must have kept it under your pillow.

Steve

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:42:37 (GMT)
From: JB
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Empathy for Anon
Message:
Anon,
Had alittle time now to look over your post. So many things to comment on.

One thing stood out. - Possibly bec it was towards the end helped.

<<>>>>

When we are filled w/ something -- anything-- we can't be filled w/ anything else. As in our cup is full. I know M said we are all beggars and all - but really you can't take that 'under the sheet' w/ you.
There's no room to be filled. I'm only talking about meditation
I'm not advocating for M here. When you sit - don't yearn, beg long -- I know I quoted Meher Baba about longing --- but forget it when meditating. Be empty. It also helps to have an attitude of --- God WANTS to give me love - Wants to give me insight, wants to shower me w/ such an experience of Him , He WAnts to enrapture me --- Here I am. Not necessarally w/ head bowed but like a bird in a nest waiting for mom.
I have to go darn it. But just wanted to help alittle.

Love ya,
JB

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 23:22:40 (GMT)
From: Anon
Email: None
To: JB
Subject: Empathy for Anon
Message:
I like that - 'like a bird in a nest waiting for mom.' Tweet Tweet!
I don't think I do yearn like I used to. I have kind of exhausted myself in that direction. I also don't feel so inspired to do much meditation (practice-to all you newbies). I think that the process of disillusionement has left me kind of numb and weary, almost indifferent to the fate of my soul, and I prefer to concentrate on sorting out my life in the more immediately obvious areas of lack. Also I am enjoying spending time doing other ordinary but also wonderful things - like bringing up my kids . I get a sort of emotional attack out of the blue from time to time, when I remember the intensity of devotion that I directed towards 'finding God'.
I guess I am still very wary of the hypnotic hold that Maharaji had over me. I still associate meditation (despite knowing that, it is in itself, pretty harmless) with the part it played in the 'surrender' dynamic which I eventually found so upsetting.
I am going to resist getting into another lengthy essay since I want to quickly respond to some other people too.
Thanks
Anon
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:26:19 (GMT)
From: JB
Email: None
To: JB
Subject: Quote missing above post
Message:
Who knew that by using <<<<>>> it deletes what's inside.

The quote of Anon's I was referring to was:

'If no divine doors open when a human yearns for truth to the degree that I did, then there is no God.'

TY, JB

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:53:36 (GMT)
From: Brian
Email: brian@tigerriver.com
To: JB
Subject: Quote missing above post
Message:
Who knew that by using <<<<>>> it deletes what's inside

It wasn't deleted. But '' is viewed as your browser as an HTML tag telling it to do 'WHATEVER'. Your brower didn't recognize the tag so it ignored everything between (and including) the innermost angles. You can still see the 'quoted' text if you load that message and look at the source.

Don't use them to quote.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 16:19:36 (GMT)
From: JB
Email: None
To: Brian
Subject: Thank you Brian, (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:09:46 (GMT)
From: kmdarling
Email: darlingwave@aol.com
To: Anon
Subject: SUPPORT FOR YOUR FRUSTRATED FEELINGS
Message:
Dear Anon,

May I add my appreciation to all the excellent reviews of your post!

I can really relate to the feelings you describe, especially the part about the sincerity and realness of devotion, love and sacrifice, and the hurt at being considered an 'enemy' after all that by MJ.

I had similar feelings for quite a while. I felt that the same sincerity and deep desire for truth that seemed to bring me TO knowledge were what took me away from it eventually. The really frustrating thing was not being able to have any communication with MJ about the frustrations. In most relationships that go wrong, or are ending, it's possible to have some sort of completion, even if you don't necessarily get what you want out of the person. You can usually call or write and express your feelings, which is the most important thing (I've noticed that other people aren't controllable and, like my cats, just won't conform to all my desires!). But with the Lard, there was no possibility of completion. I should have known this, for I worked in the letter-answering department for years on and off (mostly translating letters from premies and the standard responses). So I knew that MJ didn't read letters or respond to them. Not that I think he should have, given the volume, but that wasn't the only reason: MJ was (and probably is) unreachable to a fanatical degree. That's one of his least endearing traits, clearly based on his character defects and not just on the logistics of being a Teacher. I worked for years as a therapist with people leaving cults and teachers (see my journey if interested) and I don't

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:19:00 (GMT)
From: kmdarling
Email: darlingwave@aol.com
To: Anon
Subject: 2nd TRY:SUPPORT FOR YOUR FRUSTRATED FEELINGS
Message:
Sorry, I got cut off by Netscape, talk of frustrated feelings! Here's the whole banana. Dear Anon,

May I add my appreciation to all the excellent reviews of your post!

I can really relate to the feelings you describe, especially the part about the sincerity and realness of devotion, love and sacrifice, and the hurt at being considered an 'enemy' after all that by MJ.

I had similar feelings for quite a while. I felt that the same sincerity and deep desire for truth that seemed to bring me TO knowledge were what took me away from it eventually. The really frustrating thing was not being able to have any communication with MJ about the frustrations. In most relationships that go wrong, or are ending, it's possible to have some sort of completion, even if you don't necessarily get what you want out of the person. You can usually call or write and express your feelings, which is the most important thing (I've noticed that other people aren't controllable and, like my cats, just won't conform to all my desires!). But with the Lard, there was no possibility of completion. I should have known this, for I worked in the letter-answering department for years on and off (mostly translating letters from premies and the standard responses). So I knew that MJ didn't read letters or respond to them. Not that I think he should have, given the volume, but that wasn't the only reason: MJ was (and probably is) unreachable to a fanatical degree. That's one of his least endearing traits, clearly based on his character defects and not just on the logistics of being a Teacher. I worked for years as a therapist with people leaving cults and teachers (see my journey if interested) and I don't think I ever came across an example of a teacher who was as ridiculously insulated as MJ, except perhaps that other Lard, head of MSIA, JohnRoger (for a good time, read his ex-follower's book 'Life 102: What to do if your Guru sues you'). I have many friends, including my husband, who had gurus and teachers, and they are amazed that I thought a 'personal relationship' with a guru meant what I thought it meant. (And it's not just because of huge numbers either... some of them had huger numbers). Many people I know have actually had a conversation with a teacher they were leaving. How radical! Not a controlled situation like at a program where they were trying to get heard and lambasted by the teacher and choked to death by peer disapproval, but an actual personal conversation of some kind, or a letter that was responded to.

I know I tthought I deserved one when I left. I had done 12 years of selfless service, including being sent all over Spain and South and North America, and had been (through marriage) a 'rich' premie for the last seven years, giving unbelievable amounts to support his lifestyle. I left in 1983 after writing him a letter about several premies who had come to me as a counselor and were suicidal about changes that were happening that were making them feel very disoriented. He was saying all kinds of things about how premies shouldn't have therapy at that time. One of the quotes that he passed down through his minions was 'I don't want my premies mucking around in their own garbage' (meaning feelings). The combination of this injunction and the radical changes (like closing ashrams, decommissioning initiators) were making a few people crazy, and many made their way to my 'couch.' I was called to take a knife out of the hand of a premie threatening suicide.

So I wrote him and never received a reply. I knew where to send the letter, due to my previous service. Although I shouldn't have been surprised, it was VERY frustrating, and I left.

Your frustration is very valid. Since you can't be heard by MJ or even by premies, this Forum is hopefully a good place to get your feelings heard and validated, which is a big part of healing. I'd like to add, though, from my experience, that words don't totally cut it, and I heartily recommend that you go for some good hands-on therapy that is more than just talk therapy. That's what cleared things for me. If you'd like some specific recmmendations, please e-mail me (I may know someone in your area).

Another thing: I REALLY want to know more about the stuff you mentioned regarding arms deals and 'something darker.' I'm sure we'd all be interested. I understand your concerns, but could you find a way to post the stuff super-super-anonymously? It could only help in our Mission to Dissolve Fantasy-Bonds with the Lord.

All the best,

Love Kathryn Darling

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 16:42:30 (GMT)
From: Anon to KatyD
Email: None
To: kmdarling
Subject: 2nd TRY:SUPPORT FOR YOUR FRUSTRATED FEELINGS
Message:
Katy wrote:
May I add my appreciation to all the excellent reviews of your post!

Yes my post certainly has prompted some interesting and thoughtful responses. I had no idea that it would be so well received. I'm quite shocked actually.

You have yourself written a very interesting reply and I would like you to know, along with all the others, that I have carefully read all the replies.
It is a little hard to find time to continue the conversations to the extent that is merited. Today I am making some small effort to do so though.

this Forum is hopefully a good place to get your feelings heard and validated, which is a big part of healing. I'd like to add, though, from my experience, that words don't totally cut it, and I heartily recommend that you go fo some good hands-on therapy that is more than just talk therapy. That's what cleared things for me. If you'd like some specific recmmendations, please e-mail me (I may know someone in your area).

I appreciate your recommendation to have some direct therapy. I am not sure I am yet inclined to do this. I am quite committed to working things out at my own pace and I find quite a lot of opportunities to do so in daily life. Although not professionals, some friends have indeed been quite helpful and supportive. I appear to have given the impression that I am quite self-destructive in my moments of regret. Maybe I am giving a false impression. Generally I am not cracking up over this. Life is pretty good. Anyway, I like working things out for myself. I hope that makes some sense.

Another thing: I REALLY want to know more about the stuff you mentioned regarding arms deals and 'something darker.' I'm sure we'd all be interested. I understand your concerns, but could you find a way to post the stuff super-super-anonymously? It could only help in our Mission to Dissolve Fantasy-Bonds
with the Lord.

I won't relate the damning details of this story ie. actual names. Although I am certain it happened as I said, I increasingly prefer to reinforce my arguments with only experiences that are totally first hand. Should my ex-girlfriend wish to recount her tale then that would be a different matter. I will ask her if I see her. I did try once, but you know, it's hard to talk with ex-lovers sometimes! Besides I think she is glad to put the whole thing behind her. She never got that involved. She didn't stand a chance really. Royally put off at the starting grid. She became completely disillusioned very quickly after that. I think I told the story of how we were both at a meeting with Maharaji where he shouted someone down most curtly and proceeded to give the 'The Master is so great that you shouldn't question him and you should just be grateful and trembling'- satsang.

Her comment in the car on the way home was 'If he was a true Master then he could 'command' respect rather than resort to 'demanding' it like that'- quite a surprisingly succinct comment for a teenage girl, I thought at the time.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 17:16:11 (GMT)
From: Susan
Email: None
To: Anon to KatyD
Subject: If he were a real master he could command respect
Message:
rather than demanding it.

I agree, a very insightful comment.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:16:38 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: kmdarling
Subject: Answering Maharaji's Letters
Message:
I should have known this, for I worked in the letter-answering department for years on and off (mostly translating letters from premies and the standard responses). So I knew that MJ didn't read letters or respond to them. Not that I think he should have, given the volume, but that wasn't the only reason: MJ was (and probably is) unreachable to a fanatical degree.

Katie,

Please please give us more detail on the work you did answering letters. What sort of standard responses were there? What sort if any actually reached Maharaji's attention? Please tell us more:-)

John.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 04:11:42 (GMT)
From: kmdarling
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Answering Maharaji's Letters
Message:
Hi JHB (Is that anything like the GHB that made Tom Gugliotta have a seizure... sorry if you're not into basketball!)

Gosh, I can't remember many details! It's like charanamrit. I had clean forgotten its existence until I read about it here two days ago!

Well, what I do remember is that the letters were very uncontroversial. 'Mj has received your loving letter and wants you to know that He loves you too.' Then perhaps the next paragraph would be a generalized bit of satsang. I know there were stock paragraphs for particular questions. It was all fairly reasonable, as I mentioned, considering the volume. I was never allowed to answer or even read the really gnarly confused letters, being already perceived as a bit of a threat, being an intelligent, feisty woman with a bit of a mind of her own, even though I tried to surrender it, I really tried, Lord...

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:06:07 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: 'a qualitative leap'
Message:
This will require a qualitative leap in the way we work together.

I noticed that wording also. The obvious implication is that the way 'people with knowledge' work together is of such low quality that a qualitative leap is required. Of course, there is no description of this alleged low quality, just a vague insinuation. This is typical in a psychologically abusive relationship. I'm a recent ex and had been going infrequently to videos. I saw no one screwing up in their 'service'. The people handling the video projection, trinket sales, ushering, lighting, etc. all do a quality job. Besides that, maharaji controls the whole thing, people are just following orders, expecially the person giving the announcements. I suspect it's the same way in other areas of 'service'. So what's implied here? maybe that pwk are just 'no good' or have 'stinky vibes' or something. Once again, blame the victim.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 23:35:34 (GMT)
From: Lee
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Beautiful words
Message:
Dear Anon

Your post was so evocative and atmospheric of times past.

Thanks for expressing those memories for all of us to share.

Lee

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 19:53:16 (GMT)
From: SB
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Thanks for your post!
Message:
Send it to Rawat!
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:04:20 (GMT)
From: JB
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Empathy for Anon
Message:
I'm speechless after that missive. I'm printing it to read tonight w/ my bed lamp and reading glasses.

There are many anons I think - how about a handle...say
'Hurt badly'.

JB

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Date: Sat, Feb 19, 2000 at 19:10:54 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: JB
Subject: or 'Burt Hadley'? (nt)
Message:
or 'Burt Hadley'? (nt)
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 15:53:51 (GMT)
From: DOD
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: New requirements in order to do Service
Message:
This expression is amazing. Thank you for taking the time to say it.
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 13:24:13 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: Anon
Subject: Definitely ** BEST **
Message:
Blimey, Anon,

That was so sharply put and beautifully told. Well done, indeed, sir!

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 11:17:07 (GMT)
From: Charlie
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Excellent post Anon
Message:
Dear Anon,

Many thanks for that one, it hit the spot top dead centre.

I'm printing your post to include with a letter I'm sending to a confused premie living in France who wrote to me today. I could not put it better.

Cheers

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 07:46:50 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Anon
Message:
Dear Anon,
You have once again touched my heart with you calm and quite dignity. I don't know you at all really but for this quality that comes through in every post of yours that I read.
Thanks.
Love,
Robyn
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 19:47:33 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Might I suggest ...
Message:
Might I suggest ... that you post your experiences (as above) on the 'Journeys' page?

This thread will soon be in the archives, and it would be nice to have a more accessible place to come back to your insightful post.

(I haven't yet read all the journeys, I'm a tad ashamed to say...)

Best wishes,

Chris

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 04:45:23 (GMT)
From: I feel
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: your pain
Message:
No really I do. I can understand from your post your angst, and that of many here, at having given so much and received so little in return. But why is it that you experienced what you did and I experienced 180 degrees opposite?

I know you all don't like to hear this from premies but, I personally received so much throughout my years of struggle. And I didn't have to forfeit my ability to think in the process, nor am I a namby pamby smiley face, nor was I sheilded from what goes on behind the stage. I know your first inclination is to dismiss me in some way. But that would be too easy. And I suspect you would like to believe that by having jumped ship you are somehow better than me. But that would be no different than me thinking I am better than you because I haven't.

So why? It is my faith in the existence of a Creator and a human being's ability to intimately know him that has always bailed me out of my own pits. Knowledge just gave me a cleaner way to know him. All the rest was window dressing.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 20:05:32 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: I feel
Subject: Yeah? When was the last time you tested it?
Message:
And I didn't have to forfeit my ability to think in the process...

I've never met anyone who would say otherwise, that their belief system is impeding their ability to think clearly. No one. Have you? I'm not talking about people considering a past belief system they now think barred them from critical thinking. I'm sure you've noticed that's what we are all about, all us exes. But someone actually still in the belief system? Forget it.

But then let me ask you this: how can you tell if you're able to think clearly? I'd say that, as a premie, if you really wanted to see you'd have to be willing to fairly examine all the evidence against m. I tell you I've been here for three years now. No premie has ever been able to do that? Never.

Every premie that's even approached some of the most troubling facts about m has had to reach, reach, reach for the most implausible defenses, ones that still didn't even begin to protect m and which, worse, were even then entirely inconsistent with other vain arguments that must be made to defend him in other respects. Forget about exes, any casual observer who's ever reviewed these premie efforts, whose had even a passing familiarity with the facts -- just the simple, noncontroversial facts (e.g. on such and such a date m said this, then on such and such a date m said that) -- has always concurred. The premies are not thinking clearly at all.

So are you next? Want to try to reconcile the irreconcilable? We could. No problem. But I'll tell you right now what would happen. Either you'd start backing into one of a few well-known corners and would start 'flailing' (and by that I mean throwing out utterly indefensible statements, each more rash and ineffectual in terms of dealing with the issue than the next) or you would take the 'spiritual escape' and claim that these matters are just too sublime for plain, ol' thought anyway.

One way or another, you'll look like you're either evasive, lying or completely confused to anyone outside your belief system. I can guarantee that. Your thinking will not be vindicated.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 22:53:29 (GMT)
From: I'll be
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: the first to admit...
Message:
that my belief system impedes my ability to think clearly. The same I trust you would admit of yourself.

Beliefs and knowledge are two different animals. Where we fall down is knowing without a shadow of doubt which is which. It's tricky, for you may find your beliefs presented to you in a package that makes it look like the real thing. You may even find the package sitting on your doorstep tied with a nice ribbon of logic. Now who could resist! Well, even logic is debatable.

Of course it can work the other way too. It is possible for someone to package your knowledge so that it appears to be a belief. Tricky stuff!

So how does one discern between the two? For example, are you wanting to get into a debate with me in the hopes of winning an argument and thereby substantiate the belief expressed in your post about premies? Is real knowledge dependent upon the winning or losing of an argument? Besides how would we establish who the winner is and thereby whose logic is absolute? You are no doubt a good debater, as I would expect from someone of your profession. If we go by the logic that the one who puts the best argument forward has a better handle on the truth, then gurus should be drawn from the ranks of the legal profession. Yes?

Now I hope you're not going to be so bold as to offer to audit my belief system for me. Or clean out my plumbing. Or air out my laundry. Or cut my grass. Or…

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:52:10 (GMT)
From: Anon
Email: None
To: I'll be
Subject: Beliefs and knowledge are two different animals??
Message:
Regarding the agument about the distinction between Knowledge and beliefs etc. I beg to propose that they are not such different things!

There are plenty of people who believe they know something.
Of course no-one who believes that they know something that is beyond logic, will be swayed from their convictions by logic!

You could say that people who claim to have knowledge of something are merely strongly expressing that they have beliefs, only in terms that emphasise that there can be no doubt about the validity of their experience. Belief is a too weak a word for 'knowers'.

It is one thing to have a subjective momentary experience of say, seeing inner Light. It is another thing to afterwards adopt an interpretation of what that light is, especially if that interpretation is based on someone else's suggestion. I have had many 'mysterious' experiences in meditation and dreams, but I am nowadays less inclined to jump to conclusions about what these experiences are or more accurately... were. In the past I may have said 'In that moment I knew the light of my soul' for instance. That now seems a little too presumptive an afterthought.

Meditation feels good in the moment and that's about it in all honesty. I think it is dangerous to believe that it is something that one experiences because of Maharaji's Grace, for example. Maharaji himself goes to some lengths to discourage people from talking about their experiences, so that they should not confuse others with their personal ideas about what they are experiencing. He is however very happy that people believe all sorts of 'uncertain' things about him that reinforce his role as your Master.

Maharaji definitely requires a certain amount of trust from premies. This is surely the same as requiring a certain amount of belief. It seems to me that the word Knowledge is used to distinguish inner experience from external ones. That is not entirely innappropriate. However I am trying to point out that it is innappropriate to assume that one's inner experience is anything at all in particular. Ok call it 'Knowledge' if you like but don't assume it has so much to do with M or anything else.

Your experience could be all kinds of things from neurons firing off or chemicals in your brain producing sensations, to the peace of God. Who knows?? Answer: People who believe they know. Are they correct? Maybe, maybe not.

I think I must confess to holding a conviction that to believe is a dangerous habit .ie it can lead to all sorts of trouble. I appreciate that someone who has not experienced that their beliefs have got them into trouble, will find it hard to share my conviction.

I felt that there was a lot of supposition, a hell of a lot of suggestion/hype and a large amount of belief in Maharaji's set up and I have made some efforts to be more honest about what I actually do know about it all. In doing this I have questioned everything I was told and I would say it was a very good thing to do so. I found that my conscience is a most trusty guide when trying to re-discover my feelings.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 04:19:53 (GMT)
From: Jack
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Beliefs and knowledge are two different animals??
Message:
Cut from the papaer today:Your Morning Smile: All Faith has an element of doubt, otherwise it would be called Certainty!

Loved your post,

Jack

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Date: Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 02:12:16 (GMT)
From: Are you
Email: None
To: Jack
Subject: Jack Leviton?
Message:
nt
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:52:29 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: I'll be
Subject: You're rambling.....
Message:
....and I suspect you know (not believe) it.

I'll be the first to admit that my belief system impedes my ability to think clearly. The same I trust you would admit of yourself.

and you accept that? When someone helps you by pointing it out? You still allow your belief system to impede your ability to think clearly? If that's true, the rest of this post is wasted.

Beliefs and knowledge are two different animals. Where we fall down is knowing without a shadow of doubt which is which. It's tricky, for you may find your beliefs presented to you in a package that makes it look like the real thing. You may even find the package sitting on your doorstep tied with a nice ribbon of logic. Now who could resist! Well, even logic is debatable.

What exactly are you saying here? That we cannot tell whether the things we think we know are beliefs or knowledge? Don't we have any tools that can help us? Well I think we do. We have our experience and we have our minds. And we also have the assistance of all the people who have striven to stretch the boundaries of what we normally call 'knowledge' before us.

Let's look at Maharaji. We know he teaches meditation. We know he stresses the importance of 'the Master'. We now know, from evidence presented here and on other exes's sites that the meditation techniques are part of several Indian traditions and have changed during and since Shri Hans's days.

We also know that his brother also teaches meditation, and also stresses the importance of the master. We know that other teachers teach meditation without stressing the importance of the teacher.

We also know that practising the meditation has a positive effect for some people. For people who follow Maharaji. For people who were followers of Maharaji and have since publicly disavowed him. And for people who were never followers of Maharaji. This suggests, but of course doesn't prove, that Maharaji's statement that the master is essential may be wrong. We believe from David Lane's research that teaching the meditation techniques to a classroom uf unprepared students results in many of them having significant experiences of 'knowledge'.

We also know that Maharaji is very rich. We have plans on this site of the new house he built on his land in Malibu after demolishing the old house on one of the most valuable peices of real estate on the planet. We know he has exclusive use of a private plane. We know he uses a helicopter to fly from Malibu to LAX. We know he has a fleet of luxury cars. And we know he either owns houses or has exclusive use of houses in countries around the world.

We know that Maharaji encouraged, even ordered, anyone who wanted to be a devotee to move into an ashram. We know he threatened those ashram premies not to leave. We also know he closed the ashrams without notice or making any practical provisions for the residents' welfare. We believe from testimonies here that some of those ashram premies committed suicide as a result of this act.

We know that Maharaji threatened us that not practicing knowledge would be like a ton of vegetables rotting inside us. We know that Maharaji now says if you don't like it, leave it. We know on this, and many other issues, Maharaji has changed what he says.

We know that women in the USA and UK have made testimonies that they were sexually abused by Mahatma Jagdeo when they were young girls. We believe from those testimonies that one of them did their best to ensure that Maharaji knew. We also know that Jagdeo continued in circulation afterwards and that no warning was sent to the communities to ensure that Jagdeo was kept away from children.

Some of us believe that Maharaji is greedy. Some of us believe that he's deluded. Some even believe he's evil.

So is there any doubt about the use of the words 'know' and 'believe' in the preceding sentences?

John.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:05:55 (GMT)
From: Compared to you
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: my words are precision smart bombs (nt)
Message:
Case in point. This started out as discussion and became a soapbox for you and your party line. Cheers.
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Date: Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 16:40:25 (GMT)
From: JB
Email: None
To: Compared to you
Subject: my words are precision smart bombs (nt)
Message:
You know when you put (nt) after your subject it means 'no text'.
There sure was alot of text there.
JB
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:09:03 (GMT)
From: Anon
Email: None
To: Compared to you
Subject: my words are precision smart bombs (nt)
Message:
Yes, Jim's right...you haven't got the hang of the etiquette around here. It is quite disconcerting-misleading- when people use the 'from' field as an extension of the 'subject' field.

For example, I was concerned that whoever wrote the: You do NOT feel -:- your pain' post, as a response to your post to me, might have easily been mistaken for me.

It works best if you pick a pseudonym and stick to it. Some people seem compelled to use the chosen pseudonyms of other people. Not very polite. There is an example of this down below where somebody uses my adopted 'Anon'. It's quite a regular occurance actually. I suppose in my case I picked the most unimaginative and obvious pseudonym around and some people have the same idea. When this forum started it was up for grabs.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:25:55 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Or break the mold -- be creative -- use real name!
Message:
Do you know how much stronger it looks when you post under your own name. Especially for premies. Yes, that's true, especially for premies. Why? Because premies, supposedly have nothing to hide. Unlike exes, and especially recent exes, they're not leaving a group of people, maybe including ex-spouses, employers, family or old friends, who might still think they follow the guru. That is, unlike exes, they don't have to worry about rocking any boats in their personal life. For premies, it's all status quo.

But, of course, premies almost never use their real names. And the real reason for that real ruse? Because they can't afford to speak openly when their cult's possibly monitoring this site. Face it, premies, you don't want to say something that the guru might object to. Obviously, the guru objects to you saying anything at all about him in public, especially here, so you cower behind pseudonyms.

Only Shp, Mili, CD and Annie have had the guts to post as premies under their own names. CD refuses to discuss anything but talks like a robot. Mili hardly comes around here anymore. Sounds like he's drifted far enough form the cult that Maharaji's just another new age pick up line for him. Annie, too, has developed into a new age bubblehead and has probably distanced herself enough from the cult that she doesn't know she's not supposed to be here and Shp? Don't get me started.

So show some style, sir! Show a little class! Your name again was ......what?

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:27:04 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: I'll be
Subject: Time for a name, fella
Message:
Unless you want to needlessly confuse people you better find a name for yourself. You're a premie, right? Okay, we understand. You guys aren't allowed to speak openly as independent, free-thinking people, so if you'll follow me down here a bit ........

.....let's see ..... over here ....

hm.... oh, yes, this might do. Are you an Abbott and Costello fan? We've had a lot of interest in our Abbott and Costello line. Maybe you've seen some of our favorites? 'Know it all'? 'Nobody'? 'A premie'? These names are absolutely fantastic because they always confuse, yet they do so so cleverly, you know? Hey, there's one? I'm so clever, I can't believe I thought of it myself! How about 'You know'? Get it? Isn't that something? Yes, yes, 'You know' ...that suits you just great. It shows that you think you know something ..... OR is it the person you're talking to who knows? See? Clever, isn't it?

Now, if that doesn't work, maybe something over here might .... let's see, Catweasle, Mel Borne ... oh these are names that have already gone out. Catweasle's actually not being used these days (he's blocked, don't you know) but that's just a nasty little name anyway, wouldn't you say? You're not that kind of premie, are you? I hope not! Last thing I want to do is help you find a name just to see you spraying all sorts of venom and contentless, dank nonsense at the nice ex-premies. No, that will never do.

Look, I've got to take a call. Why don't you look around for a few moments and see if something doesn't leap out at you, okay? You know, you can always use your initials, hm? I'd never do it myself but some people are perfectly happy posting away lile that. What can I tell you? It's cheap, it's easy. Very non-controversial ... well, you look around and I'll be right back....

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:23:15 (GMT)
From: Sure...bring out the 'got
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: to get a name' strategy just when your opponent..
Message:
..has you pinned to a wall! Well it won't work on me fella. I've been around the block a few times myself, you know.
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:42:12 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Sure...bring out the 'got
Subject: End of discussion
Message:
I wouldn't buy tickets to see the Artist Formerly Known as Prince and I won't get into a conversation with someone I can't even refer to somehow in the third person. Forget it.
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:10:51 (GMT)
From: You heartbreaker
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: you! (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 10:53:46 (GMT)
From: Anon
Email: None
To: I feel
Subject: your pain
Message:
No really I do. I can understand from your post your angst, and that of many here, at having given so much and received so little in return. But why is it that you experienced what you did and I experienced 180 degrees opposite?

Well, it seems to me that the most likely explanantion is that, rather than that there was some Divine Hand fairly dishing out appropriate lots to each beloved charge, there was, more prosaically, some considerable element of chance involved in the way the dice fell for each of us who offered ourselves to be manipulated in the ashram as tools of Maharaji. I frankly find it hard to believe that Maharaji (as some disembodied power) was purposefully orchestrating my life, and putting unpleasant circumstances in my way to test my devotion. (as it was suggested), nor do I reckon that the more pleasing time were thanks to any particular downpouring of Grace (like we were so eager to believe.)

Of course, if I had enjoyed a better time in the ashram (let's say I had been invited to do less monotonous service, had been billeted with less developmentally arrested individuals, were sent off to less far-flung and God-forsaken localities) then it would be tempting to conclude that I had been the recipient of much Grace. Given the way things panned out I could hardly imagine that a kindly force had been at work in my life.

Of course there were good times. Largely the sort of good times that one could imagine that POW's have when interred for years together. The human spirit is good at making the best of a rotten lot. Also it may surprise you that, although overwhelmed with doubt about Maharaji's divinity and ethics, I have some appropriate and commensurate amount of appreciation for the good which I received from Knowledge.

I know you all don't like to hear this from premies but, I personally received so much throughout my years of struggle. And I didn't have to forfeit my ability to think in the process, nor am I a namby pamby smiley face, nor was I sheilded from what goes on behind the stage. I know your first inclination is to dismiss me in some way. But that would be too easy. And I suspect you would like to believe that by having jumped ship you are somehow better than me. But that would be no different than me thinking I am better than you because I haven't.

My first inclination is not to dismiss you. Far from it, I find it interesting to compare experiences. I think that there was clearly some pressure 'to forfeit one's ablility to think in the process' though - I confess that I cannot agree with you there.

No, no... I do not think I am better than you for jumping ship. That is not something that occurs to me at all.

I am only concerned with making sense of what I have experienced. I am critical of the behaviour of other premies but not totally dismissive of them. I recognise that some have a 'good take' on the whole thing and don't feel the need to question things. However I witnessed some very dodgy goings-on which made me question things on many levels.

For example, about 17 years ago, my girlfriend received Knowledge (after some inspiration, obviously largely from me.) With my help she became involved with service and eventually a full-time job with one of Maharaji's accountants in London (Ray somebody or other). She was still then in the starry-eyed, new premie phase . After a short while, she returned home one evening in a state of utter confusion. One of M's closest instructors had apparently rung up and was hoping that Ray would participate in some way, in an arms deal of sorts.

Suffice it to say that Ray evidently had rightly declined the offer with ethical objections, but not before my innocent girlfriend had a significant bombshell dropped in her path. It would seem that she was dealt an unfair blow right from the start. What could I say? Was it M' s grace that put such an insurmountable obstacle in her path - was she in her mind - was it her fault?? was she wrong to judge the ethics of the deal as she did? I am telling this exactly as I remember it. No more but a little less actually. There was an additional detail that would be far more controversial that even I care to divulge here. I have become privvy to lots of such stuff that I have to sit on.
I didn't seek to be the keeper of dark secrets or to protect Maharaji from harsh judgements when there was so much about the show that was embarrassing and went against my conscience.

So why? It is my faith in the existence of a Creator and a human being's ability to intimately know him that has always bailed me out of my own pits. Knowledge just gave me a cleaner way to know him. All the rest was window dressing.

I still have some faith but I'm blowed if I am going to suppress my urge to criticise Maharaji even if he is God-Incarnate. I have strong misgivings and I don't want to bottle them up or kowtow to Maharaji any more over such matters.

All the rest was window dressing

Would you mind elaborating? I don't think I fully understand what you mean.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:51:17 (GMT)
From: What I mean
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: is this...
Message:
>>All the rest was window dressing

>Would you mind elaborating? I don't think I fully understand what you mean.

What I mean is, before there was a Guru in my life there was a God. My search for God lead me to a Guru. Whenever my faith in the Guru was suspended, it was my faith in God that kept me on a path of hope. In the solitude of those empty moments, I would be filled once again by the silence within me through the practice of Knowledge. In those moments when desperation fuelled my need to know my Creator, everything else other than my faith was superfluous: service, career, where I lived, you name it. I have found that my faith in God is my lifeline to myself.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 21:19:00 (GMT)
From: Anon
Email: None
To: What I mean
Subject: is this...
Message:
Thank you whoever you are. I share your sentiments exactly. Nice to hear from you.
Anon
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 07:17:07 (GMT)
From: You do NOT Feel
Email: None
To: I feel
Subject: your pain
Message:
No you don't feel. If you did you would have questioned m's behaviour.
Because you 'are having a nice experience' you care not about anyone else. You are as narcissistic as m......but I understand because 'it's only your experience that counts'.

*And I didn't have to forfeit my ability to think in the process, nor am I a namby pamby smiley face, nor was I sheilded from what goes on behind the stage. *

You HAVE forfeited the ability to discriminate and your thinking is controlled.

I once saw an interview given to one of the executors(beheaders) in Saudi Arabia. This person was having an extatic experience serving Allah.Your attititude and degree of insesitivity remind me of this person.

I suggest you go find your humanness.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:31:02 (GMT)
From: Sorry but
Email: None
To: You do NOT Feel
Subject: you are not in a position to know
Message:
That you would liken me to a beheader illistrates how narrow your view of life has become. You are not in a position to judge me or make the kinds of assumptions that you have about me. The arrogance of your post is truly sickening.
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:42:34 (GMT)
From: So tell us if you see
Email: None
To: Sorry but
Subject: anything wrong about m(nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 18:55:23 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Sorry but
Subject: you are not in a position to know
Message:
Maybe, but have you read the forum guidelines about choosing a pseudonym and sticking to it?

John

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 03:08:19 (GMT)
From: Brian
Email: brian@tigerriver.com
To: Anon
Subject: Thank you Anon
Message:
That was one of the best posts I have ever read on the forum. Maybe the best.
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 03:46:45 (GMT)
From: Ms. K/Katie
Email: None
To: Brian
Subject: Thanks from me too, Anon
Message:
And I don't always agree with Brian :). However, I certainly do in this case.

I'm sure that post was not easy to write, but thank you for spending the time and effort to do so.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 02:17:15 (GMT)
From: VP
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Best of the forum, Anon
Message:
My shot at devotion to Maharaji was the best I had to give in the prime of my life. My sincerity was absolute-my faith still unspoiled and childlike. (which can hardly be said about me now-I feel very battle-scarred and wordly-wise) If no divine doors open when a human yearns for truth to the degree that I did, then there is no God.

Beautifully written.

You know, I might flatter myself after years of talking about this here and elsewhere, that I have achieved some sort of recovery. I sometimes doubt it. There is definately still a lot of unresolved hurt and emotion flying around in me when I remember where I was coming from and what happened to me.

I am at a loss for words, except to say that I am so very sorry. This brought tears to my eyes, for you and for my friend who lost a life in all of this mess.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 01:13:48 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: Anon
Subject: EXCUSE me! What's this gotto do with Run and me??
Message:
Just kidding, Anon. Absolutely wonderful comments. Too bad Roger's not around these days. This is a keeper.

Only thing I'd question is:

I consider it a duty to my soul to continue to question Maharaji.

At a certain point we're going to have to admit that his paltry, and likely quite banal, act of stonewalling us says it all and it's time to quit camp and go home. Charlie was right yesterday when he said twenty years in the cult followed by twenty years questioning the cult, all in all, adds up to fourty years. That's fourty years, any which way you cut it. Me? I spent eight years in (73 - 81), 15 years mulling it over and now three years actively manning a post in the ex-premie camp. Is this good money after bad? No? Not yet? When, then? Ever?

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 01:34:14 (GMT)
From: Anon
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: EXCUSE me! What's this gotto do with Run and me??
Message:
Good comments Jim (and I badly needed a laugh after writing that) ...
Well, I suppose I'm not done here yet and neither are you, I guess.
Definately time for bed now.
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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 17:41:01 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Anon
Subject: Best post I've ever read...
Message:
...here on the forum. Man, that summed it up to 'perfection' (remember all that hype about perfection??) Well, you have formed a beautiful essay with your words just now. Sad, yes, but very persuasive. I really get pissed off that your talents and skills were subject to the trauma that you describe. It's all so ass-backward isn't it? Here we are trying to feel good about our talents and grind out a living with them somehow. And discovering that we goddamn BETTER have some ego in order to sell what we have to offer.

ANyway, I wish every premie could read this. I know it would touch them. Great piece of writing ANon.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 14:54:15 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: And here's a participation questionnaire
Message:
More EV's stuff:

------------

PERSONNEL RESEARCH FORM

Desired areas of expertise: Including but not limited to Writers, Editors, Creative Directors, Producers and Executives in Public Relations,
TV and Print Press, Publishing, Film, Corporate and
Marketing Communications, Web Design

Please indicate the following:
(Please note: this information will be accessed only by the members of the international PR team and will not be disseminated to others)

1. Name
2. Address
3. Coordinates (email, telephone, fax, street address)
4. Year received K.
5. Professional experience, including description of activities/projects and employer /clients
6. Relevant professional memberships and contacts
7. Service experience
8. Your main strengths (personal qualities)
9. Your main weaknesses
10. In which area/role in service you would make the most effective contribution?
11. In which area/role in service you would be least effective?
12. Availability for service: how many hours per week
13. Any samples of your work available? Describe
14. Names and coordinates of 2 persons with Knowledge who know you and can serve as a reference
15. Any other information about yourself which you find relevant.
16. Please include a photograph of yourself, preferably scanned as either a jpg or bmp or mail your photo to Terry Yingling at Elan Vital, P.O. Box 6130, Malibu CA 90264
17. If at all possible, please return this form by August 1, 1999. Forms will also be accepted after this date.

Is there someone else you recommend we contact?: ________________________

Their qualifications or job title: ________________________________________

Contact number, fax, email: ________________________________________

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:40:02 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Coordinates???
Message:
1. Name
2. Address
3. Coordinates (email, telephone, fax, street address)

Coordinates??? Is this some new american business-speak crap or a made up term by Elan Vital? And what's the difference between Address and street address?

Good grief!

John.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 09:55:27 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Coordinates???
Message:
Dear John,
Coordinates are longitude and latitude! :)
Seriously though there can be a difference between an address an a street address. Of course this is also geography based and may have nothing to do with the meaning, or lack there of in the statemet here.
Your address can be a PO box or in my case a rural route which will not get you to an exact location, for instance if you need emergency services, fire, ambulance etc. Sometimes there is also a house # and street name or a description/directions to the exact location and some day probably will be the exact long/lat complete with an instant map to that location.
That is all for your lesson today. And if I don't get over this insomnia there may be another lesson posted shortly! :)
Love,
Robyn
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:52:16 (GMT)
From: Peter Graves
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Coordinates???
Message:
I don't think 'coordinates' is new American biz speak. Sounds like something from Mission: Impossible, and of course, it is.

This message will self-destruct in five seconds.

PG

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 15:52:25 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Let's do it!
Message:
JM,

I'm going to fill one out but I need two references. I figure you and Jack Tuff might be mine. You're an instructor, right? Are you still doing that service part-time or have you given it up for you veterinary practise? You were never too clear about that.

And Jack? Well he's gotten to know a bunch of us over the last year or so. Certainly picked up where our old ashram relationship dropped off some years ago. So Jack could vouch for what I've been up to, service-wise, more recently.

You'll be my reference, won't you?

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:35:13 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Let's do it!
Message:
Well, I still have my instructor's diploma, but I guess it's not valid in the Lard's court any longer:)))))

But you're allowed to use it as a reference.

I resigned from my position in EV, but how can you resign from your life !!! I guess I'll be all my life under Prempal Rawat's spell, whatever happens. At least he thinks so ....

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 17:24:49 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Oh no!
Message:
Jean Michel,

You mean to tell us that the Knowledge Review you gave us in the Latvian club at 2.30 Sunday morning, after you drank all that wine, beer and vodka, is invalid, because you weren't a qualified instructor?

I want my ten quid back.

Anth the Hurt

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:02:46 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: Marianne?
Message:
Can't you read English?

When I say it's not valid in the Lard's court, doesn't mean it's not valid in Latvia!

Weren't you all blissed out?

I'm anxious seeing the pictures !

Marianne? What about those pictures?

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:12:44 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Oooops.
Message:
Sorry Mahatma-ji.

I was in my mind.

But now your precious satsang has put me back with my true self.

As you said in satsang on Sunday morning,

'Jesus is coming, so look busy'.

Anth the Back on the Path Again.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:21:14 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: and furthermore
Message:
look how much grace you've got in your life !

Just today, and yesterday ..... I hope you're grateful, and you'll send me a check (a fine dinner will also do).

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:31:59 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: J-M, ... about that Knowledge review ...
Message:
Jean-Michel, now about that Knowledge review ...

... are you sure the tongue was meant to go OUT and then up? People are giving me the strangest looks.

(P.S. I think John's upset that I blissed out for the first time in months, - laughing und schlaffing - naughty, naughty)

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 21:44:06 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: cqg
Subject: about that Knowledge review: U'RE CONFUSED!
Message:
and need another k review.

Are you really a vegetarian?

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:01:09 (GMT)
From: Mike
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Hey JM, how about an online one?
Message:
JM: It would save time and lots of money, since you demand so little in terms of gratitude....... heck, maybe we'll even give M an idea or three..... he he he ;-)
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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 21:24:38 (GMT)
From: Lee
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Likes and dislikes
Message:
I don't like continually wondering if I'm ever going to get 'better'
I don't like not knowing anymore what I believe in and what I don't believe in
I don't like getting older
I don't like change
I don't like arguing with people and I don't like people arguing with other people
I don't like the obsessive effect that participating in the forum has upon me
I don't like being depressed
I don't like having to sort out the rest of my life by myself

I do like being free from cult think
I do like achieving things and knowing that it was MY doing and not his
I do like saying bad things about maharaji because it makes me feel good
I do like having control of my own life (well...kind of)
I do like feeling a good exchange between expremies, premies and other species!

I'm aiming to balance out the don't likes with the do likes. Not doing so well at the moment with it all but I'm trying.

Love to you all

Lee

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:23:04 (GMT)
From: DOD
Email: None
To: Lee
Subject: Likes and dislikes
Message:
Geez, Lee. It sound like you should have titled this piece 'DISLIKES.' Cheer up. It takes about one month for every year spent in the cult (sort of like ending a bad marriage).
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 05:45:43 (GMT)
From: Harry
Email: None
To: Lee
Subject: Likes and dislikes
Message:
I don't like men being taken to the cleaners by their X wives.
I don't like it when people can't leave a relationship 'cause they don't want to screw up their kids.
A friend told me this today,
'Joy isn't happiness
it's meeting life as it is.'
Harry
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 05:22:29 (GMT)
From: A Former Premie
Email: None
To: Lee
Subject: Likes and dislikes
Message:
Lee,

EVERYTHING has plusses and minuses, things we like and things we don't. It's called life, and I wouldn't want it any other way. How awfully boring if everything suited my tastes. Oh...my...god. That's the problem with the cult programming we got as premies. It brainwashed us into looking for some kind of mythical perfectionthat doesn't exist and building a whole, big belief system to explain why it is so elusive. It makes you miserable. Happiness, in my opinion, comes in enjoying and being stimulated by the challenges of things that aren't perfect, don't suit us and make us grow and mature as human beings. It's really kind of wonderful.

In memory of Charles Schultz and the Peanuts gang, just remember that:

' happiness is two kinds of ice cream, pizza with sausage, telling the time and tying your shoes for the very first time.'

Happiness is all that really ordinary stuff that makes up life. As a premie, I missed out on all that while I was squeezing my eyeballs and kissing some fat guy's feet. Well, I learned from my mistake.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 01:35:12 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: Lee
Subject: Likes and dislikes
Message:
Dear Lee,
I recently did this writing exercise and thought it related a little bit. You were supposed to write I wish and complete it, I think 19 times and then the last write I really wish. Jade is my youngest daughter.
I wish your life, my life, everyones could be what we wanted but I have found that facing the hard times bring you good stuff and also make the good times so much more appreciated.
I thought of listing an I don't like list but don't like the thought of doing it right now. :)
Wishing you all the best over the long haul Lee.
Love,
Robyn

I wish I was involved in helping people, expanding beyond my
own little world, hospic?
I wish I was organized
I wish I had more fun
I wish I was on a better career path
I wish I had a good healthy food routine
I wish I had money to travel to London for 2/12 :)
I wish I had good winter boots
I wish I would become a better belly dancer
I wish I would go out dancing at least once every couple months
I wish I lived in a sub tropical climate
I wished I lived on a house boat
I wish I was making jewelery
I wish I had my wood all in the sun porch
I wish I would train my dogs
I wish I knew how to do things with the computer, mp3's and
trouble shoot
I wish I was better with house plants and gardening
I wish I had more time to read
I wish I could keep a lawnmower working
I wish I had a good solid healthy love relationship
I really wish I had a better relationship with Jade

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:24:02 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: Robyn
Subject: Likes and dislikes
Message:
Robyn, that was sweet, and somehow ...touching.

It occurred to me when I had read your 'wish list' that a lot of those 'wishes' (not all of them, but a lot) you could make happen quite easily. So why wish?

Here's a little quotation for you:

'Don't wish for, don't wait for, don't expect happiness: just be it in the present moment. We need to know how to make peace and joy out of suffering as the quest for no-suffering is illusion, and creates more suffering: if you abandon suffering, you abandon happiness. The material of our suffering is the same as the material of our happiness.'

(Thich Nhat Hanh, Dharma Talk, Plum Village, France, January 25, 1997)




My wish? (and this has got to be a paradox, hasn't it?)


Not to drain my emotional energy on wishful-thinking!




Musing:
(Though there are some things in my life I'd like to change, if I can't be arsed to change them, it probably means that I wasn't that dissatisfied with 'em in the first place).

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 23:27:42 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: cqg
Subject: Likes and dislikes
Message:
Dear Chris,
Thank you. I accept suffering and have grown to even welcome it because I know it brings growth and understanding. I do have a problem with taking care of my life in general, big problem but I have worked through tons of emotional issues and think the time is at hand to deal with my taking care of myself and my family.
You are right that a lot of those wishes are easily attainable once I get myself together. It is time to stop putting that off for some future date and face it now, in the moment. The thing about your last bit about if you don't change them you must not have been to dissatisfied with them is very true but then that points to something off for me because how can I settle for living like this. I mean taking care of myself, mostly financially, I have lots to be thankful and happy for in my life, and I am, this is the major thorn in my existance at this point.
Thanks for your kind words and conserns Chris.
Love,
Robyn
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:46:15 (GMT)
From: JB
Email: None
To: Robyn
Subject: Likes and dislikes
Message:
I am so sorry I didn't have my glasses on.
I thought at first the topic was Dikes.
Won't happen again.

JB

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 21:02:57 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: JB
Subject: - wot? ... a good Catholic boy like you? (nt) ;]
Message:
- wot? ... a good Catholic boy like you? (nt) ;]
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:11:32 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: cqg
Subject: - wot? ... a good Catholic boy like who?
Message:
c,

I'm the good catholic boy. JB is the nice new age lady. (Just ribbing ya, JB).

Jerry

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 18:43:41 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Ooops, my mistake - thought JB was JHB :o[ (nt)
Message:
Ooops, my mistake - thought JB was JHB :o[ (nt)

Thanks though, Jerry.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 19:14:16 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: cqg
Subject: Ooops, my mistake - thought JB was JHB :o[ (nt)
Message:
JB may not be a boy, but JHB isn't a catholic, so you are mistaken yet again!

John.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 19:58:02 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Ooops, my mistake - thought JB was JHB, sorry John
Message:
Well now I really AM in the doghouse.

Yup, confused, mistaken and ... aware of it.

I have a friend who once told me 'there are no such things as mistakes'. (I think she was trying to say that if you learn from them, then why would it be a mistake to have learnt?)

Anyway, the mix-up happened after I read JB's post in a thread below. It read, it said:

'Well, I'd be into Christian relics if there were any around I could get my hands on.
Did you hear they're going to try and canonize Pope John XXIII in Sept. Someone (nuns) put a small peice of the sheet he died on on a fellow sister very ill and after a vision of the pope saying she'd be alright she was big time instantly healed.
Yes, I eat that stuff up.
JB '

OMTFTW (one more time for the world) ... sorry.

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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 20:28:23 (GMT)
From: Haldor
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: I've been thinking
Message:
It is time to leave Maharaji. There are just to many doubts. I have lots of questions perhaps you guys out there can answer. I'll go int more detail later when I've formulated things properly.
Love Haldor
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:09:36 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: anthginn@yahoo.com
To: Haldor
Subject: I've been thinking
Message:
Hi Haldor,

The title to your post says it all. Bravo. Hooray for freedom and the human spirit. Well done.

How long were you involved?

Your english seems spot on, so I'm wondering if you're one of those British premies I knew a few years ago who moved down to the Algarve? Email me if you are. I suspect I may owe you £10.00 from a card game.

If so, er....well....I'm leaving this forum right....and...er...see yer

anth the leaving town tomorrow i'll mail you with my new address.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:16:25 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Haldor
Subject: I forgot...
Message:
Haldor,

I forgot to mention. If I do know you, I'll respect your confidentiality and I won't tell anyone. Honest.

Anth Ginn.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 01:00:15 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: Haldor
Subject: May I suggest the Recent Ex's forum?
Message:
Haldor,

If you're really 'coming out', as it were, you might want to email Katie or Run and ask about the Recent Exes Forum. It's a place where the particular needs and interests of new fugitives from the cult are addressed with care and sensitivity.

It was around here somewhere but I hear that it's moved.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 15:05:43 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: May I suggest the Recent Ex's forum?
Message:
Now Jim, that was uncalled for. Here's a guy saying he wants to leave Maharaji and you use the opportunity to yammer on about your own issues. You didn't used to be so narcissistic when helping recent ex-es. Take a look at yourself, and get your shit together.
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 05:37:42 (GMT)
From: Haldor
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: May I suggest the Recent Ex's forum?
Message:
Thanks Jim,Yes I really am giving up on M. Although I have had some experiences in meditation and a lot of good times in my 28 years I cannot see that what M has promised has manifested.This is a dying cult we're talking about.In Portugal there are only 400 active premies and it's a sort of middle class club.Hardly anyone goes to programs.The average attendance for introductory events in Southern Portugal is around 2.
Leaving feels very strange,although I have done it before,it feels like getting divorced.I would take up your suggestion on the recent x's forum if I could find it. Is that because you think you're too insensitive?
Thanks for all the dialogue we've had recently it did make me think.If anyone could give out the location I'd appreciate it.
All the best everyone and Jim all things must pass.
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:40:48 (GMT)
From: kmdarling
Email: darlingwave@aol.com
To: everyone
Subject: HEY YOU GUYS! HE ASKED HOW TO GET TO RECENT EXES!
Message:
In Haldor's last post, he said yes, he would be interested in getting to the recent exes forum, but can't find out how to get there.

That seems like a pretty important query. Run and Jim have somehow taken this thread back into their vortex, without noticing that this question was never answered.

Please post directions, someone. I'd also like to know how to go there.

More power to ya, Haldor! I was in Madrid in 1972 and I translated for the mahatma who initiated the first Portuguese premies (Gyan Yoganand) when they came for Knowledge. Oops! (I was called Katie Jones in those days in case you were one of those early premies).

Love Kathryn Darling

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:25:29 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: kmdarling
Subject: Getting on RecentExes.
Message:
Send an email to recentexes@yahoo.com requesting access.

All the best,

John (a recent ex - 1 year)

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:01:12 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: kmdarling
Subject: Toggle your caps lock (nt)
Message:
th
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 15:43:23 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: Haldor
Subject: May I suggest the Recent Ex's forum?
Message:
Haldor,

Actually, I was just kidding about the Recent Exes forum. Kidding to thers about this big fight I've been having about there even being such a thing - a scret, private fourm and all that. But forget that. It's not important.

What is important is that you should be really proud of yourself. I don't know how long you've lurked here, or really anything about you, but I've watched you interact with people a bit, ask questions, discuss a few things, and you seem pretty honest about it all. Really, the whole Maharaji farce imploded years and years ago. But how many premies are willing to face that squarely? Not many. The ones who've come here trying to defend their beliefs end up having to lie about the most basic facts and deny the most blatant logic. So you should be proud of yourself for not doing those obscene mental gymnastics but rather being honest with yourself. Really.

When did you become a premie, by the way. Tell us about it.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:22:57 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: My opinion re: Jim's big fight
Message:
That's better Jim :)

Actually I think your argument re: the ex-es forum hase merit, I really do. But it seems like this fight between you and Run has gone too far. And most of us here are sick of hearing about it.

I have to admit, too, that I agree with others who have wondered why you are expecting loyalty from others when you work so hard to intimidate people? Warm and fuzzy you're not.

But I AM loyal to the IDEA that people should not be talking about other people who aren't there to defend themselves, in a public forum. That's what e-mail is for!!

Okay now I am hijacking Haldor's thread. You can email me if you want to discuss this further.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:35:22 (GMT)
From: Runamok
Email: None
To: Helen
Subject: statement
Message:
I'm not going to stay and argue this stuff unless there is a factual point.

I think things have been overblown quite a bit. There were about 7 excerpts which mention the name 'Jim' in the 38 he posted. 4 'Jims' occur in my account(s) of Jim's encounters with SHP. 2 'Jims' are actually positive altho Jim has disputed this with me in once instance.

If you want to read them, they're in the inactive index:
'OK, I admit, this REALLY bothers me: RUN' is the thread
and
'Some examples of Run's posts on RE' is the post.

You will find the vast majority of the material is about
flaming. 'Should you respond to flamers? Should you ignore flaming?' He's got the ones most critical of him right on top.

The 2 excerpts at the very end sound very negative but they, ironically, try to say that he would't have broken in to RE, but he had.

There was no rule against 'names' on RE. I personally cannot understand posts (and some of yours are case in point, Helen) which cryptically refer to 'some people' in reference to behavior they find offensive. Some of Susan's come to mind also. I just don't know who you mean.

RE's policies are open to change but that's our internal affair There probably will be a change. The issue is real.

But people breaking into our private forum in conjunction with their own public efforts to sabotage it is not exactly a strong framework to criticize from. The posts in question probably would never have been there except for the HUGE amount of lobbing (not misspelled) coming from this forum. If people are screaming about you outside your home, it's natural to discuss them privately. If this had been a legal matter, breaking in would have disqualified the use of the 'evidence' for obvious reasons and there would be legal and/or civil issues in regards to the break-in. It's extreme provocation.

RE is not a public forum, it's private and requires admittance. If you had an email list would you think that people not on it should tell you what you could talk about? It's ironic because democracy has always been a battlecry in any discussion of guidelines.

There are several issues here. Is it appropriate for people to break-in to a private forum? Another issue for me is the enforcement of the NO-THREAT policy on this forums.

If people are so inclined to discuss guidelines they could
also discuss enforcement of the NO-THREAT policy on this forum.

For myself, I could have used more emotional restraint in my description of Jim 'bashing' Shp etc. but I'm not planning on losing too much of sleep over it.


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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:40:32 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: Runamok
Subject: Good points, Run
Message:
And I'll start with my favorite:

There was no rule against 'names' on RE. I personally cannot understand posts (and some of yours are case in point, Helen) which cryptically refer to 'some people' in reference to behavior they find offensive. Some of Susan's come to mind also. I just don't know who you mean.

Great. I'm all with you. So who, then, for the millionth time, were you referring to when you posted:

She couldn't possibly be experiencing grade-school style pranks from forum members emailing her anonymously with the aid of Proxomitron. I couldn't imagine such a scenario. Disrespect for forum members-perish the thought!
And those system problems- with all those posts on computing, it's odd we were'nt warned about kernel32 problems (which my VAR's advise me to avoid like the plague).

You have to admit you're not really following your 'no-innuendo' policy, eh? This whole fight started with me just trying to get you answer this very question. Funny, huh?

I also like the way you try to minimize just how much you've slagged me over on RE:

I think things have been overblown quite a bit. There were about 7 excerpts which mention the name 'Jim' in the 38 he posted. 4 'Jims' occur in my account(s) of Jim's encounters with SHP. 2 'Jims' are actually positive altho Jim has disputed this with me in once instance.

It's not the names, bud, it's whether or not your subject's identifiable in context. That's how liable laws work. No one with half a brain could ever miss the fact that I am the constant subject of your 'anti-flaming' campaign. It's too obvious to even think of talking about. Buuuut, if you wish, I'll be happy to go through all your RE posts with you, one by one, if necessary.

RE's policies are open to change but that's our internal affair. ..... RE is not a public forum, it's private and requires admittance. If you had an email list would you think that people not on it should tell you what you could talk about?

Like fucking hell it's your private forum! It is not an email list but rather a forum that was developed and, indeed, is billed as a 'Subset of Forum Five'. If anyone's got any say in anything around here and this forum is not, as Brian once said, the FA's own private property (which I say it's not), then you guys are answerable to the lot of us. Got that?

But people breaking into our private forum in conjunction with their own public efforts to sabotage it is not exactly a strong framework to criticize from. The posts in question probably would never have been there except for the HUGE amount of lobbing (not misspelled) coming from this forum.

Again, it's not your private forum so you can forget about this whining. I'm just so grateful that someone sent me the password. Otherwise, who knows how long you'd be muttering your crazy, obsessed lies and distortions about me without me ever knowing?

But you also said something pretty bizarre there that I'd like you to explain. You said that those posts would not have been there if it weren't for the 'HUGE amount of lobbing coming from this forum'. Are you saying that you only dissed me there because of something I was saying at the time about RE? I sure hope not because, brother, that would be an absurd lie. Haven't you given Katie enough to do? How's she going to try to cover for you on that one? Hm? Some people are just so inconsiderate of others!

There are several issues here. Is it appropriate for people to break-in to a private forum?

Well, it's not a private forum so that settles that, doesn't it?

Another issue for me is the enforcement of the NO-THREAT policy on this forums.

Are you accusing me of threatening you now, Run? Come on, buddy, let's not forget about Run's First Big Principle for the Day -- no innuendo. So who're you talking about? what are you talking about? And why are you talking about this now? A little evasive manouvering, perhaps?

If people are so inclined to discuss guidelines they could
also discuss enforcement of the NO-THREAT policy on this forum.

Yes, Run, let's discuss it. Has someone threatened you recently? Want to tell us about it?

For myself, I could have used more emotional restraint in my description of Jim 'bashing' Shp etc. but I'm not planning on losing too much of sleep over it.

Run, don't worry about it. All forgiven. Want to come over for a coke?

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:47:27 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Runamok
Subject: statement
Message:
I agree that from the posts that Jim posted here it did not seem like you all talked about him all that much. I can understand why there should be an recent -exes forum for those who don't feel comfortable here and I can understand why forum 5 and flaming in general would be discussed on the RE forum.

All I was saying above is that I also understand Jim's argument (although I think he is overly obsessed with himself and I don't care for his tactics). I found it particularly strange that Jim expects loyalty from his forum 'buddies' when no buddy of mine would treat people the way he treats them. In large part I think Jim is reaping what he sows--yes, it's Jim's karma biting him hard on the butt.

As far as writing cryptic posts about 'some people' I do get pretty evasive because frankly I DON'T have the balls to continually have it out with Jim. I just don't have the interest, the time, or the balls. In fact I have no balls at all. I find it incredibly unproductive to engage in the sort of 'go for blood' intellectual sparring that often goes on here. I just don't care for it.

You do whatever you want to Run. I consider you a friend but I do see both sides of the issue. It's hard for me to be objective because naturally I do want to jump on the 'beat up Jim' bandwagon. That's why I have pretty much stayed out of it, I didn't trust myself to be objective. (Except for a cryptic reference from my alter ego, Little Yiddish Grandma).

Anyway I think it just isn't productive to fight tooth and nail with Jim. It just doesn't put 'beans on the table'as michael would say. Now I gotta go be a girl scout leader, what a pain in the tockas that can be.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 06:38:55 (GMT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Helen
Subject: statement
Message:
Helen:

Re: I just don't have the interest, the time, or the balls. In fact I have no balls at all.

I've got some... and wheels too. The trick is to not run over one with the other.

--Scott

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 16:45:32 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: statement
Message:
Ouch, that sounds really painful. You know we women have to be careful on those bicycle seats too. Let's face it, we're all vulnerable when it comes to our private parts, literally and figuratively.

See ya--one day we'll do that coffee!! Hopefully before we're old and gray

Helen

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:47:22 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: Helen
Subject: Well said, Helen
Message:
Helen,

Your LYM routine's very funny. And Minnesota Housewife, is that you too? Hilarious, doncha know? A real funny.

But, believe it or not, Helen -- oh this will pain you, I'm sure -- I've got a lot of 'friends' here. But that's not the fucking point, is it? What this is about is whether or not it's cool for there to be a private gossip forum alongside the main one. Got it? Good. That's the issue.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 23:11:30 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Well said, Helen
Message:
I am glad you have friends here. No prob. As for the issue, it is NOT an issue for me. It's your issue, so go ahead and argue about it til your balls turn purple. What you have defined as 'The issue' is not an issue for me and for many people here.
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 23:14:09 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: Helen
Subject: Well said, Helen
Message:
Then you're short-sighted.
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 16:58:15 (GMT)
From: JB
Email: None
To: Helen
Subject: My opinion re: Jim's big fight
Message:
God, you have so much integrity.
You go girl. You're a pleasure to read.

JB
Sorry,continue on Haldor.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 00:14:21 (GMT)
From: SB
Email: None
To: Haldor
Subject: I've been thinking
Message:
Haldor wrote:

It is time to leave Maharaji. There are just to many doubts. I have lots of questions perhaps you guys out there can answer. I'll go int more detail later when I've formulated things properly.
Love Haldor

If you do, know that you can expect some inside turmoil, but it will go away.
I began to come here carrying my doubts as you and the information offered around ex.premies.org and forums helped me make up my mind. Twenty some years are gone, but it could have lasted until the end of my life...but it didn;t. I am free.

I wish you the best. Have you posted anywhere your email address?

What questions do you have? Can you ask here or you rather do it in another way?

If you do not answer, take care.

S

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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 20:59:03 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Haldor
Subject: I've been thinking
Message:
Haldor,

Good luck - there is certainly a lot to think about, and it's likely you'll have a lot to feel. Drop by here when you feel like it.

All the best,

John.

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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 20:33:43 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: Haldor
Subject: I've been thinking
Message:
Haldor, you say:

'It is time to leave Maharaji. There are just to many doubts. I have lots of questions perhaps you guys out there can answer. '

Remember, no matter how well informed the answers to your questions may be, others' answers are THEIR answers. They can help, but ...

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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 21:45:27 (GMT)
From: Mike
Email: None
To: cqg
Subject: well said, cqg and might I add
Message:
that many premies have come here and said something to the effect of, 'I'm better off with M than I am with an angry, argumentative, opinionated group of people like you, etc, etc..... It feels better!'

It's not a matter of 'feelings,' it's a matter of truth. Truth is, people have differing opinions. Truth is, people have their feelings hurt sometimes. Truth is, everybody gets angry. Truth is, everybody argues.... either with themselves (inside) or others. Truth is, some people don't, and never will, like each other.

In 'those' arenas alone, this place is 'truer' than most. Haldor, you will find a large quantity of folks here with major experience in the world-of-M. They can help to put you in touch with some facts, but it is you that has to act on them. Good luck and welcome back, when you are up to it. :-)

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:28:31 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Mike
Subject: argumentative and opinionated posts
Message:
Hi Mike,

the occasional punch up does happen here, as we've noticed. Nobody particularly likes them, but they blow over. The people involved are connected to each other in some way, and know each other in some way. Others who know them get involved in one way or another, the dust eventually settles and life goes on.

There are other types of 'unpleasant posts' that arrive here Mike. Not exes having a slanging match because one of them has upset another, but posts from premies attacking exes who post here.

There is straightforward nasty, anonymous, personal abuse.

And there is the 'intelligent, heartless, cold, anonymous, response'. One of these that stuck in my mind was when URL attacked Abi's family in a particularly mean way.

The premies say this place is 'hate filled', but the real nasty stuff comes from premies anyway.

Anth the pate filled (vegetarian dyslexic of course).

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:06:40 (GMT)
From: Mike
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: noted, and quite correct!
Message:
AJW: Well said, indeed! 'Target correction,' noted! I believe I missed the Abi posts.... but there have been more than enough others that I've read to amply back that up!

What's different in 'this world' as opposed to M's world is that we, once again, are 'permitted' to be mad at each other. In the big picture, that's an easily understated, yet HUGE difference. WE, under any circumstances we choose, can be as EMOTIONAL as we want, as rediculous as we want or as HUMANE as we want. I would hope that we emphasize the latter..... :-)

Thanks again, AJW..... you are a 'rock!' (read that: solid anchor.... I don't want any misinterpretations.... he he he:-)

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:46:19 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: Mike
Subject: noted, and quite correct!
Message:
Thanks for the support, Mike (it should go nicely with the boxer shorts).

Seriously though, when you said that we are 'permitted' to be mad at each other now that we're out of 'M's world' (sounds like a theme-park?), - it reminded me of just how much bottled-up resentment and aggression I had in me when I was a premie. And I can remember a few other premies for whom the pretense of simulated bliss was too much to keep up, and quite often turned into something rather ... shall we say ... nasty!

Good old days they often were ........................
..................................................................................................................................NOT!

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 20:04:16 (GMT)
From: Mike
Email: None
To: cqg
Subject: Absolutely!
Message:
cqg: This could be an extra-long thread discussion, all by itself! I vividly remember that it wasn't 'alright' to show anything on your face other than that pasty-smile! I think the ashramies were were expected to do this even more! Any show of negative emotion was met with 'your in your mind,' and lots of tsk..tsk..tsking thrown in for good measure. Not to mention suggestion or two that you go meditate; just what you want to hear when your ready to tear somebody's head off. MORE pent up hostility..... bite your tongue, bite your tongue..... Shut up, paste that smile back on your face and relent! Gawd.... how unnatural! How totally unnatural! Jeez, even animals in the wild get pissed at each other; primates, too! What makes us, for a single moment, think it is 'unnatural' for us to get pissed? What, for a single moment, makes us think it's unnatural to 'live in the world and be of the world?' We ARE, after all, in and of the world. I think some of our problems arise when we think that we are somehow 'better' than the rest of the natural world and somehow 'apart' from it. It just ain't natural......IMHO, of course!

I think 'pent up hostility,' for some, may have been an understatement...... he he he :-)

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 20:19:10 (GMT)
From: cqg
Email: None
To: Mike
Subject: Yer in yer head bruvver -now go and meditate;)[nt]
Message:
BTW, what's another name for 'spiritual' elitism?
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 15:24:41 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Haldor and Lee
Subject: Lee and Haldor
Message:
It takes time to extricate oneself from a whole way of life and thinking. It can be a little scary but ultimately I believe your lives will be better. I agree with Mike about the forum. I definitely have found some great people here but you do have to wade through alot of static to find them. Just like real life!! This IS real life. Maharaji made the idea of a perfect world sound so appealing. Perfection...bliss...etc. But as Lee said in her likes and dislikes post, (I'm paraphrasing here) the feeling of taking charge of one's life and one's own achievements feels very good indeed.

One thing that happened to me when I drifted away from M was there was a temptation to fasten myself to another belief system or guru out of a need to operate from a packaged model of living, seeing reality. A therapist told me to take a break from 'spiritual directors' and I did even though it was difficult to be my own spiritual director. 15-16 years later I still don't have a rock solid set of beliefs but that's ok now. I think it is our nature to question and inquire into the nature of reality and our existence. The questioning is in itself fulfilling. It causes cognitive dissonance, yes, but anything worth achieving requires cognitive dissonance and hard work. M sold us a bunch of shit. Every developmental or psychological model talks about the period of disequilibrium before any 'growth spurt' from infancy right up through our 80's. If you watch an infant around 7-12 months of age they are totally driven to reach for the next step of their development. They aren't sitting there passively meditating in their cribs. They are pushing pushing pushing themselves to roll over, to crawl , to walk, to reach for the next stage of their cognitive and motor development.

As adults we are the same way. Maturity means reaching for the next cognitive step and the next, and the mind has to cogitate to get there. You outgrew M. He doesn't do it for you anymore. COunt yourslef one lucky guy or gal.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:37:57 (GMT)
From: Scott T.
Email: freewheeling@bigfoot.com
To: Helen
Subject: Lee and Haldor
Message:
Helen:

Re: A therapist told me to take a break from 'spiritual directors' and I did even though it was difficult to be my own spiritual director. 15-16 years later I still don't have a rock solid set of beliefs but that's ok now. I think it is our nature to question and inquire into the nature of reality and our existence.

For some reason this reminded me of something. When I was a premie I recall shopping for groceries in a small store in Hollywood. I came across this brand of preserves I had never tried and so I figured I'd just give them a try for awhile on a provisional basis, and decide if I wanted to make that brand a permanent part of my grocery regimen. (Does this sound like a Virgo, or what?) Anyway, somehow by brain got stuck in limbo and 25 years later, long after I had dropped out of the DLM thing, I realized that the brand of preserves was still on a trial status. I had just never gotten around to making a decision, or to even considering it. Something very peculiar had happened to my brain. I wonder how many other decisions were just 'shelved' indefinitely, like this? It's a good thing some of my functions are more or less automatic or I'd still be standing in front of the urinal at the Astrodome.

--Scott

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 18:43:49 (GMT)
From: Mike
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Lee and Haldor
Message:
Scott: EXCELLENT observation! The regimen does seem to encourage 'no decisions.' A decision is somehow linked with mr. mind.

Off the topic, was that YOU that posted the 'ashtar command' stuff recently, or did I peg you falsely? he he he :-) If it wasn't you, it's even funnier than I originally thought!

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 17:55:27 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: automatic pilot
Message:
I know you're just joking about the preserves,but wasn't it kind of nice being on automatic pilot as a premie?. I really miss those days sometimes. Just holy name, and a simple path--satsang, service, and meditation. Of course I never did any 'real' service,except for cleaning the ashram once, and child care at a couple of festivals, and I never lived through the horrors of being in the ashram.

I did kind of hope that knowledge would allow me to go on automatic pilot forever. I kind of liked floating around and never making a decision. Oh well, I guess being brain dead isn't such a great idea. Speaking of which I had better get some work done.

'Virgo perfect!' (A friend of mine always used to say that--she cleans hosues for a living and likes things just so.)

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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 19:24:36 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: Everyone
Subject: G's 'modern myths' reposted and commented upon
Message:
'Lady Luck' caused evolution.

Interesting. I thought Lady Luck was kind of old-school. In any event, I don't think anyone's saying what caused evolution with any degree of confidence (I mean, beside those that think that God did it). There are some interesting speculations about how inorganic matter started up the slow, slow path of replication and ultimately, what we call 'life' but that's about it.

The universe came from a 10-dimensional 'unstable nothing' that was very very very very very tiny, which split into the 4 dimensions of time and space and 6 unseen dimensions and expanded very very very very very fast.

Why stop there? Astrophysicists have a number of theorie's along these lines. And I'm sure they're not based on nothing. Do you have a better idea? What's it based on?

Consciousness is just 'brain shit'.

Well, the only consciousness I'm aware of resides in brains. Plus, it appears that those brains are specfically suited to yield and facilitate consciousness. It looks as if consciousness needs the brains to exist. Do you know of any consciousness that exists outside brains? Where?

You're just hallucinating that you are real. Consciousness doesn't really exist. But you should believe that matter is real, even though consciousness, which isn't real, is the only thing that lets us be aware of it.

Who says that? What do you mean by 'you'? What do you mean by 'hallucinating'? And 'real', what's that to you in this context?

There are all these 'other universes' out there, loads of them, even though we can't see them. This explains why our universe isn't really fine-tuned for life, even though it seems like it is. It's just one of many universes, all different. 'God' didn't do it, 'Lady Luck' did it! Surely many many many unseen universes is a simpler explanation than 'God'.

As in all of your list you do a great disservice to the truth categorizing these as myths. Even if you burned the straw men off and described these ideas more fairly, you'd have to start by conceding that, far from being 'myths' which people are encouraged to accept on faith, some of the more speculative, far-reaching ideas in science are theories. No one's urging you to accept any of them in particular and certainly not on faith alone.

And as for the specific example above, the fact it is more likely that other universes might exist, whatever the hell that means, than that there's a God. We already know of one universe. We don't know of any God (unless you're relying on some old myth).

All these people who say they experienced something that we can't explain (esp and all that crap), forget about it, they're all lying or crazy, we KNOW. We KNOW just about everything, cause we are sooooo smart. Yea, people said that before, but it's different now, this time, we really do. We have KNOWLEDGE.

You say 'lying or crazy' but you know that you left out the most agreeble and likely alternative explanation: they were mistaken.
It's not that we're so smart, it's just that we developed scientific regimens to protect us from our own beliefs and biases. Has esp ever been verified in a reputable double-blind study? My understanding is that it hasn't.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 00:57:00 (GMT)
From: Mirror, mirror
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: on the wall...
Message:
It's not that we're so smart, it's just that we developed scientific regimens to protect us from our own beliefs and biases.

So do you say you are 100% protected from your own beliefs and biases? Do you really think you have subjected ALL of your body of 'knowledge' to scientific rigour? Which ones slipped through the cracks? And what is their impact on your awareness?

You present yourself as a model of rational thinking. I personally think you are more rational than most but alas you cannot escape the limitations of your mortality. Because my friend you do have a fatal flaw; one you'll not fully see until after it has gotten you.

And another thing, are you saying that double-blind studies have never lied?

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Date: Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 02:27:46 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Mirror, mirror
Subject: Are you cracked?
Message:
So do you say you are 100% protected from your own beliefs and biases? Do you really think you have subjected ALL of your body of 'knowledge' to scientific rigour? Which ones slipped through the cracks? And what is their impact on your awareness?

As it seems you're sticking to a name, 'mirror', I will deign to answer you, you lowly premie, you. :) Okay, your answer: Don't be ridiculous. I'm not saying I live in a hermetically-sealed bubble, immune against even the slightest infections of fuzzy thought or unfounded belief. I'm saying you do what you can, right? Basically, I don't consciously allow myself to buy into something without at least some effort at scientific scrutiny. How about you?

You present yourself as a model of rational thinking. I personally think you are more rational than most but alas you cannot escape the limitations of your mortality. Because my friend you do have a fatal flaw; one you'll not fully see until after it has gotten you.

Oh yeah? What's that? That I've rejected your cult leader? Too bad for me, I guess. By the way, whatever your anwser is to this -- how the hell do you know?

And another thing, are you saying that double-blind studies have never lied?

Studies don't 'lie'. People lie. Now what's your question?

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 01:04:05 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Mirror, mirror
Subject: Sorry, do I know you?
Message:
Who's this now I'm talking to? Or are we going to get into double-blind posts now too?
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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 02:27:44 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: 'Mirror, mirror' is not me - just so you know (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 20:49:47 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: G's 'modern myths' reposted and commented upon
Message:
I figured the word myth would get you. I used that word to emphasize that these theories could be incorrect and that in the future these theories might be regarded as myths. I'm not saying these theories are not worth pursuing.

Regarding people being mistaken about experiencing something that we can't explain:

Have you ever in your life experienced something that can't be explained? I have. How can a person simply be 'mistaken' about something they experienced? stupidity or a false memory? I've heard that before. In any case, that is similar to an ad hominem logical fallacy. How do you know they are ALL lying, crazy, or mistaken? Do you think it is worth looking into at all? Why be so close minded?

'beliefs and biases', would that include atheism? or is that somehow not a belief?

Has esp been scientifically verified? There have been scientific studies with statistically significant results, but I don't know whether they were flawed or not.

'Other universes' means other space-time continuums. I actually like this theory, but where is the evidence? Our universe does seem fine tuned for life based on empirical measurements.

The reason I brought up the '10-dimensional unstable nothing' is to show that if physicists are led to come up with way out theories like that, some perhaps true, than things are much stranger than meets the eye. BTW, how can nothing be unstable?

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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 21:27:38 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: G
Subject: G's 'modern myths' reposted and commented upon
Message:
I figured the word myth would get you. I used that word to emphasize that these theories could be incorrect and that in the future these theories might be regarded as myths.

How ridiculous if you think about what you're really saying. Right now these things, you say, are theories. They may be right, they may be wrong. We don't know yet. And from that you jump to the possibility that they might become myths!? Hows' that going to happen? Some future, post-apocalyptic primitive culture, one that's lost a grasp on science, picks up a Hawkings book and starts a religion?

Forget it, G. These are scientific theories and that's it. They're either disproven, proven or left on the shelf. As theories. End of story.

Regarding people being mistaken about experiencing something that we can't explain:

Have you ever in your life experienced something that can't be explained? I have.

Me too. I call that kind of stuff 'unexplainable'.

How can a person simply be 'mistaken' about something they experienced? stupidity or a false memory? I've heard that before.

Well it depends on what you mean by 'mistaken'. If they're saying they experienced 'something', then of course they're not mistaken. That's obvious. But the moment they start analyizing or speculating as to what that mysterious experience was, yes, they could be completely wrong. Often, for example, what's perceived as external phenomena is just in the brain. The other way around sometimes too. Does it mean that they're stupid? Possibly. Depends what you call smart.

In any case, that is similar to an ad hominem logical fallacy. How do you know they are ALL lying, crazy, or mistaken? Do you think it is worth looking into at all? Why be so close minded?

Well you sure like those logical fallacies, don't you? Frankly, I can't see it, but, before you explain it to me, yeah, I can kind of see it. It's a stretch though, let me tell you. It's not really an ad hominem problem at all. Your complaint is that you think that someone skeptical of a supernatural claim will assume the claimant must be stupid if other such claimaints have been stupid. Yea, so what? That's just a matter of keeping a fair balance inductively construing a class and the characteristics of its members. In other words, how many stupid astrologers do you have to meet before you think there might some association between stupidity and astrology? (Just an example. As far as I know, right or wrong about their 'field', astrologers could be particularly smart people).

'beliefs and biases', would that include atheism? or is that somehow not a belief?

Of course atheism's a belief. It's a guess. It's not a bias.

Has esp been scientifically verified? There have been scientific studies with statistically significant results, but I don't know whether they were flawed or not.

I'm aware of the same info that Nigel is. There's a lot of money waiting for a successful scientific proof. Why no takers?

'Other universes' means other space-time continuums. I actually like this theory, but where is the evidence? Our universe does seem fine tuned for life based on empirical measurements.

I don't know shit about this stuff.

The reason I brought up the '10-dimensional unstable nothing' is to show that if physicists are led to come up with way out theories like that, some perhaps true, than things are much stranger than meets the eye. BTW, how can nothing be unstable?

Sure but that doesn't mean that dragons and witches are probably real. They're still probably not. But then again, who knows? It helps when we can find the root of an idea.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 03:24:53 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Hawkingism
Message:
Some future, post-apocalyptic primitive culture, one that's lost a grasp on science, picks up a Hawkings book and starts a religion?

Very good, you could make that into a short story. Here's an excerpt:

Thus sayeth the Prophet Stephen Hawking 'The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundaries'. But alas, the multitude comprehendeth not. (From the Book of Stephen)

Of course that is not what I meant. I was being humorous. I meant myth as in 'A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology' and said it as a foil to the assumption that these theories are true. Whether they true or not, who knows.

BTW, I'm not into astrology, I can't see some star light years away having a profound influence on my life. Then again, a belief in astrology is quite different than say, someone being waken by a dream of a loved one dying, then getting the call. There is a difference between someone having an unexplainable experience and someone into an occult trip. Too many people have had these experiences for them to be classified as a 'stupid class' of people. You said that you had an unexplainable experience, were you being stupid?

I was NOT complaining that 'someone skeptical of a supernatural claim will assume the claimant must be stupid if other such claimaints have been stupid'. I said nothing of the sort. You twisted my words. Do you see me as your 'opponent' that you must beat by any means?

'Dragons and witches'

Yes, they are probably not real. I don't think they are. I don't think elves, fairies, or goblins are real either. Seems like a dirty debate tactic, the implication being that I believe in dragons and witches. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to think that anyone who doesn't agree with your view of reality must be stupid and flaky. If so, that is arrogant contempt.

'But the moment they start analyizing or speculating as to what that mysterious experience was, yes, they could be completely wrong.'

I agree. Of course, 'they' includes both you and me.

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Date: Thurs, Feb 17, 2000 at 15:48:38 (GMT)
From: JB
Email: None
To: G
Subject: New website of interest
Message:
This is really for anyone in this thread,

Art Bell said last night to try www.reasons.org it's supposed to be a web substantiating the existence of God. Haven't tried it yet. Just FYI.

JB

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 03:54:52 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: G
Subject: Hawkingism
Message:
Too many people have had these experiences for them to be classified as a 'stupid class' of people. You said that you had an unexplainable experience, were you being stupid?

Hey, look who's twisting whose words? I'm just saying that there's a much greater chance that we're simply mistaken and have a very skewed perception of chance based on who knows what. You know, they've done all those studies that really prove how embarrasingly bad our average sense of probability is. The ev /psych guys have as good an explanation of that as any I've seen (I've only seen one); that we're not hard-wired for the large populations of people and magnitude of events that pass our way. Our sense of coincidence is out of step with the actual amount of phenomena that comes our way. Something like that. Dawkins talks about that in Unweaving the Rainbow.

Yes, they are probably not real. I don't think they are. I don't think elves, fairies, or goblins are real either. Seems like a dirty debate tactic, the implication being that I believe in dragons and witches. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to think that anyone who doesn't agree with your view of reality must be stupid and flaky. If so, that is arrogant contempt.

You COMPLETELY misunderstood me. No such implication at all. I was simply saying that just because a lot of strange stuff is out there, doesn't at all mean that a lot of strange stuff we've heard about in old myths and superstition deserves any credence. It's a different class of strange stuff.

Apologies accepted.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 15:09:04 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Perception of chance
Message:
I'm just saying that there's much greater chance that we're simply mistaken and have a very skewed perception of chance based on who knows what.

I've read that explanation and it has some merit. It could account for most of what is considered strange coincidences. I think another part of the idea is that non-coincidences don't have the psychological impact that coincidences do, so we tend to underestimate the number of non-coincidences, they get filtered out. We tend to notice patterns. Whether it explains all these weird coincidences, I don't know.

The thing is, coincidences are only one type of unexplained experience. For example, there are cases where weird physical stuff happens, and I'm not just talking about stuff I read in a book. Also, there are many cases where the coincidence factor is only one aspect. So it is not a complete explanation.

As to an apology, well, let's see. You don't exactly conduct your discussions in the most respectable manner all the time, do you? So will you apologize? You hit people over the head with a verbal sludgehammer (sic), but when someone gets a bit rough with you, you want an apology. Ok, perhaps I twisted your words slightly and to some degree misunderstood you. But I honestly can't say I feel regret, as I did not mean to harm you.

BTW, if there are all these 'other universes' out there, maybe there are elves, fairies, goblins, and stuff like that 'somewhere'. I wonder if these physicists have thought about that. My layman's understanding of the theory is that anything that can happen, does happen, although I've read that it's not really an 'anything goes' theory.

I agree that there are different classes of strange stuff. I don't advocate that people let loose and just believe in whatever because strange stuff occurs.

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 20:44:27 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Perception of chance
Message:
For example, there are cases where weird physical stuff happens, and I'm not just talking about stuff I read in a book.

Like what?

BTW, if there are all these 'other universes' out there, maybe there are elves, fairies, goblins, and stuff like that 'somewhere'. I wonder if these physicists have thought about that. My layman's understanding of the theory is that anything that can happen, does happen, although I've read that it's not really an 'anything goes' theory.

I don't know that theory but yes, of course, maybe there are elves etc. I never said otherwise. It's just stupid to actually believe there are.

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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 19:55:55 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: Jim
Subject: Has esp been verified? : No way, Jose...
Message:
Hi Jim,

You ask:

Has esp ever been verified in a reputable double-blind study?
My understanding is that it hasn't.

There are long-established journals of parapsychology routinely making such claims. The British Society for Psychical Research has been at it for over 100 years.

But there has never been a 'successful' paranormal study independently replicated by skeptical/disinterested parties. Nor have 'believing' parapsychologists been able to demonstrate esp effects after their experimental paradigms have been scrutinised by skeptics and tightened up as necessary.

The first person able to demonstrate paranormal powers or effects under rigid, but fair, testing conditions will win the $1,000,000 prize on offer by CSICOP.

In fact, the first theorist to build up a research pedigree of reliable paranormal effects would earn themselves a Nobel Prize - and it ain't happened yet.

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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 22:08:26 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Has esp been verified? : No way, Jose...
Message:
Nigel,

Even though it hasn't been verified through scientific method, I think the kinds of psychic VP is talking about are those that law enforcement agencies are willing to pay good money to because there is evidence of some success in solving cases. As such, even if the success rate is minimal, there does appear to be enough evidence that psychic abilities do exist, or at least that the book should remain open as to the possibility.

But, like you say, it still is debatable that psi abilities do exist at all. One day, I'm sure that debate will be settled, and psi and esp, whatever they are, will lose their current mystique.

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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 22:43:40 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Has esp been verified? : No way, Jose...
Message:
Hi Jerry,

I didn't read VP's post, but was just responding to Jim. I did attend a conference a couple of years ago entitled 'The Psychic Detectives', run by our forensic psychology unit. All about examining the evidence for psychic claims in relation to forensic investigations worldwide. Believe me, the evidence is simply not there. Police departments do NOT, as is frequently claimed pay psychics vast sums of money to trace missing persons and identify killers. The reverse is true: because the police have to take statements from just about any member of the public who walks in off the street and volunteers information, thousands of dollars get wasted annually pursuing false lines of enquiry.

Unless you know of a police department willing to confirm the claims made by any so-called psychic, I would take all such stories with a huge barrowload of salt..

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 18:42:34 (GMT)
From: Runamok
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: 'Scientific research'
Message:
The most famous research is old at Duke University by JB Rhine (30's-60's)- the kinda stuff where you guess the card and they analyse it statistically.

More recent (70's?) was at Stanford. I think the Stanford research was more on telekinesis (or psycho... I forget the difference). The Stanford people morphed into the government's 'distance viewing' or whatever they called (80's?) which was eventually disbanded.

But then, they buy nuts and bolt for $200. Hey, then again, they created the Internt.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:52:03 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: Runamok
Subject: 'Scientific research'
Message:
Rhine's above-chance test results coincidentally ceased around the time of his death. Strange, given that it was allegedly his experimental subjects who attained the high 'hit' rates, rather than the man himself...

The Duke lab was closed down at the start of the eighties after the public scandal of having been hoodwinked by a pair of conjurers in 'Project Omega' - a skeptical trojan-horse exercise set up to demonstrate the sloppy controls that were rife in parapsychology labs at the time.

Can't stop right now to discuss the distance viewing etc. (busy designing an experiment, as it happens!)

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Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 02:22:30 (GMT)
From: Runamok
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: I predict
Message:
That you won't finish your thought unless I write this post saying 'I predict'. You always say that you'll finish it later.
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 20:01:38 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Corrections to previous post...
Message:
It was 'Project Alpha', not Omega, and it was the McDonnell Lab in Missouri, not Duke's that had to shut down. (It was the work of Rhine's successor in the same area, Samuel Soal that was found to be worthless on closer inspection - and for similar reasons.)
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Date: Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 23:28:54 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: heller@bc1.com
To: Nigel
Subject: Case in point? For who?
Message:
A high-profile murder case here stemmed from a young girl being abducted near her home, raped and murdered. Her body was only found in a woods nearby after a psychic had told the cops where to look. As far as everyone's concerned, the maintstream press, everyone, that's how it happened.

But I've read a few articles about this phenomenon in various skeptic journals and it appears that these readings are pretty questionable. I'd like to know more about this case, the Mindy Tran case, before tipping my hat to this psychic.

Hey, why not look in the woods?

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 01:30:03 (GMT)
From: VP
Email: None
To: Jim/Nigel
Subject: Case in point? For who?
Message:
Sylvia Browne has found dozens of dead bodies, murder weapons and the like according to the police stations who use her in several California towns (Paulo Alto, San Jose, etc.) I saw this on a news special (20/20 or 60 Minutes--can't remember which) I don't think she takes pay for these services, but she does use them to advertise to her paying clients.

Nigel, I was as skeptical as you until I saw this story on the news. I am still skeptical, but where before I knew how the magician pulled the rabbit out of the hat, now I had to wonder a bit about it.

A son and daughter had asked her to find their Dad. He had been missing for a year. She told them he was dead and where to find his body. They came back to ask her to find the murder weapon. She did that, too.

The really freaky thing to me was that she finds people whose bodies are clear on the other side of the country. Their family members will say, 'No, we don't know anyone in that state. My mother had no reason to be there' yet there she is found!

Her predictions for general news items aren't that amazing--I don't think they are that accurate, but I haven't paid that much attention.

I am willing to accept the fact that she is a snake oil salesman, but I want an explanation for how she does these specific things. I know you are saying she doesn't do them, but the policemen interviewed said that she DID.

Where I have a problem with her is where she claims to hear a spirit guide (an Indian woman) who came back from the dead and 'tells' her things. Also she has formed a new religion and it has some very weird ideas in it. She sounds completely crazy, until she tells someone where a murder weapon is.

VP

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 03:46:09 (GMT)
From: Michael
Email: None
To: VP
Subject: Case in point? For who?
Message:
VP, I use to live in San Jose, and Sylvia Brown was not as well respected as 20-20 might lead one to believe. She lost much credibility when many people lost money in some investment scam set up by her husband. I guess psychic abilities don't run towards one's finances, eh?
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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 04:08:15 (GMT)
From: VP
Email: None
To: Michael
Subject: Thanks, Michael
Message:
I appreciate hearing about it from someone who lived there and knows a bit more. Goes to show what TV knows, eh?

Sylvia and that husband have gotten divorced (She has had a few husbands which doesn't say much for her psychic powers in romance, either) She claims that he humiliated her, took all her money and left her bankrupt.

We are about 7-10 years behind California in a lot of ways. (I think you had to tell me about Teletubbies, remember?) People here are just finding out about psychics. It's a hot topic here right now--fashionable like Ouiji boards, seances and parlor games of old. Only people here can't let the Baptists find out or they will be burned at the stake.

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 19:10:23 (GMT)
From: Mike
Email: None
To: VP
Subject: Are you OK? (off topic)
Message:
VP: I read that you were in the Tornado-zone last night. Are you and your ok? Jeez, you don't live in Camilla, do you? It looks like they got hammered last night.

Mike.... the concerned!

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 21:46:12 (GMT)
From: VP
Email: None
To: Mike
Subject: Are you OK? (off topic)
Message:
Hey, thanks, Mike! We are OK and thanks for asking. We had hail the size of golf balls and a lot of very close lightening and thunder. All we suffered was lack of sleep which was a good thing. We have had a lot worse here.

They think there was one tornado near here, but they can't confirm it. We are north of where the deaths were, but we live in a strange little pocket of land that gets tornados and horrible thunderstorms frequently (not a trailer park)even when no one else does. One tornado took part of my house away last year--but we weren't here, so that was good.

Thanks again for asking We are all OK here!

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Date: Tues, Feb 15, 2000 at 22:06:59 (GMT)
From: Mike
Email: None
To: VP
Subject: Thank goodness!
Message:
VP: I really was very concerned; especially when you said that you were 'leaving the air!'

The weather reports here in AZ are still talking about it. I guess they were particularly violent little guys (little.... yeah, right).

Golf-ball sized hail isn't any fun either. I hope your vehicles were under cover...... Those babies can sure dent them up!

I am certainly glad to hear that you don't live in a tornado-magnet..... :-)

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