sirguessalot

again...welcome to the crashing of a wave of postmodernity, potato "hell" to some "heaven" to others tho my review of it is mixed so i find that "simply postmodernity" works well enough just one more angel on a pinhead

thanks for all that ham...i hear ya i find that the postmodernity of our times certainly lends to a messy broadband of dialogue ...fun for all "ages"...laughing at the same different things wounded by different things ...healed of different things as if we are lost in babylon again and most all the keys to language are buried under a layer of dust meanwhile...the world is cracking and changing under our feet again must be another one of those days (of the lord), i guess as always...i pray we find new ways of using our tongues ...yet again find a way to navigate this new mess and funny....i can see you (or someone) and mike (or someone) doing gigs as vaudvillian antagonists or some such

thanks potato...i can understand that and mike...maybe help me here... so you dont get poetry (which isnt really poetry) yet you point out figurative speech?! :blink: odd, if nothing else i'll get back to you on the other stuff

thanks Mike

yeah...i get this ...and yeah...it could be A LOT worse... but i also wonder why some seem to prefer to feed and argue and debate perspectives they consider most outlandish and perhaps easiest to debunk... apologies for being

thanks for the reply, Mike same thing youve said to me before honestly, a confession...i cant bring myself to believe on the reason you've given for what its worth...i just went back and reread through the half dozen posts ive added to this thread...and all are 99% clear plain street level english...i could only find 1 or 2 less-than-mainstream words...and where i do use some metaphor, i tend to qualify it as such as always...i welcome you (or anyone) to specifically point out (by quoting) something that is too poetic, too flowery, or too intellectual for you i think i'm as capable of clarifying as anyone else ...or maybe im being too clear?

kinduva bummer how often this happens...plz permit me a moment to whine... i feel that i've composed a few posts that contribute to the topic of this thread, perhaps even worthy of stimulating reasoned dialogue and debate that is relevant to our various trans-twi experiences. yet, it seems the usual circular easier paths of argumentation are valued way more here anyone else notice this? anyone wonder why? i do

all of em

i agree. this one rises to the top for me too ...Frankl's story certainly seems to reveal some deeper roots of our various pre-twi, twi and post-twi conditions and experiences and whatnot or whatever one wants to name such a process ...maybe it can be named a "trans-twi experience"

stephen and jesus and paul... ...and the other millions of millions of people who have been oppressed and killed in religious history (some of whom are being oppressed and killed now, btw) are being oppressed and killed not just for their private exclusive cultural belief system but for their actions and behaviors in this world for speaking truth to power for resisting oppression and slavery for empowering self and others to restore a just balance to systems ...religious, political, cultural, sexual, economic and otherwise, etc... neither vpw (nor us) got tortured and killed for beliefs or actions, doctrine or practice because they were not different enough from a big bad beast to alarm a such a system to act genuinely stand up and speak to truth and suffering and such and new opponents will likely come looking and worse depending on depth and degree of nerve being touched but vpw's life was like a walk through the park ...luxurious a rock star moment compared to those who actually suffer and die doctrine and practice seemed motivated largely by a culture of pleasure, materialism, gain, preaching principles of health and wealth while wasting money, screwing around, drinking and smoking with a high degree of avoidance and inexperience with real pain, suffering, darkness, woundedness, sacrifice, service, devotion... his life of behaviour/actions/disciplines shows that had not come close to witnessing any significant relevant game-changing perspective that one might compare to saints or prophets as if he was too wild and immature and undisciplined to become wise and perhaps a wisdom "he knew that he never knew" hit him fast hard at the end of his life as if sinners can chase only heavens while saints can march through the hells .. thanks for the inspiration, seaspray

i was in from 92-97 and heard the greasespot warning a number times from lcm i also recall a later qualifier for the statement (perhaps once someone pointed to lives that improved after leaving) now this is not a quote...but merely the gist, sum and substance of what i recall (and tried to believe) "..."by midnight" means that spiritual blessings (magic powers manifestations) will be gone by midnight, but the adversary will still allow false physical blessings in order to deceptively reinforce the decision to leave the protection of the one true housegold of God" ...yada yada yada again...another sign of the gnostic-like dualistic split between the spiritual and material further exaggerated and amplified by the superstitious mythological christian assumptions of lcm and ilk ...and big contributor to overall disfunction caused by such half-a$s divisive "rules" of the sub-culture cult

imo, some of the more blatant (than the usual arguments) biblical errors in pfal are: - the dead are dead until the future - the book of revelation is not for us - claiming interpretative authority over an ancient jewish book - avoiding the vast majority of the entire 2 millenia record of christian experience, doctrine and practice involving the same book and re: biblical scriptural lineage and heritage vpw's being very german may not be an error, biblical or otherwise but it sure seems quite blatantly disconnected and ironic to me now i can assume from experience (including mine) that for fresh ex-believers who have only taken a step or two outside the pfal corner of christianity some or all of these errors are probably not so blatant or biblical and perhaps even highly debatable as errors thats fine with me i may or may not be the one who can have all those vast debates here but the good news is that the more and more steps one takes outside of the pfal corner ...it seems the more and more chances one will have to debate those things godspeed

or how about Phenomenography or Phenomenology of Religion

This wikipedia entry on Phenomenology may be of value to this thread. Some may even appreciate greek words used, like noema, nous and phainomenon.

This wikipedia entry on Phenomenology may be of value to this thread. Some may even appreciate greek words used, like noema, nous and phainomenon

no, it is not necessary to find one rule of faith and practice but yes, we all already always have one whether we know it or not ...whether or not we are consciously aware of it, or are able or willing to try and describe/express/summarize it so yes, it can also be described as a necessity... as somehow being a generic part of being human to have some sort of inner rule (set of rules) whether we get it from paper books ...or a much bigger book called the universe which includes ALL books i favor a rule-set that allows me to freely discover and compare and practice all rules as well as create rules when emerging conditions are not covered by anything in the current pool of existing rules and i find that noticing where rulers overlap is as important as finding where they do not as both sets of data are true, good and beautiful but it seems PFAL is one of many many kinds of rules (rule-sets) in the world that taught us out of trusting our own experience of God and life as if we replaced the living epistles of our own inner compass with a twig we called a tree which had been snapped off the vast tree of life

funny...being a little familiar with your life...i was thinking the same thing ...especially about the gas stations and comedy

i guess Jim can tell me best if im off topic here but i had to vote for "none of the above" because of "all of the above" was not an option and certainly some elements of all of them seem possible though "VPW hallucinated a snowstorm" says it best for me perhaps even "VPW dreamt the snowwy promise" followed by a life of re-interpreting and re-interpreting the experience, of course which gets into all the other poll options but dreams are certainly a field of doctrine and practice severely lacking on the pfal menu ...casting an extreme shadow across the whole body of it even though dreaming is soakingly ubiquitous in scripture...jewish and otherwise and as ive often speculated outloud here i cant help but think how, like anyone would, given the same conditions... ...young searching vpw self-initiated a period of relatively profound (to him) altered states and being human, being depressed, fasting on grapes engaging in other fasting type behaviors, or other drugs, food, booze, whatnot while pouring over ancient languages and mysteries until the wee hours desperately searching for meaning and purpose and belonging and hope and such and generally experiencing what some christians and others describe as "a dark night of the soul" but not dark enough to "throughly enlighten" vpw, imo...or things may have turned out differently. perhaps seeing as he was more or less oblivious and resistant to sound doctrine and practice (christian or otherwise) regarding dreams and dreaming, (not to mention things like health, sex, money...) his profound dreaming experiences and altered states probably caused more confusion than clarity ... as i was sketching about in post #339 ...it seems we interpret our experiences through some actual structure we often call "faith" ...and like an interior temple, our faith has functions...like floors, doors and windows can you imagine sitting in the woods for 40 days?...or in an upper room for 9? ..fasting, praying, meditating, dreaming, asking, noticing, starving, dying... we find that awake or not...dreaming is happening in the body and mind whether one consciously chose any such trial or not one is likely to experience a lot of strange things in the body and mind all of which are then interpreted through the structure of our faith one may say "my heavenly father came from above and made it snow for me" while another says "no, our heavenly father came from above and made it snow for us" and another says "no, thats not true...its all coming from your brain...you hallucinated" and another might simply ask "how is this experience effecting your life?" and "where are we going now?" etc...

speaking of "rulers" and such... here is a loose summary of "faith" development again...for those who are interested... ...you tell me...but its not hard for me to see where the snow stories seem to fit...as well as where many of our endless arguments are stuck the ego trip begins... ...magical faith believes God takes care of ME supernaturally...primary mode of communication and relationship with the divine is through supernatural phenomenon and fantastic experience. My personal belief, the "law" of believing and "law" of attraction are primary doctrines. God kings, pharoahs, etc... ...natural for a 3 year old...or an adult at the dawn of civilization...but not for an adult today, let alone a leader when this fails... ...mythical faith believes God takes care of US supernaturally...primary mode of communication and relationship with the divine is via texts, writings, stories, cliches...the words of very special people who are typically dead. Safety and purity of an exclusive household are primary interests. Ethnocentricity, fundamentalism, etc... when this fails... ...rational faith believes "God" is a self evident truth that is to be discovered...primary mode of communication and relationship with the divine is via evidence, experimentation, demonstration. Facts, data, and scientific methods are key. Age of reason, etc... when this fails... ...pluralistic faith believes God is whatever the word God means to any given person....primary mode of communication and relationship with the divine is via authentic self-discovery and deconstruction of unconscious habits and history. Empowerment, social and civil rights, equality, self-help, therapy are all expressions. And even though this faith has been active in people since the dawn of time...the boomers were the first in the world to make it mainstream. when this fails... ...unitive and universalizing faith and beyond believes God is All in All...primary mode of communication and relationship with the divine is via all of the above ordinary modes of faith. God is seen as all in all and everywhere...and all magic, myth, reason and social interpretations are merely different qualities of languages. Silence, stillness, observation, and simple "witnessing" are the bread and butter of this kind of faith. ...Living, present, extra-ordinary. ...the first post-anthropocentric stages of faith = no more enmity between inside and outside...or self and other ... all religions (and non religions) have people at all stages of "faith" development but most world scripture was likely written by those with highest levels of faith development, even though most all people were communicating and interpreting at a different level of faith at the time. thus, much of the bible is authentic expressions of rational, pluralist and unitive "faith" ...expressed in ethnocentric mythic languages ... and so each level of faith has a gravity and so is at war with the levels directly next to them and while we sit here or there from time to time we also tend to be on the move and between rungs at any given time in other words.... ...magic faith is at war with mythic membership against comformity...me and my own personal jesus against everyone else's church ...falling back into magic after failing out of myth is not uncommon...each faith has a natural pull. ...mythic faith is trying to save individuals from self-centered magic by converting them to the cult and some sense of family and tradition all the while trying to reach up and trump reason with what they innocently think is a more rational story of things ...rational faith is trying to save cults from myths by pointing to objective reality and myth's pre-rational subjective position all the while resisting all the squishy language and talking and sharing and self-discovery of pluralism and greater social awareness ...social faith is trying to get beyond the reductionist tendencies of reason and the consequences of mere materialism and autonomy but in its attempt to include everything equally and universally, hypocritically rejects natural structures and hierarchies and critical distinctions ...which essentialy keeps us from a full unitive faith...because unitive uniquely notices values in all previous stages ... most all of the big and little conflicts in the world today here and elsewhere not only involve a clash between these "faiths" but some even involve sub-faiths clashing on the same level ...a cult versus a religion, or a science versus a science, or an ego versus an ego....for example

what did vpw say about humpty dumpty? because i think he got it wrong like most everyone else does breaking was never humpty's issue...he wasnt even an egg accuracy ...yeah

something interesting i heard about the history of confession... take it or leave it or look into it... but long before jesus jews and celts had already been breaking bread and it was also the celts who first taught the christians about confession in those first centuries but the way the celts taught the christians to practice it was simply the art of being a "lay confessor" or "soul friend" the way of a friend with a friend and every person could had a confessor...because any person could be one for another ...which left room for people to develop these arts to great degrees for many...this was the ground of their spiritual practice ...these arts of friendship ...even one's own "entering the closet and praying" was foundational...an expression of "the arts and practices of being friends with God alone" so they developed profound ways of being quiet, still, inquiring, for each other, for themselves... especially as it related to aging and dying...which is most old monks and nuns did together, anyway ...and for people but then the church made another historic nosedive ... and step by step, "made it wronger and wronger" for common folk to "sit and listen and ask" for each other and eventually required people to enter a different kind of closet and confess sins to a minority of male-only priests instead... ... as it relates to guilt and forgiveness... zoom forward 1000 years or more ... there was another peak and unforgiveness was recognized in christian monasteries as one the cornerstones of inner suffering which includes the inability to forgive one's self...which is a sorrow closer to guilt not only did the monks and nuns pay attention to such distinctions as "forgiveness pain" as a doctor today pays attention to blood counts but they prescribed things like different psalms to be prayed and sung for different kinds of inner suffering ...a well as options like harpists, wine, dignity, family..."aroma therapy," etc... even left notes of results in the margins of the psalters interesting too..was how the book of job and the psalms were the only books the jews, christians and muslims could all agree to use in their music thanatologies ... anyway... meaninglessness, hopelessness, loneliness are other kinds of pain we face ...and i get a sense that one tends to get louder than the others as "the day of the lord nears" depending on our lot in life not sure whether that makes it "biblical" or not but to me, the bible (which i consider a deeply jewish book) is dripping wet with such things "confess your faults to one another" is saying A LOT and has a lot of texture and traction

hehe...funny thought... i hereby grant my conditional permission for whomever to give it a shot... maybe just pm me first ...i might be able to help

im not quoting anything vpw or anyone read or said... though i remember what i remember and it seems it becomes increasingly obvious to a plumber ...perhaps even to a good student plumber ...what tools and skills and methods a non-plumber doesnt bring to a leak or a clog especially after they're gone i other words...regardless of what he has or has not read its easy to tell what is not included which can be A LOT and i simply dont recall him ever mentioning them let alone doing or experiencing anything close to what the desert fathers were about let alone any other "true hero" of the bible or history...or pre-history ... this is partial...but how i currently see it... i sense that during some period or periods of his life...he could and would peek at just about anything he wanted to and i can even imagine how the oceans of alien imagery and words and clothes of all the world's sacred texts and religions may have filled him with the usual cocktail of terror, frustration, rage, envy, fear, worry...whatnot ...and im guessing we can all understand that and as he cant help but see some true aspect in it ...sadly he sees them as having been "stolen by the agents of his mythological enemy...the devil"... and then kinda like his devil...steals it and integrates it into his own set of maps and languages as fulfillment of his snowy promise experience ...yep in service to an ordinary magical talking ego ...which he mistook for the voice of God he desperately needed to interpret the radical peaks and valleys of his own life experience ...yep ...and typical to form...our severely wounded healer races off to save the world from his very own nest of demons and somehow trump their fantasized concepts and language of God with my fantasized concepts and languages of God yep...another ordinarily exaggerated life thank God hubris is one of the angels in our choir...i guess

odd but i also cant help but agree with both mike and oldiesman in parts i sense a deeper truer positive value of pfal that is largely misunderstood and misrepresented by most members and x-members alike especially IF you put on THIS filter..or take of THAT filter... duh join the same with anything else club sleepwalking through a wilderness of memory and habit but if god is still some conceptual written it here spirit is still a conceptual it christ is still a conceptual it the word is still a conceptual it so...where is this it? it is at least somewhere in our head our physical head until we type it or say it then it is transformed to paper or this video hypertext which is a lot but also not what about the rest of the body? and the universe? and such which is a clear majority where is this way? method? technique? here? any processes? efforts? actions? practices? demonstrations? what does is this truth look like in the book? outside the book? outside of mere belief? or writings about belief? like a child might ask... where is it? who is it? when is it? what is IT? what does it do? how is it done? but even as adults, surely its not unreasonable to want to know what is beyond this belief in the reason for stories of phenomenal snowstorms where does this, your current map, NOT overlap with other maps in some supreme relevent useful global universally important way? you...sitting there/here thinking, feeling, typing, breathing, farting like all of us what experiences have you had that convince you of what you believe? and associating it so strongly with jesus and paul and such what did they really really really do? like John wrote...touched and handled has anyone else done that? is anyone else doing that? are you? who else do you know is being this Way? <_< why are we still telling stories about the truth? when we are all dying someday? that clear present nameless truth is right here right now simply noticing that big IT is a lot amazing how we miss that big IT along the way .... the stories are vital, and precious...and a lot ...but not enough practices, doctrines...are also vital like fields and streams but perhaps most vital is presence whatever this word may or not mean

reliance on phenomenon from a merely magical mythical view of God... loathing and avoidance of suffering and darkness... lack of practical spiritual practices and disciplines... juvenile christian metaphysics... 20th century flight from death... again...how can he say "...since the first century..." if he left out the wisdom and experiences of the "desert fathers" of christianity, for example or most all of the christian and jewish contributions in the fields of dream WORK, or caregiving, or monastic devotion... there is a huge difference between crafting and conceptualizing clever maps and models of one's novel iconoclastic theology ...and demonstrating actual living practices that live up to the claim of "since the first century" and justifying vpws lifestyle by comparing him to david seems silly.. especially when the teachings of countless people whose lives (and deaths) were/are obviously more like Christ than even David himself ...are outright dismissed, constantly ignored, and generally left out of "the ultimate truth equation" imo, he was not only oblivious to, but FEARED and ENVIED 2000 years of actual practices in christian experience like someone who will not look at what he wishes he understood ...and even tries to get others to stop participating in them because he cant bring himself to for someone who has "been to parts of chicago"...its quite evident when someone has never been to "chicago" ...talks about being "The expert on chicago"