Ham

Did they capitalize on the interest in possession stuff? It would make sense. Some of the advanced class did have an old carnival kinda atmosphere.. "hurry hurry hurry, see the five headed debil, he walks, he talks..watch as he pulls ectoplasm out of an ordinary body. Stand back boy, don't touch.." not to mention, we were "richly rewarded" by being allowed to handle vic's private collection of curious arts.. the "automatic handwritings".. I wonder how he ever got that stuff.. and then.. the discerning of spirits section was the longest section, and most detailed, was it not? Not to mention "the coolest".. the snappiest.. you may have fallen asleep during sixteen keys.. but during vic's public showing of "debils"? Not likely. For a lot of people, that's what they were THERE for.. to hear the "secrets" of da kingdumb.. well, I was, anyway..

I dunno.. some people think that "we" are God on a vacation.. no responsibilities, or at least fewer.. With ages of heavenly "perfection".. some people think that we desperately wanted this stinking existence.. and yet, we can't have exactly what we want.. the "simple life".. maybe this is the closest to it that anyone can have..

"where are we".. hmm. People talk about being lost.. and I've had that question on a few road trips, "are you lost?" "no, I know exactly where *I* am.." whatever happens, when I go through the vortex again, I'll be somewhere.. hopefully know where I'm at.. I think we're in a trap.. stuck in this little shell of "self". I think a lot of us have been trapped, one lifetime after another.

Socks, did I ever tell you I love you? honestly.. brother to brother. It did add one thing new, new fodder for the superstitous, looking for devils under every rock..

good point..

I still don't think this is too far off the mark, as far as the thread is concerned. Isn't this what we "signed up" for? The proceeds paid for date rape drugs, motorcycles.. motorcoach, possibly hotel rooms.. etc.. etc.. Shoulda read the fine print..

You know.. this isn't exactly the spanish inquisition here or anything. There are people here who actually love him, whether he realizes it or not. It's not that people depsise JL.. I think they despise his personna of arrogance.. like Tom Wolfe.. a nice guy, but get him dirty, and he won't come back.. lessee who gets THAT reference..

and it's been what.. two and a half YEARS? youda think the "best" got SOMETHING figured out by now..

Yep.. Any god that has to rely on a lecherous, abusive, drunk, criminal type to get his will done.. I'm really trying to see the other guy's perspective here.. What is it.. God can't find somebody any better to do the job? hey.. just turn over any arbitrary rock.. something better has to turn up.. Or is it.. He can't find anybody who otherwise in their right mind would not do what they were "called" to do? Or does he "throw the dice".. so to speak? and the vicster and loy win the booby prize?

ususally it ends up being not an enlightenening but rather mind numbing experience. Every usage of the word "the" might be a bit "challenging".. kinda like trying to get to know every Smith in a Manhattan directory.. But really. "What difference does it make?" I heard vic work over dechomai and lambano in an old SNS.. I was amazing how one can twist reality and scripture itself to fit some kind of mathmatically exact meaning to a given greek word.. reminds me of Bertrund Russel. He found a contradiction in mathmatics set theory if not reality itself.. and trying to fix it took him something like a few hundred pages of proofs (don't quote me on the exact number) before he even came to the conclusion that one plus one equals two..

If you insist on it.

umm.. I thought I asked "are you saying.." so what you ARE saying.. "it is possible to have sexual desire to the end that others are hurt(i.e. carefully chosen victims forcibly raped, damaged, reputations trashed to cover, divorces and suicides engendered, etc. etc..) AND have a heart acceptible with God" personally.. if you compare vic to David, and you are indeed correct.. the comparison goes both ways. I am beginning to think that if David was guilty of these kind of crimes.. and it was his lifestyle he had a pretty black heart.

"your pen or mine.." I dunno. A lot of this *$%& is what we signed on for.. It's called.. sign on for the abstract, and in the end get bulls*%t..

so you're saying.. 1. It is POSSIBLE for someone to have sexual desire to the end that others are hurt, AND have their heart accepible before gawd.. 2. vic had a sexual desire to the end that others are hurt (i.e. assaulted, damaged) 3. THEREFORE (yet), vic had a heart acceptible before gawd. sounds like Crowleyism.. at least Crowley was honest.. he boasted that he was the "wickedest man alive"..

No, I think Howard Stein actually has Howard Steins private parts.. sowy.. carry on..

"some of us" shouldn't have taken all that stuff to the gehenna, where the fires never cease. People would be impressed. "duuuuhhhh, he REALLY read all that stuff..." what's really impressive is my 85th edition of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.. biggest book on the shelf. I can actually understand about half of it..

seeing he was the "best" the cause could get is pretty revealing..

Gandi had it figured out.. if you're gonna be a passive resister, and use love.. if you are morally destitute or physically bankrupt.. how are you really contributing? guys like leuchter and the like.. "throwing themselves in front of the train".. they do more harm to their "cause" than good..

It's hard to not "demonize the enemy" when they merely do it to themselves.. Anton Lavey did a pretty good job of it.. I think he got what he wanted. Painted the place so "unclean" that self-righteous hucksters and the like wouldn't even think of knocking on the door for a donation.. even if he sent them a donation.. one look on the check, and they'd send it back.. Honestly.. wear a red suit and horns in public, or was it a black suit.. "Honestly, sit there and think for once in your life.." We should have taken the grifter up on the challenge.. "Self-demonization" has always been a martyr's tool. Underhanded, perhaps, but it does get some people's sympathy. Like some guy crucifying HIMSELF on the witness stand as some kind of "expert".. it wasn't the government.. the prosecutor.. the judge.. he really did it to himself. If he was what he really claimed to be, his "profession" would still be intact.. maybe be out of public favor, but he'd still be practicing real engineering. Martyrdom may be noble.. for the right cause and such.. but why sacrifice something that you do NOT have for the "cause".. it's ludicrous.. "I'll sacrifice my fortune for the cause." in my case, right now it's about $153.98. I wouldn't compare this to the poor widow woman.. she hardly had media and people sounding horns as her "greatness" threw in the few mites..

I think "personal prophecy" and momentus met each other at a ces "fellowship".. they liked the teaching and fellowship, they courted, they dated.. and, it became a marriage made in hell.. they looked over the "money pit" of ces.. and they fell in love..

I dunno. Maybe to me, it's something like.. purely unqualified people are performing what might be described as "brain surgery", and the advocates of the program gloss over a "few" "mistakes". Well, not entirely unqualified. I hear they are "trained" how to recognize if somebody's having heart failure because of the pressure.. But yeah.. it's not for everyone. Spending the significant portion of a weekend throwing "weak" people off an imaginary life boat or beating a pillow, screaming "mommy mommy" isn't exactly my cup of tea.. In all fairness, there are other factors too.. but look what the "program" did to ces..

looks like staffers retirement benefits..

Waysider, that's so close to reality here.. With the appearance of The Squirrel, however dead he was at the time, people vowed vows, redoubled their efforts to stem the tide of debil spirits, plaque, and bad breath from assaulting their "charge" of new students..

hey, I did consider that at the time.. that it merely came UP out of the toilet. Just couldn't figure at the time, how it got on the other side.. Oh.. did he (or she) make it through the class.. and speak in tongues the twelfth session? Doojable, that was how I heard it explained. That we were supposed to be some kinda shepherd's helper under The Shepherd. He was supposed to be Jesus Christ. But in practice, I think the vicmeister assumed that position, as it was supposedly vacant. Less than two pages away in the syllabus the undersheherder's job can be summarized as "show them you care, wuv them up, GET THEM INTO THE CLASS".

I think they really don't. Most "doors" at least that I would want to walk through, sit unlocked to begin with. Keys and locks are used for the express purpose of restricting access. I really don't think that the God who created the universe, who has more than he ever would ever need or want, and supposedly desperately would want us to have it, isn't in the business of handing out a few keys to the shop to someone, to be sold at a rather hefty profit. It sounds to me like some kind of foreign lotto scheme. "Cash the check, send me most of the money, and I'll release a fortune to your account". If you have a super duper security system, multiple locks and keys, security codes, and a veritable fortress, all you're gonna do is to make it hard for yourself to get in.. generally I leave the door unlocked here. If they want antique radio junk or obsolete computers and video gear.. I'd rather them not break the door down to get them.. The door would cost more to replace..