Raf

yes

For what it's worth: I didn't answer TLC's question on direct revelation because, being an atheist, I have no answer that would not be considered disrespectful if uttered aloud. You know what I think about direct revelation. ;)

"It's not an S. on my world, it means 'hope.'" "Well, here it's an S."

Almost caught up. Watched the prison break episode of LOT and loved it. Flash remains the best of the bunch. Arrow is losing steam. I don't know anything about Vixen. It really seemed like a deus ex machina in the show. But then, so did Constantine.

This show has two title characters. One is not seen until the last episode of its eighth season. Its ninth season was its last.

Ann Margaret

Field of Dreams ?

Sleeper?

sometimes threads derail. Sometimes they just detour. A detour is still headed to the same place. It's just getting there in a way that you didn't originally plan. I think a discussion on critical thinking is tangentially related to assessing how to make sense of those who went through the Corps. But let's keep that in mind and try to bring the conversation back, which most of you have endeavored to do.

Here's a cool critical thinking trick I posted about in another thread: Would I accept this explanation/behavior/doctrine/etc if it came from a religion or belief that did not support my own? You can apply it to just about anything. Would I accept "stringing chairs" with all the baggage included as acceptable if I saw some poor desperate schmuck doing it to please a Jehovah's Witness overseer or a Scientologist thetan counter? Or would I see it as some form of unhealthy authoritarianism at work. The "problem" with PFAL and Wierwille in general is that they planted a bomb right in the middle of their scheme. While actively discouraging critical thinking (Eve's first mistake was considering, aka thinking) PFAL and Wierwille paid lots of lip service to thinkibg, and PFAL itself contains a crude but largely useful objective set of tools for disproving itself. I'll leave it there

Humblebrag: I think I saw a compliment in there. :)

Well, despite some false accusations that you may have read, GSC has a very long tradition of trying in good faith to separate the good from the bad, the baby from the bathwater, as it were. Some folks would have you believe that we only exist to bash TWI, but it takes a pretty superficial reading of the site to come to that conclusion. ;)

I think what I was trying to say this morning is that we are all indeed responsible for our actions, but I think we are responsible for our reactions as well. We interact with people who have been affected differently by their life's experiences, not just during their time in TWI, but since then as well. As someone who escaped without pain, who am I to judge someone who was affected more deeply than I? Who am I to judge someone who has not yet worked through the pain, who has yet to "let it go," as we were so often admonished? It all ties in together. I asked about Corps as victims or oppressors, but I said nothing about those victimized or oppressed BY Corps. Perhaps some discourtesy is understandable when it comes to people who have yet to work through their anger at being the victim of TWI. That doesn't excuse anything, but it does help explain it. Or am I off base?

All fair.

To be fair, the opening post also asked whether the question was framed properly and openly invited responses that re-framed the question. From the original post: Understanding that we are each ultimately responsible for the things we choose to do, at what point to we stop looking at Corps as "marks" and "victims" of TWI's agenda and start looking at them as enablers, facilitators and perpetrators of it? Or is that the wrong question to ask? Am I using the wrong words? Can you phrase it better?

There is a fine line between accepting responsibility for your actions and assigning guilt to yourself because of them. I don't know what to say to someone like penworks or skyrider. To the very very limited extent to which I was in your shoes, I see my past actions as something I'm ashamed of. "I was only following orders," implementing the rigid rules that I wrongly believed to be reflective of godliness. You're two minutes late to a PFAL class? Sorry. I can't let you in. You'll have to take it next time it's offered (there was no official next time). And no, you don't get your money back, but you don't have to pay again either! How loving. The best answers to this thread's question reflect the fact that it's far more complicated than the question allows. Corps grads were indeed victims, victims of a systematic scheme to turn them into oppressors. TWI exploited your hunger and thirst for righteousness, using it to serve TWI's own less noble goals. It is brutally unfair to absolve you of personal responsibility for what you did, buy it is equally unfair to lay all the blame at your feet, as though those who exploited you were not at all responsible for the results they fully intended. You're human. You made mistakes, as I did without ever experiencing WOW or Corps. TBC

On second thought... This is old news to most of you, but my time in TWI was blissfully brief and harmless. I'm probably as close to an outsider as an insider could get: attended twigs in 1988 and 1989 in the Bronx. A year of looking into it before attending my first twig (read some of the books, listened to a truckload of tapes). Took the class in Oct-Nov 88, Intermediate in January 89. And by Aug. 89, I was out, along with most of NY state. I remained affiliated with an offshoot (Finnegan's wake, I call it now) until about 1997. Taught and ran a fellowship fir a few years. Recognizing some hypocrisy in my personal life, I stepped away as fellowship coordinator and just hung around for a bit. Connected with what was then CES and bought their foundational class and some other stuff. Became a "CES partner" for a year or more. Then stopped. Started attending a mainstream church. And finally chucked it all a few years ago. I recite this history not in answer to a rudely posed question, but to explain that despite my academic approach to TWI and it's doctrine, I consider myself neither an oppressor within the organization nor a victim of it. I have seen victims offer their testimony here, and I can only try to empathize with the hurt. You manifest it in different ways, and that needs to be recognized. Some people, once victimized, reveal themselves to be broken and in need of love and assistance. Other people, once victimized, come off as entitled jerks with a pine cone fetish, also in need of love and assistance. To be continued

If you read GSC and come away with the opinion that we think everything taught by TWI was a lie, then you are not reading very closely. That is such a shallow analysis of our diverse opinions that if you stepped in it you wouldn't even need a towel to dry off. You say you've read the doctrinal section? I say you've barely scatched the surface.

MRAP, your posts are antagonistic and you are ignoring numerous direct answers to the original thread question, including one directly above your latest post. You appear to be here to attract attention to yourself and not to the topics we are discussing. You are reveling in the responses you are receiving, not because they address the topic, but because they address you. I question your authenticity. Knock it off.

I thought Sticks were Twigs that were no longer loyal to Martindale & Co.

MRAP, I don't care for your tone. You don't get to boss me around like a trained seal. You question my authenticity? Yuck foo. Do you have any idea how many times I have worked behind the scenes to get people I LIKE to stop questioning YOUR authenticity because it was disrespectful and in violation of our rules? And how many times did you ask for my assistance? Not once. Because you didn't have to. I stood up for you because it was right, not because you asked. And you have the unmitigated GALL to question my authenticity and boss me around like the Corps trainers you claim to despise? Seriously, fornicate yourself with a pine cone, you g-d ingrate.

You question my authenticity? Oh no! Whatever shall I do?

As much nuance as you want to entertain. I've got no stake in the answer.

The point is nuance. The point is helping people see that it isn't either/or. The point is helping each other recognize that Corps grads are people, not a caricature. I'm not saying we've been unfair to Corps at GSC. I'm not really saying anything. I'm asking. If you don't want to answer, don't. But to call the thread a false dichotomy actually misses the point, in my opinion.

Samarin observed a superficial similarity between SIT and lantuage, including the apparent breakdown of utterances into sentences and paragraphs. In no way did he suggest that these actually WERE sentences and paragraphs; only that they sounded like them.