Mike

Thomas Loy Bumgarner, I sort of half way through the answer to your question. (spoiler alert: it was coffee!) Have you had a chance to read what I wrote so far? ...about that issue took on a life of it's own and got all distorted out of proportion? I'll resume my story soon.

waysider, I spent many hours here dealing with many aspects of the plagiarism issue. Do you remember any of it? Can you search the archives here with any skill ? I can’t. At first, for hundreds of plagiarism posts here I relied on what I had thought was something Dr said about it in person. But low and behold, one day dMiller posted (with great chagrin) an odd item that he had found “The Way – Living in Love.” He had found the comment I had relied on, thinking it was just verbal. There in print, circa 1972, Dr admitted that he hardly had anything original to offer, but that he was simply guided by God to find it in the works of other people. HE ADMITTED IT IN WRITING! For two years, again to dMiller’s chagrin, I quoted and re-quoted his post of Dr admitting that he had MOSTLY only “put it all together.” I CONSTANTLY and RELENTLESSLY posted for 5 years many other points on copyrights and plagiarism no one liked, and that nobody had dealt with before, but were huge mitigating factors in this great plagiarism bug in your craw. Can you find those posts in the archives on your own? Please? At least try. Find that Elena Whiteside quote at least. When you find that quote, posted here many times, where Dr admitted major non-originality, then maybe I’ll find the time to give you (again) the many more details that tell me the plagiarism issue is fake news! ... I blame it all on the Russians!

WordWolf, Please don't swamp me. Be patient. I don't have the time or the energy I had 10 years ago to face down you and 70 others like you simultaneously trying to nail me, like I did then. I think once someone counted 70, but I may have the number wrong. Like I said to Ralph, above, I'm trying walk into this forum to be friendly and non-disruptive. I am NOT wanting to walk into a courtroom with lawyers having me arrested and interrogated. Instead of playing the role of a ratty lawyer, try to be as friendly as I am being. It's a chance for you to walk in love.

Don'tWorry, You came on to posting here at GreaseSpot long after this all happened. I’m guessing you didn’t read it all prior to posting and get all caught up in it like a few others did. I can understand you not being interested. But someone else was interested enough to remember it, and bring it up. It intrigued a lot of people, I know. It bothered a lot of people, me included, that it never got straightened out. Instead of us playing gotcha games and “expose the villain (me)” games, I’d much rather have thoughtful conversations, ESPECIALLY with some people like you, Ralph. I waited years for the heat here to die down. It seems I should be able to come back and make some peace with family here. I’m not trying to disrupt anything or recruit anybody. I just thought there were some loose ends for others here, and it looks like I was right about this Return issue being one of them. There’s a special key they put on the QWERTY keyboard for when disinterest in this or other topics hits. It’s called “PgDn.” Maybe sometime later, down the pages, you And I can talk philosophy or something neurological. How did you like my mirror riddle?

Here they are again, in case they slipped by anyone's attention: How does Christ’s Return work? I had a specific question about this a long time ago, that seems to have been answered gradually over the years. The question was “How will we know it’s the genuine Return and not a counterfeit?” Any old acid head can testify that some pretty convincing and entertaining counterfeits are available, just from some simple chemistry. What if the adversary wanted to bamboozle me with a counterfeit return? How could I know to reject it? AND, just as perplexing to me was the GENUINE Return. How, and when into it, will we know for sure it’s the real thing? Stupid question? Not so stupid, when you think it through a little. My first inclination was to think that there’d be one heaven of a light show announcing his Return. He’d be all glowing and beautiful to look at… But I eventually remembered that there’s an angel of light who’s known for his “beauty” and he’s into trickery and light shows. So, as I learned more of the Word, it became ALTITUDE that I thought would be the real convincing factor. Acid hallucinations are easy to spot when sight and sound and feelings are not synchronized and consistent. So, I thought seeing HIM at a high altitude would be the proof that this was the REAL thing. Then a few more seasons pass, and I notice that the devil abducted Jesus to a high altitude and showed him some pretty fancy stuff. OUCH! Altitude won’t be enough. So I thought on. The dead in Christ! They’ll be with him. THEY can vouch for him? No! They get counterfeited in séances all the time! What do you folks think? What would tip you off that the genuine Return of Christ is really happening? How will you know it’s really Jesus Christ you are looking at face to face? I’m talking about right at the beginning of the whole thing, how would you FIRST know it was really him. Later on we can tell by the work that gets done. Think about if for a few hours or days. Think through the details. Would you accept his Driver’s License as proof of identity? Check his signature? Fingerprints? DNA? I’m out of time for this afternoon. But I’ll return…. ah… hem …I mean come back and finish my story. Tell Tom Strange about it. Does anyone yet see how all this leads to Jesus teaching us out of the Orange Book? I love a good mystery! :)

Should I interpret the silence on the questions I asked about the return of Christ to mean everyone is stymied by them? ...so far?

T=Boned, You wrote: "But seriously, if he had to admit out loud you would do well – I’m thinking he said that just to put an end the conversation - congrats, you wore him down – I know how persistent you can be..." There is some truth to this as you say. The point I was making, when you read it close, is that he could not find anything EVIL in them that would turn my mind to mush or make me evil. He was arguing that I would do BETTER not limiting myself to Dr's books, but that I would do well (not best) with them.

waysider, You wrote: "1.After investing so many years into studying Wierwille’s books, are you still of the opinion they are the product of divine revelation?" Yes. I thought I had already answered that in the affirmative. I said I was practicing what I was preaching and enjoying it. Please allow me to ask roughly a similar question of you. Do you think there are any modern God-breathed documents given in modern English? If not, wouldn't they be a great thing to have? Wouldn't a loving God want to provide us with such? How stingy would God have to be to insist we utilize scripture fragments, written in a dead language, from a time when the devil had some 3 or 4 hundred years of time to focus on scrambling? *** I haven’t read any of the recent responses, so I will do that and eventually resume my story.

waysider, You asked a few questions I can answer. “2. Do you still hold to the assertion that, when Christ returns, He''ll be brandishing a PFAL book in his right hand? 3. Are you still chasing after that elusive *golden pony*?” Number 3 is easy. I have no idea. I think that was a mockery motif that was used by some posters here that I paid little attention to. It was an attempt to belittle (when debate failed) that had no effect on me. Maybe you can find it in the archives and I’ll remember more. Number 2 is difficult to explain, because it stretched out for such a long time, and appeared in many threads. But I’ll try. I’d love to go to the archives and look it up, but it often would pop up in the middle of a thread, having nothing to do with the topic, so it’s in MANY threads. Plus, many of my threads (and others’) were deleted at two different times due to them taking up too much bandwidth. I had over 5,000 total posts when I left, but only 3600 sow up in the current software count. I have all my threads in home storage, but they are a nightmare to search through, due to several different formats. It started out as an edgy description I gave of what I was seeing as a new understanding of how the Return of Christ works. However, it degenerated over a few years time into a stupid, silly “gotcha” game that was more grammar oriented than spirit oriented. I tried repeatedly to end that, but failed. All people wanted to do was nail me, and no one was even trying to understand my mini thesis at all. I tried to get some to wake up with all kinds of grammatical contortions, but no luck. I eventually gave up and simply played “dodgeball” with it until I left active posting. So, that’s the brief synopsis. Now for the rumors behind the news! How does Christ’s Return work? I had a specific question about this a long time ago, that seems to have been answered gradually over the years. The question was “How will we know it’s the genuine Return and not a counterfeit?” Any old acid head can testify that some pretty convincing and entertaining counterfeits are available, just from some simple chemistry. What if the adversary wanted to bamboozle me with a counterfeit return? How could I know to reject it? AND, just as perplexing to me was the GENUINE Return. How, and when into it, will we know for sure it’s the real thing? Stupid question? Not so stupid, when you think it through a little. My first inclination was to think that there’d be one heaven of a light show announcing his Return. He’d be all glowing and beautiful to look at… But I eventually remembered that there’s an angel of light who’s known for his “beauty” and he’s into trickery and light shows. So, as I learned more of the Word, it became ALTITUDE that I thought would be the real convincing factor. Acid hallucinations are easy to spot when sight and sound and feelings are not synchronized and consistent. So, I thought seeing HIM at a high altitude would be the proof that this was the REAL thing. Then a few more seasons pass, and I notice that the devil abducted Jesus to a high altitude and showed him some pretty fancy stuff. OUCH! Altitude won’t be enough. So I thought on. The dead in Christ! They’ll be with him. THEY can vouch for him? No! They get counterfeited in séances all the time! What do you folks think? What would tip you off that the genuine Return of Christ is really happening? How will you know it’s really Jesus Christ you are looking at face to face? I’m talking about right at the beginning of the whole thing, how would you FIRST know it was really him. Later on we can tell by the work that gets done. Think about if for a few hours or days. Think through the details. Would you accept his Driver’s License as proof of identity? Check his signature? Fingerprints? DNA? I’m out of time for this afternoon. But I’ll return…. ah… hem …I mean come back and finish my story. Tell Tom Strange about it. Does anyone yet see how all this leads to Jesus teaching us out of the Orange Book? I love a good mystery! :)

Thanks, Ralph. I wish the best for you and yours as well. :)

So, who's going to draw the conclusion: Dr's books cause you to like the Grateful Dead?

OMG!~ This came across my FB Newsfeed just this morning :

TLC, For brevity, I was being pretty sketchy there regarding detail in my life this past decade. If you are interested in any of the items I mentioned, I’d be happy to PM about them. What I was trying to get across most is that my mind did not turn to mush. Many people were genuinely concerned that my focus on the written works of VPW would do me harm. Didn’t happen. Just the opposite occurred in that my thought processes and activities blossomed out in some ways to a surprising degree. I find myself more thankful than ever before in my life, in spite of the difficulties of growing older and slower.

T-Bone, I remember feeling the need to step back often in the 1970s TWI. I saw many who seemed to lack this skill. Sometimes I envied them as having more commitment than me. . That may have been the case at times. But I was asking you about developing troubling tunnel vision here at GreaseSpot, not for occasional visitors, but for the people who LIVE here, and immerse their thought processes in the "get the bad guy" mentality that prevails here.

It can be a useful skill, to be able to turn "tunnel vision" on and off. It's when it gets stuck in the "on" position that it can get troublesome. Do you think it's possible for someone to succumb again to "stuck on" tunnel vision by hanging out at GreaseSpot too much?

Where? I was at 60 Hudson for a while, then 600 Third Ave, all in Manhattan NY. What a fun job that was!

Rocky, John S had told me I'd do well, and TLC asked according to who’s standard’s. I assume he meant according to his standards and the context of our discussions, which was pretty standard Biblical traditions of non-nastiness. Bottom line: he meant Dr’s books wouldn’t corrupt me like TWI was corrupted. BTW, did you work once for Western Union Company? I did 1970-72. Same time so did Ken Barden, 7th Corps.

Actually I was here 7 years ago doing light posting, but the Mike Wars ended 10 years ago... I think.

T-Bone I hear you. Some of that happened to me, and lots of it happened to people close to me. I find it useful to carefully zone in on what went right.

stray post

Hi Ralph. Be gentle. :) *** Hi Grace Valerie Claire. If we used commas in names, you’d be a Trinity! :) I don’t think we’ve met, yet. But I do hear you, about negative experiences. After looking into it for a while, I decided to believe that the difficulties that happened in TWI were due NOT to the books, but to the verbal tradition and other practices that grew up that were contrary to the books contents. It was due to not knowing the books well enough that the problems ended up prevailing. There were times and places in the ministry where things went well, and I seek those factors. *** OldSkool and JayDee for years I went round and round on the two topics you brought up, plagiarism and PhD validity. Do you remember my responses? How about Research Geek’s response to the PhD issue? I can dig it up, but it would take time. I like calling him Dr Wiewille because he helped me out a lot and I thought he deserved that kind of respect. There are about two other people in my life whom I call “Doctor” and they don’t even have degrees from a mill. It’s a fun respect thing for me to call people "Doctor" or "Doc" and Dr is the written form. And then the plagiarism issue was deftly handled by dMiller here. I think that’s his name. Do you remember how that put the fizzle on the plagiarism issue? We also deeply discussed the theology, philosophy, and neuroscience of original thought which, to me, was MUCH more interesting than stuffy academic market copyrighteous baloney. Do you remember any of that? Not only are those tired old subjects to me, but they have nothing to do with my answer to this thread’s original question. My point was that there was no evil that John S. could point out in the books that I would be infusing into my life. *** TLC, if you asked about how scientifically controlled my experiment with life these past ten years has been, I’d have to admit it was completely non-rigorous. As I compare it to the years prior there’s no comparison. A few cool things happened. I became a Grateful Dead fan, for one, after systematically hating them and ignoring them for 45 years. I like listening to their old tapes, and I hang out with GD cover bands and a community of musicians. Another thing was my mirror reversal “theory” has become a book. I got it started here on GreaseSpot in a thread titled “How does a mirror reverse left and right but not up and down?” Here I got my first practice answering that riddle in writing. I had played with it verbally for almost 40 years, but getting it into written form was a lot of fun. Another lifelong project of mine came to maturity about 5 years ago. I had a 40 year hobby tinkering with toys that could dance. I started with a slinkie and later found other mechanisms that could do some quite impressive dancing. From by background as a Physics major and from the math involved in dance motion, I tinkered away, year after year, until all of a sudden I realized that I could do with my body what I was getting toys to do. At that same time I “discovered” that the Grateful Dead always fine tuned their music to a thousand dancers right in front of them. Add in 37 years of window cleaning where I disciplined my body for speed, accuracy, and endurance on a DAILY basis. End result is I kind of cracked the code on dance. This I know to be true because twenty-something women tell me as they come to me to dance. That makes it extra fun. Their boyfriends are always 20 feet away, but I have lots of fun and I don’t have to buy them drinks. The third thing that happened was the biggest surprise. All my life I wondered how we could have free will in the face of micro determinism. This riddle I had no clue how to solve, but I tried many approaches, and for over 40 years. Then the unexpected happened 3 years ago. After perfecting the solution to the mirror riddle for so may years, it finally evolved to a point where I could see it might help me with the free will riddle. What I saw was a strange similarity between the mirror riddle and the free will riddle. My hunch was that if the problems had a similar form, maybe the solutions would have similar form also. Worked on that hunch for a few months and it suddenly opened up. I’ve written a couple of papers on it and am circulating them among some neuroscientists and Philosophy professors I know and having lots of fun discussions. As far as Dr’s books go, I’m enjoying the peacefulness of reading them and incorporating them into my life without any debate. When I was here posting I was urging grads to take a second look at the books… just the books. I am practicing what I was preaching and enjoying it.

Hello Folks! It’s been a long time since I posted here; like 10 years maybe? Every now and then I come here just to see what’s happening, and I saw this thread the other day. I’d like to answer ImLikeSoConfused’s original question here in a roundabout way. Instead of giving my answer, I’ll give the answer John S from CES gave me some 13 years ago by telephone. Actually he gave this same answer TWICE, in two phone conversations, separated by at least one year. Setting the context, John S had done the paper on adultery that had shaken up the ministry in 1985 or 86. If ANYONE had the ability to sense if ANY danger was lurking within Dr’s books, then SURELY he would be on the short list. I had called to discuss with him with my commitment to not only read Dr’s books, but to master them, and them exclusively. He told me in both conversations that he strongly disagreed with me, and he gave me lots of reasons why I should not focus so strongly on Dr’s books. They were very thorough and very civil conversations. TWICE in those conversations he had to admit and said so out loud, that if I read only Dr’s books, and disciplined my life to what is within them, I would do well. I’ve been doing pretty well these past ten years. How are all of you folks doing?

Amen ! :)

rascal, You'd be pretty surprised if you could know how much I've bonded with you all. Maybe "bonded" isn't the exactly right word to apply here, but it certainly applies to the good-old-days when things in the ministry were going better, at least for some of us. You'd also be surprised to know the degree I too had to deal with the fear of the less stable here. Once I was "cyber stalked" here and once I was threatened with being hacked. In both cases Pawtucket. and/or moderators stepped in, much to their credit. Both of those situations were pretty mild, though. But the fear of the unknown was a little greater. I know how often I unintentionally got many people here pretty tee'd off. I'm glad THAT part of my GreaseSpot experience is over. I don't think I'll be moving on with y'all to the next venue, but that old pre-POP bonding is still in place, so some of us may meet again under more pleasant circumstances, like Christ's Return, maybe.

What a coincidence! I don't look like Fabio at all EITHER ! :unsure: