Mike

Hi socks, Long time no talk. It’s good to see you here. Funny you should bring this up. So far, I’ve not seen an opening for this approach in a long time, plus I feel less competent to present this aspect of what I am studying. But since you brought it up, here goes. I think there is much more contained in your jest than you know. Remember how Jesus often tried to talk spiritually with his apostles, but they were not spiritual enough to get it? One example was when they were hungry and thought Jesus wanted food with equal passion? He had to remind them that his meat was to do the will of the Father. Then a little later, with the woman by the well, he starts talking about water using the accepted Oriental custom for approaching women in public. But then he switches to spiritual water. Still another example is where Jesus said Lazarus was sleeping, until the apostles just COULDN’T get it and he had to translate that he was REALLY talking about the sleep of death. Have you ever toyed SERIOUSLY with the idea that Dr was talking about the WORDS that are LIKE a cancer having a life of their own and of devil spirit origins? There's something similar to this in the KJV. 2 Timothy 2:15-18 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some. Yes, I know canker is not the same as cancer, but it looks pretty darn close in some ways. *** Page 14 of GMWD directs us to think of the possibility that beneath the sense knowledge message of Psalm 103 there are hidden truths, a hidden spiritual message. This came out in 1977 in book form. In Dr’s previous teachings he had warned against hidden meanings, but then it changed later on. My thinking is that prior to '77 we were DEFINITELY not ready to look for hidden spiritual meanings, but after that we had "graduated" to the level of the apostles in that we MIGHT get it. Sure, it's the case that we did NOT get it back then, but neither did the apostles in their first go-arounds with Jesus talking spiritual. I know few people have spent much time thinking on this tack, so I think it deserves some time before it’s rejected outright. I wonder how much time it will take for some posters to reject it? I’m going on ten years now of looking into this tack. I was first alerted to this approach when someone here showed me a surprising way of looking at Romans 1 where it’s not merely homosexual actions that are being condemned, but something much worse. I’m convinced this is what Dr was pointing at in his tirades against homosexuality, while we missed it, only receiving the sense knowledge understanding. Sure Dr probably helped some to later avoid AIDS and other problems with the sense knowledge teaching of Romans 1, but I now know he ALSO had a deeper meaning to point to there, and one that was to be pertinent to later times. Then there was also a lot of talk in the TVTs about "spiritual adultery" that I never got to understand or fully examine, never seeing it in print, and rarely ever (IF ever) hearing it from Dr on tape. Five senses adultery, we all know, is pretty hurtful, but SPIRITUAL adultery is much worse and even more to be avoided. What might we learn now if all those verbal teachings of Dr on cancer and devils were aimed at spiritual cancer, like the disease talked out in II Timothy? Who will be first to reject this? Who thinks there’s more to discuss?

I need something more than your say on that. We don't have ANY sense knowledge understanding as to what it means to be seated at the right hand of God. With God there IS NO TIME, so you can't even state that he's been there for such-and-such a length of time. He's been GONE from here for such-and-such a length of time, but we have no idea of any timespan THERE. What you're saying is that being next to God he is just like God. But aren't WE seated in the same location seeing we are members of his body and seated in the heaven lies? I know I still need to learn, AND it's still fun. Do you want to deny Jesus this fun? Even the angels, and they're up there too, desired to look into (learn) things that weren't written yet. Remember? No. You missed another possibility. In the NORM they would be a commentary or man-breathed Bible (version) aid. AT BEST they are a God-breathed commentary and Bible aid, and therefore bigger than us AND unalterable AND the last word on the subject. Do you want to deny God the right to quote the KJV and comment on it?

I Corinthians 13 The love of God thinketh no evil. This is very difficult for some people, even long after the facts. It seems like there's often a juicy sensational pleasure people can sometimes get out of gossip and scandal.

Hi nandon, Ok, then let's have a conversation. As to the first item, might I ask you (as part of my answer) a question? Sometimes asking a question with a question leads to a better answer than if it’s just answered outright. An interrogator would not want me to take the lead in my answering that way and would refuse such a request on my part to ask. Here’s the question: Do you believe Jesus Christ is omniscient and therefore needs no learning? We got good at accepting the grammar of the sentence “Jesus Christ is not God” but we still retained many mental images of him AS IF HE WERE God. If Jesus Christ TRULY is omniscient, or truly needs no learning, THEN what I said could look crazy. On the other hand, if he’s TRULY a man and not all-knowing, then it would be A LOT less crazy to think of him learning. Right? *** Now as to your second question, let me ask again something of you. Do you know where to find God’s Word in it’s exact form? I mean can you tell me where I can buy a copy of the AUTHORITATIVE Word of God? If you tell me something and I buy it, and then find that some passages are mis-translated then that wouldn’t count. I mean to ask can you find in the world today ANYTHING of the same status as the original manuscripts? I mean can you find anything in English that conveys EXACTLY what the original understanding was for Aramaic speaking believers 2000 years ago who were lucky enough to get their hands on an original? So far, after two years or so of me asking posters here and elsewhere, no one here has been able to come up with an actual God-breathed document, especially one in English. I ask them if they have a text that's BIGGER then them and all their theologian friends, a text that need never be altered and CAN never be altered, just believed and acted on. Just the other day anotherdan admitted that he could find no such document. This means God’s written Word is gone, and all we have are approximations. God's written Word was lost several times in the OT. Did you know that? It was, or most of it was recovered, but for a time it WAS lost. If there is no God-breathed text in existence at this point in time, then there would be a GREAT NEED for God to re-issue His Word, right? Plus, there’s precedent for this. There were times when God’s Word was buried in various ways, and He re-issued it in various ways. He did that with His Word written in the stars when it reached a certain state of corruption after the Tower of Babel. This was not just a “reprint” type of re-issue, but it involved a MAJOR format change too. Another re-issue of His Word can be seen in Jeremiah 36 where He did a “reprint” but then added many words as well, constituting another format change. With this in mind, that God-reissuing His Word when He thinks it’s needed and would be believed, does it sound a little less crazy to hear that He did it again? Do you see how this subject is a little deeper than Tom Strange was able to convey with his crazy sounding synopsis?

Tom, It's not ALL down there in the dungeon. I'd say probably half is missing, pruned. Was your public service just sloppy in not knowing this, or dishonest in hiding it? The public has a right to know. Still, there IS a lot of context there in Doctrinal. Down there are the three threads doojable and I have linked to recently. Compared to the zero context or even reference links your "public service" neglected, there's TONS of context there. You didn’t even have the decency to supply those three links and lessen the public’s efforts to search there. I think you’re only serving those of less depth than nandon’s, people willing to have others interpret and then supply them with the crucial information of their lives, people who don’t think that context is important and that paraphrasing is sufficient. *** Hi nandon, I appreciate your curiosity and your desire to hear something first-hand. There is much immediate distortion in that list you asked about, and even more distortion due to missing context. It's a Poor Paraphrase. In fact, there's SO much distortion, that it would help if we abbreviated the process by focusing on just one or two items, rather than the whole list. Which of the items sparked your curiosity the most? ...and may I ask why? ...and might it be a conversation instead of an interrogation or worse yet, a mocky session? These two later kinds of discourses have been continually thrust upon me and the Doctrinal Dungeon DOES have a lot of that record. nandon, is it ONLY out of curiosity that you ask? In that case PMs might suffice. Or do you want to make it a public thread thing? ...and if so, might I ask why? I just want to see where your head is at a little before I invest much time into it. I KNOW where Tom’s head is at so I just let him wail.

But Ham, look at the other part of what johniam said "If God's word is clear, either by scripture or by revelation, THEN don't go by the 5 senses." If we would get practiced at going by what is written, then we can slap down our over active imaginations when necessary, and hear that still small voice. Too many of us went for direct revelation and overlooked the writings that would have otherwise given us guidance.

Bingo! Back to the original teaching.

pond, I try to be friendly, and sometimes succeed. I'll try again. :)

Hi DontWorry, There may be more peace coming from my side than you know. It’s my peace that allows me to stand my ground unflinchingly in the face of many challenges and over many years, and believe me, your challenges have been comparatively mild. Sometimes I don’t answer questions because I don’t like the way they’re put, or the implications they carry. Strip your questions of venom and hooks and we might get farther. You're trying to get too much done with your questions. They are posed and poised to teach me something I refuse to accept. They're too loaded for my taste. You have approached me as an insider with far more insight and information than I. I don’t buy it. Sometimes being closer to the trees obscures the forest. Why do you think a prophet lacks honor, as the scripture says, in his own country and among his own people? That's a teaching question you many not want to learn from. I had my inside looks and my looks from a distance. Every point you brought up I’ve been over countless times both here and long before I started posting here. I’ve been at this for ten years now, so there are few surprises you can hand me. On the other hand, you haven’t even begun to see all of my cards, even if you read all three of those colossal threads doojable and I linked you to. I like talking to people like you because I respect the work for God you did before you got talked out of it, and because I’m ravenously collecting and assimilating the facts and the history of what all happened to us. If that is an attitude of condescension on your part I suspect as you talk to me, a poor deluded kid, then you will be eventually exasperated. If you think you know it all because you were there at an early date then I feel sorry for your inability to learn in the face of new data. I have that new data in large amounts. Oh yes, I want to be the man VPW knew and wished to be. It's a noble calling and there are many hearing it.

Goey, we were taught that some spirits were stupid in some ways and specialists in other ways. Just look at the fearsome “angel of death” that was tricked into killing only God’s enemies! *** Don’tWorry, Why did you phrase your earlier question to me that way: “Did he EVER teach such and such?” I have seen an early Foundational PFAL class photo. The banner in the back proudly says: “Gifts of the Spirit Class 1954” or something like that. Did Dr EVER erroneously teach that there were 12 gifts of the spirit? Yes. Does that bother me, or should it bother anyone? I don’t think so. Something to note here: in Dr’s very last teaching, the one that was lost for 17 years, he issues his MOST important final instructions to us. In those final instructions he tells us to master the Foundational Class and the Intermediate Class, BUT the Advanced Class is CONSPICUOUSLY MISSING! Not only that, but those instructions were repeated a SECOND time in that very short teaching, but AGAIN the ac is conspicuously missing! The magazine editing was botched, so here are the tape quotes. This first one is early in the teaching: “If you master the foundational class on Power for Abundant Living, and the intermediate class plus the collateral readings that accompany them, you have really something wonderful to serve people --with. That twig and twig area leader, and the country coordinators, leadership of the Corps, of the WOWs, have to all have this joy of serving. If you haven’t got the joy of serving you missed something in the Word of God you oughta ah-- put on. Heh, heh. So, number one, you gotta have something to serve.” Then the second one is towards the end of the teaching: “Number one, you have to take PFAL and master it -- Intermediate, you gotta master it; the collateral’s that go with it, you gotta master. Then you’ve got something to serve people. And then you have to do it with the love of God in the renewed mind, -- agapao. Then your service is just not a ministering service, it is a doulos service, where you are a marked-out slave for serving.” In other words, at the end, he was warning us to not be so bogged down in the AC stuff. He also tried to warn us about Chris Geer in the same teaching. It’s taken me twenty years to see these warnings, and I’m sure some will complain it was too little too late, but I know it’s finally helped me and others to get things in perspective. There’s a lot of AC stuff that I’m glad didn’t make it into the final printed form. Like I said earlier on this thread, I prefer to keep a lower priority on this stuff.

You may have missed my partial answer a few posts above, in #42. And for the Topic Police: the full title of this thread is "A life of its own, cancer and devil posession"

Yes, it was in Lima, at the racetrack, in the middle of the afternoon, an unscheduled emergency meeting. I was there. He also added that you shouldn't stop taking the meds until BOTH until they make you sick AND your medical doctor says to stop taking them.

Don'tWorry, I checked the transcripts for "cancer being a devil spirit" on previous similar threads. It's not there in the 1979 transcript at all. He didn't teach it at all, that cancer WAS a devil or even that cancer implies possession. It's gone by 1979. It's not in the books either. Yes the teachings morphed. The taped ones. That's why it was important for us to see (and master) the final written forms of his teaching.

Ok, maybe so, but the main idea is getting relief. Saul got releif, at least temporarily. Had he turned to God during his time of relief he may have been able to either resist the devil from re-operating and it would then leave. OR if it had left with the music, then Saul could have used the time to turn to God and resist its getting back in.

doojable, No, I meant the other Saul... who later became Paul. But you brought up ANOTHER example that was in close proximity to the aspirin thing in the AC. Dr taught that SOMETIMES music can drive OUT a devil. David did it for King Saul, as you just reminded me. I forgot all about music! *** waysider, you asked for scripture. I think it was THIS scripture (on David playing music) that Dr used to illustrate how aspirin could work similarly.

doojable, Sometimes all a person needs is some temporary relief so he can get the Word back in mind.

The good news is, if God worked so much with Dr, then THINK of how much more He can work with you! I'm serious. I think ONE of the reasons God worked with Dr is SIMILAR to why He worked with Saul of Tarsus. It demonstrates His great grace and mercy and power. If God had to satisfy the standards of people He's never find anyone to get anything done. I'm GLAD God worked with sinners in the past. It encourages me that He can work with EVEN me.

Here's the 1979 AC transcript, segment 26: "You and I ought to become real mad at the devil. You still tolerate him too much, because, you know, you never - you just think he's a nice Joe or somethin', he's not gonna do all this. We Christians are to get so mad at him that - well, I don't know how else to say it, we ought to get just so "T'd-off" that we - any time he does anything like that to any Christian believer, we just yell our heads off, so to speak, at him. "Devil spirits, at times - not at times, but - devil spirits, I've seen 'em put out of operation, for instance, with a couple of "aspirins". Ah, I've seen 'em put out of operation with eh, giving an anesthetic of some kind, or a shot in their arm - whatever doctors give at that time - just devil spirits. Because the devil spirit has to have the freedom of operating your "telephone line", mentally, see. If I'm gonna call ya on the phone, I guess we have to have a line of communication. Now if somebody snips the line, I won't be able to talk to you any further. Devil spirits are like that. You know, give a man a shot at a certain time and the devils spirits can't operate, and . . ." ONCE AGAIN shows that many things slipped by us unawares or were forgotten.

doojable, One person remembered it, to all the rest it's a brand new idea. Maybe it would be a good idea to think about it for a while before rejecting it so quickly. At any rate, it ONCE AGAIN shows that many things slipped by us unawares or were forgotten. To properly extract the most benefit from what we were taught it would help TO KNOW what we were taught. Even for those who just want to criticize what we were taught it would help TO KNOW what we were taught.

More detail on aspirin: Dr taught that it was POSSIBLE, IN SOME CASES, not that it was causative for most or all cases. I'm glad at least one person remembers this. Thanks Outfield! Dr said that in SOME situations the aspirin makes it difficult for the spirit to operate in that section of the brain where the aspirin is (using figurative language here) slowing things down (or whatever it does technically). With the added difficulty the spirit leaves for better pastures. *** More detail on oppression: I've always thought (and I may need more learning here) that there are two operations, possession and oppression. All spirits oppress until they or others can get in and posses. There may be one spirit that specializes in the operation of oppression. If I learn more I'll report on it.

waysider and Don’tWorry, Thanks for the added info. I’ve been working on this one for decades. I don’t like posting on this subject, but I have. Someday I may collect it all together (including the pruned material) for some kind of presentation or posting, but I prefer to put this subject on a low priority status for now. So, I’m going to try to not get involved much more than this minimal posting. I want to throw out a few tid-bits after these preliminary remarks. *** Whenever a story is known incompletely of with slight inaccuracy, the human mind(s) can severely veer off in extrapolation exercises to fill in the gaps and contradictions. Often the final "complete" story that gets told is diametrically opposed to the factual situation. I think this is the case in the thoughts that prevail in this cancer thread and others, that crucial details are not in the mix. These crucial little details, when properly introduced, can significantly shore up the breaches in accuracy that we humans are prone to when we rely on even slightly incomplete and inaccurate memory and then extrapolate. Add to that distortion the number of decades that are involved in the pulling up of memories of “exactly” what was taught. Then add in the emotional element. My hat’s off to you, waysider, for documenting written sources and even including dates. I wish more posters would take that kind of time to actually look some things up. *** Ok, now here’s the first tid-bit. I think if it’s integrated into many of the posts already made here on this one thread, then it at least will show that a some of the story is missing here. Dr taught in the AC that it’s possible for a tablet of aspirin to drive out a devil spirit. How many people remember it? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned this? The word "aspirin" was even mentioned in another context, but did anyone key off it what Dr had taught? No, because it doesn’t fit into the general trend of thought here, and it can even contradict it. *** This second thing I always try to remind people when this subject of cancer comes up, and it has about ten times here. Like the aspirin thing, this second item grates up against some of the prevailing notions here. Here it is: almost no one ever includes in the mix what we were taught about spirit oppression. It always has to be “possession” that enters the conversation, no one remembers “oppression.” Jesus was oppressed by THE devil spirit and it was not shameful. Jesus got revelation from the devil at least once, and it wasn’t shameful. He just shrugged it off because if didn’t match the written Word. What’s the difference between possession and oppression? I know the difference, but how many others do? Can anyone find that in their syllabus instead of putting forth what’s in (or not in) their memory? *** So there they are, my two contributions: aspirin and oppression. *** addendum: Garth, Hold onto your hat. You make a good point. Just exactly what Dr meant by “life” eluded many in this context of “life in itself.” ...and I’m also still working on what “itself” means or can mean. Heck, do we even have an accurate idea of what a devil spirit is? Or do we even need to, since we have the Word?

Thanks doojable. I forgot about that thread you just mentioned. That one was the first in a trinity of very long threads that cover a lot. The two threads I mentioned in post #74 came after this one. All three actually strung together to make on large thread.

Eyesopen, My opinion is that your opinion looks pretty good! *** cman, I tried looking back in the thread, so help me, what is the main idea you want me to address?

Your many questions demand many threads and many minutes to find them. Why don't you just read all my posts? Instead of starting at the beginning, though, you might start here: http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=9131 which then continues on this one: http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=9646 Quite a few of your answers are there, I think.

I knew Mark from the Rye days and set up a few Pressed Down concerts with him, before he went into the Corps. Yes, I did get a lot of tapes, but not from him. I worked in Tape Duplicating with Miney Shroyer, John's mother. No. It would take time to find them... and some work. How bad do you want the answers? How much work are you willing to do for them? Key #? - Use the Search Function much. What you can know by your computer searches, Mike expects you to know.