Mike

oldiesman, Step 1 - Don't rely on memory. Step 2 - Don't rely on the film class; it's only the introduction to the books. Step 3 - On PFAL pages 154, 155 it doesn't read as you put it. On those pages it reads (with my ALL-CAPS) "...there is no Aramaic word LIKE the word lama." Step 4 - Ponder the difference between "there is no Aramaic word..." and "there is no Aramaic word LIKE..." If this is a hi priority issue to settle fast, look at all the other places that Dr uses the word "like." I've done a little of this, and there are a few very interesting clues to be found there. Step 5 - If the answer doesn't come fast, be patient. That's as far as I've gotten with that so far. I feel it's better to bet my life on Dr getting God's revelation into written form in PFAL than betting my life that I can slog my way through the thicket of theology with my own sense knowledge and end up with anything substantial. The bet I made is based on 27 years of experiences, senses and spiritual. The bet I avoid is based on seeing the 2000 year failure of churchianity. The "church" has failed to put a dent in the adversary's kingdom. If anything they've helped him. I don't have all the answers... yet. But I do believe I already have the safest bet, and the best adventure in learning. This kind of thing happens all the time. No one has a total handle on anything, yet people bet their lives all the time in spite of plenty of unknowns. People do this every time they sail through a green light, betting their life the other guy has red and the electronics works. If I had to wait for all kinks to be straightened out before I made a move I'd be frozen in position. I once heard Dr read the riot act at a staff meeting to an editor of the way magazine for all the typos that were in the previous edition. He extracted a confession from him that the next issue would be perfect. But I ALSO heard Dr say (maybe the same staff meeting) that if the Way International waited for a totally perfect piece of work to be produced we'd be waiting forever to ship anything. Maybe there was a one word typo in that section of PFAL. He does say it like that in the film, but there could have been a correction that got lost. Have you ever noticed that the word "manifestation" is mis-spelled three times toward the end of that book? We were taught that there could be errors in proofreading and in printing. I do know that Dr was so much on the move that he never watched but a half hour of the film class after it came back from the processing lab. He was almost immediately off to Haight-Asbury right then. He never saw the whole film class until the weeks prior to PFAL '77 some ten years after it was made. There were many times in his ministry when he didn't have the time or resources to proof every page. Toward the end he did, though. I know a guy that was one of over a hundred proof readers of JCPS. There can be tiny glitches in even the books, but nothing that trips up those who place their trust in them. Actual Glitches (AGs) don't bother me because of their small nature. Most AGs were noticed by Dr's proofreader and fixed. One involving a technical subject like the Aramaic had far fewer proofreaders available, especially in the early years. One or two AGs is all that an unbelieving grad needs to reject PFAL, and maybe that's why some were never fixed. God could have given Dr revelation that those three mis-spellings of "manifestation" are in there, but didn't. I've seen that God DOES give those who want to not believe a paved path away from His presence. I also keep in mind that there MAY have been a bigger reason than an excuse path for those three times you can find "manifestion" in there where we would expect to find "manifestation." In the margins of my books I mark these kinds of things by writing "?typo?" there with two question marks to remind me that maybe it's on purpose. There may be a reason why the PFAL book says: "...there is no Aramaic word LIKE the word lama." That's why I continue to ponder it. We were taught that the original revelation from God was perfect. We were taught that as soon as there was a copy made we no longer had the original, and that error could creep in. We were taught to "limp" along with a far more flawed physical copy (and translation and version) of the originals and how to roll with those punches. The tiny punches we must endure in our books won't hurt us. We're far closer to Dr's original revelation with our PFAL books than we are to Paul's revelation with any fragments, critical Greek texts, translations, and versions and all the middle men they entail. There are very few middlemen between our PFAL books and Dr's revelation than the vast number of middleman between us and Paul's revelation. The alternative to my M.O. is to dump PFAL, but then to turn to WHAT to take it's place? Something with far worse than a few simple AGs? Like trust in some church? Or like trust in my own ability to search and hunt down better truths? Or like become agnostic or athiest? Not for me. No thanks. If you want proof of perfection first you'll never get it... with ANYTHING. Place your bets. I've placed mine.

def59, You wrote: "Your last long post proves to me you have shut off the crtical (ability to judge for one's self) part of your brain and have succumbed to a demonic thought that somehow the same scripture that Jesus said was not to be added to or subtracted from has been altered by God through vpw." Many of us OLGs at one time did pretty much accept Dr's teachings as from God. For us it IS possible to accept them as such again, especially if we read them instead of accepting the testimony of others who are not reading them and grinding an axe against Dr. It's cheap and easy to cite devil spirits as what's behind a debate opponent if you don't have a valid argument against him. If you really can sniff out a spirit like that, surely you can spot the exact error, too. I noticed you didn't do that, so it's pretty easy to conclude you can't spot my error, and resorted to the cheap way. It sounds to me that it's YOU who have shut down critical thinking abilities. I know that devil spirits are real, but they are a cheap way of running away from an debate. We came from an abusive TWI system where this technique was used all the time. I suggest you don't utilize such abusive methods of citing devils in someone's arguments if you want to avoid duplicating the abuses that ran rampant in TWI. If someone has a devil influencing them, and God tells you that this is the case, He does so for you to help that person. To use the devil excuse to merely win a few points in a debate makes a mockery of God's love in setting up the manifestations of HOLY spirit that are mainly there for helping others. *** You wrote: "When you got mad at him, that was good. He needed to be confronted in thought and in person. We can't just accept everything he said as god-breathed. Heck, his shtick wouldn't let him do that." Have you seriously thought through the accounts in the Old testament where God got his revelation through to sinful men IN SPITE of their sin? Are you aware of such accounts?

TheEvan, You wrote a few days ago: "Question. Mike, have you ever responded to Raf's points concerning PFAL errors brought up when you first washed up on these shores? Raf, did he? I find few of the conclusions even arguable. Most seem so solid as to be incontrovertible. Not that I'm all that interested to tell you the truth. Curious, I guess." Contrary to Raf's answer to your question, yes. I spent some time on Raf's thread in spite of my objections to their methods and attitudes for working on those apparent errors. I worked a little with them on the David issue, I think. It was a while ago. I saw that in order for me to deal with what they had there I would be constantly derailing their chosen path. They wanted to find error; I wanted to see past the illusion of errors. I've since then dealt with a few issues on other threads. I have posted a lot of the great differences in the two methods, and twice recently. Each method is fundamentally different. Due to 27 years of experiences, and due to a few things that God has worked in my life, I start out assuming that there are no errors, and then look for ways to reconcile the apparent ones that sometimes pop up. I choose this method because of the extreme amount of confidence I have built up over the years that the PFAL writings are of God. It's exactly analogous to the method Dr taught us i the class for dealing with the apparent errors in the versions of the Bible we have available to us today, but with a few differences. Another method, the one that I used to examine PFAL for those 27 years, involves taking a look at the writings without the assumption that they are perfect, and letting the chips fall where they may as things are worked. Most of the items I looked at those 27 years eventually straighten out and I concluded that they were only apparent errors. A few lingered. One of the problems with this method is that one never knows when one of the lingering apparent errors will suddenly clear up as things are discovered. The method I observed raf and his fellow posters were using on that thread was one of looking for errors, desiring to find errors, brainstorming with others to find errors, and halting the research rather quickly when one is "found." For any method SOME fundamental assumptions and desires and attitudes must be employed. I found this method repugnant and that it operates at cross purposes with all the 27 years of reconciled apparent errors i had seen, as well as the things God had worked for me that I briefly mentioned. For these reasons I disengaged from their thread. The time it takes for me to reconcile an apparent error is not important to me. For Raf and his researchers, the finding of one of their cherished "actual errors" was relatively quick. I think some of them are under the illusion that timing is everything here, and that if I don't find the reconciliation quickly, then I must have failed. I am patient, though, and am willing to bet my life that all the reconciliations will be found. I have posted volumes here on some of the tools that are important if a researcher wants to fully explore Dr's writings, instead of merely find apparent errors. Let me know if your are as curious to know them and we can discuss them.

I've heard that it's two hours of abuse on a human body. I kinda don't need that. When I read "Jesus Christ Our Passover" 20 plus years ago I was stunned at how much more Jesus took than I had been aware of previously. From what I've heard of Mel Gibson's movie, it too falls short of the scenery in Dr's book. Instead of two hours of on-screen abuse, Jesus actually had to deal with 40 hours of it, 6 of those hours hanging from the nails on the cross.

Song, Well, I tried to answer your riddle, only to find out it wasn't a riddle. The Dead Sea has no outlet, you know. No, I don't clean windows much at night in the wintertime. I was at fellowship.

Oh well. Sometimes I just CAN'T win! ;)-->

Sounds accurate to me.... .....A-HEM!!! Can we get back to business now here people?

I was thinking of the Dead Sea in Israel. I've always wanted to swim there and feel the effect of super bouyancy caused by the high salt concentration. ... and maybe there'd be a beach bunny there sunning herself on the sand?

Hey, my memory is great for what I deem important to remember! In window cleaning I can never remember what I did the day before, BECAUSE I always write it down that night and enjoy the luxury of forgetting it. Three hours after a meal I can never remember what I ate. The memory gets digested with the food, I guess.

Oh, here goes: My favorite body of water... salty, warm, foreign

Ohhhhhhhhhhh! I've heard this quiz before. I thought he was posing me a riddle that had an actual unique answer. I saw someone go through this with another person, so I guess I'm disqualified. I heard it posed as "What's your favorite Ocean or Sea or lake? The same person put me through a slightly different one: "What's your favorite color?" The weird thing is that I totally forget most of the details for BOTH my quiz and the other person's. This is normal for me. It happens with jokes too... all the time! I either have a blind spot in my memory for jokes and these kinds of quizzes, or my attention mode shelves it as not-to-be-remembered. It makes hearing the same joke just as funny on the second and third hearings as it was the first, so I never tried to do anything about it. I do remember where the "body of water" thing ended up, though. Funny, my own "favorite color" quiz is a total blank, though. My favorite color is purple. ...but I'm NOT gay. More details are coming back to me... but they're all jumbled up.

Give me a break, you guys! I answered the question as best I could. What are YOUR answers? Quick... in three minutes.

No one's perfect. I did the best I could. The buzzer was about to go off, so I hoped that Song really meant three WORDS.

Have any of you FT folks, Just Folks, ever heard "Roller Maidens from Outer Space" ??? It's extremely rare, but I finally fond it about 10 years ago. It's their positive version of the Apocalypse. Firesign's "Everything You Know Is Wrong" is also apocalyptical but very negative. Roller Maidens actually has a positive portrayal of Jesus Christ in it. He's undercover in the story as a Mexican gardener, and in the end.... Oh! ..Oops... I won't spoil it. It's very blasphemous to the religious mentality, but I thought it was the best media portrayal of Jesus ever. I liked him in "Godspel" pretty much before hearing Roller Maidens, though. Now don't get me wrong. Roller Maidens is totally off doctrine wise. In fact, it's not doctrine at all; it's comedy. But it portrays Jesus as a character that I can like much better than the glassy eyed zombie that Hollywood often portrayed him in the past. (I haven't seen Mel Gibson's movie yet.) Roller Maidens is VERY offensive to tradition, and I certainly wouldn't want to seriously incorporate any of it in with my walk with God, but it can be a refreshingly good chuckle that I don't think God is uptight about. Anything out of balance and in excess can be sin, but this thing is FUNNY!

outandabout, YOU TOO are a Firesign Freak!!!!? Maybe we could start a local fan club here in SD!

WordWolf, You wrote: "Maybe they think you're wrong about what those instructions mean. "Maybe they think your concept of the word "master" is wrong." Most will not even discuss what those instructions mean. They make their determination without paying much attention to what I think they mean. That's understandable, because who am I anyway? But they seem to make no effort to find out what Dr himself meant when he used that word "master." We were taught in very easy to understand terms about previous usage of words. The concept of doing a word study is valid for secular authors too. No one has to believe that Dr's PFAL writings were God-breathed to do a word study in how he used that word "master" in previous settings. Doing so would bring out what he meant better in issuing those final instructions. But instead of diligently inquiring that way, they shoot from the hip and proceed with their own agenda. I used the words "sleezy" and "slick" because most of their proVPW and proPFAL stance is aimed at Dr's earlier ministry at best, and they continue to ignore his later years, just as has been reported here often. I'm collecting accounts of VPW distancing by top leadership and their disrespect shown him in his last yeas that GreaseSpotters have posted. Plus there's the opening of the early '84 tape "The Seven Characteristics of a Faithful Steward" where Dr mentions that his teaching was one of the most important of his life at that time, yet they bumped him off the roster at the HQ leaders meeting because they didn't have time. The epitome of a smoking gun is seen in the history of Dr's very last teaching and how that was allowed by all upper leadership to completely dissappear from sight. There was no respect for Dr when he issued those instructions then. Likewise today, there's not sufficient respect for him (or for his later years) to motivate them to go back and find out WHAT HE MEANT when he used the word "master" so many times in that teaching. My thread "Masters of the Word..." is just that: and attempt to go back and see how Dr used that word to determine what HE meant when he issued those instructions. I used words "sleezy" and "slick" because MUCH of their proVPW and proPFAL stance is simply to keep and attract a flock that still does have some respect for Dr. Dr is their meal ticket. By posturing themselves as proVPW (when they really aren't) they don't offend the many Joe believer types who still think PFAL is good. The leadership grew bored with Dr (much like the end of your post indicates, WW) but they dare not say that to their flocks and jeopardize the abundant sharing. So they act proVPW and go through a few motions to demonstrate this like puling down a Blue Book now and then. Mastering it, though, in ANY way, according to ANY of the dictionary definitions of "master" is anathema to them. If they were really so proVPW they'd seek to find out what he meant by master, and until then they'd be doing all that the common idea of master entails: LOTS OF READING. Some of the reasons I like GreaseSpotters is at least they are honest about rejecting Dr and PFAL, and at least they entertain conversation with someone who disagrees with their rejection of him and PFAL. I don't see the same levels of "sleezy" and "slick" here that I do with many supposedly proPFAL, proVPW splinter groups. Maybe that will change as their broken cisterns run dry. The same way I keep peeking in on TWI with positive expectations, I do with them too. Plus, there are a few splinter groups that I haven't had the chance to do this peeking much or at all. *** You wrote: "Maybe they think that what pfal says about pfal is true, and it's KEYS, not holy writ." This is moot. It matters not if they accept PFAL as God-breathed or not. If they posture themselves as proVPW and then don't follow through it's sleazy. How they think of PFAL's spiritual status has no bearing on whether or not they are going to literally do what Dr said to do. Remember that he not only issued his "master" instructions in his Last/Lost teaching, but also in many discourses in those last months. I've documented a few here, such as his last teaching at Emporia, Sound out'84, and other places. Here's the Emporia account: ****************************************************** Reconstructing past events is no where near as accurate as printed records or tapes, but some things can be brought out by memory and partial print/tape records, especially if it's multiple witness testimony. An interesting example of such a reconstruction came to me by e-mail. Several years ago I posted a small announcement on the www.eph320.com website about finding Dr's last teaching. It was posted there for about a year and I received about 40 inquiries. All of them were unaware of this teaching so I sent them copies. Like in my posting here, I also offered them other e-documents of VPW's material. A number of them developed into pen pals over time. Reproduced below is a letter I received from one such person regarding Dr's last words at Emporia. Your going to see a pattern developing. ************** Dear Mike, Yes, we certainly would like more. Hey! My name is MB. I used to be MS and I was in the 15th Corps. I was wondering if you were in the Corps too or if by chance I might have met you? I just wanted you to know I certainly did enjoy reading "The Joy of Service" again. The year that Dr. Wierwille died, I was in residence at the Way College of Emporia. I will never forget the last 10:30 Fellowship we had with him up in the Ambassador Room. He said, Kids, the Word is not going to go over the world unless you and I take the collaterals and master them to the point you can teach them at the drop of a hat to someone you happen to run into. He said, Its not in how many classes you run, its in how much of The Word of God you know and are able to teach on the spur of the moment. He said, You've got to master it. And what I mean by mastering it is you don't turn to the next page until you completely understand and have committed to memory the first. I have never forgotten those words and have shared them many times with believers that I know and with our fellowship that W and I ran for 9 years before we moved to XY. So it really blessed me to read your e-mail and see that someone else really caught on to the greatness of what Dr. was saying. God is great. We love you our brother and we will be anticipating more. God Bless You, MB ****************************************************** Back to you, WW. You wrote: "Maybe they don't think there were snowstorms that vpw kept encountering, either vision or real. Maybe they think God spoke in the Bible, God speaks to each, but God didn't designate vpw as God's first real spokesman since 99 AD." It looks like this is indeed how many of them think. But they posture themselves differently to keep and/or attract a flock, or did so ten and twenty years ago. they probably bring up his name less and less now. I don't know for sure because many of my bridges are burned back to them. I'm trying to re-build some. *** You wrote: "Maybe they don't think pfal is an updated Bible. Maybe they don't think Jesus will be teaching from pfal when he returns. Maybe they don't think Jesus will have the Orange Book in his hand when he returns." Here I think we are in agreement. They think of PFAL as a nice start, but one that they themselves can improve on. As far as Christ's return (and it's relationship to the orange book), most supposedly proVPW ministers are acting as if it's far off in the distant future. I hear lots of talk about preserving things or ministering to several generations down the line. The idea expressed in the last page of the Blue book, that it's in the "not-too-distant future" is the farthest thing from them. They probably don't even know that line is in there any more, and if they do, it's devoid of any real meaning to them. On that page Dr could have just left the word "future" in there and everyone could have easily thought "vague, unknown, maybe in five minutes, but probably very far off, very distant future." But he didn't write it that way. He had a reason for inserting "not-too-distant" in there so that we would NOT think "vague, unknown, maybe in five minutes, but probably very far off, very distant future." But these proVPW people read that page as if that phrase were not there. The line in the song "The Mystery Train" where Dr narrates: "SOON it will stop!" is drivel to their ears. It means nothing. These people once believed (and probably still do) that Dr ONCE IN A WHILE got a revelation. For them to ask themselves the following questions of that last Blue Book page could lead to some major changes: "Why DID he put that phrase "not-too-distant" in there? It could have been left out. DID God tell him to include that phrase?" But their thinking is far from this. They should at least let their followers know that they only think of VPW and PFAL as a springboard or starting point, and now it's THEIR TURN to call the shots, and many of those shots are antiPFAL and antiVPW, and they are shots from the hip, paying little CLOSE attention to PFAL and no regard at all towards the idea of mastering it. I keep hoping to run into a splinter leader who is serious about mastering the written form of PFAL, or who is serious about even considering it. *** You wrote; "I hate it when I try to watch a tv show I like, only to discover I end up catching the exact same episode on a repeat each time..." To tell you the truth, I too would find it boring to re-enter a mode of operation of sitting through endless repetitions of the film class and endless carloads of new signups. It's not the old video, though, that I'm calling people back to. It's the "book and magazine form" of PFAL and with the new tools. The new attitude to meekly mastering PFAL will uncover things that were never seen before, and will refreshingly bring back to life items that have been long forgotten. I will say this: watching the video once, for the first time 10 or 20 years, can be an exciting adventure, but it gets even better in the books.

oldiesman, You wrote: "Some of you folks are just something. __ You complain about everything, now the Family Tables? __ Is there anything you don't complain about?" I agree with your distancing yourself from the complaints. I'm glad we had that fling in communication, and I think John Brown should be congratulated for the attempt he made. There is one thing where the complaints did cease here over, and I think that the GreaseSpotters involved should be congratulated for that too. I'm talking about last year when Raf's website was explained to be NOT an open Free Speech discussion forum, but a Focused Speech discussion forum. They seemed to accept that and not complain. Maybe they'll eventually see here that after JB's noble experiment ended and TWI went back to a Focused Speech format that we should be happy the glass is half full and complain less about the empty half.

Mr. Hammeroni, This is cool. You wrote:" But really, to me, that is refreshing. Maybe not as bad as I first thought.. finally, one of the Waybots is showing perhaps a little originality, and perhaps a little annoyance. Perhaps they have a few more human qualities left after all." The glass is half FULL! I applaud this positive approach. *** You wrote in an earlier post: "For the life of me, I just can't see how or why anybody would want to go back- even to "da good old days". Even then, many of us had the most anal, obsessive, STUPID and sadistic leadership that one could ever wish for. Even in the EARLY 1970's." I think that MOST of the above came in the 80's. Who's engine? I'm glad to see you are bringing up more positives here. *** You wrote, addressing me: "Hey, I am willing to even concede, maybe that's even what God's telling YOU to do. Not me. I find myself in my own personal God-given 'training course'." Actually, it's been a while since I said this, but it's only the OLGs (Older Leader-type Grads) that I have any reasonable expectation of hearing what I am proposing. People who once DID believe that Dr was getting an abundance of 2000 year unique revelations are pretty much the only ones who seem to be able to un-do all that they got talked out of since then. In the 70's many believed that PFAL was given by revelation but didn't have the theological wherewithal to see that that meant God-breathed, just like the original scriptures. I was rarely in this camp, though. I resisted it. I got talked out of it very early, but many held onto it longer, until they go talked out of it. It's the OLGs that saw things work so well that seem to me to be the most able to hear me. I want to be wrong on this, though, because most upper level OLGs were the MOST talked out of it. The closer an OLG was to Dr, the more intense the adversary's campaign to talk the out of it was. This is why a prophet is not without honor except in his own home town. Those closest to the prophet are always the most convinced by the adversary that the prophet is a fake. They see his sin and shortcomings close-up, and these things are most amplified and exaggerated to them by the adversary. *** You wrote: "I do not have the time in life to ignore what God would have me to do, and go back to endless rework "da accuracy" of PFAL. I have taken what good I can get from PFAL, and have moved on." Now wait a minute! You have lots of time for posting, don't you? I think if you changed some attitudes, even just a little, and spent some of your postig time in PFAL, you the good you could get from PFAL could vastly increase! *** You wrote: "And I would not mandate my course in life to anybody. Anybody who knows me would readily admit that it just would not fit anybody else, or very few.. __ Reminds me of "God told me to tell you.." maybe He's just telling YOU." From what I can see it's not ME telling anyone anything. I'm just strongly pointing out that our teacher told us that God told him for us to master PFAL. I agree that very few can hear this...at this time. After the first wave of OLGs (delightfully augmented by any nonOLGS who so desire) starts on this exciting adventure in learning, then the whole scene can drastically change.

It was a little bit of them all. A little bit of silliness, and a little bit of seriosity, and a little bit of not understanding the question. That is my favorite body of water; consisting of some over 90% water. It was the best answer I could find before the three minute buzzer went off.

I'm still thankful JB tried. He was quite cooperative until that last letter, but then again we had a lot of common ground to think he could woo me in. I celebrate our likemindedness, and I am sad he and TWI don't want to take Dr's final instructions literally. Then again, lots of the supposedly proVPW and proPFAL splinter groups are the same way with me... until it comes to literally doing what Dr said. They ALL want to do ANYTHING BUT master the collaterals. They salute them, review them, dabble in them, play with them, improve them... the list of diversions goes on and on. I'm amazed how sleezy they (both TWI and proPFAL splinters) can be about pretending to go along with the whole program of Dr's final instructions... except for literally mastering PFAL. I have the same complaints about TWI and JB as I do with CFF, Geer, and many other smaller splinters. Some are nicer than others, some are slicker than others, but they all want to get as far away from literally mastering PFAL as possible. The same forces that buried Dr's last teaching for 15-20 years are now at work burying the idea of obeying that teaching's instructions now that the teaching has been re-released and made much more well known than ever before.

Vickles, I'm always trying to be nice. This thread is turning out to be a little R&R. Are you objecting to me mixing this pleasure with business? I'm not quite following you.

dmiller, Here! here! Where? Where? There. There.

What do I win? :D--> A new CAR!

The human body.

Jt, No, It's Rocky. And no, I didn't feel all that complimented, but it sure was a good way to deflect the insult, wasn't it? :D--> Otherwise, JT, my FT story was completely true. *** Mr. Hammeroni, I didn't take the official acid test. I was in NY and several years removed from Kesey, but I did talk to him on the phone once and his wife several times. I got tons of stories about them. His number was actually listed in the phonebook. Kesey's acid tests were pretty hairy, and I'd have probably freeked out. I did go through some crazy times with later East Coast hippies, though...AND passed their tests. I never had a bad trip... until I got into the Word. Oh boy! THEN I had a few VERY bad trips, and quit right away! Hey Mr Ham, I may need you help on another thread, the PFAL one. Def59 thinks he's sniffing devil spirits in me again. Steve Lortz does that all the time. I'm asking you for your help because you so disdained that kid of control mechanism in TWI on a thread the other day. Are you game? You aren't going to allow that junk on GSC are you? I mean it. I want someone to tell them to stop! :(-->