Mike

Narcissism is totally New Age in the mouths and from the keyboards of people who use that word in their daily lives and interactions. I wasn't talking about how the academics handle it. I mean that the common everyday usage of "narcissism" is pretty identical to the personal power plays that revolved around most phony discerning of devil spirits.

That certainly happened on the field. Many a power trip revolved around implied or stated discerning of devils. Often leaders would totally forget about devil oppression, and focus on the more rare possession. That happens with nearly everyone here, also. My take on VPW was that he taught much the same ideas that Jesus and his writers taught on devil spirits. */*/* I have seen several old PFAL grads switch their whole vocabulary around, and instead of seeing devils everywhere and in all opponents, they now use the word "narcissism." Narcissism is the New Age word for devil possessed, it seems. They see narcissism in lots of places and people, especially opponents.

It is super clear from the two Blue Book quotes that VPW believed in the subconscious.

Thanks for that explanation. It is mostly new to me. I think your explanation works for directly influenced thoughts, that is from a devil spirit oppression or possession. But the indirect action of Satan would have lots of random thoughts in the environment and past learning that pop in without outside direct intelligent influence. We tend to think of these second types of thoughts as "our own." This ownership, though, is not exactly clear, in the Neuro-physiological sense. Again, I think little to zero free will is involved in this process. One of the most useful tips I got from VPW on this was this often repeated phrase: "You can't control which thoughts hit your mind, but you can control which ones take up lodging in your mind."

Ok, I admit I don't get it. Now you can exhibit your great teaching skills, by explaining it.

I looked in the two AC transcripts but the word "subconscious" never pops up. The birds nesting sounds like how random thoughts taken in might speak to the subconscious is the only way I can see this. I tried and tried to see how the pitcher with red water illustrates the subconscious. Is it supposed to illustrate extremely faint red water appearing clear, and the red part is so thin it is subconscious?

I also vaguely remember something about the subconscious being bogus, but I can't remember where or any of the details. It was this vague memory that was jolted when I started reading the collaterals again in recent decades, and saw those two references I cited above. I should search the AC transcripts available: 1971 and 1979.

This is why VPW's final instructions to TOP leadership was to come back to PFAL and master the collaterals. God’s will is for every one of us to be released today from whatever prison is holding us. Prisons are not only made of bars of steel. The prisons of our secret sins, things in our lives which we don’t want to share with any other person in the world, are the most frustrating and defeating. The thoughts of self-condemnation that have been gnawing in the back of one’s conscious and subconscious mind for years and years – thoughts of sickness and disease, fear, worry, anxiety, suicide, death – are the most tormenting and wretched kinds of prisons. It is not God’s will for us to be so mentally bound; God’s will is just the opposite as He has given total release from all negatives. BTMS p.4 Even though believers receive righteousness when they are born again, many people for lack of teaching still think that they are unworthy to receive the goodness of God. This satanic belief keeps driving deeper and deeper into their subconscious minds. If my being worthy of God depended upon my own strength, I would be a great failure. I know that I am weak in myself and I know that I am unworthy in myself, but Christ has made me worthy. So, no matter how I feel or what my feeble mind tells me, I am strong and in Him I am worthy. BTMS p. 68

No, the word "theory" works for me with no such baggage. I think you get so lost in that Pop Psychology nonsense, that you overlook what is being communicated. I use that word in it's common sense: the·o·ry [ˈTHirē] NOUN a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained: "Darwin's theory of evolution" SIMILAR: hypothesis thesis conjecture supposition speculation a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based: "a theory of education" · "music theory" SIMILAR: doctrine dogma teaching principle ethic creed credo an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action: "my theory would be that the place has been seriously mismanaged"

Yes, I agree. Free will is not needed all the time. Plus, most people "go with the flow" and don't exert themselves enough to strengthen their "free will muscle." I called my theory "Minimalistic Free Will" for this reason.

This sounds like intra-thread communication, with the recent AOS thread. Although making music has been an elusive mystery all my life, I finally did get to experience dance and responding to music and emotion with movement. This experience came late in life, just 10 years ago, so it is very fresh, and it is refreshed several times per week. I noticed something odd about music and movement. There is an odd reward to dance that I think may be involved with music making also. Please forgive me if I already explained this somewhere here. This odd reward comes when dance steps exactly match the music beat, and are in very precise synchrony in time. This reward disappears when this exact match drifts out of sync. My theory on this reward is that it’s some kind of micro-squirt of adrenalin or endorphins or some other exotic brain juice. Here is how I understand it: A common type of occurrence is to be doing chores at home, and as I reach to a kitchen cabinet for something, the very second I touch the cabinet door a car outside backfires loudly. So there is a time coincidence synchronization with my finger touching the cabinet and the loud boom from the car. Most of the higher centers of my brain that notice this, eventually realize that it is a mere co-incidence in time of two events that are causally unrelated. These are relatively high centers of reasoning in the brain that spot this. But there are other, less well endowed (but faster) centers in the brain that have important jobs to do. One of them is the “significance register” another is the “cause and effect” register, and another is the “danger register.” These centers have no reasoning power, and they just scream their heads off when something is detected that falls within their job description. My best guess is that some of these centers cause a micro-squirt of brain chemicals. Like the “significance center” or the “causal center” may cause quick strong feelings to be attached to event of my finger touching the cabinet. These squirts could be a lot like what we hear about in “runner’s high.” So, in the kitchen, the reasoning centers (though slower) are able to “hush up” the lower centers, and assure them that it was a mere non-causal co-incidence. This takes a little effort, as I look at my finger with the feeling that “I caused the boom” by touching the cabinet. But that feeling is hushed up pretty quickly and I brush it off with an amused smile. BUT ON THE DANCE FLOOR it is a different story. There I take a step that is exactly synchronized with the beat of the music (from much practice) and the brain centers are squirting over and over and over with the music. Meanwhile the higher reasoning centers have given up in exhaustion to hush these centers. The brain gets flooded with the pleasure of dancing from the many micro squirts involved with synchronized stepping to the music. For fast songs this pleasure increases in intensity. The feeling this builds is one where I feel like I am in the band, causing the music to happen with my dance moves. I get a feeling of belonging and connectedness with the band and with the other dancers (assuming they are also in good sync). This feeling of oneness is very strong, and can be examined by introspection. I think much the same thing happens for members of the band. When you think of it this way, they are simply dancing with the muscles of their hands and arms.

I did that very thing with several topics: the NT Canon, Free Will, and God's Budget. I got plenty of scrutiny. There are other ideas that I put through scrutiny for many years before coming here. They do not need any more scrutiny. It is YOU FOLKS who need to scrutinize self thinking. You folks who operated far too much in the emotional realm, snapping into TWI and snapping out need to face your blinding hate. Not much scrutiny going on when someone is still emotionally reacting negatively to the GOOD ideas God taught VPW.

You saw nothing but me dealing with my glass business in the hot Summertime. I have a lot more time in the Winter to go after many details here. Not so much time in the Summer for this, though. I am confronted with uncomfortable FACTS here all the time. It's been non-stop for 20 years. That is all you folks want to do is confront me and force me to discuss the nuances you feel are important. I did not come here for comfort. Many topics here are too uncomfortable for TWI leaders and splinter leaders to deal with. You should go out and confront them for their fears. I find it disgusting that STILL, there are no current leaders with guts to come here and face uncomfortable facts. You are scolding the wrong man, OldSkool. Is it too uncomfortable for you to confront your old TWI leaders? */*/*/* "I saw you completely shut down" What kind of garbage is that? You seem to think that the only life there is to live is here at GreaseSpot. What you saw was me prioritizing my time. So, tell me, please, what exactly did you think I ran away from? Did you see my little tip about repetition? The squeaky wheel gets it sometimes.

That is a valid way to work the scriptures, if you are digging deep down below the English. Sometimes that is necessary in areas of the scriptures that got messed up. But I don't think that is the case here, with the English words we are reasoning with. In other words, there are times when paraphrasing is good enough to get to the bottom of something. God's Word being His will is one of them. We are working with basic ideas here, and the ONLY complication is the self-induced allergy many have here to anything (even truth) that reminds them of VPW. The handicap here with this topic of God's Word being His will is NOT the exact wording of any scripture, but the hate that blinds people to simple ideas.

Frankly, it is a lot of work at times for me to distinguish serious points from jeering and chatter. Do you mean this? "Scripture does not state that God DOES not lie, indicating that he could actually do so. Scripture says it's IMPOSSIBLE for God to lie...what happened to every jot and tittle? You expect to be taken seriously and you care not to quote God's matchless Word accurately?" I thought that looked like a silly prohibition against paraphrasing, with a hidden agenda on which translation/versions are acceptable. If it is more than that, please inform me. When you see a lot jeering and chatter, kindly wait till they run out of steam. You camouflage your serious posts with them, and they can get easily lost by me. You could also try repetition if you want to be taken seriously among a bunch of jokers.

Look how much commotion this simple truth causes! The Word of God Is the Will of God. It seems to scatter posters in all directions like billiard balls.

I disagree. All three (smarts, intelligence, sound mind) are involved in (1) assessing what one's own will is, and (2) choosing words that properly communicate what that will is. There are people who fall short in these areas, and for them we don't have reliable and full knowledge of what their will is, due to inefficient communication. God, of course, is well aware of His own will, and fully able to communicate it or deliver it to those who are willing to receive it. */*/* The other quality a human must have is trustworthiness. If they lie about their will, then we can't know it. God, of course, does not lie. */*/* So when we have an accurate knowledge of the Word of God on any topic, we have an accurate knowledge of God's will on that topic. A short way of saying this that is easy to remember is: The Word of God is the will of God. */*/* The word "is" here should not be misinterpreted as being "mathematically equivalent to" because no math is involved here. The word "is" denotes "association with," or "represented by," but not the word "equals" in the numerical sense. What a beautiful and simple idea! The Word of God is the will of God.

Well, IF IF IF you had God's Word, THEN you could logically conclude that you had His Will declared by His Word.

I appreciate that and respect our differences. The way I was showed to love God was bigger than me, and I am still still "taking" that class.

I am not an expert on God. I have gotten some practice at spotting where we grads (me included) tended to drift off and away from what we were taught. I am just trying to help. If I were looking for ego strokes, I'd find many more of them elsewhere.

I know they have nothing to do with each other. That is why I put the word "and" between smart and trustworthy in my comment. Maybe you failed to see that word. Maybe you were blind to it; wanting to catch me in error so badly. When BOTH trustworthiness and intelligence are both present in a person, THEN we can look at those smart trustworthy words from them, and know they accurately resemble the will of that person. We use "their word is their will" all the time with people. But for those whose conscience is seared with a hot hate for VPW, then they cannot see truth in "God's Word is God's Will." Their minds are blinded by hate. We apply this simple idea all the time to people, the idea that if they are smart and trustworthy, then their word is their will. OF COURSE it also applies to God! God is more trustworthy and more intelligent, so it applies more to him. The Word of God is the Will of God ! I really like the simplicity of it, and how simply it shows me who has blinded their minds with hate. Only hate could reject "God's Word being God's will."

I've spent 20 years looking at information you think I don't look at.

With any human, it they are trustworthy and smart, then their words will accurately reflect their will. I use this line in witnessing all the time.

That Deut quote does very much tell them to saturate their lives with God's Word, to the extent it was available. Everyone knows that books were not available then, and scrolls were very expensive. But what about memorization skills? I think they did not invent paper and pencils because they were far more skilled at memorization than we are in our culture. They also had less distractions. Psalm 119 tells us to saturate our lives with God's Word.

I agree. God's Word is God's will. Loving God's Word means loving His will, which means loving lining up with and obeying His commands, as 1 John explains more than once. When I talk about loving God's Word, I don't mean fake love, but real genuine love. Genuine phileo for the OT believers. Someone like a Pharisee would love UTILIZING the Word for status and power plays over people. But such a fake lover would not get the message of the father who loved the prodigal son in the Gospels. A fake lover would seize upon items in Corinthians, but see little utility in deeply grasping and applying the contents of chapter 12. A genuine lover of God's Word would want to do it the way 1 John describes. */*/* BTW, I've heard that ALL the verses in Psalm 119 are about God's Word, whether written or directly inspired. That Psalm presents many synonyms for His Word. Commandments are the Word in that Psalm. Statutes are the Word. Etc. I thought I spotted one or two verses that lacked this many years ago, but that is too dim a memory to lean on.