Some of my best thoughts likely were spontaneous. Under der vey's tuteledge, I quickly learned how to suppress them, labelling them thinking evil, unrenewed mind.. even "influenced" by da adversary..
What I find intriguing.. after beating individuality and common sense out of people for YEARS, loy actually wanted them to try something intuitive, like.. "genuine spiritual suspicion". So the pendulum swung completely the other way.. the result, people being "confronted" and marked and avoided at the unbridled whim of the particular goon the people found themselves sitting before..
What I find intriguing.. after beating individuality and common sense out of people for YEARS, loy actually wanted them to try something intuitive, like.. "genuine spiritual suspicion".
I'll go you one better... Years before "genuine spiritual suspicion"... I remember sitting in a corps teaching with Craig in the BRC, and he starts relating a story about some poor corps person on the field who was getting chewed out by their leadership for not showing enough initiative in their area and this poor corps-bot says: But I don't know what to do!!!
Both the local leader and Craig were flabbergasted to the point of outrage that someone could go through years of way corps training (the best training in the world!) and get out of the field and not know what to do!!! They blamed her and said she obviously hadn't made the most of her time in-rez and that was the lesson he was imparting to us: we are laying it all out for you, absorb everything and prosper.
But what I thought was, this person had spent who knows how many years being completely micro-managed and getting in trouble whenever she strayed outside the dictated path, then suddenly she was responsible for a getting things done with virtually no directives at all. Of COURSE she was at a complete loss!!! And they were mad at HER (typical)... it just never occurred to them to look at what THEY might have done wrong in her training.
He seemed to be pretty joined at the hip with the adversary or however someone spells it, but then someone deeply entrenched in TWI would take a misspelled word and totally dismiss the argument on that basis alone.
It was some years ago on the History Channel about the the German army under Hitler. One of the weaknesses (resulting in their ultimate down fall) was that the military commanders were not allowed to make crucial decisions on their own without orders from the higher ups.
I don't know if the Christianity of today will give anyone a break or a chance to even take a breath but to the extent we can, we do make our choices and live with them, for better or worse. Hopefully better, if only a little. That's the way it goes it seems, and as long it's going we're in good shape. Stop the go and something's wrong, y'know?
What any of us really think in this vast boundless expanse of conscious space that seems to reside inside the few square inches of brain stuff and it's interial mass we carry around may only be able to be called "mine" or "ours" in the same way I call the earth, moon and stars "mine" when I admire them and wonder what the H is out there, really.
So I dunno. Is "thinking" I or anyone else can control my thoughts an honorable deed or a prideful conceit? If the latter, we may all be the punchline of a grand celestial joke we'll never get. ("Knock knock"...."Who's there?"...."Aaargh! You always ask the same question, don't you - oh never mind! hahahaaha!"
Control, choose...I think I do, but then what else would I think? Perhaps as Dylan wrote we do choose, because ultimately we have to. It's ingrained in the wood. Remove the grain and what dya got? We do what we can, the best we can, because It's all we can do. Stop the do and something's very wrong y'know?
mmm...I used to think I could control my thoughts as described by twi, but then when I started meditating, it was amazing to see fast my "thoughts wandered" off of what I was trying to concentrate on...just a thought <_<
that doesn't rule out the human ability to change our minds from one thought to another and decide which one to act upon...
other stray thoughts on this topic: I remember wondering, when I started to question doctrines, that if "the adversary" could so easily deceive me like twi claimed, then the fact I was "standing with the household" wasn't providing much protection from him...
Pardon me if I appear dense but that phrase: "If you don't control your thoughts the adversary will..." Was that something TWI taught? I've been out 20 years but I don't remember ever hearing it. Was it an LCM era thingee?
Pardon me if I appear dense but that phrase: "If you don't control your thoughts the adversary will..." Was that something TWI taught? I've been out 20 years but I don't remember ever hearing it. Was it an LCM era thingee?
sudo
Sudo
That goes all the way back to the Bishop Pillai days. (Monkeys in a cage, birds nesting in your mind, etc.) It's been reworded and retooled in a multitude of various ways. It's been used throughout TWI teachings for many years, especially in RM and DWA classes and teachings as well as the AC.
Thanks for the info but I still don't recall it. Could be... that it doesn't really make sense to me so it probably didn't back in my TWI days either. I never really bought all the TWI stuff hook line and sinker anyways and Bishop Pillai's book seemed like he was making a lot of it up to me. I was probably not a good little twigie.
I was in from 1972 until January 11, 1996 ... and I never heard it put just that way. Fact is, we DO have an old man (Scripture says), but TWI twisted that truth to make people afraid to think for themselves in any way, shape, or form except that of which they approved ... some of which was scriptural, much of which was not.
I remember a (at that time recent) 9th Corps graduate in Chicago (YC) telling me when I asked her whether it was right for certain unmarried people to sleep with other unmarried folks that I "had no right" [her very words] to expect her to know the answer to that just because she had been through the Corps. At a later time, the Area Coordinator (the wonderful - yes, he was - KK) told me I had EVERY right to expect her to know the answer to that question. Bottom line is, she just didn't want to ADMIT she knew the answer, so she used it as an excuse to melt my face for even having the audacity to ask it!
I heard it explicitly taught that if you don't control your thoughts the adversary will: through tv, your friends, family, kids, what you have in your home. perhaps this rabid doctrine evolved into its ultra-mind-controlling form in LCM's time, but it was taught at RC, LC, and BC level.
if you give the devil a toehold, he'll force the door wider. that's why wives were to be absolutely obedient to their husbands, because if the house was dirty or the laundry undone or if they didn't put out whenever hubby wanted or listen to every word out of his mouth with worshipful respect, she'd let the adversary into the family. the man was required to rule with an iron fist for the same reason, to keep his wife in line so the adversary wouldn't infiltrate the family if she became a busybody. the wife also had to control every thought going through her kids' brains lest the adversary get a toehold in their impressionable little heads, too.
so yes, it was that easy in twi to let the devil take your mind over and it was an excuse to micromanage the lives of the "faithful". IMO, it was the leadership who were the busybodies.
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waysider
Literal translation according TWI usage
" Think exactly what we tell you to think or the Boogie Man will get you!"
(I wish i hadn't seen it in the original.)
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Ham
Some of my best thoughts likely were spontaneous. Under der vey's tuteledge, I quickly learned how to suppress them, labelling them thinking evil, unrenewed mind.. even "influenced" by da adversary..
What I find intriguing.. after beating individuality and common sense out of people for YEARS, loy actually wanted them to try something intuitive, like.. "genuine spiritual suspicion". So the pendulum swung completely the other way.. the result, people being "confronted" and marked and avoided at the unbridled whim of the particular goon the people found themselves sitting before..
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JeffSjo
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
How about, If you don't let us control you we will destroy you.
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so it was
Ham, I think you nailed it there. Many of us were booted for reasons that summed up as "able to think for ourselves"
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TheHighWay
I'll go you one better... Years before "genuine spiritual suspicion"... I remember sitting in a corps teaching with Craig in the BRC, and he starts relating a story about some poor corps person on the field who was getting chewed out by their leadership for not showing enough initiative in their area and this poor corps-bot says: But I don't know what to do!!!
Both the local leader and Craig were flabbergasted to the point of outrage that someone could go through years of way corps training (the best training in the world!) and get out of the field and not know what to do!!! They blamed her and said she obviously hadn't made the most of her time in-rez and that was the lesson he was imparting to us: we are laying it all out for you, absorb everything and prosper.
But what I thought was, this person had spent who knows how many years being completely micro-managed and getting in trouble whenever she strayed outside the dictated path, then suddenly she was responsible for a getting things done with virtually no directives at all. Of COURSE she was at a complete loss!!! And they were mad at HER (typical)... it just never occurred to them to look at what THEY might have done wrong in her training.
DUH
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excathedra
get a foothold
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cheranne
or If you don't see the devil walking in front of you maybe YOUR walking with him!!! Yikes
Running with the devil song comes to mind! :unsure:
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Ham
Let's not forget "a friend of the devil is a friend of mine"..
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Mike
"If you don't control your thoughts the advisary will..."
...Yeah! And before you know it, he'll even have you spelling his name wrong...
II Corinthians 10:5
Â
Casting down imaginations,
and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,
and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
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waysider
Geeze, Too bad Wierwille didn't do that!
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Tzaia
Ain't that the truth!
He seemed to be pretty joined at the hip with the adversary or however someone spells it, but then someone deeply entrenched in TWI would take a misspelled word and totally dismiss the argument on that basis alone.
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kimberly
It was some years ago on the History Channel about the the German army under Hitler. One of the weaknesses (resulting in their ultimate down fall) was that the military commanders were not allowed to make crucial decisions on their own without orders from the higher ups.
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socks
"It may be the devil or it may be the Lord..."
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Jim
Dillon?
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socks
Dilbert or Dylan, Jim.
I know I'm driftin' but...
I don't know if the Christianity of today will give anyone a break or a chance to even take a breath but to the extent we can, we do make our choices and live with them, for better or worse. Hopefully better, if only a little. That's the way it goes it seems, and as long it's going we're in good shape. Stop the go and something's wrong, y'know?
What any of us really think in this vast boundless expanse of conscious space that seems to reside inside the few square inches of brain stuff and it's interial mass we carry around may only be able to be called "mine" or "ours" in the same way I call the earth, moon and stars "mine" when I admire them and wonder what the H is out there, really.
So I dunno. Is "thinking" I or anyone else can control my thoughts an honorable deed or a prideful conceit? If the latter, we may all be the punchline of a grand celestial joke we'll never get. ("Knock knock"...."Who's there?"...."Aaargh! You always ask the same question, don't you - oh never mind! hahahaaha!"
Control, choose...I think I do, but then what else would I think? Perhaps as Dylan wrote we do choose, because ultimately we have to. It's ingrained in the wood. Remove the grain and what dya got? We do what we can, the best we can, because It's all we can do. Stop the do and something's very wrong y'know?
Control, choice...
"When winter came, I just wanted to go.
But deep in the desert,
I longed for the snow".
(Orleans, but if David had played a Strat...)
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penworks
mmm...I used to think I could control my thoughts as described by twi, but then when I started meditating, it was amazing to see fast my "thoughts wandered" off of what I was trying to concentrate on...just a thought <_<
that doesn't rule out the human ability to change our minds from one thought to another and decide which one to act upon...
other stray thoughts on this topic: I remember wondering, when I started to question doctrines, that if "the adversary" could so easily deceive me like twi claimed, then the fact I was "standing with the household" wasn't providing much protection from him...
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Sudo
Pardon me if I appear dense but that phrase: "If you don't control your thoughts the adversary will..." Was that something TWI taught? I've been out 20 years but I don't remember ever hearing it. Was it an LCM era thingee?
sudo
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waysider
Sudo
That goes all the way back to the Bishop Pillai days. (Monkeys in a cage, birds nesting in your mind, etc.) It's been reworded and retooled in a multitude of various ways. It's been used throughout TWI teachings for many years, especially in RM and DWA classes and teachings as well as the AC.
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Sudo
Waysider,
Thanks for the info but I still don't recall it. Could be... that it doesn't really make sense to me so it probably didn't back in my TWI days either. I never really bought all the TWI stuff hook line and sinker anyways and Bishop Pillai's book seemed like he was making a lot of it up to me. I was probably not a good little twigie.
sudo
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waysider
It's the central concept behind Dealing With The Adversary and the purpose of Retemory Cards.----"On Guard!!!"
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Bramble
If you don't control your thoughts the adversary will...
In the LCM days:
...the adversary will ceate grooves in your brain that become conduits for a devil spirits and all their friends.
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DogLover
I was in from 1972 until January 11, 1996 ... and I never heard it put just that way. Fact is, we DO have an old man (Scripture says), but TWI twisted that truth to make people afraid to think for themselves in any way, shape, or form except that of which they approved ... some of which was scriptural, much of which was not.
I remember a (at that time recent) 9th Corps graduate in Chicago (YC) telling me when I asked her whether it was right for certain unmarried people to sleep with other unmarried folks that I "had no right" [her very words] to expect her to know the answer to that just because she had been through the Corps. At a later time, the Area Coordinator (the wonderful - yes, he was - KK) told me I had EVERY right to expect her to know the answer to that question. Bottom line is, she just didn't want to ADMIT she knew the answer, so she used it as an excuse to melt my face for even having the audacity to ask it!
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waysider
Here is one variation from the 1973 Advanced Class (Session on discerning of spirits)
TRAP DOOR
"The break in your unrenewed mind which gives a tendency or weak characteristic which allows the adversary to get a hold in your unrenewed mind."
(It's a bit convoluted but it's really the same essence as " If you don't control your thoughts, the adversary will.")
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potato
I heard it explicitly taught that if you don't control your thoughts the adversary will: through tv, your friends, family, kids, what you have in your home. perhaps this rabid doctrine evolved into its ultra-mind-controlling form in LCM's time, but it was taught at RC, LC, and BC level.
if you give the devil a toehold, he'll force the door wider. that's why wives were to be absolutely obedient to their husbands, because if the house was dirty or the laundry undone or if they didn't put out whenever hubby wanted or listen to every word out of his mouth with worshipful respect, she'd let the adversary into the family. the man was required to rule with an iron fist for the same reason, to keep his wife in line so the adversary wouldn't infiltrate the family if she became a busybody. the wife also had to control every thought going through her kids' brains lest the adversary get a toehold in their impressionable little heads, too.
so yes, it was that easy in twi to let the devil take your mind over and it was an excuse to micromanage the lives of the "faithful". IMO, it was the leadership who were the busybodies.
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