TheInvisibleDan

Welcome Connerron. I admire your courage toward even contemplating the unsettling notion that demons may have been behind "tongues" - it is no easy jump to make when esteeming that which was previously thought "holy" or "truth" as now evil or "counterfeit". But the rotten fruits of the Way International have more than justified our exploring such possibilities. For all the tongues practiced throughout the Way International - rather than the collective "spiritual growth" that should have resulted in the greatest church movement in the world, it largely crashed and burned, the founder and his leaders manifesting anything but that resembling the "wisdom from above" as one might have reasonably expected. All those "tongues" seem to have had little effect there; instead of possessing Christ-like characteristics, many of those highly esteemed in twi turned out to be conniving, lying-thieving weasles, from the founder on down. Yeah, it makes a lot of good sense to reassess all that "tongues" stuff! I've leaned toward slightly different conclusions from yours; since reviewing Otto Everling's thesis "Paulinisch Angelologie und Daemonologie" and E. Earle Evan's provocative article on "Spiritual Gifts in the Pauline Community" (NTS 20) I've come to appreciate that peculiar "angelic" undercurrent flowing throughout the material of those chapters in 1 Corinthians 12 -14, which is also most strikingly apparent in Acts 2. Namely having to do with the role which angels were thought to have played in the function of the "spiritual gifts". Or in brief summation of the theory here - what we call the 9 "gifts" or "manifestations" may also have been actually regarded nine angelic "spirits" placed in service to every Christian, in the sense that "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets". Could these servicing "spirits" had been the principalities and powers "stripped" of their authority by Christ on the cross (Col.2:14f) - those comprising the "captives" which Christ led when He ascended? - and among "the gifts" given to men? Paul's classifications of angels and demons (as well as others at the time) were far more intriguing and dramatic than the oversimplistic dualism -of "good angels versus evil demons, God versus the Devil" which has come to dominate Christian theologies. When we encounter phrases like " principalities and powers and dominions" and the like throughout Pauline literature, there is little ground to assume anymore that Paul was limiting these designations to demons and devils in those places. Wierwille never knew or understood the mystery of the cross of Christ. Many assume that "the Spirit" teaches us but I think we're given as much (if not more) responsibility in teaching "spirits" (Eph.3:9) -whether our own, or angels appointed to us for service. The Way's angels didn't learn from those to whom they were appointed. They became as hopeless as the rest of us in Wierwille's empty "mystery". The angels suffered especially, because there was nothing uttered about the salvation which the Lord bestowed to them through the cross. Oh, the humans have supposedly been bestowed "Christ-in-them" but not us? What's in it for us? Why the hell are we serving these stupid beasts? Let's take 'em over and run this horse and pony show ourselves, just as we did among the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes so long ago at Jerusalem!" Sure, with all the energies the Way focused upon "devil spirits", - which in Pauline perspective, being merely one, lower class of "spirits" among many other more powerful classes of angelic "principalities and powers" -all the while, they failed to discern "The Elements" which entered their front door, and occupied their offices. As I mentioned, Paul's actual views on angels and demons are far profound for interpreting our expeiences in the Way than the oversimplified dualism mentioned earlier. SO did we speak in "the tongues of angels" in twi? Their actual interpretation probably would have been far less flattering than what our brains were trained to cook up. I'de like to end this post on a question to everyone: in all your experiences in the Way, does anyone here recall any occasion where someone got rebuked, reproved or even kicked out of the group for having produced an "interpretation" or a "prophecy" that was not well-received by the leaders, which content upset them so much? Danny

"Will they not think you are mad?"

Abigail, The material you've cited seems very reminscient of Khabbalistic material (at least according to what little I know). The Jewish Merkabah mystics - possibly the precursors to the Kabalistic mvoements - strike me as a very fascinating lot. They were thought to have exercised a form of glossolalia ("tongues"), of which the "Testament of Job" is thought to be a remnant of their literature. In that work, each of the three daughters of Job are depicted as uttering the tongue of an angel, and announcing prophecies. Danny

It was like being trapped in the waiting room of a doctor's office, hours on end, having nothing else to do but flip through an old copy of "Time" magazine and "Happy Housekeeping", and listen to the same loops of muzak playing again, and again, and again, and again. It was great.

Yo!

I know it's not proper to follow a post with a post, but because of that "War of the Roses" creation account, I've got this funny scene emblazened in my mind,- in the cartoony art style of those "Watchtower" and "Awake!" mags - of Adam in a hysterical pose of tearing his hair out undergoing a Joe Cocker-like kiniption fit, before a backdrop-collage of deities and statues flooded all around him - an angry, red-faced, long-bearded god among them blowing steam out his ears - and off in a distant corner, the plump, smiling goddess snickering in utter scheming delight behind a tree. Humor can be divine. The more extreme it pushes the edge of the serious and the conventional, the greater the resulting ectasy. Danny

Unfortunately though this may so of Christian interpretation down to the present day, it wasn't always the case. The Christianities that fell by the wayside in the historical process of Christian orthodoxy's ascendancy reflected interpretations that were as divergent as those among the movements of Judaism. Women held very prominent and powerful roles among these lost Christianities. Among the earliest "secular" accounts of Pliny the Younger, in his correspondance to Trajan, depicts the interrogation of a woman "minister' , most likely a representative of the Marcionite movement in that area of Pontus over which Pliny exercised authority (in addition to the fact of orthodoxy's indignant disapproval (as reflected in Epiphanius' outrage)that the Marcionite church would allow women to exercise the ritual of baptism). A Marcionite creation account preserved by Eznik Kolb more or less depicts the Genesis garden account as a fierce contending between a god and a goddess battling for their son Adam's adoration and loyalty. The creation account begins with both the world-creator and the feminine "Matter" collaborating on the creation of Adam,- as a husband and wife - after which Jehovah schemes that Adam should worship Him and no other - including his co-author. "Matter" catches wind of this, upon observing that Adam was acting particularly withdrawn toward her (Jehovah had just threatened Adam with death if he worshipped others besides him, esp. Mother-Earth) and decides to one-up him. She creates a multitude of gods and goddesses so as to so confuse Adam, so that he can't find Jehovah (lol). It's a funny story. Danny

I would interested too, if Jeudes is willing to upgrade and correct his information in light of these clarifications. Has anyone written him? You have my attention. Do you know the reason why? Perhaps to sit at the feet of a successful "schoolmaster" in preparation and hopes of running his own school? (had to be something other than the free beer). Danny

Such turned out to be the case with "The Satan Seller" by Mike Warnke. It's most likely the same thing with Gasson's book. A lot of these books were cranked out in the 70s to ride on "The Exorcist" wave, similar to the present, endless outcrop of "Knights Templar" books riding on Dan Brown's success. Danny

Chas, I'll see how I fare on this part of my project here. I've never worked with pickguard material so this will be a learning experience. As I mentioned earlier, I was considering adding some pickguard material upon the wooden front control panel of my Theremin, to evoke the air of a it being an actual musical instrument (too often, the Theremin case designs I've seen oft resemble to my eyes either an obscure stereo component or a piece of furniture). I just picked up a small router from Grizzly.com awhile back (along with a jigsaw and a dremel tool) so shaping and beveling the edges of whatever material I obtain should be no problem. Danny

Chas, Ed Roman likes to blow his own horn, to be sure. Personally, I find his prices a bit out of my range (lol). Still an interesting "rant" on the various Ebay schemes. As I said, I've had mostly good luck with Ebay so far. I gambled $200 on a new classical-electric guitar and with a little tlc (better strings, truss rod adjustment) it's turned out to be quite a decent-sounding, playable instrument. The same with picking up the Theremin kit online. Thank you so much for the links to the pickguard sites - and the additional Ebay advice. Danny

Yikes! Chas, if your husband is still pining for that guitar, here's a site you might want to show him concerning guitar selling scams on Ebay - http://www.edromanguitars.com/rant/ebay.htm which I came across just a little while ago. In fact everyone here should perhaps read it, just to keep in mind when considering a major purchase on Ebay. I've been very fortunate with Ebay so far, but apparently others haven't fared so well. It's good to come across this info. Danny

I gotta pick everyones brain here. I'm looking for a sheet of pickguard material that has a faux turquoise (not tortoise) stone-grain appearance to it. Has anyone seen anything like that around in guitar shops/luthier supply places? Perhaps such a thing doesn't exist yet (hard to imagine, though I haven't been able to find such a thing at the online luthier shops I've visited so far). Danny

Hi Socks, I know what you mean about guitars. I'm still in the process of putting finishing touchings on my Theremin case, and am even contemplating picking up some nice looking pickguard material to put on the front face plate, in an attempt to give it a personality like an actual instrument rather than being a mere box of electronics. My last file was a short song, though I wondering how big the file was that you downloaded. Perhaps it didn't upload entirely (I may have passed some limit on uploads). Danny

I had also read the same report as Allan, though I don't recall "Jesus loving" marines - for all we know, they could have been Wiccan. And who knows the fate of Zarqawi's soul? If there is indeed anything to the "soul sleep" belief, then perhaps his soul is stored one of God's backup disks, where some of the tech angels will run their "anti-viral" software, remove the bugs, and "reboot" Zarqawi as good as new. :) Danny

I suspect (outside of yourself and perhaps other guitar players there) most folks in audience probably didn't have a clue. That's the first time I've heard that piece by Grieg - I often don't hear pieces by him outside of "Morning", "Hall of the Mountain King" and his piano concerto in A minor. Danny

Evan, Impeccable playing, and the sound is absolutely gorgeous. Nothing beats an actual live, open-air recording of which one can also enjoy the acoustics of an actual room. Inspires me to want to invest in some decent mics. Thank you. Danny

Ah Tom, 1953s "Invaders from Mars" - it's almost like watching a lost "body-snatcher" episode of "Leave it to Beaver". The music is really striking in this, in that, while three other sci-fi movies that came out earlier ("The Thing", "It Came from Outer Space" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still") all employed the Theremin (and the same Theremin player, Samuel Hoffman), "Invaders from Mars" departed from this trend and used very bizarre choral arrangements fed through an echo chamber, accompanied by an organ, which played each time someone fell victim to "the sandpit". The music is credited to a "Raoul Krashner" (sp.) - which is not a composer but actually a music company which marketed music to the television and movie industry. They had all their music cheaply recorded overseas (no doubt by fine European orchestras) to circumvent the American composer/musician union at the time. It's not absolutely certain who had actually composed that wild music (though the name Gillman has been tossed about), aside from the fact that it was a small German chorus (comprised of 5-7 people) which did the "singing martian" cues. What a good, creepy movie, especially for kids! I remember that movie creeping me out good, watching it on our family black&white tv during the 60s. And psychologically - out of all the sci-fis of the 50s era - "Invaders from Mars" perhaps struck a deeper nerve with kids, as it is actually filmed from the perspective of a child, who witnessed a flying saucer landing in the sandpit behind his house, and from thereon, watched his parents and townfolk becoming "possessed" by the spirits of Martian-Commie hoodlums (identifiable from the implants on the back of their necks - which may have played a certain influence on the formation of modern alien abduction beliefs) To accentuate the child's perspective, the set designer (R. Metzies) from "Gone with the Wind" was hired to do the set production for this movie. Furniture and doors were deliberately built higher and larger, and a number of camera angles seemingly shot from below waist level. Hence, everything appaered larger and higher to the child's eyes. It's a very fascinating, well-done movie, unfortunately hampered by its over-use of military stock-footage toward the end. Tom, if I recall the giant ant sounds in "Them", they were more a chirping sound -how this was done, I don't know at the moment - but it didn't sound like a theremin. But it's been awhile since I watched that movie. And I may be confusing some stuff with the giant grasshopper movie ("The Beginning of the End"). I'm trying to recall the Vincent Price movie of which you speak...wondering if it was one of those William Castle productions (like "House on Haunted Hill"). Chat, I think spacey, dreamy music is a good thing too. Not everybody goes for that sort of thing nowadays, but I enjoy listening (and trying to put together) music that transports one elsewhere. Speaking of dreams, the attached song was inspired by a rift I heard in a dream. That doesn't happen too often but I love it when it does. This was recorded just before the last song I posted, - it's something of a "flipside" to that single. Same guitar, same process of recording, but using only slight reverb just to give it some air (it probably could have used more). Again, I don't know how "original" it is but it was fun to do. Danny Colchester_Lights_DJM.MP3

Robert Tilton...omigosh, yes. I first caught him on the tube about 14 years ago, as I was up early one morning, sitting on the couch and feeding my baby daughter, and flipping through the dregs of early morning TV...lo and behold, there's this weird wide-eyed man standing on a stage, who gave a serious stare into the camera and uttered, in the same tone of telling a scary campfire story: "Satan came to me last night, and he was so scary..." and proceeded to ramble on for the next few minutes about his battle with the Devil himself. I never laughed so hard in my life. I ended up ordering his free "package" which included a booklet on "Speaking in Tongues" (he must have read Stile's book as well), a huge payment plan "gameboard" poster of him holding his healing hand up to the TV screen, and a tiny plastic of "holy water' (which has since then evaporated). He almost persuadest me to become an athiest (lol). A couple years later, I guess he got nabbed by 20/20 through an expose on televangelists. He apparently was taking all these prayer requests mailed to him, removing the money and tossing the rest into the garbage without bothering to read the stuff. His reply to the expose was that he had been allergic to the ink people used to write their letters (but not apparently so with the same ink used in writing the checks). Fast forward a few months later, - and he's televising a fund-drive to save his crumbling empire, centered around the theme of "building a [Nehemia] wall" - for every contribution sent in, his sidekick would excitedly run across the stage to add another brick to this wall... What a piece of work, that guy... yep, there's also room for Robert Tilton at "Happy Acres". Danny

Wow. I could give up the "Doctrinal" for this thread. This has been a lot of fun, doing "shoptalk" and drawing and exchanging encouragement from kindred artists and music lovers. Thank you so much for your kind words Cha-thy. I would have never expected to hear the song described beyond "spacey" as "beautiful". The feedback is so interesting. Chas- hide those credit cards! That guitar is fantastic. I don't think I've ever actually seen an electric- semi-hollow body version of a Fender. I wonder how much that sounds like a cross between a Strat and a Les Paul. I may need to hide my cards as well. Socks - my personal preference gravitates toward a lower tuning - retaining and transposing the standard tuning (E,A,D..) a bit lower, to about "D" - feels most natural to me - and I think just as much so to the resonance or acoustic "sweetspot" of the guitars (at least the ones I've had). Which wood bodies produce such gorgeous, rich basses - but which are out of range if adhering to the key of the standard E tuning. I love the dramatic possibilities having those extra basses brings. I love soundtracks too. Just last week I picked up the soundtrack to the original 1951 version of "The Thing" composed by Dmitri Tiomkin (and featuring a theremin), who was also quite prolific ("it's a Wonderful Life", "the Almao", etc.) - what an intense and complex style this composer had. I've noticed my daughter has taken after the "old man" - she's been collecting soundtracks to her favorite animes. Danny

Hey thanks Socks. It may be an original arrangement, though I could be wrong (lol) - perhaps more a reflection of every concept band song I've had rattling in my head since the 70s or something. Via a mixer (of an old 4 track recorder) I plugged the guitar directly into my PC soundcard when I recorded it. Which was one reason I wanted a classical-electric at the time, for the convenience of quickly recording ideas and not waking the neighborhood in the process. The keyboard I just picked up is...a Magnus organ (lol). I have a different song in mind for its use, primarily for the warm, chord button sounds these things make, in accompaniment with a guitar. My very first instrument was a plastic, tabletop Magnus organ (15 keys, 6 chord buttons), which died many eons ago; I sure had a lot of fun with it, with its sound still preserved on 30 year old cassette tapes (in what I call "The Ancient Cry of Hell!" sessions, where I had a beer-drinking friend reciting bad, spontaneous poetry, while the instruments carried on aimlessly in the background) but this thing, besides having a wooden cabinet and almost twice as many keys, in addition to a total of 12 chord buttons, is a real beauty I couldn't resist (lol). Wait until my wife finds out about this...perhaps if I sneak the package into the garage when the UPS guy comes, I can get away with blending it in with the other artifacts in the garage...nah, she's gonna find out... Danny

(lol) Yes you may - that's a better title me thinks. All my tunes tend to turn out kind of weird and "spacey". Must be that mid-70s ELP influence. And a few other things from that era as well... Chas, now that I think of it, I could have used a "chorus" plug-in...I ought to start taking notes as I mix some of these things (lol). Actually the song was previously more developed toward the end, but in a bad way - I "faded out" before I got that part (lol). Danny

Help! I've lost my 70s "concept" band ...to the enchantment of the "Magical Cultic Wonderland" Instrument: "Springfield" electric-classical guitar ($200, made in Korea) Recorded: circ.2001, on Soundforge/CoolEdit. 2 tracks. Post-mix: Some weird phase-shifter plug-in (I forget which one now). It's sloppy but kind of interesting. Danny Magical_Cultic_Wonderland.mp3

Oral was sort of decent-like before the advent of the gargantuous Jesus which pinned Oral beneath his giant thumb in his 'tower of song'. Someone once told me an analogy he had heard from Oral, in effect; 'Faith is like a kite, which for the clouds you cannot see, but you can feel still present if only through the tug of the kite-string...' It seems more than just poor Oral's kite-string snapped that time many years ago, when he held himself hostage in the top floor of his tower. I loved your compliments, Excy. Thank you. Danny

Well if the Poops of Pat are rattling, he must be stashing all that spare change somewhere... I think we're both wrong here, Mark. I think it's "head-press".