waysider

Nothing personal but, I think I've heard enough conspiracy theories to last a lifetime.

Poly-rhythmic music defies the idea of mathematical exactness.....but it works.

Ahhhhh! But there's a caveat. The Way Tree ©1974 Each twig is to be self supporting, self propagating and self governing in cooperation with its respective Branch as each Branch is to its respective Limb, as each Limb is to its respective Trunk, as each Trunk is to the Root of The Way. (Bold font and resizing added) ............................ So, you see, it actually says the opposite of what we thought it said. The Twig is ultimately controlled by The Root. It was never intended to be "self" supporting, propagating or governing at all.

What if you had ?!

Maybe there was a misprint and it was really supposed to be called Power For Aberrant Living.

If 6 was 9, it would be music to my ears. Heh!

Well, what do you expect from a discipline that's convinced pie are square? Sheesh!

PFAL....pg. 3 ........In contrast to these Christian people, I could see that the secular world of non-Christians were manifesting a more abundant life than were members of the Church. .................................... So, then, remind me again why WE needed a class but they didn't. :wacko:

Kids songs are fine......for kids.

As I mentioned on another thread recently, when there was a large "healing event" at ROA (1973?), Wierwille did not participate. Instead, he stood on stage, behind the podium, and jabbered away into the microphone. Even though I was supposed to participate in that service ("ALL advanced class grads report to the front of the stage, immediately."), I sat it out and observed from the audience. All I witnessed was the usual "ministering" mumbo-jumbo that had become so common but, on a much larger scale. I did not see anything producing miracles, wonders, healings or any such thing...and I was in a much better position to observe than the participants. As for abundant life: It was clearly promoted, at the outset of PFAL, as being material, even though the principle scripture being utilized (John 10:10) was used out of context. Later, when it became apparent there was error in the teaching, the default explanation was that it was really spiritual. If you didn't understand that, it was your own fault for not believing, not renewing your mind, not speaking in tongues enough, not taking all the available classes, not stringing the chairs precisely enough, not using the correct ratio of yesterday's coffee to stretch the current batch, etc, and so on and so forth.

Thanks for everything you do, Mr. P.!

Well, you probably know, there is a poster who hasn't been here for a while, who seems to think that was the purpose of PFAL.... God-breathed and all that sort of thing.

My mom called it "happy noise".

Heh! Like a letter of reference from the devil!

The Hayflick Limit has nothing to do with contaminated gene pools, dominant/recessive traits, evil behavior or any such thing. It's simply the result of an inherent characteristic of human DNA. Cells have a finite number of times they can reproduce. When they reach that limit, they die. Think of it as being like a battery that has a predetermined number of recharges assigned to it. THIS article, though rather basic, offers some insight into the process.

......and when I opened my eyes, there was snow on the levee and it completely covered all the pirogues. ................Hallelujah!.................

I wonder what makes them think they're immune to the kind of corruption that inevitably finds its way into these types of operations. Surely, they can't think the law of believing is going to protect them.

The human body has an expiration date of 120 years. This raises a whole new set of questions about how time was measured during Biblical times. What did they consider a year? Methuselah, it's written, was something like 900+ years old when he died. That's not physically possible, so, either they measured time differently or there's some kind of symbolism represented ....or something else.

How old was Don when he died of cancer? I'm just curious.

Even if they didn't explicitly teach that you could use believing to live "forever", they certainly expected us to conclude you could extend your life, appreciably, by believing. As Sky pointed out, that's one of the things that presents a huge dilemma when considering the demise of these men who were supposedly pillars of The Way, whose "believing examples" we were supposed to follow..

Singing kids' songs as a group: It's a type of indoctrination. Specifically, it serves to de-emphasize the sense of individuality and reinforce the sense of group. That's why it was frowned upon when people would ad lib motions or words (ie: express individuality). ................in my opinion edit: The "call and response" we so frequently did is also an indoctrination reinforcement tool. Q."Having done all, we do WHAT, class?" A."STAND!"

"Any volunteer may be dismissed at any time and/or program cancelled at sole discretion of those charged with oversight." ...................................................... Deja vu.

I've had the misfortune of working for supervisors that have that ability. They can move around stealthfully and hear 90% of a conversation before you even realize they're nearby. They're masters of micromanagement. It's my opinion they do this because they lack confidence in their own ability to manage legitimately.... I know exactly what you're talking about.

If I had a time machine, I think I'd like to go back (briefly) to The Great Depression/Dustbowl days and get a sense of how people envisioned the future of America. John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath gives us a good glimpse into it but, there is still a certain sense of disconnect that comes with reading it in a book.

Well said.