WordWolf

The how all Scripture explains itself was straight out of that book. Bullinger also wrote extensively on "Figures of Speech" and wrote a book with that title. Bullinger also wrote "Witness of the Stars", which was one of the 2 books that were used when writing "Jesus Christ: Our Promised Seed". Bullinger also wrote 2 books, both with titles phrased as questions, on the subject of the dead. vpw claimed to write a book on the subject, with the same content included, and the title was phrased as a question. "Are the Dead Alive Now?" is a compilation of some of Bullinger's works, most notably "the Rich Man and Lazarus: an Intermediate State?" and "King Saul and the Witch of Endor: Did the Prophet Samuel Rise at Her Bidding?" Most readers will note that vpw also ripped off the "title with question mark" in addition to the content of the books.

The green card had the list. Supposedly, the list was compiled in response to grads who claimed those benefits. In reality, they seem right out of the last 4 sessions. For example, "rest to the soul." vpw claimed that, if you missed a few hours of sleep, you could SIT and then you wouldn't need the sleep anymore. He also touted it as a cure for insomnia- SIT and you can drift off to sleep.

Plagiarism does not have time-constraints. COPYRIGHT has time-constraints. When Ralph Woodrow wrote "Babylon Mystery Religion", he took Alexander Hislop's book "the Two Babylons" and rewrote it into a reader-friendly, modern book. Hislop's book was no longer under copyright. That meant that Woodrow did not have to pay royalties to a copyright holder for use of the contents. He could use 100% of the contents without paying a cent- which is what he did. What he DID have to do, however, was CITE HIS SOURCES. All over the book are endnotes for each chapter where he correctly cites Hislop's book. "The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas" is a book that's no longer under copyright. So, any publishing company can print the book- but they have to correctly credit Alexander Dumas for writing it. That's why you can get a print copy fairly cheap, relative to the size of the book. ==================== Furthermore, any dictionary can have a copyright- and they do. There's no copyright on "dictionary" or "Webster's Dictionary." So any printing company can use either phrase, but they'd need to make up their own dictionary. Merriam-Webster and American Heritage are 2 companies that make up their own, and they're fine pieces of work. The original dictionary by Noah Webster, however, should be public domain. You could reprint the entire thing, so long as NW's name was on it. Shakespeare's works are all public domain by now. Lots of things have been based on them without paying for their use. However, Shakespeare still has to get credit for his work-you're required to CITE SOURCES.

My part in the thread was peculiar, for those who followed the whole thread. Initially, I avoided participation because I thought the tone was far too antagonistic. (I figured that, if this is the "After" picture, I can skip adding more acid to my lifestyle.) Once it cooled off, I kept up reading, mostly. My initial position was similar to the twi one, but without a depth of conviction. I hadn't led anyone into it in decades. As the thread proceeded on, the position that the modern, twi-style was nothing like the Pentecost style proved to be well-supported, and the other position had nothing to dispute it- neither anything I could think of, nor that others could think of, could account for the differences. So, I CHANGED MY POSITION COMPLETELY for the purpose of this thread's topic. To clarify: this changed nothing about my convictions about God. This changed nothing about my convictions about the Bible. This dramatically changed my convictions about the SIT that twi taught me. I do not know if the Pentecost style is "available" today. I am convinced I haven't seen it, and the twi system doesn't teach it. So, if it's not possible, the sooner I divest myself of the twi style as allegedly that, the better. If it IS possible now, why would I bother looking for it if I thought I'd been doing it for years? Oh, and acknowledging all that, I STILL SIT in the modern style. I don't use it for what twi recommended, and don't believe it's anything that isn't originating from me. It does have legitimate uses once one gets there. " Whether or not there is real SIT, the assertion is that the twi style itself was education in, and practice of, how to COUNTERFEIT the actual experience of SIT, with social reinforcement filling in the gaps. (We all wanted to SIT, we were told it was fantastic, we were told this is how it's done, all our friends wanted us to SIT, we wanted to SIT, so when we put the twi counterfeit into practice, we were eager to believe it was the genuine and not the counterfeit, and our friends believed the same.) Whether or not that's true, the evidence points that way." Although I DO believe that there were a few incidents with a real message from God Almighty, I also now think that the TIP instances were mostly mundane. "That's what I did when I attempted to SIT. When I meant to interpret or prophesy, I looked for a message to bless the people at hand, something God wanted them to hear. With no immediate revelation (in nearly every case, I think), I reached into my subconscious mind and into my experience WITH these messages in twi and produced ones that sounded like everyone else's. And I never MEANT to lie or fake it. I meant to serve God. I meant to bring forth messages at God Almighty's behest. I meant to do the right thing." "As to Sociology, any Sociologist (or competent undergrad student) could design a social structure for an organization that would have the participants, the members, taught that free vocalization was divine, and that if they trusted God, both syllables not connected to any language and lacking the structure of any language would be directly of God. They then could go on and teach the people that, if they trusted God, the people could "interpret" that, and that the words in their own language that immediately followed would be of God, and that God wanted them to. Then the only things needed would be some samples to acculturate the people so they "knew how it worked." That's exactly how the "slain in the Spirit" people work, and the people who "dance in the Spirit." They expect God to deliver, and they do something and expect God to provide the specifics. They sincerely believe that's how it works. Ok, so that's a framework that would provide the expectations. The only missing things would be the actual utterances. Any improvisational actor can produce free vocalization. If their instructions were clear, they could free vocalize and speak in their language after that, insisting that was the translation. With some preparation and samples to draw from, they could produce results identical to the twi experience- stand up, speak without a language, then speak in their language and sound EXACTLY like the expected interpretation. Any adult could do the same with some training. With the proper mindset, any adult could be taught to do that and believe it was all directly from God. As for "prophecy", that's even simpler. They'd just need a sampling to draw from, so they knew what it sounded like. Any improvisational actor could keep going as long as needed or instructed. Any non-actor who was convinced it was of God could do it all the time. So, COULD it all have been faked? Yes, it could all have been faked. We were taught it was real. We had expectations it was real. We expected that if we uttered syllables, God would provide meaning, and we had samples of what other people's speech sounded like. (I've noticed that most modern SIT in twi sounded the same no matter what state the speaker was from.) As for interpretation or prophecy, yes, with expectations raised, and samples to draw from, you'd get well-intentioned people who provided them and thought they were from God. The speakers were primed, the listeners were primed. Nothing was questioned, nobody WANTED to question it." "Improvisational actors are trained in a wide variety of skills that would affect their ability to do this. However, conmen can do it as well. And anyone can learn to do it. It takes longer when someone has to believe they're doing something spiritual rather than something mundane, but it's easy if you have the right setup. You need the right patter to prime them (like when vpw says things for THREE FULL SESSIONS like "Don't you want to speak the wonderful works of God?"). You need lots of people to provide social context and social pressure. You need people over at least 3 nights (more is much more effective) to demonstrate what it looks like "during manifestations." Months of it is more effective than nights of it. When Session 12 rolls along, the pigeon/student is primed to go, and if they don't SIT on cue along with the entire room, then someone comes over to them directly to get them going, and takes them aside if that doesn't work. With more time and practice with the first step, the next steps become easy. The Intermediate spends a LOT of time on prepping people to believe that the next thing is of God. One guy I know had been waiting to do for years, and was complaining that several sessions went by without getting into it- they just kept getting into "You can do it." "I know I can do it, show me how!" Each Intermediate had groups where we did it and set up the new students perfectly to expect to do the same and what it looks like. Instead of an acting instructor, we had a class instructor, hours and hours of prep to prime our expectations, then hours in individual groups where people learned more by observation and practice. One of the most important things, which is easy for some people to forget, is all the previous exposure to the stuff in meetings, and again there. So, the person knows what the result is supposed to sound like. I could design a class exercise for acting students to look the same. The only difference is that the acting students would know they are faking it. (Ok, the 2nd of 2 differences would be I'd do it in a fraction of the time because the acting students would know they are faking it, and I could skip straight to the ingredients of the specific performance- how to move, how to stay, how to make the SIT sounds, what components to place in the "interpretation" and what components to leave out, etc. The result would either look like an Excellors Session, or a full meeting, depending on what I designed the thing to look like." "The thing is, when people went/go through the INT class, it's NOT in a void. They had months of "fellowships" with months of samples of what the "messages from God" are supposed to sound like and look like. So, they know what to expect, and have social conditioning that everyone else expects exactly that, too. THEN comes the "you can do it" pep talks for a few sessions, THEN comes the "how to" in the sessions/excellor sessions/ small groups. Also, don't forget that any sampling of people will cover "normal distribution." Some will lag behind (and may need private sessions on top of months of prep and sessions of pep talk) and some will surge forward (and may do the stuff with only the exposure from 12 sessions of pfal or from seeing a few meetings and following the instructions in the books.) So, there will always be a few examples of people who need very little exposure. We never really discussed the "slow cases." What qualifies as a "short period" is different for people who know they're faking it and people who would be convinced they were doing it supernaturally. A class of actors could do it in one long session-provided enough examples of material were provided. Faking a language, pious manner, those are easy. Most of it will be details of the meeting, then samples of the "messages from God." So, it COULD all have been faked. I'm convinced at least some of it was NOT faked. I'm not sure how much, but SOME. (Much less than half. Maybe 5%, maybe 1%, maybe less.)" [And yes, obviously that's a guess on my part.]

I wonder how many people ever hesitated at the obvious difference between "seed" (as in a birth) and the involvement of an external, discrete spirit, which bears no resemblance to a birth or of "seed" in any definition. vpw needlessly spirit-ized the meaning (what else is new?) and vpw REALLY ran with it.

If one presumes that this was part of a larger dialogue, and one rather sensibly concludes that "the serpent" was not a description of a literal animal, but rather a descriptive nickname (like "the Dragon" for Bruce Lee or calling someone a fox, a sidewinder, a jackal, a vulture, a pig and so on), then it took place in some kind of language-and one of reasonable sophistication (not some crude code like "hand signals" but something like English, Spanish, French, German, Italian or the like,) where there's sufficient vocabulary to discuss in detail.

[Actually, MR AP, I explained that in the first post of the thread. "It's not meant to be a discussion of Doctrine- feel free to revive the Doctrinal thread or start a new one if you want to explore the doctrinal implications. This is about the mechanics of "free vocalization", what it is and is not. I think this is a subject worth discussing by itself- that got buried in a previous discussion addressing a lot more. So, I've meant to start this thread for some time." It's neither DOCTRINAL (nor religious nor theological) nor ABOUT THE WAY (its about the practice done by actors, small children, etc.) This practice has been called "baby talk" and "gibberish" in different contexts, but also "free vocalization" when someone wanted a more proper term to discuss the practice. It's more respectful, and lacks the pejorative elements the other phrases contain.] [by saying I was diverging completely from Doctrinal to discuss something completely independent of Doctrine, yes, the discussion started with doctrine but I felt an entirely separate discussion of exactly this was called for, and we can clearly discuss specifically this practice- those of us who honestly want to and not attempt to drag it off-topic.] [Less than a page in, and it seems you didn't get what the thread's about. It's been clearly explained above. Rather than repost everything a few lines below where they were posted, I'll just recommend re-reading it slower and paying attention. I was clear and stayed on-topic, and the same was true of waysider.] [Allan, sounds like you want to take the one thread SPECIFICALLY designed to AVOID DOCTRINE, and take it OFF-TOPIC into Doctrine. There's an entirely other thread in Doctrine already about that. This thread is valuable all on its own, discussing non-Doctrinal things. I would rather you not attempt to rob it of its focus and uniqueness by making it a duplicate of an existing thread.] [if you have a post that actually addresses "free vocalization" without being specifically Doctrinal or About the Way, PLEASE repost it here, or link it and I'll do so. (Providing it actually isn't Doctrinal or About the Way.) We have threads in those fora about those things already, this is intentionally separate. And, rather than bury this discussion deep in a separate discussion, I thought it was valuable all on its own and deserved to be available on its own. It appears waysider, at least, agreed with me.] [This thread, rather specifically, is about discussing "FREE VOCALIZATION", a practice common OUTSIDE OF TWI. This practice is not "About the Way." It's about a practice of small children and aspiring actors. This practice is not about "Doctrine." I know the posters CAN understand this, and most do. Those who REFUSE to understand this are doing so INTENTIONALLY, since I do not accept they're too stupid to see the difference when the CONTENT of the thread is otherwise. Then again, we're probably getting people SKIPPING THE CONTENT OF THE POSTS and then posting and objecting to both the thread and the posts. That's intellectually dishonest as well as dishonorable.]

In case they wanted to discuss this also, here's this thread bumped with the others.

Bumped up for those who wanted to re-discuss this.

Bumped up for those interested in re-discussing this.

Sounds like "Love, American Style." I'll be back by Saturday morning, if not sooner. Feel free to take it if you can't wait that long.

*Raf stops singing, WW wakes up* "Come On, Let's Go", Ritchie Valens.

That's it.

....and there's no distinct pattern of WHICH posters get respect. Some of the younger, not-in-long posters get as much respect-or more- than some posters who were all over the programs long ago. Personally, I like anonymity. I prefer to rely on my own communications and any facts I can bring to the table rather than any credentials I can bring to the table.

"Masquerading as a man with a reason. My charade is the event of the season And if I claim to be a wise man, Well, it surely means that I don't know." (I'll be out of reach for a day, so if you're patient, I'll be back Thursday afternoon.)

I don't have time to get into this now. However, here's the verses for reference. ============================= John 21:12-19 (NASB) 12 Jesus *said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples ventured to question Him, “Who are You?” knowing that it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and *gave it to them, and the fish likewise. 14 This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, after He was raised from the dead. 15 So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My lambs.” 16 He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” 19 Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me!” ==================================== John 12:12-19 (KJV) 12 Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord. 13 Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. 14 This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead. 15 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. 16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 17 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 18 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. 19 This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. ============================= 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. 15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” 16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” 17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!” =================================

Certainly no names, but yes, let's not get into him or anyone else who posted some rather "controversial" posts. =================== What did I change position on, TLC? The most blatant "I changed my mind because of this thread" stuff was probably the result of the "Speaking in Tongues" threads. But really, we're way off-topic. Ask me and I can find some links to those threads.

For the other, "A Fish Tale" was the name for the US release. Odd, since the title was "Help, I'm a Fish!" from when it was made and released in Denmark.

Knowing how this thread goes, probably something from the 50s or 60s.

Ok, the lightbulb finally lit. "Roam", by the B-52s.

At least, I'd agree with you on that. I've ended up changing my position on a number of things largely because discussions here showed too many things on the other side, and mostly conviction on the side I preferred. (Ask me and I'll post examples.) Mind you, they weren't what I consider the biggest issues- the existence of God, salvation, and so on- but you might have come to the same conclusions based on the same discussions. (They're still here as threads.) BTW, there's a LOT of disagreement here, so the idea that there's a "party line" is more of an idea and a perception than a reality. Except almost all the current posters agree about the harm that vpw did, and that it was due to his freewill decisions to do the wrong things for his own benefit that the harm existed. You missed the poster who elevated vpw's materials above the Bible and said THAT had the key to salvation. Now, HE really got static.

the Expendables Sylvester Stallone Demolition Man

It's hard to take you seriously when you address a serious subject like authorship of the books of the Bible, and dismiss it with a glib comment and then a change of subject. You're getting people with VERY different opinions and points of view, who DISagree with each other on many of the most fundamental points, to start agreeing that you're ducking issues and pretending you're not. Ever consider that all of them found common ground on this because they're all correct?

Superman Returns Kevin Spacey the Usual Suspects

"Swordfish?"