Mike

Sorry to keep you in suspenders forever, but I totally forgot the message. It was comforting, exhorting, and edifying, though. Do you remember what you had for breakfast on September 9, 1977?

The practice was in the natural part, not the spiritual. The "mechanics of speech." I always taught in Excellor's Sessions that lack of fluency is fear of odd sounds. I got them to laugh and say odd sounds with me just to get over the fears. Then they relaxed and got more fluent. I got them to confront some small fears (of sounding silly) and then the fluency flowed... naturally. Dr even used that word, "natural" oddly enough, in relation to this. Holy spirit would get an odd sounding word or phrase and the believer could freeze, thinking it may be counterfeit. God had to stick with what they were comfortable with. I suspect that by Pentecost the apostles had confronted most of their fears, big and little, and thus didn't need my help. Many leaders were far from relaxed. They often feared being found out that they were not perfect. Their fluency suffered. No kidding, Exy, Dr's SIT was rich. It was a big surprise. *** Summary: fears fought fluency.

The "Four Arguments" book was written by a former corporate advertising executive who had a bunch of conscience problems with how blatantly he and his industry were tweaking TV watchers' brain cells. I considered it a useful insider's confession. Maybe you missed that part. Yes, he was a bit too New Age in there for me too in there with some things. I am not aware of Koestler having second thoughts on his own book. Can you cite it?

Yes! I did hear him SIT and interpret. I was braced for hearing the repetitious sounds from Dr that I did often hear from others. Strangely, I noticed that quite a few leaders had very little fluency in their SIT. I addressed this issue for myself and it was solved. My fluency shot up very early those years. I then took it on myself to help others with this in the TIP classes. I always volunteered to be an Excellers’ Session Leader and was successful in helping others develop fluency. But I was plagued with the thought that Dr himself had little fluency from the repetition of the film class and from the repetition of other (supposedly high ranking were some) leaders. Leaders were chosen more for their 5-senses skills, not so much for their spiritual maturity. The latter was never available, and having rejected God’s Plan for Development, they never did mature much. But finally I actually DID hear Dr SIT and interpret, I think at PFAL 77 or some staff function. BOTH his unknown tongue and his known English gist were SUPERB! I was quite pleasantly surprised with Dr’s rich fluency in tongues.

waysider, I never picked up an "an attitude of ethnocentricity" as I listened to him. Just the opposite, I wanted to help all men with the good news... women too! Actually very little attention was placed on these items at the time. It’s NOW that the inordinate attention is being generated. The books were there, but not heavily touted in any way. Like I said, Lindsey’s book was VERY popular and the waters were horribly muddied by him. To this day, much of churchianity and much politics are still befuddled by that Middle East country being given a Biblical name, a mere label. Lindsey was not the only one who proposed that Modern Israel was Biblical and signifying the early stages of The Return. As a Catholic, I had never heard of “the Rapture” nor of the second coming. We were all into the “end of the world” and the wrath, parallel with nuclear annihilation fears. It was Lindsey’s book that first informed me of I Thessalonians. In the RC everyone stands at attention for the Gospel reading, but are allowed to sit and rest during the Epistle reading. I knew nothing of the Gathering Together at all until his book came out. I was not alone. *** What I was taught is that Israel rejected God and His Messiah, then some came back and believed, then eventually brought in the Gentiles. I see this as a straight line, with one kink in it, the crucifixion. Those of Israel who believed God after the crucifixion continued on the straight line of following God. These people merely had their name changed, to Christian, and continued on. The Unbelieving of Israel continued on with the name, the label, but it was THEY who deviated from and rejected God. Ditto for the Christians. As the centuries progressed they too deviated and rejected the True God, but we grads came back.

Hi Exy, I've always been here, just been quiet. ;) I read the thread titles every day, and once in a while a thread's content.

waysider, You may be right! I pulled the tomatoes up from memory, and not from a printed page or tape. It may have been both... at different times ******* George Aar, Yes, you may be right too. Maybe I did not pay enough attention. But I do remember how in later years, like in the late 80’s, people would say that Dr taught “never happened” and I knew right away he had said what I reported above. SOME leaders may have taught it early on, but not Dr. You wrote: “Fact is "The Myth of the Six Million" and "The Hoax of the 20th Century" were BOTH on the recommended reading list of WayWorld as was Koestler's book. ... If this was what Mr. Wierwille was trying to counteract with his book selections, well I think his actions were unnecessary - at least in my case...” Yes, I knew that they were in the Bookstore, as I mentioned above, and therefore recommended. But like you, I didn’t feel the need to read them. I had already rejected Lindsey’s book by the time they had been made available to us. *** You wrote: “All three of which have been thoroughly discredited.” Now where’s WordWolf to challenge this rhetoric? THOROUGHLY you say? Tell me some more things that have been THOROUGHLY discredited. Even better, how about some things that are thoroughly CREDITED! Has this “thorough” dis-creditation been THOROUGHLY investigated by you? The holocaust books may have suffered credibility problems due to the relatively unknown or weird authors, but Koestler can hardly be said to have been discredited. Many tried, but his record as a genuine intellectual still stands. At best they can mostly only say that he must have lost his mind or went senile for that one book. *** You wrote: “Makes one wonder if there wasn't some sort of agenda that TWI had in regard to modern Jewry? At BEST, their book choices are deeply disturbing, not to mention their fondness for "Bablyon Mystery Religion", but I digress...” The agenda is what I outlined above: merely the clearing of the muddied waters from Lindsey’s book regarding The Return of Christ. Just like the label of racist couldn’t stick on VPW (thanks HCW), even though some posters here tried hard to do it, the earlier years of TWI had not a trace of anti-Semitism, BUT THEY DID HAVE a healthy portion of Jewish grads. Some later leaders (renegades against what they were taught) DID DEFINITELY cultivate some of it, but not Dr. Being a former Catholic, “Babylon Mystery Religion” was a bit of an help to me in my very early ministry years, and NOT DISTURBING AT ALL. Disturbing to practicing Catholics, yes. I am now glad these books were put there to allow us to think outside the box that What the Hey mentioned above. There was another very odd book that was enormously useful to us, but very disturbing to the powers that be in advertising and mass media. It was “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.” Like Koestler’s “Thirteen Tribe” this book by Gerry Mander quickly became pretty rare. I’m glad I had a chance to see it due to it being placed in the Bookstore for a time.

I have consistently found that with myself and with every PFAL grad I’ve had contact with, that the memories we have of what happened and what we were taught SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED. Box “415” is just one recent (and trivial) example of such memory degradation manifested on this thread. I have spent almost ten years now fixing my memory deficits by refreshing my mind with the “originals” as they were taught IN PRINT. I also sometimes fall back on tape recorded data to line my memories up with what ACTUALLY happened. There is no print record of this “holocaust” issue that I am aware of, and the tape recorded archives seem to have nothing either. There may be some stray things on tapes here and there that I am unaware of, but I’m pretty darn sure none of this ever comes up in “book and magazine form.” What I do see in the record, though, is lots of material on the Return of Christ. I distinctly remember (and have verified these points) that in the late 60’s and early 70’s the country was all abuzz on Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth.” In that VERY popular book Hal Lindsey makes as his MAIN POINT that the late 1940’s United Nations formation of a country in the Middle East was an act of God and that that new resulting country was a actually RE-formation of Biblical Israel. He insists that that country’s formation was the beginning of the Return. Modern Israel being Biblical Israel is the fulcrum for his whole “ministry.” My memory of the holocaust books, as well as Arthur Koestler’s “The Thirteenth Tribe,” was that their ONLY purpose was to help diminish the impact of Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth” main thesis on grads. Dr was very careful to inform us that the Return of Christ was not in any way implied by the formation of the state of modern Israel (as Lindsey’s thesis strongly insisted), and that the True God had no part in the formation of that country in the Middle East, nor in giving it the name “Israel.” Yes, he was careful to inform us of these things, but we were not so careful in remembering them. Dr was very careful to remind us that a can of pickles is still pickles, even if you paste on the outside a label that says “tomatoes.” The label doesn’t make it so. The man-made label of “Israel” on a country’s flag and official buildings and stationery does not make that country “beloved of God.” Modern Israel’s formation does not force God’s hand one bit at all in His saying that it’s time for the Return, nor is it a manifestation of His instigating it on His own. I never bought nor read the holocaust books nor that one by Koestler. Having read Lindsey, I saw many other things that discredited him on other doctrinal issues, so I never felt the need to read the books in question. I do know that it was always mentioned that the ideas in the holocaust books were that it was EXAGGERATED and HYPED. What the Hey has quite nicely summarized this in his posts above. WordWolf seems to have targeted the manner in which What the Hey presented these things in order to avoid dealing with the thought content and the ideas of Hey's posts. I never once heard the idea mentioned that the holocaust did not happened in my Box 328 days. NEVER HEARD IT! NOT EVEN ONCE! That notion that Dr taught us it did not happen is a relatively recent phenomenon that’s related to memory degradation (and invention) exacerbated by heavy emotion. In my very first post here 3 years ago I called these two forms of human brain problems "memrot" and "memnot." *** By the way, Arthur Koestler was a highly admired scholar and thinker prior to publishing that particular book and covered a VERY wide range of thought (some hooky-pook even). I had read and enjoyed several of his books both before and after his inclusion in the Way Bookstore, and I’ve discussed him here with What the Hey. Koestler must have had a lot of courage to stand behind such an unpopular idea as “The Thirteenth Tribe.” His popularity suffered greatly after it was published. ...and here’s another one for the memory police... I think he may have even been Jewish. Anyone know? *** In summary, all of the acts of VPW regarding the contents of this thread were to help us think clearly regarding the Return of Christ, un-muddied by Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth” and The United Nations formation of a country, especially one the somewhat officially rejects Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

I have consistently found that with myself and with every PFAL grad I’ve had contact with, that the memories we have of what happened and what we were taught SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED. Box “415” is just one recent (and trivial) example of such memory degradation manifested on this thread. I have spent almost ten years now fixing my memory deficits by refreshing my mind with the “originals” as they were taught IN PRINT. I also sometimes fall back on tape recorded data to line my memories up with what ACTUALLY happened. There is no print record of this “holocaust” issue that I am aware of, and the tape recorded archives seem to have nothing either. There may be some stray things on tapes here and there that I am unaware of, but I’m pretty darn sure none of this ever comes up in “book and magazine form.” What I do see in the record, though, is lots of material on the Return of Christ. I distinctly remember (and have verified these points) that in the late 60’s and early 70’s the country was all abuzz on Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth.” In that VERY popular book Hal Lindsey makes as his MAIN POINT that the late 1940’s United Nations formation of a country in the Middle East was an act of God and that that new resulting country was a actually RE-formation of Biblical Israel. He insists that that country’s formation was the beginning of the Return. Modern Israel being Biblical Israel is the fulcrum for his whole “ministry.” My memory of the holocaust books, as well as Arthur Koestler’s “The Thirteenth Tribe,” was that their ONLY purpose was to help diminish the impact of Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth” main thesis on grads. Dr was very careful to inform us that the Return of Christ was not in any way implied by the formation of the state of modern Israel (as Lindsey’s thesis strongly insisted), and that the True God had no part in the formation of that country in the Middle East, nor in giving it the name “Israel.” Yes, he was careful to inform us of these things, but we were not so careful in remembering them. Dr was very careful to remind us that a can of pickles is still pickles, even if you paste on the outside a label that says “tomatoes.” The label doesn’t make it so. The man-made label of “Israel” on a country’s flag and official buildings and stationery does not make that country “beloved of God.” Modern Israel’s formation does not force God’s hand one bit at all in His saying that it’s time for the Return, nor is it a manifestation of His instigating it on His own. I never bought nor read the holocaust books nor that one by Koestler. Having read Lindsey, I saw many other things that discredited him on other doctrinal issues, so I never felt the need to read the books in question. I do know that it was always mentioned that the ideas in the holocaust books were that it was EXAGGERATED and HYPED. What the Hey has quite nicely summarized this in his posts above. WordWolf seems to have targeted the manner in which What the Hey presented these things in order to avoid dealing with the thought content of Hey's posts. I never once heard the idea mentioned that the holocaust did not happened In my Box 328 days. NEVER HEARD IT! Not even once! That notion that Dr taught us it did not happen is a recent GreaseSpot phenomenon that’s related to memory degradation (and invention) exacerbated by heavy emotion. In my very first post here I called these two forms of human problems "memrot" and "memnot." *** By the way, Arthur Koestler was a highly admired scholar and thinker prior to publishing that particular book and covered a VERY wide range of thought (some hooky-pook even). I had read and enjoyed several of his books both before and after his inclusion in the Way Bookstore, and I’ve discussed him here with What the Hey. Koestler must have had a lot of courage to stand behind such an unpopular idea as “The Thirteenth Tribe.” His popularity suffered greatly after it was published. ...and here’s another one for the memory police... I think he may have even been Jewish. Anyone know? *** In summary, all of the acts of VPW regarding the contents of this thread were to help us think clearly regarding the Return of Christ, un-muddied by Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth” and The United Nations formation of a country, especially one the somewhat officially rejects Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

Oakspear, The main point I was making was that the fall of the church in Timothy's time was very extreme, and very much like TWI's fall. Both went from very intensely good, to very confused and irrelevant, and very quickly. The church in Timothy's time went down so fast so much so that history almost entirely missed it. It was only a minor point of mine that history can not be relied on to be complete.

. It’s much more funny how easily distracted from content and thought some can be by their emotions and by crowd mentality. I saw it in TWI-1 and I see it now. The answer to this thread title's question is when we "study the same thing" ...the same RIGHT thing. .

. First Corinthians 1:10 says "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." Teaching that verse in the 1979 Advanced Class, segment 6, here is an exact quote of what we were taught by the man of God who unfolded God's Word to us: "And class, that can only be when we all speak the same thing on God’s Word. No one will ever qualify for First Corinthians one, ten, unless they get their heads and their hearts into the accuracy of the integrity and the greatness of God’s Word. How will we ever speak the same thing unless we study the same thing, people, and let the Word of God speak for itself. If you and I do not rightly divide the Word of God, there’s gonna be division among us." .

Yes, that's right. Even Jesus is almost totally absent from history. ...so much for history!

Hi Oak, Long time no talk. I'm glad to see you pull this thread back on the more important rail. I saw the Bishop of Ephesus references long ago, but they are mere tradition, and not possessing historical substance. The Roman Catholics have a lot of that kind of tradition, AND they admit it. Remember a few decades ago, when a whole boatload of "saints" were demoted to mere tradition status? The lack of substantial history on them was so overwhelming that the church historians finally got a Pope to "uncaononize" even some beloved saints. I think the most famous was St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers and memorialized in medals that RC's would pin to the sun visors of their cars. Timothy and his Ephesus bishopric fits in there, in the admittedly the non-substantiated tradition. There's no contemporary written record of him that has ever been discovered outside of the Biblical one, and then many, many years later someone with some power, or maybe an artist or sculptor, claimed he was the Bishop of Ephesus with no backup. Even the tradition lacks any detail as to what he supposedly did there. Timothy really vanished! *** You wrote: "The TWI party line was that Paul was the head of the church and Timothy was his successor, but it doesn't appear that way to me from a straight reading of the bible." Me neither. What I see is that Timothy should have been the successor, but he too forsook Paul (like Geer) and it all died. Enter: the RCs. ******* TheInvisibleDan, I was pleased to see your comment of five days ago, but held off responding for fear of the usual "Derailment Vigilantes" here who object to just about anything I say. I may respond soon to you.

I, too, have wondered about Timothy. I don’t mean the statue, but the much more important man addressed twice by Paul. For years I reasoned that Timothy was excepted from the “all” that had forsaken Paul. But if that were the case why his conspicuous absence from all recorded history? It slowly dawned on me, from several sources, that he too had forsaken Paul, albeit not so much in the senses category, but spiritually. For one, his total lack of splash in church and secular history speaks of his lack of power and/or early death. But it wasn’t until I looked VERY closely at the POP that I realized that we have an analogous character in modern history that closely resembles Timothy in Chris Geer. In the POP Geer dutifully (in the senses category) reports his own indictment (spiritually) in his exact quotation of Dr’s near final words to him. Also, Dr’s very last words in his very last recorded teaching seem to handle Geer in a very Judas-like mold, i.e., one who is smart and dutiful with the outward details but totally corrupt within. If you folks can be so happy with a statue’s derailment of this thread’s most important opening sentences, who can object with my similar treatment of the waxen stature of Chris Geer?

...now THERE'S something to reflect on...

I feel I voted for this once before, in a past lifetime, astrally projecting forward in time, so it would be unethical for me to vote twice.

Reincarceration is the whole reason time travel is so expensive these days. Those past lives just complicate things too much! So, I'm against it.

Hi johniam, Free will is something we do, predestination is something God does. God predetermines what blessings we will get when we freely will to do it His way. ...paraphrasing Romans 8

This sounds right to me. Truly FREE will seems to be absent in specific, individual events of life and all seems robotic. Yet over time free will manifests in what we repeatedly love and focus on and trust on and rely on. Walter taught this in his Renewed Mind class, but he did not go into the detail that is coming out here. Sculpted will happens all the time but few take the time to introspect and see that it's far from being totally free will. We are largely stimulus-response machines. In fact, I've probably pushed several peoples' buttons right now with these assertions. But seriously, I've spent decades working (intermittently) on the difference between free will and determinism. From that work I am ready to conclude that most of the time we're robots, just really fancy ones. Once in a while a few may temporarily break out and away from what forces normal behavior and true freely willed behavior is manifested. I think it's rare, though. Few have the courage to behave contrary to the established order.

Hi Lone Wolf, Societal approved sex can be a god to some people, and other people can embrace a god of societal recognition that copyrights entail. Some people love BOTH of these false gods. For those who operate under the umbrella of these gods, their regard for what is a sin against these gods (and what these gods represent) is that such sin is totally unforgivable. LoneWolf, these people cannot be reached with your reasonable appeal. Their gods won't allow it. I see some value in civilized, loving, and thoughtful sexual practices and customs, and I also see some value in academic and marketplace copyrights. However, I see GREAT value in masterfully absorbing the final product, written PFAL, that God produced for us grads by the hand of VPW along with his accomplished team of editors. We could add Balaam, Saul, David, Solomon to the list of sinners with whom God worked, as I have here often. VPW admitted to have not risen up to the fullness of what the PFAL revelations teach, but that doesn’t mean WE can’t manifest that fullness, as we drop our false gods, and as we seriously look at that written final product of VPW’s legacy.

A friend of mine who is not into computers, Ruth P., asked me if I could help her find an old friend. Ruth is looking for Marilyn West who took the class in San Diego in the mid 70’s, and lived in Escondido CA along with her husband Paul West until the mid 80’s. Marilyn and Paul split up and she remarried (name unknown) and moved, possibly to the Southeast USA. If anyone knows how to find Marilyn or Paul West, I can relay that information to Ruth P. Thanks

. But what about THE MIRRORS???

Hi dooj, Have you ever thought of re-evaluating your perceptions on mirror reflection? I can help. I'm talking about a re-reflection on mirrors. ******* Thank you much, modcat5, Raf, and Oak. ******* Oakspear, You wrote: "...his belief that PFAL is revelation from God... isn't any more circular than a belief in an inerrant original text of the bible that no one has or will ever have." I agree. I've never claimed to have a derivation or a proof, and I have pointed this out often. Thinking logically within a system is required, but logically deriving the system is impossible. *** You wrote: "...Although i do think that the evidence of plagiarism is pretty solid proof that Wierwille borrowed, cut & pasted, etc. and didn't receive PFAL theopneustos." You're assuming that theopneustos only comes in a "divine dictation" style or mode. Dr has testified much that his teachers got some revelations from God and that he merely put them all together. The direct revelation Dr got was more often on the lines of knowing what to collect and what not to collect. There were several varieties in the style or mode of revelation that went into PFAL, and I've posted here on all of them at various times. Dr specified all this for us on tapes and in writing, that is was NOT just the divine dictation thing that happened. ******* Again, I thank all of the above for their decent approach to conversation, and Paw too, for letting me post.

Hi waysider, Thanks for the Physics help. Hope this helps you too: http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.ph...ic=1512&hl=