Did you feel like you had super human powers when you were in The Way?
I mean things like how your eyes could supposedly see things that mere mortals could not see, your ears could hear things normal beings could not, your sense of smell being heightened beyond the normal human range, etc.
My mom used to think that we had the power to cast devils out of people. She thought she cast one out of a dog.
When my dad was dying our family friend thought it would be a good idea to push down on my fathers chest (he had chest compressions). I was so ....ed off at him). He thought he could do some healing touch garbage,
Someone tried to cast devils out of my spouse and I. It was hilarious listening to "in the name of Jesus Christ leave this person!" The reason they thought we were possessed? We were visiting my brother and they thought we were a bad influence on him. They didn't want us there.
I was at a pizza joint with about a half dozen other believers. When the pizza arrived, the senior most person present told us not to eat the pizza. He said it was spoiled. We all took a quick whiff. It smelled fine. He explained that he didn't smell it with his own nose but smelled it with the nose of Christ which was inside his nose. We didn't eat it and guess what. None of us got sick. Imagine that.
I was at a pizza joint with about a half dozen other believers. When the pizza arrived, the senior most person present told us not to eat the pizza. He said it was spoiled. We all took a quick whiff. It smelled fine. He explained that he didn't smell it with his own nose but smelled it with the nose of Christ which was inside his nose. We didn't eat it and guess what. None of us got sick. Imagine that.
Was the Christ inside him able to get money back from the people who cooked the pizza? Now that would have been an interesting conversation.
Was the Christ inside him able to get money back from the people who cooked the pizza? Now that would have been an interesting conversation.
I've worked in customer service most of my life, I've heard something similar before. It's very hard to keep a straight face and be helpful without laughing. At least they didn't eat it all before Jesus told them that it was bad.
I understand, of course, that some people have a keener sense of smell than others. If you remember anything about the Advanced Class definitions for revelation, though, this is something that was supposed to be beyond the realm of anything you could possibly know by your five (natural) senses.
I always felt bad about myself because I wasn't operating "all nine all the time."
This brings up an interesting point. What about people who had diminished capacity in one or more of the five senses? How does a blind person "see through Christ's eyes"? How does a deaf person "hear through Christ's ears"? It seems a bit unfair to me that they should have gotten short changed, simply because they had a disability.
I understand, of course, that some people have a keener sense of smell than others. If you remember anything about the Advanced Class definitions for revelation, though, this is something that was supposed to be beyond the realm of anything you could possibly know by your five (natural) senses.
While I agree that, at least Biblically, these things are possible, I disagree that twi
understood anything about it.
I can easily see God Almighty communicating with us via 2 methods:
1) uploading information directly to our brains
2) coding the information analogous to one of the 5 senses so our experience would help us understand.
I even go so far as to expect some people to get more revelation analogous to a sense they
relate better to, or get revelation of a type they relate to more than others.
On the other hand, with twi, the examples often seemed more to me a misunderstanding
of something explained otherwise.
Example A:
The Book of Daniel, the writing on the wall.
twi told us that the writing had to be perceived spiritually, otherwise the evil spirits
would have just decoded the message.
Meanwhile, buried in a twi bookstore, by a writer I never heard of in twi,
was "the Books and the Parchments," by FF Bruce.
His explanation had to do with the absence of written vowels in more than 1 language.
So, in one, "weighed, numbered, divided" would look like "a coin, another coin, and loose change"
(I'm paraphrasing) in another language, depending on the missing vowels.
I thought his answer was more likely-when I was IN twi.
Example B:
I heard cg tell a story about when he had a stuffed nose, and got revelation about something
with his "spiritual nose" because his physical one was blocked and thus useless for detecting
anything. Me, I think cg grossly underestimated the nose's ability to detect things,
even when stuffed.
But the other explanations were less fantastical, and in twi, the more fantastical explanations,
the more fanciful explanations, those were preferred.
This brings up an interesting point. What about people who had diminished capacity in one or more of the five senses? How does a blind person "see through Christ's eyes"? How does a deaf person "hear through Christ's ears"? It seems a bit unfair to me that they should have gotten short changed, simply because they had a disability.
Answering seriously and not tongue-in-cheek,
I would see 2 possibilities, if the person was to receive revelation
coded in that manner:
1) the revelation would be re-coded to work with a sense they were already
familiar with, so they could understand it
2) the revelation would still arrive in the spiritual analog. However, lack of
experience could limit the Christian's ability to understand it.
(Unless, say, we're talking of one who lost a sense later in life and now
got revelation similar to it.)
Nothing can fully compensate us for the absence of a sense.
However, it can be comforting, at least a little, to know that tests have
proven that the parts of the brain normally assigned to interpret data from a
sense will be reassigned to another sense so the person can understand better
the information they are still receiving. This even holds true when the sense
is blocked for hours or days, until it's unblocked. So, unless the brain is
damaged in that part, it can seem as if the remaining senses sharpened-
which is not what happened, they just learned not to ignore that sense as much
If I stay up late watching shows about Bigfoot on a regular basis I tend to see him more often . . . way off in the distance . . . behind that rock . . . at least I think it's a rock . . . it's really far off and hard to make out clearly . . . which is annoying because it obstructs my view of Bigfoot on my way by.
Did you feel like you had super human powers when you were in The Way? I don't mean the usual kind of stuff that most Christians talk about like "more than a conqueror" and so forth.
I mean things like how your eyes could supposedly see things that mere mortals could not see, your ears could hear things normal beings could not, your sense of smell being heightened beyond the normal human range, etc. (Christ's eyes behind your eyes)
For many people, an ability to operate these "powers" was one of the main draws of the Advanced Class. Revelation was supposedly the key that unlocked the door to these special abilities. In two short weeks we were supposed to transform from Clark Kent to Superman. What a disappointment it was to find there were no phone booths to change clothes in at HQ.
I feel like I have super human powers in 2 basic ways: 1)spiritual knowledge vs natural knowledge. Natural knowledge says Jared Loughner (shot AZ congresswoman) has a syndrome; spiritual knowledge says he has...something else. I believe that on many levels. 2) I can pray in the name of Jesus Christ. For the wellbeing of those I love, and for specific needs.
Never cast a spirit out of anybody. Never raised anyone from the dead. But those 2 things....many so called educated people just don't DO this. Even VP said that the lack of signs miracles hurt the church. Ghandi thought Jesus was the only person who could actually DO Christianity.
quote: I mean things like how your eyes could supposedly see things that mere mortals could not see, your ears could hear things normal beings could not, your sense of smell being heightened beyond the normal human range, etc. (Christ's eyes behind your eyes)
At times I felt like I was acutely aware of motives and intentions from other people. Felt VERY real. At times I smelled rotting flesh around people nobody else could. Never actually saw anything. VP said he saw a fox's head from the nose up once; thought it was a spirit of slyness. Never saw anything like that. I guess I believe anything is possible, but other than the 2 general things I mentioned, I don't see miracles much.
Therefore natural, worldly folk . . . are the Superheros
According to the Advanced Class syllabus, the revelation manifestations involve "certain truths or facts concerning any situation about which it is humanly impossible for you, by your five senses, to know anything".
As you stated, the scientific community now recognizes that humans receive sensory input from more than just the basic five senses we have come to know. So, either the definition is inaccurate in its limiting itself to only the five senses or people who are keenly attuned to information arriving via their Jacobson's Organ, for example, are, by definition, receiving revelation because pheromone recognition is not grouped with the usual five senses. Of course, that would mean that non-human creatures might also be capable of receiving "revelation", as they are not relying entirely on the usual five senses to receive said information either..
Two senses that nearly everybody uses daily, beyond the usual five listed, are balance and kinesthesia. Balace is sensed by a mechanism in the ear, and tells us which way is "down". Kinesthesia is sensed by a nerve in each muscle which tells the brain if the muscle is tense or relaxed. As an infant, a person learns to use their kinesthesia to tell them where their limbs are, and how they are moving. When a cop is giving a field sobriety test, and has the subject move his outstretched finger to the tip of his nose with his eyes shut, the cop is actually testing the person's kinethesthetic sense.
Without either one of these neglected senses... six and seven?... a person would not be able to walk!
I no longer believe there are "spiritual senses" because I no longer believe there is a "spirit realm" the way Wierwille taught.I do believe God can give people revelation in the form of sensory perceptions. I believe the reference in Hebrews 5:14, to exercising our senses to recognize both good and evil, is talking about our good old, mundane seven (+?) senses!
I don't really know what "exercising the senses" really means. I do know two or more people can be in the same room and sense with however many senses the same things, and in some cases and individual can "sense" a few more things. How that information is interpreted by each individual is something else. Some people can pick up on more based on education, experience and practice.
In the Way, if one person happens to "perceive" something others don't . . . if that individual believes to have anyway . . . that could easily be extrapolated to be something spiritual. Having a receptive audience helps validate those ideas too.
Actually, the "super human" stuff is how they accomplish their shunning practice. If a top leader starts to be overcome with logic, reason, or common sense presented by an underling, then all they really have to do is reject it, and spread some rumors about how the underling is "possessed" or "loves the world" or any number of single-phrase types of slander statements about the individual, and then nobody will talk to them.
In practice, TWI uses "Christ's eyes behind our eyes" teaching for the fabrication of tall slanderous tales to keep rank under their cult of personality.
In the Way, if one person happens to "perceive" something others don't . . . if that individual believes to have anyway . . . that could easily be extrapolated to be something spiritual. Having a receptive audience helps validate those ideas too.
I used to love to sit next to "those" people in the movies who would present a non-stop spiritualization of the plot as it unfolds on the screen. I mean I thought I was just watching an "Ah-nold" shoot em up, not the birth of the new world army following the rise of the seed of the serpent to power thus introducing Armageddon.
I mean, my bad. I should have been able to read between the lines on the movie plot description on imDB.
I don't really know what "exercising the senses" really means. I do know two or more people can be in the same room and sense with however many senses the same things, and in some cases and individual can "sense" a few more things. How that information is interpreted by each individual is something else. Some people can pick up on more based on education, experience and practice.
In the Way, if one person happens to "perceive" something others don't . . . if that individual believes to have anyway . . . that could easily be extrapolated to be something spiritual. Having a receptive audience helps validate those ideas too.
Exercising our senses to discern both good and evil means learning to exercise our "common sense" or judgment to see if things do or do not line up with what the Bible says. Common sense would say that Martindale's swearing was not good. The con was that our common sense was not "spiritual", and therefore could not perceive the spiritual "good" of Martindale's swearing. And the same went for any number of other things where the leadership did what they wanted instead of what the Word said to do!
This all came from the place in the foundational class where Wierwille taught that there are two realms, the senses realm and the spirit realm, and that the laws of the spirit realm supercede the laws of the senses realm. Therefore those of us who are spiritually immature cannot trust our senses when it comes to judging what the leaders are doing.
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GeorgeStGeorge
Ummmm.....no.
I never thought of the spiritual senses that way.
George
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Nero
My mom used to think that we had the power to cast devils out of people. She thought she cast one out of a dog.
When my dad was dying our family friend thought it would be a good idea to push down on my fathers chest (he had chest compressions). I was so ....ed off at him). He thought he could do some healing touch garbage,
Someone tried to cast devils out of my spouse and I. It was hilarious listening to "in the name of Jesus Christ leave this person!" The reason they thought we were possessed? We were visiting my brother and they thought we were a bad influence on him. They didn't want us there.
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waysider
I was at a pizza joint with about a half dozen other believers. When the pizza arrived, the senior most person present told us not to eat the pizza. He said it was spoiled. We all took a quick whiff. It smelled fine. He explained that he didn't smell it with his own nose but smelled it with the nose of Christ which was inside his nose. We didn't eat it and guess what. None of us got sick. Imagine that.
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chockfull
Was the Christ inside him able to get money back from the people who cooked the pizza? Now that would have been an interesting conversation.
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Nero
I've worked in customer service most of my life, I've heard something similar before. It's very hard to keep a straight face and be helpful without laughing. At least they didn't eat it all before Jesus told them that it was bad.
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outandabout
I always felt bad about myself because I wasn't operating "all nine all the time."
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waysider
I understand, of course, that some people have a keener sense of smell than others. If you remember anything about the Advanced Class definitions for revelation, though, this is something that was supposed to be beyond the realm of anything you could possibly know by your five (natural) senses.
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waysider
This brings up an interesting point. What about people who had diminished capacity in one or more of the five senses? How does a blind person "see through Christ's eyes"? How does a deaf person "hear through Christ's ears"? It seems a bit unfair to me that they should have gotten short changed, simply because they had a disability.
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WordWolf
While I agree that, at least Biblically, these things are possible, I disagree that twi
understood anything about it.
I can easily see God Almighty communicating with us via 2 methods:
1) uploading information directly to our brains
2) coding the information analogous to one of the 5 senses so our experience would help us understand.
I even go so far as to expect some people to get more revelation analogous to a sense they
relate better to, or get revelation of a type they relate to more than others.
On the other hand, with twi, the examples often seemed more to me a misunderstanding
of something explained otherwise.
Example A:
The Book of Daniel, the writing on the wall.
twi told us that the writing had to be perceived spiritually, otherwise the evil spirits
would have just decoded the message.
Meanwhile, buried in a twi bookstore, by a writer I never heard of in twi,
was "the Books and the Parchments," by FF Bruce.
His explanation had to do with the absence of written vowels in more than 1 language.
So, in one, "weighed, numbered, divided" would look like "a coin, another coin, and loose change"
(I'm paraphrasing) in another language, depending on the missing vowels.
I thought his answer was more likely-when I was IN twi.
Example B:
I heard cg tell a story about when he had a stuffed nose, and got revelation about something
with his "spiritual nose" because his physical one was blocked and thus useless for detecting
anything. Me, I think cg grossly underestimated the nose's ability to detect things,
even when stuffed.
But the other explanations were less fantastical, and in twi, the more fantastical explanations,
the more fanciful explanations, those were preferred.
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WordWolf
Answering seriously and not tongue-in-cheek,
I would see 2 possibilities, if the person was to receive revelation
coded in that manner:
1) the revelation would be re-coded to work with a sense they were already
familiar with, so they could understand it
2) the revelation would still arrive in the spiritual analog. However, lack of
experience could limit the Christian's ability to understand it.
(Unless, say, we're talking of one who lost a sense later in life and now
got revelation similar to it.)
Nothing can fully compensate us for the absence of a sense.
However, it can be comforting, at least a little, to know that tests have
proven that the parts of the brain normally assigned to interpret data from a
sense will be reassigned to another sense so the person can understand better
the information they are still receiving. This even holds true when the sense
is blocked for hours or days, until it's unblocked. So, unless the brain is
damaged in that part, it can seem as if the remaining senses sharpened-
which is not what happened, they just learned not to ignore that sense as much
as the average person.
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Bolshevik
If I stay up late watching shows about Bigfoot on a regular basis I tend to see him more often . . . way off in the distance . . . behind that rock . . . at least I think it's a rock . . . it's really far off and hard to make out clearly . . . which is annoying because it obstructs my view of Bigfoot on my way by.
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johniam
I feel like I have super human powers in 2 basic ways: 1)spiritual knowledge vs natural knowledge. Natural knowledge says Jared Loughner (shot AZ congresswoman) has a syndrome; spiritual knowledge says he has...something else. I believe that on many levels. 2) I can pray in the name of Jesus Christ. For the wellbeing of those I love, and for specific needs.
Never cast a spirit out of anybody. Never raised anyone from the dead. But those 2 things....many so called educated people just don't DO this. Even VP said that the lack of signs miracles hurt the church. Ghandi thought Jesus was the only person who could actually DO Christianity.
quote: I mean things like how your eyes could supposedly see things that mere mortals could not see, your ears could hear things normal beings could not, your sense of smell being heightened beyond the normal human range, etc. (Christ's eyes behind your eyes)
At times I felt like I was acutely aware of motives and intentions from other people. Felt VERY real. At times I smelled rotting flesh around people nobody else could. Never actually saw anything. VP said he saw a fox's head from the nose up once; thought it was a spirit of slyness. Never saw anything like that. I guess I believe anything is possible, but other than the 2 general things I mentioned, I don't see miracles much.
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Bolshevik
I perceive things . . . things . . . others don't . . .
At the same time . . . others perceive things I don't . . . dammit
So which reality really matters?
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Ham
The problem with the spiritual smelling sense thing.. those who exercise it fail to be able to smell their own feces.
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waysider
Could it be because they think it doesn't stink?
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Bolshevik
"Spiritual Smelling Sense" . . . the "SSS"
Like a snake sound you hear . . . sssssss . . . a snake with a tongue . . . which you taste with . . .
whose advices helps you grasp the feel of a fruit . . . that opens your eyes
. . . but snakes don't perceive with ecolocation . . . seems out of balance?
Wayfers only recognize 5 natural senses
Natural man recognizes more than 5 natural senses
Therefore natural, worldly folk . . . are the Superheros
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waysider
According to the Advanced Class syllabus, the revelation manifestations involve "certain truths or facts concerning any situation about which it is humanly impossible for you, by your five senses, to know anything".
As you stated, the scientific community now recognizes that humans receive sensory input from more than just the basic five senses we have come to know. So, either the definition is inaccurate in its limiting itself to only the five senses or people who are keenly attuned to information arriving via their Jacobson's Organ, for example, are, by definition, receiving revelation because pheromone recognition is not grouped with the usual five senses. Of course, that would mean that non-human creatures might also be capable of receiving "revelation", as they are not relying entirely on the usual five senses to receive said information either..
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Bolshevik
So this
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Steve Lortz
Two senses that nearly everybody uses daily, beyond the usual five listed, are balance and kinesthesia. Balace is sensed by a mechanism in the ear, and tells us which way is "down". Kinesthesia is sensed by a nerve in each muscle which tells the brain if the muscle is tense or relaxed. As an infant, a person learns to use their kinesthesia to tell them where their limbs are, and how they are moving. When a cop is giving a field sobriety test, and has the subject move his outstretched finger to the tip of his nose with his eyes shut, the cop is actually testing the person's kinethesthetic sense.
Without either one of these neglected senses... six and seven?... a person would not be able to walk!
I no longer believe there are "spiritual senses" because I no longer believe there is a "spirit realm" the way Wierwille taught.I do believe God can give people revelation in the form of sensory perceptions. I believe the reference in Hebrews 5:14, to exercising our senses to recognize both good and evil, is talking about our good old, mundane seven (+?) senses!
Love,
Steve
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Bolshevik
I don't really know what "exercising the senses" really means. I do know two or more people can be in the same room and sense with however many senses the same things, and in some cases and individual can "sense" a few more things. How that information is interpreted by each individual is something else. Some people can pick up on more based on education, experience and practice.
In the Way, if one person happens to "perceive" something others don't . . . if that individual believes to have anyway . . . that could easily be extrapolated to be something spiritual. Having a receptive audience helps validate those ideas too.
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waysider
Literal translation according to usage
Original: "I don't understand it."
Translation: "It's spiritual."
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chockfull
Actually, the "super human" stuff is how they accomplish their shunning practice. If a top leader starts to be overcome with logic, reason, or common sense presented by an underling, then all they really have to do is reject it, and spread some rumors about how the underling is "possessed" or "loves the world" or any number of single-phrase types of slander statements about the individual, and then nobody will talk to them.
In practice, TWI uses "Christ's eyes behind our eyes" teaching for the fabrication of tall slanderous tales to keep rank under their cult of personality.
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chockfull
I used to love to sit next to "those" people in the movies who would present a non-stop spiritualization of the plot as it unfolds on the screen. I mean I thought I was just watching an "Ah-nold" shoot em up, not the birth of the new world army following the rise of the seed of the serpent to power thus introducing Armageddon.
I mean, my bad. I should have been able to read between the lines on the movie plot description on imDB.
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Steve Lortz
Exercising our senses to discern both good and evil means learning to exercise our "common sense" or judgment to see if things do or do not line up with what the Bible says. Common sense would say that Martindale's swearing was not good. The con was that our common sense was not "spiritual", and therefore could not perceive the spiritual "good" of Martindale's swearing. And the same went for any number of other things where the leadership did what they wanted instead of what the Word said to do!
This all came from the place in the foundational class where Wierwille taught that there are two realms, the senses realm and the spirit realm, and that the laws of the spirit realm supercede the laws of the senses realm. Therefore those of us who are spiritually immature cannot trust our senses when it comes to judging what the leaders are doing.
Love,
Steve
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