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The "Second Wave" of returning to PFAL has started


Mike
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Hello, folks! It's been a long time since I posted here.

From 2002-2008 I was an advocate here that we return to PFAL to see how much we missed the first time(s), and to see how much we forgot or drifted from. I am convinced that 99% of all the woes reported here are due to us all NOT GETTING IT RIGHT  the first times.

In those years I was only able to get a very small few of the GreaseSpotters to view things this way. The few of us came back to PFAL, this first wave of us, found it to be better than when we originally enjoyed it.  I predicted back here at GreaseSpot then that I was only dealing with the "First Wave" of those returning to PFAL.

About 2 or 3 years ago I started seeing lots of Facebook Groups being started by lots of pro-PFAL people, and many comments by other pro-PFAL people. Every now and then a nay-sayer chimes in, but it's obvious how ineffective they are.

Every year now someone posts videos from the original PFAL film class on You-Tube or Facebook. A few times the entire PFAL class was posted.  Twi rushes in and has them removed, but they are getting slower and slower at this as time goes by.  TWI is calming down, and is much more approachable than previous decades.  They are also moving back to the original PFAL class, slowly.

After 35+ years now, lots of people are done comparing the flurry of clone classes that cropped up after 1986, and have found they fall way short of the original.

So, that's the news from the outside.

How are you folks doing here?

 

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Hello Mike.  I've kinda missed you round here.  Could always rely on you to make a point that would stir up Cafe denizens.  Was wondering what had happened to you.  You went away to study PFAL more deeply, I think.

Well, no desire from me to study PFAL.  Oh, I wish you could read it in the original!  Maybe try deep-reading the two principal books that VPW plagiarised?  

I doubt TWI is really "moving back to the original PFAL class."  Far too dated.

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8 hours ago, Mike said:

Hello, folks! It's been a long time since I posted here.

From 2002-2008 I was an advocate here that we return to PFAL to see how much we missed the first time(s), and to see how much we forgot or drifted from. I am convinced that 99% of all the woes reported here are due to us all NOT GETTING IT RIGHT  the first times.

In those years I was only able to get a very small few of the GreaseSpotters to view things this way. The few of us came back to PFAL, this first wave of us, found it to be better than when we originally enjoyed it.  I predicted back here at GreaseSpot then that I was only dealing with the "First Wave" of those returning to PFAL.

About 2 or 3 years ago I started seeing lots of Facebook Groups being started by lots of pro-PFAL people, and many comments by other pro-PFAL people. Every now and then a nay-sayer chimes in, but it's obvious how ineffective they are.

Every year now someone posts videos from the original PFAL film class on You-Tube or Facebook. A few times the entire PFAL class was posted.  Twi rushes in and has them removed, but they are getting slower and slower at this as time goes by.  TWI is calming down, and is much more approachable than previous decades.  They are also moving back to the original PFAL class, slowly.

After 35+ years now, lots of people are done comparing the flurry of clone classes that cropped up after 1986, and have found they fall way short of the original.

So, that's the news from the outside.

How are you folks doing here?

 

Hi Mike,

Exactly what part of that is "news?" 

Before you answer, please know that providing verifiable specifics would be necessary in order for any of what you declared to reasonably be construed as news.

Nice to see you. I remember that you left a few (bunch) years ago at tax time.

Did you get vaccinated?

Rocky

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Rocky, it's not so much news that I reported. It was more the confirmation that a stable pattern has been established of grads "coming back to PFAL" like I had predicted would happen over 15 years ago.  There are PFAL videos circulating all over the place and lots of discussion of the teachings.   The First Wave that I led here was tiny and laughable if looked at as a movement, but I predicted move would come back as their dreams of clone classes fizzled.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Twinky said:

Hello Mike.  I've kinda missed you round here.  Could always rely on you to make a point that would stir up Cafe denizens.  Was wondering what had happened to you.  You went away to study PFAL more deeply, I think.

Well, no desire from me to study PFAL.  Oh, I wish you could read it in the original!  Maybe try deep-reading the two principal books that VPW plagiarised?  

I doubt TWI is really "moving back to the original PFAL class."  Far too dated.

Twinky, good to chat with you again.

The reason I left was to APPLY the class to my life more, as opposed to just debating about it. I wanted to see people thrilled by the PFAL info again, and was very tired of trying to debate it all the time with people who did not want to apply it (again).

Guess what? Plagiarized material, which is accurate with the Word, CAN BE just as effective as original material that is accurate with the Word.

The problem is there are no original writers out there who could do the job, so it got done without academic approval. That's ok, because I don't approve of them. All I want is to be able to apply the Word and get results while being on a mission for God. More fun than a Blues Brothers movie!

I would think that's good advice for anybody who values truth: application is the ultimate goal of any searching or researching.

***

Several years ago I popped in here to report my progress.

I had learned to dance with the Deadheads, and in more ways than one. That started 8 years ago.

I found a wonderful sport in DANCE!   I mean high speed, intricate dancing to the high speed, intricate music of the Grateful Dead. There are about 5 Dead Cover bands where I live, and we all are friends.

The Deadhead community STRONGLY resembles some aspects of the good old days with The Way in the early 70s, the Groovy Christian days.  There is a very long, interesting story involving the "why" behind that. I credit the influence of Ken Kesey on the Deadhead culture.  His "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was like a Trojan Horse that brought the 4 Gospels into the Beatnik community in 1962. The Cliff Notes for this book also notice this, and gave me more details on the Christ metaphor in there.  Yes, I'm saying that Jack Nicholson plays Jesus in the movie.

After that, Kesey invented the hippies 2 years later. After that, 4 years later, the hippies moved PFAL around the world.  I've been studying Kesey since 1987.

So, I've come full circle and having a ball dancing with hippies, and applying PFAL,  and looking for hippies who want to SIT again.

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3 hours ago, Mike said:

ll I want is to be able to apply the Word and get results...

By all means, give us specific examples of what you applied (from PFAL, right?) and specific examples of the results you claim to have gotten? :wink2:

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6 hours ago, Rocky said:

Hi Mike,

Exactly what part of that is "news?" 

Before you answer, please know that providing verifiable specifics would be necessary in order for any of what you declared to reasonably be construed as news.

Nice to see you. I remember that you left a few (bunch) years ago at tax time.

Did you get vaccinated?

Rocky

Yes I got Pfizer #1 and then #2 over a month ago. Why do you ask?
How odd that you would associate my leaving GreaseSpot with tax time?  I don't get it.

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1 hour ago, Rocky said:

By all means, give us specific examples of what you applied (from PFAL, right?) and specific examples of the results you claim to have gotten? :wink2:

Do you mean to say I should return to trying to prove detailed things about my personal life to people who want to believe otherwise?  Would YOU take up such a challenge?  What's in it for me?  That doesn't sound appealing.

I just thought I'd chew the fat a little and say hello.

The first wave of grads returning to PFAL was very small, and you may have missed it. There were about 4 GreaseSpotters that became close PFAL friends with me from my early years here.  Plus there were about 4 or 5 others who were not fully on board with me, but who chimed in often in my support on a few issues.

But this second wave I have had nothing to do with but watch them grow in numbers. A few of them were people I fired up 10 years ago on coming back to PFAL, and now they are firing up others.

It blows my mind how often now the film class is posted. There must be several hundred grads who now have their own set of mp4 video files on their hare drives now, and they are sharing it easily with others.

Just recently Bill Winegarner made a hard cover bound version of the PFAL film class transcript for $50.  He sold it openly over Facebook to many eager buyers.

SO, this second wave is much bigger than the tiny one I started here circa 15 years ago.
  
 

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5 hours ago, Mike said:

The reason I left was to APPLY the class to my life more, as opposed to just debating about it.

  1. Mike, what have you learned from your last few years?  What specifically have you learned from PFAL that you didn't learn from the Bible itself?  
  2. It's good that you're hanging out with other people.  How loving, kind, patient, and giving, are these people you hang out with now?  Apart from the Deadheads, are you hanging out with any genuine, practising, Christians, from churches and other organisations in your area?  How do you see Christ working out in their lives?  What do they do that exemplifies Christ to the wider population (rather than debating)? 
  3. I have a hard time seeing Jack Nicholson as Jesus.  He loves playing nutters, weirdos, crazies.  True, not so much in Cuckoo's Nest, where he's the sane character among nutters, but he's still weird.  If I see his name on a movie cast list, that's one movie I won't be watching.  And you might remember, in Cuckoo, Nurse Ratched (whom no doubt you would  correspondingly see as the devil) wins.  She overcomes, and gets the Nicholson character lobotomised. There's no "resurrection"-type scene, no recovery, for the Nicholson character.
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Just to be clear, Mike, that's three things I'm asking you to comment on.  Might be easiest if you tackle them separately.

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

Do you mean to say I should return to trying to prove detailed things about my personal life to people who want to believe otherwise?  Would YOU take up such a challenge?  What's in it for me?  That doesn't sound appealing.

I just thought I'd chew the fat a little and say hello.


 

You made a claim. I simply would like you to substantiate that claim.

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

Yes I got Pfizer #1 and then #2 over a month ago. Why do you ask?
How odd that you would associate my leaving GreaseSpot with tax time?  I don't get it.

Congrats on getting vaccinated. That's a wonderful thing for you (and everyone else) to do. I got both in February. I'm thankful.

I don't know why you think it's odd. The last thing I remember you posting was that you had to do your taxes therefore didn't have any time to continue posting.

Of course, you didn't say you'd be back when you finished your taxes (as I recall). 

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9 minutes ago, Rocky said:

Congrats on getting vaccinated. That's a wonderful thing for you (and everyone else) to do. I got both in February. I'm thankful.

I don't know why you think it's odd. The last thing I remember you posting was that you had to do your taxes therefore didn't have any time to continue posting.

Of course, you didn't say you'd be back when you finished your taxes (as I recall). 

It was three years ago last month. In this thread. 

 

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7 hours ago, Twinky said:
  1. Mike, what have you learned from your last few years?  What specifically have you learned from PFAL that you didn't learn from the Bible itself?  
  2. It's good that you're hanging out with other people.  How loving, kind, patient, and giving, are these people you hang out with now?  Apart from the Deadheads, are you hanging out with any genuine, practising, Christians, from churches and other organisations in your area?  How do you see Christ working out in their lives?  What do they do that exemplifies Christ to the wider population (rather than debating)? 
  3. I have a hard time seeing Jack Nicholson as Jesus.  He loves playing nutters, weirdos, crazies.  True, not so much in Cuckoo's Nest, where he's the sane character among nutters, but he's still weird.  If I see his name on a movie cast list, that's one movie I won't be watching.  And you might remember, in Cuckoo, Nurse Ratched (whom no doubt you would  correspondingly see as the devil) wins.  She overcomes, and gets the Nicholson character lobotomised. There's no "resurrection"-type scene, no recovery, for the Nicholson character.

Twinky,

1.  It would take too long to document for everyone's micro examination. Besides you all are poised to reject whatever I say here on my personal benefits. I suspect, but would love to be wrong, that you and others will be totally unimpressed with most of my reports. The subtle things you'll say (I predict) that they aren't substantial enough, and the substantial things you'll find another way to write off.  Please tell me your motivation in asking me this is not to play another 100 rounds of "Gotcha" like in previous years.

One of the biggest learning things for me was the expounding in two collateral chapters on “Be anxious for nothing” verse in Philippians. I worked those two chapters for many months and could mentally see them as a very large context for that one verse. Now when I repeat the verse to myself, a whole barrage of blessings and associations rain down on my head. I understand now HOW to not be anxious, how to turn it off when it comes on.
 

2.  In addition to my Deadhead friends, the Geer Group here has dropped Geer and are on their own. We started getting along again 10 years ago. I often clean windows with one of their ministers, and we have rich fellowship for hours. I attend a meeting about twice a year, so far.

I’m also getting to know (and re-know) lots of pro-PFAL grads on Facebook.

I’ve been to several TWI meetings in the past few years, and have connected well with at least one leader there. The old guard there is getting old, frail, and dying.  I find the new leaders very approachable. They know things went wrong there, and they are trying to make it change faster.

3.  You, Ken Kesey, and I all agree that Jack Nicholson was the WRONG actor to play McMurphy. Those who read the book REALLY know this. The book is 10 times richer than the movie. 

Nurse Rachet played the Pharasees. The doctor played the Romans…  It’s been 25 years since I read it, so I may have that wrong.

The thing is McMurphy sacrificed his life for his lowly friends. Kesey was secretly teaching this to the godless Beatniks he was hanging out with at Stanford in 1961.

I’ve studied this Kesey connection to Christianity since 1987. It is not well known, and usually suppressed.

Kesey prepared the hippies with this book to later become the light-bearers of PFAL.  If it weren’t for hippies vouching for VPW I’d have never given him 5 whole minutes of my attention.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Mike said:

It would take too long to document for everyone's micro examination. Besides you all are poised to reject whatever I say here on my personal benefits. 

Please don't put words in my mouth (or words on my posts!), Mike.  I asked an honest question.  An honest answer would be nice.

4 hours ago, Mike said:

I understand now HOW to not be anxious, how to turn it off when it comes on.

Now that is so important.  Especially for me, right now.  Such a lot going on regarding people around me, and their "stuff" impacts negatively on me.  I need to remember God's abundant blessings and that God has always "come through" for me - though not necessarily at the time I think it's necessary.  And often, not in the way I expect.  There is "being anxious for nothing" and "casting all your care on Him - and then, there's leaving it there - and that's  the hard part. 

So did you learn anything useful?  That you care to share?

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Waysider, are you aware that there was a strong "Jesus" influence that rubbed off Kesey, and onto Jerry Garcia? 

And then from Garcia to Bob Dylan. In the 70s Dylan turned onto Christianity and did a few albums on that theme. Also Eldridge Cleaver, another bit time 60s leader went Biblical around then.

I suggest, instead of rolling your eyes, you read "One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and then "The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test."   I researched all this heavily from 1987 thru 1998, and then touched on it here and there since.  Part of that research was calling Kesey's house for verification of what I was finding buried in his literature. Most of those calls were intercepted by his wife, who was also extremely helpful.

Kesey, unquestionably, started the Hippies. Then not long after that, the Hippies unquestionably expanded PFAL influence FAR out of Ohio where it had been relatively confined.

There is so much detail to this Kesey story that a college literature professor once proposed he and I do a class on this. That still may happen.

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2 minutes ago, Twinky said:

Please don't put words in my mouth (or words on my posts!), Mike.  I asked an honest question.  An honest answer would be nice.

Now that is so important.  Especially for me, right now.  Such a lot going on regarding people around me, and their "stuff" impacts negatively on me.  I need to remember God's abundant blessings and that God has always "come through" for me - though not necessarily at the time I think it's necessary.  And often, not in the way I expect.  There is "being anxious for nothing" and "casting all your care on Him - and then, there's leaving it there - and that's  the hard part. 

So did you learn anything useful?  That you care to share?

Twinky, I did mitigate my putting words into your mouth. I'm happy to hear I was wrong. But you know that I nailed the modus operundi applied to me by most here. It's only a Gotcha game.

The be anxious for nothing comes from 2 chapters where VPW handles that verse. 

One thing I had always wondered about was the "make your requests known unto God" part of that verse.  By working it I finally noticed that Bullinger calls it "Condecencio" !!!   It's like bold-fonting the idea that God would bend down to us and cup His ear to hear what we are anxious about.   God is not hard or hearing and He already knows it says what we need before we ask.  This figure of speech HIGHLIGHTS the reality that God is in with us on this problem.  VPW also brings into this mix the "casting all your cares on Him, because He cares for us."   I just picture me tossing a football to God and it's OUT OF MY HANDS....  until I forget and need to run back to  this one verse and the massive support around it from the collaterals.

The chapters are Green Book TNDC Chapter 15 The Christians Joy and Crown, but should also include Chap 14.
The other chapter is GMWD Chapter 1 - A Rest to God's People


 

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I always wondered if the Mike Wars would have been more or less interesting if I were an unbeliever as opposed to someone defending the Bible against heresy.

Will we find out? Will anyone care?

Questions, questions, questions...

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Am I the only one who thinks Bullinger's Figures of Speech sound a WHOLE LOT like Harry Potter spells?

Condescensio!
Hypocatastasis!
Asyndeton!
Polysyndeton!
Expecto-Runaroundem!

 

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1 hour ago, Raf said:

Am I the only one who thinks Bullinger's Figures of Speech sound a WHOLE LOT like Harry Potter spells?

Condescensio!
Hypocatastasis!
Asyndeton!
Polysyndeton!
Expecto-Runaroundem!

 

Whoa whoa whoa! Careful now...I think one of those is the spell that makes the copyright symbol invisible to any plagiarist...Not sure...or  maybe it’s all of those being said while you play session 1 of PFAL backwards.

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Such righteous anti-plagarism is really a joke to me.  Has your mission in life really descended to fight for "Scholars' Rights" and Proper Crediting.  Are you able to think outside that box? It reveals to me a level of desperation in wanting to criticize VPW. 

If I didn't think this was a terrible affliction that limits you in life, I'd consider it as hilarious as what happens to Flat Earthers.

I think you and others here have whipped yourself into a 25 year fit of righteous anti-plagarism, and lost track of real priorities in life and living.

But it's your life and you choose what is really important to you.

I care not one bit about copyrights on these things.  I'm sorry to see it bog down people the way it does. It looks very contrived and artificial to me.

Let's talk about more important issues, OK.

How's Speaking in Tongues doing for you these days?

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