Comments on Ambassador Watch: It's turning to custard...

Uh by the above comment I mean "Armstrong and comp...

2008-04-27T14:18:00.000+12:00

Uh by the above comment I mean "Armstrong and company" when I say "they".

Re: "Passover is 7 days long". So you mean they ch...

2008-04-27T04:24:00.000+12:00

Re: "Passover is 7 days long". So you mean they cherry-picked that too? Yeah why am I not surprised..... :-(

Dennis,I'm sure their are many other COGers out th...

2008-04-27T00:50:00.000+12:00

Dennis,

I'm sure their are many other COGers out there like myself who read this blog often and are trying to find a an exit to this strange little ACOG world we're stuck in.

Even if a person wakes up one day and recognizes they are in an off the wall cult it is still hard to leave. The knowlege that all current friendships and family relationships will be devastated, even if they are built on a twisted foundation, is a tough one.

My point is simple: For some time I've read your posts here and noticed their lack of animosity and genuine thoughtfullness. Believe it or not, your posts have helped me immensely in planning an exit strategy.

Thanks.
Just ordered Tolle's "The power of Now" on Amazon :)

WW, in contemporary Jewish terminology, this comin...

2008-04-26T19:01:00.000+12:00

WW, in contemporary Jewish terminology, this coming Sunday is the last day of Passover. It's only "long gone" to certain Christian sects who calculate and observe the festival in their own ways. For Jewry, Passover is either 7 or 8 days long, being 7 days long in Israel only.

"Passover followed by the Days of Unleavened Bread" is a foreign expression -- and concoction -- not observed quite like that in Jewry.

Passover lambs weren't valid sacrifices unless the homes of those who offered them were already unleavened at the time of slaughter. Today, homes are completely unleavened by nightfall on the 14th, at which time relevant rituals are observed.

For today's Seder on the 15th, Jewish homes have been free of chametz since the preceding evening. Outside Israel events of Passover now extend from the evening of the 14th through the 22nd of Nissan (Aviv), although meticulous scouring of chametz from Jewish homes begins much earlier.

Outside Israel this year the last day of Passover (Pesach) will be Sunday, April 27. This information is available on numerous websites.

I am. It was merely a pretense to promote potato s...

2008-04-26T17:36:00.000+12:00

I am.
It was merely a pretense to promote potato salad.
And in case Dennis or others are curious, the "horse-hockey" phrase comes from M*A*S*H, and Colonel Potter mentioned it a few times.
He had a horse named "Sophie" which was, oddly, a "him"
Go figure!

Mel,The "Twilight Zone Church of God" broke my bra...

2008-04-26T17:02:00.000+12:00

Mel,

The "Twilight Zone Church of God" broke my brain. I hope you're happy. ;-)

HOLY CRAP!Just about to listen to some YouTube mus...

2008-04-26T15:40:00.000+12:00

HOLY CRAP!

Just about to listen to some YouTube music vids, and I saw there is A PART THREE! of new-age nutjob Byron Katie's video. In this one she tries to convince the lady that she would be best off if she LOOKS A SHOOTER IN THE FACE AND THANK HIM FOR SHOOTING HER!
Not photography. Bullets that would kill her.

This is sooooo like the manipulations that Landmark Education Corporation "leaders"(who put on an expensive brainwashing weekend called the "Landmark Forum") do.

Dennis noted: I got my aging eyes examined yesterd...

2008-04-26T15:14:00.000+12:00

Dennis noted: I got my aging eyes examined yesterday for glasses and got to chatting with doc about the fact that the eyes don't really "see."

He said, "oh,you understand that!"

I asked him if it's true that our seeing is all in our head and we never really "see" what's out there. He said, "Of course, what we think is out there is a movie playing in our mind."

I said, "In the dark?"

He said, "Yes, in the dark..."

I said, "Who is watching the movie in our heads we think is our outer world, in the dark."

He laughed, held up his hands and said, "too much information!"

I asked him if the world was really silent until the waves of sound hit our ears.

He said, "Yes, of course, the world is silent. The sound comes after it is turned from waves to signals to sound."

I said, "Some think that the light of our world also only occurs after "light" enters the mind and that the world is both silent and dark."
...

Dennis,

There is nothing wrong with your silent movie. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now controlling the transmission. We control the horizontal, and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand channels or expand one single image to hdtv clarity - and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive. For the next half-hour, the Church of God will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to the outer limits.

There is a fifth internal dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is realm as vast as space, and as timeless, as internal infinity. It is the middle ground between internal light and shadow; between science and superstition; and it lies between the pit of man's fear, and the summit of his knowledge. These are dimensions of the internal imagination... it is an area which we call... Church of God - Twilight Zone.

Imaging

Ideas of any kind can be damaging. Perhaps the ha...

2008-04-26T14:51:00.000+12:00

Ideas of any kind can be damaging. Perhaps the happiest times were when Neanderthals had no consciousness of anything but the present moment. No past memories registered and a future of planning was nothing.

Not changing your stone tools for 200,000 years would indicate a certain "bliss" associated with being totally unconscious..ha.

It's interesting to see that in the evolution of hominids, each new type lasted about half as long as the previous one. That puts humans as lasting about 100,000 years, which is almost about it at this point.

Did n't watch Katie. On dumb dialup at the moment. My wireless neighbor moved! :)

Ha ha!Yeah, I heard the term "codswallop" a few ye...

2008-04-26T13:26:00.000+12:00

Ha ha!

Yeah, I heard the term "codswallop" a few years back on a different board from a cheeky poster, and immediately liked it.
Sounds like stinky fish parts or something.

I know that when people hear the term "ego" they think of the negative connotation.
I am using the term as a "healthy sense of self" which I see as a good thing. I am very familiar with new-age gurus using it to manipulate, as guru Cohen has said, something that one must get rid of, and the "source of all evil"

I mean, sure it makes sense that if one's beliefs and feelings are affecting one's self in a harmful manner, that there is some adjustment due for the sake of one's well-being.
But, these new age gurus say ego must be gotten rid of, and is bad, and that is a hugely manipulative tool.
Did you see that Byron Katie video? What a tool, she is so manipulative and if she believes what she says she has her head up her ass big time. That's the kind of new age horse-hockey that I object to.
And I wouldn't object so strongly if not for the psychological(and other types of) damage I've seen in so many people from it.

Hi Mel,It's not that I don't want to answer questi...

2008-04-26T12:43:00.000+12:00

Hi Mel,
It's not that I don't want to answer questions about ego, it's just a big topic and I think Tolle covers it well in his books. Endless topic for a posting I would imagine.

Non Christian teachers are as diverse as Christian ministers. Every topic has it's Weinlands, Packs, Flurrys and Tkaches. It's endless.

Codswallop...still a great term. See you taught me something new!
:)

And if my ego doesn'want to explain itself to your painbody, well...that's my painbody's business

:)

Well, Dennis, I'm happy to have "painbody"...I thi...

2008-04-26T12:20:00.000+12:00

Well, Dennis, I'm happy to have "painbody"...I think, lol!
Perhaps that's me n' me ego's thing in what makes me human.
I suppose we'll disagree on whether Tolle is "new-age".
It's cool if you don't want to answer questions about Tolle's theories regarding the ego are. I'm glad you're here and I do respect much of what you write regarding the WCG.

I hope you understand that my perspective comes from having become immersed in new age anti-ego theories, from a variety of sources, for quite a few years in my post WCG drifting, before I finally snapped out out of it due to seeing severe damage done from Landmark, Scientology, and a host of other psycho-babbling pseudo-scientific entities.

I'll take my "reactive" mind any day, compared to what those types of entities create.

In case anyone hasn't seen the Byron Katie new-age codswallop I posted in the other thread:
part 1
and
part 2

I have no problem feeling outraged by that. In fact I think it's healthy that I do, even if someone wants to do some kind of "painbody" label to try to denigrate my feelings about it.

"Regarding Tolle: Every time I walk in a bookstore...

2008-04-26T10:20:00.000+12:00

"Regarding Tolle: Every time I walk in a bookstore I see a display of his books. Some kind of movement must be starting."

I think it's more of a recognition that how he explains what we kind of know by our experiences is correct. It's not new. It's just well explained. Probably one of the most unassuming human beings you'll ever meet.

Painbody is not the conscience. The conscience is the template we compare our rightness and wrongness too based on many factors, including religion of course. What stimulates one conscience may not another and that's not just because they "are hard of heart," "past feeling" or seeds on hard ground.

Regarding Tolle: Every time I walk in a bookstore...

2008-04-26T10:13:00.000+12:00

Regarding Tolle: Every time I walk in a bookstore I see a display of his books. Some kind of movement must be starting.

How does the "pain body" differ from conscience? Conscience can have a self-accusatory facet. It almost sounds like "pain body" might be a conscience that has been damaged.

The anecdote on how we see is interesting. I do not believe that we can incontrovertibly demonstrate that an objective environment exists. Our environment might be entirely subjective. What is it that we really see? Objects? Or a data feed - like in the movie "The Matrix"? If our environment is entirely subjective, that would not conflict with the Bible, that I can see.

-- Neo

BTW WW....you put together a very helpful and up t...

2008-04-26T09:22:00.000+12:00

BTW WW....you put together a very helpful and up to date site and I read it often. I'm sure someone can use it as a source for their PHD in aberrant relgious personalities.

dd

Isnt it nice we don't have to all agree and ask ea...

2008-04-26T09:18:00.000+12:00

Isnt it nice we don't have to all agree and ask each other, "soooo, how did you come into the truth?"

:)

Sorry Dennis---I'm more inclined towards Bill's/Th...

2008-04-26T09:14:00.000+12:00

Sorry Dennis---I'm more inclined towards Bill's/The Matrix's Gnostic analogy, than that "painbody" stuff.

It actually reminds me, in a not-so-subtle way, of the Harlan Ellison story "Paingod" (wherein this awful, terrible, turgid and horrific vale of tears, was actually paradise, compared to when the veil was lifted).

But hey, whatever works for you. The anecdote of your visit to the eye doc certainly resonated with me, and moreso than any of Tolle's stuff! :-)

Perhaps I mistated it. Tolle has not hit on anythi...

2008-04-26T09:04:00.000+12:00

Perhaps I mistated it. Tolle has not hit on anything new. He just explains how we all know we think and do really well. When I say how we think, I mean how our emotions get the best of us or how we spin our minds in the past and get depressed, or angry over it, or spin our thoughts in to the "future" and get anxious. We all know we do this and how it feels. He just puts it all down nicely in readable form to where one would generally find them saying, "isn't that the truth. That's what I do alright."

Neuroscience is not the topic. Perhaps I meant, how we worry, stay angry, get pitiful, get anxious or keep drudging up the past as if that changes it.

He also talks a lot about "my story." We all have a story and all stories are just events that play out. Any number of things could have changed the story from what it turned out to be. For example, if I had not gone to Idaho for a summer visit to my sisters at 14 years old and gone to a WCG service, my story may have been different. Or if my grandparents had not cancelled their place on the Titanic in April of 1912 until June, my story may have been different. (They actually did that.)

But the point is that the real me is not my story. Stories change. The me that is me merely can adapt to various stories of a life.

One interesting thing to me is that concerning "counseling." When we go to a counselor, we are counseling in our story. We are telling our story. Getting help with our story. Pissed at our story. All counseling is an attempt to deal with "our story." But we are bigger than our story and somehow that has been a relief to me. Counseling can be endless because the story of our drama and lives, feelings and emotions can be endless..the pain body. We are counseling the pain body. But I am not my pain body.

Big topic. Some would also say much of the Bible and the effect it has on humans is "codswallop" Now that's a great word!!!

Read the Power of Now and see what you think. It's a book where you read a sentence and have to stop and say, "yeah..that's how it seems to be."

However, I have also freed myself from labeling everything not Bible as "new age," "demonic" or "just human reasoning," and this may make more sense to me than others depending on where in their story
they are stuck or passing through.

PS Whenever someone tells you "you are just using human reasoning," ask them what kind they use? :)

and people still think that the 2 witnessess are 2...

2008-04-26T09:03:00.000+12:00

and people still think that the 2 witnessess are 2 individual human beings?????

and by the way, God's promise was unconditional, so the USA & UK could have been buddists for all that matter, and they still would have been the great nations that they were....(come to think of it, they might as well have been buddists, considering their customs of Sunday,Christmas,Easter, etc., and they became great in spite of that)

Dennis, if Tolle has hit upon "how the mind works"...

2008-04-26T07:38:00.000+12:00

Dennis, if Tolle has hit upon "how the mind works", are scientists educated in neuroscience now looking to Tolle to amazing revelations as to how the mind really works?

Or do they just not have an "open mind"?

I'm rather teasing, but please still show how his stuff is different from other new age gurus that SEEM to teach codswallop so similar to his, if you can.

Luss noted:"while we live a drama of illusion.'I g...

2008-04-26T07:37:00.000+12:00

Luss noted:

"while we live a drama of illusion.'

I got my aging eyes examined yesterday for glasses and got to chatting with doc about the fact that the eyes don't really "see."

He said, "oh,you understand that!"

I asked him if it's true that our seeing is all in our head and we never really "see" what's out there. He said, "Of course, what we think is out there is a movie playing in our mind."

I said, "In the dark?"

He said, "Yes, in the dark..."

I said, "Who is watching the movie in our heads we think is our outer world, in the dark."

He laughed, held up his hands and said, "too much information!"

I asked him if the world was really silent until the waves of sound hit our ears.

He said, "Yes, of course, the world is silent. The sound comes after it is turned from waves to signals to sound."

I said, "Some think that the light of our world also only occurs after "light" enters the mind and that the world is both silent and dark."

We just looked at each other and he said, "here's your perscription"

:)

Dennis and all:I tend to agree. There is a physic ...

2008-04-26T07:09:00.000+12:00

Dennis and all:

I tend to agree. There is a physic force "sucking off of us". It loves the drama, the ego, the hate, the bitterness, and pride of ourselves.

Some could call it the Devil and his demons, enjoying the vicarious experience thru us, as I believe.

Nonetheless, the movie "The Matrix" is probably a good analogy. Giant sick flies, sucking off of our life force, while we live a drama of illusion.

Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA

On another recent posting some comments were made ...

2008-04-26T06:55:00.000+12:00

On another recent posting some comments were made about Eckhart Tolle and his books, The Power of Now and The New Earth. I personally resonate with Tolle, but that's me.

However, he does bring up one concept that is very much a part of why AW flourishes at times, and we, myself included, keep coming back.

It is his understanding of the "pain body" that resides in us all. I'll let him define it.

:The pain body is the semiautonomous energy (not a being as Rick Ross screws up) that lives within most human beings, an entity made up emotions. (Emotions are the body's reaction to the mind)...Any emotionally painful experience can be used as food by the painbody. That's why it thrives on negative thinking as well as drama in relationships. The pain body is an addiction to unhappiness...The voice in your head will be telling sad, anxious, or angry stories about yourelf or your life, about other people, about past,future or imaginary events. The voice will be blaming, accusing, complaining, imagining. You become identified with whatever the voice says and at that moment your addiction to unhappiness has set in....If it sounds like you have a psychic parasite, that's exactly what it is."

Makes sense to me and that is my personal experience with all things from WCG to Ron Weinland.

Sooner or later I'll have to kill off the pain body and let it be. I guess the only other choice is to keep feeding it.

Tolle is well worth reading but many label it "new age" when in fact it is just how the mind works, Bible views of the mind (which are precious few since in the Bible, one would hardly know there was a brain or emotions) nothwithstanding.

I'm tending to think that rather than April 2008 b...

2008-04-26T06:43:00.000+12:00

I'm tending to think that rather than April 2008 being the beginning of RW's One Witness plus One Supporter Makes Two Witnesses ministry, it is the beginning of the end.

Anonymous said: "You all see as carnal men, who ca...

2008-04-26T06:30:00.000+12:00

Anonymous said: "You all see as carnal men, who can only take things at face value and literally. Does not the scripture itself tell you that these things are spiritually discerned."

MY COMMENT - Sounds like the moron Tom Mahan has returned anonymously to AW. Was that you Tom having fun with us again?

And speaking of Tom, did his picture ever show up on the internet as he promised?

Richard