(snips)
I think this kind of experience is very common in our world. Good to educate ourselves and others about the pitfalls of joining a group too completely, so that you lose yourself, your self-determinism, your capacity for critical thought and judgement. In other words, how not to become overly dependant on others, when we are all inter-related, and inter-dependant, and that's a good and healthy thing (think community of individuals).
So glad, RMack, that you are close to your brother again. That's cause for rejoicing.
I have lots of reality on the gifts or skills that you and your wife experience, and totally believe you and accept your reality as legitimate. I suspect that many here can relate, as well.
Have also had the experience of "reading", or recognizing a killer, as you did.
My instincts have literally saved me more than once. I am VERY grateful for them! The only time I ever get into trouble in life is when I let my intellect override them.
Let us know more about how your family is doing, as you can.
Same here - Ayn Rand (lol) saved me from decades in scn - as did a tangle with evil in a human that almost killed me. My instincts came ALIVE from that experience - and though I do not have your talents, or your wife's Rmack, I pay attention, like SweetnessandLight.
Mine 'bends' though - and that is hard to explain.
Once I took a weekend course from a magician. He showed us tricks, but also mind stuff that perhaps are not tricks. Our homework the the first night was to find the penny he had hidden in the room when we were not persent. We were to focus on dreaming about it. I did all the stuff he said (astral projection type exercises, breathing, blah blah, etc), and I had a dream. I saw that freaking penny. I knew exactly where it was.
The next day we are in the room and I am searching the sill above the window where the chair was, where I had dreamed it, and to my great disappointment it was not there. No one found the penny. He went to go get it - it was on the window sill above the matching couch - 90 degrees from the chair/window sill that I was searching on. The picture of the chair/ window and the couch/window were the same, but bent - skewed - and not in proportion (couch vs chair length). Ooooh.
This clued me into something about the way I 'see'. It is a bit bent - lol. This has helped me in real waking life - a lot - because - really - it IS all connected. Because of that experience, I am aware of how I skew things, look at them askance rather than head on - and a bit blown out of proportion -in real life as well as in dreams. Hmmmm. Great for dream interpretation too -LOL.
I still 'see' that way. But I cannot quite trust it - I know what I see, but I wonder how I have skewed it. LOL. This is true in real life as well as in intuition/instinct - AND - surprise surprise - emotion (yep, all connected).
It keeps me on my toes. My intuition and instincts have sharpened quite a bit, just by my paying attention. When things get confirmed by expereince, that strengthens my intuition and instincts. I find more turst - but I don't think I can change who I am, or HOW I see (a bit bent/blown out). I can only come to know HOW I see . . . and go from there.
From what I 'see', I look 90 degrees left and right, use peripheral sight, up/down - over/under, inside/outside, around/over - and so. I have a rule - do not solidify self into ONE choice/way/position. Ever. Stay open.
Hard to explain - sort of like - absorb it - let it be - be watchful. FEEL it.
That is how is is for me. Not as talented as you, but still - something - quite extraordinary. I think we all have it, in varying degress. But one has to find it - to make it come alive. One has to 'give' to it, feed it, so to speak, to keep it alive.
Sigh. Mine have sharpened in a bizarre way. I sense things like impending accidents - and death. Personally - in my little world, not impending plane crashes and stuff. My little world. Death and accidents - not my favorites . . . but I don't shove them away. I don't turn away.
I often know ahead of time, that a death is coming, and to whom. This has taught me a lot about love - and never leaving without those I love knowing how much I love them. And the accident thing - well it makes me very careful. Those don't always happen, and I think it is because I was so extra careful because I sensed something pending out there.
That is a Catch 22 on that one - can't verify those after awhile . . . But I certainly can verify the ones I blew off as excessive worry. Not anymore. Now I pay attention to those feelings.
Oh yeah, the magician. After that weekend, a girl in the audience at one of his shows asked me about the class I took with the guy. She wanted to know how to levitate. She thought he was really doing it. He did not show us anything on that - but I knew he wasn't 'really' doing it - though I have heard stories on it being real. Who am I to say (until I experience that - see it with my own eys, test it out)? But I was stunned at her belief in 'magical' thinking. Another poor soul ripe for the picking by some kind of evil entity or being.
I came from other directions; some mystical, some less so, but, one that gave me the kind of 'create your own world' push that Scientology does for others was John Fowles 'The Magus'. After that, I was ready for Hesse's 'Steppenwolf'.
And, since then, I've seldom felt the need to kick down open doors.
Zinj
When I decided to leave the insanity a year and a half later, I went to get my shelf from S.O. storage, and ALL of the books that I owned had been stolen, including those two, except my few scio books, (the old green back originals) which were all over the place.
The most ethical organization on the planet? Quite the opposite, in fact.
I've read 'em both, Zinj, but get this; These were definitely two of the books that I brought with me in my personal bookcase when I joined the Sea Org and moved to Hollyweird.
When I decided to leave the insanity a year and a half later, I went to get my shelf from S.O. storage, and ALL of the books that I owned had been stolen, including those two, except my few scio books, (the old green back originals) which were all over the place.
The most ethical organization on the planet? Quite the opposite, in fact.
Maybe your books were consficted? Didn't sec go through everyone's things, and - yes - steal what they wanted, but consficted anything 'contrary' to scn ????
Thank you for the post on Bethel Tabernacle. I prayed to receive Christ there on April 2, 1972. I had visited before Pastor Steenis was killed in a plane crash. At his funeral there was a message in tongues with a corresponding interpretation. The interpretation referred to 1 Cor 7:20 "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called." (KJV) The interpretation went on to say in "Thus saith the Lord" authority that we were to stay committed to Bethel Tabernacle until we were officially sanctioned to leave in the manner of Acts 13:2. I was fully committed to the church until January 1973. During that timeframe my grandmother died and left me a $1500 inheritance as soon as I finished college. I gave the money entirely to the church building project we were involved in while at the original Grant St. location. Meanwhile, I found myself deeply struggling with some of the parallels between the control tactics used by Jehovah's Witnesses and Breck, Jay, and the other elders. We were only to read the King James Version of the Bible, we were to not read any commentaries or other literature about Christianity, we were not to attend any Bible studies and we were to attend all 6 services each week. The only reason we could miss a service was that we were dead or working. If we were sick we needed to come and get healed. If someone else outside the church was sick or having an important family function, we were told to "let the dead bury the dead" (Lk 9:60). I became more and more concerned about whether what I was committing to was a cult and whether I was being a testimony of the change Jesus promises to those who follow Him as Savior and Lord. On the very day that I decided to quit, just one hour before the service that night, I received a call from one of the elders telling me that if I quit, I would lose my salvation and become a reprobate with no chance of forgiveness, even if I pled for God to forgive me. What was really eerie about the whole thing is that I had not even told anyone in the church that I was considering leaving. After leaving, I ran into some other ex members at Calvary Chapel who told me about others who left and had returned to drugs and debauchery because they were doomed to go to hell anyway. In 1974 I moved to Denver to go to "cemetery school" (what Breck called seminaries). I visited once more at Christmas time 1974. Breck had already had a falling out with Sister Steenis, was meeting elsewhere and had changed the name to Faith of Our Fathers. It was clear that the control tactics had heightened considerably and there were already rumors of people being beaten by the elders for threatening to leave the church.
Thank you for the post on Bethel Tabernacle. I prayed to receive Christ there on April 2, 1972. I had visited before Pastor Steenis was killed in a plane crash. At his funeral there was a message in tongues with a corresponding interpretation. The interpretation referred to 1 Cor 7:20 "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called." (KJV) The interpretation went on to say in "Thus saith the Lord" authority that we were to stay committed to Bethel Tabernacle until we were officially sanctioned to leave in the manner of Acts 13:2. I was fully committed to the church until January 1973. During that timeframe my grandmother died and left me a $1500 inheritance as soon as I finished college. I gave the money entirely to the church building project we were involved in while at the original Grant St. location. Meanwhile, I found myself deeply struggling with some of the parallels between the control tactics used by Jehovah's Witnesses and Breck, Jay, and the other elders. We were only to read the King James Version of the Bible, we were to not read any commentaries or other literature about Christianity, we were not to attend any Bible studies and we were to attend all 6 services each week. The only reason we could miss a service was that we were dead or working. If we were sick we needed to come and get healed. If someone else outside the church was sick or having an important family function, we were told to "let the dead bury the dead" (Lk 9:60). I became more and more concerned about whether what I was committing to was a cult and whether I was being a testimony of the change Jesus promises to those who follow Him as Savior and Lord. On the very day that I decided to quit, just one hour before the service that night, I received a call from one of the elders telling me that if I quit, I would lose my salvation and become a reprobate with no chance of forgiveness, even if I pled for God to forgive me. What was really eerie about the whole thing is that I had not even told anyone in the church that I was considering leaving. After leaving, I ran into some other ex members at Calvary Chapel who told me about others who left and had returned to drugs and debauchery because they were doomed to go to hell anyway. In 1974 I moved to Denver to go to "cemetery school" (what Breck called seminaries). I visited once more at Christmas time 1974. Breck had already had a falling out with Sister Steenis, was meeting elsewhere and had changed the name to Faith of Our Fathers. It was clear that the control tactics had heightened considerably and there were already rumors of people being beaten by the elders for threatening to leave the church.
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They were a sub-group of a Pentecostal flavor of Christianity whose main spiritual practice is what I call 'group tongues.' They would gather before and after a church 'service' in whatever facility they were renting, and babble away in 'tongues'.
This is some freaky stuff, guys. It literally sounded like the violent ward at some mental hospital snake pit. Most of them only repeated a few, or even just a couple of syllables over and over again. And for some reason, it could only be done in some other position besides sitting normally in a chair or just standing. hands and knees butt high was a favorite starter, face down on a chair for the more adept.
Note that although the 'gifts of the Spirit' out of the Bible may indeed exist, the book very clearly says that tongues should not be practiced when the church is assembled together, or one or two at the most, and only if there is an interpretation. It actually says you don't do this because people will think you are mad if you do! (1st Corinthians, 14-23)
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