Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
frodobaggins
()
Date: May 18, 2012 06:37PM
Macready wrote -"On that note, it would be curious to know whether any of the UM students, particularly the long term ones, have started hearing voices as a result of connecting to the Hierahy? It happened to Serge before he even began to change his diet and lifestyle habits so you'd think that after years of applying themselves to the 'Livingness' some of the students would be experiencing the same supernatural communications. If Serge is no different, greater or more special than any other person as his students always claim, why has nobody else made communication with the Hierarchy? Long-term followers of UM would do well to 'ponder on that'.
That is a great point! Everyone should be asking that question to any UM members.
That is a great point! Everyone should be asking that question to any UM members.
Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: May 18, 2012 11:10PM
This will be a bit of a story. Longish. But I put it here, hoping it may help.
A lot of us may come from painful backgrounds and even as adults, never have opportunities to learn what genuine mentorship looks like.
Or what the effect of a mentor is actually supposed to be.
So many of us, even in adulthood, want, long, for infallible models.
And I have been through this. I had someone whom I once looked to as an example of holiness and integrity. I felt dreadful when people expressed doubts or misgivings about Reverand X.
Because...I too had misgivings. I had to keep suppressing my own misgivings to hang onto my vision of Reverand X - vision very many others shared, not only myself.
What I did was to keep quiet if I was with anyone whom I sensed might disapprove of Reverand X and my dependance on him. I even kept this secret from a therapist I was seeing at the time.
I did not know I was protecting Reverand X from scrutiny, the way I trained myself to ignore that my mother was nasty tempered at night and that she always kept a bottle of Gordons gin by the toaster.
I had had to convince myself that my mother and dad were perfect, so I had to work hard to ignore evidence to the contrary--a lot of evidence.
So I was used to having an idea of mentors as people one has to both look up to and at the same time protect from outside scrutiny by skeptics.
Looking to and appreciating someone as a role model, the way an apprentice looks to a master in the craft is admirable and an effective way to teach.
Examples are worth presenting because successful mentoring is usually not dramatic and doesnt fit well into soundbites. It doesnt fit the usual model for movies so one doesnt see it publicized much. When mentorship goes well, it remains private.
Because we have few public examples of healtsuccessful mentorship, I want to offer two examples.
Two physicians.
William Osler and another physician who must remain anonymous because he may still be alive.
William Osler, who helped to transform the teaching of medicine and was one of the four founding professors for the school of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, told his own students that he owed an immense debt to a physician who had taught him -
James Bovell.
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
But...Dr. Osler was a self starter, someone who didnt remain in his mentor's shadow but who discovered his own talents and become someone who mentored many others - a servant to medicine, yet an original personality, both as a man and as a teacher.
But it is very different altogether, to incorporate someone into yourself in such a way that the internalized person has to be treated as infallible and all perfect.
The greatest mentors are the ones who set an example by being able to recognize their own strengths and also recognize thier own limitations and when they make errors, even serious errors, will set the noble example by admitting their errors and failures right in front of thier apprentices and demonstrate to them how to face failure, admit to error, and how to make amends and in the long run, learn lessons.
In a good relationship one's internalized mentor should be a model for how to be human and fallible, how to be humane.
If a mentor models this, then one shouldnt feel panicked if ones friends dont like your mentor.
Treating someone as perfect and internalizing him or her is a very necessary task between ages 0 to about 18 months. But this same attitude will throw a mentoriship off balance.
Mentorship succeeds only if all parties are adult-a mature adult in the case of the Mentor and a younger adult who knows his or her own worth but also knows further development is needed.
Mentorship preserves autonomy in all parties but adds skills that a student can develop further without the presence of the mentor.
Something is off kilter if, in adulthood. it shatters our world if a friend doesnt like our mentor or expresses doubts.
Thats very different from the relationship that William Osler had with James Bovell.
That relationship didnt breed anxiety but confidence and humility - and it set Osler free to become a practitioner who made original contributions. He admired Dr Bovell, but Osler remained a free spirit--he was not an inmate of his admiration for Bovell.
Years ago, in college, I volunteered at a hospital laboratory and was at a conferance.
One of our most experienced physicians faced that he had made a grave error interpreting the pathology of a patient's tissues. Dr X was bitterly sorry and said so.
"I was not thinking" Dr X said. That was his way of saying he had not paid attention and the toughest clearest way he could put himself under scrutiny and take responsibility for a matter that affected care for a patient.
His colleagues saw his distress and tried to comfort him. Dr X was usually a very formidable man who was tough on others. Here he was being equally tough on himself.
And his colleagues were trying to care for him as a man like themselves.
Dr X kept saying, in front of all of us, including all us students, "I was not thinking."
That is a mentor in action. We saw this guy all day long, solving problems that stumped others, and just as able to face it and own it in public, when he had erred.
Thirty plus years later, there may be persons all over the US, possibly the world, who still remember this man, and inspired by him, but who wouldnt feel shattered if others didnt share their admiration.
Dr X could be an SOB and abrasive as hell. That was as much a part of him as his ability to face error and say so in public, where it counted. He assessed cases of persons who had smoking related illnesses and yet he smoked like a fiend and despite his brilliance, gave me an early lesson in cognitive dissonance--he claimed research on smoking and lung cancer was not yet conclusive. (this was the 1970s)
As our mentor, Dr X didnt want us to emulate hiim by taking on his mannerisms. He didnt want us to become SOBs. He didnt want us to take up smoking, either.
He wanted us to learn from him what really counted: the importance of paying attention, thought, and--admitting as soon as possible one has committed error and voice this in front of ones colleagues so all this can be faced as soon as possible.
Because this was a true mentor in action, I offer this as an example.
Dr X could be an SOB. It wouldnt have upset us had our friends disliked him. We saw the qualities in Dr X that existed apart from his SOB-ness.
Those were the qualities we wanted to take as our own.
In true mastership/mentorship, one is free to internalize portions of the mentor while recognizing his or her less admirable qualities and not internalizing those.
The mentor is not infallible. It will not make us anxious if our friends dont like the mentor.
We can keep the mentor AND our friends.
A lot of us may come from painful backgrounds and even as adults, never have opportunities to learn what genuine mentorship looks like.
Or what the effect of a mentor is actually supposed to be.
So many of us, even in adulthood, want, long, for infallible models.
And I have been through this. I had someone whom I once looked to as an example of holiness and integrity. I felt dreadful when people expressed doubts or misgivings about Reverand X.
Because...I too had misgivings. I had to keep suppressing my own misgivings to hang onto my vision of Reverand X - vision very many others shared, not only myself.
What I did was to keep quiet if I was with anyone whom I sensed might disapprove of Reverand X and my dependance on him. I even kept this secret from a therapist I was seeing at the time.
I did not know I was protecting Reverand X from scrutiny, the way I trained myself to ignore that my mother was nasty tempered at night and that she always kept a bottle of Gordons gin by the toaster.
I had had to convince myself that my mother and dad were perfect, so I had to work hard to ignore evidence to the contrary--a lot of evidence.
So I was used to having an idea of mentors as people one has to both look up to and at the same time protect from outside scrutiny by skeptics.
Looking to and appreciating someone as a role model, the way an apprentice looks to a master in the craft is admirable and an effective way to teach.
Examples are worth presenting because successful mentoring is usually not dramatic and doesnt fit well into soundbites. It doesnt fit the usual model for movies so one doesnt see it publicized much. When mentorship goes well, it remains private.
Because we have few public examples of healtsuccessful mentorship, I want to offer two examples.
Two physicians.
William Osler and another physician who must remain anonymous because he may still be alive.
William Osler, who helped to transform the teaching of medicine and was one of the four founding professors for the school of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, told his own students that he owed an immense debt to a physician who had taught him -
James Bovell.
Quote
The second most influential man in Osler's life was a great friend of the first and the three spent many week-endscollecting and examining specimens. He was Dr. James Bovell, a physician in Toronto and on the staff of TorontoMedical College. Osler later said "To James Bovell andRobert Palmer Howard (Dean of Medicine at McGill) and to myfirst teacher the Rev. W. A. Johnson, I owe my success inlife — if success means getting what you want and beingsatisfied with it ."
The great influence James Bovell had onhis early years can be seen when, during a dull lecture or meeting he would scribble the name of this man in his notes or on the program.
This was Osler'sfavorite form of doodle andit persisted even through his later years as Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford (toward the end of his life-Corboy
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
But...Dr. Osler was a self starter, someone who didnt remain in his mentor's shadow but who discovered his own talents and become someone who mentored many others - a servant to medicine, yet an original personality, both as a man and as a teacher.
But it is very different altogether, to incorporate someone into yourself in such a way that the internalized person has to be treated as infallible and all perfect.
The greatest mentors are the ones who set an example by being able to recognize their own strengths and also recognize thier own limitations and when they make errors, even serious errors, will set the noble example by admitting their errors and failures right in front of thier apprentices and demonstrate to them how to face failure, admit to error, and how to make amends and in the long run, learn lessons.
In a good relationship one's internalized mentor should be a model for how to be human and fallible, how to be humane.
If a mentor models this, then one shouldnt feel panicked if ones friends dont like your mentor.
Quote
I did once after going to the workshop, saying it wasn't for me and that I didn't like Serge, and the friend was very upset.
Treating someone as perfect and internalizing him or her is a very necessary task between ages 0 to about 18 months. But this same attitude will throw a mentoriship off balance.
Mentorship succeeds only if all parties are adult-a mature adult in the case of the Mentor and a younger adult who knows his or her own worth but also knows further development is needed.
Mentorship preserves autonomy in all parties but adds skills that a student can develop further without the presence of the mentor.
Something is off kilter if, in adulthood. it shatters our world if a friend doesnt like our mentor or expresses doubts.
Thats very different from the relationship that William Osler had with James Bovell.
That relationship didnt breed anxiety but confidence and humility - and it set Osler free to become a practitioner who made original contributions. He admired Dr Bovell, but Osler remained a free spirit--he was not an inmate of his admiration for Bovell.
Years ago, in college, I volunteered at a hospital laboratory and was at a conferance.
One of our most experienced physicians faced that he had made a grave error interpreting the pathology of a patient's tissues. Dr X was bitterly sorry and said so.
"I was not thinking" Dr X said. That was his way of saying he had not paid attention and the toughest clearest way he could put himself under scrutiny and take responsibility for a matter that affected care for a patient.
His colleagues saw his distress and tried to comfort him. Dr X was usually a very formidable man who was tough on others. Here he was being equally tough on himself.
And his colleagues were trying to care for him as a man like themselves.
Dr X kept saying, in front of all of us, including all us students, "I was not thinking."
That is a mentor in action. We saw this guy all day long, solving problems that stumped others, and just as able to face it and own it in public, when he had erred.
Thirty plus years later, there may be persons all over the US, possibly the world, who still remember this man, and inspired by him, but who wouldnt feel shattered if others didnt share their admiration.
Dr X could be an SOB and abrasive as hell. That was as much a part of him as his ability to face error and say so in public, where it counted. He assessed cases of persons who had smoking related illnesses and yet he smoked like a fiend and despite his brilliance, gave me an early lesson in cognitive dissonance--he claimed research on smoking and lung cancer was not yet conclusive. (this was the 1970s)
As our mentor, Dr X didnt want us to emulate hiim by taking on his mannerisms. He didnt want us to become SOBs. He didnt want us to take up smoking, either.
He wanted us to learn from him what really counted: the importance of paying attention, thought, and--admitting as soon as possible one has committed error and voice this in front of ones colleagues so all this can be faced as soon as possible.
Because this was a true mentor in action, I offer this as an example.
Dr X could be an SOB. It wouldnt have upset us had our friends disliked him. We saw the qualities in Dr X that existed apart from his SOB-ness.
Those were the qualities we wanted to take as our own.
In true mastership/mentorship, one is free to internalize portions of the mentor while recognizing his or her less admirable qualities and not internalizing those.
The mentor is not infallible. It will not make us anxious if our friends dont like the mentor.
We can keep the mentor AND our friends.
Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: May 18, 2012 11:20PM
Quote
If Serge is no different, greater or more special than any other person as his students always claim, why has nobody else made communication with the Hierarchy? Long-term followers of UM would do well to 'ponder on that'.
Hmmm.
The history of Theosophy may give a suggestion of what we will see happening down the line.
What happened in Theosophy was that various ambitious persons began to disagree.
They formed their own interpretations and claimed infallibility themselves, taking sectors of followers with them.
After Blavatsky died, Annie Besant took over.
Alice Bailey split off and created her own franchise.
Rudolf Steiner disagreed with Annie Besant and split away, creating Anthroposophy.
Roberto Assagioli, who had known Alice Bailey, incoporated channeled material into psychanalysis and created Psychosynthesis.
Others were never members of any Theosophy group or spin off, but operated as freelancers and appropriated elements of it into their own set ups, such as Gurdjieff.
Ouspensky quarrelled with Gurdjieff and created his own study group in the UK. Others used a combo of Ouspensky material with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's material and created
the London School of Economic Science (known in the US as the School of Practical Philosophy) People who take their advertised philosophy courses find its just their own ideology that is taught, and the classes are indoctrination, not philosophical at all.
So..we can see how long it takes before others branch away from UM and create their own trademarked interpretations.
Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
Eric Dobbs
()
Date: May 18, 2012 11:56PM
Hi Frodo and COncerned partner ,firstly my partner is unaware of my involvement in this forum.I haven't told her as I feel she is still in a fragile state. People it seems are wondering why ex UM members are not contributing to this forum. Well in my opinion there are a number of reasons. (1)Retribution-there is a fear of some sort of payback from UM ,either legal, personal and for some "The Hierarchy"if ex members expose UM on line.(2)Embarrassment.Frankly I think many feel foolish for being duped by a fraudster and don't want to reveal themselves.(3)The need now to move on. Ex members have been through a great deal of personal turmoil,I can understand that they don't want to revisit the past,they need to close the door on the whole ugly issue.In my next post I'll attempt to explain how and why my partner left UM for good .regards Eric h
Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: May 19, 2012 01:02AM
Whatever the hierarchy is/are, those who left mainline Blavatsky/Besant Theosophy to start their own interpretations were not prevented from doing so.
The worst consequences they faced were not from the 'hierarchy' but from their own students who later emulated them by breaking off to start their own derivative schools.
The hierarchy that allegedy empowered the founder of Theosophy didnt hamper the breakaway students--Bailey, Steiner, etc.
So the hierarchy dont seem interested in thwarting or punishing anyone who goes independant as a leader of a new dissident sect.
But if someone has internalized punitive and fear driven material and hasnt ever looked at Theosophy and its many derivatives as a social movement that has a human history, its hard to get past the fear messages and depart.
Blavatsky, from whom all these other set ups derived impetus, wasnt that much of a fear monger, BTW. Blavatskian Theosophists were actually service oriented in the world.
It was the others who took the movement into a more inward and fearful direction. But without Blavatsky and Besant, Alice Bailey would not have had any material to start with. Hers was a more grim humorless approach to discipleship.
Read a few memoirs by combat veterans and you will learn that in actual war conditions, a sense of humor is needed or one cannot stand the strain for very long.
Bailey's work seems humorless and so does Serge's.
This is what has caused some to reconsider commitment to high demand relationships:
Discovering, over a long period, that they're running dry.
There's no real joy or play.
Intensity yes.
Playfulness, no.
Some will accept a life of humorless intensity, but many will become tired of it.
One way to test a group or relationship is to see if only the leader is permitted to crack jokes and elicit laughter or if anyone in the group regardless of status can also crack a joke and get some laughs.
"A puritan is one whose mind never takes a holiday"
GB Shaw
The worst consequences they faced were not from the 'hierarchy' but from their own students who later emulated them by breaking off to start their own derivative schools.
The hierarchy that allegedy empowered the founder of Theosophy didnt hamper the breakaway students--Bailey, Steiner, etc.
So the hierarchy dont seem interested in thwarting or punishing anyone who goes independant as a leader of a new dissident sect.
But if someone has internalized punitive and fear driven material and hasnt ever looked at Theosophy and its many derivatives as a social movement that has a human history, its hard to get past the fear messages and depart.
Blavatsky, from whom all these other set ups derived impetus, wasnt that much of a fear monger, BTW. Blavatskian Theosophists were actually service oriented in the world.
It was the others who took the movement into a more inward and fearful direction. But without Blavatsky and Besant, Alice Bailey would not have had any material to start with. Hers was a more grim humorless approach to discipleship.
Read a few memoirs by combat veterans and you will learn that in actual war conditions, a sense of humor is needed or one cannot stand the strain for very long.
Bailey's work seems humorless and so does Serge's.
This is what has caused some to reconsider commitment to high demand relationships:
Discovering, over a long period, that they're running dry.
There's no real joy or play.
Intensity yes.
Playfulness, no.
Some will accept a life of humorless intensity, but many will become tired of it.
One way to test a group or relationship is to see if only the leader is permitted to crack jokes and elicit laughter or if anyone in the group regardless of status can also crack a joke and get some laughs.
"A puritan is one whose mind never takes a holiday"
GB Shaw
Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: May 19, 2012 01:23AM
Quote
Disciples need to see to it that they do not hinder by any form of self-assertion, [682] or by the imposition of their own ideas or by any authoritarianism, based on past procedure. Ponder on this. The disciple who is sure that he is always right and who is confident that his interpretation of what is needed is infallibly correct and that others must be moulded into cooperation with his planned procedures can greatly hinder the good work. The task of the modern disciple is to sense need and then to meet it and this, again, is part of the new emerging technique of invocation and evocation.
Alice Bailey Discipleship in the New Age
[www.light-weaver.com]
Yet...Bailey acted out the very attitude she warns against. She displayed plenty of self assertion when taking her own stand against Annie Besant.
And the hierarchy didnt seem to punish anyone --whether they stayed within the organization founded by Blavatsky or were expelled and or left on their own initiatives to create new interpretations of what had been started by Blavatsky.
The hierchy dont seem that interested in punishing manifestations of self assertion when someone creates a new organization.
So someone who decides she needs a break from the intensity of UM isnt at risk of being punished either.
Thing is, human life always contains a mixture of pleasure and pain.
If fear ridden, we can easily dread that a mishap proves the heirarchy is out to punish us. But...it didnt punish or stop the many who disagreed with Blavatsky.
Next, lots of crimes are reported as happening at night.
THis means peopel who who been trained to go to bed between 9 pm and 3 am allegedly because pranic attack is more likely during this time will have to do a lot to unlearn this pattern of fear because its easily re-triggered by news reports of night time crime.
Some of us genuinely do better with ultra early bedtimes and have to sacrifice a lot of adult night life as a result.
But if one is genuinely a nightowl and does well at night, it will be a hard task to unlearn fears inculcated by the 9 pm to 3 am bedtime advice given by UM.
Plenty of trouble happens at night. But it is HUMAN trouble.
If the hiearchy had any interest in punishing us, it wouldve punished all the ones who disagreed with Blavatsky or who had been expelled from the Theosophical Society.
Which, as we have seen, did not happen at all.
Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
MacReady
()
Date: May 19, 2012 05:48AM
It seems to me that those dedicated to UM keep going back because they want to attain what Serge claims to have done: a state of pure connection not only to their own souls but also to a divine higher power. If they accept him as being the only source of divine truth (which the students do) it automatically puts them in a lesser position on the esoteric 'initiation' ladder, therefore he's always in a position to assure his students that they're not quite there yet. This is borne out by the ever increasing complexity of the teachings; there're always new levels of information that students have to absorb and new 'teachings' to abide by. The very nature of SB's belief system guarantees the followers that they'll never fully 'get it', because Serge the self proclaimed 'forever student' will forever be adding new rules to the game.
From this I'd like to suggest a simpler reason that no UM student has attained connection to the Hierarchy: Serge himself has no connection to the Hierarchy because no such Hierarchy exists. The students have put their faith not only in a mentor who claims exclusive knowledge of 'divine truth', but also in a New Age concept that in all likelihood is completely fictional.
The ambiguous 'Ancient Wisdom' of the 'Hierarchy' that SB claims to have access to is not exclusive to UM, but has been a staple of New Age belief systems since the heyday of the Theosophy movement.
[www.greatdreams.com]
[www.ascension-research.org]
[www.spiritualhealing-now.com]
[www.templeofthepresence.org]
[www.oakrose.net]
From this I'd like to suggest a simpler reason that no UM student has attained connection to the Hierarchy: Serge himself has no connection to the Hierarchy because no such Hierarchy exists. The students have put their faith not only in a mentor who claims exclusive knowledge of 'divine truth', but also in a New Age concept that in all likelihood is completely fictional.
The ambiguous 'Ancient Wisdom' of the 'Hierarchy' that SB claims to have access to is not exclusive to UM, but has been a staple of New Age belief systems since the heyday of the Theosophy movement.
[www.greatdreams.com]
[www.ascension-research.org]
[www.spiritualhealing-now.com]
[www.templeofthepresence.org]
[www.oakrose.net]
Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
knowledge_is_king
()
Date: May 21, 2012 08:38AM
Quote
corboy
Heres the crummy thing.
It may be that someone is persuaded to get involved with Unversal Medicine by a trusted friend who herself is in the early and happy stages of involvement.
The friend may herself not know the more distressing features of the group because she is being kept happy and igorant, being told only what she "is ready to know".
Or the friend may be further along and sincerely believe that its for ones own good that one not be told everything all at once.
That is the damned trouble with esoteric groups. They have no respect for non initiates.
They do not believe in the inherant dignity of the ordinary and untransformed human person.
One has dignity only if one is a member of intiates.
Everyone outside the charmed circle is pathetic, unevolved, doomed, or potential enemies.
With that attitude, leaders of these groups feel entitled to lie by omission, giving incomplete information to potential recruits, who would flee if told, in full and up front, all that intiation would require of them.
Was trawling the earlier pages of this thread, and found this passage by Corboy, which sums it up in a nutshell.
On my earlier post, I have managed to find some more info on the group and will post up later on.
Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
John lazuras
()
Date: May 21, 2012 09:56AM
Hi,
Can you provide information on how i can get my partner to leave the UM.
She recently attend the retreat in NSW and has returned with more changes eg going to bed early, a picture of mona lisa and more of Serges books and a pillow case for her dreams.
I have tried reading his books but find a can not get past the first few pages as they do not make sense along with allot of his teaching that i can get the wife to tell me.
I am at witts end on how to deal with her beliefs and are concerned that my wife takes our three children to a practioner once a month to sort there problems. Our kids are great with no problems.
I believe that she spends some $7000.00 a year with regular appointments, retreat, Chris James concerts and books, CD and cards.
Any help is appreciated
Can you provide information on how i can get my partner to leave the UM.
She recently attend the retreat in NSW and has returned with more changes eg going to bed early, a picture of mona lisa and more of Serges books and a pillow case for her dreams.
I have tried reading his books but find a can not get past the first few pages as they do not make sense along with allot of his teaching that i can get the wife to tell me.
I am at witts end on how to deal with her beliefs and are concerned that my wife takes our three children to a practioner once a month to sort there problems. Our kids are great with no problems.
I believe that she spends some $7000.00 a year with regular appointments, retreat, Chris James concerts and books, CD and cards.
Any help is appreciated
Re: Universal medicine
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: May 21, 2012 11:15AM
This isnt strictly about UM. This feeling entitled to withhold full information from newcomers and early stage members is a recurring them in esoteric groups of all sorts.
It shows up a lot in what are termed Large Group Awareness Trainings or LGATs for short.
Any time you are told that its best that you do not know full details, because knowing beforehand would spoil it for you...take that as a signal to step back, turn down the offer.
Then to go home and research all you can.
It shows up a lot in what are termed Large Group Awareness Trainings or LGATs for short.
Any time you are told that its best that you do not know full details, because knowing beforehand would spoil it for you...take that as a signal to step back, turn down the offer.
Then to go home and research all you can.
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