Hi All

yeah it's a fine kettle of fish isn't it

i'd be happy to see various groups brought to account and justify in a court of law some of the damage they do to people

though i think a lot of them are just ignorant and deceived themselves even as they deceive others

but one thing i'd like even more is a basic comparative religion course taught in school

i often think "if only someone had told me before the church got to me that the literal jesus was not the only interpretation of scripture i could have saved thousands of dollars and 20 years of struggle and tears and pain and wasted sorrow" LOL (oh yes i can laugh now)

for example i've just been reading freke and gandy's "the jesus mysteries"

for god's sake, i should have read that in primary school

then when the fundies came to steal my soul i could have told them to take a hike

"get on your bike you literalist dullards" i would have shouted

but instead i thought that their reading was the only reading and was left to figure it out the hard way

fools and blind, if only they knew what kind of darkness has them in it's grip even to this very day

so in short

i see teaching of comparative religion like a basic joe campbell kind of presentation

some freke and gandy, alvin boyd kuhn

a lot of anticult messages like the 10 most common sign of a cult

and a healthy dose of "what do you think makes a healthy spirituality" kinda discussion

play them "jesus camp" etc etc

and also

a body that calls groups to account kinda like an audit

where groups have to give an answer justifying various aspects of what they put their adherents through kinda like a peer review kinda thing

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the education thing could work

but i can just see the fundamentalist literalists of various persuasions having a hatred hernia over having to answer to common sense in their insane doctrinal hells

anyway

i'm just glad to be out and it'll be a long time before anyone in my family joins a mainstream religion without getting a thorough talking to about the dangers of literalism

hehe

god bless free men everywhere



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2009 02:15PM by thistle.

Hi Thistle,
My believe is that true free speech, which does not really exist by the way, along with education will sort out the messes and the truth will come out. To do this you need to avoid the intimidation that can come from so many places, including lawsuits. So when I talk about Lawyers being willing to help that is what I mean a support for people who wish to speak out against cults and dangerous groups as a defense mechanism. I took a lot of comparative religion courses, world religion in high school and than many that related in university. It is interesting how the teacher has to be vague on the presentation of different views, as not to offend the believes of different students, as opposed to presenting as different perspectives.

In university I had a professor that clearly pointed how the Catholic Church co-opted the Isis myth in its efforts to spread in the early years, but she never connected the dots for me that there was a lot of evidence for the two stories being of the same origin. Perhaps she didn't know herself, but she was more focused on the social aspects.

The really need thing about this story as with any of it is that others can only show you the way and give you the tools but for you to have ideas that are your own thoughts and your own discoveries, clearly you have to do the work yourself.

Hi notanantiGnostic

you wrote: My believe is that true free speech, which does not really exist by the way, along with education will sort out the messes and the truth will come out.

i hear ya, the sooner the better

you wrote: I mean a support for people who wish to speak out against cults and dangerous groups as a defense mechanism.

ahhhh i see what you mean, yeah i was forgetting that aspect of the whole thing

you can only speak your mind if you have the money and influence to keep yourself out of your opponents clutches

i see what you mean someone might want to speak up but be intimidated by the sheer enormity of the opponents legal budget

you wrote: It is interesting how the teacher has to be vague on the presentation of different views, as not to offend the believes of different students, as opposed to presenting as different perspectives.

yeah literalists get so touchy about their thing, you cant say (insert literalist deity here) is a fag, or (insert literalist deity here) can wash my car, or all hell breaks loose

god what a bore

oh well

i'm glad that round my way they pretty much leave you alone

but what a drag you have to be careful not to step on the toes of a sensitive literalist meanwhile they can ruin your life in the name of god

Good stuff Thistle,

I wish to put a note here for anyone from the Gnostic Movement who may try to dismiss criticisms based on them being literalists. The Gnostic Movement may try to attach a symbolic meaning to something in the Bible or other place, but as long as they believe that they actually happened the way they are told than they are literalists. being a non-literalists requires you to understand that these stories were created by many people over many centuries through transference. There are many ways to do this, all are legitimate to some degree. This is of course my take on the circumstances as is everything I write here.

ooops

i'd forgotten the pseudognostics and was drifting into a conversation on the larger scheme of things without necessarily even remembering that the thread is on the belzebuub thing.

i hadn't thought of them being literalists but it is weird how a lot of their thinking reminds me of a "works based" mentality

ie. you improve yourself by not ejaculating

or you improve yourself by focusing on some little defect and doing the death on it

it reminds me of fundamentalist literalism in that you end up with a false piety or spirituality based on an impersonation of god within generated out of the baser self

instead of maturing into an understanding that it is god himself working in you, you shut that out and impersonate the christ much as an actor impersonates a character who is a race driver rather than actually being one

everyone is struggling so hard to be that which they already are if they would but see it and stop trying to impersonate the real within and rather awaken to the real within

It is really tricky that they are pretending to esoteric. but they manage to make even something as deep as dream analysis quite exoteric, I will write more on this soon.

To start with esoteric does not mean secret teachings it means deeper teachings or deeper message. exoteric means to follow the literalistic or materialist message. All the Gnostic Movement and the teaching of Samael Aun Weor attempt to do is give an esoteric sounding lesson to exoteric concepts. An esoteric message should speak to the unconscious part of your mind in a way that could not be comprehended by the conscious mind most of the time. There is an important distinction that needs to be made here between the subconscious as a concept and the unconscious as the Gnostic Movement speaks of the subconscious as being all that is holding humanity back from enlightenment. The very word subconscious is synonymous with the new age movement is not the same as the concept of an unconscious.

The concept of a subconscious was created by Sigmund Freud and the word essentially expresses the idea that most of our mind is not under our control as well as being hidden and not accessible. Freud himself was aware that this word had gotten out of control. The term unconscious is effectively a much more helpful and empowering term. Unconscious does not mean not conscious rather it speaks to a different form of consciousness. In fact it could be said that "awareness" exercises are taping into the unconscious when people are able to perceive things they should not be able to perceive.

This is of course a very complex subject but I hope that this and other concepts that I shared my level of understanding of will help people to see the psycho babel that is being cared out by the Gnostic Movement as well as all other followers of Victor Gomez aka Samael Aun Weor.

Must mention I was at a bookstore and saw many Samuel Aeon Weor books that were currently available.

However, the clerk mentioned there were other ASW titles that were apparently scarce and expensive. These were kept in a locked store room, out of view, but interested
persons could take a look if they wished.

I was not in this group and have no interest.

But it may be interesting to see what the differences are between the SAW books that seem easily available vs those that are not.

I think they are all available online and have been published by different groups that support Samael Aun Weor. However if you were interested in knowing what he actually wrote such copies might be worth while, depending on the publisher as I don't think anyone who is currently publishing his books is trustworthy, they all have an agenda.

Was this a used book store? Sounds like the store keeper is just trying to hype their product.

I was just doing some searching and I thought I would share something hilarious with everyone. It turns out that you can no longer view the "public forums" over at Gnostic Web unless you create an account. What else could this be a reaction to, other than myself and others here criticizing what they are saying and occasionally re-posting it here. Could there be a more obvious example of people putting blinders on to the fact that are living a lie? If it was a divine ultimate truth it should be able to hold up to any criticism.