After reading a recent post from Heather at Why Don’t You Blog?, I’ve decided to tackle the spiritual ‘founder’ of my parents’ cult, El Morya, and along with ‘him,’ everything ‘he’ started. This is by no means a complete debunking of the personality of this fictitious ‘master.’ Heather’s post did a pretty good job of that, and I will have more to say later.
Most readers will be unfamiliar with much of the terminology related to CUT and its theology. When you break it down, it’s not that different from standard religious fare. CUT uses its support of the world’s mainline religions as a way of building its credibility–kind of a theological open-door policy. The principal difference between CUT and most other religions is this syncretism. But rest assured, the members take the idiosyncratic nuances and revelations of their faith every bit as seriously as Christians, Mormons, or Scientologists do. But like other faiths, while espousing a degree of ecumenism, CUT considers its brand of truth to be exclusive and definitely required for salvation. Since this elaborate cosmology was my particular curse of childhood indoctrination, I felt it was about time to address it. Especially since the organization is approaching its 50th anniversary, and is launching several new initiatives on the web as well as internationally. They’ve just upgraded a number of their facilities in Montana, USA, and they show every sign of digging in for the long haul and preparing for the next phase of their expansion.
I don’t expect to reach hard-core members, most of whom already know my position, and consider me some sort of “fallen one.” But maybe those who are thinking of getting involved, spending years of their life and hard-earned cash supporting this organization might benefit from my 30-year insider perspective. I can only hope it might save them some trouble. This post also has permanent residency as a tab (called Blasphemy) on my front page.
My Blasphemy Challenge to members of CUT, other religions, and new age mystics:
My father was Mark Prophet, my mother is Elizabeth Clare Prophet. They were the founders and leaders of The Summit Lighthouse and Church Universal and Triumphant. Legend has it that Mark Prophet once rejected a vision of El Morya as a young man. Because of his Pentecostal upbringing, he considered the turbaned, bearded apparition to be a ‘devil.’ Later, El Morya ‘appeared’ to him a second time and convinced him of his reality. My dad then went on to found The Summit Lighthouse on August 7, 1958. Well, dad, I’m sorry to say you had it right the first time.
My parents called themselves messengers for the ‘Ascended Masters.’ I hereby repudiate and deny their message and mission. I declare that they invented their teaching about ‘Ascended Masters’ out of the whole cloth and by drawing from earlier fictional accounts, such as the books of Guy and Edna Ballard, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and others. I declare that in my 30 years of intimate observation of their ministry and messengership, I saw absolutely no evidence to support their claims. I never observed any spiritual communication or supernatural phenomena, and never saw any prayers answered. There were no miracles or healings.
What I did see was the result of group dynamics, coercive manipulation, fearmongering, spiritual blackmail, and practiced stagecraft. Many of the stories circulating about my parents’ spiritual gifts and powers have been embellished and exaggerated by their followers, who have a strong incentive to justify their investments of time, money, and effort. In over 30 years, I saw no such occurrences. I watched two human beings who had both a good and a bad side, and were most definitely encumbered by the same human problems as the rest of us.
I was in charge of the Church Universal and Triumphant audio-visual department for over 5 years during two separate periods. Once in the early 1980s and later in the early 1990s. I saw many occasions where portions of so-called ‘dictations’ were composed and researched in advance–or their text changed after the fact. I participated in the editing of tapes of ‘dictations’ which changed their meaning. After the tapes were edited, on several occasions, the originals were destroyed. One of these involved a key church teaching about abortion (the original dictation had an exception for rape, the edited version did not).
There was also a secret vault of tapes from the early days of The Summit Lighthouse, including:
- Staff meetings where my parents gave brutal treatment to the inner circle of staff members, putting them on “trial” and other ignominies.
- Embarrassing discourses on conspiracies, containing racist and politically extreme statements.
- Denouncements of oral sex between married staff members.
- Discussions in front of the staff of confessions of people’s personal sexual affairs and ’sins’ such as masturbation.
And a lot more. Other past CUT AV department heads are well aware of the existence of these tapes, the editing of dictations, and can also attest to these facts.
WHEREAS I have come to the realization of:
- The failure of my parents messengership to provide any genuine verifiable contact with ‘god’ or even benevolent human leadership, by my own observation over a period of 30 years, and my mother’s eventual admission,
- The manipulation of their message and hiding of the truth on many occasions with their knowledge and cooperation,
- Their promotion of the “guru-chela” (master-slave) relationship as a spiritual path, which became an exercise in human dominance and submission (psychologically similar to consensual 24/7 sadomasochism, but maintained under false spiritual pretenses–more on this later), and led to rampant abuses of power in their dealings with their staff,
- The promotion and encouragement by the organization of the unquestioning beliefs of devotees (including predictions of nuclear war and other physical and spiritual ‘crises’ and disasters) as a self-serving method of maintaining power and income,
- The knowledge that the world’s other religions have been no better than CUT at representing their gods or promoting truth or reason, and have similarly betrayed the ’spiritual’ power vested in them by their followers,
- That there is not now and never has been a shred of credible evidence for any afterlife, reincarnation, ascension, or the existence of any deity who has any influence or effect on the earth or its people,
- That the only way to analyze religion is as a human cultural phenomenon, which means the behavior and morality of the participants becomes the only salient factor,
- That the gods and masters of such religions are man-made props, and the personalities are tailored to appeal to the many different personality types of the membership to allow for greater and more all-pervasive social control,
- That such control through mental and spiritual manipulation (and most especially through the indoctrination of children) is anti-human and devastatingly effective, and represents as great an evil as any of the totalitarian political systems of the 20th century.
- That such fear-based control systems are one of the leading threats to freedom that are even allowed to exist in a representative democracy.
- That the only way to break this stranglehold of dominance and deception and to restore sanity and ethical relationships among the membership is to destroy utterly the belief in the very personalities on which the control systems are based–starting at the very top with the big-daddy ‘god’ himself.
- That I as the son of the founders of CUT and the recipient of many of its mantles and titles supposedly bestowed by ‘the masters’ must set the example, in order that others may follow and thus conquer the phantasms of their fear of divine retribution by the ‘final judgment’ and loss of ascension.
I THEREFORE deny for all eternity the existence of God the Father, Jesus the son, and the Holy Spirit. I deny the fictional characters of El Morya, Saint Germain, Sanat Kumara and the Seven Holy Kumaras, the seven Elohim, seven Chohans, and seven Archangels. I deny Alpha and Omega, Helios and Vesta, the Mighty I Am Presence, the Holy Christ Self, angels, elementals, and nature spirits. I deny the resurrection, transsubstantiation, and the hypnotic pseudo-science of the spoken word. I deny every supernatural personality, including Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Peshualga, all demons, fallen angels, and devils.
To all the fraud messengers and charlatan hucksters of these comic-book personas, that they use to destroy people’s self-esteem and keep them dependent on their dictations, fighting false battles of light and darkness, quaking in their boots that they might not be doing enough decrees to win their ‘ascension,’ I repeat the words of my parents once used for a very different purpose: you have no power, your day is done! You can fool some of the people some of the time–after all you were trained by the best! But the world is moving on and will soon be done with these worthless myths. Your day of reckoning with reality will eventually come. You know who you are: Carolyn and Monroe Shearer (Temple of the Presence), David Lewis (Heart’s Center), and Dawn Covington (New Wisdom University).
By disowning these fantasy personalities, I declare that I refuse to live in fear of any ‘god’ or external ‘dark forces.’ In the unlikely event a god exists and controls my destiny, I will face his judgment and the “second death” with utter contempt and disdain for ‘His’ vicious and sadistic manipulations of human beings. But I have no fear this will be the case, for I have come to understand that ‘god’ is an entirely human construct. ‘God’s’ wholly man-made ‘law’ turns humans’ inherent nature against itself to create a living hell of denial, guilt, and fear. Such irrational fear once distracted me from my own responsibility to understand and control my behavior, to determine a direction for myself, to honor and work with others in my personal circle on my own terms, and to lead a productive and fulfilling life. No longer. The only thing I will ever fear, ultimately, is ignorance.
I declare that I am solely and wholly a chemical and physiological being. My thoughts and feelings arise from the interactions of neurotransmitters in my brain. I am a creature of free will, within the limits of that will and causality which are allowed by the nature of human genetics and brain function. I am responsible for the ethics of all of my conduct, and I declare that there is no such thing as ‘entity’ or ‘demon’ possession. I deny the ascension, the existence of an immortal soul, or any afterlife. My immortality can come only through my works of creativity, or the continuation through my children of the genes which spelled out my creation in the first place.
I therefore deny reincarnation, karma, and the spirit-matter split. I also deny the mind-body split, and all concepts of dualism. The universe and all it contains can logically only be natural and material–made of the same stuff we are–no matter how vast and how many constructs there may be, and no matter how ignorant we presently are of its ultimate extents. The only method which has consistent value for discovering truth about that universe is the objective scientific method. That method can also be the only way to consistently and reliably solve mysteries.
I deny the tenets of mysticism, that there are any immutable or ineffable mysteries which cannot or should not be explored, revealed, and deconstructed. I deny that consciousness is a phenomenon outside of matter, or that consciousness in any way precedes or resulted in the creation of matter. It is matter which is instead the precursor and the storehouse of all information and consciousness.
I deny all theories of non-locality, or of a mystical connection between physically distant objects, other than what may be proven to exist by quantum entanglement or other physical mechanism. I deny that all sentient beings are one, except through their common material substance, genetic lineage, and their drive to live their lives to the fullest extent possible. I deny the teachings of Buddhism that “suffering is caused by desire,” or that self-denial and asceticism represent any realistic path to enlightenment. Suffering is far more likely to be caused in this world by violence, political machinations, or deprivation of genuine human needs such as food, water, shelter, or companionship. The way to end such suffering is to fulfill one’s desires.
I deny that it is possible for human beings or scientists to “play god,” since there is no evidence for such a being. Instead, we humans should realize that we have the potential to be gods. This human aspiration toward the divine can only be satisfied through greater understanding and control of our universe. We not only can, but we have the obligation to repair our bodies, relieve suffering, and conquer aging, poverty, and disease. Since we have no realistic possibility for an afterlife, we should do everything in our power to re-invent and re-engineer ourselves and our societies to make the billions of lives on this special planet the very longest and best that they can be.
I declare that my life, heritage, and identity is defined by the cause and effect inherent in evolution. The quest for empirical knowledge and reason gives purpose to that life. Supernaturalism, mysticism, and religion take that purpose away, drowning all true knowledge and meaning in a psychic sewer of confusion–of ever-shifting subjective and imaginary spirits, phantoms, ghosts, and chimeras. The only way anyone can try to understand the universe as it is, is to attempt to eliminate all such baseless beliefs and subjective biases.
This has been my blasphemy challenge as inspired by the Rational Response Squad. I’m now officially on the record, and I cast this challenge into the teeth of the false and nonexistent ‘Lords of Karma’ and all the human charlatans and promoters of these imaginary personalities and forces of the so-called spirit world.
You should do it, too. Throw off your gullibility and credulity which subjects you to religious manipulation and makes you believe the Big Lie of life after death, judgment and damnation or loss of ‘ascension.’ You can experience this freedom from fear, and the power of knowing that you are the only one who has agency in your life. There is no one watching over you, punishing you, helping you, judging you, or protecting you. You are responsible to yourself alone for your safety and success. You are accountable to no one but yourself for your failures.
If you are not a manipulator or deceiver of yourself or others, you have nothing to fear from embracing your humanity. Nor from accepting the vastness, reality, sufficiency, and spectacular physical transcendence of our natural universe. Peace.
78 comments
Although one can think that a reasonable interpretation of the Bell test experiments is that the effects of quantum entanglement are non-local. And another thought could be that, while it may explain much else, the quantum theory of the standard model does not explain how atoms and molecules can persist and be of various forms as the elements and their compounds while the known forces act just as they can be measured and described.
While a further cause that would just act so as to maintain the correlations described in the entanglement of electrons and nuclear components of matter can be thought to act universally in addition to the forces.
Sean,
Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?
James
Bob Eldritch, you’re a little over my head with quantum theory, but thanks for your comment. I’m mainly trying to speak to new-agers who have all their mystical forces lined up ready to explain any discrepancies or coincidences. They use non-locality as a metaphor for things they want to believe affect matter, such as good and bad energies, wishes, etc. What I wish is that they would just be a little more patient for the explanations that will surely come.
James, gotcha. A true believer. Now I know the real reason you like conspiracy theories so much: you don’t want to accept that religion was the true cause behind 9/11.
Religion has nothing to do with 9/11. It was done by Lockheed Martin Corporation, and you, as the stupid shit that you are, believe I am a sexual pervert for saying that. Go shit, asshole, go shit, and eat it, fucking shit asshole.
Sean,
No…I am afraid you have me pegged wrong. Just another former true believer like yourself making a joke at your expense . Since you brought it up I am still amazed that someone of your intelligence can not see the logic of the non MSM media 911 story.
James
Well then James, it seems you traded one true belief for another. But I will say that particular form of sarcasm usually comes from people who are objecting to the message. “How do you really feel?” has become a cliche like “That’s what she said.” It pokes fun at the level of seriousness, intensity, and earnestness of the message, but usually when people say it, they’re uncomfortable with the content itself. There’s a time for levity, and unfortunately that doesn’t coexist with blasphemy. I’m surprised you would joke about a statement about El Morya since you know the reason I made it is not because I take him seriously, but that so many other people do. And it leads me to believe you might still harbor some sympathy for the bastard.
I’ve posted about the similarities between the supernatural and conspiracy beliefs before. Just because we may not have every possible fact about 9/11 doesn’t lend further credence to the fiction.
[…] It’s no coincidence that I published my blasphemy about El Morya on July 2nd. I’ve had it sitting in my draft folder for the better part of a year, and I thought: what better time to declare my mental and spiritual independence from that cranky old coot than July 4th? But I didn’t want to ruin a perfectly good holiday with that. […]
Fantastic! What a well written denouncement.
Personally, I don’t think there is any good reason to believe in any sort of non-locality, quantum or otherwise. Human beings are just profoundly poor at intuiting probabilities, and search for patterns in everything.
P.S. Did you send it to the RRS?
Thanks, Aaron. No, I did not send it to RSS. I should do that. :-)
This was great Sean!
Though I can’t call myself an atheist (yet), I appreciate the fact that you are able to fully articulate everything in a logical, well-thought out manner.
Couple of observations (with tongue firmly planted in cheek)
Since some people feel the need to believe in something, I propose using the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (‘Be excellent to one another’) as the basis for a ‘school of thought.’ Despite the movie’s lack of intellectual capacity, I daresay it has to be a better alternative to all of the physical, emotional, mental and global stupidity that exists today in today’s religions.
Also it seemed as though some of language and “verbage” you used in this post was somewhat similar to some of the old pronouncements and preambles to decrees CUT used to make us do. Please know I do take your words with great respect. But I hope you don’t mind that I had an image of someone clad all in black swinging a chocolate bar (or even worse, a heavy metal CD) in the air to further demonstrate your words. :)
Ha, Ha. Yes Kay, it was meant to be over-the-top–sort of self-parody in a way but also serious since we used to say those things so seriously 144x like “You have no power, your day is done.” And there are probably people still saying it now.
Would you be willing to talk about this for a few minutes for one of our shows? Send me an email if so.
– Brian Sapient
http://www.rationalresponders.com
Brian, I’d love to be on your show!
I will choose FREEWILL!
Excellent Blasphemy, Sean. And you should totally go on the RRS show. Make it happen! :)
Boy I understand you, My mother left in 1987 and moved to Livingston to follow them. We had very little contact only a call once or twice a year to stay the world was ending and if we wanted to live we had to buy into the bomb shelter. She has left Cut but she left with nothing after 15 years. I am happy you are out and doing what you want not what they want. And that she finally saw the light.
Michelle, I’m sorry that happened. I saw a lot of that. At least your mom’s out now. But I’m sure like most CUT members, when she was a believer, no one could have convinced her otherwise. I’m quite sure you tried.
Hi Sean,
It’s great to read your posts. I can imagine how it must have been to live with such influential parents, who might have been too zealous in their mission and maybe failed to give enough love and care for their own children. Tender, human love. I don’t have any personal attachment to TSL, in fact I have learned about the organization and your mother as their “guru” only a few years ago. I’ve read some of their texts and they do seem powerful. Lot of it makes sense. It’s about higher values and following a higher
path. Not living like animals, brother-kill-brother, but with respect, love and a higher vision of human life. Judging from today’s world, we ARE a bit off the track, I’d say.
Every child needs parents – a mother to give him nurturance and protection, and a father to give him guidance and inspiration. Sometimes the parents don’t do their job well, and it leaves us with scars. Since they aren’t perfect, they cannot give us perfect love. And it makes us crave for that perfect love for the rest of our lives. Thinking that either we are not good enough to receive it, or the others are not good enough to provide it.
But… what if we knew that there was a perfect parent somewhere out there who could give us that perfect love? And because such a parent would exist, we would know that we are worthy of that love. That we are worthy as a human being. Well, such parents we can find in our divine parents, in the concept of Father/Mother God. Even if it is just an idea, it helps us a lot. To know that we are not alone in this harsh world. And that there is a higher standard of love, care, respect, nurturance. It helps us to know that we are not abnormal for craving for such love. It helps us stay sane. Stay enthusiastic. Stay in love with life. Ascended masters and the whole heavenly hierarchy can help us do exactly that – achieve that inner peace and that state of loving life, and ourselves, and wanting to raise all life. It can help us fulfill our highest potential, which deep inside we know we possess, but we gave up for this or that reason. Divine hierarchy, whether a myth or reality, can help us be a better person, a full human being, a beautiful jewel… a divine spark.
Therefore I don’t have anything against outer teachers, if they help us reach our inner teacher. If they help us find our true selves. What I am against is idolatry, guru worshiping, putting other people on a pedestal and denigrating ourselves, fearing the punishment of an “angry God”, fulfilling outer standards and rituals while not really working on purifying our heart and transcending our blocks to love.
I am for balance in everything, as your mother would say “balance of the threefold flame”. Balanced love, love which nurtures but also shows the way, which is powerful and yet tender, which brings everything into alignment with man’s highest potential – to be God.
I understand your need to denounce wrong doings and cut your ties with the imbalances of the past, but I would suggest not to throw the baby together with the bathing water.
Because, after all, the Sun is and will always be golden, no matter what color we think it is. Peace and love, Tea.
Tea, I think you should have used the handle Kool-Aid, which you seem to have drunk. I’ve addressed each and every one of your points extensively over the past several years. With regard to CUT and TSL, as you plainly acknowledged, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about:
I grew up there and spent 30 years there. So you can take my advice and save yourself a lot of trouble, or spend your life chasing ghosts. It’s your call.
Dear Sean,
I fully trust that you had negative experiences with TSL, CUT and similar organizations, and based on that, probably developed a strong rejection to spirituality as such. But I can also tell you my experience: growing up in an ordinary family, without any connection to spiritual communities not to mention ascended masters (didn’t have a clue about them until recently) – in short without any indoctrination in that sense, I was still observing the world around me and asking some “unanswerable” questions. Like most of us do. And I had this inner feeling that we are more than a set of chemical reactions (although sophisticated), and that we are here for a higher purpose. Even as a child, I had this inner knowing. And nobody can tell me that I should believe differently, whether it be a guru or a respected scientist.
So yes, I acknowledge your experience, but I also have mine. And I know very well what I’m doing. I am not joining any cults, I am just trying to be a better person, a better human being, and help improve conditions on our planet. This striving is I think natural for all people, and in fact, an important feature that separates us from animals.
Love, Tea
OK, Tea, if you want to be spiritual, go for it. But what I don’t understand is why it’s so important for people to hold on to the idea of “more.” What is this fascination with the unseen and unknowable?
What’s so hard about sticking with the life that you have? What’s so hard about disciplining yourself to only accept verifiable knowledge? It seems to stem from some core level of dissatisfaction. Some kind of existential temper tantrum. Like it’s not enough to be alive on possibly one of the only planets in a vast universe with intelligent life. (Although the human penchant for nonsense such as fabricating personalities like El Morya really makes me wonder.) It’s not enough to be self-aware and self-reflective. It’s not enough that you won the genetic lottery and were born, out of the millions of possible sperm that could have connected with your mother’s ovum. It’s not enough that you were born at a time when we actually are starting to understand the mechanism of life, instead of running around clubbing each other to death (although we still do some of that.) It’s not enough to look up in the night sky and realize that most of the light you are seeing from stars left its point of origin many millions of years ago, and the ‘star’ might not even be there anymore.
This idea that we are somehow here for some kind of purpose or higher calling really strikes me as missing the point. Whose purpose? Why can’t we find our own? Why does it have to be invented by someone else?
What’s wrong with accepting that you have a chemical brain? Why do you think we have to be so different from animals? Untold trillions of animals sacrificed their lives on the altar of evolution so you could think the thoughts you are thinking now, and have the “spiritual” experiences you enjoy, and yet you find the idea that you are an animal somehow revolting. I don’t get it.
Frankly, you don’t know enough about the human brain, animal brains or evolution to be revolted. Even rats have empathy. Subjective human consciousness and free will is largely an illusion produced by the brain for our survival, and the idea that we are categorically different from animals is completely false.
I have no problem if you want to make things better for yourself or the world. But when you start out with so many false premises, you may find that very difficult. You only have one life. Use it wisely.
Millions of people on Earth experience what you call a deep sense of dissatisfaction. Actually it is a longing for the ultimate fulfillment, for oneness with something greater than yourself. And no matter how many scientific proofs you might provide, people will always crave for that “more”. While animals don’t. You cannot help it, Sean. It’s human nature. Does it mean that we are all illusioned, that we are crazy and irrational? Or ungrateful for what we have? No. It means we feel something in our soul, we feel a yearning, a call. Many of us are not quite aware what that yearning is about, but it is there, in our heart, in our “chemical brain.”
To be always more is the concept behind sustainable development – balanced growth without exhausting our resource base. Imagine if the world stopped developing at the cave stage. Or in the Middle Ages. Although we were close to it… If it weren’t for people who wanted “more”, where would we be now? Where would science be? All development stems from that inner urge, to be more. To me, it’s absolutely logical and inevitable. People, as conscious beings, are like that. With all due respect to animals.
Tea,
This is kind of a pointless discussion. Of course people are driven to human progress, and that’s a good thing. It’s our only saving grace, if you’ll pardon the religious alliteration. But the “more” I’m objecting to is the “more” that causes us to look for things that aren’t there. In the middle ages, for example, people thought diseases were caused by evil spirits. That belief delayed them from finding out about microbes. Current beliefs also detract mightily from human progress.
I agree with you that many people share the spiritual instinct. It had an evolutionary purpose, (coping with anxiety) but it has outlived its usefulness. Now, what’s left is just an instinct to copy and copy and promote such thinking (which is a meme, the thought equivalent of a gene). This is what life does, it copies itself. If you are at all intellectually curious about why you feel the way that you do, read Breaking the Spell by Dennett, and The God Part of the Brain by Alper.
As far as I know, many great scientists and artists in history were quite spiritual or had some relationship with God. And they didn’t deny they were inspired. Beethowen, for example, admitted that he is often quarreling with God, but that he, God, inspires his music. Check the movie “Copying Beethowen”.
So if people who had contact with “something higher” and who, as a result of that contact, brought some tangible benefit to the society – if they admit the existence of “something higher”, then why would we, who might have not been open to such an experience, deny it? If we cannot see it, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Of course, brain is a physical vehicle, and everything that’s happening to us in the physical octave has to be manifested in the brain as well (and then, and only then, can scientists detect it with their physical instruments), but does it mean that the brain is the primary source of all experiences? Like, we see pictures on a movie screen, but does it mean that the screen itself is the origin of those pictures? Or there is maybe a film stripe and a light bulb…?
Not disregarding the great progress of science, “there is (still) more between Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet, Shakespeare).
Scientists often were funded or beholden to churches, which were much more like governments than they are today. For example, Newton wrote prodigiously on theology, but his contributions to science are what we remember. More recently, the number of scientist-believers was 7% in 1998. I’ve covered all of this in a previous post. Please read it because I don’t have the time or patience to go through all this every time some supernatural believer comes here spouting the same predictable litany about the “physical octave” and such.
No. This such a silly straw man. We have many ways of detecting things that don’t involve vision. All of them, however, require verification and confirmation by multiple observers.
What, are we in philosophical kindergarten? Please. If you think the brain is some sort of receiving station (a favorite supernaturalist claim), then it is up to you to prove it.
And I’ll tell you, Tea, my days of having these kinds of discussions are numbered. Every one of these points I’ve addressed many times over, as have many astute philosophers much wiser than me. Yet because you haven’t bothered to study or read them or familiarize yourself with the arguments, you think you are making some kind of original rebuttal. Think again.
Sean, I see you are very tired of having to prove your claims over and over again. I am sorry that you are so attached to them. True, I don’t follow your blog nor am I familiar with your attitudes. Sorry for that too. No, I don’t think I am making any original rebuttal. Much smarter people than me have already done that. The history indeed repeats itself…
I wish you all the best and send you my love. Tea
I am attached to objective truth, which does not conform to wishes. Yours or mine.
Your ‘love’ is tinged with arrogance and the holier-than-thou attitude common to believers. Which is a part of your shadow-denial complex. Blech! Which is why I always have to hesitate before approving initial comments such as yours. Because I know I’m in for the same tired spiel and white-knuckled denial. You’re hanging on to that fantasy for dear life. Oh, sweet dreams of immortality and delusions of grandeur. Shakespeare should have written about that.
But I have to balance my distaste for your supernatural hokum against the possibility that I may yet touch and awaken your intellect (or possibly that of another reality-challenged reader who may follow our dialog). So to that end I present myself as a living sacrifice on the altar of reason.
No, I really do send you my love, because in the process of dealing with my shadows and complexes, I learned to open my heart and love unconditionally. True, I do think that you are wrong, but it doesn’t mean I don’t respect you as a human being and wish you all the best. I can only smile at our present disagreement, and wait until one day we meet in a higher octave :)
Oooh, baby, you’re SO evolved.
See the shadow work is never done. So by acting as if it is, (you used past tense, or was that a Freudian slip?) you have proven that you are not dedicated to the real serious and ongoing excavation.
There is no such thing as unconditional love. You have no reason to love me, having never met me. Such professions of love are cheap and meaningless, kind of like a guy on a first date claiming he loves a girl to get into her pants.
Keep on with your false certitudes–no one can stop you. But in the back of your mind, you will always remember that someone cared enough to try to set you straight. If you insist you love me, then love me for that.
So much sarcasm in you and negative vibes… that’s not nice of you. As for love, I love people’s spiritual (and human) potential, not their pseudo selves.
You too keep checking on those brain cells in the back of your mind, because you might be surprised! :) Peace, Tea
Well you see, I have no problem owning my shadow. I can be a bastard at times. But I think I made my point, and I never attacked you personally, only the part of you with delusional beliefs.
And as long as you are still breathing, there is hope for you to gain the self-discipline necessary to align your wishes with facts.
Believe me, I will. A rationalist wants nothing more than to be proved wrong. Because then it will mean that I learned something. But I know the methods which are most likely to bear fruit. And I know only too well the ones which do not. Which is why I stick tenaciously to my guns when faced with clear contradictions and errors.
What is a pseudo-self? And who decides?
Please, and I’m not kidding, read some of the books I’ve recommended. Otherwise, you are just posturing. See, I’ve read all the CUT books and used to be a minister. So we’re not on a level playing field. I’ve explored both sides, and you’ve only explored the spiritual. If you are a seeker of truth, then it’s time you even that score. I dare you.
You asked me to prove my spiritual insights by a method which would be acceptable to a materialist, i.e. to a person who doesn’t believe in spiritual side of life. How could I ever do that, my friend? In order to feel it, you first need to believe it. That’s what free will is all about.
Maybe your previous methods, learned in TSL and CUT, were simply not good, or maybe your state of consciousness at that time didn’t allow to experience more than “objective truth”. Maybe those methods, no matter how elaborate, didn’t manage to put your heart on fire, to experience the magic of love. Because otherwise you would have felt, you would have known, that there is something higher.
Scientists cannot tell you. I know because I am one too. And know a lot about psychology, Freud, masks and shadows… Maybe we are not on the level playing field simply because you are listening to your mind, while I am trying to be more tuned to my heart. And they are not on the same level indeed.
I respect your concern for me and my illusions, but I also want to point out at your all-knowing attitude, which can also become a trap. I see a great potential in you, a great thinker, but if I were you, I wouldn’t shut my door to higher understanding just because my (or my mother’s) original method proved wrong. I would stay open. And I would allow others to have the right on their truth. Because, yes, until we are in the duality of material universe, it will be always my truth against yours. Although it won’t stay like that for long, because scientists are already beginning to bridge the gap between matter and spirit, recognizing that there indeed is something beyond matter. They don’t call it spirit yet, but… I look forward to a day when the chasm between science and spirituality, religion and spirituality, will finally be bridged, and we will see the grand picture, the unitive theory of universe and our existence.
Ok, now I’m really laughing. You say you’re a scientist, yet you spout crap like that. You’re putting the cart before the horse. A scientist would first look for evidence, then create the theory. You want it the other way around: manufacture subjective evidence for the theory you desire. This is what Daniel Dennett calls “belief in belief.”
There you go again with “more!” What more could you possibly want than objective truth? LOL!?! :-) ;-0 ;-)
Your heart is a pump, dearie. When you listen to it, all you hear is a heartbeat.
If scientists can study it, then it is material. What you call spirit is something you keep conveniently out of reach of rigorous investigation. This helps you keep insulated from ever having to self-examine. Believe me, I know all about the mystical traps.
But you’re not willing to wait for it. You’ve already got your conclusions all mapped out. If you were a true scientist, you would reserve judgment until it could be proven. But then you’d have to delay gratification, and that’s just too difficult. You’d rather live in your fantasy dream-world, ’cause it’s a lot more fun. No one’s going to stop you, but quit pretending you’re serious about knowledge!
If we stop paying attention to our dreams, we are dead. As individuals and as a society.
I am interested in true knowledge, which doesn’t necessarily confine to only that what we can detect with our instruments. Because, isn’t it funny, the better the instruments, the more we know or we think we know… but still, we don’t know how big is the part which we don’t know. I give it a chance that it’s very big, in fact infinite. And pretty amazing too. And I choose to believe in that “illusion” rather than wait for the next generation of microscopes. It’s much funnier like that. And greater peace of mind…
Wish you all the best, Tea.
I don’t know who’s suggesting that, certainly not me.
Yeah, isn’t it funny that I wrote a very lengthy exploration of this exact subject, which you clearly haven’t read. I already provided a link earlier in the discussion, but here it is again, in case you missed it.
So you admit you prefer comfortable illusions over truth. Which is what I’ve been saying all along. Enjoy your illusions, Tea, just don’t pretend they’re real.
BTW I am sure you are familiar with experiments in quantum physics when they observed quantum particles, and the outcome of the experiment depended on the person of the observer. So it was not an “objective reality” any more, because each observer experienced a different manifestation of a physical particle. In other words, each observer created their own physical reality, depending on their thoughts and state of consciousness.
Thoughts, as we know, are energy waves. And they somehow affected the manifestation of that particle. Maybe if the particle was an energy wave before it became a particle (which wouldn’t be surprising knowing the Einstein’s equation E=mc2, which basically says that energy and matter are one and the same at higher vibrations), it could have easily been affected by the observer’s thoughts (also energy waves), and voila – a very special, “observer customized” particle in the physical shows up! That’s the reality that scientists are dealing with at the moment.
In other words, it’s very tricky to talk about “objective reality”. Because it seems that at the core of things, we create our own reality.
Ok, I’m out, you win–or should I say “you wish.” Bye!
I admire your honesty and courage. Two thumbs up for you.
[…] This atheist blog will boldly go where your sceptical RC selves fear to tread. Straight to the website of the Divine Innocence of course. You may think the images of El Morya look comically sickly-sweet. I defy anyone to look on this “baby Jesus with lamb” image without retching. You will be begging for the mildly sinister saving grace of the El-Morya Bin Laden visual undertones just for a bit of artistic complexity. […]
[…] This is a summary extract from the full article as it appeared on Black Sun Journal, July 2 2007 Full Article [Cached] […]
But Sean,
You forget to fully acknowledge your part in the hysteria: planning and helping to build bomb shelters without the proper permits (even when you knew it was subverting the law and putting the reputation of a hard working state official on the line); storing arms; persecuting your sister for not being a good chela; and are you going to tell me you knew nothing about the stores of gold and arms in Ravali County? You didn’t know about the “armored personal carrier” ie tank, your group was buying? The illegal silencers and other weapons? And you had no part whatsoever in the terrorizing of Gregory Mull. HA! You sit there and claim others are hypocrites, your parents are hypocrites. You were equally involved in perpetuating all this!
Best.
Ivan,
Apparently, you can’t read.
At the risk of restating the blatantly obvious, that’s what this site is about, taking responsibility for my actions and speaking out against those abuses. I did so on the About page, and in numerous other places.
I’m also about to spend substantial time and money making a film about the shelter project, something I am in no way obligated to do. If you’d like to help with that project, (since you seem to have been involved or know someone who was) please get in touch with me and help me discuss the issues you have raised. Otherwise, you’re just being gratuitously offensive.
Thank you for speaking out; it gives me great comfort as an ex-follower.
The breaking point came for me in the weeks following September 11, 2001 when I became severely depressed. A counselor commented, “it sounds like you feel all the problems in the Middle East are your fault.” Having him say it out loud like that showed me that my mental health was being adversely affected and I needed to separated from the organization, even if the tenets were true.
Over time, of course, I realized that they weren’t true. My family is still involved and when I first left it was very difficult. I felt rejected and isolated. Since then we have had some honest conversations and are able to spend time with each other without talking about our religious beliefs.
In any case, thank you for speaking up. It gives me courage to do the same.
Hello,
I was sad to see your website after Googling a “El Morya” picture. He is a very real person. My only comment would be dont blame the master!
The spiritual masters are very, very real. Its the people who deceide to worship or form cults’ is where the real issue is.
I have been a student for a decade and a half-and never have included any teachings from the UCT or Summit Univ. and I understand why you have conflict with them.
Violet Flame Blessings,
Angela
Angela,
If you mean “real” in the way that Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter are real people, then I agree with you.
I have never met Sherlock or Harry, just Morya.
Seems like the real culprit in this scenario written about was the people who enforced their dogmas, not the spiritual beings.
Sorry you had to endure that.
Many Blessings,
Angela
Angela,
And I suppose we have to take your word for that.
Thanks, but the question of Morya’s existence has little to do with the misuse of dogma or anything I may have gone through. It’s an ontological question, and people’s subjective imaginings of Morya prove nothing on that score.
I always wonder why people such as yourself have been so seduced by the fantasy of perfected beings. Does that make your life worthwhile? I’m sorry you haven’t found sufficient meaning in your real life to hold your attention, and prevent you from escaping to a spiritual fantasy land. Is it not enough to hold these myths and archetypes as such without engaging in delusion?
The classic myths hold many lessons, but most of us don’t go around pretending there’s actually a Zeus or a Hercules or a Thor. Sounds like you’re taking the word of a 19th century charlatan, marrying it with your own wishes and dreams, and creating an imaginary friend.
Personally, I think that’s very sad.
Angela, you don’t have to be here. From BSJ’s clearly stated comment policy:
Until you’re ready to back up your beliefs with some evidence, you’ll get absolutely no respect here.
Just because I dont share your perceptions, does not mean mine are invalid.
I respect others belief systems even when they differ from mine. Judging others beliefs is prejudicial, respect mine please.
I see no point in engaging a “your wrong/I’m right” scenario with you.
ONLY LOVE IS REAL , EVERYTHING ELSE IS ILLUSION
[…] Hello again, readers, and happy 4th of July to you. I’m back from a month-long writing hiatus. It’s also been a year since I declared my unequivocal blasphemy against the imaginary and fraudulent persona of El Morya. No lightning bolt has struck me down, so I would conclude (with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek) that El Morya really does have no power! Still, the TSL/CUT machine continues to churn away on the fumes of the ‘master’ and his former ‘messengers.’ The holy trinity of Morya, Mark and Mother uber alles–on an unspoiled pre-shelter photo of Taylor Meadows no less–predictably adorns their 50th anniversary conference brochure. I find this disgusting. It was this holy trinity–well, one of them at least–that accomplished the spoiling of that formerly pristine meadow, the so-called "Heart of the Inner Retreat" with its eighteen-hundred-foot-long nuclear-industrial doom complex. If they’re so proud of it, and the belief system that led to it, why not show it–concrete, chain-link fence, gun towers and all? […]
You have NO IDEA of the blasphemy that YOU are saying. This is very serious. A person who says these type of things about his/her own parents and thinks she/he is better than the Ascended Masters is completely dominated by demoniac forces. Shame on you.
Read the Bible, my friend. You're in serious need. One of the 10 commandments says "honor the father and mother".
Careful with what you say about Holy spirits. You can be punished. This is the real blasphemy: shaking people's faith with affirmations of things you don't understand.
You have NO IDEA of the blasphemy that YOU are saying. This is very serious. A person who says these type of things about his/her own parents and thinks she/he is better than the Ascended Masters is completely dominated by demoniac forces. Shame on you.
Read the Bible, my friend. You're in serious need. One of the 10 commandments says "honor the father and mother".
Careful with what you say about Holy spirits. You can be punished. This is the real blasphemy: shaking people's faith with affirmations of things you don't understand.
The blasphemy is clearly intentional, I know exactly what I'm saying, and I mean every word of it. I am not intimidated in the least by threats or spiritual blackmail.
@Francoise:
& you clearly have no idea just how batshit crazy you sound.
But I'll offer you a clue free of charge…
El Morya doesn't exist. He never did. He is but a figment in your imaginings, planted there by someone else.
If you trace back this snake-oil story, you'll likely come back to Helena Blavatsky, who wholesale made this character up, out of her own imaginings and fancy. An occultist, who in her early days practiced seances and other forms of trickery & deception. Slight of hand & smoke and mirrors, passed of as the authentic.
You have been fooled by a hoax. Stop being so gullible.
Sean, I wish you had stayed in CUT, and taken over the Church membership and slowly, but surely led this people out of their delusions and back into the real world. You might have saved some, but I'm sure that most would have just moved on to another group where they could hide from the reality that these characters never existed or if they had they have been very dead for hundreds of years! Seriously dude, I don't know how you deal with crazies like Tea and Francoise. You must have an awful lot of patience. Please don't ever stop, Sean. You must be getting through to some of them!
Thanks, jon. In fact, it wouldn't have helped. What I've realized over the years is that CUT had such longevity because of the members. My mother even attempted to liberalize at the end, and met stiff opposition from the conservative flank.
People want an insular community where they can exact a high price in sacrifice and exclude slackers. This is the sociological explanation for strict relgious tenets. By making it hard to attain group membership, people feel elevated and superior.
Same thing with all this "secret esoteric occult knowledge." It's like conspiracy theories. It makes people feel like they have access to some kind of exclusive 'truth' hidden from the mainstream. Big fantasies for small minds.
Take care,
Sean
Hi Sean,
It is quite coincidental that my mother was born in the same year that your mother was and we were both born in 1965 and they named us Shawn. I have had the opportunity to speak with you on a couple of occasions in the past and did spend some time in Montana in 1989 and 1990 for 2 conferences and a 3 month participation in Summit University during the fall quarter of 1989. The extent of my membership in the Summit Lighthouse was as a pearl reader and a keeper of the flame. I enjoyed reading the books that your mother and father wrote and never really considered them anything more than 2 good writers who knew how to communicate well in the text although I preferred your mother's writing style to that of your father's. Even though I received the pearls of widsom I rarely read them because they did not always interest me and I never understood the fascination that people have had with trying to determine whether or not they represent the "true" feelings or "dictations" from a person or being from heaven. I do not think that a piece of paper with ink on it is intrinsically more valuable because someone tells me that it came from heaven. It either stands on its own as a work of good prose or it does not. Some of the pearls that are bound such as the book that I studied at Summit University I consider to be an excellent work of writing without assigning belief as to its subject matter. The book I am speaking of is the 1979 pearls, Book 22, of Sanat Kumara on the path of the ruby ray. Regardless of the process whereby your mother wrote this book whether it be from her imagination or from some other book or from some invisible etherical being I still find it to be fascinating and informative as it relates to the subject matter therein. Specifically it relates to the text of the book of Revelation from the new testament.
I have no intimate knowledge that could assert that either Revelation or your mother's thoughts on the subject matter are any more real than the National Enquirer stories however I enjoyed studying them at the time. Maybe it satisfied some intellectual curiosity or some feeling I had inside of me to answer a perplexing question as to the meaning of certain concepts such as the "second death" from Revelation chapter 2 that your mother and John the disciple taught as a point at which a soul faces permanent dissolution if it has not been able survive the process of acquiring enough energy to live in heaven or what we refer to heaven.
This concept is not the sole propriety of Western thinkers such as your mother or John the disciple. I actually learned this concept from studying Tai chi and taoism. The taoist texts approach immortality and identity from a completely different angle and thought process which takes out all of the personality cult issues that many people struggle with.
I never understood why people either hated or worshiped your mother. I had dinner with her and listened to her speak and accepted her as smart and bright human being who had just as many flaws as my own mother. I never really thought about whether or not dictations were real or fake in the same sense that many people try to infer. I simply did not care where dictations came from because the process of writing for any religious thoughts, feelings, or concepts invariably involves editing and inaccuracies. Maybe every concept we have read about concerning religion and religious thoughts is an invention of human imagination but that does not take away from idea that a good story can be a source of inspiration for some people. How far they take it or force their beliefs on another person is where I think that boundaries of freedom are broken.
Under the 1st amendment we all have the absolute right to believe whatever we want to and that is the beauty of being able to have such posts as the ones you have authored here.
Shawn, coincidences of birth are not all they're cracked up to be. Part of the old "counting the hits, ignoring the misses" tendency discussed by Sagan. I was born in '64, not '65. If you want to talk about a coincidence of your birth, Trent Reznor was also born in '65, for example. And about 3,000 other famous people from imdb:
http://www.imdb.com/search/name?birth_year=1965
As for religious writings, it doesn't really matter where they originated, or even how widespread they are. My parents sampled from the world's religious stories and wrote about them. The question is, do their writings discuss any form of provable reality? The answer is they do not. They only sow confusion on top of centuries of existing confusion. I'm all for myths and metaphors if they help people make sense of their lives. Problem is when followers forget the stories are indeed symbolic and not to be taken literally.
The first amendment says nothing about belief, it only protects the right to expression. The government can't get inside your head. Nor can anyone "force" their beliefs on others. But everyone would do well to examine their own beliefs and assumptions. The stories you tell yourself about yourself are most relevant to your own sanity and prosperity (or lack thereof).
You can believe you can fly if you want, but that won't help you if you jump off a 20 story building. You can even continue to hold that belief and it will seem fine as you pass 19 floors on the way down.
Hi Sean, True about jumping off of a building. Belief of being able to fly does not make the landing any softer.
Thanks for clarifying the year of your birth.
As to the 1st amendment it does provide more than protecting the right of expression it also protects the right of access to courts through the petition clause.
With regard to your rhetorical question; "Do their writings discuss any form of provable reality?" I would agree in part to your answer and dissent in part. One of the areas that is provable is in the area of sound. The science of sound has many provable ideas that your mother wrote and spoke about. One of them is constructive interference where the combined tones from the same frequency create a phase relationship and constructively interfere just it does with two laser beams passed through a slit and projected onto a wall. There are areas where the light from the two laser beams is amplified so that the sum is greater than the individual parts. This is also true with sound. When applied to voices in singing or decreeing, the power output is demonstrably greater. This concept is implicit in your mother's book, the Science of the Spoken Word. From a purely scientific and musical point of view, the art of singing certain songs or decreeing certain positive affirmations can show physical benefits with increased levels of dopamine or other important neurotransmitters in the brain. The same is true for tai chi or chanting bija mantras. I have many tai chi students who experience real benefits that are scientifically provable such as decreased blood pressure and a lower resting heart rate.
In the first paragraph of your posted reply you wrote; "they bastardized the physics with unsupportable supernatural claims about it." I spent a good deal of time from 1980 through 1988 playing 5 nights a week in various rock bands at night clubs, weddings, bars, and concert theaters. Our stage volume was usually between 90 – 120 decibels as measured by my sound engineer. The music we played was top 40, rock, and r & b. As a child I played classical piano and spent 6 summers at Interlochen music camp studying with U of M professors playing in the Interlochen Orchestra as well on the drums, mallets, and timpani.
Once I listened to your mother's lecture on the science of sound and rhythm there was a confirmation of what I experienced in both of those worlds explained by your mother in a way that was not explained by my physics teachers, my music professors, or my priests. She very accurately described what happens during repeated participation in very loud music that is driven by what she termed an 'anapestic' beat pattern. If I had not experienced it first hand I would not have been able to relate to what she was saying or what you discussed in one of your lectures that you gave which I believe was in a pearl of wisdom.
Much of the dialogue and debate that centers on the relative good or evil concerning rock music and it's accompanying beat patterns is subjective but the difference in my writing output as a musician and my ability to communicate certain feelings through my classical music is subtly different than the pop music that I wrote for various organizations. Without assigning a good or evil label to either kind of music or beat patterns there is still a marked difference in my development as a writer which I can largely attribute to the influence of your mother and the information that she gave in her lecture on the subject. After I attended summit university in 1989 I was able to write 3 piano concertos and perform them with many different orchestras along side of Mozart, Schumann, and Mendolsohn's works received with equal critical praise. This was not the work of my efforts alone but a change in my being because of the spiritual tools and practices that I learned from your mother.
These are all tangible and real benefits that I personally experienced. Beyond those I experienced while awake there are many more that I experienced while asleep or half-awake which I do not really know how to describe in a venue like the one you have here for posted replies to your original statements of fact. Many of the dream-like experiences could be seen as imaginative thoughts from neurons in my brain or they could be out-of-body experiences from real places that I visited that existed in the lower realms of consciousness.
OK, so you've played rock and classical music, and you now like classical better. That seems to sum it up. That's a choice everyone has the right to make. You could have gone to music college and studied classical at any time for any reason. In fact, my son Chris after playing and touring in metal and hardcore bands for years is doing just that, studying composition. I'm sure whatever musical style he evolves into will take the best of both worlds, and won't have any overlays of ideological bias one direction or the other.
As for the problem most religious people have with rock music, it's because the beat and the attitude tie us right back to our primal energies. Religions thrive on shadow repression and denial of our animal nature. The mind body split is second only to the spirit matter split in creating mental and emotional pathologies. It's time to get past these ancient and childish ways of thinking and move toward integration and self-acceptance of the full range and depth of our humanity as a unified whole.
As for dream states or “spiritual” experiences, those are completely subjective and in your head unless proven otherwise through peer-reviewed evidence and multiple independent observers.
I do not know if it is always an ideological bias that brings a person of religious leanings to view music a certain way. I would compare it to the difference in reactions between bystanders who witnesses a group at a party indulging in the consumption of cocaine or engaging in promiscuous "primitive" behavior. Viewing pornography is the expression what you call primitive energies and under such a definition would not necessarily be wrong or bad however for a lot of people it is wrong and bad because it is classified as a paraphilia in the DSM-IV.
We do not currently have a diagnostic criteria for listening to rock music that is pornographic in its vibration yet the participation in it creates a similar affect on the emotions and the physiological responses of those who listen to it. Therefore there are primitive energies in rock music which destroy life and sap out of the person the vital pre-natal chi which is necessary for health and longevity. This does not occur in music where the vibrations create life and nourish the vital essence of chi in the blood, plasma, and bone marrow.
Shawn, there are all kinds of things that are in the DSM that are not in reality pathological. Being gay used to be in there. Masturbation used to be in earlier versions. Some forms of BDSM are in there even though many people practice in healthy consensual ways without harm. And I don't think you can classify drug use, promiscuity (what a loaded word that is) or pornography as harmful unless indulged to excess. And you can die from too much of anything, even drinking too much water. People tend to project their inabilities to control their desires and passions onto substances or media. That's again the result of immaturity and failure to take personal responsibility.
Now you're into full fantasy mode, talking about “vital energies” and “pre-natal chi” as if they were actual things. This is just the expected mental fallout from a lifetime of supernaturalism. I would suggest you break free from those strictures. There's still time to integrate, get rid of the shame, and live that “unlived life.”
I would have to say that Nine Inch Nails is at the top of my music list, by the way. At times pornographic, at times angry and violent, at times political/philosophical–but always hitting the right notes. Their shows are amazing. the “Lights in the Sky” tour in 2008 was the best show I've ever seen. You've also got to check out a Tool show and a Rush show. Again, top of their game. Shadows integrated, musically complex to a classical level. Yes is another band that I think blows the doors off any classical music. Gates of Delirium at the Hollywood Bowl with a full orchestra was not to be missed. Once in a lifetime experience.
I'd also love to see Muse in concert. They're amazing.
And even having said all of that, I still like to attend classical concerts. It's just a different mood. One does not take away from the other.
The discredited methodology you are describing above is vitalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
Hi Sean, I did see Rush in concert at the Joe Louis arena in Detroit. The sound was good and it wasn't too loud. I have never seen Tool but watched a documentary on them. I saw Yes but I was in the 10th row and I had to put my ear plugs in. They did not have Rik Wakeman so I was a little disappointed but Chris Squire and Jon Anderson made up for it. As far as comparing the music of rush to a classical piece like the second movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony they are worlds apart in complexity. Maybe Vilvaldi's Spring is close to Rush. My oldest daughter saw Muse and said they were excellent.
I'm glad you saw Rush and Yes, those are truly great experiences.
When you're talking about complexity in music, it's not enough to just focus on intricacy of notes or orchestration. Modern music has speed and dynamics not seen at all in classical. There's also the use of computers, sequencers and digital processing gear to add another dimension. And that's not even talking about the light shows / background animations seen at most concerts.
I would not compare Rush to Beethoven, but I would certainly say Yes holds up. Then you have to look at progressive groups like Dream Theater, Mars Volta, or various forms of jazz or fusion which exceeds classical in complexity. Modern modal writing and improvisation is another level. It's really apples and oranges anyway.
The point is, classical is the past, and there's a lot of exciting developments going on in modern music which have expanded the horizons of what's possible. You have to also take into account the great film composers like John Williams etc. who drew a lot on Holst, Mahler and others.
http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/movie-pa…
Certainly a dogmatic approach excluding all rock syncopation and "anapestic" beats would eliminate about 99% of what's exciting out there.
Also check out the DVDs of the Yes Masterworks tour, I forget which one has them with Rick Wakeman and the orchestra.
And you can't forget Emerson Lake and Palmer, for heaven sakes! And what Pink Floyd did with mostly just blues chords, Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick, Passion Play, etc. the list goes on and on.
Ozric Tentacles, Tangerine Dream, Delerium, so much great music being produced once you get out of the classical straitjacket. For every group I've named there are 10 more great ones I haven't.
Another problem with classical music is its Eurocentrism, and its association with tradition and authority. Much of it is also of an explicitly religious nature.
We are moving toward a globalized and secularized world, and we need music that more accurately reflects a synthesis of international culture and universal human values.
Are you crazy?? Wait till you have a near death experince. Just because you dont belive it does not mean it dont exist!!! Glad I am not you. i dont believe in you and you exist. Oh My God!!!
@ Aaron
"Fantastic! What a well written denouncement.
Personally, I don't think there is any good reason to believe in any sort of non-locality, quantum or otherwise. Human beings are just profoundly poor at intuiting probabilities, and search for patterns in everything. "
Irony is a wonderful thing, isn't it? You seem like one of those people who prides themselves on not believing in any "foo-foo", stuff, such as non-local phenomenon which "obviously conflict with 'rationality'" and "common sense".
You might want to let virtually every modern physicist know that their conclusions are "definitely not rational". Why don't you outline to them how they've been in error for the better part of a century! You'll be a hero.
When most people talk about "rationality", in contexts such as "that is not a rational way of looking at things", what they really mean is "that is not consistent with my view of reality".
Every "non logical" conflict, no matter what the circumstance or abstract hypothesis, can be made logical, through changing the underlying foundations, parameters, and the dissolution of the psycho-emotional-mental paradigm which houses it. Thus, logic ultimately has meaning with regards to a thing's relation or application to another thing. It can have no bearing whatsoever on the truth of reality — whatever that may be. Logic is essentially a human construct.
Jung, whom I am a big fan of, put it as such
"Rationalism and doctrinarism are the diseases of our time; they pretend to have all the answers. but a great deal will yet be discovered which our present limited view would have ruled impossible. Our concepts of space and time have only approximate validity, and there is therefore a wide field for rumor and major deviation…..The more the critical reason dominates, the more impoverished life becomes; but the more of the unconscious, and the more of myth we are capable of making conscious, the more of life we integrate."
Carl Jung
It's also interesting to note that the average person who might be a member of the "rational response squad" would decry notions of "intuitive truth", and such as being contrary to science — as would the average scientist.
It it ironic then, that some of the greatest heroes of modern science, such as Einstein, Fenyman, Crick and Watson — I'm sure you know who they are, being, probably, a "rational" "atheist" (both ridiculous concepts, along with their converse conceptions) — held such ideas that the average "rational person", as well as average scientist, would eschew.
The book "The New Story of Science" — forwarded by Sir John Eccles (one of those irrational,foo-foo Nobel Prize winners), as his opinion of its value, highlights numerous angles of the outworn and outdated perceptions of Science held by the average 'science enthusiast', and the dinosaurs in the average scientific community.
The irony of the discrepancy between the 'meta-science' view of the 'greats', and that of the average 'rationalistic-ism-istic' (again, what an absurd concept) is especially highlighted.
Would the average 'rational, scientific minded "atheist", or otherwise' scorn a sentiment such as "the model we had imagined was just, so beautiful, so perfect, that we KNEW it HAD to be real — even if we had no empirical evidence of it yet.'
Most likely. Yet, that was the sentiment of Watson and Crick, as expressed in their autobiography, when they had — correctly — imagined the double helix model of DNA BEFORE empirical confirmation.
As Einstein said, "the rational mind is a faithful servant — the 'intuitive mind' a sacred gift".
Quotes — the book has plenty, but they are only one facet of highlighting the discrepancy between the 'old and new story of science', in a way that leaves one not knowing whether to cry or laugh. Essentially, so many of the discoveries of 'the greats', worshiped today as examples of the 'antithesis' to 'new age stuff', by their own writings, point to many 'new age' concepts as key to their discoveries.
There is no end to the irony of people who decry, such as in the author of this blog post, not realizing that they are on another canoe on the same river (all while thinking they are standing on the shores of objectivity)
Per Morya's request, here is a link to a photograph of the ascended masters…
http://www.crystalinks.com/blavatskyfriends440.jp…
Left, Kuthumi…Middle, El Morya, Right, Saint Germain…Seated in center, madame Blavatsky…
Sean, It is obvious that you are at the mercy of your karma involving CUT/SLU and blame the masters for not "saving" you, your parents and everyone involved with this particular cult after their so-called dedication and service. However, as you described in moderate detail, and as is inevitable by law of attraction, your group came together for having all of the same discrepancies, and were required to learn the same lessons. The masters did not respect YOU, your parents, or the phony portrayal of light/love established by CUT/SLU. Those more concerned with their image/persona, or need to be correct, will not be admired by the great ones. Anybody can start a cult and sucker the masses, but very few posses the wisdom, and are sincerely selfless enough to lay down their lives in true service to god's humanity.
Coming into relationship with the ascended masters is a natural result of a true and burning passion to know god, and constant conscious effort to remove evil habits and wrong desires in this lifetime (or the next). Because of your nonsense, and obvious desire to know these beings for yourself, I am sure your time will come…at which point you will rebuke all that you have done here, and perhaps you will truly do your part in helping people. A brilliant mind is a double edged sword child, you can use it to cut through the darkness of Maya, or cut off your own head.
Sat Nam
How bout you peddle that shopping cart of crazy somewhere else. Adults playing pretend, isn't really a strong selling point. Just sayin.
That photo is a Fraud; as was Blavatsky. Lady Séance was well practiced in the art of flim-flam.
Also, try to be less gullible.
I REALLY CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY SO MANY PEOPLE WAIST THEIR TIME DISCUSSING WITH SOMEBODY WHO JUST WANTS TO KEEP ON BEING THE SAME POOR THING…JUST LET SEAN FEEL A LITTLE MORE IMPORTANT BELIEVING HE OWNS THE TRUTH…
Hello person that made this article. You say bad things about El Morya. I have decided to kill you. You really don't know what you are talking about. You don't know anything about the I AM presence, and you are not interested into bringing back the joy of life into women who have been sexually abused. This is the sole reason I decided to kill such a piece of shit like you are, BlackSun.
We are moving toward a globalized and secularized world, and we need music that more accurately reflects a synthesis of international culture and universal human values.
Reggae music speaks of international culture and universal human values.
Can’t fight the feeling.
One Love
UnconditionalLove exists
Just ask my 2 Dogs
Thank you! I really enjoyed this.
Of course the ascended masters are real, but they are spirits that are crazy. I have personally had out of body experiences. And had spirits talk to me. but that doesn't mean their messages is a good one. There are 3 levels to everything – low (material), middle (emotional, spiritual, or astral) – the spirit plane, and high (mental) – the soul plane or the mental plane. These planes/ dimensions are as real as I am now. Though some will never believe. In the Spirit / Emotional / Astral plane, which is a middle plane, it is not governed by logic, common sense, instead by whimsical fantasies about fairy tales that the spirits believe in. If you believe the spirits, you will be messed up and deluded. Worse than drugs- way worse. The spirits have this nonsense message, about how you are here to gain everything for yourself. People profit from that, make money from other people deluded by the spirits in the astral plane (the lord of the astral plane is can you guess — Satan – the spirits say there is no such thing of course – or how could such a thing be their master?) Sounds like fiction I know. What the ascension (lifting, rapture, enlightening into a higher state of being), is not something people can make happen to themselves. It has to come from within when the person/soul/entity is ready, if it comes at all for whomever it is. We all wish to believe ascended master fairy tales from these nonsensical spirits in an emotional plane, because no one ever gets hurt no matter what. Even Hitler was just an immature soul, dark soul, which will just die in the end. Unfortunately many people do not care that much about people, and do whatever they can to profit, and the spirits that are stupid in Light Light Light are not logical enough to understand they are being used by people who love power. But the spirits though well intentioned, are themselves deluded and power hungry, and therefore nutty, and in truth many of these ascended spirits may unfortunately never know what true ascension really is, because their souls are probably evil – hopefully not, but their choice. No one in their right mind would believe these insane lunatic Christians may have been correct. NO I am not a christian and hate all religions, they are disgusting, but these stupid MONEY loving deluded nutcase Christians are actually closer to the truth than anyone knows. Anyways, I MUST tread where my Holy Christ Self told me I must go – home home home – damnation, eternally GOOD I am looking forward to the flames of MY UNDERWORLD — hahahahahahhahahahahahah (I love SciFi movies about the supernatural and succobusses – demons in female form, and witches and all kinds of beautiful wonderful miraculous entities which call the blackest darkness home) I have a feeling many of the ascended nutcase power hungry self deluded self righteous spirits will probably be Downstairs sooner or later. We'll just have to wait and see — YES I AM A SCHIZOPHRENIC – and I do not give a …mother F…ing… Sh.t. EL MORYA can go f.. himself and I MEAN THAT WITH ALL MY HEART MIND AND SOUL. Go ahead b.tch and dam me (Yes I call these asshole spirits bitches – F… them) THESE MORON spirits in LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT would have you believe FEAR is the DEVIL. Fear is comparable to intelligence.