Where has anyone been attacked? lol

thats another new age term...personal attack....
You cant challenge an opinion or opinions without being thought of as attacking???

And is anyone being 'harmed' by that so -called attack from dora...?  Was berserk being attacked?, i think not.

In fairness to Don,

You have to address his points.  He is not talking of fallen angels, or someone else's doctrine.  He is assuming that there may be evil souls, discarnate humans or otherwise who choose to create havoc.  He is not denying that they may be confused and need to understand PUL - as far as I can tell. 

Now the situations he cites, may be examples of a low level astral entity affecting someone.  I ne'er to well, who can't realize their own light, and sees and opportunity to get back onto the earth plane, and grabs it.

I think we should all read the posts we are responding to well, before stating our own views about the misconceptions of another.  Don is, I'm sure quite aware of the religious inconsistancies mentioned. 

That does not negate his post on possessions and the existence of negative entities.


Matthew

It's probably quite obvious by now that I don't believe in the devil or major forces of evil. It just doesn't make sense to me nor feel right in my heart that God would eternally set things up so that forces of evil always have to be contended with. The only thing that could be eternal is God's love, light and wisdom, and how he shares these gems with the souls he created.

Just in case I might be wrong, I asked my guidance.  I was given the name Saint Augustine, a person for which I know nothing about. It turns out that Saint Augustine pondered deeply about where evil comes from, and he spoke out against the concept that it is an inherent force that is always there. Here are a couple of paragraphs regarding what he said.

"Despite its dualistic overtones, the overall unity of the picture is central to its ability to provide a resolution of the problem of evil. The sensible world, for example, is not evil, nor is embodiment itself to be regarded as straightforwardly bad. The problem that plagues our condition is not that we are trapped in the visible world (as it is for the Manicheans); rather, it is a more subtle problem of perception and will: we are prone to view things materialistically and hence unaware that the sensible world is but a tiny portion of what is real [Confessions IV.xv.24], an error Augustine increasingly attributes to original sin [De Libero Arbitrio III.20; De Civitate Dei XIII.14-15]. Thus, we have a tendency to focus only upon the sensible, viewing it as a self-contained arena within which all questions of moral concern are to be resolved. Because we fail to perceive the larger unity of which the sensible world is itself a part, it easily becomes for us (though not in itself) a realm of moral danger, one wherein our will attaches itself to transitory objects that cannot but lead to anxiety [Confessions VII.xi.17-18]. Given the essentially rational nature of the human soul and the rational nature of the Neoplatonic ontology, there is nonetheless room for optimism. The human soul has the capacity to perceive its own liminal status as a being embodied partly in the sensible world while connected to the intelligible realm, and there is thus the possibility of reorienting one's moral relation to the sensible world, appreciating it for the goodness it manifests, but seeing it as an instrument for directing one's attention to what is above it [see Confessions VII.x.16 and VII.xvii.23]. Augustine's employment of this Neoplatonic hierarchy is thus central to his Hellenistic eudaimonism [see O'Connell 1972, pp. 39-40; Rist 1994, pp. 48-53; Kirwan 1999, pp. 183-4] which would redeem appearances by means of situating them within a more primary, if often unacknowledged context.

With respect to questions about specific instances of natural and moral evil, this ontology is even more subtle. Natural evils are attributed to the partiality of our perspective, a perspective that is often the result of our myopic materialism and tendency to focus upon our own self-interest. Understood within the larger context -- both the underlying order of the appearances and the providentially governed moral drama within which they appear -- natural evils are not evil at all [e.g. Confessions VII.xiii.19 and De Civitate Dei XI.22]. With respect to the moral evil which is the product of human agency, these are the culpable products of a will that has become attached to lower goods, treating them as if they were higher. Moral evil is, strictly speaking, not a thing, but only the will's turning away from God and attaching itself to inferior goods as if they were higher [ibid.]. In De Civitate Dei, Augustine emphasizes the privative nature of evil by referring to the will's pursuit of inferior goods as being a deficient rather than efficient cause [De Civitate Dei, XII.7]. The inherent difficulty of this notion aside [see Rist 1994, pp. 106-8], the point behind it is clear enough: Augustine is using the resources of Neoplatonism to account for the phenomena we label evil while stressing human responsibility, thus avoiding either substantializing evil (as the Manicheans do) or making it the result of God's creative activity."

Regarding possession, my guidance has shown me that if you're a good hearted person who is committed to higher good, and who would rather have your existence vanquished than be a tool for a negative spirit, then there is no way that a negative spirit could effect you.

If a negative spirit is going to gain control of anybody, it would be a person who provides a fertile field of negative thought patterns.

I don't care what some supposed super guru says. My common sense, heart and guidance are much more trustworthy.

To Dora:

Dora thunders: I post [on] whomever, whenever, and whichever thread I choose."   And so you do!  Regardness of my decision to start a new more highly focused thread and my pleas to honor that limitation.   But one mustn't expect a paragon of PUL like you to display a modicum of courtesy.  And I have to hand it to you--you win again!  You've succeeded in knocking this thread off  topic.  You know very well that your tirade against Christianity and child abuse is both hate speech and irrelevant to this thread.  By the way, you have no way of knowing how many Seth/Elias readers have committed murder or needed an exorcism.  Like Robert Bruce, I have criticized Jane Roberts (Seth) as at least somewhat self-deluded.  But I have never labelled Roberts or Sethians as "kooks."   I reserve that label for specific absurdities like Monroe's uncritical acceptance of the astral claim that aliens have come here to collect jokes.

To Blink:

I'm deeply moved by your apology and removal of that post.   I just surveyed some of your recent posts and saw no PUL pretension.  So I apologize for confusing you with someone else.  I've never implied that your views might imply a possible need for exorcism.   On the contrary, the ultimate in "kookery" is the uncritical ease with which some Christian charismatics perform exorcisms without first adequately ruling out the possiibilty of conventional psychopathology.   Malachi Martin estimates that 99% of exorcisms are misdiagnosed psychiatric disorders.  It is the !% that psychiatrists pass on to exorcists that are worth analyzing here.

Recoverer: "Why would an evil spirit possess a baby? ...Don't believe everything you read."
___________________________________

WhY?  There are various possibilities.  (1) The entity might want to enslave a soul for exploitation in this life and the next.  (2) If the demon is a discarnate earthbound human, it might want to exploit the child's mind to vicariously experience earthly pleasures.   That motive is widely attested in astral observation of earthbound humans.  

The strong evidence for the possession of young children initially trumps the why question.  Robert Bruce is my ideological adversary in many ways.  But he is a man of integrity and I don't believe he is fabricating his childhood possession reports.  

Besides, my family has experienced this danger.   Many years ago, my Uncle G was performing an exorcism in a home, while my aunt R kept my cousin E (just 3 years old) in the car outside.  At the very moment of demonic expulson, E fell into a deep trance and, to his mother's horror, his eyes rolled up in his head with only the whites visible.  Only after his parents' fervent prayers was E restored to normalcy.   E (now a psychiatrist) told me that all he recalls of this attempted possession is Jesus coming and lovingly cradling him in His arms."  

To Matthew (DocM):
Thanks for your tireless efforts to champion fairness and courtesy in an attempt to teach posters to disagree agreeably.

Don

Beserk:

Give me a break on the below. As if this is what you exemplify. You come to a site that has been started by somebody else, and use it as a pulpit to preach your own agenda, as opposed to being in harmony with what the spirit of the site is.

I haven't read all of DocMs posts, but sometimes it seems as if you and he have a good cop, bad cop routine going on.


[quote author=Berserk
To Matthew (DocM):
Thanks for your tireless efforts to champion fairness and courtesy in an attempt to teach posters to disagree agreeably.

Don




[/quote]

recoverer, I've answered that question in reply #10:

"The identity (human or otherwise) of demons must be tabled until it can be subjected to decisive verification tests.  Since these entities routinely lie, the researcher cannot take their word for it when they claim to be Satan."

I don't know if the demon exorcised by my uncle was human or non-human.  I accept the original and broader Greek conception of "demon" (Greek: 'daimonion").  The more important issue is the physical and psychological harm that these entities can wreak on their victims.  

Only rarely is the entity able to kill its victim.  In both possessions witnessed and analyzed by psychiastrist Scott Peck, the victims suffered many years "of fixation at the age of onset."   In other words, though now adults, these victims were "demonically" prevented from progressing emotionally beyond the maturity of the young child they were when first possessed.   It took a long period of psychotherapy to correct this problem, but with the possession terminated by the power of Christ, mental health was steadily restored.

Don

Don-

Why not just overlook Dora's posts and continue with your own.  Many of us respect your point of view and especially the great care you take with all of your posts.  Don't let yourself be distracted by her, and above all please don't withdraw from the board.

R