I personally find a lot value in most of Don's posts.  I have learned a lot from him and appreciate him taking the time to post here. 

In fact I appreciate everyone here. I am always learning something new and wonderful from each of you.

Love, Kathy

Thanks Rondele. Spirt works in wondrous ways.
Joe

Vicky:

I agree that sometimes Don speaks in a manner that isn't nice, but at least ways people get to see how he feels about things, rather than him presenting himself in a manner that doesn't accurately depict how he feels. I mean, if a guy accuses somebody of being a part of the new age ghetto, you right away know how he feels.

Speaking of the new age ghetto, perhaps a name other than ghetto should be picked, because certainly some of the new age leaders that live today, are hardly living in a ghetto. Especially somebody like Sylvia Browne who charges $700.00 for a 20 minute phone reading and sells tons of books. I know there's a technical difference between a ghetto and a slum, but dadburn that Don writes ghetto rather than slum.




Vicky wrote on Jan 11^th, 2008 at 7:40pm:

[Jpe:] "Don... Ya know how I hate that"my church" stuff... You didn't happin to have some sort of a clairvoyant message telling you that the masses should be following your beliefs in "your" church did ya? I do love the story though."
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Actually, we teach what Jesus taught--that spirituality is better caught than taught.  For example, that is why Jesus never explained His parables to the masses.  He wanted them to meditate on His words and discern their own application.  We try to create an atmosphere in which guests can have their own self-authenticating experiences of grace and divine guidance.  Bibilcal principles are always presented as a means of enhancing direct experience in order to eliminate the problem of 2nd-hand or vicarious spirituality.  Doctrine is only valuable if it is used as a tool to create a higher quality of consciousness.  

[Joe:] "In the drivers seat was a man dressed as a priest. He let me in and let me warm up for a few minutes before driving down the road. He asked why I seamed so upset and I explained my anger though no the part about demanding proof from God. Over the next hill was a all night gas and grub place. He took me in and sat me down. Told me I could have what ever I wanted. I asked him who he was and he told me that he was the one who worked in this area. That was all and off he went. After I finished my meal and went up to the counter to ask who this man was. They told me that they had never seen him before but thay for some reason felt obligated to feed me and allow me to stay as long as I needed to warm up. He didn't pay then and nor would I need to pay. They just sort of smiled and sent me on my way. I knew at that moment the reality of God and of the Holy Spirit. Never have I doupted the existence from that second on. My understanding is that God dosen't need nor want anyone to go down to the corner or to a building to offer a sacrifice unto him. That you only will find God within your own heart and that the best place to offer your love unto him is from within. Ideas like "your church" scare the pants off me and remind me of the worship of false idols and misdirected beliefs."
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What a strange reaction to an obvious act of kindness from a discerning priest or lay person.  
It would have been more natural to react in the opposite manner--to ask yourself where you might find a community of similar people devoted to random acts of kindness to strangers.  That's precisely what our church and other lccal churches do.  Every year, we give thousands of dollars away to homeless people and strangers for gas and food vouchers, overnight motel fees, and bill and rental payments to prevent evictions.  After reaping the benefits of selfless love, why would you then conclude that you should avoid organizations that mobilize their time and resources to offer such practical services with no expectation of anything in return?  Do you really prefer this site's self-indulgent cosmic soup that passes for retrieval PUL and has little to do with daily acts of self-sacrificial service?  That seems neither consistent nor rational.  

So why do I post here?  As you may recall, I left the site for several months and only returned when a gal asked me to do so.  I have long ago abandoned my hope that this site would provide valuable insights into afterlife research.  When I can motivate myself to continue and complete my Heaven thread, I will again abandon the site to its cultic uniformity.

Don

Regarding what Blink wrote, I wonder who precisely we are proving things to. I'm kind of busy when it comes to spirit work, and don't imagine myself changing my schedule so I can prove things to "who??"

Plus, sometimes people don't want to listen to the evidence. I've shared verifications that are hard to doubt to a couple of people I know in person, and they still won't believe what I say.  Either they figured I was lying about the evidence I presented, I'm completely deluded about what I experienced, or they just simply were so unopen to evidence, their minds went into some sort of denial default circuit when I provided verifiable evidence. The later seems to be the reason.

When it comes to a person like James Randi,  if he'd be willing to see positive evidence, he'd find that it exists. Instead, he'll look at ten examples, find several that are bogus, and use the bogus examples as a justification to deny the positive examples.  Examples that go beyond mere coincidence.






Quote:

Blink:

I'd see about changing my schedule if I understood who we are proving things to. Is there somebody other than Don who is asking? Plus, what kind of evidence will do the trick? For example, if I retrieve a person named A, and find an obituary with collaborating info on the internet, what's to stop a sceptic from believing that I found an obituary on the internet, and made up a retrievel story. Or perhaps they might claim that I was misled by a demon, rather than having a genuine retrievel experience.

Joe:

The Bible encourages the radical openness of the scientific method: e. g. 'Intelligent people are always open to new ideas. In fact, they look for them (Proverbs 18:15)."  God's secrets are concealed in the hope that they will be discovered: e. g. "It is God's privilege to conceal things and the king's privilege to discover them (Proverbs 25:2)."  The Bible alerts us to the hidden laws of nature, but warns us that their discovery will take hard work: "Do you know the laws of the universe and how God rules the earth (Job 38:33)?"  "No one can discover everything God has created in the world, no matter how hard they work at it.  Not even the wisest people know everything, even if they say they do (Ecclesiastes 8:17)."  "Wisdom is always very distant and very difficult to find.  I searched everywhere, determined to find wisdom and to understand the reasons for things (Ecclesiastes 7:24-25a)."  

Jesus expects us to expand our research horizons, by implication, to actually read books and not just blogs, and to read books in related fields that challenge our smug orthodoxy.  Most posters here fail to do this and thus betray their status as card-carrying members of the intellectually insulated New Age Ghetto.  "Only simpletons believe everything they are told.  The prudent carefully consider their steps (Proverbs 14;15)."  "Steps" refers to the process of verification that is essential to critical research.  Such steps are tellingly ignored by the protoculs and practices used by modern astral adepts to explore the afterlife.  Skeptics will be convinced if astral exploration has as its loving focus the legitimate doubts of honest seekers.  Instead, the New Age Ghetto prefers to shun the hard and threatening work of verification and falsification to provide comfort at the expense of contagious truth.  

The Bible champions the hard-headed thinking and research that leads to scientific breakthroughs.  For example, the father of modern oceanography received his breakthrough insight while his wife was reading Psalm 8 to him.  Matthew Maury was struck by the psalmist's odd phrase "paths through the sea," a phrase reinforced by an allusion to "springs of the sea" (Job 38:16).  This insight allowed Maury to discover the warm and cold continental currents that serve as a foundation for the new science of oceanography.  The Bible is not a scientific book, but its advocacy of rigorous research has inspired hard-headed research, despite the Catholic church's appalling persecution of Galileo and Copernicus. Pope Pius XII even claimed that EVP research might be the key to assuring the masses about the reality of the afterlife!

Don

As for 'Proof' I always think of what Christ said to Peter.
I will paraphrase since I don't have the King Jimmy version in front of me at this time...

When Christ was walking on water didn't he say to peter: Believe and it will happen.
I always hear from people 'Seeing IS Believing'.
However, isn't it 'Believing Is Seeing'?

That is how I 'see it' anyways.

EDIT: Ghetto.
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto

Dictionary: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/ghetto

It is not necessarily a 'Bad Thing' either.
If I am in a ghetto...then so be it. I am PROUD of it!