http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?3,21069,page=2

I think that what is important is to explore things for yourself, examine the truths in your life, and not be a blind follower of any guru, be it conventional religion or Abraham-Hicks wackos.  I think Cervantes said in Don Quixote something like "there is no book or text so bad that there is not something good to be found in it."  This could be said about the Abraham-Hicks books/sessions or information.  But that doesn't mean one should blindly follow all the guidance. 

There are certain laws, such as the law of attraction which can be verified by any of us, through deep introspection and examination of our own lives.  Esther Hicks and Hubby teach this, but charge a lot, and get blind followers because she claims to be channeling.  What is it about channelers?  Why do the masses believe that an alleged (and I do mean alleged) noncorporeal being somehow has a better bead on what the big picture is than we do?  Why are Hicks-Abraham, Seth and Ramtha doted on as if they have a superior spirituality?   If spirituality is truly judged by how close we are to PUL - love of others and God, then I see no reason to look to a channeler for information.  There are plenty of loving people and texts out there.

I believe that many of these channelers take morsels of truth, and use it for profit or distort it.  Imagine telling a woman who had lost three babies that she must have attracted that misery into her life somehow!  Ridiculous.  While the law of attraction explains much, any thinking person will know there are limits.  A tsunami comes in South East Asia and kills 230,000 people all at once.  The Abraham Hicks crowd might say that those who died attracted death or misfortune into their lives.  But a more realistic view is that apart from the law of attraction and karma is a law of random energy; that is that in the physical world, there are also random events that occur that ripple with and interact with our lives and energies - whether we want them to or not.  Life is not completely scripted.  When 66,000 people were obliterated at Hiroshima, or tens of millions died during WWII, one can not glibly apply it all to karma or the law of attraction. 

Clearly there are random energies, disasters and catastrophes that act separately from our intentions. 


Matthew

Matthew 7:7

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

____________________

Isn't that the "Law of Attraction" in another form?

Hi Lucy,

Yes, I think that quote and others about intent/faith found in the NT is spot on.  For me, my interpretation is not that every specific minute detail has been asked for on some level.   Only our general state of being. 

There are too many interactions with the energies of others, and random earth events (tsunamis, fires, etc.).  The idea that everything is pre-planned by us before we live would take away the fun and exploration of being incarnate here on earth.  So, no, for me, I don't believe that everything in our lives comes by the law of attraction - just many things, and our general state.

I think it is horrendous to say that if one is ill or loses three pregnancies, she must have "asked for it" subconsciously.  Or that a rape victim must have been a rapist or needed to go through that.  The law of attraction is in effect, but it doesn't take into account our interactions with others, and their own intent and energies. 

Matthew

I don't believe Jesus had some get rich plan in mind. I believe it would be more accurate to say that if you open your mind and heart to God's love and light, you'll be provided accordingly.


Lucy wrote on Dec 30^th, 2010 at 3:49am:

Quote:


Does that explain the difference between Eckhart Tolle and James Oroc?

Matthew-

Excellent post. 

There is so much fraud and so many scams out there, and for most of us they are all very transparent. 

What mystifies me, however, is the mindset of those who buy into them.  I suspect there are many reasons, probably mostly among people who are looking for a way out of a rough time they are having with their own lives.

In today's Washington Post, there is an article about a woman who is convinced the rapture will take place on May 21 of this year, followed by the earth's destruction on October 21.  Her website http://www.wecanknow.com seems articulate enough, but I'd love to see a psychiatric profile of her.  I hope the Post does a follow-up with her on May 22.

As Albert has noted many times, these so-called gurus are almost always motivated by money and sex.  And there is never a shortage of people willing to give them both.

R

Lucy,

"For me, one problem to discussing this is that I seem to want a higher-level explanation of what's going on than many others do. I always think there is some meta-level from which I can view all this and get a better picture leading to a deeper understanding."

A tip is focus 27/the park/reception area and then the intent to seek knowledge about specifics about life on earth. Why not beyond f27, sure, but still lots of info pertaining to familiar questions and other interesting topics on f27.

Rondele,

"http://www.wecanknow.com"
"I hope the Post does a follow-up with her on May 22."

Judgement day delayed, or still under construction? - See a bible quote that says a day was appointed by old beardie to judge the world. That will be the day. I predict that business as usual will change at some point. Don't have the exact date, but.. probably a monday at around 07.00, just in time for the alarm clock not to ring, and work no more.

I have questions, but I don't feel they can be explored with a goal to really figure out what is going on, when there is underlying animosity towards some of the characters. Sometimes I just want to say, "Hmm this data looks kinda weird, what does that mean?" without having to deal with any preconceived ideas.

So I'm not sure what the motive really was in posting the original link and even if I would like ot have a thoughtful conversation full of questions, to try to get a better perspective, I'm not sure that is possible.

Volu

Yes in this thread perhaps 'animosity' is a bit strong, but over time I do not think it is incorrect. But for discussion's sake I will happily go with "distrust." It is as good a place to start a discussion. And I will take your point because I like the warp and woof of your quote. Not sure what you mean by "material spin"  :)   or by law of allowance. Is law of allowance like "do unto others"?

BTW, why does this topic interest you?

The thoughts presented so far come up often enough for me to think that they are of continual importance to people. Yet I see so many thoughts and points presented so far as to feel that the balls of yarn have become unwound and so totally tangled that I will never get them all straightened out. Certainly not in just a few posts.

I wish I were able to look at all the ideas and reduce things to a few basic premises and then derive everything from that. It doesn't work, I don't know why not. That doesn't stop me from trying.

I think I recall that recoverer does not like gurus and also defnes gurus rather loosely. So I think the video was posted as a place to start a put-down of some of these movements. I can't figure out how to have a discussion about underlying principles if I am to worry if the Hicks are putting one over on people, though that may be a valid question.

So as part of a disclaimer, I will admit up front that Seth really has had a major impact on me. It is because it was in a book and it introduced me to ideas I had never paid attention to before. Reincarnation? out of body? mediumship? on and on. You have to put that in context. I grew up in a small town going to (protestant ) church and sort of following the straight and narrow (partly because my parents were alcoholics ..but then now I think half the town was!..and I was trying to fix things by 'being good'). Analytical and intellectual enough to live in my ideas, yeah college shook things up! but by grad school I was in a rut again. The only thing mystical I could ever connect to was William Blake; not into drugs. I was feeling that life had no purpose. And then the first Seth book fell into my lap. Whole new worlds opened up. I was more open to reading Monroe's first book because I had read Seth first. After a long while I realized it didn't fix alot of things, but my whole perspective was changed by then. It's complex. But I think of Seth as an old friend. It pains me when someone mocks that whole thing. Jane and Robert Butts did not appear to get rich off that. There are things about that that still intrigue me. I am still interested in discussing the validity of the concepts. Maybe that just means I like discussing metaphysics. Wish I knew what Bob Monroe thought of his visit with Jane/Seth. Is the material still archived at Yale?

I don't think selling books makes someone a guru. If it did, J.K. Rowling would be at the top of the list. After all, what kind of nutty people take their children to a bookstore at midnight for a book release? :)

Volu points to the line most of are always figuring out how to walk, that is, how to express what we have experienced or believe or think in a way that is persuasive, or at least provocative, but not doctrinaire and oppressive.  In other words, how to start and keep a discussion going and avoid lapsing into a diatribe and, essentially, yelling at our forum-mates as if they were idiots for not seeing things as we do.

Lucy I, too, stumbled upon Seth way back when at a time when I needed just that to open my mind to new ways of thinking about things.  And I share your sadness about the mocking of Seth, though I don't have the time or energy to revisit those works to either defend Seth or change my perhaps nostalgic view.  Seth seems sort of like the raggedy teddy bear that I loved so dearly when a teddy bear was what I needed, even though I no longer know just what a teddy bear is all about. 

I like Seth as a comforting teddy bear too.

I don't know what the phenomenon of mediumship represents. But we have such a rudimentary intellectual grasp of what conciousness is anyway; how can we say what mediumship is?

A healer was the first person who suggested looking at the Abraham-Hicks stuff. She said it was sort of like Seth. This was in the early days of the web and I recall looking it up. But I had other things ot occupy my time then so I let it go. I came back to it later, even got a book. I went to their site and found they would be in town on a particular date. I had a little extra cash and more amazingly some free time so I signed up for one of the days. I was really curious.

Wow. What a production. I was amazed to go into the lobby of the hotel and see how many people were checking attendees in, and how much stuff there was for sale! Yeah that looked a little strange to me. So I found a seat and waited. Finally they started. To a packed audience I might add. Jerry started and warmed the audience up. Then Esther came. She really didn't talk or anything. She just did the trance thing. "Hi-goodbye" I think she said. "Abraham" talked for a good while. More of the same as is in the books. Then we broke for lunch. That was part of the package. The people at my table were alll interesting and had different levels of interest and knowledge and whatever. At least here was a group of people who wanted to talk openly about this sort of phenomena. Then after lunch I think we had two shorter sessions of "Abraham." There was a question and answer period. That sort of bothered me as when I heard the questions I began to wonder if at least one was a plant. The guy missed the morning and shows up in the PM and has a question and gets chosen to ask it? I don't recall the question but it seemed odd. Then finally it was over (I don't like to sit for long periods so I was glad). at breaks and afterwards there was lots of merchandising. That disappointed me but I did note that people were buying of their own free will, nobody forced them.

But one thing that has bothered me a lot was something that happened afterwards. The line to the facilities was very long and so I wandered off in another direction looking for more. That's not interesting except to point out that I wasn't looking for Esther. I thought Jerry had said she would be available for questions afterwards and that she was in the main event hall. So I walked across the lobby and down another hall. Suddenly Esther, with Jerry not far behind, came out of a door or entranceway. being a friendly sort I smiled and said hi. The part that shocked me was the look on Esther's face when she saw me. She looked positively alarmed for a second, then said hi, looked down and kept walking. Jerry came up and made some inane prattle which I interpeted as his keeping me from talking to her, and we kept moving forward, they to the elevator and me to the other line. I was shocked at the lack of interest in even being pleasant with me. It may sound silly, but that feeling of her pulling back has bothered me ever since.

I haven't read about mediumship in a long time. When it was popular before in the late 1800's/early 1900's? people did ask questions like, why is the voice so changed and who is this other entity? I've been tryong to recall where I read about it. I also tried to find someone else who experiences this and ask them how Esther could do this for so many hours a day and so often on the road. But I don't know anyone to ask.

It was hard to not notice how much many of the crowd were buoyed up by this day's experience. I heard one woman say she came for both sessions and was staying in the hotel. She was from CT and the Hicks go to CT so I don't know why someone would pay to come up to MA for another weekend of this. But it is her money and her experience. It is interesting how this thing satisfies a real need in many people. It is sort of amazing actually.

But it still didn't answer a question primary to me:

Does "Ask and it shall be given" really work?

Because I'm not getting what I think is a one-to-one correlation with that between what I think I am asking for and what manifests in my life.

Lucy said:
"But it still didn't answer a question primary to me: Does "Ask and it shall be given" really work?
Because I'm not getting what I think is a one-to-one correlation with that between what I think I am asking for and what manifests in my life. "

I think that the law of attraction at its basic essence is just this; that our deepest thought that is tied in our gut to belief with conviction, tends to alter probabilities in our lives and manifest what we ask for.  But what we is for is not the whimsical passing wishes of our conscious mind.  So if I try to use the law of attraction to get out of a financial rut, finding myself broke, I can't simply "wish to be rich."  That is not how it works, and why so many of us fail.  We have to use our subconscious mind to expect the situation to change.  For some, this is done by the use of imagery; we picture the desired end, the goal while meditating.  We actually see ourselves and our loved ones in our mind's eye rejoicing and"feel" the feelings of joy, before the outcome has been reached.  Spiritual healers talk about feeling this to heal others.  To "see it as already done."  This is a difficult concept, but very effective.  If you deeply doubt what you are doing as you invoke the law of attraction, you are bound to fail.  This is because your subconscious acts most strongly on your thoughts tied into true belief or conviction. 

How do you banish doubt then to manifest your goals in your life?  You don't have to banish doubt completely.  But when you are relaxed, when you meditate you must state intention without doubt, as if it were accomplished.  You should give thanks for the desired outcome before it has occurred and cultivate that feeling of knowing or fulfillment to impress on your subconscious. 

My understanding is that the subconscious mind is like a reactive template that is connected to God and the universe.  It doesn't make decisions, but acts upon thoughts bound to strong beliefs.  If you send it conflicting beliefs, you confuse the subconscious and lose your goal. 

Matthew

Quote:


I can't recall or find where I've seen discussions on this, but others have asked this question. I guess no one found a good answer.

One place I looked was in psychologist Lawrence LeShan's work The Medium the Mystic and the Physicist. Before he turned his attention to folks with cancer, he studied alternate realities and "psychic healing," and apparently worked a good bit with Eileen Garrett. I agree with the Wiki folks that this article is lacking, the Wiki article does give an overview of Garrett and I think it is interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_J._Garrett

She "developed" (?) a trance personality called Uvani, and LeShan included an appendix in the aforementioned book called "When is Uvani?" in which he explores the question of whether Uvani, who is clearly not a structural entity, might be some kind of functional entity. The book was written in 1966 so it seems a little archaic now, but I think LeShan was sincere and honest in his writings on Garrett/Uvani.

But whether or not LeShan would take Esther/Abraham as seriously as he did Eileen Garrett is another question. I don't know how what went on with Eileen Garrett compares to what went on with Jane Roberts or what goes on with Esther Hicks.

With Seth, I do not try to equate the message with the messenger and I think the ideas are interesting.

The ideas with Hicks are things I've heard before, occasionally presented from a new angle, but I wonder if sometimes folks confuse the messenger and the message there. But we live in a celebrity-based culture so I'm not surprised people go for celebrity status rather than for ..depth of content or whatever you want to call it. I don't think Jane Roberts was interested in celebrity status and she herself expressed surprise and questioning about some of the ideas Seth spoke about.

In some cases it seems like theatrics that have the intent of fooling people.

I Am Dude wrote on Jan 8^th, 2011 at 2:58pm:

You are right Lucy, but it is the authoritative nature of some of these channeled "beings" (or fakes) that turns me off.  What care I for a supposedly eons old warrior named "Ramtha" coming through JZ Knight?  If the channeling is real, why should she have followers, and schools?  Because Ramtha is dead and communicating? Because somehow, he is more connected to God being discarnate or anceint?  Foolishness.

Love is often distinctly absent from the dialogue of channelers as are discussions of loving others and God.

We must learn lessons of love and life ourselves.  Those who flock to Ramtha or Hicks may be true seekers, but they just don't get that part of it.  Why are the mediums phony?  Because they "feel" phony, and act phony.

And more importantly, it is wrong to be a blind follower; you are essentially entering into a belief system or hollow heaven while you are still alive.  With Seth or Hicks, their main points are simple and unoriginal; thought creates reality.  How is this worthy of seminar after seminar (usually for over 200.00/single event/person)?

Knowing that something that rings true for you (i.e. thought attracting situation or thought creating reality), we should use our own introspection and apply the knowledge to our own situation or existence. 

The problem for me about mediumship or channeling only occurs when we follow blindly, because that is not learning or understanding; that is sheep like behaviour.

Matthew

Well this site is pretty much a place where independent thinkers show up so I wasn't worried about anyone here spending all their money following the Hicks around or playing all their savings on a lottery ticket because they thought they could divine the right number!

But I don't find all the arguments against this logically consistent  with defending what we sort of do here, and I haven't seen any answers to what is really going on in trance....(maybe Esther wouldn't say hi to me because she was tired;maybe being in trance is tiring.  who knows?)...and I don't see any arguments on how to use PUL to make this situation correct itself. HAving grown up always being in church on Sunday in the Bible-belt south and now living in Catholic-dominated Boston area, I personally would add organized Christianity to the list that had Abraham and Ramtha and "who"ever else to it...I don't know what I think of Mother Teresa. I wouldn't follow her either. In her pverty, she was supported as a nun, she didn't have to worry about dealing with culture to feed herself or a family, so I'm not impressed with her poverty. She helped many people but she was also a mouthpiece for a religion I consider to have been as much a force for evil as for good over history. (Why isn't the Pope on your list?) Her stance against birth control in my opinion acts to condemn some unborn children to poverty and death. This is not to say that Catholics are evil! there is a difference.

I'm still looking for an answer to what goes on when a trance or channeling occurs.

Regarding what Lucy said about Mother Teresa, perhaps she provided a good example of what Jesus meant by loving your neighbor as yourself (A principle I believe he taught, despite what Jane Roberts Seth claimed).

Regardless of what her financial security was, it seems to me that she dedicated her life to serving God and others. I figure a lot of ladies have pure motives for becoming nuns.

I just saw your other post, recoverer. I don't really know anything about Ramtha. I conciously decided to not follow anyone when I decided I couldn't stay in the Christian church, not my style. As I said, I like Seth because I could read a book and besides Jane Roberts is dead now and isn't making money on Seth, and never did, not like the Hicks with Abraham.

The fakes were a real issue back when seances were popular. That's why people started asking hard questions about this stuff and one reason they tried to be scientific about it. I don't think Eileen Garrett was a fake but I can't explain how she did what she did. I believe you have written about your own experiences which were not positive and I understand you find the deception intolerable. But I can't figure out what the phenomenon is if all I do is complain about how deceived the "followers" are.

Lucy said: "But I can't figure out what the phenomenon is if all I do is complain about how deceived the "followers" are."

Recoverer responds: "Sometimes it's hard to point out the faults of the deceivers without speaking about how people are deceived by them.

Quote:


I don't want to point out the faults of the deceivers, if that is what they are. I want to understand the phenomena.

In those moments when I doubt there is a point to all this, there is no difference between the deceivers, as you call them, and anyone else, because we are all stuck in this greater (self) deception that is the world together.

Hopefully we will all get tired of that deception too and long for that change.

Recoverer,

"[...] they shouldn't go to the light after they die. Hopefully none of them follow her STUPID and irresponsible advice."

'Go into the light', yet I wonder what percentage of the ones who say that has actually checked out their own advice. That's irresponsible. The only non-physical "tunnel" I like is the one from f12 leading to f34/35. People are free to choose their passage when passing, for me, a light tunnel or other vehicles of transportation to f27 or "home" isn't needed.

"I believe it is important to add that we don't want to set things up so light beings don't have a way to communicate to us, but we need to look for the tell tale signs that let us know that something is amiss. For example, a person/channeler who has a bunch of followers who have lost the ability to think for themselves."

The way you write, 'we don't want to', makes it look like you think the readers have lost the ability to think for themselves, but fortunately you save the day by doing that for us. From the bottom of our bleating hearts, thanks.

I was sort of relieved to see that the website that was used to start this thread (Rick Ross)has entries on all sorts of organizations...

What is the point of talking about cults if you don't include the organized religions in that group? Especially when they do evil by preaching love and doing else.



http://www.rickross.com/reference/clergy/clergy1238.html


Boston Globe version:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2011/01/18/vatican_warned_irish...