Sloppy Zhang

Then those who believe in them would be wrong.

Non, I'm not a professional, and I think you should seek a professional, but from what I have seen of your posts.... It seems to me like you've gone through, or have been close to (as in someone close to you went through this and/or you saw it as it happened), some type of dramatically negative experience involving some nice guy who's been burned/used by some girl (probably quite beautiful). Maybe there was a bad communication, some wrong signals, maybe it was an unintentional misunderstanding, maybe it was conscious manipulation, but when one party (the nice guy) started to think that the girl liked him, tried to act in a loving way (looking at her, holding hands, something like that), the girl turned on him and was like, "ew, don't touch me you perv! Just 'cuz I'm nice to you doesn't mean I LIKE you, ugh." Even though the "nice guy" had done everything "right" and tried to give the girl what he thought she deserved (as in, everything). This probably reinforced a lot of negative things, such as, "I'm not handsome enough", "I'm not rich enough", "I'm not brutal enough", "I'm not enough of a jerk", especially when the girl in question started going out with (or possibly was going out with all the while) a guy who had most of those characteristics. As per the thoughts found in Gjeken, you've looked around and saw a lot of other "nice guys" go through similar situations with "woman", and as such, the prover came in and cherry picked all the observations that would support that. Maybe I'm projecting. I'm sure lots of guys have been crushed by someone who was (or still is?) the "love of their life", and have gone through a similar pattern of thoughts and feelings. Some move on.... and some don't. But I don't know you. I don't know where you're coming from. I don't know what experiences you've had. Which is why I think you should meet with someone you CAN discuss your experiences with, and where this stuff is coming from, so you can get past it, and get on with more positive aspects of life. [edit] And as for the whole "24 and virgin" thing, I wouldn't really worry about it, there are varying degrees of sexual experience and different ages. A friend was telling me that his brother and that brother's now wife had never even kissed until their wedding day (at the "you can now kiss the bride part"), and they didn't get married until a couple years after they had graduated college (so at, or a little past, the age of 24). Of course, they were pretty conservative Christian, but the point is this: Different people have different standards for what your sexual experience should be at a certain age. For religious (spiritual?) conservative people, that can be NOTHING before marriage. Maybe you need to hang out with a new crowd.

Non, your threads like this have really been going on for a long time, and you've gotten a LOT of good advice, both from theory, and from personal experience. So I too am going to make a call for you getting some professional help. Find someone who is qualified to sit down and talk with you about these issues and where they came from. I think you are taking a set of neutral aspects, and homing in on their negative aspects. It's not brutality per se, but it's the strength of will and self confidence to stand up on your own two legs and get what you want. It's the ability, be it physically or socially, to provide for yourself and whoever else you want to provide for. It could be something very small time like being able to grab a spot on the beach for a group of friends to hang out on, or providing food for a family. Both are on the spectrum of "providing", and if you really want to look at it as a test of male "survivability", shows the ability for the guy to provide for others. If it comes down to a brutal guy who will take action vs. a nice guy who will sit on his hands, there are a number of women who would choose the "brutal" guy. It might not be the BEST choice, but it's the choice that exhibits some reliability. But there is no way to generalize, because there are plenty of women who would rather take the nice guy! Just like there are plenty of men who don't want a completely passive, "feminine" woman. It's very nice to be in a relationship with someone who is self reliant, and can provide for herself physically, emotionally, and socially (as in, she doesn't need you to completely pay for all of her stuff, to give her all her attention, and lead her by the hand everywhere). Everyone is unique and everyone has their own preferences in the person they are looking for. Some of this is social conditioning, some of it is current socio-economic status, some of it personal experience, and some of it just preference. I think this post is definitely worth a couple of reads.

Nice guys do, in fact, finish last. Because they always let the woman finish first. And in doing so, ensure the women keep coming Think about that one for a bit. There is a difference between being a nice guy, and being a doormat. You can be forthcoming with a woman, and not be a loud mouthed, arrogant dick, which is the common stereotype of the "guy who gets all the girls". You can be confident in yourself without putting other people down to establish status, and you can interest a girl without preying on whatever complexes and social concerns that girl might have. I've said this a lot of these threads of yours, Non. It's self confidence that is important. And self assurance that even if a woman isn't that into you, you aren't going to completely be destroyed and be thrown into a pit of agony and self pity. But instead you'll smile and say, "that's all right." And then both of you can go on your separate ways amicably.

Well as is written in the book itself, clairvoyance, clairaudience, and clairsentience are basic, fundamental skills that should be developed as part as training- as this would allow you to interact fully and capably with beings/energies from other realms. Being able to manipulate the vital force for healing purposes, or to implant a desire or particular energy into an object/area is another aspect of development. Depending on the level of development with a particular element, levitation, walking on water, and lighting things on fire are also within the grasp of the magician. These are actually written in "Initiation Into Hermetics"...

Well I think some of the videos he's been releasing lately are rather deceptive in regards to their reflection of his knowledge. I've found that someone who's read one of his books, like Astral Dynamics or NEW Energy Ways, would not find much new material in the videos. And on top of that, the videos progress kind of slowly. I would highly recommend looking at his book "Astral Dynamics", or even in "NEW energy ways". Skip right past the intros and the testimonials and the journal entries, and get into his energy development method/projection method. His energy development system is pretty solid, I think. He shows a good knowledge of the energy body, and different points to focus on. His method of development starts with the smaller energy centers (like in the joints, hands, feet, etc) before working on the higher energy centers (the chakras). I haven't looked seriously into his explanation or instruction on kundalini, because for me that's not a point where I'm at. For general energy body stuff, it seems pretty well thought out/experimented with. He said he developed it through his own personal experience. I've seen similar descriptions of the energy body/energy development in other works by other authors (some completely unrelated). While it's possible one or the other, or both, could have been drawing from the same source (or even from each other), I still think that his method of instruction and his system are pretty solid. While he may be categorized as "new age" based on the time of his writing, the manner in which he developed his system (some people erroneously equate "learning on own" and "developing through personal experience" with "fabricated with no basis", "fraudulent", and "unreliable"), and the circles within which his material is passed (the new age circle), I for one would not categorize his material at all with that other fluff that is passed around and taken seriously in those same circles.

Well the extent of either one depends on your tradition. As has been pointed out, you can get siddhis without being spiritually developed. Depending on the tradition, and/or your development, you may be spiritually advanced without presenting any siddhis. In Franz Bardon's "Initiation Into Hermetics", energy development techniques that lead to siddhis are part of the spiritual progress of the magician- prior to uniting with God/Divine Consciousness/whatever, the magician masters the three spheres (physical, astral, mental). As a master of the three spheres, it would only make sense that he or she could levitate, walk on water, be clairvoyant, astral project, control the weather, interact with spirits, heal, etc etc Now the downside to this would be that if you get sidetracked, you would be thrown off of your spiritual cultivation track. But the upsides to it are that you study and learn as you go, seeing universal truths reflected in each of the spheres. Now, other traditions maintain that after achieving full blown spiritual realization (insight into the nature of everything and what-have-you), one is naturally able to perform siddhis because, well, you realize the fundamental nature of the universe. As many people have put it, you have "the master key", so why bother yourself with collecting keys to individual doors? So these traditions would disregard any other type of development (gathering small keys) in favor of just focusing on getting to the final goal (the master key, which does the job of everything else). The downside to this is that, well, you have very few signs that you are making progress. Since you aren't working on working out your energy muscles, and are just working on the full blown spiritual realization, well... until you have the realization, you don't have the realization, and since you aren't working on developing anything else, you don't get anything else. This insight could be instantaneous, or it could take lifetimes. The upside is, well, it's fairly "direct". BOOM, you got everything. Depending on the type of person you are, you might find style of development to be more preferable.

In my unprofessional opinion, the only ways someone who is completely shut off from the idea of energy healing is ever going to be convinced, is if their doctor recommends energy healing, if the FDA says it's an acceptable alternative to drugs, and if people like James Randi say, "yeah, it works, here's the million dollars I promised to someone." As long as skeptics can point to Randi and their doctors, they aren't going to believe it. Basically, all of the cultural ideology which has ingrained us with the notion that these experts are the authority on what is legitimate (and illegitimate) forms of medicine and healing needs to shift towards energy work and healing. And there are a LOT of things stopping that from happening.

Naw, I'm just playin' I did find a couple of his observations and thoughts to be quite interesting. As you pointed out, the context of teachings is very important and, if overlooked, can lead to a different understanding of teachings (right understand? wrong? warped? unique? I dunno) That said, as has been pointed out, it's a very unique issue, not black and white, thus not something that is very easy to generalize. While he makes a good point that separating money from the equation creates a type of duality that one is trying to avoid by not charging money, which only reinforces the duality, it's very easy to swing the other way: since everything is one I can charge as much money as I want/need to, but it's okay because it's just a manifestation of energy in a non-dual way, and someone who really REALLY wants/needs to get access to the teaching is going to have/make the money necessary to get it, because that physical money is just a physical representation of their burning desire to learn. (not necessarily saying that anyone here or in the article is making such a statement, it's merely an example of what happens if you "swing too far in the other direction", and it is a type of statement I've seen in various spiritual communities) Soooooo, eh. I was going to delve a bit into the text, actually, in my first post in this thread, but the post started getting kind of long, and I didn't really feel like getting in a long drawn out debate with someone over the issue Basically, I think he made some interesting points. I thought it was interesting how he established the context (but I found a good chunk, around half, was really just setting you up for the point he was going to make) Basically, eh. It's not a black and white issue. And I don't know about the factual legitimacy of his claims regarding the development of history and whether things really played out like he outlines them. But it is an interesting thought.

Method acting?

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." - Princess Leia to Governor Tarkin, Star Wars Episode IV Don't try to "control" emotions, per se. That, in my experience, will lead you to "block" them, to suppress them, to make yourself numb to feeling. You think you have controlled them and surpassed them because you no longer feel anything. But that doesn't do anything but make you ignorant of what's going on "under your hood", but will make you ignorant of what goes on with other people as well. Knowing is half the battle. Know your own emotions, how you react, etc etc. When you get angry, observe yourself getting angry. Know that you are getting angry. Observe how you respond mentally and physically. Observe what you say. Know your habits. After that, well, let go. When you notice yourself acting your own actions, just stop yourself, and let go. Eventually, you'll be able to cut yourself off earlier in the process. Instead of realizing you just said something in your anger, for instance, you can realize when you're ABOUT to say something in anger, and stop, and let go of the anger or desire to do something. Then you notice when you're already angry, and try to let that go. Then you realize when you start to get angry. Then you realize when you are facing something that will make you angry, and can remain detached. You can observe yourself and others, and know how other people respond. Many people have similar mechanisms of thought and habits. So when you figure out how you operate (not necessarily with the same emotions, but the same progression), you can see how people are likely to respond, and act accordingly. Have fun.

But on the question of verification, when it comes to experiences of great awareness you can ask the same question as Twinner asked: How much is actually real and how much is created in our own minds? How much is actually new perception and how much of it is just our minds telling us what we want and expect?

You pointed out yourself a number of ways that you could have tricked yourself into believing something was really happening. Knowing that there are a great many types of cognitive bias which could lead us to believe something is happening or not, the only way to test for sure if something is "real" (at least in the sense that it is externally verifiable in the shared reality that most of us humans experience) is through experimentation. For instance, someone who says they can astral travel and meet with their friends and have conversations should be able to verify this conversation with the friend in real life. Of course, in an informal situation there are a number of ways in which the people, if they are not careful, can actually influence what the other person "verifies". For instance, if you ask leading questions, it could lead the person to know what you talked about last night, even if no actual conversation took place. As many factors should be tested for as possible. One should always be sure to carefully create a good experiment design. I'd like to throw out though, that people attemping to prove this stuff don't have a very good track record, and that may contribute to why most people don't believe it, even if they did for a long time and practiced something seriously. Even don't inspire much confidence, and cases that could very well be solved quite easily by a capable psychic are still left unsolved. So despite a lot of what you hear, if you look around, you don't see much actually happening. As far as the akashic records, I would say the same thing applies: you've got be able to verify it. Sure, you might find some stuff which only applies on a spiritual level and that which you can only verify through the powers of spirit. Okay. But if even half of the stories of it are true, then you could quite easily verify quite a bit of physical things using them. As always, my personal philosophy when it comes to this stuff: keep it real. You can have your head in the clouds, just keep your feet on the ground.

Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding. Your comment was more of a jumping off point. I've seen various people in the marketing regions of the spiritual community that say things that are far more extreme and black and white than you had put in your post. Sorry if it came across that I was targeting you specifically But even if your working and actions in employment manifest as money, there is still no guarantee that there is even going to be enough money to find its way to dharma. If you work in a low paying job, and have to pay rent, then there's money for food, taxes, maybe even a family.... even if you just consider all the basic necessities, it can take a tremendous amount of effort just to keep your life situation balanced. A sudden illness or injury, inability to work, can put you or your family out on the street in some cases! For people living in that situation, money towards any kind of teaching is pretty much impossible. So I don't think it's really fair to say that someone should just put their energy towards dharma, because even if someone wanted to, they realistically cannot. Of course, one could say life's not fair.... but that doesn't really help get people the dharma, now does it? While I'm sure there are plenty of people who, if they restructured their life and cut out some useless excesses, could quite easily access the dharma, I'm sure there are plenty more who, quite literally, have nothing to spare.

Hm, the writing made sense, and I understand his point.... I just don't know that I agree with it. I also don't feel like money is some kind of "karma chips". That someone can change a boatload of money and say, "well if you've got good karma, or are meant to learn this in this life, then you'll get the money together." That money is somehow tied to your quality. I recall reading somewhere, along when I was researching some kung fu lineage, that it was actually in bad taste to make a living off teaching martial arts. It wasn't necessarily an aversion to the worldly sphere (as this writing may suggest), but it was in an effort to keep the teachings true to themselves. To know that when a teacher taught, the teacher was teaching because he wanted to teach. And that when the student learned, it was because the student had shown the capability and dedication to impress a teacher enough to take him in. But I'm sure if you really wanted to you could find a way to counter argue it with something in this paper.

Well to begin with, you'd have to keep some cards close to the chest. As in, you can't divulge everything everything right off the bat, because you want to prevent someone who's just clever and knows some cold reading. So you'd have to guard against that. The funny thing is, some psychics ENCOURAGE you to tell them as much as possible so they can get a feel for the entire situation. This cuts both ways- on one hand, you don't go to someone for help but then don't tell them the situation. On the other hand, you'd think a psychic would be able to know this kinda stuff without having to be told..... So you'd have to find someone who is willing to go on a little information. Of course, you could always tell deliberately false information to each one, and see who still reads something that is closer to the real situation... And to keep it fair to the psychics, you'd have to have something that's pretty specific and well defined before going in. That way, if they describe something, you could give them credit. But that cuts both ways too, because you don't want to introduce something like a confirmation bias. You don't want them to say, "it's tall..... and thin. Far taller than it is wide." Because that could apply to a skyscraper, a pencil, a toothpick, a toothbrush, a finger, etc etc. So you don't want to misapply readings to something you have in your head. Maybe if you get a third party to go in, who doesn't know the object, to get a reading about trying to find out what object something is, and see what they tell them.

Prophecy and Veos, two semi-active members on this forum: http://forums.vsociety.net/index.php are high level practitioners of Franz Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics. They combine this with yoga. They seem to have much experience and knowledge. Several years ago, when that particular board had lots of members, they would occasionally get together. Apparently Veos and Prophecy did some interesting things. I followed up with them a little while ago (which is several years after the last forum get together) and asked if they would do any sort of demonstration or something like that. They said no, because in their experience demonstrations did not do anything (large numbers of students they had apparently demonstrated to wound up quitting practice after a while). They said that instead they preferred to just monitor the training of their students until the students got to a point where they could do stuff on their own. But they won't name names of who can do what, because that would be a breach of privacy. So they aren't going to prove it, but it's about as close as you can get to 1) a method which promises some sort of abilities combined with a path of spiritual cultivation 2) a decent sized number of people who say that it really works (though, as with any other group, nobody seems to be doing much to actively prove it, but they've proved it to themselves countless times!), and 3) is an easily accessible, public method which has all the steps and progression laid out, with the only thing you need to do is practice. William Mistele is also an experienced practitioner of Bardon's method: his website and seems to be fairly approachable and very helpful in the couple of times I've exchanged e-mails with him. Haven't asked him about proof, haven't really seen any of his writings on it, don't know his philosophy or how he'd answer. Bardon's method is one of the few paths that say, "not only will you develop spiritually, but you will gain abilities. You WILL gain abilities, it is part of the development, if you do the practice correctly, they WILL happen." But from what I can tell, they wind up saying the same things as every other spiritual group that claims to have powers, but actively avoids ever having to do them to provide any proof.

I'm going to relay this to another area of my life: (no that's not me in the video!) When I first started learning tricks, it was very hard and mechanical. I tried to copy exactly as I saw it. I bounced around from one person to another until I found the person who was doing it in a way that seemed easiest for me to do it, because everyone would do it slightly differently. It took me a long time to learn my first trick (the thumb around). After, I did it a lot. A whole lot. Still do it a lot. Over time, the form became much more smooth. And then it started to change. I started to figure out how it worked best depending on the position of my hand and the type of pen or pencil I was using. Eventually I got to a point where I developed my own style of doing it. But I also grasped the mechanics behind the trick which made it work. I can do a "thumb around" with a pen, a banana, a knife, similar objects (probably a few more, but I haven't tried!) So do forms matter? Um, maybe? (actually, the answer is in the last paragraph!) I mean, you gotta learn somewhere. But after I had reached a significant point in my learning, I realized that the external form of different pen spinners on different videos wasn't really as important. Trying to copy the other person's hand motions EXACTLY isn't going to get you very far. Now to kind of connect it to the teaching thread, people have seen me practice various tricks and asked to learn. I make an effort to teach everyone who asks, and won't give up until they can do the trick! And they all do! Now some of my early "students" took a long time to teach, because I didn't really have a great method of instruction. But we worked through it together, I suggested different exercises to do, some things worked, and some didn't. But they learned it! I got to a point where I knew exactly what things to say in order to get them to grasp the mechanics of it themselves. I also got to a point where I could see how close they were to successfully doing the trick based on how they were messing up. This was from my own experience, but also from teaching people in the past. Learning subsequent tricks was much easier, because I wasn't so concerned about the form. But that doesn't mean that form isn't important- because the mechanics express themselves through the form. Even if the form changes, the mechanics do not. So you learn the form to learn the mechanics to reshape the form.

So for a while I've been keeping a practice journal. It's mostly a dream journal, which I've used for lucid dreaming purposes. Started a couple years ago and everyone said to use one. Kept up the habit. Added some practice musings, reflections on subjects or new points I make, insights that I find of value, quotes from TTB (honestly!) and things like that. For lucid dreaming, I suppose it's been fairly helpful. But recently it's gotten a bit of a drag to keep updated (dream entries, for example, take up to an hour and a half to write in the detail that a good entry would require, and I just don't have the time to do that, so I usually fall behind or just forget them). This happened the other day- I was highly focused, and reflecting on a particular problem/issue. It was a big mental block. I didn't know where to go. Thought intensely about it for about 20 minutes. Then suddenly this thought, an idea, a resolution, popped into my head. It took me 2-3 seconds to appraise it and decide to try and apply it then and there. Then, the last thought I had, which happened a split second later was, "if this works, I can put it in my journal." BAM. Blank mind. Totally empty. Then I was like, holy cow, this works, now I can write it in my journal..... wait, what did I do? What was I even thinking about? I honestly couldn't remember anything past a certain point. Like, I could remember my train of thoughts, the problems I was kicking around, and in general, about 18 of the last 20 minutes. But I just couldn't do it. I wracked my brain for probably 45 minutes trying to figure out what I did. A lot more physical and mental stress than I got from the first problem, before just giving up and saying "forget it". It just seems like many insights go that way for me- I do something, then move on. I've also gone back and reviewed some of my past entries. The dreams are boring, and the problems seem trite. It's like..... I don't even care. The problems aren't even applicable. Totally different person. I guess part of that is the point, to see how you've changed. But it's like, okay, I'm not the person I am now who I was.... okay, moving on. Occasionally I wonder how maybe my insights could be helpful to other people. But 1) if I can't remember what they are, what good are they to someone else? 2) my problems, and solutions, are pretty unique to my particular experiences, so any parallels people draw would be in general concepts anyway. So I'm thinking, bleh. I don't really feel like keeping this up. It just seems.... meh, like a poor construct. But when I put it down, I always pick it up again. And people complain about never keeping a dream journal. Here I am complaining about not being able to stop! Thoughts?

B.K. Frantzis is about as commercialized as it gets, but his book "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body" is one of the best out there, in terms of introducing you to a solid practice which is fully in line with Taoist theory as you'd find in something like the Tao Te Ching. He's got a lot of experience learning directly from many high level masters, some famous, some not so much. The material is well worth the price.

Well now, that's very interesting.

There is nothing wrong with (healthy) skepticism. I am skeptical not only because of a Christian background in which I saw lots of duplicity, but also because when I was younger I got taken for a ride by a karate school (I thought all karate was karate) that wasn't as legit (in terms of lineage or in practicality) as I had assumed it was. Skepticism keeps you grounded to reality, and allows you to sort fact from fiction. There's nothing wrong with having your head in the clouds, reaching for the stars, as long as your feet are on the ground. Otherwise you might find those stars are just painted on to the ceiling of somebody's basement as they are taking you for all the money and time you've got. An irrational skepticism would be closed to knew ideas. A rational, and quite healthy, skepticism would be open to their possibility as long as there is enough supporting evidence. It's not that you automatically disbelieve something when you're a skeptic. But you don't automatically believe it either, or accept it as true unless you've got good reason. You recognize it's a possibility, you just want to see proof. Here's a little video on that might be interesting. A genuine spiritual path should not be afraid of skepticism, from without or from within. Because a genuine spiritual path will work. If it solely relies on everyone having the self confidence that it would work, and it shatters because one person says, "I don't know if this really works", well then..... maybe you should find a new path.

Please excuse my ignorance: Who is Verdesi? Who is the guy in the video? And what exactly was supposed to have happened? If you really got burned there, putting your pants on would hurt just a bit but the guy did look pretty somber and tough, so maybe he didn't get hurt.

But if you put away the crown, you'll be Crownless again shall be the queen Trophy on her grave still remains unseen A boat on the river confessing the sins The Riddler revealing the deep hidden things Crownless again shall be the king A gull covered in oil with a broken wing A hitcher on a road alone and lost Iron sharpens iron... - a truth that once was Mine is the Earth and the sword in the stone Mine is the throne for the idol One fleeting moment and it is all gone Crownless again Will I fall? Roaming on razor-sharp castles Ruling all but myself (Now my night is laid to sleep) One fragrant rose worth ten times what I am A crippled begging a coin braver than I ever was Reflection from me-Devil dressed in white Chasten the being Become what I once was Mine is the Earth and the sword in the stone Mine is the throne for the idol One fleeting moment and it is all gone Crownless again Will I fall?

Context is important when you are looking at anything, because you have to have an appropriate frame of reference with which to make a conclusion. This is important when looking at history, at the performance of an athlete, and yes, the internet. Sometimes threads or posts are long and I don't read all of them. And I'm sure many other people do. Speaking for just myself, I try not to say anything that's too specifically related to the thread, and I usually just respond directly to the first couple, and last couple, of posts, because that's probably what I'll have read. But I usually say, "just fyi, I haven't read everything." Someone with a warped sense of perception is going to see what they want to see, whether they read one post or one hundred. Whether the post is long or short, they will take what they can use to twist your words into what they want it to be. What do we do about this? Obviously, we must realize the fundamental nature of our existence on TTB: we're on the internet. When you do this, you stop taking things, discussions, and people so seriously all the time. Hopefully you get a sense of humor. That's not to say that there can't (or aren't) serious subjects and legitimate discussions on the internet. Because for sure, they are. But when you get someone who's head is implanted thoroughly in the sand, hopefully it doesn't bother you, because you have been enlightened to the fundamental nature of our existence on TTB.