Top 10 Cyber Taoists

[Cameron]

So it's Christmas eve and I am relaxing at home. I would have gone to the East Coast(NYC or Atlanta) or Las Vegas or Sedona to party but still nursing this damn knee injury. Atleast I can walk around without crutches pretty soon.

 

But enough about me. I am in a philisophical mood(perhaps from taking Ron Teeguarden's Tao In a Bottle which I highly reccomend to Taoists) and the thought has been creeping up on me the last few days who have been the most relevant and important cyber Taoists over the years.

 

In establishing any lasting online community such as this one here, alot of people were probably indirectly responsible and others entered the scene after it's creation to be helpful to it's growth or lack thereof.

 

Even those who don't really contribute much here have alot to do with it I think. Some of them might not even like this site or it's management but still had alot to do with it coming into being. To me, this is very Taoist and how most great things come into being. My experience in business has shown this again and again sometimes an antagonistic force can actually supply the tension or motivation necissary for progress. Obviously if everything is comfortable and rosy that's great but that is usually not how growth occurs I think.

 

So, it is probably not very zen of me but if I had to make a top ten list of cyber Taoists who have contributed to creating this community(whether this community is a success of failure ultimately is not for me to say) It would go like this.

 

1.Mantak Chia. Whether you think he is a phony or a Taoist Master he has to be given his proper due. There are alot of other Qigong teachers and probably some of them are better but no one else worked to create a central organization for Taoists. Years later, people can now critique the practices or Chia's style but the fact is he is the guy that " Got the ball rolling". Whether his 7 formulas from One Cloud are a true path to Immortality or big con is not for me to say. But the Healing Tao discussion board and Senior teachers obviously would not have even learned this stuff if not for this Chinese guy going to NYC 30 years ago and teaching people about Qi.

 

2. Michael Winn. For maintaining the HT site(even when it was for the most part a garbage pile) and attracting people to try to go online and talk about there experiences. And basically attracting a small group of core practitioners that would branch off and create this site.

 

3.Plato Rosinke. Whether you love him or hate him. Plato was instramental in keeping the HT site interesting to visit for years. Although many interesting and experienced practitioners would pop in from time to time for a good 2 or 3 years the HT site was basically Plato giving his advice or fighting with others. Also, Plato and his buddy Max were instrumental in originally getting together with Sean in developing this site when the HT site temporarily crashed a little over a year ago.

 

4.Kieth Franzen. Pretty much the most balanced and fair online cyber Taoist. The antithesis to the Plato's and Max's who take a strong position and hold to it. His website AlchemicalTaoism seems to be a major starting point for many cyber taoists into either the HT system or energy work in general.

 

5. Sean Omlor. Apparently Sean visited the HT site for a couple years but I never knew who he was or remembered anything he posted. Then out of nowhere this "lurker" gets together with Plato,Max and Pietro to start up a new site when the HT board crashed. The exact details for this are still fuzzy to me even after talking to Sean about it but from what I can gather Sean started up a temporary site when the HT board crashed then after getting together with Plato and company created Thetaobums to be a better, more comprehensive online cyber community. Sean had a disagreement with Plato and company and ultimately decided to maintain full control over Thetaobums. Sean is a fireball(an aries and a dragon) and a man of vision and principle. At first it seemed like he was mostly taking a back seat regarding his own practices except for talking about playing around with the HT system and magik. But as time goes on Sean has opened up more and brought a trememndouns amound of information through his site. 5 years from now he may have to be ranked right up there with Chia and Winn for most important cyber Taoist if his site develops to it's full potential.

 

6. Master Yoda. For me, humor is essential to the online communication experience. If your not ultimately online to share some jokes and practices and stories with friends what the hell is the point? To fight? Of course, we all have known a couple people like that. They seem to think it's fun to disrepect people, there girlfriends or even how they run there own website but I think that is ultimately a dead end as we have seen. Yoda is by far the most lighthearted and fun cyber Taoist. He does "crazy" practices sometimes and may be a little off center for the conservative Taoist but ultimatly I think he is a very balanced guy that is just testing the waters of different practices. I don't think he would hurt himself and seems to be backing off the more extreme stuff for more safe stuff lately. Bottom like he is entertaining and fun. Like Plato on the old HT board, he gives you a reason to come visit this place to begin with.

 

7. Lozen. First, she is a cool girl. Second, it's nice to have a female's point of view . The old HT board was basically a bunch of Taoist weirdos that probably couldn't maintan a real realationship if there immortality depended on it(I would count myself in that category but am getting better). For the most part there was no feedback from woman outside a few HT instructors like Raven Cohan. But even Raven, a HT instructor, finally was scared off.

 

To me it is a weakness and fault of the community that almost no woman have joined the cyber Taoist community over the years. Becasue if you go to Taoist wokshops, I would say like half the class are woman. They are mostly very, very cool too. And then you come online and there is one or two woman out of like 160 members. Not balanced! Atleast Lozen is helping to pave the way for other woman to follow even though I know she doesn't tell any of her chinese medicine girlfriends about this place

 

8. Shining Arrow. A community like this doesnt' go anywhere whothout some feedback from "more advanced" people. Michael has taken higher alchemy courses with Winn, is friends with high level Chinese qigong masters and is a really, really cool guy. Hopefully over time this comminuty will attract more people like this in the spirit of sharing and taoist networking.

 

9. Thelearner. For being a really cool guy and showing us the householder can cultivate, be married with kids, run(or ran) a successful business and also do some Taoist practice.

 

10. Cameron. For having the third highest post count behind Yoda and Sean and putting together this damn list!

 

Anyway, this was more for fun than to be taken seriously. Hope I didn't forget anyone that thinks they should be on the top 10 .Maybe if you think you should be make an argument on this thread and we can revise it.

Edited December 29, 2005 by Cameron

[TwoTrees]

Hmm....

 

Not all may agree but I believe these kinds of things only feed the desperation of ego

 

It's nice to recognize those you admire, but to say best ever is showing a bit of "less wide" nature...

 

I'll just rename this little ditty "Ode to cyber taoist dedicates" in my head, and count to three.

[Cameron]

Upset that you didn't make my list?

 

Ime kidding

[Cameron]

This top 10 cyber Taoist list is the direct result of not being able to work out at all for 3 months.

 

That is my excuse and I am sticking to it!

 

Merry Christmas BTW.

[Lozen]

Aww, shucks Cameron. But I'd gladly give up my place if you add Mr. Peter Falk to the list. He da man.

[VCraigP]

Does anyone remember S.Biel - Steven Biel?

 

Back in the day, lo these many years ago, S.Biel was a counterpoint to some of the insanity going on at that time on the HT Board.

 

S. Biel posted some of the most well thought out and erudite stuff over the course of 3-4 years and finally just disappeared.

 

I appreciated his input very much.

 

But this was a LONG Time ago.

 

I think the last time he posted may have been before 2001.

 

I still have a couple of things he posted saved to my computer and transferred through two more laptops over the years.

 

He is definitely in the top 5 for me.

 

Craig

[Cameron]

S.Biel-Steven Bielicki- was a friend of mine. We emailed alot over a year or so. He was only like 19 at the time but so deep. I think Plato and company scared him off with constant attacks and something about him wanting to have sex with squirrels or something. I don't remember exactly as it was a period when I rarely visited the site. I asked Biel for his phone # several times but he never gave it to me .Which was sort of strange to me considering how well I thought we got along.

 

I beleive Kieth was the closest to him though and if anyone knows what he is up to it would be him.

Edited December 25, 2005 by Cameron

[Cameron]

Aww, shucks Cameron. But I'd gladly give up  my place if you add Mr. Peter Falk to the list. He da man.

10077[/snapback]

 

You and Peter can share #7. Or knock me off #10 and replace with peter

[Trunk]

Does anyone remember S.Biel - Steven Biel?

 

S. Biel posted some of the most well thought out and erudite stuff over the course of 3-4 years and finally just disappeared.

I was thinking about s just yesterday! , driving back from family xmas get-together and combining scrotal compression (inhale) followed by a (exhale) gentle lift in the urogenital diaphragm, then gentle lift in the perineum, then (end of exhale) a sacrum squeeze. The few times it really seemed to "fit together" it reminded me of one of biel's posts that I have at my site (here) and how what I was doing was similar to what he was describing way back when, and thinking "wow, he was so far ahead". (The other post by him that I have up is s.biel's fire & water.)

 

I think at a certain point he saw that he'd basically gotten what he'd came there (HT board) looking for, plus being and posting on the board tended to be somewhat addictive so he deliberately "took a year off" not visiting nor posting. The year turned permanent. Healthy disciplined conscious move.

 

Also, James McConnell deserves mention. He was the webmaster who built the HT USA site including the discussion site. And he built the DragonDoor site (which was originally more qi gong oriented).

A couple of saved posts from James (who very rarely posted):

1. Kan & Li, Fusion and the Tiger & Dragon

2. re: Anyone doing iron shirt packing

Edited December 26, 2005 by Trunk

[Yoda]

Master RJ has got to make the list. He was the ultimate cybertaoist. More obsessive than me, more insightful than Plato, more level headed than Keith...

 

Just kidding about Keith, of course, but what if he was though? Then he'd get promoted to Buddhism I suppose.

 

-Yoda

[Cameron]

I didn't put RJ or Yudelove up for a reason. Ultimately they are cyber Taoist failures. I am trying to put this in context with Taoist practice itself which from my understanding has alot to do with patience, moderation, longevity etc.

 

IMO these 2 guys exhibited none of these traits and they did as much to hurt the community than to help it.

 

But if you really think he should be on there I say fine let him have your spot on the list

 

ps. S Biel would also definetly be on there but since he basically "bowed out" I don't see him in the same league as Plato or Kieth who have consistently put there input into this community-good or bad- for years without fail.

Edited December 26, 2005 by Cameron

[GrandTrinity]

Yes Mantak Chia gets the props, he is the online taoist pimp! Now if only we could get him to register his screename, i think it should be "man take chi ah" as manweewan's should be "man he want chi ah." For real!

 

Peace out from Connecticut

[turbo]

Was it S.Biel who made some posts about what to eat pre and post-ejac? I remember a series of posts on the HT board about that. It included some kind of yeast, meats and other specific foods. Anyone have this info around?

 

Cool list. Chia deserves top rank b/c he attracted so many, for me it was seeing "Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy" in a martial arts shop and saying "Cool, Chinese sex secrets!". And I'm sure many others had similar experiences.

 

Fits in well with all of the year end top 10 lists everyone is making.

[Yoda]

I think that brilliant taoists like RJ and Yudelove serve as both inspirations as well as warnings about the many imbalances rampant in energy cultivation systems. Many teachers have their ups and downs and I think that piecing together the puzzle is the task of the current generation of cultivators and their respective systems of cultivation are worth studying. Also, it's rare that one gets a sense of what practices a teacher "really" follows and I feel that I have a flavor of that from RJ and Yudelove. Maybe they could take my spot and I can be an asterisk under Sean. I'll be Sean's little kwazimodo (sp? the hunchback of notre dame dude)

[Cameron]

I think that brilliant taoists like RJ and Yudelove serve as both inspirations as well as warnings about the many imbalances rampant in energy cultivation systems.  Many teachers have their ups and downs and I think that piecing together the puzzle is the task of the current generation of cultivators and their respective systems of cultivation are worth studying.  Also, it's rare that one gets a sense of what practices a teacher "really" follows and I feel that I have a flavor of that from RJ and Yudelove.  Maybe they could take my spot and I can be an asterisk under Sean.  I'll be Sean's little kwazimodo  (sp?  the hunchback of notre dame dude)

10094[/snapback]

 

I could say something else but honestly don't feel like repeating the same stuff we went over on the phone today.

 

I think we pretty much covered the subject and can now just focus on positve

[thelerner]

Wheee I made the list , 47 hours of reading and typing not for nothing

 

MIchael

[三江源]

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Edited April 18, 2015 by 三江源

[TwoTrees]

Werd UP!!!!

[三江源]

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Edited April 18, 2015 by 三江源