Posts by aSphereisnotaCircle

36

prana, life force, chakras? What?!

by finding my way in

jw
friends

14 years ago

i went to a pranic healing class with my sister in law last week (i've been out 6 years and i'm starting to get pretty open minded).

i didn't expect to feel or experience anything "different".

i thought it was all weird but was not scared of the ideas like i would have been a few years ago.. so anyways we did a couple excercises where we held our hands a couple feet above our partners hands and visualized light in different colors beaming out of ours and hitting theres and then switched roles.

14 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

Now that I think about it, energy work was a big player in my learning critical thinking skills.

I had a big fat book about essential oils that was considered the "essential oils bible" it offered recipes for blending essential oils for all kinds of ailments, I used it regularly to mix custom oils for my clients. Then one day as i was looking something up, I wondered where the author came up with all that great info. I looked for references, there was none. This author made all kinds of claims about the healing properties of essential oils but backed it up with absolutley nothing, it was all just her opinion.

I found many of the books on healing and energy work to be just the same, no references, just opinions stated as though it was fact. Just like the society does.

I wish the healings arts community would tone it down a bit and stop making crazy claims because energy work can be fun and sometimes profoundly beneficial.

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36

prana, life force, chakras? What?!

by finding my way in

jw
friends

14 years ago

i went to a pranic healing class with my sister in law last week (i've been out 6 years and i'm starting to get pretty open minded).

i didn't expect to feel or experience anything "different".

i thought it was all weird but was not scared of the ideas like i would have been a few years ago.. so anyways we did a couple excercises where we held our hands a couple feet above our partners hands and visualized light in different colors beaming out of ours and hitting theres and then switched roles.

14 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

I went metaphysical for a while after exiting.

Went back to school, got my massage therapy license. I was very interested in energy work and went in with an open mind.

I attained leval two in Reiki, and also trained in polarity and other energy work. I have worked beside reiki masters, energy healers and people who do all sorts of bodywork and energy work. I loved all of it.

Its a really nice group of people, very loving and caring. Unfortunately they tend to also be very gullible and will fall for any feelgood quackery that comes down the pike.

I like receiving energy work, it feels great, but even though I am "qualified" to give enery work, I will not do it. Because (other) people tend to make outrageous claims about energy work and I would feel like a charlatan to charge for it.

Energy work is awesome, have fun and enjoy, but please also apply your common sense and reasoning skills. There is a lot of info out there making huge claims that has absolutley no substantiation.

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57

The Writing Department's use of "Exclamation Points". Anybody else find their use cheesy? Or motivating possibly?

by miseryloveselders in

jw
friends

15 years ago

something i've been meaning to ask for a while since coming here, is wsup with the writing department's use of exclamation points?

i'm no literature buff or anything, but to me personally, the exclamation points cheapen whatever they're trying to get across.

here's some examples from the new jeremiah book.. how thankful we can be for the teaching done by christian shepherds!.

14 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

Its even part of the title of one of their rags.

Awake!

Its like a laugh track on a sitcom, showing you where the funny bits are so you know when to laugh.

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63

How Many of Them Do You Know About?

by clarity in

14 years ago

after flipper's thread about the wt child abuse cases, i started to think about how many children i know of personally who have been sexually abused by a jw!.

as someone who is not especially 'in the know', it's amazing that i do know five of them.

one who was a small baby, at the time!.

13 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

@

aSphereisnotaCircle

. . . Then my oldest daughter approached the age I was when the abuse started.

This observation simply jumped out at me.

In three seperate cases I know of . . . sisters who became mothers hit the wall at exactly this time . . . when their children reached the same age . . . are they perhaps the "Key" that unlocks all the pain again, and bring a torrent of memories flooding back?

I would be interested if any research has been done on this phenomenon . . . subject for investigation perhaps.

Speaking from my own experience, I wanted to believe that the elders and the society did nothing wrong and somehow it was all my fault or what happened to me was simp0ly a hiccup in an otherwise "perfect" system.

The societys constant denigration of the rank and file is a great way to keep their self esteem nice and low so that they will accept the idea that "its all my fault"

For years I tried to make up excuses for those elders, I wanted a plausable excuse more then anything!

But when my daughter appraoched that age, my excuses just fell apart, she was a kid, inexperienced, gullible, innocent. I imagined what happened to me happening to her, and then I imagined the elders treating her as they treated me................... I saw blood, pure rage, there is no excuse, none whatsoever.

My sisters still make excuses for the elders, they are believers, so they need to keep believing. Whenever they start defending the elders, I ask them to give me a reason why the elders turned their backs on me. I ask them to invent an excuse, anything at all, make it up and I will accept it. They just give me the deer in the headlights look. On some leval they know there is no excuse, but like I said, they need to keep believing.

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78

How (not) to destroy a thread and turn it into a battleground

by Terry in

jw
friends

14 years ago

we are adults here and don't want jwn to reflect a hostile enviornment for lurkers who may.

wish to learn about the watchtower.

many first timers might be very curious to discover whether.

13 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

I just think some of you get too sensitive. I can understand that from the ladies, but from you guys? Come on, really?

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78

How (not) to destroy a thread and turn it into a battleground

by Terry in

jw
friends

14 years ago

we are adults here and don't want jwn to reflect a hostile enviornment for lurkers who may.

wish to learn about the watchtower.

many first timers might be very curious to discover whether.

13 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

9.Learn to IGNORE trouble-makers by NOT ACKNOWLEDGING THEM. Trouble-makers crave a fight. It puts them on center stage. Ignoring them

I find it interesting that many here feel the need to argue with trolls.

Im on a couple of other forums about unrelated topics and on those forums, everybody simply ignores trolls.

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63

How Many of Them Do You Know About?

by clarity in

14 years ago

after flipper's thread about the wt child abuse cases, i started to think about how many children i know of personally who have been sexually abused by a jw!.

as someone who is not especially 'in the know', it's amazing that i do know five of them.

one who was a small baby, at the time!.

13 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

But even today 13 years later I look at that brother as a hero who rushed the stage and grabbed the microphone.

Now thats a real man

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21

Mississippi pushes back on the Westboro Baptist Church

by rebel8 in

14 years ago

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/praise-citizens-rankin-county-mississippi_557677.html.

they were in town to protest a soldier's funeral...and this allegedly happened.

a couple of days before, one of them ran his mouth at a brandon gas station and got his ass waxed.

14 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

Ranking deserves a hand in how they handled this situation.

Sadly, this is also the type of treatment minorities received in the past.

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29

Good News to Share...My Wife Said to me...

by onemore in

jw
friends

14 years ago

my wife said to me last night....im done...im not going back to a kh.

i have to say that the wt did it all for me.

and the program at this last circuit assembly: ...not part of the world was the final nail in the coffin.

14 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

How happyfying!

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63

How Many of Them Do You Know About?

by clarity in

14 years ago

after flipper's thread about the wt child abuse cases, i started to think about how many children i know of personally who have been sexually abused by a jw!.

as someone who is not especially 'in the know', it's amazing that i do know five of them.

one who was a small baby, at the time!.

13 years ago

aSphereisnotaCircle 14 years ago

I know of many,

I was abused and the elders would do nothing because it was his word against mine. They also told me I MUST forgive and forget, and must never speak about it again to ANYONE. They also told me to let them know if it happened again.

It did happen again and I went back to one of the elders, he listened to what I had to say and said "OK, let me know if it happens again"

It did happen again, so this time I went to another elder. he gave me a long speach about how the abuser is having a tough time and as a kid I did not understand such things, he also pointed out that this whole thing must be terrible for my mother and I needed to think more of her and less of myself. I walked away from that lecture completely numb, my brain just shut down at that point.

But I was still a believer, and I remained a believer until my early 30's. During that time I knew of many cases of abuse, but i somehow managed to convince myself that jah and the elders had it all under control.

In spite of my own first hand experiences, I still believed that what happened to me, didn't happen to other abuse victims, I believed that those cases were handled appropriately. i was just someone who had fallen through the cracks.

I made ALL KINDS of excuses for those elders actions. Then my oldest daughter approached the age I was when the abuse started. Thats when I stoped making excuses for those assholes. The older I get the less I understand how grown men, fathers and grandfathers, could ignore a young girls pleas for help, AND make sure she cannot seek help elsewhere.

Back to the original question, right now I can remember 14 people who were abused by active JWs, in good standing in the congo. All the abusers got away with it, except for one, in that case the abuser and the victim were DF'd.

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