Posts by TerryWalstrom

3

Alone with God (and melted ice cream)

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

alone with god and melted ice cream--------dialectic.

what's so great about being great if you're the one telling yourself, "i'm so great"?.

god is that incredible cask of brandy in the cool, dark cellar...presumably getting better and better with the passing years.. .

TerryWalstrom

A ROOM FULL OF GHOSTS

What the psychoanalysts offered us that no other school of psychology has given us is the following notion.

Human Beings are basically a loose collection of spirits.
You and me--we're like a ROOM FULL OF GHOSTS.

The YOU that you think you are is one ghost among all those ghosts (and it might even think that it is the "ghost in charge", but the probability of 'being in charge' is zero.

This observation of human behavior reveals over time that we 'become a different person' when we are angry, a different person when we are afraid, you're a different person when you argue with someone you love, you're a different person when you're confused. You're a different person when you're egotistical, a different person when you're wrong.

Any coherence across those multiple "selves" requires intervention--by a psychoanalyst. The analyst sees those spirits/ identities, entities, (invisible to themselves) and seeks to co-ordinate across their clash of wills so what ever "YOU" are can function without being in a constant state of interior conflict--(war).

One of the most terrifying realizations the psychologist leads people to is that YOU ARE NOT ALONE IN YOUR HEAD.
The space the "you" inhabit is a shared space.

Whatever your "Being" is--whatever "you" are--you're not alone in there.

It is difficult to conclude you are "Not the Captain of the ship."
Those aren't skeletons below deck. There are a host of other Captains (which can't see the others) struggling to emerge and steer.

It isn't a case of self-discipline at all. It is a case of exterior management of that crew of Captains.

Victorians treated Sexuality as a demon.

Victorian Christian dogma enabled this view and tended to see the only remedy as interference, repression, and forbearance (self-control).

A happy Christian family inevitably sent generations of children out into the world totally unprepared for reality; for THE reality of the internal struggle to propagate an survive like any other beast with competing spirits in the driver's seat.
Demon possession would be the Christian diagnosis.

Human nature was viewed as God's broken (by sin) masterpiece needing the glue and mending of the Gospel.
Psychoanalysis created an alternate methodology of dealing with such a Room Full of Ghosts.

Fast Forward to present day.
What will a therapist do?
Your therapist is a veterinarian with a tranquilizer dart.
Drugs. Management through chemistry.

It is an interesting world in which we live.
A false view of the world inevitably stems from a confused sense of Self.
So?
Who is the Captain du jour on your voyage today?

3

Alone with God (and melted ice cream)

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

alone with god and melted ice cream--------dialectic.

what's so great about being great if you're the one telling yourself, "i'm so great"?.

god is that incredible cask of brandy in the cool, dark cellar...presumably getting better and better with the passing years.. .

TerryWalstrom

ALONE with GOD and melted ice cream
--------Dialectic

_____

Once upon a time God was all alone. For a god, “alone” is a problem. What's so great about being great if you're the one telling yourself, "I'm so great"?

God is that incredible cask of brandy in the cool, dark cellar...presumably getting better and better with the passing years.

But, ALONE--means nobody drinks.

Nobody drinks because nobody is there to drink. And nobody thinks the brandy is the best because--well--nobody drinks.

That’s the problem of “alone.”

Saying aloud: “GOD is everything” without demonstrating it can be hilarious.

It’s like that joke about the fast-draw gunslinger who shows you how fast he is by just standing there for awhile until you grow impatient and then he says, “Wanna seem me do it again?”

God's demonstration joke: invisible greatness!

Hear that? It’s the sound of no hands clapping.

Zen is the art of hearing one hand clapping.

But God alone is the no-sound of no-hand not-clapping.

Invisible is as invisible does.

God once was alone.

How long? Ummm…

Psst--(there was no time)

Oh dear!

Being alone just hanging in the middle of a great dark nothing is a bore.

Annihilation means everything is destroyed--right?

Total annihilation and being alone and being God is awfully similar.

All those exploded pieces could be reassembled if you’re God.

But there weren’t any pieces of anything BEFORE pieces were “created.”

(Psst, get to the part about ‘something out of nothing’. Go on--do it.)

So, once upon a time an all alone God created something out of nothing.

How?

What do you care? You wouldn’t understand.

Next question.

Why create anything or anybody?

Duh. Alone! Alone is awful.

How do you know you’ll create something good and useful and perfect if you’ve never done it before?

Oh, pleeeease! Don’t be an idiot. Just go along with it.

Talent. Even genius! God wouldn’t be god otherwise.

Okaaay.

Why is everything such a big mess?

Because God created ice cream. Ice cream melts. You have to eat it fast.

WTF?

You have to give a reason why things are awful.

The best way to do that is to blame God. Blame the person who gave you the ice cream.

ICE CREAM is wonderful...but if (psst) YOU don’t eat it fast...it melts. That is an awful mess. Now that’s on YOU.

Get it?

Nope.

Try harder, because if you don’t get it you’ll fall into despair about melted ice cream and sadness and depression will pull you down.

Why is this MY fault?

It’s not. It’s your responsibility to prevent the mess by eating the ice cream in a timely fashion.

Are you really going to pull that crap? The world is a big mess because all the billions of people aren’t eating their ice cream fast enough?

Well, it’s an analogy.

It sucks.

Okay. One more.

Would you prefer God remained alone...all alone...hanging in the cold, dark nothing for all Eternity (even though time didn’t exist)?

Of course not. That’s reducing everything down to absurdity.

Is it absurd? Why?

Because a truly perfect God would create and MAINTAIN a perfect world of perfect people the way a gardener plants a garden and pulls up weeds and sprays for insects so the beautiful things flourish.

Ha! You have forgotten about the (cough cough) GARDEN of pleasure? Eden?

Don’t give me that fantasy myth as an explanation. I’m not a moron or a child.

Well, I’m just sayin’...there was a wonderful garden. And the Master Gardener tossed out the weeds and stepped on the serpent. R-I-I-I-GHT?

Bullshit.

Why bullshit?

I’ll tell you why. HUMAN NATURE.

God invented it.

The nature of god is entirely other than human.

God isn’t hungry. God doesn’t have needs for tasty fruit.

God is wisdom--doesn’t NEED to eat fruit to gain wisdom.

God created INFERIOR creatures UNLIKE god-ness.

That “human” nature is entirely enslaved to its “needs” for survival.

Curiosity, hunger, thirst, lust, ambition, emotional instability...the list is endless.

Go on--go on--don’t stop now.

God devised something which looks an awful lot like a TRAP. “Here is your garden. Here are the fruit trees you can eat from. But...but…

But do NOT eat from the one tree which will make you LIKE ME!

Because if you are like me--you’ll know Good and Bad.

So--you call that “bullshit”? Why?

I’ll tell you why--it is a CATCH 22 trap. Human Nature.

You don’t put person who doesn’t know good from bad on trial for doing “bad.” And look at the motive: wanting to be LIKE GOD, knowing good from bad. See how F-d up that is? Entrapment, pure and simple.

Oh dear, what a silly argument. God gives you legs but you want wings too? You are missing the obvious aren’t you?

Which is what? Do tell me.

The term “unique” means nothing else is like it.

God is the “most” and it logically follows anything and everything other than this unique “most” is “lesser than”.

You call it “inferior” nature. But it’s unavoidable. God cannot be “most” and you be “most” also. It isn’t a question of inferiority because God gave guidance around the “less than most” problem. God gave specific instructions.

Huh?

You missed the most beautiful point of all. This is the BEST of all POSSIBLE worlds. But it is only good and not perfect in the way God is perfect. That is not a problem unless you fail to follow the easy instructions.

What instructions?

Follow my directions and you’ll have everything your nature requires.

Fail to follow directions and your ice cream melts and you’ll spend your time mostly sopping up that mess and dealing with soiled laundry.

So?

So SHUT UP and eat your ice cream, you spoiled rotten kid!

7

What do you think about this?

by TerryWalstrom in

i find the approach, the reasoning, the dialectic rather fascinating.https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/the-exodus-does-archaeology-have-a-say-348464a religion, basically, wrestles with science____did slaves build the pyramids?http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8451538.stm.

____the only reason i bring this up is because i have dear close evangelical friends who are--how shall i say it---.

rather opinionated beyond their pay grade :).

TerryWalstrom

I find the approach, the reasoning, the dialectic rather fascinating.
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-Exodus-Does-archaeology-have-a-say-348464

A religion, basically, wrestles with Science

____
Did slaves build the pyramids?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8451538.stm

____

The only reason I bring this up is because I have dear close evangelical friends who are--how shall I say it---

rather opinionated beyond their pay grade :)

11

How to remain with Jehovah's Witnesses even though you are Awake!

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

thinking is an active process.. evasion is avoiding that action of active thinking which would create a positive difference.

.realizing the truth about the truth.. thinking is the virtue* man prizes most.

all other virtues proceed from thinking.. evasion is the willful suspension of one's consciousness.

TerryWalstrom

Jehovah's Witnesses STAY IN because they refuse to know any facts which disrupt belief. Wilful blindness.

(Is child molestation a problem? Not if you don't hear about it, read about it, or talk about it.
Image result for hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil monkeys

JW thinking is an unstated premise that problems with the Truth will go away
if you "Wait on Jehovah" to flush his toilet.

11

How to remain with Jehovah's Witnesses even though you are Awake!

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

thinking is an active process.. evasion is avoiding that action of active thinking which would create a positive difference.

.realizing the truth about the truth.. thinking is the virtue* man prizes most.

all other virtues proceed from thinking.. evasion is the willful suspension of one's consciousness.

TerryWalstrom

zeb11 hours ago

why the hell would you want to?

_____
It's like the gambler who bets and loses over and over.
"I've spent all this money--I can't leave till I win it all back again."
Psychologists say humans are more concerned with what they'll lose than what they might gain.
As a JW all you do is lose but all the promises made amount to: Hang in there and there'll be a BIG PAYOFF.

11

How to remain with Jehovah's Witnesses even though you are Awake!

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

thinking is an active process.. evasion is avoiding that action of active thinking which would create a positive difference.

.realizing the truth about the truth.. thinking is the virtue* man prizes most.

all other virtues proceed from thinking.. evasion is the willful suspension of one's consciousness.

TerryWalstrom

Thinking is an ACTIVE process.

EVASION is avoiding that action of active thinking which would create a positive difference. . .awakening. . .realizing the truth about The Truth.

Thinking is the virtue* man prizes most. All other virtues proceed from thinking.

EVASION is the willful suspension of one's consciousness. Evasion is *evil.

It mean's you deliberately UNfocus to avoid what is really happening to ruin your life!

What you refuse to see, hear and understand leads to a refusal TO KNOW.

Jehovah's Witnesses STAY IN because of the many things they refuse to know.

JW thinking is an unstated premise that problems with the Truth will go away if only you refuse to identify them.

What induces evasion?

Unpreparedness. If you are unprepared to face the facts you are doomed to attempt to avoid acknowledging they exist.

Fear sets in.

How would they cope without some organization to dictate their every move?

What would they do without all their "friends" to support them (their so-called brothers and sisters)?

How do JW's evade?

1.Prayer

The premise of prayer is that you are helpless. The premise of prayer is that there is somebody out there who can help IF YOU ARE WORTHY. But, prayer never works without pretzel-logic interpretation of mundane events.

2. Fellowship

The premise of fellowship is the others give you strength and encouragement and on your own you are weak and selfish. Fellowship is the opposite of self-esteem.

3.Indoctrination

Reading matter controlled to filter out reality programs the evasive mind to set life's purpose on a future event in order to squander all opportunity for life in the here and now.

4.Magic-thinking

Spending your thoughts on fantasy and fending off actuality leave no time for analytical purpose destroys your rational process.

5.Dulling the senses

Pills, alcohol, tobacco, entertainment (fill in the blank) all serve to take the edge of what is really happening and make intruding events go away. "Make the world go away" is a delaying mechanism and an evasion. It means you have no skills to live in the here and now and must resort to hiding from the natural alarm-bells that go off when action must be taken. Dulling the senses is a way to shut out the alarm.

6.Seeking advice

To seek advice you have to regard yourself as incapable of thinking out your solutions to life's problems. Seeking advice means a total stranger who does not live in your shoes is given the magic power to tell you how to live your life for you. This is abandonment of the self and a collapse of personal individuality. The difference between consulting an informed source and seeking advice is this. A consultation will afford you facts that require decisions of action. Seeking advice is turning over the wheel to another driver.

7.Delay

Procrastination delays the decision that must be made now; the action that must be taken. It is a default decision which is no more than a coin flip. It says "Whatever happens; happens. All things work out for the best. I'll let go and let god..." The difference between a person who is an individual and a slave is the slave must wait for commands.

It is not ORIGINAL SIN which infects mankind. No, it is suspending your mind in an act of abandonment which destroys you.

Evasion, blanking-out and avoidance lead to mindless out-sourcing of your thinking to a worthless OTHER.

Horoscopes, I Ching, Tarot, rabbit's foot, superstition, religion, fortune cookie, magic 8 ball, etc. These take the place of your active mind and become your master.

Evasion begins when you are made to feel inferior, sinful, worthless and in need of rescue. Worthiness is paid for by servitude.

SOUNDS LIKE EVERY JW I KNOW.
A certain kind ofFear is their master.

___________________________________________

3

The Ballad of Gianni Pretzel

by Mace.Bean in

"religion that god our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

" (james 1:27).

[names have been changed.].

TerryWalstrom

I think I know this person.
I'm going to contact him and see what he has to say. He probably won't talk to me because I am disfellowshipped and he is a JW in good standing (unless the above is accurate.)

The crazy thing is that I thought I heard a similar story as this applied years ago to the JW who was responsible for bringing me into the organization.

Stunning. I hope to get some accurate follow up.

15

My new James Bond novel

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

the first 4 chapters are done on the james bond novel i began writing yesterday.

i'm having to much fun with it to stop now.

veronica spoke the two words clearly and waited.. .

TerryWalstrom

“A spy network has five levels.
There are the provocateurs, the disposables, others who do dirty work, the propagandists, and the ultimate aces planted in the heart of the enemy deck.” Sun Tzu-The Art of War.

(Chapter Nine)

CATEGORY FIVE

To: 007 Eyes Only
From: M

INTEL
Code name: Lickety-split (Name redacted = A.M.)

Operative A.M. is the daughter of a psychiatrist at the Menninger Foundation. She was born in West Germany where her Puerto Rico born father (ex-military) ruled her brother and sister with an iron hand.
She frequently took exception to his authority, feeling a responsibility to protect her siblings from his authoritarian over-discipline.
When her family relocated from Germany, she spent her teen years growing up in the Midwest of America. There the family represented themselves as an ordinary All-American exemplar of immigrants to friends, neighbors and the world.

Two of her siblings became F.B.I. agents while (name expunged) A.M. (Lickety-split) herself was recruited into the Cuban Intelligence Service and within a year hired by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
Her recruitment was the result of a special grooming program created by the K.G.B. under Russian Premier Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev on 4 May 1946.

The young man who seduced A.M. was an illegitimate son of Minister of State Security in the postwar years.

Once A.M. was turned, indoctrinated, and psych-evaluated she was induced to use the influence of her siblings to obtain a job interview which she was certain to pass with flying colors.

A.M. was thoroughly vetted, hired and there (D.I.D.) she rapidly moved up through the ranks, receiving Top Secret clearance and accolades as their Top Security Analyst who was considered the finest employee in the lot of them.

A.M.’s abilities were rated and evaluated as nothing short of spectacular.

She arrived at work earlier and stayed later than others. Her output was said to be three times that of any other department. It was whispered her actual output was more like nine times as great.

A.M possessed an eidetic memory which she used to memorize Top Secret intelligence later transcribed and passed to enemy agents.

By night, she worked for Fidel Castro, receiving encoded messages by shortwave radio that she then passed on to her contacts in crowded restaurants, and made secret trips to Cuba when she was able to leave the United States, with a wig and false passport,

A.M. spied for Cuba for 17 years without knowing her boss was not Cuban but the Kremlin; SMERSH (the Russian Smyert Shpionam - Смерть Шпионам - "Death to Spies").

Completely ignorant of both the irony of being a spy for an agency in charge of destroying spies--but naive about helping the Cuban people in some noble and selfless crusade, A.M. fit the profile of a True Believer.

A.M. passed on many secrets about her colleagues, defense strategies, and advanced listening platforms which the American special services, NATO, and West Germany installed as surveillance relating to Soviet activities.

After the success of Fidel Castro in Cuba, Russia groomed El Presidente Castro for a major insurgency involving nuclear missile installations 500 km from Miami.

About this time the paths of several principle operatives crossed.
A.M., Auric Goldfinger II, and Lamont Drax.

(Note: Auric II is the son of an international criminal, Auric Goldfinger, a 42-year-old from Riga, Latvia, who moved to Britain in 1937 at the age of 20.
Goldfinger Sr. following naturalization as a British citizen, became the richest man in England, although his wealth is not in English banks, nor did he pay taxes on it as it is spread as gold bullion in many countries, it is rumored. Goldfinger was the treasurer of SMERSH before his termination at the hands of British Intelligence,)

Auric Goldfinger Sr. passed on secret passcodes of his vaults of Soviet Gold to his attorney, Sergei Andreevsky.
Sergei Andreevsky presently is in the exclusive employ of Goldfinger the younger.
____________

James Bond heaved a heavy sigh and lay aside the ‘Eyes Only’ report M had forwarded by courier to Bond’s hotel, The Wellington, in Madrid.
He reached for his drink and downed it. Fresh-squeezed orange juice cleansed the stale tobacco from his palate and prepared his stomach for Bond’s favorite meal of the day: breakfast.

He took out the notepad from the desk beside his bed and scribbled a response for the courier waiting outside in the hallway. Then, he replaced the official report in the security bag along with the note and clicked the lock.
Securely handcuffed, the courier disappeared down the stairs rather than taking the elevator and James Bond closed the door to his room and checked the lock.

After a breakfast of eggs, preferably scrambled, sausage, marmalade on toast and black coffee--his only task for this day would be to intercept attorney Sergei Andreevsky before he entered the local men’s club for his daily chess game with the other expats. The coercion he had in mind for the lawyer would produce the necessary access to Goldfinger’s bouillon before nightfall.

What could go wrong with Smersh, Drax, Castro, and Goldfinger’s billions in gold at stake?. Bond wondered sarcastically.

__________

15

My new James Bond novel

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

the first 4 chapters are done on the james bond novel i began writing yesterday.

i'm having to much fun with it to stop now.

veronica spoke the two words clearly and waited.. .

TerryWalstrom

Thank you, Vanderhoven7, I'll check it out!

15

My new James Bond novel

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

the first 4 chapters are done on the james bond novel i began writing yesterday.

i'm having to much fun with it to stop now.

veronica spoke the two words clearly and waited.. .

TerryWalstrom

Esse Quam viden: Here ya go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoP_ljJ8sbw

A reviewer of the Bond continuation book, Trigger Mortis, complained that the author did not use
an authentic shaving cream:

The novel is the first continuation novel to include material by Ian Fleming, a sub-plot involving SMERSH’s plan to murder a British racing driver. M sends Bond to Germany’s famous Nürburgring circuit to foil the plot.

The story was written by Fleming for an aborted US television show. He later reworked a number of stories for the short story collection For Your Eyes Only (1960). While the motor racing scenes are exciting, I wonder if Fleming didn’t rework the story for a reason. It doesn’t seem conceivable that Bond, with just a few days’ tuition, is able to improve his driving skills to Grand Prix standard, no matter how talented.

Set two weeks after the events of Goldfinger (1958), iconic Bond girl Pussy Galore makes a return at the start of the book. While well publicised, it is unnecessary to the book, which may have benefited from leaving her as nothing but a memory.

Otherwise Horowitz avoids cramming in too many of Bond’s habits, tastes and idiosyncrasies. Ian Fleming drip fed us that information over fourteen books, but some of the other continuation authors lay it on with too heavy a hand.

The other quibbles are down to small details. In Trigger Mortis uses an orange and bergamot shaving cream from Floris. Fleming only mentioned Palmolive and I can’t help feeling that the Floris shaving cream just isn’t Bond.