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SamBee wrote:
Hi AG,
I replied to you partly by PM.
You are right, the LDS might not rebel, but many others might. My own depression results from genetics, chemicals, lack of sunlight etc, but it is also triggered by the aggressive financial demands in my mailbox (and my economic situation), the architecture round here, bureaucracy, the general lack of community and lack of direction I see outside me etc. The pills of Utah mask, no doubt women’s issues, too many children, bad working conditions and many of the things I describe above. We can take pills but they don’t solve external conditions.
Both religion and psychiatry try and address emotional fulfilment at best, but at worst they create or mask issues. In religion’s favor, it provides community psychiatry can’t and in psychiatry’s favor, it tries to deal with issues of a physiological nature.
First off SamBee, I agree with you 100 percent about pills and masking situations. It’s one of the many reasons I personally wouldn’t take psychiatric medication. However, I don’t have a problem with people who do take psych drugs or the industry. I respect the fact that psychiatry may work for some people.
I’m not sure how all that ties back to the OP. They lost me some time ago Roy. I really liked your earlier comments regarding his transformation experience and then relating that to a leader who is more sincere. Kind of helps me understand our history a little better.
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Do I think a false prophet can produce genuine spiritual experiences? Definitely, but I believe Jesus himself gave us guidance on this – by their fruits ye shall know them. Many false prophets have done some good things, e.g. Jim Jones was a strong opponent of racism…
…and I think genuine prophets can be guilty of stupidity and bad decision making.
In the end up, Jim Jones caused the death of many people and left us little or nothing… but Joseph Smith despite his philandering, gaffes and bad ideas, left us valuable scriptures, which I enjoy, and a church which often blesses people’s lives. And some of the worse aspects of the LDS are not his doing. For those reasons alone, it’s Smith and not Jones for me.
The false guru might have inadvertantly pointed people to the divine or their own weaknesses and potentials. God works in mysterious ways. I think he understands people can be misled. I don’t believe all of Jonestown ended up in hell.
And that other business…
First off I have been on medication myself for a while. It helps me in some ways by stopping me feel as unhappy and unconfident but not in others eg doesn’t pay my bills and doesn’t solve how *other* people treat me. It doesn’t help me make good decisions either. But I had an inkling of that before I went on it. In regard to spiritual experience I now have to reach down into myself to find it.
Medication has different effects on different people. For some, non-medication is a great avenue; for others, medication is absolutely necessary. My mom is schizophrenic; one of my sons is diabetic (Type 1). This isn’t academic for me. Not taking medication is not an option for either of them. Period.
Now, in my admin voice, let’s end that part of this thread and re-focus on the post.
My husband and I watched this documentary tonight. It was so interesting! Thanks for sharing it. I think it’s almost impossible to not question your perceived promptings if you are a Mormon who has gone through a faith crisis. I do think that we can get answers to prayers and that we do when it’s important, but maybe most of the time our decisions are not really make it or break it type decisions. Maybe God is just letting us use our own internal ‘gods’ for those decisions. Old-Timer wrote:
Now, in my admin voice, let’s end that part of this thread and re-focus on the post.Please do!
As to the OP, that was another part of my shelf crashing… The realisation that things like the heart chakra is described as very similar to the holy ghost.
Perhaps it’s an inward manifestation of an external God’s love and therefore is found in all places.
Or, it’s an inward feeling triggered by ourselves.
I know there have been times when I’ve felt things similar to the spirit when I was doing things/in places that the young men’s leader taught the spirit wouldn’t go with me to.
I trust less these days on spiritual impressions and far more on manifested experiences. The knowledge that comes through practising and applying the principles.
Roy wrote:I watched some interviews of these fellows on Utube. They said that they felt an obligation to the people that appeared on camera (the dupes) to give them something worthwhile. So that after the big reveal they would still be ok with the experience. I don’t know exactly what that means but I suppose that they wouldn’t let anyone get so invested in the make-believe that they would be making inalterable life choices, giving large sums of money, or otherwise committing themselves to Kumare and his belief system.
Just watched Kumare and I now better understand what they meant when they said that they tried for this experience to be worthwhile despite the deception. 1) He appears to have never asked for any money and/or sexual access. 2) He doesn’t give people advice – he tries to turn the followers into their own gurus. He asks them to pretend that they are the guru for their more foolish self and has them give 5 personal rules that they should live by. 3) He tells them at the last meeting that they no longer need him and that they are now graduated. 4) He goes away indefinitely and asks them to listen to their guru selves and the guidelines they have each suggested for themselves. 5) About 6 months later he returns and reveals his true identity. Hopefully the individuals will have taken up their own guidelines and made behavior improvements that have become good habits. By now everyone has been operating without Kumare for a while so they might feel less dependent. He has already told them that they don’t need him any more – this final reveal only highlights that they never needed him in the first place. That he wasn’t anything special or mystical. That positive and even transformational change was always within their grasp.
Even so, 4 of his 16 core followers never speak to him again.
One of the principle messages of Kumare is that we don’t need spiritual leaders to achieve serenity. The movie’s major complaint against Gurus/spiritual leaders is their tendency to emphasize their importance (some even going as far as to say that they are the critical link between the divine and man). Applying this to JS – In some ways he was trying very hard to get his people to be their own prophets (and the people generally resisted this idea by largly ignoring it). But I do see the trend going mostly in the opposite direction – That over time JS had to repeatedly consolidate power. That he did ask for financial support and eventually sexual access. That he did set up tests of obedience for followers. That (at least in some settings) one’s eternal well being rested in their loyalty and obedience to him.
The lesson in SS last Sunday was about the Gathering and that lead to lots of talk about the many moves that the early church members were commanded to make and how it was such a good winnowing method to separate the wheat from the chaff etc. I couldn’t help but imagine Kumare’s followers being asked to relocate to a distant city. Some would go some would not – those that went would see themselves as being more loyal, more faithful, more true to the cause than their compatriots.
ihhi wrote:I really liked your earlier comments regarding his transformation experience and then relating that to a leader who is more sincere. Kind of helps me understand our history a little better.
What if everything that JS did was 50% divine inspiration and 50% bold speculation? Would it still be worth it? What percentage of JS teachings must be from God before it tips the balance for you? One interesting thing is that for me the answer varies depending on the costs of membership. I am willing for it to only be 50% as long as there is a net gain and the church helps my family more than it hurts it. When the demand side of the equation includes crossing the frozen plains, losing family members to starvation and exposure, or making myself a “living sacrifice” in a plural marriage – then the percentage of certainty needs to be much higher…98%, 99%, 100%.Roy wrote:
What if everything that JS did was 50% divine inspiration and 50% bold speculation? Would it still be worth it? What percentage of JS teachings must be from God before it tips the balance for you? One interesting thing is that for me the answer varies depending on the costs of membership. I am willing for it to only be 50% as long as there is a net gain and the church helps my family more than it hurts it. When the demand side of the equation includes crossing the frozen plains, losing family members to starvation and exposure, or making myself a “living sacrifice” in a plural marriage – then the percentage of certainty needs to be much higher…98%, 99%, 100%.I agree, it is pretty easy for me to find net gain in the church currently, as I can somewhat control what I put into it and I am comfortable with the returns based on that level of sacrifice. I believe that there was divine inspiration behind JS and that he was an overall influence for good. At this point, if I were to have to sacrifice my life, family, more money, beard (jk…sort of) then I would have to reconsider the net gain and have to think about the importance of this ‘guru’ in my life. For now, I don’t see any better options. I am not totally ready to turn it over to my guru within.
There’s a JS quote on that… I’;; look it up. I’m a bit late to this discussion, but I watched Kumare recently and wanted to mention my reaction to it. The main thing that stood out to me was how universal a desire for spirituality is. These gurus and other religious leaders are only possible if there are people searching for a connection to something divine, and feel like it has to come through someone else. This is probably my biggest problem in the church. I am not very naturally spiritual; I am much more intellectual. There are a lot of things that don’t add up if you only look at the church from an intellectual standpoint, which is all I have to go by. I have tried to get some sort of spiritual manifestation (testimony I guess) but either my lack of spiritual ability or (when I feel cynical) lack of anyone answering prevents that experience for me. Most of my family are member of the church and I still have some belief that keeps me with it, but without something stronger, it continually becomes harder to stay.
journeygirl wrote:These gurus and other religious leaders are only possible if there are people searching for a connection to something divine, and feel like it has to come through someone else.
I sometimes think that we mystify the Q15 for our own purposes. “I know myself too well to fully trust myself as a conduit for God’s will in my life,” we might say. “I need someone who is better and holier than myself.” I wonder if this might be part of the reason that we are not to ask about their spiritual/prophetic experiences – that it is sometimes better to imagine what we want to see. I read a historical fiction novel about Emma Smith and I was struck by how it portrayed marriage to JS as though he were some mystical space/time traveler that knew the secrets to everything but couldn’t explain them to you lest your brain explode. How infuriating that would be! Why was it not portrayed that JS could get depressed and doubt himself and that Emma might then become his rock to lift his spirits. That would certainly seem reasonable – but we don’t want reasonable. We want something more sure and otherworldly than ourselves.
journeygirl wrote:I have tried to get some sort of spiritual manifestation (testimony I guess) but either my lack of spiritual ability or (when I feel cynical) lack of anyone answering prevents that experience for me.
I do believe that some people are simply wired/conditioned (nature+nurture) in a way that doesn’t allow for spiritual manifestations and others are wired/conditioned in a way that allows them frequently. I have also heard anecdotal evidence to suggest that the use of anti-depressants and some other medication may lessen the likelihood of spiritual promptings. I’m sure it can be frustrating to be told that all can have a witness with sincere desire (“nothing wavering”) and then not get it.
Good thoughts!
Revisiting this thread. The Dalai Lama was asked once what he thought of the Chinese Chairman Mao who had raped and invaded Tibet (something still ongoing)… the DL said “he is my greatest teacher.”
Imagine that… that brute who hated Tibet, religion of any sort, set up the biggest personality cult in history, responsible for the death of thirty million or more… a teacher? That is what guru means. Mao didn’t even mean to be.
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