--- In [email protected], "shempmcgurk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "Richard J. Williams" > <willytex@> wrote: > > > > TurquoiseB wrote: > > > > It's just levitating, or flying through the air. > > > > > Shemp wrote: > > > Angel, Lenz, Baba: all fakers. Yet when you believe > > > it, like Barry does, it has a value, especially when, > > > a decade or so later, you still believe the fakery. > > > > > So, you're saying that Angel, Lenz, and Baba are all > > fakers and that Barry believes in their fakery, even > > after a decade or more. > > > > So that makes Barry a True Believer (TB) because he > > believes that Freddy levitated and then flew through > > the air, but the Marshy's Yogic Flyers are just "bum > > hopping"? > > I suppose that makes Barry a TBer. > > He is convinced that he saw a human being -- on numerous occasions -- > defy the laws of gravity and fly through the air. He's 100% > convinced of this. And there's no convincing him otherwise. > > Perhaps the moniker "cultist" is more appropriate. Here's the > definition of "cult" from Wikipedia: > > "In religion and sociology, a cult is a term designating a cohesive > group of people (generally, but not exclusively a relatively small > and recently founded religious movement[1]) devoted to beliefs or > practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be > outside the mainstream. Its status may come about either due to its > novel belief system, its idiosyncratic practices, its perceived > harmful effects on members, or because its perceived opposition to > the interests of the mainstream culture. Non-religious groups may > also display cult-like characteristics." > > 1) Barry's belief in levitation and swearing to have actually seen > it qualifies as being devoted to "beliefs or practices that the > surrounding culture or society considers to be outside the > mainstream." > > 2) certainly, no one can argue that levitation is a "novel belief > system". > > 3) I don't know much about Lenz's group, but I assume it constituted > a "cohesive group of people"? > > So, Barry is not only a TBer, he is a cultist.
Then again, most of the folks here spent thousands of dollars and up to 30 years of their lives trying to learn to "fly." Many of them still hope beyond hope that someday, if they're lucky and if they go to the right courses and if the woo woo rays purify the environment enough, they'll actually get to *see* someone really fly. And yet people who walked into a free lecture at the Los Angeles Convention Center in the early 80s got to see the real thing. That may make those of us who stuck around for a while after the lectures to try to figure out the guy who could *do* that kinda shit look like cultists. But it also makes you who took the TM route look kinda stupid. Free public lecture, and you see someone fly. $5000 and up to 30 years of bouncing on your bum, and you never have. You do the math. :-) It's just levitating, guys. Or flying through the air. You paid big bucks a few years ago because you not only thought it was possible, you thought you'd be able to do it. And now, after 30 years with no payoff, when someone says that he's actually seen it, you act like you're rational and he's the crazy one. Get real. Even if it was an illusion, I've seen it and you haven't. And that's what you're pissed off about.
