--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> --- In [email protected], "shempmcgurk" <shempmcgurk@>
> 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.
>
wank, wank, wank:-)
