Theos-Talk Archives (May 1994 Message tl00034)

I'm forwarding don's letter about his second Conference class on
Compuserve Info.  Systems (CIS)

the CO which took place on tuesday May 10th is now available in the
Theos-buds listserver archives, as well as from ftp (vnet.net) at
pub/theos-l

I decided to NOT e-mail it out on Theos-buds due to it's size
(~37KB)

Peace --

John Mead
p.s. to retrieve the CO log file send to listserv@vnet.net
an e-mail message with body/text of

get theos-buds cis_obe1.txt

 ========================================================

 ****E-MAIL ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE NEW AGE FORUM OOBE CLASS******

             **********Questions and the Online CO***************



Hi everyone:

This is a reminder kind of thing for the second CO.  The 2nd CO
will be Tuesday the 17th of May, from 10-11PM

The assignment I have in the schedule is:

2.  CO2:  Q&A on scientific ideas about OOBEs/LDs.
              Q&A on comparing scientific and occult ideas.

        READING ASSIGNMENT: AP_02.TXT/AP_03.TXT

        HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT: ????

Now, I'd like to share my thoughts and reactions with you all to
the first CO.

Frankly, I wasn't too happy with it.  Actually, I was quite
overwhelmed with some of the questions I got.  What hit me during
the middle of the CO was that the online conference format is not
very good for answering your questions.  There's simply not the
time to give adequate answers to your questions.  A few of the
questions could be answered ok, but others were simply too involved
to give the attention that they needed.

One of the things that came up was the idea of what role fear plays
in these OBEs, and how one can protect themselves during an OBE.
There are notions out there about how entities can take over your
body, or astral monsters can attack you and things like this, and
people expressed concern about this.  And the issue came up about
how your emotional state affects your attempts to have OBEs.


Now, these are really serious questions that deserve really serious
and well thought out answers.  And what makes answering questions
like this even more difficult is that there is NO one right answer.
The answers to these kinds of questions DEPEND ON WHERE YOU ARE AT
IN YOUR LIFE AS AN INDIVIDUAL.  There are no simple, generic pat
answers.  The answers to these kinds of concerns are going to be
different for each of you.

So, because of this, I frankly don't know what to do with the COs
at this point.


Not only was I getting sensitive and difficult questions, but the
questions that were being asked reflected the fact that some people
know more about OBEs than others.  I got some very esoteric
questions side by side with basic questions.

All of this adds up to making me uncomfortable with the CO part of
the class.

What is necessary here for each of you to learn how to project is
to assess where each of you stands individually.  In other words,
each one of you requires a tailor-made program for developing the
skills necessary to have an OBE.  I believe I have enough
experience with OBEs to accomplish this for you.  For beginners I
can suggest things to get you started.  For intermediate levels
students, I can suggest exercises to enhance your skills.  For
advanced students, we can share what we know and I can learn from
you as much as you can learn from me.

So, my feeling at this point is that this class will be the most
effective if you post questions in the Dreams section message board
or send me e-mail.

I will continue to use the CO to stress what points I feel are
important for that week's reading assignment.  However, I do not
realistically think I can address the questions you people are
raising at the online CO.  What we can do during the CO is see what
issues come up and focus on these throughout the week on the
message boards where we can discuss the issues with the depth they
require.  In other words, don't come to the COs expecting to get
full answers to the questions you may have.  It just isn't going to
happen, as I learned during the first CO.

So, again, it looks like the online CO is going to serve two
purposes: 1.  for me to stress important aspects of that week's
reading assignment, and 2.  to raise issues that we can discuss on
the message board during the week.

I want all of you to appreciate that the main part of this class
involves reading the notes I wrote.  These notes will provide you
with the background information and the techniques you need to have
OBEs Once you read the notes, then it's up to you how far you want
to practice the techniques I give.

The next important thing I can do is answer your questions.  Again,
this is not going to happen effectively at the online COs.  As you
read and get questions, post these on the message board or send me
e-mail if you want your concerns to be private.

And finally, the online COs are going to serve as a place where we
can raise concerns that we will focus on throughout the rest of the
week.

I want to make clear to you all that I am very sincere in my desire
to share with you what I know about having OBEs I am acutely
sensitive to your individual needs.  Again, I can't stress enough
that this OBE stuff is very REAL, and because it is, it is serious.
I'm not playing any games here.  I sincerely believe that those of
you who want to learn to have OBEs can.  But again, each of you is
at a different point in life, and this point you are at completely
determines what you need to learn or do to have OBEs So, we have to
take things on a person by person basis.  There is no other way to
be effective.

So, this is all I have to say at this point.  If any of you have
comments or suggestions about what I said above, please share them
with me.  Again, the goal of this class is that those of you who
want to learn to astral project will be able to.

Thanks, everybody for all your input so far.

Don