Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00658)

Here is what I promised in a previous post:  David Lane's thoughts and
reflections
on Visions and Inner Experiences.

Daniel Caldwell

> Date: 4 Apr 1996 03:15:30 GMT
> From: dlane@weber.ucsd.edu (David Lane)
> Subject: The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Blabla Mohenjo, and Bill Couch

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Bill Couch, and Blabla Mohenjo is
Appearing at the Astral Starlite Tonite

What immediately strikes one about purported inner visions is the
amazing plasiticity of the encounters--literally anyone can see
anybody at anytime..... From Blabla Mohenjo (one of the Vairagi
Masters)[an Eckankar Master] to Babaji (of Yogananda fame) to Jesus (that
allegedly real
person who died some 2000 years ago).

Now this reminds me of one my all-time favorite characters, The Stay
Puft Marshmallow Man (apologies if my spelling of this fantastic
creature is off), who made a delightful appearance in the first
Ghostbusters film.

What happens if one sees him on the inner regions? Are we then to
suggest that he "really" exists? Or, are we to say that the
imagine-nation (one of the few places apparently with no boundaries,
especially rational zones) allows for innumerable characters to live
and breathe which have no empirical or super-empirical referent?

I think this is central to our ongoing discussions about inner
masters and their historicity (world citizens? or merely part of the
voting population on Tuza?) because it seems that we are confusing
two very important issues: image produced characters which are an
admixture of what we read, see, smell, and believe (hey, i just saw
a pink unicorn playing with pee wee herman upon a pyramid in Elvis'
deli at Plato's cave next to silly putty's newspaper stand) and
images which are more or less reflections of what appears relatively
stable and permanent in the here and now.

For instance: we can argue about the "love" of Jesus and debate
endlessly about it (and never come up with a "best" answer). Why?
Because we are stuck to speculation that has no fundamental or
empirical referent. However, if we argued about how to start a car,
our debate would more or less resolve itself by pointing to the key
and pointing to how to turn it. Now i realize that my postmodern
friends are going to tell me that that stuff is "relative" or
"decontextualized" too.

But, quite frankly, when triple A shows up and you need a jump
start, postmodern "textual" readings just collapse.... Or else you
end up staying at Ralphs all night long......

But i digress, when we debate these inner visions, we are essentially
talking non-sense. And, as such, anyone's vision is about as good as
another's....

Stay Puft? Virgin Mary? Yaubl [another Eckankar Master]?


Unless, of course, there are some outer and inner criterion upon
which we can have common agreement.

This post is not meant to be an answer, but merely a starting point.


Here's my question:

how can we differentiate an inner vision of a Marshmallow man from a
religious vision of our chosen guru?

Is there a difference? If so, why? If not, why not?

Here's the catch: the parameters by which we answer this question, i
would suggest, should be at least pointing in the direction of how
we start cars every morning. In other words, it should have some
point at which we do it right, do it wrong, or just don't do it at
all. Unless we do that, then of course we can simply lubricate all
the more and never ever differentiate....

Which is okay, until the vision you have rapes or molests or kills
you......

So here's the question in a simplified form: how does one know that
an inner vision is "real"? (at least more real or more useful than
one of Bill Couch dressed up as a dessert..... Bill Couch, by the
way, was the stunt man who played the Stay Puft Marshmallow man....
He is also a good surfer)


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dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
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