the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Peacedog wrote:The bright eye thing is there as a sign in some people.

Radical changes in behavior that seem to occur over night and don't change with time. Sometimes they will have trouble remembering things that happened in their past. Spontaneously knowing new languages. All big signs.

The main two though are significant changes to body appearance over a 3 to 5 year period. For those with energy awareness, being near the person feels "wrong." It's like two things are squeezed into a bottle with the dominant one on top. Hard to explain, but you will know what I am talking about if you experience it.

The scary thing is it sounds like you actually believe this. I've met kundaloonies (people that practise kundalini wrong, causing the energy to rise and get stuck) and the look in the eyes is distinct. Jerry is fine. In fact, that sparkle is more about someone with very strong energy through dedicated practise. I've met quite a few people with 'that look' of crazy. Ive also met people with that sparkle. Vince black is a perfect example of that. His power is phenomenal.
As for 'look at how he's changed over the years' ... I'd call it aging. And he seems to be doing a good job of it - he looks good. Happy and healthy.

I've never met jerry, and used to think his videos were a bit hokey. Used to. Those videos were 20+ years ago though... We've all come a long way in 20 years, don't you agree? I don't judge Jerry on a video from the 90s though. I judge him based on current videos. I saw an interview online last year where he discussed qi gong practise. Every time he moved I could see his dominance over the very energy in the room and when he moved the whole space around him moved with him. Not many people ever attain that skill. And I think you guys know I don't usually sing praise about a lot of people. Now that i think about it, I'd put Jerry on my 'like to meet' just to talk about energy work and Taoist magic further with him. Keep in mind that bagua is rooted in Taoist magic. There's a lot more to bagua than forms, qigong and fighting.

"when you're ready, the magic comes"

Meeks,

Good point about the bright eye thing. People with very strong energy will have that. It seems more common in people with Taoist or tantric practice.

Spirit possession in my experience is definitely real, but thankfully rare. In about 20 years of being involved in this business I've only seen it two or three times. It is very disturbing and blatantly apparent when you do run into though.

Bagua's origins are definitely on the shamanistic end and there is noting wrong with that.

Shamanism in general just seems to have more pitfalls than pure energy work in my experience.

The spirits/egregore/whatever that gets worked with on the other side does give a practitioner access to a lot more power than a person can generate on their own without significant work. The downside is that whatever is on the other side gets to express itself through the practitioner. On rare occasions that seems to stick.

I don't doubt Jerry is strong and knows a lot. I'm just not sure whoever is behind the wheel is who was originally there in the first place. The guys who go to maoshan and get initiated seem to come back changed. And not just in the "I am an initiate now" way either.

SNIP
Few discuss what happens when God finds you.
SNIP

Personally I am not hiding, but if God is ubiquitous and all-seeing, hasn't he "found" us all?

All the time?

Question for the day:
Is God is not a big, wise-looking old white guy with a beard (I cautiously suspect the board may reach agreement on this) then is he, in fact, something like a perfect CCTV system? And are lesser gods the separate cameras?

All religions are mythology. Clerics of all stripes exploit the gullible for their own purposes and the purposes of the state.

Imo, the whole idea of shamanism is to commune, communicate or "find" god. A shaman is someone who thinks he's done it, people believe him (or her), and his people go to for help, advice and/or help them find god. Shamans functions as intermediaries.

Yes, the mythology/religion of the specific people determines their expectations. Afa how common they are, just go to Haiti. They're not called shamans, but they (hougans or mambos) still serve the same ancient function.

However, when someone goes to their priest, they're going to their shaman. Afa New Age stuff, none of it has much to do with shamanism and its effect on shamans is non-existent. Well, except that many New Agers turned to various things outside their own traditions to do the same thing. A big part of that was because New Agers found that their traditional religions were unsatisfactory. So, they looked for "new" ways to do what people had always been doing. So, you got guys from Westchester taking mescaline, ayahuasca or some other hallucinogen to reach "higher consciousness."
The New Age movement is part of the reason that cma are so popular in the US/UK.

In some parts of the world, every single community has its shaman. Westerners often call/ed them "witch doctors" and talked about their strange mythology --aopt real religion. So, unless it comes out a westerners own tradition, I have real skepticism about the depth of understanding. At any rate, I consider it "new age."

Wow this thread continued even after being relegated to OTT...

Anyway I bought one his magic books. What can I say ... it's a fusion of some feng shui, ritual magic, spiritualism, meditation/standing practice & many other things which probably is as genuine as the next fellows book. After all I am yet to come in contact with the pope of daoist magic & no one seems to have sent their favorite son to help canonize the concepts.

In summary:

+ve: some great little tales, is an interesting insight into an area that you can't really find any information about, some of the concepts he provides in the books can be found in ima theory & is not as speculative as they may seem at first
-ve: JAJ repeats some of his materials, does not always seem to have a cohesive flow, is not really instructional & talks about speculative abilities.

So out of 5 - I'd say a 3.5 but I did not expect much out of it. Not as good as his internal martial arts vol1 & 2 but not disappointing enough to throw into the recycling bin.

Also as an aside I don't feel any great forbidding presence yet but you never know....

meeks wrote:I've never met jerry, and used to think his videos were a bit hokey. Used to. Those videos were 20+ years ago though... We've all come a long way in 20 years, don't you agree?

Good post meeks, especially this line. My reflex reaction when first watching his old bagua videos was to focus on the hokey robes and all that, thinking to myself "Why doesn't he just wear a track suit or warmups?!?" but in hindsight the guy was doing decent Bagua and promoting it publicly at a time that you didn't see a lot of that out there, so I give him props for that. And I'm sure he's gotten even better if he kept up his practice.
I know nothing about the Taoist stuff he does now, or its validity, but I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt.
We have a tendency here to jump to negative conclusions, which is not always warranted...

anyway,
He collected solid background, with some >fly high< daimonds info, in his "essentials..."
and published it officially,
big +

kenneth fish wrote:All religions are mythology. Clerics of all stripes exploit the gullible for their own purposes and the purposes of the state.

Well said Ken.

Ron Panunto wrote:

kenneth fish wrote:All religions are mythology. Clerics of all stripes exploit the gullible for their own purposes and the purposes of the state.

Well said Ken.

A friend of mines father was imprisoned for a crime of passion. With 10 years left in his sentance he just got diagnosed with cancer. Perhaps its karma? Anyway the only person consoling him in his daily prays & trying to bring the father/son together is the prison clergyman. Can you imagine this as a great way to exploit the gullible for state purposes? I for one would not even begin to imagine what the clegyman lives with on a daily basis but something seems to resonate that he is a good person.

I dont advocate religion, have no desire for a priests consolations, believe there is a great abuse of power bases & evil but in the end you cant deny that there are many who are helping a lot of people in some shitty situations.

dspyrido wrote:

Ron Panunto wrote:

kenneth fish wrote:All religions are mythology. Clerics of all stripes exploit the gullible for their own purposes and the purposes of the state.

Well said Ken.

A friend of mines father was imprisoned for a crime of passion. With 10 years left in his sentance he just got diagnosed with cancer. Perhaps its karma? Anyway the only person consoling him in his daily prays & trying to bring the father/son together is the prison clergyman. Can you imagine this as a great way to exploit the gullible for state purposes? I for one would not even begin to imagine what the clegyman lives with on a daily basis but something seems to resonate that he is a good person.

I dont advocate religion, have no desire for a priests consolations, believe there is a great abuse of power bases & evil but in the end you cant deny that there are many who are helping a lot of people in some shitty situations.

OMG, was that your 666th post?

Michael wrote:OMG, was that your 666th post?

Ah shit I just missed it since by the time got back I had posted 2 more. I would have immortalised it with a screen shot but now it just says 668. Might have to crack open photoshop as it is really important to get the number of the beast to support the evil of clergymen connection from this evolving daoist black magic thread.

Anyway off to perform a star stepping divination ritual & some shape shifting soul projection. If I don't make it back I will reach out to some of you from the ether-net as I believe they still offer free access in in the heavenly spiritual cafes of the jade emperor.