| Ken Ragge 2005-06-18, 5:52 pm |
| stuart wrote:
> "Ken Ragge" <ken@nospam.com> wrote in message
>
>
> No you don't understand me. Sure, you stick someone with a knife, they feel
> pain, both acutely, and to a lesser extent chronically. Where it becomes
> unhealthy is to relive the incident in maudlin stimulation 30 years later.
> Someone re-feeling that pain is "not well"
>
Stuart,
There is a _big_ difference between "maudlin stimiulation" and actively
working to make things better, even a lifetime later. But if I am
missing your point, you are missing my point. Maybe if I put it in a
bigger context.
The "spirituality" you speak of has been around for many decades. In my
lifetime, the biggest proponents off hand were "spiritual giants" like
Carl Jung, Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham. It was all from the
relgious right, although I don't believe they were termed it such until
decades later. Of course, Step groups were around but they were for all
purposes invisible to the general population. But even before that
there were others.
In the 20s and 30s "everyone" in Germany was getting spiritual. The
same was happening here to a lesser extent. Frank Buchman and Sam
Shoemaker were two of the big names. Frank Buchman was encouraging
Germany's neighbors to "make butter, not guns." Apparently they did,
because they were defenseless when the Nazis drove in.
While these two didn't directly preach modern-day "feel good" theology,
they promised that all you needed to do was rid yourself of "the bondage
of self" to be "happily and usefully whole." Same idea, different
language. But whatever language, it left Germany without anyone to
stand up to the Nazis. Fortunately, in the U.S. such ideologies were
rejected big time. When Buchman, the founder of the group that Dr. Bob
and Bill Smith were members of and got their "spiritual principles"
publicly praised Hitler, it was the beginning of the end and time for
name changes.
And the saddest thing, is that such ideologies don't produce happiness.
Certainly, they'll produce lots and lots of people who say how happy
they are though. I don't know how many times I've heard those with time
share about how "happy, joyous and free" they were because of the
Program. Of course, once you got to know them away from meetings they
were anything but. Even at after-meeting coffee, if there were no
"newcomers" present, it'd be, "Things are really awful, I just didn't
know what to share for the newcomers." Or, once I heard at a late night
meeting, "Something they don't tell you . . . I have seven years . . .
I've been walking around suicidal all day."
How many of the people who go to AA looking for help end up committing
suicide under the pressure to adopt your "spiritual way of life"?
Ken Ragge
http://www.morerevealed.com
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