--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "geezerfreak" <geezerfr...@...> wrote: <snip> > So when a spoof, a very well written one as this > one was, comes along, ya know ANYTHING is possible. > In my wildest dreams from back in the day (and I > was there) I would never have believed it could all > turn into the current madness. And I was quite used > to a certain level of madness that anyone who was > around MMY then experienced. (Hey, let's all get up > for a 2am meeting!) > > You who think the spoof was so obvious, check your > high and mightiness carefully and ask yourself if > any average person off the street would think > ANYTHING that goes on in Vlodrop or any of the > Shrivastava/Varma centers in India is anything > other than off the rails cult-gone-wild behavior > then friend, your own grasp on reality is shaky.
The person on the street is a non sequitur. Of course they'd think it's all totally bonkers. There are two things involved here. One is the ability to recognize *any* spoof as a spoof. The most prolific spoofer on this forum deals in crude, burlesque-type spoofs that are instantly obvious as such. After being fed that kind of spoof for a while, you're less likely to recognize more subtle spoofs; your spoof detector gets dulled because you've gotten used to the crudity. This one, in contrast, was quite subtle. But there were still telltale signs that *should* have clued you in. And that's the second thing involved: the TM critics here *want* to think the worst of the TMO, so you're absurdly gullible, ready to believe anything--as you acknowledge above--and that willingness dulls your alertness to the telltale signs as well. You're invested in its *not* being a spoof; you want it to be real so you can wallow in scorn and disgust. Those of us who got that it was a spoof have a more realistic view of the TMO (and perhaps a more finely honed sense of humor as well). Not that we don't see that the TMO has become ridiculous--I certainly do--but that we have a better sense of what's merely ridiculous and what would go over the line into seriously warped, like that rogue Mormon group. The TMO's not *that* warped; you have to be warped yourself to think it would go that far. When I learned TM in the mid-'70s, I gave the TMO a bit of a whirl. It didn't take long for me to decide it was sillier than I could tolerate. I "ran away" while you were still crawling out of bed for Maharishi at 2 in the morning. So you might want to think about checking your own high-and-mightyness, pal. Yes, you were young and foolish; I had the benefit of being older and more resistant to nonsense. Maybe I'd have been better able to tolerate it when I was your age and would've gotten sucked in as you did. But, ya know, I'm *still* older than you, and you're not looking a whole lot less foolish to me now than the TMO does. You've switched sides, but you're just as heavily into nonsense. That's why you didn't recognize it as a spoof. (That's 50 for me. See yez later.)
