--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote:
Dear Barry Wright, You make me hopeful that Ravi will somehow demonstrate to those of us in good faith, that the collective judgment of him may not justify its definitiveness. I did follow your analysis of Raviimpartial and disinterested as it wasup until you brought this in: "Then again, I feel pretty much the same way about "MZ/Robin (with slightly different pathologies and forms of acting out, of course)". Well, then, you can imagine my explosion of emotion and outrage. You mean, Barry, that I evoke in you (in principle) the same reaction, mutatis mutandis, you have to Ravi? You have spent some time here diagnosing Ravi. Would you consider doing the same for me, seeing as how you have determined that I too suffer from a *pathology*? We Canadians are not as proud and confident as you Americans, but that does not mean we don't have *amour propre*. Surely you realize it is only natural for me, Barry, to challenge you on this characterization of me as exhibiting symptoms of mental illness which you attribute to Ravi. But unless and until you do this, I am going to say you are using this controversy about Ravi as the opportunity to retaliate against me for having challenged you so many times to explain, defend, justify your appalling behaviour. How could you resist the temptation, when you see that dear raunchydog, under the stress of answering to one of Ravi's supporters, is thereby placing herself in a position where the meta-politics of this issue suddenly and fortuitously coincide with your own psychological need to strike back at Canada? Whenever one of your critics goes head to head with another one of your critics, you opportunistically seize upon this situation to take one person's side against the other; ingratiating yourself with one of your enemies in the form of coming to their defence; meanwhile disposing of (or at least attempting to dispose) of one of your other critics in this cynicalbut helpless to resistmanoeuvre. You walk away from Judy; you walk away from Bob Price; you walk away from whynotnow; you walk away from raunchydog; you walk away from MZ; you walk away from others; you are only willing to take notice of those who have stood up to your abuse if somehow one of them becomes entangled in some dispute with someone elseboth of whom have made known their judgment of your malevolence and cowardice. Now raunchydog picked up on one of Vaj's video posts mocking me and someone else; I forget who. She expressed some delight in the humour of that video. And wouldn't you know it: immediately this provided the pretext for you to reinforce raunchydog in her appreciation for this mocking of MZ. Even as I don't believethis is quite self-serving I realizeVaj warrants quite this much applause until he ceases this charade of pretending he did TM, knew Maharishi personally, and was an initiator. Now mind you, Barry, it is always possible that someone who is engaged in an extraordinary project of deceit (Walter Mitty-ism) may from time to time say things that are quite extraordinary. I have enjoyed Vaj's posts when they stick to discussing other Eastern traditions. But when he has the temerity to describe his flying experience, when clearly he is making this up, I tend to be suspicious of anything directed against those of us who would make of him an honest human being. Because, as you see, Barry, in posting that video of MZ & whoever I was cuddling up to at the time, was attempting to deflect some of the fire away from himself, and by making fun of me he essentially was implicitly questioning my right to bring him to justice. Are you still with me here, Barry? Let us say, for instance, that Judy suddenly and inexplicably turned on the most severe of your critics. Do you see what kind of dilemma that would put you in? Because immediately the tendency would be to praise Judy in order to take advantage of the circumstance whereby she wasafter turning on you for so longgoing after one of your enemies. Now this is what happened with raunchydog and her dispute with Ravi. I think it only fair, then, Barry, that you do me the courtesysince you judge Ravi and myself to be "pretty much the same"of writing to raunchydog again, only this time providing the kind of thorough and believable analysis of me that you have done of Ravi. What is unreasonable about this request, Barry? Look at it this way: If indeed I am suffering from a pathology that is "pretty much the same" (in principle) as we have determinedmost of usthat Ravi is suffering under, what would prevent you from having some mercy on me by considering this: I don't much like this MZ/Robin guy; but hell, when I read one of his posts (which I deign to do once in a while, just to say au courant), I experience a severe psychological problem which alway speaks so much louder than whatever he is saying; and I think: If only MZ/Robin knew what was really going on here, he would know that by being in this serious state of mental illness he is undermining my capacity to take in anything that he writes. This, you see, Barry, throws a completely different light on this matter of our relations. For it is not because I am in any sense more confident and effective in stating what I think the issue is between you and me. No, it is not this at all. It is that Barry out of some unacknowledged (until now) compassion has decided to turn the other cheek when it comes to MZ/Robin such as to give the impression that he is ducking this challenge, whereas in fact he is only showing mercy. Because, were he to wade in on MZ/Robin, he would have to say to MZ/Robin what he has taken the time to say here in this post to raunchydog about Ravi. You know what, Barry? I think I suddenly GET my pathology! It's this: You have characterized meand thereby all my postsas giving evidence of an abnormal personality. You make this finally very explicit in this sympathy post to raunchydog. Now I, reading what is this summing up of myself, feel the need to deny my pathology, and instead, to do my best to conceal it by writing this post. Isn't that about it, Barry? Now you have to give me credit, then, for at least finally recognizing one florid symptom of my pathology: the need to say anything to someone who has said that I am pathological. I do understand my pathology now, Barry. At least along this one dimension: going after Barry for Barry having objectified the truth about me and my posts. My only problem isplease hear me outthat I have employed irony so much in the service of truth that even as I wrote those last few paragraphs I got the sensation of Wolf Wolf Wolf!that is, finally I was being straight and sincere, and yet (I presume this is part of my pathology?) the feedback I got from myself (I had no say in this) was that *I was being ironic*. Well, this too, can constitute one of the symptoms of my mental illness: that I have used irony so much that when I go to be sincerethat is, sincere with someone who I felt could only be addressed previous to this moment via ironyI come off ironic. You must help me with this, Barry. I take you to be an honest man: that is to say, you would not say I was suffering from some mental pathology if you did not believe it. And I do believe you believe it. Only problem here is that in your various animadversions regarding MZ/Robin you hid from me this detached perspective: that in fact every illusion to me carried with it some recognition internally that you were in the presence of a disturbed human being. Now I am going to pay you a compliment, Barryand given how certain persons on this forum have been on the offence when it comes to yourself, I think the remark I am going to make is timely and seasonable. You deceived everyone on this forum, Barry, by acting as if you were just contemptuous and hostile towards MZ/Robin; you intended to create this impression. But all the while, underneath this pose of animus and reactiveness there was a quite differentand as now is obvious, more profoundresponse going on to MZ/Robin: you were in fact allowing the majority of persons at FFL (exceptions being 2 or 3 or 4, depending on the survey) to think that you perhaps harboured resentment and bitterness that someone had come after you with the tenacity and intention equal to your previous history of abuse and calumny directed at others. But this was not the truth, and I hope the fair readers at FFL are following me closely here: Barry, you were all the while I was fighting back on behalf of your victimsin the cause of what my pathology told me was injustice and mean-spiritednessaware at a completely different level of reality, that poor MZ/Robin, he was under the influence of a pathology. You choseup until todayto withhold this superior and more objective assessment of me, meanwhile allowing others to perhaps make a judgment unfavourable to yourself. Well, today, you have straightened all this out, and I want to tell the readers at FFL that, no matter how it seems, Barry has attempted in this post to raunchydog to reach out to Robin, and I for one am glad he has finally done this. What I await noweagerly, hopefullyis the kind of comprehensive diagnosis he has provided raunchydog with regard to the gentleman who has been the subject of this recent controversy. I would ask all those who are friends with Barry to convince him of my good faith in making this appeal to him: that he explain upon what evidence he has declared that he "feels pretty much the same" about my pathology as he does about Ravi's pathology. Look, you people out there: no matter how is seems, I am making a heartfeltand even desperateplea to Barry Wright: Let MZ/Robin knowjust as you have with regard to the Indian maniachow MZ/Robin triggers the same kind of experience in Barry: that Robin is pathological. I might yet become a good Canadian Christian like Bruce. Once, that is, I get my ESTor whatever:now that would be marvellous: Barry not only provides the diagnostic information; he provides a possible prescription. Is it possible that one of you out there could persuade Barry to do this double-favour: analysis and treatment? I am unstressingpositivelyjust in the anticipation of being on the other side of this pathology, and able, therefore, to express my appreciation for the elaborate and cryptic form of intervention exercised by one Barry Wright. I love you, Barry. And I am sorry. You have lived there in the Garden of Gethsemane long enough. I started this post with a certain intention: to get back at you, Barry; I leave off this post with quite another intention: to seek your succour and thus eventually my own salvation. Ravi is a performance artist? la Lady GaGa? That's a good > one. Got me again. I thought "The Existence" wrote his script. > Now I find out he writes his own material. What a hack. He > needs a bigger venue then FFLife. Here's a thought. You could > promote him by having him take a dump on your lawn. Then you > say, "Good Doggie" and everyone joins in the hilarity celebrating > his brilliance. Good to know you have such high standards for > funny. Raunchy, I've been trying to stay out of the "dump on Ravi" thang because, as stated before, I consider him somewhat mentally ill. Have since Day One. This may be an inaccurate assessment on my part, because after all I am not a trained therapist, but it is my honest assessment. He may actually from time to time consider his many flip-flops to be "schtick," but his very choice of "material" suggests to me serious personality disorder. As does his *memory* of what he has claimed in one post versus the next. He'll say outright one day that his whole presentation to Rick of having had an enlightenment experience was a put-on and that he was just taking advan- tage of Rick's naivete, and then the next day claim to be enlightened again. And by far the overriding aspect of his posts is a near-pathological craving for attention, whether positive or negative. This really just isn't something a fully sane person would do IMO. I think long- term TMers are cutting him too much slack because they've seen such behavior around them in TM environments so often over the years that they've come to consider it almost normal, writing it off as either mere eccentricity or "unstressing." I don't hold to that view. I don't think he was in any way faking the excesses of his early days on this forum, and how close he was to the ragged edge of insanity or suicide. I think that's a claim he made up afterwards, after the manic episodes had subsided to some extent. I similarly don't think he was faking any of the more recent compulsive lashing out he did at you, or Alex, or others here. It "reads" to me (now that I've gone back and read some of it) as hypomania, or just plain mania. He gets into a manic state and just dashes off anything that makes sense to his disordered mind in that particular manic state, and then presses Send. I personally don't think it's safe to interact with him, so I have limited such interactions pretty much since the beginning. Others here seem to be taken in by how he appears during his less manic periods, and feel no qualms about either praising him (that is, amplifying his narcissism and thus inflating it) or ragging on him (provoking a hysterical overreaction that we are by now all too familiar with). I don't think it's schtick. I don't think he has any control whatsoever over this acting out of his. And I, for one, am not willing to provoke it by interacting with him personally. I take the same approach when dealing with such behavior that a psychiatrist I once knew took to dealing with patients who had demonstrated similar behavior in the past. "If the behavior seems to have cleared up, give them at least a year before you believe it thoroughly. Otherwise they could just be 'laying low' and trying to sucker you back into former patterns that have been proven unproductive." Ravi's "one year clock" hasn't even *started* ticking for me. If others feel differently, that's their business. Then again, I feel pretty much the same about MZ/Robin (with slightly different pathologies and forms of acting out, of course), so you should either weight or dismiss my theories about Ravi accordingly. Thanks for your mainly common-sense comments on all of this.
