--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "wayback71" <wayback71@...> wrote: > > Barry, when you saw Lenz levite > 1. had you heard before that he did this sort of thing?
No. Not the first time I saw him/it. > 2. can you recall if you and others present all described > seeing exactly the same thing, including small variations, > without cuing each other and leading each other? In other > words, did the reports of individuals match exactly without > talking to each other or anyone about the experience first? No, they did not. That is one of the things that makes me believe that if the phenomena like levitation and invisibility and others were actually happening, they were happening on a more subtle alternate plane of existence, literally Carlos Castaneda's "separate realities." So people could see the same basic event taking place, but with variations. One of the things that still makes it all fascinating to me is that many of these experiences really were *not* pre-announced or "set up." He'd just be talking away, teaching about some odd piece of philosophy or whatever, and then go all invisible, fade out like the Cheshire Cat, so first you could see through him, and then there was no him, and then he'd "come back." All the while there has been no mention of this. He was talking about something completely different. At the end of it all, several people ask, "UH...did you just disappear?" And then he laughs. When polled, most of the people there saw it happen. But not all. So it -- whatever it was -- was somewhat subjective, and no, not everyone saw the same thing. Same general thing, but with variations. The same, I would imagine, as if you polled people about more normal events; not all of them would see/remember them the same way. > So - it you had all been asked to write about what you > saw before saying a word to each other, would those > descriptions match? Not necessarily, but they often did. If you can still find the scanned PDF of it on the Web, see "The Last Incarnation," a series of stories about the dude written by his students. Some of the stories are about the same events, and some agree, some don't. > 3. what other out of the ordinary experiences like > levitation did you witness with him? Too many to even begin to talk about. If you think that seeing someone "violate the laws of nature as we know them" by levitating or going invisible would fuck with your mind, consider what witnessing things that even more "couldn't happen" would do to you. Not gonna get into it here. I said pretty much all I have to say about the whole thing in Road Trip Mind. > If this happened now, people would whip out their phones > and begin photographing him. Did people try to take > photos of these events with regular cameras? I don't know. I know I didn't. I did make audio tapes of talks while in the desert, but no photographs. It was usually nighttime, after all, and thus one would have needed flash. > What was Rama's explanation for what was going on? "I just do what I do, and people report their experiences." There was clearly no "technique" involved in doing what he did, in the sense that he had to sit a certain way or meditate first or "work himself up to it." He'd just lift up off the ground or go all invisible kinda at will. I think that if he ever described these powers and how he got them it was in terms of having remembered them from a previous life, not ever having tried to attain them in this one. > Did any of his students develop the same levitation ability? > What that part of the training he gave? No. See above. He never taught these things, only demo'd them. > Did Lenz himself have training in magic/sleight of hand? No. I saw him try to do a simple card trick once, and he was terrible at it. *I* was better. :-) > I wonder what someone like Ricky Jay would say about > this - if he could provide an explanation of how you go > about appearing to levitate in the desert in front of > hundreds. I'd love to hear him try, but I won't hold my breath waiting for it, because he would be looking for an "explanation" based on the assumption that it didn't really happen, and was some kind of trick. I find that difficult to accept. In the desert we're talking about hiking into places that are just sand, surrounded by nothing from which to suspend wires or anything. I once saw Rama levitate off the naugahyde benches of a Denny's late at night, ferchrssakes. I don't think he managed to pre-arrange some kind of apparatus in that Denny's. :-) > How far off the ground did he appear to go? I think I > recall a friend saying he was in the clouds, or else > that he moved clouds. He moved clouds around and made them disappear. As far as I ever saw, he never got more than a few feet off the ground. > To me, the alternate reality theory sounds likely - > kind of explains a lot we can't explain - ghosts, angels, > levitation and other "miracles." Sounds right to me, too. It goes along with many other experiences I've had of "separate realities." The assump- tion that there is only one simply does not jibe with my experience. The main thing that I took away from all of this, you should remember, is that I do not for a moment associate the ability to perform siddhis with being enlightened or being a "saint" or being "good" or anything like that. Rama was at times an *excellent* teacher, one of the best I've ever met. He was also at times a real sonofabitch, mean, manipulative, and a total dick. He was narcissistic as hell, and in the end he got himself addicted to Valium and wound up committing suicide while foolishly trying to go "cold turkey" from it. It was all very sad in the end to see all that great potential pissed away. But it was at the same time a marvelous ride, real E-ticket stuff. You don't find these experiences very often. Or at least I don't. > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" fintlewoodlewix@ > > wrote: > > > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen" <maskedzebra@> > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > http://www.miraclesofthesaints.com/2010/10/levitation-and-ecstatic-fligh\ > > ts-in.html > > > > > > > > It's just a shame that they seem to have stopped just before > > > > the invention of cinema. > > > > > > I am so glad that I didn't offer my wordy response before you nailed > > everything > > > I could have said in just sixteen words! > > > > Just to pour gasoline on already-roaring flames, and to save a certain > > someone from bringing it up in an attempt to demonize me :-), I shall > > weigh in on the subject of levitation from a unique point of view. Other > > than Nabby, whose credibility I submit is in the same ballpark as Rush > > Limbaugh's or Paul Ryan's, I think I'm the only person here who has > > claimed to have witnessed real, hang-there-in-mid-air levitation. > > > > And I have. Not once, but dozens of times, over a period of 14 years. > > And it wasn't only me. Often I was one of a group of 200-500 students > > watching the guy do this, in various locations, ranging from out in the > > desert in the middle of the night to the Los Angeles Convention Center > > to Carnegie Hall. In those environments, Rama - Frederick Lenz didn't > > hop on his butt like a frog, he just lifted gently up off of the sofa or > > the sand he was sitting on or standing on, and hovered there in mid-air > > in exactly the way that a brick doesn't. For extended periods of time -- > > minutes, not seconds. > > > > That said, I can tell you nothing whatsoever about the nature of what it > > was that I saw other than I and others saw it. > > > > I do not know whether video or movie cameras trained on the guy as he > > lifted off would have captured it; I strongly suspect that they would > > not have. If I had to speculate, I would suspect that the phenomenon we > > witnessed was -- if it truly existed -- taking place on an alternate > > level of reality that might not have been captured by technology on this > > level of reality. > > > > I am equally comfortable with the notion that it didn't really exist at > > all, but that brings up more unanswerable questions. I don't know about > > you, but I have a harder time with the notion that someone can hypnotize > > 200-500 people at a time into seeing the same thing -- *without ever > > pre-announcing what it was that they were going to see* -- less > > believable than that something was actually happening. Something else. > > > > WHAT that something else was, I have no idea. > > > > Do I feel somewhat uncomfortable saying this? You betcha. I share almost > > all of Curtis and salyavin's skepticism about such things. But I really > > *did* see this shit. Over and over and over, for an extended period of > > time. > > > > Am I supposed to *deny* that I saw it, or come up with some convenient > > skeptic's "explanation" for what it was I and hundreds of others saw? > > That, to me, would be the "easy path," a cop-out. > > > > I *did* see it. I have NO FUCKING IDEA what exactly it was that I saw, > > only that I saw it. Many times. > > > > Lemme tell you, that is a great deal harder to live with than those who > > think that witnessing levitation would be a Good Thing That Would Make > > Their Incarnation might think. > > >
