Come and vote about the pacing walls in FST

[Mari]

Hello!

There’s been discussion about pacing in the FST chats. Now I have been asked to post the poll about adding pacing walls, and write about my thoughts and guidance on them. I rushed first when I joined FST, and Mystress asked me to tell my story about it. It already is here on Tea Room somewhere, but my story is a good information about  what can happen so I write about it again.

When I found FST I had already had my initial awakening. Since 1996 I had been tormented by astral entities and critters all days and especially nights. My psychic vision to that level was opened, it was totally out of control. I joined first school that seemed to understand what I was going through to get help. I was trained to become a spiritual warrior, clairvoyant and an energy healer.  I was doing fairly good for many years, until I started to have somewhat hard kundalini awakening in 2002-2003. After my initial kundalini awakening I remained broken because the teachings of that spiritual tradition didn’t nourish somebody who has awakened kundalini and is a shaman too.  Kundalini flow started to go down, until it was only a small warmth in my heart and spine at best. I was empty and depressed again, suffering from constant anxiety and starving for more spiritual juice.

I found Kundalini Teacher and started reading, got obsessed about the site and the energy. Because of my decade long training in “demons” I had a strong feeling that FST is demonic, but couldn’t help but eventually join the course early 2007 because of vivid dreams about Mystress and the strong need to join. I was starving and spent hours daily at the course, reading Tea Room, lessons and watching videos. I also thought I already knew a lot about spirituality and kundalini. Because of my ego idea of my understanding and knowledge, I felt the lessons were quite basic level and breezed through them. I started to have a lot of vivid visions, colorful mystical dreams, kundalini rushing up my spine exploding in my head giving strong energy orgasms in my head. I thought this is cool and continued overloading myself, not seeing the signs of danger. My mate was worried, seeing me spending way too much time in trance in front of the computer, and the rest of the time being pretty spaced out and not sleeping much. Mind you, my son was then 2 years old… I couldn’t care less about his worry and continued feeding the Shakti.

Until one night I woke up. It was like the gates of Hell were opened. So burning all consuming destructive fire was blasted up my body. I was in a bonfire… The death terror that had been just a constant anxiety for past years exploded and I was in my own personal death horror Hell. I couldn’t sleep for many weeks because if I lay down and relaxed the hell fires blasted up consuming my whole body. During the days I was shivering in the heavenly visions and energies, but it was so huge it felt very scary. I was deeply afraid I am going completely insane. In the nights it was hell fire. I projected all my fear on Mystress, so sure FST is evil demonic place. I had to flee from FST, I couldn’t function at all, I was loosing fast my mental health, I was burning and deeply shaken. Like the tarot cards, the Tower and the Death together. Oh yeah, when the hell gates opened, my mate dumped me the next day because I was again going crazy and he didn’t want to carry me anymore… I was alone with a 2 years old baby, being a complete mess scared for my life… I went to doctor and got antidepressants and sleeping pills. I was scared I could loose my child because of my insanity.

I was couple of weeks resting at my fathers but his new family got scared of my condition and I had to go away. My mother continued caring for me. Her deep faith that I can survive this like I had survived many challenges already before inside of my mind, helped me tremendously. Other people around me didn't really have that faith anymore. I was away from FST for a few months but when I got a bit better my curiosity led me back, and soon I was in deep troubles again and I had to flee the second time. Death terror was overwhelming . My guides ordered me to come back to FST over and over again.

Eventually I learned to listen to my body, and take it easy with the lessons. At some point I had enough courage to write to the forum about my condition and got help. I started from the beginning, taking one lesson in a week. I took Tummo initiation and it also calmed the raging kundalini. I could quit the antidepressants. I realized I had released my old demonic world view, surrendered the weary wounded spiritual warrior archetype and started growing to eventually be a vessel of the Goddess instead. I found deep bliss, kundalini became a blissful sensual ecstatic force in my life guiding me and giving the magical touch into whatever I did. I had a revelation that FST is a dynamite for the ego, and wondered why there isn’t any boundaries. There had to be more people like me, who are starved orphans who overeat and at the same time think they are more advanced than they actually are… I still continued to have some harder challenges in my life, but it was way different level.

The simple elegant way of expressing fundamental spiritual truths lures egos to arrogantly think it’s unnecessary to pace and listen to the suggestions about one lesson in a week. It’s like how very good teachers do things actually. Great teachers can express difficult things in simple ways, so they can be integrated and it creates a strong foundation for further study. I had already seen it in university, but didn’t bother to apply it to FST too at first. FST is a real thing… I got new life, when I surrendered enough, but there was so much suffering I could have avoided if I just had listened to the elders here… I am aware Goddess has it handled, and it went how it was supposed to. But there are people who do go insane for good in this world too.

So there’s the Chinese curse effect we students are doing to ourselves when we speed through the course. It doesn’t have to be so huge crash like I had. It can be on a smaller scale. We rush, got overloaded and get stuck on some stubborn karmic pattern and leave thinking FST sucks and it’s for kindergarten level students. Or we get seriously overloaded and flee terrified thinking FST is a gate to eternal Hell like I did, or some other story our ego creates to keep us in a state of resistance and ruin the growing opportunity. Breezing through the course is a state of resistance, and it prevents genuine growth. Growing takes time and patience…

I think the trauma my son had when his mother was in kundalini psychosis, has mostly healed. But it took time and I feel still some guilt about it. My son has had lots of healing over these years, he reacted very stong to the feeling he is loosing his mother to insanity and his family fell apart at the same time. He reacts to stress with hyperactivity and anger, so it hasn’t been easy for my oversensitive nerves, when kundalini broke me open.

When observing how strict boundaries my son needs to feel safe, and how he thinks he is much more ready to many things he wants to do than he really is, I vote for strict pacing walls in FST. We are often like that too, small children in front of the Goddess, thinking we are far more mature than we actually are...  Although from the higher level boundaries in FST are seen as fear based, I feel it’s protecting the students from themselves. Maybe leading to more students having a blissful, more balanced FST journey and more graduations. It’s kind of alarming to hear how many students make the same mistakes I did, and how they just do not listen what the teacher says.

I invite everybody to express what their discernment says about the pacing walls in FST, maybe share some more personal experiences about rushing in FST and most of all, I invite you to vote 

Love,
Mari

[Ernst]

Thank you so much Mari for writing this deep insight of your experiences. It has really touched me.

I had absolute no idea about Kundalini ... but Goddess brought me to this place. I was pacing - just reading the lessons - oh yes I was feeling the energy but my arrogant ego thought its "just knowledge" like one of this on-line courses - similar content of teacher.

Mystress made me aware of my pacing and that I had treated FST like junk-food - like a thunder struck I realized of what I did. So sorry that I took FST for granted.

FST is now precious to me and I "eat" every lesson like the best meal on earth - very slowly and I truly love it.

I am for the pacing wall - it might make egos like mine go wild in the beginning but if something is restricted it gains on value in the limited ego perspective.

have a wonderful day
e.

[gamo]

Thank you so much Mari, for sharing your story with us. I was moved, not only by the story itself, but by your honesty and kindness in sharing it.

Gamo

[robink]

Mari,

Your post is really charged. It is a really great journey of yours and wonderful to read. Thanks for sharing it  .

I too vote in favor of pacing walls and perhaps more frequent ones may put all concerns regarding this issue to rest.

Peace be with you

Robin

[Mystress]

Thank you so much Mari, for sharing your story with us. I was moved, not only by the story itself, but by your honesty and kindness in sharing it.

Gamo

  Why not share your story too Gamo? Do you think its better to pat Mari on the head or to support her by responding with bravery and honesty your own self?

[astoe]

I understand that getting the most out of this course implies no more than 1 lesson a week. It is not difficult for me to stick to this. So I make my own wall. If putting a digital wall can be of bigger benefit then go on.

However, when I first arrived at FST I didn't get that every click is actually an energy  transmission, so I clicked through the 3 first lessons looking for something more "hands-on" until reading about pacing in the forum.

I think I would have rather been interested in learning what is happening more precisely at every click. Is it every time shakti in a stronger dosage, or is it a spell that transmits specific information? Yes, maybe that is an important point. I am not talking about unveiling the magic behind FST, but I think if we are better informed about what happens... Sorry I am curious

Anyway,  I am happy and thankful. Thanks for everything here.

[Martin]

Mari.

Thank you so much. A very helpful and welcome post.
It has triggered a lot of stuff. In regards to the pacing walls and other things. I have been trying to write it all down, to respond, but there is so much and it's not always easy to write (so much).

Deep breaths.

love
Martin

[gamo]

Thank you, Mystress, for calling me on my stuff. I will try to be succinct:   

I had a kundalini awakening in 1996. Six months prior to that, I had been ready to fall asleep, when a nearly audible voice asked me, "Are you ready to go?"  I immediately thought, go? Was I being asked if I was ready to die, or what? A few seconds was all I needed to answer yes to whatever the question implied. It was a moment of total surrender on my part. I surrendered with every part of myself to whatever it meant, and it was the most joyful and peaceful feeling I had ever had up to that point. A few days later, my husband and I separated, and I moved out into the world and my own place. It was something I had wanted for years, and it had happened almost magically.

I was brought up, from the cradle, in a strict Christian church. All my friends were churchy people too, and I spent many years going to all different kinds of Christian churches. I also received Catholic instruction and baptism in preparation for marriage. I mention this, because I feel it was a good preparation for my later decisions, also, I have always had a lot of faith.  Sometime around college age however, my personal vision of God began to grow beyond the church-taught one. I stopped going to any church, although my faith seemed to grow. By the time I left my marriage, my studies had increased to encompass all kinds of women's studies, Wicca, Ascention materials, you named it. I was actually studying Ascention when the kundalini was awakened. Consequently, the Kundalini Rising was very slow and gentle. I felt helped and supported through it, and after it broke through the crown, my head felt as big as a house.

Afterward, my energy was everywhere. I began greedily trying to study everything at once. I felt like a starving person at a banquet, gobbling information as fast as I could get my mind there. Every time I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, I was drowning in red light. It began to make me nauseated. What felt like jolts of electricity actually bounced me off my mattress. I would wake up and then hear a voice telling me to sit up and look, and I would see myself in the mirror surrounded by what looked like a beautiful orange aura. During this time there was much joy and feelings of love so all-encompassing I would cry. This went on for a few months and eventually seemed to calm down.

What followed next was night after night for a year or more, of study during dreamtime. Every night I would be sitting in some "class". Maybe we would be in a meadow wearing robes. Maybe we would be on some beach with pink sand, or under trees, but always a group studying something. I woke up tired every morning, having studied all night long! I asked in meditation what was going on, and I was told that I was learning to use energy. Hmmmm.....ok.  Finally after four years or so, I decided that I needed to bring all these things into more focus and try to corral my energy somewhat. I ended up ordaining as a Buddhist nun. And that is where I am now, twelve years later. I do believe now that if there had been pacing walls when I first met this site, my computer would not have crashed. I was just too greedy about FST too!

After hearing some of the stories of people having such a hard time in their awakening, I felt that I really had nothing to share that would help anyone, but if this story (and I apologize for the length of it) can help in any way, I am happy to share it. After all the churches and study and blah, blah, blah.....I realized that Goddess had it handled all along.

Love,
Gamo   

[Mystress]

  Gamo:
It doesnt need to help anyone: it is nice to get to know you.

  Astoe:
   it is a combination of both. The energy does not increase as such- Shakti is infinite and infinite large or small is still infinite!!  Your ability to receive it, increases as it and the vibrational information of the lessons goes to work on you.

   I wont speak directly about creating FST... that would create preconceptions that would affect your experience of it. Instead I will tell you about some other sacred art.

  In building the tree Yggdrasill in secondlife, (it has been rebuilt 3x so far, each time I moved and bigger each time) I had a broad yet narrow focus. The World tree of norse legend, maps onto the chakra systems and specifically the central channel, which maps onto the kaballah tree of life... these "trees" are all reflections of who and what we are, we see only our reflections.

  All these energies went into the prims. I thought of  on all the trees I have loved; My love for the great cedars in my yard today, the crabapple of my youth, the years of my childhood spent wandering poplar and willow forest, looking for faieries and sometimes feeling them. The tree on the front lawn of the house I grew up in, one a great weeping maple, laying beneath it looking up through the branches... the pine that started as a tiny twig brought home from school on arbour day and grew as I did.. (but got much taller!)   The tree on the beach near my old home  in Kitsilano, where I would sometimes go at night during the hardest most miserable years of my own awakening, climbing it hiding up in the branches watching the people walk by on the beach below unaware of me. .. looking out at sea and city lights reflected.

  I considered the beneficial effect for Kundalites of sitting a while with your back against a tree, letting its flow adjust yours... merging energies with it.

  Yggdrasill is the result of days of building over a period of years, encoding these thoughts, images, energies, emotions into the virtual structure.

  I thought of my own experience of the consciousness of trees,  the many times of reaching for empathic unity with a beautful tree  abandoning my individual self to experience its consciousness...  its so different sense of the passage of time and seasons, its surrender to flow. A tree has no ego, it knows it is Divine and so is everything so it does not make a fuss about it. It simply Is. "The dharma is the hedge at the bottom of the garden."

  I reached for knowledge, into the collective consciousness, the millennia of human relationships with trees, from our prehuman history of living in them,  to druid oak circles and the sacred groves to Inanna of Solomon's time.  Filtering out the desructive, loggers and forest fires etc. I invoked the spirit of the great mythical tree Yggdrasil itself, so alive in the collective consciousness and the energy of the human central channel where Kundalini rises.

   The Shakti energy goes into anything I focus on, anything creative I do...  and at the end of building, each time I considered it finished, it was given to Goddess for adjustment improvement and maintenance. Purified of any stray thoughts that wandered in, so only the inspiration Goddess provided, remained.
  When you sit in Yggdrasill, these energies of information and insights are transmitted to you at a vibrational level, as energy. The tree is aware of you, it has a loving consciousness and your own Divine beloved filters, selects and translates these energies of information into thoughts, emotions and insights your conscious mind can understand. What you are able to understand, changes as you grow and so your experience of the tree is never quite the same twice. 

[Duu]

Yes Im for it.
I would like to point that going too fast is not only problem of novices in FST but it can happen in many ways even outside of lessons. Or even at time when one should know better.

Spiritual growth and growth of any kind is I think finding and pushing boundaries bit by bit.
I casual life we hardly even touch the comfort zones, we dance nicely around them sometimes even without knowing where there are. But pushing too much can create mayhem and actually does not help to growth that much. In worse scenario the effect can be even opposite as we might unconsciously strengthen the zone boundaries and create new defense ego parts around them.

I experienced also an overload situation that I very much remember. Im unsure if it happened
out of curiosity or just by some mix of desires for growth. It was after many months in FST already. But I was at the time not able to recognize my condition and also usability of my discretion was diminished by the overload.
I noticed it only when a series of “accidents” happened in my external life. And their coincidence really started relentless push on my ego. Until simply my life crumbled down and I was in no position to do anything about it. My livelihood was badly affected and for a male ego thats another layer of complications aside from simple survival fears. The situation was complicated by the fact that I was not balanced enough nor in the position to do anything to really improve it.
So for me this fact was especially painful. And loss of friends, trust and many other things added to it.
I received help from FST group and from Mystress. And the overload energies calmed quickly and I regained balance, but the wild effect in my external life lasted for many months.
And trough the months I slowly worked trough all ego issues that surfaced in that burst.
And ofcourse some damage was just done and life moved on.
Only due to grace of Godess I was able to learn from the situation. And due to good advice I calmed my resistance to regain some perspective and continued learning. Even if I felt at times that it would be my end, and I was not able to handle it. So, It could end worse, lots of pain and nothing learned.

And after writing this I discovered there is still some healing to be done there, and it is 2 years from the event.

Love Duu

[ant]

i voted no, i would say yes if the walls only lasted a year
ant

[Mystress]

  The pacing wall mechanism is simple. When you click a "next" button it compares the current date against the registration date of your membership. If enough days have passed to be one lesson per week it lets you through. It does not let you through until then.

   So yes,  after your first year all pages are open (up to the grail ritual if you have not graduated.)  You have all the bookmarks you made to revisit any page, any time. 
  It wont affect members who have been around longer than one year unless I reset your registration date.

[astoe]

Mystress, your post is like an ancient chant that ceaselessly makes its way from the very beginning. It reads like poetry, but it is more, it is the infinite wisdom of things which come and go. Consciousness arising and withdrawing in an eternal cycle of ebb and flow.

It is a voice I have been missing. I will ask the tree if he wants to share some wisdom.

Thank you.

[Martin]

Goddess, thank You for the stories which have been shared.

My experience is a little different from the one related here by Mari and Gamo.

I have not rushed the course at all. In fact, after 18 months I am still not passed lesson 20.
I have been wondering why it is that people go fast through the course, and the stories here have helped.
In lesson 8, I think, FST instructs that before one goes any further, the grounding must be done for 40 days, until it is permanent. When I first got to that lesson, I was not sure if I had the grounding right: I imagined the energy going through my head and out my feet, and I wondered if that was enough to continue on in the course. I wasn't sure. I didn't know what feelings other people had.
I now realise that although I was imagining the energy, I was not feeling it. There is no comparison to experience, and although on K teacher and in FST energy is often discussed, unless one has experienced it, then it is difficult to draw an accurate perspective.
It has taken me well over a year to feel the energy comfortably, and I am glad I did not ignore what I saw as a strict instruction to get grounded before continuing (I’m also a bit lazy).
I did think, previously, that many who rush ahead have done so without getting the grounding right, but I think I was wrong. What Mari and Gamo describe is a long relationship with things (energy and spirits) that I am only just beginning.



My learning has been done mainly through books and bloody noses. I did a philosophy degree, and I have formally studied different religions, and quite a few of my “ experiences" involve the written word.
I did my dissertation on Nietzsche when I was 23. I am now 33, and I realise that when I originally read him, I didn't understand him at all: I don't think I've read much of any philosopher since my degree, mainly because I am still thinking through what I learnt all that time ago.
My degree itself, due to an unscheduled prison sentence, took me 6 years rather than 3. I was glad of it because I needed that time to grow up and to learn, simply, how to read.
I know, from a forced experience, that taking time really helps.
I remember when I first started taking my philosophy degree I was so scared. I couldn't understand anything. Everyone else seemed to be able to. I was scared that I was not clever, and that I wasn't capable of doing it. Fear which I fought by reading (in prison) the most difficult things I could find until I could understand them...I have a lot of experience of reading things that I've no idea what they mean!
Now, when I read them, I understand that no 20 year old could (or should even want to) understand them, and I don’t think bad of myself for not being capable back then. I could have pretended to myself that I understood them, judged them...but then I would be living in some fantasy world where 20 year olds know what they are talking about. I know a lot of 40 year olds who believe such nonsense, and, thus, have not learnt a thing since they were 20.
Broadly speaking, I would like to give to all students of FST my recommendation not to rush learning anything, least of all FST.


In terms of the particular experiences of those going fast through the lessons, I think there are 2 things going on:

1) Those who have a tangible experience of the energy, rushing ahead through the course because they are accustomed to the subject matter.
2) Those who do not have a tangible experience of the energy, rushing ahead because they did not take the grounding instruction at face value; to wait to feel the energy as it instructs. Is this an issue? The course says one lesson a week, but I see that as a maximum not a minimum. Are there people doing FST who have taken the whole course, at 1 lesson a week, but are only just getting the grounding right?

Maybe there aren't so many ‘2s’...How many people would chose to take a course on Fire Serpent Tantra if they had no experience of energy? I am not sure.

For those who have experience of the energy and spirits before joining FST, what I would advise is a deeper understanding of literature and the power of the written word, and even the spoken word. FST is unusual, in that it is an on-line, mostly written, Divine Feminine spiritual path...I don't think in the past such learning would have involved too much writing. Also, would it be beneficial for those accustomed to reading new age writers, although I don’t know how this could be done, to understand that Mystress’ work is above par?



When I took a class on Plato in Uni, the professor didn't talk about what Plato thought so much. He instead spent the time discussing the relationship that a teacher has with the pupil, and the dynamics involved in that. What is being learnt? Who is teaching? Is it a remembering?
Plato himself was writing in opposition to those Sophists who claimed, through fancy arguments, to be the elected bearers of knowledge, so how can Plato, who on the one hand is dismissing false teachers, on the other hand present  his own metaphysics as truth? The answer is, he doesn't. Well, maybe that is the answer. lol
The first book that our professor gave us to read on the same Plato course was on Shamanism. I remember, later on that year, the same professor saying that in his view knowledge comes vertically not horizontally. It is only recently that I have come to understand those words.

I think those who have an experience of spirit/energy would do well to stop and think about how knowledge is processed and how it takes time, and how even the simplest phrase can take years to be understood, if ever at all, and from this, respect the lessons more.

I think those who do not have an experience of spirit/energy before they join FST, if there are any, would benefit from clear assertions by those already taking the course that to ground properly, it is not simply a matter of thinking the energy, but that one must feel it. Also, I think, to let those who are starting the course understand that it takes time to feel the energy.


For the two years before I joined FST, I went through some hardship. Lots of nonsense. Even after joining FST, I was still experiencing the effects of what had happened. Trauma, etc...If I had been taking the course at 1 lesson a week, or rushed ahead, or joined FST earlier, as well I might,  I would still have been suffering from the effects of that trauma deep into the course. In such a scenario, I doubt if I would have been able to distinguish the effects of my own past trauma from the effects of new learning in FST.

What happened to me was that after not speaking to me at all for 18 months, my “friends” declared me insane, and sent a closer friend to ask me to section myself (legally check oneself into a mental health hospital), which I did for 3 days,

- It was difficult getting out because the doctors couldn't work out why I was there. I told them that my friend had asked me to go, but they were like “well, what did you do?”, and I had to try to explain to the doctors that my friend simply asked me. This confused them. -

I hadn't even seen my “friends" for 18 months. I had been terrified throughout that time of making any comment or contact because I guessed they would use anything to condemn me. It turned out I was right.

What happened had nothing to do with FST, and perhaps even not that much to do with them, but by the time it came round, I knew not to mention FST, (not that I had anyone left to mention it to) not because I thought FST was weird or out there, though well it might be, but because I guessed it could be used to “explain” my condition.
Before I’d even joined FST, my reading material was brought up as evidence for my insanity. I don’t remember mentioning the Bible much, to my “friends” apart from to point out that the standard, U.K Enlightened Atheistic Association’s opinion of the Bible as being “evil" is itself a biblical perspective...
...however, the fact that I didn't think it was “evil”, nor would agree to the ridiculous assertion that it was (and that evil was rampant in the World), gave them an excuse to label me, and then it became my religious and spiritual interests that were called into question.

My point is that from my experience, people always blame the reading material which they haven't read themselves. Blaming the wacky cult has been standard procedure for many years. Blaming ‘not thinking the Bible is evil’ is still quite new, but no less uninformed, nor any more interesting. 


To illustrate: I did mention to my brother about Mystress and FST and K Mystic Isle, and K list, and I dare say he would have been concerned about the cult I had joined, but as it happens, he actually thought Mystress was a figment of my imagination!!!!!
Just goes to show, how desperate people are to label others as insane when they mention something new and unfamiliar. This is while I was working as a mental health support worker...Can you imagine? I go to work to help people who are Schizophrenic. I treat them, help them get better, explain to registered mental health nurses about the gaps in their understanding in mental health, as well as to my co-workers, and my family and friends, when I get home, create/live in some fantasy in which everything I have ever told them is false...it certainly gave me empathy with the guys I was looking after.

I did care for one gentleman whose condition was exasperated by a stream of support workers who thought he was “crazy". Officially he had mental health issues, but in my experience, there is no such thing as “crazy".
When he used to talk about the dreams he had the night before, I used to listen, rather than running out of the flat like everyone else seemed to do. By the time I left he was much better, and used to come out of his flat lots: for years he’d just hid himself away. Sadly, he died a handful of weeks after I finished working there.
I think that people are all too willing to label someone else as crazy, and all too often, this has consequences. If I’d have joined FST earlier, or mentioned it more, or done it faster, I am sure I would have been taken aside by my family or friends to have a little chat about the cult I had joined...gosh, it wouldn't have been the first time. I remember going to Christian, religious retreat when I was 14, through school. Afterwards, I had never felt so good. Big shock when my friends took me aside to have a little chat a couple of weeks later. I didn't expect it at all. I suppose it is funny: the guy who took me aside, a committed atheist, ended up becoming a Christian so he could marry a Christian girl.

People are afraid of brain washing. We’ve been “brain washed” into believing in it.

Mari, I don’t have the experiences you speak of, with the fire, and the gates of Hell, though I think I may have taken the wrong turn at Albuquerque, but I do know what it is like to have family and friends doubt my mental state, and I know, also, in my case, that that really had little to do with my behaviour, (though I admit I was acting and speaking in odd ways) and rather more do to with the perspectives of those who I might tell about “energy” and the like.
I remember telling my brother about the possibility of leaving one’s body, and he played the concerned “this man’s crazy” card. I told him a little while later that a psychiatrist who I had had the pleasure of meeting, through my section, had told me that she knew lots of clients with PTSD who reported leaving their body. He shrugged, and suddenly didn't think I was crazy any more. Just like that. I felt a lot better straight away.

I think, Mari, with your son, I would suggest not feeling guilty about his experience. It’s not my place, I know, to tell you what to do, and nor can I wave a magic wand. I just wonder...whatever the cause of whatever mental state you had, there is no such thing as “crazy” and it is impossible, I say, for someone to even think that someone else is “crazy”....the unexplainable illness...
Kids think, quite rightly, (Why Mummy? Why?) that everything can be explained. It takes years of education to forget that! 

One of my great fears has been going totally mad and never coming back. I guess the fear is still there a little bit. In the few years of mental health work I have had, I have never experienced a client with such a condition, I don’t think - a client who is beyond help or redemption (though I am starting to wonder if those with autism have created a sock puppet...).
Most clients have a sustained history of social, cultural and emotional deprivation. The myth that someone can go totally “mad" is, in my view, nothing more than an old myth. Even Nietzsche, who is the only person I can think of who might be described as having a break down and going mad, had his reasons. He spent his “mad years” writing to England to get them to invade Europe. No wonder they called him mad, though some might argue he was the only one who wasn’t.

To remember the client who died, he experienced many things, and he seemed to think he was the only one in the World... He was only 40, but because of the poverty in the area in which he lived, the internet is not so common, and he had no idea that there were others out there who he could talk to. If he could have used the internet, I guess he wouldn't have believed in invisible government agents coming to give him missions. Who knows? I think he thought he had totally lost it...not a bit of it. It was other’s perspectives which were the problem, and they were easy to deal with:
“He’s not “crazy” and as a support worker you have no place to abuse our clients by gossiping about them with me when no-one else is listening”.

- to tell his story, he was not damaged because of his spiritual experiences. He was abused as a child, and, I learnt towards the very end of my work there, from a co-worker/body builder/bouncer, who had recently rejoined the company, and who used to run the house our client was staying in, that he had “stepped over the line” at some point, and been punished, resulting in his current mental state. Can you believe it? The bullies who contributed to his condition, or so they thought, were the ones being paid to look after him...very sad. He used to tell me that the people who used to run the house were really nasty. I didn't know what to think, and so didn't. Turned out he was exactly right.

In regards to the partitions, I don’t like the idea because I think the instructions are clear enough, and it would limit the responsibility of the students. However, it is unfair on Mystress and FST that the lesson on learning to respect the written or spoken word should come through not respecting what Mystress has instructed. Regardless of whether someone’s mental anguish is caused by too much FST info, or from past and present experience, if one has rushed ahead despite the instruction not to, then I guess the karma all gets rolled up in a way that, from what Mystress and students are saying, is not desirable, so maybe the partitions are necessary...I don't know.

Perhaps letting people know that taking less than one lesson a week is acceptable; that the one lesson a week is a maximum, not a requirement.


Maybe this would help.




and exhale...


much love

Martin

[robink]

I would like to offer a different perspective:

When I enrol in a subject at university, they usually present students with a course outline which consists of one lecture a week, course notes etc. The lectures cover one topic only and sufficient time is allowed between lectures for integration of the subject material. In this way, the course structure is enforced, everybody progresses at the same rate. In many online courses students are not given access to the next week lecture material and quizzes until the commencement of that week. Subject convenors would never allow students to complete a 4 year degree in a year. It is the right of universities to set course guidelines and requirements, which students agree to when enrolling in the course. Universities never hand students 4 years worth of lecture notes to study at their own pace with one exam at the end.

Not allowing students to overload beyond 24 credits points of subjects in one semester is not fear based. The professors know how much time should be devoted to each subject in order for students to integrate the material and be able to cope with the difficult stuff to come. Universities are responsible for the students learning and are obligated to provide the most effective teaching methods for the students benefit.

In any training that is high risk, i.e: hazardous materials etc. Trainees are always thoroughly examined and sufficient training time (theory and practical) allowed prior to trainees being allowed to operate certain equipment. Companies are responsible for the safety of their employees and have a right to enforce rules.  They would be negligent if they didn’t.

I believe the same philosophy can be applied to FST, Mystress sets the course structure, 1 lesson per week, we agree to it when signing up, students are not allowed to progress faster than that. It is the same as in any other course structure for any other subject. Pacing walls just set the pace of the course structure, really for the students own benefit and also as a safety mechanism. The teacher is responsible for the safety of the students. This seems logical to me, simply what is most effective and responsible, not fear based.

Peace,

Robin

[Mystress]

 and remember Mystress says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw5RkzbHb-w&NR=1&feature=endscreen

"... keep on waiting,
anticipating
for that soft voice
to talk to me at night"

[Mari]

Thank you for all the replies and sharing It's been a pleasure to read them.

As a final note, what has happened to me was all my highest good, guided and destiny. I needed the harsh clearing and I also needed to see that FST is the real thing. Otherwise I would have just breezed through the course and moved on.

I had seen a shaman who would take me as her apprentice in a vision about a year before joining FST. It took some years before I realised it was a valid vision about Mystress and me. I also had the feeling I would become the teacher and healer in FST lineage. I dumped the thoughts away thinking they are only my arrogance speaking for a long time. Well it has turned out to be true, altho I disagree with some parts that Mystress thinks I am.

My shamanic guide made one of his first conscious romantic encounters to me using Depeche Mode. Here's one song he has been playing to me regarding all this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzWR1wPPgzw

[Ernst]

Very good - the pacing walls is in place and I hit it. Seems I am one week/days too fast.

Thank you very much for the effort.

PS:  Searching my misplaced keys by asking the Heart Voice - it works .

[Mystress]

My shamanic guide made one of his first conscious romantic encounters to me using Depeche Mode. Here's one song he has been playing to me regarding all this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzWR1wPPgzw

So proud to have you, Priestess.

  The past 5 years or so I have been guided to learn or recover some lost tantric magics, the ball of fire at my womb is one outcome of it.  I felt a few years ago that the next step was to teach some of it to someone and I asked Goddess "who is my priestess?"

  Got pointed straight at Mari, immediately. Made me smile. I said nothing to her but I opened a magic door to a secret place, just for her. She showed up there within hours, confirming. It was much later she told me she felt she was destined to become an FST teacher since she first saw the page. So, Free will is Goddess law but there is a place for destiny, too. 

  Not going to tell about the place... when it is part of your job to teach people to become psychic it can be difficult to have some privacy lol!

  Right to privacy is a cosmic law though so... don't try to find the place, you won't be able to unless I open a door for you. The stuff will find its way into FST levels 2&3 someday. The training itself is still ongoing, and private. 

  The priestess assistant to a High Priestess is called the handmaiden. Mari is my handmaiden, and my heir to FST and all my work. She thinks its silly because shes only 10 years younger but it is true anyway.    Goddess gets it right.

Song gave me waves of goosebumps...

Here are the lyrics

http://www.elyrics.net/read/d/depeche-mode-lyrics/light-lyrics.html

[Mystress]

  The final vote was 10-2 in favour of installing the 'pacing walls.' They are now live and renamed Veil of Mysteries.

  Not sure if the vote was accurate because I think not everybody knew they were supposed to vote in the poll at the top as well as post but the posts were overwhelmingly in favour, which pleased me. 

   I did not write the poll myself because my efforts to do so threw me for a loop, made me quite ill for several days.   To put walls in FST of my own choice, out of a fear based motive would be to put those same walls in myself, and I would fall from grace and become ineffective as a teacher. Mari was passionate about the idea but writing the poll kicked her ass too.. We Shamans are kind of forbidden from giving energy to fear... and I cannot bring fear into the structure of FST and remain ascended. 

  For my part.. some of the messages were hard to read, never wanted people to suffer ... but if people are stupid enough to listen to ego and go too fast, well... karma bites!

  I wrote pages and pages while processing this issue for myself, some was quite spewing emotional and almost none was posted. I will post a few bits of it here today, as coda...

  What the poll question  came down to for me, is about the art.

  Writing about Yggdrasill led me to uncover the core reason why students skipping ahead gets to me so much: it is because it is a deep insult to my ART. I had been setting that idea aside as being ego based, but it is not. A good artist is a slave to the muse. Goddess is my Muse.

FST is a MYSTERY school. WTF is the point of a mystery if you try to skip right to the end? Supposed to enjoy it slow, let the mysteries unfold in you, instead people skip ahead to read all the spoilers and completely miss the intended experience... then complain to me!

  Mom tells a story of me on my first day of kindergarden. She heard it from the teacher, I was there. I heard an instruction to draw a bowl. So I did, just like the ones at home, had to represent the circular foot ridge on the bottom with two lumps like a cross section but not hollow, (yes I did think of that) one continuous line and it was done. Teacher sees it and gets cross at me! Shes got a thick English accent and it takes a few repeats for me to understand I got it wrong, she wanted a ball.. (me thinking, a ball? serious? you just want me to draw a circle? -knew the difference between flat and 3d sphere-  cannot be right,  is too easy!) and I draw a ball for her one quick swoop of the pencil. The look on her face made me wonder what did I do wrong now?  I looked around at the other children for a clue... saw them still struggling, pencil in fist to slowly scratch out a lumpy shape... (oh, that was supposed to be hard... guess school is going to be easy!) (wrong again!)

  5 years old, drew a perfect circle in less than a second. Artist fucking prodigy. If my parents had recognised it as a sign to put me in a school for the gifted, perhaps my story would be quite different. Since mom can do it too, she thought nothing more than "chip off the old block."

  You know, they say some artists have "star quality."
If you work in the business a little, you learn it means "pain in the ass picky controlling bitch but soo goood she is worth it." Perfect people eh? Yes. The best artists are slaves to the Muse, it is not for themselves they are controlling. They have a vision that no one else can see and it has to come out in order to be shared. There is another truism, "nobody becomes an artist because they want to. You become an artist, because you must."

  Great art is not fast food.

Someone told me you cannot tour the Louvre in less than a week. I think I would take at least  a month to drink it all in.. maybe a year! What is the use of trying to stop someone from rushing through the halls to make a "done" checkmark on their itinerary? How do you explain the moon to one blind from birth?

  How does one approach a great work of art? You examine it, letting your eyes trace the lines, colours and structure, you feel it, sit with it, contemplate its story, immerse yourself in appreciation and drink it in.

I want to Germany with a friend in 1994, he took me to see the Chagall Windows in Mainz. The work of Marc Chagall has delighted me ever since I discovered it in my teens.

  I fell into the beauty of the stained glass widows of the church, entranced... next thing I know my friend is poking me, the cathedral is closing. Hours have gone by while I was enraptured in satori. I am filled with the beauty of the artistic expressions of this great man.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=Chagall+windows+mainz+germany&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=977&bih=479&wrapid=tlif133831842974010&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=Zx7FT_qFL6nO2AX5_LXvAQ

  Imagine if you were to approach each FST lesson like that? So far as I know, nobody ever has... and you have no idea what you are missing. There is so much richness in there, the deeper you look the more there is...

  What is the use of telling people, slow down and savour, this is great art? If you have to tell them then they will never see... they will just see boasting, and disregard it.

The fast food generation wants it all, wants it now, and packed to go. So instead of a wine taster I get a frat boy at a kegger, drinking himself sick and not tasting it at all. Wham bam thankya ma'am to Goddess?

  A good friend once told me, my biggest failing as a teacher is I expect people to know stuff, that is obvious to me but not obvious to them, at all...  My book is not published because I know there must be some gaping holes where some knowledge is assumed?

  So I see my error. I did not know my students need to begin with a lesson on art appreciation before starting FST. It's art, stupid!  Do you really think Goddess can be defined, in words? LMAO or as an item on the fast food menu.

John Lennon wrote a story of meeting Yoko.  He was tripping on acid, went with some people to an avant garde art opening. One of the installations was a tall rickety ladder leading to a tiny door on the ceiling. He climbed the ladder and opened the tiny door, and was delighted that behind the door it said "Yes." Thrilled that the message was positive. He had to meet the artist- Yoko Ono.

  Can you imagine if somebody at the foot of the ladder said to John.. "you open the door at the top and it say 'yes' behind it." Spoilers totally ruin the experience of the art. 

  The Veil of Mystery is not about fear or control, it is about artistic integrity, people experiencing the art that is FST, as it was meant to be expereinced. No fear, only beauty, romance, bliss, Goddess is in da house!

   Crazy Van Gogh, think he had a choice to not paint? Ever slowly follow the layered spirals of "starry night" round and round with your eyes like walking a labyrinth, embracing each brush stroke ... moonlit buildings becoming 3d in the peripheral as you travel the spirals until you disappear into the stars? There is a moment of perfect nothing, then eyes blink in reflex and it is just a painting again, and you are yourself.

  Many thanks to all who responded to this poll. I have more to share about it later, you helped me get clearer and I am grateful.