Hey everyone!
I just turned 28. Anyways, I've posted a few times on the forum, but generally just small posts. I have yet to formally introduce myself, and this appears to be as good of a place as any. I can't say that I've had any 'defining moments' or anything in my life bringing me here specifically. Generally, I've always been one to question things in life. When I was a young child, I used to consider the possibility that everyone around me was a robot and I was the only REAL person in my circle of family/friends. Actually, not so much 'robots', but almost like actors in a play. They were all actors and I was the only real individual 'living the play'. I always wondered if this was really just 'my' world and everyone around me was there to test me, confuse me, etc. To this day, I still don't know if this was based on pure self-importance (they can't be like me - be as complex as me) or whether it was some small thing inside me that realized the overly mechanical nature of life and society. Usually these thoughts would consume me when it was time to go to sleep.
While my parents weren't very religious, I was sent to a Catholic school. Being in rural areas, you only have the choice between two non-private schools. Unfortunately, the public (non-religious) schools were very poor quality in my area, and many families like my own, sent their kids to the Catholic schools even if they weren't practicing Catholics, or even Catholic at all. Anyways, my first experience worth mentioning was my teacher in grade 5. At that age, you had one teacher and he/she taught every subject you had (other than French), from math to phys ed. Most teachers in my school would teach religion, but wouldn't go any further than the curriculum. Well this man I had in grade 5 changed my life at the time. He was the only overtly religious teacher, or person, I had met in that school or anywhere, and would often force us to skip phys-ed for more religion, and sometimes math. He used to talk endlessly about 'end times' and show us videos of these kids in Medjegoria (unsure of the spelling, but it's a name I can't forget) who were visited by the Virgin Mary sometime in recent decades. He told us of all the visions she had given them of what will happen after the year 2000 (yet absolute dates weren't given). He showed videos of these people crying because of how brutal the things that would happen to the planet would be. At the same time, these individuals were apparently not allowed to say what they had seen. One can easily see what something like this would do to the imaginations of young kids. Kids in my class would often leave class pale and sobbing. Instead of despair, I resolved to 'save' myself and my family from these events. This man alone changed me from a happy-go-lucky little boy who was only interested in sports and kissing little girls, to a kid full of fear. To a certain extent I still carry around a lot of irrational fear to this day. I will get scared while sitting alone in a room on occasion, and never really understand why.
These events caused me to go from passively accepting Catholic teachings to being a 'closet' fanatic. I used to make up my own prayer that I would say every night asking 'god' to keep myself and my family members safe from anything that may harm us. Over time, my prayers would get longer and longer, including more people and more possible events that my imagination could think up. While this was going on, I never really mentioned it to anyone, other than my brother who'd been through the same teacher 3 years earlier. After time passed, and I started growing up, the effects of this man waned and my prayers got shorter and shorter, until I eventually stopped saying them.
As each year passed, I stared believing less and less in Christianity, solely based on the inconsistencies and hypocrisy in the material we would study.
When in high school, I was a model student, while being a 'partier' for lack of a better word. I was on the 'honor roll' every year, except for one I think. The only subject that I was a disruptive student in, was religion class. Again I had one teacher, an ex-nun, who tried to force her beliefs on the class. This time, instead, I challenged and questioned her reasoning, and would often get in debates (in reality, arguments) with her in front of the entire class. I would often laugh out loud at some of the fanatical comments coming out of her mouth and would constantly roll my eyes. At the same time, I still achieved high marks in the class because of test scores and essays. As a kid, I was good at knowing 'what the teacher' wanted when it came to written work.
In my second year of her class, (she taught gr 10 and 11 religion) after a week went by, it was time for the her to decide where everyone would sit for the year. When she did her assigned seating, this is exactly how it went. "John, you move up here" (pointing to the front seat in the middle row). I did this grudgingly, then she proceed to say. "Everyone else is good where they are". Many in the class started laughing at the 'assigned seating'. To me, it came across as her indirectly telling the class, 'you question me, and argue with me, and this is what will happen to you".
Anyways, I never really got further into religion or spirituality, other than thinking that organized religion was nothing but a large cult. This topic actually came up when my brother asked the same teacher a few years earlier what the difference between a cult and a religion was. From what he told me, she pondered it for a while, then answered simply: numbers. All in all, I think my experience with religious schools really helped my critical and independent thinking skills and the ability to spot hypocrisy. By understanding what I don’t agree with and why, I think it has helped me to strive to find something that can answer the questions I have in an objective and, most importantly, consistent way. I guess you could say that all of my ‘sacred cows’ pertaining to religion and spirituality were thrown out the window at a young age.
The rest of high school and University were uneventful. I was a 'socializer' who was still able to get good marks. Most of my University days were extremely mechanical, going from class to drinking and partying. There really wasn't much else going on during those years. In fact, I rarely if ever read anything that didn't pertain to a subject I was studying. I rarely picked up a paper, or watched the news on TV. I basically lived in a bubble of wondering how I was going to cram for the next exam, what I was going to do that night, what bar I would go to, or what friends place I would head over to. Then came 9/11. I remember being woken up by one of my roommates telling me to turn on my TV. I did and again, I felt like I was witnessing a movie. Other than that, nothing really of importance happened during those years, and to be honest, I think I got dumber and out of touch with my critical thinking skills.
Then after University, I moved back to the city I was born and found a job very close to where I grew up. I still work at this job today. Anyways, my job isn't very difficult and doesn't require a lot of 'work' yet I'm stuck in front of a computer all day long. After a few months, I found a way to do all of my 40 hr work week in around 25, while having an office of my own with a locking door (the 'boss', owner, is never around anyways). This left me with so much time on my hands, that I decided to start reading about history, philosophy, politics, astronomy, cosmology and the paranormal, topics that had always interested me yet I had never perused academically (which again, I think is good because I didn’t form many ‘sacred cows’ in regards to these subjects). Then I stumbled upon Alex Jones and the like, read a lot of the stuff on 9/11 which really opened my eyes. From there I went onto more 'paranormal' subjects which still related to history, politics etc. Things like the Philadelphia experiment/Montauk, and lots of Von Dannegan's research.
One day, I don't remember how, but I clicked a link to the cass site. I read Mr. French's article on Laura and was instantly hooked. About 3-4 years ago, I started reading 'the wave' at work, and enjoyed it while not thinking of it as fact or fiction, but somewhere in between. Most people need to know if a story is fact or fiction BEFORE they read. I, on the other hand, enjoy reading 'stories' and deciding for myself what parts of it are possible or probably, and what appears to be fantasy. Even a total fiction can contain elements of truth in my opinion. I read the wave with an open but skeptical mind (basically it started as something to 'kill time' at work, then after awhile I would print off pages to bring home. As time passed, I would print off more and more to bring home every night) and as each paged passed, it really appealed to me. This was a new theory, on life, politics, history, science, philosophy, all the things I enjoyed, all wrapped up into one neat package. Finally, I had something that could connect everything.
Since then, I've devoted much of my time to these subjects. I still used the majority of my 'down time' at work reading the master site index, and all the new articles on SOTT, while continuing to read the material, and recommended books on my own time. Up to this point, I have focused on the material relating to all those subjects that interest me, and have just recently started reading 'In Search of the Miraculous' (is this the best one to start with?). Other than the bits and pieces taken from it I read in Laura's works I haven't really started on the 'esoteric' material. I guess I'm still a 'rookie' at that aspect of this site, which is the main reason why I haven't posted more often. I have a lot of work ahead of me!!
As a side note: I don't know if anyone else has felt this way, but for me, searching for the 'macro' truths (ie politics, history, etc.) is enjoyable, and exciting to me, yet focusing on the 'micro' truths such as the Gurdjieff material, actually FEELS like work. I guess when you focus on others it's much easier to remain interested because it's more like a story, a True story but a still story nonetheless, and when you focus on yourself, it feels like work, hard work.
Anyways, that's it about me for now. I hope I didn't bore anyone with such a long post about myself.
Cheers
John