“Who are you?” ;)

:-| & + = :-)

Zen

What I didn’t understand is that if you aren’t really your body, then why do they hit it with a stick? What exactly are they hitting, and why?
Check out , it’s related to this topic. The Zen master even seems to be refuting the whole concept of nothingness.

And I’ve been interested to see a few parallels in morality between Zen Buddhism and Christianity. Check out , it’s actually quite amusing.

Did anyone see last night’s episode?
I’d like to know if the KKK guys hired that red Porsche for the night to impress the visiting overseas reporter. Their office certainly didn’t look that opulent!

They said they live by Romans 12, didn’t they? Guess they missed the bits that say:
“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment”
“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse”
“Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited”
“as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone”
“Do not take revenge”
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink”

It was a cack.

John Safran does a great passive-aggressive.

I heard him interviewed on the Spirit of Things (ABC Radio), you can get the audio link here and I understand a transcript will be posted later in the week. It was a v interesting interview in which he said (and I’ll have to double-check), that he can’t at all recall anything about the filming of the episode where he had the demons cast out of him, which I thought was more than a little unnerving.

Last’s nights episode was a total cack, and quite confronting in some ways - what was up with Father Bob? He made some outrageous comments that I had a good laugh at, but felt deeply sorry for those who worship under him. Also how game is Safran to go through with the whole KKK thing, lol! Their Christian-cult angle was quite disturbing.

If you look at it from their perspective (the Zen perspective) they deal with paradoxes. it’s not much use applying logical arguements to a school of thought that has very little respect for logic.

As for hitting you with a stick, well that is to discipline the body so it becomes subject to the mind.
The mind not being limited to rational thought processes by the way. (which is accurate since the mind is innately irrational)

I’m not endorsing this stuff by the by, just making observations.

[quote author="Owen Atkins"]As for hitting you with a stick, well that is to discipline the body so it becomes subject to the mind.

hurties!

Give me salvation by grace through faith, motivated by the pure love of God for us, any day.

EDIT: WARNING!!! SPOILERS [sorry Luke, wasn’t thinking]

Interesting quote from interview with John Safran on Spirit of Things (ABC)

Rachael Kohn: Now John, I don’t know how to broach this but your last episode is a tour de force, the Devil gets his comeuppance, he meets his Nemesis, in Bob Larson the exorcist. Did you plan that right from the beginning?

John Safran: Not really. I spoke to Bob Larson on the phone and he did seem quite charismatic on the phone, and quite open to things like because I was just feeling out the waters like are we even allowed to film you, being an exorcist, and then Oh, he seems to be fine us filming him doing exorcisms, and I go Yes, what about if like I had any issues, anything that I needed to exorcise out of me, and he’s like Yeah, why not, and stuff, so like this sounds good, but I didn’t really think about it much more.

And then when we arrived on the first day and we met Bob Larson, because he’s just so charismatic and just every time he opens his mouth he says something either ridiculously offensive or unintentionally so funny and stuff. So we’re going This guy’s very good talent, and it’s like he’s pretty much one of those one-in-a-million people you kind of hear about and then we started thinking Well if he’s going to exorcise me, and he’s willing to do that, why don’t I just tell him about all the things I’ve done over the course of the series, and see what he has to say about that and then he can exorcise me of all the spirits I’ve picked up.

But he believed that, he believed, ‘John, you’ve gone to Haiti in a voodoo temple; John you’ve gone to India, and hung out with Hanuman the Monkey God; and you’ve been in Mozambique, and you’ve been in a chicken blood ritual, so John, you basically, you’ve left yourself open to demonic possession’. And then he proceeds one by one to get rid of all the demons out of me that I’ve picked up during the show.

Rachael Kohn: You looked under a lot of stress.

John Safran: Yes, well I don’t know, I kind of forget what kind of happened, there’s two readings of that episode, one is Oh it’s like when they hypnotise people on the Footy Show and the footy players are going around clucking like chickens, so that’s like one reading of it, and then the other reading of it is I guess something happened.

Rachael Kohn: Do you think something happened?

John Safran: Well definitely like when I look back at it, I don’t remember a lot of it, and also anyone who knows me, indeed anyone who watches the show can just look at my face, and there’s just all this stuff that just doesn’t go on in any other stories, in like every other story you can see me being a bit more like conscious or pulling, you know, there’s some subtle expression on my face where you kind of know I’m being a bit whacky, and this one it’s like I just can’t act that well, basically is what I’m getting at, there’s no way I can act that well. So who knows?

I know a Christian journalist tell me that she was going John, you did all this stuff over the show and you know, it all looks like you’re mucking around and there’s one thing with this Christian Evangelical person and it looked pretty right on, so John, why don’t you connect two and two and become a Christian, which I thought was an interesting way for the interview to go. You’re not going to pull that on me are you? Pick up some pamphlets somewhere.

Rachael Kohn: Well I was going to ask you whether you were cleansed and converted?

John Safran: I don’t know if I was converted, I think I can accept what happened there as being true and not necessarily have to say Well therefore I have to go to his branch of Christianity because like all the major faiths all go Oh, you know, the Christian god is the Jewish god is the Muslim god, and definitely his strand of Christianity believed that Jews were an important part of their roots and stuff, so I’m not sure, he did put a bit of pressure on me over the half hour, we didn’t put all that in to it, but basically, yes, pretty much every 25 minutes he was leaning…

Goodness me Gordon your post needs a big SPOILERS!!!!!! warning plastered all over it!

Just thought I’d link to the Safran Vs God website, here .

Monday’s rant was excellent, language warning but. You can see it on this site. “Apparently Americans are supposed to be insular [etc]… well, where’s Zaire? Go on - point to it on this map!” etc.

The audition for the Harlem Gospel choir was cutting edge TV comedy, well pulled off. Reminded me of Norman Gunston, the last genuinely adventurous Australian comedian.

Hello everyone - I’ve introduced myself in the “newbies” thread, mainly because I wanted to post on this topic.

Did people watch the Safran Exorcism episode?  Disturbing or what?  I had heard of Bob Larson as a fairly smarmy and unreliable guy (see references to him at this reliable anti-cult site http://www.apologeticsindex.org/l42.html ) - but there can’t be much question of John faking all that howling and screaming.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of it all.  Wanted to go somewhere to find out what others thought of it.

I didn’t see the beginning, but certainly at the end there were no Safranesque smart-aleck fireside cracks - the show finished with Safran agreeing to convert Australia to Christianity the next time Bob drops in! (or words to that effect)

The bit from the interview with Rachel Kohn that Gordon has posted above is very helpful, because at the end of the show, I really wanted to know, well what does John make of it all now?

(even in his 3RRR breakfast-announcing days he showed a somewhat open mind towards Christianity - one week telling us that he was reading The Screwtape Letters, and really liking them)

Well folks… I just gotta let you all know…

I sat right next to John Safran last week on a flight from Melb-Sydney!!  He had the window.

In the presence of greatness!!

Mike you name dropper you.

Well guess who I sat behind yesterday?

Ahh don’t worry, I shan’t tell - but it was a pleasant suprise!

:-) Craig

Well, guess who I sat in FRONT of yesterday? I’m not going to tell, but it was an equally pleasant surprise.  :)

Well, guess who was on the ground when you all flew over?