Arkashean Q&A Session -- 037

LORRAINE: I understand that watching... That's not a ceremony!

THERRY: Why not? Just because it's non-religious, why can't it be a ceremony? In order to be a ritual, it has to be repeated over and over again at prescribed times, right?

LORRAINE: Yes.

THERRY: Walking, turning on a television., sitting, watching, watching, watching, watching, then walking and shutting off the television. Is that not repeated over and over and over and over again?

LORRAINE: Yes.

THERRY: Does it not follow the rules of being a ritual?

LORRAINE: Yes.

THERRY: So why can't it apply? It doesn't matter if you want to put it religious or non-religious. Someone [who's] crazy enough to attach religious significance to a boob-tube, doesn't it apply equally? It's still a ritual.

LORRAINE: Alright, then you were only addressing my words. You said...

THERRY: No, I wasn't. I made the original statement. I put no limitations on it. I used the English language, the language that you use, Lorraine.

LORRAINE: No, I used English. You said that you were doing a ritual by watching television. I asked if I...

THERRY: The due process of watching television. is a ritual.

LORRAINE: Okay, I can accept that from your definition.

THERRY: No, not from mine, from the English language definition. The same way as the ritual of the bath. Every single time you go into your shower, there's a specific set of behaviors that you follow and it's hardly ever varied. That's a ritual.

LORRAINE: That's true.

THERRY: The ritual of sleep is the exact same thing. The ritual of driving a car is exactly the same thing.

LORRAINE: Well, I wanted to know if it was the ritual of...the ceremonial ritual from somebody else's religion...

THERRY: Every single one of these could be looked at as a ceremonial ritual.

LORRAINE: Well, how about the word religious then?

THERRY: Okay, now you brought in something else then. Who's to say what is religious and what is not? I dare say the Christians don't believe the Jews are religious. They believe them to be Pagan. The Bahai don't believe that somebody else is religious either. The Christians are fighting the Jews, the Jews are fighting the Christians. The Irish are fighting their Gods or whatever. So who's to say what is religious and what isn't, Lorraine? From whose point of view?

LORRAINE: Well, does that mean that if I go to somebody else's religious ceremony that's not my religious ceremony, that it's not religious? I mean...

THERRY: It seems to me it's religious only if you recognize it as such. But you can't lie there, because either you really do recognize it as a religious, regardless of whether you believe in it or not. You either believe it or don't. To you, it's either spiritual or it's Paganism. But it's either yes or no. You can't be a little bit pregnant and you can't be a little bit religion (sic). Either it is or it isn't.

LORRAINE: No, I believe it was. It wasn't my religion, but I think it was a religious ritual.

THERRY: So to somebody watching television., it can be just as spiritually uplifting.

LORRAINE: That?

THERRY: You find difficulty with that?

LORRAINE: Yes.

THERRY: Let me see if I can help you with that. What if that becomes a magic pool that you can look into to see the behaviors of people, to understand thinking patterns, to understand the attachments between emotions and behavior? What if it is a magic illusion granted by the "Gods," or whatever you call it, but it is magical indeed, wherefore you can see man in all of it's aspects, inter-reacting as man does with himself. Doesn't that make it spiritual?

LORRAINE: Yeah.

THERRY: So can watching television. be a ritual? A spiritual one at that?

LORRAINE: Yeah.

THERRY: Oh, what happened to your original statement, Lorraine?

LORRAINE: Within the context of this conversation...

THERRY: Within the context of Lorraine's mind, would've been a better truth, because we haven't left the conversation, but now you have two possible ideas of what kind of ritual watching television. is.

LORRAINE: That's true.

THERRY: All of us follow the first law.

LORRAINE: That only say you have the opportunity to, so how does all this...

THERRY: You certainly took the opportunity...

LORRAINE: Well, saying "all of us" includes you, since you're the one that...

THERRY: I had the opportunity too, but it is up to the individual to chose it or not, isn't it, according to his or her specific circumstances. Who's to judge? That's why it's so important that each individual take the opportunity to get to know what's really involved before they make their evaluations, before they make their final judgments.

LORRAINE: I've got a question that...you made a statement in the car that said that I'd eventually have to make a choice?

THERRY: That time is coming that you have to choose a camp and move into it.

LORRAINE: I thought that I've already chosen Arkashea?

THERRY: I can accept that. It seems to me that there are parts of you that deny that.

LORRAINE: So, what does that mean exactly?

THERRY: It means you one day will make up your mind. You will know who you are and for the better or for the worst, whichever the case may be, you will solidify into what you are. You will either solidify into what your father is or you will solidify into what your mother is or you will solidify somewhere in between them, or maybe, if you're lucky, you'll solidify into something that has nothing to do with them.

LORRAINE: So you don't mean some mass ceremony where someone tries to steal my soul?

THERRY: Of course not. You read too many comic books or watch too much television!

LORRAINE: You mean the regular patterns of life.

THERRY: Yes.

LORRAINE: ...where I'll decide what I am. What if what I am keeps changing?

THERRY: So you are "becoming." One day you will arrive.

LORRAINE: So what if you solidify and it's wrong for you and you want to change?

THERRY: Then you'll become again.

LORRAINE: My understanding that an Arkashean...

THERRY: Nothing is for eternity, Lorraine. Everything has its cycles. Things only last forever.

LORRAINE: I had a dream and in the dream the other night, you were there yelling at me.

THERRY: That's nothing new. I do that quite often.

LORRAINE: I know. But you said, I don't even remember your exact words. See, I need a tape recorder up there too, I remembered it 'till I woke up. I only remember the word "commitment" and you said that I have to learn to chose them or I have to learn how to stick to them.

THERRY: Both.