Master Teacher
January 28, 2007 8:48 AM   Subscribe

The Advent of a Great Awakening. (video) Mr. Rogers's doppleganger has some good news to share with you. Seven minutes in is a particularly surreal place to start. The 18:45 mark is also notably creepy.See also.
posted by Ufez Jones (48 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Watch the entire 1:03:43 at your own risk.
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:48 AM on January 28, 2007


i don't know if i'm real anymore
posted by localhuman at 8:59 AM on January 28, 2007


I could only stand about 20 seconds.
posted by doctor_negative at 9:05 AM on January 28, 2007


Have this guys followers abandoned their earthly trappings to make their way back to the mother ship yet?

His presentation style is really unusual. He alternates between the look of a hopeful bunny trying to make friends with the wolf who's maw he's trapped in and somebody who just ate shards of glass trying to fend off diarrhea.

I'm not entirely sure whether this is a case of an old codger off his medications or an old codger who's over medicated. If it's the first I'd be glad to pay for his meds, if it's the second can we do an intervention?
posted by substrate at 9:06 AM on January 28, 2007


Transmitting the illuminated energy of Resurrected Mind of Jesus Christ, the Master Teacher of A Course In Miracles wakes the viewer’s memory of singular awareness.

Each video is an immediate experience of healing. The recognition of the light factor in these videos can only occur in you. It is the transitional passage from time to eternity. We trust you will try to allow your viewing to be your own personal adventure.

posted by felix betachat at 9:08 AM on January 28, 2007


Since these are lessons 181-200 in a course in miracles, I bet by the 500s they'll get to the part where you learn to walk on water, turn water into booze and shoot lasers out of your eyes. Post that link please.
posted by Tacodog at 9:10 AM on January 28, 2007


Fat's Waller's version of When somebody thinks you're wonderful coupled with weird metaphysical lilting? Awesome.
posted by koeselitz at 9:20 AM on January 28, 2007


FYI, someone on digg noted that these videos are meant to help older folks come to terms with death.
posted by Kifer85 at 9:21 AM on January 28, 2007


Got it. This is Chuck Anderson and the organization behind it is called Endeavor Academy. Looks pretty cultish to me.
posted by felix betachat at 9:21 AM on January 28, 2007


Wikipedia on Endeavor Academy.
posted by felix betachat at 9:24 AM on January 28, 2007


There are medications for this, and this is a cheap shot, but he should not have opted for the day glow dentures. The studied silent, yet intimate lookee-see session comes right out of Chapter One The Con.

1. Finding the proper mark. Make sure the Mark has something worth taking. Find an "In". Assume a persona that is so non-threatening as to be like a second identity of the Mark. If at all possible, assume a persona that embodies the highest aspiration of the Mark, or a persona that the Mark may never become, regardless of how much he or she, desires, something the Mark will pay handsomely to simply approach. Failing in super-star projection capacity, assume a paternal, or maternal persona, grand-parental, setting the insecure Mark, at ease.

2. Find a product or commodity, of intangible to low value, and sell it at a great cost.

3. Leave the Mark, feeling as if he, or she, enjoyed the best sex of their life, with such an intimate attachment to said commodity, that is takes on the robes of a new identity, which identity, is stepping out onto a royal road toward a blazingly bright future.

4. While the Mark is blinded by the light, and muffled in said robe, get in the new car, and drive as expertly as possible, in the opposite direction.
posted by Oyéah at 9:28 AM on January 28, 2007 [1 favorite]


They have to seem very good taste in music, these people.
posted by koeselitz at 9:39 AM on January 28, 2007


Poor James Garner. He hasn't been the same ever since that geriatrics in space movie.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 9:58 AM on January 28, 2007


And maybe they should turn the music down? He seems awfully distracted by it. You could cut this thing down to just eight minutes of brainwashy goodness if they'd dialed down the stereo.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 9:59 AM on January 28, 2007


i keep expecting the bottle of thunderbird to appear at any minute
posted by pyramid termite at 10:01 AM on January 28, 2007


i just evolved into a wholly creative fully-endowed purposeful powerful reality

awesome
posted by cardamine at 10:41 AM on January 28, 2007


Oddly, as I watched it, my endowment plummeted toward the floor.

That's right. The video is a boner-killer.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:56 AM on January 28, 2007


If I put on my special sunglasses, will he have a scary alien head or something? Or do I even need my special sunglasses?
posted by katillathehun at 10:57 AM on January 28, 2007


This is in dire need of an ironic dance remix, to be played on the wall of an after-hours rave party that the kids these days ruin their lives attending.
posted by jimmythefish at 11:04 AM on January 28, 2007


Oh, and at 45:28 he tells us to eat food, mostly plants.
posted by jimmythefish at 11:05 AM on January 28, 2007


Am I the only one getting a big empty purple page?
posted by knave at 11:21 AM on January 28, 2007


To be fair, it probably makes a lot of sense in conjunction with the workbook.
posted by mammary16 at 11:24 AM on January 28, 2007


I think this guy has ruined music for me.
posted by obvious at 11:31 AM on January 28, 2007


A man in need of a comet.
posted by hal9k at 11:38 AM on January 28, 2007


Don't believe this charlatan's lies. He has no idea what he's talking about, he is full of shit.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:03 PM on January 28, 2007


Am I the only one getting a big empty purple page?

No, that's all I see too. I'm torn between regret for the mind-blowing experience we're missing, gratitude for the time saved, and suspicion that all these other people are just making shit up to confuse and frighten us.
posted by languagehat at 12:15 PM on January 28, 2007


His jowls are staring into my soul.
posted by notmydesk at 12:32 PM on January 28, 2007


Am I the only one getting a big empty purple page?

I saw that, too, until I turned off my ad-blocker.
posted by katillathehun at 12:47 PM on January 28, 2007


That's spectacular. I would convert if only I could figure out what it was I was converting to.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 1:24 PM on January 28, 2007


*stare*
*jiggle jowls*
*smile*
*bobble head*
*stare*
posted by eparchos at 1:51 PM on January 28, 2007


am i the only one who sees a ancient jack torrance, when he starts listening to music.

DANNY!! I'M COMING FOR YA!!!!! I'M COMIN' DAN!!
posted by nola at 2:01 PM on January 28, 2007


So this is what David Lynch has been up to lately.
posted by Rusty Iron at 2:26 PM on January 28, 2007


Terrifying. You know, I'm not sure what someone who has transcended time and space would act like... but it just might be something like this. He certainly doesn't seem human anymore.
posted by picea at 2:38 PM on January 28, 2007


This sounds horribly like "how to Win Games and Influence Destiny" or "The Steersman's Guide to the Universe" or some other post-psychedelic BS. I think this is what Boomers become as they age.
posted by CCBC at 2:55 PM on January 28, 2007


Paging Marshall Banana to the thread...
posted by Smart Dalek at 3:12 PM on January 28, 2007


I started at 7:10 -- I'm at 14:47 -- I'm still reeling.... Note the hypnotic eyes -- he never stops looking right into the camera...

"Are you the one I'm looking for? ... We know this is not our home! ... When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited what you have perceived in him.... Don't let the blues make you sad."

A unique experience... routed to the Forteans.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 3:16 PM on January 28, 2007


At 12:45: "Wanna come home with me? Wanna? [giggle]"
posted by EarBucket at 3:33 PM on January 28, 2007


24:45, even.
posted by EarBucket at 3:33 PM on January 28, 2007


Wow, they totally ganked the entire intro to the Hollywood/Sagan movie "Contact" for this video. I wonder if they licensed it?

My (divorced) dad dated this really neato woman back in 2002, who eventually professed belief in all sorts of stuff like irridology, but it was when they tried the Course In Miracles together that he decided she was a hopeless crackpot. I'm just guessing that she was great in the sack.
posted by sidereal at 4:43 PM on January 28, 2007


Now am I supposed to cut my nuts off and wait for orders, or what?
posted by BillyElmore at 5:23 PM on January 28, 2007


At 13:45, when he said "I can see you," is when I started screaming.
posted by carsonb at 6:03 PM on January 28, 2007


On the Miracle Times website, if you mouse over the link for "Jesus", the following tool tip pops up:
Jesus is the author of A Course In Miracles.
Awesome.
posted by Flunkie at 6:33 PM on January 28, 2007


Metafilter: Somebody who just ate shards of glass trying to fend off diarrhea.
posted by LordSludge at 6:34 PM on January 28, 2007


The intro was surprisingly well written. That 'speaking from eternity" style is employed by hundreds of self-help books, and it's unnervingly captivating when done right. "I didn't want to give up my tight self-control, but Master Teacher made it sound so wonderful!" I wonder if they teach university courses in this shit.
posted by Popular Ethics at 7:19 PM on January 28, 2007


HTTP Status 500 - Hibernate Error: Begin Transaction

You broke'd it.
posted by Ynoxas at 8:00 PM on January 28, 2007


There's an absolutely hilarious district court summary judgement hearing opinion available here:

Penguin Books v. Endeavor Academy

This court had fun writing it. Awesome moments:

- Skutch has denied that he ever asked the Copyright Office whether a copyright application could be made in the name of Jesus.

- Defendants maintain that Plaintiffs do not possess a valid copyright because the Course is not an original work of Schucman but of Jesus.

- Defendants repeatedly assert that the Course clearly indicates that its author is Jesus. Given Defendants' burden of proof on this defense, there has been a failure to show that the Copyright Office would not have had notice of the divine authorship of the Course notwithstanding the failure to name Jesus as an author in the application.

- Nimmer cites to the English case Cummins v. Bond, [1927] 1 Ch. 167, "in which the plaintiff medium produced a contemporary account of the Apostles by engaging in "automatic writing" from a 1900-year-old spirit." Id. at § 2.11[D] n.24.4. The Chancery judge in Cummins noted that he lacked jurisdiction in "the sphere in which the [dead spirit] moves" and declined to hold that "authorship and copyright rest with some one already domiciled on the other side of the inevitable river."

- A claim based on science is of a different order than a claim based on faith, the rather recent protestations of the historians and philosophers of science notwithstanding.
posted by thethirdman at 8:28 PM on January 28, 2007


I've come to quickly recognize the kind of writing that accompanies batshitinsane internet crackpots and religious cults. I find it fascinating.

They string together partial phrases that express images of peace and wholeness and tranquility and hyperbole regarding the meaning of life, the universe and so on... but when you look at the sentence grammatically, it has no structure. There's duplicate predicates, adverbs without verbs, endless run on sentences whose original purposes get lost in the mists of time by the point you've finished them, pronoun upon pronoun until you've lost all hope of ever tracing them all back. VERBS. MISSING. ENTIRELY.

You can read whole chapters of the stuff and not be able to tell anyone what it was about. I sometimes wish I could write like that.
posted by Parannoyed at 9:34 PM on January 28, 2007


the legal opinion linked by thethirdman is worth reading:

"The Course can loosely be categorized as belonging to
that genre of "New Age" spiritual texts which seem to pop out of the post-industrial cultures of the northern hemisphere like the quarks which particle physicists tell us materialize spontaneously in the fabric of space-time."
posted by CCBC at 12:12 PM on January 29, 2007


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