Integral Padre Pio

PADRE PIO
Ethical Development: Ethnocentric (i.e. HATED Pentecostals, saw them as “enemies of the church”)
Spiral Dynamic: Blue/Transpersonal – Absolutistic-obedience mythic order—purposeful/authoritarian
Stage of Moral Development: Level 2/Conventional
Political Ideology: Democratic (did not approve of Mussolini’s socialist, was happy when the Allies won, praised the Americans he met, voted democratic, was hated by communists)

I’ve been reading Bernard Ruffin’s Padre Pio: The True Story and (though it is almost as boring as the Bible) it has extremely interesting content (if there can be such a contradiction of qualities in a book, you’ll find it in these 319 pages).

Padre Pio was a Capuchin friar. Capuchins are Catholic fundamentalists not to be confused with monks. Capuchin are a branch of the Franciscan Order. It is a level of discipline and dedication that few of ANY faith can muster. They live with no possessions giving up EVERYTHING including will to the Catholic church. They live a life of complete abstinence, austerity and piety. They are as far beyond secular priests as priests are beyond everyday Catholics.

That being said, Padre Pio was the cream of the crop. His level of dedication afforded him a following that spanned the Western world. Bernard’s book talks about many of the miracles that 1st, 2nd and 3rd hand witness’ claimed he did. I don’t have any doubt that Pio was a conduit for some incredible force of nature (divinity?), but he was also surrounded by fanatics and superstitious country folks whose minds were still in medieval Europe even though it was the late 1800′s – mid 1950′s. One example of this archaic mind set is that the people of his local township, San Giovanni Rotondo (southern Italy) threatened to beat or even kill anyone who would dare take their blessed saint. Their passionate wrath is both amazing and sad, but I guess such possessive attitudes over local saints was common in that part of the world in that era. At one point the Mayor himself Mocaldi told the officials of the Holy Office that if they took Padre Pio away he would shed his title and join the mob himself. A local brick layer even pulled a gun on Pio and told him he was staying “dead or alive”!

Padre Pio, though cut from the same cloth as his beloved townsmen, was frustrated with their behavior. He was down right mean to those that gave him the glory instead of God. The most impressive thing to me about Padre Pio was not his miracles (these were amazing feats, no doubt) but his humility, compassion and dedication that for me made him a true saint. These (his level of submission to God) seemed to be the conditions that allowed him to be a vessel for such miracles. Ultimately, it is his love that converted so many.

His miracles included:
bi location, stigmata, healing, predictions, telepathy, the ability to know languages he’d seemingly never studied and virtually all the miracles that were performed by the Apostles in Acts.

Bernard’s book is worth reading if only to see the wealth of anecdotal evidence of Padre Pio’s works. If you are researching Pio’s life, look no further than Padre Pio: The True Story.

Dream: A beautiful Woman

She was mahogany skinned, with long raven black hair. Was she spanish? East/West Indian? Whatever she was looked gorgeous. I was surprised that she was attracted to me. I found out through her friend.

Psycho-energetic Powers of the Human Species: Intro

I have read a few accounts of people with amazing abilities. Abilities such as being two places at once (bilocation), telepathy, healing and other incredible phenomenon. Now since the majority of these “miracles” are hearsay, science and the more credible brain trusts of Western culture, tends to marginalize or even ridicule the mere mention of such claims.

But it seems ignorant to discount ALL these things when they are reported all over the world in almost every language, culture and religion. Like the UFO phenomenon, I would think that the shear volume of credible witnesses with such claims would peak more interest. Both science and religion are proper to their respective forms. Science from the beginning denies anything and everything until the bitter end. Religion no longer kills people for being heretics but they have a trump card that defeats followers every time. If they disagree with something that is taking convert away than “its evil”.

I believe that both science and religion are wrong about these powers that the human species seem to possess. Orthodoxy mainstream science is wrong in discounting the phenomenon and some major religions are wrong in claiming exclusive rights to the phenomenon and/or condemn it as “evil”.

Now I don’t want to generalize. Not all credible scientist discount all supernatural phenomenon and not all religions condemn and/or claim exclusive rights.

Perhaps these things are not “supernatural” at all, but a natural part of normally dormant abilities. We call them supernatural and magical because we don’t understand the true “nature” of reality. I hope that one day we will have an understanding that will place phenomenon such as bilocation on the same level as rational thinking and talking. These are also amazing abilities we have but we don’t call them supernatural

the immigration wars

Well, spoken, man.

European laws may be stupid and pussified, but is that any reason to generalize all Muslims as fundamentalist idiots? Surely, you have one or two Muslims in Europe who don’t contemplate stoning women and blaming rape on victims.

I understand your passive aggressive indignation (we have similar BS going on it the US) but your intellect would be better served with another pinch of aperspectival objectivity (something lacking in the conservative brain).

People in the US have similar appeasement toward illegal immigrants (i.e. not enforcing the law that is in place, creating laws to make it easier for them). Naturally conservative and liberal leaders blame each other. And then contradict their alleged values by calling American citizens “racist” when they speak out.

The real problem is both sides. They both seem to have an agenda of uniting Canada/US/Mexico (it is totally denied by officials even as it is happening).

I suspect that in europe there is a similar mission of uniting all peoples.

It sounds noble but there are two problems:

1) the corrupt elite who want it (only want to control the masses like cattle)

2) People are NOT ready for it.
Particularly fundamentalist and ethnocentric people. They can not accept other cultures. Ironically, the US (as diverse as it is) is very ethnocentric.

Socially eloquent people like this make influential statesmen. Their attraction (beyond entertainment) is that they have a valid point. They are able to clearly and bravely point out that something is very wrong. But then they have a muddy perspective that can’t be bothered with critical thinking because their world is black and white with no spectrum and no shade of grey.

The masses follow like a flock of sheeple because they don’t think for themselves. Rush Limbaugh’s HUGE audience is a perfect example. They call themselves “ditto heads” because “rush is right” no matter what he says.

Physicists Discover Inorganic Dust With Lifelike Qualities

Science is beginning to sound like mysticism and shamanism. People of ancient times and even some to this day (i.e. shintoism) believed that everything has a living ‘spirit’ associated with it. It was simplistic, but maybe there is something to it.

Science Daily — Could extraterrestrial life be made of corkscrew-shaped particles of interstellar dust? Intriguing new evidence of life-like structures that form from inorganic substances in space have been revealed in the New Journal of Physics. The findings hint at the possibility that life beyond earth may not necessarily use carbon-based molecules as its building blocks. They also point to a possible new explanation for the origin of life on earth.

Could extraterrestrial life be found in particles of interstellar dust (like that which obscures the giant molecular cloud DR21, shown here in an infrared image taken recently by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope)? (Credit: A. Marston (ESTEC/ESA) et al., JPL, Caltech, NASA)

Life on earth is organic. It is composed of organic molecules, which are simply the compounds of carbon, excluding carbonates and carbon dioxide. The idea that particles of inorganic dust may take on a life of their own is nothing short of alien, going beyond the silicon-based life forms favoured by some science fiction stories.

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light on death the spiritual art of dying – Phillip Jones

I think about death every day.  I am not necessarily morbid, its just that I feel that it is important to keep it in mind so that I appreciate life while I have it.  I believe there are answers beyond science and religion. 

 So books like Light on Death, the Spiritual Art of Dying really interest me.