CROP CIRCLE COMMUNICATIONS

[LongboardLOVELY]

I think that Elizabeth would say " go for it" So what was the verse so that we can look it up? It was the moment that Saul had a revelation that he was dealing with something WAY beyond his personal life. The light gives him a message. Lindab your assesment? I understand that you are a strong Christian woman so I really would like to hear what you think of the possibilities here.

Remember folks, Ladygrady asked for MY assessment. So here it is.

I don't think the light that I mentioned in reference to crop circles is the same light that Saul experienced on the road to Damascus, for two reasons:

1] Saul himself describes the light as very bright, brighter than the sun. The reference that I had quoted would probably have made mention of a light brighter than the sun.

2] This very unique experience of Saul's is documented in many other historical documents, but not all acknowledge the source of that experience. The ones that DO acknowledge the source are all very reputable historians - and all of those do point to a personal encounter that Saul had with Jesus Christ.

So I think, ladygrady, that it wasn't the same light. HOWEVER, in Saul's case, it was a very specific experience with something not of this world. But in the case of the example I gave with the crop circles, it may have been something other worldly as well, but I doubt it was God manifesting as Christ. Maybe it could have been other spiritual beings? Demons? Angels? Dunno.

SO here's some more information about Saul . . . called Paul:

He didn't change his name to Paul.

Tarsus was Saul's birthplace. He was born a citizen of that city as well as of Rome, so his family probably owned property or a business. (Only people with rank and/or property were citizens in their provincial towns, and Roman citizenship was even harder for non-Italians to obtain.) Tarsus was a prosperous city on the trade route from Syria to Ephesus. It was known for its schools of philosophy and liberal arts. If Saul's family were Greek-speaking Jews, he may have had some contact with Gentile schools.

As a Roman citizen, Saul had three Latin names: a first name, a family name, and a surname. (kind of like Chinese names). Like the proconsul of Cyprus, his surname happened to be Paullus (spelled "Paulus" in Greek). As a Jew, he also had a Hebrew name, Saul (spelled "Saulus" in Greek). Luke calls him by his Hebrew name when he is among Jews, but shifts to his Latin name when he goes among Gentiles. This was probably how Paul used his names as well.


Hope all that information helped. Ok, now I've got to go get lunch.

LongboardLOVELY

[Victoria Steele]

I am looking forward to your next post and I love what you are doing here Linda. Thanks so much for spending the time. I knew the story but it is wonderful to hear the words as if they had just been spoken. An experience that changed his life and those of many others , clearly.

And this is a strange comment but all I could think of was when he became " sighted " again and the comment was made that things " like fish scales" fell from his eyes.... of course I thought ..... contacts.
And what might THAT mean? I am sorry Elizabeth is missing this because she loves ancient stories and I am sure that she could add a comment or two but you are doing such a good job here I am sure that she would be appreciative. I had never heard the " fish scale" part of it.

You are a Dr. of Pharmacy , right? What do you think those things were? Victoria

[ladygrady]

I agree that the light that was seen above the crop circle was not the same that Saul saw. His was brighter, in another age, and actually talked to him. The other was just seen lofting along leaving warm air behind and that was in modern day. Absolutely agree on this point. But both of us looking at the past and the present will admit that its not your common everyday garden experience.

Notice that Saul and others repeated that the light ( as Saul said " blazed around me". ) To me, literally I would think he meant exactly what he said , that this light circled him. If it had "shone down" on him would he have described it that way? Its true that its hard enough to know how to translate an event from yesterdays newspaper so this might be an excercise in futility but I just wanted to note that I found it interesting.

The fact that he heard a voice that announced itself as " Jesus". Now thats interesting too. .

And I note that you are prepared to accept this as a manifestation of God at work, and I asccept that.

Asking for personal impressions here, so here goes mine.
I look look at that as a demonstration of some sort of remote device. of another entity at work. if this had happened today I would quickly assume it was some sort of remote telecommunications device....... and perhaps thats what it still was?

What I have figured however is that SOMETHING SPECIAL HAPPENED and it had a profound lifelong effect on the man who responded to that message.

Is it such a strange conclusion to come to. Do I have to call it a devil, or angel or anything of that sort? No ,I hope not. The thing talked to Saul. He answered ........ thats a telecommunications device, isn't it? grady

[LongboardLOVELY]

I am looking forward to your next post and I love what you are doing here Linda. Thanks so much for spending the time.

sure

And this is a strange comment but all I could think of was when he became " sighted " again and the comment was made that things " like fish scales" fell from his eyes.... of course I thought ..... contacts.
And what might THAT mean? I am sorry Elizabeth is missing this because she loves ancient stories and I am sure that she could add a comment or two but you are doing such a good job here I am sure that she would be appreciative. I had never heard the " fish scale" part of it.

Some versions say fish scale, some say just "scale", and one version says veil. As in "a veil was taken from his eyes". I like the King James version:

KJV: And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.

Because it speaks of immediacy. As in, as soon as Ananias touched Paul's eyes, scales fell from it.

You are a Dr. of Pharmacy , right? What do you think those things were? Victoria

Yes, I am a PharmD.

Remember, the person who is giving the account in chapter 9 is Luke. Then Paul himself give a personal account, and gives out a little bit more detail (Ch 22 & 26). In the first part of Acts, Luke tells the stories in third person, using pronouns such as they, and them. Then later on in Acts, he tells his stories in first person, as in "I" and "we". He used "we" a lot because he traveled with Paul on his second and third missionary journeys.

Because Luke was a Greek physician, the terms that he used were unique to that century, and the practice of medicine from that time.

Since Luke and Paul traveled together for so much of Paul's ministry, they probably had a lot of time to talk about what Paul saw fall from his eyes.

The closest that I can get to understanding the word "scales" is that there was a Greek medical term for the removal of dead-skin, and it is compared to a "scale-like" substance as it is removed.

Paul's experience of being blind lasted only three days. Sometimes I wonder if God chose three days to be funny; Jesus in the tomb for three days, dead and then alive. Saul blind for three days, dead to his old legalistic ways, then alive to Christ. Whatever the case, he didn't have the scales on his eyes before (OR did he??) and then it's gone when Ananias lays his hands on him.

I feel that the scales that fell off Paul's eyes were the same scales that fell off his soul. It has been said that when a person loses one or more of his senses, that the one's that are left become more acute. I believe that when Paul was blinded, his other senses became more sensitive to his surroundings to the point that he felt the atmospheric change around him. He not only saw the glory of Christ, but he felt the difference in the conditions in the air around him. He was blinded by the glory of Jesus, but was given spiritual insight beyond what sight can fathom. This, I guess, is the true "Damascus Road Experience".

The word that is used in the passage is "lepis", from lepo (to peel), and also lepra (from the same as lepis) or scaliness as in leprosy. And again, I think much is lost in translating Greek to English

LongboardLOVELY

~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is an addendum: Said tongue in cheek

"It's all Greek to me!!!"

[ladygrady]

That was a lovely thought ... losing the scales or the veil from his soul. I liked that alot.

I believe that sort of thing happens on a more regualr basis that we actually recognize. The old expression " I see the light" absolutely.

And this journey To Damascus is a spiritual one too for each one on it, to be interpreted each in his own individual way. To have the veil drop away, to have the eyes opened and to see the reality of our world, thats what has been mentioned on this forum too. Rather consistently, have you all noticed?

I just have become more and more aware that there are many different ways of seeing the stories that have come down to us. And Sauls experience on the way to Damascus is a classic challenge in that regard. Do we all accept what was written, or do we ask if perhaps there was something else happening there that Saul didn't understand at the time, but that which we might more fully understand now? Gods work, or another entity, or Gods work perhaps through that entity, or maybe something I havent the capacity yet to understand? Its time to ask the questions because I think that we are witness to a new age where the answers are finally going to come to us. grady

[LongboardLOVELY]

Is it such a strange conclusion to come to. Do I have to call it a devil, or angel or anything of that sort? No ,I hope not. The thing talked to Saul. He answered ........ thats a telecommunications device isn't it? grady

That is one way to look at it. God certainly has chosen many interesting telecommunications devices over the years

Moses, and his burning bush

Elijah, and his still small voice (my favorite)
And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

Jesus, his 40 days experience with Satan

Noah, and his ark (can't wait for the parody movie coming soon)

Balaam, and his talking donkey (another favorite of mine)...

==============================================

So does anyone have any thoughts on my earlier question about the warmth in the air and about the equipment going wacko in the presence of Crop Circles?

We got off on a tangent

LBL

[twigsnapper]

I adore reading your posts LBL because you bring so much to the front! Good work! I have a question though. What happened to the phrase " You can't kick against the prod?" Is that not in any of your translations? Or did someone leave it out because it made no sense? You know that I am championing Linda Brown here because she would probably bring that up right away. And your rendition was so carefully drafted, so I just wondered? Why it is not mentioned?

As for the warm air. Hope someone answers that because it has me stumped.

Showing my age but I particularly liked " Noah .... yes Lord ? How long can you tread water?" twigsnapper

[Chris Knight]

Perhaps the warm air is a result of the release of heat from moisture in the ground and vegetation after a crop circle is scribed.

If microwave energy is used, microwave heating at the 2.45 GHz range (conventional microwaves) is most effective in heating liquid water molecules. If that were the case, the moisture in the ground and vegetation would heat up and then release the heat over time into the surrounding atmosphere.

I would think it also would give the immediate area a temporary increase in humidity due to any evaporated moisture.

Does anyone know of humidity observations associated with crop circles ?

[twigsnapper]

Interesting choice of word. Scribed. So , is your thinking that this "circle" is some sort of transmitted pattern by target microwave? Would that do what you have described here? twigsnapper

[Chris Knight]

Would directed microwave energy do that ? I don't know. I am not very knowledgeable about crop circles, but I have two impressions.

One is that they remind me of the test patterns I used to see on TV. I sometimes scribe from engineering templates, and my impression is that it's a similar function. Whether there is anything else there is beyond my knowledge.

However, higher organization denotes directed intelligence, so I don't think for a moment that there is anything outside of a nuts and bolts explanation, and as always, just because I can't understand it doesn't make it anything more than that.

The second is that I remember one investigation that I read awhile back. The vegetation tends to be laid down in circular patterns, like a masked (template) vortex. Microwave energy doesn't really seem to be a candidate for that, but what the author said was that the nodes of the plants (the "knots" between the straight sections of the stems) had "popped" and lost their strength, thereby "laying" the plants down, while the rest of the plant was intact. I think that the author's comment was that there was more water in the nodes that might have been heated to failure by some form of energy.

The vortex nature of the vegetation in the circles elude me, though. It's difficult to search for an energy that might form vortices, since the actual science is so wrapped up in mysticism.

[LongboardLOVELY]

I adore reading your posts LBL because you bring so much to the front! Good work! I have a question though. What happened to the phrase " You can't kick against the prod?" Is that not in any of your translations? Or did someone leave it out because it made no sense? You know that I am championing Linda Brown here because she would probably bring that up right away. And your rendition was so carefully drafted, so I just wondered? Why it is not mentioned?

Mr Twigsnapper, I didn't omit that verse. It's in there. That verse is in my long LONG post on page 1 of this thread. It is in the section of Acts 26: 1-23, half-way down, in the middle, verse 14. It says:

14We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'


Why did Jesus say his name twice? Saying "Saul Saul" (twice) is a very Jewish reference. When God first spoke to Moses at the burning bush, God’s first words were "Moses Moses" (Exodus 3:4). Moses responded "here I am".

God said "Saul Saul", so Saul would understand that he was hearing the voice of God.

This is what I understand about the goad:

A "goad" is a spike object, often on the end of stick. It was used to get mules to move, the same way a cowboy has spurs. On chariots, they had goads behind the horses to prevent them from back-kicking the passenger.

"To kick against the goads" is a painful thing for an animal. If the horse or mule is stubborn, and doesn’t want to cooperate, the animal back kicks and "gets the goad".

The expression "kick against the goad" may have been a popular idiom of the day. That expression is recorded in one of Homer’s plays, which was written earlier.

This question (why do you kick against the goads?) at the same time declares Paul's guilt and opens the way for him to be free of it. To this point in his life Jesus was just the name of a dead messianic pretender, which Paul did everything in his power to make his followers renounce (26:9-11). Now he is overpowered by Jesus' living presence; indeed, he had been in a losing battle with Christ all along.

Maybe Ecclesiastes 12:11, "The words of the wise are like goads,..." came to Paul's mind?

Showing my age but I particularly liked " Noah .... yes Lord ? How long can you tread water?" twigsnapper

LongboardLOVELY

[LongboardLOVELY]

These things occured to me (I had notes on them - just got to go dig it out). Ok here you go:

King Agrippa would have been an educated man, well read. He would recognize the phrase (kicking against the goads) as an allusion to the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus. The line in the play refers to an old man fighting a losing battle against forces more powerful than he.

What intrigues me about Paul is that he is so intelligent and uses words, phrases, poetry and literature of that time period for the glory of God in the spread of the Gospel.

In Acts 17:28, he quotes to the Athenians from two Greek poets. "In Him we live and move and have our being" is from De Oraculis, a work by the 7th century B.C. Cretan poet/philosopher Epimenides.

The following line from the same verse "we are also His offspring," is from The Phenomena, written in the 3rd century B.C. by Aratus.

In Titus 1:12, he again quotes the De Oraculis, in making a point about the wickedness of certain deceivers, and says in the next verse, "this testimony is true."

1 Timothy 6:10 Paul's statement that 'the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil' is a quotation from a Greek philosopher, Diogenes the Cynic. Some may remember him as the one who went around in broad daylight with a lantern, looking for an honest man.

LongboardLOVELY

ps. Thank you Andy for addressing those questions I had about crop circles, even though he didn't have any answers. I guess I'll keep asking questions

[LongboardLOVELY]

If I were to use that phrase in a secular reference, it would refer to a person being stubborn or rebellious against a known authority. But is it necessarily bad in that sense to 'kick against the goad'?

Just shooting from the hip here. Suppose this was in reference to our Paul (who is not here to defend against these comments ) - he's frustrated because he doesn't have answers.

But WAIT !!!

He needs to ask the right questions to get to the answers. So he's kicking against the goad, the goad is maybe Mr. Twigsnapper (and others), trying to get him to a certain point, a certain location. Or redirection. Paul's trying to kick against the goad because he wants some comfort in the immediacy of knowledge, and OTHERS are just trying to drive that wagon.

And don't we all at some point in our life need to kick against the goad? I certainly have. (sometimes to my detriment)

Really off track from crop circles now ... LOL

LBL

[kevin.b]

longboard LOVELY,
Believe me , in the strange world of crop circles, nothing is OFF topic.
If YOU could circulate in TIME, what name would you ascribe to the narrator of TIME.
When you draw a circle, after 360 degrees, you are back where you started.
Posted at 359 .99.
kevin

[flowperson]

Since nothing is off-topic on this thread, here's some technology history about the beginnings of research in the area of pilot/psychology/aircraft
symbiosis during and just after WWII. And complex communications electronics and computational devices weren't even used much in those days.

Knew some of these people personally. Top shelf... and very prophetic stuff IMHO.

flow.....

http://www.aero.ca/e_adolescence.html