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Subud Vision - Discussion

Doubts and Worries. From Elias Stoakes, February 21, 2009. Time 22:39

Hello everyone.

My name is Elias, I am a 25 year-old second-generation Subud member. I currently live and study in London.

I have a couple of things to bring up and I would appreciate any response anyone has (hopefully, constructive...)

My faith in Subud has wavered rather considerably recently. From having been at a stage in my early Subud "life" (I mean after being opened) when I was very "into" the Latihan, finding it very fulfilling and beautiful, I now find that several doubts about Subud and the Latihan have crept up on me and worry my now precarious faith in things spiritual.
A person close to me now rejects Subud and belief in God (he has read Dawkins and agrees strongly with his view on creationism- ie that it is nonsense), who was once very committed as I was and have to some degree continued to be.
He has told me that he thinks that the Latihan, and especially testing, are examples of auto-suggestion and that the Lat. is psychologically-produced, rather then being a bona fide spiritual experience.

This is quite difficult for me as I have had a fairly trusting, childlike respect for the Latihan and Subud itself that felt perfectly valid for a long time. The person above has quoted a number of examples of tests that proved to be inaccurate to support his opinions.

I also had an experience, that I am embarrassed to admit has affected my thinking; I am oversensitive and I am probably being "paranoid", but there is more to come on this subject.
I met an academic who became a friend of mine who was a Christian who told me that he believed Subud to be the work of the devil. He cited Bapak's experiences with the ball of light entering through his chest as being examples of the work of Lucifer, 'the light-bringer', and connected Subud to New World Order conspiracy theory stuff etc. He also said that he thought the Subud symbol was really a web; I think his mind was interpreting in terms of occult symbolism, which often involves something pretending to be an image of one kind while it doubles up as also have symbolic meaning on a second, sinister level. He seemed concerned for me in a protective and non-manipulative way.
This probably all sounds like utter guff, but unfortunately I find it hard to Surrender in Latihan because I feel worried that "its from the Devil".
I recently discovered this quote from an article written by the journalist Alex Constantine:
Hey Bus,

I know its probably a silly thing to do but can I alert you to this disturbing article on Subud:

http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/cnst-nws.htm

Constantine (the author) states in the following passage, halfway down the page:

'The McMartin mind control experiments were reportedly the work of Subud, a religious sect with roots in Indonesia and the UK, according to confidential informants (active members who submitted to injections of sodium pentathol before questioning).

The cult is a cut-out of the American security elite's mind control fraternity. One of Subud's leading lights is Janet Morris, a science fiction writer and charter member of the Association for Electronic Defense. She is also research director of the U.S. Global Strategy Council, a Washington "think tank" founded by ultra-conservatives Claire Booth Luce, General Maxwell Taylor, General Richard Stillwell, former CIA Deputy Director Ray Cline, and the abrasive Jeane Kirkpatrick, among others. In 1991, Morris traveled to Russia to study a technological marvel that transmits subliminal command messages over the low frequency infrasound band. Political researcher Armen Victorian discovered that with the Russian "psycho-correction" transmitter, "subliminal messages bypass the conscious level and are effective almost immediately."

Another prominent member of the Subud sect is an executive of a major toy company - a leading maker of virtual-reality computer games for children, like the ones used by CIA scientists to traumatize young subjects.'

Any thoughts?


From Merin Nielsen, February 22, 2009. Time 1:21

Hi, Elias,

I'm a Subud member and atheist. No god, no devil, no afterlife -- to me, they're silly ideas. That 'mind control forums' website looks like utter rubbish -- some people have incredible imaginations and a penchant for creative writing, but not much integrity, or perhaps a tendency to kid themselves. Anyway, latihan might involve auto-suggestion, or it might be psychologically produced rather than spiritual, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable for human beings -- at least some of us. Who knows? Labels like 'spiritual' or 'psychological' don't really mean much after all. As long as I get something good out of latihan, I'll keep practising it, but it's not like a religion. If I get tired of it, I'll stop. But you'll decide for yourself.

It should be mentioned that Subud Vision was not intended to be a forum of this kind. I'm not sure how the editing team of the website ought to respond, but I've replied to you simply because I happen to be at my home computer with some free time, so all the above is just my personal view.

All the best,

Merin


From Hassanah Briedis, February 22, 2009. Time 4:24

Hi Elias,

I'm replying in the same vein as Merin. I too am a very unorthodox Subud member, and have absolutely rejected alot of the dogma and (what I see as) antiquated religious beliefs that have become add-ons to the simplicity of the Subud latihan. I was deeply involved in Subud life from my teens until I was about 40 yrs, and I know that none of the stuff you mention has been part of our mystical sect. Subud simply isn't as complex as that, it's quite a simple movement, probably one of the reasons it hasn't grown alot is its very lack of sophistication and worldliness.

I have been involved on the fringes for the last 20 years, and again have been allowed the freedom to do that, to criticize and object, without being ostracized or punished.

The other issue is 'what exactly is the latihan?' - is it auto-suggestion or a real spiritual phenomenon? I agree with Merin, it can be what you wish it to be. It can be useful in your life, and it can also, in my view and experience, have some drawbacks in the development of your life in the world. I think it depends how balanced you are psychologically. Because, as I describe in my article, the latihan may be achieving its powerful effect through a brain function called 'dissociation', this can make it difficult for some people to really engage in the push and shove of worldly life, but for others the latihan can be a wonderful foil to the pull of materialism.

But there's nothing weird about it, it is a simple mechanism, used by humans for thousands of years. Look it up under 'kundalini' in eastern philosophies, or 'sufi' practices, or Christian 'speaking in tongues' - all from the same family of mystical experience.

Thank you for sharing your concerns openly and inviting comments. I do hope you can find your centre again and find your own sense of truth.

Very best, Hassanah Briedis


From David Week, February 22, 2009. Time 6:0

Hi Elias

I too am 2nd generation Subud member. I too grew up with a childlike trust in Bapak, Subud and the latihan -- and why not: I was a child!

Over the last 30 years (I'm 53, and first met Bapak when I was 8), I've had a chance to carefully check the claims of Subud. What I've found is that:

• Testing does indeed often produce erroneous results: I might even say mostly erroneous results, as people ignore their minds and act solely on what they feel.

• Subud seems pervaded by a kind of "spiritual materialism": people believing that they've got better access to the divine than other people

• Lots of Subud practices are just Javanese practices, and lots of those are just plain superstitious.

• There are thousands of groups like Subud, with similar claims. Subud is the product of human religious impulse's, not God's Grand Plan. (One human impulse is to want to believe that you, your teacher and your friends are central to God's Grand Plan.

• I agree with your friend that Creationism is a crock. When originally conceived, it was our ancestors' best angle on "how did we come into being?", and thus perfectly legit. The motives of today's Creationists are altogether otherwise: all about power, and dividing humanity into "us" and "them". Evolution fits better with the reality of creation.

• I think it's now clear that the latihan does not create perfect, or even better human beings. On the whole, Subud members, "top" to "bottom", are no better than any other diverse group. That doesn't bother me. Publishing documents (even secretly, as "for members only") that suggest that it does seems unethical.

• Saying that there's no guru, or that Subud is open to all religions, is untruthful. There's lots of guruism, and lots of religious prejudice within Subud.

Subud is my community, and there are many people I like, and appreciate, and love. But it's been a great liberation in my life to free myself of the bad theology, the narcissim, the secrecy, the blind followship, the Medievalism, and the rejection of the world which so characterises so much of it.

And no, I don't think the latihan is a magic bullet. There are no magic bullets. The desire for magic bullet... that's fine in children, but not for adults.

There are two books I'd recommend to you, written by people who were second gen in 20th C. religious movements.

My Father's Guru, by Jeffrey Masson
Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening, by Mary Lutyens

Best

David

PS: The source you cite sounds like pure conspiracy theory. And few Christians today believe in Hell or the Devil, for the same reason they don't believe in witchcraft and alchemical transmutation of the elements.


From Sahlan Diver, February 22, 2009. Time 10:0

Hello Elias,

Many thanks for your message which has triggered some great responses and I hope there will be more to follow.

I'd like to add a few comments:
"He also said that he thought the Subud symbol was really a web"
- so it looks like a spider's web. I suppose if someone has a deep-rooted suspicion of the motives of spiders then this might be an excuse to read something sinister into the meaning of the symbol, but actually Bapak was quite upfront about the meaning - the circles represent 7 spiritual levels and the lines represent the life force that connects these levels. One can disagree with the theology, but in the end it's only a printed diagram on a piece of paper, it doesn't have any power - I wouldn't be relying on it to ward off a vampire, for example. And there is a commercial company with no connection with Subud which a similar symbol, though it only has 5 spokes - does this mean they also are automatically in league with the devil?

I think we have to be wary in religious matters of the power of the imagination. Throughout history it has led to people being very quick to accuse and elaborate and has led and still is leading to the most atrocious persecutions and behaviour, all in the name of supposed righteousness and purity.

However, I don't see anything wrong in your personal concern about where the latihan is coming from. That is prudent. If you're going into a room to submit to some force or energy or pehenomenon, then it's a good idea to check out what might be behind it all. I had to ask myself the same question when I was opened in 1972, coming on Subud unexpectedly, and having no friends or family in the movement. Since it was a catch-22 situation in that I couldn't find out the nature of the latihan without first being opened, I had to look elsewhere for evidence. Some observations I made were
(1) this is a mixed collection of people of different classes of society with different religious and non-religious backgrounds. They have not been asked to give up any religious beliefs in order to join
(2) those who have adopted the founder's explanations of the material, veg and animal forces, and so on, seem to be able to do so without feeling any contradiction with or disturbance of their religious beliefs
(3) they seem to act quite normally, before and after the latihan
(4) there does seem to be a quality in these people that is not easily explainable, and is most evident in them directly after they have done latihan
(5) they are not being asked to behave in any way contrary to morality or law. Also the founder is encouraging the members to get involved in humanitarian efforts, in particular enterprise with the aim of donating a large percentage of profits to charitable work

Of course, in your case, you have been opened, so the nature of the questioning will be different. But, it seems like your doubts are not coming from any negative experiences you are having in relation to the latihan and its effect on you, but are coming entirely from comments made by your acquaintances. Ultimately the judgment of where the truth lies is your call,

Regards,
Sahlan Diver
P.S. If the devil is choosing Subud to do his work, he could have chosen much better. Subud as an organisation is amateurish, mainly passive and somewhat ineffectual, doing much through years of habit rather than with any interest in achieving a tangible and worthwhile result.


From Walter Segall, February 22, 2009. Time 15:14


From Philip Quackenbush, February 22, 2009. Time 18:37

Hi, Elias,

You bring up a few good points for discussion.

To begin with, I'd suggest that you should have NO faith in Subud. To have faith in ANYTHING without a sufficient knowledge of it is folly of the worst sort. And the ongoing protocol for accepting new members perpetuates that folly by having "helpers" who don't know what the "latihan" is pretend that they do, or suggest that "you'll find out when you're opened". Sort of like what "Jesus" supposedly said about the blind leading the blind (stretching all the way back, apparently, to the founder of the Subud organization).

You might like to quit the org. for a while as I did (c. 2 years, after bopping away fairly regularly for almost 4 decades) and examine it from "outside". This can be highly revelatory. After rejoining the grope "latihans," it became apparent to me that I didn't really need them (or solo "latihans" either), having already established a capacity to enter the state, or phenomena, at will virtually instantly, and having realized that it's no more connected to "God" than a bar of soap or a hysterical novel is (or equally connected, if you prefer it that way), I usually only enter it long enough to find out that I don't need to "do" it (c. 10-30 seconds, on average).

Forcing the "kundalini" to "dance" by "latihaning" more than necessary (or as I did recently, participate in a Sufic zikr dance/"prayer" for nigh unto 2 hours), can be disastrous, leading to what in Subud is referred to as "crisis" (or at the very least, physical or nervous exhaustion), or as the men in the white coats in the UK call it, "Subud psychosis" (speaking of "kundalini", after about 30 years, 10 as a "helper", it suddenly "hit" me that I was "opened" long before I joined Subud in a yoga group). In case you wonder if you're not getting enough "latihan", a good night's sleep or two may balance your "forces" (or farces) equally well, but it's probably more enlightening to participate in the process consciously.

In fact, IMO, the lack of members' participation in the process of their own "latihan", questioning it, nudging it in a "new" direction, etc., is what can result in their "latihan" getting "stuck" for as much as the rest of their lives (which isn't necessarily a "bad" thing, it's just "where they are" psychologically.

All of that means that I remain in the cult (religion=successful cult) mainly because I enjoy the company and have known many members for decades now.

In regard to conspiracy theory (CT), there's a lot of it around, and, like anything else, it's up to the person encountering it to either ignore it or sort it out to find out what may be so, and what not so. For example, it's clear that a lot of Subud lore comes not only from Indonesian religious and cultural practices and biases but from a sort of Theosophical orientation, so it wouldn't be entirely impossible to find that some Subud members were involved in some of the practices mentioned in the cited article (which I read in full), but that doesn't necessarily mean that the entire org. is a product of them (but it might be: I had a friend in the SF group who offhand, on impulse in his "latihan", "tested" whether the "latihan" came from UFO's and immediately "received": "Of course").

As an example of differing opinions on CT, David W. has put forth arguments that it's highly unlikely that 9/11 was the product of a conspiracy by the US gummint, but IMO, the preponderance of the evidence I've seen points to my original reaction upon first seeing the towers collapse: "That looks just like the destruction of the King Dome in Seattle: carefully set charges". I even ran across one opinion from someone whose integrity I've come to respect (David Wilcock) that it was an extremely sophisticated demolition that included satellite impulses (maybe the so-called "positive" aspect was that the Dept. of "Defense" got a "positive" result on testing one or more of their new weapons devices), and included cutting the structural beams with charges so they could be hauled away on trucks (before any investigators could examine them closely). It's important in all of this to remember to keep a cool head and remember that all of it won't, as Clint Eastwood is fond of saying, mean a rat's ass in a hundred years.

Maybe that isn't very comforting, but there it is. As Walter Segall often points out, if I remember him correctly, life is not simple.

Peace, Philip


From Elias Stoakes, February 23, 2009. Time 1:30

Hello everybody,

Thank you so much for the responses. Actually things of this kind remind me of the qualities that I have always cherished about Subud: openness, honesty, an ability to tolerate plurality of approaches / opinions.

I did not necessarily believe the stuff on that website or the analysis of Subud that my friend offered to me; I could see well enough he had already pursued an interest in conspiracy theories that were grounded in what was for him convincing research, but was also prone to projecting the themes of such thinking into areas that might not deserve to be quickly tarred with the same brush.
I wanted to play the devil's advocate in a way- forgive the pun- by putting these things out there, although I was obviously disturbed by hearing / reading them; I suppose I wanted to be reminded what Subud was about in contrast to the spiritous world of my own doubt and moderate paranoia.

But my sense of ruptured trust remains probably because I "need" to experience disillusionment for my own good / growth, to be the "less deceived" in the future.

I would like to apologize for imposing my anxious soul-searching on you all; I do really appreciate the thoughts / responses.


From Philip Quackenbush, February 23, 2009. Time 6:8

Yo, Elias,

Just wanted to requote Walter more accurately: "Life is not easy."

Peace, Philip


From Walter Segall, February 23, 2009. Time 16:24


From Andrew Hall, February 23, 2009. Time 17:17

Hi Elias,
I've just been alerted to your question and the various replies they've elicited.

I'd like to add my own take on these issues, and I hope you find it useful.

I joined Subud about 15 years ago (I'm 57 now) because I was going through a difficult period in my life and wanted some outlet. I was reminded of a description of Subud that I came across in the 1970's in a book by Jacob Needleman called "The New Religions". It was a survey of various New Age groups and exotic spiritual teachings active in California at that time and I was taken with how the description of Subud seemed different from the others, free of trappings and dogma. Subud seemed (to me) to be centered on the subjective experience of each individual.

What have I learned since? I'm reminded of the Gershwin song lyric "the things that you're liable to read in the Bible, it ain't necessarily so." Ditto for what people inside and outside of Subud have said about Subud and the latihan. Besides incomplete information, I think it often says more about the assumptions or biases the person begins with.

In my own case, I came of age in the 1960's in a small Baptist church in a city in eastern Canada. I now appreciate many things about the community that church provided me and my family, but I became estranged in my early 20's because of the conceit of the salvation of the Elect, the insistence on the literal truth of the Bible, of the specialness of "spiritual experiences", and the promotion of fear (the suspicion of using your mind, fear of physical pleasure, of Devil possession, of hidden signs of the End of Days, etc.).

Ironic that I ended up years later in Subud where I found similar issues.

This is just to provide some background on myself. Now to reply more specifically to some of the issues you raise.

About two years ago my small Subud group (about 25 more or less active members) talked about putting up an explanation of Subud at the entrance to our latihan hall. We rent our hall to different groups and some thought this explanation might attract interest from people attending these other groups.

First, there was considerable discussion about Bapak's caution or prohibition about promoting Subud. When there finally was agreement to proceed (grudgingly from some members), several expressed the view that this was progress compared to how they would have reacted in the past. (I find embarrassing what this says about the ability of Subud groups to adapt and change.)

Next, the issue was what to say. This took some time and the end result was something like:

"Subud is an organization of people who practice an exercise called the latihan. Through practicing the latihan, people can receive guidance for their lives."

The majority of us felt we could live with this. For myself, at least it didn't claim any specialness and it didn't claim that the goal of the latihan is spiritual experiences, which I find many older Subud members assume to be true or "believe".

For what it's worth, this is how I now want to explain Subud to newcomers (and also to other Subud members!!) - Subud is an organization of people who practice a form of moving meditation called the latihan. The latihan experience is subjective and unique to each individual. Whether explained as whispers from the Divine or images from the subconscious, the latihan takes place in the human nervous system, just as all spiritual and psychological practices have in the long development of humankind. Many Subud members appreciate the latihan practice because they feel it provides them with promptings or guidance in their individual lives. The experience, how we are affected by it and how we make use of it in our lives is always the challenge and adventure of Subud members.

Some participants in this forum may challenge this as wishful thinking on my part. Indeed, I am using my imagination to create a different world. I only hope I am doing it consciously and with the wisdom (always subject to revision) that I have learned so far in my adventure in this life.

Good luck in your own adventure.

Andrew Hall
Ottawa, Canada


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