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Helen Bailie - Bait and Switch

Why we adopted Bapak's traditions. From Sahlan Diver, September 10, 2007. Time 13:46

Helen,

In your article you say, "..perhaps out of a respect for Bapak, many members chose to adopt his religion and to incorporate some of his cultural traditions as part of their own lives".

That may certainly be true of some members but I think there is another widely compelling reason that I have not seen acknowledged by any Subud Vision authors. Bapak explained the latihan in terms of diminishing the wrong influence of the "lower forces" and returning their influence to it's rightful place. He also spoke of practises such as prihatin, Ramadhan or Lent, name change and so on, as supplementary ways of lessening the wrong influence of these forces. The idea of being able to enhance the action of the latihan would be expected to have wide appeal, especially when promoted in this "pick and mix religion" way -- i.e. that one didn't need to actually become a Muslim in order to benefit from Ramadhan, and if you didn't fancy Ramadhan you could do Lent instead - let's be fair to Bapak, he did say in his talks that Ramadhan and Lent were of equal value.

I am making this point specifically about the sentence I quoted above from your article. I agree with the main "Bait and Switch" argument of your article and in fact quoted it in one of my own articles for Subud Vision.

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