Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Forever Alive Issue 02
F O R E V E R A L I V E L i t e
---------------------------------------------------
Issue Number 2 Oct 1995
---------------------------------------------------
Forever Alive is the world's premier magazine on
the subject of physical immortality. We offer a new
vision of humanity, as completely whole, beyond the
polarities of life and death, spirit and body, mind
and heart, male and female. This pioneering
magazine explores the transformative powers of
embracing a life without limits.
This file is best viewed in a monospaced font, such
as Courier.
---------------------------------------------------
C O N T E N T S
* "An Introduction to People Forever"
by Kevin Brown
* "Without Sin"
by James Russell Strole
* "The Smell of Success"
by Jon Ward
---------------------------------------------------
M A S T H E A D
Editor: Herb Bowie
Forever Alive Lite is the electronic equivalent to
Forever Alive magazine, a periodical printed on
actual paper. The paper version is published
quarterly, while its electronic "lite" counterpart
is published monthly. Both are published by People
Forever International.
E-MAIL ADDRESS
HerbBowie@aol.com
MAILING ADDRESS
PO Box 12305, Scottsdale, AZ 85267-2305
TELEPHONES
1 (602) 922-0300 Voice
1 (602) 922-0800 FAX
1 (800) 2B4-EVER Toll-Free
Forever Alive Lite is copyright 1995 by People
Forever International. You may freely distribute
this file electronically on a non-commercial,
nonprofit basis to anyone, and print one copy for
your personal use, but you may not alter or excerpt
this file in any way without direct permission from
People Forever International.
---------------------------------------------------
A N I N T R O D U C T I O N
T O
P E O P L E F O R E V E R
by Kevin Brown
People Forever International is based in
Scottsdale, Arizona. This non-profit foundation
conducts two meetings a week at its Scottsdale
center, on Tuesday and Friday evenings, from 7:30
to 10:30. The organization also holds weekend
events once a month. These gatherings are usually
attended by two to three hundred people, most of
whom attend regularly. Newcomers are often present,
and always welcome.
Our meetings consist primarily of various people
talking spontaneously on subjects related to
togetherness and physical immortality. Seven or
eight people usually sit on stage. Some of these,
such as Charles Paul Brown, BernaDeane, James
Russell Strole and Kevin Brown, are on stage
whenever they're in town. Others are invited to sit
there on a particular evening. Many of the
evening's "expressions," as they are called, come
from those on stage. There is also usually a
lengthy period of "Open Forum," during which others
from the floor have a chance to speak.
In the following article, Kevin talks about People
Forever, our meetings in Scottsdale, and our
purpose together. -- Ed.
Togetherness
Every time we get together in our meetings in
Scottsdale, we're always making new discoveries
with one another. Nothing is ever regurgitated
here. I'm constantly amazed by the newness that
takes place each time in our expressions. There
never seems to be a dull moment around here. (I
keep waiting for one.) I have some when I'm alone,
but when we're together, it just doesn't happen
very often.
One of the reasons why we have our meetings is to
create a real togetherness of people. We know there
needs to be a lot of it beginning to take place. If
things don't change on this planet, then--believe
me--I definitely don't want to live forever. The
greatest thing would be to find this togetherness,
not just here with each other, but with everyone we
meet.
I'm really excited to know that we have people in
our meetings who are ready to create a new way of
being together on this planet. I'm talking about a
togetherness that supersedes all the examples of
separation that you can find throughout history. I
know we're doing something different here. There
have been a lot of ways to leave each other
discovered over the years, but I haven't yet seen a
lot of ways to stay together in this world.
We have gained a lot of ground in the work we do.
We've spent the last thirty years learning how to
create this togetherness with people, and we've
become professionals at it. There's no university
that teaches this stuff, but if one existed, we'd
be professors there.
This isn't just a place for living forever, because
there's a real solid foundation that has to be laid
first before you can even think about doing that.
You must have a support system of people.
It's not enough to have "the truth." I've seen
people looking for the truth get on guru trips, and
head trips, and screw each other over just for the
truth. That doesn't happen here. You can have all
kinds of truth. There are enough truths in the
heads of the people in any one of our meetings to
fill the whole universe. So, we're not battling
with anybody's truth. That's one of the first
lessons we learned about staying together: not to
battle with somebody's truth, but to go for their
heart. When you get someone's heart, you have them,
and you don't have to worry about the truth. When
you can go past all the beliefs and all the images
to really be together, then you have people who can
change with one another.
Inspiring Change
This is one of the things that makes our
togetherness so special: the ability to change with
each other. We have learned the ability, not to
change and walk away, but to change and create a
newness, a constant flow with each other. To a lot
of people, change has meant outgrowing other people
and leaving them. We're not changing in that way
with each other. As far as I'm concerned, if you
can't stay with a person, then you may as well
forget about living forever.
We offer people an opportunity, not to join a
movement, not to hear a new truth, but to think
about themselves and what they really want out of
this world. We offer people a chance to think about
what they want to change in this world. Some people
come in here expecting us to change their lives for
them, but it doesn't work that way: we can't change
a single thing for anybody. But if we can inspire
people to change something for themselves, then
we're not only helping them to change, we're
changing the planet. And it will enhance our lives.
So we like to call what we do "inspirational
speaking." We're not lecturers. We're not
preachers. We're people who feel deeply about what
we do. We feel deeply about being together.
A Rainbow
There are so many different kinds of people in our
meeting room, coming from all different parts of
the world. We have every kind of person here with
us, in terms of race, sexual orientation, religious
background, type of profession, and every other
category. We have two things in common, though: an
undying passion to change, and an undying respect
for each other.
We've got it all here, and that's one of the things
we like so much. It's a rainbow of colors in every
way, and that rainbow is together. All those colors
are meant to be together, not separate.
We're bridging the generation gaps. People have
built this form of separation to protect themselves
from the pain of losing each other, and from the
pain of death. In our meetings you can see a person
who is over seventy, sitting next to a fifteen-year
old. There isn't a lot of difference for us between
these two people, but in the rest of the world,
there's a big difference. In the rest of the world,
the older one would be assumed to be the wiser of
the two, but here, the one who is fifteen can be
considered to be just as wise.
Being wise has nothing to do with age. You don't
get wiser with time--you get wiser through your
openness and your feeling of other people. Wisdom
is feeling from the heart. When you feel from the
heart, you can be as "wise as serpents, and
harmless as doves." When you feel from the heart,
you become a chameleon: not in the sense of fooling
people, but in the sense of changing to support the
individuals you're around. That's what's happening
here.
Our elders aren't respected because they're old,
but because they're individuals who have put in a
lot of time supporting what we're doing here.
That's why they get respect--not because they need
help and support, and not because they don't have
much time left.
A Chance To Live
We offer people a chance to think about what they
want to get out of this life. This is an important
subject because, I can tell you right now, this
life is the only one you're going to get. I have no
proof of anything else. I've heard a lot of "white
light" stories, but I haven't heard anything about
what the promised land looked like.
I've found my promised land, and that's people.
It's you and me, together. I don't need a heaven up
in the sky somewhere. This world alone has all the
heaven and hell that there needs to be.
For me, it's not a question of whether we're going
to go to heaven or hell--it's a question of how
much crap we can take from one another before we
just give up. It's a question of how much stress,
and separation, and isolation we can put up with
before heaven and hell start to sound good to us.
Don't tell me that death is natural. If you were
supposed to die, then it would look good.
We're changing all these things around. We're
saying "Hey, maybe if we give each other a lot of
respect, and a lot of praise, and a lot of love,
and a lot of integrity, and a lot of togetherness,
then we can keep on living." All those things may
just sound like a lot of words, because they have
been used too easily by other people, but I'm
talking about a deep, deep movement taking place
behind those words. You can have a lot of thoughts
about peace and all that other stuff, but unless
you move on it, nothing happens. Unless you are it,
it's nothing.
And that's what we are here. We're what we're doing
here. We are what we're doing here. Of course, when
you realize that--when you realize that human
beings are the most important thing, that there's
nothing else to wait for, that the second coming is
our togetherness--then you realize, "Hey, wait a
minute, there's something for me to do here." Not
out of a mission, but out of your nature. Not out
of a mission to try and save the world, but because
you can't do anything else but be a prosperous,
potent individual on this planet.
There's something that happens to people just by
being in our meeting room. If you're sitting in
that room, then you're open for something new. I
don't care if you take that next step this week, or
next week, or maybe a month from now, because I
know that you're in a movement towards more
togetherness, towards a more supportive living with
each other in relationships, in business, and in
every facet of our lives together.
I've found the most important thing in the world,
and that's people. I've found the only thing that
changes this planet, and that's people. That's what
I'm sticking with.
I'm tired of hearing that people are dysfunctional.
People aren't dysfunctional until you put them in a
box. People aren't dysfunctional until you put them
in the box of death, and the box of separation. The
dysfunction comes from the lie that we don't need
to come together. The dysfunction comes from the
lie that it's every man for himself, until you get
over to the other side.
For me, what it's all about is having a real
respect for the human race. It's about joining with
people who are creating a real lifestyle of
togetherness. We're creating a new way of moving
with each other so that the human race doesn't
become extinct. We're creating a way of moving with
each other that allows us to take on our true
heritage: eternal life in the physical body.
- - -
=46rom Forever Alive magazine, Issue number 24.
Copyright 1995 by People Forever International.
---------------------------------------------------
W I T H O U T S I N
by James Russell Strole
When it gets right down to it, being human is the
best there is. Yet most of us have been taught that
being human is the worst. We've been taught that
it's not godly to be flesh and bone. We've been
taught that we are all sinners, and that it is sin
that causes corruption of the flesh.
I don't believe that it is sin that corrupts our
bodies--I think it is the consciousness of sin. You
see this in so many societies. The Hawaiians
enjoyed each other in ways that Christians would
consider sinful, yet they were originally one of
the healthiest and happiest races on the planet. It
wasn't until the missionaries came and gave them a
consciousness of sin that they began to have
diseases they'd never known before.
I feel that it is so crucial that we remain free of
this consciousness of sin. I can't emphasize this
enough. I'm not talking about feeling perfect, or
feeling pure, or feeling that we have it all
together. What I'm talking about is a feeling of
total wholeness. When you have this feeling, then
you need never feel sinful, even when you
absolutely fall on your face. For me, this feeling
of wholeness is synonymous with physical
immortality.
When you have this feeling, then you can not only
forgive yourself for your sins, you can forgive
everyone around you. This is the big one. Many
people feel so condemned themselves that they're
out crucifying everyone else, because they can't
forgive their own flesh.
Who on this planet deserves not to live? The mass
murderer, sitting on death row? I believe every
human being deserves to live. There's only one
unforgivable sin--and that's death. If you die,
then you can no longer forgive yourself. Everything
else can be forgiven.
I'm not out to bring the world a message of
immortality. I'm not out to persuade anyone to
adopt some new doctrine. The world is so bored with
messages. This planet doesn't need another new
doctrine.
What I want is to bring people this feeling of
wholeness. I want a living that is totally without
any consciousness of sin. I want to live with
people who make no distinction between sinner and
saint. I want a living with people who have a
feeling for their own flesh, and who are able to
give this feeling to others. I want to give the
world a feeling of what this kind of living is
like. This is what the world needs. This is what
people are hungry for.
So Many Sins
Sometimes it's easier to forgive each other for the
big sins than for the little ones. What would you
do if you met someone who had spent some time in
prison? You might decide not to hold it against
them. You'd probably feel pretty big about it, too,
being so forgiving and all.
But what about the person who said something
offensive to you about your business, or about your
belief system? Can you forgive them, too? Can you
be with them, no matter what? Can you find them
sinless in your body?
Many people consider it a sin to deviate from the
norm. There are many people who think it is a sin
just to be different. This is how people end up
sinking to their lowest common denominator.
A Passion For Flesh
Charles Paul, Bernadeane and myself--and all those
involved with People Forever--are doing something
so special in the world. We're bringing people
together who have nothing in common. Immortality is
not our common denominator. It's got to go past
immortality, otherwise we'll start discriminating
between mortals and immortals.
The only thing we have in common is a passion for
human flesh that's never been before on the face of
the earth. The only thing we share is a feeling for
one another that's unadulterated. It's not
something you can turn on with this person, and off
with another. It's not a feeling you can contain in
some little box. It's a feeling that bubbles over,
that spills over onto every person you meet.
When you have this feeling, then it's not a matter
of right and wrong. It's not a matter of sin. You
don't have to repent. You don't have to go to the
high priest of immortality and confess all your
sins (so that you can feel free to go out and sin
again). You don't have to accumulate bad karma and
come back as a bug.
When you have this feeling for human flesh, then
you can allow a person to make a mistake without
condemning that person to death. When you have this
feeling, then you can make a mistake without
putting yourself on death row. You may have made a
mistake, but you don't have to die. You don't have
to get cancer. You don't have to get heart disease.
You don't even have to get a cold, if you don't
want one.
You don't have to condemn yourself for your sins
anymore. Instead, just start correcting them. Don't
worry about what may look like a sin to someone
else. Just be concerned about moving in ways that
are complementary to you. Stop worrying about being
condemned to hell if you don't change your ways.
Instead, start changing your ways because you're
condemned to live here forever, and because you
want to live better all the time.
Realize that real living is about sometimes making
the wrong turn. But what's great about real living
is that you can always turn around, even if you've
been driving down the wrong road for days.
The Forgiveness of God
Stop waiting for god to forgive you. Take
responsibility for forgiving yourself. Be big
enough as a human being to forgive yourself and to
forgive others.
I hope that telling you to take the responsibility
away from god doesn't make you think that I'm a
hopeless sinner. I hope you won't condemn me to
hell because I talked about god in some way that
offended you. If you feel like this, then I guess
you've missed everything that I've been talking
about.
For me, it's clear that humankind created god for
his own purposes. You can see the examples right on
down through history. You can see it in the first
civilizations that worshipped the sun. You can
continue to see it right on down the line, until
you get to the more ethereal and sophisticated gods
that we worship today.
When I realized that god had always been the
creation of humanity, I didn't feel blasphemous. I
didn't feel like a pagan. I didn't feel any of
these emotions. I felt that I'd gotten rid of all
the bogeymen. I felt that I'd come unto the
revealing of the mystery. I felt divine. I felt
holy. I felt whole.
You may believe that god exists. If so, then I
don't want to argue with you. If there really is a
god, though, then there's one thing I want you to
know: I'm his best servant. I'm living his
creation. He created me out of his own image, and
from that place I'm sinless. I'm whole. I don't
need repentance. I don't need to be forgiven. All I
need is to be lived, in the holiness of our flesh,
with those whom he created to live with me.
- - -
=46rom Forever Alive magazine, Issue number 24.
Copyright 1995 by People Forever International.
---------------------------------------------------
T H E S M E L L O F S U C C E S S =
by Jon Ward
America is full of people who are dying to get
somewhere. Dying to land a job. Dying to be
promoted. Dying to make sales. Dying to get
married. Dying to be recognized. Most of all, dying
to succeed. "Success" in the American sense is
journey's end, the ultimate destination. It's the
American dream turned American reality.
"Success" belongs to the future, and sometimes the
past. It's what you strive for, or nostalgically
remember. After I crossed the Atlantic, I met
several people who had once owned a million
dollars--and lost it. This was a shock. In stodgy
England, people accumulate a little nest egg and
put it somewhere safe and dull. Here, it seems that
former millionaires are daily washing my car,
filling my grocery bag or serving my lunch. Like
nineteenth century Russian princes, they tell
fabulous tales of vanished fortunes. Their
counterparts (often the same individuals, in fact)
are the nearly-millionaires. They are always on the
verge of an astronomical deal, in real estate or
satellite dishes or multivitamins. Sure thing--no
kidding--closing next month! The American paradise
of success has this peculiar virtue: it may not be
here, but it's never far away.
Of course, the compulsion to succeed crops up
everywhere. But no other country has refined it
with such intensity. In these matters, the United
States is the undisputed world leader. So watch
out, wherever you live: "success" is coming your
way.
There's a special violence embedded in this
tireless idolatry. It's the violence of judgment.
"Success" is the deity who looks down on your
present existence and finds it lousy. In such a
mindset, life without "success" isn't worth living.
Except that life is always worth living so long as
you busy yourself struggling to succeed. This is
like trying to feed yourself on menus, and in
America especially, there are more menus than
people. Are you hungry? Here's a wonderful recipe
for you to eat. And another. And another. The funny
thing is, people on this diet get addicted to the
menus, and can't stomach real food. Hence the
former millionaires. No sooner do they grasp
"success" in their hands, than they blow it away.
"Success" quickly returns to where it belongs--just
out of reach.
To say people are dying to succeed is no mere
figure of speech. My work in advertising takes me
into some of the nation's top corporations, and I'm
astonished by what I see: fine, intelligent people
packed into poorly lit cubbyholes, systematically
dismantling their own bodies. This is the profile
of "success" in the making: badly fed,
under-exercised, overworked and un-cared for. Quite
often, these poor folk know what they're doing--so
there's a whole genre of corporate humor, about
heart attacks and exhaustion and ruined marriages.
On board the Titanic, the passengers are laughing
while the ship goes down.
Needless to say, if people are dying to succeed,
they're also killing to succeed. Not just the
sharks, but the nice guys too. In fact, the nice
guys especially. It's not so much that people are
mean to each other. It's more that they cooperate
in the patterns of self-abuse. Are you stressed out
again? Wonderful you! What Americans call
"business" is largely an agreement to trample on
the body in the race for cash.
None of this is news. The sixties saw a mass revolt
against the American cult of success. For a few
heady years, millions of people refused to want
what they'd been told to want. They quit the
corporations. They hit the road. They played with
soft drugs and easy sex. They "dropped out." But
how far out did they actually drop? The alternative
sixties culture was saturated in spiritual values,
borrowed (rather casually) from the East. The
dominant theme was to turn against materialism in
favor of the higher values of love, peace and
transcendence.
As in so many revolutions, there was more a change
of face than a change of heart. And twenty years
later, the same generation swung back to the
corporate values of success with even greater
ruthlessness than before. That's because even
during the sixties, there was an unconscious
agreement between the old regime and the new.
The beats and the hippies and the groovers badly
misinterpreted the cult of success. It has nothing
to do with materialism. "Success" in the American
sense isn't money or possessions or a public
position. It's an odor, a sensation, an aura that
surrounds these homey things--a parasitic addition
to the physical object. In other words, "success"
is a purely spiritual value. That's why it's always
"there" and not "here." "Success" is the afterlife
of secular culture.
The American religion of success has the same root
as every other religion in the world: a fundamental
contempt for the physical body. People kill
themselves and each other to "make it" because they
hate their own flesh. This hatred digs a cavity in
the heart of humankind--and the promise of success
is to fill the hole. Of course it never can, and
never will. So it seems much wiser to live with the
promise than suffer the disappointment of the
reality--to yearn for the solace of success, rather
than experience the bitterness of self-disgust.
When the sixties crowd turned from "success" to
"love," they were simply switching spiritual
values. All the imported religious
trinkets--transcendental meditation, ascetic
lifestyles, cosmic belief systems--reinforced the
underlying conspiracy against the body. "Dropping
out" was another escape from the flesh, neither
better nor worse than "success." So twenty years
later, it was easy to switch back again.
But what about nature-worship? What about all those
herbs and organic foods and yoga exercises? Surely
an important feature of the sixties revolt against
corporate America was a return to the natural life,
in which the body is preeminent? Yes and no. Yes,
some valuable lifestyle changes were installed at
this time. But no--the natural life is not the life
that supports the body. The natural life obeys the
laws of nature. The natural life decrees that the
body has to die. It's precisely this decree that
causes human beings to hate the flesh. So the more
people associate themselves with nature, the more
they betray the body--however healthily they appear
to live.
Death is a vicious circle: you reject your body
because it's going to die, and your rejection
speeds your death. This circle is what cuts a hole
in the heart, a hole that longs to be filled--with
success, with peace and love, with Jesus, with
anything but flesh. "Nature" doesn't plug the gap.
It only widens it, with the two-edged sword of
birth and decay. That's why the most "natural"
people are usually the most spiritual.
Every revolution up to now has been just
that--another turn of the circle. Physical
immortality is not a revolution. It's not a
"paradigm shift." It's not the next revolt against
a nasty world. Physical immortality is an awakening
of the physical body--a cellular event. It's you
discovering your own wholeness, not only in space
but also in time: the wholeness of foreverness.
Only when you are here forever can you totally
embrace your flesh, past, present and future. This
is true success. Then you have nothing to be
nostalgic about, and nothing to strive for. You
recognize that you are complete already, and always
will be. You get on with living.
If physical immortality has anything to teach
America, it's how to be truly materialistic. The
real purpose of money and possessions is not to
prove your own worth. It's to give pleasure to the
body. There's a way to enjoy the things of this
world with a light touch, like a child. Then you're
easy with receiving and easy with giving. You're
not greedily attached. You're not spiritually
detached. You're alive. That's because you start
from an overflow. The body that's here for all time
is full to begin with, and has nothing to achieve.
Living is an adventure and a celebration.
To break the cycle of death in this way is no small
thing. It can't be achieved alone. (Who'd want that
anyway?) Only in our togetherness do we discover
the full potency--and beauty--of the human form.
The body that's whole is connected to people, not
to goals. Your dreams of "success" are fine so long
as they inspire you. But if you need them to
experience your value, you've already lost the
race. When you reach your goal, you will still be
empty. The real excitement of living comes from
somewhere else entirely. It comes from a primeval
and passionate feeling for another person. A
feeling so strong that it overflows towards
everyone you know--and everyone you don't know. A
feeling that tolerates no falsehood, no abuse and
no separation. Because the ultimate success is to
stay together through everything we experience.
Forever.
=46rom Forever Alive magazine, Issue number 23.
Copyright 1995 by People Forever International.
---------------------------------------------------
FOREVER ALIVE MAGAZINE
Forever Alive magazine is the paper-based big
brother to this e-zine. It has been published
quarterly since 1989.
R. Seth Friedman, in Factsheet Five, Issue No. 56,
said about Forever Alive:
"This publication breaks the mold of fringe
immortality zines with informative, rational (and
very readable) essays in a bright colorful
package."
Carol Wright said about us, in the Spring 1994
edition of the NAPRA Trade Journal:
"This quarterly publication is probably the only
immortalist (as opposed to longevity) magazine
around. Forever Alive offers recent information
about longevity, bodywork, nutrition and so forth.
But their upbeat philosophical essays separate them
from other health magazines. They challenge your
most deeply seated beliefs about life and death."
The Alternative Press Review, in their
Spring/Summer 1995 edition, said:
"Forever Alive is a nicely-produced, 42-page
quarterly magazine devoted to bodily health and
human immortality...."
Forever Alive has now grown to 52 pages, with no
outside advertising, and featuring a full-color
cover. The magazine is available at better
bookstores, including the Barnes & Noble and
Borders chains. The cost is $6 for a single issue
and $24 for an annual subscription (4 issues).
Subscriptions and single issues may be ordered
directly from People Forever.
Distributors for Forever Alive include Desert Moon,
New Leaf, Armadillo & Co. and Ingram Periodicals.
---------------------------------------------------
--PART.BOUNDARY.0.25743.emout04.mail.aol.com.812869168--
