Our acts are directed by our belief!

If you can make the reader believe anything no matter how absurd it is, he will prove it to be true by his experiments. This proves that our beliefs make us act and our acts are directed by our belief, for the wisdom or knowledge is in the belief. People are not aware of this.

Make man responsible for his belief and he will be as cautious what he believes as he is in what he says and does, for he will see that just as he measures out to another just so it will be measured out to him.

If you make a person believe that he is in danger of any trouble he will be affected just according to his belief, so all beliefs are to be analyzed like food or drink to see what it contains and how it acts upon the body, for the belief being in the mind, it shows itself on the body.

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
1863

the "I AM"

Guy Warren Ballard (1878 –1939) was an American mining engineer who became, with his wife, Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard, the founder of the "I AM" Activity.

Both Edna and Guy studied Theosophy[1] and the occult extensively.

Ballard visited Mount Shasta, California[2] in 1930, where he met another hiker who identified himself as Saint Germain.[3] Mr. Ballard's experiences take place within the larger North American mountain ranges. Ballard provided details of his encounters in a series of books Unveiled Mysteries and The Magic Presence, using the pen name "Godfré Ray King."

In 1930, fifty-five years after the Theosophical Society was founded, Guy Ballard introduced the concept of "Ascended Masters"[4], founding what later became known as the Ascended Master Teachings. Guy Ballard and Elizabeth Clare Prophet[5] from the 1960s to the 1990s added more than 200 new "Ascended Masters" that they claimed to receive dictations from in addition to receiving dictations from the original Masters of the Ancient Wisdom of Theosophy. However, the Theosophical Masters differ from the Ascended ones in many respects.

For example the so-called Ascended Masters, as their name suggests, are supposed to be Masters who have experienced the miracle of ascension, as it is said Jesus did. The original teaching, channeled by Guy Ballard, was that a new Ascended Master would not die but would take the body up with him. This teaching of ascension is in direct opposition to the Theosophical teachings. Mme. Blavatsky also rejected ascension as a fact, calling it “an allegory as old as the world.” In the Theosophical view, the Masters of Wisdom retain their physical bodies.

Guy Ballard, his wife Edna, and later son Donald, it is believed, became the "sole Accredited Messengers" of Saint Germain. Their teachings form the original nucleus for what are today called the Ascended Master Teachings.

The "I AM" Activity started from public lectures about these encounters and grew rapidly in the 1930s. Ballard lectured frequently in Chicago about Saint Germain's mystical teachings, in which America was destined to play a key role. By 1938, there were claimed to be about a million followers in the United States.

Guy Ballard died in 1939 and Edna Ballard died in 1971. Guy Ballard originally claimed that Ascension meant the ability to enter heaven alive, but after Guy Ballard died a normal death of natural causes, the word "Ascension" was redefined by the I AM movement as (resulting from one's services during one's lifetime for the Ascended masters) being able to rise to a higher level of heaven after one's death than the average person, and thus attaining the status of an Ascended Master. Specifically, this means in the original teachings of Theosophy that, to become a Master, he would have had to ascend upon his death to the fifth level of Initiation.

[1] Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th-century. Its major themes were originally described mainly (though not exclusively) by Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891), co-founder of the Theosophical Society. To promote Theosophy, the Theosophical Society was founded in New York City in 1875 with the motto, "There is no Religion higher than Truth". Its principal founding members were Helena Petrovna Blavatsky[6] (1831–1891), Henry Steel Olcott [7] (1832–1907), and William Quan Judge [8](1851–1896). During the two decades that followed the death of Blavatsky, a number of leading Theosophists expanded or reinterpreted her own and other theosophical works. Prominent among them were C(harles) W(ebster) Leadbeater (1854–1934), then considered the Society's main occult investigator, and Annie Besant (1847–1933), who became the International President of the Society in 1907, following the death of Olcott.


[2] Mount Shasta, a prominent northern California landmark.






[3] The Count of St. Germain (1712 - 1784) has been variously described as a courtier, adventurer, charlatan, inventor, alchemist, pianist, violinist and an amateur composer. His background is sketchy but apparently he began to be known under the title of the Count of St Germain during the early 1740s.

[4] Ascended Masters, in the Ascended Master Teachings is derived from the Theosophical concept of Masters of the Ancient Wisdom or "Mahatmas". They are believed to be spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans, but who have undergone a process of spiritual transformation originally called Initiation in Theosophy but in the Ascended Master Teachings it is referred to as Ascension. The term "Ascended Master" was first introduced in 1934 with the publication of “Unveiled Mysteries” by Guy Ballard in The "I AM" Activity. This concept was further popularized by authors such as Baird T. Spalding [9] during the 1930s.

[5] Elizabeth Clare Prophet (1939 - 2009) was an American spiritual author and lecturer who was the leader of The Summit Lighthouse and Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age religious movement which gained media attention in the late 1980s and early 1990s while preparing for potential nuclear disaster.
In 1961, Mark met Elizabeth Clare Wulf; they married in 1964 and had four children. Wulf, subsequently Elizabeth Clare Prophet, had grown up under influences including New Thought and Christian Science.
Mark L. Prophet (1918 - 1973) was an American born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. He claimed to be a Messenger of the Ascended Masters and founded The Summit Lighthouse organization on August 7, 1958 in Washington D.C..

[6] Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831- 1891) was a founder of Theosophy and the Theosophical Society. Blavatsky grew up amid a culture rich in spirituality and traditional Russian mythologies, which introduced her to the realm of the supernatural.



[7] Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832 – 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society.

[8] William Quan Judge (1851 –1896) was a mystic, esotericist, and occultist, and one of the founders of the original Theosophical Society.

[9] Baird Thomas Spalding (1872–1953) was an American writer. He is the author of the spiritual book series : “Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East”. Although Spalding's books claimed he was born in England in 1853, Spalding was born in North Cohocton, New York in 1872. He spent much of his life as a mining engineer in the American West.
In 1924 Spalding published the first volume of “Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East”. It describes the travels to India and Tibet[10] of a research party of eleven scientists in 1894. During their trip they claim to have made contact with "the Great Masters of the Himalayas", immortal beings with whom they lived and studied, gaining a fascinating insight into their lives and spiritual message. This close contact enabled them to witness many of the spiritual principles evinced by these Great Masters translated into their everyday lives, which could be described as 'miracles'. Such examples are walking on water, or manifesting bread to feed the hungry party.
Although popular, Baird Spalding was an enigmatic figure and the authenticity of the events described in the Life and Teachings have never been confirmed. Spalding never produced any evidence of the claimed trip, and none of the other scientists were ever identified. Skeptics argue that Spalding did not visit India as claimed, and his works belong to the magical autobiography genre.
[10] Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people. Tibet is the highest region on earth, with an average elevation of 4,900 metres (16,000 ft).


It's not unfamiliar for people to make claims concerning Tibet.

Cyril Henry Hoskin (1910 –1981), more popularly known as Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, was a writer who claimed to have been a lama in Tibet[10] before spending the second part of his life in the body of a British man. Hoskin described himself as the "host" of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. The name Tuesday relates to a claim in The Third Eye that Tibetans are named after the day of the week on which they were born.
Explorer and Tibetologist Heinrich Harrer (best known for his books Seven Years in Tibet (1952) and The White Spider (1959)) was unconvinced about the book's origins and hired a private detective from Liverpool named Clifford Burgess to investigate Rampa. The findings of Burgess' investigation were published in the Daily Mail in February 1958. It was reported that the author of the book was a man named Cyril Henry Hoskin, who had been born in Plympton, Devon in 1910 and was the son of a plumber. Hoskin had never been to Tibet and spoke no Tibetan. In 1948, he had legally changed his name to Carl Kuon Suo before adopting the name Lobsang Rampa.
Rampa was tracked by the British press to Howth, Ireland and confronted with these allegations. He did not deny that he had been born as Cyril Hoskin, but claimed that his body was now occupied by the spirit of Lobsang Rampa.
Lobsang Rampa went on to write another 18 books containing a mixture of religious and occult material. One of the books was described as being dictated to Rampa by his pet Siamese cat, Mrs Fifi Greywhiskers. Faced with repeated accusations from the British press that he was a charlatan and a con artist, Rampa went to live in Canada in the 1960s. He and his wife, San Ra'ab, became Canadian citizens in 1973, along with Sheelagh Rouse (Buttercup) who was his secretary and regarded by Rampa as his adopted daughter.

Fra Andrew Bertie, a Polyglot schoolmaster who became the first English Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. Andrew Willoughby Ninian Bertie ( 1929 –  2008) was Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta from 1988 until his death in 2008. An obituary of Fra Andrew Bertie, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, claims that he was involved in unmasking Lobsang Rampa as a West Country plumber. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobsang_Rampa
"His grasp of Tibetan later enabled him to unmask a Himalayan shaman as a West Country plumber."
https://web.archive.org/web/20100524073901/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3417529.ece
Lobsang Rampa died in Calgary in 1981, at the age of 70. Museum of Hoaxes
 

The source of the idea that there is a hidden sanctuary of ascended Lemurian masters under Mount Shasta.
“A Dweller on Two Planets or The Dividing of the Way” is a book written by Frederick S. Oliver, who was born in 1866. The book was finished in 1886 and in 1894 the manuscript was typewritten and copyrighted and again in 1899, owing to an addition. It was not published until 1905, by his mother Mary Elizabeth Manley-Oliver, six years after Oliver's death in 1899.
Oliver started to write this book at the age of eighteen, in 1883-4, while surveying the boundaries of his family's mining claim. Oliver was born in Washington D.C. in 1866 and came to Yreka, California, with his parents when he was two years old. Yreka is just north of Mount Shasta, a huge dormant volcanic peak in Northern California. He found himself writing uncontrollably in his notebook. He ran home in terror, where he sat down and let his hand write. These automatic writing spells continued for several years; he would write a few pages at a time. He completed writing this book in 1886, and died at the age of 33 in 1899.
Oliver claimed that the book had been channeled through him via automatic writing, visions and mental "dictations", by a spirit calling himself Phylos the Thibetan who revealed the story to him over a period of three years, beginning in 1883. The book has been influential on ideas concerning Atlantis, Lemuria and Mount Shasta. In a 2002 introduction, John B. Hare says that it "is openly acknowledged as source material for many new age belief systems, including the "I AM" movement, the Lemurian Fellowship, and Elizabeth Claire Prophet."This book is the source of the idea that there is a hidden sanctuary of ascended Lemurian masters under Mount Shasta.

Problem-based learning

(PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject in the context of complex, multifaceted, and realistic problems. Working in groups, students identify what they already know, what they need to know, and how and where to access new information that may lead to resolution of the problem. The role of the instructor is that of facilitator of learning who provides appropriate scaffolding of that process by (for example), asking probing questions, providing appropriate resources, and leading class discussions, as well as designing student assessments.

PBL was pioneered in the health sciences in Hamilton, Ontario[1] at McMaster University[2] in the late 1960's and subsequently it has been adopted by other medical school programs and also been adapted for undergraduate instruction. The use of PBL, like other student-centered pedagogies, has been motivated by recognition of the failures of traditional instruction and the emergence of deeper understandings of how people learn. Unlike traditional instruction, PBL actively engages the student in constructing knowledge in their own mind by themselves, and thus addresses many of deficits of traditional classroom where knowledge is expounded by an instructor.
[1] Hamilton, Ontario - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
City of Hamilton - Official website of the City of Hamilton



Characteristics of PBL are:
• Learning is driven by challenging, open-ended, ill-defined and ill-structured problems.
• Students generally work in collaborative groups.
• Teachers take on the role as "facilitators" of learning.

In PBL, the teacher acts as facilitator and mentor, rather than a source of "solutions."
A Summary of Problem-Based Learning:
A simplified model
Problem-based Learning is a six step process. However, steps two through five my happen simultaneously as new information becomes available and redefines the problem. Additionally, step six may occur more than once:
1. Present the problem statement. Introduce an "ill-structured" problem or scenario to students. They should not have enough prior knowledge to solve the problem. This simply means they will have to gather necessary information or learn new concepts, principles, or skills as they engage in the problem-solving process.
2. List what is known. Student groups list what they know about the scenario. This information is kept under the heading: "What do we know?" This may include data from the situation as well as information based on prior knowledge.
3. Develop a problem statement. A problem statement should come from the students' analysis of what they know. The problem statement will probably have to be refined as new information is discovered and brought to bear on the situation. Typical problem statements may be based on discrepant events, incongruities, anomalies, or stated needs of a client.
4. List what is needed. Presented with a problem, students will need to find information to fill in missing gaps. A second list is prepared under the heading: "What do we need to know?" These questions will guide searches that may take place on-line, in the library, and in other out-of-class searches.
5. List possible actions, recommendations, solutions, or hypotheses. Under the heading: "What should we do?" students list actions to be taken (e.g., questioning an expert), and formulate and test tentative hypotheses.
6. Present and support the solution. As part of closure, teachers may require students to communicate, orally and/or in writing, their findings and recommendations. The product should include the problem statement, questions, data gathered, analysis of data, and support for solutions or recommendations based on the data analysis.

Problem-based learning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] McMaster University Problem Based Learning
McMaster University CLL Resources Problem Based Learning

The Secret Teachings of All Ages

Manly Palmer Hall (1901 –1990) was a Canadian-born author and mystic. He is perhaps most famous for his 1928 work The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Born on March 18, 1901 in Peterborough, Ontario [1], he was raised by his maternal grandmother who brought him to the United States when he was very young.

In 1928, at the age of 27 years, Hall published The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy.

In 1934, Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society (PRS) in Los Angeles, California, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of religion, mythology, metaphysics, and the occult. He was also the author of a masonic curiosity, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry in 1923, more than thirty years before he joined a lodge. The preface of later editions states "At the time I wrote this slender volume, I had just passed my twenty-first birthday, and my only contact with Freemasonry was through a few books commonly available to the public." Later, in 1944, he wrote The Secret Destiny of America which popularized the myth of a masonic purpose for the founding of the USA. In 1950 he weighed in again on the meaning of Freemasonry with his booklet: Masonic Orders of Fraternity.

Many people were charmed by his childhood memories from his book “Growing up with Grandmother”.

Hall spent decades researching eastern philosophy, occult studies, astrology, and a wide variety of related topics at a time when such subjects were still unknown territory in the western world. It is in no small measure due to his extensive writings and teachings that these subjects are so widely known today.

“To learn is to live, to study is to grow, and growth is the measurement of life. The mind must be taught to think, the heart to feel, and the hands to labor. When these have been educated to their highest point, then is the time to offer them to the service of their fellowman, not before.”

“My fleeting contact with high finance resulted in serious doubts concerning business as it was being conducted at that time. It was apparent that materialism was in complete control of the economic structure, the final objective of which was for the individual to become part of a system providing an economic security at the expense of the human soul, mind, and body. I felt strongly moved to explore the problems of humanity, its origin and destiny, and I spent a number of quiet hours in the New York Public Library tracing the confused course of civilization. With a very few exceptions modern authorities downgraded all systems of idealistic philosophy and the deeper aspects of comparative religion, Translations of classical authors could differ greatly, but in most cases the noblest thoughts were eliminated or denigrated. Those more sincere authors whose knowledge of ancient languages was profound were never included as required reading, and scholarship was based largely upon the acceptance of a sterile materialism. Fortunately, since contemporary scholarship had little regard for the wisdom of the past, there was no premium on the earlier texts As a result I assembled a fair collection of the works of those forgotten sages to whose labors the world owes a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

Wisdom is taught to realize that man is not essentially a personality, but a spirit.~Manly P. Hall

[1] City of Peterborough
Peterborough, Ontario - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
C.L.P.O.A. ~ Chandos Lake Property Owners Association - Apsley, Ontario

Bloom's Taxonomy

Continued from: http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2011/07/one-of-most-widely-cited-yet-least-read.html

Categories in the cognitive domain of Bloom's Taxonomy

Skills in the cognitive domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, and critical thinking of a particular topic. Traditional education tends to emphasize the skills in this domain, particularly the lower-order objectives.
There are six levels in the taxonomy, moving through the lowest order processes to the highest:
Knowledge
Exhibit memory of previously-learned materials by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers
Comprehension
Demonstrative understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating main ideas
Application
Using new knowledge. Solve problems to new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way
Analysis
Examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes. Make inferences and find evidence to support generalizations
Synthesis
Compile information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions
Evaluation
Present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria

Affective
Skills in the affective domain describe the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel another living thing's pain or joy. Affective objectives typically target the awareness and growth in attitudes, emotion, and feelings.
There are five levels in the affective domain moving through the lowest order processes to the highest:
Receiving
The lowest level; the student passively pays attention. Without this level no learning can occur.
Responding
The student actively participates in the learning process, not only attends to a stimulus; the student also reacts in some way.
Valuing
The student attaches a value to an object, phenomenon, or piece of information.
Organizing
The student can put together different values, information, and ideas and accommodate them within his/her own schema; comparing, relating and elaborating on what has been learned.
Characterizing
The student holds a particular value or belief that now exerts influence on his/her behaviour so that it becomes a characteristic.

Psychomotor
Skills in the psychomotor domain describe the ability to physically manipulate a tool or instrument like a hand or a hammer. Psychomotor objectives usually focus on change and/or development in behavior and/or skills. Bloom and his colleagues never created subcategories for skills in the psychomotor domain, but since then other educators have created their own psychomotor taxonomies.

Dorothy Martin ~ ‘Sister Thedra’

I like to play connect the dot and see where it leads me.

Enthusiastic members of her circle were Dr Charles and Lillian Laughead (who appear as Thomas and Daisy Armstrong in When Prophecy Fails [http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2011/07/leon-festinger-1919-1989-was-american.html]).

ONE OF THE MOST WIDELY CITED YET LEAST READ BOOKS IN AMERICAN EDUCATION

Benjamin Samuel Bloom (1913 –1999) was a American educational psychologist who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery-learning. He also directed a research team which conducted a major investigation into the development of exceptional talent whose results are relevant to the question of eminence, exceptional achievement, and greatness.

Bloom's Taxonomy is a classification of learning objectives within education proposed in 1956 by a committee of educators chaired by Benjamin Bloom who also edited the first volume of the standard text, Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals (referred to as simply "the Handbook" below). Although named for Bloom, the publication followed a series of conferences from 1949 to 1953, which were designed to improve communication between educators on the design of curricula and examinations.

It refers to a classification of the different objectives that educators set for students (learning objectives). Bloom's Taxonomy divides educational objectives into three "domains": Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor (sometimes loosely described as knowing/head, feeling/heart and doing/hands respectively). Within the domains, learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels. A goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education.

A mythology has grown around the taxonomy, possibly due to many people learning about the taxonomy through second hand information. Bloom himself considered the Handbook, "one of the most widely cited yet least read books in American education".

Key to understanding the taxonomy and its revisions, variations, and addenda over the years is an understanding that the original Handbook in 1956 was intended only to focus on one of the three domains (as indicated in the domain specification in title: The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook I: Cognitive Domain), but there was expectation that additional material would be generated for the other domains (as indicated in the numbering of the handbook in the title).

In 1971 he said, "Ideally each major field should have its own taxonomy in its own language - more detailed, closer to the special language and thinking of its experts, reflecting its own appropriate sub-divisions and levels of education, with possible new categories, combinations of categories and omitting categories as appropriate.”