Feedback:
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 13:08:28 -0500
From: Bob Wubbolding <wubsrt@fuse.net>
To: darwin@atheists.net
Subject: Reality Therapy
Dear Darwin Bedford,
Your web page yielded information about "Spiritual Reality Therapy". I
feel the need to comment about it. For 11 years I have been the
Director of Training for the William Glasser
Institute which is the
organization which sponsors the certification process in Reality
Therapy. The president of this Institute is William Glasser MD who in
1965 wrote the book Reality Therapy. He coined the phrase "reality
therapy".
Your description of spiritual reality therapy has nothing to do with
genuine reality therapy. I encourage you to consult the professional
literature on this subject so as to correct your erroneous ideas. You
state that "Spiritual Reality Therapy is a branch of Reality Therapy."
This is simply not true. My suggestion is that you not promote these
inaccuracies. Training in Reality Therapy is available and credentials
can be obtained. They are worth the effort involved.
On a more personal note you have every right to say whatever you want
and to promote this kind of nonsense. I can't imagine that if you
really gave more consideration to this issue you would want to be
identified with such inaccurate ideas.
Sincerely,
Robert E. Wubbolding
Bob, thank you for the reality therapy. Your comments are accurate of course.
I have removed "is a branch of Reality Therapy" from the text. I
have also added a feedback section to the page and a link to your institute.
However, I will continue to use the term "reality therapy" in the context of
people needing therapy when they are too far out-of-reality.
ear Darwin (if I may use your first name),
I will be graduating May of 2000 as a Religious Science Minister. As part of my Pastoral Counseling
Course, I am reading and doing research on Reality Therapy by William Glasser. Your premise is an
interesting one, and one that I agree with in the context of dispelling the myth and superstition from what
is the Truth. Truth is within each of us, this is what Jesus taught, however, most Christians have misunderstood
the teaching and made it into a superstitious mumbo-jumbo along with the deification of Jesus which I
disagree with.
I pray daily, but my prayer consists of meditation and spiritual mind treatment as taught by Religious Science or
as I prefer to refer to it, Science of Mind. Treatment is a 5 stage process consisting of Recognition, Unification,
Realization, Thanksgiving, and Release. In Recognition we recognize or become aware that all there is is
One Source of all that is. In Unification, we acknowledge that since there is only One Source, that we are
made of, and living in that One Source, therefore what we think, say and do is the One Source acting through
us. Realization is where we then state the Truth for the situation we are doing the treatment and know that
it is coming from this perfect space creating the perfect condition in thought and ultimately in life. Thanksgiving
is just that, we are thankful, grateful for this awareness and this truth being revealed and expressed here and
now. In Release we let go of the whole process and from this moment forward don't think of the condition.
If we are ill or the condition persists, we merely remind ourselves that treatment has been performed and
that at the moment of Release the condition was neutralized on this physical plane. In most teachings of
spiritual consciousness it is stated that what we put our thought on is multiplied in our lives. This is the Truth.
We must become aware of what we are thinking at all times, not only consciously, but subconsciously.
Our subconscious thought is very powerful and unless it is held in check using the conscious thought can
create chaos in our lives which we attribute to spirits or gods and in some cases even God. Of course, I still
don't think the Christian God exists.
My "religious" path, if you would allow me to refer to it as such, has spanned the large part of my life from
the moment I could start questioning. During these many years, I've searched and tried almost every religion
there is. I've steered away from cults because I can't understand how anyone can give up their power and
responsibilities to live to their fullest to someone else. This is one reason I started studying Science of Mind.
It teaches one to be responsible for not only their actions but the outcome of those actions.
Science of Mind is a wonderful teaching, but as in all teachings, the farther one gets from the source, in this
case Dr. Ernest S. Holmes, the more the philosophy becomes diluted. Dr. Holmes believed, and so do I,
that all there was was God. Now don't stop reading, God is merely a shorthand for Universal Intelligence,
Life, Power, Universal Mind, etc. In our philosophy we believe there is One Perfect Source of all there
is. Something like what the Quantum Physicists are attempting to prove with the Unification Theory. And
that this Perfect Source responds to our slightest thought. In other words, we create our reality through
our thoughts and words. The simplest way to kind of understand this without the years of studying the
philosophy and reading all the books Holmes wrote is this; upon rising for the start of the day, what are
the first thoughts you have? Are they thoughts of joy, health, happiness, abundance, or are they thoughts
of illness, dread, fear, anger, frustration, sadness, etc.? If we put out into the universe that we expect Life
to be wonderful, then that's what we'll receive; if on the other hand we put out that we expect misery, then
that is what we will receive. This thing call Life (also a title of one of Dr. Holmes books) is so sensitive
that it responds to whatever thought (conscious or subconscious) we put into it. It permeates all that exists.
It is all there is and everything that exists is made from it and exists in it.
So I just wanted to offer this "brief" information to you in response to your page.
Sincerest blessings and I look forward to corresponding with you,
Ron
#-$-#-$-#-$-#-$-#-$-#-$-#-$-#-$-#
With all Good Thoughts,
Ronald Glenn Cosseboom
Colorado School of Mines
http://www.mines.edu/fs_home/rcossebo/peace.html
rcossebo@mines.edu,
Hello,
I happened to surf into atheists.net by a) random chance, or b) it was
"meant to happen." Does it matter? I looked forward to an open-minded,
many-sided view of the earth and its people, which may purport to be
atheism's claim. I enjoyed the essay on the complacent manslaughter by
first-world countries of third-world humanity. Most interesting of all was
the page on the delusion of spirit acceptance, "Introducing Spiritual
Reality Therapy." While this viewpoint is an uncommon and therefore
necessary one in our faith-soaked environment, your arguments failed to
convince me of the inherent wrongness of belief in the unseen.
While the tenets of atheism supposedly guarantee freedom and impartiality,
every thesis in this text evoked the fatalistic intolerance of a Scientific
Inquisition. Lines such as "The reality is that spiritual entities exist
solely in our imagination," read no different to me than any monotheistic
religion's claim that their view of existence is the sole reality, one truth
for all of humankind.
Secondly, the fact that we should trust the integrity of our respective
realities on a magazine-style self-quiz ("Reality Check") appears about as
rational as the very cults this page disclaims.
I question whether such a concept as Spiritual Reality carries truth, as it
implies a oxymoron. Your "belief" is that reality holds no spirits, as
spirits hold no reality. Your "belief" in the universality of science is
simply as "real" to you as another's knowledge that faith is the fact of the
universe. The title of your reality judgement quiz should have read, "Here
is a simple test to determine whether or not you are living a life
consistent with MY reality."
After reading that "our lives are insignificant and meaningless in that we
matter only to ourselves and the living entities with whom we inter-relate,"
I wonder why the faulty beliefs of so many unconnected humans should even
matter to you.
As long as reincarnation therapy continues to heal those who don't believe
in reincarnation, and every revolution in modern science is begot by the
"imagination" of a human, who is to determine where faith ends and fact
begins?
The very basis of "spirit," a universal thread found in disparate indigenous
cultures, consists of an existence apart from what is "real." If the
shedding of the falsehood of spirit is your goal, how can "spiritual reality
therapy" be your path? Doesn't the "belief" in the nonexistence of spirits
require a function of faith beyond what we see and hear? How is one embedded
since birth in a spiritual culture supposed to revise their view of
"reality" without a leap of faith in what may compromise the unseen?
For that matter, what kind of faith should the layperson put into the realm
of "therapy," a man-made tool consisting of a supposed science contrived to
"heal" the mind? If the Truth of Fact is the goal, then every possible
analysis of unproven human tenets should be our aim. That is my purpose in
writing this letter. Please debate--and build.
Thanks!
Faithfully,
Last updated: January 7, 2000
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