About

In comics,The Ultimate Nullifier is a tiny, complex, even mysterious device that, when used as a weapon, more or less erases its user, their target, and the planet they both occupy. Today, I received the picture-postcard you sent me, the one with "Thinking of you!" scrawled on the back, as if to teach me that in real life, destroying two people and a reality requires only simple - even conventional - measures. This week, the Miracles in Manhattan Podcast talks about Lesson 10 of A Course in Miracles...and other matters. Things get funny. Talking points include: A pretty-good AI, or: WE HAVE TRANSCRIPTS!!!  2019 resolution: podcast from the astral plane Experience = perception - thoughts. (And other basic maths) Pablo Picasso was never called an a$$h0l3. Not in New York Marco shows that talking about Zen - isn’t very “Hi! Nothing means anything to me!” (A MiM-approved first-date convo starter.) Steph talks to dead people, but doesn't laugh   The Mountain Goats. The Orpheus Protocol. Let’s tangent.  We’re taking life-questions. Email us! miraclesinmanhattan@gmail.com (Usual MiM suspects also appear: advice, ACIM, A Course in Miracles, true crimes, true mind, comedy, pain, The Present, Love, Dating, Race, BDSM, the body, Spirit, Self-help, Spirituality) Find more content at miraclesinmanhattan.com | @Wildmanhattan (t) | #Podernfamily   TRANSCRIPT: In praise of meaningless thoughts. ACIM. Miracles in Manhattan. Marco Maisto and Rev. Stephanie Wild. Produced by Wild Stories and Rogue Signal Studios, NYC. Marco: [00:00:06] Summer has broken its chokehold. Sometimes highs are in the 70s. It's back to school season. [00:00:17] It's lovely day to be in New York City. [00:00:23] Welcome to Miracles in Manhattan. [00:00:31] My thoughts do not mean anything. It's going to be a lot easier to podcast on the astral plane because I have to say when we get there. Yeah. Because all we have to do is think stuff. Yes. And then everyone knows it. Marco: [00:00:51] Hi and welcome back to Miracles in Manhattan. The show where two spiritual delinquents lead you through a course in miracles trying to wake up in the city that never sleeps. I'm Marco here with my good friend, the Reverend Stephanie Wild. How are you and the upgrade? Stephanie: [00:01:09] I am absolutely great today. Thank you. Beautiful weather. I will. Stephanie: [00:01:15] I did a lot of walking through the city. It's just been so nice. The leaves are changing. Gorgeous. [00:01:25] Get to watch me plug in plugs for two hour hour and. It might have been my story. Let's let's split the difference at three. Stephanie: [00:01:33] Sure. Cool. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter because all is good. I just looked around the room and. Stephanie: [00:01:43] Realize that there's a market don't mean anything. Yes. Oh, OK. That's part of the gig. People know what they're in for. It's so funny. You notice those things. I just don't ever notice them. Marco: [00:01:56] I loved it. I noticed them on behalf of the listener. Stephanie: [00:01:59] Yeah, well, that's part of your job. I guess a part of my job is not denied. So, yes, I have a trick like when I'm meditating and something like that happens. [00:02:13] I've trained my subconscious mind to use that as a signal to go deeper into meditation. [00:02:18] It's interesting when I'm in a meditative state, that sort of thing doesn't bother me the way it does no better. But I haven't done what you just said. That's interesting. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's going to be a lot easier to podcast on the astral plane is all I have to say when we get there. Stephanie: [00:02:35] Yeah. Because all we have to do is think stuff. Stephanie: [00:02:39] Yes. And then everyone knows it. Marco: [00:02:43] Exactly. Throw away your iPhone. Cool. All right. So we're gonna want to take a shot, I believe. Let's turn. Stephanie: [00:02:52] Yeah. Let's try this in ten. So. So listen, ten is. My thoughts do not mean anything. So if you if you remember a little while ago we did. Lesson 4 and lesson 4 was these thoughts do not mean anything. So now we're taking it a little further and linking the idea to ourselves our own thoughts. And if you remember also lesson eight, because we're slowly building right step by step. So if you meant the lesson eight, it says, my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts and we've learned that. Our thoughts are all about the past. Marco: [00:03:48] So if our thoughts are all about the past, then they can't be true because right now we're in this present moment. Stephanie: [00:04:01] And we're just reinforcing that, we're just reinforcing that, except we're applying it to our own thoughts and less than 10. Again, my thoughts did not mean anything. Marco: [00:04:16] Let me ask you a clarifying question. What you just said is that to say that that a preoccupation with think with thoughts written in the past is in itself meaningless. Stephanie: [00:04:29] Or counterproductive. Stephanie: [00:04:34] Preoccupation. Yes. Right. Okay. Yes. OK. So it says here in lesson 10. That we are emphasizing that the presence of thoughts means that we are not, in fact thinking this is merely another way of repeating our earlier statement that our mind is really a blank. So that's true mind. It's a blank, right? Stephanie: [00:05:10] Which means we if it's a blank when it's blank. We are experiencing the present moment and that is reality. But when we're thinking we're living in the past and that is not reality. Stephanie: [00:05:27] That's all it is. OK. That's all it is. Marco: [00:05:32] That seems to put a lot a heavy burden on perception and doesn't it? If the. Stephanie: [00:05:38] That's right. We're dismantling perceptions. Perception is not reality. Right. True perception. Stephanie: [00:05:47] I mean, yeah, he's is, but thought it's not a true perception, right? Yeah. Marco: [00:05:56] Somebody who is a in the art world kind of told me something maybe relative relevant to that. If you look at kind of mid to later Picasso portraits, you'll notice that as soon as he gets away from kind of a realistic style. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. The first thing that happens is that the eyes go sideways. That's the no. They're on the same plane. Stephanie: [00:06:22] Like to me, The Philistine: "Yeah. The eyes go sideways, dude!" Yeah. They look weird, right? Yeah. Marco: [00:06:29] I guess according to this person that was sort of his engagement with with with truly perceiving without thinking about the subject Lou. Stephanie: [00:06:40] Oh OK. Yeah. Marco: [00:06:41] Later to be taken up by Kandinsky in point. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. I just said so many things that we @ me. Stephanie: [00:06:50] Please don't ask me for any of that. No, we're just a couple of spiritual delinquents, which is a couple of people just sort of bumbling around in a net. Stephanie: [00:06:58] That helps me actually. Yeah. Yeah. No wonder I like Picasso so much though, that era. Well whatever period. Isn't that the proper word. Yeah. Stephanie: [00:07:08] Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, let me let me describe the exercise and then we can talk some more. So this is the way we do this exercise. Stephanie: [00:07:19] We close our eyes and we repeat the lesson. My thoughts do not mean anything. And then we add this idea will help to release me from all that I now believe. We search our mind for all the thoughts that are available to us without selecting any specific ones or judging them or classifying them. [00:07:44] It says here, and I think this is a useful tip we can imagine that we're watching and oddly assorted procession going by, which has little, if any, personal meaning to you. So as each thought crosses our mind, we say my thought about this doesn't mean anything. I thought about that doesn't mean anything. And repeat, this idea will help to release me from all that I now believe. So there's a few things it sort of almost like a little set of mantras or something. Marco: [00:08:17] Mm hmm. Stephanie: [00:08:19] And it says here that where to do this five times a day for no more than a minute each and we can do it for less time if we experience discomfort. [00:08:30] Right. [00:08:32] Would you recommend somebody do that exercise? Indoors versus outdoors versus what kind of setting? [00:08:41] Oh, it doesn't matter because it's only about our thoughts. We're not actually looking around ourselves this time, but we're applying this to our thoughts. [00:08:48] So you could be anywhere, just you could close your eyes, open the movie, anywhere. Why do you ask that? [00:08:56] I think it's well, because, again, because I think there is a perceptual component ultimately to this. It is an interesting exercise to do both in a room where nothing's happening and also on a street where a procession of meaningless objects is passing. [00:09:15] Except that it says close your eyes for these exercise. And I didn't listen to them. [00:09:21] Close your eyes and then repeat. My thoughts do not mean anything. This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe. My thought about this doesn't mean anything. My thought about that doesn't mean anything. [00:09:31] This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe. [00:09:36] The other the other ones are. That was a good suggestion at the earlier expense, but my suggestion that can be applied. [00:09:43] But you have to figure out which products to apply them to you yet that that whole thing couldn't sound more zen. Oh yeah. They can get closer to the kind of zen practice. You couldn't be closer. Pretty much, yeah. I mean, the idea of a lot of ways it's about again, separating things from. The associations we have with them, right, might be they personal or you know, that being a bottle of cologne and a coffee cup and what I feel about those, right. [00:10:19] My thought about this cologne doesn't mean anything. Yeah, yeah. My thought about that coffee doesn't mean anything. [00:10:25] And again, in one of my Facebook dating groups, someone popped up. [00:10:32] Maybe you should clarify that because I've had to ask you what that means. Facebook dating group is a group is not a group of people on Facebook trying to date. [00:10:40] Oh, no, no, no. What is it? It's a it's a group where people talk about dating people outside the group online usually. You know, it's it's a lot of women kvetching about online dating. Sure. Sure. There's one of them, I mean, which has men in it, too, which is, I think, a bit more useful. Yeah. Yeah. What's it called? [00:11:04] You know, boy, that couldn't be less relevant. I'll look it up. [00:11:08] Yeah. I mean three or four of unlikely, you know. But anyway, so this this is popped up. Woman's dating a guy. I get how long. [00:11:19] Not terribly long, not months, but not more than weeks. And she met him for lunch or something and he was dropping her off at her office or something anyway, and she goes to take a selfie with him together. [00:11:33] Oh, Sophie. He goes on a first date. No, no, no, no, no. This is after us. More more than weeks, but less than months. Like it's within the first 90 days of dating, let's say. But they've been on a bunch of dates. So that's a move that the moment. Yeah. It was a moment. It was a thing. Yeah. So he goes, oh, that's not my good side. Oh. And get out of it and get out of it, you know. And then I got out of the shop. Yeah. I wouldn't let her do it. So she's all like what the fuck. [00:11:59] You know, I like what does this mean. You know, she's seeing someone else. It was really rude. I'm really upset. I went home and cried for two hours and. Mm hmm. So, I mean, this is this is really a great example. Like her thoughts don't mean anything about that. There's no way she could know, right. Unless she asks him or a psychic or comes to me to ask me, what do you think, what it meant? Because me, for example, I put selfies on social media all the time with anyone. I mean, I took one in the street. This guy got me to sign up for this thing and took a selfie with him. [00:12:38] Yeah. Often without notifying. Yeah. Yeah. As in the cases when I find myself online, I don't know that I'm gonna do that deal with. Yeah. We need to talk about that later anyway. [00:12:53] And then other people don't put that Sophie's online at all. Ever. They might especially teachers, public school teachers. Sure. So. And then I did have a moment with my former boyfriend where he got really squarely about me taking a selfie. [00:13:12] And that was because he was cheating on me and he didn't want his girlfriend cause. Right. And so these are completely different, different behaviors. [00:13:20] But the last one that you named. Yeah, I would. I'm just gonna go ahead and say that I would. Yeah. I think that that's gonna be the first thing to mind that it was the first thing to her mind. Right. And it's unfortunate because if you just by virtue of all the other things that you named. Even statistically, it's its tenth the most likely reason not to be in a selfie. For me, again, it it would tell it is 100 percent about. This is a step towards solidifying a relationship. [00:13:55] Yes. And I am making a change. And that's what she was upset about because it signaled to her that he was not willing to take that step forward. Yeah, I see. But she also thought that she was. He was seeing some. Yeah. And that's why he wasn't willing. Right. So she might, too. She did assumptions. [00:14:14] Yeah, but you know, lesson 10, my thoughts don't mean anything like she could have avoided all this upset if she'd done these exercises. [00:14:21] You know, my thoughts don't mean anything. You can still find out. You can still ask. You can meditate. You can improve your intuition. You can do all that stuff without getting a broken heart, without getting crying for two hours, without wasting that energy and time. [00:14:37] Now, you don't need to be so attached to your thoughts, which in fact, don't mean anything. [00:14:43] All right. We're less than ten in what makes sense very much to be called the Course in Miracles, because this is a very tall order that's being asked of somebody. [00:14:55] And it does it not? Yes. Yes. And that's why we do it step by step by step, little by little by little. This way. That way. Just for a minute at a time. All right. [00:15:08] But, you know, as it says here in this exercise, this idea will help to release me from all that I now believe and that release is such a relief. [00:15:18] You know. Yeah. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I have experience I've definitely experienced prolonged moments at that stage, right. Where my what you said was released for more than a blink or where my wife where I was not invested in the putting meaning into my thoughts where I was. Right. Oh you from that release from. Yeah, sometimes by accident. And then after a lot of practice, sometimes, you know, on purpose. And it's been great. It's it's not. And it is probably a very its course is the natural state. It's a very natural state. But it's not one that's easily. You know, it's not easy to bounce back into without consistent press. [00:15:59] Right. It's a habit. It's a new habit of thinking, which is exactly what a course in miracles is all about. [00:16:05] I feel like if you master the skill and and walked into a first date, you would you would. It would be like dating an alien. It would be like dating. [00:16:12] You mean da man? I would be the star man. [00:16:15] I yeah, if I like sat down next across from somebody I had meeting for the first time and just like spoke truly from my heart about, you know, a world where I was not associating meetings to things. It it's just not the culture. But I think that. [00:16:32] Well. Well, I mean, just trying to imagine. You know, I don't walk into dates and start talking about how nothing means anything to me. [00:16:39] No. [00:16:40] I mean, if you had dinner date in this state of state of mind, right? Well, you bet I do. [00:16:46] Maybe you're right. Maybe, um, that's that's what I do. Yeah. And. [00:16:52] But so. But the thing is, see, we only need like a little bit of ego. This is all about dismantling the ego. We only need as much ego as it takes just to have a personality and not to be like dummy, man, dummy. [00:17:08] There would look what I said or whatever, you know. Right. Oh, I see. And I like that believable object. Yeah. [00:17:20] So how do you keep my personality? Sure. Sure. Sure, sure. But this is how I walk around. [00:17:29] Right. [00:17:30] And you know, the thing that the one thing that can be offensive to people is if I laugh at something that is conventionally serious, subject to a traumatic subject or a tragic event. Example, please. Well, I had a client the other day and she is a hospice nurse. And as we started our work, she was giggling. And and we were talking about. She was wondering, you know, is this her purpose on earth? Is she doing the right thing, moving to this new career? [00:18:07] And Spirit was was revealing that. Yes, it absolutely was, because she saw death as a joyful transition. Now she has to be very careful not to laugh and be very, very happy when people are dying, right? [00:18:26] Yeah. Yeah. [00:18:31] So, yeah, that is it's funny you should say. Yeah, that's weird. I come from a family where we're all forms of a tragedy. Maiming and horror are met with like a moment of acknowledgement followed by like let's make this somehow funny. Yes. Therapeutic and also horrible. [00:18:58] Yeah. There's I'm not sure if it's different from gallows humor. [00:19:00] I think that's a step towards it. I think my client was beyond that. It wasn't about gallows at all. It was truly a joyful transition, which is just how I see it. But I think gallows humor is really can be really healthy and a really good step towards it can be. [00:19:18] And thirty nine years of it straight is is something other than helpful. [00:19:26] Yeah. Well, right. I mean especially. And then if you're drinking it down, you know, you're having a week or whatever is you know, and you're drinking it all down. You know, that's not really helpful. [00:19:33] But yeah. What do we laugh at today? It was a song you played me and we laugh. Oh, I laughed really hard at some lyric. Oh, well, it was it was it it took all the coke in town to bring down Dennis Brown. No, it was it was a little be that song, but it was a long before that about shooting. Was Kurt Cobain, was it that. No, it wasn't a about one too, by the way. It was a good one, too. So here in the mountain songs, we you know, we're about walking into and shooting people. [00:20:01] Uh. Oh, pumping full of lead. Right. [00:20:07] What's it like trying to remember? We're going to get back to you on that. But I always I'm going to bribe the officials. I'm going to kill all the judges. I don't know. Mountain Goats. The sunset tree. It's on there anyway. [00:20:21] I'll have it by the end. But it was funny because I heard you laughing behind me and I was like, God. Not that many people in my life would laugh at this. Like I'm laughing. [00:20:30] It's right. And I'll tell you honestly, at least me at least one of those points, I think my laughter was half conscious because. I was. I knew what content was coming home, as much as I know you and know you, not to kind of like being offended by anything you know or need like sort of a trigger warning. That's not the term looking to use, but I have coloration. Yeah, I heard a much better term medium than that. Oh, just so content. The content preparation content till morning again. Content with something like that. I don't know heard. I've heard the Orpheus product content doesn't very well. It's beginning of episodes where in fiction something that could then content warning is not a bad way of doing it. But anyway. Yep. Right. So although you are not one to need much of that in my experience. Part of that laughter was to say. I know that this line is kind of fucked, huh? Yeah, I think. But after that, you know, can I can I pause? Yes. We should have maybe discussed earlier, but we don't. We're at episode 10 now. Episode 10, maybe eleven. Well, it's less than 10. Less than 10. Yes. But we're it we're a little bit into the podcast now. I don't really know if the listeners know what it means when you say I was working with a client. [00:22:01] Oh yeah. Right. So I'm a psychic medium and spiritualist minister and my clients come to me for help with spiritual growth. [00:22:13] And they sometimes have very specific questions like can I please talk to my recently deceased brother about what he wants to do about the will? Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Very useful. And other times it's like I'm being haunted in my dreams. [00:22:31] Or does this mean or I'm seeing things? Am I insane or it's helped me deal with my mother, who has always armors and I want to grow with this spiritual challenge so it can run the gamut. You know, it's ministering and it's psychic medium shaped like a psychic therapist. [00:22:53] Right. Okay. That's really funny. There's. The aforementioned Orpheus protocol features a character who is a psychic psychiatrist. [00:23:04] Oh, really? Would be the best psychiatrist. Well, that's what I'm saying. Everyone should come to me because I can tell you what people in your life are thinking. You don't have to, like, go round and run around about it, but you can't read minds. That's the one. [00:23:17] Oh, I do. Tune in. I can't. No. I should say I can't tell you what they're thinking. I can tell you what they're feeling. [00:23:23] Right. But if you could read minds, you would know that I was gonna bring us on this huge tangent, which I did. [00:23:29] Well, even if I could read minds, I have to choose to do it. So this is people thing. People think I walk around like knowing everything. [00:23:34] But no, that would be fucking magic. Goddamn nightmare. Yes, I know. I don't. I don't do that. I don't. I don't do that. Did you turn on and off? So where the hell are we now? Well, our thoughts don't mean anything, that's all. [00:23:51] We have to live in the moment. And this is an exercise to do it. Yeah, me think, you know, how do you think? [00:24:01] So let's say you work on this lesson and you start. You get getting it. It's working for you. What sort of outcomes might you. What? What? What things might you expect to see? Experience differently in your day to day question? [00:24:18] Yeah, totally, yeah. Well, it means you won't be upset so much like the the woman I mentioned, you know, someone's like jumping out of a selfie and you'll go, huh? And you'll get curious about it as opposed to attached to your own thought. Which leads to a painful emotion. And pretty soon, eventually, pretty soon, eventually, you won't be afraid of a broken heart. [00:24:46] And that that to me is something I would love to give to people, especially women, to go into dates, to go into relationships romantically, especially, but even with children and pair dying parents to go into them without being afraid of being hurt, because then you can live fully as opposed to living half way because you're afraid and you're putting up walls or getting defensive. [00:25:18] Okay. Can you tell? God it. [00:25:24] Oh, sorry. [00:25:24] I almost made it out on a huge way and I'm not gonna to that about why this is the third time we're trying to do that. I don't know. Nobody knows that. [00:25:34] It's an edit point. We can take that out. All right. So that's interesting what you just said. Especially interesting. What it's tell me, if you would. Because I don't know as a woman what what is a woman afraid of being? In what way is a woman afraid of being hurt on a on a first or second date? Aside from some, you know, really horrible over the top kind of thing. [00:26:02] I'm not sure if it's exactly being hurt like by the first or second type, but it's afraid of at some point the helicopter now breaking her heart. OK. Yeah, afraid of afraid of opening up. And at some point in the near ish future, the guy disappearing or changing his mind or not being the one and then she's left brokenhearted. [00:26:33] That is so interesting to me because I you my experience is sorta. Along the lines of. Not knowing when, not knowing when it's the right moment to kind of show emotion because that can scare a person. In my experience, you showing emotion scares the women. That's a concern of mine. I don't know that it does. I mean, I've not heard that feedback because. Well, I just haven't. But I think. Well, so shown. OK. So, I mean, I think you'd agree that that that showing more than average emotion means that you're communicating to the other person, that you are prepared. You have a greater depth emotionally and that you're you're getting invested in the relationship. I have feelings for you. And now, you know, the last time. [00:27:33] Well, that's two different things. And I think that's a very important point. And what I try to teach is that just having feelings right now doesn't mean you're promising anything. It doesn't mean you're investing. I don't even know what that word means. I would assume that it means I'm investing in the future. [00:27:51] Like, if, you know, if it's like a financial term, like I'm putting money into this for four in the hope of future future gains. And I and I think that that's wrong, wrong mindedness. I think that's the perception that we can benefit from dissolving. I can be very, very much in the moment and expressing an incredibly strong, deep and high and wide emotion. Yes. Do not expect anyone to ask me to marry them or not not ask anyone on a second date. I mean, it just it is now that. [00:28:32] And that's fantastic. I have not. Run into a lot of people like that, right, and I think that's what we're trying to learn here. [00:28:40] Right. [00:28:47] So we've done it. I think we'll be there'll be more on this in a minute. [00:28:51] And after midnight for the no. But to come. [00:28:56] Ok. Well, let's let's end this here. Let's go to Americans in Manhattan after midnight. What is it? Miracles after midnight? [00:29:01] Something like that. Yeah. Well, let's go to let's invite people to that site. But oh, we should also tell people, hey, guys and gals, we have an e-mail address now. Yes, we do. [00:29:12] And why do we have an e-mail address stuff so that you can e-mail us questions with questions? We're taking questions. Miraclesinmanhattan@gmail.com [00:29:20] We are going to answer your questions in as apt a fashion as we answer one another's here on this. [00:29:28] Yes. Miracles in Manhattan, Gmail dot com. Easy to remember. Yeah. All you have to do is remember the name of the podcast. And then Gee Mary, popular Google product Miracles in Manhattan, G.M. dot com. [00:29:41] So just remember that. Well, we'll point you in the right direction. Yeah. And yeah. [00:29:47] Friels do to please e-mail questions and don't feel like they need to be totally pertinent to the episode you just listened to. [00:29:54] No, no, no. I need any any of you any lesson yet. All right. Well, that's lesson 10. OK, I'll see you next time. [00:30:03] Let's move on. All right. That's that. We're done here. All right. [00:30:06] Hey, have a great week. Then you say goodbye. Oh, by the way. Sure. I'll keep. That was fun. That was good. I can. We're back on track in. --- Spirituality, sexuality, love, mental health