Here's some great theological podcasts if you are interested:

http://www.covenantseminary.edu/worldwide/en/ST200/ST200.asp

Here are the two I thought relevant to God and Autism. You can
download them here or go to the above website:

Attributes of God

http://download.yousendit.com/907756AA036E3C80

Names, Roles and Historical Acts:

http://download.yousendit.com/665D0D1447B0D056


This email is addressed to those who have interest or experience of the
spiritual dynamics of autism, the nature of those dynamics and
associated implications for us and the auties. A big subject I know
and for many a non subject.

As many know, I and others have struggled with this for ten years or
more primarily due to our experience with FC which has been documented
and discussed quietly in the autism community since then. It was the
combination of FC's validity problem and the spiritual dynamics that
caused it's banning in most places or severe restrictions when it was
used eventhough the method had great promise as a treatment or rehab
tool. The hope is to eventually convince people that their fears are
unfounded and proceed with use of the method. The validity problem is
a straw man in the context of other autism treatments.

The issue I want to discuss here is what Bill Stillman addressed in
"Autism and the God Connection". I haven't read the book through yet
but just read a section that addresses both the religious problem and
the treatment problem. It's the chapter titled "Ghosts in the
Laboratory". I'll be speaking critically of this chapter but don't
intend it to apply to the whole book. The chapter also demonstrates
that even if one barks up the wrong tree the auties have control and
bring it to the right tree. A fear I had with FC was that staff using
it would do all kinds of stupid things treatment wise when they
discovered the auties "spirit" connection plus it kind of repulsed me
as a Christian. In that chapter Bill and the staff did do all kinds of
stupid stuff in that regard, but the autie was in control and led them
back to the main point...God. Like alot of the stupid treatment stuff
we do with autism, spirits or no spirits, our stupidity only makes us
work harder and gives the auties ways of teaching us basic lessons,
most of which are God related anyway even if you are doing purely
scientific, ahem, "pseudo-scientific" approaches like behaviorism. So
there was a happy ending with that story and accounts like it can
inform others to avoid those mistkes, or at least minimize them when
using FC

Now to the main topic of this email. I've been struggling for years
about how to perceptualize the spiritual phenomenon in autism. My
sense of it from the beginning, circa 1994, was that it was directly
connected to the Revelation of God. The problem was who were the
auties in respect to God. My knee jerk reaction was that THEY were
somehow God collectively, but that had problems with my own limited
conceptualization of God and that of people like Art who knew more than
I.

There were two theological podcasts I listened to last nite that
helped. The first was the different names for God, which was news to
me as a Christian, but which Art seemed familiar with when I first
started talking to him. Elohoim and Yahweh. They are different in
some respects but like the Trinity are united. That's addressed in the
above podcast about "Names". Then there was the one on "Attributes of
God" that coincided with everything we have learned through FC.

Where the story is going only God knows. We'll see. In the meantime
any comments are welcomed.

Tom









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