Pathwork Lectures 1-49 Study Guides
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Above: clip from Decisions and Tests PL 2
PL 2:Decisions and Tests
If man goes through life avoiding certain decisions, it creates reactions and chain reactions. Not deciding is of greatest detriment.
2008 Presentation on YouTube1 hr 53 mins
or 3 Short Samples (click on 7 min clip below to play)
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PL 5 Freedom, Justice, Religion, Truth: Happiness as a Link in the Chain of Life
September 2017 Newsletter PL 5
Study Guide: Freedom, Justice, Religion, Truth
YouTube Presentation 56 mins
PL 7 Decide! Asking for Help, Helping Others
September 2020 Newsletter PL 7
Study Guide: Decide! Asking for Help, Helping Others
PL 10 Male and Female Incarnations: Their Rhythms and Causes
As God is perfect in His male and female principle, each in its own, each one operating in manner and function absolutely harmoniously, thus it is with all other beings. Both principles are found in all manifestations of creation of infinite variety. Short talk on Reality as Reflected Image at the beginning.
April 2021 Newsletter PL 10
Study Guide Male and Female Incarnations: Their Rhythms and Causes
YouTube Summary PL 10 26 mins
PL 11 Self Knowledge; Inner Guidance
Happiness is an inner attitude vs. begin based on outer circumstances. A pre-requisite of spiritual guidance is that you contribute the labor of being stringently honest in your work of self-knowledge. For you cannot overcome what you do not know.
PL 14 The Lower Self
Please see Facing the Lower Self, PL 134, for a synthesis of many Pathwork lectures on the Lower Self, negativity, and and transformation. Includes quotes from Chapter 7 of The Undefended Self by Susan Thesenga.
PL 17 The Call
A communication with divine spheres is possible; it has always existed, and it will always exist. How frequent it is depends solely on man, whether he fulfills the necessary requirements -- such as the necessary strength and development to follow it. But at one time, this call must come forth.
January 2021 Newsletter PL 17
Study Guide The Call Video Summary 33 mins
PL 18 Free Will
There cannot be beauty, harmony, wisdom, bliss, and love if it has to be experienced forcefully against the individual's will, against the individual's own recognition of the wisdom and perfection of the laws. Then God would not be a God of freedom, but a God of slavery, even if His creatures could be happy in an enforced system. Thus each creature ‑‑ man or spirit ‑‑ has the possibility, by his own choosing, to live according to those laws or not.
February 2023 Newsletter Outline
Study Guide for Free Will PL 18
PL 25 Initial Steps for Self-Search & PL 26 Finding Your Faults
Featuring Chapter 4 from The Path to the Real Self. The "inventory" … is a good beginning. It will make you aware of certain facets in your life and in yourself you may never have thought about before. It may also give you a view of what you might want to change in your life. This concise awareness is necessary.
March 2014 Newsletter PRS4 PL 25
Study Guide: Initial Steps for Self-Search
Interactive exercise: see POV drawings from Participants!
VERY short film suggestions for PL 25 and 26 PRS 4
PL 28 Daily Review
One of the best techniques for developing awareness: jot down up to 10 disharmonious moments per day. Review them at the end of the week. Notice common denominators. It's free, it's easy, and it works!
Daily Review PL 28 Suggestions and Forms
PL 30 Self-Will, Pride, and Fear
If you have one, you must have all of these attributes. You may have one stronger than the other or more apparent or more conscious, but it is impossible that you have only two, let us say, and the third is entirely missing. And do not believe that there is a human being alive who is entirely free of self‑will, pride, and fear.
April 2016 Newsletter PL30
Study Guide: Self-Will, Pride, and Fear
YouTube Video Summary 7 mins
PL 31 & 66: Shame / Shame of the Higher Self
Shame is an intense emotion, easily activated by focusing upon both our distortions and our best higher self intentions (which may try to manifest before we are mature enough to understand them). Shame can be used by others -- and by ourselves -- to prevent our development and leave us emotionally and spiritually crippled.
2008 Presentation on YouTube 1hr 20mins
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PL 32 Decision Making
As long as you are living in this sphere of matter, every decision offers two and sometimes more alternatives. With some decisions and in some cases, there are several wrong ways and one right way. Only mature and responsible searching will eventually show you what the right way is. However, in many instances, it actually does not matter on what way you decide, provided the decision has been made wholeheartedly, awarely, responsibly, not shirking any issues or possible results.
Even in the cases where one way would be right or better for you than the other alternatives, it is infinitely healthier for your soul, strange as this may appear at first, if you choose the wrong way but in the right attitude.
January 2022 Newsletter Summary
2022 Study Guide: Decision Making PL 32
Workshop Flyer PL 32 Featuring PL 182: Meditation for Three Voices
Powerpoint presentation introduction to PL 32 and PL 182
Video Presentation 48 mins plus Transcript
PL 34 The Process of Incarnating
The technical procedure of birth is directly connected with and dependent on karmic and spiritual law. This was a 5th week 'extra' for Male and Female Incarnations: Their Rhythms and Causes PL 10. If you are uncertain or uncomfortable about a belief in re-incarnation, consider reading the lecture as a description of the spiritual preparation for a single human lifetime
Subtopics: Karmic and Spiritual Law; Connection Between the Incarnatory Process and the Life Task PL 216; The Spiritual Process of Human Birth; A Continuously Evolving Plan.
2021 Study Guide: Preparation for Reincarnation PL 34
A bit of lightheartedness: If Life was a Board Game
PL 36 Prayer and Meditation
You know by now that all faults originally come from pride, self-will, and fear. But it is not sufficient that you know this principle. It is essential that you clearly see and feel how each and every one of your faults comes from one and all of these three basic faults. Find the common denominator.
That is not so easy if it is to be emotionally understood. For that reason, you actually have to go through this cycle step by step, again and again; you have to follow it through until you are able to grasp it well enough that you can break the cycle at one point.
Study Guide: Prayer as Meditation
YouTube Video Summary 7 mins
Transcript of Video Summary
PL 39 Finding Images
The concept of Images is key to understanding distorted perceptions. Masks are the simplest form of an image. A phony smile, saying yes when we want to say no, dressing to impress -- we compromise who we really are in order to be accepted, appreciated, loved. Images are generalizations, masks formed in childhood to serve as warning signs, to keep us from feeling emotional pain.
2013 Finding Images PL 39
PL 40 Finding Images - A Summary
On this path, we are concerned with seeking out the wrong images that the human soul harbors. Messages of the unconscious come forth through the major problems in life; through repetitive patterns; illness; any unfulfillment or lack.
Once it is understood that these occurrences are a message that something is off within the psyche, that a distortion and misconception must somewhere exist, the first step towards elimination of the problem is taken. Yet they are not really hidden. It is merely a question of learning to focus attention on them.
PL 42: Objectivity and Subjectivity
Objectivity is another essential requisite for the free and harmonious human being. The more un-purified and disharmonious you are, the more you will lack objectivity. Objectivity means truth.
Subjectivity means colored truth or half‑truth at best, complete untruth in many cases. Subjectivity means unconscious or non-deliberate untruth (contrary to a conscious lie). All this is forthcoming from the emotional level of one's being. By purifying the depths of your soul, you will first find where untruth exists within yourself.
December 2022 Newsletter PL 42 Overview
Study Guide: Objectivity and Subjectivity
The Grain of Truthfrom November 2020
PL 43: Three Personality Types: Reason, Will and Emotion
Understanding RWE types can help us identify misconceptions and confusions that can negatively affect interactions with others.
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043-TC-Reason, Will, Emotion Types Part 1.mp3
043-TC-Reason, Will, Emotion Types Part 2.mp3
Apologies: sound quality of these recordings is poor
(camera didn't work that day so there is no video)
Download Transcript of the 2008 audio recordings
Article written on RWE for the Wuhan University of Technology Social Sciences
Chinese Academic Journal by Jan Rigsby and David Schwerin
2012 : Essay on PL 43
2013 Study Guide Reason Will and Emotion PL43 - 2013
2013 Minutes from May meetings PL 43
January 2014 Newsletter
February 2014 Newsletter PRS2 PL 43
Study Guide: The Structure of the Human Personality
PL 44: The Forces of Love, Eros and Sex
Three key aspects of relationship and spiritual development: Love, as a permanent state of the Soul; Eros, as one of the most potent forces in the universe; and Sex, as the creative force on all levels of existence.
Presentation on YouTube 1 hr 4 mins
or 3 Short Samples (click on sample clip below)
Subtitles added August 2020. Download Transcript
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044-TC-LoveErosSex-2009-Pt1.mp3
044-TC-LoveErosSex-2009-Pt2.mp3
August 2015 Newsletter PRS17 / PL 44
2015 Study Guide Forces of Love, Eros and Sex
Video Introduction 2015 11 mins Transcript
Above: clip from The Forces of Love, Eros, and Sex PL 44
PL 45: Conflict Between Conscious and Unconscious Desires
There is no other reason and no other purpose in life than development and purification. You cannot purify unless you know yourself. And although self-knowledge is not always identical to purification, to a large extent you purify already by the mere fact that you recognize yourself fully and thoroughly.
The ability to do so without resistance, without subterfuge, makes it essential and necessary to have humility, the humility to accept yourself as you are now. To know yourself, my friends, to find the real you, the part of you that you have been unaware of so far, is always the aim and the question.
July 2019 Newsletter: Outline of PL 45
Self Study Guide: Conflict Between Conscious and Unconscious Desires
PL 46: Authority
An invitation to examine your relationship to authority. Ask yourself: am I willing to honestly see the truth about my relationship to authority? If there is any hesitation in your response, do not suppress it. Allow it as part of the truth about yourself. Allow any resistance to contribute to your self-knowing.
Presentation on YouTube 1 hr 7 mins
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PL 49: Obstacles on the Path: Old Stuff, Wrong Guilt, and Who, Me?
Self‑deception amounts to untruth, and untruth is hostile to the life force. Suppression is always self‑deception, therefore the life force cannot regenerate you when such self‑deceptions or suppressions exist. The life force wants to come into you, and out of you, for deep down in your soul, behind your soul exists the whole universe and therefore a fountain of life force.
September 2022 Newsletter Summary of PL 49
Study Guide: Obstacles on the Path: Old Stuff, Wrong Guilt, and Who, Me?
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Daily Review PL 28
The Guide refers to Daily Review as ‘spiritual hygiene’.
Exercise: Keep a record of incidents that disturb you. Focusing upon subtleties may help us from becoming distracted by exaggerating or over-dramatizing a situation. Notice feelings of discomfort, where your suspect you may be uninformed, ignorant, unprepared, or unaware.
Each week, see if you can relate with the sub-topic.
All you need is a ½ page of lined paper per day. Create 4 columns. At some point during each day, jot down brief notes about each incident (limit:10 per day). Eventually, this can become a thought process.
At the end of each week, read through your entries and complete the last column:
4. What do you notice today that you did not notice at the time? Are there patterns?