#1 Jul  #2, Aug  #3, Sept  #4, Oct  #5, Nov  #6, Dec  #7

2001: Jan  #8,  Feb  #9,  Mar #10, Apr #11, May #12, Jun #13, Jul #14, Aug #15, Sep #16, Oct #17, Nov #18, Dec #19
2002: Jan #20, Feb #21, Mar #22, Apr #23, May #24, Jun #25, Jul #26, Aug #27, Sep #28, Oct #29, Nov #30, Dec #31
2003: Jan #32, Feb #33, Mar #34, Apr #35, May #36, Jun #37, Jul #38, Aug #39, Sep #40, Oct #41, Nov #42, Dec #43
2004: Jan #44, Feb #45, Mar #46, Apr #47, May #48, Jun #49, Jul #50, Aug #51, Sep #52, Oct #53, Nov #54, Dec #55
2005: Jan#051,Feb#052,Mar#053,Apr#054,May#055,Jun#056,Jul#057,Aug#058,Sep#059,Oct#05a,Nov#05b,Dec#05c
2006: Jan#061,Feb#062,Mar#063,Apr#064,May#065,Jun#066,Jul#067,Aug#068,Sep#069,Oct#06a,Nov#06b,Dec#06c
2007: Jan#071,Feb#072,Mar#073,Apr#074,May#075,Jun#076,Jul#077,Aug#078,Sep#079,Oct#07a,Nov#07b,Dec#07c
2008: Jan#081,Feb#082,Mar#083,Apr#084,May#085,Jun#086,Jul#087,Aug#088,Sep#089,Oct#08a,Nov#08b,Dec#08c
2009: Jan#091,Feb#092,Mar#093,Apr#094,May#095,Jun#096,Jul#097,Aug#098,Sep#099,Oct#09a,Nov#09b,Dec#09c
2010: Jan#101,Feb#102,Mar#103,Apr#104,May#105,Jun#106,Jul#107,Aug#108,Sep#109,Oct#10a,Nov#10b,Dec#10c
2011: Jan#111,Feb#112,Mar#113,Apr#114,May#115,Jun#116,Jul#117,Aug#118,Sep#119,Oct#11a,Nov#11b,Dec#11c
2012: Jan#121,Feb#122,Mar#123,Apr#124,May#125,Jun#126,Jul#127,Aug#128,Sep#129,Oct#12a,Nov#12b,Dec#12c
2013: Jan#131,Feb#132,Mar#133,Apr#134,May#135

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• Any wild mushroom can be eaten; some more than once.
  Kaisu Viikari (MD, PhD Ophthalmology, Turku, Finland)

Five Featured Reviews of Multiple Personality Studies:

1. Robert Mayer's Through Divided Minds — Probing the Mysteries of Multiple Personalities .

In this engrossing book, Mayer takes us between the scenes of his treatment of several multiple personality disorders (MPD), Toby, Susan, and Laura. He confronts MPD for the first time in Toby and is unsure if his new client is just manipulating him or not. To his credit, he begins a study of MPD and finds help from several professionals. During his search for help he encounters a therapist with Odyssey House who has been working with MPD's in OH's drug treatment program. From this contact he takes on two new MPD's, Laura and Susan.

One of his MPD has five dominant selves that take over and each self smokes a different brand of cigarettes. Mayer notes this and is can identify the self that is present by observing whether Kools, Salem, or Marlboro is being smoked. She also kept 5 wigs of different styles and colors and a gay male personality, Jefferson, whose job is to clean house, do her various hairdos, and who likes it when she has sex with her boyfriends.

He attempts a premature integration with Toby using a Bandler and Grinder technique that he had just read about in "Frogs into Princes." The maneuver fails miserably and ends with one of the youngest of Toby's parts crying that its head had been squashed. Later in the book, he uses the identical technique and it works. (He only credits Bandler and Grinder at the time of the failure, however.)

He details his seminars with Milton Erickson on Hayward Avenue — the best written description I've come across. A trained Freudian, Mayer is severely taken aback when Milton begins by attacking Freud for several hours. Then he notices that he's entered an exquisite trance state. Mayer had dissociated when confronted by overwhelming pain (caused by Erickson's attack of Freud) in just the way that Mayer's clients had in their youth. He had received from the master hypnotist a first hand experience of his clients process. The day Mayer was to leave Phoenix he delayed his flight and, driving around town, soon found himself climbing to top of Squaw Peak. Milton had created a mountain-climbing self in Mayer for demonstration and therapeutic purposes, as he did in so many of his other clients.

2. Truddi Chase's When Rabbit Howls — The Ninety-two Personalities Who Share the Body of the Woman Known as Truddi Chase Tell their Astonishing Autobiography

When Rabbit howls, everyone listens. Rabbit is one of the youngest personalities of the woman and makes a sound like a dying rabbit.

Rabbit was apparently created (or at least the howling part of Rabbit was) when her stepfather stepped on baby rabbits out of cruelty just to hear the rabbits cry. He also stepped on, hung upside down on a rope, strapped to a high chair, threw into a well and performed every imaginable sex act on "the woman" of this book, Truddi Chase. She is referred to in this book by the authors (the Troops) as "the woman." The woman was a later life creation to take the place of two younger parts who died. In the process of creation, the Troops took away her memories and left her simply as an empty shell — a shell who would not be present for the many activities that the Troops handled. The division was so complete that 3 or 4 of the Troops could have a drink and neither the woman nor the other Troops would get drunk. The same was true for migraines, smoking, and many other activities. After one long night of drinking 3 or 4 of the Troops had gotten drunk and she awoke to find a trail of Alkaseltzer coated glasses around the apartment.

Stanley (actually Robert Phillips) is the therapist who coaches her in her recovering of her memories and missing parts. At one point Stanley decides that integration into one person would not be desirable.- That, if the woman could simply control her parts, that is, go into and out of them at will, that would be acceptable. In addition to the long therapy sessions, Stanley tapes them on video and uses the tapes to help others with similar problems.

In the end Ean picks up a manuscript and reads a story of the woman's killing of her stepfather. The story is so real that an epilogue from Phillips is necessary to point out that the episode was not real.

3. Adam Crabtree's Multiple Man — Explorations in Possession & Multiple Personality

No study of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) would be complete without at thorough reading of "Multiple Man." Crabtree provides a historical overview of the behavior called possession including such items as how the Oracle of Delphi came into being. A noxious gas was emitted from a chasm into which many of the persons overcome by the gas threw themselves in the throes of ecstasy. The chasm was reduced to a small hole and a temple was built over it. Maidens breathed the gas and went into trances in which they talked for the gods, answering questions for the many curious who sought them out.

The heart of the book comes with the case histories of possession that Crabtree treated personally. The cases are organized by such titles as "Unwilling Victims" and "Willing Victims." We meet overwhelmingly evil spirits that must forcibly cast out. And we meet confused spirits who have wandered in a heavy mist for years after their death. One of these was a dead father who, unbeknownst to himself, was trapped in his daughter's body. When asked to examine his body, he exclaimed, "I'm female!" That helped to convince him that the voice he was hearing in the mist (Crabtree) was telling him the truth about his living in his daughter's body. Once he had received the full information about his status, he soon moved on into the spirit world.

The most dramatic cases were the two involving possession by living entities. In both cases these were sons possessed by the spirit of their living mothers who lived hundreds of miles away. Once the entity was made to realize the negative impact it was ;having on its son, it left the son, returned the mother, and the mother's life improved dramatically. All this happened with the therapist working only with the son and the inhabiting "mother-entity." The mothers both got well without apparent knowledge of their sons therapy. In another case a person felt immediate relief when a distant therapy resolution occurred. These examples make a strong case for possession by living spirits.

As Crabtree points out several times, the therapist need not believe that the possession is occurring in order for him to be effective. To treat the patient/entity's view of reality "as if" it were real is enough. In fact, it is an essential part of the healing process.

4. Barbara O'Brien's Operators and Things — The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic

The subtitle of this small paperback is "The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic," and it describes best the theme of the book. "Operators" we find is O'Brien's name for beings that live inside her head as part of her unconscious processes, which for her are made conscious during her insanity. The name "operator" is given by an "operator" to itself to distinguish itself from a "thing." A "thing" is the normally conscious part of a person that is maneuvered, out of its awareness, by an operator. Thus "operators and things" refer to the complete set of unconscious and conscious processes laid bare for us by a "crazy" person who became privy to the workings of both aspects of her mind during a trip into insanity and back into sanity.

The trip to sanity was on a Greyhound bus — a mode of transportation chosen by her operator Hinton as the safest method of living in the sane world as a schizophrenic.

One can travel on a bus, ignoring fellow passengers, being in a daze, acting slightly odd and be completely unbothered by fellow passengers. Her trip takes her to San Francisco after a stop at a mountain cabin and a close encounter with Indians and a mountain lion. She retreats to an apartment building in which her solitude is invaded by beings who invade her mind from neighboring apartments — Grandma who gives her medical advice and the Western Boys who "scallop her latticework" and leave her "dummetized."

A glossary of terms is dictated to her by an "Operator" and is included in the appendix for the reader who gets lost in the world of fantasy she spins with her words. Out of the fantasy she emerges — sane — six months later — with new processes, aggressive traits, and abilities for coping in the business world that she never had before.

In addition she adds to the store of literature on schizophrenia a rare, first-person account of a trip so many people take but so few return from. A glimpse of an inner life we all live but keep safely hidden under our veneer of sanity.

5. Richard Bach's Running From Safety — An Adventure of the Spirit

In this adventure of his spirit, Richard Bach proves himself to be an umbrologist — which, as he defines it on page ninety-five, is "A physician who treats disorders of the shadow." He then goes on to wrestle with his shadow, Dickie, who appears to him as a nine-year old boy — not just any nine-year old boy, but his own self at nine years old — come into the present to allow Richard to keep a promise he made to Dickie in 1944. As his teaching angel Shepherd reminds him:

In 1944, when I told you that time was not the wall for me that it was for you. You promised that in fifty years you'd write a book to take back, just for the boy you were, everything you know, what to look out for, how to be happy, knowledge to save your life, things you wish you'd known when you were him.

When Richard calls for Dickie to come he is greeted by a vituperative fury of words fueled by fifty years of isolation in a small cell. Dickie makes it clear he would like to torch Richard with a flame thrower, not talk to him. But talk he does, and an adventure and dialogue of a fifty-nine year old and his nine-year old self begins. Dickie is taken up in Daisy and shown how to fly, fulfilling a childhood dream of his. Other times Richard visits Dickie's world, a large, lifeless desert plain. With each repeat encounter, however, he discovers green patches and new vegetation appearing as this inner world gathers life into itself.

With Dickie's help Richard recovers memories of his brother Bobby who died very young. With Richard's help Dickie learns about what it is to be an adult. Example:

You don't want a million answers as much as you want a few forever questions. The questions are diamonds you hold in the light. Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel.

These forever questions are similar to what I've called unanswered questions — it is sometimes better to leave a question unanswered so that the tension to answer it does not drain completely away in some trite response, but continues with full force over the years. And when it's answered with clarity, how do you know the answer's the right one? Richard tells Dickie:

I don't. But every question's a tension inside, a little electric shock, and it crackles through me till it finds an answer. When a question touches an answer, it grounds on intuition, there's a blue flash, the tension's gone. It doesn't say right or wrong, it just says answered.

Dickie asks for an example and Richard tells him his question about his carefree barnstorming days, "Why can't everybody live this way?" The answer that eventually came, "Everybody can't do any one thing, but anybody can!"

Another essential character, always moving in the background, is his wife Leslie. Showing the incredible rapport that comes with marital intimacy, in Chapter Thirty-six, Leslie is awakened by Richard holding a conversation in his head with Dickie. The author muses"

How can Leslie tell I'm awake? How can a deer tell when a leaf falls silently in her forest? She hears it breathing differently.

Where did the title come from? One place is page 155, where Richard tells Dickie to forget safety as an ambition, that:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Movies we watched this past month:

Notes about our movies: Many of the movies we watch are foreign movies with subtitles. After years of watching movies in foreign languages, Arabic, French, Swedish, German, British English, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and many other languages, sometimes two or three languages in the same movie, the subtitles have disappeared for us. If the movie is dubbed in English we go for the subtitles instead because we enjoy the live action and sounds of the real voices so much more than the dubbed. If you wonder where we get all these foreign movies from, the answer is simple: NetFlix. For a fixed price a month they mail us DVD movies from our on-line Queue, we watch them, pop them into a pre-paid mailer, and the postman effectively replaces all our gas-consuming and time-consuming trips to Blockbuster. To sign up for NetFlix, simply go to http://www.netflix.com/ and start adding all your requests for movies into your personal queue. If you've seen some in these movie blurbs, simply copy the name, click open your queue, and paste the name in the Search box on NetFlix and Select Add. Buy some popcorn and you're ready to Go to the Movies, 21st Century Style. You get to see your movies as the Director created them — NOT-edited for TV, in full-screen width, your own choice of subtitles, no commercial interruptions, and all of the original dialogue. Often you get the Director's Cut Edition which adds back excellent footage that was cut from the theater releases. With a plasma TV and Blu-Ray DVD's and a great sound system, you have theater experience without someone next to you talking on a cell phone during a movie plus a Pause button for rest room trips.
P. S. Ask for Blu-Ray DVD movies from NetFlix.

“Hangover Square” (1945) got its name because guys who had drunk too much would walk around it three times in morning and have a drink at the pub to cure their hangover. The classical composer hero has a hangover which won’t go away until he had taken some drastic action like killing someone, completely out of his awareness. A Hitchcock thriller before Hitchcock and worth a watch today.
“Clash of the Titans” (2010) Remake of 1981 movie with digital specials effects, Blu-Ray, and new stars. Liam Neeson replaces Laurence Olivier as Zeus. Too many huge scorpions like the mechanical walking machines of Star Wars, but else a good show.
“Romeo and Juliet” (1936) stars a plethora of great Hollywood actors, Lesley Howard, Norma Shearer, Basil Rathborne, Andy Devine, and other recognizable characters. If you’ve only seen “Shakespeare in Love” you must watch this one to understand all the jokes, such as Rosalind the Pirate’s Daughter. Hit
“The Runaways” (2010) stars a growing up Dakota Fanning as the Cherry Bomb girl in Joan Jett’s first all-girl rock band. Wonderful biopic showing the bootstrapping of an all-girl band by a guy entrepreneur and music, Kim. On DVD already if you missed it at the cinema. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !

“Cop Out” (2010) Bruce Willis leads the fun in this cop pal story with lots of outrageously funny scenes. We watched several of the funny scenes over again, like Bruce and his pal talking to each other over the phone while sitting next to each other. A DON’T MISS HIT !
“A Taste of Tea” (2004) Slow, silly, imaginative, childish, and insightful. Requires a commitment to watch this movie to the end and you may as we did find it worthwhile.
“The Red Baron” (2008) reveals the man inside the red Fokker, his life, his loves, and his growing up to the ripe age of 25 as the quintessential German hero. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !
“End Game” (2009) How Michael Young bootstrapped the negotiations to end apartheid oppression in South Africa, of whom was said, “It takes a big man to remain invisible.” This movie is a great prequel to “Invictus” which follows the release of Mandela from prison. [See 2006 movie "End Game" in digest067. ]
“The Last Confederate: The Story of Robert Adams” (2005) is a true story of a love between a Confederate man and a Union lady which survived the War, his capture by Union soldiers, imprisonment, escape, being hunted down, and loss of his entire company. A DON’T MISS HIT !

“2012” (2009) When world’s crust puffs up like an over baked apple pie, where are the people going to go? How to survive a tidal wave engulfing continents? Want some waterfront property two-thirds up Mt. Everest? We follow John Cusack's family in their desperate struggle to escape and watch the world fall apart as the Mayans reset their calendar. Full of Hollywood messages: big slams at rich people from the rich people in Hollywood.
“Murder By Numbers” (2002) a young Sandra Bullock as a murder detective faced with a carefully planned random murder by two high school students. One wonders how she got into such a job and soon the plot unravels that for us also. Hitchcockesque ending is memorable.
“Hot Tub Time Machine” (2010) a zany, hilarious, and even insightful movie with John Cusacks and his three closest friends who return to their 1986 selves in a ski lodge after the Hot Tub slips them back in time. This is a gut-wrenching laugh machine, so be prepared. Send the kids to your parents for the night to watch this without interruption — the kids will definitely want to know why their parents are rolling on the floor laughing. Great reprise of McFly as the one-armed man! Then the two-armed man trying to keep both arms. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! ! !
“The Bounty Hunter” (2010) Aniston and Butler go at it as exes: she bail-jumper, he bounty hunter. He gets to toss his ex-wife in jail or in a honeymoon cottage. Tough choice, but it takes a whole, fun movie to find out which.

“Gentlemen Broncos” (2009) were neither gentle nor men nor broncos, but a teenage writer getting his novel ripped off by a published author who was supposed to pick the best novel and give an award to the author, but instead picked the novel, took it home, changed a few names and waited for the accolades to roll in. Sic gloria transit mundi in a world without respect for primary property and its attendant morality. Music is great, can you pick out Deep Breakfast when hero vomits oatmeal?
“Captain Abu Raed” (2008) is a gentle man of the airport with stories of flying, of a son who died flying, of an adopted son who inherited Abu’s captain’s hat.
“Moscow, Belgium” (2008) separated mother of 3 wants her philandering spouse back till she meets Johnny by accident and begins to feel something approaching happy.
“Me and Orson Welles” (2008) Great period piece set in 1937 when Orson was opening the Mercury Theater. Most impressive relic was the live appearance of Orson himself, so well was he portrayed with all his panache and idiosyncracies. Young actor Zack Ephron gets a bit part in “Caesar” but will he piss off the Boss by a hit on the miss? A DON’T MISS HIT! ! ! !
“633 Squadron” (1964) In the desperate days of WWII a German factory making rocket fuel to bomb England is thriving in Norway in an impervious bunker under a Cliff, so they charge Cliff Robertson to bomb the Cliff to bury the factory.

“The Box” (2009) based on short story by famous Sci-Fi author Richard Matheson, “Button, Button”. The Button on the box, if pushed kills a random person and you get a million dollars. This is set in the 1970s when people might have hesitated before pushing the button anc changing their lives forever. A morality tale for the ages and the ageless. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !
“The Last Song” (2010) Who is Miley Cyrus? Watch this and you’ll see that she’s a singer and beginning actress. A touching story of a split-up family of a theft and an arsonist who find common ground in turtle eggs and love.
“Seducing Dr. Lewis” (2003) Dr. Lewis had no idea what was going to hit him when he read a flyer mailed to him about working on a small island outside of Montreal as doctor to 125 people. In this rollickingly funny tale of a town pulling together to seduce a doctor to stay so they could attract a factory and get off the dole, the fun begins as soon as the doctor arrives to see his favorite sport, a cricket game, in progress and settle down to his favorite dish, Beef Stroganoff, at the only restaurant. This seems to be a dream isle to the doctor, but is it? Perhaps it is. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !
“Dangerous Beauty” (1998) worth another look in Blu-Ray, Veronica Franco, the poetess-courtesan of medieval Venice becomes the diplomatic deal-maker for the City State. A DON’T MISS HIT !
“The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” (2008) is a lush cinematic treat for the eyes and ears filmed in Louisiana. Fisher Willow loses one of her aunt’s teardrop diamond earrings going to a party and uncovers the psyches of the major characters in the previously unfilmed Tennessee Williams screenplay. A “Gone-with-the-Wind” epic on 1920s riverside plantations. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !

“The Girl Who Played with Fire” (2009) in this sequel Dragon Tattoo Girl returns to deal with some unfinished family business and an old flame who is very angry. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! ! ! (NOTE: we saw this at the Prytania Theater, only single-screen movie house in New Orleans. See photo at Right.)
“Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky” (2009) answers the questions, ‘How could Stravinksy compose the ‘Rite of Spring’ while cooped up in a Parisian hotel room with a wife and five kids?’ and ‘Where did the perfume’s name Chanel No. 5 come from?’ Igor was roundly booed and hissed at and people walked out of his first performance in Paris because his music didn't sound like "Swan Lake". A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! !
“Everybody’s Fine” (2009) Di Niro as a widower whose wife kept track of their four bi-coastal kids while Dad earned money putting PVC insulation on the phone lies she used. Now he’s determined to surprise each one with a personal visit and this is how his plans play out.

Misses (Avoid At All Costs): We attempted to watch these this month, but didn't make it all the way through on most of them. Awhile back when three AAAC horrors hit us in one night, I decided to add a sub-category to "Avoid at All Costs", namely, A DVD STOMPER. These are movies so bad, you don't want anyone else to get stuck watching them, so you want to stomp on the disks. That way, if everyone else who gets burnt by the movie does the same, soon no copies of the awful movie will be extant and the world will be better off.

“Linda, Linda, Linda” (2006) was Boring, Boring, Boring.

Your call on these — your taste in movies may differ, but I liked them:

“The Marine” (2006) jumps out of flaming buildings and cars too many times and lives, but glimpses of humor by Robert Patrick, that look when someone says “terminator” (He was the metallic cop in a Terminator movie.) provides some fun in an otherwise idiotic plot full of high-speed chases and exploding buildings and cars.
“10th and Wolf” (2006) The brig or undercover is a sorry choice, but as one ages, one learns to improve one’s lie. Tough, brutal story of three brothers growing up in the raw streets of crime.
“Date Night” (2010) Has its moments. Laughed out loud a few times. Ineptness to the nth degree lionized on the screen for laughs is not my favorite oeuvre.
“In the Company of Men” (1997) obviously intended as a cautionary tale for young women with some disability. Lovely brunette falls in love with Aaron Eckhardt and he dumps her as planned. His friend also dated her, but she dumped him first for Aaron who goes home to the wife he told his buddy who was also his boss he didn’t have, and he takes his boss’s place by sabotaging a key meeting. Bad guy wins the prize and loses his soul leaving behind two heartbroken friends.
"Requiem" (2006) Michaela, named after the Archangel Michael, goes off to college fighting her own war with demons, and doctors only want to give her tests and pills. Is she epileptic or possessed or both? Give her pills or exorcism? Will either help?

There was a special savor about the way they fixed the black beans which I only figured out recently when I was smelling the Cumin spice in its jar. It smelled like those delicious black beans. So, for the first time in my life, I bought some black beans and made this dish. Hope you enjoy it. (Don't try it unless you have Cumin!)

Ingredients
1 Can of Black Beans
1 medium yellow onion
1 branch of green onions
some fresh picked basil leaves and parsley

1 tsp of ground Cumin
1 tsp of chopped garlic
1 Cup of Brown Rice
2 Cups of Water


 Preparation
Open the black beans can. Chop yellow onion. Chop green onions white tips and add to onion. Next chop green stems and save for garnish later. If red onion is available, chop it in small cubes and save for garnish. Chop the basil and parsley and add to onions.

Cooking Instructions

Brown Rice
Pour 2 cups of water into 3 to 5 cup saucepan, add about a TBSP of Olive oil, a TSP of salt. Stir and bring to rolling boil, then pour in the 1 Cup of Brown Rice, stir, and bring to boil again. Then immediately turn to simmer for 55 or 65 minutes. Should make brown rice which is soft and separable with a fork.

Black Beans
Pour Bertolli Extra Lite Olive Oil to cover bottom of 5 to 8 qt covered saucepan. Turn heat on HIGH and add chopped onion and mixture of garlic & greens to pot and saute till translucent. Add Black Beans to pot and continue to stir. As soon as boiling of beans occurs, turn Heat on LOW to SIMMER till done, which can be as early as when the Brown Rice is done, or about 50 minutes. The result will look like this.

Serving Suggestion
Serve Black Beans over the Brown Rice so that the liquid will be sufficient to soak all the rice. See served photo above. Sprinkle freshly chopped by hand green onions on top and serve.

Other options
Chopped red onions, finely diced in small cubes, make an excellent accompaniement to this dish, either on top or on the side.

And for my Good Readers, here’s the new reviews and articles for this month. The ARJ2 ones are new additions to the top of A Reader’s Journal, Volume 2, Chronological List, and the ART ones to A Reader’s Treasury. NOTE: these Blurbs are condensations of the Full Reviews sans footnotes and many quoted passages.

1.) ARJ2: The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric — The Second Coming of Christ by Rudolf Steiner

The Bible says about the second coming that "Christ will come again in Glory." With our materialistic bias in recent centuries, these words have been interpreted to mean that Christ will return as a man and be given a glorious reception. The same bias results in images of Christ returning on the clouds, as if carried by some magic carpet down from the sky. What is missing from our current understanding of the Second Coming is that the clouds symbology and the word "Glory" both refer to the etheric plane. This new understanding would lead us to expect that Christ's return will not be in a physical body and instead will be in an etheric body. The etheric body will allow Christ to be seen by people who are able to see into the etheric plane, either because they possessed a lifetime ability (as Steiner) or have acquired a temporary ability under some kind of stress or call for help. For very good reasons, Christ will never be incarnated again into human form; this was a one-off, one-time event in history which Steiner called the Mystery of Golgotha, but he did predict that Christ would return in an etheric form around 1928. This is an event which has already happened, some 80 plus years ago, and yet the majority of the world seems oblivious to it. There are many questions raised by this prediction and Steiner strives to handle them in the course of this collection of lectures given in 1911 and 1917.

[page xii, Introduction by Stephen Usher] The reason people will be able to perceive Christ in the etheric is that Christ endows them with what Steiner calls "the new natural clairvoyance." This new natural clairvoyance will become the possession of more and more people over the next two and half millennia. Through the fact that many people will possess this enhanced consciousness, human civilization will be completely transformed.

In 2008 I watched a movie, "More Than Dreams" (2007) which is a compilation of stories about five individual Muslim men and women who accepted Jesus Christ directly, not through a missionary, but from a personal visit from Jesus, often in their dreams. Some did not even know a Christian before they accepted Christ. One man traveled a long way till he found someone who could tell him about Christ and this person gave him a Bible to read about Christ Jesus. These kind of experiences occurring to people of all faiths and lack of faith shows that Christ has returned in an etheric body and can appear to anyone. If one listens carefully, one will hear people talking about how in times of dire need, they called out to Christ and He appeared to them. This process has been going on for 80 years now, and still is not noticed by the majority of people, but since help is there whether someone knew about this or not, it really doesn't matter who knows about it. To even discuss whether it happens raises doubts as to whether it happens, and there is no need to prove something which is already happening.

Karma and the natural world do not contradict each other, they simply operate in parallel, and what happens in the natural world can be due to a karmic balancing. Destiny is our way of saying "karmic balancing" and those things which constitute our destiny always play out in the natural world during our time between birth and death. There are no karmic necessities, only options which appear to individuals which they can choose or discard, although, rightly understood, those options we feel strangely attracted to for some unknown reason are often connected with some karmic balancing. A brick falls off a ledge which would kill a woman walking underneath, but she remembers she needs lipstick, and, as she pauses a moment to apply the lipstick, the brick hits the ground just around the corner. She will never be aware of the brick and will forget the natural event of putting on lipstick. (Page 227)

If we go back to the ancient Indian civilization, knowledge of the "I" was present in human beings, but its power and effect only came to full force in recent centuries. With a very weak "I", people in those ancient times possessed a clairvoyance and experienced themselves only as members of their clan. In effect, it was their clan or tribe "I" which was important to each individual member.

[page 6] The individual did not yet perceive an individual I as one does today; it was the tribal I on which one's attention was fixed. People thus lived through the day without a clear understanding that they were individual human beings. When evening came, however, one passed into sleep, but consciousness did not become totally darkened as it does today. Instead, during sleep the soul was able to perceive spiritual realities. Dreams today are mere shadows of what was normal then, when people perceived surrounding spiritual events and facts in their dreams-realities that, as a rule, today's dreams no longer represent. These were the perceptions of people at that time, and thus they had an awareness of the spiritual world. It was a reality to them — not through any sort of logic or proof, but simply because each night they found themselves in the spiritual world, though only with a vague and dreamy awareness.

We have moved past the stage of dreamy awareness into the full light of day-time consciousness and I awareness, but with that advance came our loss of naive clairvoyance and direct perception of the spiritual world. Spiritual scientists understand this crucial aspect of human evolution, and material scientists say that the perception of spiritual realities never existed because it doesn't exist now. One might have rightly said about airplanes in the 19th century, "they never existed because they don't exist now", but one cannot use that same logic about spiritual perception. And, as we know, shortly into the 20th century, airplanes came into existence, as will spiritual perception in the coming centuries. Why did we lose our spiritual perception, our vague clairvoyance?

[page 7] If we had remained at that stage of ancient, dreamy clairvoyance, we could never have acquired the individual I awareness we have today. We could never have realized that we are human individuals. We had to lose that awareness of the spiritual world in exchange for I consciousness. In the future, we shall have both. While maintaining our I consciousness, we will all regain what amounts to full clairvoyance. Today this is possible only for those who have traveled the path of initiation. In the future, everyone will once again be able to look into the spiritual world, and yet we will experience ourselves as human beings — as I beings.

We take our ability to judge for granted. Materialist scientists combine their thoughts and come up with the conclusion that we humans never have had the ability to see into the spiritual world and never will. Curiously, that very ability to come to this conclusion these same scientists owe to an awareness of self that grew out of humankind's ancient clairvoyance as it began to wane. That ancient clairvoyance, rightly understood, was the essential bootstrap program which led to our current ability to judge.

Consider it this way: a computer program, already loaded into computer hardware and running, cannot understand the existence or status of its hardware before there were any programs loaded into the hardware, nor can it conceive of how such a bootstrap might take place. Already running computer software can only understand running computer software. Similarly, a materialist scientist can only conceive of how humans existed after the bootstrap into logical thinking and can never conceive of how humans have coped with existence before the bootstrap process into logical thinking had occurred.

This bootstrapping process happened during the waning of the ancient clairvoyance. This dual process was necessary so that humans could continue to live and thrive while one form of coping waned and the other one waxed. What may seem like a quantum leap to some today was in reality a slowly evolving process, evidence for which can be found scattered throughout the ancient myths and legends to those who understand the process. Those who do not understand this switch-over process from clairvoyance to logical thinking tend to belittle the ancient peoples for their beliefs. Beliefs, which naturally seem foolish to those looking backward to them through materialistic blinders, e. g., "How silly for people to make decisions on whether to go to war based on the condition of the entrails of a slain animal!" A Spiritual Scientist might say, "How silly for those materialistic scientists, who won't take off their blinders, to claim that their blinders hide nothing!"

[page 8] Logical thinking emerged gradually in exchange for the old clairvoyance, which diminished with each succeeding incarnation. People lived less and less in those states in which they could look into the spiritual world. Instead, they adjusted to the physical plane, cultivated logical thinking, and experienced themselves as individuals, and clairvoyance gradually receded.

King Frederick the Great wondered what language a man would speak if he grew up without being influenced by hearing those around him speaking. He ordered an experiment to help decide the question, "Would the man speak German, Russian, French or what?" A dozen infants were placed in a nursery in the place and the nurses were commanded to speak nothing to the infants as they fed them and cleaned them. So what language did the youngsters grow up to speak? We never found out because they all died in infancy. This shows that humans need human companionship to live and mature properly. Feral teenagers have been found who lived among wolves, etc., but their thinking and speaking abilities were hardly developed. What would happen if dogs were reared apart from any human beings? They would lose their ability to bark. The existence of such bark-less dogs as the Basenji, a native of Africa, indicates that these dogs evolved in a portion of Africa which had no human inhabitants.

[page 8, 9] When you consider these facts, bear in mind that we cannot learn to speak and think today unless we grow up among human beings, because these faculties can be acquired only among other human beings. If a child were cast away on some lonely island to grow up without associating with other human beings, the faculties of thinking and speaking would not develop. So we can see that the development of any being is determined (in part, at least) by the sort of entities that being grows up among. Evolution is affected by this fact. You can see this among animals. It is known that if dogs are unable to meet or associate with human beings, they forget how to bark. As a rule, the descendants of such dogs are unable to bark at all. It is important whether a being grows up and lives among one kind of being or another.

When human beings had their vague clairvoyance, they lived in contact with spiritual beings and felt themselves to be part of the spiritual world. But their decisions always came in consultation with the gods; humans were like sub-teens today depending upon their parents to help them make good decisions. When these children grow up and leave home, they must find resources for making good decisions to replace asking the help of their parents.

Similarly humans needed to draw on the inputs they received from the sensory world when the inputs from the spiritual world began to fade away around the time known as the Silver Age.

[page 11] Following this came the period of the incarnations in which human vision was increasingly cut off from the spirit world. Instead, it adjusted more and more to the immediate outer world of the senses and, accordingly, became more firmly entrenched in the world of the senses. This period, during which human I consciousness emerged, is known as the Bronze Age.

After the Bronze Age came the dark age known as the Iron Age and the youthful joy and connection to the spiritual world which had waned during the Bronze Age became lost completely during the Iron Age and for this reason it is often known as the dark age.

[page 11, 12] This was the period when humankind became the least spiritual and, accordingly, the most attached to and rooted in the world of the senses. This was necessary so that self-awareness would gradually reach the peak of its evolution, for only through the sturdy opposition to the outer world could human being begin to distinguish themselves from the world and experience themselves as individual beings. This last period is call Kali Yuga, meaning the dark age. . . . What we can gain from Kali Yuga is the possibility of becoming firmly established in I consciousness. This was impossible previously, because the human being first had to absorb the I.

In other words, during the Iron Age, we have become separated from the spiritual world, but reinforced and talented in our individuality. Only now can we begin to return to perceiving the spiritual from the safety of a strong I consciousness. What age comes after the Iron Age? It is the Bronze Age, but this time it will approach us from the other direction, taking us from the outer world of the senses to inner world of the spirit. This Age we are currently entering will herald our return to spiritual consciousness, but with a strong individuality this time.

Unless one understands the Great Ages of History, one cannot comprehend the changes which are happening all over the world today. As evidence of such changes, one can look at the stories contained in this movie about people living in remote areas of the world with no contact with Christians who have had personal encounters with Christ in the etheric plane. Or one can notice the many stories which have appeared since the first third of the twentieth century of Christ appearing to people in need who have called Him for help.

In the middle of the Iron Age, during the time of Christ Jesus, it was very difficult for humans to experience the spiritual world — the kingdom of heaven — as existing in the external world. A new manner of grasping the kingdom of heaven had come to past, and John the Baptist was its prophet.

[page 14] John the Baptist proclaimed this to humanity by saying, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" — that is, it approaches the I. Previously, it was to be found outside of the human being, but now it had to be embraced within the very core of one's being — the I, a kingdom of heaven now come near.

If John the Baptist was the harbinger of Christ's appearance on Earth in a physical body, then Rudolf Steiner was the harbinger of Christ's appearance on Earth in an etheric body. When John baptized people, they came near to death which caused their etheric body to loosen from their physical body so that they were able to see the spiritual reality of Christ approaching the Earth. Our human etheric bodies have become loosened enough over the past two thousand years and by our approaching the Bronze Age that we can see the reality of Christ in the etheric plane on Earth without the strenuous procedure required by John. Over time more and more people will experience Christ directly, requiring no faith or belief, because they will have seen His reality directly. This, in a nutshell, is the message of Rudolf Steiner for our time.

If so, why is this message not known more generally? Look at what was known about Christ in the streets of Rome at the time.

[page 14, 15] The appearance of Christ on earth might have been overlooked by everyone, just as it passed unnoticed, for example, by the inhabitants of Rome. Among these, it was said, "Somewhere, in a dingy side street, there lives a strange sect of horrid people, and among them there is a detestable spirit who calls himself Jesus of Nazareth, and who preaches to the people, inciting them to all kinds of heinous acts." That is how much they knew of Christ in Rome at a certain period.

But there were people who knew that Christ in the person of Jesus of Nazareth was walking the Earth in the flesh and they proclaimed the deep meaning behind this event.

[page 15] Imagine that you are, for a moment, in that time. You could easily say, "Yes, it would be very possible to live then and still know nothing of the appearance of Jesus Christ in the physical world. It would be possible to live on earth without taking this significant event into one's consciousness." Could it, then, also be possible that something of infinite importance is taking place today, and that human beings are not taking it into their own consciousness? Could it be that something tremendously important is taking place in the world, right now, of which our own contemporaries have no idea? This is indeed the case. Something extremely important is happening, but it is perceptible only to spiritual vision.

We have transited from the Iron Age back into the Bronze Age back in 1879, about 130 years ago, and we should now be noticing some shifts into more spiritual realities. For Steiner, he was giving this lecture in 1911, only 31 years after the end of the Iron or Dark Age.

[page 15, 16] There is a great deal of talk about "periods of transition." We are indeed living in one, and it is momentous. The important thing is that we are living right at the end of the Dark Age, and a new epoch is just beginning in which human beings will gradually develop new faculties and human souls will gradually go through a change.
      It is hardly a wonder that most people are not the least aware of this, considering that most people also failed to notice the Christ event at the beginning of our era. Kali Yuga came to an end in 1899; now we must adapt to a new age. What is beginning will slowly prepare humankind for new soul faculties.

Here is Rudolf Steiner's message as the harbinger of this new age and it comes with a warning that we should duly note: that many of these visionaries, the human souls who take a step toward the kingdom of heaven, will be deemed to be insane and will be locked away by materialistic doctors who fail to understand these spiritual realities. [See my review of The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness as to how this might come about.]

[page 17, italics added ] There might be so much evil and materialism on earth, for example, that most of humanity would not show any understanding and, instead, see clairvoyants as mad and place them into insane asylums with those whose souls have developed in a muddled way. This epoch could pass by unnoticed, as it were. Nevertheless, we are sending out the message today; just as John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and Christ himself once announced: A new age is at hand, and human souls must take a step upward toward the kingdom of heaven.

How will these new soul faculties show themselves in people's lives?

[page 18] People today see only the physical human body; in the future, however, they will also be able to see the etheric body, at least as a shadowy image. People will also be able to experience a relationship to the deeper events in the etheric world. They will experience images and presentiments of events in the spiritual world and find that such events also happen on the physical plane after three or four days. They will see certain things in etheric images and know that, within the next few days, something specific will occur.

It is easy for skeptics to dispute Steiner's claim that the appearance of Christ in a physical body was a one-time event in the history of the Earth and will never happen again if they only read his statement of that as a fact without studying the whole evolution of the cosmos. Only then can one see how the incarnation of Christ came in the turning point of the evolution of humankind and is not necessary again. Life may seem to travel in circles, but rightly understood it travels in spirals, each time moving and growing. The impulse given to evolution by the physical incarnation of Christ has moved humanity to the next stage of evolution which involves humans being able to perceive etheric realities and Christ's second coming in etheric form presages and accompanies that nascent human ability.

[page 18] These transformations will come about in human soul capacities, resulting in what may be described as etheric vision. And who is connected with this? The being we call the Christ, who appeared in the flesh on earth at the beginning of our era. He will never appear again in a physical body; that was a unique event. Christ will return in an etheric form, however, during the time we have been discussing. People will then learn to perceive the Christ, because through etheric vision they will grow upward toward the one who will enter an etheric body, but never again a physical body. It will be necessary for human beings to grow toward perceiving the Christ, for he truly said, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the earth." He is here; he is in our spiritual world, and those who are blessed can perceive his presence in the etheric realm.

There will also be skeptics who claim that these appearances of Christ in the etheric plane indicate a return in a physical body, and we will see reports of false Christs appearing.

[page 19, 20] Materialistic minds will claim this event as another descent of Christ into the flesh — a physical incarnation. Some, in their colossal conceit, will turn this event to their own advantage by claiming that they are the reincarnated Christ. Consequently, the coming period may bring false Christs. Anthroposophists, however, should be so prepared for spiritual life that they will not confuse the second coming of Christ in a spiritual body — which is perceptible only to a higher vision — with such a physical reappearance. That will be one of the most dangerous temptations to assail humanity. Helping to overcome this temptation will be the task of those who learn to raise themselves to a comprehension of the spirit through spiritual science — those who, instead of dragging spirit down into matter, wish to ascend into the spirit world. Consequently, we must speak of the second coming of Christ in this way — that we must lift ourselves to Christ in the spiritual world by acquiring etheric vision.

We humans are re-acquiring etheric vision as we leave the Iron Age and move into the Bronze Age again. Today we spend our entire day with physical vision except for a few minutes of transition of awakening from our night consciousness into day consciousness, that period in which dreams form and carry over as vivid or vague memories into daytime.

These short periods of interface with the spiritual world which occur both at night time as we fall asleep and in the morning as we awake are all that has remained from earlier times when human spent only a few hours viewing the physical world. Back then no one had to believe in the spiritual world because they experienced it for a large portion of every day. We needed to experience the physical world fully in order to develop self-awareness apart from our spiritual world existence; we need to develop our I-beings, our I. (Page 32)

As we enter the Bronze Age, our spiritual sight will return to augment our I and our powers of modern thinking and perception. The so-called Dark Age was necessary for this transition.

[page 33] The portal of the spirit world has been closed to humankind so that we might become more self-aware, inner spiritual beings — so that we could ascend to awareness of self and thus be able to enter the spirit world again as free beings.

In the time of Christ Jesus on Earth, John the Baptist was exhorting everyone to, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Repent has two meanings, one to be sorry for something and the other to seek a change. If we focus on the being sorry only, we miss the deep meaning of change — John was saying, "Change the disposition of your souls." Humans who were in the middle of the Iron Age had lost their ability to connect with the spiritual world (kingdom of heaven), and a change was necessary and the coming of Christ Jesus would provide that change. (Page 38)

[page 39] John the Baptist was saying that the time had come to train self-awareness so that the I could completely penetrate the depths of one's soul to find its inner connection with the kingdoms of heaven. In other words, ordinary human beings could no longer ascend clairvoyantly outside themselves into a spirit world. Instead, the kingdoms of heaven had to descend to the physical world and reveal themselves in such a way that the I could recognize spiritual reality through the sense for truth inherent in ordinary self-awareness. . . . Consequently, the Christ had to descend and appear in a physical human body, because the disposition of the human soul was attuned to comprehending physical phenomena. God had to come to human beings on the physical plane, because the I-being had developed and the portal to the spiritual world had closed; humankind could no longer approach the gods in the old way.

Why study spiritual science? Is it only to satisfy a curiosity? Of what use is this knowledge?

[page 41] Why do we teach spiritual science? Because phenomena will appear in the near future that only spiritual science will be able to understand; it will be misunderstood without spiritual science.

[page 45] We do not "pursue" anthroposophy merely because we are curious about various facts, but because we know that these facts must be used to save and eventually perfect humanity.

Christ has made four sacrifices for humanity, the Mystery of Golgotha being the most recent one and the most well-known one because He made the sacrifice of His life as a physical human being. When He says in Matt. 28:20, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the eons of the earth" we are assured that He will be us through all the stages of human development, now and in the future, as we rise and conquer the physical world in preparation for leaving it when "the eons of the earth" are done.

[page 45, 46] The Christ will appear later to humanity in many forms. The form he chose for the events in Palestine was chosen because, at that time, human beings needed to develop their consciousness on the physical plane and, through this, conquer the physical world. Humanity is called on to develop increasingly higher faculties, so that the course of evolution can, again and again make new leaps.
      Christ will be there so that human beings can experience him through those higher stages of knowledge. Christianity, in this sense, is not at the end but at the beginning of its influence. Humanity will continue to advance from stage to stage, and Christianity will be there at every stage to satisfy the deepest needs of the human soul through all the future ages of earth.

We must not make the mistake of thinking that somehow the appearance of Christ in an etheric form is not as real or important as an appearance in the physical body would be. He appeared back then in physical form because it was the only form in which humans of the time could experience Him. In a physical body, however, there was only a limited number of humans He could interact with — only those in the area of Palestine. In an etheric body, that limitation goes away and He can interact with all humans who are ready to meet Him. Those meetings with Christ which might have happened by accident in Palestine back then, however, must happen by conscious volition today.

[page 86, 87] Just as Christ had to be found with purely physical faculties then, human beings will use newly developed faculties to find Christ in a world where only ether bodies are seen; there will be no second physical incarnation of Christ. He appeared only once in the flesh, because only then did human faculties depend on seeing Christ in a physical body. Now, however, with the development of higher faculties, human beings will perceive the far more real ether body of the Christ. . . . One thing will be needed, however; the faculties required for perceiving the Christ event between death and a new birth cannot be acquired there, but must be developed here on the physical plane and taken into one's life between death and a new birth.

During the Iron Age or "Dark Age" humans experienced the Dark Brain, that is, they used mostly their senses for perception and their brain for understanding. This limited way of understanding the world has brought us all of our technology, but led us into the dead, dark end of a solely materialist existence for many. It was this "disposition of soul" that John the Baptist warned everyone to change or they would never notice that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. It is a message which humans need as strongly today as they did back then.

[page 92] You know that one of the most significant pronouncements made as the Christ event approached was, "Change the disposition of your souls, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2). These words are deeply meaningful, indicating that something very significant was taking place then for the whole of human soul development. When these words were spoken, it had been more than three thousand years since the beginning of what we call Kali Yuga, the Dark Age. What is the significance of this age? During that era, it was normal for people to depend solely on the outer senses for perception, as well as the kind of understanding that uses the brain as its instrument. This was all that could be experienced, known, and understood in the dark age of Kali Yuga.

When the doors of the spirit world closed, the doors to the Mystery Schools opened — for there were many who could yet recall faintly a time when humans could see directly into the spirit world, and they wanted schooling in spiritual seeing even in the depths of the Dark Age. Some few people were blessed with this ability and they could teach others, help them to find a richness of spirit. But the majority of people were poor in this ability, and, seeking the kingdom of heaven without spiritual sight, they could not find it, no matter how earnestly they begged. Christ's appearance in the flesh changed all that.

[page 96] To enter the spirit world in earlier times, the ether body had to be separated slightly from the physical body, which was thus formed in a special way. Christ Jesus therefore said, alluding to the physical body: Blessed are the beggars — the poor in spirit — for if, through the I, they develop their outer bodies correctly, they will find the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:3).

He said of the etheric body: Formerly, people could be healed of illnesses in the body and soul by rising into the spirit world in a state of ecstasy. Now, those who suffer and are filled with the spirit of God can be healed and comforted, and they can find the source, the comfort, within themselves (Matt. 5:4). He said of the astral body: In former times those whose astral bodies were beset by wild and tempestuous passions and impulses could be subdued only when equanimity, peace, and purification streamed to them from divine spirit beings. Now, however, human beings should find the strength within their I-being, under the influence of Christ, to purify their astral bodies. The place in which the astral body can be purified is now the earth. Thus the new influence in the astral body had to be presented by saying, Blessed and filled in their astral bodies with God are those who foster calmness and equanimity within themselves; all comfort and well-being on earth shall be their reward (Matt. 5:5).

We have evolved in 2,000 years to the point where we are now ready to see Christ in the etheric plane with our own soul forces. This will become more common over the coming millennia.

[page 100] For the next 2,500 years, from the mid-twentieth century on, this will become increasingly common. By then, enough people will have had experiences like that of Paul near Damascus that it will be assumed common on the earth.

      We are involved with spiritual science so that these new faculties (at first barely perceptible) will not be overlooked and lost by humanity — so that those who are blessed with this new power of vision will not be seen as dreamers and fools, but instead receive support and understanding from a small group of people who, in their common purpose, may prevent these delicate soul seeds and qualities from being roughly trampled to death for lack of understanding. Spiritual science will indeed prepare the way for attaining this ability.

There is a deep spiritual truth that evolutionary stages must be gone through two times, the second in reverse order, as if mirrored around an inflection point or turning point. Steiner had in a previous lecture discussed the millennia in which first Abraham, then Moses, and finally Solomon appeared. Now Steiner gives us the reflected sequence of the millennia of Solomon, Moses, and Abraham after the turning point in Palestine — the Mystery of Golgotha.

[page 101, ] The qualities that represent a particular age are repeated later in reverse. The turning point is the appearance of Christ Jesus in Palestine. The qualities immediately preceding that time are the first to reappear. Consequently, the first millennium after Christ is a new Solomon epoch; the spirit of Solomon worked in the best human beings of that time so that the Mystery of Golgotha could penetrate. In those early centuries after Christ, Solomon's symbols could be interpreted most readily and inwardly by those who were able to experience most deeply the act on Golgotha.

Steiner identifies Eckhart and Tauler as the reflection of Moses in the second millennium. Tauler received inspiration from the "The Friend of God from the Mountain" after which he became a great preacher.

[page 102] In the second millennium after Christ we recognize a repetition of the age of Moses. What Moses experienced outwardly now appears in the mysticism of those such as Eckhart, Tauler, and so on. Those mystics experienced within what Moses experienced outwardly in the burning bush and in the thunder and lightning. They spoke of how the I-God revealed himself to them when they withdrew into themselves. When they perceived within their souls the spark of I-being, then the I-God, the one God Jehovah, revealed himself. This was true of Tauler, who was a great preacher and could experience powerful revelations. The layman called "The Friend of God from the Mountain" came to him, and people assumed he wanted to become Tauler's pupil. But instead he soon became Tauler's teacher, after which Tauler was able to speak of God from his inner being with such force that some were said to have fallen, lying as though dead, as he preached. This is reminiscent of events when Moses received the laws on Sinai.

In our time in the nascent third millennium, we have reached the reflected age of Abraham as we once more enter the Bronze Age and regain the ability to see into the spiritual world which Abraham possessed. The most common first experience of this newly re-acquired spiritual sight will come as a spiritual vision of Christ in the etheric plane as a man appearing to walk upon the Earth, but who will disappear without a trace after a while.

[page 102, 103] Now, however, we are entering an era that recalls the age of Abraham, but now in the sense that human beings are led away from the sensory world. The spirit of Abraham will influence our knowledge so that human beings will renounce the old mentality that acknowledged only the sensory realm. However, in contrast to Abraham (for whom the spirit of God could be found only in the sensory world), we will grow beyond the phenomenal world into the spirit world.

Life moves not in circles — always returning to a starting point — but rather life moves in spirals which return to a starting point but with a motion that represents progression in some new direction, which takes life to a new level. Were it not for this moving always to a new level, human and cosmic evolution would not take place at all. The returning of Christ in human form, in the flesh, would represent exactly the kind of circle which cosmic evolution does not follow. No one needed consciously to understand the appearance of Christ in Palestine because He was present in the flesh. That changes with this current appearance of Christ in our time in etheric form. Consciousness is very much essential, and must be acquired by humans in the flesh, in this lifetime. One cannot wait until one transits into the world between death and a new birth to acquire this knowledge.

[page 103] It is thus the same, whether a person lives in the physical world here on earth or has passed through death. If we have gained an understanding for the Christ event here on earth, we will be able to experience it in the spiritual world. This demonstrates the fact that humankind has lived on this earth for a good reason. However, those who fail to acquire an understanding of the Christ event on earth will not, between death and a new birth, experience any trace of the effects of that event on Golgotha. They will have to wait until they return to earth and a new birth to prepare themselves.

Regardless of their faith or religious affiliation, people will experience the Christ being. Christians will have the most trouble of any religions accepting the Christ being, as they have been hitherto so poorly prepared for the reality of an etheric Christ.

[page 104] We are approaching an age when people will feel they are surrounded not only by a physical, sensory world, but also — according to their understanding — by a spiritual kingdom. The leader in this new kingdom of spirit will be the etheric Christ. No matter what religious community or faith people belong to, once they experience these facts within themselves, they will acknowledge and accept the Christ event. Christians who experience the etheric Christ are perhaps in a more difficult situation than adherents to other religions, yet they should try to accept this Christ event with no more bias than they would any other. It will, in fact, be our task to develop, especially through Christianity, an understanding for the possibility of entering the spirit world free of any religious denomination, going simply through the power of good will.

In preparing Christians and others for this Christ event, the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner fills a vital task. People will experience a radiant light, much as Paul experienced on the way to Damascus, and instead of being fearful, they will be ready to accept the reality of the etheric Christ.

Through the fortune of karma, I spent many years programming computers and learning how the basic hardware of computers work. One of the mysteries of computers is the word "reboot". Most people use the word "boot" or "reboot" without any idea of its origin. The word "boot" comes from the concept of bootstrapping or put colloquially, "raising oneself by one's own bootstraps", which is an inherently impossible concept. What is it that is inherently impossible about a computer? This: one gets a program into a computer by using a program loader to load it. How does the program loader, which is also a program, get into a computer sans an already present program loader? It's a mystery — but it happens anyway. How it happens requires that the initial program loader be loaded differently than all the other programs! This must be done outside the computer before it can load or run any other programs. In the early days of minicomputers, in the 1960s and 70s, before home computers arrived on the scene, the initial program loader, called the bootstrap program, had to be loaded by hand, bit-by-bit, every time a computer was powered up! Only then could the program loader be loaded and other programs be run. With home computers, ways were found to store the bootstrap program on the first sector of a hard drive, called the boot sector, and bootstrap programs could mostly be ignored and the computer was ready to run after being powered up. But still, at the factory, this bootstrap program had to be designed, coded, and placed into the computer by a human being and then tested before any computers of that model could be run. Now we have only the words "boot" and "reboot" to remind us of this no longer obvious bootstrapping process.

Does the bootstrap paradox remind you of the old conundrum, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" One might ask, "Which came first the program or the program loader?" A chicken is like a fully loaded program and the program loader is the egg which makes it possible for the program to be loaded.

This topic is worthy of consideration, because Steiner reveals the answer to the chicken and the egg paradox. Just like the hand of a human being is necessary to load the program loader into the already-formed computer, so also is an outside agency required to load the egg into an already-formed chicken.

[page 197, 198] There is one thing that will come to be understood today that is not yet known. Consider some living being — say, a chicken. When a new embryo arises in this living being, a biologist may examine how an eggs grows from the chicken. One examines the forces that supposedly allow the egg to grow out of the chicken, but this is nonsense. The egg does not grow from the hen, which is only the foundation; the forces for that growth work in from the cosmos and produce the egg on the foundation prepared within the hen.

I hope by now you are coming to understand that your eye doctors are putting the wrong glasses on your lovely children, and that you will have to take that into your own hands and put some +D lenses (reading glasses) onto your kids' noses.

My mother-in-law at 87 is nearly blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. She has severe maculation degeneration in both eyes and all this could have been prevented if her mother had put plus lenses on her. Instead 70 years of optometry, as erroneously (and lucratively) practiced, ruined her eyes with minus (nearsighted) eyeglasses.

I saw a lovely selection of reading glasses at a grocery recently for only $10. I personally had bought a pair for one of my grandaughters and she is using them in school on a regular basis. As Mothers and Grandmothers, do you have chances to spend time with your kids when you can do the same for them? If so take them, one at a time, with you to a drugstore or a grocery which has a reading glass kiosk, bring something with normal sized text to read up close. First have them CHOOSE a frame they like. Then have them test and find a +Diopter lens power which will let them read the text comfortably at their normal reading distance. (Usually +1.0 to +2.0) Then discard their negative lens eyeglasses if they have some. Within a few weeks, their eyes will adjust to seeing clearly in the distance, if and only if they use the plus lenses glasses for all close work.

One famous mother, a PhD, MD Opthalmologist, Dr. Viikari, in Finland smashed her own son's minus lens glasses one day when he was in the swimming pool to keep him from wearing them. Today at 63 to day he wears plus bifocals which means: plus at distance and stronger pluses for close work. Clearly he did not need those minus lenses some 35 years ago and he is free of the harm they could have done to his health.
+++++++++++

POSTSCRIPT: Glasses should be prescribed for optimal health and seeing, both up close and at a distance, not for perfect seeing at a distance.

4. Doyletic Breakthrough and Help for Post-Trauma (PTSD)

While studying the Autonomic Nervous System lectures by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, I made a breakthrough in understanding doyletics, an extension of the theory which seems warranted.

Basically when glucocorticoids flood the hippocampus during intensive stress (such as on battlefield which leads to PTSD) the hippocampus is unable to store cognitive memories. That temporary functional disability of the hippocampus is identical to the pre-5-year-old child having a hippocampus which is not fully operational and thus unable to store cognitive memories. In both cases, it must be that the limbic system acts in absentia for the hippocampus and stores the bodily states (namely, doyles or doylic memories).

This resolves the puzzle, the unanswered question I've held for so long, about how to include Post Traumatic Stress Disorders into the theory of doyletics.

Simply put: during great stress the adult hippocampus mirrors the pre-5 child's hippocampus and the limbic structure takes over as backup and stores the feelings, bodily states, in the amygdala, for the period the stress is happening. After the trauma, new doyles have been formed and they can be extirpated exactly like pre-five doyles!

Still working on the concepts and ways of expressing it, but I am much enheartened by this discovery! It gives new hope to PTSD sufferers.

Thanks to all of you for providing the chemistry which has made this site a success. — Especially those of you who have graciously allowed us to show photos of you and by you on this website — you're looking good!

In 2012, its twelfth year of existence, the doyletics website topped Nine Million Visitors. By the Second Quarter of 2013, we expect to top TEN MILLION VISITORS ! ! !

As of May 1, 2013 we will have received over 9.98 MILLION VISITORS to the Doyletics Website since its inception in August 1, 2001, almost TWELVE YEARS AGO. About 800 Thousand in the past 12 months. We are currently averaging about 60,000 visitors a month. A Visitor is defined as a Reader who is new or returns after 20 minutes or more has passed. The average is one visitor for every 10 Hits.

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We especially want to thank you, our Good Readers, in advance, for helping our readership to grow. NOTE our new name for future Digests: DIGESTWORLD. Continue to send comments to Bobby and create links to DIGESTWORLD issues and Reviews on on LinkedIn, on your Facebook page and on other Social Media. Email your friends about the reviews, the handy doyletics Speed Trace, the cartoons, the cajun jokes, the recipes, the poems, and the photos in all the DIGESTWORLD Issues archived on our website. Urge them to subscribe to the DIGESTWORLD Reminder so they won't miss a single issue! The Subscription Process has been simplified so that no Reply Confirmation is required. An email to the Editor with your First and Last names is all that's required. There is never a charge for viewing any page on our website, nor for any of the guidance we offer to people asking for help with doyletics or other areas.

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NEW ! ! !
You can read a description of how to do a Speed Trace:

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To make a connection to the Doyletics website from your own website, here's what to do. You may wish to use the first set of code below to link to the site which includes a graphic photo, or to use the second set of code for a text-only link. Immediately below is how the graphic link will look on your website. Just place this .html in an appropriate place on your website.

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