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Good Mountain Press Monthly Digest #10a
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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~~~~~~~~ In Memoriam: David Dixon (1923 — 2010) ~~~~
~~~~ Father of the Superdome who succeeded in bringing the NFL Saints to New Orleans ~~~~~
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~~~ GOOD MOUNTAIN PRESS DIGEST #10a Published October 1, 2010 ~~~
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Quote for the Scholarly Month of October:

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson — American essayist and poet (1803 — 1882)

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THE GOOD MOUNTAIN PRESS DIGEST
#10a, October 2010


Archived Digests

             Table of Contents

1. October's Violet-n-Joey Cartoon
2. Honored Readers for October
3. On a Personal Note
       Movie Blurbs

4. Cajun Story
5. Recipe of the Month from Bobby Jeaux’s Kitchen: Black Beans on Brown Rice
6. Poem from Becoming the Archangel Michael's Companions :      "Meeting"
7. Reviews and Articles Added for October:

8. Commentary on the World
9. Closing Notes
— Our mailing list, locating books, unsubscribing to Digest
10. Gratitude



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THE GOOD MOUNTAIN PRESS DIGEST #10a
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ARCHIVED DIGESTWORLD ISSUES ON THE WEB
 
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1. October Violet-n-Joey CARTOON:
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For newcomers to the Digest, we have created a webpage of all the Violet-n-Joey cartoons! Check it out at: http://www.doyletics.com/vjtoons.htm Also note the rotating calendar and clock that follows just to the right of your mouse pointer as you scroll down the page. You'll also see the clock on the 404 Error page if you make a mistake typing a URL while on the doyletics.com website.

The Violet-n-Joey Cartoon page is been divided into two pages: one low-speed and one high-speed access. If you have Do NOT Have High-Speed Access, you may try this Link which will load much faster and will allow you to load one cartoon at a time. Use this one for High-Speed Access.

This month Violet and Joey learn about Being Human.

#1 "Being Human" at http://www.doyletics.com/images/091710jv.gif

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2. HONORED READERS FOR October:
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Each month we take time to thank two of our good readers of Good Mountain Press Digest, books and reviews. Here's our two worthy Honored Readers for this month. One of their names will be in the TO: address line of your email Digest notification. Our Honored Readers for October are:

Debbie Barford in Chicago

Frank Arnemann in New Orleans

Congratulations, Debbie and Frank !


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3. ON A PERSONAL NOTE:


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Out Our Way:

















RED SNAPPER

Just as the red snapper season was opened to sports fishermen for the Fall, my Red Snapper lawnmower bit the dust. The Tecumseh motor froze up when it ran out of oil. The heavier cutting at the new house led to its running out of oil faster than I expected. The motor had not been running strong since last year anyway. I called my high school chum, Shelby, and he offered some suggestions on how to free it up. I filled it with fresh oil, turned it spark plug side down, and waited a week. The motor finally started up, but the power was so low that I finally gave up on it. It is now at the Lawnmower Hospital for a Heart Replacement (new 6 HP motor). Till it returns, our landscaper is taking care of the lawn and I like it. We'll have him do more of that during those heavy cutting summer months. He doesn't pick up the grass clippings like I do, so once new motor is installed, I will still cut the grass to feed our mulch bed, only not as frequently.

BIO-DYNAMIC PREPARATIONS

This month we created some more Preparation 508. We got several large bags of equisetum and made several gallons of concentrated tea which when we mix with plain water and sprinkle over the plants which may be yellowing or not doing well, they spark up immediately. These Preparations are based on the dictum: "There are no plant diseases; only soil with problems." We use these Preparations to condition the soil properly by using living ingredients and exposing them to the forces of the cosmos. The second preparation came with a funny story. Our firewood man delivered the manure and the cow skull and deer skull while my brother-in-law Dan was here and we had gone to Dad's house.

Dan told me later when we got home, "Your firewood guy thinks you're crazy or doing witchcraft." I reminded Dan of the words of Arthur Clarke, the famous Sci-Fi author and philosopher, who said, "Any process sufficiently advanced will appear as magic to others." BIO-DYNAMIC gardening must seem like magic or witchcraft to those who have not taken the time to understand the science of Rudolf Steiner, but those who have would never go back to using chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides.

This month, we acquired the ingredients for Preparation 500 as described in Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course. This involves fitting a cow's horn with cow manure and burying it underground over the winter. Our firewood man, Charlie, brought over some manure and a couple skulls, one from a cow with two horns on it, and one from a deer which will be used in another Preparation later. I used a hacksaw to remove one horn and a file to open up the horn. Then I packed as much manure as possible into the horn and placed it in a hole about 15" deep and covered it for its winter hiatus. During this time, the forces of the cosmos will work on the manure, and in May I will dig it up and it will become part of our mulch bed. It will be placed into rainwater, stirred for a half hour in each direction and sprinkled on our mulch bed and garden plants, so what happened to the underground manure will migrate bio-dynamically to our veggie garden and flower gardens.




LSU UNDEFEATED WITHOUT A QUARTERBACK

Yep, that's right! The LSU defense is so good, that even without a quarterback on the field, we have won four straight games against good teams: North Carolina, Vanderbilt, Miss State, and West Virginia. Oh, we had No. 9 making one horrible attempt after another to be a quarterback, but if you can only look at and pass the football to the primary receiver, the defense will clobber that receiver as they will have three DB's converging on him. It has been the saddest state of affairs for LSU fans to have such an incredible Special Team and Defensive Team effort and the worst QB of all time on the same team. These teams score TD's via punt and kick off returns, especially Patrick Peterson, take away the ball via flashy interceptions and fumbles and turn the ball over to an offense without a QB! So, good old No. 9 throws maybe one pass, and runs the ball for 3 yards, and then we punt the ball back and pray for our Defensive and Special Team squads to score for us and keep the score of the other team down so we can win without a real Quarterback. Many LSU alumni are wondering when we will get a real Coach! Every game, Les Miles begins to seem more like Les Funny. He blames the offensive team in the Times-Picayune this morning for the ineptness of No. 9. "LSU Coach says quarterback hurt by offense's mistakes" is the headline of the article. That is exactly opposite to what I have seen happen on the field, namely, that the "offense has been hurt by the quarterback's mistakes." What is this so-called Coach going to do when LSU meets the heavy portion of the SEC schedule if he keeps putting a stumbling runner and an interception thrower as head of the offense?

How many wide receivers and tight ends will have to come out of the game with injuries because good ole No. 9 looked straight and them and telegraphed to the defense who was going to be the target of the ball, so that receiver can become the target of the Defensive Backs?

Meanwhile the one Quarterback on the LSU roster worthy of the name quarterback is sitting on the bench. It gets Les and Les Funny every week. Soon the seats in Tiger Stadium will go begging. Will good ole No. 9 have to be injured before Les Funny replaces him? Don't laugh. It has already happened twice before in the first decade of the new millennium. Each time the bench sitter came into the game and won a National Championship for us. Will history never grow tired of repeating itself? One can only hope.

THE SAINTS ARE 2-1 AND HOT AS EVER

After attending a couple of preseason games, we were ready for the Saints' prime time rematch with the team they beat for the NFC Championship last year which sent the Saints into the Super Bowl. Could they show the country that win was not a fluke by dispatching the Vikings again? They could and they did.

Then they traveled to San Francisco to beat their old rivals, the 49ers in a very close game. Coming back to the Superdome, they met their new rivals in the NFC South, the resurgent Falcons and it was like a heavyweight title boxing match with body blows by both sides, ending in regulation with a tie thanks to a last minute drive to field goal range by Drew Brees and 10 of his favorite receivers. In the Overtime Quarter, the Falcons won the toss, but their QB got tossed for a loss on third down and on came the Brees Brigade to march down to the 11-yard-line for a chip shot for Hartley, but it hardly went through and the Falcons' field goal was good. Our unbeaten streak starts next week against the Panthers in the Dome. Every team in the NFL will be gunning for the Saints, saving their best for the Champs, hoping to get a piece of glory by beating us, but the road will get tougher for them from here on out.

MOST IMPORTANT THING IS BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP

What are the three most important things in Real Estate? Ask any agent and you'll get this answer, "Location, location, location." Ask me the most important thing in Computers and you'll get the answer: "Backup, backup, backup." Why three backups? Because unless you have a backup to your backup, you may lose all of your data. The first Backup can be on your hard drive, a simple copy in a different place on your hard drive, and if a fault happens in the original file, then Backup1 will save you.

The next Backup should be on a completely different hard drive, the best option today is a USB hard drive so that this Backup2 will be fine if the main hard drive fails completely. But suppose you have a small fire which destroys both your PC and Backup2, there goes all of your data! You also need a Backup3 which can be a USB hard drive which you keep in your office or home or some other place miles away from your main PC. Every week or two take that Backup3 and copy all your important files on it and return it to its safe location. Then any event which happens to your PC cannot affect your BACKUP3. This process of moving BACKUP3 back and forth is awkward, so I recently bought an 8 Gb memory stick which fits in a USB port and I do a reduced size BACKUP4 and carry that stick with me in my pocket. That is an always ready off-site backup and if I need to use some other PC or LapTop, my important files on it. When I'm on vacation, the 8 Gb allows me to carry my latest writing work with me.

This business of Backup, Backup, Backup came to me when I got a call from our friend Burt who had lost several months of records from an important spreadsheet. Basically he lost the original updated spreadsheet and his BACKUP1 was an older spreadsheet with two months of data missing. I drove over to help him out and we could not locate the missing months, so he will have to reconstruct them, but I preached my "Backup, backup, backup" sermon to him and gave him a short BATCH file which when run would save all his important files on one of two USB storage devices he had available. Now after every update of his spreadsheets, he can run this .BAT file and his data will be stored in two other places, one of which will be in his pocket. Those two places will be BACKUP2 and BACKUP3.

BUSY FRIDAY

Usually I keep an open schedule, so if someone invites me to do something, I really only have to check Del's schedule. I had scheduled lunch with our good friend Patricia, but with her busy schedule, the lunch was a Friday in September and I had scheduled it in August. No problem, I thought.

As we got closer, we were invited on a Friday night to dinner with Burt and his wife Renee. No problem, that night's available. Then Del, who was elected President of her Garden Club had her first regular meeting in September on that same Friday and suddenly, without planning, we had three events happening on that same day! All three of which involved eating. So I had lunch with Patricia at Mandina's on WB Expressway and Del joined us after her luncheon meeting was over. Then we came home to rest up before heading to the Bon Ton on Magazine Street for dinner with Burt and Renee. All three events came off well, but we slightly over-indulged on our food budget for the day. Looking back it seems we could have scheduled each of these events on separate weeks. Oh, well, next time.

DAN, KAREN, AND BUSTER

Another syzygy occurred near the end of September when Del's brother, Dan, and his wife Karen came to visit us at Timberlane on the same weekend we were scheduled to take care of Dad twenty five miles away in Mimosa Park.

We visited with them a couple of nights and mornings before they left to attend the Saints game in the Superdome. They have been scheduled to come in for over a month and the full weekend schedule with Dad came up in the last week or so when my sister Janet and her husband Tommy had to attend a golf tournament on the East Coast where their son, Jeff, was competing for a chance to play in the Master's Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. This week was the same week that my brother Steve and his wife Janice were scheduled to go to Maryland for Janice's Nursing School reunion. With two of Dad's primary weekend care-givers out of town, we decided to fill in. Dad will be 93 by the time you read this and he still lives in the home he built with his own hands in 1955. He has day-time helpers during the week but we five remaining offspring have to divide the week end chores between us.

Thinking back, I can't recall a time when I spent three days in a row with Dad, so it was a rare pleasure as well a chore. One of the pleasures was our decision to take Dad to Bubba II's on Hwy 90 near Raceland where we had the best ever oyster poboy sandwiches. After I had eaten a couple of bites, I decided I wanted a photo record of this amazing sandwich. I have had oyster poboys in dozens of restaurants and typically the ones in New Orleans are the worst, catering as they do to tourists who are eating them for the first time, not noticing that the oysters are few and large, and fall out of french bread as you try to eat them.

There is often no Mayo and you have to add your own. The lettuce and tomato is often on the side and you have to build the poboy yourself. The oysters are often brown and over-cooked, with a hard crust. Often it's the hard crust on the bread that makes eating it as a sandwich problematic. But at Bubba II's, the oysters were medium sized, perfectly fried to a golden color, the bread was light with a light crispy crust, the dressing of lettuce, tomato, pickle slices, and mayo was all arranged and mouth-ready when you unwrapped the paper. Tender, delicious oysters which were easily eatable and the dressing complemented the oysters make a meal in a sandwich, one to be remembered and revisited. Afterward I told Del that the sandwich was half the price of local ones and twice as good, making the 40 mile each way trip worth it just on the gas money saved. One cannot save the time of the trip, but the 40-mile eager anticipation of a great oyster poboy and the 40-mile back enjoyment in retrospect of a delicious meal could make it all worthwhile.

TILL NEXT MONTH

Till we meet again in November, God Willing and the Levees Hold. October will be a wonderful time for us to enjoy the wonderful colors of Fall. A time for harvesting our Fall gardens here in South Louisiana. Bell peppers, broccoli, and eggplants to accompany the okra we've been picking all Summer long. Whatever you do, wherever in the world you reside, make it a great October for yourself! ! !




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New Quotes Added to quotes.htm this month:

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





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    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.
    Hits (Watch as soon as you can. A Don't Miss Hit is one you might otherwise ignore.):
    “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?


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    4. CAJUN STORY:
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    Boudreaux was sitting in the back room of his favorite bar in Breaux Bridge watching the LSU football game and drinking Dixie beer all afternoon. The game went into overtime and it had gotten dark outside.

    From the inside of the bar a stranger who had also been drinking beer all afternoon got off his barstool and wandered down the street. He took the wrong way to his motel and trying to take a shortcut back, he was walking through a graveyard in the dark. He didn't notice the newly dug grave and fell into it. He tried to get out, but couldn't so he began calling out for help.

    Meanwhile the LSU game ended and Boudreaux took the same shortcut to his house. As he got closer the open grave, he heard a man yelling, "Help me! I'm cold!" over and over again.

    Boudreaux walked up to the edge of the open grave, looked down in the dark, and said, "No wonder you cold, you damn fool! You done kicked all you dirt off!"

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    5. RECIPE of the MONTH for October, 2010 from Bobby Jeaux’s Kitchen:
    (click links to see photo of ingredients, preparation steps)
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    Black Beans on Brown Rice

    Background for Black Beans on Brown Rice Recipe:
    At our all-time favorite eating place, Houston's Restaurant, they had a side dish which was delicious which featured Black Beans on top of Brown Rice.

    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.



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    6. POETRY by BOBBY from Becoming the Archangel Michael's Companions :
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                Meeting


    Meeting without sheaths —
           without crowns or emblemmed hats
           or robes of office

    Meeting without maps
           in the middle of a territory

    Meeting as two explorers
           on a joint trajectory
           into the future.



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    7. REVIEWS and ARTICLES for October:
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    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.

    Similarly it would be nonsense to claim that bootstrap program grows out of the computer. The bootstrap program must be worked into the foundation of the computer by the forces of the cosmos, specifically, the hands of a human being. Humans create computers and, as creator, act as the "spiritual forces" or outside agents of the computer. What we call cosmic forces are those outside agents (spiritual beings) which act upon us and the plants and animals on Earth with us. Anyone who would ridicule Steiner's explanation of the solution to the chicken-egg paradox will have to deal with the bootstrap paradox of the computer which is exactly analogous. It is in the intent of Steiner to clarify, not mystify, and this parallel of the computer and the chicken should assist with that clarification.

    [page 192] What I want to emphasize is that we must not mystify, but clarify. Complete clarity is needed to work for anthroposophic spiritual science.

    What are feelings? I thought I knew the answer to that question for the first four decades of my life, but I discovered that what I thought were feelings simply existed as sensory perceptions and mental concepts. I was well-practiced in creating mental concepts, so I had concepts for these things called feelings, but had no consciousness of the feelings as they were happening. They were just me, just how I felt at the time. What women lived in consciously, I was completely unaware of, and it took a woman writing about a woman to pull me out of my stupor into a waking experience of feelings. I was reading Emma, a novel by Jane Austen, and I suddenly became aware that she was writing about feelings! How Emma felt, how the other characters felt, and I became aware of my own feelings through this novel, not as something apart from me which flowed over me, like a wave on a beach might do, but as something inside of me helping to shape my experience of the world. I became aware how it was possible for me, without any conceptual thinking to understand the world directly via my feelings, and that was a huge shock to me — how could I have lived so long in complete oblivion to my own feelings! The feelings were there, but they were like the rain pelting me, something from without hitting me, surely not something from within welling up inside of me of which I could become conscious. With my training in Gestalt groups and Jungian psychology, I came to understand how it is possible for a feeling person to operate rationally in the world without thought or cognitive processes, with little of the sensory perceptions and thoughts which had previously monopolized my daily consciousness.

    It was like I had been flying an airplane without a rudder all my life, crashing and burning when I was buffeted by feelings — unable to perceive their presence and therefore unable to adjust to their sometimes turbulent air currents. It is said that "many people spend their whole life perfecting their faults" and I knew then how close I came to doing exactly that, only to be rescued by my adventitious reading of a Jane Austen novel.

    [page 214, 215] It is strange, of course, that the ordinary consciousness of a physical person clearly experiences only sense perceptions and thoughts. Waking consciousness exists only in perception and thinking. Feelings are, in fact, only dreamed; we usually sleep right through it. People do not know what actually takes place when they simply raise a hand — when the will takes hold of the bodily organism — at least, not in the same way that people know what happens during thinking. There is a similar characteristic of feelings: although feelings are somewhat clearer in consciousness, they are still dark — no brighter than the images of our dreams. Passions, emotions, feelings are really only dreamed; they are not experienced in the same light of consciousness that exists in sensory perceptions and mental imagery, and the human will is not experienced consciously at all.

    Without a decade of practice in perceiving my feelings, I would not likely have understood how a time wave from the future could be perceived as a feeling. I would have questioned via intellectual reasoning every decision based on feelings that I have made over the past three decades, which would have completely changed my life. I would not be writing this today, e.g., had I stopped reading Rudolf Steiner after the first ten books because I was unable to come up with an intellectual reason for doing so. Instead I paid attention to the feeling and went on to discover in his spiritual science exactly what I had been so earnestly seeking.

    Our friends and family who have died are living in the spirit world and communicate constantly with us, but, without voice or physical presence, how can they reach us? Only through our feelings, those evanescent indicators of their presence, which most people — especially men — ignore, up until now. It’s as if our loved ones are leaving us messages in a mailbox, putting the flag up, but we never open the mailbox. Also their messages are present in our emotions — how many times have you felt so good or so bad that you did something that you would not ordinarily have done? And yet you cannot explain how that mood came over you. How many times have you acted completely without thought and done something very important? The actions of our will have that kind of nature. We rarely think, "I will raise up my arm", but rather the arm raises up without any forethought whatsoever.

    [page 215] Those who have died are alive in everything that plays into our waking life as dream or sleep. They live with the souls of those who are incarnated in physical bodies on earth. They live in them just as we live within the plant realm, except that we are not inwardly connected to the plant world as the dead are to our feelings, emotions, and volitional impulses; they live continually in all of this. This is their second realm. While here, our feelings and sensations unfold in human life, and the dead live continually in this life. Indeed, the alternating ebb and flow of the will of the those who have died has a certain relationship to the feelings and will impulses that the so-called living dream and sleep through.

    Who are these so-called dead who affect our feelings, emotions, and will impulses which live in our souls? They are those to whom we have a karmic connection.

    [page 215, 216] We are not separated from the dead at all in these realms, but it is like this: when we go through the portal of death and experience the increase and decline of the will, we are able to live with the so-called living in their physical bodies, though not with everyone. There a definite law prevails: one can live only with those to whom one has some degree of karmic relationship. One who has died does not even perceive a person on earth who is a complete stranger in terms of karma; the person simply does not exist. The world that the dead experience is bounded by the karma that limited them in physical life. This world is not limited to souls who are still on earth; it extends to those who have died.

    In the Robin Williams' movie, "What Dreams May Come", he experiences a curious world after death in which every will impulse he has changes the world and the people around him — he lives in a flowing, ever-changing world which is immediately changed by impulses which flows through him. This seems to me what Steiner is reaching out to tell us in this next passage: that the will impulses take the place of mental images in the realm of these living spirits.

    [page 217, italics added ] There is a fundamental law, however, that the karmic circle gradually widens. The whole process of becoming acquainted in this circle takes place exactly as I described it in the Vienna lectures dealing with life between death and rebirth. I described precisely this expanding life of will impulses as an important element in the life of the dead. For those who have died, will impulses become what mental images are for the living. Through them, the one who has died knows and has awareness. It is extremely difficult to explain in earthly terms that one who has died knows essentially through the will, whereas an earthly human being knows by forming mental images. Obviously, this also makes it difficult for the living to reach an understanding with those who have died.

    But the so-called dead have a widening circle of friends, just as we accumulate around us while living in this physical body.

    [page 218] An essential aspect of life between death and rebirth is that, as souls, we increasingly widen our circle of acquaintances (to say it trivially). Here in earthly existence, we widen our experiences between birth and death by becoming acquainted with more and more of the world around us; similarly, there, our experiences increase and make us aware of the existence of other souls, and through some souls one experiences a strengthening of the will, through others a weakening. This is essential to our experience there.
          You can understand the real significance of this for all cosmic existence. It means that there is a certain relationship between death and rebirth, forming a spiritual circle of acquaintances among a large portion of humanity around the earth — not just among the flavorless band that pantheists and mystics dream of and emote over. If we look at our experiences between death and rebirth, it is not all that far from earthly humanity. This is not abstract but a truly concrete connection.

    The first level of spiritual perception is called Imagination by Steiner and is capitalized to distinguish it from normal imagination. That ability, when it becomes again the property of every human being during the Bronze Age we are currently re-entering, will connect us with all our so-called dead friends and relatives. We will know for certain that they are not gone forever, only not visible to us. They are like plant workers on a 12-hr shift in a factory, the day shift workers and the night shift workers work in the same place, but are not visible to each other because one shift is home sleeping while the other is in the plant working. With the advent of Imagination, both will be visible at the same time. Many movies have been made on this theme, the "The Milagro Bean Field War" (1988) and "Ironweed" (1987) comes to mind as prominent examples.

    [page 219] Perception through Imagination can picture, in general, the course of life between death and rebirth. Indeed, it would be an extremely unhappy situation for those who could not create such mental images. Just consider: we are not separated from the dead at all in our feeling life or volition; that world is removed from our view and merely hidden from sensory perception and mental imagery. It will be a giant step forward in the earthly human evolution that we still must live through if one day people realize that they are united with those who have died through their feeling and will impulses. Death does in fact take away our physical view of those who have died, as well as of our thoughts of them. In everything we feel, however, those who have died are there with us in that realm in which we feel; likewise, in everything that we will, the dead are with us in our realm of volition.

    [page 221, 222] The greatest illusion that people in the future could entertain would be to think that earthly society, which people develop themselves through their feelings and will, happens only through earthly arrangements, to the exclusion of those who have died. This is simply impossible, since the dead already participate in our feeling and volition.

    To understand all this requires a study of spiritual science and only conscientious work can cause that to happen, it will not happen by accident because "human evolution is proceeding in such a way that people, in their physical bodies and with ordinary consciousness, are increasingly cut off from the spirit world." The Mystery of Golgotha gave us that hope because it was not just an event in time two millennia ago, but "a continuing impulse that is still active." (Page 222) Steiner's spiritual science is designed to help us understand this Mystery.

    [page 222] For a long time I have stressed the fact that the purpose of spiritual science is related to the impulse of Golgotha; spiritual science must exist in a certain way so that the impulse of Golgotha can be correctly understood, both in our age and in the immediate future.

    What is the alternative? What will happen if natural science rules the day with its materialistic bafflegab? It will become the new religion and those who blithely accept its tenets will be lost to the spiritual world.

    [page 222, 223] Natural science is an earthly science that has also become the religion of the world, and you can be certain that it will become increasingly influential. I am often blamed for being unfriendly to the natural sciences, even in their radical developments, but such reproach belongs to the most dated biases imaginable. Anyone who understands the course of earthly evolution also understands that the natural sciences cannot be proved wrong; on the contrary, they will only spread. A kind of religious belief in natural science is sweeping through the world, and it cannot be stopped; it is inevitable, progressing confidently "for the good of humanity." Soon, perhaps in the next few decades, the religions will all find themselves unable to save even the most simple, backward people from the limited consciousness of a strictly physical existence, as cultivated by natural science. This is a certainty.

    We cannot convince natural science of the importance of the Mystery of Golgotha because its essential nature lies in the spiritual not the physical realm. Those who seek to validate Christ Jesus historically are doomed to failure and rebuff at the hands of so-called skeptics. One can only be convinced on a personal basis by spiritual perception.

    [page 225] It will be a spiritual experience — a clairvoyant spiritual experience. Consequently, there is an inner relationship between the Mystery of Golgotha and the fact that humanity, beginning now, must ascend to spiritual cognition. From this time forward, people must rise to spirituality and understand that, in this coming time, the Mystery of Golgotha can be fully comprehended only through spiritual activity. Christianity can continue only in an essentially spiritual way; it cannot merely continue in an outer way through outer traditions and historical research.

    Steiner gives an example of destiny at work in a man's life. He is walking in the mountains and hears a voice telling him to stop, he does, and seconds later a huge boulder rolls over the spot he would have been walking, undoubtedly crushing him to death. All the people he would have affected for the rest of life would have their lives altered as well, and all these effects never happen because of the voice which stopped him on the path. You may think that this has never happened to you, but consider that many of the decisions you make on a daily basis are altered by feeling and will impulses whose origin arrive from a similar origin as that voice and affect your life and others' lives just as dramatically.

    A woman ran off a bridge into Lake Pontchartrain this morning and a man jumped in to save her life. He couldn't explain why he did it, it was a will impulse at work. This is the realm of destiny at work, and it operates on every one of us, all the time, in every moment of our life.

    [page 230] People should walk through this realm of destiny as consciously as they walk through the realm of sensory perceptions. People should be able to go through the world while using their eyes, and yet they should also have the sense of being woven right into the realm of destiny. People should be able to feel that, within this realm, the forces of Christ are always united with the forces of those who have died. If this were really the situation today humankind would develop in itself a real, concrete, and sensitive life with those who have died. People would experience something or other while engaged in some activity, and would feel united with loved ones who have passed on. Life would become endlessly enriched.

    When we think of a loved one and call them on the phone, we have to wait for them to answer the phone, but if they are someone who has died, they are immediately with us in our thoughts as we think of them, there is no waiting time.

    [page 231] Our connections with the dead are by no means severed by death; they continue. Such an enriched life is the prospect for humanity in the future of earth. In this fifth post-Atlantean epoch, humanity is in fact evolving in the direction I am describing, and humankind will certainly be unable to survive the sixth epoch if people do not begin to feel these things in the right way, taking the reality of destiny into their consciousness just as fully as people today absorb the reality of natural phenomena.

    The materialist path is the road most commonly traveled today; it is the easiest road, the path of least resistance, and everywhere in our daily lives we find encouragement to follow that easy path.

    [page 232, 233] Nevertheless, those who care about the spiritual evolution of humanity must carefully note the needs of today. It must be understood that the Christ will only be lost along the road most commonly traveled today. He will be won as the true king and lord of the earth only when people ascend along a spiritual path. You can be sure of this: Christ cannot be found as the various religions look for him today — faiths that, remarkably, have already given in to every possible compromise for understanding the Christ.

    Fortunately, discussions — the hotbeds of compromise — end when knowledge begins, and with the advent of Christ in the etheric plane more and more people will come to direct perception and knowledge of Christ. They will have no need for some discussion about whether He existed or not. This is the road less taken, but one which more and more people will find themselves upon as we progress forward infused with the new spiritual awareness of the Bronze Age. If a meeting with the etheric Christ happens to us individually, let us be kind to those who remain skeptics. But most importantly let us not allow the words of those have met the Christ fall on deaf ears, and let us prevent the obtuse materialists from locking these people up as lunatics, for these are the rich in spirit who will truly inherit the Earth.

    Read the the Full Review with its seven Footnotes at:
    The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric — The Second Coming of Christ

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    I hear often from my Good Readers that they have bought books after reading my book reviews. Keep reading, folks! As I like to remind you, to obtain more information on what's in these books, buy and read the books — for less information, read the reviews.


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    8. COMMENTARY:
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    In this section I like to comment on events in the world, in my life, and in my readings which have come up during the month. These are things I might have shared with you in person, if we had had the opportunity to converse during the month. If we did, then you may recognize my words. If I say some things here which upset you, rest assured that you may skip over these for the very reason that I would likely have not brought up the subject to spoil our time together in person.

    1. Padre Filius Reads a LAMAR Co. Billboard this Month:

    Padre Filius, the cartoon character created by your intrepid editor and would-be cartoonist, will appear from time to time in this Section of the Digest to share us on some amusing or enlightening aspect of the world he observes during his peregrinations.

    This month the good Padre reads a Billboard Company Advertising Billboard Advertising.


    2.Comments from Readers:

    • EMAIL and Photo from Christine in Australia:

      Look what was outside my door this morning when I pulled up the blinds. He is a very big boy — possibly 7 ft tall.

      Christine

    • EMAIL from Susan in Australia re Hunger Pang Removal:
      Hi,

      Just wanted to let you know that I successfully cleared hunger pangs. I haven't had any since Wednesday this week. Looking forward to how that will go. Suz

  • EMAIL to/from Glenn Martin in California:
    I lived with Glenn and his Basenji dog, Benji, for several months in 1969 when I moved to California. Basenjis are African dogs known to be completely barkless.

    Dear Glenn,

    Since we were Benji's joint companions for several months, I thought you'd appreciate this knowledge about how barkless dogs came into being. "Dog species which grew up without humans around them never learned to bark."

    Let's hear three cheers for Benji: ARF! ARF! ARF!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Glenn replied:

    Actually, Benji did bark once — he bit the TV power cord. I guess the species was never plugged in!

  • Glenn

  • EMAIL Professor Kevin Dann in NYC:
    Bobby,

    It's hard to take my attention from what's in front of me (an essay due tomorrow that I'm writing for a "Chemistry & Art" show over in Brooklyn) and what's overhead and around me (I'm in the main reading room in the NY Public Library) but did do just that for long enough to read your terrific review of Pragmatics of Human Communication; lots of good medicine there. I'm looking forward to reading the other reviews.
    P.S. Have you seen Bradford's latest blog? INCREDIBLE!!!

  • EMAIL from Bradford Riley in Austin, TX:
  • RJM: After Kevin Dann suggested I read Bradford's Blog, I was amazed by Bradford's wealth of knowledge on his Blog, well-presented with ample photos and diagrams. I wrote him that he was missing a link to my Steiner Reviews and sent him a good link. Here's what he wrote back, the Rated G Version:
    Yes, I was wanting the right link line. A non-confusing line for those who seek Spiritual Science research, you are the one I always turn to. But this link is the link that will direct people efficiently to the high ground of spiritual science and Anthro research. Thank you for giving me this link cause I had already tried and debated using a more common link to one of my best friend's work. Love to Del . . . Flying to Arizona on Wed to see 90 year old dad, cousin, sister and aunt who live there. Kevin Dann had an adventure while with us, as he usually does. His adventure is on my blog.
    luv brad

  • EMAIL from Chris Bryant in Texas:
    Bobby,

    We spent a long weekend with a friends in Florida. I've known him for 50 years. So the first day he asks me How's my famous temper and Carla and I both told him it was miraculously gone. He was very interested so we got the chance to share in depth, our doyletics adventures with him. By the end of the weekend he was telling his wife repeatedly, "we need to trace that out". He also said that a trace sounds like a concentrated Freudian analysis and he thought it would work if someone just did it. We assured him it did.

    Good week and God bless,
    Chris

  • 3. Myopia and Eye Disease Prevention
    A Report by Dr. Raphaelson:

    It was about the year 1952 that I attended an Educational Conference of Optometrists at the Optometry School of Ohio State University at Columbus, Ohio.

    One of the lectures concerned the work done by optometrists in public schools — how they examine the children’s eyes and how they select those children who are in need of eye care or glasses.

    I asked the lecturer:

    "For which children do the optometrists recommend glasses?"

    He answered: "For those who require a minus-fifty (-.50) or more and for those who require a plus one and a half (+ 1.50) or more." I then told the lecturer that I did not agree with this point of view or with such recommendations

    Later, I interviewed a psychology professor who had been doing research on vision and kindred subjects at Ohio State University. Once before I had interviewed this man in regard to children’s eyes.

    The first interview occurred in 1936.

    At that time I had made a school survey on how close children bring their eyes to their work when they are reading, writing or drawing.

    I had reported my findings to the professor.

    He had advised me to see Dr. Wingate Todd of the Brush Foundation at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

    This I had done.

    Now, on this second interview, I told the professor that my conclusions were that every child who enters school should be given a pair of plus one (+1.00) glasses for a dual purpose.

    First, it would prevent the eyes from becoming myopic (near-sighted), and second, it would save the children a lot of nerve energy in doing near-work.

    He answered me by saying that, although he might agree with me in theory, he did not agree that it would be practical.

    ***** "It would not be practical for the simple reason that the parents wouldn’t stand for it." ********

    For this reason I am writing this book mainly for the parents, and, as much as possible, in the language of parents.

    I am trying to enlighten the parents and to inform them that the road the medical and optical professions have taken in regard to spectacles and their relation to vision and health is the wrong road.
    ++++++++++++

    I hope these words by Dr. Raphaelson helps you to understand why there are few plus-prevention optometrists at this time. The rationale is that the parents will not stand for the use of the preventive plus plus lenses, the so-called "reading glasses" which are necessary for one's health whenever one is doing close work, whether it be reading, writing, crocheting, knitting, oil painting, ink sketches, soldering a circuit board, whittling, or doing crayons in a coloring book, among many other things.

    Dr. Raphaelson had deduced the need for plus-prevention at the threshold. But when he asked his fellow ODs to help — or even to discuss this preventive issue, he got the above response.

    To Mothers of Young Children Everywhere:

    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.

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    9. CLOSING NOTES:
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