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What Is a Gnostic?

by Stephan A. Hoeller

Gnosticism, they say, is on the upsurge...
So just what is it?

Are we witnessing a rediscovery of Gnosticism? To judge from the burgeoning new literature and the increased use of the terms "gnosis" and "Gnosticism" in popular publications, the answer would seem to be yes. Only twenty-five years ago, when one used the word "Gnostic," it was very likely to be misunderstood as "agnostic," and thus have one's statement turned into its exact opposite. Such misapprehensions are far less likely today. Nevertheless, increased academic attention (beginning with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi scriptures in 1945) and the ensuing popular interest have produced a confusion of tongues which is anything but helpful for the sincere inquirer into matters Gnostic. It is often difficult even to tell what is meant by the word.

The difficulty in defining Gnosticism is not entirely of recent origin. As early as 1910, a small book was published in London that in many ways foreshadowed current trends, including the difficulties in definition. The title of the work was Gnosticism: The Coming Apostasy; the author, a certain D.M. Panton, was an anxious defender of Christian orthodoxy, which he felt was menaced by an emerging Gnostic revival. Gnosticism, Panton wrote, had surfaced in the twentieth century in the forms of Theosophy, Christian Science, some forms of spiritualism, and in what was called the "New Theology," which had been introduced primarily by German writers on religion. (A biography of Marcion by theologian Adolf von Harnack created much interest and controversy at that time.) While earlier crypto-Gnostics, such as Emanuel Swedenborg, William Blake, George Fox, and Elias Hicks camouflaged their heretical beliefs, Panton argued, twentieth-century Gnostics no longer bothered with concealment. The gnosticizing movements of the early twentieth century, wrote Panton, were "frankly and jubilantly Gnostic"; their thought and their movements carried within them the "throbbing heart of Gnosticism, perhaps the most dreaded foe the Christian faith ever confronted."

In some ways Panton's anti-Gnostic tirades have an advantage over much of the more recent literature, for Panton still possessed a clear understanding of what constitutes Gnosticism. Such is not the case today. If we contrast these early-twentieth-century analyses with some current ones, we may recognize how unclear our understanding has become. In a European publication concerned with contemporary aspects of Gnosticism, Ioan Culianu writes:

Once I believed that Gnosticism was a well-defined phenomenon belonging to the religious history of Late Antiquity. Of course, I was ready to accept the idea of different prolongations of ancient Gnosis, and even that of spontaneous generation of views of the world in which, at different times, the distinctive features of Gnosticism occur again.

I was soon to learn however, that I was a naïf indeed. Not only Gnosis was gnostic, but the Catholic authors were gnostic, the Neoplatonic too, Reformation was gnostic, Communism was gnostic, Nazism was gnostic, liberalism, existentialism and psychoanalysis were gnostic too, modern biology was gnostic, Blake, Yeats, Kafka were gnostic…. I learned further that science is gnostic and superstition is gnostic…Hegel is gnostic and Marx is gnostic; all things and their opposite are equally gnostic.1

At least one circumstance emerges from this statement that is widely overlooked in America. In Europe "Gnosis" and "Gnosticism" are almost always used interchangeably. The suggestion that term "gnosis" ought to be used to describe a state of consciousness, while "Gnosticism" should denote the Gnostic system, has never caught on. The use of such classical Gnosticism of Valentinus, Basilides, et al., persists in European literature, including the writings of such scholars as Gilles Quispel, Kurt Rudolph, and Giovanni Filoramo (to mention some of the most recent ones). It is true that the late Robert McLachlan put forth a proposal to use these terms otherwise, but current usage in Europe has not followed it.

It is evident that a word used in such contradictory ways has lost its meaning. No wonder GNOSIS writer Charles Coulombe despairs over the situation when writing recently in a Catholic publication:

In reality, "Gnosticism," like "Protestantism," is a word that has lost most of its meaning. Just as we would need to know whether a "Protestant" writer is Calvinist, Lutheran, Anabaptist, or whatever in order to evaluate him properly, so too the "Gnostic" must be identified.2

A Political Confusion

One of the most confusing voices comes from the discipline of political science. In his Walgreen Lectures at the University of Chicago in 1951, émigré scholar Eric Voegelin rose to the defense of what he called the "classic and Christian tradition" against what he perceived as the "growth of Gnosticism." This opening salvo was followed by such books as The New Science of Politics, the multivolume Order and History, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism. Voegelin became a prophet of a new theory of history, in which Gnosticism played a most nefarious role. All modern totalitarian ideologies were in some way spiritually related to Gnosticism, said Voegelin. Marxists, Nazis, and just about everybody else the good professor found reprehensible were in reality Gnostics, engaged in "immanentizing the eschaton" by reconstituting society into a heaven on earth. Since Gnostics did not accept the conventional Christian eschaton of heaven and hell, Voegelin concluded that they must be engaged in a millenarian revolutionizing of earthly existence. At the same time, Voegelin was bound to admit that the Gnostics regarded the earthly realm as generally hopeless and unredeemable. One wonders how the unredeemable earthly kingdom could be turned into the "immanentized eschaton" of an earthly utopia. That Voegelin's new Gnostics had no knowledge of or sympathy with historical Gnosticism did not bother him either. Gnostics they were, and that was that.

Voegelin's confusion was made worse by a number of conservative political thinkers, mainly with Catholic connections. Thomas Molnar, Tilo Schabert, and Steven A. McKnight followed Voegelin's theories despite their obvious inconsistencies. In Molnar's view, Gnostics were not only responsible for all modern utopianism, but also for the inordinate attachment of modern people to science and technology. The scientific world view, said these folk, is in fact a Gnostic world view, and it is responsible for treating humans as machines and for making societies into machinelike collectives.

The politicized view of Gnosticism continues to have its adherents, but these are increasingly recruited from the lunatic fringe. Gnostics are still represented as dangerous subversives in pulp magazines and obscure conspiracy pamphlets "exposing" Freemasons, Satanists, and other pests. Meanwhile, respectable conservative thinkers have dropped the Gnostic issue. Some, like scholar and former U.S. Senator S.I. Hayakawa, have subjected Voegelin and his theories to severe criticism and ridicule.
Traditionalist Difficulties

Another sometimes confusing voice comes from writers who are bent on proving that within the existing major religions a secret tradition of gnosis may be found which is not identical to the "heretical" Gnosticism of the early Christian centuries. In his 1947 work The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley promulgated a kind of gnosis that was in effect a mystery reserved for elites, revealed at the dawn of history and handed down through various religious traditions, where it still maintains itself in spite of its ostensible incompatibility with the official dogmas of those traditions. With this view, Huxley approximated the more radical position held by Traditionalists such as René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon.

Huxley, on the other hand, never passed judgment on anyone who called himself a Gnostic. One could only wish the same could be said of other Traditionalists. Followers of Guénon (who, born a Catholic, converted to Islam in a somewhat untraditional manner) often castigate the early Gnostic teachers in a manner reminiscent of the more extreme ancient polemicists like Irenaeus or Tertullian. The Traditionalists' division of Gnostic writers into "false Gnostics" and "authentic Gnostics" reflects standards that are nothing if not arbitrary; contemporary research indicates that during the first three of four centuries A.D. there was as yet no true orthodoxy and thus no heresy either. Instead, many opinions on religious matters, including gnosis, flourished side by side. Certainly there were disagreements, but to arbitrarily extrapolate standards of falsity and authenticity from these polemics does not seem justified.
Academic Ambiguities

The 1988 edition of The Nag Hammadi Library contains a lengthy afterword entitled "The Modern Relevance of Gnosticism."3 Its author, Richard Smith, ostensibly reviews the numerous developments in Western culture which appear to be related to Gnosticism. One would hope that here at last we might find a definition of true Gnosticism and a list of modern writers and thinkers who might appear as its representatives. Unfortunately this is not the case.

Smith lists a number of important figures of modern culture from the eighteenth century onward who were sympathetic to Gnosticism. Reading this afterword, however, one gets the impression that few of these seminal figures possessed an adequate definition of Gnosticism, and that they thus more often than not misused and misappropriated the term. The eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon, for example, is accused of a "mischievous lie" in referring to the Gnostics in complimentary terms. (Admittedly Gibbon did not share the low esteem in which the Church Fathers held Gnostics, but does this make him a liar?) And the Gnostic and Manichaean sympathies of Voltaire are represented as being motivated by his opposition to churchly authority. But could the great philosophé have had other reasons for his views? It is well known that Voltaire was an ardent Freemason, and he might have received favorable information about Gnostics through the esoteric currents flowing in the secret fraternities of his time. Maybe he was privy to knowledge unknown to Smith.

In the same vein, Smith implies that C.G. Jung appropriated Gnosticism by turning it into psychological theory. "Jung takes the entire dualist myth and locates it within the psyche," Smith writes.4 Personally I have devoted the major part of my life to exploring the relationship of Jung's thought to Gnosticism, so such statements touch a nerve.

Jung was not only interested in the Gnostics, but he considered them the discoverers and certainly the most important forerunners of depth psychology. The association between Jung's psychology and Gnosticism is profound, and its scope is increasingly revealed with the passage of time and the wider availability of the Nag Hammadi scriptures. My studies have convinced me that Jung did not intend to locate the content of Gnostic teachings in the psyche pure and simple. To say that Gnosticism is "nothing but" psychology would have horrified Jung, for he opposed the concept of "nothing but." What made Jung's view radically different from those of his predecessors was simply this: he believed that Gnostic teachings and myths originated in the personal psychospiritual experience of the Gnostic sages. What originates in the psyche bears the imprint of the psyche. Hence the close affinity between Gnosticism and depth psychology. Jung's view may thus be called an interpolation, but not an appropriation. The need for definitions appears greater than ever in the light of such controversies.
Psychological and Existentialist Models

The Italian scholar Giovanni Filoramo calls attention to the fact that the Nag Hammadi scriptures were favorably received by a wide public in part because "certain areas of the cultural panorama showed a disposition, a peculiar sensitivity to the…texts,…which dealt with a phenomenon that they themselves had in some way helped to keep alive."5

One of the persons who kept the Gnostic phenomenon alive was C.G. Jung's close associate, the Gnostic scholar Gilles Quispel, who labored long and hard on relating the ancient gnosis of Valentinus and other teachers to the modern gnosis of analytical psychology. He saw the Gnostic effort as involving deep insight into the ontological self, and thus as analogous to the best in depth psychology. Quispel's major work on the subject, Gnosis als Weltreligion ("Gnosis as a World Religion," published in 1972), explains in detail the relationship of Jung's model to Gnostic teachings. Quispel, like Jung himself, did not reduce Gnostic teachings to depth psychology, but rather pointed to depth psychology as a key to understanding Gnosticism.

Another key figure in the reevaluation of ancient Gnosticism was Hans Jonas. A pupil of existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger in the 1930s, Jonas turned his attention to the wisdom of the Gnostics, and discovered in them an ancient relative of existential philosophy. Existentialism's pessimism about earthly life and high regard for experience as against theory thus found a forebear and analogue. Although critical of the Gnostics' apparent "nihilism," Jonas was, along with Jung, one of the most important figures to bring Gnostic teachings into modern perspective.

The linkage effected by Jung and Jonas between Gnosticism in the past and living philosophies in the present was of crucial importance and came very close to supplying gnosis and Gnosticism with vital, living definitions. The questions posed (and answered) by the ancient Gnostics revealed themselves now, not as outlandish and bizarre, but as earlier discussions of issues addressed in more recent times by Freud, Jung, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and many others.
Toward Definition

The search for definitions is never easy, particularly in such fields as the social sciences. In these disciplines much attention must be given to the historical context in which beliefs and actions unfold. Crucial differences and similarities in nuance, tone, and subtleties of mood are more important here than hard and fast definitions. The debate about Gnosticism, it would seem, turns on such nuances, and it may well be that not much can be resolved by definitions. Nevertheless, the present chaotic conditions warrant an attempt.

In 1966, a distinguished assembly of scholars convened in Messina, Italy, for the purpose of arriving at some useful definitions of Gnosticism. The results of this gathering were not encouraging. The scholars proposed restricting the use of the term "Gnosticism" to certain second-century "heretical" movements, while the broader term "gnosis" was to be used to refer to "knowledge of the divine mysteries for an elite." While a useful attempt, it did not manage to clear up the confusion.

The difficulties in pinning down a definition of Gnosticism are intimately connected with the controversy about its origins. Was it indeed no more than a heretical offshoot, an eccentric and aberrant branch of Christianity, or was it the latest expression of a long, mostly hidden tradition that had existed for centuries before the Christian era? No one has answered these questions with final authority.

To understand Gnosticism, said Hans Jonas, one needs something very much like a musical ear. Such a Gnostic "musical ear" is not come by easily. One person who seemingly possesses it is Professor Clark Emery of the University of Miami. In a small work on William Blake, Emery summarizes twelve points on which Gnostics tended to agree. Nowhere in the current literature have I found anything else so concise and accurate in describing the normative characteristics of the Gnostic mythos. Hence I shall present it here as a suggested collection of criteria that one might apply in determining what Gnosticism is. The following characteristics may be considered normative for all Gnostic teachers and groups in the era of classical Gnosticism; thus one who adheres to some or all of them today might properly be called a Gnostic:

* The Gnostics posited an original spiritual unity that came to be split into a plurality.

* As a result of the precosmic division the universe was created. This was done by a leader possessing inferior spiritual powers and who often resembled the Old Testament Jehovah.

* A female emanation of God was involved in the cosmic creation (albeit in a much more positive role than the leader).

* In the cosmos, space and time have a malevolent character and may be personified as demonic beings separating man from God.

* For man, the universe is a vast prison. He is enslaved both by the physical laws of nature and by such moral laws as the Mosaic code.

* Mankind may be personified as Adam, who lies in the deep sleep of ignorance, his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by materiality.

* Within each natural man is an "inner man," a fallen spark of the divine substance. Since this exists in each man, we have the possibility of awakening from our stupefaction.

* What effects the awakening is not obedience, faith, or good works, but knowledge.

* Before the awakening, men undergo troubled dreams.

* Man does not attain the knowledge that awakens him from these dreams by cognition but through revelatory experience, and this knowledge is not information but a modification of the sensate being.

* The awakening (i.e., the salvation) of any individual is a cosmic event.

* Since the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead, active rebellion against the moral law of the Old Testament is enjoined upon every man.6

The noted sociologist Max Weber wrote in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that "the perfect conceptual definition cannot stand at the beginning, but must be left until the end of the inquiry." That is what we have done in the present inquiry also. Emery's twelve points are in every consistent with the proposal set out by the colloquium at Messina. Second-century Gnosticism is taken as the principal model for all of these definitions, a practice that appears to be sensible. Nor is any separate recognition given to any so-called "orthodox gnosis" that is occasionally alluded to, more as a figure of speech than as any discernible historical phenomenon, in the writings of some of the Church Fathers who were contemporaneous with the Gnostics. It would seem that whatever is excluded by Emery's definitions and the protocol of Messina may be more profitably considered from doctrinal perspectives other than Gnostic.

Whatever the value of this line of inquiry, at least it calls attention to definitions that are historically unimpeachable and terminologically definite. This is much more than the current literature - especially of the semipopular variety - possesses. Divisive categorizations that separate "false Gnostics" from "authentic Gnostics," especially on the basis of orthodoxies which were never relevant to either Gnosticism or the Gnostics, may have to be discarded in the light of such definitions. The random projection of contemporary fads and enthusiasms (such as feminism and the Gaia hypothesis) onto Gnosticism might also have to be controlled. But all of this seems like a small price to pay for some order and clarity in this field. We might have to take to heart the ironic admonition of Alice in Wonderland:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said,…"it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

[img[http://www.gnosis.org/images/awaken1.jpg]]

[img[http://www.gnosis.org/images/whats_gnostic2.jpg]]

 Depression Support Group

People who feel they have depression

    * Depression Support Group
    * Key Consumer Organization
    * 2506 Willowbrook Parkway, Suite 199
    * 1st and 2nd Mondays 6:30 – 8:30pm
    * 205-2500


Emotional difficulties



[[Emotions Anonymous|http://www.emotionsanonymous.org/]]

    * Community Bldg., Pebblecreek Clubhouse
    * Pebblecreek Drive, Greenwood
    * Tuesday 7:00 pm

[img[http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/images/eatpraylove.jpg]]


 Eat, Pray, Love   The Jacket Flap

published by Viking, February 2006

By the time she turned thirty, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern, educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want— a husband, a house in the country, a successful career. But in-stead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love and the complete eradication of every-thing she ever thought she was supposed to be.

To recover from all of this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, left her loved ones behind and undertook a year-long journey around the world, all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Gilbert's aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature, set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Italy, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, where, with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise Texan, she embarked on four months of austere spiritual exploration. Finally, in Indonesia, she sought her ultimate goal: balance-namely, how to somehow build a life of equilibrium between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. Looking for these answers on the island of Bali, she became the pupil of an elderly, ninth generation medicine man and also fell in love in the very best way—unexpectedly

An intensely articulate, sensible, moving and funny memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment It is also about the adventures that can transpire when a woman stops trying to live in imitation of society's ideals This is a story certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change

 

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of a story collection, Pilgrims (a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award), a novel, Stern Men, and, most recently, The Last American Man (a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award). For the last five years she has worked as a journalist at GQ, where her feature writing earned her three National Magazine Award nominations. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

http://fsc.edu/library/research/guides/index.cfm

NAR Apostle Robert Ricciardelli: Todd Bentley Deliberately Lied That Lord Spoke to fulfil Own Agenda
EndTimesPropheticWords ^ | July 24, 2008 | M. Franklin

Posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 3:58:57 PM by IreneE

Further to the recent revelations from one of C Peter Wagner’s apostles Robert Ricciardelli about Todd Bentley and the Lakeland deception, here is some more information from Ricciardelli’s latest posts on the Charisma Magazine forum here.

(Please note that I in no way endorse Ricciardelli, his beliefs, or the movement he is attached to. However I attach this for information purposes as he has interesting insider information, that confirms what we already know - that Todd lies and falsely speaks for God and manipulates for money.)

“If you are going to lie or stretch truth like Todd does on a world stage, you can bet people like me who he is representing are going to speak up. Here is one of the errors.

In early June, I think on the 6th Todd gave an offering message that was manipulation and borderline witchcraft. He said the Lord told Him that there were 1000 people who were going to give $1000 and if they were obedient, the Lord said they would receive 1000 fold return. I am in almost daily conversation with Stephen Strader, and challenged him that it was not from God. He agreed and talked to Todd.

Todd admitted that he worded it wrong, but that it was an idea he had to raise money for the 30,000 seat revival center they want to build.

I then asked if he would repent publicly and they said:

"No, because the crowd changes every night.”
TOPICS: Apologetics; Charismatic Christian; Current Events; Evangelical Christian
KEYWORDS: falseprophet; lakeland; revival; toddbentley
Robert Ricciardelli is showing some cajones in the Spirit to stand up to the NAR Manifest Sons of God/Latter Rain/Toronto Blessing/Lakeland Revival false prophets by coming out with his doubts and concerns about the movement and specifically, Todd Bentley.

Personally, I think Todd is deceived and he is just the current circus barker for a more deceptive and delusional non Christian movement.

Someone said along the line that in the end, these so called Christians will be pushing for laws and legislative morality -- which on the face of it is a good thing -- but that Christ requires evangelism, loving laying on of hands, carrying the Word to the Lost (not signs and wonders for entertainment or "proof" that Christ is who He says He is.)

Robert Ricciardelli is uncomfortable with the things he is seeing backstage at the Bentley blitzkrieg. I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for an New Apostolic Reformation "Apostle" to wake up and realize you are part of the End Time Delusion, the delusion God promises He will send on those who "no longer love the Truth" and to those who "do not tremble at His Word".

In these End Times, it is very very necessary that we show ourselves approved and "test all things" especially testing and discerning the Spirits. The way you do that, btw, is by testing doctrine and what is actually being taught. People flocking after Todd Bentley shows a precarious lack of discernment, something that we are required to do before a Holy God.
1 posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 3:58:58 PM by IreneE
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To: IreneE

I’ve had my doubts about Bentley and this only confirms it.

2 posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 4:09:17 PM by DarthVader (Liberal Democrats are the party of EVIL whose time of judgment has come.)
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To: IreneE

There are pastors who will “repent” of things that they’ve said, bring it up later after they’ve thought about it, and discuss it from the pulpit. I said “x”: upon reflection I think I went further than I ought to have; I should better have said it like “this”.

I have respect for men like that. I don’t expect perfection from any human and when you’re speaking in public, pumped full of adrenaline its easy to say something that later you’ll wish you hadn’t said. So admit it. It won’t decrease your credibility or influence, if anything it will increase it.

3 posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 4:16:02 PM by marron
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To: IreneE

Robert Ricciardelli must be waking up by means of the Holy Spirit’s promptings. Christians make mistakes, even ones that Christ has shown a more active spiritual presence(tongues,ect).

Satan appears as an angel of light, even to the point of “deceiving the elect were it possible”. In the end all of God’s true work involves Jeusus Christ who is seeking the lost to bring them into the kingdom...anything that detracts from that (and from the very person of Jesus Christ who is seeking to build his image into all of us) is suspect!

4 posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 4:22:55 PM by mdmathis6
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To: marron
Yes. I know the Pastors that i have respected the most are the ones most humble enough to admit that they may have been wrong and then... done something about it.

But it is scary when in charismatic circles, because if you are wrong in a false prophecy, there is more than normal repenting to do. This is the muck and mire of this entire movement and why they have concocted doctrines that “prophecy is on a learning curve” and it is the “fault of the hearer of the prophecy” if it is proved false! Very sick system, this NAR.
5 posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 4:25:01 PM by IreneE (Live for nothing or die for something.)
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To: IreneE

End time prophesy just hasn’t been the same since Herbert W. Armstrong. =)

6 posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 4:27:35 PM by mgstarr ("Some of us drink because we're not poets." Arthur (1981))
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To: mgstarr

OMG, that is so funny.

What is even funnier is that the Lakeland revival came to Che Ahn’s church in LA — who bought Armstongs auditorium and campus. I may post something on Ahn later.

Thanks for making me laugh! FReeper Xian oneliners rule.

7 posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 4:33:21 PM by IreneE (Live for nothing or die for something.)
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To: IreneE
I was at first enthused when I heard the sketchy and superficial reports of a great revival going on in Lakeland Florida, but I've spent some time reading up on Todd Bentley, I have watched numerous video clips of his performance and behavior at these so-called revivals, and I feel more than comfortable in stating (as a Bible-believing, God-fearing, Jesus-loving American) that Todd Bentley is NOT filled with the Holy Spirit, he is NOT any prophet of God, he is a liar and a fraud and brings the Name of Jesus Christ into disrepute.

And I stand by that.
8 posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 5:38:25 PM by mkjessup
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Install Windows XP in a Dual Boot with Pre-installed Windows Vista

Windows Vista came pre-installed on your new computer and now you want to create a dual boot with Windows XP for reasons of your own. Perhaps you have some older hardware that is not supported, or a program or game that won't run in Windows Vista.

NOTE: Check that Windows XP drivers for your system are available from the manufacturer of your system or from the motherboard manufacturer before attempting to install Windows XP. In particular, if you are using an SATA drive, make sure that you have Windows XP SATA Controller drivers available as they may be necessary for Windows XP setup to be able to "see" the partition on which you intend to install it. This is an important step especially with new Laptop and Notebook systems as well as OEM Desktop systems from manufacturers like Dell, HP and Gateway.

The fact that you do not have a bootable Windows Vista DVD with such systems, may also limit the ability to successfully create a dual boot with Windows XP.

USER BEWARE: CHECK WITH YOUR SYSTEM MANUFACTURER WHETHER OR NOT YOUR WARRANTY IS VOIDED IF YOU INSTALL AND DUAL BOOT WITH WINDOWS XP. MANY OF THE NEWER SYSTEMS ARE DESIGNED AND CONFIGURED TO ONLY RUN WINDOWS VISTA. HARDWARE ON YOUR SYSTEM MAY NOT BE DESIGNED TO RUN WINDOWS XP.

Preparation

The first thing one needs to do is to create a new partition on which to install Windows XP. This you can do by going to Computer>Right click>Manage>Disk Management.

Now right click on the blue primary hard drive at the bottom section of Disk Management and select "Shrink Volume". You can then choose how big the new partition that you want for Windows XP should be. It's suggested that you take into account that you may want to install programs and save data there, but also that you do not limit the amount of space available to Windows Vista unreasonably. Your total hard drive size will be your ultimate guide in selecting the amount of space you allocate to each operating system.

Shrink your Vista Partition---Unallocated Space
--------

After the primary partition has been shrunk you will have Unallocated space visible in black. At this point it is recommended that you change the drive letter of your DVD drive by inserting a DVD or CD into your DVD drive and close Autoplay when that dialog box appears, right click the blue area of your DVD drive in Disk Management and select "Change drive letter and paths..." and click Change. From the drop down menu on the right of the dialog box that appears, select E and click OK, and then click Yes when you asked to confirm your action. Now remove the CD or DVD from your drive.

Change your drive letters

Changing the drive letters as above leaves your drive/partition structure in a less confusing form than having your hard drive partitions irregularly lettered and does not interfere with the functioning of your DVD drive in any way. You will now have drive letter D: available to use for the partition you will create for Windows XP.

It is now time to create your Windows XP partition from the unallocated space by right clicking the unallocated space and selecting "New simple volume". Follow the "New simple volume Wizard" and accept the defaults until you get to the point where you can insert "Volume label" and type XP there to make identification of your XP installation drive easy. At this point select "Quick Format" to speed the process and continue with the wizard to completion of this action.

Create a new partition

NB. At this point it is critical that you close Disk Management and restart your computer so that your changed disk/drive structure is taken fully into the Windows Vista configuration settings. After your system has restarted, you will again need to restart your system to finalize the setting up of your new partition.

Reboot twice to set
your drive configuration

Install Windows XP

Once you have completed the preparation, you can now insert your Windows XP setup disc and restart your system again to boot from your XP CD and install Windows XP in the normal manner.

Create a Vista Dual Boot Menu

At this point you will have lost your ability to boot into Windows Vista for the time being and the next stage of this excercise is devoted restoring a dual boot to both Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Once you have your XP installation and drivers all installed, download and install VistaBootPRO. Make sure you follow the prompt to install .Net Framework 2.00 as VistaBootPRO will not run without it.

Open VistaBootPRO, ignore the prompt to backup your BCD. Go to the System Bootloader tab, select "Windows Vista Bootloader" in the first section and "All Drives" in the second section and then click Install Bootloader . Next, go to the Diagnostics item on the menu bar and select "Run Diagnostics". VistaBootPRO will default back to the Manage OS Entries page and you will see that you now have entries there for "Earlier versions of Windows" as well as "Microsoft Windows Vista".

Install the Vista bootloader

Restart your system and select the operating system you would like to boot to.

The Vista dual-boot menu

How creepy do you want it?
The famously eerie tale of nine dead Russian hikers, with all the bizarre details you can handle

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

I admit only to this: I can get deeply creeped out, down to my very core, now and then and hopefully not all that often because, well, I still like to sleep at night.

Personally, I try to keep the creep to a minimum, not really wishing to dive down into that low, dark vibration much and hence I avoid most horror movies like the plague and I find slasher flicks and "torture porn" revolting and ridiculous and while monster flicks can occasionally be fun and thrilling, they're mostly just a cheap roller-coaster rides supplying no real nourishment of any kind. I know, that's not really the point. But still.

Ah, but the occult. The paranormal. The deeply weird, mysterious, unsolvable, disturbing. That can get to me. That has power. A good, deep creep-out, those unknowable things that get under your skin and crawl around and tug at the shirtsleeves of your fears, well, those are the things can last for years. Lifetimes. I love that. I hate that.

The final shot in "The Blair Witch Project." An oozingly possessed Linda Blair crawling down the stairs on all fours, upside down, backwards, in a full backbend, on her toes and fingertips, in the uncut version of "The Exorcist." The ending to (and overall creepy feel of) "Don't Look Now," the famous cult horror movie from the '70s with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie and the creepy little midget in the red robe. Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock," another classic '70s occult flick, chaste schoolgirls disappearing up a bizarrely haunted mountain — entirely fictional, but plays all too damn real.

But still, they're just movies. Fiction, mostly. No matter how good they are, they all kneel before the one true god of interminable creepiness: reality.

Here's one. It's called the Dyatlov Pass Accident. Oh my God, yes. I stumbled over this delicious tale just recently over at Metafilter and it's one of those stories that contains all the best elements of a deep, resonant creep-out. Inexplicable behavior. Bizarre factoids. Inconclusive evidence. Missing body parts. And not a single clue, almost 50 years later, as to what really happened.

The nutshell: In 1959, nine experienced Russian cross-country skiers — seven men and two women, led by a man named Igor Dyatlov — headed to the Ural Mountains, to a slope called Kholat Syakhl (Mansi language for "Mountain of the Dead," ahem) for a rugged, wintry trek. On their way up, they are apparently hit by inclement weather and veer off course and decide to set up camp and wait it out. All is calm. All is fine and good. They even take pictures of camp, the scenery, each other. The weather is not so bad. They go to sleep.

Then, something happens. In the middle of the night all nine suddenly leap out of their tents as fast as possible, ripping them open from the inside (not even enough time to untie the doors) and race out into the sub-zero temps, without coats or boots or skis, most in their underwear, some even barefoot or with a single sock or boot. It is 30 degrees below zero, Celsius. A few make it as far as a kilometer and a half down the slope. All nine, as you might expect, quickly die.

And so it begins.

Why did they rush out, unable to even grab a coat or blanket? What came at them? The three-month investigation revealed that five of the trekkers died from simple hypothermia, with no apparent trauma at all, no signs of attack, struggle, no outward injuries of any kind. However, two of the other four apparently suffered massive internal traumas to the chest, like you would if you were hit by a car. One's skull was crushed. All four of these were found far from the other five. But still, no signs of external injuries.

Not good enough? How about this: One of the women was missing her tongue.

Oh, it gets better. And weirder.

Tests of the few scraps of clothing revealed very high levels of radiation. Evidence found at the campsite indicates the trekkers might've been blinded. Eyewitnesses around the area report seeing "bright flying spheres" in the sky during the same months. And oh yes, relatives at the funeral swear the skin of their dead loved ones was tanned, tinted dark orange or brown. And their hair had all turned completely gray.

Wait, what?

The final, official explanation as to what caused such bizarre behavior from otherwise well-trained, experienced mountaineers? An "unknown compelling force." Indeed.

Here's the problem: All the convenient, logical explanations — avalanche, animal attack, secret military nuke test — fail. Russian authorities held a three-month investigation. Rescuers, experts picked through every piece of evidence. There were no signs of natural disaster. And if it was just an avalanche, why was the area closed off for three years following the event, and all related documents put in a secret Russian archive until 1990? If it was some sort of weird nuclear megablast (which I suppose may tint you orange, but won't turn your hair gray), what the hell happened to her tongue?

I love stories like this. I hate stories like this.

Sure, you want to go for the logical. Hell, who knows what hellish weaponry they were testing in the mountains in Khrushchev's Russia in the late '50s? Who knows what dark mysteries are buried in the landscape by the world's militaries as they test their dark deeds? The rule goes like this: Any weapon of horror and death man's mind can conceive, odds are gruesomely good the government or military has considered it. Or even built it.

Then again, maybe not. The "horrifying military experiments" theory, spawn of a thousand movies and conspiracy theories, has one fatal flaw: proof. What, 75 years of high-tech military advances and hundreds of billions of dollars spent and a million people working in various sinister branches of the military, and yet not one scrap of truly bizarre or outrageous military weaponry has popped up in the public sphere, been leaked or revealed or unearthed? This is the Internet/YouTube/nothing's-secret age — you'd think we'd get at least one piece of irrefutable evidence proving how the Pentagon has been testing 10-story remote-controlled radioactive spiders with lasers for eyes. Or something. Not that I trust the government, per se. They just aren't that smart.

This is both the joy and horror of stories like Dyatlov — they make your mind jump and bend and struggle. Logic fails quickly. Easy explanations don't work. Complicated ones feel incomplete. The creepiness takes hold, begins to burrow, make you squirm.

So of course, you jump further. You reach for the paranormal, metaphysical, unknowable, to things like UFOs and spirits and ghosts, dark forces and mysticism and the occult, because, well, that's where the action is. That's where we get to touch the void, dance on the edge of perception, realize how little we truly know of anything.

After all, if you really think all there is to this world is what your five senses show you, if you think there's always got to be a logical, earthbound explanation for stories like Dyatlov, well, you might as well just join a megachurch and wipe your brain and your intuition and your deep, dark curiosity clean right now.

As Dyatlov himself might say, his skin orange and hair gray and eyes wide wide wide, you think you know, but you have no idea.

Thoughts about this column? E-mail Mark.
Mark Morford

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing.

Price Paid: $4.00 from b&h photo

Summary:
Over the past five decades Tri-X has achieved a well deserved, mythical status.
It's the Leica of film stocks.

People have strong feelings about this stock.

Those in favor of Tri-X, won't shoot anything else and live by the slogan "Give me Tri-X or give me death!".

Others view Tri-X as a grainy relic, that has long since been made obsolete by the TMAX type of films.

I've been shooting Tri-X for at least a decade now and as far as I am concerned it's the black and white film to beat. If I could only pick one stock to use for the rest of my life, this would be it. Obviously I fall in to the "Give me Tri-X or give me death" category.

The latest incarnation of this stock has finer grain, than previous versions (including TMAX400), yet it retains the trademark Tri-X salt and pepper pattern.

Depending the speed you rate it at, and the developer used, Tri-X can be smooth and fine grained or course as sand paper. With enough skill and practive, you can make it look like almost anything you want to.

Tri-X offers a lush tonal scale and is capable of capturing a huge exposure range. You can rate it from 200 to 1600 asa, and still get good results, with the proper developer.

There is a certain classic look to the negatives this stock delivers, which to an experienced eye, is instantly recognizable. If there ever was a film with a personality, this is it. Nothing else quite looks like Tri-X.

Over the past 50 years, Tri-X has been and still is, the black and white stock that photojournalists and artists swear by. It is almost certain, that more famous shots have been taken with this stock, than any other in the history of film.

I dread the day that Kodak decides to shut down production, but I have a feeling that this will happen long after I have shuffled off the planet. I just can't (or don't want to) imagine it going away.

Strengths:
- Flexible. Shoot it from 200 to 1600 asa and get great results, when paired with the proper developer.

- Classic look. It's gorgeous stuff.

- Five decades of professional experience and testing have made this the best 400 asa black and white stock money can buy.

Weaknesses:
- None to speak of. It's about as perfect a 400 asa black and white film, as you could ask for.

Dreamed of Donna almost all last night.  Miss her.  Miss my wife.

Dreamed we lived in a partying trailer park.  Dreamed she was torn between being a wife and partying.


It seems all my close friends are leaving or dying.

Todd Rittman screwed up my pay check yesterday.  Just when I am desperate for money, something like this happens.  I will not forget.

I have the story mapped out for my novel. Part fiction, part fact.  Based in Indpls and Nashville.

Think of character names.

Brandon is tranferring to nursing. I will ask for his day position with weekends off.  

I am reading Ishmael.

I continue study on A and P.  I am on the bones and muscles section.

I continue to encourage Brian to do better in school.

1. Act
Learn to study and control behavior.

2. Anger/ Arousal
Learn how to deal with arousal by plan to increase impulse control. Learn how to deal with this focused energy.

3. Anxiety-
Learn how to deal with this unfocused anxiety and how to deal with its affect on impulses.

4. Atmosphere-
Learn how environmental factors affect your ability to control your impulses.

5. Altruism-
Learn how the desire to do good for others will help your impulse control.

6. Abuse of Substances-
Learn how the abuse of drugs and alcohol decreases one's ability to control his impulses.

7. Articulation-
Learn how to express yourself in words and not to express yourself in poor behavior.

8. Attitude-
Learn how your self talk affects your beliefs and how both forms your attitude. Learn how a bad attitude can lead to poor impulse control.

9. Aptitude-
Skills you have naturally and skills you can learn to control your impulses.

10. Altitude-
Learn how your mood and outlook affects your impulse control.

11. Amplitude-
Learn how the strength of  your self talk affects your impulse control.

12. Apparition-
Learn how things you see in you mind, or mental imagery, affects your impulse control.

Brian got up and first thing went to work with his girlfriend's father. He seemed somewhat excited. I am glad he is working.

I had a strange dream about the book last night. I dream I went to a nightclub with some unknown person.  It was an avant gard place.  The "entertainment" was watching these bubbles coming out of the ceiling and into a pool.  In the bubbles were puppies, just born and still in their birth sac.  The bubbles landed in the middle of the pool as they were guided by a stem.  The bubbles hatched as they touched the water. The puppies would struggle.  They then had to swim to the edge of the pool to get out.  If they were not strong enough, they would drown and die.   The entertainment was watching this survival of the fittest.

Got a flyer from ITT Nursing Program.  Marilyn Chestnut is the Chair.  She use to be a nurse here at LCH.

Tom O. died today. He had just been transferred to a group home from Carter Hospital.  I have a bum ankle from trying to prevent him from jumping off a balcony 25 years ago and we both fell down the stairs.

Type the text for '14 October 2007'

Took my cat, Carter, to the pound.  He either had Feline AIDS or Feline Leukemia.  He as suffering and wasting away.  While there, I saw a family dropping off some dogs.  The father was crying his eyes out.  It was sad.


Took Carter on 10/15/07.  They said they would put him to sleep because he was so sick.

Called [[ITT Tech]] re: Nursing Program. Their phone number is 317-875-8640.  They are open 8 to 4.

Type the text for '18 October 2008'

Deary, boring, depressing day. 


I got my flu shot today from Mrs. Oldfather.

Type the text for '2 January 2008'

My water pump on my Sable went completely out.   I was lucky I made it home from work last night.   The temp was about 4 degrees.

Type the text for '20 January 2019'

<html><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/cardwell.bob/Bobphotos/photo?authkey=ZDx3Zocm4Kc#5117318851725705026"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/cardwell.bob/RwReYgeFP0I/AAAAAAAABU4/eGUuILTU6uA/s400/2007holidays.jpg" /></a></html>

Finished up landscaping today.

Made some Bratwurst last night.  It reminds me why I don't cook much.  Brian, Missy, Sheba, and I all got sick.  I am the only one who didn't throw up.  Brian missed school today.

I went to the Professional License Board hearing yesterday and got my LSW license back.

Bob

Brian missed school again because of the food poisoning from my "homecooked" meal.  

He has to go to school tomorrow.

Dad and Mom came down today.  Dad said he would start work on the pickup truck over this weekend.

Last night Donna said she would get health insurance for both of the boys.  Plus she said for me to claim Brian as a dependent too this year.

VERSE:
   The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the
will of God lives forever.
    -- 1 John 2:17

My good friend Bob Sparks was buried today following services at the St. Luke's UMC.

I will truly miss him.

Received phone call from Brian's teacher, Amanda Cooper, English.  ph. 789-4905.  Brian is doing poorly in school.

Signed up for health care insurance today.  I added Brian and Zach to my dental and eye coverage.

Today is Halloween.

Feel lousy today because Brian got in trouble at school.

Send Tina Spicer an email about Brian's problems with ADD and problems in school.

Received phone call from Brian's teacher, Amanda Cooper, English.  ph. 789-4905.  Brian is doing poorly in school. Talked to her about Brian.  He is being very disrespectful. He would rather sit for 40 mins. doing nothing than cutting paper for his in class homework.

[img[http://images.craigslist.org/1f71gd137ZZZZZZZZZ8arac1044ec5e7a1587.jpg]]
[img[http://images.craigslist.org/1181fb144ZZZZZZZZZ8ar00c700435b2b1d6d.jpg]]
[img[http://images.craigslist.org/1161461g5ZZZZZZZZZ8ar89426618ce9810a3.jpg]]

Jeff won a seat on the City-County Council yesterday.  Ballard won the Mayor's Office.

Made rounds and on 4B Linda Crider, RN was sitting in the room with pt. Jasmine.  She is suppose to be in the hallway.

http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/biblical/

A Gospel in the Gospel of Judas?

Rev. Dr. Theodore Stylianopoulos, Th.D.

Casting Judas not as a culpable betrayer, but as an intimate friend and collaborator of Jesus, the recently announced Gospel of Judas has understandably generated a stir. However, what the ancient document says about Jesus is even more controversial. According to this “Gospel,” Jesus was a bearer of a deep secret that apparently he revealed to no other disciple except Judas; and then got his help to die that his spirit may be released to some heavenly realm. Recruited for this purpose, Judas then “betrays” the Master as an act of intimate friendship. This is heady stuff. Does the Gospel of Judas cast doubts on the accounts of the four traditional Gospels and, implicitly, on all early Christianity?

The fact that the Gospel of Judas has been authenticated as belonging to the third century, the original written about a century earlier, does not of course mean what it says is true. St. Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 180 AD) knew about it and denounced it as heresy. Many other Church Fathers and theologians have, before and after Irenaeus, refuted the same kind of thinking found in dozens of similar documents which distorted the apostolic faith. Scholars have called that religious ideology Gnosticism, a phenomenon that flourished mainly in the second century and created serious problems for the Church. Since the late 1940’s, when a slew of them were found buried in the dry sands of Egypt, scholars have been able to study these document first hand.

In the National Geographic documentary featuring the Gospel of Judas, biblical scholar Craig Evans, near the end of the film, bluntly stated that nothing new and nothing historically authentic is to be found in the document. Although the documentary leaned to the opposite view, most scholars will probably agree with Evans. The Gospel of Judas is but another small window to Gnosticism, a hodgepodge of religious speculations that exploded on the scene during the second century. At that time, individual intellectuals or small and elitist groups around them, bothered by the basic story of the Bible, especially the “violent” God of the Old Testament and the “scandalous” death and resurrection of Jesus, generated their own religious philosophy. They combined Jewish, Christian and pagan elements to construct literally fantastic systems of speculation including astrology and magic. The core theme, found in the Gospel of Judas, is secret knowledge (gnosis) that leads to salvation.

What was that secret knowledge about? It was essentially about the Gnostic system itself that roughly runs as follows: A higher god, infinitely superior to the God of the Old Testament, sends periodic illuminators to earth with a secret message to draw back to heaven the inner divine sparks of receptive human beings hopelessly caught in utter darkness. According to this worldview, the Old Testament God is an inferior and ignorant God, responsible for creating the lowest sphere of existence, the earth, where all the evil of the cosmos had dredged. Material things, including human bodies, if not evil, are the seat of evil, and to be escaped from. So in Gnostic thinking the eternal Christ, who was the son of the higher god and not the Son of the God of the Old Testament, could not truly have taken human flesh. Instead, he temporarily entered into Jesus at his baptism and later, at some point during his arrest and suffering, left the material body and returned to the sphere of light.

In the Gnostic system, the saving death and resurrection of Christ play no role and they are usually entirely omitted. The one killed is not the Son of God, but only the human Jesus, whose body presumably decayed to dust. What is decisive for the Gnostic view is not the person of Jesus the Christ, crucified and risen, but the Gnostic “gospel” itself, that is, the message of the secret Gnostic system. This system was thought to provide the key to a kind of self-salvation through self-knowledge and self-realization in the discovery of the inner divine self.

What’s wrong with all this? The whole thing. That Jesus passed on a single secret to a single intimate collaborator is immensely absurd. Jesus conducted an open ministry addressing his message to all and publicly conflicting with religious leaders over such issues as the Sabbath observance, the ritual washing of hands, and the temple activities. Not even radical critics would deny essential truth in these words of Jesus: “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together; I have said noting secretly” (John 18:20). The events of the early Church and its astonishing mission, reported in the Book of Acts, were “not done in a corner,” St. Paul pointedly observed (Acts 26:26). Against the Gospel of Judas, none of the New Testament books, all written in the first century, give any hint that early Christianity was all about elites conveying secrets to elites. The “mysteries” of God’s kingdom proclaimed by Jesus (Matthew 13:11) were not about objective teachings, such as “love your enemies” and many others like it in the Sermon on the Mount. These were taught to all, disciples and the crowds. Rather, the mystery of God’s kingdom, both then and today, is the same: it is the personal experience of grace and forgiveness arising in human hearts from hearing about God’s rule and living by the gospel.

The Gospel of Judas turns Christianity on its head. Long ago St. Irenaeus accused the Gnostics of using the Bible as a mosaic from which they extracted selected tiles and created a wholly different portrait of Christ, turning, as he said, the portrait of the king into that of a fox! The Christian gospel puts Christ at the center of the message salvation and proclaims a true incarnation, a true death, and true resurrection by which of sinners are redeemed from the power of sin and enjoy a new life of grace in obedience to Christ. Contrary to the Gnostic message, the Christian gospel is rooted in the Old Testament as part of the saving plan of the only true God and Father of Jesus Christ. St. Paul declares that there is only one Gospel (Gal. 1:6-9) and that he and all the numerous eye-witnesses to the risen Christ preach the same Gospel of the crucified, buried and risen Lord (1 Cor. 15:1-11). In view of the testimony of these eyewitnesses, many of whom had actually walked with Jesus, only a fool would attribute any credibility to a strange document written one hundred fifty years later.

Let readers be aware that there can be no compromise here. One cannot choose parts from the traditional Gospels and parts from the Gospel of Judas. The two versions of salvation by their very nature negate each other. They are not two alternative, more or less acceptable, takes on what authentic Christianity was and is. The Gnostic gospel proclaims Christ as a kind of disembodied messenger who opposes the work of the Old Testament God. The Christian gospel proclaims an incarnate, crucified, and risen Christ in complete harmony with the same God who is his Father. The Gnostic message views the human body as virtually evil, something to discard. The Christian message holds the human body as holy, redeemable, destined for glorious transformation through resurrection. The Gnostic way of salvation is one of inward meditation toward self-realization. The Christian way of salvation is taking up the cross in obedience to Christ and in communion with his body, the Church, which has a vital mission in part to work for justice and peace in this world that God loves. When the two interpretative perspectives are assessed as wholes, the historical and theological evidence clearly favors the Christian option as being the most faithful to the message of the Bible and worthy of life-long commitment.

What about Judas’ betrayal? The betrayal was not as decisive for Jesus’ death as one might think. Jesus’ enemies would have gotten to him one way or another. Jesus did not, of course, need Judas’ help to die, if Jesus’ wanted to do that, because he could have surrendered to the authorities himself. The idea that Jesus was looking to die is totally refuted by the experience of Gethsemane in which Jesus with distress and tears prayed three times to be spared the cross.

The betrayal of Judas is significant in its moral (rather immoral) immensity. Yet, why did Judas betray Jesus? Was it envy, greed, an attempt to force Jesus’ hand toward revolution against the Romans, or even an attempt at a reconciliation meeting with the religious leaders for the common national good? No little attention in print and film has been given to such questions, and it is no sin. The vilification of Judas in Christian history is lamentable. For Christians, the right response to all sinners, including ourselves, is sorrow and prayer in the spirit of Christ’s love who forgave his crucifiers. What a magnificent testimony to God’s forgiveness, if Judas, like Peter, had repented of his misdeed and run up to Jesus as he stumbled up the hill to Golgotha and asked for mercy! Forgiveness would have been certain. But it was not to be. Falling into despair on account of his betrayal, Judas killed himself, an act that would otherwise have no reasonable explanation, unless one is prepared to adopt the Gnostic system and see Judas as committing suicide to release his own soul to astral regions.

Who has the story right? The second-century Gnostics with their new-fangled speculations, or the earliest Christians who provided the traditions behind the four Gospels? If it were not a culpable betrayal, why would early Christians want to create and perpetuate an embarrassing story about one of the twelve disciples handing over his Master to the enemies? To reverse morally the betrayal into an act of friendship seems utterly ludicrous.

The crux of the fuss has to do with the value wars in the second as well as the twenty-first centuries. Over recent centuries, the failings of Christians and institutional Christianity, wars and all, have caused offense to many intellectuals who have consequently looked elsewhere for answers. Out of frustration and sometimes hatred, some have even proposed and have actively sought either radically to revise or even wholly to destroy traditional Christianity. They have wanted to throw out the proverbial baby with the water. This sort of thing is both regrettable and unacceptable. The institutional Church ought to be fully transparent and get its act together for an effective mission in the world. However, a radically revised Christianity is no Christianity at all, but only a fake shadow of it, unworthy of support. One must also consider that the despisers of Christianity have not come up with some viable communal alternative that works.

The ancient Gnostics seem to have been gripped by similar frustrations and anger. The pain of an unjust and violent world led the Gnostics to the dreamy ideal of escaping from reality instead of facing it. They thought to find self-redemption in meditative self-absorption and the construction of ethereal speculative systems, rather than by following the way of the cross and martyrdom as adherents of apostolic Christianity did. Part of the spiritual revolt of the Gnostics, so it seems, was to attack basic teachings of the Bible and the Church. And what crazy stuff it was that some came up with. The Naassenes or Ophites (the respective words in Hebrew and Greek mean “snake”) venerated the deceiving serpent of Genesis thought to have the wisdom of the superior god against the plan of the Old Testament God! Other Gnostics advocated three, seven, nine, thirty or thirty-three levels of divinity. Marcion, an extreme ascetic who saw evil in matter, allowed only single people in his communities. He prohibited marriage and childbearing because, in his view, such practices aided the work of the inferior creator god. And so Marcion condemned his own congregations to eventual extinction.

These examples may show that it is not the case, as some loudly claim today, that oppressive bishops and a rigid Church suppressed the Gnostics. For centuries the Church was under persecution and had no social or political power to oppress anyone. Naturally the leaders and theologians of the Church were concerned to maintain the apostolic traditions and therefore they disciplined their own communicants. However, any person or group outside the Church, or cast out of the Church, had the same opportunity to flourish in their choices. The decline of Gnostic groups was chiefly due to the inability of their own message and practice to draw and keep adherents. Christianity triumphed not because of its rigid administrative or theological systems, but because it served the needs and hopes of many who were willing to make the costly commitment to the apostolic gospel.

In modern democratic societies, individuals and groups have equal opportunity to promote their ideologies and practices. The promise of success is open to all. Let God’s truth be served in providing real solutions for the real problems of humanity by means of example and persuasion. In the cauldron of the current cultural war, it is no surprise that people would differ as radically as people did in the second century and still regard themselves as Christians. Some continue to teach that Jesus’ transformed bodily resurrection is an unnecessary myth, despite the protestations of St. Paul (1 Corinthians, chapter 15). Others advocate same gender marriage despite the witness of the Scriptures, all of the historical wisdom and the drastic social implications. Still others have supported almost limitless destruction of the unborn as if only the will and convenience of the potential parent really counts. And many caught up in the spirit of the age, whether consciously or unconsciously, follow the post-modern message of looking for the “real” self, finding one’s way, creating one’s own truth, and doing one’s own thing—while still claiming to follow Christ. For such persons, the Gospel of Judas may perhaps be of considerable value. For many others, however, it is no “gospel” at all.

Rev. Dr. Theodore G. Stylianopoulos,
Archbishop Iakovos Professor of Orthodox Theology
and Professor of New Testament
Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology
Brookline, Ma 02445

tstylianopoulos@hchc.edu

A Thought on Departing Misery
Dec. 5, 2009

But Jesus,‭ ‬said unto them,‭ ‬A prophet is not without honour,‭ ‬but in his own country,‭ ‬and among his own kin,‭ ‬and in his own house.‭ ‬Mark‭ ‬6:4

If people do not welcome‭ ‬you,‭ ‬shake the‭ ‬dust off your feet when you leave their town,‭ ‬as a testimony against them.‭
Luke‭ ‬9:5

Maybe it is my upbringing,‭ ‬but when monumental changes are occurring in my life, I often remember Bible verses. Perhaps, it is a way to make sense out of all the changes that are rushing at me.

The two above come to mind tonight as I end one job and begin another. I will meditate more on the meaning.

Perhaps a ritual of some sort will ease my anxiety with the change. Some way to symbolically enact the passion and inherent jitterness. Doing the ritual is a method of control over a situation, that in reality, I have very little control over.

I have leaving a job after five years. I feel as if this job was some sort of penance. I have endured humiliation and shame each hour and each minute I have worked at this job. I have hidden myself away from social acquaintances. I have shyed away from family and friends. I have pretty much lived as a hermit. I am ashamed not of the work but at the lowly and insignificant position I held and the manner I was treated by my masters. This has permeated all aspects of my life. I am glad it is done. I shall shake the dust off my feet as I leave and will never look back.

Hopefully in losing all dignity at this last job has helped me truly find myself. I hope to dispense more grace than pain and to be ever mindful of the suffering of others. I will strive to do what good I can in this life with the help of God.

In some ways I feel like Job. Of course, I have suffered not as much, but perhaps it was a test. A test of my character and a test of my faith. Could I remain faithful and honorable after so much ridicule and pain? Yes, I have endured and in confidence know that I will go forth and do good things in the name of the Lord. I don't know where this confidence comes from after such a beating. It truly must be God. Perhaps this was a test of the endurance of Hope in seeking a touch of Grace.

The ritual I plan is this.

I have a salt shaker at work. The masters have banned salt shakers for the past few years so I have kept my own hidden in my desk drawer. Perhaps it is a streak of rebellion or I do really like a sprinkle of salt on my food at work. This salt has come to represent me getting something from work I desire, even though it was denied. I have come to think over the years of this salt as feeding my spirit a little each day and with each little sprinkle I deny the wish of the masters to completely extinguish my soul. It was just one small token act to face off annihilation in the face of such evil and darkness.

Tonight, when I depart this place that has represented Hell on earth, I will do so with this salt shaker. Before I get into my car, I shall open this shaker and pour the salt out. This will symbolically empty all of my painful memories. Salt to salt. Dust to Dust. I shall then shake the dust off my feet and leave with the pledge to never return. Just as the warriors, of the Old Testament, poisoned the fields of their enemies, I shall mark this place for evermore as hostile and leave vengeance to the Lord.

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Colossians 4:6

A Valentinian Exposition

Translated by John D. Turner


    [...] enter [...] the abundance [...] those who [...] I will speak my mystery to those who are mine and to those who will be mine. Moreover it is these who have known him who is, the Father, that is, the Root of the All, the Ineffable One who dwells in the Monad. He dwells alone in silence, and silence is tranquility since, after all, he was a Monad and no one was before him. He dwells in the Dyad and in the Pair, and his Pair is Silence. And he possessed the All dwelling within him. And as for Intention and Persistence, Love and Permanence, they are indeed unbegotten.

    God came forth: the Son, Mind of the All, that is, it is from the Root of the All that even his Thought stems, since he had this one (the Son) in Mind. For on behalf of the All, he received an alien Thought since there were nothing before him. From that place it is he who moved [...] a gushing spring. Now this is the Root of the All and Monad without any one before him. Now the second spring exists in silence and speaks with him alone. And the Fourth accordingly is he who restricted himself in the Fourth: while dwelling in the Three-hundred-sixtieth, he first brought himself (forth), and in the Second he revealed his will, and in the Fourth he spread himself out.

    While these things are due to the Root of the All, let us for our part enter his revelation and his goodness and his descent and the All, that is, the Son, the Father of the All, and the Mind of the Spirit; for he was possessing this one before [...]. He is a spring. He is one who appears in Silence, and he is Mind of the All dwelling secondarily with Life. For he is the projector of the All and the very hypostasis of the Father, that is, he is the Thought and his descent below.

    When he willed, the First Father revealed himself in him. Since, after all, because of him the revelation is available to the All, I for my part call the All 'the desire of the All'. And he took such a thought concerning the All - I for my part call the thought 'Monogenes'. For now God has brought Truth, the one who glorifies the Root of the All. Thus it is he who revealed himself in Monogenes, and in him he revealed the Ineffable One [...] the Truth. They saw him dwelling in the Monad and in the Dyad and in the Tetrad. He first brought forth Monogenes and Limit. And Limit is the separator of the All and the confirmation of the All, since they are [...] the hundred [...]. He is the Mind [...] the Son. He is completely ineffable to the All, and he is the confirmation and the hypostasis of the All, the silent veil, the true High Priest, the one who has the authority to enter the Holies of Holies, revealing the glory of the Aeons and bringing forth the abundance to <fragrance>. The East [...] that is in Him. He is the one who revealed himself as the primal sanctuary and the treasury of the All. And he encompassed the All, he who is higher than the All. These for their part sent Christ forth to establish her just as they were established before her descent. And they say concerning him: [...] He is not manifest, but invisible to those remaining within Limit. And he possesses four powers: a separator and a confirmor, a form-provider and a substance-producer. Surely we alone would discern their presences and the time and the places which the likenesses have confirmed because they have [...] from these places [...] the Love [...] is emanated [...] the entire Pleroma [...]. The persistence endures always, and [...] for also [...] the time [...] more [...] that is, the proof of his great love.

    So why a separator, and a confirmor and a substance-producer and a form-provider as others have said? For they say concerning Limit that he has two powers, a separator and a confirmor, since it separates Depth from the Aeons, in order that [...]. These, then [...] of Depth [...]. For [...] is the form [...] the Father of the Truth [...] say that Christ [...] the Spirit [...] Monogenes [...] has [...].

    It is a great and necessary thing for us to seek with more diligence and perseverance after the scriptures and those who proclaim the concepts. For about this the ancients say, "they were proclaimed by God." So let us know his unfathomable richness! He wanted [...] servitude. He did not become [...] of their life [...]. They look steadfastly at their book of knowledge and they regard one another`s appearance.

    That Tetrad projected the Tetrad which is the one consisting of Word and Life and Man and Church. Now the Uncreated One projected Word and Life. Word is for the glory of the Ineffable One while Life is for the glory of Silence, and Man is for his own glory, while Church is for the glory of Truth. This, then, is the Tetrad begotten according to the likeness of the Uncreated (Tetrad). And the Tetrad is begotten [... ] the Decad from Word and Life, and the Dodecad from Man, and Church became a Triacontad. Moreover, it is the one from the Triacontad of the Aeons who bear fruit from the Triacontrad. They enter jointly, but they come forth singly, fleeing from the Aeons and the Uncontainable Ones. And the Uncontainable Ones, once they had looked at him, glorified Mind since he is an Uncontainable One that exists in the Pleroma.

    But the Decad from Word and Life brought forth decads so as to make the Pleroma become a hundred, and the Dodecad from Man and Church brought forth and made the Triacontad so as to make the three hundred sixty become the Pleroma of the year. And the year of the Lord [...perfect...] perfect [...] according to [...] Limit and [...] Limit [...] the greatness which [...] the goodness [...] him. Life [...] suffer [...] by the face [...] in the presence of the Pleroma [...] which he wanted [...]. And he wanted to leave the Thirtieth - being a szygy of Man and Church, that is, Sophia - to surpass the Triacontad and bring the Pleroma [...] his [...] but [...] and she [...] the All [...] but [...] who [...] the All [...]. He made [...] the thoughts and [...] the Pleroma through the Word [...] his flesh. These, then, are the Aeons that are like them. After the Word entered it, just as I said before, also the one who comes to be with the Uncontainable One brought forth [...] before they [...] forth [...] hide him from [...] the syzygy and [...] the movement and [...] project the Christ [...] and the seeds [...] of the cross since [...] the imprints of the nail wound [...] perfection. Since it is a perfect form that should ascend into the Pleroma, he did not at all want to consent to the suffering, but he was detained [...] him by Limit, that is, by the syzygy, since her correction will not occur through anyone except her own Son, whose alone is the fullness of divinity. He willed within himself bodily to leave the powers and he descended. And these things (passions) Sophia suffered after her son ascended from her, for she knew that she dwelt in a [...] in unity and restoration. They were stopped [...] the brethren [...] these. A [...] did not [...]. I became [...]. Who indeed are they? The [...], on the one hand, stopped her [...], on the other hand, [...]. with the [...] her. These moreover are those who were looking at me, these who, [...] these who considered [...] the death. They were stopped [...] her and she repented and she besought the Father of the truth, saying, "Granted that I have renounced my consort. Therefore I am beyond confirmation as well. I deserve the things (passions) I suffer. I used to dwell in the Pleroma putting forth the Aeons and bearing fruit with my consort" And she knew what she was and what had become of her.

    So they both suffered; they said she laughs since she remained alone and imitated the Uncontainable One, while he said she laughs since she cut herself off from her consort. [...] Indeed Jesus and Sophia revealed the creature. Since, after all, the seeds of Sophia are incomplete and formless, Jesus contrived a creature of this sort and made it of the seeds while Sophia worked with him. For since they are seeds and without form, he descended and brought forth that pleroma of aeons which are in that place, since even the uncreated ones of those Aeons are of the pattern of the Pleroma and the uncontainable Father. The Uncreated One brought forth the pattern of the uncreated, for it is from the uncreated that the Father brings forth into form. But the creature is a shadow of pre-existing things. Moreover, this Jesus created the creature, and he worked from the passions surrounding the seeds. And he separated them from one another, and the better passions he introduced into the spirit and the worse ones into the carnal.

    Now, first among all those passions [...] nor [...] him, since, after all, Pronoia caused the correction to project shadows and images of those who exist from the first and those who are and those who shall be. This, then, is the dispensation of believing in Jesus for the sake of him who inscribed the All with likenesses and images and shadows.

    After Jesus brought forth further, he brought forth for the All those of the Pleroma and of the syzygy, that is, the angels. For simultaneously with the agreement of the Pleroma her consort projected the angels, since he abides in the will of the Father. For this is the will of the Father: not to allow anything to happen in the Pleroma apart from a syzygy. Again, the will of the Father is: always produce and bear fruit. That she should suffer, then, was not the will of the Father, for she dwells in herself alone without her consort. Let us [...] another one [...] the Second [...] the son of another [...] is the Tetrad of the world. And that Tetrad put forth fruit as if the Pleroma of the world were a Hebdomad. And it entered images and likenesses and angels and archangels, divinities and ministers.

    When all these things were brought to pass by Pronoia [...] of Jesus who [...] the seeds [...] of Monogenes [...]. Indeed they are spiritual and carnal, the heavenly and the earthly. He made them a place of this sort and a school of this sort for doctrine and for form.

    Moreover the Demiurge began to create a man according to his image on the one hand and on the other according to the likeness of those who exist from the first. It was this sort of dwelling place that she used for the seeds, namely [... separate ...] God. When they [...] in behalf of man, since indeed the Devil is one of the divine beings. He removed himself and seized the entire plaza of the gates and he expelled his own root from that place in the body and carcasses of flesh, for he is enveloped by the man of God. And Adam sowed him. Therefore he acquired sons who angered one another. And Cain killed Abel his brother, for the Demiurge breathed into them his spirit. And there took place the struggle with the apostasy of the angels and mankind, those of the right with those of the left, those in heaven with those on earth, the spirits with the carnal, and the Devil against God. Therefore the angels lusted after the daughters of men and came down to flesh so that God would cause a flood. And he almost regretted that he had created the world [...] the consort and Sophia and her Son and the angels and the seeds. But the syzygy is the complete one, and Sophia and Jesus and the angels and the seeds are images of the Pleroma. Moreover, the Demiurge cast a shadow over the syzygy and the Pleroma and Jesus and Sophia and the angels and the seeds. The complete one glorifies Sophia; the image glorifies Truth. And the glory of the seeds and Jesus are those of Silence and Monogenes. And the angels of the males and the seminal ones of the females are all Pleromas. Moreover whenever Sophia receives her consort and Jesus receives the Christ and the seeds and the angels, then the Pleroma will receive Sophia joyfully, and the All will come to be in unity and reconciliation. For by this the Aeons have been increased; for they knew that should they change, they are without change.

 
Selection made from James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, revised edition. HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990.

http://oaq.blogspot.com/

ONLINE ALEXITHYMIA QUESTIONNAIRE - G2

Monday, February 26, 2007

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Emotionally Dumb: An Overview of Alexithymia by Jason Thompson (Kindle Edition - May 8, 2009) - Kindle Book
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OAQ-G2, Introduction and Factor Targets

__________________________________________________________________________________________

For an automated scoring version of the below questionnaire please click here:

(English version): Online Alexithymia Questionnaire G2.htm
(Spanish version): Online Alexithymia Questionnaire G2.htm
(German version): Online Alexithymia Questionnaire G2.htm

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

ONLINE ALEXITHYMIA QUESTIONNAIRE - G2 (manual scoring)

Instructions: Answer the following questions as spontaneously as possible. If you get stuck on a question, leave it out and continue with the next. Each question can have one of 5 possible answers.
These are:
Strongly Agree Agree Undecided Disagree Strongly Disagree

1. - When asked which emotion I'm feeling, I frequently don't know the answer.

2. - I'm unsure of which words to use when describing my feelings.

3. - I prefer to find out the emotional intricacies of my problems rather than just describe them in terms of practical facts.

4. - When other people are hurt or upset, I have difficulty imagining what they are feeling.

5. - People tell me to describe my feelings more, as if I haven't elaborated enough.

6. - Sex as a recreational activity seems kinda pointless.

7. - I can describe my emotions with ease.

8. - You cannot functionally live your life without being aware of your deepest emotions.

9. - People sometimes get upset with me, and I can't imagine why

10. - People tell me I don't listen to their feelings properly, when in fact I'm doing my utmost to understand what they're saying!

11. - When I am upset I find it difficult to identify the feelings causing it.

12. - Describing the feelings I have about other people is often difficult.

13. - I prefer doing physical activities with friends rather than discussing each others’ emotional experiences.

14. - I am not much of a daydreamer.

15. - I don't like people's constant assumptions that I should understand or guess their needs... its as if they want me to read their minds!

16. - I sometimes experience confusing sensations in my body.

17. - For me sex is more a functional activity than it is an emotional one

18. - Some people have told me I am cold or unresponsive to their needs.

19. - I don't dream frequently, and when I do the dreams usually seem rather boring.

20. - Friends have indicated, in one way or another, that I'm more in my head than in my heart.

21. - I can't identify feelings that I vaguely sense are going on inside of me.

22. - I often ask other people what they would feel if in my personal situation (any situation), as this better helps me understand what to do.

23. - I find it useful to ponder on my feelings as much as the practical issues when setting my priorities.

24. - I use my imagination mainly for practical means, eg., like how to work out a problem or construct a useful idea or object.

25. - I often feel incompetent, awkward, uncomfortable, or occasionally physically sick in sexual situations.

26. - When involved in difficult or turbulent relationships, I sometimes develop confusing physical symptoms.

27. - I tend to rely on other people for interpreting the emotional details of personal/social events.

28. - I don’t like conversations in which more time is spent discussing emotional matters than daily activities because it detracts from my enjoyment.

29. - I often get confused about what the other person wants from a sexual relationship.

30. - People I've been in close relationships with have complained that I neglect them emotionally.

31. - I like it when someone describes the feelings they experience under circumstances similar to my own, because this helps me see what my own feelings might be.

32. - My imagination is often spontaneous, unpredictable and involuntary.

33. - When helping others I prefer to assist with physical tasks rather than offering counsel about their feelings.

34. - I have puzzling physical sensations that even friends/aquaintances/others don't understand.

35. - I get in a muddle when I try to describe how I feel about an important event.

36. - My imagination is usually not spontaneous and surprising, but rather used/employed in a more controlled fashion.

37. - I make decisions based on principles rather than gut feelings.

Scoring for all questions:

Strongly Agree | Agree | Undecided | Disagree | Strongly Disagree

............(5)............... (4) ............ (3)............. (2)................ (1)

Excepting questions 3, 7, 8, 23, and 32 which are inversely scored:

Strongly Agree | Agree | Undecided | Disagree | Strongly Disagree

............(1)............... (2).............. (3)............ (4)................ (5)

Maximum possible score is 185. This test uses cutoff scoring: equal to or less than 94 = non-alexithymia, equal to or greater than 113 = alexithymia. Scores of 95 to 112 = possible alexithymia. Forcing a respondent to give an answer to each question may cause frustration because it is quite possible that a particular question just doesn't apply, thus disrupting the flow of the process. For this reason, unanswered questions are defaulted as "undecided" and given a medium score of 3.

**********************************************

Introduction and Factor Targets

The online alexithymia questionnaire was developed in 2005 in response to perceived shortcomings of the previous alexithymia questionnaires such as the Bermond-Vorst or TAS-20. Three problems presented, namely the poorly targeted questions regarding constricted imaginal processes; secondly, the confusion experienced by the alexithymic subject when asked to recognise if they do, or don't, experience the normal range of feelings; and thirdly the unavailability of testing instruments to the general public. The first of these perceived shortcomings concerns the very nature of imagining, which needed elaboration before questions could be economically targeted to the deficit in question. Discussions with alexithymic individuals revealed that many believed their imaginal capacity was intact, leading to positive questionnaire responses regarding their ability to daydream, imagine, or fantasise. With the introduction of Edward Casey's distinction of the controlledness or spontaneity of a given act of imagining it became evident that commentaries regarding the absence of alexithymic imagining were referring to a deficit in 'spontaneous' or 'unconscious' imagining, and not to controlled imagining. With this knowledge the OAQ questions were written to reflect this distinction, for example; "I use my imagination mainly for practical means, eg., like how to work out a problem or construct a useful idea or object," and "My imagination is usually not spontaneous and surprising, but rather used/employed in a more controlled fashion," or inversely scored, "My imagination is often spontaneous, unpredictable and involuntary."

The second shortcoming related to the older wording of questions targeting difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings. Whilst these factors are integral features of the alexithymia construct, the very nature of these deficits in the alexithymic individual may obscure recognition of their relative presence or absence as requested by the questionnaires. With this in mind we sought to alter or delete some of the overly direct questions, e.g. questions like “I don’t know why I feel angry” were not repeated, and wordings such as “I have feelings that I can't properly identify” were replaced with a less assured, “I can't identify feelings that I vaguely sense are going on inside of me”. We also included a further set of questions asking what 'other people say' about the alexithymic individual’s emotional communication, and reduced the number of items which presume an introspective ability of the individual to be aware of their deficits in emotional communication eg. we added “people tell me I don't listen to their feelings properly, when in fact I'm doing my utmost to understand what they saying!” or “I don't like people's constant assumptions that I should understand or guess their needs... its as if they want me to read their minds!” and “people tell me to describe my feelings more, as if I haven't elaborated enough”.

Thirdly, we wanted to create an accessible, free guide for general practitioners and lay public for the purpose of gaining amateur assessment which might indicate the need for more thoroughgoing clinical assessment. At the moment recognised alexithymia questionnaires are expensive and difficult to acquire without clinical degrees in relevant disciplines, and it is hoped that the OAQ might fill the gap.

Further features of the OAQ include two subcategories; 'vicarious interpretation of feelings' and 'sexual difficulties and disinterest' which target interpersonal behaviours co-extensive with traits of alexithymia. Of the second of these, extensive discussions with alexithymic adults revealed common experiences of difficulties with sexual relations and activities, with descriptions of disturbing bodily sensations (associated with affect) and personal confusion regarding the sexual expectations and feelings of others. Although the individual's sexual libido may be functioning on a healthy level, the 'pseudophobia' (Krystal 1988) surrounding the emotional component of sexual intimacy is manifest as a reluctance to indulge in sexual act, or as a preference for sexual encounters involving low emotional intensity.
In May 2007 the Online Alexithymia Questionnaire underwent a revision of nine questions- 2, 7, 11, 12, 13, 16, 23, 28, 33 having similarities to, or reproductions of, wordings in the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), with duplications being replaced by more original phrasing. The modified questions have been approved by the authors of the copyrighted Toronto alexithymia scale for use in the OAQ-G2. The resultant changes to the OAQ have created a second generation questionnaire (G2) reflecting its ongoing evolution as independent from other alexithymia measures.

OAQ – G2 target-factors:

F1 - Difficulty Identifying Feelings

-When asked which emotion I'm feeling, I frequently don't know the answer.

-I have puzzling physical sensations that even friends/acquaintances/others don't understand.

-When I am upset I find it difficult to identify the feelings causing it.

-I sometimes experience confusing sensations in my body

-I can't identify feelings that I vaguely sense are going on inside of me.

-When involved in difficult or turbulent relationships, I sometimes develop confusing physical symptoms.

F2- Difficulty Describing Feelings

-I’m unsure of which words to use when describing my feelings.

-I can describe my emotions with ease.

-Describing the feelings I have about other people is often difficult.

-I get in a muddle when I try to describe how I feel about an important event.

F2b- Vicarious interpretation of feelings

-I often ask other people what they would feel if in my personal situation (any situation), as this better helps me understand what to do.

-I tend to rely on other people for interpreting the emotional details of personal/social events.

-I like it when someone describes the feelings they experience under circumstances similar to my own, because this helps me see what my own feelings might be.

F3- Externally-Oriented Thinking

-I prefer to find out the emotional intricacies of my problems rather than just describe them in terms of practical facts.

-You cannot functionally live your life without being aware of your deepest emotions.

-I prefer doing physical activities with friends rather than discussing each others’ emotional experiences.

-When helping others I prefer to assist with physical tasks rather than offering counsel about their feelings.

- I find it useful to ponder on my feelings as much as the practical issues when setting my priorities.

-I don’t like conversations in which more time is spent discussing emotional matters than daily activities because it detracts from my enjoyment.

-I make decisions based on principles rather than gut feelings.

F4- Restricted Imaginative Processes

-When other people are hurt or upset, I have difficulty imagining what they are feeling.

-People sometimes get upset with me, and I can't imagine why.

-I am not much of a daydreamer.

-I don't dream frequently, and when I do the dreams usually seem rather boring.

-I use my imagination mainly for practical means, eg., like how to work out a problem or construct a useful idea or object.

-My imagination is usually not spontaneous and surprising, but rather used/employed in a more controlled fashion.

-My imagination is often spontaneous, unpredictable and involuntary.

F5- Problematic Interpersonal Relationships

-People tell me to describe my feelings more, as if I haven't elaborated enough.

-People tell me I don't listen to their feelings properly, when in fact I'm doing my utmost to understand what they saying!

-I don't like people's constant assumptions that I should understand or guess their needs... its as if they want me to read their minds!

-Friends have indicated, in one way or another, that I'm more in my head than in my heart.

-Some people have told me I am cold or unresponsive to their needs.

-People I've been in close relationships with have complained that I neglect them emotionally.

F5b- Sexual difficulties and disinterest

-Sex as a recreational activity seems pointless.

-I often get confused about what the other person wants from a sexual relationship.

-I often feel incompetent, awkward, uncomfortable, or occasionally physically sick in sexual situations.

-For me sex is more a functional activity than it is an emotional one.

____________________________________________________________________

This questionnaire is a second generation (G-2) version which may be updated if future validation studies indicate areas for improvement, in which case 'G-3' (etc.) will be applied. The OAQ - G2 has proven a popular revision and is currently being translated into several languages. Clinical application, and validation trials are presently underway, and the results of these studies will be collated and published in due course. The Online Alexithymia Questionnaire G-2 is copyrighted (c)-2007 and may be used online by individuals without permission, or reproduced in professional settings or for study/research purposes for free with permission from the author. If prospective parties wish to trial the OAQ - G2 please contact the author (Jason Thompson) at hippolytus_101@yahoo.com.au

If you would like to talk about alexithymia please click here: Alexithymia Exchange

See also: Two-Factor Imagination Scale (TFIS)

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Do mineral deposits build-up inside my water heater causing lots of noise? 

MINERAL DEPOSIT SYMPTOMS • Rumbling • Crackling • Popping 

CAUSE With the advent of high input and larger storage tanks in both commercial and residential heaters, deliming has become a necessity of modern maintenance. Lime (CaCO3), is the most notable factor when discussing water hardness. Lime is present in every water system to some degree across the entire United States. Since lime is inversely soluble (the more you heat, the more lime comes out), higher usage, excessive hardness, and increased heating surface can lead to a high incidence of “limed-up” heaters. Symptoms often include a popping of water trapped under lime deposits or the sizzling of water trapped next to elements, boiling it to steam. 

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Two common treatments available through A.O. Smith’s parts department are Mag-Erad® and Un- Lime®. Any well-stocked plumbing supply house should have a deliming solution available. The directions on the product should be followed expressly.

INDIANAPOLIS CURRICULUM OF RECORD

BIO 065 - Introduction to Life Sciences (3 Cr.)

Prerequisite: Demonstrated competency in reading and computation through appropriate assessment or earning a grade of "C" or better in ENG 031, Reading Strategies for College I; and MAT 044, Mathematics

Introduces the scientific method and the basic concepts and terminology used in biology, microbiology, anatomy, physiology and organic chemistry which is related to life sciences. Prepares entering students who took no high school science or who took science several years ago for life sciences courses.



BIO 100 - Human Biology (4 Cr.)

Prerequisites: Demonstrated competency through appropriate assessment or earning a grade of “C” or better in ENG 025, ENG 032, and MAT 050. 

Covers the basic concepts of human biology including reproduction and development, physiological regulation, stress biology, evolution, and behavioral biology with emphasis on health, nutrition, and disease related issues. Laboratory emphasizes human anatomy and physiology.

BIO 101 - Introductory Biology (3 Cr.)

Prerequisites: Demonstrated competency through appropriate assessment or earning a grade of "C" or better in ENG 025 Introduction to College Writing II, ENG 032 Reading Strategies for College II and MAT 050 Basic Algebra

Introduces the basic concepts of life. Includes discussion of cellular and organismal biology, genetics, evolution, ecology, and interaction among all living organisms. Addresses applications of biology to society.

BIO 211 - General Microbiology (3 Cr.)

Prerequisites: BIO 101 Introductory Biology or ANP 101 Anatomy and Physiology I and earning a grade of "C" or better in MAT 050 Basic Algebra

Presents an overview of microbiology including fundamental structures of microorganisms, their metabolism, classification and interaction with other living things, and the laboratory techniques for their study. Introduces industrial and clinical applications of microbiology.

BIO 220 - Environmental Science (3 Cr.)

Prerequisites: Demonstrated competency through appropriate assessment or earning a grade of "C" or better in ENG 025, Introduction to College Writing II; and ENG 032, Reading Strategies for College II; and MAT 044, Mathematics.

Survey of the basic concepts of ecology, natural resources and ecosystems, relationships between humans and their natural environment, and the magnitude and scope of global environmental problems.

 



Anatomy Course Descriptions: 
ANP 101 - Anatomy and Physiology (3 Cr.)

Prerequisites: Demonstrated competency through appropriate assessment or earning a grade of "C" or better in ENG 025, Introduction to College Writing II; and ENG 032, Reading
Strategies for College II; and MAT 044, Mathematics.

Develops a comprehensive understanding of the close interrelationship between anatomy and physiology as seen in the human organism. Introduces students to the cell, which is the basic structural and functional unit of all organisms, and covers tissues, integument, skeleton, muscular and nervous systems as an integrated unit.

ANP 102 - Anatomy and Physiology II (3 Cr.)

Prerequisite: ANP 101, Anatomy and Physiology I and demonstrated competency through appropriate assessment or earning a grade of "C" or better in MAT 050, Basic Algebra

Continues the study of the inter-relationships of the systems of the human body. Introduces students to the study of the endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, urinary and reproductive systems.

ANP 201 - Advanced Physiology (4 Cr.) 

Prerequisites: Successful completion of ANP 101, Anatomy and Physiology I and ANP 102, Anatomy and Physiology II, or equivalent

Provides a study of human physiology for students entering health-oriented fields. Emphasizes the study of the function of cells, the nervous, muscular, circulatory, respiratory, urinary, digestive and endocrine systems, and their homeostatic mechanisms and system interaction. Focuses laboratory exercises on clinically relevant measurement of human function.

ANP 203 - Human Anatomy & Physiology I (5 Cr.)

Prerequisites: Demonstrated competency through appropriate assessment or earning a grade of "C" or better in ENG 025, Introduction to College Writing II; ENG 032, Reading Strategies for College II; and MAT 044, Mathematics.

Provides a comprehensive study of the interrelationship between anatomy and physiology from chemical to cellular to organ interactions. Provides an in-depth study of each system of the body from a viewpoint of structure as well as function.

ANP 204 - Human Anatomy & Physiology II (5 Cr.)

Prerequisites: ANP 203, Human Anatomy and Physiology I and demonstrated competency through appropriate assessment or earning a grade of "C" or better in MAT 050, Basic Algebra.

Provides the remaining comprehensive study of the interrelationship between anatomy and physiology from chemical to cellular to organ interactions. Provides an in-depth study of each system of the body from a viewpoint of structure as well as function: endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, urinary, and reproductive systems





Associate of Science in Nursing


GENERAL EDUCATION -- 31 - 33 CREDITS 
    !*  ANP 101   Anatomy and Physiology I 3   
    !*  ANP 102   Anatomy and Physiology II 3   
    !*  ENG 111   English Composition  3   
     IVY 1XX   Life Skills Elective 1   
    !*  PSY 101   Introduction to Psychology 3   
    *  MAT 111   Intermediate Algebra  3   
     or     
    *  MAT 112   Functional Mathematics  3   
     or     
    *  MAT 117   The Art of Geometry 3   
     or     
    *  MAT 118   Concepts in Mathematics 3   
    *  PSY 201   Lifespan Development  3   
     or     
    *  PSY 205   Abnormal Psychology  3   
     or     
    *  SOC 111   Introduction to Sociology 3   
     or     
    *  SOC 164   Introduction to Multicultural Studies 3   
    *  COM 101   Fundamentals of Public Speaking 3   
     or     
    *  COM 102   Introduction to Interpersonal Communication 3   
    *  ENG 112   Exposition and Persuasion 3   
     or     
    *  ENG 211   Technical Writing  3   
 
Choose two of the following: 
    *  ANP 201   Advanced Human Physiology 4   
    *  BIO 211   General Microbiology I  3   
    *  CHM 101   Introductory Chemistry I  3   
    *  PHY 101   Physics I  4   
  
PROFESSIONAL / TECHNICAL CORE -- 38 CREDITS 
     NSG 100   Fundamentals of Nursing 3   
    X  NSG 101   Fundamentals of Nursing Lab 1   
     NSG 102   Medical-Surgical Nursing I 2   
     NSG 103   Medical-Surgical Nursing I Lab 2   
     NSG 105   Medical-Surgical Nursing I Clinical 2   
     NSG 106   Pharmacology for Nursing 3   
     NSG 110   Medical Surgical Nursing II 3   
     NSG 111   Medical Surgical Nursing II Clinical 2   
     NSG 112   Maternal-child Nursing  3   
     NSG 113   Maternal Child Nursing Clinical  2   
     NSG 114   Health Care Concepts in Nursing 1   
    ^  NSG 200   Complex Medical-Surgical Nursing for the ASN 3   
     NSG 201   Complex Medical Surgical Nursing for the ASN Clinical 4   
     NSG 202   Nursing Care of the Complex Family 2   
     NSG 203   Nursing Care of the Complex Family Clinical 2   
     NSG 204   Psychiatric Nursing  2   
     NSG 205   Psychiatric Nursing Clinical  1   
  

TOTAL CREDITS   69 - 71   
Finished, Return to Index  

Symbol Key 
* Student Elective 
^ Capstone Course 
X Advanced placement may be available for Certified Nursing Assistant - see program chair 
!* Courses must be successfully completed before admittance to the program 
   Academic Year: 2007 - 2008

  View Past Versions 
2004 - 20052005 - 20062006 - 20072007 - 2008  
 
   
 
 
  
Ivy Tech Community College -- Curricula of Record

http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html

STEAL THIS BOOK
By Abbie Hoffman

Dedicated to Jerry Lefcourt, Lawyer and Brother

Library of Congress number 72-157115 (stolen from Library of Congress)
copyright ©1971 PIRATE EDITIONS

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TABLE OF DISCONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
AIDING AND ABETTING
SURVIVE!
1. FREE FOOD
Restaurants
Food Programs
Supermarkets
Wholesale Markets
Food Conspiracies
Cheap Chow
2. FREE CLOTHING AND FURNITURE
Free Clothing
Sandals
Free Furniture
3. FREE TRANSPORTATION
Hitch-Hiking
Freighting
Cars
Buses
Airlines
In City Travel
4. FREE LAND
5. FREE HOUSING
Communes
Urban Living
Rural Living
List of Communes
6. FREE EDUCATION
List of Free Universities
7. FREE MEDICAL CARE
Birth Control Clinics
Abortions
Diseases Treated Free
8. FREE COMMUNICATION
Press Conference
Wall Painting
Use of the Flag
Radio
Free Telephones
Pay Phones
9. FREE PLAY
Movies and Concerts
Records and Books
10. FREE MONEY
Welfare
Unemployment
Panhandling
Rip-Offs
The International Yippie Currency Exchange
11. FREE DOPE
Buying, Selling and Giving It Away
Growing Your Own
12. ASSORTED FREEBIES
Laundry
Pets
Posters
Security
Postage
Maps
Ministry
Attrocities
Veteran's Benefits
Watch
Vacations
Drinks
Burials
Astrodome Pictures
Diploma
Toilets
FIGHT!
1. TELL IT ALL, BROTHERS AND SISTERS
Starting a Printing Workshop
Underground Newspapers
High School Papers
G.I. Papers
News Services
The Underground Press
Switchboards
2. GUERRILLA BROADCASTING
Guerrilla Radio
Guerrilla Television
3. DEMONSTRATIONS
Dress
Helmets
Gas Masks
Walkie-Talkies
Other Equipment
4. TRASHING
Weapons for Street Fighting
Knife Fighting
Unarmed Defense
General Strategy Rep
5. PEOPLE'S CHEMISTRY
Stink Bomb
Smoke Bomb
CBW
Molotov Cocktail
Sterno Bomb
Aerosol Bomb
Pipe Bombs
General Bomb Strategy
6. FIRST AID FOR STREET FIGHTERS
What to Do
Medical Committees
7. HIP-POCKET LAW
Legal Advice
Lawyer's Group
Join the Army of Your Choice
Canada, Sweden & Political Asylum
8. STEAL NOW, PAY NEVER
Shoplifting
Techniques
On the Job
Credit Cards
9. MONKEY WELFARE
10. PIECE NOW
Handguns
Rifles
Shotguns
Other Weapons
Training
Gun Laws
11. THE UNDERGROUND
Identification Papers
Communication
LIBERATE!
1. FUCK NEW YORK
2. FUCK CHICAGO
3. FUCK LOS ANGELES
4. FUCK SAN FRANCISCO

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INTRODUCTION
It's perhaps fitting that I write this introduction in jail- that graduate school of survival. Here you learn how to use toothpaste as glue, fashion a shiv out of a spoon and build intricate communication networks. Here too, you learn the only rehabilitation possible-hatred of oppression.

Steal This Book is, in a way, a manual of survival in the prison that is Amerika. It preaches jailbreak. It shows you where exactly how to place the dynamite that will destroy the walls. The first section-SURVIVE!-lays out a potential action program for our new Nation. The chapter headings spell out the demands for a free society. A community where the technology produces goods and services for whoever needs them, come who may. It calls on the Robin Hoods of Santa Barbara Forest to steal from the robber barons who own the castles of capitalism. It implies that the reader already is "ideologically set," in that he understands corporate feudalism as the only robbery worthy of being called "crime," for it is committed against the people as a whole. Whether the ways it describes to rip-off shit are legal or illegal is irrelevant. The dictionary of law is written by the bosses of order. Our moral dictionary says no heisting from each other. To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.

Community within our Nation, chaos in theirs; that is the message of SURVIVE!

We cannot survive without learning to fight and that is the lesson in the second section. FIGHT! separates revolutionaries from outlaws. The purpose of part two is not to fuck the system, but destroy it. The weapons are carefully chosen. They are "home-made," in that they are designed for use in our unique electronic jungle. Here the uptown reviewer will find ample proof of our "violent" nature. But again, the dictionary of law fails us. Murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime. False advertisements win awards, forgers end up in jail. Inflated prices guarantee large profits while shoplifters are punished. Politicians conspire to create police riots and the victims are convicted in the courts. Students are gunned down and then indicted by suburban grand juries as the trouble-makers. A modern, highly mechanized army travels 9,000 miles to commit genocide against a small nation of great vision and then accuses its people of aggression. Slumlords allow rats to maim children and then complain of violence in the streets. Everything is topsy-turvy. If we internalize the language and imagery of the pigs, we will forever be fucked. Let me illustrate the point. Amerika was built on the slaughter of a people. That is its history. For years we watched movie after movie that demonstrated the white man's benevolence. Jimmy Stewart, the epitome of fairness, puts his arm around Cochise and tells how the Indians and the whites can live in peace if only both sides will be reasonable, responsible and rational (the three R's imperialists always teach the "natives"). "You will find good grazing land on the other side of the mountain," drawls the public relations man. "Take your people and go in peace." Cochise as well as millions of youngsters in the balcony of learning, were being dealt off the bottom of the deck. The Indians should have offed Jimmy Stewart in every picture and we should have cheered ourselves hoarse. Until we understand the nature of institutional violence and how it manipulates values and mores to maintain the power of the few, we will forever be imprisoned in the caves of ignorance. When we conclude that bank robbers rather than bankers should be the trustees of the universities, then we begin to think clearly. When we see the Army Mathematics Research and Development Center and the Bank of Amerika as cesspools of violence, filling the minds of our young with hatred, turning one against another, then we begin to think revolutionary.

Be clever using section two; clever as a snake. Dig the spirit of the struggle. Don't get hung up on a sacrifice trip. Revolution is not about suicide, it is about life. With your fingers probe the holiness of your body and see that it was meant to live. Your body is just one in a mass of cuddly humanity. Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines, and in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them. The duty of a revolutionary is to make love and that means staying alive and free. That doesn't allow for cop-outs. Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps. A revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution in the distribution of power. We are not interested in the greening of Amerika except for the grass that will cover its grave.

Section three - LIBERATE! - concerns itself with efforts to free stuff (or at least make it cheap) in four cities. Sort of a quick U.S. on no dollars a day. It begins to scratch the potential for a national effort in this area. Since we are a nation of gypsies, dope on how to move around and dig in anywhere is always needed. Together we can expand this section. It is far from complete, as is the entire project. Incomplete chapters on how to identify police agents, steal a car, run day-care centers, conduct your own trial, organize a G.I. coffee house, start a rock and roll band and make neat clothes, are scattered all over the floor of the cell. The book as it now stands was completed in the late summer of 1970. For three months manuscripts made the rounds of every major publisher. In all, over 30 rejections occurred before the decision to publish the book ourselves was made, or rather made for us. Perhaps no other book in modern times presented such a dilemma. Everyone agreed the book would be a commercial success. But even greed had its limits, and the IRS and FBI following the manuscript with their little jive rap had a telling effect. Thirty "yeses" become thirty "noes" after "thinking it over." Liberals, who supposedly led the fight against censorship, talked of how the book "will end free speech."

Finally the day we were bringing the proofs to the printer, Grove consented to act as distributor. To pull a total solo trip, including distribution, would have been neat, but such an effort would be doomed from the start. We had tried it before and blew it. In fact, if anyone is interested in 4,000 1969 Yippie calendars, they've got a deal. Even with a distributor joining the fight, the battle will only begin when the books come off the press. There is a saying that "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one." In past eras, this was probably the case, but now, high speed methods of typesetting, offset printing and a host of other developments have made substantial reductions in printing costs. Literally anyone is free to print their own works. In even the most repressive society imaginable, you can get away with some form of private publishing. Because Amerika allows this, does not make it the democracy Jefferson envisioned. Repressive tolerance is a real phenomenon. To talk of true freedom of the press, we must talk of the availability of the channels of communication that are designed to reach the entire population, or at least that segment of the population that might participate in such a dialogue. Freedom of the press belongs to those that own the distribution system. Perhaps that has always been the case, but in a mass society where nearly everyone is instantaneously plugged into a variety of national communications systems, wide-spread dissemination of the information is the crux of the matter. To make the claim that the right to print your own book means freedom of the press is to completely misunderstand the nature of a mass society. It is like making the claim that anyone with a pushcart can challenge Safeway supermarkets, or that any child can grow up to be president.

State legislators, librarians, PTA members, FBI agents, church-goers, and parents: a veritable legion of decency and order already is on the march. To get the book to you might be the biggest challenge we face. The next few months should prove really exciting.

Obviously such a project as Steal This Book could not have been carried out alone. Izak Haber shared the vision from the beginning. He did months of valuable research and contributed many of the survival techniques. Carole Ramer and Gus Reichbach of the New York Law Commune guided the book through its many stages. Anna Kaufman Moon did almost all the photographs. The cartoonists who have made contributions include Ski Williamson and Gilbert Sheldon. Tom Forcade, of the UPS, patiently did the editing. Bert Cohen of Concert Hall did the book's graphic design. Amber and John Wilcox set the type. Anita Hoffman and Lynn Borman helped me rewrite a number of sections. There are others who participated in the testing of many of the techniques demonstrated in the following pages and for obvious reasons have to remain anonymous. There were perhaps over 50 brothers and sisters who played particularly vital roles in the grand conspiracy. Some of the many others are listed on the following page. We hope to keep the information up to date. If you have comments, law suits, suggestions or death threats, please send them to: Dear Abbie P.0. Box 213, Cooper Station, New York, NY 10003. Many of the tips might not work in your area, some might be obsolete by the time you get to try them out, and many addresses and phone numbers might be changed. If the reader becomes a participating researcher then we will have achieved our purpose.

Watch for a special edition called Steal This White House, complete with blueprints of underground passages, methods of jamming the communications network and a detailed map of the celebrated room where according to Tricia Nixon, "Daddy loves to listen to Mantovanni records, turn up the air conditioner full blast, sit by the fireplace, gaze out the window to the Washington Monument and meditate on those difficult problems that face all the peoples of this world."

December, 1970
Cook County Jail
Chicago

"FREE SPEECH IS THE RIGHT TO SHOUT

'THEATER' IN A CROWDED FIRE."

- A YIPPIE PROVERB

AIDING AND ABETTING
Tim Leary, Tom, Geronimo, Pearl Paperhanger, Sonny, Pat Solomon, Allan Katzman, Jacob Kohn, Nguyen Van Troi, Susan, Marty, Andy, Ami, Marshall Bloom, Viva, Ben, Oanh, Robin Palmer, Mom and Dad, Janie Fonda, Jerry, Denis, LNS, Bernadine Dohrn, a wall in Harvard Square, Nancy, an anonymous stewardess, Shirley Wonderful, Roz, Gumbo, Janis, Jimi, Dylan Liberation Front, Jeannie, God Slick, John, David, Rusty, Barney, Richard, Denny, Ron Cobb, the entire Viet Cong, Sam Shephard, Ma Bell, Eric, David, Joe, Kim Agnew, the Partridge Family, Carol, Alan Ginsburg, Woman's Lib, Julius Lester, Lenny Bruce, Hack, Billy, Paul, Willy, Colleen, Sid, Johnny Appleseed, the Rat, Craig, Che, Willie Sutton, Wanda, EVO, Jeff, Crazy Horse, Huey, Casey, Bobby, Alice, Mao, Rip, Ed, Bob, Gay Liberation Front, WPAX, Frank Dudock, Manny, Mungo, Lottie, Rosemary, Marshall, Rennie, Judy, Jennifer, Mr. Martin, Keith, Madame Binh, Mike, Eleanor, Dr. Spock, Afeni, Candice, the Tupamaros, Berkeley Tribe, Gilbert Sheldon, Stanley Kubrick, Sam, Anna, Skip Williamson, UPS, Andy Stapp, the Yippies, Richard Brautigan, Jano, Carlos Marighella, the Weathermen, Julius Jennings Hoffman, Quentin, the inmates of TIER A-l Cook County Jail, Houdini, 37, Rosa Luxemberg, the Kent 25, the Chicago 15, the New York 21, the Motor City 3, the Indianapolis 500, Jack, Joan, Malcolm X, Mayakovsky, Dotson, R. Crumb, Daniel Clyne, Justin, The FBI Top 10 (now 16), Unis, Dana, Jim Morrison, Brian, John, Gus, Ruth, Nancy Unger, Pun, Jomo, Peter, Mark Rudd, Billy Kunstler, Genie, Ken, the Law Commune, Paula, Robby, Terry, Dianna, Angela, Ted, Phil, Jefferson Airplane, Len, Tricky Prickers, the Berrigans, Stu, Rayanne, J.B., Jonathan Jackson, the Armstrong Brothers, Homer, Sharon, Fred Hampton, Jean Jacques Lebel, A. H. Maslow, Hanoi Rose, Sylvia, Fellini, Amaru, Ann Fettamen, Artaud, Bert, Merrill, Lynne, and last but not least to Spiro what's his name who provided the incentive.

SURVIVE!
FREE FOOD
RESTAURANTS
In a country such as Amerika, there is bound to be a hell-of-a-lot food lying around just waiting to be ripped off. If you want to live high off the hog without having to do the dishes, restaurants are easy pickings. In general, many of these targets are easier marks if you are wearing the correct uniform. You should always have one suit or fashionable dress outfit hanging in the closet for the proper heists. Specialized uniforms, such as nun and priest garb, can be most helpful. Check out your local uniform store for a wide range of clothes that will get you in, and especially out, of all kinds of stores. Every movement organization should have a prop and costume department.

In every major city there are usually bars that cater to the New Generation type riff-raff, trying to hustle their way up the escalator of Big Business. Many of these bars have a buffet or hors-d'oeuvres served free as a come-on to drink more mindless booze. Take a half-empty glass from a table and use it as a prop to ward off the anxious waitress. Walk around sampling the free food until you've had enough. Often, there are five or six such bars in close proximity, so moving around can produce a delightful "street smorgasbord." Dinner usually begins at 5:00 PM.

If you are really hungry, you can go into a self-service cafeteria and finish the meal of someone who left a lot on the plate. Self-service restaurants are usually good places to cop things like mustard, ketchup, salt, sugar, toilet paper, silverware and cups for home use. Bring an empty school bag and load up after you've cased the joint. Also, if you can stomach the food, you can use slugs at the automat. Finishing leftovers can be worked in even the fanciest of restaurants. When you are seated at a place where the dishes still remain, chow-down real quick. Then after the waitress hands you the menu, say you have to meet someone outside first, and leave.

There are still some places where you can get all you can eat for a fixed price. The best of these places are in Las Vegas. Sew a plastic bag onto your tee-shirt or belt and wear a loose-fitting jacket or coat to cover any noticeable bulge. Fried chicken is the best and the easiest to pocket, or should we say bag. Another trick is to pour your second free cup of hot coffee into the plastic bag sewed inside your pocket and take it with you.

At large take-out stands you can say you or your brother just picked up an order of fifteen hamburgers or a bucket of chicken, and got shorted. We have never seen or heard of anybody getting turned down using this method. If you want to get into a grand food heist from take-out stands, you can work the following nervy bit: from a pay phone, place an order from a large delivery restaurant. Have the order sent to a nearby apartment house. Wait a few minutes in the booth after you've hung up, as they sometimes call back to confirm the order. When the delivery man goes into the apartment house to deliver the order, you can swipe the remaining orders that are still in his truck.

In fancy sit-down restaurants, you can order a large meal and halfway through the main course, take a little dead cockroach or a piece of glass out of your pocket and place it deftly on the plate. Jump up astonished and summon the headwaiter. "Never have I been so insulted. I could have been poisoned" you scream slapping down the napkin. You can refuse to pay and leave, or let the waiter talk you into having a brand new meal on the house for this terrible inconvenience.

In restaurants where you pay at the door just before leaving, there are a number of free-loading tricks that can be utilized. After you've eaten a full meal and gotten the check, go into the restroom. When you come out go to the counter or another section of the restaurant and order coffee and pie. Now you have two bills. Simply pay the cheaper one when you leave the place. This can be worked with a friend in the following way. Sit next to each other at the counter. He should order a big meal and you a cup of coffee. Pretend you don't know each other. When he leaves, he takes your check and leaves the one for the large meal on the counter. After he has paid the cashier and left the restaurant, you pick up the large check, and then go into the astonishment routine, complaining that somebody took the wrong check. You end up only paying for your coffee. Later, meet your partner and reverse the roles in another place.

In all these methods, you should leave a good tip for the waiter or waitress, especially with the roach-in-the-plate gambit. You should try to avoid getting the employees in trouble or screwing them out of a tip.

One fantastic method of not only getting free food but getting the best available is the following technique that can be used in metropolitan areas. Look in a large magazine shop for gourmet digests and tourist manuals. Swipe one or two and copy down a good name from the masthead inside the cover. Making up a name can also work. Next invest $5.00 to print business cards with the name of the magazine and the new "associate editor." Call or simply drop into a fancy restaurant, show a copy of the magazine and present the manager with your card. They will insist that the meal be on the house.

Great places to get fantastic meals are weddings, bar-mitzvahs, testimonials and the like. The newspaper society sections have lists of weddings and locations. If your city has a large Jewish population, subscribe to the newspaper that services the Jewish community. There are extensive lists in these papers of family occasions where tons of good food is served. Show up at the back of the synagogue a few hours after the affair has begun with a story of how you'd like to bring some leftovers of "good Jewish food" back to your fraternity or sorority. If you want to get the food served to you out front, you naturally have to disguise yourself to look straight. Remarks such as, "I'm Marvin's cousin," or learning the bride's name, "Gee, Dorothy looks marvelous" are great. Lines like "Betty doesn't look pregnant" are frowned upon. A man and woman team can work this free-load much better than a single person as they can chatter back and forth while stuffing themselves.

If you're really into a classy free meal, and you are in a city with a large harbor, check out the passenger ship section in the back pages of the newspaper. There you find the schedule of departures for ocean cruises. Most trips (these kind, anyway) begin with a fantastic bon voyage party on board ship. Just walk on a few hours before departure time and start swinging. Champagne, caviar, lobster, shrimp and more, all as free as the open seas. If you get really bombed and miss getting off, you can also wiggle a ride across the ocean. You get sent back as soon as you hit the other side, but it's a free ocean cruise. You should have a pretty good story ready to go, or you might end up rowing in the galley.

Another possibility for getting a free meal is to go down to the docks and get friendly with a sailor. He can often invite you for dinner on board ship. Foreign sailors are more than glad to meet friends and you can get great foreign dinners this way.

FOOD PROGRAMS
In Amerika, there is a national food stamp program that unfortunately is controlled by the states. Many states, for racist reasons, do not want to make it too available or to publicize the fact that it even exists. It is a much better deal than the food program connected with welfare, because you can use the stamps to buy any kind of food. The only items excluded are tobacco products and alcoholic beverages. In general, you can qualify if you earn less than $165 per month; the less you earn, the more stamps you can receive. There is minimal hassle involved once you get by the first hurdle. Show up at your local food stamp office, which can be found by calling the Welfare Department in our city. Make an appointment to see a representative for your area. They will tell you to bring all sorts of receipts, but the only thing you need are a few rent stubs for the most recent months. An array of various receipt books is a nice supplement to one's prop room. If the receipts are for a high rent, tell them you rent a room from a group of people and eat separately. They really only want to prove that you have cooking facilities. Once you get the stamps, you can pick them up regularly. Some states even mail them to your pad. You can get up to a hundred dollars worth of free purchases a month per person in the most liberal states.

Large amounts of highly nutritional food can be gotten for as little as three cents per meal from a non-profit organization called Multi-Purpose Food for Millions Foundation, Inc., 1800 Olympic Ave., Santa Monica, California. Write and they will send you details.

SUPERMARKETS
Talking about food in Amerika means talking about supermarkets-mammoth neon lighted streets of food packaged to hoodwink the consumers. Many a Yippie can be found in the aisles, stuffing his pockets with assorted delicacies. We have been shoplifting from supermarkets on a regular basis without raising the slightest suspicion, ever since they began.

We are not alone, and the fact that so much stealing goes on and the supermarkets still bring in huge profits shows exactly how much overcharging has occurred in the first place. Supermarkets, like other businesses, refer to shoplifting as "inventory shrinkage." It's as if we thieves were helping Big Business reduce weight. So let's view our efforts as methods designed to trim the economy and push forward with a positive attitude.

Women should never go shopping without a large handbag. In those crowded aisles, especially the ones with piles of cases, all sorts of goodies can be transferred from shopping cart to handbag. A drop bag can be sewn inside a trench coat, for more efficient thievery. Don't worry about the mirrors; attendants never look at them. Become a discriminating shopper and don't stuff any of the cheap shit in your pockets.

Small bottles and jars often have the same size cap as the larger expensive sizes. If they have the price stamped on the cap, switch caps, getting the larger size for the cheaper price. You can empty a pound box of margarine and fill it with sticks of butter. Small narrow items can be hidden in the middle of rolls of toilet paper. Larger supermarkets sell records. You can sneak two good LP's into one of those large frozen pizza boxes. In the produce department, there are bags for fruit and vegetables. Slip a few steaks or some lamb chops into the bottom of a large brown bag and pile some potatoes on top. Have a little man in the white coat weigh the bag, staple it and mark the price. With a black crayon you can mark your own prices, or bring your own adhesive price tags.

It's best to work shoplifting in the supermarket with a partner who can act as look-out and shield you from the eyes of nosy employees, shoppers and other crooks trying to pick up some pointers. Work out a prearranged set of signals with your partner. Diversions, like knocking over displays, getting into fist fights with the manager, breaking plate glass windows and such are effective and even if you don't get anything they're fun. Haven't you always wanted to knock over those carefully constructed nine-foot pyramids of garbage?

You can walk into a supermarket, get a few items from the shelves, and walk around eating food in the aisles. Pick up some cherries and eat them. Have a spoon in your pocket and open some yogurt. Open a pickle or olive jar. Get some sliced meat or cheese from the delicatessen counter and eat it up, making sure to ditch the wrapper. The cart full of items, used as a decoy, can just be left in an aisle before you leave the store.

Case the joint before pulling a big rip-off. Know the least crowded hours, learn the best aisles to be busy in, and check out the store's security system. Once you get into shoplifting in supermarkets, you'll really dig it. You'll be surprised to learn that the food tastes better.

Large scale thievery can best be carried out with the help of an employee. Two ways we know of work best. A woman can get a job as a cashier and ring up a small bill as her brothers and sisters bring home tons of stuff.

The method for men involves getting a job loading and unloading trucks in the receiving department. Some accomplices dressed right can just pull in and, with your help, load up on a few cases. Infiltrating an employee into a store is probably the best way to steal. Cashiers, sales clerks, shippers, and the like are readily available jobs with such high turnover and low pay that little checking on your background goes on. Also, you can learn what you have to do in a few days. The rest of the week, you can work out ways to clean out the store. After a month or so of action you might want to move on to another store before things get heavy. We know one woman working as a cashier who swiped over $500 worth of food a week. She had to leave after a month because her boss thought she was such an efficient cashier that he insisted on promoting her to a job that didn't have as many fringe benefits for her and her friends.

Large chain stores like Safeway throw away day-old vegetables, the outer leaves of lettuce, celery and the like. This stuff is usually found in crates outside the back of the building. Tell them you're working with animals at the college labs, or that you raise guinea pigs. They might even get into saving them for you, but if they don't just show up before the garbage is collected, (generally early in the morning), and they'll let you cart away what you want.

Dented cans and fruit can often be gotten free, but certainly at a reduced rate. They are still as good as the undamaged ones. So be sure to dent all your cans before you go to the cashier.

Look up catering services and businesses that service factories and office buildings with ready-made sandwiches. Showing up at these places at the right times (catering services on late Sunday night and sandwich dealers at 5:00 PM on weekdays) will produce loads of good food. Legally, they have to dispose of the food that's left over. They would be more than happy to give it to you if you spin a good story.

Butchers can be hustled for meat scraps with meat scraps with a "for my dog" story, and bakeries can be asked for day-old rolls and bread.

WHOLESALE MARKETS
Large cities all have a wholesale fruit and vegetable area where often the workers will give you tons of free food just for the asking. Get a good story together. Get some church stationery and type a letter introducing yourself "to whom it may concern," or better still, wear some clerical garb. Orchards also make good pickings just after the harvest has been completed.

Factories often will give you a case or two of free merchandise for a "charitable" reason. Make some calls around town and then go pick up the stuff at the end of the week. A great idea is to get a good list of a few hundred large corporations around the country by looking up their addresses at the library. Poor's Register of Companies, Directors and Executives has the most complete list. Send them all letters complaining about how the last box of cereal was only half full, or you found a dead fly in the can of peaches. They often will send you an ample supply of items just to keep you from complaining to your friends or worse, taking them to court. Often you can get stuff sent to you by just telling them how good their product is compared to the trash you see nowadays. You know the type of letter - "Rice Krispies have had a fantastic effect on my sexual prowess," or "Your frozen asparagus has given a whole new meaning to my life." In general though, the nasties get the best results.

Slaughterhouses usually have meat they will give away. They are anxious to give to church children's programs and things like that. In most states, there is a law that if the slab of meat touches the ground, they have to throw it away. Drop around meat houses late in the day and trip a few trucks.

Fishermen always have hundreds of pounds of fish that have to be thrown out. You can have as much as you can cart away, generally just for the asking. Boats come in late in the afternoon and they'll give you some of the catch, or you can go to the markets early in the morning when the fishing is best.

These methods of getting food in large quantities can only be appreciated by those who have tried it. You will be totally baffled by the unbelievable quantities of food that will be laid on you and with the ease of panhandling.

Investing in a freezer will allow you to bi-weekly or even monthly trips to the wholesale markets and you'll get the freshest foods to boot. Nothing can beat getting it wholesale for free. Or is it free for wholesale? In any event, "bon appetit."

FOOD CONSPIRACIES
Forming a food cooperative is one of the best ways to promote solidarity and get every kind of food you need to survive real cheap. It also provides a ready-made bridge for developing alliances with blacks, Puerto Ricans, chicanos and other groups fighting our common oppressor on a community level.

Call a meeting of about 20 communes, collectives or community organizations. Set up the ground rules. There should be a hard-core of really good hustlers that serve as the shopping or hunting party and another group of people who have their heads together enough to keep records and run the central distribution center. Two or three in each group should do it. They can get their food free for the effort. Another method is to rotate the activity among all members of the conspiracy. The method you choose depends upon your politics and whether you favor a division of labor or using the food conspiracy as a training for collective living. Probably a blend of the two is best, but you'll have to hassle that out for yourself. The next thing to agree upon is how the operation and all the shit you get will be paid for. This is dependent on a number of variables, so we'll map out one scheme and you can modify it to suit your particular situation. Each member of every commune could be assessed a fee for joining. You want to get together about $2,000, so at 200 members, this is ten bucks a piece. After the joining fee, each person or group has to pay only for the low budget food they order, but some loot is needed to get things rolling. The money goes to getting a store front or garage, a cheap truck, some scales, freezers, bags, shelving, chopping blocks, slicer and whatever else you need. You can get great deals by looking in the classified ads of the local overground newspaper and checking for restaurants or markets going out of business. Remember the idea of a conspiracy is to get tons of stuff at real low prices or free into a store front, and then break it down into smaller units for each group and eventually each member. The freezers allow you to store perishables for a longer time.

The hunting party should be well acquainted with how to rip off shit totally free and where all the best deals are to be found. They should know what food is seasonal and about nutritional diets. There is a lot to learn, such as where to get raw grains in 100 pounds lots and how to cut up a side of beef. A good idea is to get a diet freak to give weekly talks in the store front. There can also be cooking lessons taught, especially to men, so women can get out of the kitchen.

Organizing a community around a basic issue of survival, such as food, makes a lot of nitty gritty sense. After your conspiracy gets off the ground and looks permanent, you should seek to expand it to include more members and an emergency food fund should be set up in case something happens in the community. There should also be a fund whereby the conspiracy can sponsor free community dinners tied into celebrations. Get it together and join the fight for a world-wide food conspiracy. Seize the steak!

CHEAP CHOW
There are hundreds of good paperback cook books with nutritional cheap recipes available in any bookstore. Cooking is a vastly overrated skill. The following are a few all-purpose dishes that are easy to make, nutritional and cheap as mud pies. You can add or subtract many of the ingredients for variety.

Hog Farm Granola Breakfast (Road Hog Crispies)

½ c millet 2 c raw oats

½ c cracked wheat 1 c rye flakes

½ c buckwheat groats 1 c wheat flakes

½ c wheat germ 1 c dried fruits and/or nuts

½ c sunflower seeds 3 tbs soy oil

¼ c sesame seeds 1 c honey

2 tbs cornmeal

Boil the millet in a double boiler for 1/2 hour. Mix in a large bowl all the ingredients including the millet. The soy oil and honey should be heated in a saucepan over a low flame until bubbles form. Spread the cereal in a baking pan and cover with the honey syrup. Toast in oven until brown. Stir once or twice so that all the cereal will be toasted. Serve plain or with milk. Refrigerate portion not used in a covered container. Enough for ten to twenty people. Make lots and store for later meals. All these ingredients can be purchased at any health store in a variety of quantities. You can also get natural sugar if you need a sweetener. If bought and made in quantity, this fantastically healthy breakfast food will be cheaper than the brand name cellophane that passes for cereal.

Whole Earth Bread

1 c oats, corn meal, or wheat germ 2 tsp salt

1½ c water (warm) 2 egg yolks

¼ c sugar (raw is best) 4 c flour

1 pkg active dry yeast _ c corn oil

1 c dry milk or butter

Stir lightly in a large bowl the oats, cornmeal or wheat germ (depending on the flavor bread you desire), the water and sugar. Sprinkle in the yeast and wait 10 minutes for the yeast to do its thing. Add salt, egg yolks, corn oil and dry milk. Mix with a fork. Blend in the flour. The dough should be dry and a little lumpy. Cover with a towel and leave in a warm place for a half hour. Now mash, punch, blend and kick the dough and return it covered to its warm place. The dough will double in size. When this happens, separate the dough into two even masses and mash each one into a greased bread (loaf) pan. Cover the pans and let sit until the dough rises to the top of the pans. Bake for 40-45 minutes in a 350 degree oven that has not been pre-heated. A shallow tray of water in the bottom of the oven will keep the bread nice and moist. When you remove the pans from the oven, turn out the bread into a rack and let it cool off. Once you get the hang of it, you'll never touch ready-made bread, and it's a gas seeing yeast work.

Street Salad
Salad can be made by chopping up almost any variety of vegetables, nuts and fruits including the stuff you panhandled at the back of supermarkets; dandelions, shav, and other wild vegetables; and goods you ripped off inside stores or from large farms. A neat fresh dressing consists of one part of oil, two parts wine vinegar, finely chopped garlic cloves, salt and pepper. Mix up the ingredients in a bottle and add to the salad as you serve it. Russian dressing is simply mayonnaise and ketchup mixed.

Yippie Yogurt
Yogurt is one of the most nutritional foods in the world. The stuff you buy in stores has preservatives added to it reducing its health properties and increasing the cost. Yogurt is a bacteria that spreads throughout a suitable culture at the correct temperature. Begin by going to a Turkish or Syrian restaurant and buying some yogurt to go. Some restaurants boast of yogurt that goes back over a hundred years. Put it in the refrigerator.

Now prepare the culture in which the yogurt will multiply. The consistency you want will determine what you use. A milk culture will produce thin yogurt, while sweet cream will make a thicker batch. It's the butter fat content that determines the consistency and also the number of calories. Half milk and half cream combines the best of both worlds. Heat a quart of half and half on a low flame until just before the boiling point and remove from the stove. This knocks out other bacteria that will compete with the yogurt. Now take a tablespoon of the yogurt you got from the restaurant and place it in the bottom of a bowl (not metal). Now add the warm liquid. Cover the bowl with a lid and wrap tightly with a heavy towel. Place the bowl in a warm spot such as on top of a radiator or in a sunny window. A turned-off oven with a tray of boiling water placed in it will do well. Just let the bowl sit for about 8 hours (overnight). The yogurt simply grows until the whole bowl is yogurt. Yippie! It will keep in the refrigerator for about two weeks before turning sour, but even then, the bacteria will produce a fresh batch of top quality. Remember when eating it to leave a little to start the next batch. For a neat treat add some honey and cinnamon and mix into the yogurt before serving. Chopped fruit and nuts are also good.

Rice and Cong Sauce

1 c brown rice vegetables

2 c water 2½ tbs soy sauce

tsp salt

Bring the water to a boil in a pot and add the salt and rice. Cover and reduce flame. Cooking time is about 40 minutes or until rice has absorbed all the water. Meanwhile, in a well-greased frying pan, saute a variety of chopped vegetables you enjoy. When they become soft and brownish, add salt and 2 cups of water. Cover with a lid and lower flame. Simmer for about 40 minutes, peeking to stir every once in a while. Then add 2 1/2 tbs of soy sauce, stir and cook another 10 minutes. The rice should be just cooling off now, so add the sauce to the top of it and serve. Great for those long guerrilla hikes. This literally makes up almost the entire diet of the National Liberation Front fighter.

Weatherbeans

1 lb red kidney beans 2 tbs parsley (chopped)

2 quarts water ½ lb pork, smoked sausage

1 onion (chopped) or ham hock

1 tbs celery (chopped) 1 lg bay leaf

1 tsp garlic (minced) salt to season

Rinse the beans, then place in covered pot and add water and salt. Cook over low flame. While cooking, chop up meat and brown in a frying pan. Add onion, celery, garlic and parsley and continue sauteing over low flame. Add the pieces of meat, vegetables and bay leaf to the beans and cook covered for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. It may be necessary to add more water if the beans get too dry. Fifteen minutes before beans are done, mash about a half cup of the stuff against the side of the pan to thicken the liquid. Pour the beans and liquid over some steaming rice that you've made by following the directions above. This should provide a cheap nutritional meal for about 6 people.

Hedonist's Deluxe

2 lobsters 2 qts water

seaweed ¼ lb butter

Steal two lobsters, watching out for the claw thingies. Beg some seaweed from any fish market. Cop the butter using the switcheroo method described in the Supermarket section above. When you get home, boil the water in a large covered pot and drop in the seaweed and then the lobsters. Put the cover back on and cook for about 20 minutes. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and dip the lobster pieces in it as you eat. With a booster box, described later you'll be able to rip off a bottle of vintage Pouilly-Fuisse in a fancy liquor store. Really, rice is nice but...

FREE CLOTHING & FURNITURE
FREE CLOTHING
If shoplifting food seems easy, it's nothing compared to the snatching of clothing. Shop only the better stores. Try thing on in those neat secluded stalls. The less bulky items such as shirts, vests, belts and socks can be tied around your waist or leg with large rubber bands if needed. Just take a number of items in and come out with a few less.

In some cities there are still free stores left over from the flower power days. Churches often have give-away clothing programs. You can impersonate a clergyman and call one of the large clothing manufacturers in your area. They are usually willing to donate a case or two of shirts, trousers or underwear to your church raffle or drive to dress up skid row. Be sure to get your sizes. Tell them "your boy" will pick up the blessed donation and you'll mention his company in the evening prayers.

If you notice people moving from an apartment or house, ask them if they'll be leaving behind clothing. They usually abandon all sorts of items including food, furniture and books. Offer to help them carry out stuff if you can keep what they won't be taking.

Make the rounds of a fancy neighborhood with a truck and some friends. Ring doorbells and tell the person who answers that you are collecting wearable clothing for the "poor homeless victims of the recent tidal wave in Quianto a small village in Saudi Arabia." You get the pitch. Make it food and clothing, and say you're with a group called Heartline for Decency. A phony letter from a church might help here.

The Salvation Army does this, and you can pick up clothes from them at very cheap prices. You can get a pair of snappy casual shoes for 25 cents in many bowling alleys by walking out with them on your feet. If you have to leave your shoes as a deposit, leave the most beat-up pair you can find.

Notice if your friends have lost or gained weight. A big change means a lot of clothes doing nothing but taking up closet space. Show up at dormitories when college is over for the summer or winter season. Go to the train or bus stations and tell them you left your raincoat, gloves or umbrella when you came into town. They'll take you to a room with thousands of unclaimed items. Pick out what you like. While there, notice a neat suitcase or trunk and memorize the markings. Later a friend can claim the item. There will be loads of surprises in any suitcase. We have a close friend who inherited ten kilos of grass this way.

Large laundry and dry cleaning chains usually have thousands of items that have gone unclaimed. Manufacturers also have shirts, dresses and suits for rockbottom prices because of a crooked seam or other fuck-up. Stores have reduced rates on display models: Mannequins are mostly all size 40 for men and 10 for women. Size 7 1/2 is the standard display size for men's shoes. If you are these sizes, you can get top styles for less than half price.

SANDALS
The Vietnamese and people throughout the Third World make a fantastically durable and comfortable pair of sandals out of rubber tires. They cut out a section of the outer tire (trace around the outside of the foot with a piece of chalk) which when trimmed forms the sole. Next 6 slits re made in the sole so the rubber straps can be criss-crossed and slid through the slits. The straps are made out of inner tubing. No nails are needed. If you have wide feet, use the new wide tread low profiles. For hard going, try radials. For best satisfaction and quality, steal the tires off a pig car or a government limousine.

Let's face it, if you really are into beating the clothing problem, move to a warm climate and run around naked. Skin is absolutely free, and will always be in style. Speaking of style, the midi and the maxi have obvious advantages when it comes to shoplifting and transporting weapons or bombs.

FREE FURNITURE
Apartment lobbies are good for all kinds of neat furniture. If you want to get fancy about it, rent a truck (not one that says U-HAUL-IT or other rental markings) and make the pick-up with moving-man-type uniforms. When schools are on strike and students hold seminars and debate into the night, Yippies can be found going through the dorm lobbies and storage closets hauling off couches, desks, printing supplies, typewriters, mimeos, etc. to store in secret underground nests. A nervy group of Yippies in the Midwest tried to swipe a giant IBM 360 computer while a school was in turmoil. All power to those that bring a wheelbarrow to sit-ins.

Check into a high-class hotel or motel remembering to dress like the wallpaper. Carry a large dummy suitcase with you and register under a phony name. Make sure you and not the bellboy carry this bag. Use others as a decoy. When you get inside the room, grab everything you can stuff in the suitcase: radio, T.V. sets (even if it has a special plug you can cut it with a knife and replace the cord), blankets, toilet paper, glasses, towels, sheets, lamps, (forget the imitation Winslow Homer on the wall) a Bible, soap and toss rugs. Before you leave (odd hours are best) hang the DO NOT DISTURB sign on your doorknob. This will give you an extra few hours to beat it across the border or check into a new hotel.

Landlords renovating buildings throw out stoves, tables, lamps, refrigerators and carpeting. In most cities, each area has a day designated for discarding bulk objects. Call the Sanitation Department and say you live in that part of town which would be putting out the most expensive shit and find out the pick-up day. Fantastic buys can be found cruising the streets late at night. Check out the backs of large department stores for floor models, window displays and slightly damaged furniture being discarded.

Construction sites are a good source for building materials to construct furniture. (Not to mention explosives.) The large wooden cable spools make great tables. Cinderblocks, bricks and boards can quickly be turned into a sharp looking bookcase. Doors make tables. Nail kegs convert into stools or chairs. You can also always find a number of other supplies hanging around like wiring, pipes, lighting fixtures and hard hats. And don't forget those blinking signs and the red lanterns for your own light show. Those black oil-fed burners are O.K. for cooking, although smoky, and highway flares are swell for making fake dynamite bombs.

FREE TRANSPORTATION
HITCH-HIKING
Certainly one of the neatest ways of getting where you want to go for nothing is to hitch. In the city it's a real snap. Just position yourself at a busy intersection and ask the drivers for a lift when they stop for the red light. If you're hitching on a road where the traffic zooms by pretty fast, be sure to stand where the car will have room to safely pull off the road. Traveling long distances, even cross-country, can be easy if you have some sense of what you are doing.

A lone hitch-hiker will do much better than two or more. A man and woman will do very well together. Single women are certain to get propositioned and possibly worse. Amerikan males have endless sexual fantasies about picking up a poor lonesome damsel in distress. Unless your karate and head are in top form, women should avoid hitching alone. Telling men you have V.D. might help in difficult situations.

New England and the entire West Coast are the best sections for easy hitches. The South and Midwest can sometimes be a real hassle. Easy Rider and all that. The best season to hitch is in the summer. Daytime is much better than night. If you have to hitch at night, get under some type of illumination where you'll be seen.

Hitch-hiking is legal in most states, but remember you always can get a "say-so" bust. A "say-so" arrest is to police what Catch-22 is to the Army. When you ask why you're under arrest, the pig answers, "cause I say-so." If you stand on the shoulder of the road, the pigs won't give you too bad a time. If you've got long hair, cops will often stop to play games. You can wear a hat with your hair tucked under to avoid hassles. However this might hurt your ability to get rides, since many straights will pick up hippies out of curiosity who would not pick up a straight scruffy looking kid. Freak drivers usually only pick up other freaks.

Once in a while you hear stories of fines levied or even a few arrests for hitching (Flagstaff, Arizona is notorious), but even in the states where it is illegal, the law is rarely enforced. If you're stopped by the pigs, play dumb and they'll just tell you to move along. You can wait until they leave and then let your thumb hang out again.

Hitchin on super highways is really far out. It's illegal but you won't get hassled if you hitch at the entrances. On a fucked-up exit, take your chances hitching right on the road, but keep a sharp eye out for porkers. When you get a ride be discriminating. Find out where the driver is headed. If you are at a good spot, don't take a ride under a hundred miles that won't end up in a location just as good. When the driver is headed to an out-of-the-way place, ask him to let you off where you can get the best rides. If he's going to a particularly small town, ask him to drive you to the other side of thy town line. It's usually only a mile or two. Small towns often enforce all sorts of "say-so" ordinances. If you get stuck on the wrong side of town, it would be wise to even hoof it through the place. Getting to a point on the road where the cars are inter-city rather than local traffic is always preferable.

When you hit the road you should have a good idea of how to get where you are going. You can pick up a free map at any gas station. Long distance routes, road conditions, weather and all sorts of information can be gotten free by calling the American Automobile Association in any city. Say that you are a member driving to Phoenix, Arizona or wherever your destination is, and find out what you want to know. Always carry a sign indicating where you are going. If you get stranded on the road without one, ask in a diner or gas station for a piece of cardboard and a magic marker. Make the letters bold and fill them in so they can be seen by drivers from a distance. If your destination is a small town, the sign should indicate the state. For really long distances, EAST or WEST is best. Unless, of course, you're going north or south. A phony foreign flag sewed on your pack also helps.

Don't be shy when you hitch. Go into diners and gas stations and ask people if they're heading East or to Texas. Sometimes gas station attendants will help. When in the car be friendly as hell. Offer to share the driving if you've got a license. If you're broke, you can usually bum a meal or a few bucks, maybe even a free night's lodging. Never be intimidated into giving money for a ride.

As for what to carry when hitching, the advice is to travel light. The rule is to make up a pack of the absolute minimum, then cut that in half. Hitching is an art form as is all survival. Master it and you'll travel on a free trip forever.

FREIGHTING
There is a way to hitch long distances that has certain advantages over letting your thumb hang out for hours on some two-laner. Learn about riding the trains and you'll always have that alternative. Hitchhiking at night can be impossible, but hopping a is easier at night than by day. By hitchhiking days and hopping freights and sleeping on them at night, you can cover incredible distances rapidly and stay well rested. Every city and most large towns have a freight yard. You can find it by following the tracks or asking where the freight yard is located.

When you get to the yard, ask the workmen when the next train leaving in your direction will be pulling out. Unlike the phony Hollywood image, railroad men are nice to folks who drop by to grab a ride. Most yards don't have a guard or a "bull" as they are called. Even if they do, he is generally not around. If there is a bull around, the most he's going to do is tell you it's private property and ask you to leave. There are exceptions to this rule, such as the notorious Lincoln, Nebraska, and Las Vegas, Nevada, but by asking you can find out. Even if he asks you to leave or throws you out, sneak back when your train is pulling out and jump aboard.

After you've located the right train for your trip, hunt for an empty boxcar to ride. The men in the yards will generally point one out if you ask. Pig-sties, flat cars and coal cars are definitely third class due to exposure to the elements. Boxcars are by far the best. They are clean and the roof over your head helps in bad weather and cuts down the wind. Boxcars with a hydro-cushion suspension system used for carrying fragile cargo make for the smoothest ride. Unless you get one, you should be prepared for a pretty bumpy and noisy voyage.

You should avoid cars with only one door open, because the pin may break, locking you in. A car with both doors open gives you one free chance. Pig-backs (trailers on flatcars) are generally considered unsafe. Most trains make a number of short hops, so if time is an important factor try to get on a "hot shot" express. A hot shot travels faster and has priority over other trains in crowded yards. You should favor a hot shot even if you have to wait an extra hour or two or more to get one going your way.

If you're traveling at night, be sure to dress warmly. You can freeze your ass off. Trains might not offer the most comfortable ride, but they go through beautiful countryside that you'd never see from the highway or airway. There are no billboards, road signs, cops, Jack-in-the-Boxes, gas stations or other artifacts of honky culture. You'll get dirty on the trains so wear old clothes. Don't pass up this great way to travel cause some bullshit western scared you out of it.

CARS
If you know how to drive and want to travel long distances, the auto transportation agencies are a good deal. Look in the Yellow Pages under Automobile Transportation and Trucking or Driveway. Rules vary, but normally you must be over 21 and have a valid license. Call up and tell them when and where you want to go and they will let you know if they have a car available. They give you the car and a tank of gas free. You pay the rest. Go to pick up the car alone, then get some people to ride along and help with the driving and expenses. You can make New York to San Francisco for about eighty dollars in tolls and gas in four days without pushing. Usually you have the car for longer and can make a whole thing out of it. You must look straight when you go to the agency. This can be simply be done by wetting down your hair and shoving it under a cap.

Another good way to travel cheaply is to find somebody who has a car and is going your way. Usually underground newspapers list people who either want rides or riders. Another excellent place to find information is your local campus. Every campus has a bulletin board for rides. Head shops and other community-minded stores have notices up on the wall.

Gas
If you have a car and need some gas late at night you can get a quart and then some by emptying the hoses from the pumps into your tank. There is always a fair amount of surplus gas left when the pumps are shut off.

If your traveling in a car and don't have enough money for gas and tolls, stop at the bus station and see if anybody wants a lift. If you find someone, explain your money situation and make a deal with him. Hitch-hikers also can be asked to chip in on the gas.

You can carry a piece of tubing in the trunk of your car and when the gas indicator gets low, pull up to a nice looking Cadillac on some dark street and syphon off some of his gas. Just park your car so the gas tank is next to the Caddy's, or use a large can. Stick the hose into his tank, suck up enough to get things flowing, and stick the other end into your tank. Having a lower level of liquid, you tank will draw gas until you and the Caddy are equal. "To each according to his need, from each according to his ability," wrote Marx. Bet you hadn't realized until now that the law of gravity affects economics.

Another way is to park in a service station over their filler hole. Lift off one lid (like a small manhole cover), run down twenty feet of rubber tubing thru the hole you've cut in your floorboard, then turn on the electric pump which you have installed to feed into your gas tank. All they ever see is a parked car. This technique is especially rewarding when you have a bus.

BUSES
If you'd rather leave the driving and the paying to them, try swiping a ride on the bus. Here's a method that has worked well. Get a rough idea of where the bus has stopped before it arrived at your station. If you are not at the beginning or final stop on the route, wait until the bus you want pulls in and then out of the station. Make like the bus just pulled off without you while you went to the bathroom. If there is a station master, complain like crazy to him. Tell him you're going to sue the company if your luggage gets stolen. He'll put you on the next bus for free. If there is no station master, lay your sad tale on the next driver that comes along. If you know when the last bus left, just tell the driver you've been stranded there for eight hours and you left your kid sleeping on the other bus. Tell him you called ahead to the company and they said to grab the next bus and they would take care of it.

The next method isn't totally free but close enough. It's called the hopper-bopper. Find a bus that makes a few stops before it gets to where you want to go. The more stops with people getting in our out the better. Buy a ticket for the short hop and stay on the bus until you end up at your destination. You must develop a whole style in order to pull this off because the driver has to forget you are connected with the ticket you gave him. Dress unobtrusively or make sure the driver hasn't seen your face. Pretend to be asleep when the short hop station is reached. If you get questioned, just act upset about sleeping through the stop you "really" want and ask if it's possible to get a ride back.

AIRLINES
Up and away, junior outlaws! If you really want to get where you're going in a hurry, don't forget skyjacker's paradise. Don't forget the airlines. They make an unbelievable amount of bread on their inflated prices, ruin the land with incredible amounts of polluting wastes and noise, and deliberately hold back aviation advances that would reduce prices and time of flight. We know two foolproof methods to fly free, but unfortunately we feel publishing them would cause the airlines to change their policy. The following methods have been talked about enough, so the time seems right to make them known to a larger circle of friends.

A word should be said right off about stolen tickets. Literally millions of dollars worth of airline tickets are stolen each year. If you have good underworld contacts, you can get a ticket to anywhere you want at one-fourth the regular price. If you are charged more, you are getting a slight rooking. In any case, you can get a ticket for any flight or date and just trade it in. They are actually as good as cash, except that it takes 30 days to get a refund, and by then they might have traced the stolen tickets. If you can get a stolen ticket, exchange or use it as soon as possible, and always fly under a phony name. A stolen ticket for a trip around the world currently goes for one hundred and fifty dollars in New York.

One successful scheme requires access to the mailbox of a person listed in the local phone book. Let's use the name Ron Davis as an example. A woman calls one of the airlines with a very efficient sounding rap such as: "Hello, this is Mr. Davis' secretary at Allied Chemical. He and his wife would like to fly to Chicago on Friday. Could you mail two first-class tickets to his home and bill us here at Allied?" Every major corporation probably has a Ron Davis, and the airlines rarely bother checking anyway. Order your tickets two days before you wish to travel, and pick them up at the mailbox or address you had them sent to. If you are uptight in the airport about the tickets, just go up to another airline and have the tickets exchanged.

One gutsy way to hitch a free ride is to board the plane without a ticket. This is how it works. Locate the flight you want and rummage through a wastebasket until you find an envelope for that particular airline. Shuffle by the counter men (which is fairly easy if it's busy). When the boarding call is made, stand in line and get on the plane. Flash the empty envelope at the stewardess as you board the plane. Carry a number of packages as a decoy, so the stewardess won t ask you to open the envelope. If she does, which is rare, and sees you have no ticket, act surprised. "Oh my gosh, it must have fallen out in the wash room," will do fine. Run back down the ramp as if you're going to retrieve the ticket. Disappear and try later on a different airline. Nine out of ten revolutionaries say it's the only way to fly. This trick works only on airlines that don't use the boarding pass system.

If you want to be covered completely, use the hopper-bopper method described in the section on Buses, with this added security precaution. Buy two tickets from different cashiers, or better still, one from an agent in town. Both will be on the same flight. Only one ticket will be under a phony name and for the short hop, white the ticket under your real name will be for your actual destination. At the boarding counter, present the short hop ticket. You will be given an envelope with a white receipt in it. Actually, the white receipt is the last leaf in your ticket. Once you are securely seated and aloft, take out the ticket with your name and final destination. Gently peel away everything but the white receipt. Place the still valid ticket back in your pocket. Now remove from the envelope and destroy the short hop receipt. In its place, put the receipt for the ticket you have in your pocket.

When you land at the short hop airport, stay on the plane. Usually the stewardesses just ask you if you are remaining on the flight. If you have to, you can actually show her your authentic receipt. When you get to your destination, you merely put the receipt back on the bonafide ticket that you still have in your pocket. It isn't necessary that they be glued together. Present the ticket for a refund or exchange it for another ticket. This method works well even in foreign countries. You can actually fly around the world for $88.00 using the hopper-bopper method and switching receipts.

If you can't hack these shucks you should at least get a Youth Card and travel for half fare. If you are over twenty-two but still in your twenties, you can easily pass. Get a card from a friend who has similar color hair and eyes. Your friend can easily get one from another airline. You can master your friend's signature and get a supporting piece of identification from him to back up your youth card if you find it necessary. If you have a friend who works for an airline or travel agency, just get a card under your own name and an age below the limit. Your friend can validate the card. Flying youth fare is on stand-by, so it's always a good idea to call ahead and book a number of reservations under fictitious names on the flight you'll be taking. This will fuck up the booking of regular passengers and insure you a seat.

By the way, if you fly cross-country a number of times, swipe one of the plug-in head sets. Always remember to pack it in your traveling bag. This way you'll save a two dollar fee charged for the in-flight movie. The headsets are interchangeable on all airlines.

One way to fly free is to actually hitch a ride. Look for the private plane area located at every airport, usually in some remote part of the field. You can find it by noticing where the small planes without airline markings take off and land. Go over to the runways and ask around. Often the mechanics will let you know when someone is leaving for your destination and point out a pilot. Tell him you lost your ticket and have to get back to school. Single pilots often like to have a passenger along and it's a real gas flying in a small plane.

Some foreign countries have special arrangements for free air travel to visiting writers, artists or reporters. Brazil and Argentina are two we know of for sure. Call or write the embassy of the country you wish to visit in Washington or their mission to the United Nations in New York. Writing works best, especially if you can cop some stationery from a newspaper or publishing house. Tell them you will be writing a feature story for some magazine on the tourist spots or handcrafts of the country. The embassy will arrange for you to travel gratis aboard one of their air force planes. The planes leave only from Washington and New York at unscheduled times. Once you have the O.K. letter from the embassy you're all set. This is definitely worth checking out if you want to vacation in a foreign country with all sorts of free bonuses thrown in.

A one-way ride is easy if you want to get into skyjacking. Keep the piece or knife in your shoe to avoid possible detection with the "metal scanner," a long black tube that acts like a geiger counter. Or use a plastic knife or bomb. It's also advisable to wrap your dope in a non-metallic material. Avoid tinfoil.

The crews have instructions to take you wherever you want to go even if they have to refuel, but watch out for air marshals. To avoid air marshals and searches pick an airline which flies short domestic hops. You should plan to end up in a country hostile to the United States or you'll end up right back where you came from in some sturdy handcuffs. One dude wanted to travel in style so he demanded $100,000 as a going-away gift. The airlines quickly paid off. The guy then got greedy and demanded a hundred million dollars. When he returned to pick up the extra pocket money, he got nabbed. None the less, skyjacking appears to be the cheapest, fastest way to get away from it all.

IN CITY TRAVEL
Any of the public means of transportation can be ripped off easily. Get on the bus with a large bill and present it after the bus has left the stop. If the bus is crowded, slip in the back door when it opens to dispatch passengers.

Two people can easily get through the turnstile in a subway on one token by doubling up. In some subway systems cards are given out to high school kids or senior citizens or employees of the city. The next time you are in a subway station notice people flashing cards to the man in the booth and entering through the "exit" door. Notice the color of the card used by people in your age group. Get a piece of colored paper in a stationery store or find some card of the same color you need. Put this "card" in a plastic window of your wallet and flash it in the same way those with a bona fide pass do.

Before entering a turnstile, always test the swing bar. If someone during the day put in an extra token, it's still in the machine waiting for you to enter free.

For every token and coin deposited in an automatic turnstile, there is a foreign coin the same size for much less that will work in the machine. (See the Yippie Currency Exchange, following, for more info.) Buy a cheap bag of assorted foreign coins from a dealer that you can locate in the Yellow Pages. Size up the coins with a token from your subway system. You can get any of these coins in bulk from a large dealer. Generally they are about l,000 for five dollars. Tell him you make jewelry out of them if he gets suspicious. Giving what almost amounts to free subway rides away is a communal act of love. The best outlaws in the world rip-off shit for a lot more people than just themselves. Robin Hood lives!

FREE LAND
Despite what you may have heard, there is still some rural land left in Amerika. The only really free land is available in Alaska and remote barren areas of the western states. The latest information in this area is found in a periodic publication called Our Public Lands, available from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D.C. 20402. It costs $1.00 for a subscription. Also contact the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Washington, D.C. 20240 and ask for information on "homesteading." By the time this book is out though, the Secretary of the Interior's friends in the oil companies might have stolen all the available free land. Being an oil company is about the easiest way to steal millions. Never call it stealing though, always refer to it as "research and development."

Continental United States has no good free land that we know of, but there are some very low prices in areas suited for country communities. Write to School of Living, Freeland, Maryland, for their newspaper Green Revolution with the latest information in this area. Canada has free land available, and the Canadian government will send you a free list if you write to the Department of Land and Forests, Parliament Building, Quebec City, Canada. Also write to the Geographical Branch, Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, Parliament Building, Quebec City, Canada. Correspondence can be carried out with the Communications Group, 2630 Point Grey Road, Vancouver 8, British Columbia, Canada, for advice on establishing a community in Canada. The islands off the coast of British Columbia, its western region and the area along the Kootenai River are among the best locations.

If you just want to rip off some land, there are two ways to do it; openly or secretly. If you are going to do it out front, look around for a piece of land that's in dispute, which has its sovereignty in question-islands and deltas between the U.S. and Canada, or between the U.S. and Mexico, or any number of other borderline lands. You might even consider one of the abandoned oil-drilling platforms, which are fair game under high seas salvage laws. The possibilities are endless.

If you intend to do it quietly, you will want a completely different type of location. Find a rugged area with lots of elbow room and plenty of places to hide, like the Rocky Mountains, Florida swamps, Death Valley, or New York City. Put together a tight band of guerrillas and do your thing. With luck you will last forever.

If you just want to camp out or try some hermit living in the plushest surroundings available, you'll do best to head for one of the national parks. Since the parks are federal property, there's very little the local fuzz can do about you, and the forest rangers are generally the live-and-let-live types, although there have been increasing reports of long-hairs being vamped on by Smokey the Pig, as in Yosemite. You can get a complete list from National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 20240. The following is a list of some good ones:

ALABAMA-Russell Cave National Monument, Bridgeport 35740
ARIZONA-Grand Canyon National Park, Box 129, Grand Canyon 86023
ARKANSAS-Hot Springs National Park, Box 1219, Hot Springs 71901
CALIFORNIA-Yosemite National Park, Box 577, Yosemite 95389*
COLORADO-Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, 80517
FLORIDA-Everglades National Park, Box 279, Homestead 33030
IDAHO-Boise National Forest, 413 Idaho Street, Boise 83702
ILLINOIS-Shawnee National Forest,Harrisburg National Bank Building, Harrisburg 62946
KENTUCKY-Mammoth Cave National Park, Mammoth Cave 42259
LOUISIANA-Kisatchie National Forest, 2500 Shreveport Hwy., Pineville 71360
MAINE-Acadia National Park, Box 338, Bar Harbor 04609
MARYLAND-Assateague Island National Seashore, Rte. 2 Box 111, Berlin 21811
MASSACHUSETTS-Cape Cod National Seashore, South Wellfleet 02663
MICHIGAN-Hiawatha National Forest, Post Office Building, Escanaba 49829
MISSOURI-Mark Twain National Forest, 304 Pershing St., Springfield 65806
NEVADA-Lake Mead National Recreation Area, 601 Nevada Hwy, Boulder City 89005
NEW MEXICO-Aztec Ruins National Monument, Route 1, Box 101, Aztec 87410
NEW YORK-Fire Island National Seashore c/o New York City National Park Service Group, 28 E. 20th St., New York, NY 10003
NORTH CAROLINA-Wright Brothers National Memorial Box 457, Manteo 27954
OKLAHOMA-Platt National Park, Box 201, Sulphur 73086
OREGON-Crater Lake National Park, Box 7, Crater Lake 97604
UTAH-Bryce Canyon National Park, Bryce Canyon 84717
WYOMING-Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone Park 83020
*This summer Yosemite forest rangers tried to evict a group of Yippies from their encampment. The Yippies rioted in the valley, spooked the tourists, burned cars and fought for their right to stay.

Earth People's Park is an endeavor to purchase land and allow people to come and live for free. They function as a clearing house for people that want to donate land and those who wish to settle. They own 600 acres in northern Vermont and are trying to raise money to buy more. Write to Earth People's Park, P.0. Box 313, 1230 Grant Ave., San Francisco, California 94133.

People's Parks are sprouting up all over as people reclaim the land being ripped off by universities, factories, and corrupt city planning agencies. The model is the People's Park struggle in Berkeley during the spring of 1969. The people fought to defend a barren parking lot they had turned into a community center with grass, swings, free-form sculpture and gardens. The University of California, with the aid of Ronald Reagan and the Berkeley storm troopers, fought with guns, clubs and tear gas to regain the land from the outlaw people. The pigs killed James Rector and won an empty victory. For now the park is fenced off, tarred over and converted into unused basketball courts and unused parking lots. Not one person has violated the oath never to set foot on the site. It stands, cold and empty, two blocks north of crowded Telegraph Avenue. If the revolution does not survive, all the land will perish under the steam roller of imperialism. People's Death Valley will happen in our lifetime.

FREE HOUSING
If you are in a city without a place to stay, ask the first group of hip-looking folks where you can crash. You might try the office of the local underground newspaper. In any hip community, the underground newspaper is generally the source of the best up-to-the-moment information. But remember that they are very busy, and don't impose on them. Many churches now have runaway houses. If you are under sixteen and can hack some bullshit jive about "adjusting," "opening a dialogue," and "things aren't that bad," then these are the best deals for free room and board. Check out the ground rules first, i.e., length of stay allowed, if they inform your parents or police, facilities and services available. Almost always they can be accepted at their word, which is something very sacred to missionaries. If they became known as double-crossers, the programs would be finished.

Some hip communities have crash pads set up, but these rarely last more than a few months. To give out the addresses we have would be quite impractical. We have never run across a crash pad that lasted more than a month or so. If in a cit, try hustling a room at a college dorm. This is especially good in summer or on week-ends. If you have a sleeping bag, the parks are always good, as is "tar jungle" or sleeping on the roofs of tall buildings. Local folks will give you some good advice on what to watch out for and information on vagrancy laws which might help you avoid getting busted.

For more permanent needs, squatting is not only free, it's a revolutionary act. If you stay quiet you can stay indefinitely. If you have community support you may last forever.

COMMUNES
In the city or in the country, communes can be a cheap and enjoyable way of living. Although urban and rural communes face different physical environments, they share common group problems. The most important element in communal living is the people, for the commune will only make it if everyone is fairly compatible. A nucleus of 4 to 7 people is best and it is necessary that no member feels extremely hostile to any other member when the commune gets started. The idea that things will work out later is pig swill. More communes have busted up over incompatibility than any other single factor. People of similar interests and political philosophies should live together. One speed freak can wreck almost any group. There are just too many day-to-day hassles involved living in a commune to not start off compatible in as many ways as possible. The ideal arrangement is for the people to have known each other before they move in together.

Once you have made the opening moves, evening meetings will occasionally be necessary to divide up the responsibilities and work out the unique problems of a communal family. Basically, there are two areas that have to be pretty well agreed upon if the commune is to survive. People's attitudes toward Politics, Sex, Drugs and Decision-making have to be in fairly close agreement. Then the even most important decisions about raising the rent, cleaning, cooking and maintenance will have to be made. Ground rules for inviting non-members should be worked out before the first time it happens, as this is a common cause for friction. Another increasingly important issue involves defense. Communes have continually been targets of attack by the more Neanderthal elements of the surrounding community. In Minneapolis for example, "headhunts" as they are called are commonplace. You should have full knowledge of the local gun laws and a collective defense should be worked out.

Physical attacks are just one way of making war on communes and, hence, our Free Nation. Laws, cops, and courts are there to protect the power and the property of those that already got the shit. Police harassment, strict enforcement of health codes and fire regulations and the specially designed anti-commune laws being passed by town elders, should all be known and understood by the members of a commune before they even buy or rent property. On all these matters, you should seek out experienced members of communes already established in the vicinity you wish to settle. Work out mutual defense arrangements with nearby families-both legal and extralegal. Remember, not only do you have the right to self-defense, but it is your duty to our new Nation to erase the "Easy-Rider-take-any-shit" image which invites attack. Let them know you are willing to defend your way of living and your chances of survival will increase.

URBAN LIVING
If you're headed for city living, the first thing you'll have to do is locate an apartment or loft, an increasingly difficult task. At certain times of the year, notably June and September, the competition is fierce because of students leaving or entering school. If you can avoid these two months, you'll have a better selection. A knowledge of your plans in advance can aid a great deal in finding an apartment, for the area can be scouted before you move in. Often, if you know of people leaving a desirable apartment, you can make arrangements with the landlord, and a deposit will hold the place. If you let them know you're willing to buy their furniture, people will be more willing to give you information about when they plan to move. Watch out for getting screwed on exorbitant furniture swindles by the previous tenants and excessive demands on the part of the landlords. In most cities, the landlord is not legally allowed to ask for more than one month's rent as security. Often the monthly rent itself is regulated by a city agency. A little checking on the local laws and a visit to the housing agency might prove well worth it.

Don't go to a rental agency unless you are willing to pay an extra month's rent as a fee. Wanted ads in newspapers and bulletin boards located in community centers and supermarkets have some leads. Large universities have a service for finding good apartments for administrators, faculty and students, in that order. Call the university, say you have just been appointed to such-and-such position and you need housing in the area. They will want to know all your requirements and rent limitations, but often they have very good deals available, especially if you've appointed yourself to a high enough position.

Aside from these, the best way is to scout a desired area and inquire about future apartments. Often landlords or rental agencies have control over a number of buildings in a given area. You can generally find a nameplate inside the hall of the building. Calling them directly will let you know of any apartments available.

When you get an apartment, furnishing will be the next step. You can double your sleeping space by building bunk beds. Nail two by fours securely from ceiling to floor, about three feet from the walls, where the beds are desired. Then build a frame out of two by fours at a convenient height. Make sure you use nails or screws strong enough to support the weight of people sleeping or balling. Nail a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood on the frame. Mattresses and almost all furniture needed for your pal can be gotten free (see section on Free Furniture). Silverware can be copped at any self-service restaurant.

RURAL LIVING
If you are considering moving to the country, especially as a group, you are talking about farms and farmland. There are some farms for rent, and occasionally a family that has to be away for a year or two will let you live on their farm if you keep the place in repair. These can be found advertised in the back of various farming magazines and in the classified sections of newspapers, especially the Sunday editions. Generally speaking, however, if you're interested in a farm, you should be considering an outright purchase.

First, you have to determine in what part of the country you want to live in terms of the climate you prefer and how far away from the major cities you wish to locate. The least populated states, such as Utah, Idaho, the Dakotas, Montana and the like, have the cheapest prices and the lowest tax rates. The more populated a state, and in turn, the closer to a city, the higher the commercial value of the land.

There are hundreds of different types of farms, so the next set of questions you'll have to raise concerns the type of farm activity you'll want to engage in. Cattle farms are different than vegetable farms or orchards. Farms come in sizes: from half an acre to ranches larger than the state of Connecticut. They will run in price from $30 to $3000 an acre, with the most expensive being prime farmland in fertile river valleys located close to an urban area. The further away from the city and the further up a hill, the cheaper the land gets. It also gets woodier, rockier and steeper, which means less tillable land.

If you are talking of living in a farm house and maybe having a small garden and some livestock for your own use, with perhaps a pond on the property, you are looking for what is called a recreational farm. When you buy a recreational farm, naturally you are interested in the house, barn, well, fences, chicken-coop, corrals, woodsheds and other physical structures on the property. Unless these are in unusually good condition or unique, they do not enter into the sale price as major factors. It is the land itself that is bought and sold.

Farmland is measured in acreage; an acre being slightly more than 43,560 square feet. The total area is measured in 40-acre plots. Thus, if a farmer or a real estate agent says he has a plot of land down the road, he means a 40-acre farm. Farms are generally measured this way, with an average recreational farm being 160 acres in size or an area covering about 1/2 square mile. A reasonable rate for recreational farmland 100 miles from a major city with good water and a livable house would be about $50 per acre. For a 160-acre farm, it would be $8,000, which is not an awful lot considering what you are getting. For an overall view, get the free catalogues and brochures provided by the United Farm Agency, 612 W. 47th St., Kansas City, Mo. 64112.

Now that you have a rough idea of where and what type of farm you want, you can begin to get more specific. Check out the classified section in the Sunday newspaper of the largest city near your desired location. Get the phone book and call or write to real estate agencies in the vicinity. Unlike the city, where there is a sellers' market, rural estate agents collect their fee from the seller of the property, so you won't have to worry about the agent's fee.

When you have narrowed down the choices, the next thing you'll want to look at is the plot book for the county. The plot book has all the farms in each township mapped out. lt also shows terrain variations, type of housing on the land, location of rivers, roads and a host of other pertinent information. Road accessibility, especially in the winter, is an important factor. If the farms bordering the one you have selected are abandoned or not in full use, then for all intents and purposes, you have more land than you are buying.

After doing all this, you are prepared to go look at the farm itself. Notice the condition of the auxiliary roads leading to the house. You'll want an idea of what sections of the land are tillable. Make note of how many boulders you'll have to clear to do some planting. Also note how many trees there are and to what extent the brush has to be cut down. Be sure and have a good idea of the insect problems you can expect. Mosquitoes or flies can bug the shit out of you. Feel the soil where you plan to have a garden and see how rich it is. If there are fruit trees, check their condition. Taste the water. Find out if hunters or tourists come through the land. Examine the house. The most important things are the basement and the roof. In the basement examine the beams for dry rot and termites. See how long it will be before the roof must be replaced. Next check the heating system, the electrical wiring and the plumbing. Then you'll want to know about services such as schools, snow plowing, telephones, fire department and finally about your neighbors. If the house is beyond repair, you might still want the farm, especially if you are good at carpentry. Cabins, A-Frames, domes and tepees are all cheaply constructed with little experience. Get the materials from your nearest military installation.

Finally, check out the secondary structures on the land to see how usable they are. If there is a pond, you'll want to see how deep it is for swimming. If there are streams, you'll want to know about the fishing possibilities; and if large wooded areas, the hunting.

In negotiating the final sales agreement, you should employ a lawyer. You'll also want to check out the possibility of negotiating a bank loan for the farm. Don't forget that you have to pay taxes on the land, so inquire from the previous owner or agent as to the tax bill. Usually, you can count on paying about $50 annually per 40-acre plot.

Finally, check out the federal programs available in the area. If you can learn the ins and outs of the government programs, you can rip off plenty. The Feed-Grain Program of the Department of Agriculture pays you not to grow grain. The Cotton Subsidy Program pays you not to grow cotton. Also look into the Soil Bank Program of the United States Development Association and various Department of Forestry programs which pay you to plant trees. Between not planting cotton and planting trees, you should be able to manage.

LIST OF COMMUNES
The most complete list of city and country communes is available for $1.00 from Alternatives Foundation, Modern Utopian, 1526 Gravensteur Highway North, Sebastopol, California 95427. The phone is (707) 823-6168. The list is kept up to date. For all communes, you must write in advance if you plan to visit. Almost every commune will give you information about the local conditions and the problems they face if you write them a letter. Here is a list of some you might like to write to for more information. Avoid becoming a free-loader on your sisters and brothers.

California
ALTERNATIVES FOUNDATION-Box 1264, Berkeley, California 94709. (Dick Fairfield) Communal living, total sexuality, peak experience training centers. Dedicated to the cybernated-tribal society.
BHODAN CENTER OF INQUIRY-Sierra Route, Oakhurst, California 93644. Phone (209) 683-4976.. (Charles Davis) Seminars on Human Community, IC development on the land, founded 1934, 13 members. Trial period for new members. Visitors check in advance.
Colorado
DROP CITY-Rt. 1, Box 125, Trinidad, Colorado 81082. Founded 1965. New members must meet specific criteria. Anarchist, artist, dome houses.
New Mexico
LAMA FOUNDATION-Box 444, San Cristobal, N.M.
New York
CITY ISLAND COMMUNE-284 City Island Avenue, Bronx, NY. Visitors check in advance. Revolutionary.
ATLANTIS I-RFD 5, Box 22A, Saugerties, NY 12477. Visitors and new members welcome.
Oregon
FAMILY OF MYSTIC ARTS--Box 546, Sunny Valley, Oregon
Pennsylvania
TANGUY HOMESTEADS-West Chester, Pennsylvania. Suburban, non-sectarian, co-op housing and community fellowship.
Washington
MAGIC MOUNTAIN-52nd and 19th Streets, Seattle, Washington. (c/o Miriam Roder).
FREE EDUCATION
Usually when you ask somebody in college why they are there, they'll tell you it's to get an education. The truth of it is, they are there to get the degree so that they can get ahead in the rat race. Too many college radicals are two-timing punks. The only reason you should be in college is to destroy it. If there is stuff that you want to learn though, there is a way to get a college education absolutely free. Simply send away for the schedule of courses at the college of your choice. Make up the schedule you want and audit the classes. In smaller classes this might be a problem, but even then, if, the teacher is worth anything at all, he'll let you stay. In large classes, no one will ever object.

If you need books for a course, write to the publisher claiming you are a lecturer at some school and considering using their book in your course. They will always send you free books.

There are Free Universities springing up all over our new Nation. Anybody can teach any course. People sign up for the courses and sometimes pay a token registration fee. This money is used to publish a catalogue and pay the rent. If you're on welfare you don't have to pay. You can take as many or as few courses as you want. Classes are held everywhere: in the instructor's house, in the park, on the beach, at one of the student's houses or in liberated buildings. Free Universities offer courses ranging from Astrology to the Use of Firearms. The teaching is usually of excellent quality and you'll learn in a community-type atmosphere.

LIST OF FREE UNIVERSITIES
Alternative University-69 W. 14th St., New York, NY 10011 (catalogue on request)
Baltimore Free U-c/o Harry, 233 E. 25th St., Baltimore, Maryland 21218
Berkeley Free U-1703 Grove St., Berkeley, California 94709
Bowling Green Free U-c/o Student Council, University of Bowling Green, Bowling Green Ohio 43402
Colorado State Free U-Box 12-Fraisen, Colorado State College, Greeley, Colorado 80631
Detroit Area Free U-Student Union, 4001 W. McNichols Rd., Detroit, Michigan 48221
Detroit Area Free U-343 University Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Mich.
Georgetown Free U-Loyola Bldg., 28, Georgetown University Washington D.C. 20007
Golden Gate Free U-2120 Market St., Rm. 206, San Francisco, California 94114
Heliotrope-2201 Filbert, San Francisco, California 94118
Illinois Free U-298A Illini Union, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois 61820
Kansas Free U-107 W. 7th St., Lawrence, Kansas 66044
Knox College Free U-Galesbury, Illinois 60401
Madison Free U-c/o P. Carroll, 1205 Shorewood Blvd., Madison, Wisconsin 53705
Metropolitan State Free U-Associated Students, 1345 Banrock St., Denver, Colorado 80204
Michigan State Free U-Associated Students, Student Service Bldg., Michigan State College, East Lansing, Michigan 48823
Mid-Peninsula Free U-1060 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, California 94015
Minnesota Free U-1817 S. 3rd St., Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404
Monterey Peninsula Free U-2120 Etna Place, Monterey, California New Free U-Box ALL 303, Santa Barbara, California 93107
Northwest Free U-Box 1255, Bellingham, Washington 98225
Ohio-Wesleyan Free U-Box 47-Welsh Hall, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delevan, Ohio 43015
Pittsburgh Free U-4401 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 Rutgers Free U-Rutgers College, Student Center, 1 Lincoln Ave., Newark, NJ 07102
St. Louis Free U-c/o Student Congress, 3rd floor BMC, St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri 63103
San Luis Obispo Free U-Box 1305, San Luis Obispo, California 94301
Santa Cruz Free U-604 River St., Santa Cruz, California 95060
Seattle Free U-4144½ University Way NE, Seattle, Washington 98105
Southern Illinois Free U-Carbondale, Illinois 62901
Valley Free U-2045 N. Wishon Ave., Fresno, California 93704
Washington Area Free U-5519 Prospect Place, Chevy Chase, Maryland 20015 and 1854 Park Rd. NW, Washington, D.C. 20010
Wayne-Locke Free U-Student Congress, University of Texas, Arlington, Texas 76010
And a complete list of experimental schools, free universities, free schools, can be obtained by sending one dollar to ALTERNATIVES! 1526 Gravenstein Highway N., Sebastopol, California 97452, and requesting the Directory of Free Schools.

7. FREE MEDICAL CARE
Due to the efforts of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, the Student Health Organization and other progressive elements among younger doctors and nurses. Free People's Clinics have been happening in every major city. They usually operate out of store fronts and are staffed with volunteer help. An average clinic can handle fifty patients a day.

If you've had an accident or have an acute illness, even a bad cold, check into the emergency room of any hospital. Given them a sob story complete with phony name and address. After treatment they present you with a slip and direct you to the cashier. Just walk on by, as the song suggests. A good decoy is to ask for the washroom. After waiting there a few moments, split. If you're caught sneaking out, tell them you ran out of the house without your wallet. Ask them to bill you at your phony address. This billing procedure works in both hospital emergency rooms and clinics. You can keep going back for repeated visits up to three months before the cashier's office tells the doctor about your fractured payments.

You can get speedy medical advice and avoid emergency room delays by calling the hospital, asking for the emergency unit and speaking directly to the doctor over the phone. Older doctors frown on this procedure since they cannot extort their usual exorbitant fee over the phone. Younger ones generally do not share this hang-up.

Cities usually have free clinics for a variety of special ailments. Tuberculosis Clinics, Venereal Disease Clinics, and Free Shot Clinics (yellow fever, polio, tetanus, etc.) are some of the more common. A directory of these clinics and other free health services the local community provides can be obtained by writing your Chamber of Commerce or local Health Department.

Most universities have clinics connected with their dental, optometry or other specialized medical schools. If not for free, then certainly for very low rates, you can get dental work repaired, eyeglasses fitted and treatment of other specific health needs.

Free psychiatric treatment can often be gotten at the out-patient department of any mental hospital. Admission into these hospitals is free, but a real bummer. Use them as a last resort only. Some cities have a suicide prevention center and if you are desperate and need help, call them. Your best choice in a psychiatric emergency is to go to a large general hospital, find the emergency unit and ask to see the psychiatrist on duty.

BIRTH CONTROL CLINICS
Planned Parenthood and the Family Planning Association staff numerous free birth control clinics throughout the country. They provide such services as sex education, examinations, Pap smear and birth control information and devices. The devices include pills, a diaphragm, or IUD (intra-uterine device) which they will insert. If you are unmarried and under 18, you might have to talk to a social worker, but it's no sweat because anybody gets contraceptive devices that wants them. Call up and ask them to send you their booklets on the different methods of birth control available.

If you would rather go to a private doctor, try to find out from a friend the name of a hip gynecologist, who is sympathetic to the fact that you're low on bread. Otherwise one visit could cost $25.00 or more.

Before deciding on a contraceptive, you should be hip to some general information. There has been much research on the pill, and during the past 10 years it has proven its effectiveness, if not is safety. The two most famous name brands are Ortho-Novum and Envoid. They all require a doctor's prescription. Different type pills are accompanied by slightly different instructions, so read the directions carefully. In many women, the pills produce side effects such as weight increase, dizziness or nausea. Sometimes the pill affects your vision and more often your mood. Some women with specialized blood diseases are advised not to use them, but in general, women have little or no trouble. Different brand names have different hormonal balances (progesterone-estrogen). If you get uncomfortable side effects, insist that your doctor switch your brand. If you stop the pill method for any reason and don't want to get pregnant, be very careful to use another means right away.

Another contraceptive device becoming more popular is the IUD, or the loop. It is a small plastic or stainless steel irregularly-shaped spring that the doctor inserts inside the opening of the uterus. The insertion is not without pain, but it's safe if done by a physician, and it's second only to the pill in prevention of pregnancy. Once it's in place, you can forget about it for a few years or until you wish to get pregnant. Doctors are reluctant to prescribe them for women who have not borne children or had an abortion, because of the intense pain that accompanies insertion. But if you can stand the pain associated with three to four uterine contractions, you should push the doctor for this method. Inserting it during the last day of your period will make it easier.

The diaphragm is a round piece of flexible rubber about 2 inches in diameter with a hard rubber rim on the outside. It used to be inserted just before the sex act, but hip doctors now recommend that it be worn continuously and taken out every few days for washing and also during the menstrual period. It is most effective when used with a sperm-killing jelly or cream. A doctor will fit you for a proper size diaphragm.

The next best method is the foams that you insert twenty minutes before fucking. The best foams available are Delfen and Emko. They have the advantage of being nonprescription items so you can rush into any drug store and pick up a dispenser when the spirit moves you. Follow the directions carefully. Unfortunately, these foams taste terrible and are not available in flavors. It just shows you how far science has to go.

Another device is the prophylactic, or rubber as it is called. This is the only device available to men. It is a thin rubber sheath that fits over the penis. Because they are subject to breaking and sliding off, their effectiveness is not super great. If you are forced to use them, the best available are lubricated sheepskins with a reservoir tip.

The rhythm method or Vatican roulette as it is called by hip Catholics, is a waste unless you are ready to surround yourself with thermometers, graphs and charts. You also have to limit your fucking to prescribed days. Even with all these precautions, women have often gotten pregnant using the rhythm method.

The oldest and least effective method is simply for the male to pull out just before he comes. There are billions of sperm cells in each ejaculation and only one is needed to fertilize the woman's egg and cause a pregnancy. Most of the sperm is in the first squirt, so you had better be quick if you employ this technique.

If the woman misses her period she shouldn't panic. It might be delayed because of emotional reasons. Just wait two weeks before going to a doctor or clinic for a pregnancy test. When you go, be sure to bring your first morning urine specimen.

ABORTIONS
The best way to find out about abortions is to contact your local woman's liberation organization through your underground newspaper or radio station. Some Family Planning Clinics and even some liberal churches set up abortions, but these might run as high as $700. Underground newspapers often have ads that read "Any girl in trouble call - -," or something similar. The usual rate for an abortion is about $500 and it's awful hard to bargain when you need one badly. Only go to a physician who is practicing or might have just lost his license. Forget the stereotype image of these doctors as they are performing a vital service. Friends who have had an abortion can usually recommend a good doctor and fill you in on what's going to happen.

Abortions are very minor operations if done correctly. They can be done almost any time, but after three months, it's no longer so casual and more surgical skill is required. Start making plans as soon as you find out. The sooner the better, in terms of the operation.

Get a pregnancy test at a clinic. If it is positive and you want an abortion, start that day to make plans. If you get negative results from the test and still miss your period, have a gynecologist perform an examination if you are still worried.

If you cannot arrange an abortion through woman's liberation, Family Planning, a sympathetic clergyman or a friend who has had one, search out a liberal hospital and talk to one of their social workers. Almost all hospitals perform "therapeutic" abortions. Tell a sob story about the desertion of your boy friend or that you take LSD every day or that defects run in your family. Act mentally disturbed. If you qualify, you can get an abortion that will be free under Medicaid or other welfare medical plans. The safest form of abortion is the vacuum-curettage method, but not all doctors are hip to it. It is safer and quicker with less chance of complications than the old-fashioned scrape method.

Many states have recently passed liberalized abortion laws, such as New York* (by far the most extensive), Hawaii and Maryland, due to the continuing pressure of radical women. The battle for abortion and certainly for free abortion is far from over even in the states with liberal laws. They are far too expensive for the ten to twenty minute minor operation involved and the red tape is horrendous. Free abortions must be look-on as a fundamental right, not a sneaky, messy trauma.

*There is a residence requirement for New York but using a friend's New York address at the hospital will be good enough. The procedure takes only a few days and costs between $200 and $500, depending on the place. The best advice is to call one of the New York Abortion Referral Services or Birth Control Groups listed in the New York Directory section.

DISEASES TREATED FREE
Syph and Clap (syphilis and gonorrhea) are two diseases that they are easy to pick up. They come from balling. Anyone who claims they got it from sitting on a toilet seat must have a fondness for weird positions.

Both men and women are subject to the diseases. Using a prophylactic usually will prevent the spreading of venereal disease, but you should really seek to have it cured. Syphilis usually begins with an infection which may look like a cold sore or pimple around the sex organ. There is no pain associated with the lesions. Soon the sore disappears even without treatment. This is often followed by a period of rashes on the body (especially the palms of the hands) and inflammation of the mouth and throat. These symptoms also disappear without treatment. It must be understood, however, that even if these symptoms disappear, the disease still remains if left untreated. It can cause serious trouble such as heart disease, blindness, insanity and paralysis. Also, it can fuck up any kids you might produce and is easily passed on to anyone you ball.

Gonorrhea (clap) is more common than syphilis. Its first signs are a discharge from your sex organ that is painful. Like syphilis, it affects both men and women, but is often unnoticed in women. There is usually itching and burning associated with the affected area. It can leave you sterile if left untreated.

Both these venereal diseases can be treated in a short time with attention. Avail yourself of the free V.D. clinics in every town. Follow the doctor's instructions to the letter and try to let the other people you've had sexual contact with know you had VD.

There are other fungus diseases that resemble syphilis or gonorrhea, but are relatively harmless. Check out every infection in your crotch area, especially those with open sores or an unusual discharge and you'll be safe.

Crabs are not harmful, but they can make you scratch your crotch for hours on end. They are also highly transmittable by balling. Actually they are a form of body lice and easy to cure. Go to your local druggist and ask him for the best remedy available. He'll give you one of several lotions and instructions for proper use. We recommend Kwell.

A common disease in the hip community is hepatitis. There are two kinds. One you get from sticking dirty needles in your arm (serum hepatitis) and the other more common strain from eating infected food or having intimate contact with an infected carrier (infectious hepatitis). The symptoms for both are identical; yellowish skin and eyes, dark piss and light crap, loss of appetite and total listlessness. Hep is a very dangerous disease that can cause a number of permanent conditions, including death, which is extremely permanent. It should be treated by a doctor, often in a hospital.

FREE COMMUNICATION
If you don't like the news, why not go out and make your own? Creating free media depends to a large extent on your imagination and ability to follow through on ideas. The average Amerikan is exposed to over 1,600 commercials each day. Billboards, glossy ads and television spots make up much of the word environment they live in. To crack through the word mush means creating new forms of free communication. Advertisements for revolution are important in helping to educate and mold the milieu of people you wish to win over.

Guerrilla theater events are always good news items and if done right, people will remember them forever. Throwing out money at the Stock Exchange or dumping soot on executives at Con Edison or blowing up the policeman statue in Chicago immediately conveys an easily understood message by using the technique of creative disruption. Recently to dramatize the illegal invasion of Cambodia, 400 Yippies stormed across the Canadian border in an invasion of the United States. They threw paint on store windows and physically attacked residents of Blair, Washington. A group of Vietnam veterans marched in battle gear from Trenton to Valley Forge. Along the way they performed mock attacks on civilians the way they were trained to do in Southeast Asia.

Dying all the outdoor fountains red and then sending a message to the newspaper explaining why you did it, dramatizes the idea that blood is being shed needlessly in imperialist wars. A special metallic bonding glue available from Eastman-Kodak will form a permanent bond in only 45 seconds. Gluing up locks of all the office buildings in your town is a great way to dramatize the fact that our brothers and sisters are being jailed all the time. Then, of course, there are always explosives which dramatically make your point and then some.

PRESS CONFERENCES
Another way of using the news to advertise the revolution and make propaganda is to call a press, conference. Get an appropriate place that has some relationship to the content of your message. Send out announcements to as many members of the press as you can. If you do not have a press list, you can make one up by looking through the Yellow Pages under Newspapers, Radio Stations, Television Stations, Magazines and Wire Services. Check out your list with other groups and pick up names of reporters who attend movement press conferences. Address a special invitation to them as well as one to their newspaper. Address the announcements to "City Desk" or "'News Department." Schedule the press conference for about 11:00 A.M. as this allows the reporters to file the story in time for the evening newscast or papers. On the day of the scheduled conference, call the important city desks or reporters about 9:00 A.M. and remind them to come.

Everything about a successful press conference must be dramatic, from the announcements and phone calls to the statements themselves. Nothing creates a worse image than four or five men in business suits sitting behind a table and talking in a calm manner at a fashionable hotel. Constantly seek to have every detail of the press conference differ in style as well as content from the conferences of people in power. Make use of music and visual effects. Don't stiffen up before the press. Make the statement as short and to the point as possible. Don't read from notes, look directly into the camera. The usual television spot is one minute and twenty seconds. The cameras start buzzing on your opening statement and often run out of film before you finish. So make it brief and action packed. The question period should be even more dramatic. Use the questioner's first name when answering a question. This adds an air of informality and networks are more apt to use an answer directed personally to one of their newsmen. Express your emotional feelings. Be funny, get angry, be sad or ecstatic. If you cannot convey that you are deeply excited or troubled or outraged about what you are saying, how do you expect it of others who are watching a little image box in their living room? Remember, you are advertising a new way of life to people. Watch TV commercials. See how they are able to convey everything they need to be effective in such a short time and limited space. At the same tune you're mocking the shit they are pushing, steal their techniques.

At rock concerts, during intermission or at the end of the performance, fight your way to the stage.

COMMUNICATION
Announce that if the electricity is cut off the walls will be torn down. This galvanizes the audience and makes the owners of the hall the villains if they fuck around. Lay out a short exciting rap on what's coming down. Focus on a call around one action. Sometimes it might be good to engage rock groups in dialogues about their commitment to the revolution. Interrupting the concert is frowned upon since it is only spitting in the faces of the people you are trying to reach. Use the Culture as ocean to swim in. Treat it with care.

Sandwich boards and hand-carried signs are effective advertisements. You can stand on a busy corner and hold up a sign saying "Apartment Needed," "Free Angela," "Smash the State" or other slogans. They can be written on dollar bills, envelopes that are being mailed and other items that are passed from person to person.

Take a flashlight with a large face to movie theaters and other dark public gathering places. Cut the word "STRIKE" or "REVOLT" or "YIPPIE" out of dark cellophane. Paste the stencil over the flashlight, thus allowing you to project the word on a distant wall.

There are a number of all night call-in shows that have a huge audience. If you call with what the moderator considers "exciting controversy," he may give you a special number so you won't have to compete in the switchboard roller-derby. It often can take hours before you get through to these shows. Here's a trick that will help you out if the switchboard is jammed. The call-in shows have a series of hones so that when one is busy the next will take the call. Usually the numbers run in sequence. Say a station gives out PL 5-8640, as the number to call. That means it also uses PL 5-8641, PL 5-8642 and so on. If you get a busy signal, hang up and try calling PL S-8647 say. This trick works in a variety of situations where you want to get a call through a busy switchboard. Remember it for airline and bus information.

WALL PAINTING
One of the best forms of free communication is painting messages on a blank wall. The message must be short and bold. You want to be able to paint it on before the pigs come and yet have it large enough so that people can see it at a distance. Cans of spray paint that you can pick up at any hardware store work best. Pick spots that have lot of traffic. Exclamation points are good for emphasis. If you are writing the same message, make a stencil. You can make a stencil that says WAR and spray it on with white paint under the word "STOP" on stop signs. You can stencil a five-pointed star and using yellow paint, spray it on the dividing line between the red and blue on all post office boxes. This simulates the flag of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam. You can stencil a marijuana leaf and using green paint, spray it over cigarette and whisky billboards on buses and subways. The women's liberation sign with red paint is good for sexist ads. Sometimes you will wish to exhibit great daring in your choice of locations. When the Vietnamese hero Nguyen Van Troi was executed, the Viet Cong put up a poster the next day on the exact spot inside the highest security prison in the country.

Wall postering allows you to get more information before the public than a quickly scribbled slogan. Make sure the surface is smooth or finely porous. Smear the back of the poster with condensed milk, spread on with a brush, sponge, rag or your hands. Condensed milk dries very fast and hard. Also smear some on the front once the poster is up to give protection against the weather and busy fingers that like to pull at corners. Wallpaper pastes also work quickly and efficiently. It's best to work both painting and postering at night with a look-out. This way you can work the best spots without being harassed by the pig patrol, which is usually unappreciative of Great Art.

USE OF THE FLAG
The generally agreed upon flag of our nation is black with a red, five pointed star behind a green marijuana leaf in the center. It is used by groups that understand the correct use of culture and symbolism in a revolutionary struggle. When displayed, it immediately increases the feelings of solidarity between our brothers and sisters. High school kids have had great fights over which flag to salute in school. A sign of any liberated zone is the flag being flown. Rock concerts and festivals have their generally apolitical character instantly changed when the flag is displayed. The political theoreticians who do not recognize the flag and the importance of the culture it represents are ostriches who are ignorant of basic human nature. Throughout history people have fought for religion, life-style, land, a flag (nation), because they were ordered to, for fortune, because they were attacked or for the hell of it. If you don't think the flag is important, ask the hardhats.

RADIO
Want to construct your own neighborhood radio station? You can get a carrier-current transmitter designed by a group of brothers and sisters called Radio Free People. No FCC license is required for the range is less than 1/2 mile. The small transistorized units plug into any wall outlet. Write Radio Free People, 133 Mercer St., New York, New York 10012 for more details. For further information see the chapter on Guerrilla Broadcasting later in the book.

FREE TELEPHONES
Ripping off the phone company is so common that Bell Telephone has a special security division that tries to stay just a little ahead of the average free-loader. Many great devices like the coat hanger release switch have been scrapped because of changes in the phone box. Even the credit card fake-out is doomed to oblivion as the company switches to more computerized techniques. ln our opinion, as long as there is a phone company, and as long as there are outlaws, nobody need ever pay for a call. In 1969 alone the phone company estimated that over 10 million dollars worth of free calls were placed from New York City. Nothing, however, compares with the rip-off of the people by the phone company. In that same year, American Telephone and Telegraph made a profit of 8.6 billion dollars! AT&T, like all public utilities, passes itself off as a service owned by the people, while in actuality nothing could be further from the truth. Only a small percentage of the public owns stock in these companies and a tiny elite clique makes all the policy decisions. Ripping-off the phone company is an act of revolutionary love, so help spread the word.

PAY PHONES
You can make a local 10 cent call for 2 cents by spitting on the pennies and dropping them in the nickel slot. As soon as they are about to hit the trigger mechanism, bang the coin-return button. Another way is to spin the pennies counter-clockwise into the nickel slot. Hold the penny in the slot with your finger and snap it spinning with a key or other flat object. Both systems take a certain knack, but once you've perfected the technique, you'll always have it in your survival kit.

If two cents is too much, how about a call for 1 penny? Cut a 1/4 strip off the telephone book cover. Insert the cardboard strip into the dime slot as far as it will go. Drop a penny in the nickel slot until it catches in the mechanism (spinning will help). Then slowly pull the strip out until you hear the dial tone.

A number 14 brass washer with a small piece of scotch tape over one side of the hole will not only get a free call, but works in about any vending machine that takes dimes. You can get a box of thousands for about a dollar at any hardware store. You should always have a box around for phones, laundromats, parking meters and drink machines.

Bend a bobby pin after removing the plastic from the tips and jab it down into the transmitter (mouthpiece). When it presses against the metal diaphragm, rub it on a metal wall or pipe to ground it. When you've made contact you'll hear the dial tone. If the phone uses old-fashioned rubber black tubing to enclose the wires running from the headset to the box, you can insert a metal tack through the tubing, wiggle it around a little until it makes contact with the bare wires and touch the tack to a nearby metal object for grounding.

Put a dime in the phone, dial the operator and tell her you have ten cents credit. She'll return your dime and get your call for free. If she asks why, say you made a call on another pay phone, lost the money, and the operator told you to switch phones and call the credit operator.

This same method works for long distance calls. Call the operator and find out the rate for your call. Hang up and call another operator telling her you just dialed San Francisco direct, got a wrong number and lost $.95 or whatever it is. She will get your call free of charge.

If there are two pay phones next to each other, you can call long distance on one and put the coins in the other. When the operator cuts in and asks you to deposit money, drop the coins into the one you are not using, but hold the receiver up to the slots so the operator can hear the bells ring. When you've finished, you can simply press the return button on the phone with the coins in it and out they come. If you have a good tape recorder you can record the sounds of a quarter, dime and nickel going into a pay phone and play them for the operator in various combinations when she asks for the money. Turn the volume up as loud as you can get it.

You can make a long distance call and charge it to a phone number. Simply tell the operator you want to bill the call to your home phone because you don't have the correct change. Tell her there is no one there now to verify the call, but you will be home in an hour and she can call you then if there is any question. Make sure the exchange goes with the area you say it does.

Always have a number of made-up credit card numbers. The code letter for 1970 is S, then seven digits of the phone number and a three digit district number (not the same as area code). The district number should be under 599. Example: S-573-2100-421 or S-537-3402-035. Look up the phone numbers for your area by simply requesting a credit card for your home phone which is very easy to get and then using the last three numbers with another phone number. Usually making up exotic numbers from far away places will work quite well as it would be impossible for an operator to spot a phony number in the short time she has to check her list.

We advise against making phony credit card calls on a home phone. We have seen a gadget that you install between the wall socket and the cord which not only allows you to receive all the calls you want for free, but eliminates the most common form of electronic bugging. They are being manufactured and sold for fifty dollars by a disgruntled telephone engineer in Massachusetts. Unfortunately you are going to have to find him on your own or duplicate his efforts, for he has sworn us to secrecy. If someone does, however, offer you such a device, it probably does work. Test it by installing it and having someone call you from a pay phone. If it's working, the person should get their dime back at the end of the call.

Actually if you know the slightest information about wiring, you can have your present phone disconnected on the excuse that you'll be leaving town for a few months and then connect the wires into the main trunk lines on your own. Extensions can easily be attached to your main line without the phone company knowing about it.

You can make all the free long distance calls you want by calling your party collect at a pay phone. Just have your friend go to a prearranged phone booth at a prearranged time. This can be done on the spot by having the friend call you person to person. Say you're not in, but ask for the number calling you since you'll be "back" in five minutes. Once you get the number simply hang up, wait a moment and call back your friend collect. The call has to be out of the state to work, since operators are familiar with the special extension numbers assigned to pay phones for her area and possibly for nearby areas as well. If she asks you if it is a pay phone say no. If she finds out during the call (which rarely happens) and informs you of this, simply say you didn't expect the party to have a pay phone in his house and accept the charges. We have never heard of this happening though. The trick of calling person-to-person collect should always be used when calling long distance on home-to-home phones also. You can hear the voice of your friend saying that he'll be back in a few minutes. Simply hang up, wait a moment and call station to station, thereby getting a person-to-person call without the extra charges which can be considerable on a long call during business hours.

If you plan to stay at your present address for only a few more months, stop paying the bill and call like crazy. After a month you get the regular bill which you avoid paying. Another month goes by and the next bill comes with last month's balance added to it. Shortly thereafter you get a note advising you that your service will be terminated in ten days if you don't pay the bill. Wait a few days and send them a five or ten dollar money order with a note saying you've had an accident and are pressed for funds because of large medical bills, but you'll send them the balance as soon as you are up and around again. That will hold them for another month. In all, you can stretch it out for four or five months with a variety of excuses and small payments. This also works with the gas and electric companies and with any department stores you conned into letting you charge.

You can get the service deposit reduced to half of the normal rate if you are a student or have other special qualifications. Surprisingly, these rates and discounts vary from area to area, so check around before you go into the business office for your phone. There is an incredible 50 cents charge per month for not having your phone listed. If you want an unlisted phone, you can avoid this fee by having the phone listed in a fictitious name, even if the bill is sent to you. Just say you want your roommate's name listed instead of your own.

FREE PLAY
MOVIES AND CONCERTS
There are many ways to sneak into theaters, concerts, stadiums and other entertainment houses. All these places have numerous fire exits with push-bar doors that open easily from the inside. Arrive early with a group of friends, after casing the joint and selecting the most convenient exit. Pay for one person to get in. When he does he simply opens the designated exit door when the ushers are out of the area and everyone rushes inside.

For theatrical chains in large cities, call their home office and ask to speak to the vice-president in charge of publicity, sales, or personnel. Ask what his name is so you'll know who you're talking to. When you get the information you want, hang up. Now you have the name of a high official in the company. Compile a short list of officials in the various film, theater and sporting event companies. Next all the various theaters and do the same thing for the theater managers. Once you have the two lists you are ready to proceed. Call the theater you want to attend. When someone answers say you're Mr. __________ from the home office calling Mr. __________ (manager's name) and you'd like to have two passes O.K'd for two important people from out of town. Invariably she'll just ask their names or tell them to mention your name at the box office. Not only will you get in free, but you can avoid waiting in line with this fake-out.

In Los Angeles and New York, the studios hold pre-release screenings for all movies. If you know roughly when a movie is about to come out, call the publicity department of the studio producing the film and say you're the critic for a newspaper or magazine (give the name) and ask them when you can screen the film. They'll give you the time and place of various screenings. When you go, ask them to put you on their list and you'll get notices of all future screenings.

One of our favorite ways to sneak into a theater with continuously running shows is the following. Arrive just as the show is emptying out and join the line leaving the theater. Exclaiming, "Oh, my gosh!" you slap your forehead, turn around and return, tell the usher you left your hat, pocketbook, etc. inside. Once you're inside the theater, just swipe some popcorn and wait for the next show.

RECORDS AND BOOKS
If you have access to a few addresses, you can get all kinds of records and books from clubs on introductory offers. Since the cards you mail back are not signed there is no legal way you can be held for the bill. You get all sorts of threatening mail, which, by the way, also comes free.

If you have a friend who is a member of a record club, ask him to submit your name as a free member. He gets 4 free records for getting you signed up. A soon as you get the letter saying how lucky you are to be a member, quit. Your friend's free records have already been shipped. We used to have at least 10 different names and addresses working on all the record and book companies. Every other day we would ride around collecting the big packages. To cap it off, we opened a credit account at a large department store and used to return most of the records and books to the store saying that they were gifts and we wanted something else. Since we had an account at the store, they always took the merchandise and gave credit for future purchases.

You can always use the public libraries. Find out when they do their yearly housecleaning. Every library discards thousands of books on this day. Just show up and ask if you can take some.

Almost anything you might want to know from plans for constructing a sundial to a complete blueprint for building a house may be obtained free from the Government Printing Office. Write: to Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington D.C. 20402. Most publication are free. Those that are not are dirt cheap. Ask to be put on the list to receive the free biweekly list of Selected U.S. Government Publications.

One of the best ways to receive records and books free is to invest twenty dollars and print up some stationery with an artistic logo for some non-existent publication. Write to all the public relations departments of record companies, publishing houses, and movie studios. Say you are a newspaper with a large youth readership and have regular reviews of books, or records, or movies, and would like to be placed on their mailing list. Say that you would be glad to send them any reviews of their records that appear in the paper. That adds a note of authenticity to the letter. After a month or so you'll be receiving more records and books than you can use.

If you really want a book badly enough, follow the title of this one-Dig!

FREE MONEY
No book on survival should fail to give you some good tips on how to rip-off bread. Really horning in on this chapter will put you on Free-loader Street life, 'cause with all the money in Amerika, the only thing you'll have trouble getting is poor.

WELFARE
It's easy to get on welfare that anyone who is broke and doesn't have a regular relief check coming in is nothing but a goddamn lazy bum! Each state has a different set up. The racist penny-pinchers of Mississippi dole out only $8.00 a month. New York dishes ont the most with monthly payments up to $120.00. The Amerikan Public Welfare Association publishes a book called The Public Welfare Directory with information on exactly what each welfare agency provides and how you go about qualifying. You can read the directory at any public library to find out all you can about how your local office operates.

When you've discovered everything you need to know, head on down to the Welfare Department in your grubbiest clothes. Not sleeping the night before helps. The receptionist will assign an "intaker" to interview you. After a long wait, you'll be directed to a desk. The intaker raps to you for a while, generally showing sympathy for your plight and turns you over to the caseworker who will make the final and ultimate assessment.

Have your heaviest story ready to ooze out. If you have no physical disabilities, lay down a "mentally deranged" rap. Getting medical papers saying you have any long-term illness or defect helps a lot. Tell the caseworker you get dizzy spells on the job and faint in the street. Keep bobbing your head, yawning, or scratching. Tell him that you have tried to commit suicide recently because you just can't make it in a world that has forgotten how to love. Don't lay it on too obviously. Wait till he "pries" some of the details from you. This makes the story even more convincing. Many welfare workers are young and hip. The image you are working on is that of a warm, sensitive kid victimized by brutal parents and a cold ruthless society. Tell them you held off coming for months because you wanted to maintain some self-respect even though have been walking the streets broke and hungry. If you are a woman tell him you were recently raped. In sexist Amerika, this will probably be true.

After about an hour or so of this soap-opera stuff, you'll be ready to get your first check. From then on it's a monthly check, complete medical care for free and all sorts of other outasight benefits. Occasionally the caseworker will drop by your pad or ask you down to the office to see how you're coming along, but with your condition, things don't look so good. Don't abandon hope though. Hope always helps fill in a caseworker's report.

The real trick is to parlay welfare payments in a few different states. Work out an exchange system with a buddy and mail each other the checks when they come in. If the caseworker comes by, your roommate can say you went to find a job or enrolled in a class. We know cats who have parlayed welfare payments up to six hundred dollars a month.

UNEMPLOYMENT
Every outlaw should learn everything there is to know about the rules governing unemployment insurance. As in the case of welfare rules, eligibility, and the size of payments differ from state to state. In New York, you are eligible for payments equivalent to half your weekly salary before taxes up to $65 per week, on the condition that you have worked for a minimum of twenty weeks during the year. Payments are somewhat lower in most other states. In order to collect, you must show you are actively searching for a job and keep a record of employers you contact. This can easily be fudged. Every time you're questioned about it, mention one or two companies. If your hair is long, you'll have no problem. Just say they won't hire you until you get a haircut. When this is the case, the unemployment office cannot cut off your payments or your hair. They also cannot make you accept a job you do not want. Tell them any job offer you get is not challenging enough for your talents. Unemployment can be collected for six months before payments are terminated. Twenty more weeks of slavery and you can go back to maintaining your dignity in the unemployment line. These job insurance payments cannot be taxed and since you are working so few weeks out of each year, your taxable income is at a minimum. Read all the fine print for tax form 1040 and discover all the deductible loopholes available to you. You should wind up paying no taxes at all or having all the taxes that were deducted from your pay reimbursed. Never turn over to the pig government any funds you can rip off. Remember, it isn't your government, so why submit to its taxation if you feel you do not have representation.

PANHANDLING
The practice of going up to folks and bumming money is a basic hustling art. If you are successful at panhandling, you'll be able to master all the skills in the book and then some. To be good at it requires a complete knowledge of what motivates people. Even if we don't need the bread, we panhandle on the streets in the same way doctors go back to medical school. It helps us stay in shape. Panhandling is illegal throughout Pig Empire, but it's one of those laws that is rarely enforced unless they want to "clean the area" of hippies. If you're in a strange locale, ask a fellow panhandler what the best places to work are without risking a bust. Do it in front of supermarkets, theaters, sporting events, hip dress shops and restaurants. College cafeterias are very good hunting grounds.

When you're hustling, be assertive. Don't lean against the wall with your palm out mumbling "Spare some change?" Go up to people and stand directly in front of them so they have to look you in the eye and say no. Bum from guys with dates. Bum from motherly looking types. After a while you'll get a sense of the type of people you get results with.

Theater can be real handy. The best actors get the most bread. Devising a street theater skit can help. A good prop is a charity canister. You can get them by going to the offices of a mainstream charity and signing up as a collector. Don't feel bad about ripping them off. Charities are the biggest swindle around. 80% or more of the funds raised by honky charities go to the organization itself. New fancy cars for the Red Cross, inflated salaries for the executives of the Cancer Fund, tax write-offs for Jerry Lewis. You get the picture. A good way to work this and keep your karma in shape is to turn over half to a revolutionary groups such as your local underground. Remember, fugitives from injustice depend on you to survive. Be a responsible member of our nation. Support the only war we have going!

RIP-OFFS
If you are closing out your checking account, overdraw your account by $10.00. The bank won't bother chasing you down for a lousy 10 bucks.

Call the telephone operator from time to time and tell her you lost some change in a pay phone. They will mail you the cash.

You can get $150 to $600 in advance by willing your body to a University medical school. They have you sign a lot of papers and put a tattoo on your foot. You can get the tattoo removed and sell your body to the folks across the street. The universities can be ripped off by enrolling, applying for a loan and bugging out after the loan comes through. This is a lot easier than you might imagine and you can hit them for up to $2,500 with a good enough story.

Put a number 14 brass washer in a newspaper vending machine and take out all the papers. Stand around the corner or go into the local bar and sell them. You often get tipped. Don't do this with underground papers. Remember they're your brothers and sisters.

The airlines will give you $250 for each piece of luggage you lose when flying. The following is a good way to lose your luggage. When you get off a plane, have a friend meet you at the gate. Give him your luggage claim stubs and arrange to meet at a washroom or restaurant. Your friend picks up the bags and takes them out of the baggage room. Before he leaves the airport, he turns over the stubs to you at your prearranged rendezvous. You casually wander over to the baggage department and search for your elusive luggage. When all the baggage has been claimed, file a complaint with the lost and found department. They'll have you fill out a form, explain that it probably got misplaced on another carrier and promise to send it to you as soon as it is located. In a month you'll receive a check for $250 per bag. Enjoy your flight.

THE INTERNATIONAL YIPPIE CURRENCY EXCHANGE
Every time you drop a coin into a slot, you are losing money needlessly. There is at least one foreign coin that is the same size or close enough that will do the trick for less than a penny. The following are some of the foreign currencies that will get you that Coke, call or subway ride.

Quarter Size Coins
URUGUAYAN 10 CENTISIMO PIECE
works in many soda and candy machines, older telephones (3 slot types), toll machines, laundromats, parking meters, stamp machines, and restroom novelty machines. Works also in some electric cancerette machines but not most mechanical machines.
DANISH 5 ORE PIECE
works in 3 slot telephones, toll machines, laundromats, automats, some stamp machines, most novelty machines, and the Boston Subway. Does not work in soda or cancerette machines.
PERUVIAN 20 CENTAVO PIECES
works in new (one slot) telephone and some electric cancerette machines, but does not work as many places in the Uruguay, Danish and Peruvian coins.
ICELANDIC 5 AURAN PIECE
most effective quarter in the world, even works in change machines. Unfortunately, this coin is practically impossible to get outside of Iceland and even there, it is becoming difficult since the government is attempting to remove it from circulation.
Dime Size Coins
MALAYSIAN PENNY
generally works in all dime slots, including old and new telephones, candy machines, soda machines, electric machines, stamp machines, parking meters, photocopy machines, and pay toilets. Does not work in some newer stamp dispensers, and some mechanical cancerette machines.
TRINIDAD PENNY
generally works the same as Malaysian Penny.
New York Subway Tokens
DANISH 25 ORE PIECE
works in 95% of all subway turnstiles. A very safe coin to use since it will not jam the turnstile. It is 5/l000th of an inch bigger than a token.
PORTUGUESE 50 CENTAVO PIECE
the average Portuguese Centavo Piece is 2/1000th of an inch smaller than a token.
JAMAICAN HALF PENNY, BAHAMA PENNY and AUSTRALIAN SCHILLING
these coins are 12/l000th to 15/1000th of an inch smaller than token. They work in about 80% of all turnstiles. We have also had good success with FRENCH l FRANC PIECE (WWII issue), SPANISH l0 CENTAVO PIECE NICARAGUAN 25 CENTAVO PIECE.
All of the coins listed have a currency value of a few cents, with most less than one penny. Foreign coins work more regularly than slugs and are non-magnetic, hence cannot be detected by "slug detector machines." Also unlike slugs, although they are illegal to use in machines, they are perfectly legal to possess and exchange.

Large coin dealers and currency exchanges are generally uptight about handling cheap foreign coins in quantity since they don't make much profit and are subject to certain pressures in selling coins that are the same size as Amerikan coins or tokens.

People planning trips to European or South American countries should bring back rolls of coins as souvenirs or for use in "coin jewelry."

If you do not plan to travel, a small coin store which is cool about selling to the public is located on the Lower East Side at 191 East Third Street, New York City. When their phone works, the number is 475-9897.

Washers are the most popular types of slugs. You can go to any hardware store and match them up with various coins. Sometimes you might have to put a small piece of scotch tape over one side of the hole to make it more effective. Each washer is identified by its material and number, i.e. No. 14 brass washer with scotch tape on one side is a perfect dime. When you get the ones you want, you can buy thousands for next to nothing (especially at industrial supply stores) and pass them out to our friends.

Xerox copies of both sides of a dollar bill, carefully glued together, work in most machines that give you change for a dollar. Excuse us, there is a knock at the door. . .Fancy that! It's the Treasury Department. Wonder what they want?

FREE DOPE
BUYING, SELLING AND GIVING IT AWAY
As you probably know, most dope is illegal, therefore some risks are always involved in buying and selling. "Eternal vigilance and constant mobility are the passwords of survival," said Che Guevara, and nowhere do they apply more than in the world of dope. If you ever have the slightest doubt about the person with whom you're dealing-DON'T.

Buying
In the purchasing of dope, arrests are not a problem unless you're the fall guy for a bust on the dealer. The major hazard is getting burned. Buy from a friend or a reputable dealer. If you have to do business with a stranger, be extra careful. Never front money. One of the burn artist's tricks is to take your money, tell you to wait and split with your dough. There are various side show gimmicks each burn artist works. The most common is to ask you to walk with them a few blocks and then stop in front of an apartment building. He then tells you the dope is upstairs and asks you to hand over the money in advance. He explains that his partner is the real uptight 'cause they were raided once and won't let anybody in the pad. He takes your dough and disappears inside the building. Out the back door or up to the roof and into his getaway helicopter. You are left on the sidewalk with anxious eyes and that "can this really be happening to me" feeling.

Another burn method is to substitute oregano, parsley or catnip for pot, camel shit for hash, saccharin or plain pills for acid. If you got burned for heroin or speed, you're better off being taken, because these are body-fuck drugs that can mess you up badly. The people that deal them are total pigs and should be regarded as such. When you're buying from strangers, you have a right to sample the merchandise free unless it's coke. Check the weight of grass with a small pocket scale. Feel the texture and check out how well it has been cleaned of seeds and twigs. Smoke a joint that is rolled from the stuff you get. Don't accept the dealer's sample that he pulled out of his pocket. When you are buying a large amount of acid, pick a sample. You should never buy acid from a stranger as it is too easy a burn.

If you buy cocaine, bring along a black light. Only the imparities glow under its fluorescence, thus giving you an idea of the quality of the coke. Make sure it's the real thing. Sniffing coke can perforate your nasal passages, so be super moderate. Too much will kill you. A little bit goes a long way.

Selling
Dealing, although dangerous, is a tax-free way of surviving even though it borders on work. The best way to start is to save up a little bread and buy a larger quantity than you usually get. Then deal out smaller amounts to your friends. The fewer strangers you deal with, the safer you are. The price of dope varies with the amount of stuff on the market in your area, the heat the narks are bringing down and the connections you have. A rough scale, say, for pot is $20 an ounce, $125 a pound and $230 a kilo (2.2 pounds). The price per ounce decreases depending on the amount you get. It's true you make more profit selling by the ounces, but the hassle is greater and the more contacts you must make increases the risk. Screwing your customers will prove to be bad karma (unless you consider dying groovy), so stick to honest dealing. Never deal from your pad and avoid keeping your stash there. Get into searching out the best markets which are generally in California, given its close proximity to good ol' Mexico. Kansas is a big distribution center for Mexican grass, too. You can ship the stuff (safer than carrying) via air freight anywhere in the country for about $30 a trunk. Keep the sending and receiving end looking straight. We have one friend who wears a priest's outfit to ship and receive dope. In fact, every time we see nuns or priests on the street, we assume they're outlaws just on their way to the next deal or bombing. For all we know, the church actually is nothing but a huge dope ring in drag. Anybody gotten high off communion wafers lately?

When you talk about deals on the phone, be cool. Make references to theater tickets or subscriptions. Don't keep extensive notes on your activities and contacts. Use code names where you can. Never deal with two other people present. Only you and the buyer should be in the immediate vicinity. Narks make busts in pairs so one can be the arresting officer and the other can be a court witness. Dealing is a paradox of unloading a good amount of shit but not trying to move too fast; of making ne contacts but being careful of strangers; of dealing high quality and low prices; and of being simultaneously bold and cautious. If you get nabbed, get the best lawyer who specializes in dope busts. First offenders rarely end up serving time, but it's a different story for repeaters. Know how punitive the courts are and which judges and prosecutors can be bought off. Never deal in the month before an election. For complete information on how to avoid getting busted and what to do if busted, read The Drug Bust (listed in appendix).

Giving It Away
Giving dope away can be a real mind-blower. Every dealer should submit to voluntary taxation by the new Nation. If you are a conscientious dealer, you should be willing and eager to give a good hunk of your stash away at special events or to groups into free distribution. You should also be able to give bread to bust trusts set up to bail out heads unable to get up the ransom money the whisky lush courts demand. Many groups have done huge mailings of joints to all sorts of people. A group in New York mailed 30,000 to people in the phone book on one Valentine's Day. A group in Los Angeles placed over 2,000 joints in library books and then advised kids to smoke a book during National Library Week. Be cool about even giving stuff away since that counts as dealing in most states. John Sinclair, Chairman of the White Panther Party, is serving 9½ to 10 years for giving away two joints.

GROW YOUR OWN
Pot is a weed and as such grows in all climates under every kind of soil condition. We have seen acres and acres of grass growing in Kansas, Iowa and New Jersey. If you're not located next door to a large pot field growing in the wild, maybe you would have some success in growing your own. It's well worth it to try your potluck!

The first thing is to start with a bunch of good-quality seeds from grass that you really dig. Select the largest seeds and place them between two heavy-duty napkins or ink blotters in a pan. Soak the napkins with water until completely saturated. Cover the top of the pan or place it in a dark closet for three days or until a sprout about a half inch long appears from most of the seeds.

During this incubation period, you can prepare the seedling bed. Use a low wooden box such as a tomato flat and fill it with an inch of gravel. Fill the rest of the box with some soil mixed with a small amount of fertilizer. Moisten the soil until water seeps out the bottom of the box, then level the soil making a flat surface. With a pencil, punch holes two inches apart in straight rows. You can get about 2 dozen in a tomato flat.

When the incubation period is over, take those seeds that have an adequate sprout and plant one in each hole. The sprout goes down and the seed part should be a little above ground. Tamp the soil firmly (do not pack) around each plant as you insert the sprouts.

The seedlings should remain in their boxes in a sunny window until about mid-May. They should receive enough water during this period to keep the soil moist. By the time they are ready to go into the ground, the green plants should be about six to eight inches tall.

If it is late winter or early spring and you have a plot of land that gets enough sun and is sheltered from nosy neighbors, you should definitely grow grass in the great outdoors.

One idea is to plant sunflowers in your garden as these grow taller than the pot plants and camouflage them from view. The best idea is to find some little-used field and plant a section of it.

Prepare the land the way you would for any garden vegetable. Dig up the ground with a pitchfork or heavy duty rake, removing rocks. Rake the plot level and punch holes in the soil about three inches deep and about two feet apart in the same way you did in the seedling boxes. Remove the young plants from the box, being careful not to disturb the roots and keeping as much soil intact as possible. Transplant each plant into one of the punched-out holes and firmly press the soil to hold it in place. When all the plants are in the ground, water the entire area. Tend them the way you would any other garden. They should reach a height of about six feet by the end of the summer and be ready to harvest.

If you don't have access to a field, you can grow good stuff right in your own closet or garage using artificial lighting. Transplant the plants into larger wooden boxes or flower boxes. Be sure and cover the bottom of each box with a few inches of pebbles or broken pottery before you add the soil. This will insure proper drainage. Fertilize the soil according to the instructions on the box and punch out holes in much the same way you would do if you were growing outside. After the young plants have been transplanted and watered thoroughly, you will have to rig up a lighting system. Use blue light bulbs, which are available at hardware stores for the first thirty days. These insure a shorter, sturdier stalk. Leave the lights on 24 hours a day and place them about a foot above the tops of the plants. If the plants begin to feel brittle or turn yellow at the edges, then the temperature is too hot. Use less illumination or raise the height of the lamp if this occurs.

After the first thirty days, change to red bulbs and cut down the lighting time to 16 hours a day. After a week, reduce the time to 14 hours and then on the third week to 12 hours. Maintain this lighting period until the plants flower. The female plants have a larger and heavier flower structure and the males are somewhat skimpy. The female plant produces the stronger grass and the choicest parts are the top leaves including the flowers.

Inside or outside, the plants will be best if allowed to reach maturity, although they are smokeable at any point along the way. When you want to harvest the crop, wet the soil and pull out the entire plant. If you want to separate the top leaves from the rest, you can do so and make two qualities of grass. In any event, let the plants dry in the sun for two weeks until they are thoroughly dried out. If you want to hurry the drying process, you can do it in an oven using a very low heat for about twenty minutes. After you've completed the drying, you can "cure'" the grass by putting the plants in plastic bags and sprinkling drops of wine, rum or plain booze on them. This greatly increases the potency.

There are two other ways that we know work to increase the potency of grass you grow or buy. One consists of digging a hole and burying a stash of grass wrapped in a plastic bag. A few months in the ground will produce a mouldy grass that is far fuckin' out. A quick method is to get a hunk of dry ice, put it in a metal container or box with a tight lid (taping the lid airtight helps), and sprinkling the grass on top. Allow it to sit tightly covered for about three days until all the dry ice evaporates.

ASSORTED FREEBIES
LAUNDRY
Wait in a laundromat. Tell someone with a light load that you'll watch the machine for them if you can stick your clothes in with theirs.

PETS
Your local ASPCA will give you a free dog, cat, bird or other pet. Have them inspect and inoculate the animal which they will do free of charge. You can get free or very cheap medical care for your pet at a school for veterinary medicine.

Underground newspapers often carry a free-pets column in the back pages. Snakes can be caught in any wooded area and they make great pets. You can collect insects pretty easy. Ants are unbelievable to watch. You can make a simple 3/4 inch wide glass case about a foot high, fill it with sand and start an ant colony. A library book will tell you how to care for them.

Every year the National Park Service gives away surplus elks in order to keep the herds under its jurisdiction from outgrowing the amount of available land for grazing. Write to: Superintendent, Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone, Wyoming 83020. You must be prepared to pay the freight charges for shipping the animal and guarantee that you can provide enough grazing land to keep the big fellow happy.

Under the same arrangement the government will send you a Free Buffalo. Write to: Office of Information, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 20420. So many people have written them recently demanding their Free Buffalo, that they called a press conference to publicly attack the Yippies for creating chaos in the government. Don't take any buffalo shit from these petty bureaucrats, demand the real thing. Demand your Free Buffalo.

You can get a free l6mm movie about parakeets called "More Fun with Parakeets," by writing to: R.T. French Co., 9068 Mustard St., Rochester, New York 14609. This great film won an Academy Award for best picture of 1793.

POSTERS
Beautiful wall posters are available by writing to the National Tourist Agencies of various countries. Most are located between 42nd and 59th Streets on Fifth Ave. in New York City. You can find their addresses in the New York Yellow Pages under both National Tourist Agencies and Travel Agencies. There are over fifty of them. Prepare a form letter saying you are a high school geography teacher and would like some posters of the country to decorate your classroom. In a month you will be flooded with them. Airline companies also have colorful wall posters they send out free.

SECURITY
For this trick you need some money to begin with. Deposit it in a bank and return in a few weeks telling them you lost your bank book. They give you a card to fill out and sign and in a week you will receive another book. Now withdraw your money, leaving you with original money and a bank book showing a balance. You can use this as identification to prevent vagrancy busts when traveling, as collateral for bail, or for opening a charge account at a store.

Another trick is to buy some American Travelers Checks. Wait a week and report your checks lost. They'll give you new ones to replace the missing ones. You spend your new checks and keep the ones you reported lost as security. This security is great for international travel especially at border crossings. If you want, you can spend the Travelers Checks by giving them to a friend to forge your name. Before you call the office to report the loss, call the police station and say you were mugged and your wallet was stolen. The agency always asks if you have reported the lost checks to the police, so you can safely answer yes. Never do this for more than five hundred dollars and never more than once with any one company.

POSTAGE
When mailing to the same city, address the envelope or package to yourself and put the name of the person you are sending it to where the return address generally goes. Mail it without postage and it will be "returned" to the sender. Because almost all letters are machine processed, any stamp that is the correct size will pass. Easter Seals and a variety of other type stamps usually get by the electronic scanner. If you put the stamp on a spot other than the far upper right corner, it will not be cancelled and can be used again by the person who gets your letter. If you have a friend working in a large corporation, you can run your organization's mail through their postage meter.

Those ridiculous free introductory or subscription type letters that you get in the mail often have a postage-guaranteed return postcard for your convenience. The next one you get, paste it on a brick and drop it in the mailbox. The company is required by law to pay the postage. You can also get rid of all your garbage this way.

MAPS
You can get a free full-color World Atlas by writing to Hammond Inc. Maplewood, New Jersey 07040.

MINISTRY
Unquestionably one of the best deals going is becoming a minister in the Universal Life Church. They will send you absolutely free, bona fide ordination papers. These entitle you to all sorts of discounts and tax exemptions. Right now, sit down and write to Universal Life Church Inc., 601 3rd St., Modesto, California 95351. Try cutting out the card on the following page and laminate it. Let us know how it works out.

ATROCITIES
Join the Army!

VETERAN'S BENEFITS
Write to the Veteran's Administration Information Service, Washington, D.C. 20420 asking them for the free services they provide for veterans. Send fifteen cents to the Government Printing Office for their booklet Federal Benefits Available to Veterans and Their Dependents.

WATCH
A $330 Bulova sport timer accurate to 1/10 of a second will be lent free to judges and referees to time any amateur sporting event. Call your local authorized Bulova dealer and get one lent to you under a phony name. Tell them you want to time an orgy.

VACATIONS
There are many ways to take a free vacation, but here's one you might not have considered. It's an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas for absolutely nothing. Call a travel agent and request information about Las Vegas gambling junkets (you'll probably have to hunt around because this practice is being curtailed). Different hotels have different deals, but the average one runs something like this: If you agree to buy $500 worth of chips that can only be spent on gambling tables of the host hotel, they will fly you round trip, pay all hotel and food bills and provide you with a rented car. Go with a close friend and check into the hotel. Once at the roulette or craps table, you and your friend bet the same amount of chips against each other on even-paying chances. For example, he would bet on red and you on black. When either of you wins, you keep the house chips; when you lose, turn in the specially marked chips that cannot be cashed in. What you are doing is simply exchanging the chips you came with for house chips that you can cash in for real dough. Theoretically your two vacations should cost $23.00 if you do the betting at the crap table and $52.00 if you bet even chances at roulette. That is because the house wins if 0 or 00 comes up in roulette and if 12 comes up on the first roll of the dice, but it sure is a hell of a vacation for two for $23.00, and you get free champagne on some flights.

You can get half a vacation free by going to the Amerikan Embassy or Consulate in the country you find yourself in and claim that you're destitute. There is a law on the books that says they have to send you away, but be persistent. Make up a story about how your parents are away from home traveling. Say you got mugged or something and you are about to go to the newspapers with your story. Eventually they'll get you a free plane ticket. They stamp your passport invalid though, and you have to pay the government back before you can use it again.

DRINKS
When hitching, it's a good idea to carry a bottle opener and a straw. You take the caps off soda bottles while they're still in the machine and drink them dry without ever touching the bottle.

BURIALS
For ways to avoid the high cost of dying in Amerika, write to: Continental Association, 39 East Van Buren St., Chicago, Ill. 60605. Send them $1.00 for the Manual of Simple Burial and 25¢ for a list of Memorial Associates.

ASTRODOME PICTURES
Don't you just have to have a huge, glossy color photo of Houston's famed Astrodome to show all your friends? Use the teacher bit and write to: Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Council, 1600 Main St., Houston, Texas 77002.

DIPLOMA
Above the paper towel dispenser in a service station restroom was written: "San Francisco State Diplomas." If you really need a college or a high school diploma, send $2.00 to Glenco, Box 834, Warren, Michigan 48090. They send you one that looks real authentic. It ain't Harvard, but it looks good enough to frame and put on your wall.

TOILETS
Sneak Under!

FIGHT!
Tell It All, Brothers and Sisters
STARTING A PRINTING WORKSHOP
Leaflets, posters, newsletters, pamphlets and other printed matter are important to any revolution. A printing workshop is a definite need in all communities, regardless of size. It can vary from a garage with a mimeograph machine to a mammoth operation complete with printing presses and fancy photo equipment. With less than a hundred dollars and some space, you can begin this vital service. It'll take a while before you get into printing greenbacks, phony identification papers and credit cards like the big boys, but to walk a mile you must start with one step as Gutenberg once said.

Paper
The standard size for paper is 8½" x 11". It comes 500 sheets to a "ream" and 10 reams to a case. You want a 16-20 bond weight sheet. The higher weights are better if you are printing on both sides. You can purchase what are termed "odd lots" from most paper companies. This means that the colors will be assorted and some sheets will be frayed at the edges or wrinkled. Odd lots can be purchased at great discounts. Some places sell paper this way for 10% of the original price and for leaflets, different colors help. Check this out with paper suppliers in your area.

Ink
Inks come in pastes and liquids and are available in stationary stores and office supply houses. Each machine requires its own type ink, so learn what works best with the one you have. Colored ink is slightly more expensive but available for most machines.

Stencils
Each machine uses a particular size and style stencil. If you get stuck with the wrong kind and can't get out to correct the mistake, you can punch extra holes in the top, trim them with a scissors if they are too big or add strips of tape to the sides if too narrow.

Be sure and use only the area that will fit on the paper you are using. Most stencils can be used for paper larger than standard size. Stencils will "cut" a lot neater if an electric typewriter is used. If you only have access to e manual machine, remove the ribbon so the keys will strike the stencil directly. A plastic sheet, provided by the supplier, can be inserted between the stencil and its backing to provide sharper cuts by the keys. If you hold the stencil up to a light, you should be able to clearly see the typing. If you can't, you'll have to apply more pressure.

Sketches can be done with a ball point pen or special stylus directly on the stencil. If you're really rushed, or there isn't that much info to get on the leaflet, you can hand-print the text using these instruments. Take care not to tear the stencil.

Mimeograph Machines
The price of a new mimeograph runs from $200 to $1200, depending on how sophisticated a machine you need and can afford. A.B. Dick and Gestetner are the most popular brands. Many supply houses have used machines for sale. Check the classified section for bargains. See if any large corporations are moving, going out of business or have just had a fire. Chances are they'll be unloading printing equipment at cheap prices. Campaign offices of losing candidates often have mimeos to unload in November. Many supply houses have renting and leasing terms that you might be interested in considering. Have an idea of the work load and type of printing you'll be handling before you go hunting. Talk to someone who knows what they're doing before you lay down a lot of cash on a machine.

Duplicators
We prefer duplicators to mimeos even though the price is a little higher. They work faster, are easier to operate and print clearer leaflets. The Gestener Silk Screen Duplicator is the best bet. It turns out stuff almost as good as offset printing. You can do 10 thousand sheets an hour in an assortment of colors.

Electronic Stencils
If you use electronic stencils you can do solid lettering, line drawings, cartoons and black and white pictures with good contrast. To make an electronic stencil, you map out on a sheet of paper everything you want printed. This is a photo process, so make sure only what you want printed shows up on the sheet. You can use a light blue pencil for guide lines as it won't photograph, but be neat anyway. Printing shops will cut a stencil on a special machine for about $3.00.

The Gestefax Electronic Stencil Cutter can be leased or rented in the same way as the duplicator. If you are doing a lot of printing for a number of different groups, this machine will eliminate plenty of hassle. The stencils cost about 20¢ each and take about fifteen minutes to make.

If you have an electronic stencil cutter, duplicator, electric typewriter and a cheap source of paper, you can do almost any printing job imaginable. Have a dual rate system: one for community groups and another for regular business orders. You can use the profits to go towards the purchasing of more equipment and to build toward the day when you can get your own offset press.

Silk Screening
Posters banners and shirts that are unbelievable can be printed by this exciting method. The process is easy to learn and teach. You'll need a fairly large area to work in since the posters have to be hung up to dry. Pick up any inexpensive paperback book on silk screening. The equipment costs less than $50.00 to begin. Once you get good at it, you can print complicated designs in a number of different colors, including portraits.

UNDERGROUND NEWSPAPERS
Food conspiracies, bust trusts, people's clinics and demonstrations are all part of the new Nation, but if asked to name the most important institution in our lives, one would have to say the underground newspaper. It keeps tuned in on what's going on in the community and around the world. Values, myths, symbols, and all the trappings of our culture are determined to a large extent by the underground press. Each office serves as a welcome mat for strangers, a meeting place for community organizers and a rallying force to fight pig repression. There are probably over 500 regularly publishing with readerships running from a few hundred to over 500,000. Most were started in the last three years. If your scene doesn't have a paper, you probably don't have a scene together. A firmly established paper can be started on about $2,500. Plan to begin with eight pages in black and white with a 5,000 copy run. Each such issue will cost about $300 to print. You should have six issues covered when you start. Another $700 will do for equipment. Offset printing is what you'll want to get from a commercial printing establishment.

You need some space to start, but don't rush into setting up a storefront office until you feel the paper's going to be successful. A garage, barn or spare apartment room will do just fine. Good overhead fluorescent lighting, a few long tables, a bookcase, desk, chairs, possibly a phone and you are ready to start.

Any typewriter will work, but you can rent an IBM Selectric typewriter with a deposit of $120.00 and payments of $20.00 per month. Leasing costs twice as much, but you'll own the machine when the payments are finished. The Selectric has interchangeable type that works on a ball system rather than the old-fashion keys. Each ball costs $18.00, so by getting a few you can vary the type the way a printer does.

A light-table can make things a lot easier when it comes to layout. Simply build a box (3' x 4' is a good size, but the larger the better) out of ½" plywood. The back should be higher than the front to provide a sloping effect. The top should consist of a shelf of frosted glass. Get one strong enough to lean on. Inside the box, attach two fluorescent light fixtures to the walls or base. The whole light table should cost less than $25.00. That really is about all you need, except someone with a camera, a few good writers who will serve as reporters, an artistic person to take care of layout, and someone to hassle printing deals, advertising and distribution. Most people start by having everyone do everything.

Layout
A tabloid size paper is 9 7/8" x 14 5/8" with an inch left over on each side for margins. Columns typically are 3 1/4" allowing for three per page. Experience has found that this size is easy to lay out and more importantly, easy to read. There is an indirect ratio between readability and academic snobbishness. Avoid the textbook look. Remember, the New York Times in its low form represents the Death Kulture.

Start off with a huge collection of old magazines and newspapers. You can cut up all sorts of letters, borders, designs and sketches and paste them together to make eye-catching headlines. Sheets of headline type are available in different styles from art stores for $1.25 a sheet. Buy one of each type and then photograph several copies of each, bringing the price way down. The basic content in the prescribed column size should be banged out on the IBM. The columns can be clipped together with a clothespin to avoid confusion. Use a good heavy bond white opaque paper.

All black and white photographs from newspapers and magazines can be used directly. Color pictures can also be used but it's tricky and you'll have to experiment a little to get an understanding of what colors photograph poorly. Glossy black and white photographs must be shot in half tones to keep the grey areas. You can have them processed at any photo lab. You might also need the photo lab for enlargements or reductions, so make contact and establish a good working relationship.

An Exacto knife is available for 29¢ and you can get a package of 100 blades for $10.00. A few metal rulers, a good pair of scissors, some spray adhesive or rubber cement and you're ready to paste the pages that will make up the "dummy" that goes to the printer. Each page is laid out on special layout sheets with faint blue guide lines that don't photograph. Any large art supply store sells these sheets and all the other supplies.

By working over a light-table, the paste-up can be done more professionally. Experiment with many different layouts for each page before finally pasting up the paper. Don't have a picture in the corner and the rest solid columns. Print can be run over pictures and sketches by preparing two sheets for that page and shooting background in half-tones. The columns don't have to be run straight up and down, but can run at different angles. The most newsworthy articles should be towards the front of the paper. The centerfold can be treated in an exciting manner. A good idea is to do the centerfold so that it can be used as a poster to put on a wall after the paper is read. If you have ads, they should be kept near the back. The masthead, which gives the staff, mailing address, and similar info, goes near the front. Your focus should be the local activities. A section should be reserved for a directly of local services and events. People giving things away should have a section. The rest really depends on the life style and politics of the staff.

National stories can be supplied by one or more of the news services. Nothing in the underground press is copyrighted, so you can reprint an interesting article from another paper. It's customary to indicate what paper printed it first, or news service it was sent out by. Any underground paper has permission to reprint hunks of this book.

Ads
Most papers find it necessary to get some advertising to help defray the production costs. Some rely totally on subscription; some are outgrowths of organizations and still others are printed up and just handed out free. The ones with ads seem to have the longest life. Make up an ad rate before you put out the first issue. Ads are measured in inches of length. The width is understood by everyone to be the width of the column. If you use the 3¼" column, however, you'll want to let potential advertisers know you have wide columns.

The way to arrive at a reasonable rate is to estimate the total budget for each issue (adding some for overhead and labor), then each page and finally each column inch. After a little arithmetic you can get a good estimate of your printing cost per inch. Using our figures throughout this section, it should come to about $2.00 per inch. Double this figure and you'll arrive at the correct rate per advertising inch-$4.00. There should be special lower rates for large ads, such as half or full pages. There should also be a special arrangement for a continuous subscriber. If you have a classified section, another rate based on number of words or lines is constructed. A service charge is fixed if you make up the ad layout rather than the advertiser. The whole formula should be worked out and printed up before you lay out the first issue.

The best place to get advertising is locally. Theaters, hip clothing stores, ice cream parlors, and record stores are among the type of advertisers you should approach. After you build up a circulation, you might want to seek out national advertisers. The Underground Press Syndicate, Box 26, Village Station, New York, NY 10014, can be joined for $25.00, no dues thereafter. They try to get national ads for you in addition to sending out a newsletter, a news service, and making sure you get free subscriptions to the other underground papers. The U.P.S. can also do many other things for you, like list you in their directory, obtain legal advice, and bring you together with other underground papers for mutual benefit and defense. Another way to get national advertising is to see who tends to advertise in other underground papers. Send the publicity department of these companies letters and samples of your paper. Never let ads make up more than half the paper.

Distribution
At the beginning you should aim for a bi-weekly paper with a gradual increase in the number of pages. The price should be about 25¢. Check out the local laws about selling papers on the street. It's probably allowed and is a neat way to get the paper around. Give half to the street hawkers. Representatives at high schools and colleges should be sought out. Bookstores and newsstands are good places to distribute. After your paper gets going well, you might try for national distribution. The Cosmep Newsletter is put out by the Committee of Small Magazines, Editors and Publishers, PO Box 1425, Buffalo, NY 14214. In addition to good tips if you want to start a small literary magazine or publish your own book, they provide an up-to-date list of small stores around the country that would be likely to carry your paper. Subscriptions should be sought in the paper itself. If you get a lot, check out second class mailing privileges. UPS can help with out-of-city distribution.

If you're in a smaller town, you might have to shop around or go to another city to get printing done. Many printers print only pig swill, which brings up the point of getting busted for obscenity which can be pretty common. You probably should incorporate, but contact a sympathetic lawyer before you put out your first issue. During the summer there are usually a few alternative media conferences organized by one group or another. You can pick up valuable information and exchange ideas at these gatherings. UPS and the news services will keep you posted. Good luck and write on!

HIGH SCHOOL PAPERS
The usual high school paper is run by puppet lackeys of the administration. It avoids controversy, naughty language, and a host of other things foreign to the 4-H Club members the school is determined to mass produce. The only thing the staff is good at is kissing the principal's ass. Let's face it, the aim of a good high school newspaper should be to destroy the high school. Publishing and distributing a heavy paper isn't going to earn you the Junior Chamber of Commerce good citizenship award. You might have to be a little mysterious about who the staff is until you understand the ground rules and who controls the ballpark¾the people or the principal.

Many schools do not allow papers to be handed out on the school premises. These cases are generally won by the newspapers that take the school to court. You can challenge the rule and make the administration look like the dinosaurs they are by distributing sheets of paper with only your logo and the school rule printed. By gaining outside publicity for the first distribution of the paper, you might put the administration up tight about clamping down on you. It might be difficult to explain in civics class when they get to the freedom of the press stuff. Your paper should have one purpose in mind¾to piss off the principal and radicalize the students. If you run into problems, seek out a sympathetic lawyer. You can get a helpful pamphlet from the ACLU, 156 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010, called Academic Freedom in the Secondary Schools" for 25¢.

Tell your lawyer about the most recent (July 10, 1970) decision of the United States District Court in Connecticut which ruled that the high school students of Rippowan High School in Stanford can publish independent newspapers without having the contents screened in advance by school officials.

The same info for underground papers applies to high school rags, only the price should be much less if not free. To begin with, you might just mimeograph the first few issues before trying photo-offset printing. It is very important to get the readers behind you in case you have to go to war with the administration in order to survive. Maintain friendships with above ground reporters, the local underground paper and radical community groups for alliances.

G.I. PAPERS
A heavier scene than even the high schools exists in No-No Land of the military. None-the-less, against incredible odds, courageous G.I.'s both here and overseas have managed to put out a number of underground newspapers. If you are a G.I. interested in starting a paper, the first thing to do is seek out a few buddies who share your views on the military and arrange a meeting, preferably off the base. Once you have your group together, getting the paper published will be no problem. Keeping your staff secret, you can have one member contact with someone from a G.I. coffee house, anti-war organization or nearby underground newspaper. This civilian contact person will be in a position to raise the bread and arrange the printing and distribution of the paper. You can write one of the national G.I. newspaper organizations listed at the end of this section if you are unable to find help locally. The paper should be printed off the base. Government equipment should be avoided.

Correspondence and subscriptions can be solicited through the use of a post office box. Such a box is inexpensive and secret (at least that's what the G.I. papers now publishing report) from military snoopers up tight about bad publicity if they get caught spying. If you are mailing the paper to other G.I.'s use first class mail and a plain envelope. This is advice to anybody sending stuff to a G.I. The mail is handled by "lifers" who will report troublemakers to their C.O. (Commanding Officer) if they notice anti-war slogans on envelopes or dirty commie rags coming their way.

You'll want to publish stuff relevant to the lives of the G:I.'s on your base. News of demonstrations, articles on the war, racism, counter-culture and vital info on how to bug the higher-ups and get out of the military service are all good. Get samples of other newspapers already in operation to get the flavor of writing that has become popular.

Distributing the paper is really more of a problem than the publishing. Here you run smack into Catch 22, which says, "no printed matter may be distributed on a military base without prior written permission of the commanding officer." No such permit has been granted in military history. A few court battles have had limited success and you should go through the formality of obtaining a permit. Send the first issue of the paper to your C.O. with a cover letter stating where and when you intend to distribute the paper on the base. In no part of the application should you list your names. Have a civilian, preferably a civil liberties lawyer, sign the declaration of intent. If more info is requested, go over it with the lawyer before responding, Natch, they're going to want to know who you are and where you get your bread, but fuck 'em. Whether or not you get a permit or have a successful court battle is pretty academic. If the military pigs catch you handing out an underground paper on the base, you're headed for trouble. Use civilian volunteers from your local peace group in as many public roles as possible. They'll be glad to help out.

Print and distribute as many copies as you can rather than concentrating on an expensively printed paper with numerous pages. The very existence of the paper around the base is the most important info the paper can offer. Leave some in mess halls, theaters, benches, washrooms, and other suitable spots. Off base get the paper to sympathetic reporters, coffee houses, colleges and the like. Outside U.S.O. centers and bus terminals are a good place to get the paper out. Rely on donations, so you can make the paper free. Get it together. Demand the right to join the army of your choice. The People's Army! As Joe Hill said in one of his songs, "Yes, I'll pick up a gun but I won't guarantee which way I'll point it."

NEWS SERVICES
Aside from UPS, which is the association of papers, there are five news services that we know of that you might be interested in subscribing to for national stories, photos, production ideas, news of other papers and general movement dope. LNS is the best known. It sends out packets once a week that include about thirty pages with original articles, eye-witness reports, reprints from foreign papers and photographs. They tend to be heavily political rather than cultural and view themselves as molders of ideology rather than strictly a service organization of the underground papers. A subscription costs $15.00 per month, but if you're just starting out they are good about slow payments and such.

You should get in the habit of sending special articles, in particular eye-witness accounts of events that other papers might use, to one or more of the news services for distribution. If you hear of an important event that you would like to cover in your newspaper, call the paper in that area for a quick report. They might send you photos if you agree to reciprocate.

LIBERATION NEWS SERVICE-160 Claremont Ave., New York, N.Y. 10027 (212) 749-2200
COLLEGE PRESS SERVICE-1779 Church St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 387-7575
CHICANO PRESS ASSOCIATION-La Raza, Box 31004, Los Angeles, California 90031
G.I. PRESS SERVICE-Rm 907, 1029 Vermont Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20005
FREE RANGER INTERTRIBAL NEWS SERVICE-Box 26, Village Station, N.Y., N.Y. 10014 (212) 691-6973
A complete and up-to-date list of G.I. underground papers can be obtained by writing to G.I. Press Service, 1029 Vermont Ave., NW, Rm 907, Washington, D.C. 20005. G.I. Alliance provides excellent national newsletters with all sorts of ways to fuck up the Army. Write G.I. Alliance, PO Box 9087, Washington, D.C. 20003. The phone is (202) 544-1654. American Serviceman's Union, 156 5th Avenue, New York, N.Y., 10010 will also help, as well as provide legal and medical aid to G.I.'s.

A complete and up to date list of Chicano underground papers can be obtained by writing to Chicano Press Association, La Raza, Box 31004, Los Angeles, California 90031.

The Young Lords Organization paper Palante can be obtained by writing to Young Lords Party, Ministry of Finance, 1678 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10029. It's $5.75 for 24 issues.

The Black Panther Party paper can be obtained by writing to Black Panther Party, Ministry of Information, Box 2967, Custom House, San Francisco, Calif. 94126. It's $7.50 for 52 issues.

THE UNDERGROUND PRESS
ALBION'S VOICE, Box 9033, Savannah, Ga. 31401 $4/yr.
AMAZING GRACE, 212 W. College Ave. Tallahassee, Fla. $6/26 issues.
ANGRY CITY PRESS, 14016 Orinoco Ave., E. Cleveland, Ohio 44112
ANN ARBOR ARGUS, 708 Arch St., Ann Arbor, Mich. 48104 $3/yr.
AQUARIAN ORACLE, 8003 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A., Calif. .50/iss.
AQUARIAN TIMES, 331 Forest Acres Shipping Ctr., Easley, S.C. 29640
AQUARIAN WEEKLY, 292 Main St., Hackensack, N.J.
ASTRAL PROJECTION, Box 4383, Albuquerque, N. Mex. 87106
AUGUR, 207 Ransom Bldg., 115 E. 11th Ave., Eugene, Ore. 97401
BARD OBSERVER, Box 76, Bard College, Annandale-on-the Hudson, N.Y. 12504
BERKELEY BARB, Box 1247, Berkeley, Calif. 94715 $6/yr.
BERKELEY TRIBE, Box 9049, Berkeley, Calif. 94709 $8/
BOTH SIDES NOW, 10370 St. Augustine Rd., Jacksonville, Fla. 32217 $2/12 iss.
BROADSIDE/FREE PRESS, Box 65, Cambridge, Mass. 02139 $4.50/yr.
BURNING RIVER NEWS, 12027 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 44112 $5/yr.
CHINOOK, 1452 Pennsylvania St., Denver, Col., 80203 $6/50 iss.
THE CLAM COMMUNITY LIBERATOR, Box 13101, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33733
COME OUT, Box 92, Village Station, New York, N.Y. 10014, $6.50/12 iss.
COUNTRY SENSES, Box 465, Woodbury, Conn. 06798 $5/yr.
CREEM, 3729 Cass Ave., Detroit, Mich. 48201 $5/24 iss.
DAILEY PLANET, Suite 2-3514 S. Dixie Hwy., Coconut Grove, Fla. 33133 $5/yr.
DALLAS NOTES, Box 7140, Dallas, Texas 75209 $5/yr.
DIFFERENT DRUMMER, Box 2638, Little Rock, Ark. 72203 $2/14 iss.
DISTANT DRUMMER, 420 South St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147 $7/yr.
DOOR TO LIBERATION, Box 2022, San Diego, Calif. 92112 $4/26 iss.
DWARFF, Box 26, Village Station, N.Y., N.Y. 10014
EAST VILlAGE OTHER, 20 E. 12 St., N.Y., N.Y. 10003 $6/yr.
EL GRITO DEL NORTE, Box 466, Fairview Station, Espanola, N.M. $4/yr.
EYE OF THE BEAST, Box 9218, Tampa, Fla. 33604
FERAFERIA, Box 691, Altadena, Calif. 91001 $4/13 iss.
FIFTH ESTATE, 1107 W. Warren, Detroit, Mich. 48201 $3.75/yr.
FILMMAKERS NEWSLETTER, 80 Wooster St., N.Y., N.Y. 10012
FREEDOM NEWS, Box 1087, Richmond, Calif. 94801 $2.50/12 iss.
FREE SPAGHETTI DINNER, Box 984, Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 $4/yr.
FREE YOU, 117 University Ave., Palo Alto, Calif. 94301 $6/yr.
FUSION, 909 Beacon St., Boston, Mass. 02215 $5/yr.
GEST, Box 1079, Northland Center, Southfield, Mich. 48075 $2/yr.
GREAT SPECKLED BIRD, Box 54495, Atlanta, Ga. 30308 $6/yr.
GREENFEEL, Jms Madison Law Inst., 4 Patchin Pl., N.Y., N.Y. 10011
GUARDIAN, 32 W. 22 St., N.Y. N.Y. 10010
HAIGHT-ASHBURY TRIBUNE, 1778 Haight St., San Francisco, Calif. 94117 $10/yr.
HARRY, 233 East 25th St., Baltimore, Md., 21218 $4/yr.
INDIANAPOLIS FREE PRESS, Box 225, Indianapolis, Ind. 46206 $5/26 iss.
INQUISITION, Box 3882, Charlotte, N.C. 28203 $2/6 iss.
KALEIDOSCOPE, Box 5457, Milwaukee, Wisc. 53211 $5/26 iss.
KUDZU, Box 22502, Jackson, Miss. 39205 $4/yr.
LAS VEGAS FREE PRESS, Box 14096, Las Vegas, Nev. 89114 $7/yr.
LEFT FACE, Box 1595, Anniston, Ala. 36201
LIBERATION, 339 Lafayette St., N.Y. 10012
LIBERATION NEWS SERVICE, 160 Claremont Ave., N.Y. 10027 $15/mth.
LIBERATOR, Box 1147, Morgantown, W. Virginia 26505
LONGBEACH FREE PRESS, 1255 E. 10, Long Beach, Ca. 90813 $6/25 iss.
LOS ANGELES FREE PRESS, 7813 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, Ca. 90036 $6/yr.
MADISON KALEIDOSCOPE, Box 881, Madison, Wisc. 53701 $5/yr.
MARIJUANA REVIEW, Calif. Instit. of Arts, 7500 Glenoaks Blvd., Burbank, Calif. 91504
MEMPHIS ROOT, Box 4747, Memphis, Tenn. 38104 $3.50/yr.
METRO, 906 W. Forest, Detroit, Mich. 48202 $4/yr.
MODERN UTOPIAN, P.0. Drawer A; Diamond Hts. Sta., S.F., Ca. 94131 $4/yr.
MOTHER EARTH NEWS, Box 38 Madison, Ohio 44057 $5/yr
NEWS FROM NOWHERE, Box 501, Dekalb, Ill. 60115 $5/yr.
NEW PRAIRIE PRIMER, Box 726, Cedar Falls, Iowa 50613 $4/20 iss.
NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 110 St. Marks Place, N.Y. $5/lifetime
NOLA EXPRESS, Box 2342, New Orleans, La. 70116 $3/yr.
NORTH CAROLINA ANVIL, Box 1148, Durham, N.C. 27702 $7.50/yr.
NORTHWEST PASSAGE, Box 105, Fairhaven Sta., Bellingham, Wash. 98225 $5/yr.
OLD MOLE, 2 Brookline St., Cambridge, Mass. 02139 $5/20 iss.
ORACLE OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1764 Haight St., San Francisco, Ca. 94117
OTHER SCENES, Box B, Village Station, N.Y. 10014 $6/yr.
OTHER VOICE, c/o Why Not Inc., Box 3175, Shreveport, La. 71103 $5/yr.
PAPER WORKSHOP, 6 Helena Ave., Larchmont, N.Y. 10538 $4/yr.
PEOPLES DREADNAUGHT, Box 1071, Beloit, Wisc.
PHILADELPHIA FREE PRESS, Box 1986, Philadelphia, Pa. 19105
PROTEAN RADISH, Box 202, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514 $8/yr.
PROVINCIAL PRESS, Madala Print Shop, Box 1276, Spokane, Wash. 99210 $5/yr.
QUICKSILVER TIMES, 1736 R St., N.W. Wash., D.C. 20009 $8/yr.
RAG, 2330 Guadalupe, Austin, Tex. 78705 $7.50/yr.
RAT, 241 E. 14 St., N.Y. 10009 $6/yr.
REBIRTH, Box 729, Phoenix, Ariz. 85001
RISING UP ANGRY, Box 3746, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, Ill. 60654 $5/yr.
ROOSEVELT TORCH, 430 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60605
SAN DIEGO STREET JOURNAL, Box 1332, San Diego, Calif. 92112
SECOND CITY, c/o The Guild, 2136 N. Halsted, Chicago, Ill. 60614 $6/26 iss.
SECOND COMING, Box 491 Ypsilanti, Mich. 48197
SEED, 950 W. Wrightwood, Chicago, Ill. 60614 $6/yr.
SPACE CITY, 1217 Wichita, Houston, Tex. 77004
SPECTATOR, c/o S. Indiana Media Corp., Box 1216, Bloomington, Ind. 47401
SUNDANCE, 1520 Hill, Ann Arbor, mich. 48104 $3.50/yr.
UPROAR, 44 Wimbleton Lane, Great Neck, N.Y. 11023
VIEW FROM THE BOTTOM, 632 State St., New Haven, Conn. 06510 $5/20 iss.
VORTEX, 706 Mass St., Lawrence, Kansas 66044 $5/24 iss.
WALRUS, Box 2307, Sta. A, Champaign, Ill. 61820
WATER TUNNEL, Box 136, State College, Pa. 16801 $3/Yr.
WILLIAMETTE BRIDGE, 6 SW 6th, Portland, Ore. 97209 $5/26 iss.
WIN, 339 Lafayette St., N.Y. 10012 $5/yr.
WORKER'S POWER, 14131 Woodward Ave., Highland Park, Mich. 48203 $3.50/yr.
USA/UPS ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
AKWESASNE NOTES, Roosevelton, N.Y. 13683 .50/iss.
ALESTLE, c/o Paul Gorden, 7404 Tower Lake, Apt. 1D, Edwardsville, Ill. 62025
ALLIANCE MAGAZINE, Box 229, Athens, Ohio 45701
ALL YOU CAN EAT, R.P.O. 4949, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903 $3/yr.
ALLTOGETHER, 44208 Montgomery-33 Palm Desert, Calif. $10/yr.
ALBION'S VOICE, P.0. Box 9033, Savannah, Ga. 31401 $4/yr.
AQUARIAN HERALD, Box 83, Virginia Beach, Va. 23458
ATLANTIS, 204 Oxford, Dayton, Ohio
BOTH SIDES NOW, 10370 St. Augustine Rd., Jacksonville, Fla. 33217 $3.50/12 iss.
COLLECTIVE, 614 Clark St., Evanston, Ill. 60201
COME TOGETHER, P.O. Box 163, Encino, Calif. 91316
CROSSROADS, Hill School, Pottstown, Pa. 19464
DALLAS NEWS (CORP), P.0. Box 7013, Dallas, Texas 75209 $/24 iss.
THE D.C. GAZETTE, 109 8th N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002 $5/yr.
EDGE CITY, 116 Standart St., Syracuse, N.Y. 13201 $3/yr.
EVERYWOMAN, 6516 W. 83 St., Los Angeles, Calif. 90045 $2.50/iss.
FAIR WITNESS, P.0. Box 7165, 0akland Sta., Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213
FOX VALLEY KALEIDOSCOPE, Box 252, Oshkosh, Wisc. 54901
FREE PRESS OF LOUISVILLE, 1438 S. First St., Louisville, Ky. 40208 $6/yr.
HIGH GAUGE, Box 4491, University, Ala. 35486 $5/Yr.
THE HIPS VOICE, P.O. Box 5132, Santa Fe, N. Mexico 87501 $5/24 iss.
HOME NEWS CO., P.O. Box 5263, Grand Central Station, N.Y. 10017
HUNDRED FLOWERS, Box 7152, Minneapolis, Minn. 55407 $9/yr.
IT AIN'T ME BABE, c/o W.L. Office Box 6323, Albany, Calif. 94706 $6/yr.
LIBERATED GUARDIAN, 14 Cooper Sq., New York, N.Y. 10003 $10/yr.
THE LONG ISLAND FREE PRESS, P.O. Box 162, Westbury, N.Y. 11590 $6/2 yr.
NEW TIMES, Box J, Temple, Ariz. 85281 $10/52 iss.
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, P.O. Box 15081, San Francisco, Calif. 94115
OUR TOWN (COLLECTIVE), Box 611, Eau Claire, Wisc.
PALANTE YLP, 1678 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.
PROTOS, 1110 N. Edgemont St., Los Angeles, Calif. 90029 $3/yr.
PURPLE BERRIES, 449 West Seventh Ave., Columbus Ohio
REARGUARD, P.O. Box 8115, Mobile, Ala. 36608 $4/yr.
THE S.S. PENTANGLE, Box 4429, New Orleans, La. 70118 $4/20 iss.
ST. LOUIS OUTLAW, Box 9501, Cabanne Sta., St. Louis, Mo. 63161
SUSQUEHANNA BUGLER, 700 Market St., Williamsport, Pa. 17701 .25/iss.
TASTY COMIX, Box 21101, Wash., D.C. 20009
THE TIMES NOW, Box 676, Coconut Grove, Fla. 33133
TUSCON FREE PRESS, Box 3403, College Sta., Tuscon, Ariz. 85716
CANADA/UPS
ALTERNATE SOCIETY, 10 Thomas St., St. Catharines, Ont. $3.50/12 iss.
CARILLON, Univ. of Sask. Regina Campus, Regina, Saskatchewan
CHEVRON, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario $8/yr.
DIME BAG, 3592 University St., Montreal 130, Que.
FOURTH ESTATE, 24 Brighton Ct., Fredericton, N.B.
GEORGIA STRAIGHT, 56A Powell St., Vancouver, 4, B.C. $9/52 iss.
HARBINGER, Box 751, Stn F, Toronto 285, Ontario $4/26 iss.
OCTOPUS, Box 1259, Station B, Ottawa, 4 $4.50/26 iss.
OMPHALOS, 279½ Fort St. No. 4, Winnipeg 1, Manitoba $5/26 iss.
PRAIRIE FIRE; FOURTH ESTATE, Regina Community Media Project, 210 Northern Crown Bldg. Regina, Sask.
SWEENEY, 119 Thomas St., Oakville, Ontario $2.50/12 iss.
EUROPE/UPS
Europe/UPS, Box 304, 8025, Zurich, Switzerland
FIFTH COLUMN, 100 New Cavendish Street, London W1, England
FRIENDS, 305 Portobello Rd., London W10, England
HAPT, Flat L, 42 Moore Ave., W. Howe, Bournemouth, Hampshire, England
HOLLAND HAPT, Keigersstraat 2a, Amsterdam, Holland
HOTCHAI, Postfach 304-CH 8025, Zurich 25, Switz. $5/yr.
INTERNATIONAL TIMES, 27 Endell St., London, WC2, Eng. $5/yr.
KARGADOOR, Oude Gracht 36 bis. Utrecht, Holland
OEUF, 14 Ch de la Mogeonne, 1293 Bellevue, Geneva Switzerland
OM, Kaizerstraat 2A, 11et, Amsterdam, Holland, Neth.
OPS VEDA, 16 Woodholm Rd., Sheffield 11, England
OZ, 52 Princedale Rd., London W11, England $6/yr.
PEACE NEWS, 5 Celedonian Rd., Kings Cross, London W1, Eng. $8.50/yr.
PIANETA FRESCA, 14 Vie Manzoni, Milano, Italy 20121 $1/iss.
QUINTO LICEO, c/o Tommsaco Bruccoleri, 3, Meadow Place, London, England
REAL FREE PRESS, Runstraat 31, Amsterdam, Netherlands $1/2 iss.
RED MOLE, 182 Pentonville Rd., London N1 Eng. $5.50/yr.
ROTTEN, Huset, Readhusstraede 13, 1466 Copenhagen K. Denmark
EUROPEAN ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
CYCLOPS, 32. St. Petersburg Place, London, W2, Eng. (Comix)
GRASS EYE, 71 Osbourne Rd., Levenshulme, Manchester 19, Eng.
MOLE EXPRESS, 19 New Brown St., Manchester 4, Eng.
PANGGG, Upn-Sippenpresse, d-8500, Nurnberg Kopernikusstr. 4, Germany
PARIA, c/o Poretti Viavalle Maggia 41, 6600 Locarno, Switz.
ZIGZAG, Yeoman Cottage, N. Marston, Bucks, England
LATIN AMERICA/UPS
ECO CONTEMPORANEO, C. Correo Central 1933, Buenos Aires, Argentina ...Membership list temporarily unavailable.
SWITCHBOARDS
A good way to quickly communicate what's coming down in the community is to build a telephone tree. It works on a pyramid system. A small core of people are responsible for placing five calls each. Each person on the line in turn calls five people and so on. If the system is prearranged correctly with adjustments made if some people don't answer the phone, you can have info transmitted to about a thousand people in less than an hour. A slower but more permanent method is to start a Switchboard. Basically, a Switchboard is a central telephone number or numbers that anybody can call night or day to get information. It can be as sophisticated as the community can support. The people that agree to answer the phone should have a complete knowledge of places, services and events happening in the community. Keep a complete updated file. The San Francisco Switchboard (see below) puts out an operator's manual explaining the organization and operation of a successful switchboard. They will send it out for 12¢ postage. San Francisco has the longest and most extensive Switchboard operation. From time to time there are national conferences with local switchboards sending a rep.

San Francisco
THE SWITCHBOARD - 1830 Fell St., San Francisco, Calif. 94117 (415) 387-3575
MUSIC SWITCHBOARD - 1826 Fell St., San Francisco, Calif. 94117 (415) 387-8008
MISSION SWITCHBOARD - 848 14th St., San Francisco, Calif. 94110 (415) 863-3040
CHINATOWN EXCHANGE - 1042 Grant Ave., San Francisco, Calif. 94108 (415) 421-0943
THE HELP UNIT - 86 3rd St., San Francisco, Calif. 94103 (415) 421-9850
WESTERN ADDITION SWITCHBOARD - Fell & Fillmore, San Francisco, Calif. (415) 626-8524
California
CHICO SWITCHBOARD - 120 W. 2nd St., Chico, Calif. (916) 342-7546
EAST OAKLAND SWITCHBOARD - 2812 73rd Ave., Oakland, Calif. (415)569-6369
MARIN MUSIC SWITCHBOARD - 1017 "D" St., San Rafael, Calif. (415) 457-2104
WEST OAKLAND LEGAL SWITCHBOARD - 2713 San Pablo, Oakland, Calif. (415) 836-3013
SWITCHBOARD OF MARIN - 1017 "D" St., San Rafael, Calif. (415) 456-5300
BERKELEY SWITCHBOARD - 2389 Oregon, Berkeley, Calif. (415) 549-0649
SANTA CRUZ SWITCHBOARD - 604 River St., Santa Cruz, Calif. (408) 426-8500
PALO ALTO XCHANGE - 457 Kingsley Ave., Palo Alto, Calif. (415) 327-9008
SAN JOSE SWITCHBOARD - 50 S. 4th St., San Jose, Calif. (408) 295-2938
SANTA BARBARA SWITCHBOARD - 6575 Seville, Isla Vista, Calif. (805) 968-3564
EUREKA SWITCHBOARD - 1427 California, Eureka, Calif. (707) 443-8901 & 443-8311
UC DAVIS SWITCHBOARD - (on campus), UC Davis, Calif. (916) 752-3495
Other Western States
TURNSTILE - 1900 Emerson, Denver, Colorado (303) 623-3445
BLACKHAWK INFORMATION CENTER - 628 Walnut St., Waterloo, Iowa (319) 234-9965
TAOS SWITCHBOARD - c/o Gen. Del., Taos, New Mexico (505) 758-4288
PORTLAND SWITCHBOARD - 1216 SW Salmon, Portland, Oregon (503) 224-0313
HOUSTON SWITCHBOARD - 108 San Jacinto, Houston, Texas (713) 228-6072
YOUTH EMERGENCY SERVICE - 623 Cedar Ave. So., Minneapolis, Minn. (612) 338-7588
Eastern States
POWELTON TROUBLE CENTER - 222 N. 35th St., Phila., Penna.. (215) 382-6472
WASHINGTON D.C. SWITCHBOARD - 2201 P St. NW, Washington, D.C. (202) 667-4684
MIAMI CENTER FOR DIALOG - 2175 NW 26th St., Miami, Fla. (305) 634-7741
CANTERBURY HOUSE - 330 Maynard S, Ann Arbor, Michigan (313) 665-0606
THE LISTENING EAR - 547 E. Grand River, East Lansing, Michigan (517) 337-1717
THE ECSTATIC UMBRELLA - 3800 McGee Kansas City, Missouri (816) 561-4524
OPEN CITY - 4726 3rd St., Detroit, Michigan (313) 831-2770
SWITCHBOARD INC. - 1722 Summit St., Number 6, Columbus, Ohio (614) 294-6378
HELP - c/o Marby Beil, 1708 E. Lafayette, Number 5, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (414) 273-5959
UNITED CHURCH PRESBYTERIAN - 181 Mount Horeb Rd., Warren, N.J. (201) 469-5044
BOSTON SWITCHBOARD - 45 Bowdoin St., Boston, Mass. (617) 246-4255
PROJECT PLACE - 37 Rutland St., Boston, Mass.(617)267-5280
BEVERLY SWITCHBOARD - Beverly Hospital, Beverly, Mass. (617) 922-0000
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF ACTON - 8 Concord Rd., Acton, Mass. (617) 263-3940
HALF WAY HOUSE - 20 Linwood Sq., Roxbury, Mass. (617) 442-7591
ACID - 13 Linden Ave., Malden, Mass. (617) 342-2218
PROJECT ASSIST - 945 Great Plain Ave., Needham, Mass. (617) 444-1902& 3
LEXINGTON - ARLINGTON HOT LINE - 1912 Mass. Ave., Lexington, Mass. (617) 862-8130&1
COMMUNITY YOUTH COMMISSION - 945 Great Plain Ave., Needham, Mass. (617) 444-1795
HOT LINE - 429 Cherry St., West Newton, Mass. (617) 969-5906
Other Countries
BINARY INFORMATION TRANSFER - 141 Westbourne Park Rd., London W2, England. Ask overseas operator for London 222-8219
CANADIAN SWITCHBOARD - 282 Rue Ste. Catherine, West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (514) 866-2672
For a complete and up-to-date list of switchboards and similar projects around the country, write to San Francisco Switchboard. They need 25 cents to cover postage costs.

Guerrilla Broadcasting
GUERRILLA RADIO
Under FCC Low Power Transmission Regulations, it is legal to broadcast on the AM band without even obtaining a license, if you transmit with 100 milliwatts of power or less on a free band space that doesn't interfere with a licensed station. You are further allowed up to a 12-foot antenna or the use of carrier-current transmission (regular electric wall outlets). Using this legal set-up, you can broadcast from a 2 to 20 block radius depending on how high up you can locate your antenna and the density of tall buildings in the area.

Carrier-current broadcasting consists of plugging the transmitter into a regular wall socket. It draws power in the same way as any other electrical appliance, and feeds its signal into the power line allowing the broadcast to be heard on any AM radio tuned into the operating frequency. The transmitter can be adjusted to different frequencies until a clear band is located. The signal will travel over the electrical wiring until it hits a transformer where it will be erased. The trouble with this method is that in large cities, almost every large office or apartment building has a transformer. You should experiment with this method first, but if you are in a city, chances are you'll need an antenna rigged up on the roof. Anything over twelve feet is illegal, but practice has shown that the FCC won't hassle you if you don't have commercials and refrain from interfering with licensed broadcasts. There are some cats in Connecticut broadcasting illegally with a 100-foot antenna over a thirty mile radius for hours on end and nobody gives them any trouble. Naturally if you insist upon using dirty language, issuing calls to revolution, broadcasting bombing information, interfering with above ground stations and becoming too well known, the FCC is going to try and knock you out. There are penalties that have never been handed out of up to a year in jail. It's possible you could get hit with a conspiracy rap, which could make it a felony, but the opinion of movement lawyers now is a warning if you're caught once, and a possible fine with stiffer penalties possible for repeaters that are caught.

If it gets really heavy, you could still broadcast for up to 15 minutes without being pin-pointed by the FCC sleuths. By locating your equipment in a panel truck and broadcasting from a fixed roof antenna, you can make it almost impossible for them to catch you by changing positions.

There has been a variety of transmitting equipment used, and the most effective has been found to be an AM transmitter manufactured by Low Power Broadcasting Co., 520 Lincoln Highway, Frazer, Penn. 19355. Call Dick Crompton at (215 NI 4-4096. The right transmitter will run about $200. If you plan to use carrier-current transmission you'll also need a capacitor that sells for $30. An antenna can be made out of aluminum tubing and antenna wiring available at any TV radio supply store (see diagram). You'll also need a good microphone that you can get for about $10. Naturally, equipment for heavier broadcasting is available if a member of your group has a license or good connections with someone who works in a large electronics supply house. Also with a good knowledge in the area you can build a transmitter for a fraction of the purchase price. You can always employ tape recorders, turntables and other broadcasting hardware depending on how much bread you have, how much stuff you have to hide (i.e., how legal your operation is) and the type of broadcasting you want to do.

It is possible to extend your range by sending a signal over the telephone lines to other transmitters which will immediately rebroadcast. Several areas in a city could be linked together and even from one city to another. Theoretically, if enough people rig up transmitters and antennas at proper locations and everyone operates on the same band, it is possible to build a nation-wide people's network that is equally theoretically legal.

Broadcasting, it should be remembered, is a one-way transmission of information. Communications which allow you to transmit and receive are illegal without a license (ham radio).

GUERRILLA TELEVISION
There are a number of outlaw radio projects going on around the country. Less frequent, but just as feasible, is a people's television network. Presently there are three basic types of TV systems: Broadcast, which is the sending of signals directly from a station's transmitter to home receiver sets; Cable, where the cable company employees extremely sensitive antenna to pick up broadcast transmissions and relay them and/or they originate and send them; and thirdly, Closed Circuit TV, such as the surveillance cameras in supermarkets, banks and apartment house lobbies.

The third system as used by the pigs is of little concern, unless we are interested in not being photographed. The cameras can be temporarily knocked out of commission by flashing a bright light (flashbulb, cigarette lighter, etc.) directly in front of its lens. For our own purposes, closed-circuit TV can be employed for broadcasting rallies, rock concerts or teach-ins to other locations. The equipment is not that expensive to rent and easy to operate. Just contact the largest television or electronics store in your area and ask about it. There are also closed-circuit and cable systems that work in harmony to broadcast special shows to campuses and other institutions. Many new systems are being developed and will be in operation soon.

Cable systems as such are in use only in a relatively few areas. They can be tapped either at the source or at any point along the cable by an engineer freak who knows what to do. The source is the best spot, since all the amplification and distribution equipment of the system is available at that point. Tapping along the cable itself can be a lot hairier, but more frustrating for the company when they try to trace you down.

Standard broadcasting that is received on almost all living room sets works on an RF (radio frequency) signal sent out on various frequencies which correspond to the channels on the tuner. In no area of the country are all these channels used. This raises important political questions as to why people do not have the right to broadcast on unused channels. By getting hold of a TV camera (Sony and Panasonic are the best for the price) that has an RF output, you can send pictures to a TV set simply by placing the camera cable on or near the antenna of the receiver set. When the set is operating on the same channel as the camera, it will show what the camera sees. Used video tape recorders such as the Sony CV series that record and play back audio and video information are becoming more available. These too can be easily adapted to send RF signals the same as a live camera.

Whether or not the program to be broadcasted is live or on tape, there are three steps to be taken in order to establish a people's TV network. First, you must convert the video and audio signals to an RF frequency modulated (FM) signal corresponding to the desired broadcast channel. We suggest for political and technical reasons that you pick one of the unused channels in your area to begin experimenting. The commercial stations have an extremely powerful signal and can usually override your small output. Given time and experience you might want to go into direct competition with the big boys on their own channel. It is entirely possible, say in a 10 to 20 block radius, to interrupt a presidential press-conference with more important news. Electronic companies, such as Jerrold Electronics Corp., 4th and Walnut Sts., Philadelphia, Pa., make equipment that can RF both video and audio information onto specific channels. The device you'd be interested in is called a cable driver or RF modulator.

When the signal is in the RF state, it is already possible to broadcast very short distances. The second step is to amplify the signal so it will reach as far as possible. A linear amplifier of the proper frequency is required for this job. The stronger the amplifier the farther and more powerful the signal. A 10-watt job will cover approximately 5 miles (line of sight) in area. Linear amplifiers are not that easily available, but they can be constructed with some electrical engineering knowledge.

The third step is the antenna, which if the whole system is to be mobile to avoid detection, is going to involve some experimentation and possible camouflage. Two things to keep in mind about an antenna are that it should be what is technically referred to as a "di-pole" antenna (see diagram) and since TV signals travel on line of sight, it is important to place the antenna as high as possible. Although it hasn't been done in practice, it certainly is possible to reflect pirate signals off an make equipment that can RF both video and audio existing antenna of a commercial network. This requires a full knowledge of broadcasting; however, any amateur can rig up an antenna, attach it to a helium balloon and get it plenty high. For most, the roof of a tall building will suffice. If you're really uptight about your operation, the antenna can be hidden with a fake cardboard chimney.We realize becoming TV guerrillas is not everyone's trip, but a small band with a few grand can indeed pull it off. There are a lot of technical freaks hanging around recording studios, guitar shops, hi-fi stores and engineering schools that can be turned on to the project. By showing them the guidelines laid out here, they can help you assemble and build various components that are difficult to purchase (i.e., the linear amplifier). Naturally, by building some of the components, the cost of the operation is kept way down. Equipment can be purchased in selective electronics stores. You'll need a camera, VTR, RF modulator, linear amplifier and antenna. Also a generator, voltage regulator and an alternator if you want the station to be mobile. One of the best sources of information on both television and radio broadcasting is the Radio Amateur's Handbook published by the American Radio Relay League, Newington, Conn. 06611 and available for $4.50. The handbook gives a complete course in electronics and the latest information on all techniques and equipment related to broadcasting. Back issues have easy to read do-it-yourself TV transmitter diagrams and instructions. Also available is a publication called Radical Software, put out by Raindance Corp., 24 E. 22nd St., New York, N.Y., with the latest info on all types of alternative communications.

Guerrilla TV is the vanguard of the communications revolution, rather than the avant-garde cellophane light shows and the weekend conferences. One pirate picture on the sets in Amerika's living rooms is worth a thousand wasted words.

With the fundamentals in this field mastered, you can rig up all sorts of shit. Cheap twenty-dollar tape recorders can be purchased and outfitted with a series of small loud-speakers. Concealed in a school auditorium or other large hall, such a system can blast out any message or music you wish to play. The administration will go insane trying to locate the operation if it is well hidden. We know two cats who rigged a church with this type of setup and a timing device. Right in the middle of the sermon, on came Radio Heaven and said stuff like "Come on preacher, this is God, you don't believe all that crap now, do you?" It made for an exciting Sunday service, all right. You can build a miniature transmitter and with a small magnet attach it to the underbelly of a police car to keep track of where it's going. This would only be practical in a small town or on a campus where there are only a few security guards or patrol vehicles. If you rigged a small tape recorder to the transmitter and tuned it to a popular AM band, the patrol car as it rode around could actually broadcast the guerrilla message you prerecorded. Wouldn't they be surprised when they found out how you did it? You can get a "Bumper Beeper" and receiver that are constructed by professionals for use by private detectives. The dual unit costs close to $400. If you've got that kind of bread, you can write John Bomar, 6838 No. 3rd Ave., Phoenix, Arizona 85013 for a catalogue and literature.

Even though there are laws governing the area of sneaky surveillance, telephone taps, tracking devices and the like, a number of enterprising firms produce an unbelievable array of electronic hardware that allows you to match Big Brother's ears and eyes. Sugar cube transmitters, tie clasp microphones, phone taps, tape recorders that work in a hollowed-out book and other Brave New World equipment is available from the following places. Send for their catalogues just to marvel at the level of technology. R. B. Clifton, 1150 NW 7th Ave., Miami, Fla. 33168; Electrolab Corp., Bank of Stateboro Building, Stateboro, Ga. 30458; or Tracer Investigative Products, Inc., 256 Worth. Ave., Palm, Beach, Fla. 33482.

By the way, you can pick up Radio Hanoi on a short wave radio every day from 3:00 to 3:30 PM at 15013 kilocycles on the 19 meter band.

Demonstrations
Demonstrations always will be an important form of protest. The structure can vary from a rally or teach-in to a massive civil disobedience such as the confronting of the warmakers at the Pentagon or a smoke-in. A demonstration is different from other forms of warfare because it invites people other than those planning the action via publicity to participate. It also is basically non-violent in nature. A complete understanding of the use of media is necessary to create the publicity needed to get the word out. Numbers of people are only one of the many factors in an effective demonstration. The timing, choice of target and tactics to be employed are equally important. There have been demonstrations of 400,000 that are hardly remembered and demonstrations of a few dozen that were remarkably effective. Often the critical element involved is the theater. Those who say a demonstration should be concerned with education rather than theater don't understand either and will never organize a successful demonstration, or for that matter, a successful revolution. Publicity includes everything from buttons and leaflets to press conferences. You should be in touch with the best artists you can locate to design the visual props. Posters can be silk screened very cheaply and people can be taught to do it in a very short time. Buttons have to be purchased. The cheapest are those printed directly on the metal. The paint rubs off after a while, but they are ideal for mass demonstrations. You can print 10,000 for about $250.00. Leaflets, like posters, should be well designed.

One way of getting publicity is to negotiate with the city for permits. Again, this raises political questions, but there is not doubt one reason for engaging in permit discussions is for added publicity.

The date, time and place of the demonstration all have to be chosen with skill. Know the projected weather reports. Pick a time and day of the week that are convenient to most people. Make sure the place itself adds some meaning to the message. Don't have a demonstration just because that's the way it's always been done. It is only one type of weapon and should be used as such. On the other hand, don't dismiss demonstrations because they have always turned out boring. You and your group can plan a demonstration within the demonstration more accurately. Also don't tend to dismiss demonstrations outright because the repression is too great. During World War II the Danes held street demonstrations against the Nazis who occupied their country. Even today there are public demonstrations against the Vietnam War in downtown Saigon. Repression is there, but overestimating it is more a tactical blunder than the reverse. None the less, it's wise to go to all demonstrations prepared for a vamping by the pigs.

DRESS
Most vamping is accompanied by clubbing, rough shoving and dragging, gassing and occasional buckshot or rifle fire. The clothing you wear should offer you the best protection possible, yet be light weight enough to allow you to be highly mobile. CS and CN are by far the most commonly employed tear gas dispersibles. Occasionally they are combined with pepper gas to give better results. Pepper gas is a nerve irritant that affects exposed areas of the skin. Clothing that is tight fitting and covers as much of the body surface as possible is advisable. This also offers some protection if you are dragged along the ground. Gloves come in handy as protection and if you want to pick up gas canisters and throw them back at the pigs or chuck them through a store window.

Your shoes should be high sneakers for running or boots for kicking. Hiking boots sold in army surplus stores serve both purposes and are your best selection for street action. Men should wear a jock strap or protective cup. Rib guards can be purchased for about $6.00 at any sporting goods store. Shoulder pads and leg pads are also available, but unless you expect heavy fighting and are used to wearing this clumsy street armor, you'll be better off without it.

HELMETS
Everyone should have a helmet. Your head sticks out above the swarming crowd and dents like a tin can. Protect it! The type of helmet you get depends on what you can afford and how often you'll be using it. The cheapest helmet available is a heavy steel tank model. This one is good because it offers ear protection and has a built-in suspension system to absorb the blow. It is also bullet proof. It's disadvantages are that it only comes in large sizes and is the heaviest thing you'll ever have on your head. It costs about $3.00. For $5.00 you can get a Civil Defense helmet made for officers. It's much lighter, but doesn't offer protection for the ears. It has a good suspension system. If you get this model, paint it a dark color before using it and you'll be less conspicuous. Our fashion consultants suggest anarchy black.

Construction helmets or "hard hats" run between $8.00 and $10.00, depending on the type of suspension system and material used. They are good for women because they are extremely lightweight. The aluminum ones dent if struck repeatedly and the fiberglass type can crack. Also they offer no ear protection. If you prefer one of these you should find a way to attach a chin or neck strap so you won't lose it while you run. If you get a hard hat, make sure you remove the hard head before you take it home.

Probably the all-around good deal for the money is the standard M-1 Army issue helmet. These vary in quality and price, depending on age and condition. They run from $2.00 to $10.00. Make sure the one you get has a liner with webbing that fits well or is adjustable and has a chin strap. Their main disadvantage is that they are bulky and heavy.

The snappiest demonstrators use the familiar motorcycle crash helmet. They are the highest in price, running from $10.00 to as high as $40.00. Being made of fiberglass, they are extremely lightweight. They have a heavy-duty strap built in and they can be gotten to fit quite snugly around the head. They offer excellent ear protection. The foam rubber insulation is better than a webbing system, and will certainly cushion most blows. Being made of fiberglass, a few have been known to crack under repeated blows, but that is extremely rare. Most come with plastic face guards that offer a little added protection. Get only those with removable ones since you might want to make use of a gas mask.

GAS MASKS
Ski goggles or the face visor on a crash helmet will protect against Mace but will offer no protection against the chemical warfare gasses being increasingly used by pigs to dispose crowds. For this protection you'll need a gasmask. All the masks discussed give ideal protection against the gasses mentioned in the chart if used properly. If you do not have a gas mask, you should at least get a supply of surgical masks from a hospital supply store and a plastic bag filled with water and a cloth.

The familiar World War II Army gas mask with the filter in a long nose unit sells new (which is the only way gas masks can be sold) for about $5.00. Its disadvantages are that it doesn't cover the whole face, is easy to grab and pull off and the awkwardly placed filter makes running difficult. The Officer Civil Defense unit sells for the same price and overcomes the disadvantages of the World War II Army model. Most National Guard units use this type of mask. It offers full face protection, is lightweight and the filter canister is conveniently located. Also the adjustable straps make for a nice tight fit. The U.S.A. Protective Field Combat Mask M9A1 offers the same type protection as the OCD, but costs twice as much. Its advantage is that you can get new filter canisters when the chemicals in the one you are using becomes ineffective. New filters cost about $1.50. When you buy a mask, be sure and inquire if the filter has replacements. To get maximum efficiency out of a mask it needs an active chemical filter.

The U.S. Navy ND Mark IV Mask is the most effective gas mask available. It has replaceable filter canisters and fits snugly to the head. It costs about $12.00. Its disadvantage is its dual tube filter system, which is somewhat bulky. Fix it so the canister rests on the back of your needs. It's more difficult to grab and easier to run.

When you get your gas mask home, try it out to get the feeling of using it. Make sure the fit is good and snug. Purchase an anti-fog cloth for 25 cents where you got the mask. Wipe the inside of the eye pieces before wearing to prevent the glasses from clouding. Another good reason for wearing a mask is that it offers anonymity. Helmets, gas masks and a host of other valuable equipment are available at any large Army-Navy surplus store. Kaufman's Surplus and Arms, Inc., 623 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10012 is very well stocked. For 75 cents you can get their catalogue and order through the mail. It's in New York though and probably more expensive than a store in your locale. The surplus stores buy from wholesale distributors themselves, who in turn buy directly from the military. If you know a soldier or someone who is married to a soldier, they have access to the Post Dispensary or PX and can get all sorts of stuff at nothing prices. For 20 cents you can get an invaluable pamphlet from the Government Printing Office called How to Buy Surplus Personal Property. It has a complete list of regional surplus wholesalers. The closest one in the Northeast is the Naval Supply Center, Building 652, U.S. Naval Base, Philadelphia, Pa. and in Northern California, the Naval Supply Center, Building 502, Oakland, California. You can order by mail or in person and the prices are very low, even though it isn't as good as the stuff our brothers and sisters in the Viet Cong rip-off.

WALKIE-TALKIES
You should always go to a demonstration in a small group that stays in contact with each other until the demonstration is over. One way to keep in touch is to use walkie-talkies. No matter how heavy the vamping gets or how spread out are the crowds, you'll be able to communicate with these lightweight effective portable devices. The only disadvantage is cost. A half decent unit costs at least $18.00. It should have a minimum of 9 transistors and 100 milliwatts, although walkie-talkies can go as high as 5 watts and broadcast over 2 miles. Anything under 1 watt will not broadcast over ½ mile and considerably less in an area with tall buildings. The best unit you can buy runs about $300.00. If you ever deck a pig, steal his walkie-talkie even before you take his gun. A good rule is to avoid the bargain gyp-joints and go to a place that deals in electronic equipment.

The important thing to realize about all walkie-talkie networks is that if anyone can talk, anyone else can listen and vice versa. This applies to pigs as well as us. All walkie-talkies work on the Civilian Band which has 23 channels. The cheaper units are preset to channel 9 or 11. The pigs broadcast on higher channels, usually channel 22. More expensive sets can operate on alternative channels. By removing the front of the set, you can adjust the transmitter and receiver to pick up and receive police communications. Don't screw around with the inside though, unless you know what you are doing. Allied Radio, 100 N. Western Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60680, will send you a good free catalogue, as will most large electronic stores. Consider buying a number of sets and ask about group discounts. Practice a number of times before you actually use walkie-talkies in real action. Develop code names and words just like the pigs do. Once you get acquainted with this method of communications in the streets, you'll never get cut off from the action. Watch out in close combat though. The pigs always try to smash any electronic gear.

OTHER EQUIPMENT
A sign can be used to ward off blows. Staple it to a good strong pole that you can use as a weapon if need be. Chains make good belts, as do garrisons with the buckles sharpened. A tightly rolled-up magazine or newspaper also can be used as a defensive weapon.

Someone in your group should carry a first aid kit. A Medical Emergency Aeronautic Kit, which costs about $5.00 has a perfect carrying bag for street action.

Ideally you should visit the proposed site of the demonstration before it actually takes place. This way you'll have an idea of the terrain and the type of containment the police will be using. Someone in your group should mimeograph a map of the immediate vicinity which each person should carry. Alternative actions and a rendezvous point should be worked out. Everyone should have two numbers written on their arm, a coordination center number and the number of a local lawyer or legal defense committee. You should not take your personal phone books to demonstrations. If you get busted, pigs can get mighty Nosy when it comes to phone books. Any sharp objects can be construed as weapons. Women should not wear earrings or other jewelry and should tie their hair up to tuck it under a helmet. Wear a belt that you can use as a tourniquet. False teeth and contact lenses should be left at home if possible. You can choke on false teeth if you receive a sharp blow while running. Contact lenses can complicate eye damage if gas or Mace is used.

If it really looks heavy, you might want to pick up on a lightweight adjustable bullet-proof vest, available for $14.95 from Surplus Distributors, Inc., 6279 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys, California 91401. Remember what the Boy Scouts say when they go camping: "Be Prepared". When you go to demonstrations you should be prepared for a lot more than speeches. The pigs will be.

Trashing
Ever since the Chicago pigs brutalized the demonstrators in August of 1968, young people have been read to vent their rage over Amerika's inhumanity by using more daring tactics than basic demonstrations. There is a growing willingness to do battle with the pigs in the streets and at the same time to inflict property damage. It's not exactly rioting and it's not exactly guerrilla warfare; it has come to be called "Trashing." Most trashing is of a primitive nature with the pigs having the weapon and strategy advantage. Most trashers rely on quick young legs and a nearby rock. By developing simple gang strategy and becoming acquainted with some rudimentary weapons and combat techniques, the odds can be shifted considerably.

Remember, pigs have small brains and move slowly. All formations, signals, codes and other procedures they use have to be uniform and simplistic. The Army Plan for Containment and Control of Civil Disorders, published by the Government Printing Office, contains the basic thinking for all city, county and state storm troopers. A trip to the library and a look at any basic text in criminology will help considerably in gaining an understanding of how pigs act in the street. If you study up, you'll find you can, with the aid of a bullhorn or properly adjusted walkie-talkie, fuck up many intricate pig formations. "Left flank-right turn!" said authoritatively into a bullhorn pointed in the right direction will yield all sorts of wild results.

You should trash with a group using a buddy system to keep track of each other. If someone is caught by a pig, other should immediately rush to the rescue if it's possible to do so without sustaining too many losses. If an arrest is made, someone from your gang should take responsibility for seeing to it that a lawyer and bail bread are taken care of. Never abandon a member of your gang.

Avoid fighting in close quarters. You run less risk by throwing an object than by personally delivering the blow with a weapon you hold in your hand. We suppose this is what pigs refer to as "duty fighting." All revolutionaries fight dirt in the eyes of the oppressors. The British accused the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord of fighting dirty by hiding behind trees. The U.S. Army accuses the Viet Cong of fighting dirty when they rub a pointed bamboo shoot in infected shit and use it as a land mine. Mayor Daley says the Yippies squirted hair spray and used golf balls with spikes in them against his innocent blue boys. No one ever accused the U.S. of being sneaky for using an airforce in Southeast Asia or the Illinois State Attorney's office of fighting dirty when it murdered Fred Hampton and Mark Clark while they lay in bed. We say: all power to the dirty fighters!

WEAPONS FOR STREET FIGHTING
Spray Cans
These are a very effective and educating method of property destruction. If a liberated zone has been established or you find yourself on a quiet street away from the thick of things, pretty up the neighborhood. Slogans and symbols can be sprayed on rough surfaces such as brick or concrete walls that are a real bitch to remove unless expensive sandblasting is used.

The Slingshot
This is probably the ideal street weapon for the swarms of little Davids that are out to down the Goliaths of Pigdom. It is cheap, legal to carry, silent, fast-loading and any right size rock will do for a missile. You can find them at hobby shops and large sporting goods stores, especially those that deal in hunting supplies. Wrist-Rocket makes a powerful and accurate slingshot for $2.50. The Whamo Sportsman is not as good but half the price. By selecting the right "Y" shaped branch, you can fashion a home-made one by using a strip of rubber cut from the inner tube of a tue as the sling. A few hours of shooting stones at cans in the back yard or up on the roof will make you marksman enough for those fat bank windows and even fatter pigs.

Slings
A sling is a home-made weapon consisting of two lengths of heavy-duty cord each attached securely at one end to a leather patch that serves as a pocket to cradle the rock. Place the rock in the pouch and grab the two pieces of cord firmly in your hand. Whirl the rock round and round until gravity holds it firmly in the pouch. When you feel you have things under control, let one end of the cord go and the rock will fly out at an incredible speed. You should avoid using the sling in a thick crowd (rooftop shooting is best). Practice is definitely needed to gain any degree of accuracy.

Boomerangs
The boomerang is a neat weapon for street fighting and is as easy to master as the Frisbee. There is a great psychological effect in using exotic weapons such as this. You can buy one at large hobby stores. On the East Coast you can get one from Sportscraft, Bergenfield, New Jersey, for $2.69, and on the West Coast from Whamo, 835 El Monte St., San Gabriel, Calif., for $1.10.

Flash Guns
Electric battery-operated flash guns are available that will blind a power-crazy pig, thus distracting him long enough to rescue a captured comrade. Check out camping and boating supply stores.

Tear Gas and Mace
Personalized tear gas and mace dispensers are available for self-defense against muggers. Well, isn't a pig just an extra vicious mugger? Write J.P. Darby, 8813 New Hyde Park, New York, N.Y. 11040 for a variety of types and prices.

Tear gas shells are available for 12 gauge shotguns and .38 Special handguns, but it is highly inadvisable to bring guns to street actions. A far better weapon is a specially built projection device that shoots tear gas shells. Hercules Gas-Munitions Corp., 5501 No. Broadway, Chicago, Ill., sells compact units complete with cartridges for $6.95 that will fire up to 20 feet. Penguin Associates, Inc., Pennsylvania Avenue, Malvern, Penn., also has a variety of tear-gas propellant devices including a combination tear gas-billyclub item. All these companies will supply a catalogue and price list on request. Some states have laws against civilian use of tear gas devices. New York is one of them, and unfortunately these companies will not ship to states that forbid usage. If you want any of these items, and your state has restrictions, have a sister or brother in a neighboring state order for you. Just latching onto these catalogues can be a trip and a half in terms of getting your imagination hopping. For example Raid, Black Flag and other insecticides shoot a 7 to 10 foot stream that burns the eyes. You can also dissolve Drano in water and squirt it from an ordinary plastic water pistol. That makes a highly effective defensive weapon. A phony letterhead of a Civil Defense unit will help in getting heavier anti-personal weapons of a defensive nature.

Anti-Tire Weapons
Don't believe all those bullshit tire ads that make tires seem like the Superman of the streets. Roofing nails spread out on the street are effective in stopping a patrol car. A nail sticking out from a strong piece of wood wedged under a rear tire will work as effectively as a bazooka. An ice pick will do the trick repeatedly but you've got to have a strong arm to strike home. Sugar in the gas tank of a pig vehicle will really fuck-up the engine.

Authentic Pig Game
If you really get into it, you'll probably want to be sd heavily prepared for trashing as are the pigs. Wouldn't you just know that the largest supplier of equipment to police in the world is in Chicago. Kale's, 550 W. Roosevelt Rd., Chicago, Ill. 60607, will send you, on request, the most complete catalogue you can get for trashing. Actual police uniforms, super-riot helmets, persuaders chemical mace, a knuckle sap, which is a glove with powdered lead, billy clubs, secret holsters, a three-in-one mob stick that spits Mace, emits an electric shock and allows you to club to death a charging rhinoceros. You can also get the latest in handcuffs and other security devices. This catalogue is a must for the love-child of the 70's. If we want to get high we're going to have to fight our way up.

KNIFE FIGHTING
Probably one of the most favored street weapons of all time is the good old "shiv," "blade," "toe-jabber" or whatever you choose to call a good sticker. Remembering that today's pig is tomorrow's bacon, it's good to know a few handy slicing tips. The first thing to learn is the local laws regarding the possession of knives. The laws on possession are of the "Catch-22" vagueness. Cops can arrest you for having a small pocket knife and claim you have a concealed and deadly weapon in your possession. Here, as in most cases of law, it's not what you are doing, it's who's doing the what that counts. All areas, however, usually have a limit on length such as blades under 4" or 6" are legal and anything over that length concealed on a person can be considered illegal. Asking some hip lawyers can help here.

Unfortunately, the best fighting knives are illegal. Switchblades (and stilettos) because they can so quickly spring into operation, are great weapons that are outlawed in all states. If you want to risk the consequences, however, you can readily purchase these weapons once you learn how to contact the criminal underworld or in most foreign countries. If both of these fail, go to any pawnshop, look in the window, and take our choice of lethal, illegal knives.

A flat gravity knife, available in most army surplus and pawn shops would be the best type available in regular over-the-counter buying. It's flat style makes for easy concealment and comfort when kept in a pocket or boot. It can be greased and the rear "heel" of the blade can be filed down to make it fly open with a flick of the wrist. A little practice here will be very useful.

Most inexperienced knife fighters use a blade incorrectly. Having seen too many Jim Bowies slash their way through walls of human flesh, they persist in carrying on this inane tradition. Overhead and uppercut slashes are a waste of energy and blade power. The correct method is to hold the knife in a natural, firm grip and jab straight ahead at waist level with the arm extending full length each time. This fencing style allows for the maximum reach of arm and blade. By concentrating the point of the knife directly at the target, you make defense against such an attack difficult. Work out with this jabbing method in front of a mirror and in a few days you'll get it down pretty well.

UNARMED DEFENSE
Let's face it, when it comes to trashing in the streets, our success is going to depend on our cunning and speed rather than our strength and power. Our side is all quarterbacks, and the pigs have nothing but linemen. They are clumsy, slobbish brutes that would be lost without their guns, clubs and toy whistles. When one grabs you for an arrest, you can with a little effort, make him let go. In the confusion of all the street action, you will then be able to manage your getaway.

There are a variety of defensive twists and pulls that are easy to master by reading a good, easily understandable book on the subject, such as George Hunter's How To Defend Yourself (see appendix). If a pig grabs you by the wrist you can break the grip by twisting against his thumb. Try this on yourself by grabbing one wrist with your hand. See how difficult it is to hold someone who works against the thumb. If he grabs you around the waist or neck, you can grab his thumbs or another finger and sharply bend it backwards. By concentrating all your energy on one little finger, you can inflict pain and cause the grip to be broken.

There are a variety of points on the body where a firm amount of pressure skillfully directed will induce severe pain. A grip, for example, can be broken by jabbing your finger firmly between the pig's knuckles. (Nothing like chopped pigknuckles.) Feel directly under your chin in back of the jawbone until your finger rests in the V area, press firmly upward and backward towards the center of the head. There is also a very vulnerable spot right behind the ear lobe. Stick your fingers there and see. Get the point!

In addition to pressure points, there are places in the body where a sharp, well-directed whack with the side of a rigidly held palm can easily disable a person. Performed by an expert, such a blow can even be lethal. Try making such a rigid palm and practice these judo chops. The fist is a ridiculous weapon to use. It's fleshy, the blow is distributed over too wide an area to have any real effect and the knuckles break easily. You will have to train yourself to use judo chops instinctively, but it will prove quite worthwhile if you are ever in trouble. A good place to aim for is directly in the center of the chest cavity at its lowest point. Draw a straight line up about six inches starting from your belly button, and you can feel the point. The Adam's Apple in the center of the neck and the back of the neck at the top of the spinal column are also extremely vulnerable spots. With the side of your palm, press firmly the spot directly below your nose and above your upper lip. You can easily get an idea of what a short, forceful chop in this area would do. The side of the head in front of the ear is also a good place to aim your blow.

In addition to jabs, chops, twists, squeezes and bites, you ought to gain some mastery of kneeing and kicking. If you are being held in close and facing the porker, the old familiar knee-in-the-nuts will produce remarkable results. A feinting motion with the head before the knee is delivered will produce a reflexive reaction from your opponent that will leave his groin totally unprotected. Ouch!

Whether he has you from the front or the back, he is little prepared to defend against a skillfully aimed kick. The best way is to forcefully scrape the side of your shoe downward along the shinbone, beginning just below the knee and ending with a hard stomp on the instep of the foot. Just try this with the side of your hand and you will get an idea of the damage you can inflict with this scrape and stomp method. Another good place to kick and often the only spot accessible is the side of the knee. Even a half successful blow here will topple the biggest of honkers. Any of these easy to learn techniques of unarmed self defense will fulfill the old nursery rhyme that goes:

Catch a piggy by the toe

When he hollers

Let him go

Out pops Y-0-U

GENERAL STRATEGY RAP
The guideline in trashing is to try and do as much property destruction as possible without getting caught or hurt. The best buildings to trash in terms of not alienating too many of those not yet clued into revolutionary violence, are the most piggy symbols of violence you can find. Banks, large corporations, especially those that participate heavily in supporting the U.S. armed forces, federal buildings, courthouses, police stations, and Selective Service centers are all good targets. On campuses, buildings that are noted for warfare research and ROTC training are best. When it comes to automobiles, choose only police vehicles and very expensive cars such as Lamborghinis and Iso Grifos. Every rock or molotov cocktail thrown should make a very obvious political point. Random violence produces random propaganda results. Why waste even a rock?

When you know there is going to be a rough street scene developing, don't play into the pig's strategy. Spread the action out. Help waste the enemy's numbers. You and the other members of your group should already have a target or two in mind that will make for easy trashing. If you don't have one, setting fires in trash cans and ringing fire alarms will help provide a cover for other teams that do have objectives picked out. Putting out street lights with rocks also helps the general infusion.

After a few tries at trashing, you'll begin to overcome your fears, learn what to expect from both the pigs and your comrades, and develop your own street strategy. Nothing works like practice in actual street conditions. Get your head together and you'll become a pro. Don't make the basic mistake of just naively floating into the area. Don't think "rally" or "demonstration," think "WAR" and "Battle Zone." Keep your eyes and ears open. Watch for mistakes made by members of your gang and those made by other comrades. Watch for blunders by the police. In street fighting, every soldier should think like a general. Workshops should be organized right after an action to discuss the strength and weaknesses of techniques and strategies used. Avoid political bullshit at such raps. Regard them as military sessions. Persons not versed in the tactics of revolution usually have nothing worthwhile to say about the politics of revolution.

People's Chemistry
STINK BOMB
You can purchase buteric acid at any chemical supply store for "laboratory experiments." It can be thrown or poured directly in an area you think already stinks. A small bottle can be left uncapped behind a door that opens into the target room. When a person enters they will knock over the bottle, spilling the liquid. Called a "Froines," by those in the know, an ounce of buteric acid can go a long way. Be careful not to get it on your clothing. A home-made stink bomb can be made by mixing a batch of egg whites, Drano, (sodium hydroxide) and water. Let the mixture sit for a few days in a capped bottle before using.

SMOKE BOMB
Sometimes it becomes strategically correct to confuse the opposition and provide a smoke screen to aid an escape. A real home-made stroke bomb can be made by combining four parts sugar to six parts saltpeter (available at all chemical supply stores). This mixture must then be heated over a very low flame. It will blend into a plastic substance. When this starts to gel, remove from the heat and allow the plastic to cool. Embed a few wooden match heads into the mass while it's still pliable and attach a fuse.*

The smoke bomb itself is a non-explosive and non-flame-producing, so no extreme safety requirements are needed. About a pound of the plastic will produce thick enough smoke to fill a city block. Just make sure you know which way the wind is blowing. Weathermen-women! If you're not the domestic type, you can order smoke flares (yellow or black) for $2.00 a flare [12 inch] from Time Square Stage Lighting Co., 318 West 47th Street, New York, NY 10036.

*You can make a good homemade fuse by dipping a string in glue and then rolling it lightly in gunpowder. When the glue hardens, wrap the string tightly and neatly with scotch tape. This fuse can be used in a variety of ways. Weight it on one end and drop a rock into the tank of a pig vehicle. Light the other end and run like hell.

CBW
LACE (Lysergic Acid Crypto-Ethelene) can be made by mixing LSD with DMSO, a high penetrating agent, and water. Sprayed from an atomizer or squirted from a water pistol, the purple liquid will send any pig twirling into the Never-Never Land of chromosome damage. It produces an involuntary pelvic action in cops that resembles fucking. Remember when Mace runs out, turn to Lace.

How about coating thin darts in LSD and shooting them from a Daisy Air Pellet Gun? Guns and darts are available at hobby and sports shops. Sharpening the otherwise dull darts will help in turning on your prey.

MOLOTOV COCKTAIL
Molotov cocktails are a classic street fighting weapon served up around the world. If you've never made one, you should try it the next time you are in some out-of-the-way barren place just to wipe the fear out of your mind and know that it works. Fill a thin-walled bottle half full with gasoline. Break up a section of styrofoam (cups made of this substance work fine) and let it sit in the gasoline for a few days. The mixture should be slushy and almost fill the bottle. The styrofoam spreads the flames around and regulates the burning. The mixture has nearly the same properties as napalm. Soap flakes (not detergents) can be substituted for styrofoam. Rubber cement and sterno also work. In a pinch, plain gasoline will do nicely, but it burns very fast. A gasoline-kerosene mixture is preferred by some folks.

Throwing, although by far not the safest method, is sometimes necessary. The classic technique of stuffing a rag in the neck of a bottle, lighting and tossing is foolish. Often gas fumes escape from the bottle and the mixture ignites too soon, endangering the thrower. If you're into throwing, the following is a much safer method: Once the mixture is prepared and inside the bottle, cap it tightly using the original cap or a suitable cork. Then wash the bottle off with rubbing alcohol and wipe it clean. Just before you leave to strike a target, take a strip of rag or a tampax and dip it in gasoline. Wrap this fuse in a small plastic baggie and attach the whole thing to the neck of the capped bottle with the aid of several rubber bands. When you are ready to toss, use a lighter to ignite the baggie. Pall back your arm and fling it as soon as the tampax catches fire. This is a very safe method if followed to the letter. The bottle must break to ignite. Be sure to throw it with some force against a hard surface.

Naturally, an even safer method is to place the firebomb in a stationary position and rig up a timing fuse. Cap tightly and wipe with alcohol as before. The alcohol wipe not only is a safety factor, but it eliminates tell-tale fingerprints in case the Molotov doesn't ignite. Next, attach an ashcan fire cracker (M-80) or a cherry bomb to the side of the bottle using epoxy glue. A fancier way is to punch a hole in the cap and pull the fuse of the cherry bomb up through the hole before you seal the bottle. A dab of epoxy will hold the fuse in place and insure the seal. A firecracker fuse ignites quickly so something will have to be rigged that will deal the action enough to make a clean getaway.

When the firebomb is placed where you want it, light up a non-filter cancerette. Take a few puffs (being sure not to inhale the vile fumes) to get it going and work the unlighted end over the fuse of the firecracker. This will provide a delay of from 5 to 15 minutes. To use this type of fuse successfully, there must be enough air in the vicinity so the flame won't go out. A strong wind would not be good either. When the cancerette burns down, it sets off the firecracker which in turn explodes and ignites the mixture. The flames shoot out in the direction opposite to where you attach the firecracker, thus allowing you to aim the firebomb at the most flammable material. With the firecracker in the cap, the flames spread downward in a halo. The cancerette fuse can also be used with a book of matches to ignite a pool of gasoline or a trash can. Stick the unlighted end behind the row of match heads and close the cover. A firecracker attached to a gallon jug of red paint and set off can turn an office into total abstract art.

Commercial fuses are available in many hobby stores. Dynamite fuses are excellent and sold in most rural hardware stores. A good way to make a homemade fuse is described above under the Smoke Bomb section. By adding an extra few feet of fuse to the device and then attaching the lit cancerette fuse, you add an extra measure of caution. It is most important to test every type of fuse device you plan to use a number of times before the actual hit. Some experimentation will allow you to standardize the results. If you really want to get the job done right and have the time, place several molotov cocktails in a group and rig two with fuses (in case one goes out). When one goes, they all go . . .BAROOOOOOOOOOM!

STERNO BOMB
One of the simplest bombs to make is the converted sterno can. It will provide some bang and a widely dispersed spray of jellied fire. Remove the lid from a standard, commercially purchased can and punch a hold in the center big enough for the firecracker fuse. Take a large spoonful of jelly out of the center to make room for the firecracker. Insert the firecracker and pull the fuse up through the hole in the lid. When in place, cement around the hole with epoxy glue. Put some more glue around the rim of the can and reseal the lid. Wipe the can and wash off excess with rubbing alcohol. A cancerette fuse should be used. The can could also be taped around a bottle with Molotov mixture and ignited.

AEROSOL BOMB
You can purchase smokeless gunpowder at most stores where guns and ammunition are sold. It is used for reloading bullets. The back of shotgun shells can be opened and the powder removed. Black powder is more highly explosive but more difficult to come by. A graduate chemist can make or get all you'll need. If you know one that can be trusted, go over a lot of shit with him. Try turning him on to learning how to make "plastics" which are absolutely the grooviest explosive available. The ideal urban guerrilla weapons are these explosive plastic compounds.

The neat homemade bomb that really packs a wallop can be made from a regular aerosol can that is empty. Remove the nozzle and punch in the nipple area on the top of the can. Wash the can out with rubbing alcohol and let dry. Fill it gently and lovingly with an explosive powder. Add a layer of cotton to the top and insert a cherry bomb fuse. Use epoxy glue to hold the fuse in place and seal the can. The can should be wiped clean with rubbing alcohol. Another safety hint to remember is never store the powder and your fuses or other ignition material together. Powder should always be treated with a healthy amount of respect. No smoking should go on in the assembling area and no striking of hard metals that might produce a spark. Use your head and you'll get to keep it.

PIPE BOMBS
Perhaps the most widely used homemade concussion bombs are those made out of pipe. Perfected by George Metesky, the renown New York Mad Bomber, they are deadly, safe, easy to assemble, and small enough to transport in your pocket. You want a standard steel pipe (two inches in diameter is a good size) that is threaded on both ends so you can cap it. The length you use depends on how big an explosion is desired. Sizes between 3-10 inches in length have been successfully employed. Make sure both caps screw on tightly before you insert the powder. The basic idea to remember is that a bomb is simply a hot fire burning very rapidly in a tightly confined space. The rapidly expanding gases burst against the walls of the bomb. If they are trapped in a tightly sealed iron pipe, when they finally break out, they do so with incredible force. If the bomb itself is placed in a somewhat enclosed area like a ventilation shaft, doorway or alleyway, it will in turn convert this larger area into a "bomb" and increase the over-all explosion immensely.

When you have the right pipe and both caps selected, drill a hole in the side of the pipe (before powder is inserted) big enough to pull the fuse through. If you are using a firecracker fuse, insert the firecracker, pull the fuse through and epoxy it into place securely. If you are using long fusing either with a detonator (difficult to come by) timing device or a simple cancerette fuse, drill two holes and run two lines of fuse into the pipe. When you have the fuse rigged to the pipe, you are ready to add the powder. Cape one end snugly, making sure you haven't trapped any grains of powder in the threads. Wipe the device with rubbing alcohol and you're ready to blast off.

A good innovation is to grind down one half of the pipe before you insert the powder. This makes the walls of one end thinner than the walls of the other end. When you place the bomb, the explosion, following the line of least resistance, will head in that direction. You can do this with ordinary grinding tools available in any hardware or machine shop. Be sure not to have the powder around when you are grinding the pipe, since sparks are produced. Woodstock Nation contains instructions for more pipe bombs and a neat timing device (see pages 115-117).

GENERAL BOMB STRATEGY
This section is not meant to be a handbook on explosives. Anyone who wishes to become an expert in the field can procure a number of excellent books on the subject catalogued in the Appendix. In bombing, as in trashing, the same general strategy in regard to the selection of targets applies. Never use anti-personnel shrapnel bombs. Always be careful in placing the devices to keep them away from glass windows and as far away from the front of the building as possible. Direct them away from any area in which there might be people. Sophisticated electric timers should be used only by experts in demolitions. Operate in the wee hours of the night and be careful that you don't injure a night watchman or guard. Telephone in warnings before the bomb goes off. The police record all calls to emergency numbers and occasionally people have been traced down by the use of a voice-o-graph. The best way to avoid detection is by placing a huge wad of chewed up gum on the roof of your mouth before you talk. Using a cloth over the phone is not good enough to avoid detection. Be as brief as possible and always use a pay phone.

When you get books from companies or libraries dealing with explosives or guerrilla warfare, use a phony name and address. Always do this if you obtain chemicals from a chemical supply house. These places are being increasingly watched by the F.B.I. Store your material and literature in a safe cool place and above all, keep your big mouth shut!

First Aid For Street Fighters
Without intending to spook you, we think it is becoming increasingly important for as many people as possible to develop basic first aid skills. As revolutionary struggle intensifies, so will the number and severity of injuries increase. Reliance on establishment medical facilities will become risky. Hospitals that border on "riot" areas are used by police to apprehend suspects. All violence-induced injuries treated by establishment doctors might be reported. Knife and gunshot wounds in all states by law must be immediately phoned in for investigation. At times a victim has no choice but to run such risks. If you can, use a phony name, but everyone should know the location of sympathetic doctors.

Chaos resulting from the gassing, clubbing and shooting associated with a police riot also makes personal first aid important. Most demonstrations have medical teams that run with the people and staff mobile units, but often these become the target of assault by the more vicious pigs. Also, in the confusion, there is usually too much work for the medical teams. Everyone must take responsibility for everyone else if we are to survive in the streets. If you spot someone lying unconscious or badly injured, take it upon yourself to help the victim. Immediately raise your arm or wave your Nation flag and shout for a medic. If the person is badly hurt, it is best not to move him, or her, but if there is the risk of more harm or the area is badly gassed, the victim should be moved to safety. Try to be as gentle as possible. Get some people to help you.

WHAT TO DO
Your attitude in dealing with an injured person is extremely important. Don't panic at the sight of blood. Most bloody injuries look far worse than they are. Don't get nervous if the victim is unconscious. If you're not able to control your own fear about treating someone, call for another person. It helps to attend a few first aid classes to overcome these fears in practice sessions.

When you approach the victim, identify yourself. Calmly, but quickly figure out what's the matter. Check to see if the person is alive by feeling for the pulse. There are a number of spots to check if the blood is circulating, under the chin near the neck, the wrists, and ankles are the most common. Get in the habit of feeling a normal pulse. A high pulse (over 100 per minute) usually indicates shock. A low pulse indicates some kind of injury to the heart or nervous system. Massaging the heart can often restore the heartbeat, especially if its loss is due to a severe blow to the chest. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation should be used if the victim is not breathing. Both these skills can be mastered in a first aid course in less than an hour and should become second nature to every street fighter.

When it comes to dealing with bleeding or possible fractures, enlisting the victim's help as well as adopting a firm but calm manner will be very reassuring. This is important to avoid shock. Shock occurs when there is a serious loss of blood and not enough is being supplied to the brain. The symptoms are high pulse rate; cold, clammy, pale skin; trembling or unconsciousness. Try to keep the patient warm with blankets or coats. If a tremendous amount of blood has been lost, the victim may need a transfusion. Routine bleeding can be stopped by firm direct pressure over the source of bleeding for 5 to 10 minutes. If an artery has been cut and bleeding is severe, a tourniquet will be needed. Use a belt, scarf or torn shirtsleeve. Tie the tourniquet around the arm or leg directly above the bleeding area and tighten it until the bleeding stops. Do not loosen the tourniquet. Wrap the injured limb in a cold wet towel or ice if available and move the person to a doctor or hospital before irreparable damage can occur. Don't panic, though, you have about six hours.

A painful blow to a limb is best treated with an ice pack and elevation of the extremity by resting it on a pillow or rolled-up jacket. A severe blow to the chest or side can result in a rib fracture which produces sharp pains when breathing and/or coughing up blood. Chest X-rays will eventually be needed. Other internal injuries can occur from sharp body blows such as kidney injuries. They are usually accompanied by nausea, vomiting, shock and persistent abdominal pain. If you feel a bad internal injury has occurred, get prompt professional help.

Head injuries have to be attended to with more attention than other parts of the body. Treat them by stopping the bleeding with direct pressure. They should be treated before other injuries as they more quickly can cause shock. Every head injury should be X-rayed and the injured person should be watched for the next 24 hours as complications can develop hours after the injury was sustained. After a severe blow to the head, be on the look-out for excessive sleepiness or difficulty in waking. Sharp and persistent headaches, vomiting and nausea, dizziness or difficulty maintaining balance are all warning signs. If they occur after a head injury, call a doctor.

If a limb appears to be broken or fractured, improvise a splint before moving the victim. Place a stiff backing behind the limb such as a board or rolled-up magazine and wrap both with a bandage. Try to avoid moving the injured limb as this can lead to complicating the fracture. Every fracture must be X-rayed to evaluate the extent of the injury and subsequent treatment.

Bullet wounds to the abdomen, chest or head, if loss of consciousness occurs are extremely dangerous and must be seen by a doctor immediately. If the wound occurs in the limb, treat as you would any bleeding with direct pressure bandage and tourniquet only if nothing else will stop the bleeding.

If you expect trouble, every person going to a street scene should have a few minimum supplies in addition to those mentioned in the section on Demonstrations for protection. A handful of bandaids, gauze pads (4x4), an ace bandage (3 inch width), and a roll of 1/2 inch adhesive tape can all easily fit in your pocket. A plastic bag with cotton balls pre-soaked in water will come in handy in a variety of situations where gas is being used, as will a small bottle of mineral oil. You should write the name, phone number and address of the nearest movement doctor on your arm with a ballpoint pen. Your arm's getting pretty crowded, isn't it? If someone is severely injured, it may be better to save their life by taking them to a hospital, even though that means probable capture for them, rather than try to treat it yourself. However, do not confuse the police with the hospital. Many injured people have been finished off by the porkers, and that's no joke. It is usually better to treat a person yourself rather than let the pigs get them, unless they have ambulance equipment right there and don't seem vicious. Even then, they will often wait until they get two or three victims before making a trip to the hospital.

If you have a special medical problem, such as being a diabetic or having a penicillin allergy, you should wear a medi-alert tag around your neck indicating your condition. Every person who sees a lot of street action should have a tetanus shot at least once in every five years.

Know just this much, and it will help to keep down serious injuries at demonstrations. A few lessons in a first aid class at one of the Free Universities or People's Clinics will go a long way in providing you with the confidence and skill needed in the street.

MEDICAL COMMITTEES
Here is a partial list of some Medical Committees for Human Rights. They will be glad to give you first aid instructions and often organize medical teams to work demonstrations. A complete list is available from the Chicago office.

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, 21215 - 6012 Wallis Ave.
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, 94609 - 663 Alcartz
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA, 35205 - 2122 9th Ave. South
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - 1512 E. 55th St.
CLEVELAND, OHIO, 44112 - Outpost, 13017 Euclid Ave.
DETROIT, MICHIGAN, 48207 - 1300 E. Lafayette
HARTFORD, CONN., 06112 - 161 Ridgefield St.
LOS ANGELES, CALIF. - PO Box 2463, Sepulveda, Calif. 91343 (mail)
NASHVILLE,TENN., 37204 - 3301 Leland Land
NEW HAVEN, CONN., - 30 Bryden Terrace, Hamden, Conn. 06514 (mail)
NEW ORLEANS LA., 70130 - 623 Bourbon St.
NEW YORK, NY 10014 - 15 Charles St.
PHILADELPHIA, PA., 19119 - 6705 Lincoln Drive
PITTSBURGH, PA., 15222 - 617 Empire Building
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF., 94115 - 2519 Pacific Ave.
SYRACUSE, NY, 13210 - 931 Comstock Ave.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - 3410 Taylor St., Chevy Chase, Md. 20015 (mail)
Hip-Pocket Law
LEGAL ADVICE
Any discussion about what to do while waiting fur the lawyer has to be qualified by pointing out that from the moment of arrest through the court appearances, cops tend to disregard a defendant's rights. Nonetheless, you should play it according to the book whenever possible as you might get your case bounced out on a technicality. When you get busted, rule number one is that you have the right to remain silent. We advise that you give only your name and address. There is a legal dispute about whether or not you are obligated under the law to do even that, but most lawyers feel you should. The address can be that of a friend if you're uptight about the pigs knowing where you live.

When the pigs grab you, chances are they are going to insult you, rough you up a little and maybe even try to plant some evidence on you. Try to keep your cool. Any struggle on your part, even lying on the street limp, can be considered resisting arrest. Even if you beat the original charge, you can be found guilty of resisting and receive a prison sentence. Often if the pigs beat you, they will say that you attacked them and generally charge you with assault.

If you are stopped in the street on suspicion (which means you're black or have long hair), the police have the right to pat you down to see if you are carrying a weapon. They cannot search you unless they place you under arrest. Technically, this can only be done in the police station where they have the right to examine your possessions. Thus, if you are in a potential arrest situation, you should refrain from carrying dope, sharp objects that can be classified as a weapon, and the names and phone numbers of people close to you, like your dealer, your local bomb factory, and your friends underground.

Forget about talking your way out of it or escaping once you're in the car or paddy wagon. In the police station, insist on being allowed to call your lawyer. Getting change might be a problem so you should always have a few dimes hidden. Since many cases are dismissed because of this, you'll generally be allowed to make some calls, but it might take a few hours. Call a close friend and tell him to get all the cash that can be quickly raised and head down to the court house. Usually the police will let you know where you'll be taken. If they don't, just tell your friend what precinct you're being held at, and he can call the central police headquarters and find out what court you'll be appearing in. Ask your friend to also call a lawyer which you also should do if you get another phone call. Hang up and dial a lawyer or defense committee that has been set up for demonstrations. The lawyer will either come to the station or meet you in court depending on the severity of the charge and the likelihood you'll be beaten in the station. When massive demonstrations are occurring where a number of busts are anticipated, it's best to have lawyers placed in police stations in the immediate vicinity.

The lawyer will want to know as many details as possible of the case so try and concentrate on remembering a number of things since the pigs aren't going to let you take notes. If you can, remember the name and badge number of the fink that busted you. Sometimes they'll switch arresting officers on you. Remember the time, location of the bust and any potential witnesses that the lawyer might be able to contact.

If you are unable to locate a lawyer, don't panic, the court will assign you one at the time of the arraignment. Legal Aid lawyers are free and can usually do as good a job as a private lawyer at an arraignment. Often they can do better, as the judge might set a lower bail if he sees you can't afford a private lawyer. The arraignment is probably the first place you'll find out what the charges are against you. There will also be a court date set and bail established. The amount of bail depends on a variety of factors ranging from previous convictions to the judge's hangover. It can be put up in collateral, i.e., a bank book, or often there is a cash alternative offered which amounts to about 10% of the total bail.

Your friend should be in the court with some cash (at least a hundred dollars is recommended). For very high bail, there are the bail bondsmen in the area of the courthouse who will cover the bail for a fee,generally not to exceed 5%. You will need some signatures of solid citizens to sign the bail papers and perhaps put up some collateral.

Once you get bailed out, you should contact a private lawyer, preferably one that has experience with your type of case. If you are low on bread, check out one of the community or movement legal groups in your area. It is not advisable to keep the legal aid lawyer beyond the arraignment if at all possible.

If you're in a car or in your home, the police do not have a right to search the premises without a search warrant or probable cause. Do not consent to any search without a warrant, especially if there are witnesses around who can hear you. Without your consent, the pigs must prove probable cause in the court. It's unbelievable the number of defendants that not only come naked, but pull their own pants down. Make the cops kick in the door or break open the trunk themselves. You are under no obligation to assist them in collecting evidence, and helping them weakens your case.

LAWYERS GROUPS
National Lawyers Guild
The "Guild" provides various free legal services especially for political prisoners. If you have any legal hassles, call and see if they'll help you. You can call the one nearest you and get the name of a good lawyer in your area.

BOSTON - 70 Charles St.
DETROIT - 5705 N. Woodward St.
LOS ANGELES - c/o Haymarket, 507 N. Hoover St.
NEW YORK - 1 Hudson St.
SAN FRANCISCO - 197 Steiner St.
Outside of these areas, there are no offices, but people to contact in the following cities are:

FLINT, MICH., Carl Bekofske, 1003 Church St.
PHILADELPHIA, PA. - A. Harry Levitan, 1412 Fox Building
WASHINGTON, D.C. - S. David Levy, 2812 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
American Civil Liberties Union
The ACLU is not as radical as the Guild, but will in rare instances provide good lawyers for a variety of civil liberty cases such as censorship, denial of permits to demonstrations, and the like. But beware of their tendency to win the legal point while losing the case. Here is a list of some of their larger offices.

ALABAMA - Box 1972, University, Alabama 35486
CALIFORNIA - ACLU of Northern California, 503 Market St.,
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 94105 (EX 2-4692)
COLORADO - 1452 Pennsylvania St., Denver, Colorado 80203 (303-TA5-2930)
GEORGIA - 5 Forsyth St. N.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30303 (404-523-5398)
ILLINOIS - 6 S. Clark, Chicago, Illinois 60603 (312-236-5564)
MICHIGAN - 234 State St., Detroit, Mich. 48226 (313-961-4662)
MONTANA - 2707 Glenwood Land, Billings, Montana 59102 (406-651-2328)
NEW MEXICO - 131 La Vega S.W., Albuquerque, New Mexico 87105 (505-877-5286)
NEW YORK - 156 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010 (212-WA9-6076)
NORTH DAKOTA - Ward County (Minot), Box 1000, Minot, North Dakota 58701 (702-838-0381)
OHIO - Suite 200, 203 E. Broad St., Columbus, Ohio 43215
WASHINGTON, DC - (NCACLU) 1424 16th St. NW, Suite 501,
WASHINGTON, DC - 20036 (202-483-3830) (202-483-3830)
WEST VIRGINIA - 1228 Seventh St., Huntington, West Virginia 25701
WISCONSIN - 1840 N. Farwell Ave., Rm. 303, Milwaukee, Wisc. 53202 (414-272-4032)
To obtain a complete list of all the ACLU chapters, write: American Civil Liberties Union, 156 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10010, or call them at (212) WA 9-6076.

JOIN THE ARMY OF YOUR CHOICE
The first rule of our new Nation prohibits any of us from serving in the army of a foreign power with which we do not have an alliance. Since we exist in a state of war with the Pig Empire, we all have a responsibility to beat the draft by any means necessary.

First check out your medical history. Review every chronic or long-term illness you ever had. Be sure to put down all the serious infections like mono or hep. Next, make note of your physical complications. When you have assembled a complete list, get a copy of Physical Deferments or one of the other draft counseling manuals and see if you qualify. If you have a legitimate deferment, document it with a letter from a doctor.

The next best deal is a Conscientious Objection status (C.O.) or a psychiatric deferment (psycho). The laws have been getting progressively broader in defining C.O. status during the past few year s. The most recent being, "sincere moral objections to war," without necessarily a belief in a supreme being. There are general guidelines sent out by the National Office of Selective Service that say it is a matter of conscience. The decision, however, is still pretty much in the hands of the local board. Visit a Draft Counseling Center if you feel you have a chance for this type of story. They'll know how your local board tends to rule. There are still some more cases to be heard by the Supreme Court before objection to a particular war is allowed or disallowed. It is not grounds for deferment as of now.

Psychos are our specialty. Chromosome damage has totally wiped out our minds when it comes to concentrating on killing innocent people in Asia. When you get your invite to join the army, there are lots of ways you can prepare yourself mentally. Begin by staggering up to a cop and telling him you don't know who you are or where you live. He'll arrange for you to be chauffeured to the nearest mental hospital. There you repeat your performance, dropping the clue that you have used LSD in the past, but you aren't sure if you're on it now or not. In due time, they'll put you up for the night. When morning comes, you bounce out of bed, remember who you are, swear you'll never drop acid again and thank everyone who took care of you. Within a few hours, you'll be discharged. Don't be uptight about thinking how they'll lock you up forever cause you really are nuts. The hospitals measure victories by how quickly they can throw you out the door. They are all overcrowded anyway.

In most areas, a one-night stand in a mental hospital is enough to convince the shrink at the induction center that you're capable of eating the flesh of a colonel. Just before you go, see a sympathetic psychiatrist and explain your sad mental shape. He'll get verification that you did time in a hospital and include it in his letter, that you'll take along to the induction center.

When you get to the physical examination, a high point in any young man's life, there are lots of things working in your favor. Here, long hair helps; the army doesn't want to bother with trouble-makers. Remember this even though a tough looking sergeant runs down bullshit about "how they're gonna fix your ass" and "anybody with a trigger finger gets passed." He's just auditioning for the Audie Murphy movies, so don't believe anything he lays down.

Talk to the other guys about how rotten the war in Vietnam is and how if you get forced to go, you'll end up shooting some officers. Tell them you'd like the training so you can come back and take up with the Weathermen.

Check off as many items as can't be verified when given the forms. Suicide, dizzy spells, bed-wetting, dope addiction, homosexuality, hepatitis. Be able to drop a few symptoms on the psychiatrist to back up your story of rejection by a cold and brutal society that was indifferent, from a domineering father that beat you, and mother that didn't understand anything. Be able to trace your history of bad family relationships, your taking to the streets at 15 and eventually your getting "hooked." Let him "pry" things out of you if possible. Show him your letter if you had the foresight to get one.

Practice a good story before you go for the physical with someone who has already beat the system. If your local board is fucked up, you can transfer to an area that disqualifies almost everyone who wants out, such as the New York City boards. If you can't think of anything you can always get FUCK ARMY tattooed on the outside of the baby finger of your right hand and give the tough sergeant a snappy salute and a hearty "yes sir!"*

*If unfortunately you get hauled in. The Army gives you a life insurance policy. By making Dan Berrigan or Angela Davis the beneficiary you might avoid front-line duty.

CANADA, SWEDEN & POLITICAL ASYLUM
If you've totally fucked up your chances of getting a deferment or already are in the service and considering ditching, there are some things that you should know about asylum.

There are three categories of countries that you should be interested in if you are planning to ship out to avoid the draft or a serious prison term. The safest countries are those with which Amerika has mutual offense treaties such as Cuba, North Korea and those behind the so-called Iron Curtain. The next safest are countries unfriendly to the U.S. but suffer the possibility of a military coup which might radically affect your status. Cambodia is a recent example of a border-line country. Some cats hijacked a ship bound for Vietnam and went to Cambodia where they were granted asylum. Shortly thereafter the military with a good deal of help from the CIA, took over and now the cats are in jail. Algeria is currently a popular sanctuary in this category.

Sweden will provide political asylum for draft dodgers and deserters. It helps to have a passport, but even that isn't necessary since they are required by their own laws to let you in. There are now about 35,000 exiles from the Pig Empire living in Sweden. The American Deserters Committee, Upplandsgaten 18, Stockholm, phone 08-344663, will provide you with immediate help, contacts and procedural information once you get there. If you enter as a tourist with a passport, you can just go to the local police station, state you are seeking asylum and fill out a form. It's that sample. They stamp your passport and this allows you to hustle rent and food from the Swedish Social Bureau. It takes six months for you to get working papers that will permit you to get employment, but you can live on welfare until then with no hassle. The following places can be contacted, for additional help. They are all in Stockholm:

Reverend Tom Hayes 82-42-11 or 21-45-86
Kristina Nystrom of the Social Bureau 08-230570
Bengt Suderstrom 31-84-32 (legal)
Hans-Goran Franck 10-25-02(legal)
Canada does not offer political asylum but they do not support the U.S. foreign policy in Southeast Asia so they allow draft dodgers and deserters to the current tune of 50,000 to live there unmolested. Do not tell the officials at the border that you are a deserter or draft dodger, as they will turn you in. Pose as a visitor. To work in Canada you have to qualify for landed immigration status under a point system.

There will be a number of background questions asked and you have to score 50 points or better to pass and qualify. You get one point for each year of formal education, 10 points if you have a professional skill, 10 points for being between 18-35 years of age, more points for having a Canadian home and job waiting for you, for knowing English or French and a whopping 15 points for having a stereotyped middle class appearance and life-style. Letters from a priest or rabbi will help here. Some entry points are easier than others. Kingsgate, for example, just north of Montana is very good on weekdays after 10:00 P.M.

The best approach if you are considering going to Canada is to write or, better still, visit the Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters, Case Postale 5, Westmount, Montreal, 215 Quebec or American Deserters Committee, 3837 Blvd., Saint Laurent, St. Louis, Montreal 3, Quebec. They will provide you with the latest info on procedures and the problems of living in Canada as a war resister. If you can't make it up there, see a local anti-war organization for counseling. If you are already in the army, you should find out all you need to know before you ditch. It's best to cross the border while you're on leave as it might mean the difference between going AWOL and desertion if you decide to come back. In any event, no one should renounce their citizenship until they have qualified for landed immigration status as that would classify the person as a non-resident and make it possible for the Canadian police to send you back, which on a few rare occasions has happened.

Because there have been few cases of fugitives from the U.S. seeking political asylum, there is not a clear and ample formula that can be stated. Germany, France, Belgium and Sweden will often offer asylum for obvious political cases but each case must be considered individually. Go there incognito. Contact a movement organization or lawyer and have them make application to the government. Usually they will let you stay if you promise not to engage in political organizing in their country. In any event if they deport you these countries are good enough to let you pick the country to which you desire to be sent.

We feel it's our obligation to let people know that life in exile is not all a neat deal, not by a long shot. You are removed from the struggle here at home, the problems of finding work are immense and the customs of the people are strange to you. Most people are unhappy in exile. Many return, some turn themselves in and others come back to join the growing radical underground making war in the belly of the great white whale.

Steal Now, Pay Never
SHOPLIFTING
This section presents some general guidelines on thievery to put you ahead of the impulse swiping. With some planning ahead, practice and a little nerve, you can pick up on some terrific bargains.

Being a successful shoplifter requires the development of an outlaw mentality. When you enter a store you should already have cased the joint so don't browse around examining all sorts of items, staring over your shoulder and generally appearing like you're about to snatch something and are afraid of getting caught. Enter, having a good idea of what you want and where it's located.

Camouflage is important. Be sure you dress the part by looking like an average customer. If you are going to rip-off expensive stores (why settle for less), act like you have a chauffeur driven car double parked around the corner. A good rule is dress in the style and price range of the clothes, etc., you are about to shoplift. The reason we recommend the more expensive stores is that they tend to have less security guards, relying instead on mechanical methods or more usually on just the sales people. Many salespeople are uptight about carrying out a bust if they catch you. A large number are thieves themselves, in fact one good way to steal is simply explain to the salesclerk that you're broke and ask if you can take something without paying. It's a great way to radicalize shop personnel by rapping to them about why they shouldn't give a shit if the boss gets ripped off.

The best time to work out is on a rainy, cold day during a busy shopping season. Christmas holiday is a shoplifter's paradise. In these periods you can wear heavy overcoats or loose raincoats without attracting suspicion. The crowds of shoppers will keep the nosy "can-I-help-you's" from fucking up your style.

Since you have already checked out the store before hitting it, you'll know the store's "blind-spots" where you can be busy without being observed too easily. Dressing rooms, blind alley aisles and washrooms are some good spots. Know where the cashier's counter is located, where the exits to the street and storage rooms are to be found, and most important, the type of security system in use.

If you are going to snatch in the dressing room, be sure to carry more than one item in with you. Don't leave tell-tale empty hangers behind. Take them out and ditch them in the aisles.

An increasingly popular method of security is a small shoplifting plastic detector attached to the price tag. It says "Do Not Remove" and if you do, it electronically triggers an alarm in the store. If you try to make it out the door, it also trips the alarm system. When a customer buys the item, the cashier removes the detector with a special deactivation machine. When you enter the store, notice if the door is rigged with electronic eyes. They are often at the waist level, which means if the item is strapped to your calf or tucked under your hat, you can walk out without a peep from the alarm. If you trigger the alarm either inside the store or at the threshold, just dash off lickety-split. The electronic eyes are often disguised as part of the decor. By checking to see what the cashier does with merchandise bought, you can be sure if the store is rigged. Other methods are undercover pigs that look like shoppers, one-way mirrors and remote control television cameras. Undercover pigs are expensive so stores are usually understaffed. Just watch out (without appearing to watch out) that no one observes you in action. As to mirrors and cameras there are always blind spots in a store created when displays are moved around, counters shifted, and boxes piled in the aisles. Mirrors and cameras are rarely adjusted to fit these changes. Don't get turned off by this security jazz. The percentage of stores that have sophisticated security systems such as those described is very small. If you work out at lunch time, the security guards and many of the sales personnel will be out of the store. Just before closing is also good, because the clerks are concentrating on going home.

By taking only one or two items, you can prevent a bust if caught by just acting like a dizzy klepto socialite getting kicks or use the "Oh-gee-I-forgot-to-pay" routine. Stores don't want to hassle going into court to press charges, so they usually let you go after you return the stuff. If you thought ahead, you'll have some cash ready to pay for the items you've pocketed, if caught. Leave your I.D. and phone book at home before going shopping. People rarely go to jail for shoplifting, most if caught never even see a real cop. Just lie like a fucker and the most you'll get is a lecture on law and order and a warning not to come back to that store or else.

TECHNIQUES
The lining of a bulky overcoat or loose raincoat can be elaborately outfitted with a variety of custom-made large pockets. The openings to these pockets are not visible since they are inside the coat. The outside pockets can be torn out leaving only the opening or slit. Thus you can reach your hand (at counter level) through the slit in your coat and drop objects into the secret pockets sewn into the lining. Pants can also be rigged with secret pockets. The idea is to let your fingers do the walking through the slit in your coat, while the rest of the body remains the casual browser. You'll be amazed at how much you can tuck away without any noticeable bulge.

Another method is to use a hidden belt attached to the inside of your coat or pants. The belt is specially designed with hooks or clothespins to which items can be discretely attached. Ditching items into hidden pockets requires a little cunning. You should practice before a mirror until you get good at it.

A good idea is to work with a partner. Dig this neat duet. A man and woman walk into a store together looking like a respectable husband and wife. The man purchases a good belt or shirt and engages the salesman in some distracting conversation as he rings up the sale. Meanwhile, back in the aisle, "wife" is busy rolling up two or three suits. Start from the bottom while they are still on the rack and roll them up, pants and jackets together, the way you would roll a sleeping bag. The sleeves are tied around the roll making a neat little bundle. The bundle is then tucked between your thighs. The whole operation takes about a minute and with some practice you can walk for hours with a good size bundle between your legs and not appear like you just shit in your pants. Try this with a coat on in front of a mirror and see how good you get at it.

Another team method is for one or more partners to distract the sales clerks while the other stuffs. There are all sorts of theater skits possible. One person can act drunk or better still appear to be having an epileptic fit. Two people can start a fight with each other. There are loads of ways, just remember how they do it in the next spy movie you see.

One of the best gimmicks around is the packaging technique. Once you have the target item in hand, head for the fitting room or other secluded spot. Take out a large piece of gift wrapping and ribbon. Quickly wrap up the item so it will look like you brought it in with you. Many stores have their own bags and staple the cash register receipt to the top of the bag when you make a purchase. Get a number of these bags by saving them if you make a purchase or dropping around to the receiving department with a request for some bags for your Christmas play or something. Next collect some sales receipts, usually from the sidewalk or trash cans in front of the store. Buy or rip-off a small pocket stapler for less than a dollar. When you get the item you want, drop it in the bag and staple it closed, remembering to attach the receipt. This is an absolutely perfect method and takes just a few seconds. It eliminates a lot of unsightly bulges in your coat and is good for warm-weather heisting.

A dummy shopping bag can be rigged with a bit of ingenuity. The idea is to make it look like the bag is full when there's still lots of room left. Use strips of cardboard taped to the inside of the bag to give it some body. Remember to carry it like it's filled with items, not air. Professional heisters often use a "booster box," usually a neatly wrapped empty package with one end that opens upon touch. This is ideal for electrical appliances, jewelry, and even heavy items such as portable television sets. The trick side can be fitted with a spring door so once the toaster is inside the door slams shut. Don't wear a black hat and cape and go around waving a wand yelling "Abracadabra," just be your usual shlep shopper self. If you can manage it, the trick side just can be an opening without a trick door. Just carry the booster box with the open side pressed against your body. Briefcases, suitcases and other types of carrying devices can all be made to hold items. Once you have something neatly tucked away in a bag or box, it's pretty hard to prove you didn't come in with it.

ON THE JOB
By far the easiest and most productive method of stealing is on the job. Wages paid to delivery boys, sales clerks, shippers, cashiers and the like are so insulting that stealing really is a way of maintaining self-respect. If you are set on stealing the store dry when you apply for the job, begin with your best foot forward. Make what employment agencies call a "good appearance." Exude cleanliness, Godliness, sobriety and all the other WASPy virtues third grade teachers insist upon. Building up a good front will eliminate suspicion when things are "missing."

Mail clerks and delivery boys can work all sorts of neat tricks. When things get a little slow, type up some labels addressed to yourself or to close friends and play Santa Claus. Wrap yourself a few packages or take one that is supposed to go to a customer and put your label over theirs. Blame it on the post office or on the fact that "things get messed up `cause of all the bureaucracy." It's great to be the one to verbalize the boss's own general feelings before he does when something goes awry. The best on-the-job crooks always end up getting promoted.

Cashiers and sales persons who have access to money can pick up a little pocket change without too much effort, no matter how closely they are watched by supervisors. Women can make use of torn hems to stash coins and bills. Men can utilize cuffs. Both can use shoes and don't forget those secret little pockets you learned about in the last section. If you ring up items on a cash register, you can easily mistake $1.39 for 39¢ or $1.98 for 98¢ during the course of a hectic day. Leave pennies on the top shelf of the cash register and move one to the far right side every time you skip a dollar. That way at the end of the day, you'll know how much to pocket and won't have to constantly be stuffing, stuffing, stuffing.

If you pick up trash or clean up, you can stick all sorts of items into wastebaskets and later sneak them out of the store.

There are many ways of working heists with partners who pose as customers. See the sections on free food and clothing for these. There are also ways of working partnerships on the job. A cashier at a movie theater and a doorman can work out a system where the doorman collects the tickets and returns them to the cashier to sell again.

A neat way to make a large haul is to get a job through an agency as a domestic for some rich slob. You should use a phony identification when you sign up at the agency. Once you are busy dusting the town house, check around for anything valuable to be taken home. Pick up the phone, order all sorts of merchandise, and have it delivered. A friend with a U-haul can help you really clean up.

CREDIT CARDS
Any discussion of shoplifting and forgeries inevitably leads to a rap on credit cards; those little shiny plastic wonder passes to fantasy land that are rendering cash obsolete. There are many ways to land a free credit card. You can get one yourself if your credit is good, or from a friend: report it stolen and go on a binge around town. Sign your name a little funny. Super underworld types might know where you can purchase a card that's not too hot on the black market. You might heist one at a fashionable party or restaurant. If you're a hat check girl at a night club, don't forget to check out pockets and handbags for plastic goodies.*

Finally, you can redo a legitimate card with a new number and signature and be sure that it's on no one's "hot list." Begin by removing the ink on the raised letters with any polyester resin cleaner. Next, the plastic card should be held against a flat iron until the raised identification number is melted. You can use a razor blade to shave off rough spots. This combination of razor blade and hot iron, when worked skillfully, will produce a perfect blank card. When the card is smooth as new, reheat it using the flat iron and press an addressograph plate into the soft plastic. The ink can be replaced by matching the original at any stationary store. If this is too hard, you can buy machines to make your own credit cards, which are made for small department stores. Granted, this method is going require some expertise, but once you've learned to successfully forge a credit card, buy every item imaginable, eat fancy meals, and even get real money from a bank.

*The absolute best method is to have an accomplice working in the post office rip off the new cards that are mailed out. They get to know quickly which envelopes contain new credit cards. Since the person never receives the card it never dawns on them to report it stolen. This gives you at least a solid month of carefree spending and your signature will be perfect.

Whether your credit card is stolen, borrowed or forged, you still have to follow some guidelines to get away without any hassle. Know the store's checking method before you pass the hot card. Most stores have a fifty-dollar limit where they only call upstairs on items costing fifty dollars or more. In some stores it's less. Some places have a Regiscope system that takes your picture with each purchase. You should always carry at least one piece of back-up identification to use with the phony card as the clerk might get suspicious if you don't have any other ID. They can check out a "hot list" that the credit card companies send out monthly, so if you're uptight about anything watch the clerk's movements at all times. If things get tight, just split real quick. Often, even if a clerk or boss thinks it's a phony, they'll OK the sale anyway since the credit card companies make good to the stores on all purchases; legit or otherwise. Similarly, the insurance companies make good to the credit companies and so on until you get to a little group of hard working elves in the basement of the U.S. Mint who do nothing but print free money and lie to everybody about there being tons of gold at Fort Knox to back up their own little forging operation.

Monkey Warfare
If you like Halloween, you'll love monkey warfare. It's ideal for people uptight about guns, bombs and other children's toys, and allows for imaginative forms of protesting, many of which will become myth, hence duplicated and enlarged upon. A syringe (minus the needle) or a cooking baster can be filled with a dilute solution of epoxy glue. Get the two tubes in a hardware store and squeeze into a small bottle of rubbing alcohol. Shake real good and pour into the baster or syringe. You have about thirty minutes before the mixture gets too hard to use. Go after locks, parking meters, and telephones. You can fuck up the companies that use IBM cards by buying a cheap punch or using an Exacto knife and cutting an extra hole in the card before you return it with your payment. By the way, when you return payments always pay a few cents under or over. The company has to send you a credit or another bill and it screws up their bookkeeping system. Remember, always bend, fold, staple or otherwise mutilate the card. By the way if you ever find yourself in a computer room during a strike, you might want to fuck up the school records. You can do this by passing a large magnet or portable electro-magnet rapidly back and forth across the reels of tape, thus erasing them. And don't miss the tour of the IBM plant, either.

Another good bit is to rent a safe deposit box (only about $7.00 a year) in a bank using a phony name. That usually only need a signature and don't ask for identification. When you get a box, deposit a good size dead fish inside the deposit box, close it up and return it to its proper niche. From then on, forget about it. Now think about it, in a few months there is going to be a hell-of-a-smell from your small investment. It's going to be almost impossible to trace and besides, they can never open the box without your permission. Since you don't exist, they'll have no alternative but to move away. Invest in the Stank of Amerika savings program. Just check out Lake Erie and you'll see saving fish isn't such a dumb idea. If you get caught, tell them you inherited the fish from your grandmother and it has sentimental value.

There are lots of things you can send banks, draft boards and corporations that contribute to pollution via the mails. It is possible to also have things delivered. Have a hearse and flowers sent to the chief of police. We know someone who had a truckload of cement dumped in the driveway of her boss under the fib that the driveway was going to be repaved.

By getting masses of people to use electricity, phones or water at a given time, you can fuck up some not-so-public utility. The whole problem is getting the word out. For example, 10,000 people turning on all their electrical appliances and lights in their homes at a given time can cause a blackout in any major city. A hot summer day at about 3:00 PM is best. Five thousand people calling up Washington, D.C. at 3:00 PM on a Friday (one of the busiest hours) ties up the major trunk lines and really puts a cramp in the government's style of carrying on. Call (202) 555-1212, which is information and you won't even have to pay for the call. If you call a government official, ask some questions like "How many kids did you kill today?" or "What kind of liquor do Congressmen drink?" or offer to take Teddy Kennedy for a ride. A woman can cause some real excitement by calling a Congressman's office and screaming "Tell that bastard he forgot to meet Irene at the motel this afternoon."

A Washington call-in would work even better by phoning direct to homes of the big boys. For starters you can call collect the following*:

Richard M. Nixon - El Presidente - (202) 456-1444
Spiro T. Agnew - El Toro - (202) 265-2000 ext. 6400
John N. Mitchell - El Butcher - (202) 965-2900
Melvin R. Laird - El Defendo - (301) 652-4449
Henry A. Kissinger - El Exigente - (202) 337-0042
William P. Rogers - El Crapper - (301) 654-7125
General Earl G. Wheeler - El Joint Bosso - (703) 527-6119
General William C. Westmoreland - El Pollutoni - (703) 527-6999
Richard M. Helms - El Assassin - (301) 652-4122
John N. Chafee-El Sinko Swimmi-(703) 536-5411
*Any group who elopes with any of the persons listed is entitled to a free copy of this book. Anyone who parlays all 10 in a lift-off can have all the royalties. Send ears for verification.

A great national campaign can be promoted that asks people to protest the presidential election farces on Inauguration Day. When a president says "So help me God," rush in and flush the toilet. A successful Flush for God campaign can really screw up the water system.

If you want to give Ma Bell an electric permanent, consider this nasty. Cut the female device off an ordinary extension cord and expose the two wires. Unscrew the mouthpiece on the phone and remove the voice amplifier. You will see a red and a black wire attached to two terminals. Attach each of the wires from the extension cord to each one from the phone. Next plug in the extension cord to a wall socket. What you are doing is sending 120 volts of electricity back through equipment which is built for only volts. You can knock off thousands of phones, switchboards and devices if all goes right. It's best to do this on the phone in a large office building or university. You certainly will knock out their fuses. Unfortunately, at home your own phone will probably be knocked out of commission. If that happens, simply call up the business office and complain. They'll give you a new phone just the way they give the other seven million people that requested them that day.

Remember, January is Alien Registration Month, so don't forget to fill out an application at the Post Office, listing yourself as a citizen of Free Nation. Then when they ask you to "Love it or leave it," tell them you already left!

Piece Now
It's ridiculous to talk about a revolution without a few words on guns. If you haven't been in the army or done some hunting, you probably have a built-in fear against guns that can only be overcome by familiarizing yourself with them.

HANDGUNS
There are two basic types of handguns or pistols: the revolver carries a load of 5 or 6 bullets in a "revolving" chamber. The automatic usually holds the same number, but some can hold up to 14 bullets. Also, in the automatic the bullets can be already packed in a magazine which quickly snaps into position in the handle. The revolver must be reloaded one bullet at a time. An automatic can jam on rare occasions, or misfire, but with a revolver you just pull the trigger and there's a new bullet ready to fire. Despite pictures of Roy Rogers blasting a silver dollar out of the sky, handguns are difficult to master a high degree of accuracy with and are only good at short ranges. If you can hit a pig-size object at 25 yards, you've been practicing.

Among automatics, the Colt 45 is a popular model with a long record of reliability. A good popular favorite is a Parabellum 9 mm, which has the advantage of a double action on the first shot, meaning that the hammer does not have to be cocked, making possible a quick first shot without carrying a cocked gun around. By the way, do not bother with any handgun smaller than a .38 caliber, because cartridges smaller than that are too weak to be effective.

Revolvers come in all sizes and makes, as do automatics. The most highly recommended are the .38 Special and the .357 Magnum. Almost all police forces use the .38 Special. They are light, accurate and the small-frame models are easy to conceal. If you get one, use high velocity hollow pointed bullets, such as the Speer DWM (146 grain h.p.) or the Super Vel (110 grain h.p.). The hollow point shatters on contact, insuring a kill to the not-so-straight shooters. Smith and Wesson makes the most popular .38 Special. The Charter Arms is a favorite model. The .357 Magnum is an extremely powerful handgun. You can shoot right through the wall of a thick door with one at a distance of 20 yards. It has its own ammo, but can also use the bullets designed for the .38. Both guns are about the same in price, running from $75-$100 new. An automatic generally runs about $25 higher.

RIFLES
There are two commonly available types of rifles; the bolt action and the semi-automatic. War surplus bolt action rifles are cheap and usually pretty accurate, but have a slower rate of fire than a semi-automatic. A semi-automatic is preferable in nearly all cases. The M-1 carbine is probably the best semi-automatic for the money (about $80). It's light, short, easy to handle and has only the drawback of a cartridge that's a little underpowered. Among bolt actions, the Springfield, Mauser, Royal Enfield, Russian 7.62, and the Lee Harvey Oswald Special, the Mannlicher-Carcano, are all good buys for the money (about $20).

One of the best semi-automatics is the AR-18, which is the civilian version of the military M-16. In general, this is a fantastic gun with a high rate of fire, minimal recoil, high accuracy, light weight, and easy maintenance. If kept clean, it will rarely jam, and the bullet has astounding stopping power. It sells for around $225.

SHOTGUNS
The shotgun is the ideal defensive weapon. It's perfect for the vamping band of pigs or hard-heads that tries to lynch you. Being a good shot isn't that necessary because a shotgun shoots a bunch of lead pellets that spread over a wide range as they leave the barrel. There are two common types: the pump action and the semi-automatic. Single shot types and double-barrel types do not have a high enough rate of fire for self-defense.

The pump action is easy to use and reliable. It usually holds about five shells in a tube underneath the barrel. For self-defense you should use 00 buckshot shells. Shotguns come in various gauges, but you will want the largest commonly available, the 12 gauge. The Mossberg Model 500 A is a super weapon in this category which sells for about $90. When buying one, try to get a shotgun with a barrel as short as possible up to the legal limit of 18 inches. It is easy to cut down a longer barrel, too. This increases the area sprayed.

The semi-automatic gun is not used too much for self-defense, as they usually hold only three shells. With some practice, you can shoot a pump nearly as fast as a semi-automatic, and they are much cheaper. See the gun books catalogued in the Appendix for more information.

There are many other good guns available, and a great deal to know about choosing the right gun for the right situation. Reading a little right wing gun literature will help.

OTHER WEAPONS
If you are around a military base, you will find it relatively easy to get your hands on an M-79 grenade launcher, which is like a giant shotgun and is probably the best self-defense weapon of all time. Just inquire discreetly among some long-haired soldiers.

TRAINING
Owning a gun ain't shit unless you know how to use it. They make a hell of a racket when fired so you just can't work out in your den or cellar except with a BB gun, which is good in between real practice sessions. Find a buddy who served in the military or is into hunting or target-shooting and ask him to teach you the fundamentals of gun handling and safety. If you're over 18, you can practice on one of your local firing ranges. Look them up in the Yellow Pages, call and see if they offer instructions. They are usually pretty cheap to use. In an hour, you can learn the basics you need to know about guns and the rest is mostly practice, practice, just like in the westerns. Contact the National Rifle Association, Washington D.C. and ask for information on forming a gun club. If you can, you are entitled to great discounts, have no trouble using ranges and get excellent info on all matters relating to weapons.

A secluded place in the country outside city limits, makes an ideal range for practicing. Shoot at positioned targets. A good idea is to blow up balloons and attach them to pieces or boxes. Position yourself downstream alongside a running brook. A partner can go upstream and release the balloons into the water. As they rush downstream, they simulate an attacker charging you and make excellent moving targets. Watch out for ricochetting bullets. Have any bystander stand by behind you. A clothesline with a pulley attachment can be rigged up to also allow practice with a moving target.

GUN LAWS
Once you decide to get a gun, check out the local laws. There are federal ones, but they're not stricter than any state ordinance. If you're unsure about the laws, send 75¢ to the U.S. Government Printing Office for the manual called Published Ordinances: Firearms. It runs down the latest on all state laws. In most states you can buy a rifle or shotgun just for the bread from a store or individual if you are over 18 years old. You can get a handgun when you can prove you're over 21, although you generally need a special permit to carry it concealed on your person or in your car. A concealed weapon permit is pretty hard to get unless you're part of the establishment. You can keep a handgun in your home, though. It's also generally illegal to walk around with a loaded gun of any type. Once you get the hang of using a gun, you'll never want to go back to the old peashooter.

The Underground
Amerika is just another Latin dictatorship. Those who have doubts, should try the minimal experience of organizing a large rock festival in their state*, sleeping on some beach in the summer or wearing a flag shirt. Ask the blacks what it's been like living under racism and you'll get a taste of the future we face. As the repression increases so will the underground-deadly groups of stoned revolutionaries sneaking around at night and balling all day. As deadly as their southern comrades the Tupamaros. Political trials will only occur when the heavy folks are caught. Too many sisters and brothers have been locked up for long stretches having maintained a false faith in the good will of the court system. Instead, increased numbers have chosen to become fugitives from injustice: Bernadine Dohrn, Rap Brown, Mark Rudd, hundreds of others. Some including Angela Davis, Father Berrigan and Pun Plamondon have been apprehended and locked in cages, but most roam freely and actively inside the intestines of the system. Their growth leads to persistent indigestion for those who sit at the tables of power. As they form into active isolated cells they make apprehension difficult. Soon the FBI will have a Thousand Most Wanted List. Our heroes will be hunted like beasts in the jungle. Anyone who provides information leading to the arrest of a fugitive is a traitor.

*Unless you want to use our music to attack our politics as the governor of Oregon did to drain support away from demonstrations against the AmeriKKKan Legion. In such a situation the concert should be sabotaged along with political education as to why such an action has been taken. Don't let the pigs separate our culture from our politics.

Well fellow reader, what will you do when Rap or Bernadine call up and ask to crash for the night? What if the Armstrong Brothers want to drop some acid at your pad or Kathy Boudin needs some bread to keep on truckin'? The entire youth culture, everyone who smiles secretly when President Agnew and General Mitchell refer to the growing number of "hot-headed revolutionaries", all the folks who hope the Cong wins, who cheer the Tupamaros on, who want to exchange secret handshakes with the Greek resistance movement, who say "It's about time" when the pigs get gunned down in the black community, all of us have an obligation to support the underground. They are the vanguard of our revolution and in a sense this book is dedicated to their courage.

If you see a fugitive's picture on the post office wall take it home for a souvenir. But watch out, because this is illegal. Soon the FBI will be printing all our posters for free. Right on, FBI! Print up wanted posters of the war criminals in Washington and undercover agents (be absolutely sure) and put them up instead. Since the folks underground move freely among us, we must be totally cool if by chance we recognize a fugitive through their disguise. If they deem it necessary to contact you, they will make the first move. If you are very active in the aboveground movement, chances are you are being watched or tapped and it would be foolhardy to make contact. The underground would be meaningless without the building of a massive community with corresponding political goals. People above ground demonstrate their love for fugitives by continuing and intensifying their own commitment.

If the FBI or local subversive squad of the police department is asking a lot of questions about certain fugitives, get the word out. Call your underground paper or make the announcement at large movement gatherings or music festivals; the grapevine will pass information on to those that need to know.

If you're forced to go underground, don't think you need to link up with the more well-known groups such as the Weathermen. If you go under with some close friends, stick together if it's possible. Build contacts with aboveground people that are not that well known to the authorities and can be totally trusted.

You should change the location in which you operate and move to a place where the heat on yon won't be as heavy. A good disguise should be worked out. The more information the authorities have on you and the heavier the charges determine how complete your disguise should be. There are some good tips in the books on make-up listed in the Appendix. Only in rare cases is it necessary to abandon the outward appearance of belonging to the youth culture. In fact, even J. Edgar Freako admits that our culture is our chief defense. To infiltrate the youth culture means becoming one of us. For an FBI agent to learn an ideological cover is a highly disciplined organization is relatively easy. To penetrate the culture means changing the way they live. The typical agent would stand out like Jimmy Stewart in a tribe of Apaches.

In the usual case the authorities do not look for a fugitive in the sense of carrying on a massive manhunt. Generally, people are caught for breaking some minor offense and during the routine arrest procedure, their fingerprints give them away. Thus for a fugitive having good identification papers being careful about violations such as speeding or loitering, and not carrying weapons or bombing manuals become an important part of the security. It is also a good idea to have at least a hundred dollars cash on you at all times. Often even if you are arrested you can bail yourself out and split long before the fingerprints or other identification checks are completed.

If by some chance you are placed on the "10 Most Wanted List" that is a signal that the FBI are indeed conducting a manhunt. It is also the hint that they have uncovered some clues and feel confident they can nab you soon. The List is a public relations gimmick that Hooper, or whatever his name is, dreamed up to show the FBI as super sleuths, and compliment the bullshit image of them that Hollywood lays down. Most FBI agents are southerners who majored in accounting or some other creative field. When you are placed on the List, go deeper underground. It may become necessary to curtail your activities for a while. The manhunt lasts only as long as you are newsworthy since the FBI is very media conscious. Change your disguise, identification and narrow your circle of contacts. In a few months, when the heat is off, you'll be able to be more active, but for the time, sit tight.

IDENTIFICATION PAPERS
An amateur photographer or commercial artist with good processing equipment can make passable phony identification papers. Using a real I.D. card, mask out the name, address, and signature with thin strips of paper the same color as the card itself. Do a neat gluing job. Next, photograph the card using bright overhead lighting to avoid shadows, or xerox it. Use a paper of a color and weight as close to the real thing as you can get. If you use phony state and city papers such as birth certificate or driver's license, choose a state that is far away from the area in which you are located. Have a complete understanding of all the information you are forging. Dates, cities, birthdays and other data are often part of a coding system. Most are easy to figure out simply by studying a few similar authentic cards.

Almost all I.D. cards use one or another IBM Selectric type to fill in the individual's papers. You can buy the exact model used by federal and state agencies for less than $20.00 and install the ball in 5 seconds on any Selectric machine. When you finish the typing operation, sign your new name and trim the card to the size you want. Rub some dirt on the card and bend it a little to eliminate its newness.

Another method is to obtain a set of papers from a close friend of similar characteristics. Your friend can replace the originals without too much trouble. In both cases it might be advisable to get authentic papers using the phonies you have in your possession. In some states getting a license or voting registration card is very easy. Library cards and other supplementary I.D.'s are simple to get. A passport should not be attempted until you definitely have made up your mind to split the country. That way agencies have less time to check the information and you can decide on the disguise to be used for the picture. Unless you expect to get hotter than you are right now, in which case, get it now.

It is wise to have two sets of identification to be on the safe side but never have both in your possession at the same time. If you sense the authorities are close to mailing you and choose to go underground, prepare all the identification papers well in advance and store them in a secure place. Inform no one of your possible new identity.

Before you start passing phony I.D.'s to cops, banks and passport offices, you should have experience with lesser targets so you feel comfortable using them. There are stiff penalties for this if you get caught. A few better methods than the ones listed above exist, but we feel they should not be made this public. With a little imagination you'll have no trouble. Dig!

COMMUNICATION
Living underground, like exile, can be extremely lonely, especially during the initial adjustment period when you have to reshuffle your living habits. Psychologically it becomes necessary to maintain a few close contacts with other fugitives or folks aboveground. This is also necessary if you plan to continue waging revolutionary struggle. This means communication. If you contact persons or arrange for them to contact you, be super cool. Don't rush into meetings. Stay OFF the phone! If you must, use pay phones. Have the contact person go to a prescribed booth at prescribed time. Knowing the phone number beforehand, you can call from another pay phone. The pay phone system is superior to debugging devices and voice scramblers. Even so, some pay phones, that local police suspect bookies use, are monitored.

Keep your calls short and disguise your voice a bit. If you are a contact and the call does not come as scheduled, don't panic. Perhaps the booth at the other end is occupied or the phone you are on is out of order. In New York, the latter is usually true. Wait a reasonable length of time and then go about your business. Another contact will be made. Personal rendezvous should take place at places that are not movement hangouts or heavy pig scenes. Intermediaries should be used to see if anyone was followed. Just groove on a few good spy flicks and you'll figure it all out.

Communicating to masses of people above ground is very important. It drives the MAN berserk and gives hope to comrades in the struggle. The most important message is that you are alive, in good spirits and carrying on the struggle. The communications of the Weathermen are brilliantly conceived. Develop a mailing list that you keep well hidden in case of a bust. You can devise a system of mailing stuff in envelopes (careful of fingerprints) inside larger envelopes to a trusted contact who will mail the items from another location to further camouflage your area of operation. A host of communication devices are available besides handwritten notes and typed communications. Tape recorders are excellent but better still are video-tape cassette machines. You can wear masks, do all kinds of weird theatrical stuff and send the tapes to television stations. At times you might want to risk being interviewed by a newsman, but this can be very dangerous unless you conceive a super plan and have some degree of trust in the word of the journalist. Don't forget a grand jury could be waiting for him with a six months contempt or perjury charge when he admits contact and does not answer their questions.

The only other advice is to dress warm in the winter and cool in the summer, stay high and.

LIBERATION!
fuck new york
HOUSING
You can always sleep up in Central Park during the daytime, although the muggers come out to play at night. Free night crashing can be found in the waiting room of the Pennsylvania Railroad station, 34th St. and 7th Ave. The cops will leave you alone until about 7:00 AM when they kick you out. You can put your rucksack in a locker for twenty-five cents to avoid it being ripped-off.

The Boys Emergency Shelter, 69 St. Marks Place, (777-1234) provides free room and board for males 16-20 years of age. The Living Room can be found on the same block. It's a heavy religious scene, but they will help with room and board. Their hours are 6:30 PM to 2:00 AM, phone 982-5988. Also on the Lower East Side is the Macauley Mission at 90 Lafayette St.

On the West Side, there's a poet named Delworth at 125 Sullivan St. that houses kids if he's got room. The Judson Memorial Church, Washington Square South always has one or more housing programs going. If you're really hard up, try the Stranded Youth Program, 111 W. 31st St. (554-8897). Teenagers 16-20 are sent home; if you don't want to go back but need room and board, give them phony identification.

The Graymoor Monastery (CA 6-2388) offers free room and board for young people in the country. They provide transportation.

FOOD
Hunt's Point Market, Hunt's Point Ave. and 138th St. in the Bronx will lay enough fruit and vegetables on your family to last a week or more. Lettuce, squash, carrots, cantaloupe, grapefruit, even artichokes and mushrooms all crated. You'll need a car or truck and they only give stuff away in the early morning. Just tell them you're doing a free food thing and it's yours. Outasight!

The large slaughterhouse area is in the far West Village, west of Hudson and south of 14th St. Get a letter from a clergyman saying you need meat for a church-sponsored meal.

The fish market is located on Fulton and South Streets under the East River Drive overpass in lower Manhattan. You can always manage to find some sympathetic fisherman early in the morning who will lay as much fish on you as you can cart away.

If you pick up on a car, take a trip to Long Island City. There you will find the Gordon Baking Company at 42-25 21st, Pepsi Cola at 4602 Fifth Ave., Borden Company at 35-10 Steinway St. and Dannon Yogurt at 22-11 38th Ave. All four places give out samples for free if you call or write ahead and explain how it's for a block party.

Along 2nd and 3rd Avenues on the upper east side are a host of swank bars with free hors-d'oeuvres beginning at five. All Longchamps are good, as is Max's Kansas City.

For real class, check the back pages of the New York Times for ocean cruises and those swinging bon voyage parties. If you look kind of straight or want to disguise yourself and see the other half at it, sneak into conventions for drinks, snacks and all kinds of free samples. Call the New York Convention Bureau, 90 E. 42nd St. MU 7-1300 for info. You can also get free tickets to theater events here at 9:00 AM on weekdays.

Other free meals can be gotten at the various missions.

Bowery Mission - 227 Bowery (674-3456). Pray and eat from 4:00 to 6:00 PM only. Heavy religious orientation.
Catholic Worker - 36 E. First St. Soup line from 10:00 to 11:00 AM. Clothes for women on Thursday from 12:00 to 2:00 PM. Clothes for men after 2:00 PM weekdays. Sometimes lodging.
Holy Name Center for Homeless Men - 18 Bleeker St. (CA 6-5848 or CA 6-2338) Clothes and morning showers from 7:00 to 11:00 AM.
Macauley Mission - 90 Lafayette St. (CA 6-6214) Free room and board. Free food Saturdays at 5:00 PM. Sometimes free clothes.
Moravian Church - 154 Lexington Ave. (MU 3-4219 or 533-3737) Free spaghetti dinner on Tuesday at 1:00 PM.
Quakers - 328 E. 15th St. Meals at 6:00 PM Tuesdays.
Wayward - 287 Mercer St. Free meals nightly.
The International Society For Krishna Consciousness is located at 41 Second Ave. Every morning at 7:00 AM a delicious cereal breakfast is served free along with chanting and dancing. Also at noon, more food and chanting and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7:00 PM, again food and chanting. Then it's all day Sunday in Central Park Sheepmeadow (generally) for still more chanting (sans food). Hari Krishna is the freest high going if you can get into it and dig cereal and of course, more chanting.

The Paradox Restaurant, at 64 E. 7th St. is a neat cheap health joint that will give you a free meal if you help peel shrimp or do the dishes.

MEDICAL CARE
The latest dope on family planning and the new abortion law can be obtained from Planned Parenthood, 300 Park Ave. (777-2015). They provide a free directory on city-wide services in this area. The Black Panther Free Health Clinic on 180 Sutter Ave. in Brooklyn is radical medicine in action. If you ripped off this book, why not send them or another group mentioned in this book a check so they can continue serving the people. Two fantastic clinics on the Lower East Side are the St. Marks People's Clinic at 44 St. Marks Place (533-9500), open weekdays 6-10 PM and NENA at 290 E. Third St. (677-5040) which also functions as a switchboard for the area.

The Beth Israel Teenage Clinic at 17th St. and 1st Ave. 673-3000 ext. 2424) services young people. Millie at the Village Project, 88 2nd Ave. can arrange for free glasses. The New York University Dental Clinic, 421 First Ave. will give you the cheapest dental care in Gotham. Stuyvesant-Poly Clinic, 137 Second Ave. (674-0232) has an emergency day clinic with the quickest service. Dial-a-freakout is 324-0707. Ambulance service is at 440-1234. You ought to know the cops accompany ambulance calls. The following is a list of the New York City Health Department Centers. They provide a number of free services including X-rays, venereal examinations and treatment, shots for children's diseases, vaccinations, tetanus shots and a host of other services.

Manhattan
Central Harlem-2238 Fifth Ave. AU 3-1900
East Harlem-158 E. 115th St. TR 6-0300
Lower East Side-341 E. 25th St. MU 9-6353
Manhattanville-21 Old Broadway MO 5-5900
Morningside-264 W. 118th St. UN6-2500
Washington Heights-600 W. 168th St. WA 7-6300
Bronx
Morrisania- 1309 Fulton St. WY 2-4200
Mott Haven-349 E. 140th St. MO 9-6010
Tremont-Fordham-1826 Arthur Ave. LU 3-5500
Westchester-Pelham-2527 Glebe Ave. SY 2-0100
Brooklyn
Bedford-485 Throop Ave. GL 2-7880
Brownsville-259 Briston St. HY 8-6742
Bushwick-335 Central Ave. HI 3-5000
Crown Heights-1218 Prospect Place SL 6-8902
Flatbush-Gravesend-1601 Ave. S NI 5-8280
Ft. Greene-295 Flatbush Ave. Ext. 643-8934
Red Hook-Gowanus-250 Baltic St. 643-5687
Sunset Park-514 49th St. GE 6-2800
Williamsburg-Greenpoint-151 Mayier St. EV 8-3714
Queens
Astoria-Maspeth-12-1631st Ave. L.I.C. AS 8-5520
Corona-Flushing-34-33 Junction Blvd., Jackson Heights HI 6-3570
Jamaica-90-37 Parsons Blvd. OL 8-6600
Rockaway-67-10 Rockaway Beach Blvd.; Arvenne NE 4-7700
Richmond-51 Stuyvesant Place SA 7-6000
The key to getting overall medical care for free is to pick up on a Medicaid card. You can apply at any metropolitan hospital. After filling out a long form and waiting three weeks you'll get your card in the mail. Have a good story when interviewed about why you're not working or only making under $2900 a year. There is an age limit in that only folks over 21 can qualify, but the rule is liberally enforced and younger people can get the card with the right hardship story.

LEGAL AID
The Lawyer's Commune is a group of revolutionary young lawyers pledged to make a limited income and handle the toughest political cases. They handle all our cases. Find them at 640 Broadway on the fifth floor (677-1552).

New York radicals are fortunate in having a number of good legal assistance agencies. One of the following is bound to be able to help you out of a jam.

Emergency Civil Liberties Committee-25 E. 26th St. 683-8120 (civil liberties)
Legal Aid Society-100 Centre St. BE 3-0250 (criminal matters)
Mobilization for Youth Legal Services-320 E. Third St. 777-5250 (all types of services)
National Lawyers Guild-5 Beekman St. 277-0385 or 227-1078 (political)
New York Civil Liberties Union-156 Fifth Ave. 929-6076 (civil liberties)
New York University Law Center Office-249 Sullivan St. GR 3-1896 (civil matters)
DRAFT COUNSELING
Bronx
Claremont Neighborhood Center - 169th St. and Washington Ave. 588-1000. Hours are from 2:00 to 10:00 weekdays.
Brooklyn
Black Anti-Draft Union - 448 Nostrand Ave.
Church of St. John the Evangelist - 195 Mayier St. 387-8721
Society for Ethical Culture - 53 Prospect Park West SO 8-2972
Manhattan
American Friends Service Committee - 15 Rutherford Place 777-4600
Chelsea Draft Information - 346 W. 20th St. WA 9-2391
Community Free Draft Counseling Center - 470 Amsterdam Ave. 787-8500
Greenwich Village Peace Center - 137 W. Fourth St. 533-5120
Harlem Unemployment Center - 2035 Fifth Ave. 831-6591
LEMPA - 105 Avenue B 477-9749
New York Civil Liberties Union - 156 Fifth Ave. 675-5990
New York Workshop in Nonviolence - 339 Lafayette St. 227-0973
Resistance - 339 Lafayette St. 674-9060
Union Theological Seminary - 606 W. 122nd St. MO 3-9090
War Resisters League - 339 Lafayette St. 228-0450
Westside Draft Information - 602 Columbus Ave. (89th St.) 874-7330
Woman's Strike for Peace - 799 Broadway 254-1925
PLAY
Botanical Gardens
Conservatory Gardens - Central Park, 105th St. and Fifth Ave. Seasonal display. LE 4-4938
Brooklyn Botanical Gardens - Flatbush and Washington Aves. Rose Oriental Garden, Rose Garden, Native Wild Flower Garden, Rock Garden, Conservatory. Seasonal display. MA 2-4433.
New York Botanical Gardens, Bronx Park, 200th St., east of Webster Ave. Gardens and Conservatories. Seasonal displays. Parking fee: $1.00 on Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Open: Grounds - 10:00 AM to dark, Greenhouses - 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. 933-9400.
Queens Botanical Gardens, 43-50 Main St., between Dahilia and Elder Aves., Flushing. TU 6-3800.
These gardens are really beautiful places to fuck around for a day. The best ones are the Bronx and Brooklyn. Bring a picnic, a few friends, some grass, and plant the seeds. It's all free.

Zoos
Central Park - 64th St. and Fifth Ave. Free. Open 11 AM to 5 PM.
Children's Zoo - 64th St. and Fifth Ave. Open 10 AM to 5 PM. Admission is 10 cents. No tickets are sold after 4:30 PM. Free story-telling sessions with motion pictures or color slides at 3:30 PM, Mondays through Friday.
Bronx Park - Fordham Road and Southern Blvd. WE 3-1500. Open daily from 10 AM to 5 PM. November, December, January closes at 4:30 PM. Admission on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays is 25 cents for adults and children over 5 years. Free on other days and all legal holidays. Children's Zoo closes November 1st.
Barrett Park Zoo - in Richmond, Broadway, Glenwood Place and Clove Road. Open daily 10 AM to 5 PM. GI 2-3100.
Unlike the barbaric cages in Central Park, the 18-acre Flushing Meadow Zoo in Queens has been designed so that visitors can view the animals and buds in their natural surroundings, without bars. Take the Main Street Flushing Line Subway (train number 7) from Times Square to 111th St. in Queens. Bronx Zoo which is the largest in the United States and Flushing Meadow Zoo are fantastic.

Beaches
Brooklyn - Coney Island Beach and Boardwalk ES 2-1670
Manhattan Beach - Oriental Blvd., from Ocean Ave. to Makenzie St. DE 26794
Bronx - Pelham Bay Park - Orchard Beach and Boardwalk TI 5-1828
Queens - Jacob Riis Park - Jamaica Bay, Beach 149 to Beach 169 GR 4-4600
Rockaway Beach - First St. to 149th St. GR 4-3470
Richmond - Great Kills Park - Hylan Blvd., Great Kills EL 1-1977
South Beach and Boardwalk - Ft. Wadsworth to Miller Field, New Dorp YU 7-0709
Wolfs Pond Park - Holten and Cornelia Avenues, Princes Bay YU 4-0360
Go to the beach on weekdays as it usually is very crowded on the weekends. The best beach by far is Rockaway. lt has pretty good waves.

Swimming Pools MANHATTAN - OUTDOOR POOLS
Carmine Street Pool - Clarkson St. and Seventh Ave. WA 4-4246
Colonial Pool - Bradhurst Ave. and W. 145th St. WA 6-8109
East 23rd Street Pool - Asser Levy Place MU 5-1026
Hamilton Fish Pool - E. Houston and Sheriff Streets GR 7-3911
Highbridge Pool - Amsterdam Ave. and W. 173rd St. WA 3-2360
John Jay Pool - 77th St., east of York Ave. at Cherokee Place. RE 7-2458
Lasker Memorial Pool - Central Park, 110th St. and Lenox Ave. 348-6297
Thomas Jefferson Pool - 111th St. and First Ave. LE 4-0198
West 59th Street Pool - between West End and Amsterdam Avenues. CI 5-8519
MANHATTAN - INDOOR POOLS
Baruch Pool - Rivington St. and Baruch Place GR 3-6950
East 54th Street Pool - 342 E. 54th St. and Second Ave. PL 8-3147
Rutgers Place Pool - 5 Rutgers Place GR 3-6567
West 28th Street Pool - 407 W. 28th St. CH 4-1896
West 134th Street Pool - 35 W. 134th St. AU 3-4612
BROOKLYN - OUTDOOR POOLS
Betsy Head Pool - Hopkinson and Dumont Avenues DI 2-2977
McCarren Pool - Driggs Ave. and Lorimer St. EV 8-2367
Red Hook Pool - Bay and Henry Streets TR 5-3855
Sunset Pool - Seventh Ave. and 43rd St. GE 5-2627
BROOKLYN = INDOOR POOLS
Brownsville Recreation Center - Linden Blvd. and Christopher Ave. HY 8-1121
Metropolitan Avenue Pool - Bedford Ave., no phone; call SO 8-2300
St. John's Recreation Center - Prospect Place and Schenectady Avenues HY 3-3948
BRONX OUTDOOR POOLS
Crotona Pool - E. 173rd St. and Fulton Ave. LU 3-3910
BRONX - INDOOR POOLS
St. Mary's Recreation Center Pool - St. Ann's Ave. and E. 145th St. CY 2-7254
QUEENS - OUTDOOR POOLS
Astoria Pool - 19th St. and 23rd Drive, Astoria AS 8-5261
Flushing Meadow Amphitheatre - Long Island Expressway and Grand Central Parkway, Swimming pool and diving pool. 699-4228.
RICHMOND - OUTDOOR POOLS
Faber Pool - Faber St. and Richmond Terrace GI 2-1524
Lyons Pool - Victory Blvd. and Murray Hulbert Ave. GI 7-6650
The pools are generally crowded but on a warm summer day you don't care. The pools are open on weekdays from 10 AM to 12:30 PM. There is a free period for children 14 years of age and under. No adults are admitted to the pool areas during this free period. After 1 PM on weekdays and all day on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays there is a 15 cents charge for children under 14 years and a 35 cents charge for children over 14 years.

Free Cricket Matches
At both Van Cortland Park in the Bronx and Walker Park on Staten Island every Sunday afternoon there are free cricket matches. Get schedule from British Travel Association, 43 W. 61st St. At Walker Park, free tea and crumpets are served during intermission. I say!

Free Park Events
All kinds of activities in the Parks are free. Call 755-4100 for a recorded announcement of the week's events. The freak center is the rowing pond around 70th St. and Bethesda Fountain around 72nd St. in Central Park, although it floats. Busts are non-existent. A complete list of all recreational facilities can be obtained by calling the New York City Department of Parks.

Museums
American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Numismatic Society, and the American Geographical Society are all located at Broadway and 155th St.
Asia House Gallery - 112 E. 64th St. Art objects from the Far East.
Brooklyn Museum - Eastern Parkway and Washington Ave. Egyptian stuff best in the world outside Egypt. Take IRT (Broadway line) express train to Brooklyn Museum station. (Don't miss the Gardens in back.)
The Cloisters - Weekdays 10 AM to 5 PM, Sundays 1 PM to 6 PM. Take IND Eighth Avenue express (A train) at 190th Str. station and walk a few blocks. The number 4 Fifth Avenue bus also goes all the way up and it's a pleasant ride. One of the best trip places in medieval setting.
Frick Museum - 1 E. 70th St. Great when you're stoned. Closed Mondays.
The Hispanic Society of America - Broadway between 15th and 16th Streets. The best Spanish art collection in the city.
Marine Museum of the Seaman's Church - 25 South St. All kinds of model ships and sea stuff. Also the Seaport Museum on 16 Fulton St.
Metropolitan Museum - 5th Ave. and 82nd St.
Museum of the American Indian - Broadway at 155th St. Largest Indian museum in the world. Open Tuesday to Sunday 1 to 5 PM. Take IRT (Broadway line) local to 157th St. station.
Museum of the City of New York - 103rd St. and 5th Ave. LE 4-1672
Museum of Modern Art - 11 W. 53rd St. CI 5-3200. Monday is free.
Museum of Natural History - Central Park West and 79th St. Great dinosaurs and other stuff. Weekdays 10-5 PM, Sunday 1-5 PM.
Museum of the Performing Arts - Lincoln Center, Amsterdam Ave. and 65th St. 799-2200
New York Historical Society - 77th St. and Central Park West. TR 3-3400
Chase Manhattan Museum of Money - 1256 6th Ave. All banks, especially Chase Manhattan ones are museums when you get right down to it. Liberate them!
Music
Summer Musical Festival in Central Park. About the closest you can come to good free rock music. There are concerts every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in the months of July and August. It only costs $1.00 or $2.00, and everybody in the music world plays at least once. The concerts are held at the Wollman Ice Skating Ring. Occasionally there are free rock concerts in Central Park.
The Greenwich House of Music located at 46 Barrow St. in the West Village puts on free concerts and recitals every Friday at 8:30 PM. For a complete schedule send a stamped, self-addressed envelope.
The Frick Museum, 1 E. 70th St., BU 8-0700, has concerts every Sunday afternoon. The best of the classical offerings. You must hassle a little. Send a self-addressed stamped envelope that will arrive on Monday before the date you wish to go. One letter, one ticket. The Donnell Library, 20 W. 53rd St. also presents free classical music. The schedule is found in "Calendar of Events" at any library.
The Juilliard School presents a variety of free stuff: orchestral, opera, dance, chamber music, string quartets and soloists. Performances take place most Friday evenings at 8:30 PM, from November through May.
The Museum of the City of New York, 5th Ave. between 103rd St. and 104th St. every Sunday at 2:30 PM, October through April. Phone first: LE 4-1672. Classical.
New York Historical Society, from December through April, has glee clubs, string groups, and classical singers performing on Sundays at 2:30 PM., 170 Central Park West (near 77th St.), Phone TR 3-3400 for schedule.
Brooklyn Museum has classical concerts by assorted soloists and groups and are presented free every Sunday from October through June at 2 PM, Eastern Parkway and Washington Ave. NE 8-5000.
Television Shows
You can sometimes pick up tickets to television shows at the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, 90 E. 42nd St. For the bigger and better shows you have to write direct to the studios. If you do write, do it as far in advance as possible. CBS, 51 W. 52nd St., asks you to write two months in advance. Sometimes you can get last-minute tickets for the Ed Sullivan Theater, 1697 Broadway. For NBC shows, write NBC Ticket Division, 30 Rockefeller Plaza. There is also a ticket desk on the NBC Mezzanine of 30 Rockefeller Plaza where tickets are given out for the day shows on a first-come-first-served basis. It's open Monday through Friday from 9-5. ABC, 1330 Sixth Ave. ask you to write two to three weeks in advance for tickets. You can get tickets up to the day of the show by calling in or visiting the ticket office of ABC, 79 W. 66th St. or 1330 6th Ave. (LT 1-7777). Metromedia also gives out free tickets to their shows and you can get them by writing to WNEW-TV, 205 E. 67th St. (LE 5-1000).

Theater
The Dramatic Workshop, Studio number 808, Carnegie Hall Building, 881 7th Ave. at 56th St. Free on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8:15 PM. JU 6-4800 for information.
New York Shakespeare Festival, Delacourte Theater, Central Park. Every night except Monday. Performance begins at 8:00 PM, but get there before 6:00 PM to be assured of tickets.
Pageant Players, the Sixth Street Theater Group and other street theater groups perform on street corners and in parks. Free theater is also provided at the United Nations Building and the Stock Exchange on Wall Street. If you enjoy seventeenth century comedy.
The Equity Library Theatre gives performances of old Broadway hits at the Masters Institute, 103rd St. and Riverside Drive. They perform Tuesday through Sunday at 8:30 PM and Sunday at 2:30 PM. Free tickets are not always available so phone ahead (MO 3-2038) for reservations. No shows during the summer.
The Museum of Performing Arts, 111 Amsterdam Ave. offers plays, dance programs and music. Shows start at 6:30 PM. Tickets are handed out at 4:00 PM. Saturday shows start at 2:30 PM. You can write for a calendar of events to 1865 Broadway or call 799-2200.
Movies
The New York Historical Society, Central Park West and 77th St. presents Hollywood movies every Saturday afternoon. TR 3-3400 for a schedule.
At the Metropolitan Museum, Fifth Ave. and 82nd St., you can see art films every Monday at 3:00 PM. TR 9-5500 for a schedule.
New York University has a very good free movie program as well as poetry, lectures, and theatre presentations. Call the Program Director's Office 598-2026 for a schedule.
The Film Library in the Donnell Library, 20 W. 53rd St., 790-6463, has a wide variety of films which may be borrowed free of charge. The Library system also presents film programs throughout the year. Pick up a Calendar of Events which lists the free showings at all the branches.
The Museum of Modern Art is free every Monday and they have a free film showing at 2 and 5 PM. Get a schedule at the Museum. They have the largest movie collection in the world.
Museum of Natural History, Central Park West between 77th and 81st St. (TR 3-1300), presents travel and anthropological films on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons at 2:00 sharp, from October through May.
Every movie that plays in New York has a series of screenings for critics, film buyers and friends of the folks that made it. Look in the Yellow Pages under Motion Picture Studios and Motion Picture Screening Rooms. Once you get the feel of it, you'll quickly learn who shows what, where and when. They always let you in free and if not give some gull story. (See Free Entertainment section). If you see previews in a theater or notice a publicity build-up in the newspapers, the movie is being screened at one or more of the rooms.

INFORMATION
Daily News-220 E. 42nd St., will answer any questions you put to them. Well almost!
General information: 883-1122
Sports: 883-1133
Travel: 883-1144
Weather: 883-1155
For the latest news, call the wire services:
AP is PL 7-1312, UPI is
MU 2-0400.
The New York Times Research Bureau, 229 W. 43rd St., 556-1651, will research news questions that pertain to the past three months. Liberation News Service at 160 Claremont Ave., will give you up-to-the-minute coverage of radical news. Call 749-2200.
UNDERGROUND PAPERS
East Village Other-20 E. 12th St., 255-2130
Liberation-339 Lafayette St., 674-0050
Other Scenes-Box 8, Village Station, 242-3888
Rat-241 E. 14th St., 228-4460
Win-339 Lafayette St., 674-0050
For others, call Underground Press Syndicate, Box 26, Village Station, 691-6073
MISCELLANEOUS
Dial-A-Beating-911
Dial-a-Demonstration 924-6315
Dial-a-Satellite-TR 3-0404
Time-NERVOUS
Weather-WE 6-1212.
The Switchboard-989-0720, at the Alternate U, is open 6 PM to 3 AM.
THE SUBWAY SYSTEM
The first thing to do is get familiar with the geography of stops you use most frequently. Locate the token cage. Check to see whether the exits are within easy view of the teller, off to the side, or blocked from view by concrete pole-supporters. Next learn the type of turnstile in use. Follow the hints laid down in the Free Transportation section.

The rush hours are always the easiest times. Just go through the exits as people push open the door. Also at crowded hours, people go single file past the turnstiles, one after another in a steady stream. Get in line and go under. The people will block you from view and won't do anything. Even a cop won't give you much hassle. Some subway stations have concrete supports that block the teller's view. Where these exist, slip through the exit nearest the pole or slide by the turnstile.

Turnstile jumping is such a skill, it's going to be added to the Olympics. There are three basic styles common to New York and most cities and each needs a slightly different approach.

The Old Wooden Cranker-(Traditional) You have to go under or sail over this type. Going under is a smoother trip. Going over is trickier since you need both hands free to hurdle and it's a quicker, more noticeable motion.

New-Aluminum-Bar-Turnstiles-Which-Turn-Both-Ways-For-Exit-and- Entrance-Approach it with confidence. Pretend you're putting in a token with your right hand and pull the bar toward you one third of the way with your left hand. Go through the space left between the bars and the barrier. Not for heavyweights!

New-Aluminum-Bar-Turnstiles-Which-Can-Be- Used-Only-For-Entrance-They won't pull towards you, and so, you must go either under or over them.

NOTE: There is no way to tell a New-Aluminum-Bar-Turnstile-Which-Turns-Both-- Ways-For-Exit-and-Entrance from a New-Aluminum-Bar-Turnstile-Which- Can-Be-Used-Only-For-Entrance unless there is a sign. You have to try it first. Therefore, it is important to remember which kind is in use at your local station so your technique will be smooth. Once you're through, remember in your mind you've paid. Ignore everybody who tries to stop you or tell you different. If someone shouts just keep on truckin' on toward your track. Don't stop or run. Insist you are right if you ever get caught. We have been doing it for years, got caught twice and let go both tunes when other passengers insisted we paid. Everybody hates the subways, even the tellers.

FREEBIES
Clothing Repairs
All Wallach stores feature a service that includes sewing on buttons, free shoe horns, and shoe laces, mending pants pockets and linings, punching extra holes in belts, and a number of other free services.

Furniture
By far the best place to get free furniture in New York is on the street. Once a week in every district, the Sanitation Department makes bulk pick-ups. The night before, residents put out all kinds of stuff on the street. For the best selection try the West Village on Monday nights, and the East Seventies on Tuesday nights. On Wednesday night there are fantastic pick-ups on 35th St. in-back of Macy's. Move quickly though, the guards get pissed off easily; the truckers couldn't care less. This street method can furnish your whole pad. Beds, desks, bureaus, lamps, bookcases, chairs, and tables. It's all a matter of transportation. If you don't have access to a car or truck, it's worth it to rent a station wagon and make pick-ups.

Ghosts
If you would like to meet a real ghost, write Hans Holtzer, c/o New York Committee for Investigation for Paranormal Research, 140 Riverside Drive, New York, NY. He'll put you in touch for free.

Free Lessons
Lessons in a variety of skills such as plumbing, electricity, jewelry-making, construction and woodworking are provided by the Mechanics Institute, 20 W. 44th St. Call or write them well in advance for a schedule. You must sign up early for lessons as they try to maintain small courses. MU 7-4279.

Poems
are free. Are you a poem or are you a prose?

Liberated Churches
Saint Mark's in the Bowery, Second Ave. and 10th ST. (674- 6377
Washington Square Methodist Church, 133 W. Fourth St.,
Greenwich Village (777-2528); Judson Memorial Church, Washington Square South (725-9211).
Flowers
At about 9:30 AM, free flowers in the Flower District on Sixth Ave. between 22nd St. and 23rd St. Once in a while, you can find a potted tree that's been thrown out because it's slightly damaged.

The Staten Island Ferry-Not free, but a nickel each way for a five mile ocean voyage around the southern tip of Manhattan is worth it. Take IRT (Broadway line) to South Ferry, local only. Ferry leaves every half-hour day and night.

Drugs
In the area along Central Park West in the Seventies and Eighties are located many doctor's offices. Daily they throw out piles of drug samples. If you know what you're looking for, search this area.

Books
You can always use the library. The main branch is on Fifth Ave. and 42nd St. The Public Library prints a leaflet entitled "It's Your Library" which lists all the 168 branches and special services the library provides. You can pick it up at your nearest branch. They also publish a calendar of events every two weeks which is available free. If you have any questions call 791-6161.

You can get free posters, literature and books from the various missions to the United Nations located on the East Side near the UN Building. The Cuban Mission, 67th St., will give you free copies of Granma, the Cuban newspaper, Man and Socialism in Cuba, by Che Guevara and other literature.

Maps
A free subway map is available at any token booth. Good if you're new in the city and don't know your way around.

Pets
ASPCA, 441 E. 92nd St. and York Ave., TR 6-7700. Dogs, cats, some birds and other pets. Tell them you're from out of town if you want a dog and you will not have to pay the $5.00 license fee. Have them inspect and inoculate the pet; which they do free of charge. A place to look for free pets is in the Village Voice under their column Free Pets.

Radio Free New York
WBAI FM, 99.5 on your dial. 30 E. 39th St. (OX 7-8506).

Free Schools
Alternative University, 69 W. 14th St. (989-0666). A good radical school offering courses in karate, Mao, medical skills and other courses. They will send you a catalogue listing current courses.
Bottega Artists Workshop, 1115 Quentin Road, Brooklyn, 336-3212 has art taught by professionals for a free.
GENERAL SERVICES
Contact-220 E. Seventh St. Open 3 to 10 PM. Raps, contacts, mailing addresses, counseling, sometimes food.
Traveler's Aid-204 E. 39th St. MU 4-5029
Village Project-88 Second Ave. Open 2 to 6 PM. Same as Contact.
fuck chicago
HOUSING
Contrary to rumors, none of us have ever been to Chicago. None-the-less, we have some friends who have visited the area. In Chicago, everyone 17 or under must be off the streets by 10:30 PM and by 11:30 PM on Fridays and Saturdays. Don't sleep in Lincoln Park during political conventions, but other nights it's O.K. Wasn't it Hillel who asked, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" And wasn't it Mayor Richard J. Daley who responded, "Cause I say get your ass out of the park!"

The Chicago Seed (929-0133) will give you the best advice on crashing and the local heat scene. Grace Lutheran Church, 555 W. Beldon St., and the Looking Glass at 1725 W. Wilson also have crashing places or know where you can find free room and board.

You won't get hassled if you sack out in the Union Station on Adams Street just over the bridge. There are loads of folks crashing in abandoned buildings along LaSalle and other streets. Also the rooftops are cool. Stay off the streets though, unless you've got good identification.

FOOD
SCLC (Operation Breadbasket) has a free breakfast program every morning Monday through Friday from 7-10 AM at St. Anna Church, 55th St. and LaSalle St., and also at Christ the King Lutheran Church located at 3700 Lake Park.

You can get free samples of cheese, meat, and coffee everyday at the Stop and Shop food store located on Washington between Dearborn and State Streets. At the Treasure Island grocery store located on Broadway, two blocks north of Belmont, free coffee and cookies are offered for the people. Halloway House at 27 W. Randolph gives coupons good for coffee. Also at the Guild Bookstore at 25 W. Jackson Blvd., and from the machines at the 4th through 14th floors of the Playboy Building.

There are real cheap restaurants. One is a truck-stop in Skokie called Karl's Cafe. It's just north of Oakton on Skokie Highway. It's open until 6:00. You get a whole lot of food for $1.00. Also, under the viaduct at Milwaukee and Damen is a small restaurant with Polish food. You can get a great meal for $1.35. It's worth a visit. It closes early in the evening. Another cheap restaurant is Paul and Ernie's on North Lincoln, just south of Wrightwood. You can have a beef dinner for about 70 cents.

A good place to pick up free vegetables and fruits is at the wholesale market on Randolph St. or S. Water St. on Friday afternoons. Many of the food factories such as Kraft Dairy Products give away free samples and cases for "charity." Check them out.

It is possible to steal food from the 2nd floor Federal Building Cafeteria at Adams and Dearborn and the National Cafeteria at Clark and Van Buren. These cafeterias usually have long lines and you can eat while standing and just pay for the coffee.

If you have a place to cook and store food, there are a few places that have pretty cheap food. The east gate of International Harvester, located at 1015 W. 120th St. is unbelievable. Dig these bargains! 10 pounds of T-bone steaks (boxed) for $5.25 at midnight. at 4 PM, the produce man brings a different combination of goods. A typical bill of fare might include tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, etc. at $1.00 for 10 pounds of any item. The produce might vary from day to day, but the prices stay the same. On Thursdays at noon and 4 PM, the Lennell cookie man comes around. It's $1.25 per box. At 7 PM, the sausage man arrives and the standard price is $2.00. The standard size is 3 to 5 pounds. He has salami, liver sausage, polish sausage, and usually odd lunchmeat such as bologna or summer sausage. All the food is sold out of trucks, and the prices might not be exact, but they're pretty close.

Eggs are about 3 dozen for $2.00 on Randolph west of Halsted. Orange juice is pretty cheap at the Del Farm on Broadway. Wonder Bread thrift store on Diversey; Butternut, 87th St. and Ridgeland and 1471 W. Wilson, and Silvercup, 55th and Federal, offer bread and rolls at big discounts. The Cicero Bottling Company at 31st St. and 48 Court sell a case of 12 quart bottles for $2.00. Mamas Cookies, 7400 S. Kastner give 5 pounds for $1.50. At Burhops, State and Grand, you can get cheap 5-pound boxes of steak. The Railroad Salvage around Madison and Halsted has dented cans (with stuff inside) for big discounts. It is also a good place for paper products. Campbell Soup, 2250 W. 55th St., open Tuesday and Thursday, will give you cases free or at discounts if you tell them it's for charity or look straight. Two good spots for all around shopping are the Hi-Lo on Lincoln, north of Irving. There's lots of stuff for 10 cents. Marathon Products at Randolph and Halsted is another good place.

If you can survive on just one meal a day, you're set. The city has just opened 14 free lunch centers throughout the town. They are located at:

Antgeld Urban Progress Center-967 E. 132nd St.
Area II Multi-Service Center of DHR-1500 N. North Park
Division Street Urban Progress Center-1940 W. Division
DHR Woodlawn District Office-6317 S. Maryland
Englewood District Office of DHR-6003 S. Halsted
Garfeld Neighborhood Service Program-9 S. Kedzie
Halsted Urban Progress Center-1935 S. Halsted
Lawndale Urban Progress Center-3818 W. Roosevelt
Madden Park Fieldhouse-500 E. 37th St.
Martin Luther King Urban Progress Center-4741 S. King Drive
Montrose Urban Progress Center-901 W. Montrose
North Kenwood CCUO Office-4155 S. Lake Park
South Chicago Urban Progress Center-9231 S. Houston
Southern District DHR Office-2108 E. 71st St.
The free hot meals consist of meat, potatoes, a vegetable, dessert, fruit, and coffee or milk. You have to give them a name and an address.

MEDICAL CARE
All three major universities have excellent clinics that do most kinds of medical work for free. The University of Chicago maintains a clinic at 950 E. 59th St. The University of Illinois has one located at 840 S. Wood. In addition to good medical care, Northwestern University Clinic offers very cheap dental treatment. The clinic is at 303 E. Chicago. Call the main switchboard of the schools and ask for the clinics to check out services and hours.

A V.D. clinic is open every weekday and late on Wednesdays at 27 E. 26th St. and N. North Park. Chronic diseases are treated at 2974 N. Clybourn. Free chest X-rays are available at City Hall downtown, everyday. For mental health problems, try the clinic at 1900 N. Sedgwick (642-3531).

Drug education is offered by Earth Mother on Wednesdays at the Grace Church, 555 W. Belden. Information and help with bad trips can be obtained through Just Us, 61 N. Parkside (378-7618) or LSD Rescue Service, 7717 N. Sheridan (338-6750). Chicago has a number of good clinics maintained by movement and community groups spread throughout the city for the people that live in the area. The Black Panther Party runs the Spurgeon "Jake" Winters Free People's Clinic at 3850 W. 16th St. (522-3220).

The Young Patriots Uptown Health Service located at 4408 N. Sheridan (334-8957) serves the people in that community. The Young Lords maintain the Dr. E. Betances Free People's Health Center at Peoples Church, 834 W. Armitage (549-8505). The Latin American Defense Organization has a clinic on 2353 W. North Avenue, (276-0900). The growing Student Health Organization administers a number of small clinics in various communities. Call them at 493-2741 or drop into their office at 1613 E. 53rd St. At the Holy Covenant Church, on Wilton and Diversey, you can get medical assistance at the Free People's Clinic as well as help with legal, housing, family planning and nutrition problems. Call 348-6842. All these clinics provide a variety of services and operate on different schedules. Call them first to be sure they are open.

LEGAL AID
Chicago has a number of good law schools and you can often get some assistance or referral by calling them and speaking to the editor of the law school paper. You can go to the bathroom for free in the Julius J. Hoffman Room at Northwestern University Law School.

The Law Student Commune, 357 E. Chicago, 649-8462, is a group of young radical lawyers and law students trying to bring legal assistance into the streets. The People's Law Office 2156 N. Halsted, 929-1880 operates the same way. For community problems, call the Lincoln Park Rights Center, 525-9775, or the Community Legal Counsel, 726-0157. The ACLU maintains a large chapter in Chicago at 6 S. Clark, 236-5564, and handles cases where civil liberties are affected.

DRAFT COUNSELING
American Friends Service Committee - 407 S. Dearborn St. 427-2533
Austin Draft Counseling Center - 5903 Fulton 626-9385
Chicago Area Draft Resisters (Cadre) - 519 W. North Ave. 664-6895
Chicago Circle Draft Information Organization University of Illinois, 317 Chicago Circle Center 663-2557
Hyde Park Draft Information Center - Quaker House, 5615 S. Woodlawn Ave. 363-1248
Kennedy King Draft Counseling Center - 7047 S. Stewart - 488-0900, ext. 36
Lawndale Draft Counseling - 4049 W. 28th St. 277-3140
Loyola Draft Counseling Center 6525 N. Sheridan, 274-3000 ext. 378
Mandel Legal Aid Clinic - 6020 S. University Ave. 324-5181
Ravenswood Draft Counseling - Barry Memorial Methodist Church, 4754 N. Leavitt 784-3272
Roosevelt Selective Service Counseling Organization - Roosevelt University Student Senate Office, Rm. 204, 430 S. Michigan Ave. 922-3580 ext. 334
South Side Draft Information (Mt. Carmel Book Dist.) 2355 W. 63rd St. 925-3686
Uptown Hull House Draft Information Service - 4520 N. Beacon St. 561-8033
Wellington Avenue Congregational Church Draft Counseling Center - 615 W. Wellington Ave. 935-0642.
PLAY
Parks
Lincoln Park stretches along Lake Michigan in the Northern section of the city. It has a Conservatory and Zoo, opened 9 AM to 5 PM. Just south of the zoo is the gathering place for free rock concerts, be-ins, and the like. There is also a zoo in the Brookfield section at 8400 W. 31st St. The Morton Arboretium located on Route 53 in Lisle is open every day till sunset. The Shedd Aquarium is located at 1200 South Lake Shore Drive at Roosevelt.

Music
The Auditorium and Opera House sometimes offers free concerts on Sunday and weeknights. Hang around the lobby and claim there are tickets in your name at the box office. Even if it's a pay concert you can generally bluff your way inside. The Center for New Music, 2263 N. Lincoln, usually has free concerts on Sunday and Monday at 8 PM. WGLD is the local underground station. The Universal Life Church Coffee House, 1049 W. Polk has free rock and folk music on the weekends. Free City Music sponsors free rock concerts during the spring and summer in Lincoln Park.

MUSEUMS
The Art Institute - Adams and Michigan. Opens daily at 10 AM. Great art museum.
Chicago Academy of Science-Lincoln Park at 2001 N. Clark. (LI 9-0606) Open daily from 10 AM to 5 PM.
Field Museum of Natural History-Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive. Time of opening varies from day to day; call 922-9410. Thursday, Saturday and Sunday admission is free.
Museum of Contemporary Art-237 E. Ontario (943-7755) Open daily.
Museum of Science and Industry-57th St. in the Hyde Park area. (MU 4-1414) Open daily from 9 AM to 5 PM. Our all-time favorite museum.
The Oriental Institute-University of Chicago campus, 1155 E. 58th St. (643-0800) Open daily, except Monday, from 10AM to 5 PM.
Poetry
The Other Door Coffee House, 3124 N. Broadway, features nightly poetry readings and music. Call 348-8552. Cafe Pergolesi, 3404 N. Halsted, features poetry readings, baroque music and an art gallery. There is no cover or minimum. Open 6 to 12 PM, and till 1:00 AM on Saturday.

Theater
The Playhouse North, 315 W. North Ave. features free theater. For $1.00, you can see various groups perform at the Harper Theater Coffee House at 5238 S. Harper. Second City, l616 N. Wells, has free improvisations after their evening performances every evening except Fridays. Free children's theater can be seen at La Dolores, 1980 North Orchard, Mondays and Wednesdays at 1 PM. Call 664-2352.

Movies
The Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. shows double bills for $1.25 and has a penny candy counter. John Dillinger got ambushed when he left the place. Free Newsreel films can be seen Wednesdays at 8 PM at the Neighborhood Commons, Wisconsin and Freemart. Newsreel, 2744 N. Lincoln (248-2018) provides movement films for free or law cost to groups.
Alice's Revisited, 950 N. Wrightwood, is a restaurant that shows free movies. On Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM they have free folk-rock-blues music. Saturdays they also have free children's theater. Tuesdays they have psychodrama, also for free. Call 528-4250 for more info.
INFORMATION
The Switchboard number is 281-7197.
Underground Papers
Rising Up Angry - 2261 N. Lincoln 472-1791
Second City - 2120 N. Halsted 549-8760
The Chicago Seed - 950 W. Wrightwood 929-0133
The Seed features a column called "Making It," which deals with survival in the Windy City. It is probably the best of its type in the country.

The Black Panther Party office is located at 2350 W. Madison (243-8276).

COMMUNITY PRINTING
Agitprop - no office; phone 929-0133
Chicago Print Co-op. - 6710 N. Clark
J. S. Jordan Memorial Printing Co-op. - 6710 N. Clark
Omega Posters - 711 S. Dearborn
Red Star Press - 180 N. Wacher
SCHOOLS
The People's School, 4409 N. Sheridan (561-6737), offers free courses in many areas of survival and radical politics. The White Panther Party, 787-1962, offers courses in street fighting, history of American radicalism, and dialectic sexism.

FREEBIES
Clothes
The Concerned Citizens Survival Front, 2512 N. Lincoln Ave. has clothes. Try the dry cleaners on Armitage east of Halsted along the south side of the street. They give away unclaimed stuff. Also Brazil Cleaners at 3943 Indiana. The Eugene Blue Jean Store at 7017 Paulina has jeans, old army shirts and other items for less than a dollar.

Furniture
The Lake Shore Drive area on collection days has furniture. Call the bureau of Streets and Sanitation for a collection schedule.

Free Store
At 727 S. Laflin, you'll find a genuine free store that gives away everything you can imagine. It has a tendency to be a floating free store though.

Money
Pick up some underground papers at any of the offices listed and hawk them on the streets. You can pull in $6-$10 an hour if you work at it.

fuck los angeles
HOUSING
There are several crash pads and communes that will put you up for a few nights. Call the Free Clinic at 938-9141. Floor space is available at the Sans Souce Temple on S. Ardmore. Women's Emergency Lodge at 912 W. 9th St. (627-5571) will put up women without a place to stay or make referrals. Resistance (386-9645) and Green Power (HQ 9-5184) will be helpful if you have to crash. Sleeping on the beaches is out, but the roofs are cool. The Midnite Mission at 396 S. Los Angeles (624-9258) has room and board for some boarders. The parks and streets are certain bust material. The L.A. pigs are matched in brutality only by their fellow hoggers in Chicago and South Africa. Every L.A. cop is nine feet of solid chrome. Bite his toes and down he goes.

FOOD
Green Power Feeds Millions is a unique organization serving the nets of people. They provide food for festivals, cancers, demonstrations, be-ins, sit-ins and similar events for free. In addition they supply a number of communes and serve food every Sunday in Griffith Park, the central get-together spot in Los Angeles. Call them at HO 9-5184 or 938-9141 for information and also to offer your help.

Free vegetarian lunch can be found at the W. Hollywood Presbyterian Church at Sunset and Martel (874-1816). For supper, try the Midnite Mission, 396 S. Los Angeles Street; God Squas, 1412 N. Crescent Heights Blvd. (near Sunset), and His Place, Sunset and La Cienega.

The Half-Price Bakery at Third and Hill St. gives away free bakery goods late at night and you can always bum a meal in any Clifton's Cafeteria with a good story.

The Watts Trojan House is a free store that provides not only food, both clothing and a variety of other items and service. They are located at 1822 E. 103rd St. The County Welfare Department at 2707 S. Grand (near Adams Street) has a liberal food stamp program (746-0522).

MEDICAL CARE
The Free Clinic at 115 N. Fairfax Ave. (938-9141) is very popular and provides a number of services at various hours such as:
Job Co-ops--Monday thru Friday, 10:00-4:00 PM.
Medical--Monday thru Friday, 5:30-l0:00 PM. Saturday 12:30-5:00 PM.
Dental--Monday thru Thursday, 7-10 PM.
Counseling-Psychiatric, Monday thru Friday, 6-10 PM.
Legal Monday thru Friday, 7-10 PM
Draft-Monday thru Thursday, 7:30-10:00 PM.
Pregnancy and Abortion--Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, 7:30. Saturday 1:30 PM
Birth Control-Monday thru Friday, 6-7 PM. Saturday 2-3 PM.
The Foothill Clinic, 547 E. Union in Pasadena (795-8088) offers similar services free of charge. Call them for a schedule of hours. Venereal Diseases are treated in the evenings at a clinic maintained by the Committee to Eradicate Syphillis. They are found at 5205 Melrose Ave., Hollywood (870-2524).
In Venice use the free Youth Clinic at 905 Venice Blvd. (near Lincoln). The services are varied and they are only open evenings. Call 399-7743 and they'll help you.
For specialized problems try:
Drugs--Narcotics Anonymous (463-3123)
Abortion-The Woman's Center, 1027 S. Crenshaw (near Olympic Blvd.) Wednesdays at 7:30 PM.
Mental--Central City Community Mental Health Center, 4272 S. Broadway (232-2441)
Suicide Prevention Center, 2521 W. Pico (381-5111)
District Health Centers provide many free services. For exact information, call the center or write to:
County of Los Angeles Health Department, Public Health Education Division, 220 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, California 90012. Ask for a list and information about their health services.
EAST LOS ANGELES-670 S. Ferris Ave. 261-3191.
SUBCENTER--MARAVILLA - 915 N. Bonnie Beach Pl. 264-6910.
HOLLYWOOD-WILSHIRE-5202 Melrose Ave. 464-0121.
SUBCENTER-WEST HOLLYWOOD-621 N. San Vincente Blvd. 652-3090.
NORTH HOLLYWOOD-5300 Tujunga Ave. 766-3981.
SUBCENTERS-PACOIMA--13300 Van Nuys Blvd. 899-0231.
TUJUNGA--7747 Foothill Blvd. 352-1417.
SOUTH-1522 E. 102 St. 564-6801
SUBCENTER--FLORENCE-Firestone-8019 Compton Ave 583-6241.
SOUTHEAST - 4920 Avalon Blvd. 231-2161.
SOUTHWEST - 3834 S.Western Ave. 731-8541.
LEGAL AID
The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles at 106 3rd St. (628-9126) provides help in civil matters.
The ACLU of Southern California is located at 323 W. Fifth St. (MA 6-5156).
DRAFT COUNSELING
AFSC - 980 N. Fair Oaks, Pasadena 91103 (791-1978)
Black Community Draft Assistance-7228 S. Broadway, LA 90003 (778-0710)
Catholic Peace Assn.--911 Malcolm Ave., Westwood 90024 (474-2683)
Counterdraft-PO Box 74881, LA 90004
East LA Peace Center-409 N. Soto, LA 90033 (261-2047)
Episcopal Draft Counseling Center-514 W. Adams Blvd., LA 90004 (748-4662)
Fellowship for Reconciliation 4356½ Melrose, LA 90029 (666-0145)
First Unitarian Church-2936 W. Eighth St., LA 90005 (389-1356)
Free Clinic-115 N. Fairfax, LA 90036 (938-9141)
L.A. Comm. for Defense of Bill of Rights-(MA 5-2169)
L.A. Draft Help-1018 S. Hill St., LA (RI 7-5461)
Myra House-191 N. Sunkist, West Covina (338-9636)
Northeast Peace Center-5682 York Blvd., LA 90042 (257-2004)
Peace House-724 Morengo, Pasadena 91103 (449-8228)
Resistance-507 N. Hoover, LA 90004
The Resistance-11317 Santa Monica Blvd., Westwood 90024 (478-2374)
SFVSC-Student Service Center, Admissions and Records Office, San Fernando Valley State College, Northridge (349-1200, ext. 1181)
UCLA Draft Counseling Center--UCLA Law School, 405 Hilgard Ave., LA 90024 (746-6092)
USC Counseling Center-Gould Law School, University Park, Student Union Bldg., Rm. 217 (746-6092)
Valley Peace Center-7105 Hayvenhurst, Van Nuys 91406 (787-6925). Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
Venice Draft Info Center--73 Market St., Venice 90291 (399-5812)
War Resisters League-1046 N. Sweetzer, LA 90069 (654-4491)
Westside Jewish Community Center-5870 W. Olympic Blvd., LA 90046 (938-2531)
Women Strike for Peace-5899 W. Pico Blvd., LA 90019 (937-0236)
PLAY
Beaches
Los Angeles has 14 miles of beaches extending from north of Pacific Palisades to Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro.

Will Rogers Beach State Park, 15100 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades, extends north three miles from the Santa Monica city limits to a point near Topanga Canyon. This beach has a large, popular surfing area.

Venice Beach, 2100 Ocean Front Walk, Venice, extends from the Santa Monica city limits south to Marina Del Rey. Six acres have been developed into a park with picnic areas, shuffleboard courts and the Venice Beach Pavilion. The huge Venice Fishing Pier is located here, and there is an area for surfing.

Isidore B. Dockweiler Beach State Park, 11401 Vista del Mar Ave. extends from Marina del Ray, south of the city of El Segundo. This beach has 700 fire pits and a surfing area.

Cabrillo Beach, 3720 Stephen White Drive, San Pedro, located at the northern end of Los Angeles Harbor, has picnic areas, fire pits and a section for surfing.

Royal Palms Beach, 1799 Paseo del Mar is equipped with picnic areas and fire pits.

Parks
Griffith Park is the largest park and the favorite gathering spot of the local hip community. It's next to the Ventura and State Freeways.

Arroyo Seco Park is located along the Arroyo Seco and has picnic, recreational and bowling-on-the-green facilities. You'll also find the Los Angeles Zoo at 5333 Zoo Drive in the park.

Brand Park and Memory Garden opposite the old Mission San Fernando is a real strange place to go.

Echo Park has the largest artificial lake in Los Angeles. Fishing programs for kids are conducted each summer and electric boats are available for rent.

Hancock Park, located on Wilshire Blvd, between Odgen and Curson, has the LaBrea Tar Pits with prehistoric animal and plant fossils all over the place.

The Exposition Park Rose Garden on Exposition Blvd. is a seven-acre sunken rose garden that smells great.

Founded by Hubert Eaton as "the first step up to heaven," Forest Lawn Memorial Park, overlooking beautiful downtown Glendale has to be the wildest spot around. It is pure L.A. with the largest collection of reproduced statuary in the world. Jean Harlow, Sabu, Clark Gable and other loved ones are tucked away here. You can turn on in front of the Jean Hersholt Memorial, fuck in the Aisle of Benevolence located in the Great Mausoleum, and trip out on a stereo sermon emanating from the giant Mystery of Life sculpture. Far-fucking out!

Museums
There are over fifty free museums in the greater Los Angeles area. We are listing those of special interest.

California Museum of Science and Industry-Exposition Park, 749-0101.

Hollywood Wax Museum-6767 Hollywood Blvd. (near Grauman's Chinese Theater).

Los Angeles County Museum of Art-5905 Wilshire Blvd. in Hancock Park, 937-2590.

Music
Every Sunday there are free music concerts in Griffith Park. Movies

U.C.L.A. has a free experimental film series every year. Call them at 825-4321 for a schedule.

INFORMATION
The Switchboard in Los Angeles has a 24-hour-a-day service called the Hot Line. It's located at 4650 Sunset Blvd. (663-1015). Call them for the latest in what's going down in the area. The L.A. Free Press at 7813 Beverly Blvd. 937-1970, is always a good source of information. The Black Panther Party Headquarters can be found at 4115 S. Central Ave., 235-4127, or at 9818 Anzac, in Watts, 567-8027. The Traveler's Aid Society has offices in the Greyhound Bus Terminal and International Airport. They provide all kinds of services and information to lost souls or visitors. Generally

FREEBIES
Clothes
The following spots offer clothes,furniture and other household items at low prices:

Goodwill Industries-235 So. Broadway 228-1748; 5208 Whittier 264-1638

St. Vincent de Paul Society-727 N. Broadway 627-8147; 210 San Fernando Rd. 221-6151

The Volunteers of America maintain a number of thrift stores throughout the area. Try 8609 S. Broadway or call 750-9251 for the store near you.

The Salvation Army also has a chain of stores. The main store is at 801 E. 7th St. 620-1270. They can help you there or let you know where you can shop in your area.

Money
You can sell a pint of blood for $10.00 at the Red Cross Blood Bank, 1200 S. Vermont (384-5261).

Pets
All sorts of free pets are available at the ASPCA, 5026, W. Jefferson (731-2491).

Identification
Los Angeles has a curfew law but you can get a suitable I.D. with photo for $3.50 at Twelfth and Hill Streets.

fuck san francisco
HOUSING
The nights are chilly in San Francisco but there are places that offer a free night's lodging. To avoid overcrowding they tend to employ a ticket system. By showing up in the late afternoon, you are generally assured a place to stay that night. The following places work it this way:

Brother Juniper's Inn--1736 Haight, tickets on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Holy Order of Man--937 Fillmore, no tickets.
Hospitality House--148 Leavenworth, for people under 18, generally filled.
Pinehurst Emergency Lodge--2685 30th Ave., for unwed mothers and women with children.
St. Mary's Church--660 California, tickets at 6:00 PM.
St. Patrick's Church--756 Mission, tickets at 6:00 PM
St. Vincent De Paul--235 Minna, tickets at 4:00 PM for single men only.
Salvation Army Harbor Light--290 Fourth St., no tickets.
Traveler's Aid, 38 Mason, 771-0880, will assist in finding temporary shelter. Young runaways will find it cool to try All Saint's Church, 1350 Walker (863-9718) for both room and board. Also Huckleberry's for Runaways, 1347 7th Ave. (731-3921) will provide these and other services such as counseling.

If you're going to settle for a while in San Francisco, you might have difficulty finding an apartment to rent. Try the Federal Housing Information Center, 100 California (556-5900). They maintain a free listing.

The Community Design Center, 215 Haight (863-3718) provides free advice on architectural and design of pads inside and out once you locate a place, speaking, you can find a Traveler's Aid Station in every place that large numbers of travelers can be found.

http://highschoolace.com/ace/ace.cfm

  
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17654304574  
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 Bob Cardwell  
cardwell.bob@gmail.com 
 
 
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cehresman@msdkpt.k12.in.us 
 
Terrell Charleston  
ACME
(317) 255-5251  
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Deferred Comp
(877) 848-5838  
 
Compassion Center (CompassionCenter)  
784-3786  
  
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jdelaney@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
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Jane.Dell@fssa.in.gov 
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Dr. John Desanto
317-355-2200  
  
dolsten@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
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staff_marie@yahoo.com 
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State Farm Insurance
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(Indiana Attorney General Office)  
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ginamventresca@hotmail.com 
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317-3551234  
 
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317-789-4905  
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317-639-6106  
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cc1903@cfmh.org 
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Larue Carter Hospital
beverly.humphrey@fssa.in.gov 
 
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beverly.humphrey@fssa.in.gov 
  
jdelaney@msdpt.k12.in.us 
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jdelaney@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
Jessica  
(317) 789-9425  
 (studentapartment)  
joanz24@yahoo.com 
  
jobs@cmhcinc.org 
 
Teresa G Johnson  
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 Bettye Johnson  
Bettye.Johnson@fssa.IN.gov 
  
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drpk55@yahoo.com
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Valparaiso University School of Law
paul.kohlhoff@valpo.edu
(219) 465-7903  
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Tax Clinic
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MADELINE KOLAR  
(317) 293-9171  
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317-291-2121  
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marshlpn@netzero.net  
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Maxim
(317) 585-1691  
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Karen J McKinney  
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 Elizabeth A Miller  
Elizabeth.Miller@fssa.in.gov 
 
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Modern Dental
317-787-1320  
  
MSN Staffing
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(800) 676-8326 #204  
  
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(843) 757-7691  
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(812) 392-0878  
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nurserose_98@yahoo.com 
 
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(317) 462-3697  
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Prescrition Solutions
(800) 562-6223  
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(317) 413-8879  
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tammy_m_robbins@eds.com
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ACME 
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laurasgrace@yahoo.com 
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Accessible
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scarroll@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
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Diane.Schaaf@fssa.IN.gov 
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ATC
(812) 498-7317  
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jsessions@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
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405-7025  
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317-405-7025  
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LCH
(317) 924-9146  
 
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Ann Tao  
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(765) 426-8067  
  
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Alexithymia is a relatively new term which means the inability to express feelings with words. The medical research coming under this term is showing what a lot of us already knew: If you can't express your feelings with words, you are going to have a lot of problems!

Medical Definition

The History of the Term

Why the Term Is Getting More Popular

Alexithymia and Emotional Intelligence

Alexithymia and Decision Making

How to Know if You Are Alexithymic

Where Does it Come From?

Primary vs. Secondary Alexithymia

Alexithmia and Society

Is There a "Cure" for Alexithymia?

Article about Alexithymia and Self-Harm

Emotionally Literate - The opposite of Alexithymic

Darren - A self-harming teenager who realizes he was not brought up to talk about his feelings

External Links

http://www.alexithymia.supanet.com/ - This site seems to be created by a PhD type person. It is a bit complicated, but seems well researched and written. It offers a lot of more detail.

A Medical Definition of Alexithymia

A condition where a person is unable to describe emotion in words. Frequently, alexithymic individuals are unaware of what their feelings are.

http://www.self-injury-abuse-trauma-directory.info/Alexithymia/Alexithymia.htm

The History of the Term

It seems a medical doctor named Peter Sifneos is the person credited with creating the term alexithymia in 1972. He is kept seeing problems with patients who could not express their feelings with words as he talked to them. So he created a term for this based on a few Greek words as follows

a = lack
lexis = word
thymos = emotions

The first time I remember hearing of alexithymia was when I read Reuven BarOn's book which he claimed was a handbook of emotional intelligence. I have strongly disputed that the book had much to do with EI, but I did learn a few things that are at least related to EI, if not actually about EI. Since then I have gone back to my notes from Goleman's 1995 book and discovered that Goleman mentioned alexithymia

Reuven BarOn probably deserves a lot of the credit for making the term a bit more well-known, though, because he put a chapter about it in his book which he titled "A Handbook of Emotional Intelligence." Had he called it a "Handbook of Emotions and Alexithymia" probably almost no one would have bought it, but since he was smart enough to call it a handbook of EI, he sold a lot copies. So I would guess this is the first time a lot of people heard of "alexithymia."

Why the Term Is Getting More Popular

As I mentioned at the top of the page, the term sounds more impressive and more scientific than saying either A) the person is not in touch with their feelings or B) the person can't talk about their feelings. Also, it is more specific than saying they are not emotionally intelligent ( a term which has been used to mean so many things it has almost lost any meaning at all!).

Also, for people who like simplistic answers and who like to label people, they can now say "His problem is that he is alexithymic" in a superior kind of way.

Even people who have trouble with their emotions may feel relieved. They can say "Ah, my problem is that I am alexithymic." This could be more or less helpful depending on what the do next. I need to do some more research but I have found out there is an alexithymic chatroom and forum on MSN where people are calling themselves "Alex's". This gives the term a more friendly feel, and the fact that they have started calling themselves "Alex's" suggests that feelings do matter to even alexithymic people! The chatroom, forum and identifying a common label for themselves surely helps fill an emotional void in their lives, as all forums and chatrooms on the Net obviously do, although I'd say it is better to have connections in real life and our Internet connections are only partially filling our emotional needs. (And obviously not filling our needs for human touch at all.)

Another reason the term may be getting popular is because it makes it sound like it is something out of our control, and as if no one in particular can be blamed. It is a bit like saying a suicidal teen is "bipoloar" when the truth is they are suicidal because of the emotional dysfunction in the home, school and society. We can understand, of course, why parents would prefer to hear that their teen is "bipolar" instead of hearing they themselves are emotionally incompetent, neglectful or abusive parents.

One good thing about the term is that because it is pretty specific, and because it does sound scientific and not judgmental, people are more likely to seek a specific "cure" and not as likely to feel embarrassed trying to get some help. They can also focus in on getting specific help on both identifying their feelings and in expressing them with words.

Alexithymia and Emotional Intelligence

So what, if any, connection is there between alexithymia and EI? First, it depends on which definition you use of EI, if you go with my adaptation of the Mayer Salovey four branch model of EI, then we can see a bit of connection because the first branch of EI is defined as follows

Emotional Perception and Expression - the ability to accurately identify and express feelings

This sounds like the exact opposite of alexithymia.

So does that mean that if a person is alexithymic there are, by default, not emotionally intelligent?

No, it does not.

It doesn't because we don't know *why* the person is alexithymic. Was i some kind of birth defect? Or was it a product of their environment? If I were a betting man, I would be on the latter. So I would say that telling us a person is alexithymic tells us little to nothing about how emotionally intelligent they were when they were born.

As I have written in my history and definition of EI section, there is a big difference between being born with high EI and how well a person manages his or her emotions later in life.

If, though, we talk about emotionally intelligent behavior, it is probably quite fair to say an alexithymic person will not appear to be emotionally intelligent.

This still does not mean, though, that the person is not emotional. A person could go on a tirade and smash things out of anger, thus showing they are very emotional, or they could cry and cry, which again would show their ability to feel emotion, but they still might not be able to put their emotions in words.

So we need to be very clear what we are and are not talking about when we talk about both alexithymia and emotional intelligence.

How to Know if You Are Alexithymic

One website lists these signs. It says you might:

- find it difficult to talk about your own emotions;
- be perceived by others as excessively logical, or unsentimental without being unfriendly;
- be perplexed by other people's emotional reactions;
- give pedantic and long-winded answers to practical questions;
- make personal decisions according to principles rather than feelings;
- suffer occasional inexplicable physiological disturbances such as palpitations, stomach ache, or hot flushes.

There is also this test you can take, but you have to pay for it.

It's called the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). It is a self-report questionnaire and is said to be a good test, according to the author of the site above. It is evidently avaliable from http://www.gtaylorpsychiatry.org/research.htm if you want to spend 35 dollars.

This, along with all the interest in EI tests makes me think I should be in the test designing, marketing and selling business!

All of the info from this section is from http://www.alexithymia.supanet.com/faq.html

Where Does it Come From?

This is the nature / nurture question. My best guess is that it is a combination of both. I would guess, in other words, it is exactly like emotional intelligence in this way. A baby is probably born with a natural potential. This potential can then be developed, or it can be neglected, or it can be corrupted.

Let's take three home environments.

Home A - The baby never hears anyone talking about feelings. She never even sees much emotional expression. Her parents are very religious and they home school her so they can teach her their religion and she won't be "corrupted" by other children. She lives in the country with almost no contact with other children. Her parents claim to love her but it seems more duty to her than love. She never sees any real signs of love between them. They try to keep their disagreements from her, but she can always tell when something is wrong. If she asks what is wrong, they say "Nothing, darling, now go on and play." She lives this way until he is 18 and moves to the city where she gets a job and seems to be fine, but finds she has a hard time connecting with people on more than a superficial basis.

Home B - The baby lives in a home with a sexually abusive step-father. Her real father left when he found out her mother was pregnant. She is sexually abused as an infant, as a young girl and as a teen. The step father tells her that if she tells her mother, the mother will get very angry. She sees her step-father hitting her mother. The mother has a drinking problem. She frequently shouts at the girl and sometimes hits her. She doesn't have patience for her daughter's feelings. If the little girl tries to express any feelings, she is invalidated in an angry way. She learns to keep quiet and make good grades because she is less likely to get yelled at. She learns to keep all her feelings inside. She lives in fear her entire life. Even when she makes good grades, her mother finds something to criticize her for. Then she begins to cut and self-harm at age 12. Someone from school finds out and tells her mother. The mother screams at her and calls her stupid, then walks away. At age 13 she tries to kill herself. She enters the hospital and has no explanation to offer the doctors. They put her on medication and she stays on it till she goes away to college. There, she finds she is a total failure in relationships.

Home C - She lives in a home where the mother and father talk about their feelings with feeling words. Where they teach her the names of her feelings right along with the colors and the numbers. And a home where they ask her how she feels and give her emotional validation. She sees her parents hugging, and arguing then hugging again. She sees them holding hands and laughing together. She sees the love between them and they have plenty of love and patience for her. She feels confident as teen and is never afraid to be emotionally honest. If people ever make fun of her or hurt her at school, she knows she will get emotional support at home.

So the same baby can have very different experiences as she grows up. At age 35 we might see the woman from Home C and say she has very high emotional intelligence. Everything in her life might be going well. But had she been raised in either Home A or Home B she might be called an alexithymic, or she might be dead from having killed herself.

I have been meeting people from all kinds of home environments. I see the difference that it makes. Therefore, as in the section above, I ask you to be very, very careful when you talk about things like alexithymia and emotional intelligence.

Primary vs. Secondary Alexithymia

As I talked about in the section above about where it comes from, there are two basic possibilities: nature or nurture. The academic people seem to be saying that if it comes from nature, it is "primary" alexithymia. If it comes from nurture (or the lack, or opposite, thereof), it is "secondary." This is a distinction no one in the academic field of emotional intelligence seems to be making, but is one I have been stressing for a few years on this site. Maybe the academic researchers in EI will learn something from the researchers in Alexithymia. One can always hope anyhow! (Not to mention write on one's website!)

Anyhow, here is how the academic people have discussed this:

For Freyberger, primary alexithymia is an enduring feature of a patient's profile, like a personality trait, that changes little over time or with changing circumstances. Secondary alexithymia, on the other hand, occurs in reaction to severe psychological trauma, whereby a patient suppresses painful emotions as a temporary defence against trauma; when the psychological stressor is removed, the alexithymia disappears.

In later years, Sifneos reconceptualized the primary/secondary distinction, basing it on the difference between neurological causes and psychological causes. In Sifneos's terms, primary alexithymia has (by definition) a distinct neurological basis and a physical cause, such as genetic abnormality, disrupted biological development or brain injury. Secondary alexithymia results from psychological influences such as sociocultural conditioning, neurotic retroflection or defence against trauma. Secondary alexithymia is presumed to be more transient than primary alexithymia and hence more likely to respond to therapy or training.

Due to the possible ambiguity of the primary/secondary distinction most contemporary authors prefer not to use it.

This last line really gets me! To me its like saying, "Its too hard to figure out where it comes from, so let's not bother trying." That attitude seems a bit irresponsible to me since it makes a huge difference where this thing called "alexythimia" comes from. Take the examples I gave about the three homes above. Wouldn't society be better served if we knew why someone had the problems the girl's from homes A and B did? If we know why something has happened, we can address the root causes of it.

This is the same with asking why someone shows signs of low emotional intelligence as a teen or adult. And it is also the same as trying to figure out why a teen is suicidal instead of just using the convenient excuse that they have some "disorder", implying it is is all nature and no nurture. It seems that cultures where there is a high rate of teen self-harm and teen suicide, such as England and the USA, prefer not to take a look in the mirror to see what they might be doing wrong. They seem to want to stick their heads in the sand and not even look for any connection between their prevailing values, the school system and teen self-harm/suicide. So I say that in all cases, we must keep trying to make the distinction between things caused by nature and things caused by nurture.

This very issue is addressed in some detail by "Hal" on this site http://www.alexithymia.supanet.com/faq.html

Here is a quote from it, with my interpretation of it below.

Is it psychological or neurological?

This question is often asked of psychiatric syndromes, usually with the aim of attributing responsibility or identifying suitable therapies. There is evidence that alexithymia can be either neurogenic (caused by biological abnormalities) or psychogenic (caused by upbringing or psychological trauma).

If alexithymia results suddenly from a head injury, the cause is probably neurological; if it correlates with a history of abuse or neglect it is probably psychological. But it is rare for the cause to be so readily identifiable. In fact, there is no recognized functional distinction between neurological and psychological strains of alexithymia, and hence no clinical test to ascertain the cause.

Moreover, the brain is continually changing both psychologically and neurologically. A developmental or biological failure may trigger a defensive psychology, which in turn causes the physical brain to develop abnormal 'wiring'. So while psychodynamic therapy may be the obvious choice in working to change secondary alexithymic defences to more healthy ones, it may not be able to correct the years of built-up neural anomalies and brain tissue development. So psychological and neurological causes may be intimately intertwined and inseparable in analysis.

Nonetheless the question is still worth posing. If the neural structures and pathways linking different aspects of emotion processing have sustained damage by injury or atrophy, the alexithymia may be completely irreversible and the focus should be on learning new compensatory coping strategies. However, if the structures and pathways are still intact but underused (perhaps the neural activity is being inhibited by other processes), then there is a greater prospect of reducing the alexithymia by psychotherapeutic intervention. (Accordingly Sifneos—who works with neurological alexithymics—favours compensatory strategies; whereas Krystal—who works with post-traumatic alexithymics—promotes a form of therapy based on personal training and education in feelings and their psychological signficance.)

Basically, he seems to be saying that alexithymia could be cause by a) birth defects b) a physical injury or c) upbrining or d) psychological trauma. To his credit, he says though it is hard to know where it comes from, "the question is still worth posing." He then says it makes a difference in the treatment and he tells us that Sifneos likes one type of plan and someone name Krystal, likes another. Krystal is said to like to try to help the person using "personal training and education in feelings and their psychological signficance." So in other words, he seems to be saying that he tries to get them to learn to talk about their feelings and also to understand why feelings and I talking about them, is important.

Nowhere in this discussion, though, is the idea of needed social change mentioned. It is not mentioned that we might want to look at the whole of society to see why so many people have trouble talking about their feelings I will give you my very short answer to this question in the section called Alexithmia and Society.

This is from the website.... http://www.alexithymia.supanet.com/faq.html

Alexithmia and Society

At several pages on this page I talk about nature vs. nurture, and I encourage us to try to figure out which is more responsible for some thing like alexithymia. And I suggested that we might want to look at the whole of society to see why so many people have trouble talking about their feelings. I will add that is not just people who are somehow "officially" called alexithymics, but I'd say there are a whole lot of people who have this difficulty.

My explanation for this is that the society we have created simply does not place a high value on feelings. Instead, we seem to value nearly everything else. Money, appearances, material things, grades, test scores are a few examples.

It has become painfully obvious to me that children and teenager's feelings are not valued in the typical school around the world. And I have personally been inside schools in many countries. At present, it is more important for children and teens to obey the teacher than to even take time to listen to their own feelings. Students are not asked how they feel about decisions. They are not asked how they feel about what is happening inside the classroom walls. They are not asked how they about one teacher vs. another. As I said in my 1995 book, they are taught the names of plants and insects, not to mention a lot of dead people, but not the names of their own feelings. And teachers are not in the habit of expressing their feelings with feeling words.

Nor are feelings valued at work. Dan Goleman has been making a lot of money talking about emotional intelligence in the workplace, but he does not even include emotional literacy in his "corporate definition" of emotional intelligence. Even the researchers Mayer, Salovey and Caruso have not placed a very high value on expressing feelings with feeling words. They talk a lot about using emotions and managing them, but they tend to skip over actually talking about them.

Another problem is that most of us live in places where it is not safe to show your feelings. It is not safe to be emotionally honest. Children and teens learn it is safer to lie about their feelings.

My basic hypothesis is that our society is so dysfunctional and we are in so much pain most of the time that we could not handle it if we stopped to either really feel our pain or really talk about it. There is just too much of it. If we made time to really talk about things like the death and bloodshed in Iraq, Israel, Palestine; the treatment of the POW's; the fact that students are killing other students in schools in a country that likes to think it is a model for the rest of the world; the fact that teens are cutting, burning and killing themselves....

If we really faced all of this, could we handle it?

I say that people know they can't handle their real feelings. So they learn not to talk about them. Adults don't talk about them, so how could we expect children or teens to learn to?

To have a less, "alexithymic" world, then, will require significant changes, and will surely have fairly dramatic impact on the future of human relationships. I suggest that the time to begin is now, and that the benefits will be worth the difficulties during the transition. I also suggest the place to start is in the schools. More specifically, teach children and teens the names of their feelings, in specific, their negative feelings, since those are the ones that tell us something needs to be changed. Then I suggest we listen ask the students how they feel, and then really listen. And then start to make changes to take their feelings into account.

This is how I see us changing society. If we do this, I predict there will be a noticeable decline in what is called alexithymia.

Is There a Cure for Alexithymia? - My personal story

I say yes. (At least for what some call "secondary" alexithymia.) I say this because I was once unable to express my feelings with words. Now I do it so much it is often annoying! So how did I "cure" myself? It's a bit of a long story but I will give you some bits of it for now.

One of the things I did was to start to read about feelings. This might have started giving me the vocabulary.

Something else I did was I started taking time to think about my feelings. To reflect on them.

Then I also started to write about them in personal journals.

At around the same time I went to some support group meetings where people who were less "alexithymic" than me were talking about their feelings. I was uncomfortable in these meetings at first. They were meetings like AA meetings (Alcoholics Anonymous) and I didn't feel very much at home in them since I wasn't religious (AA meetings have a strong religious base) and I didn't drink and never had. But still, in those meetings, I started hearing people talk about *their* feelings. And I saw people crying. And this is bring tears to my eyes right now to write about it.

So all of this helped me start to eventually *feel* my own feelings a bit more. I also started my own list of feeling words, which as you can see has now grown to be probably the largest in the world.

I also discovered teenagers. I discovered them on the Internet through a website called Opendiary. I discovered that teenagers were very emotional and, especially for the females, nearly constantly talk about their feelings. I started chatting with several teenagers and found I could let myself really open up with my feelings with them. Until I actually started chatting teens, I had no idea they were so emotional, nor did I have any idea they could be so emotionally supportive.

I come from a very emotionally dysfunctional family and it left me as a very emotionally needy adult. As a result I have needed a lot of emotional support and emotional healing. I could never begin to thank my teen friends enough for the emotional support, healing and understanding they have given me over the past few years. They have provided me a safe place to show my emotions. And this is one thing I would say is critical in the recovery process.

So that is a little about my personal story. I wish you well on your journey if this is an issue for you.

Steve Hein
May 2005

Emotional Literacy - The opposite of alexithymia

When a Patient Has No Story To Tell: Alexithymia

by Rený J. Muller, Ph.D.

Psychiatric Times July 2000 Vol. XVII Issue 7

Below are excerpts from a doctor who works with people who have self-harmed and have ended up in the emergency room (ER) of a hospital in the USA. My comments are in italics.

Occasionally, patients who clearly have problems and are in great emotional pain will insist that they have no problems, that life is fine and that they have no idea what is wrong. Their story is that they have no story. These patients seem unable to find the words necessary to describe their feelings.

In 1972, Peter Sifneos introduced to psychiatry the term alexithymia, which (derived from the Greek) literally means having no words for emotions (a=lack, lexis=word, thymos=emotions). Alexithymia is not a diagnosis, but a term useful for characterizing patients who seem not to understand the feelings they obviously experience, patients who seem to lack the words to describe these feelings to others. Identifying this deficit is important because it helps the clinician make a diagnosis and chart a therapeutic course.

Clearly, someone who cannot verbally express negative emotions will have trouble discharging and neutralizing these emotions, physiologically as well as psychically. All feelings, whether normal or pathological, are ultimately bodily feelings. Those with alexithymia lack a lived understanding of what they experience emotionally.

From the perspective of development, alexithymia implies a glitch in the process that permits the expression of feelings in words that capture the body's involvement in these feelings. Perhaps the child's mother failed to sufficiently encourage a language of feelings (surely excluding her from the pantheon of Winnicott's "good enough" mothers).

I would say it is more than "perhaps". I'd also say that the children and teenagers learned it was not safe to be emotionally honest at home. This is a very common theme in the suicidal teens I've known.( I am not sure who Winnicott is but later I will do a bit of research if I remember to.)

Alternatively, emotional trauma later in life may compromise the connection between what is felt and what can be grasped about this feeling and can be put into words, particularly if that link were tenuous to begin with.

If a patient has no story to tell a clinician, even at a time when emotions are stirred high enough to prompt an ER visit, it seems a good bet that person has no story to tell themselves either. Having no story almost certainly implies an impaired identity: Who we know ourselves to be depends heavily on the story we tell ourselves about who we are. The inability to express emotions verbally implies a deficient interior life. Inevitably, those who cannot match words to feelings will live out that deficit in their contacts with others as well. To have no words for one's inner experience is to live marginally, for oneself and for others.

"Kisha," 16, was brought to the ER by her mother after she held a curling iron to the outside of her upper left arm, causing a large, painful burn. Kisha had just started her junior year in high school and also worked as a cashier in a convenience store. She was an average student, but her mother assured me she was one of the most popular girls in her class. Kisha lived with her parents, two sisters and brother. She had never used illicit drugs or abused alcohol. "I'm a virgin," she said easily and proudly when I asked if she had a current boyfriend, which she did not. Kisha denied physical and sexual abuse, and her mother later corroborated her denial. Asthma, occasional bronchitis and seasonal allergies were her only concessions to good health.

Kisha acknowledged feeling depressed recently, although she did not admit to having any of the symptoms of a major depressive episode. Her appetite had not changed, and she was sleeping up to 10 hours a day, the norm for her. My best diagnostic call was depressive disorder, not otherwise specified.

Asked how she felt during the interview, Kisha answered with an easy smile, "I feel fine." It seemed to me the happy face owed more to practice than to spontaneity. When I asked Kisha why she burned herself so seriously, she looked at me blankly and said she did not know. She acknowledged no disappointment or setback, no problems at home or at school. According to Kisha, everything was fine.

The burn that brought Kisha to the ER on the evening I interviewed her was not her first act of self-mutilation. Seven months earlier, she had jumped out of a second-story window. Inexplicably, she did not go to a hospital, either for medical treatment or for psychiatric evaluation. I was the first mental health clinician Kisha had spoken to.

During the previous year, Kisha also had made modest cuts with a razor on the underside of one forearm and on her cheek. "I was just bored," was her explanation. Asked why she jumped out of the window, her only response was, "I have no idea." She denied this potentially lethal act had anything to do with what was going on in her life at the time. Despite my persistent efforts to elicit more information about the reason for Kisha's self-destructive behavior, she did not offer a scintilla of explanation. That she was acknowledging no reasons for what she had done did not strike her as the least bit odd.

Kisha's mother told me with understatement that her daughter "keeps it all inside." Clearly, Kisha was not the only minimizer in this family. The mother also volunteered that Kisha had trouble getting over disappointments. The day before she burned herself with the curling iron, a woman who had promised to take Kisha to a museum in another city abruptly canceled the trip. At the time she jumped from the window, Kisha was having problems with a boyfriend, and the relationship soon ended. Kisha vigorously denied she had difficulty getting over disappointments in general or that a particular disappointment had anything to do with any of her self-destructive acts.

Kisha had no words for the feelings that led her to do these things. But her silence spoke volumes. Clearly, she had emotions she did not acknowledge or understand. This young woman put a smile on her despair. She gave no hint of what was going on under the mask.

Most patients who come to the ER after harming themselves seem eager to discuss the meaning of their behavior. Rather complex issues are clarified, often with startling insight. These patients are willing to have their initial, often self-deceiving explanations challenged and to allow the subtext of their destructive act to be interpreted to them. But after Kisha burned her arm, no words came to name the emotions that drove her to do this. She clarified nothing, for herself or for me. Kisha was alexithymic.

Many patients who mutilate themselves as Kisha have borderline personality disorder. During the interview, and later in a separate conversation with Kisha's mother, I looked hard for borderline dynamics and borderline symptoms. Besides Kisha's obvious, although unacknowledged, proclivity for turning disappointment into physical self-injury, I could not identify any.

Kisha denied any further intention or plan to harm herself. I took her at her word, for the moment anyway. But I knew she was not finished with these self-destructive acts. Kisha did not need to be hospitalized. She did need immediate, intense outpatient therapy with someone who knew how to draw her out and help her put words to the feelings-whatever they were, wherever they came from-that were eating at her from the inside and causing her to mutilate herself on the outside. Fortunately, her parents had insurance. I referred her to a nationally known psychiatric hospital in the city for outpatient care.

Particularly memorable among the many self-mutilating patients I have evaluated in the ER was a 19-year-old college student who had cut marks of various lengths and depths all over her arms, legs and torso. The incision that brought her to the ER was made with a razor blade on the underside of her right wrist. After making the initial incision, several repetitive cuts went deeper than she intended, and she severed a tendon. The hand surgeon who was called in the middle of the night to do the repair had trouble locating the proximal end of the tendon, which had retracted into the forearm after snapping. While he called his supervisor for assistance, I completed my interview.

This young woman, lying on a gurney under bright fluorescent lights, facing a long period of rehabilitation with an uncertain outcome, unabashedly told me about the problems she had, her feelings of anxiety and depression, and how for many years she had tried to counter this emotional pain by cutting her body and watching the blood come.

Unfortunately the doctor didn't tell us more about the specifics of her anxiety and depression. But I can promise you it goes back to her family. And also, if she had been self-harming for "many years", as he says, then it started when she was living at home. Note how the doctor confirms that, as I have said on my site, teenagers self-harm to stop their emotional pain.

Next he talks about a 37 year old named Maureen who also was self-harming and couldn't label her feelings. Then he wrote this:

Although not fully empirically validated, alexithymia is a useful clinical construct. For Kisha and Maureen, this word, so descriptive in its Greek roots, specifies a real phenomenon and identifies a deficit of self. Neither woman shut down or clammed up just for their ER interviews; the disconnect between feeling and words was part and parcel of their daily experience. Both women were personable, outgoing and articulate-except about what they felt. Neither showed any sign of schizoid personality disorder, a diagnosis that needs to be considered when patients seem detached from their feelings and lack insight. Being able to say that Kisha and Maureen had no words for their feelings is a major first step in identifying what is pathological about their worlds. How could anyone who cannot discharge negative emotions over a long time not be depressed? Or have any number of other emotional, as well as somatic, problems?

Identifying a patient as alexithymic opens a door to that person's pathological world and creates a fertile field for exploration in therapy. A workable identity can develop only after the elements of a person's life coalesce into a minimally satisfactory story. Paraphrasing Winnicott, a "good enough" identity requires a "good enough" story. It is the therapist's job to help the alexithymic patient convert a nonstory into a story that is at least partially authentic, so a more authentic identity can evolve from that story.

Further reading

* Barden, Renardo Barden. Cults (Troubled Society series). Rourke Pub Group. ISBN 0-86593-070-8.
* Chidester, David (1988). Salvation and Suicide. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-35056-5.
* Dolan, Sean (2000). Everything You Need to Know About Cults. New York: Rosen Pub. Group. ISBN 0-8239-3230-3.
* Galanter, M. (1999). Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion. New York: Oxford University Press.
* Hall, John R. (1987). Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0-88738-124-3.
* Kerns, Phil. (1978). People's Temple, People's Tomb. Logos Associates. ISBN 0-88270-363-3.
* Kilduff, Marshall and Ron Javers. (1978). The Suicide Cult: The Inside Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and the Massacre in Guyana. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-12920-1.
* Klineman, George and Sherman Butler. (1980). The Cult That Died. G.P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0-399-12540-X.
* Krause, Charles A. with Laurence M. Stern, Richard Harwood and the staff of The Washington Post (1978). Guyana Massacre: The Eyewitness Account. [New York]: Berkley Pub. Corp. ISBN 0-425-04234-0.
* Layton, Deborah (1998). Seductive Poison. New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 0-3854-8984-6.
* Maaga, Mary McCormick (1998). Hearing the Voices of Jonestown. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-815-60515-3.
* Moore, Rebecca. (1985). A Sympathetic History of Jonestown: the Moore Family Involvement in Peoples Temple. Lewiston: E. Mellen Press. ISBN 0-88946-860-5.
* Naipaul, Shiva. (1982). Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy. Harmondsworth [Eng.]: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-006189-4. (published in the UK as Black and White)
* Reiterman, Tim and John Jacobs (1982). Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-24136-1.
* Sargeant, Jack. (2002). Death Cults: Murder, Mayhem and Mind Control (True Crime Series). Virgin Publishing. ISBN 0-7535-0644-0.
* Sorell, W. E. (1978). Cults and Cult Suicide. International Journal of Group Tensions.
* Stephenson, Denice (2005). Dear People: Remembering Jonestown. Heyday Books. ISBN 1-597-14002-3.

External links
Wikisource
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Congressman Tom Lantos' Remarks on the 25th Anniversary of the Tragedy at Jonestown and the Death of Congressman Leo Ryan

* Alternative considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple, an extensive resource on the topics, sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University
o "FBI Audiotape Project", summaries and transcripts of many of the over 900 audio tapes discovered in Jonestown, mostly recorded in the year before the mass slaying, and including the "Death Tape" seemingly made just before and during the mass slaying
o "Who Died?", a list of who died at Jonestown
* "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple", website for the film broadcast on PBS includes video interviews with survivors from 2006
* "The Jonestown Death Tape (FBI No. Q 042) (November 18 1978)", an unofficial web-publishing (digital) of the "Death Tape" seemingly made just before and during the mass slaying
* "Nightmare in Jonestown", Time Magazine (1978-12-04). Retrieved on 5 August 2008. , Time magazine cover story, Monday, December 4, 1978
* Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown, a 1981 audio documentary produced by NPR (90 minutes)
* 'Jonestown Legacy' website run by David Wise, once a Pastor of the Los Angeles Branch of the Peoples Temple, but latterly an opponent of Jim Jones.
* "The Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy: Primary Source Materials from the U.S. Department of State". Archived from the original on 1999-04-28., the contents of US Government archives on the subject obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. (web-archived copy of the original website, no longer extant; unfortunately the scanned pages are missing)
* "Jonestown massacre + 20: Questions linger", CNN.com, November 18, 1998
* "Timeline: Road to tragedy in Jonestown" CNN.com, November 17, 2003
* "1978: Mass suicide leaves 900 dead", BBC News (1978-11-18). Retrieved on 5 August 2008. BBC, On This Day: 18 November
* "The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy", excerpt from: Report of a Staff Investigative Group to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, May 15, 1979
* "From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre," Isaacson, Barry. L.A. Weekly, October 23 2008

[
Father Divine · Wings of deliverance · Disciples of Christ · I-Hotel · Jonestown · Peoples Temple in San Francisco · Mark Lane · Charles R. Garry · Timothy Stoen · Larry Layton · Deborah Layton · Jeannie Mills · John R. Burke · Jonestown conspiracy theory · Cult Awareness Network · George Moscone · Willie Brown (politician) · Angela Davis · Huey Newton · Flavor Aid
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Congressman Leo J. Ryan · Jackie Speier · Richard Dwyer · Tim Reiterman · Don Harris · Greg Robinson · Steve Sung · Bob Flick · Charles Krause · Ron Javers · Bob Brown
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Guyana: Crime of the Century · Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones · Cults: Dangerous Devotion · Jonestown: Paradise Lost · Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
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Categories: 1978 | Peoples Temple | New religious movements | Intentional communities | American communists | Communism in the United States
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This is a stand-alone summary of a retreat on Dr. C.G. Jung, the depth psychologist, and St. John of the Cross by means of three diagrams. The first illustrates the relationship between the ego and the unconscious with its archetypes.

The second explores the meaning of meditation and infused contemplation in John of the Cross.

And the third deals with the application of both of these perspectives to many questions in the spiritual life like Marian devotion, cult-like behavior in the Catholic Church, etc.

Online Transcript:

We are going to start with the Jungian side of things, and so we will make our favorite diagram here. Here is that dividing wall, or that membrane that separates the ego from the unconscious. We saw that in Jung’s life from his very earliest years he was fascinated by these psychic images that were emerging from the unconscious, and so when he began to develop his science of the psyche, a science based on these images, it went something like this. He would study the various images, and then he would hypothesis that these images must have originated from deep in the psyche. All over the world he would see the same idea appearing in various images, the same structural idea, and so through many years of work he eventually delineates various features that he imagines exist down here in the psyche. It takes him even more work to finally begin to see that there is some kind of dynamic relationship between these factors down here. In other words, the archetypes, themselves, go together into some kind of organic process that he called the process of individuation. So what is happening is that Jung is going everywhere he can, literally. He will go to his own dreams, the dreams of his patients, he will go to the material coming up in psychotics, he will go to ancient myths, he spent many years studying alchemy. At first you say, alchemy. That’s just these guys who know chemistry. What possible use could that be? But he saw that they weren’t trying to do chemistry as we understand it, not just that, but they were doing these processes that were supposed to lead naturally to the production of gold, but there was a whole psychological side to it. They were projecting on these outer processes, some of these inner psychological contents, and because they were doing that, in their writings he could see a whole anticipation of modern psychology, and that really pleased him because then he would have a kind of historical base for his own psychology because they were discovering some of the same things, but veiled under their various stages of the alchemaical process. For instance, they would have a stage that was equivalent to what he was to later to call the confrontation with the shadow, and things like that.

We have the world of images. Jung is saying these images are real inasmuch as they exist in the psyche and they effect us, and from the images we are deducing the existence of the deep structures in the psyche, structures that apparently all of us have, all over the world. The deep structures don’t have anything to do with culture and personal history. They have to do with the very nature, we could put it, of the psyche, though I don’t think Jung would use that word.

What emerges here is a picture of these deep levels of the psyche, and how they are connected, and how there is a dynamic movement, and how these archetypes are not just generating images, but it is as if they are surrounded by energy. Call it emotional energy, or psychic energy, or whatever you want to call it, but they are not just static, lying there like some stone, but like some crystal that is pulsating with all this energy and light. Jung felt that this ego, our ego or our ego-consciousness, was connected with all this in one system, even energetically, so that energy would flow into the consciousness, and it would flow back into the unconscious, and so there was a whole dynamic of psychic energy.

What we ended up doing about Jung last night was simply to say, OK, this is what Jung is doing. What are some of the basic ways we, too, can see what he is doing, almost verify it for ourselves, get in touch with the unconscious. And we did that by talking about dreams, because dreams appear here at this borderline. The same way, if you are going to sleep, and just as you close your eyes and are about to drift off you can have these images flash in front of your eyes. They are called hypnogogic images. Or some people who are gifted in images can just close their eyes and relax, and see very vivid images. They just pop up from the unconscious if we sort of turn down the light here. Consciousness sort of acts like a bright light, and while it is on full force it tends to obscure what is appearing on the screen, but if we turn down the light enough, then what is appearing on the screen between conscious and unconscious, those pictures begin to become more lively.

To get off a little on a tangent, when people do certain kinds of drugs, it is not like the drugs are producing the imagery. I believe the drugs are effecting their brains, dimming the lights here, so to speak, on certain parts of the brain, and allowing them to perceive the imagery that is in a way already there. You have only to get into one of those situations where you go to sleep and either you are in a strange situation or there is a lot of energy going around, and you have dreams that you begin to remember. You wake up and you say, wow, where did all that come from? It is just another of those images indicating that there is a tremendous life going on down here.

The other thing we touched on quite a bit was the fact that these centers of energy, if we don’t find a way to connect with them, somehow realize they are there and give them their due, they almost become swollen with energy. There is no channel for that energy to come up into consciousness. They become swollen with energy, and then they have to find a way to express themselves. The pressure builds up and they come out, and they appear in the outer world in the form of what Jung would call projection. They attach themselves, for example, to other people, and so we think that the person we are really angry with is the only reason we are angry, and yet many times our anger has some component from inside ourselves, and we realize that too, sometimes. We have a glimpse that I am losing it, and I am really going to destroy this person, I am ready to throttle them, and it is not just them. There is something more going on.

We even talked about how you could project out some of these contents – one of our further flights of fancy – you could project out some of these contents and become really obsessed with UFOs and aliens and whatever that may exist in inner space, but there is no demonstrable evidence that they exist in outer space. So there is a connection, even with our most precious outer activities, with this whole inner world.

The final point about all this is that, well, what are we going to do? Are we just going to find the door here – here’s the trap door – and jump down there and try to sort all this out? No. We are not going to do that because this is bigger than us. It is almost as if we are drawing this out of scale and we should make the boundary up here, and pretend this is the iceberg, and what is it? Nine-tenths is under the water? Well, I think we are a lot like that. We have a certain amount of ego development, but there are forces down here that are bigger than us, just like there are forces in nature that are a lot bigger than us, and if we go head-on with them, we are going to lose. So we sort of have to have a lot of respect for what is happening in this dimension of our psyche and approach it with a certain amount of trepidation. If we do it in that spirit, we can actually get all sorts of insights, whether we do it from dreams or from these moments of high feeling intensity, or analyzing various events in our lives that really strike us, we will gradually develop our own picture of the psyche. We can read Jung, and he is going to show us certain landmarks, but if we never go on the journey, ourselves, and perceive in our own psyches, we will never really believe that it is real. It will still be effecting us, but we will never really believe that it is down there. Jung is not asking us to take it on his word. He is saying, go to sleep at night and see what happens. Wake up and go to get through your day with not one upset at all and see what happens.

What we have here, then, is Jung’s science of the psyche. We also talked about the fact that Jung took this science of the psyche, and he kind of wrapped it up with his ideas about – he was so enamored with this process, this was such a great discovery, that he said this is really the only way you really know things. We talked about that, as well. If this is the only way we really know things, then spirituality, theology, philosophy, they are all reduced to just ways to illustrate Jung’s analytical psychology. So that doesn’t please us, so we have to take that part of it away, and then we are left with the real core of Jung’s psychology which we can then begin to use.

Let’s go over to the other side, and we are going to do spirituality more like John of the Cross, but it fits many of the other things, as well. First, let’s call it again the ego. Here’s God, and here are our various faculties by which we try to draw closer to God: our thinking, our feeling, our sensation, our intuition, and when John of the Cross is talking about meditation, he is talking about using these faculties in any way, whether we favor the affective side, or the thinking side, or the imaginative side, or a very simplified kind of intuitive side, he is talking about using all these faculties as ways we can draw closer to God. He feels that for many people at the beginning of the spiritual life they are exercising these faculties, and they are kind of feeling connected to God by, let’s say, these different channels, and the sweet water of God’s presence is flowing down these channels and they are drinking of it whenever they want. That’s great. That’s how they started, and it is like confirming them in their conversion where they move away from the things of the world. After that goes on a while, whether gradually or suddenly, this can disappear, and it is what John calls the dark night of sense in the wide sense. I will explain that in a minute. But these channels no longer work. You can’t draw that energy and that sweet water any more, and you go around disconsolate, figuring you must have done something, or somehow God is angry with you, or whatever the reasoning is, because this bond is broken. John says that one possible outcome of that is that contemplation is beginning, this presence of God in a fuller, richer way that could never come through these faculties. It is beginning in the center of the soul or the depths of the soul, and if we knew enough to turn around and instead of doing this, use our attention, what he calls our loving attention, and look down there, look in the depths of the soul, we would see, or a better word is feel, that God is present in a new way, and He is trying to communicate it in a new way, and we sort of meet Him. Probably the best way is that this gradually comes up, and we meet Him right at the boundary here. And we have a new kind of knowledge and love of God which is not as distinct. It is not in various images, and not in various kinds of distinct thoughts, but it is richer and deeper. More obscure, but richer and deeper. And it is actually a presence of God. It is not just that we believe God is present to us. We do that all the time. But the faith somehow becomes illuminated. This faith, animated by charity, actually becomes the way we know God. It is some kind of knowledge even though it is very difficult to describe what it is.

I want to refine this a little because I believe that there are some interesting issues here, and this will be a way we can bring the two together. What happens is that this dark night of sense in the wide sense happens to many, many people. Just about everyone, or 75% or 90% of the people who really go through the spiritual life end up in this dark night, wondering what happened and how they should deal with it. This is one explanation. John is saying that this is one possibility to explain why this dark night of sense is taking place. But if you read his Dark Night of Soul, when he describes it, then he goes on after that to talk about the three signs. If contemplation was always the reason why the dark night takes place in this wide sense, he wouldn’t have to use the three signs at all. They would have been superfluous. But he gives us the three signs because there could be other reasons why we are in this dark night of sense. What he explains is that this dark night of sense could take place because of sin, for example. We have turned back, and we are involved in other things, and our spiritual life isn’t going well. So that’s one possibility. And so he says, all right, you can’t meditate as you did before, that is sign one, but you shouldn’t be drawn to other things, either, in the sense of having this real attraction for all these worldly things because that might be an indication where the problem is. So there are two signs. You can’t use your faculties to get to God, but you are not glomming on to all sorts of worldly things.

Then he gets to the third sign. This is the sign that causes all the problems because most of them we can see, well, I can’t pray like I did before, and I can’t see any reason. It is not like a committed some great sin or I have really become more worldly than I was before to account for this lack of attraction to God, and so we have two of the signs. But what is the third sign. Now, this is where people interpret it in different ways. What I think John is saying is the third sign is the actual beginning of contemplation, itself. That‘s the third sign, and that’s why it is legitimate in his mind to turn away from doing this – to stop the discursive activity – and turn around and be receptive to what is going on. He will say sometimes, if you are not using your faculties, and you are not receiving contemplation, then you wouldn’t be doing anything. So that’s John of the Cross’ third sign, which is actual contemplation, or what he calls infused contemplation, which is this mysterious presence of God in the soul in a new way.

This is where we end up with another whole looking at John, another kind of interpretation which sort of goes like this. I hope it won’t be too much of a caricature. He says, well, you can’t meditate like you did before, you are not called that way and it is not because of any real sin, and therefore, you should turn around and be lovingly attentive. But it doesn’t go on in this kind of explanation to say that you will be lovingly attentive to this experience of contemplation that is being given. It says more like, we believe by faith that God is present in the soul, and we are going to be lovingly attentive to this presence of God we believe is down there in the soul. I hope you see that that is different than the way that, at least the way I am interpreting John and I think the way he is. This loving attentiveness isn’t the reception of an actual gift that is being given. It becomes an active exercise. We try to exercise loving attentiveness to some gift we hope is down there, and so people do that, and it becomes a kind of simplified affective prayer. To the degree that it is a practice of loving God and believing in Him, and is actively exercised, you really can’t find too much to criticize about it because you could call it another form of meditation in the wide sense that John of the Cross is talking about. But if we say that we are being lovingly attentive, and it really doesn’t exercise any of the faculties, we are just kind of being passively lovingly attentive, then the question is, to what? I am denying that God is present in the soul for all of us, but we are taking John of the Cross’ idea of being lovingly attentive that he developed in relationship to infused contemplation, and we are turning it into some kind of active exercise of contemplation by faith, hoping that that will somehow prepare us for the actual infused contemplation to come. That is a different kind of a thing. Why do we do that? Why is this a popular interpretation that has lasted from the 17th century all the way until today, and is still being promoted today? I think we do that because we realize that we have the first and second sign, and we don’t know what to do. We can’t pray like we used to pray, and we can’t figure out that there is some reason why we can’t do that, and we say we must be contemplatives even though we don’t know it, we don’t experience it. We end up with a contemplation that is just unexperienced contemplation. Then it gets to the point where we will say there are two kinds of contemplation. There is an active contemplation, and there is a passive, infused contemplation, and most of us are called to go by that active contemplation, and so here is the goal and here are the two roads, and they are just two different roads to get to this goal. We say we read Teresa of Avila and she is talking about this infused contemplation, and you read John of the Cross and he is really talking about this active contemplation, or this kind of loving attentiveness we do, but I don’t think they are talking about two different things. I think they are talking about the same thing. I think they would be shocked if someone said they are talking about two different things. They never thought they were when they were together.

What I would like to do is, this kind of loving attentiveness can have two meanings, and I think that is the crux of the problem. There is a very valid way in which we no longer can pray in that kind of discursive way that we started out, or the imagery or that sensible consolation is gone. We are left with what we think of as the apophatic way, where you are beyond images and concepts and so forth, but I am leery of turning that into us getting too passive and too receptive to an experience that we have no indication that it is actually be given, the actual contemplative experience. I don’t like that from that point of view, that kind of pretending we are contemplatives, but we are not contemplatives. We want to be contemplatives. I think there is a way we can preserve the insight here without doing that, and I would like to call that the way of faith. The way I am going to use that phrase is simply that, if here is God, indwelling in the soul as the Trinity, God isn’t asking us to be contemplative. If they want to canonize you after you die, do they say, was Greg a contemplative during his life? They will not ask that question. It is a secondary issue. They will ask what degree of charity did Greg exercise because the way you get united to God is through love, or to put it a slightly different way, when John of the Cross says the only proximate means of union with God is through faith, he means a faith animated by love. We believe by faith that God is present indwelling in our souls, and we can draw closer to Him by faith and love, by the active exercise of faith and love. We can do that anytime we want. We don’t have to call that some kind of contemplation. We don’t have to pretend we are not using our faculties, albeit in a simplified way. We are. We make our acts of faith and love. We do whatever we can do. If God grants that experience of contemplation where it kind of gets up here… We believe God is present in the depths of the soul. It may be He is even present in that way that contemplation talks about, but it is so far down in our soul that it doesn’t make its presence felt, and so we really can’t say that we are. I think we have to get out of that whole scene, and say the real issue is being united with God, and we can do that as much as we want. Even the people who are blessed with, I believe, genuine contemplative graces, through this Christian Prayer and Contemplation Forum, I think we have met a few, I think they are in the real minority, for one thing, and you listen to them, and you talk to them, and after a while you say, I don’t think I need this because it sounds great, but when you see the kinds of problems or sufferings these people go through, sometimes they are horrendous, they really are. It is as if the mountains are higher and the valleys are lower. Or maybe the mountains are higher because the valleys are lower, or something, who knows if we could even take that kind of thing. Like one of them put it, he had all sorts of experience, he was a fascinating guy who really had started his Christian life, he hit this dark night of sense, and he just seemed to go on hold for a long time, and it was through the practice of Zen meditation that he rediscovered his spiritual life. He actually had some Zen-type enlightenment experiences, and then it awoke in him this whole contemplative side. This contemplative side began to express it in actual contemplative experiences. To boot, he had these wonderful, numinous kinds of dreams. You figure this guy is blessed with everything. There he is, going on the road of individuation and he’s doing Eastern mysticism, and Christian mysticism, and then he describes what happened to him. What happened to him was, all those things disappeared. He knew they had happened, but they didn’t sustain him, and he is left out in the desert. The way he describes it is he is nailed up on the barn door, like a hide being scraped. This went on for years. He said the only thing that he could do was exercise faith and love, and that taught him that that was the core, that everything up until then was trying to teach him. We can do it without having to go through all that. We can exercise that faith and that love whenever we want. It is as simple as that. There is no problem in doing that. We don’t even have to worry whether we are contemplatives, or whether it may be happening down there and we are kind of listening to see. That would be fun. That would be great. But if God wanted to give it to us, and we are serious about the spiritual life, I don’t think it is not being given because we are not being receptive enough. It is because we are not back here the way John is describing. We would be more than receptive. We want nothing more than to receive that if He wants to give it. But if He doesn’t give it, let’s not kind of get hung up on it. Let’s just kind of get on with it, and instead of trying to create another kind of contemplation out of whole cloth, so to speak, and foster it off on John of the Cross, why not just say that we are allowed to go by the way of faith and love, and ultimately, that’s the core of all this stuff about contemplation.

We have one more diagram. That’s simply to put together, here’s the ego. We can than borrow from both sides, and use our two skills, our sense of the meaning of the spiritual life, and our sense of Jung’s psychology, to take each problem that comes up. Yesterday we did Marian devotion, and we talked about Charismatic experiences, and we talked about the possibility you could look at the dark night and there could be psychological reasons why the energy left here. We could talk about a psychological dark night. And we talked about scruples and sexual obsession and all these things that don’t have to be viewed purely in spiritual terms or purely psychological terms, but can be looked at in both lights, and then we make better headway. So I don’t think there is any area of the spiritual life that is exempt from that. To give one illustration. The Trinity. Well, that certainly should be exempt from any of this kind of stuff. Well, we are certainly not going to take the Trinity, and like Jung was prone to do, reinterpret the Trinity in terms of a quaternity to make it a more fitting symbol because we don’t believe it is just a symbol. At the same time, it is entirely possible that we haven’t been conscious enough of the kind of psyche that is receiving this doctrine of the Trinity. For example, we could have looked at it as some kind of masculine reality. That has nothing to do with the theology of the Trinity in itself because even in the Middle Ages they were keenly aware that there could be no sex in God, in the Trinity, so it isn’t like they were saying that the Trinity is male. But that doesn’t prevent the church as a human institution from getting on the human side and viewing God in a masculine way with all the attendant problems that creates, and then by compensation, developing a doctrine of Our Lady that is excessively sweet and the language becomes super rhetorical. That doesn’t have anything to do with the tremendous role that Our Lady plays in the spiritual life, which she does. When we talked about Marian devotion, you put it in the realm of theology, and what you are left with is, you can receive these beautiful truths and then kind of cover them up because of our lack of psychological inspiration, and so we are left with the situation that the Trinity is somehow male, and then by a secret compensation we are devoting all this energy to a kind of Marian piety that eventually gets swept away because it is just not founded enough, but it may have served the purpose, especially in a theological world that didn’t appreciate the feminine, that was the one outlet, and so they would do these giant tomes, or they would have these excessively sweet kind of piling up of various devotions to Mary among men who, as celibate theologians or in the general atmosphere of the church, simply didn’t have any outlet for the feminine inside themselves, and not much in relationship to women on the outside. Let’s not get involved in that. (laugh)

I think that what we are doing is we are saying that there are many, many problems that we now have not just one way of talking about, but two ways of talking about, and we will be all the richer for it.

One other example is that we have groups in the Catholic church that function sort of like cults, and one of the reasons I think they do that is because all they have is a spiritual vocabulary, so there is no way to talk about the whole human dimension and the unconscious dimension and all these things, so they treat every problem like you have to analyze it in terms of purely spiritual categories. If there is a conflict of obedience and group relationships, it is cast in the form of, God has really given us the power to be your superiors, and if you do what we say, then you will be on a direct line to obeying God and all these things. Where there can be a core of spiritual truth, it is overlaid with a lot of undeveloped human beings, and we end up with what is a real problem. You just end up stretching spiritual language to try to deal with psychological realities.

Full Name:	Keli Siler, QMA
Mobile:	(765) 661-4678

iberman and his collaborator, Dr. Alex Kopelowicz, medical director of the San Fernando Mental Health Center and associate professor of psychiatry at UCLA, edited the November 2002 edition of the International Review of Psychiatry. Their articles are joined by those from an international array of investigators on the process of recovery, prospects for improving schizophrenia treatment and suggestions for future research.

Factors identified as keys to recovery from schizophrenia included:

1. Family relationships: Family stress is a powerful predictor of relapse, while family education and emotional support decrease the rate of relapse. Among study participants, 70 percent reported good or very good family relationships.

2. Substance abuse: National Institute of Mental Health research estimates the prevalence of lifetime substance abuse among schizophrenia patients at 47 percent, well above the overall rate. Though three-quarters of the study participants reported substance abuse prior to treatment, just 17.4 percent reported abuse after the onset of schizophrenia. None reported illicit drug use in the past year, and just two reported occasional alcohol consumption.

3. Duration of untreated psychosis: Longer duration of symptoms prior to treatment correlates directly with greater time to remission and a lesser degree of remission. Among study participants, only 13 percent reported a delay of more than a year between the onset of symptoms and treatment.

4. Initial response to medication: Improvement of symptoms within days of receiving antipsychotic drugs significantly predicts long-term results of treatment. Among the study group, 87 percent reported effective control of symptoms with their first antipsychotic medication.

5. Adherence to treatment: Failure to take antipsychotic medication as prescribed hampers both short-term and long-term recovery. All study participants reported adherence to psychiatric care and medication regimens.

6. Supportive therapy: Positive relationships with psychiatrists, therapists and/or treatment teams engender hope and are essential to improvement. Among study participants, 91 percent reported ongoing psychotherapy, and 78 percent reported that accessible and supportive psychiatrists and therapists contributed to their recovery.

7. Cognitive abilities: Neurocognitive factors such as working memory, sustained attention and efficient visual perception are strong predictors of recovery. Among study participants, all showed normal or near normal functioning on tests of flexibility in solving problems, verbal working memory and perceptual skills.

8. Social skills Negative symptoms, or poor interpersonal skills relative to social expectations, correlate with the degree of disability caused by schizophrenia. No study participants showed more than very mild negative symptoms.

9. Personal history: Premorbid factors, or those in place prior to the onset of the disease, that affect treatment outcome include education and IQ, age of onset, rapidity of onset, work history, and social skills. Among study participants, level of education was used as a measure of premorbid history. A total of 70 percent graduated from college before becoming ill, and an additional 13 percent completed two years of college. Three of the remaining four subjects worked full time before their illness began.

10. Access to care: Continuous, comprehensive, consumer-oriented and coordinated treatment is crucial to recovery. Among study participants, 91 percent reported receiving antipsychotic medication and psychotherapy, 47.8 percent social skills training, 56.5 percent family participation, 26 percent vocational rehabilitation, and 61 percent benefits from self-help groups.

Full Name:	Kim Stevens
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Kurt Cobain

Birth name Kurt Donald Cobain

Born February 20, 1967(1967-02-20)
Aberdeen, Washington, USA
Died c. April 5, 1994 (aged 27)
Seattle, Washington, USA

Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – c. April 5, 1994) was an American musician, best known for his roles as lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the Seattle-based rock band Nirvana.

Cobain formed Nirvana in 1987 with Krist Novoselic. Within two years, the band became a fixture of the burgeoning Seattle grunge scene. In 1991, the arrival of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" marked the beginning of a dramatic shift of popular rock music away from the dominant genres of the 1980s (glam metal, arena rock, and dance-pop) and toward grunge and alternative rock. The music media eventually awarded the song "anthem-of-a-generation" status,[1] and, with it, Cobain was labeled a "spokesman" for Generation X.

During the last years of his life, Cobain struggled with drug addiction and the media pressures surrounding him and his wife, Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead in his home in Seattle. His death was ruled a suicide by self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. Since then, the circumstances surrounding his death have fueled much analysis and debate.

Contents
1 Life and career
1.1 Early life
1.2 Nirvana
1.3 Marriage
1.4 Drug addiction
1.5 Cobain's final weeks and death
2 Suicide dispute
3 Books on Cobain
4 Musical influences
5 Legacy
6 References
7 Notes
8 External links

Life and career

Early life
Cobain was born to Donald and Wendy Cobain on February 20, 1967 in the Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen, Washington and spent his first six months living in Hoquiam, Washington before the family moved to Aberdeen.[2] He began developing an interest in music early in his life. According to his Aunt Mari, "He was singing from the time he was two. He would sing Beatles songs like 'Hey Jude.' He had a lot of charisma from a very young age."[3]

Young Kurt Cobain, seen here in a yearbook picture. This picture was handed out at his memorial service.Cobain's life changed at the age of seven when his parents divorced in 1975, an event which he later cited as having a profound impact on his life. His mother noted that his personality changed dramatically, with Cobain becoming more withdrawn.[4] In a 1993 interview, Cobain said, "I remember feeling ashamed, for some reason. I was ashamed of my parents. I couldn't face some of my friends at school anymore, because I desperately wanted to have the classic, you know, typical family. Mother, father. I wanted that security, so I resented my parents for quite a few years because of that."[5] After a year spent living with his mother following the divorce, Cobain moved to Montesano, Washington to live with his father, but after a few years his youthful rebellion became too overwhelming and he found himself being shuffled between friends and family.[6]

At school, Cobain took little interest in sports. At his father's insistence, Cobain joined the junior high wrestling team. While he was good at it, he despised it. Later, his father signed him up for a local baseball league, where Cobain would intentionally strike out to avoid having to play.[7] Instead, Cobain focused on his art courses. He often drew during classes, including objects associated with fetuses and the human anatomy. Cobain was friends with a gay student at his school, sometimes suffering bullying at the hands of homophobic students. That friendship led some to believe that he himself was gay. In one of his personal journals, Cobain wrote the phrase "I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes".[8] In a February 1993 interview with The Advocate, Cobain claimed that he used to spray paint "God is Gay" on pickup trucks around Aberdeen. Cobain also claimed he was arrested in 1985 for spray-painting "HOMO SEX RULES" on a bank.[9] However, Aberdeen police records show that the phrase for which he was arrested was actually "Ain't got no how watchamacallit." with every "t" written four times larger than the other letters.[10] As a teenager with a chaotic home life growing up in small-town Washington, Cobain eventually found escape through the thriving Pacific Northwest punk scene, going to punk rock shows in Seattle. Cobain formed a lifelong friendship with fellow Montesano musicians The Melvins, whose music later heavily influenced Nirvana's sound.

In the middle of tenth grade, Cobain moved back to live with his mother in Aberdeen. Two weeks before his graduation, Cobain dropped out of high school after realizing that he did not have enough credits to graduate. His mother gave him an ultimatum: either get a job or leave. After a week or so, Cobain found his clothes and other belongings packed away in boxes.[11] Forced out of his mother's home, Cobain often stayed at friends' houses and sneaked into his mother's basement occasionally.[12] Cobain worked various odd jobs in the Aberdeen community and earned enough to rent an apartment with a friend in June 1985; Cobain had to move out a few months later when he couldn't keep up with the rent.[13] Cobain later claimed that when he could not find anywhere else to stay, he lived under a bridge over the Wishkah River,[14] an experience that inspired the Nevermind track "Something in the Way". However in 2001 Krist Novoselic claimed that Cobain never really lived there, saying, "He hung out there, but you couldn't live on those muddy banks, with the tides coming up and down. That was his own revisionism."[15]

During this time, Dunst was arrested at least twice; once on July 23, 1985 for aggravated assault, pp. 68-69</ref>, and once on May 18, 1986 for trespassing, rape, and possession of alcohol a minor.[16]

In late 1986, Cobain moved into the first house he lived in alone and paid his rent by working at a coastal resort twenty miles from Aberdeen.[17] At the same time, Cobain was traveling more frequently to Olympia, Washington to check out rock shows.[18] During his visits to Olympia, Cobain started a relationship with Tracy Marander. After breaking up in 1990, he entered a relationship with Bikini Kill drummer Tobi Vail.

Nirvana
Main article: Nirvana (band)
At the age of 14, Cobain was given his first guitar by his uncle. (Cobain was offered the choice of a guitar or a bicycle as a birthday gift, and chose the guitar.) Cobain started by learning a few covers, including AC/DC's "Back in Black" and The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl". He soon began working on his own songs.[19]

In high school, he often found himself without anyone to jam with. Eventually, Cobain met Krist Novoselic, a fellow devotee of punk rock, who lived across from the Young Street bridge. Novoselic's mother owned a hair salon and they would practice on occasion in the upstairs room. A few years later, Cobain tried to convince Novoselic to form a band with him by lending him a copy of a home demo recorded by Cobain's earlier band, Fecal Matter. After months of asking, Novoselic finally agreed to join Cobain, forming the beginnings of Nirvana.[20]

During their first few years playing together, Novoselic and Cobain found themselves host to a rotating list of drummers. Eventually, the band settled on Chad Channing, with whom Nirvana recorded the album Bleach, released on Sub Pop Records in 1989. Cobain, however, became dissatisfied with Channing's style, leading the band to seek out a replacement, eventually settling on Dave Grohl. With Grohl, the band found their greatest success via their 1991 major-label debut, Nevermind.

Cobain struggled to reconcile the massive success of Nirvana with his underground roots. He also felt persecuted by the media, comparing himself to Frances Farmer, and harbored resentment for people who claimed to be fans of the band but who completely missed the point of the band's message. One incident particularly distressing to Cobain involved two men who raped a woman while singing the Nirvana song "Polly". Cobain condemned the episode in the liner notes of the US release of the album Incesticide: "Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song 'Polly.' I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience. Sorry to be so anally P.C. but that's the way I feel."

Marriage
[[Courtney Love]] first saw Cobain perform in 1989 at a show in Portland, Oregon; the pair talked briefly after the show and Love developed a crush on him.[21] According to journalist Everett True, the pair were formally introduced at an L7/Butthole Surfers concert in Los Angeles in May 1991.[22] In the weeks that followed, after learning from Grohl that she and Cobain shared mutual crushes, Love began pursuing Cobain. After a few weeks of on-again, off-again courtship in the fall of 1991, the two found themselves together on a regular basis, often bonding through drug use.[23]

Around the time of Nirvana's 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, Love discovered that she was pregnant with Cobain's child. A few days after the conclusion of Nirvana's Pacific Rim tour, on Monday, February 24, 1992, Cobain married Love on Waikiki Beach, Hawaii. "In the last couple months I've gotten engaged and my attitude has changed drastically," Cobain described in the Sassy interview. "I can't believe how much happier I am. At times I even forget that I'm in a band, I'm so blinded by love. I know that sounds embarrassing, but it's true. I could give up the band right now. It doesn't matter, but I'm under contract."[24] On August 18, the couple's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born. The unusual middle name was given to her because Cobain thought she looked like a kidney bean on the first sonogram he saw of her. Her namesake is Frances McKee of The Vaselines and not Frances Farmer as is sometimes reported.[25]

Love was somewhat unpopular with Nirvana fans; her harshest critics said she was merely using him as a vehicle to make herself famous.[26] Critics who compared Cobain to John Lennon were also fond of comparing Love to Yoko Ono. Rumors persist that Cobain wrote most of the songs on the breakthrough album Live Through This of Love's band Hole, partially fueled by the 1996 appearance of a rough mix of "Asking for It" with Cobain singing backing vocals. However, there is no specific evidence to support the assertion.

At the same time, one Hole song was co- written by Cobain but entirely credited to Hole. The song "Old Age" appeared as a B-side on the 1993 single for Beautiful Son, credited to Hole. Initially, there was no reason to believe it was anything other than a Hole-penned song. However, in 1998, a boombox recording of the song performed by Nirvana (with significantly different lyrics) was surfaced by Seattle newspaper The Stranger. In the article that accompanied the clip, Novoselic confirmed that the recording was made in 1991 and that "Old Age" was a Nirvana song, leading to more speculation about Cobain's involvement in Hole's catalog. Nirvana had even attempted to record "Old Age" during the sessions for Nevermind, but it was left incomplete as Cobain had yet to finish the lyrics and the band had run out of studio time. (The incomplete recording appeared on the 2004 compilation With the Lights Out, credited to Cobain.) As for Hole's version, guitarist Eric Erlandson noted that he believed Cobain wrote the music for the song, but that Love had written the lyrics for their version.[27]

In a 1992 article in Vanity Fair, Love admitted to using heroin while (unknowingly) pregnant. Love claimed that Vanity Fair had misquoted her,[28] but her admission created controversy for the couple. While Cobain and Love's romance had always been something of a media attraction, the couple found themselves hounded by tabloid reporters after the article was published, many wanting to know if Frances was addicted to drugs at birth. The Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services took the Cobains to court, claiming that the couple's drug usage made them unfit parents.[29] Two-week-old Frances Bean Cobain was ordered by the judge to be taken from their custody and placed with Courtney's sister Jamie for several weeks, after which the couple obtained custody, but had to submit to urine tests and a regular visit from a social worker. After months of legal wrangling, the couple were eventually granted full custody of their daughter.

Drug addiction
Throughout most of his life, Cobain battled depression, chronic bronchitis, and intense physical pain due to an undiagnosed chronic stomach condition.[30] This last condition was especially debilitating to his emotional welfare, and he spent years trying to find its source. However, none of the doctors he consulted were able to pinpoint the specific cause, guessing that it was either a result of Cobain's childhood scoliosis or related to the stresses of performing.

His first drug experience was with marijuana in 1978 at age 11. Cobain's first experience with heroin occurred sometime in 1986, administered to him by a local drug dealer in Tacoma, Washington, who had previously been supplying him with Percodan.[31] Cobain used heroin sporadically for several years, but, by the end of 1990, his use had developed into a full-fledged addiction. Cobain claimed that he was "determined to get a habit" as a way to self-medicate his stomach condition. Related Cobain, "It started with three days in a row of doing heroin and I don't have a stomach pain. That was such a relief."[32]

His heroin use eventually began affecting the band's support of Nevermind, with Cobain passing out during photo shoots. One memorable example came the day of the band's 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, where Nirvana had a shoot with photographer Michael Levine. Having shot up beforehand, Cobain nodded off several times during the shoot. Regarding the shoot, Cobain related to biographer Michael Azerrad, "I mean, what are they supposed to do? They're not going to be able to tell me to stop. So I really didn't care. Obviously to them it was like practicing witchcraft or something. They didn't know anything about it so they thought that any second, I was going to die."[33] Cobain also overdosed on the same night, after performing on Saturday Night Live.

Cobain's heroin addiction worsened as the years progressed. Cobain made his first attempt at rehab in early 1992, not long after he and Love discovered they were going to become parents. Immediately after leaving rehab, Nirvana embarked on their Australian tour, with Cobain appearing pale and gaunt while suffering through withdrawals. Not long after returning home, Cobain's heroin use resurfaced.

Prior to a performance at the New Music Seminar in New York City in July 1993, Cobain suffered a heroin overdose. Rather than calling for an ambulance, Love injected Cobain with illegally acquired Narcan to bring him out of his unconscious state. Cobain proceeded to perform with Nirvana, giving the public no indication that anything out of the ordinary had taken place.[34]

Cobain's final weeks and death
Following a tour stop at Terminal Eins in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis. He flew to Rome the next day for medical treatment, and was joined there by his wife on March 3. The next morning, Love awoke to find that Cobain had overdosed on a combination of champagne and Rohypnol (Love had a prescription for Rohypnol filled after arriving in Rome). Cobain was immediately rushed to the hospital, and spent the rest of the day unconscious. After five days in the hospital, Cobain was released and returned to Seattle.[35] Love later insisted publicly that the incident was Cobain's first suicide attempt.[36]

On March 18, Love phoned police to inform them that Cobain was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Cobain, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. When questioned by police, Love admitted that Cobain had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun.[37]

Love arranged an intervention concerning Cobain's drug use that took place on March 25. The ten people involved included musician friends, record company executives, and one of Cobain's closest friends, Dylan Carlson. Former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg described Cobain as being "extremely reluctant"[cite this quote] and that he "denied that he was doing anything self-destructive."[cite this quote] However, by the end of the day, Cobain had agreed to undergo a detox program.[38] Cobain arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California on March 30. The following night, Cobain walked outside to have a cigarette, then climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility. He took a taxi to Los Angeles Airport and flew back to Seattle. Over the course of April 2 and April 3, Cobain was spotted in various locations around Seattle, but most of his friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts. On April 3, Love contacted a private investigator, Tom Grant, and hired him to find Cobain. It was reported that Cobain had been seen as late as 7:00 PM on April 3 at a restaurant with a woman and a man (alleged to be Caitlin Moore, whom Love later said was one of Cobain's heroin dealers). The next day, Cobain's mother filed a missing person report. The report claimed that Cobain was suicidal and had purchased a shotgun.[39]

On April 8, 1994, Cobain was discovered in the spare room above the garage (referred to as "the greenhouse") at his Lake Washington home by Veca Electric employee Gary Smith. Smith arrived at the house that morning to install security lighting and saw him lying inside. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, Smith reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep. Smith found what he thought might be a suicide note with a pen stuck through it beneath an overturned flowerpot. A shotgun, purchased for Cobain by Dylan Carlson, was found at Cobain's side. An autopsy report later concluded Cobain's death was a result of a "self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head."[cite this quote] The report estimates Cobain to have died on April 5, 1994.

In the alleged suicide note, ostensibly written to Cobain's imaginary childhood friend "Boddah", Cobain quoted a lyric from Neil Young's song "My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)": "It's better to burn out than to fade away." Cobain's use of the lyric had a profound impact on Young, who recorded portions of his 1994 album Sleeps with Angels in Cobain's memory. On April 10, a public vigil was held for Cobain at a park at Seattle Center which drew approximately seven thousand mourners.[40] Prerecorded messages by Krist Novoselic and Courtney Love were played at the memorial. Love read portions of Cobain's suicide note to the crowd and broke down, crying and chastizing Cobain. Near the end of the vigil Love arrived at the park and distributed some of Cobain's clothing to those who still remained.[41] Cobain's body was cremated.

Suicide dispute
Kurt Cobain is legally recognized to have committed suicide; however, several theories have surfaced suggesting that the frontman of Nirvana was murdered.

The main proponent of the existence of a conspiracy surrounding Cobain's death is Tom Grant, the private investigator employed by Love after Cobain's disappearance from rehab. Grant was still under Love's employment when Cobain's body was found. Grant believes that Cobain's death was a homicide.

This section covers the main points in Grant's theory, as well as the rebuttals to some of those points by various sources:

The heroin level in Cobain's body at the time of his death
Grant cites a figure published in an April 14, 1994, article by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, purportedly from the official toxicology report, which claimed, "the level of heroin in Cobain's bloodstream was 1.52 milligrams per liter."[42] Grant argues that Cobain could not have injected himself with such a dose and still have been able to pull the trigger.[43]

However, several different studies on heroin use have noted the difficulty in pinpointing the level of heroin that an addict can tolerate. In a 2004 story, Dateline NBC questioned five medical examiners about the figure from the toxicology report. Two of them noted the possibility that Cobain could have built up enough of a tolerance through repeated usage to have been able to pull the trigger himself, while the three others held that the information was inconclusive.[44]
Grant does not believe that Cobain was killed by the heroin dose. He suggests that the heroin was used to incapacitate Cobain before the fatal shotgun blast was administered by the perpetrator.[45]

The suicide note
While working for Love, Grant was given access to Cobain's suicide note, and used her fax machine to make a photocopy, which has since been widely distributed. After studying the note, Grant believes that it was actually a letter written by Cobain announcing his intent to leave Courtney Love, Seattle, and the music business. Grant believes that the few lines at the very bottom of the note, separate from the rest of it, are the only parts that sound like a suicide note. He believes that those lines are written in a style that varies from the rest of the letter, suggesting that they were written by someone other than Cobain. While the official report on Cobain's death concluded that Cobain wrote the note, Grant claims that the official report does not distinguish the questionable lines from the rest of the note, and simply draws the conclusion across the entire note.
Grant claims to have consulted with handwriting experts who support his assertion. Other experts disagree, however. When Dateline NBC sent a copy of the note to four different handwriting experts, one concluded that the entire note was in Cobain's hand, while the other three said the sample was inconclusive.[44] One expert contacted by the television series Unsolved Mysteries noted the difficulty in drawing a conclusion, given that the note being studied was a photocopy, not the original.[46]
The length of the shotgun
Grant suggests that if the shotgun that Cobain used was positioned to match the findings of the autopsy report, his arm would have been too short for him to reach the trigger. Grant claims that Cobain would have had to fire the weapon with his toe, yet he was found with both shoes still in place.

The police report
Grant also cites circumstantial evidence from the official report. For example, the report claimed that the doors of the greenhouse could not have been locked from the outside, meaning that Cobain would have had to have locked them himself. Grant claims that when he saw the doors for himself, he found that the doors could be locked and pulled shut. Grant also questions the lack of fingerprint evidence connecting Cobain to the key evidence, including the shotgun. Several experts have noted that it is not unheard of for fingerprints to be absent from the weapon used in a suicide. However, Grant notes that the official report claims that Cobain's fingerprints were also absent from the suicide note and the pen that had been poked through it, and yet Cobain was found without gloves on his hands. None of the circumstantial evidence directly points to murder, but Grant believes it supports the larger case.[47]

The Rome incident
After Cobain's death, Love insisted that Cobain's overdose in Rome was a suicide attempt.[36] Grant believes that such an assertion was not made until after Cobain's death, and that people close to Cobain, including Nirvana's management Gold Mountain, specifically denied the characterization prior to Cobain's death. Grant believes that if Rome had truly been a suicide attempt, Cobain's friends and family would have been told so that they could have watched out for him.
Others have asserted that the claims by Gold Mountain and others were simply efforts to mask what was happening behind the scenes. Lee Ranaldo, guitarist for Sonic Youth, told Rolling Stone, "Rome was only the latest installment of [those around Cobain] keeping a semblance of normalcy for the outside world."[48]

Rosemary Carroll
Grant claims to have spoken to Cobain's attorney, Rosemary Carroll, at her office on April 13, 1994. He says that she pressed him to investigate Cobain's death, and claimed that Cobain was not suicidal. She also told Grant that Cobain had asked her to draw up a will excluding Love because he was planning to file for divorce. Grant claims that this was the motive for Cobain's death.[49] Carroll has not commented publicly on the matter.

Critics[attribution needed] dismiss Grant's assertions, noting that the bulk of his evidence is circumstantial in nature and does not specifically confirm that Cobain was murdered. Critics also see Grant as an opportunist, pointing out that he sells "kits" about the alleged conspiracy (called "Case Study Manuals") via his website. Grant counters that any profit made from the kits goes to offset some of the costs of his investigation. As Grant related, "I wrestled with that ... but if I go broke, I'll have to give up my pursuit and Courtney wins."[50]

Cobain's cause of death is the subject of Nick Broomfield's documentary, Kurt & Courtney.Filmmaker Nick Broomfield decided to investigate the story for himself, and took a film crew to visit a number of people associated with Cobain and Love, including Love's father, Cobain's aunt, and one of the couple's former nannies. Broomfield also spoke to Mentors bandleader Eldon "El Duce" Hoke, who claimed that Love had offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain, and passed a polygraph administered by polygraph expert Edward Gelb.[51] Though Hoke claimed that he knew who killed Cobain, he failed to mention a name, and offered no evidence to support his assertion. Broomfield inadvertently captured Hoke's last interview, as he died days later, reportedly hit by a train while drunk. Broomfield titled the finished documentary Kurt & Courtney, and it was released in 1998. In the end, however, Broomfield felt he hadn't uncovered enough evidence to conclude the existence of a conspiracy. In a 1998 interview, Broomfield summed it up by saying, "I think that he committed suicide. I don't think that there's a smoking gun. And I think there's only one way you can explain a lot of things around his death. Not that he was murdered, but that there was just a lack of caring for him. I just think that Courtney had moved on, and he was expendable."[52] Journalists Ian Halperin and Max Wallace took a similar path and attempted to investigate the conspiracy for themselves. Their initial work, the 1999 book Who Killed Kurt Cobain? argued that, while there wasn't enough evidence to prove a conspiracy, there was more than enough to demand that the case be reopened.[53] A notable element of the book included their discussions with Grant, who had taped nearly every conversation that he had undertaken while he was in Love's employ. In particular, Halperin and Wallace insisted that Grant play them the tapes of his conversations with Carroll so that they could confirm his story. Over the next several years, Halperin and Wallace collaborated with Grant to write a second book, 2004's Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain.

For their books, Halperin and Wallace attempted to contact many of the people involved in the events surrounding Cobain's death. In studying the Rome incident, the pair contacted Dr. Osvaldo Galletta, who treated Cobain after the incident. Galletta contested the claim that the Rome overdose was a suicide attempt, telling Halperin and Wallace, "We can usually tell a suicide attempt. This didn't look like one to me." Galletta also specifically denied Love's claim that fifty Rohypnol pills were removed from Cobain's stomach.[54]

Halperin and Wallace also spoke to several people involved in the investigation of Cobain's death who refute the conspiracy. The Seattle medical examiner who examined Cobain's body, Dr. Nikolas Hartshorne, insisted that all of the evidence pointed to a suicide. Sergeant Donald Cameron, one of the homicide detectives, specifically dismissed Grant's theory, claiming, "[Grant] hasn't shown us a shred of proof that this was anything other than suicide." Cobain's best friend, Dylan Carlson, told Halperin and Wallace that he also did not believe that the theory was legitimate.

Several of Cobain's friends have accepted that he committed suicide, but noted being surprised when it happened. Mark Lanegan, a long-time friend of Cobain's, told Rolling Stone, "I never knew [Cobain] to be suicidal. I just knew he was going through a tough time."[55] In the same article, Dylan Carlson noted that he wished Cobain or someone close to him had told him that Rome was a suicide attempt. Many of Cobain's friends and associates, including Grohl and Novoselic, have declined to comment on the matter.

However, at least one of Cobain's friends believes that he was murdered. In August 2005, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon was asked about Cobain's death in an interview for UNCUT magazine. When asked what she thought to be Cobain's motive in committing suicide, Gordon replied, "I don't even know that he killed himself. There are people close to him who don't think that he did...". When asked if she thought someone else had killed him, Gordon answered, "I do, yes."[56]

Advocates of the official verdict (death by self-inflicted gunshot wound) cite Cobain's persistent drug addiction, clinical depression, and handwritten suicide note as conclusive proof. Members of Cobain's family have also noted patterns of depression in Cobain and instability before he achieved fame. Cobain himself mentioned that his stomach pains during Nirvana's 1991 European tour were so severe he became suicidal and that taking heroin was "my choice. I said, 'This is the only thing that's saving me from blowing my head off right now.'"[57]

Books on Cobain
Prior to Cobain's death, writer Michael Azerrad published Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, a book that chronicled Nirvana's career from its beginning, as well as the personal histories of the band members. The book explored Cobain's drug addiction, as well as the countless controversies surrounding the band. After Cobain's death, Azerrad re-published the book to include a final chapter discussing the last year of Cobain's life. The book is notable for its involvement of the band members themselves, who gave interviews and personal information to Azerrad specifically for the book. In 2006, Azerrad's taped conversations with Cobain were transformed into a documentary about Cobain, titled Kurt Cobain About a Son.

In 2001, writer Charles R. Cross published a biography of Cobain titled Heavier Than Heaven. For the book, Cross conducted over 400 interviews, and was given access by Courtney Love to Cobain's journals, lyrics, and diaries.[58] However, neither Dave Grohl nor Cobain's mother contributed to the book.[59]

While the book was widely praised for its depth of research, many criticized Cross for what they saw as his indiscriminate inclusion of information, including some factual inaccuracies.[60] For example, Cross cited "On the Mountain" conclusively as the first working title for "You Know You're Right". In reality, "On the Mountain" was the result of an effort by fans in 1995 to decipher Grohl's introduction to the song on a 1993 live recording. When a clearer version of the recording surfaced some months later, it became clear that Grohl introduced the song as "All Apologies", since "You Know You're Right" was not on the written setlist that night. Cross was also widely criticized for casting Love in a universally positive light,[60] particularly given the controversial nature of her and Cobain's relationship, and that he often did not scrutinize her assertions. He wrote, for example, that Love contributed lyrics and music to Nirvana's "Pennyroyal Tea". However, the song was first performed in April of 1991, weeks before she and Cobain began dating,[61] and the song did not significantly change prior to its recording for In Utero.[60]

Musical influences
Cobain was a devoted champion of early alternative rock acts. His interest in the underground started when Buzz Osborne of the Melvins let him borrow a tape with songs by punk bands such as Black Flag, Flipper, and Millions of Dead Cops. He would often make reference to his favorite bands in interviews, often placing a greater importance on the bands that influenced him than on his own music. Interviews with Cobain were often littered with references to obscure performers like The Vaselines, The Melvins, Daniel Johnston, The Meat Puppets, Celtic Frost, Young Marble Giants, The Wipers, Flipper, and The Raincoats. Cobain was eventually able to convince record companies to reissue albums by The Raincoats (Geffen) and The Vaselines (Sub Pop). Cobain also noted the influence of The Pixies, and commented that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" bore some similarities to their sound. Cobain told Melody Maker in 1992 that hearing Surfer Rosa for the first time convinced him to abandon his more Black Flag-influenced songwriting in favor of the "Iggy Pop / Aerosmith" type songwriting that appeared on Nevermind.[62]

The Beatles were an early and important musical influence on Cobain. Cobain expressed a particular fondness for John Lennon, whom he called his "idol" in his journals, and even admitted that the song "About a Girl" was essentially his attempt at writing a Beatles song. He was heavily influenced by punk rock and Hardcore punk, and often credited bands such as Black Flag and the Sex Pistols for his artistic style and attitude.

Even with all of Cobain's indie influences, Nirvana's early style was influenced by the major rock bands of the 70s, including Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Kiss, and Neil Young. In its early days, Nirvana made a habit of regularly playing cover songs by those bands, including Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", "Dazed and Confused", "Heartbreaker", and a studio recording of Kiss' "Do You Love Me?". He also talked about the influence of bands like The Knack, Boston, and The Bay City Rollers.

There were also earlier influences: Nirvana's MTV Unplugged concert ended with a version of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night", a song popularized by blues artist Lead Belly, whom Cobain called one of his favorite performers. Critic Greil Marcus suggested that Cobain's "Polly" was a descendant of "Pretty Polly", a murder ballad that might have been a century old when Dock Boggs recorded it in 1927.

Cobain also made efforts to include his favorite performers in his musical endeavors. At the 1991 Reading Festival, Eugene Kelly of the Vaselines joined Nirvana onstage for a duet of "Molly's Lips", which Cobain would later proclaim to be one of the greatest moments of his life.[63] In 1993, when he decided that he wanted a second guitarist to help him on stage, he recruited Pat Smear of the legendary L.A. punk band The Germs. When rehearsals of three Meat Puppets covers for Nirvana's 1993 performance for MTV Unplugged went awry, Cobain placed a call to the two lead members of the band, Curt and Cris Kirkwood, who ended up joining the band on stage to perform the songs. Cobain also contributed backing guitar for a spoken word William S. Burroughs recording entitled "the "Priest" they called him".[64]

Where Sonic Youth had served to help Nirvana gain wider success, Nirvana attempted to help other indie acts attain success. The band submitted the song "Oh, the Guilt" to a split single with Chicago's The Jesus Lizard, helping Nirvana's indie credibility while opening The Jesus Lizard to a wider audience.

Legacy
In 2005, a sign was put up in Aberdeen, Washington that read "Welcome to Aberdeen - Come As You Are" as a tribute to Cobain. The sign was paid for and created by the Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization created in May 2004 to honor Cobain. The Committee also planned to create a Kurt Cobain Memorial Park and a youth center in Aberdeen.

As Cobain has no gravesite, many Nirvana fans visit Viretta Park, near Cobain's former Lake Washington home, to pay tribute. On the anniversary of his death, fans gather in the park to celebrate his life and memory. In the years following his death, Cobain is now often remembered as one of the most iconic rock musician of the 1990s.

The mythic nature of Cobain's life even captured the eyes of filmmakers. Gus Van Sant based his 2005 movie Last Days on what might have happened in the final hours of Cobain's life. In January 2007, Courtney Love began to shop the biography Heavier Than Heaven to various movie studios in Hollywood to turn the book into an A-list feature film about Cobain and Nirvana.

Cobain's own words were used to narrate a documentary on his life, titled Kurt Cobain About a Son. Journalist Michael Azerrad interviewed the band extensively for his 1993 book Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, and recorded twenty-five hours of tape with Cobain. Filmmaker AJ Schnack collaborated with Azerrad to use the tapes to tell the story. The film debuted at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.

Kurt Cobain is No. 12 on Rolling Stones Top 100 Greatests Guitarists

In 2006, Cobain passed Elvis Presley on the list of richest dead celebrities

References
Azerrad, Michael. Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Doubleday, 1994. ISBN 0-385-47199-8
Cross, Charles. Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain. Hyperion, 2001. ISBN 0-7868-8402-9.
Summers, Kim. "Kurt Cobain". All Music Guide. Accessed on May 9, 2005.

Notes
^ Garofalo, p. 447
^ Azerrad, p. 13
^ Gaar, Gillian. "Verse Chorus Verse: The Recording History of Nirvana." Goldmine Magazine. February 14, 1997.
^ Azerrad, p. 17
^ Savage, Jon. "Kurt Cobain: The Lost Interview". Guitar World. 1997.
^ Azerrad, p. 22
^ Azerrad, pp. 20–25
^ Cobain, Kurt (2002). Journals. Riverhead Hardcover. ISBN 978-1573222327.
^ Allman, Kevin. "The Dark Side of Kurt Cobain". The Advocate. February 1993.
^ Cross, Charles. Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, p. 68. Hyperion, 2001. ISBN 0-7868-8402-9
^ Azerrad, p. 35
^ Azerrad, p. 37
^ Azerrad, pp. 35–37
^ Azerrad, p. 37
^ Cross, Charles R. "Requiem for a Dream." Guitar World. October 2001.
^ Cross, pp. 72-73
^ Azerrad, p. 43
^ Azerrad, p. 46
^ Azerrad, p. 22
^ Azerrad, p. 45
^ Azerrad, p. 169
^ True, Everett. "Wednesday 1 March". Plan B Magazine Blogs. March 1, 2006.
^ Azerrad, p. 172. Courtney Love: "We bonded over pharmaceuticals."
^ Kelly, Christina. "Kurt and Courtney Sitting in a Tree". Sassy Magazine. April 1992.
^ Azerrad, p. 270
^ Azerrad, p. 172.
^ LIVE NIRVANA SESSIONS HISTORY: Spring 1991-Fall 1992. LiveNirvana.com.
^ Azerrad, p. 266
^ Azerrad, p. 270
^ Azerrad, p. 66
^ Azerrad, p. 41
^ Azerrad, p. 236.
^ Azerrad, p. 241
^ Cross, p. 296–297
^ Halperin, Ian & Wallace, Max (1998). Who Killed Kurt Cobain?. Birch Lane Press. ISBN 1-55972-446-3.
^ a b David Fricke, "Courtney Love: Life After Death", Rolling Stone, December 15, 1994.
^ Seattle Police Department (1994). Incident Report - March 18. Retrieved on March 13, 2006.
^ The Seattle Times (1994). Questions Linger After Cobain Suicide. Retrieved on March 13, 2006.
^ Seattle Police Department (1994). Missing Person Report. Retrieved on March 13, 2006.
^ Azerrad, p. 346
^ Azerrad, p. 350
^ Merritt, Mike and Maier, Scott. "Cobain Lay Dead for 3 Days". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. April 14, 1994. Retrieved May 9, 2006.
^ Halperin & Wallace, p. 113
^ a b Lauer, Matt. "More questions in Kurt Cobain death?" Dateline NBC. April 5, 2004.
^ Halperin & Wallace, p. 116
^ Halperin & Wallace, p. 112
^ Halperin & Wallace, p. 121
^ Strauss, Neil. "The Downward Spiral". Cobain: By the Editors of Rolling Stone. 1994.
^ Halperin & Wallace, p. 119
^ Halperin & Wallace, p. 126
^ George W. Maschke. "Polygraph Operator 'Dr.' Edward I. Gelb Exposed as a Phony Ph.D.", AntiPolygraph.org, June 16, 2003: "Gelb is a past president, executive director, and chairman of the board of the American Polygraph Association and in 1998 earned the association's Leonarde Keeler Award 'for long and distinguished service to the polygraph profession.'"
^ Miller, Prairie. "Kurt and Courtney: Interview with Nick Broomfield". Minireviews.com. 1998.
^ Halperin & Wallace, p. 202
^ Halperin & Wallace, p. 89
^ Strauss.
^ Dalton, Stephen. "Suicide Blond." Uncut Magazine August 2005. Beautifully Scarred. Accessed on August 24, 2005.
^ Azerrad, p. 236
^ Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain. HyperionBooks.com.
^ vanHorn, Terri. "Cobain Book Shows Singer's Life 'Heavier' Than Most Imagined". MTVNews.com. September 10, 2001.
^ a b c Furth, Charles. "A Review: Heavier Than Heaven - The Biography of Kurt Cobain". LiveNirvana.com. January 14, 2003.
^ Azerrad, p. 171–172. The pair met at a Butthole Surfers concert in May of 1991, and dated while Nirvana was recording Nevermind.
^ Cobain, Kurt. "Kurt Cobain of Nirvana Talks About the Records That Changed His Life". Melody Maker. August 29, 1992.
^ Cross, p. 195
^ Cross, p. 301

External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Kurt CobainWikimedia Commons has media related to:
Kurt CobainKurt Cobain at the Internet Movie Database
Kurt Cobain at the All Music Guide
The Kurt Cobain Equipment FAQ - Detailed information on Cobain's guitars, amplifiers, and effects.
Official police reports into Cobain's death at The Smoking Gun.
Kurt Cobain Murder Investigation - A site by Private Investigator Tom Grant.
Justice For Kurt - Was Kurt Cobain Murdered? - Documented information about Kurt Cobain's death.

v • d • eNirvana
Kurt Cobain • Krist Novoselic • Dave Grohl
Aaron Burckhard • Dave Foster • Chad Channing • Dale Crover • Dan Peters • Jason Everman • Pat Smear
Discography Studio albums: Bleach • Nevermind • In Utero

Live albums: MTV Unplugged in New York • From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah

Compilations and Extended Plays: Blew • Hormoaning • Nevermind: It's An Interview • Incesticide • Nirvana • Sliver: The Best of the Box

Singles: "Love Buzz" • "Sliver" • "Molly's Lips" • "Here She Comes Now" • "Smells Like Teen Spirit" • "Come as You Are" • "Lithium" • "On a Plain" • "In Bloom" • "Oh, the Guilt" • "Heart-Shaped Box" • "All Apologies/Rape Me" • "Pennyroyal Tea" • "About a Girl (Unplugged)" • "The Man Who Sold the World (Unplugged)" • "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" • "Lake of Fire (Unplugged)" • "Aneurysm (live)" • "Drain You (live)" • "You Know You're Right"

Video releases and box sets Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! • Singles • With the Lights Out • Classic Albums - Nirvana - Nevermind
Related content Articles: 1991: The Year Punk Broke • Grunge music • Generation X • Courtney Love • Frances Bean Cobain • Godspeed • Heavier Than Heaven • Hype! • Kurt & Courtney • Kurt Cobain About a Son • Last Days • Tom Grant • Journals • Fecal Matter • Spencer Elden • List of songs by Nirvana • Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana • "Smells Like Nirvana"
Foo Fighters • Sweet 75 • Eyes Adrift • No WTO Combo

Person data

NAME Cobain, Kurt Donald

SHORT DESCRIPTION singer/guitarist in Nirvana
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1967(1967-02-20)
PLACE OF BIRTH Aberdeen, Washington
DATE OF DEATH c. April 5, 1994 (aged 27)
PLACE OF DEATH Seattle, Washington

Some Facts about LCH Appointments for 2007

I started collecting appointments during the last week of January 2007. I then entered the individual appointments into a data base. There were close to 2300 appointments entered during this time. Due to duplication of data and discharges, the final count of known appointments for the year 2007 was 1975.

There was an average of 170 appointments per month. The lowest number appointments occurred in June [133] and the highest number of appointments occurred in Aug. [233].

The lowest number of appointments for a unit was 4B which had 103 appointments for 2007.

The highest number of appointments for a unit was 3C which had 598 appointments for 2007.

Here is the breakdown for appointments by the month:

Jan. 56 [started count the last week of the month]

Feb. 156

Mar. 179

April 197

May 142

June 133

July 151

Aug. 233

Sept. 205

Oct. 160

Nov. 153

Dec. 170

Here is the breakdown of appointments by unit for the year 2007:

2A 139

2C 153

3A 404

3C 598

3E 153

4A 192

4B 103

4C 107

4E 126

Compiled by Bob Cardwell

http://www.in.gov/fssa/files/07_Insider_Nov.pdf

[IMG[http://img702.mytextgraphics.com/photolava/2007/11/21/p1010001-48kxrksun.jpg]]

Full Name:	Helina Samuels
Last Name:	Samuels
First Name:	Helina

Home:	(317) 607-5482
Mobile:	(317) 607-5482

Full Name:	Edward A
Last Name:	A
First Name:	Edward

Home:	(317) 989-7981

Distribution List Name:	aaa

Categories:	Hot Contacts, Time & Expenses

Members:	 

Barnett, Marita L	Marita.Barnett@fssa.in.gov
Cardwell, Robert C (Bob)	Robert.Cardwell@fssa.IN.gov
Dell, Jane A	Jane.Dell@fssa.in.gov
Godsey, Susan M (Sue)	Susan.Godsey@fssa.in.gov
Miller, Elizabeth A  (Liz)	Elizabeth.Miller@fssa.in.gov
Rittman, Todd D	Todd.Rittman@fssa.IN.gov
Sims, Linda G	Linda.Sims@fssa.in.gov

Company:	Accessible Staffing

Business:	(317) 254-9300
Business Fax:	(317) 254-9320

E-mail:	accessible123@cs.com
E-mail Display As:	Accessible Staffing (accessible123@cs.com)

Company:	ACME

Business:	(317) 257-3545
Business Fax:	(317) 257-6854

E-mail:	ladonne@acmehhc.com
E-mail Display As:	ACME (ladonne@acmehhc.com)

Full Name:	Kim Adewakum
Last Name:	Adewakum
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Home:	(317) 288-4293
Mobile:	(317) 363-6504

Full Name:	Mariann Adkins
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Job Title:	RN

Home:	(317) 506-2211

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E-mail:	admissions@purdue.edu
E-mail Display As:	admissions@purdue.edu

Full Name:	Regina Allen
Last Name:	Allen
First Name:	Regina

Home:	(317) 285-8551

Full Name:	Kim Ambrose
Last Name:	Ambrose
First Name:	Kim

Home:	(317) 313-9948
Mobile:	(317) 717-1704

Full Name:	Haul Away Appliances
Last Name:	Appliances
First Name:	Haul Away

Business:	(317) 241-0235

Company:	ATC Healthcare

Business:	(317) 251-1135
Business Fax:	(317) 251-1145

E-mail:	jbush@atchealthcare.com
E-mail Display As:	ATC Healthcare (jbush@atchealthcare.com)

Distribution List Name:	Attendance

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Dell, Jane A	Jane.Dell@fssa.in.gov
Godsey, Susan M (Sue)	Susan.Godsey@fssa.in.gov
Miller, Elizabeth A  (Liz)	Elizabeth.Miller@fssa.in.gov
Rittman, Todd D	Todd.Rittman@fssa.IN.gov
Sims, Linda G	Linda.Sims@fssa.in.gov

Full Name:	Dorothy Austin
Last Name:	Austin
First Name:	Dorothy

Mobile:	(317) 590-6196

Full Name:	Marsha Barkley
Last Name:	Barkley
First Name:	Marsha

Mobile:	(765) 749-7608

E-mail:	marshlpn@netzero.net
E-mail Display As:	marshlpn@netzero.net

Is this address still good?

Bob
Full Name:	Barnett,  Marita
Last Name:	Barnett
First Name:	Marita
Job Title:	Nurse
Department:	Client Services
Company:	Div Mental Health & Addictions

Business Address:	2601 Cold Spring Rd
Indianapolis, IN  46222

Business:	317-941-4000

E-mail:	Marita.Barnett@fssa.in.gov
E-mail Display As:	Barnett, Marita L (Marita.Barnett@fssa.in.gov)

Full Name:	Zbigniew Basinski
Last Name:	Basinski
First Name:	Zbigniew

E-mail:	zbasinsk@howardregional.org
E-mail Display As:	zbasinsk@howardregional.org

Full Name:	Marilyn Beaty
Last Name:	Beaty
First Name:	Marilyn

E-mail:	mbeaty@gbod.org
E-mail Display As:	mbeaty@gbod.org

Full Name:	Don Benson
Last Name:	Benson
First Name:	Don

Home:	(317) 898-3562

Full Name:	Mark Bergstrom
Last Name:	Bergstrom
First Name:	Mark

Home:	(765) 457-7260

Full Name:	Derek Booth
Last Name:	Booth
First Name:	Derek

Home:	(317) 489-7364

Full Name:	Jon Boyd
Last Name:	Boyd
First Name:	Jon

Mobile:	(317) 786-1730

Full Name:	Larissa Brown
Last Name:	Brown
First Name:	Larissa

Business Address:	3324 Collier St.
Indianapolis, IN.

Mobile:	(317) 201-1050

E-mail:	larissambrown@sbcglobal.net
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Categories:	CoreFamily

Full Name:	Rebecca Bruner
Last Name:	Bruner
First Name:	Rebecca
Job Title:	Therapist
Company:	Alpine Counselling Center

Business Address:	Alpine Counseling
3768 Rome Drive, Suite 1, IN
Lafayette

Business:	(765) 449-9115
Business Fax:	(765) 446-4224

Full Name:	Doctor Buonanna
Last Name:	Buonanna
First Name:	Doctor

Home:	(765) 446-9394
Business Fax:	(765) 446-4224

Full Name:	Mary Cain
Last Name:	Cain
First Name:	Mary

Home:	(317) 773-3132

Full Name:	Betty Cardwell
Last Name:	Cardwell
First Name:	Betty

Mobile:	13172419630

Full Name:	Bob Cardwell
Last Name:	Cardwell
First Name:	Bob

E-mail:	bobcardwell@hotmail.com
E-mail Display As:	bobcardwell@hotmail.com

Full Name:	Brian Cardwell
Last Name:	Cardwell
First Name:	Brian

Mobile:	17654304574

E-mail:	brian@bobcardwell.com
E-mail Display As:	Brian Cardwell (brian@bobcardwell.com)
E-mail 2:	brian@bobcardwell.com
E-mail2 Display As:	Brian Cardwell (brian@bobcardwell.com)
E-mail 3:	brian.cardwell@yahoo.com
E-mail3 Display As:	Brian Cardwell (brian.cardwell@yahoo.com)

briancard01@msn.com
Full Name:	Jeff Cardwell
Last Name:	Cardwell
First Name:	Jeff

E-mail:	jcardwell@phpnetwork.org
E-mail Display As:	jcardwell@phpnetwork.org

Full Name:	Cardwell,  Robert (Bob)
Last Name:	Cardwell
First Name:	Robert
Job Title:	Psych Attendant Supv 6
Department:	Client Services
Company:	Family & Social Services Administration

Business Address:	2601 Cold Spring Rd
Indianapolis, IN  46222

Business:	(317) 941-4000

E-mail:	Robert.Cardwell@fssa.IN.gov
E-mail Display As:	Cardwell, Robert C (Bob) (Robert.Cardwell@fssa.IN.gov)

Full Name:	Robert Cardwell
Last Name:	Cardwell
First Name:	Robert

Home:	13177839572
Mobile:	13173546668

E-mail:	bbbob_99@yahoo.com
E-mail Display As:	bbbob_99@yahoo.com

Categories:	Family

Full Name:	Zach Cardwell
Last Name:	Cardwell
First Name:	Zach

Home Address:	West Lafayette, IN  47906-4228

Business:	1-765-494-2569
Home:	765) 495-5575
Mobile:	1-765-418-4758
Business Fax:	1765-496-1592

E-mail:	zcardwel@purdue.edu
E-mail Display As:	Zach Cardwell (zcardwel@purdue.edu)
E-mail 2:	zcardwel@purdue.edu
E-mail2 Display As:	Zach Cardwell (zcardwel@purdue.edu)

Birthday:	May 20, 1988
Web Page:	http://zcardwel@purdue.edu

Categories:	CoreFamily

Full Name:	Emily Casto
Last Name:	Casto
First Name:	Emily

Home Address:	Calvin, KY  40813

Full Name:	Terrell Charleston
Last Name:	Charleston
First Name:	Terrell
Job Title:	CNA
Company:	ACME

Business:	(317) 257-3545
Home:	(317) 255-5251
Business Fax:	(317) 257-6854

Full Name:	Loretta Chasteen
Last Name:	Chasteen
First Name:	Loretta

Home:	(317) 244-2534

Distribution List Name:	Clinical Appointments

Members:	 

Barnett, Marita L	Marita.Barnett@fssa.in.gov
Bell, Ruth L (Ruthie)	Ruth.Bell@fssa.IN.gov
Bob Cardwell	bob@bobcardwell.com
Brooks, Ervie J	Ervie.Brooks@fssa.IN.gov
Brooks, Shirley E	Shirley.Brooks@fssa.IN.gov
Dell, Jane A	Jane.Dell@fssa.in.gov
Duncan, Jeanette M	Jeanette.Duncan@fssa.IN.gov
Godsey, Susan M (Sue)	Susan.Godsey@fssa.in.gov
Johnson, Bettye	Bettye.Johnson@fssa.in.gov
McAfee, Brandon W (Bishop)	Brandon.McAfee@fssa.IN.gov
McKinney, Karen J (Kara)	Karen.McKinney@fssa.IN.gov
Miller, Elizabeth A  (Liz)	Elizabeth.Miller@fssa.in.gov
Oldfather, Carolyn A	Carolyn.Oldfather@fssa.in.gov
Rittman, Todd D	Todd.Rittman@fssa.IN.gov
Schaaf, Diane E	Diane.Schaaf@fssa.in.gov
Shobe, Phyllis	Phyllis.Shobe@fssa.in.gov
Sims, Linda G	Linda.Sims@fssa.in.gov
Skirvin, David E	David.Skirvin@fssa.IN.gov
Tucker, Vittoria L (Vicky)	Vittoria.Tucker@fssa.in.gov

Full Name:	Wesleyan College
Last Name:	College
First Name:	Wesleyan

E-mail:	graduate@indwes.edu
E-mail Display As:	graduate@indwes.edu

Full Name:	Deferred Comp
Last Name:	Comp
First Name:	Deferred
Company:	Deferred Comp

Business:	(877) 848-5838

Full Name:	Compassion Center
Last Name:	Compassion Center

Business Address:	2616 Shelby St.
	Indianapolis, IN 46203
Phone(s): 	(317) 784-3786
Home Address:	Indianapolis, IN  46203

Business:	(317) 784-3786

Full Name:	Jane Dell
Last Name:	Dell
First Name:	Jane
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Company:	Div Mental Health & Addictions

Business Address:	2601 Cold Spring Rd
Indianapolis, IN  46222

Business:	(317) 941-4000

E-mail:	/o=State of Indiana/ou=FSSA/cn=LaRue Carter Memorial Hospital/cn=JDell
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Full Name:	Jane Dell
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Business Address:	2601 Cold Spring Rd
Indianapolis, IN  46222

Business:	(317) 941-4000

E-mail:	/o=State of Indiana/ou=FSSA/cn=LaRue Carter Memorial Hospital/cn=JDell
E-mail Display As:	Dell, Jane A (Jane.Dell@fssa.in.gov)

Full Name:	John Desanto
Last Name:	Desanto
First Name:	John
Job Title:	Doctor
Company:	Dr. John Desanto

Business Address:	10122 E 10th St
Indianapolis, IN

Business:	(317) 355-2200
Business Fax:	(317) 355-2185

Full Name:	Kristi Donahue
Last Name:	Donahue
First Name:	Kristi

Mobile:	(812) 716-1694

Full Name:	David Donald
Last Name:	Donald
First Name:	David

Business:	(317) 748-1517

Full Name:	Cell Phone Driver
Last Name:	Driver
First Name:	Cell

Mobile:	(317) 650-2535

Full Name:	Kaylee Dugger
Last Name:	Dugger
First Name:	Kaylee

E-mail:	staff_marie@yahoo.com
E-mail Display As:	staff_marie@yahoo.com

Categories:	Family

Full Name:	Denise Edwards
Last Name:	Edwards
First Name:	Denise

Mobile:	(317) 514-8299

Full Name:	Bev Flannery
Last Name:	Flannery
First Name:	Bev

Mobile:	(317) 529-7004

Full Name:	Tameka Flowers
Last Name:	Flowers
First Name:	Tameka

Home:	(317) 557-8945

Full Name:	Lea Forbes
Last Name:	Forbes
First Name:	Lea
Job Title:	CNA

Home:	(317) 822-1916
Mobile:	(317) 822-1916

Full Name:	Little Ford
Last Name:	Ford
First Name:	Little

Home:	(317) 492-7556

Full Name:	Jim Frank
Last Name:	Frank
First Name:	Jim

Mobile:	(317) 908-2849

Full Name:	Frank Gilson
Last Name:	Gilson
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E-mail:	frank.gilson@hotmail.com
E-mail Display As:	frank.gilson@hotmail.com

Full Name:	Jessica Gilson
Last Name:	Gilson
First Name:	Jessica

E-mail:	jgilson@purdue.edu
E-mail Display As:	jgilson@purdue.edu

Full Name:	Kari Gunson
Last Name:	Gunson
First Name:	Kari
Job Title:	RN

Mobile:	(317) 840-7851

Full Name:	Richard Hahn
Last Name:	Hahn
First Name:	Richard

Home Address:	Indianapolis, IN  46219

Business:	(317) 355-1234
Business 2:	(800) 422-1237

Full Name:	Debra Harden
Last Name:	Harden
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Home:	(812) 522-3525

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Last Name:	Hartley
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E-mail:	thartley@doc.in.gov
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Full Name:	Dee Head
Last Name:	Head
First Name:	Dee

E-mail:	headd@cfmh.org
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Full Name:	Heeter,  Eric
Last Name:	Heeter
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Full Name:	Eric Heeter
Last Name:	Heeter
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Indianapolis, IN  46222

Business:	(317) 941-4000

E-mail:	HeeterED
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Full Name:	Ernesto Herrera
Last Name:	Herrera
First Name:	Ernesto

E-mail:	ernesto.herrera@atg.in.gov
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Full Name:	Michael Herring
Last Name:	Herring
First Name:	Michael

E-mail:	miherrin@maxhealth.com
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Full Name:	Kathleen Hill
Last Name:	Hill
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Home:	(317) 612-4643

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Business Address:	2601 Cold Spring Road
Indianapolis
 IN.

Business:	(317) 941-4100
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Tzadikim Nistarim
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Tzadikim Nistarim or Lamed Vav Tzadikim (ל"ו צדיקים) (often abbreviated to "the Lamed Vav(niks)", the 36) refers to 36 Righteous (or Saintly) people, a notion rooted within the more mystical dimensions of Judaism. (In Hebrew gematria, Lamed is the letter representing "thirty", and vav represents "six". Tzadikim is the plural for "righteous" or "saintly").

Contents [hide]
1 Origins
2 Their purpose
3 Lamedvavniks
4 Other references
5 External links

[edit] Origins
The source is the Talmud itself, explained as follows:

As a mystical concept, the number 36 is even more intriguing. It is said that at all times there are 36 special people in the world, and that were it not for them, all of them, if even one of them was missing, the world would come to an end. The two Hebrew letters for 36 are the lamed, which is 30, and the vav, which is six. Therefore, these 36 are referred to as the Lamed-Vav Tzadikim. This widely-held belief, this most unusual Jewish concept is based on a Talmudic statement to the effect that in every generation 36 righteous "greet the Shechinah," the Divine Presence (Tractate Sanhedrin 97b; Tractate Sukkah 45b). [1]

[edit] Their purpose
Mystical Hasidic Judaism as well as other segments of Judaism know that there is the Jewish tradition of 36 righteous men whose role in life is to justify the purpose of mankind in the eyes of God; their identity is unknown to each other; if one of them comes to a realization of his true purpose then he may die and his role is immediately assumed by another person:

The Lamed-Vav Tzaddikim are also called the Nistarim ("concealed ones"). In our folk tales, they emerge from their self-imposed concealment and, by the mystic powers, which they possess, they succeed in averting the threatened disasters of a people persecuted by the enemies that surround them. They return to their anonymity as soon as their task is accomplished, 'concealing' themselves once again in a Jewish community wherein they are relatively unknown. The lamed-vavniks, scattered as they are throughout the Diaspora, have no acquaintance with one another. On very rare occasions, one of them is 'discovered' by accident, in which case the secret of their identity must not be disclosed. The lamed-vavniks do not themselves know that they are one of the 36. In fact, tradition has it that should a person claim to be one of the 36, that is proof positive that he is certainly not one. Since the 36 are each exemplars of anavah, ("humility"), having such a virtue would preclude against one’s self-proclamation of being among the special righteous. The 36 are simply too humble to believe that they are one of the 36. [2]

[edit] Lamedvavniks
Lamedvavnik is the Yiddish term for one of the 36 hidden saints or Zaddikim mentioned in kabbalah or Jewish mysticism. According to this teaching, at any given time there are at least 36 holy Jews in the world who are Tzadikim. These holy people are hidden, i.e., nobody knows who they are. According to some versions of the story, they themselves may not know who they are. For the sake of these 36 hidden saints, God preserves the world even if the rest of humanity has degenerated to the level of total barbarism. This is similar to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Hebrew Bible, where God told Abraham that he would spare the city of Sodom if there was a quorum of at least 10 righteous men. Since nobody knows who the Lamedvavniks are, not even themselves, every Jew should act as if he or she might be one of them, i.e., lead a holy and humble life and pray for the sake of fellow human beings and for planetary healing. It is also said that one of these 36 could potentially be the Jewish Messiah if the world is ready for him to reveal himself. Otherwise, he lives and dies as an ordinary person. Whether or not he himself knows he is the potential Messiah is debated.

The term lamedvavnik is derived from the Hebrew letters Lamed (L) and Vav (V), whose numerical value adds up to 36. The "nik" at the end is a Russian or Yiddish suffix indicating "a person who..." (In English, this would be something like calling them "The Thirty-Sixers".) The number 36 is twice 18. In gematria (a form of Jewish numerology), the number 18 stands for "life," because the Hebrew letters that spell chai, meaning "living," add up to 18. Because 36 = 2x18, it represents "double life."

In some Hasidic stories, disciples consider their Rebbes and other religious figures to be among the Lamedvavniks. It is also possible for a Lamedvavnik to reveal himself as such, although that rarely happens - a Lamedvavnik's status as an exemplar of humility would preclude it. More often, it is the disciples who speculate.

[edit] Other references
These beliefs are articulated in the works of Max Brod, and some (like Jorge Luis Borges) believe the concept to have originated in the Book of Genesis 18:

And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. [3]
André Schwarz-Bart's book The Last of the Just (Le Dernier des Justes) is organized around the tradition of the thirty-six just men and re-interprets this tradition in light of the Holocaust.
An analogous group of individuals may be discerned within the Islamic tradition of the Kutb and The Abdals.
Sven Westerberg's crime fiction novel The Silence of the Jewess is partly loosely based around this concept.
Also concerned with this subject are the fiction novels "The Righteous Men", written by Sam Bourne and "The Book of Names" by Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori.
In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series, it is suggested that Emperor Norton may be one of the tzadikim.
In Nicole Krauss's book "The History of Love", the character Emmanuel Chaim Singer ("Bird") thinks he is a lamed vovnik and possibly even the Jewish Messiah.
An episode of the 1970's radio show CBS Radio Mystery Theater called "The 36th Man" is about a dying Lamed Vavnik who endows a virtuous man with the title.

[edit] External links
Lamed Vav by Ilil Arbel, Ph.D.
Why Thirty-Six?
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadikim_Nistarim"
Categories: Hebrew words and phrases | Jewish theology | Jewish mysticism | Jewish religious occupations

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Left bundle branch block

[img[http://z.about.com/d/heartdisease/1/G/R/bbb3.jpg]]

Left Bundle Branch Block
Figure 4 - Left Bundle Branch Block (LBBB)

In LBBB, the opposite occurs. Here, the left bundle branch no longer conducts electricity. The electrical impulse thus enters right bundle branch, and is carried to the right ventricle (first panel). From there, it finally spreads to the left ventricle (second panel). Once again, the two ventricles no longer receive the electrical impulse simultaneously. First the right ventricle receives the electrical impulse, then the left.

With either type of BBB, therefore, the electrical signal spreads across the ventricles sequentially, as opposed to simultaneously. This sequential spread of the impulse (i.e., first the right ventricle, then the left – or vice versa) means that it takes longer for the impulse to reach throughout the ventricles.
Part 3 - The significance of Bundle Branch Block1

This About.com page has been optimized for print. To view this page in its original form, please visit: http://heartdisease.about.com/cs/arrhythmias/a/BBB_2.htm

1. http://heartdisease.about.com/cs/arrhythmias/a/BBB_3.htm

[img[http://z.about.com/d/heartdisease/1/G/Q/bbb5.jpg]]

Figure 5 - The ECG in BBB

In Figure 5, the top image shows a normal QRS complex. The middle figure shows RBBB, and the bottom figure shows LBBB. Note that with both kinds of bundle branch block, the QRS is wide and misshapen. The characteristic shapes of the QRS complex allow doctors to determine whether the right or the left bundle branch is blocked.

Why does the QRS complex change in BBB? The QRS represents the spread of the heart’s electrical impulse across the right and left ventricles. Because with BBB the ventricles receive the electrical impulse one after another instead of at the same time, it takes longer to form the QRS complex on the ECG. The QRS complex is said to “widen.” Also, since the pattern of the spreading of the electrical impulse is abnormal in BBB, the pattern of the QRS complex is also abnormal.
What is the significance of bundle branch block?
BBB is quite common, and occurs in a variety of medical conditions. RBBB occurs in medical conditions that affect the right side of the heart or the lungs, so a finding of RBBB on the ECG ought to trigger a screening exam for such conditions. These include blood clots to the lung (pulmonary embolus), chronic lung disease, cardiomyopathy, and atrial and ventricular septal defects. However, RBBB also commonly occurs in normal, healthy individuals, and the screening exam therefore often turns up no medical problems. In these cases, the RBBB has no apparent medical significance, and can be written off as a “normal variant,” and safely ignored.

In contrast, LBBB usually indicates underlying cardiac pathology. It is seen in dilated cardiomyopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, hypertension, aortic valve disease, coronary artery disease, and a variety of other cardiac conditions. While occasionally LBBB occurs in apparently healthy people, its appearance should trigger a thorough search (as opposed to a simple screening) for underlying cardiac problems.

If both the right and left bundle branches are completely blocked (i.e., "bilateral" BBB), the electrical impulse cannot reach the ventricles. In this case, unless spontaneous electrical impulses arise within the ventricles (a so-called “escape rhythm”), the ventricles stop beating and death occurs. Fortunately, this form of “complete heart block” is relatively uncommon.

In summary, the major significance of BBB is that it may indicate the presence of previously unknown underlying cardiovascular disease. When BBB is found, therefore, a search for such underlying disease ought to be carried out. Since RBBB often occurs in normal individuals while LBBB usually indicates underlying disease, the search for underlying disease generally should be more aggressive with LBBB than with RBBB.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Left bundle branch block
Classification and external resources

ECG characteristics of a typical LBBB showing wide QRS complexes with abnormal morphology in leads V1 and V6.
ICD-10 I44.4 - I44.7
DiseasesDB 7352
eMedicine ped/2501

Left bundle branch block (LBBB) is a cardiac conduction abnormality seen on the electrocardiogram (ECG).[1] In this condition, activation of the left ventricle is delayed, which results in the left ventricle contracting later than the right ventricle.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 ECG diagnosis
* 2 Causes
* 3 Treatment
* 4 Classification
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

[edit] ECG diagnosis
Electrocardiogram showing left bundle branch block and irregular rhythm due to supraventricular extrasystoles.
A left bundle branch block

The criteria to diagnose a left bundle branch block on the electrocardiogram:

* The heart rhythm must be supraventricular in origin
* The QRS duration must be = or > 120 ms[2]
* There should be a QS or rS complex in lead V1
* There should be a monophasic R wave in leads I and V6.

It should be noted that LBBB renders the ST segment of chest leads unreliable.

The T wave should be deflected opposite the terminal deflection of the QRS complex. This is known as appropriate T wave discordance with bundle branch block. A concordant T wave may suggest ischemia or myocardial infarction.

A mnemonic to remember the ECG changes is WiLLiaM MaRRoW, ie with LBBB there is an W in V1 and a M in V6 and with a RBBB there is a M in lead V1 and a W in lead V6
[edit] Causes

Among the causes of LBBB are:

* Aortic stenosis
* Dilated cardiomyopathy
* Acute myocardial infarction
* Extensive cases of coronary artery disease
* Primary disease of the cardiac electrical conduction system
* Long standing hypertension leading to aortic root dilation and subsequent aortic regurgitation

[edit] Treatment

* Medical Care: Patients with LBBB require complete cardiac evaluation, and those with LBBB and syncope or near-syncope may require a pacemaker.
* Surgical Care: Some patients with LBBB, a markedly prolonged QRS, and congestive heart failure may benefit from a pacemaker, which provides rapid left ventricular contractions.

[edit] Classification

There are also partial blocks of the left bundle branch: "left anterior fascicular block" (LAFB)[3] and a "left posterior fascicular block" (LPFB).[4] This refers to the bifurcation of the left bundle branch.
[edit] See also

* Bundle branch block
* Right bundle branch block

[edit] References

1. ^ "Conduction Blocks 2006 KCUMB". http://courses.kcumb.edu/physio/blocks/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-20.
2. ^ "Lesson VI - ECG Conduction Abnormalities". http://library.med.utah.edu/kw/ecg/ecg_outline/Lesson6/index.html#LBBB. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
3. ^ x20050921122910832459 at GPnotebook
4. ^ x20050921123129832459 at GPnotebook

[edit] External links

* http://library.med.utah.edu/kw/ecg/mml/ecg_lbbb.html

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Left_bundle_branch_block_supraventricular_extrasystole.jpg]]

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/LBBB2009.JPG]]

http://www.al-islam.org/seal/

 Seal of the Prophets and His Message 
 
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About the Author
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/author.htm  

Lesson One  
Prophethood: Acquaintance with the School of the Prophets  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/1.htm

Lesson Two  
To whom belongs the right to legislate? 
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/2.htm 

Lesson Three  
A Rich and Fruitful School of Thought  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/3.htm

Lesson Four  
Miracles: An Effective and Eloquent Proof  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/4.htm

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The Answer of the Prophets (PBUT) to the Illogical Demands of the Polytheists  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/5.htm

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What is revelation?  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/6.htm

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The Difference Between Prophets and Scholars of Genius  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/7.htm

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The Inerrancy of the Prophets  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/8.htm

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The Splendor of the Prophet of Islam  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/9.htm

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Beginning of the Mission  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/10.htm

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The Beginning of Migration  
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Let Us Know the Quran Better 
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The Demand of the Quran for a Direct Confrontation 
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/13.htm 

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The Relationship of the Quran to Modern Science: Part I  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/14.htm

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The Relationship of the Quran to Modern Science: Part II  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/15.htm

Lesson Sixteen  
Prediction of the Defeat of a Great Power
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/16.htm  

Lesson Seventeen  
Unity and Multiplicity in the Themes of the Quran  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/17.htm


Lesson Eighteen  
The Inexhaustibility of the Different Dimensions of the Quran  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/18.htm

Lesson Nineteen  
The Proclamation by Jesus of the Mission of the Prophet of Islam 
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/19.htm 

Lesson Twenty  
The Sealing of Prophethood  
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/20.htm

Lesson Twenty-One  
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http://www.al-islam.org/seal/21.htm

Notes 
http://www.al-islam.org/seal/notes.htm

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This is our basis for truth.

 

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The one true God has revealed himself as the eternally self-existent "I AM," the Creator of heaven and earth, the Redeemer of mankind.  He has further revealed himself as embodying the principles of relationship and association as Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Deuteronomy 6:4, Isaiah 43:10,11, Matthew 28:19, Luke 3:22).
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The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God.  The Scriptures declare his:

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   b.    Sinless life (Hebrews 7:26; 1 Peter 2:22)

   c.    Miracles  (Acts 2:22; 10:38)

   d.    Substitutionary work on the cross (1 Corinthians 15:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21)

   e.    Bodily resurrection from the dead (Matthew 28:6; Luke 24:39; 1 Corinthians 15:4)

   f.     Exaltation to the right hand of God (Acts 1:9, 11; 2:33; Philippians 2:9, 11; Hebrews 1:3).

He alone was qualified to pay the price for our sins by taking on the judgement and death we deserved.

 

4.    The Fall of Man

Man was created good and upright; for God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."  However, man by voluntary transgression fell and thereby incurred not only physical death but also spiritual death, which is separation from God  (Genesis 1:26, 27; 2:17; 3:6; Romans 5:12-19).
Adam's spiritual DNA was passed down to us and we are all guilty before God and deserving of judgement.

 

5.    The Salvation of Man

Man's only hope of redemption is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

  a. Conditions of Salvation

Salvation is received through repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.  (Luke 24:47; John 3:3; Romans 10:13-15; Ephesians 2:8; Titus 2:11, 3:5-7).

  b. The Evidences of Salvation

The inward evidence of salvation is the direct witness of the Spirit (Romans 8:16).  The outward evidence to all men is a life of righteousness and true holiness  (Ephesians 4:24; Titus 2:12).
Jesus made an exclusive claim as the only way to God.  Our only access to God is through Him.

 

6.    The Ordinances of the Church

  a.  Baptism in Water

The ordinance of baptism by immersion is commanded in the Scriptures.  All who repent and believe on Christ as Savior and Lord are to be baptized.  Thus, they declare to the world that they have died with Christ and that they also have been raised with him to walk in newness of life  (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:16; Acts 10:47, 48; Romans 6:4).

  b. Holy Communion

The Lord's Supper, consisting of the elements - bread and the fruit of the vine, is the symbol expressing our sharing in the divine nature of our Lord Jesus Christ  (2 Peter 1:4); a memorial of his suffering and death (1 Corinthians 11:26); and a prophecy of his second coming (1 Corinthians 11:26); and is enjoined on all believers 'till he comes!

These are not just rituals but supernatural connections to God.

 

7.    The Ministry in the Holy Spirit

It is God, the Holy Spirit who is at work in the earth today through the church and believers.  It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that the church was birthed on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and by which it is sustained today.  All believers are entitled to and should seek the promise of the Father, the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the release of His power through our lives. This was the normal experience of all in the early Christian Church.  With the infilling of the Holy Spirit comes such experiences as an overflowing fullness of the Spirit  (John 7:37-39; Acts 4:8), a deepened reverence for God  (Acts 2:43; Hebrews 12:28), an intensified consecration to God and dedication to his work  (Acts 2:42), and more active love for Christ, for his Word, and for the lost  (Mark 16:20).
The Holy Spirit is God's gift to dwell in us for guidance, comfort, and empowerment for serving. 

 

8.    Sanctification

Sanctification is an act of separation from that which is evil, and of dedication unto God  (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 13:12).  The Scriptures teach a life of "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord"  (Hebrews 12:14).  By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to obey the command:  "Be ye holy; for I am holy"  (1 Peter 1:15.16)  (Romans 6:1-11,13; Romans 8:1,2,13; Galatians 2:20; Philippians 2:12.13; 1 Peter 1:5).
Living in relationship with God means that we are becoming more like Him in character and attitude.

 

9.    The Church and Its Mission

The Church is the Body of Christ and each believer is an integral part  (Ephesians 1:22, 23; 2:22; Hebrews 12:23).  Since God's purpose concerning man is to seek and to save that which is lost, to be worshipped by man, and to build a body of believers in the image of his Son, the priority of the Church is to be:

   a.  An agency of God for sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world (Acts 1:8; Matthew 28:19,20; Mark 16:15,16);

   b.  A corporate body in which man may worship God (1 Corinthians 12:13); and

   c.  A channel of God's purpose to build a body of saints being perfected in the image of his Son  (Ephesians 4:11, 16;  1  Corinthians 12:28; 1 Corinthians 14:12).

The Church is to represent God in the earth.  It is His means through which the world is blessed.
 

10. The Ministry

A divinely-called and scripturally-ordained ministry has been provided by our Lord for a threefold purpose of leading the Church in:

   a.   Reaching the world  (Mark 16:15-20),

   b.   Worshipping God  (John 4:23,23)

  c.   Building a body of believers being transformed into the image of his Son  (Ephesians 4:11-  16)
Ministers are people who God has called to be servant-leaders.  God has made everyone capable of ministry.

 

11. The Blessed Hope

The resurrection of Christians who have already passed away and their translation together with those who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord is the imminent and blessed hope of the Church  (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17; Romans 8:23; Titus 2:13; 1 Corinthians 15:51.52).
Jesus will return to set things in order in the earth as they were at the beginning and dwell with mankind.

 

12.  The Final Judgment and The New Heavens and the New Earth

There will be a final judgment in which the wicked dead will be raised and judged according to their works.  Whosoever is not found written in the Book of Life, together with the Devil and his angels, the beast, and the false prophet, will be consigned to everlasting punishment which is the second death  (Matthew 25:46; Mark 9:43-48; Revelation 19:20; 20:11-15; 21:8).
We, according to His promise, look for new heavens and earth, wherein dwells righteousness (2 Peter3:13; Revelation 21- 22).
Every person will be required to stand before God and respond to one issue that will determine their eternity. "What did you do about Jesus, did you accept God's sacrificial gift, or did you reject Him?"

 
© 2007, Life Church Indy
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Times and Directions

Sunday Experiences are at 9:30AM and 11:15AM at the Wayne Township Conference Center (see picture above).  LifeKids is ONLY available during the 11:15AM service.

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Magdalene is a community of love that provides sanctuary, education, treatment and employment for women with a history of prostitution and addiction
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The Magdalene community makes every effort to be a witness to the truth that love is the most powerful force for change in the world. That truth has been revealed to us in countless ways over the past decade as we have watched and been part of the healing that occurs daily at Magdalene. We are grateful for this witness and want to help others replicate Magdalene's model in their own communities. Magdalene was founded not just to help a sub-culture of women, but to help change the culture itself. We stand in solidarity with women who are recovering from sexual abuse, violence, and life on the streets, and who have paid dearly for a culture that buys and sells women like commodities. At Magdalene women bond not only through their desire for sobriety, but also through their common experience of having prostituted to support their addiction. Our experience with women at Magdalene is that it is much easier for them to recover from their addiction to drugs than it is for them to recover from their history of prostitution. Our statistical success at Magdalene has occurred because we provide a long-term, disciplined, and compassionate community, where very isolated women have the opportunity to heal from deep wounds that date back to childhood.
Statement from Board Chair/President
Organizational Category
Human Services - Human Service Organizations
Mental Health & Crisis Intervention - Substance Abuse Prevention
Employment - Employment Preparation & Procurement
Geographic Areas Served
Davidson
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Secret Gospel of Mark
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The Secret Gospel of Mark refers to a non-canonical gospel which is the subject of the Mar Saba letter, a previously unknown letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria which Morton Smith claimed to have found transcribed into the endpapers of a 17th century printed edition of Ignatius. The authenticity of this letter remains in dispute.

Contents [hide]
1 The framing letter and the Secret Gospel
2 Secret Gospels and Gospel Variants
3 The theme of secrecy in the canonic Gospel of Mark
4 Lacunae and continuity
4.1 The Young Man in the Linen Cloth
4.2 The Lacuna in the Trip to Jericho
5 Issues of authenticity
6 Interpretation of Secret Mark
6.1 The theory of a homosexual Jesus in Secret Mark
6.2 The theory of a "secret initiation"
7 Notes
8 References
9 External links

[edit] The framing letter and the Secret Gospel
Main article: Mar Saba letter
The letter is addressed to a follower named Theodore. Clement begins with a condemnation of the Carpocratians, who he says were misusing the Gospel of Mark to further their arguments. But then he speaks of a secret gospel of Mark, which the Carpocratians have obtained. Clement says that Theodore should not "concede that the secret Gospel is by Mark, but should even deny it on oath." But he then goes on to explain how the secret gospel is to be interpreted, using two excerpts.

The first excerpt Clement quotes is to be inserted, he states, between what are verses 34 and 35 of Mark 10:

And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.

The second excerpt is very brief and is to be inserted, according to Clement, in Mark 10:46:

And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them.

While Clement endorses these two passages as authentic to the secret gospel of Mark, he rejects as a Carpocratian corruption of the first excerpt the words "naked man with naked man".

Very shortly after the second excerpt, as Clement begins to explain the passages, the letter breaks off. Just before that, Clement says, "But the many other things about which you wrote both seem to be and are falsifications."

These two excerpts comprise the entirety of the secret gospel material; no separate text of the secret gospel is known to survive, if indeed such a text ever existed. Knowledge of the secret gospel is relegated to reference in another work, and therefore depends for its veracity wholly upon the veracity of the secondary source.

[edit] Secret Gospels and Gospel Variants
Secret gospels are not unknown. The Apocryphon of James, for example, contains expansions upon canonical gospel sayings, though it lacks narrative structure. It refers to secret books in circulation among a select group of the faithful.

The canonical text of Mark, perhaps more so than that of the other canonical gospels, shows internal evidence of undergoing significant textual revision in the early centuries of the church, principally in the ending. At least four main endings of this gospel are preserved. One, from the Codex Washingtonianus, exists as a single Greek manuscript copy. The last twelve verses were additions which are not present in the oldest Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, nor in numerous other copies of this gospel. Clement of Alexandria and Origen do not seem to be acquainted with these verses, and both Jerome and Eusebius stated that the verses were not in the oldest copies of the gospel that they were acquainted with. Many modern mainstream Biblical scholars indicate that these verses are the work of a later individual, though not to convey secret knowledge to a select few, but to smooth out the abrupt ending and harmonize with the other evangelists.

[edit] The theme of secrecy in the canonic Gospel of Mark
The canonic Gospel of Mark reveals that secret teachings were a feature of the message Jesus imparted to his inner circle. This sort of "layered revelation" was a common feature of the mystery religions of the period, and was prevalent in Gnostic Christianity.

The motif of secrecy in Mark is a rather complex one, as was recognized long before the Mar Saba letter was revealed. Robert M. Grant(Grant 1963) identifies both a theme of silence and one of secret or private teachings in Mark. The silence may be that of exorcised demons (1:25, 34; 3:12) or enjoined on men who have been cured (1:43-5; 5:43; 7:36, 8:26), as well as on the disciples themselves: they are to keep private the identification of Jesus as Messiah (8:30), the transfiguration (9:9) or even his whereabouts, whether in Tyre (7:24) or travelling through Galilee (9:30). There is a secret knowledge imparted by Jesus, "the secret of the kingdom of God" (4:10-12). Grant notes that "To a considerable extent the full revelation is given only to the four disciples who were the first to be called (1:16-20, 29; 5:37; 9:2; 13:3; 14:33). Teaching about the passion and resurrection is given only ‘on the road’ apart from the multitudes (8:27; 9:33; 10:32)." (Grant 1963)

On the other hand, the other canonical gospels all portray the period after the resurrection as a time when the remaining mysteries were explained to the disciples. And the theme of teachings hidden in one text but not another is more characteristic of gnostic texts. The Gospel of Judas, for example, recounts teachings supposedly given to Judas but concealed from the other disciples.

[edit] Lacunae and continuity
The two excerpts suggest resolutions to some puzzling passages in the canonical Mark.

[edit] The Young Man in the Linen Cloth
In Mark 14:51-52, a young man in a linen cloth is seized during Jesus' arrest, but he escapes at the cost of his clothing. To some interpreters, this passage may seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the narrative, and it has been suggested that the young man is Mark himself. The first excerpt, however, recounts an earlier encounter of Jesus with such a young man in a cloth. However, the majority of commentators hold that the boy lived in or near the garden and after being awakened, ran out, half-dressed, to see what all the noise was about (vv. 46-49). W. L. Lane thinks that Mark mentioned this episode in order to make it clear that "all [not only the disciples] fled, leaving Jesus alone in the custody of the police."[1]

[edit] The Lacuna in the Trip to Jericho
The second excerpt fills in an apparent lacuna in Mark 10:46:

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.

The lack of any action in Jericho is iterpreted by some as meaning that something has been lost from the text, and the second excerpt gives a brief encounter at this point. Helmut Koester and J. D. Crossan have argued, because of the narrative discontinuity, that Secret Mark preceded the canonical Mark, leaving open the question of whether the canonical Mark is an abbreviated Secret Mark, with an original "Mark for the uninitiated" having been lost.

[edit] Issues of authenticity
The Mar Saba letter itself has been the subject of doubt as to its authenticity, with Stephen C. Carlson and others claiming that it is a modern forgery. Even if it is accepted as a genuine document, however, there still remains the question of its authorship and its testimony to the text of this secret Mark. There are three distinct questions of authenticity:

that of Clement's authorship
that of the citation of the passages
that of the excerpts as reflecting a genuine Marcan tradition
In 1982 Morton Smith summarized the state of the question as follows:

Attribution to Clement was accepted.
Clement's attribution of the excerpts to "Mark" was rejected.
The source of the excerpts was variously ascribed to a separate apocryphal gospel, a pastiche of canonical material, or an expansion of the canonical text using early material of unknown provenance.
However, some modern writers still doubt even the attribution to Clement.

[edit] Interpretation of Secret Mark
The statement "Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God" has been interpreted as a reference to the rites of baptism. The idea that Jesus practised baptism is absent from the synoptic gospels, though it is introduced in the Gospel of John. Several further echoes of Secret Mark are identifiable in the canonic Mark, according to textual analysts.

Further interpretation of Secret Mark in a context within canonical Mark, suggests a correspondence between the youth in Secret Mark, and the mysterious almost-naked figure who is in the company of Jesus but flees when he is arrested at Mark 14:51, and also with the figure present in the empty tomb at Mark 16:5. By understanding the earlier incident in Secret Mark as an initiation, the figure may be symbolic of an individual's progress through Christianity, or as a gnostic esoteric twin of Jesus (compare the name of Didymus Judas Thomas).

[edit] The theory of a homosexual Jesus in Secret Mark
An alternative and more controversial understanding, first implied by Morton Smith, one that also considers these mysterious figures to be the same individual, is that this figure is Jesus' beloved, whom Jesus loves and thus desires to bring back to life. The presence both at the tomb, and the arrest, being indications of the strength of the romance, and an implicit sexual undertone is sometimes taken to be implied by taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. Such a theory also implies that the beloved disciple, mentioned in the Gospel of John (and whom the other disciples wonder if he may ever subsequently die), is in fact this individual (who is usually taken to be John), and may in fact be Lazarus (who, after escaping death, one may wonder whether he may die again).

Clement specifically chooses these passages to counter the Carpocratians' claim that their copy of the text even contains the phrase gymnon gymnō, which means naked man with naked man, indicating an explicitly sexual relationship. While Clement's purpose is to contest such a claim, it is clear, from the fact that he feels he needs to, that the passages were even then, not long after having been written for the first time, being interpreted as indicating a romantic or erotic connection between Jesus and the youth. It is significant, therefore, that Clement does not attempt to contest the implied relation, merely objecting to claims of a lack of chastity, i.e. rejecting the idea they had sex in favour of they fell in love.

These different interpretations provide a neat explanation of many of the more mysterious isolated parts of the gospels as part of a single thread, either one of homosexual romance, or alternately of mystic esoteric initiation. The vast majority of Christians categorically reject the Gnostic nature of the teachings of Jesus as presented in Secret Mark; additionally, the idea that Jesus expresses a sexuality or homosexual nature is upsetting to many Christians.

[edit] The theory of a "secret initiation"
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (February 2007)

Another theory was presented in the May 9, 2005 Issue of the Canadian Magazine Macleans by Brian Bethune:

"One of these techniques is known as intercalation: the evangelist frames one story within another, leading readers to understand the first in light of the second."
In Mark 10:35, James and John ask Christ for positions of higher honour once Jesus is an earthly ruler. Jesus responds "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"

This baptism is thought to represent Jesus' crucifixion[2]. If the boy whom Jesus raised from the dead in the 'Secret Gospel of Mark was taken privately to learn the secret that was available only to those who had died and were "reborn," through knowing Jesus, it would be, by speculation, the true price one has to pay to enter the kingdom of God. However, Jesus' statement in verse 45, that he came "to give his life as a ransom for many," makes such a reading of his previous statement problematic.

Morton Smith did not see this encounter as sexual in nature[citation needed] but saw it as evidence that Jesus gave a secret initiation to certain people into the kingdom of heaven within, this being what was transpiring in the garden with the young man. This, he says, would have been considered sorcery, which was punishable by death in Roman law, and Morton Smith speculated that this might have been the real reason for Christ's death sentence, the reasons normally given being controversial because they allegedly do not fit the strict execution of Roman law at the time.

[edit] Notes
^ Mark (NICNT), pp. 527-28
^ Daniel J. Harrington, Mark (New Jerome Bible Commentary), p. 618.

[edit] References
Stephen C. Carlson, Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark, Baylor University Press, 2005.
Robert M. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament Harper and Row, 1963: Chapter 8: The Gospel of Mark
Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark Harvard University Press, 1973 [the scholarly version].
Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark [updated version 2005 with foreword from Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels]
Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade. in series Studies in Homosexuality, Vol XII: Homosexuality and Religion and Philosophy. Ed. Wayne Dynes & Stephen Donaldson. New York and London: Garland, 1992. pp. 295-307.
Morton Smith, Jesus, the Magician, (New York: Harper & Row) 1978.
The Apocryphon of James, or, "The Secret Book of James" http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/secretjames.html
Catholic Encyclopedia, "Clement of Alexandria," http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04045a.htm
Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1971. pp. 122-126.
Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament, Pilgrim Press, 2003.

[edit] External links
Charles W. Hedrick with Nikolaos Olympiou, "Secret Mark": contains account of manuscript history and color images of the manuscript
Review of Stephen Carlson's "The Gospel Hoax" - review of book which presents evidence that Smith created Secret Mark as a hoax.
Wieland Wilker, "Secret Gospel of Mark Homepage": detailed description of the manuscript, images, Greek and English text, current developments.
Early Christian Writings website: Secret Mark. Text and on-line resources.
Early Christian Writings website: the "Mar Saba Letter" of Clement
The Whole Bible website: Secret Gospel of Mark
Miles Fowler, "Identification of the Bethany Youth in the Secret Gospel of Mark with other Figures Found in Mark and John" proposes that some 1st-century Christians understood that up to five seemingly separate youths now found in Mark, Secret Mark, and John, were identical.
"The Mar Saba Clementine: a question of evidence" in Catholic Biblical Quarterly vol. 37:1, January 1975: pp 48 – 67
Morton Smith, "On the authenticity of the Mar Saba letter of Clement" in Catholic Biblical Quarterly vol 38:2, April 1976: permitted 1500 words to answer Quentin Quesnell, Smith defends his discovery.
Shawn Eyer, "The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel According to Mark: How Morton Smith's Discovery of a Lost Letter by Clement of Alexandria Scandalized Biblical Scholarship": scholarly and popular response to the discovery
Brian Bethune, "Mark's secret gospel": Macleans article discussing the secret gospel and controversy surrounding it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Gospel_of_Mark"
Categories: Articles lacking in-text citations | Cleanup from February 2007 | All pages needing cleanup | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | Christian texts | Christian history | Lost Apocrypha

phone ph. 916-9044

Marsanes

Translated by Birger A. Pearson


    ... (10 lines unrecoverable)
    ... and a reward. They came to know; they found him with a pure heart, (and) they are not afflicted by him with evils. Those who have received you (pl.) will be given their choice reward for endurance, and he will ward off the evils from them. But let none of us be distressed and think in his heart that the great Father [...]. For he looks upon the All and takes care of them all. And he has shown to them his [...]. Those that ...
    ... (10 lines unrecoverable)
    ... at first.

    But as for the thirteenth seal, I have established it, together with the summit of knowledge and the certainty of rest. The first and the second and the third are the worldly and the material. I have informed you concerning these, that you should [...] your bodies. And a sense-perceptible power will [...] those who will rest, and they will be kept from passion and division of the union.

    The fourth and the fifth, which are above, these you have come to know [...] divine. He exists after the [...] and the nature of the [...], that is, the one who [...] three. And I have informed you of [...] in the three [...] by these two. I have informed you concerning it, that it is incorporeal ... (1 line unrecoverable) ... and after [...] within [...] every [...] which [...] your [...]. The fifth, concerning the conversion of those that are within me, and concerning those who dwell in that place.

    But the sixth, concerning the self-begotten ones, concerning the incorporeal being which exists partially, together with those who exist in the truth of the All [...] for understanding and assurance. And the seventh, concerning the self-begotten power, which is the third perfect [...] fourth, concerning salvation and wisdom. And the eighth, concerning the mind, which is male, which appeared in the beginning, and (concerning) the being which is incorporeal and the intelligible world. The ninth, [...] of the power which appeared in the beginning. The tenth, concerning Barbelo, the virgin [...] of the Aeon. The eleventh and the twelfth speak of the Invisible One who possesses three powers, and the Spirit which does not have being, belonging to the first Unbegotten (fem.). The thirteenth speaks concerning the Silent One who was not known, and the primacy of the one who was not distinguished.

    For I am he who has understood that which truly exists, whether partially or wholly, according to difference and sameness, that they exist from the beginning in the entire place which is eternal, <i.e.> all those that have come into existence, whether without being or with being, those who are unbegotten, and the divine aeons, together with the angels, and the souls which are without guile, and the soul-garments, the likenesses of the simple ones. And afterwards, they have been mixed with [...] them. But still [...] the entire being [...] which imitates the incorporeal being and the unsubstantial (fem.). Finally the entire defilement was saved, together with the immortality of the former (fem.). I have deliberated, and have attained to the boundary of the sense-perceptible world. <I have come to know> part by part the entire place of the incorporeal being, and <I> have come to know the intelligible world. <I have come to know>, when <I> was deliberating, whether in every respect the sense-perceptible world is worthy of being saved entirely.

    For I have not ceased speaking of the Self-begotten One, O [...] became [...] part by part the entire place. He descended; again he descended <from> the Unbegotten One who does not have being, who is the Spirit. That one who exists before all of them reaches to the divine Self-engendered One. The one having being searches [...] and he exists [...] and he is like [...] and from [...] dividing [...] I became [...] for many, as it is manifest that he save a multitude.

    But after all of these things, I am seeking the kingdom of the Three-Powered One, which has no beginning. Whence did he appear and act to fill the entire place with his power? And in what way did the unbegotten ones come into existence, since they were not begotten? And what are the differences among the aeons? And as for those who are unbegotten, how many are they? And in what respect do they differ from each other?

    When I had inquired about these things, I perceived that he had worked from silence. He exists from the beginning among those that truly exist, that belong to the One who exists. There is another, existing from the beginning, belonging to the One who works within the Silent One. And the silence [...] him works. For as much as this one [...], that one works from the silence which belongs to the Unbegotten One among the aeons, and from the beginning he does not have being. But the energy of that One <is> the Three-Powered One, the One unbegotten before the Aeon, not having being. And it is possible to behold the supremacy of the silence of the Silent One, i.e., the supremacy of the energy of the Three-Powered. And the One who exists, who is silent, who is above the heaven [...], revealed the Three-Powered, First-Perfect One.

    When he [...] to the powers, they rejoiced. Those that are within me were perfected together with all the rest. And they all blessed the Three-Powered, one by one, who is the First-Perfect One, blessing him in purity, everywhere praising the Lord, who exists before the All, [...] the Three-Powered. [...] their worship [...] myself, and I will still go on inquiring how they had become silent. I will understand a power which I hold in honor.

    The third power of the Three-powered, when it (fem.) had perceived him, said to me, "Be silent in order that you might know; run, and come before me. But know that this One was silent, and obtain understanding." For the power is attending to me, leading me into the Aeon which is Barbelo, the male Virgin.

    For this reason the Virgin became male, because she had been divided from the male. The Knowledge stood outside of him, because it belongs to him. And she who exists, she who sought, possesses (it), just as the Three-Powered One possesses (it). She withdrew from them, from these two powers, since she exists outside of the Great One, as she [...] who is above [...], who is silent, who has this commandment to be silent. His knowledge and his hypostasis and his activity are those things of which the power of the Three-Powered spoke, <saying>, "We all have withdrawn to ourselves. We have become silent, and when we came to know him, that is, the Three-Powered, we bowed down; we [...]; we blessed him [...] upon us." [...].

    [...] the invisible Spirit ran up to his place. The whole place was revealed; the whole place unfolded <until> he reached the upper region. Again he departed; he caused the whole place to be illuminated, and the whole place was illuminated. And you (pl.) have been given the third part of the spirit of the power of the One who possesses the three powers. Blessed is [...]. He said, "O you who dwell in these places, it is necessary for you to know those that are higher than these, and tell them to the powers. For you (sg.) will become elect with the elect ones in the last times, as the invisible Spirits runs up above. And you yourselves, run with him up above, since you have the great crown which [...].

    But on the day [...] will beckon [...] run up above [...] and the sense-perceptible [...] visible [...] and they ...

    (two pages missing, plus 14 lines at top of page after that)

    ... the perception. He is for ever, not having being, in the One who is, who is silent, the One who is from the beginning, who does not have being [...] part of [...] indivisible. The [...] consider a ...
    ... (approx. 20 lines unrecoverable)
    ... I was dwelling among the aeons which have been begotten. As I was permitted, I have come to be among those that were not begotten. But I was dwelling in the great Aeon, as I [...]. And [...] the three powers [...] the One who possesses the three powers. The three powers [...] the Silent One and the Three-Powered One [...] the one that does not have breath. We took our stand [...] in the ...
    ... (approx. 23 lines virtually unrecoverable)
    ... who does not have breath, and he exists in a [...] completely. And I saw [...] him to the great (fem.) [...] they knew him ...
    ... (approx. 21 lines virtually unrecoverable)
    ... is active [...] why, again, (does) knowledge [...] ignorant, and [...] he runs the risk [...] that he become ...
    ... (9 lines virtually unrecoverable)
    ... those [...]. But it is necessary that a [...] does not have form [...] to this one [...] exists before [...] the thought [...] from the beginning [...] the one that ...
    ... (approx. 6 lines unrecoverable)
    ... these [...] look(ed) at [...] in nine [...] the cosmic hebdomad [...] in a day of [...] for ever ...
    ... (8 lines unrecoverable)
    ... and [...] after many years [...], when I saw the Father, I came to know him, and [...] many [...] partial [...] for ever [...] the material ones [...] worldly [...] above [...] in addition ...
    ... (approx. 18 lines unrecoverable)
    ... out of [...] into those that [...] them into [...] name them. And (as for) their nomenclature, bear witness yourselves that you are inferior to their [...] and their hypostasis.

    But in addition, when ...
    ... (approx. 18 lines unrecoverable)
    ... hidden [...] the third power. The blessed Authority (fem.) said [...] among these and [...], i.e., she who does not have [...]. For there is not glory [...] nor even the one who [...]. For indeed, the one who ...
    ... (approx. 18 lines unrecoverable)
    ... and the signs of the Zodiac [...], and the [...], and [...] which do not have [...] acquire for [...] revolution [...]. But the soul(s) [...] there [...] body(s) of this [...] soul(s) of heaven [...] around [...] shape [...] which is ...
    ... (approx. 19 lines virtually unrecoverable)
    ... all the likenesses [...] them [...] all the forms [...] shape(s), so that they [...] and become [...] themselves [...], and the [...] the animals [...], and the ...

    (2 pages missing)

    ... there. But their powers, which are the angels, are in the form of beasts and animals. Some among them are polymorphous, and, contrary to nature, they have for their names which [...]. They are divided and [...] according to the [...] and [...] in form [...]. But these that are aspects of sound according to the third originate from being. And concerning these, all of these (remarks) are sufficient, since we have (already) spoken about them.

    For this division takes place again in these regions in the manner we have mentioned from the beginning. However, the soul, on the other hand, has different shape<s>. The shape of the soul exists in this form, i.e., (the soul) that came into existence of its own accord. The shape is the second spherical part, while the first allows it, eEiou, the self-begotten soul, aeEiouO. The second schema, eEiou, ... by those having two sounds (diphthongs), the first being placed after them ...
    ... (3 lines unrecoverable)
    ... the light.

    Control yourselves, receive the imperishable seed, bear fruit, and do not become attached to your possessions.

    But know that the oxytones exist among the vowels, and the diphthongs which are next to them. But the short are inferior, and the [...] are [...] by them. Those that [...], since they are intermediate [...]. The sounds of the semivowels are superior to the voiceless (consonants). And those that are double are superior to the semivowels, which do not change. But the aspirates are better than the inaspirates (of) the voiceless (consonants). And those that are intermediate will accept their combination in which they are; they are ignorant of the things that are good. They (the vowels) are combined with the intermediates, which are less. Form by form, <they constitute> the nomenclature of the gods and the angels, not because they are mixed with each other according to every form, but only (because) they have a good function. It did not happen that <their> will was revealed.

    Do not keep on sinning, and do not dare to make use of sin.

    But I am speaking to you (sg.) concerning the three [...] shapes of the soul. The third shape of the soul is [...] is a spherical one, put after it, from the simple vowels: eee, iii, ooo, uuu, OOO. The diphthongs were as follows: ai, au, ei, eu, Eu, ou, Ou, oi, Ei, ui, Oi, auei, euEu, oiou, ggg, ggg, ggg, aiau, eieu, Eu, oiou, Ou, ggg, ggg, aueieu, oiou, Eu, three times for a male soul. The third shape is spherical. The second shape, being put after it, has two sounds. The male soul's third shape (consists) of the simple vowels: aaa, eee, EEE, iii, ooo, uuu, OOO, OOO, OOO. And this shape is different from the first, but they resemble each other, and they make some ordinary sounds of this sort: aeEoO. And from these (are made) the diphthongs.

    So also the fourth and the fifth. With regard to them, they were not allowed to reveal the whole topic, but only those things that are apparent. You (pl.) were taught about them, that you should perceive them, in order that they, too, might all seek and find who they are, either by themselves alone [...], or by each other, or to reveal destinies that have been determined from the beginning, either with reference to themselves alone, or with reference to one another, just as they exist with each other in sound, whether partially or formally.

    They are commanded to submit, for their part is generated and formal. (They are commanded) either by the long (vowels), or by those of dual time value, or by the short (vowels), which are small [...], or the oxytones, or the intermediates, or the barytones.

    And consonants exist with the vowels, and individually they are commanded and they submit. The constitute the nomenclature of the angels. And the consonants are self-existent, and as they are changed, <they> submit to the hidden gods by means of beat and pitch and silence and impulse. They summon the semivowels, all of which submit to them with one accord, since it is only the unchanging double (consonants) that coexist with the semivowels.

    But the aspirates and the inaspirates and the intermediates constitute the voiceless (consonants). Again [...] they are combined with each other, and they are separate from one another. They are commanded and they submit, and they constitute an ignorant nomenclature. And they become one or two or three or four or five or six, up to seven, having a simple sound, <together with> these which have two sounds, [...] the place of the seventeen consonants. Among the first names, some are less. And since these do not have being, either they are an aspect of being, or they divide the nature of the mind, which is masculine, (and) which is intermediate.

    And you (sg.) put in those that resemble each other with the vowels and the consonants. Some are: bagadazatha, begedezethe, bEgEdEzEthE, bigidizithi, bogodozotho, buguduzuthu, bOgOdOzOthO. And the rest [...] babebEbibobubO. But the rest are different: abebEbibob, in order that you (sg.) might collect them, and be separated from the angels.

    And there will be some effects. The first (fem.), which is good, is from the triad. It [...] has need of ... (1 line unrecoverable) ... their shapes. <The> dyad and the monad do not resemble anything, but they are first to exist. The dyad, being divided, is divided from the monad, and it belongs to the hypostasis. But the tetrad received (the) elements, and the pentad received concord, and the hexad was perfected by itself. The hebdomad received beauty, and the ogdoad received [...] ready ... (1 line unrecoverable) ... greatly. And the decad revealed the whole place. But the eleven and the twelve have traversed [...] not having [...] it is higher [...] seven ...
    ... (9 lines virtually unrecoverable)
    ... promise that [...] begin to separate them by means of a mark and a point, the one which quarrels from the one which is an enemy.

    Thus [...] of being ... (1 line unrecoverable) ... the letters [...] in a holy or according to a bond existing separately. And <they> exist with each other in generation or in birth. And according to [...] generation, they do not have [...] these ...
    ... (10 lines unrecoverable)
    ... one [...] speaking the riddle.

    Because within the sense-perceptible world there exists the temple, which measures seven hundred cubits, and a river, which [...] within [...] for ever, they [...] three [...] to the four [...] seals [...] clouds, and the waters, and the forms of the wax images, and some emerald likenesses.

    For the rest, I will teach you (sg.) about them. This is the generation of the names. That (fem.) which was not generated [...] from the beginning ...
    ... (9 lines virtually unrecoverable)
    ... time(s), when confined, when spread out, when diminished. But there exists the gentle word, and there exists another word which approaches, being [...] in this manner ... (1 line unrecoverable) ... And he [...] the difference [...] and the [...] the all and a [...] the undivided beings, and the power [...] having a share in the joy separately and [...], whether ...
    ... (7 lines unrecoverable)
    ... power [...] he exists in every place, [...] them always. He dwells with the corporeal and the incorporeal ones.

    This is the word of the hypostasis that one should [...] in this way: if [...] with their [...] helping those who stir up the [...] manifest [...]. If one knows him, he will call upon him.

    But there are words, some of which are two, but others existing separately ...
    ... (10 lines virtually unrecoverable)
    ... or according to those that have duration. And these either are separate from them, or they are joined to one another or with themselves, either the diphthongs, or the simple vowels, or every [...] or [...] or [...] exist just as [...] exist [...] the consonants [...] they exist individually until they are divided and doubled. Some have the power [...] according the letters that are consonants ...
    ... (8 lines virtually unrecoverable)
    ... by themselves [...] and three (times) for the vowels, and twice for the consonants, and once for the entire place, and with ignorance for those which are subject to change [...] which became [...] together with the entire place [...] finally.

    And [...] they all [...] they are hidden, but they were pronounced openly. They did not stop without being revealed, nor did they stop without naming the angels. The vowels join the consonants, whether without or within, [...] they said [...] teach you (sg.) [...] again for ever. They were counted four times, (and) they were engendered three times, and they became ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    For these reasons, we have acquired sufficiency; for it is fitting that each one acquire power for himself to bear fruit, and that we never cast aspersions on the mysteries [...] the [...]. For [...], which is [...] the souls [...] the signs of the Zodiac [...] a new hypostasis.

    And the reward which will be provided for such a one is salvation. But the opposite will happen there to the one who commits sin. The one who commits sin by himself [...] will be in a [...] in a ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    ... in order that before you (sg.) examine the one who <...>, one might tell another about an exalted power, and a divine knowledge, and a might which cannot be resisted. But you shall examine who is worthy that he should reveal them, knowing that those who commit sin [...] down to [...] as they [...] the Father [...] that which is fitting. Do not desire to give power to the sense-perceptible world. Are you (pl.) not attending to me, who have received salvation from the intelligible world? But (as for) these <words> - watch yourselves - do not [...] them as a(n) ...
    ... (3 lines unrecoverable)
    ... understand [...], and he takes [...] the rest, I will speak of them. The perfection [...], in order that it might increase [...] who commit sin ... (1 line unrecoverable) ... the embodied souls did not understand them. Those that are upon the earth, as well as those outside of the body, those in heaven, are more than the angels. The place which we talked about in every discourse, these [...] stars ... (1 line unrecoverable) ... book(s) [...] whether already [...] into the [...]. Blessed is [...], whether he is gazing at the two, or he is gazing at the seven planets, or at the twelve signs of the Zodiac, or at the thirty-six Decans ...
    ... (9 lines virtually unrecoverable)
    ... and these numbers, whether those in heaven or those upon the earth, together with those that are under the earth, according to the relationships and the divisions among these, and in the rest [...] parts according to kind and according to species ... (1 line unrecoverable) ... they will submit, since she has power [...] above [...] they exist apart ...

    (Of the remaining 26 pages, 10 are missing and the remaining 16 are so badly decomposed that only a few scattered words and phrases are recognizable.)

Marsanes

phone 765-722-0198

<html><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/cardwell.bob/Bobphotos/photo?authkey=ZDx3Zocm4Kc#5125408146903837474"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/cardwell.bob/RyEbjdUYqyI/AAAAAAAABxk/4NUiOEtks3U/s800/md0905_01_img_1.jpeg" /></a></html>

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https://www.evernote.com/shard/s24/res/a17b000f-c28b-43da-b5a3-54f308b3b12c/Medicare%20Enrollment%20Receipt%20English.pdf

OVERVIEW

PURPOSE
bullet To present a coherent clinical model for assessing and treating anger.
bullet To learn how to use anger management training.

OBJECTIVES

To be able to:

bullet Discuss the nature of anger.
bullet Differentiate between “bad” anger and “good” anger.
bullet Track anger; recognize anger patterns and anger cycles.
bullet Implement the Meichenbaum Model to assist in anger management.
bullet Apply relapse prevention measures.

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS FOR WORKERS
bullet Anger is a human emotion.
bullet Anger, like all emotions, is not inherently unhealthy.
bullet Anger is often secondary.
bullet Anger may be addictive.
bullet Anger may be related to frustration or the lack of problem-solving skills.
bullet Anger may be suppressed, only to be expressed while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
bullet Successful management of anger can remove significant barriers to individual, family and community progress.

AGENDA

I. Introduction
A. Anger Management Training.
B. Aggressiveness and assertiveness.

II. Differentiate between “good anger” and “bad anger.”
A. “Good anger”
1. Anger can give you energy.
2. Anger can help you talk with others.
3. Anger can give you information.
4. Anger can motivate.
B. “Bad anger”
1. Anger stops you from thinking, feeling and acting clearly.
2. Anger occurs more frequently than necessary.
3. Anger is the energy that directs aggression.

III. Track anger; recognizing anger patterns and anger cycles.
A. Tracking anger.
B. Recognizing anger patterns.
C. Recognizing anger cycles.

IV. Present and Demonstrate the Meichenbaum Model
A. Cognitive Preparation.
B. Confronting and coping.
C. Dealing with temporary difficulties.
D. Assessing and self-reinforcement.

V. Describe Relapse Prevention
bullet Anger is a common response. It may be overt or covert, expressed openly, misdirected or disguised as depression or aggression.
bullet Anger may be a symptom of an underlying psychological disorder.
bullet Anger may be constructive if it leads to positive change.
bullet Anger is destructive if it leads to violence or aggression.

ANGER'S GOOD AND BAD EFFECTS

Anger, like other emotions, is neutral. It may be uncomfortable or undesirable. However, it is the effects of anger that may be problematic.

Good Effects:

1. Anger gives energy. If there is danger, anger can provide an extra boost to move you away from a situation.
2. Anger can motivate individuals to talk. If there is a problem and you are willing to talk about issues, much
good can be done for you and others.
3. Anger can provide information. Anger indicates that something is wrong.
4. Anger can motivate individuals to take control of their lives. Self-control is a sign of good mental health.
5. Anger can signal the need to problem-solve. Taking constructive action to resolve problems makes individuals
feel competent.

Bad Effects:

1. Anger can stop individuals from thinking, feeling and acting clearly.
2. Anger has an addictive quality resulting in greater frequency than is needed.
3. Anger may lead to aggression. Anger can build up and result in violence to self or others. When anger leads to aggression both suicide and homicide become real possibilities.
4. Anger affects relationships. Anger is incompatible with intimacy, a necessary ingredient in all good relationships.

MANAGING ANGER THROUGH TRACKS, PATTERNS AND CYCLES

Managing anger is not magic, but is a skill. Tracking anger, understanding patterns and cycles can help in managing anger.

Tracking steps include:
A. Cognitions (knowing what angers you)
B. Affect (feelings when you become angry)
C. Behavior (how you act and what you do when angry)

The tracking model

Anger patterns include:
A. Withdrawal/isolation
B. Yelling and shouting
C. Threats
D. Shoving/slapping/punching
E. Violence

Anger cycles include:

A. Pretends to be normal phase
B. Building up phase
C. Acting out phase
D. Downward spiral phase
E. Pretends to be normal phase

MEICHENBAUM MODEL OF ANGER MANAGEMENT INOCULATION TRAINING

An analogue of biological immunization, Anger Inoculation Training prepares clients to deal with anger by teaching self-control strategies and then exposing the individual to the stressful situations either in vivo or vicariously.

The four phases of Anger Inoculation Training include:

1. Cognitive Preparation. Clients are provided with an adaptive way to view and understand their negative reactions. Clients are told that they can learn coping skills that will allow them to reconceptualize and deal with such situations without becoming emotionally upset.

2. Confronting and Coping. The client learns coping skills, primarily restructuring. Clients are taught to monitor their negative, maladaptive thoughts when faced with angry situations and to replace them with coping self-statements. When clients have mastered a number of coping skills, they are ready to be exposed to angry situations where they can use their newly acquired skills.

3. Dealing with Temporary Difficulties. Temporary difficulties in coping are noted and replaced with other strategies.

4. Assessing and self-reinforcement. Assessment alternatives are: partially successful coping and successful coping.

STRESS INOCULATION FOR FEAR OR ANXIETY, ANGER, AND PAIN

Examples of Coping Self-Statements

STAGE OF COPING

ANGER
1. Preparing What do I have to do?
This is going to upset me, but I know how to deal with it.
I can manage the situation. I know how to regulate my anger.
Easy does it.
Remember to keep your sense of humor.
2. Confronting & Coping Think of what you want to get out of this.
There is no point in getting mad.
I’m not going to let him (or her) get to me.
Look for the positives.
Don’t assume the worst or jump to conclusions.
3. Dealing with Temporary Difficulties
My muscles are starting to feel tight.
Time to relax and slow things down.
I have a right to be annoyed, but let’s keep the lid on.
My anger is a signal of what I need to do.
Time to instruct myself.
Try to reason it out.
Treat each other with respect.
4. and 5. Assessing
Self-Reinforcement Partially Successful Coping

These are difficult situations and they take time to straighten out.
I’ll get better at this as I get more practice.
Can I laugh about this?
It’s probably not so serious.

Successful Coping

I handled the one pretty well. It worked.
I actually got through that without getting angry.
That wasn’t as hard as I thought.

RELAPSE PREVENTION

Relapse prevention is a process for emotional (feelings), cognitive (thoughts) and behavioral (actions) self-management of a problem behavior. The relapse processes happens in the first two parts of the anger cycle (the Pretends To Be Normal Phase and the Build-Up Phase). When individuals work on Relapse Prevention Skills, they are less likely to get to the Acting Out Phase. Instead they get into the Anger Action and Resolution Phases.

Relapse Prevention Procedures

1. Client and therapist discuss the commitment and make preparation for the individual’s journey to freedom from “Bad Anger.”

2. Identify High Risk Factors (defined as circumstances, situations, triggering events, thoughts, feelings, and behavior that occur in your life just before you act in an angry manner).

3. Identify perceived level of self-efficacy (client confidence) in facing each high risk situation.

4. Educate the client regarding covert set-ups.

5. Focus on successful coping and partially successful coping and provide reinforcement according.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bums, David. (1980) Feeling Good. New York: William Morrow.

Cullen, M. And Freeman-Longo, R.E. (1995) Men to Anger. Vermont: The Safer Society Press.

Lerner, H.G. (1985) The Dance of Anger. New York: Harper & Row.

Meichenbaum, D. (1990) Stress Inoculation Training New York: Pergamon Press.

Nyc, B. (1995) Understanding and Managing Your Anger and Aggression. Washington: BCA Publishing.

Sonkin, D.J. (1990) The Wounded Man: Healing from Childhood Abuse. California: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Sonkin, D.J. & Durphy, M. (1989) Learning to Live Without Violence. California: Volcano Press.

‘Weisinger, H. (1985) Anger Workout Book New York: Quill.

Melchizedek

Translated by Søren Giversen and Birger A. Pearson


    Jesus Christ, the Son of God [...] from ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    ... the aeons, that I might tell all of the aeons, and, in (the case of) each one of the aeons, that I might tell the nature of the aeon, what it is, and that I might put on friendship and goodness as a garment, O brother, [...] and ...
    ... (7 lines unrecoverable)
    ... their end [...]. And he will reveal to them the truth [...] in ...
    ... (3 lines unrecoverable)
    ... proverb(s) ...
    ... (lines 26-eop [=end of page], and first 2 lines of next page, unrecoverable)
    ... at first in parables and riddles [...] proclaim them. Death will tremble and be angry, not only he himself, but also his fellow world-ruling archons, and the principalities and the authorities, the female gods and the male gods, together with the archangels. And ...
    ... (4 lines unrecoverable)
    ... all of them, [...] the world-rulers [...], all of them, and all the [...], and all the [...].

    They will say [...] concerning him, and concerning [...] and ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    ... they will [...] hidden mysteries ...
    ... (lines 27-eop, and first 2 lines of next page, unrecoverable)
    ... out of [...] the All. They will [...] this. The lawyers will bury him quickly. They will call him 'impious man', 'lawless', 'impure'. And on the third day, he will rise from the dead ...
    ... (lines 12-eop, and first 3 lines of next page, unrecoverable)
    ... holy disciples. And the Savior will reveal to them the world that gives life to the All.

    But those in the heavens spoke many words, together with those on the earth, and those under the earth. ...
    ... (lines 11-eop unrecoverable)

    ... which will happen in his name. Furthermore, they will say of him that he is unbegotten, though he has been begotten, (that) he does not eat, even though he eats, (that) he does not drink, even though he drinks, (that) he is uncircumcised, though he has been circumcised, (that) he is unfleshly, though he has come in the flesh, (that) he did not come to suffering, <though> he came to suffering, (that) he did not rise from the dead, <though> he arose from the dead.

    But all the tribes and all the peoples will speak the truth who are receiving from you yourself, O Melchizedek, Holy One, High-Priest, the perfect hope and the gifts of life. I am Gamaliel, who was sent to [...] the congregation of the children of Seth, who are above thousands of thousands, and myriads of myriads, of the aeons [...] essence of the aeons, aba[...] aiai ababa. O divine [...] of the [...] nature [...]! O Mother of the aeons, Barbelo! O first-born of the aeons, splendid Doxomedon Dom[...]! O glorious one, Jesus Christ! O chief commanders of the luminaries, you powers Armozel, Oroiael, Daveithe, Eleleth, and you man-of-light, immortal aeon Pigera-Adamas, and you good god of the beneficent worlds, Mirocheirothetou, through Jesus Christ, the Son of God! This is the one whom I proclaim, inasmuch as there has visited the One who truly exists, among those who exist [...] do(es) not exist, Abel Baruch - that you (sg.) might be given the knowledge of the truth [...], that he is from the race of the High-priest, which is above thousands of thousands, and myriads of myriads, of the aeons. The adverse spirits are ignorant of him, and (of) their (own) destruction. Not only (that, but) I have come to reveal to you the truth, which is within the brethren. He included himself in the living offering, together with your offspring. He offered them up as an offering to the All. For it is not cattle that you will offer up for sin(s) of unbelief, and for the ignorances, and (for) all the wicked deeds which they will do [...]. And they do not reach the Father of the All [...] the faith ...
    ... (20 lines unrecoverable)

    For the waters which are above [...] that receive baptism [...]. But receive that baptism which is with the water which [...], while he is coming ...
    ... (3 lines unrecoverable)
    ... baptism as they ...
    ... (18 lines unrecoverable)
    ... pray for the offspring of the archons and all the angels, together with the seed <which> flowed forth from the Father of the All [...] the entire [...] from [...] there were engendered the gods and the angels, and the men [...] out of the seed, all of the natures, those in the heavens and those upon the earth and those under the earth ...
    ... (14 lines unrecoverable)
    ... nature of the females [...], among those that are in the [...]. They were bound with [...] But this is not (the) true Adam nor (the) true Eve.

    For when they ate of the tree of knowledge, they trampled the Cherubim and the Seraphim with the flaming sword. They [...], which was Adam's, [...] the world-rulers, and [...] them out [...] after they had brought forth [...] offspring of the archons and their worldly things, these belonging to ...
    ... (13 lines unrecoverable)
    ... light [...]. And the females and the males, those who exist with [...] hidden from every nature, and they will renounce the archons [...] who receive from him the [...]. For they are worthy of [...] immortal, and great [...], and great [...], and great [...] sons of men [...] disciples [...] image, and [...] from the light [...] which is holy. For [...] from the beginning [...] a seed ...
    ... (lines 13-eop unrecoverable)

    But I will be silent [...], for we are the brethren who came down from the living [...]. They will [...] upon the ...
    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... of Adam, [...], Abel, Enoch, Noah, [...] you, Melchizedek, the Priest of God Most High, [...] those who [...] women ...
    ... (lines 14-eop unrecoverable)
    ... these two who have been chosen will at no time nor in any place will they be convicted, whenever they have been begotten, by their enemies, by their friends, nor by strangers, nor their (own) kin, (nor) by the impious, nor the pious. All of the adverse natures will [...] them, whether those that are manifest, or those that are not manifest, together with those that dwell in the heavens, and those that are upon the earth, and those that are under the earth. They will make war [...] every one. For [...], whether in the ...
    ... (3 lines unrecoverable)
    ... many ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    And these in the [...] every one will [...]. These will [...] with every blow [...] weaknesses. These will be confined in other forms, and will be punished. These the Savior will take them away, and they will overcome everything, not with their mouths and words, but by means of the [...], which will be done for them. He will destroy Death.

    These things which I was commanded to reveal, these things reveal as I (have done). But that which is hidden, do not reveal to anyone, unless it is revealed to you (to do so)."

    And immediately, I arose, I, Melchizedek, and I began to [...] God [...] that I should rejoice ...
    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... while he is acting [...] living [...] I said, "I ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    ... and I will not cease, from now on, forever, O Father of the All, because you have had pity on men, and you have sent the angel of light [...] from your aeons [...] to reveal [...]. When he came, he caused me to be raised up from ignorance, and (from) the fructification of death to life. For I have a name: I am Melchizedek, the Priest of God Most High; I know that it is I who am truly the image of the true High-Priest of God Most High, and [...] the world. For it is not a small thing that God [...] with [...] while he [...]. And [...] the angels that dwell upon the earth ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    ... is the sacrifice of [...], whom Death deceived. When he died, he bound them with the natures which are leading them astray. Yet he offered up offerings [...] cattle, saying, "I gave them to Death, and the angels, and the [...] demons [...] living offering [...]. I have offered up myself to you as an offering, together with those that are mine, to you yourself, (O) Father of the All, and those whom you love, who have come forth from you who are holy (and) living. And <according to> the perfect laws, I shall pronounce my name as I receive baptism now (and) forever, (as a name) among the living (and) holy names, and (now) in the waters. Amen."

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, O Father of the All, who truly exists, [...] do(es) not exist, Abel Baruch [...], for ever and ever, Amen.

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, Mother of the aeons, Barbelo, for ever and ever, Amen.

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, First-born of the aeons, Doxomedon [...], for ever and ever, Amen.

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    ... for ever and ever, Amen.

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, ...
    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... first aeon, Harmozel, for ever and ever, Amen.

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, commander, luminary of the aeons, Oriael, for ever and ever, Amen.

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, commander of the aeons, man-of-light, Daveithe, for ever and ever. Amen.

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, commander-in-chief, Eleleth ...
    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... the aeons ...
    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... for ever and ever, Amen.

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, good god of the beneficent words, ... Mirocheirothetou, for ever and ever, Amen.

    Holy are you, Holy are you, Holy are you, Commander-in-chief of the All, Jesus Christ, for ever and ever, Amen.

    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... blessed [...] confession. And [...] confess him [...] now [...], then it becomes [...] fear and [...], fear and [...] disturb [...] surrounding them [...], in the place which has a great darkness in it, and many [...] appear [...] there [...] appear ...
    ... (lines 23-eop unrecoverable)
    And [...] they were clothed with [...] all, and ...
    ... (6 lines unrecoverable)
    ... disturbances. They gave [...] their words [...], and they said to me, "[...], Melchizedek, Priest of God Most High," [...] they spoke as though [...] their mouths [...] in the All ...
    ... (7 lines unrecoverable)
    ... lead astray ...
    ... (lines 25-eop unrecoverable)
    ... with his [...] worship, and [...] faith, and [...] his prayers, and ...
    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... those that are his [...] first ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    ... They did not care that the priesthood which you perform, which is from ...
    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... in the counsels of [...] Satan [...], the sacrifice [...] his doctrines ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    ... of this aeon ...
    ... (4 lines unrecoverable)
    ... which exist(s) in [...], lead(s) astray ...
    ... (lines 27-eop unrecoverable)
    ... and some ...
    ... (2 lines unrecoverable)
    ... he gave them to ...
    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... and thirteen ...
    ... (lines 7-eop unrecoverable)

    ... throw him [...], in order that you might ...
    ... (1 line unrecoverable)
    ... for immediately, [...], by means of [...] on the ground. The ...
    ... (lines 7-eop unrecoverable)

    (pp.23-24 of the codex are almost completely missing)

    ... men. And [...] you (pl.) struck me, [...] you threw me, [...] corpse. And you crucified me from the third hour of the Sabbath-eve until the ninth hour. And after these things, I arose from the dead, [...] came out of [...] into me, [...] my eyes saw [...], they did not find anyone ...
    ... (lines 13-eop unrecoverable)

    ... greeted me [...]. They said to me, "Be strong, O Melchizedek, great High-priest of God Most High, for the archons, who are your enemies, made war; (but) you have prevailed over them, and they did not prevail over you, and you endured, and you destroyed your enemies. [...] of their [...] will rest in any [...] which is living (and) holy [...] those that exalted themselves against him in [...] flesh ...
    ... (lines 15-eop unrecoverable)

    "... with offerings, working on that which is good, fasting with fasts. These revelations, do not reveal to anyone in the flesh, since they are incorporeal, unless it is revealed to you (to do so)."

    When the brethren who belong to the generations of life had said these things, they were taken up to (the regions) above all the heavens. Amen.

phone 812-767-4884

Meritocracy is a system of a government or another organization wherein appointments are made and responsibilities are given based on demonstrated ability (merit) and talent rather than by wealth (plutocracy), family connections (nepotism), class privilege, cronyism, popularity (as in democracy[dubious – discuss]) or other historical determinants of social position and political power.

The word "meritocracy" is now also often used to describe a type of society where wealth, position, and social status are in part assigned through competition or demonstrated talent and competence, on the premise that positions of trust, responsibility and social prestige should be earned, not inherited or assigned on arbitrary quotas. Meritocracy is used[citation needed] both to describe or even criticize competitive societies, that could accept large inequalities of income, wealth and status amongst the population as a function of perceived talent[citation needed], merit, competence, motivation and e

phone  926-1334

Ph.  x 4343

How to Memorize Using Mnemonics
Health care are tricks to help you remember information. Mnemonics come in several varieties, allowing you to choose what works for you. Some mnemonics enjoy widespread use because they are easy and effective, but you can always make up your own.

Types of Mnemonics
Visual – Visual mnemonics involve creating visual images that sound like the information that is to be remembered. The image should be in some way related to the information. For example, if you are trying to remember that an event took place in Chillicothe, Ohio, you could visualize a cup of coffee sitting in a freezer (chilly coffee). The cup could have a picture of the state of Ohio on it to help you in remembering that Chillicothe is in Ohio.
This can be helpful in learning another language also. For example, rey is the Spanish word for king or monarch. You could visualize a crown with rays of light coming out from it. The Spanish verb caminar means “to walk,” so you could visualize an old El Camino model of car that is broken down, forcing you to walk.

Acronym – Acronyms use the first letter of each word to be remembered to create an easy-to-remember word. A well-known example of this is ROY G. BIV. The letters stand for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, which are the colors of the spectrum in order.
A variation of the acronym mnemonic is to use the letters to create a simple sentence. In the case of the spectrum colors, students in Britain often use “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain” as their memory device.

Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach represents Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species (taxonomy classifications, often appear in biology).
The order of sharps in music can be remembered with Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battles. Reverse that to Battles End and Down Goes Charles’ Father to get the order for flats.

RAVEN stands for Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun. This is used to remember the difference between affect and effect.

Journey – Also known as Method of Loci, journey mnemonics simply involve taking a journey with the information. Basically, you walk through a familiar area and visualize the information in prominent locations. For example, you may walk through your home, from the entrance to your bedroom. Throughout your walk, you see famous paintings or sculptures along the walls, floor, or on the doors. By mentally retracing those steps during your art history exam, you are able to remember the artists and their works.

This method does not have to be used with paintings, sculptures or other obviously visual items. You can combine this method with the visual technique to use it for any subject. For example, the crown with rays of light coming out of it may be hanging on your bedpost, while the El Camino is parked outside your window.
Rhymes – Rhymes and catchy phrases are an excellent mnemonic. They don’t have to be complicated and can be used for anything.

I before E, except after C. This spelling mnemonic also comes in variations like “I before E, except after C, and weird is just weird” or “I before E, except after C, or when sounded like A, as in neighbor and weigh.”
For weather, the rhyme “Red skies at night, sailors delight; Red skies at morning, sailors take warning.”
This group includes simple phrases like “There are 3 e’s buried in the cemetery.”
For stalactites and stalagmites, remember that as the mites go up, the tites (tights) go down.
Principle and principal – To remember which one you find in a school, use the saying, “The princiPAL is my PAL.”
“How I wish I could calculate pi.” The number of letters in each word represents one digit of pi (How=3, I=1, etc.), giving you 3.141592.
Associations – Another way to remember information is to associate the information with something easy to remember. While associations can be loosely grouped with other types of mnemonics, they are actually a little different.

Stalactites and stalagmites can be remembered by remembering G for ground and C for ceiling.
Dessert and desert – In strawberry shortcake and dessert, the letter s appears twice. In Sahara and desert, the letter s appears once.
For a physical take on associations, look at your hands. Starting with your left pinky knuckle, name the months. The months that fall in the spaces between the knuckles have 30 days, except for February, and the months that land on knuckles have 31. *Note-When you get to the index finger, you move to the knuckle for the index finger on the right hand. July and August both have 31
days.

Another physical mnemonic is that you can form an L with the thumb and index finger of the left hand. With the right hand, the L is backwards, with the base pointing toward the left hand. This one is useful for children who are learning left and right.
Mnemonics can make studying a much easier process, regardless of your grade level. Mnemonics do not have to be logical, sensible or even related to your subject, and your favorites may not work for other people. The trick is to make sure your mnemonic is something you can remember.

An easily memorable technique is to use a common set of word-number pairs, such as: 1=bun, 2=shoe, 3=tree, 4=door, 5=hive, 6=sticks, 7=heaven, 8=gate, 9=vine, 10=pen. Then take this list and pair with a new list of ten words you wish to remember. These words are "pegged" to the number.

The next step is to use the peg word and the new word in a sentence. It helps to use outlandish and outrageous mental imagery.

Let's go through the first two steps.

1=bun One rhymes with bun.

Imagine a lone solitary bun on a plate. This one bun on one plate.

2=shoe Two rhymes with shoe.

Most people wear one two shoes. Imagine two shoes sitting under a table with one bun on a plate.

3=tree Three rhymes with tree. The tree had three branches.

While sitting at my table, I removed my two shoes, and then was preparing to eat my one bun as I gazed at my three branched tree.

4= door Four rhymes with door. The door had four sides.

While sitting at my table, I removed my two shoes, and then was preparing to eat my one bun as I gazed at my three branched tree. Suddenly I heard a four knocks on the door.

5 = hive Five rhymes with hive. There was five bees flying around the hive.

6=sticks Six rhymes with sticks. The knocking visitor had six sticks of peppermint.

7=heaven Seven rhymes with heaven. The visitor was allergic to stings and he ran and screamed seven times, " I am not ready for Heaven."

8=gate Eight rhymes with gate. He ran the eight feet to the gate.

9=vine Nine rhymes with vine. The vine wrapped nine times around the gate.

While sitting at my table, I removed my two shoes, and then was preparing to eat my one bun as I gazed at my three branched tree. Suddenly I heard a four knocks on the door. The knocks awaken the hive of bees and five flew to the window. Smelling sweetness the five bees flew to the visitor who had six sticks of peppermint in his pocket. The visitor was allergic to stings and he ran and screamed seven times, " I am not ready for Heaven." He ran the eight feet to the gate. The vine wrapped nine times around the gate and held strong when the visitor caught his foot in a loop and fell to the ground.

10=pen Ten rhymes with pen. Usually a person has ten fingers to use a pen.

After completing the above exercise you should have a ten word, ten number, memory peg board,
You should be able to remember the list of ten.

Now you can use your memory peg board to remember the key words of the Ten Commandments of Impulse Control.

Attitude = 1 = bun

Aptitude = 2 = shoe

Altitude = 3 = tree

Amplitude = 4 = door

Apparition = 5 = hive

Act = 6 = sticks

Abuse of Substance = 7 = heaven

Anxiety = 8 = gate

Anger = 9 = vine

Atmosphere = 10 = pen

Now come of with a sentence which will help you remember each key word.

1. Amy Winehouse has a big bun on her head and exhibits a bad attitude.

2. Amy Winehouse has a natural aptitude for composing music and picking outrageous high heeled shoes.

3. Amy Winehouse climbed the tree because she needed a higher altitude to see over the sea of fans.

4. Amy Winehouse has to sing louder than a slamming door to be heard over the the amplitude level of the background music.

5. Amy Winehouse has a bee hive hairdo and is so thin she looks like an apparition.

6. Amy Winehouse puts on a great act, but she really is as skinny as six sticks.

7.Amy Winehouse abuse substances like crack and may shortly go to heaven.

8. Amy Winehouse may abuse drugs because of her anxiety but she is at the gate of death.

9. Amy Winehouse is so skinny that when she is angry her vein look like vines running through her arms.

10.Amy Winehouse's music creates an old R and B atmosphere and the words of her pen leaves tracks of the blues.

http://www.mrhappyusa.com/


Sue Godsey's brother

http://www.jamendo.com/en/

<html><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BtHb1wfDNBo&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BtHb1wfDNBo&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></html>

[img[http://www.fapc-mky.org/photos/BroHubEmbry-200w.jpg]]
Pastor Hub Embry

     In the 1930's, Holiness (See [[Holiness movement]]) began to be preached in the Morgantown area by Bro. Will Johnson. People began to hunger for the truth. This led to many brush harbor meetings, store front meetings, and house meetings.

<html><table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ME0vETVBwwR8469QIcT-3w?authkey=5EyAE3sntJc"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_fwukQ1dvAw8/SShA41pD0KI/AAAAAAAAEQs/lg2Q06pHGkY/s288/158819314_4d35e9716a_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/cardwell.bob/DropBox?authkey=5EyAE3sntJc">Drop Box</a></td></tr></table></html>

     In 1937, John W. Woodcock donated land to build a church on the outskirts of town. These trustees: John W. Woodcock, John Wesley Johnson, Hub Embry, Herman Embry, and Cecil Phelps, along with others, built the church. They were in that one-room building for 16 years. That building is still standing and is used once a year for homecoming. It was Pastored by Bro. Hub Embry along with his wife Sis. Bessie.

<html><table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/exhkd7Ek8qjEdYjZf_DPfw?authkey=5EyAE3sntJc"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_fwukQ1dvAw8/SSg_o3DsuQI/AAAAAAAAEQE/VC_EJjgMX-I/s288/davecoat.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/cardwell.bob/DropBox?authkey=5EyAE3sntJc">Drop Box</a></td></tr></table></html>
My Great Grandfather Dave Gaskey [one of the founders of the church]



     In 1953, the Lord blessed and they acquired a building in town. Bro. Hub Embry pastored until 1983 when he passed away. Then Rev. Elgie Johnson, son of Bro. Will Johnson, became pastor. While he was there the church was remodeled and a fellowship hall/ Sunday school classes were added. And the building was bricked in 1988.

     After Bro. Elgie Johnson, many oher ministers came and filled the role as pastor.

     In 1995, Bro, Mike Anderson began to pastor. He updated some remodeling and worked very hard for the church. He labored there 9 years and won souls to the Lord. In 2004 Bro. Brian Neighbors became pastor.



[img[http://www.fapc-mky.org/photos/Church-May-1973.jpg]]
Church Picture - May 1973 [the way I remember in from the early 60's]

The Present Pastor

The Neighbors Family
     Pastor Brian Neighbors was born on June 13, 1976 to Pentecostal parents. He first received the Holy Ghost at the age of 12. He married his wife, Sister Becky Neighbors, who was also raised apostolic, on April 1st, 1995. They have two children; Brooklyn age 9 and BJ age 7. They started attending Belton Pentecostal Church in May of 1998. They served the Lord and the church in faithfulness.
     Bro, Brian started preaching in early 1999. Bro. Brian is licensed with the United Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, Inc. He started pastoring in July, 2004.

Our Purpose

     Our main purpose is to reach this lost world for Jesus Christ our Lord. It is told in a story like this: One day a Senior Pastor was talking to a young upcoming minister. The young minister asked the Sr. Pastor how he got to be so successful as a pastor and minister. The Sr. Pastor went to the window and opened the curtain overlooking the large city. He then asked the young minister what he saw out that window. The young minister looked out and saw lots of people walking up the sidewalk and busy cars going by. And said " I see people". The Sr. Pastor said "That is your problem. You see people and I see SOULS."

[img[http://www.fapc-mky.org/images/Page_r1_c1.png]]

My Lai Massacre
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Coordinates: [show location on an interactive map] 15°10′42″N, 108°52′10″E
My Lai Massacre
My Lai Massacre
Location Sơn Mỹ village, Sơn Tịnh district of South Vietnam
Date March 16, 1968
Attack type Massacre
Deaths 347 to 504
Perpetrator(s) Task force from the United States Army Americal Division
Lt. William Calley (convicted)

The My Lai Massacre (pronunciation (help·info), approximately [mi.˧˩˥'lɐːj˧˧]) (Vietnamese: thảm sát Mỹ Lai) was the mass murder of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), mostly civilians and majority of them women and children, conducted by U.S. Army forces on March 16, 1968. The massacre took place in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai and My Khe of Sơn Mỹ village during the Vietnam War.[1][2]

The incident prompted widespread outrage around the world and reduced U.S. support at home for the Vietnam War. The massacre is also known as the Sơn Mỹ Massacre (Vietnamese: thảm sát Sơn Mỹ) or sometimes as the Song My Massacre.[3]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 The incident
o 1.1 Background
o 1.2 The massacre
o 1.3 Helicopter rescue
* 2 Aftermath
o 2.1 Cover-up and investigations
o 2.2 Courts martial
o 2.3 Survivors
* 3 Effects and analysis
* 4 Those involved
o 4.1 Commanders
o 4.2 1st Platoon
o 4.3 Other soldiers
o 4.4 Rescue helicopter
* 5 Photographs
* 6 Motion picture
* 7 See also
* 8 References
* 9 Further reading
* 10 External links

[edit] The incident
“ He fired at [the baby] with a .45. He missed. We all laughed. He got up three or four feet closer and missed again. We laughed. Then he got up right on top and plugged him.[4][5] ”
Vietnamese women and children in My Lai shortly before U.S. soldiers killed them, March 16, 1968. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle
Vietnamese women and children in My Lai shortly before U.S. soldiers killed them, March 16, 1968.[6] Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle

[edit] Background

Charlie Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division (the Americal Division), arrived in South Vietnam in December 1967. Their first month in-country passed without any direct enemy contact. Nevertheless, by mid-March the company had suffered 28 casualties, including five dead. Most of the deaths were from mines and booby-traps.

During the Tet Offensive of January 1968, attacks were carried out in Quảng Ngãi by the 48th Battalion of the NLF (National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, commonly referred to as the Viet Cong). U.S. military intelligence postulated that the 48th NLF Battalion, having retreated, was taking refuge in the village of Sơn Mỹ, in Quang Ngai Province. A number of specific hamlets within that village — designated My Lai 1, 2, 3, and 4 — were suspected of harboring the 48th.

U.S. forces planned a major offensive against those hamlets. Colonel Oran K. Henderson urged his officers to "go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good."[7] Lieutenant-Colonel Frank A. Barker ordered the 1st Battalion commanders to burn the houses, kill the livestock, destroy foodstuffs, and perhaps to close the wells.[8]

On the eve of the attack, at the Charlie Company briefing, Captain Ernest Medina informed his men that nearly all the civilian residents of the hamlets in Sơn Mỹ village would have left for the market by 07:00 and that any who remained would be NLF or NLF sympathizers.[9] He was also asked whether the order included the killing of women and children; those present at the briefing later gave different accounts of Medina's response. Some of the company soldiers, including platoon leaders, later testified that the orders as they understood them were to kill all guerilla and North Vietnamese combatants and "suspects" (including women and children, as well as all animals), to burn the village, and pollute the wells.[10]

Charlie Company was to enter the hamlet, spearheaded by its 1st Platoon. The other two companies that made up the task force were to cordon off the village.

[edit] The massacre
Dead man and child. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle
Dead man and child. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle
“ Some of the people were trying to get up and run. They couldn't and fell down. This one woman, I remember, she stood up and tried to make it — tried to run — with a small child in her arms. But she didn't make it. ”

—Army photographer Ronald Haeberle[11]

Charlie Company landed following a short artillery and helicopter gunship preparation. The soldiers found no enemy fighters in the village on the morning of March 16. Many suspected there were NLF troops in the village, hiding underground in the homes of their elderly parents or their wives. The U.S. soldiers, one platoon of which was led by Second Lieutenant William Calley, went in shooting at "suspected enemy position". After the first civilians were killed and wounded by the indiscriminate fire, the soldiers soon began attacking anything that moved, humans and animals alike, with firearms, grenades and bayonets. The scale of the massacre only spiraled as it progressed, the brutality increasing with each killing. BBC News described the scene:
“ Soldiers went berserk, gunning down unarmed men, women, children and babies. Families which huddled together for safety in huts or bunkers were shown no mercy. Those who emerged with hands held high were murdered. ... Elsewhere in the village, other atrocities were in progress. Women were gang raped; Vietnamese who had bowed to greet the Americans were beaten with fists and tortured, clubbed with rifle butts and stabbed with bayonets. Some victims were mutilated with the signature "C Company" carved into the chest. By late morning word had got back to higher authorities and a cease-fire was ordered. My Lai was in a state of carnage. Bodies were strewn through the village.[12] ”
More victims at My Lai. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle
More victims at My Lai. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle

Dozens of people were herded into an irrigation ditch and other locations and killed with automatic weapons[13]. A large group of about 70 to 80 villagers, rounded up by the 1st Platoon in the center of the village, were killed personally by Calley and by soldiers he had ordered to fire. Calley also shot two other large groups of civilians with a weapon taken from a soldier who had refused to do any further killing.

Members of the 2nd Platoon killed at least 60-70 Vietnamese men, women, and children, as they swept through the northern half of My Lai 4 and through Binh Tay, a small subhamlet about 400 meters north of My Lai 4.[1]

After the initial "sweeps" by the 1st and the 2nd Platoons, the 3rd Platoon was dispatched to deal with any "remaining resistance". They immediately began killing every still-living human and animal they could find, including shooting the Vietnamese who emerged from their hiding places, and finishing off the wounded found moaning in the heaps of bodies. The 3rd Platoon also rounded up and killed a group of 7 to 12 women and children.[1]

Since Charlie Company had encountered no enemy opposition, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, was moved into its landing zone between and attacked the subhamlet of My Khe 4, killing as many as 90 people. U.S. forces lost one man killed and seven wounded from mines and booby traps.[1] During the next two days, both battalions were involved in additional burning and destruction of dwellings, and in the mistreatment of Vietnamese detainees.

Most of the soldiers had not participated in the crimes, but neither did they protest or complain to their superiors.[14]

[edit] Helicopter rescue
“ It looks like a bloodbath down there! What the hell is going on? ”

—Unidentified helicopter pilot over My Lai[15]

Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., a 24-year-old helicopter pilot from an aero-scout team, witnessed a large number of dead and dying civilians as he began flying over the village - all of them infants, children, women and old men, with no signs of draft-age men or weapons anywhere. Thompson and his crew witnessed an unarmed passive woman kicked and shot at point-blank range by Captain Medina (Medina later claimed that he thought she had a grenade).[16] The crew made several attempts to radio for help for the wounded. They landed their helicopter by a ditch, which they noted was full of bodies and in which there was movement. Thompson asked a Sergeant he encountered there if the Sergeant could help get the people out of the ditch, and the Sergeant replied that he would "help them out of their misery". Thompson was shocked and confused but took it as some kind of a joke at the time. As the helicopter took off one of the crew members said "My God, he's firing into the ditch".

Thompson then saw a group of civilians (again consisting of children, women and old men) at a bunker being approached by ground personnel. Thompson landed and told his crew that if the U.S. soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire at these soldiers. Thompson later testified that he spoke with a Lieutenant (identified as Calley) and told him there were women and children in the bunker, and asked if the Lieutenant would help get them out. According to Thompson, "he [the Lieutenant] said the only way to get them out was with a hand grenade". Thompson testified that he then told Calley to "just hold your men right where they are, and I'll get the kids out". He found 12 to 16 people in the bunker, coaxed them out and led them to the helicopter, standing with them while they were flown out in two groups.

Returning to My Lai, Thompson and other air crew members noticed several large groups of bodies. Spotting some survivors in the ditch Thompson landed again and one of the crew members entered the ditch. The crew member returned with a bloodied but apparently unharmed child who was flown to safety. The child was thought to be a boy, but later investigation found that it was a 4-year-old girl. Thompson then reported what he had seen to his company commander, Major Watke, using terms such as "murder" and "needless and unnecessary killings". Thompson's reports were confirmed by other pilots and air crew.[17]

In 1998, three former U.S. servicemen who stopped their comrades from killing a number of villagers, significantly reducing casualties at My Lai, were awarded the Soldier's Medal awards in Washington D.C.[18] The veterans also made contact with the survivors of My Lai.

[edit] Aftermath
Dead bodies outside a burning dwelling. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle
Dead bodies outside a burning dwelling. Photo by Ronald L. Haeberle
“ I did not see anyone alive when we left the village. ”

—Private First Class Robert Maples[19]

Owing to the chaotic circumstances and the Army's decision not to undertake a definitive body count, the number of civilians killed at My Lai cannot be stated with certainty. Estimates vary from source to source, with 347 and 504 being the most commonly cited figures. The memorial at the site of the massacre lists 504 names, with ages ranging from one to eighty-two years. A later investigation by the U.S. Army arrived at a lower figure of 347 deaths, the official U.S. estimate.[20]

[edit] Cover-up and investigations

The first reports claimed that "128 Vietcong and 22 civilians" were killed in the village during a "fierce fire fight". General William C. Westmoreland, MACV commander, congratulated the unit on the "outstanding job".[citation needed] As related at the time by the Army's Stars and Stripes magazine, "U.S. infantrymen had killed 128 Communists in a bloody day-long battle."

Initial investigations of the My Lai operation were undertaken by the 11th Light Infantry Brigade's commanding officer, Colonel Henderson, under orders from the Americal Division's executive officer, Brigadier General George H. Young. Henderson interviewed several soldiers involved in the incident, then issued a written report in late April claiming that some 22 civilians were inadvertently killed during the operation. The army at this time was still describing the events at My Lai as a military victory that had resulted in the deaths of 128 enemy combatants.

Six months later, Tom Glen, a 21-year-old soldier of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, wrote a letter to General Creighton Abrams, the new overall commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, accusing the Americal Division (and other entire units of the U.S. military) of routine and pervasive brutality against Vietnamese civilians. The letter was detailed and its contents echoed complaints received from other soldiers.

Colin Powell, then a 31-year-old Army Major, was charged with investigating the letter, which did not specifically reference My Lai (Glen had limited knowledge of the events there). In his report Powell wrote: "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." Powell's handling of the assignment was later characterized by some observers as "whitewashing" the atrocities of My Lai.[21] In May 2004, Powell, then United States Secretary of State, told CNN's Larry King, "I mean, I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored."[22]

The carnage at My Lai might have gone unknown to history if not for another soldier, Ron Ridenhour, a former member of Charlie Company, who, independently of Glen, sent a letter detailing the events at My Lai to President Richard M. Nixon, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and numerous members of Congress.[23] The copies of this letter were sent in March 1969, a full year after the event. Most recipients of Ridenhour's letter ignored it, with the notable exception of Congressman Morris Udall (D-Arizona). Ridenhour learned about the events at My Lai secondhand, by talking to members of Charlie Company while he was still enlisted.

Eventually, Calley was charged with several counts of premeditated murder in September 1969, and 25 other officers and enlisted men were later charged with related crimes. It was another two months before the American public learned about the massacre and trials.

Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, after extensive conversations with Calley, broke the My Lai story on 12 November 1969; on 20 November, Time, Life and Newsweek magazines all covered the story, and CBS televised an interview with Paul Meadlo. The Cleveland Plain Dealer published explicit photographs of dead villagers killed at My Lai. As is evident from comments made in a 1969 telephone conversation between United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, revealed recently by the National Security Archive, the photos of the war crime were too shocking for senior officials to stage an effective cover-up. Secretary of Defense Laird was heard to say, "There are so many kids just lying there; these pictures are authentic."[citation needed]

In November 1969, General William R. Peers was appointed to conduct a thorough investigation into the My Lai incident and its subsequent cover-up. Peers' final report, published in March 1970, was highly critical of top officers for participation in a cover-up and the Charlie Company officers for their actions at My Lai 4.[24] According to Peers's findings:

[The 1st Battalion] members had killed at least 175-200 Vietnamese men, women, and children. The evidence indicates that only 3 or 4 were confirmed as Viet Cong although there were undoubtedly several unarmed VC (men, women, and children) among them and many more active supporters and sympathizers. One man from the company was reported as wounded from the accidental discharge of his weapon.[1]

[edit] Courts martial

On 17 March 1970, the United States Army charged 14 officers, including Major General Samuel W. Koster, the Americal Division's commanding officer, with suppressing information related to the incident. Most of those charges were later dropped. Brigade commander Henderson was the only officer who stood trial on charges relating to the cover-up; he was acquitted on December 17, 1971.[25]

After a 10-month-long trial, in which he claimed that he was following orders from his commanding officer, Captain Medina, Calley was convicted, on September 10, 1971, of premeditated murder for ordering the shootings. He was initially sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, however, President Nixon made the controversial decision to have Calley released from prison, pending appeal of his sentence. Calley's sentence was later adjusted, so that he would eventually serve four and one-half months in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, during which time he was allowed routine and unrestricted visits by his girlfriend.[26]

In a separate trial, Captain Medina denied giving the orders that led to the massacre, and was acquitted of all charges, effectively negating the prosecution's theory of "command responsibility", now referred to as the "Medina standard". Several months after his acquittal, however, Medina admitted that he had suppressed evidence and had lied to Colonel Henderson about the number of civilian deaths.[27]

Most of the enlisted men who were involved in the events at My Lai had already left military service, and were thus legally exempt from prosecution. In the end, of the 26 men initially charged, Calley's was the only conviction.

Some have argued that the outcome of the My Lai courts martial was a reversal of the laws of war that were set forth in the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals.[28] Those tribunals set a historic precedent, establishing the principle that no one may be excused from responsibility for war crimes because they were "following orders". Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in the New York Times as stating that Calley's sentence was reduced because Calley honestly believed that what he did was a part of his orders — a rationale that stands in direct contradiction of the standards set at Nuremberg and Tokyo, where German and Japanese soldiers were executed for similar acts.

[edit] Survivors

In the spring of 1972, the camp (at My Lai 2) where the survivors of the My Lai Massacre had been relocated was largely destroyed by Army of the Republic of Vietnam artillery and aerial bombardment. The destruction was officially attributed to "Viet Cong terrorists". However, the truth was revealed by Quaker service workers in the area, through testimony (in May 1972) by Martin Teitel at hearings before the Congressional Subcommittee to Investigate Problems Connected with Refugees and Escapees. In June 1972, Teitel's account of the events was published in the New York Times.[citation needed]

[edit] Effects and analysis

The explosive news of the massacre fueled the outrage of the antiwar movement, which demanded the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. It also led more potential draftees to file for conscientious objector status. Those who had always argued against the war felt vindicated; those on the fringes of the movement became more vocal.

The more pivotal shift, however, was in the attitude of the general public toward the war. People who previously had not been interested in the peace/war debates began to analyze the issue more closely. The horrific stories of other soldiers began to be taken more seriously, and other abuses came to light.

Some military observers concluded that My Lai showed the need for more and better volunteers to provide stronger leadership among the troops. As the Vietnam combat dragged on, the number of well-educated and experienced career soldiers on the front lines dropped sharply as casualties and combat rotation took their toll. These observers claimed the absence of the many bright young men who did not participate in the draft owing to college attendance or homeland service caused the talent pool for new officers to become very shallow.[29] They pointed to Calley, a young, unemployed college dropout, as an example of the raw and inexperienced being rushed through officer training.

[edit] Those involved
“ Calley and Meadlo were firing at the people. They were firing into the hole. I saw Meadlo firing into the hole.

Q: Well, tell me, what was so remarkable about Meadlo that made you remember him?
A: He was firing and crying.
Q: He was pointing his weapon away from you and then you saw tears in his eyes?
A: Yes.
”

—Private First Class Robert Maples[30]

[edit] Commanders

* Frank A. Barker - Lieutenant-Colonel, commander of the Task Force Barker, ordered the destruction of the village, controlled the artillery preparation and combat assault from his helicopter, was killed in Vietnam on Jun 13 1968, before the investigation had begun.[1][31]
* William L. Calley, Jr. - Lieutenant who led the 1st Platoon, the only person convicted of murder.
* Oran K. Henderson - Colonel, brigade commander who ordered the attack, had been in the helicopter over My Lai.[1]
* Eugene Kotouc - Captain from the military intelligence, provided some of the information on which the My Lai combat assault was based; together with Medina and a Vietnamese police officer, tortured and executed suspects later that day.[32]
* Ernest Medina - Captain commanding Charlie Company who planned, ordered, and supervised the execution by his company of an unlawful operation against inhabited hamlets in Sơn Mỹ village.[33]

[edit] 1st Platoon

Some of the soldiers of the 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, included:

* Michael Bernhardt - enlisted man with rank of Sergeant, refused to participate in the killings of civilians and was threatened by Medina to not attempt to expose the massacre by writing to his congressman, and as a result he was allegedly given more dangerous duties such as point duty on patrol[34]. Later he would help expose and detail the massacre in numerous interviews with the press, and also served as a prosecution witness in the trial of Ernest Medina where he was subjected to intense cross examination by defense council F Lee Bailey. Recipient of 1970 'Ethical Humanist Award' [35]
* Herbert Carter - platoon tunnel rat, claimed he shot himself in the foot in order to be MEDEVACed out of the village.
* Dennis Conti - testified he initially refused to shoot but later fired some M79 grenade launcher rounds at a group of fleeing people with unknown effect.
* James Dursi - killed a mother and child, refused to kill anyone else even when ordered.
* Ronald Grzesik - team leader, said he followed orders to round up civilians but refused to kill them.
* Robert Maples - stated to have refused to participate.
* Paul Meadlo - said he was afraid of being shot if he did not participate. Lost his foot to a land mine the next day, later publicly admitted his part in the massacre.
* David Mitchell - Staff Sergeant accused by witnesses of shooting people at the ditch site; pleaded not guilty.[36]
* Varnado Simpson - committed suicide in 1997, citing guilt over several murders committed in My Lai.
* Charles Sledge - radio operator, later prosecution witness.
* Harry Stanley - claimed to have refused to participate.
* Esequiel Torres - In February of the same year he had tortured and hanged an old man because Torres found his bandaged leg suspicious. He and Roschevitz were involved in the shooting of a group of ten women and five children in a hut, later he was ordered by Calley to shoot a number of people with M60 machine gun he fired a burst before he refused to fire again, and his weapon taken over by Calley.

[edit] Other soldiers

Charlie Company, the unit deployed in My Lai 4 on the day of the massacre led by Lt. Calley, was one of at least three that swept My Lai 4.

* William Doherty and Michael Terry - soldiers in the 3rd Platoon who killed the wounded in the ditch.[3]
* Ronald L. Haeberle - photographer attached to the llth Brigade information office who accompanied C Company.
* Nicholas Capezza - chief medic in Charlie Company, insisted he saw nothing unusual.
* Gary Roschevitz - according to various witnesses he forced 7 women to undress and perform sex with him, when the women refused he reportedly shot them.[37]

[edit] Rescue helicopter

Intervention helicopter's crew consisted of:

* Hugh Thompson, Jr. - Warrant Officer
* Glenn Andreotta - helicopter crew chief
* Lawrence Colburn - helicopter door-gunner

30 years later the crew was decorated for their actions at My Lai with Soldier's Medals, the U.S. non-combat heroism awards. Andreotta, who was killed in action shortly after the events at My Lai, received the medal posthumously.

[edit] Photographs

Unidentified dead Vietnamese woman.

Unidentified dead Vietnamese man.

Unidentified dead body thrown down a well.

Nicholas Capezza burning a dwelling.

All unauthorized photos taken by Ronald L. Haeberle were secretly smuggled out of My Lai, and later sold to Life magazine for $50,000. [reference?]

[edit] Motion picture

Oliver Stone planned to start production on a film titled Pinkville[38] about the investigation of General Peers into the My Lai Massacre,[2] featuring Bruce Willis (as General William Peers), Woody Harrelson (as Col. Henderson). However, United Artists halted its December 2007 production start because of the writers' strike.

[edit] See also

* Human Rights Record of the United States
* List of military scandals
* Massacre at Huế
* Phoenix Program
* Tiger Force
* Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files
* List of massacres

[edit] References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Summary report from the report of General Peers.
2. ^ a b Department of the Army. Report of the Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident (The Peers Report), Volumes I-III (1970).
3. ^ My Lai was one of four hamlets associated with the village of "Son My". Americal Division Veterans Association.
4. ^ Peers Inquiry: Report of the Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident.
5. ^ "Neo-fascism and the religious right". By John M. Swomley. Humanist (magazine). Jan-Feb, 1995.
6. ^ "Report of the Department of Army review of the preliminary investigations into the My Lai incident. Volume III, Exhibits, Book 6 - Photographs, 14 March 1970". From the Library of Congress, Military Legal Resources.[1]
7. ^ "My Lai: A Question of Orders". Jan. 25, 1971. Time (magazine).
8. ^ Summary of Peers Report. Significantly, he gave no instructions for segregating and safeguarding non-combatants. My Lai: An American Tragedy. © William George Eckhardt 2000.
9. ^ Peers Report: The Omissions and Commissions Of Cpt. Ernest L. Medina.
10. ^ "American soldiers testify in My Lai court martial". By Karen D. Smith. Dec. 6, 2000. Amarillo Globe-News.
11. ^ "Ronald Haeberle, Witness for the Prosecution"
12. ^ "Murder in the name of war - My Lai". BBC. July 20, 1998.
13. ^ Laurence Rogerson & Sue Powell (1999). Exploring Vietnam - My Lai. Retrieved on 2006-03-16.
14. ^ http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/ecktragedy.html#_ftn1
15. ^ http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/lai/there_6.html
16. ^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article787066.ece
17. ^ Thompson's own testimony before a conference at the University of Tulane in 1994[2] and from the Peers Report summary.
18. ^ Heroes of My Lai honoured. March 7, 1998. BBC News.
19. ^ http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/lai/there_6.html
20. ^ My Lai Massacre
21. ^ "Behind Colin Powell's Legend -- My Lai" by Robert Parry and Norman Solomon, The Consortium for Independent Journalism, July 22, 1996.
22. ^ Interview on CNN's Larry King Live with Secretary Colin L. Powell (May 4, 2004). Retrieved on 2006-03-16.
23. ^ Text of Ridenhour's 1969 letter
24. ^ http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/myl_bpeers.htm
25. ^ "Biography of Oran Henderson"
26. ^ Neier, A. War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror, and the Struggle for Justice, Random House, p. 95
27. ^ "An Introduction to the My Lai Courts-Martial"
28. ^ Marshall, Burke; Goldstein, Joseph. "Learning From My Lai: A Proposal on War Crimes", The New York Times, 2 April 1976, p. 26.
29. ^ PBS/The American Experience. The My Lai Massacre
30. ^ http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_tMAPL.htm
31. ^ http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=2428
32. ^ http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/ecktragedy.html#_ftn1
33. ^ http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/medina.html
34. ^ http://books.google.ca/books?id=1wisoI-wP5MC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=michael+bernhardt+medina&source=web&ots=CnXD8WToZF&sig=zwCitz8NCEzd9erflJROVcDqESg&hl=en
35. ^ http://www.nysec.org/sitemap/ethical-action/ethical-humanist-award/
36. ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909677,00.html?promoid=googlep
37. ^ Trin Yarborough book: Surviving Twice: Amerasian Children of the Vietnam War. 2005. Page 19. ISBN 1574888641.
38. ^ Pinkville (2008) at IMDB.

[edit] Further reading

* Vietnamese Wikipedia; Thảm sát Sơn Mỹ, cited 7 June 2006. (Vietnamese Wikipedia article on the subject)
* 161st Assault Helicopter Company. Unit History of the 161st Assault Helicopter Company (who intervened in the massacre)
* Americal Division Veterans Association; Americal Locations in Vietnam, cited 3 June 2006.
* Anderson, David L. (1998) Facing My Lai: Moving Beyond the Massacre University Press of Kansas: Lawrence, Kansas — extensive interviews with trial participants and soldiers.
* Becker, Elizabeth. Kissinger Tapes Describe Crises, War and Stark Photos of Abuse., The New York Times, May 27, 2004 (mirrored)
* Belknap, Michal R. (2002) The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1211-4.
* Bilton, Michael and Sim, Kevin. (1992) Four Hours in My Lai New York: Viking, 1992 — a recent re-examination, draws extensively on interviews with participants and contains detailed bibliographic references.
* Chomsky, Noam. After Pinkville, Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam, 1971
* Chomsky, Noam and Edward S. Herman. Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda, 1973 and 2004
* Colburn, Lawrence and Paula Brock. The Choices Made — Lessons from My Lai on Drawing the Line, Seattle Times, March 10, 2002
* Gershen, Martin. (1971) Destroy or Die: The True Story of My Lai New York: Arlington House.
* Goldstein, Joseph. (1976) The My Lai Massacre and its Cover-Up New York: Free Press.
* Hammer, Richard. (1971) The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley New York: Coward.
* Hersh, Seymour M. (1972). Cover-up: the Army's secret investigation of the massacre at My Lai 4. Random House. ISBN 0-394-47460-0.
* Hersh, Seymour M. (1970). My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. Random House. ISBN 0-394-43737-3.
* Hersh, Seymour M. The original, Pulitzer-Prize winning articles about the My Lai massacre for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, 13 November, 20 November and 25 November 1969.
* My Lai and Why It Matters: Review of Ron Ridenhour's Videotaped Lecture
* O'Brien, Tim. (1994) In the Lake of the Woods, McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 1-895246-31-8 — a haunting work of historical fiction about a Vietnam Vet who can't escape his own experience of My Lai.
* Olson, James S. and Roberts, Randy (eds.) (1998) My Lai: A Brief History with Documents, Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 0-312-17767-4
* Peers, William. (1979) The My Lai Inquiry New York: Norton.
* Raimondo, Maj. Tony, JA. The My Lai Massacre: A Case Study, Human Rights Program, School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia
* Ridenhour, Ron. "Jesus Was a Gook"
* Sack, John. (1971) Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story New York: Viking.
* University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School. The My Lai Courts-Martial, 1970
* Teitel, Martin. Again, the Suffering of Mylai, article preview, New York Times, 7 June 1972, pg. 45.
* Texas Tech University. The Vietnam Oral History Project
* The Toledo Blade. Special Report: Tiger Force
* Valentine, Douglas. The Phoenix Program, 1990. [4]. Chapter 24, "Transgressions" (deals with the My Lai massacre), online: [5]. Author permission further explained: [6]

[edit] External links

* An American Tragedy
* The My Lai Courts-Martial 1970
* Into the Dark: The My Lai Massacre
* 1969 TIME article
* The My Lai Courts-Martial 1970
* 'Blood and fire' of My Lai remembered 30 years later
* My Lai Peace Park Project

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We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. - John 3:11

Throughout the history of humanity, there have been individuals whose mission it was to act as guiding lights within the darkness of the ignorance and hatreds of humanity. These individuals have been called saviors, prophets, masters, magicians, bodhisattvas, Buddhas, arhats, and sons of man… With wise words, miracles, and esoteric written texts, these men and women have brought about changes to advance human spirituality.

I. Mysticism
We read in books that these holy individuals undertake various missions and have belonged to different eras, regions, religions, sects, secret societies, and esoteric orders; yet, there is a common and exact doctrine that is inherent within all of their works. As if there were a cosmic plan, in all races and eras, to send these enlightened messengers to work for specific missions in regards to the evolution of humanity. In his book, “Orders of the Quest,” Manly P. Hall states:

There is an incontrovertible mass of evidence indicating the existence of initiated philosophers possessing a superior knowledge of divine and natural laws. There is also sufficient proof that these initiates were the agents of a World Fraternity or Brotherhood of Adepts that has existed from the most remote time. This overfraternity has been called the Philosophic Empire, the Great School, the College of the Holy Spirit, and the Invisible Government of the World. References to this sovereign body of “the ancient ones of the earth” occur in the sacred writings, the philosophical literature, and the mystical traditions of all races and nations of mankind.

…[we] have referred to the stream of the secret doctrine as Humanism. The term is not used in its popular sense, but to describe the grand program of the Mystery Schools for the emancipation of man from bondage to ignorance, superstition, and fear.

To begin the said emancipation, the Gnostic student seeks to enhance and develop the intuitive principle within, that force that causes one to seek for the Truth, that principle which causes us to seek to know ourselves. That principle is the consciousness inside the individual, that which is the reason and cause for all mystical experience. The consciousness is the means or material used in all acts of Theurgy, mysticism or white magic. Eliphas Levi once wrote, “Magic is the divine in man, consisting of science in union with faith.”

The true Theurgist, the mystic or prophet, is the aspect of divinity within the individual human, it is the Inner Being, the Innermost. It is the particular Inner Being of an initiate which expresses itself through the words and actions of the initiate by means of the essence or causal principle. We do not say that any individual personality is divine, no, as Samael states, “The Theurgist is more within, deeper, more profound.” (Logos Mantram Theurgy) It is not, as many fanatics believe, the personality of a saint that is divine, it is the divine within that saint that is holy. And it is here that the initiates of the Universal Lodge find real magic. Devoid of the guidance of the divine within, one can only find egotism, and thus all magic will turn black as it degenerates into darkness. Sadly this is happening to many of the psuedo-esoteric orders and religions of modern humanity. Therefore, for one to delve into the esoteric or occult mysteries, one must seek union and guidance solely from the “Lord God of Truth Within.” And this is the true meaning of Religion, as the word itself comes from the Latin Religare, which means "to unite (with the divine)." We see the same meaning in the Sanskrit word Yoga (see the book entitled “The Mysteries of the Fire - Kundalini Yoga” by Samael Aun Weor), which is the same process under the light of eastern mysticism.

Therefore, the students of Gnosticism do not follow any Gurus or teachers, save for the inner Guru, by cultivating the relationship between themselves with the divine. The true teachings of the Masters, which have come to serve humanity, are meant only to give us the means to nurture this relationship. Eliphas Levi wrote in “The Paradoxes of the Highest Science”:

Religion is Magic sanctioned by authority.

The Wise understand what true religion is—the eternal necessity that is. For debased souls, religion is a yoke imposed by the vagaries of fear and the follies of hope. For exalted souls, religion is a force, springing from an intensified love of God and humanity.

II. Science
For thousands of years, Gnosticism has offered keys to unlock the mysteries that lay deeply hidden within the soul and it has promised one thing: objective knowledge. We do not ask the students to believe in a particular dogma. “ Why believe when you could know? ”
Why believe when you could know? That is why it is said that the Innermost Self-realization of the Being is our goal, but science is our method. We must be critical, attentive and determined if we are to reach such a lofty goal. Therefore, there are three esoteric sciences which have been studied since the dawn of humanity which offer the means to our goal.

A. Psychology
“That children do not know the reason of their desires, all the learned teachers and instructors agree. But that grownups too stumble like children on this earth, not knowing whence they come or whither they go, acting as little according to true purposes, being ruled by cakes and birch rods, no one likes to believe; yet to me it seems quite obvious.

Let us watch man in his limited sphere and see how impressions affect him, how he is obsessed by ideas, until finally growing passion robs him of any possible calmness of mind and becomes his ruin.” –Johannes von Goethe (excerpts from “The Sorrows of Young Werther”)

The term psychology is a compound word coming from the Greek words Psyche (soul) and Logos (verb). Modern psychology only goes so far as to study the mind and the egotistical self. Gnosticism delves deeply into the esoteric aspect of psychology, seeking to incorporate the understanding of the spirit and the soul in relation to the mind and the various egos.

esoteric: (Gr.) Hidden, secret. From the Greek esotericos, “inner,” concealed. (From H.P. Blavatsky’s “The Theosophical Glossary.”)

Esoteric psychology seeks to understand and eliminate the cause of suffering just as the Buddha Shakyamuni taught over 2500 years ago. In relation to this aspect of psychology, the Buddha gave to his disciples the four noble truths. In brief, the first noble truth is that all ego-centric life is suffering. The second noble truth is that desire is the cause of all suffering. The third noble truth is that to eliminate suffering, one must eliminate all desire in oneself. The fourth noble truth says to follow what is called in Buddhism “the Eightfold Path”; these are the ways in which one goes about to eliminate desire and suffering.

Through many births I sought in vain
The builder of this House of Pain.
Now, Builder, thee I plainly see!
This is the last abode for me.
Thy gable’s yoke and rafters broke,
My heart has peace. All lust will cease.

- Buddha Shakyamuni

So in Gnosis, we go further into the soul of the matter. In esoteric psychology, we must understand how the desires and defects of the mind trap and condition the consciousness of the human soul. Therefore, under the light of the teachings of Samael Aun Weor, we study three main facets of psychology: the ego, the essence, and the personality.

EGO (Latin for “I”): These are the various vices, errors, wants, desires, conditionings, mechanicities, etc. in one’s mind, heart, and actions. By observing ourselves, we will see in a clear and obvious manner, that we have many different desires, often conflicting and contradicting each other, without any rhyme or reason. It is said that we have many thousands of these egos that dominate our mind, feelings and actions at a given moment. These are the elements in our psyche that cause us to identify with a particular self-gratifying sensation, these make up the false identity. These are the elements that lead to all the suffering of humanity. These elements, called psychic aggregates by the Tibetans, condition the human soul by trapping the essence or causal principle in the many deluded states of desire. The ego is a multiplicity, its name is legion.

PERSONALITY (from Latin Persona, which means mask): This is the visible aspect of one’s character, as it impresses others. This is formed from the time of birth to the age of seven. It has three major influences that are studied in the Gnostic curriculum. Our personality can give us the keys to understanding our psychological make-up and ourselves. Yet the personality is just a mask, it can be worn by the various egos or it can be the passive instrument for the Innermost to express itself in the world.

ESSENCE: This is the intelligence of one’s own Inner Being, inside the mind, heart and body. This is what we can call the Consciousness, Buddha nature, Buddhata etc. The Innermost has two souls, one divine and the other human; these three aspects make up our own particular individual Monad. The Innermost who is the aspect of the androgynous internal spirit, the Inner God, sends the essence of the human soul into the world in order to create. It does so, so as to acquire more knowledge in regards to the mysteries of nature. Thus, with divine intelligence, the Monad sends the essence into the world, our own psychological-physical world: mental, emotional/astral, vital and physical bodies. These bodies, intended to be vehicles of the cosmic intelligence of the Innermost (Monad), become identified and the mind becomes lost in the world, due to the identification with the desire for physical sensation. Thus, we must understand the egos, how they use our personality and how they trap the essence causing us to remain trapped in the base and superficial level of being that is so common and natural in this day and age. Yet it is only through re-connecting oneself to the essence that such a mission could be possible, for an ego cannot work on an ego, suffering only perpetuates more suffering. Therefore, the essence is what the students of Gnosticism seek to contact; it is only experienced in the moment, bringing knowledge, happiness and understanding. It is through the essence that the student can experience Gnosis (an intuitive and direct knowing), it can be experienced in different mystical states and various dimensions, as the essence is multi-dimensional.

2. Alchemy:

Alchemy was included in the curriculum of the College of Angels, which Adam attended in Paradise before the Fall. Moses and Aaron were instructed in the mystery of transmutation by God himself, and became great adepts in the secrets of the Stone. When the angels descended to take wives from among the daughters of men, as recorded in the Book of Enoch, they revealed to mortals the precious chemistry for the regeneration of elements. - Manly P. Hall (Orders of the Great Work)

This ancient metallurgical science implies to us the notions of those who attempted to transmute base metals into gold. The word Alchemy is said to come from ancient Egypt (the land of Kem or Chem) and is a compound word containing Al, from the Arabic Allah, and kimia, a Greek term meaning "to fuse or cast a metal. Thus the true intention of Alchemy is "to fuse with God." Here we should also understand that EL (Hebrew for God) and El[o]ah (Hebrew for Goddess) is analogous to the Arabic word Allah.

This science is not one that can be taken purely at face value. The flamboyant alchemical instruments in the laboratories of the middle ages were merely used as symbolic tools to teach a secret doctrine to the initiated, so that it would not be destroyed- by the inquisition. The Keepers of the Great Arcanum have jealously guarded this science. This is the science of creation and perfection. Remember when Jesus said, “With patience ye shall possess thy soul.” And truly it is patience that one needs to perform the Magnum Opus, the Great Work. Symbolically speaking, this science is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Will you with me tomorrow be content,

Faithfully to receive the Blessed Sacrament,

Upon the Oath that I shall here give,

For neither gold, nor silver, so long as you live;

Neither for love you bear toward your kin,

Nor yet to no great man, preferment to win,

That you disclose the secret I shall you teach,

Neither by writing, nor by swift speech,

But only to him, which you can be sure,

Has always searched after the secrets of Nature,

To him you may reveal the secrets of this art,

Under the cover of philosophy, before the world, you depart.

- From the manuscript “Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum”

3. Kabbalah:

This word comes from the Hebrew word Kibel, which means “to receive.” This reception, the ancient Hebrew Rabbis would say, refers to the reception of a hidden doctrine. While the masses would follow the precepts of exoteric religion and study the body of the doctrine, the Bible, Torah or Tanakh, these books were only supplemental to the secret doctrine studied by the Kabalistic Rabbis. To the Rabbis, the cryptic symbolism within the books the “Zohar” and the “Talmud” was the body of the secret doctrine. Gnosticism has unveiled this most valuable tradition in the light of esotericism.

exoteric: (Gr.) Outward, public; the opposite of esoteric or hidden. (From H.P. Blavatsky’s “The Theosophical Glossary.”)

Kabbalah is based upon the symbol called in Hebrew Otz Chiim or The Tree of Life. This symbol shows all the different aspects of the universe in all its dimensions in relation to the human, with the different aspects of the soul in relation to divinity. It shows the creation of the cosmos, the creation of individual life, and the creation of the soul. It shows the way every cosmic unit receives and is sustained by cosmic forces. This is the true Kabbalistic reception . In every ancient religion there is a symbolic “Tree of Life.” It is in the midst of Eden within the Judeo-Christian traditions, it is the Bodhi Tree of the Buddha Shakyamuni, it is symbolized by the Katums of the Popul Vuh of the Mayans, and the Oak Tree of the Nordic mysteries. Students are urged to read such books as Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune, Tarot and Kabbalah by Samael Aun Weor, and Transcendental Magic by Eliphas Levi to understand the in depth symbolical structures of Kabbalah. To have a clear understanding of the Tree of Life, in its basic applications, one can unlock the doors of the mysteries of the ages.

It [the Tree of Life] is a glyph, that is to say a composite symbol, which is intended to represent the cosmos in its entirety and the soul of man as related thereto; and the more we study it, the more we see that it is an amazingly adequate representation; we use it as the engineer or the mathematician uses his sliding-rule, to scan and calculate the intricacies of existence, visible and invisible, in external nature or the hidden depth of the soul. - Dion Fortune (Mystical Qabalah ch 6)

Therefore, the students of our institutions are urged to study these three sciences and how they are applied to all of the ancient religions. We do not exclude any religion, because we believe that the doctrine of the synthesis is the most accurate, objective, all encompassing and tolerant. Understand these three sciences and the three sciences will help you to understand yourself spiritually and psychologically. These sciences should be studied and applied. For what is science without experimentation, theories, and facts?

III. Initiation

“Initiation is life itself, lived intensely, with rectitude and with love.” - Samael Aun Weor

Initiation is a very important aspect of Gnosticism. The Initiation process reflects the cosmos, its order, and the laws of the universe within the “lodge.” We do not give grades and degrees to the students of our institutions, like many initiatory schools; that is not necessary. The initiations are received by the soul of the student in the temples that exist in the higher dimensions of nature. The true lodge, orders, and temples exist within the astral plane, and it is in the astral plane that the inner orders meet. The Gnostic student must become proficient in the arts of meditation and astral travel to be able to attend such meetings.

Initiations are gained by the merits of the heart. The initiation expresses the evolution and development of the consciousness and the soul. To achieve these initiations, one must learn to conquer oneself and to purify the soul. It is the Innermost who gives the initiations. This purification is achieved through the comprehension and elimination of the undesirable elements within the psyche, those psychic aggregates that were referred to in the section of this leaflet entitled Psychology.

Verily, there are three factors that lead to the true initiation, which we may call here, the Revolution of the Consciousness or the Awakening of the Consciousness. These three factors are as follows:

1. Mystical (Alchemical) Birth: This type of birth is in relation to the forging of one’s own soul, see the section in this leaflet entitled Alchemy. Let us reflect upon the words of Jesus when he spoke to the famous Pharisee Nicodemus:

Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. - John 3:5-8

Thus, Jesus spoke this symbolism for those who have the ear to hear. This is not, as many people think, to be taken literally, but to be understood on a deeper esoteric level. And He explains that in the words he speaks there is deep symbolism, not to be taken at face value:

We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. - John 3:11

2. Mystical (Psychological) Death: This refers to the dying of one’s egos or psychological I’s. This is the path that the serious Gnostic student takes to pay the Karma that one owes and to crucify one’s own desires, defects, and vices. By defects and vices, we are emphatically referring to those defects that can be called Anger, Pride, Envy, Greed, Gluttony, Lust and Laziness. We seek purification through comprehending our defects through the application of self-observation and meditation as our tools. It is only after comprehending a certain defect that it can be eliminated. All of the suffering of the world is caused by these defects and each of these defects has its corresponding selfish desires. The world and all of its problems is just a sum total of all the individuals who carry the defects within. Therefore, we must seek to change ourselves and thereby make a true revolution.

3. Sacrifice for Humanity: This factor is seen in the works of the great avatars and what they have done for humanity. Those who have given their life for suffering humanity, to give the teachings in different epochs, races and religions have shown us how to sacrifice for humanity. We read about many great Masters who gave their life for suffering humanity and received martyrdom in return. Sacrifice is to give without the desire to receive, and it is to give consciously. If we give money to a poor fellow, and he in turn spends that money on an unhealthy habit that harms him and humanity, how is that a conscious sacrifice? We must be wise and not careless in our actions. The road to the abyss is paved with good intentions. We must help in the way that best suits the individual and humanity. Therefore it is written, “Love is the Law, but conscious Love.”

“The results are always that which speak; it serves no purpose to have good intentions if the results are disastrous.” - Samael Aun Weor

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“This vast universe is a wheel, the wheel of Brahman. Upon it are all creatures that are subject to birth, death, and rebirth. Round and round it turns, and never stops. As long as the individual self thinks it is separate from the Lord, it revolves upon the wheel in bondage to the laws of birth, death, and rebirth.... The Lord supports this universe, which is made up of the perishable and the imperishable, the manifest and the unmanifest. The individual soul, forgetful of the Lord, attaches itself to pleasure and thus is bound.”
-Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.6-8

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''Myths of the American Civil War''

The Civil War (1861-5) has spawned numerous myths and falsities.

The Republicans did not intend to abolish slavery - just to "contain" it, i.e., limit it to the 15 states where it had already existed. Most of the Democrats accepted this solution.

This led to a schism in the Democratic party. The "fire eaters" left it and established their own pro-secession political organization. Growing constituencies in the south - such as urban immigrants and mountain farmers - opposed slavery as a form of unfair competition. Less than one quarter of southern families owned slaves in 1861. Slave-based, mainly cotton raising, enterprises, were so profitable that slave prices almost doubled in the 1850s. This rendered slaves - as well as land - out of the reach of everyone but the wealthiest citizens.

Cotton represented three fifths of all United States exports in 1860. Southerners, dependent on industrial imports as they were, supported free trade. Northerners were vehement trade protectionists. The federal government derived most of its income from custom duties. Income tax and corporate profit tax were yet to be invented.

The states seceded one by one, following secession conventions and state-wide votes. The Confederacy (Confederate States of America) was born only later. Not all the constituents of the Confederacy seceded at once. Seven - the "core" - seceded between December 20, 1860 and February 1, 1861. They were: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.

Another four - Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas - joined them only after the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. Two - Kentucky and Missouri - seceded but were controlled by the Union's army throughout the war. Maryland and Delaware were slave states but did not secede.

President James Buchanan who preceded Abraham Lincoln, made clear that the federal government would not use force to prevent secession. Secession was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court only in 1869 (in Texas vs. White) - four years after the Civil War ended. New England almost seceded in 1812, during the Anglo-American conflict, in order to protect its trade with Britain.

The constitution of the Confederacy prohibited African slave trade (buying slaves from Africa), though it allowed interstate trade in slaves. The first Confederate capital was in Montgomery, Alabama - not in Richmond, Virginia. The term of office of the Confederate president - Jefferson Davis was the first elected - was six years, not four as was the case in the Union.

Fort Sumter was not the first attack of the Confederacy on the Union. It was preceded by attacks on 11 forts and military installations on Confederate territory.

Lincoln won only 40 percent of the popular vote in 1860. Hence the South's fierce resistance to his abolitionist agenda. In 1864, the Republicans became so unpopular, they had to change their name to the Union Party. Lincoln's vice-president, Johnson, actually was a Democrat and hailed from Tennessee, a seceding state.

He was the only senator from a seceded state to remain in the Senate.

Reconstruction started long before the war ended, in Union-occupied Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Slave tax was an important source of state revenue in the South (up to 60 percent in South Carolina). Emancipation led to near bankruptcy.

The Union states of Connecticut, Minnesota, and Wisconsin refused to pass constitutional amendments to confer suffrage on black males. The Union army consigned black labor gangs to work on the plantations of loyal Southerners and forcibly separated the black workers from their families.

Contrary to myth, nearly two thirds of black families were headed by both parents. Slave marriages were legally meaningless in the antebellum South, though. But nearly 90 percent of slave households remained intact till death or forced separation. The average age of childbirth for women was 20.

Segregation was initiated by blacks. The freedmen lobbied hard and long for separate black churches and educational facilities. Nor was lynching confined to blacks. For instance, a white mob lynched, in September 1862, forty four Union supporters in Gainesville, Texas. Similar events took place in Shelton Laurel, North Carolina. The Ku Klux Klan was the paramilitary arm of the Democratic party in the South, though never officially endorsed by it. It was used to "discipline" the workforce in the plantations - but also targeted Republicans.

The Democrats changed their name after the war to the Conservative Party. By 1877 they have regained power in all formerly Confederate states.

The New Apostolic Reformation is a movement in Protestant Christianity that grew out of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, that asserts that God is restoring the lost offices of church governance, namely the offices of Prophet and Apostle.

General beliefs

The New Apostolic Reformation started from Pentecostal and Charismatic origins, and thus includes belief in the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit within a believer; the performance of miracles (such as healing), prophecy and the revelation of Christ within a believer.

However, although the movement sees the Church as the true body of saved believers as many Evangelical Protestants do, it maintains the need for Church offices and submission to Church leaders, who are seen as ordained by God, and given power and authority by God to lead by serving, as described in the biblical letter of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians. As such, they believe in the 5-fold offices of the Church first popularized in Charismatic groups; of which the prophet and apostle has been absent from the Church for the last 2000 years, and are now being restored. See Five-Fold Ministry.

Many apostolic churches are at their heart missionary churches. (Apostolos Gk: Sent ones) This reformation seeks to reform the church on a global scale beginning first with the local church which is then networked to other apostolic churches relating to one another as one body and submitted to Christ who is believed to be the head of the church.

The apostolic ministry is not concerned with membership numbers but rather with a process they refer to as the formation of Christ within its members. As such, apostolic churches tend to be small, consisting of dedicated believers who all function and carry weight in the church, working together toward the commission and vision of the local church.

New Testament apocrypha
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New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings of the early Christian church that give accounts of the teachings of Jesus, aspects of the life of Jesus, accounts of the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with those books which are regarded as "canonical". Not every branch of the Christian church is in agreement as to which writings are to be regarded as "canonical" and which are "apocryphal".
Contents
[hide]

    * 1 Definition
    * 2 History
    * 3 Gospels
          o 3.1 Infancy Gospels
          o 3.2 Jewish Christian Gospels
          o 3.3 Rival versions of canonical Gospels
          o 3.4 Sayings Gospels
          o 3.5 Passion Gospels
          o 3.6 Harmonic Gospels
    * 4 Gnostic Christian texts
          o 4.1 Dialogues with Jesus
          o 4.2 General texts concerning Jesus
          o 4.3 Sethian texts concerning Jesus
          o 4.4 Ritual diagrams
    * 5 Acts
    * 6 Epistles
    * 7 Apocalypses
    * 8 Fate of Mary
    * 9 Miscellany
    * 10 Fragments
    * 11 Lost works
    * 12 A note about orthodoxy
    * 13 Evaluation
    * 14 See also
    * 15 External links

[edit] Definition

The word "apocrypha" means "hidden writings" and comes from the Greek through Latin. The general term is usually applied to the books that were considered by the church as useful, but not divinely inspired. As such, to refer to Gnostic writings as "apocryphal" is misleading since they would not be classified in the same category by orthodox believers.

Not all ancient Judeo-Christian texts made it into the Christian Bible. These ancient texts are called "outside books," "extrabiblical books," or "noncanonical books."

Christian canons emerged through a complex process in which some books were "chosen" and others were left out. A tradition of use, authority within the communities, antiquity or apostolicity, and orthodoxy were factors in deciding which books were "in" and which were "out."
Why Outside Books?

There are different biblical canons. For example, Roman Catholics have a larger canon than Protestants. This means that Roman Catholics have some inside books that Protestants consider outside.
Books became "outside" because:

* Some ancient texts were considered authoritative but were dropped before the canon was "closed."
* Some well-regarded books were written too late and/or not believed to be apostolic, so they were not included. Nevertheless some outside books, such as the Didache, are as old or even older than some of the books that made the New Testament.
* Other books were accepted by some Christian communities but not others. Sometimes:
o they were labeled "heretical" by more powerful Christian groups like Rome
o they were not popular or known well enough by Greek-speaking Christians
* Still other books never came close to making it "inside.". In addition to heretical books that were excluded, other books were considered to be too outrageous, even though they were very popular. (These books also tended to be written much later than canonical books)
* A number of books were lost or destroyed.
* Some old writers were never considered as scripture but have historical value; they may be letters, or histories, or stories, or other kinds of records.

Biblical Reflections

Learn about some of the ancient texts that our outside the biblical canon. The examples below were selected to illustrate reasons why different ancient texts were excluded.

Almost made the canon:

The Letter of Clement I was written about A.D. 95-6 in the name of the church of Rome and was included in some early canonical lists. Clement I is the oldest Christian manuscript that is NOT in the canon. The letter is now categorized as part of a group of manuscripts called the "Apostolic Fathers," a group of manuscripts written while the apostles and other eye-witnesses to Jesus Christ's life were still alive.

The Didache: The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. The Didache is a manual of moral instruction and church practice known for its eucharist service which does not use sacrificial language. The Didache was "lost" for several centuries until it was re-discovered in 1875 in the Jerusalem Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre at Constantinople. Like Clement 1, the Didache is now part of a group of manuscripts called the "Apostolic Fathers," the oldest writings of a larger grouping called "Church Fathers."

Justin Martyr, Click on Image for Larger Version

Written too late:

First Apology by Justin Martyr . Justin Martyr is one of the most famous Christian apologists (defenders of the faith). He was born about 100 C.E. in Shechem, Samaria. He was converted to Christianity about 130. Justin's works are now part of a group of manuscripts called "Church Fathers." His first apology seeks to disprove Christians from various charges that had been made against them and to justify Christian religion

Labeled Heretical:

The Gospel of Thomas is an example of a book which originated from a group that was labeled heretical. It is a Gnostic document. Of all of the Christian Gnostic manuscripts that were among those discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945, the Gospel of Thomas has the most similarities with the canonical books. It is a collection of 114 sayings (logia) of Jesus, many similar to those in the Bible and others considered by scholars to be genuine sayings of Christ. Thomas was probably written in Syria about 140 C.E. 1

Not Popular Enough:

The Gospel of the Hebrews was a Jewish-Christian Gospel that still existed as late as the fourth century. Written originally in Aramaic instead of Greek like the canonical gospels, it was almost as long as Matthew. Jerome, who found a copy of the book in the library at Casearea, Palestine was very interested in the book and translated it into Greek and Latin. All of the versions of this gospel have been lost. We have only a few quotations from it in Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Jerome, and Cyril of Jerusalem. Biblical scholar Bruce Metzger believes that one of the reasons the gospel did not make the canon was because it was written in a Semitic language rather than the culturally dominant Greek language and because it was mostly used by Jewish Christians, some of whom became regarded as "Ebionite" heretics. 2

Outrageous:

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas opens with a story about five-year-old Jesus making twelve sparrows out of mud. He claps his hands; they come to life and fly away. A nice story but in the next story, child Jesus curses a boy and makes him wither up. Later Jesus is angered when another child bumps into his shoulder and strikes him dead! This gospel, which may be as old as the second century, is a different book from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.

Lost:

Many ancient manuscripts have been lost, including some books that are quoted in the Bible, such as the Book of Jasher. Read a list of lost Christian texts. Other manuscripts, including the Didache mentioned above, were lost but found again Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Library.

Historical:

Eusebius, Click for Bigger Pic - 4457 Bytes

The Church History of Eusebius Except from the New Testament, this history is probably the single most essential document for the study of Church history before Constantine. The St. Pachomius Library provides links to a number of ancient histories of the church.

Take the Highway

Journey Through Time

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Outside Books: The Dead Sea Scrolls are some of the most famous outside books. Learn about them and other ancient manuscripts.
Choose a Byway

Links to Noncanonical Books: Explore the original texts (translating into English) of dozens of "outside books," including the Dead Sea Scrolls and Gnostic texts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Outside Books

http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/Bible/outside.stm

Notes 1 Bruce Metzer, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 85-86.
2 Metzger, pp. 169-170.

The picture of Justin is a detail of "Justin" in An Outline of Christianity: The Story of Our Civilization, Vol. II (New York: Bethlehem Publishers, Inc., 1926), p. 55. The picture of Eusebius is a detail from "Eusebius" from the same book, p. 91.

Note Taking

Learning to take excellent notes in class is a skill that will enable you to stay organized and equip you with the tools necessary for you to do well on quizzes, tests, and projects. Begin with a binder and loose leaf paper, instead of a traditional bound notebook. Using loose leaf paper will allow you to add and delete notes, as well as move pages freely in the binder. You can also neatly store handouts and returned assignments among your notes in the binder. There are five steps to taking excellent notes: record, reduce, recite, reflect, and review.

Recording material presented in class is the first step in the process. At the top of your paper, write down the date, the class, the professor’s name, and any names of guest speakers. Skip a line or two and begin writing down any important information presented. Do not try to write in complete sentences, but rather use fragments, abbreviations, outlines, or even drawings. Write down all main ideas and objectives, as well as supporting information, quickly. Make sure you can read what you have written, but you will go back to the material later so it does not have to be perfectly neat. Because it is difficult to write word-for-word quickly, only write down direct quotes if they are absolutely necessary.

The second step is to reduce the information you have recorded. After class you should go back to your note pages. Look for the main ideas, key points, and important terminology. Write these in a separate section. The second time around, concentrate on organizing these main ideas and writing neatly. Use this section to also write down any questions you have about the material, as well as to link information from other sources that are related to this material.

Reciting the information is the third step of successful note taking. Talking aloud and without looking at your notes, review what you have learned. Using the main ideas you have written down, talk through the ideas in your own words. It is also helpful to create your own examples based on the information you were given in class. This will help you begin to learn the material on your own.

Step four is to reflect on the material. Think about what you have learned. Try to connect the information to what you already know. And write down any further questions you may have after thinking over the material.

The final step is to review the notes several times. Review the notes, and any questions you may have, before your next class, and when studying for tests and quizzes. Following these five steps will help you organize your notes and learn the material.

Just a place to add odd bits of info.

notes from the article.

Notes from Time magazine article on EQ: Oct 2, 1995

Marshmallow study. About delayed gratification, done with 4 y.olds.

First group scored 210 points higher on SAT tests

"a triumph of the reasoning brain over the impulsive one"

He says there is a "neurological window of opportunity" since the brain's prefrontal circuitry, which regulates how we act on how we feel, probably does not mature until about mid-adolescence.

The more connections between the limbic system and the neocortex, the more emotional responses are possible.

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain, by Antonio Damasio. Decisions made by emotional values.

Describing people whose connections were severed between the limbic & neocortex:

"They could not make decisions because they didn't know how they felt about their choices."

"They were just as smart & quick to reason, but their lives fell apart nonetheless."

"They couldn't react to warning or anger in other people. If they made a mistake, they felt no regret or shame and so were bound to repeat it."

"If there is a cornerstone to emotional intelligence on which most other emotional skills depend, it is a sense of self-awareness, of being smart about what we feel."

Anyone can become angry-that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way- this is not easy. (Aristotle)

Anger: first response is surge of energy; release of neurotransmitters called catecholamines. Under stress, the threshold for release is lower.

Exercise, or relaxation.

"When optimists fail they attribute the failure to something they can change, not some innate weakness that they are helpless to overcome" (Martin Seligman from U of Penn)

About 90% of comm. is non-verbal.

PONS: Profile of non-verbal sensitivity. Those with higher are more successful in work & relationships. Kids more succ. at school.

Psychopaths did not show signs of fear when told they would be shocked.

IQ gets you hired, EQ gets you promoted - according to Goleman.

Nowhere is the discussion of emotional intelligence more pressing than in the schools, where both the stakes and the opportunities seem greatest. Goleman argues for preventive maintenance.

Children who are depressed or angry literally cannot learn.

An inability to distinguish distressing feelings or handle frustration has been linked to eating disorders in girls. p. 68

p. 68: Yale's Salovey says he would oppose training "conformity to social expectations"

Harvard Med. Schools Prof of psych asks "is it good emotional intelligence not to challenge authority?"

"Emotional skills, like intellectual ones, are morally neutral.

Reported by: Sharon Epperson, Lawrence Mondi (NY), James Graff (Chi), Lisa Towle (Raleigh)

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Objectivism (Ayn Rand)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Objectivism is a philosophy[1][2] developed by Ayn Rand in the 20th century that encompasses positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics.[3]

 Brief overview

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 35th anniversary edition[4]
Ayn Rand characterized Objectivism as a philosophy "for living on earth" grounded in reality and aimed at defining man's nature and the nature of the world in which he lives. Rand presented her philosophy through her novels The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and other works. She elaborated on her ideas in The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, and other non-fiction books.[5]
Objectivism holds that reality exists independent from consciousness; that individual persons are in contact with this reality through sensory perception; that human beings can gain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation; that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or "rational self-interest"; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure, consensual laissez-faire capitalism; and that the role of art in human life is to transform man's widest metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and respond to.

 Etymology
Objectivism derives its name from its conception of knowledge and values as objective; neither intrinsic nor subjective. According to Rand, concepts and values are not intrinsic to external reality, nor are they merely subjective (by which Rand means "arbitrary" or "created by [one's] feelings, desires, 'intuitions,' or whims"; like wishful thinking). Rather, valid concepts and values are, as she wrote, "determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man's mind."[6]

Rand chose "Objectivism" as the name of her philosophy because her ideal term to label a philosophy based on the primacy of existence, "Existentialism," had already been adopted to describe the philosophy of Kierkegaard and later Sartre.[7] The name is capitalized to distinguish it from other philosophical positions to which the term "objectivism" has sometimes been applied.


 Objectivist principles

 Metaphysics: Objective reality

Main article: Objectivist metaphysics
Ayn Rand's philosophy is based on three axioms: the Axiom of Existence, the Law of Identity, and the Axiom of Consciousness. Rand defined an axiom as "a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it."[4] As Leonard Peikoff noted, Rand's argumentation "is not a proof that the axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity are true. It is proof that they are axioms, that they are at the base of knowledge and thus inescapable."[7]

Objectivism states that "Existence exists" (the Axiom of Existence) and "Existence is Identity." To be is to be "an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes."[4] That which has no attributes does not and cannot exist. Hence, the Law of Identity: a thing is what it is. Whereas "existence exists" pertains to existence itself (whether something exists or not), the law of identity pertains to the nature of an object as being necessarily distinct from other objects (whether something exists as this or that). As Rand wrote, "A leaf cannot be all red and green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time. A is A."[4]
Rand held that when one is able to perceive something that exists, then one's "Consciousness exists" (the Axiom of Consciousness), consciousness "being the faculty of perceiving that which exists."[7] Objectivism maintains that what exists does not exist because one thinks it exists; it simply exists, regardless of anyone's awareness, knowledge or opinion. For Rand, "to be conscious is to be conscious of something," so that an objective reality independent of consciousness has to exist first for consciousness to become possible, and there is no possibility of a consciousness that is conscious of nothing outside itself. Thus consciousness cannot be the only thing that exists. "It cannot be aware only of itself — there is no 'itself' until it is aware of something."[8] Objectivism holds that the mind cannot create reality, but rather, it is a means of discovering reality.[9]

Objectivist philosophy regards the Law of Causality, which states that things act in accordance with their natures, as "the law of identity applied to action."[4] Rand rejected the popular notion that the causal link relates action to action. According to Rand, an "action" is not an entity, rather, it is entities that act, and every action is the action of an entity. The way entities interact is caused by the specific nature (or "identity") of those entities; if they were different there would be a different result.[7]


 Epistemology: Reason
Main article: Objectivist epistemology
The starting point of Objectivist epistemology is the principle, presented by Rand as a direct consequence of the metaphysical axiom that "Existence is Identity," that Knowledge is Identification. Objectivist epistemology[9] defines how one can translate perception, i.e., awareness acquired through the senses, into valid concepts that identify the facts of reality.

Objectivism states that only by the method of reason man can gain knowledge (identification of the facts of reality) and rejects philosophical skepticism. Objectivism also rejects faith and "feeling" as means of attaining knowledge. Although Rand acknowledged the importance of emotion in humans, she maintained that emotion was a consequence of the conscious or subconscious ideas one already holds, not a means of achieving awareness of reality.

Rand was neither a classical empiricist (like Hume or the logical positivists) nor a classical rationalist (like Plato, Descartes, or Frege). She disagreed with the empiricists mainly in that she considered perception to be simply sensation extended over time, limiting the scope of perception to automatic, pre-cognitive awareness. Thus, she categorized so-called "perceptual illusions" as errors in cognitive interpretation due to complexity of perceptual data. She held that objective identification of the values of attributes of existents is obtained by measurement, broadly defined as procedures whose perceptual component, the comparison of the attribute's value to a standard, is so simple that an error in the resulting identification is not possible given a focused mind. Therefore, according to Rand, knowledge obtained by measurement (the fact that an entity has the measured attribute, and the value of this attribute relative to the standard) is "contextually certain."

Ayn Rand's most distinctive contribution in epistemology is her theory that concepts are properly formed by measurement omission.

"According to Objectivism, concepts “represent classifications of observed existents according to their relationships to other observed existents.” To form a concept, one mentally isolates a group of concretes (of distinct perceptual units), on the basis of observed similarities which distinguish them from all other known concretes (similarity is “the relationship between two or more existents which possess the same characteristic(s), but in different measure or degree”); then, by a process of omitting the particular measurements of these concretes, one integrates them into a single new mental unit: the concept, which subsumes all concretes of this kind (a potentially unlimited number). The integration is completed and retained by the selection of a perceptual symbol (a word) to designate it. “A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted.”" [10]

"...the term “measurements omitted” does not mean, in this context, that measurements are regarded as non-existent; it means that measurements exist, but are not specified. That measurements must exist is an essential part of the process. The principle is: the relevant measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity."[11]

Rand did not consider the analytic-synthetic distinction to have merit. She similarly denied the existence of a priori knowledge. Rand also considered her ideas distinct from foundationalism, naive realism, or representationalism (i.e., an indirect realist who believes in a "veil of ideas") like Descartes or Locke.
Objectivist epistemology, like most other philosophical branches of Objectivism, was first presented by Rand in Atlas Shrugged.[4] It is more fully developed in Rand's 1967 Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.[9] Rand considered her epistemology and its basis in reason so central to her philosophy that she remarked, "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."

[edit] Ethics: Rational self-interest

Main article: Objectivist ethics
Rand identified morality as principles needed in all contexts, whether one is alone or with others, reserving the term "ethics" for relationships with others. She summarized (see Summary above) that man properly lives "with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life." According to Objectivist epistemology, states of mind, such as happiness, are not primary; they are the consequence of specific facts of existence. Therefore man needs an objective standard, grounded in the facts of reality, to achieve happiness. The human faculty of happiness is a biologically evolved measuring instrument (a "barometer"[12]) that measures how well one is doing in the pursuit of life. Therefore the standard by which one can judge whether or not some action will lead to greater or lesser happiness is whether or not it promotes one's life.

But, as Rand writes,
"To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem."[4]
The morality of Objectivism is based on the observation that one's own choices and actions are instrumental in maintaining and enhancing one's life, and therefore one's happiness. Rand wrote:
"Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice — and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man — by choice; he has to hold his life as a value — by choice; he has to learn to sustain it — by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues — by choice.

"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality."[4]
There is a difference, therefore, between rational self-interest as pursuit of one's own life and happiness in reality, and what Ayn Rand called "selfishness without a self" - a range-of-the-moment pseudo-"selfish" whim-worship or "hedonism." A whim-worshipper or "hedonist," according to Rand, is not motivated by a desire to live his own human life, but by a wish to live on a sub-human level. Instead of using "that which promotes my (human) life" as his standard of value, he mistakes "that which I (mindlessly happen to) value" for a standard of value, in contradiction of the fact that, existentially, he is a human and therefore rational organism. The "I value" in whim-worship or hedonism can be replaced with "we value," "he values," "they value," or "God values," and still it would remain dissociated from reality. Rand repudiated the equation of rational selfishness with hedonistic or whim-worshipping "selfishness-without-a-self." She held that the former is good, and the latter evil, and that there is a fundamental difference between them.[12] A corollary to Rand's endorsement of self-interest is her rejection of the ethical doctrine of altruism — which she defined in the sense of August Comte's altruism (he coined the term), as a moral obligation to live for the sake of others.

Rand defined a value as "that which one acts to gain and/or keep." The rational individual's choice of values to pursue is guided by his need, if he chooses to live, to act so as to maintain and promote his own life. Rand did not hold that values proper to human life are "intrinsic" in the sense of being independent of one's choices, or that there are values that an individual must pursue by command or imperative ("reason accepts no commandments"). Neither did Rand consider proper values "subjective," to be pursued just because one has chosen, perhaps arbitrarily, to pursue them. Rather, Rand held that valid values are "objective," in the sense of being identifiable as serving to preserve and enhance one's life. Some values are specific to the nature of each individual, but there are also universal human values, including the preservation of one's own individual rights, which Rand defined as "conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival."[4]

Objectivism holds that morality is a "code of values accepted by choice." According to Leonard Peikoff, Rand held that "man needs [morality] for one reason only: he needs it in order to survive. Moral laws, in this view, are principles that define how to nourish and sustain human life; they are no more than this and no less."[7] Objectivism does not claim that there is a moral requirement to choose to value one's life. As Allan Gotthelf points out, for Rand, "Morality rests on a fundamental, pre-moral choice:"[13] the moral agent's choice to live rather than die, so that the moral "ought" is always contextual and agent-relative. To be moral is to choose that which promotes one's life in one's actual context. There are no "categorical imperatives" (as in Kantianism) that an individual would be obliged to carry out regardless of consequences for his life.

[edit] Politics: Individual rights and capitalism
Objectivist politics begins with ethics: the question of if, and if so why, a rational agent needs a set of principles for living his life. The proper answer to ethics tells a rational individual how to preserve his individual rights while interacting with, benefiting from cooperation with, and trading with, other individuals in society.[4] That is, it determines the principles that constitute a moral social system.[14] The only social system that fully recognizes individual rights is Capitalism[15] - as Rand understood it:
When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.[12]

Each individual possesses inalienable rights--the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of his own happiness. "Rights are moral principles defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context" ["Man's Rights," The Virtue of Selfishness]. Government is the institution with a monopoly on the use of physical force in a given geographical area, so the issue is whether that force is to be used to protect--or to violate--indidividual rights--i.e., whether the government uses force only in retaliation or whether it initiates force against innocent citizens. Under laissez-faire Capitalism, the government is restricted to using retaliatory force, to protect individual rights--which means the only proper functions of the government are "the police, to protect men from criminals; the military forces, to protect men from foreign invaders; and the law courts, to protect men's property and contracts from breach by force or fraud, and to settle disputes among men according to objectively defined laws." [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 47]

Objectivism holds that human beings have the right to manipulate nature in any way they see fit, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. On the Objectivist account, the rights of other human beings are not of direct moral import to the agent who respects them; they acquire their moral purchase through an intermediate step. An Objectivist respects the rights of other human beings out of the recognition of the value to himself or herself of living in a world in which the freedom of action of other rational (or potentially rational) human beings is respected. One's respect for the rights of others is founded on the value, to oneself, of other persons as actual or potential partners in cooperation and trade.
For these reasons Ayn Rand defends capitalism as the ideal form of human society. Objectivism reserves the name "capitalism" for full laissez-faire capitalism — i.e., a society in which individual rights are consistently respected. Any system short of this is regarded by Objectivists as a "mixed economy" consisting of certain aspects of capitalism and its opposite (usually called socialism or statism),[4] with pure socialism at the opposite extreme.

Far from regarding capitalism as a dog-eat-dog pattern of social organization, Objectivism regards it as a beneficent system in which the innovations of the most creative benefit everyone else in the society (although that is not its justification). Indeed, Objectivism values creative achievement itself and regards capitalism as the only kind of society in which it can flourish.
A society is, by Objectivist standards, moral to the extent that individuals are free to pursue their goals. This freedom requires that human relationships of all forms be voluntary (which, in the Objectivist view, means that they must not involve the use of physical force), mutual consent being the defining characteristic of a free society. Thus the proper role of institutions of governance is limited to using force in retaliation against those who initiate its use — i.e., against criminals and foreign aggressors. Economically, people are free to produce and exchange as they see fit, with as complete a separation of state and economics as of state and church. Thus, Objectivism holds that a proper government must have its power strictly limited by an objectively defined charter and procedures designed to protect the pre-existing rights of its citizens.
[edit] Aesthetics: Metaphysical Value-Judgements

The Objectivist theory of art flows from its epistemology, by way of "psycho-epistemology" (Rand's term for an individual's characteristic mode of functioning in acquiring knowledge). Art, according to Objectivism, serves a human cognitive need: it allows human beings to grasp concepts as though they were percepts.
Objectivism defines "art" as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments"—that is, according to what the artist believes to be ultimately true and important about the nature of reality and humanity. In this respect Objectivism regards art as a way of presenting abstractions concretely, in perceptual form.
The human need for art, on this view, stems from the need for cognitive economy. A concept is already a sort of mental shorthand standing for a large number of concretes, allowing a human being to think indirectly or implicitly of many more such concretes than can be held explicitly in mind. But a human being cannot hold indefinitely many concepts explicitly in mind either—and yet, on the Objectivist view, needs a comprehensive conceptual framework in order to provide guidance in life.

Art offers a way out of this dilemma by providing a perceptual, easily grasped means of communicating and thinking about a wide range of abstractions.
Objectivism regards art as an effective way to communicate a moral or ethical ideal. Objectivism does not, however, regard art as propagandistic: even though art involves moral values and ideals, its purpose is not to educate, only to show or project.

Moreover, art need not be, and often is not, the outcome of a full-blown, explicit philosophy. Usually it stems from an artist's sense of life (which is preconceptual and largely emotional).

Rand held that Romanticism was the highest school of literary art, noting that Romanticism was "based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition."

What the Romanticists brought to art was the primacy of values… Values are the source of emotions: a great deal of emotional intensity was projected in the work of the Romanticists and in the reactions of their audiences, as well as a great deal of color, imagination, originality, excitement, and all the other consequences of a value-oriented view of life.[16]

The term "romanticism", however, is often affiliated with emotionalism, to which Objectivism is completely opposed. Historically, many romantic artists were philosophically subjectivists or socialists. Most Objectivists who are also artists subscribe to what they call Romantic Realism, which is how Ayn Rand labeled her own work.

[edit] Ayn Rand on the history of philosophy
Main article: Ayn Rand and the history of philosophy
Rand regarded her philosophical efforts as the beginning of the correction of a deeply troubled world, and she believed that the world has gotten into its present troubled state largely through the uncritical acceptance, by both intellectuals and others, of traditional philosophy. In the title essay of her early work For the New Intellectual, Rand levels serious criticisms of canonical historical philosophers, especially Plato, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Herbert Spencer. In her later book, Philosophy: Who Needs It, she repeats and enlarges upon her criticisms of Kant, and she also accuses Harvard political theorist John Rawls of gross philosophical errors.

[edit] Intellectual impact
 

The Fountainhead Cafe, a coffee shop in New York City inspired by Objectivism. The sign reads "Eat Objectively, Live Rich".
See also: Criticisms of Objectivism (Ayn Rand) 
Ayn Rand's ideas are often supported with great passion or derided with great disgust, with little in between.[17] Some of this comes from Rand challenging fundamental tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and some may be due to her own all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it approach to her work. She warned her readers that, "If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship for the parts you agree with — and then indulge any flights of fancy you wish, on your own."
Rand was very critical of the state of the academic fields of literature and philosophy, once threatening legal action against an academic who was preparing a critical study of her work.[18]

Objectivism has been largely ignored or harshly criticized by academics. Objectivism has been called "fiercely anti-academic,"[18] a collection of "non-mainstream philosophical works," and more of an ideological movement than a well-grounded philosophy.[19]

In recent years Rand's works are more likely to be encountered in the classroom than in decades past.[18] Since 1999, several monographs were published and a refereed Journal of Ayn Rand Studies began.[20] In 2006 the University of Pittsburgh held a conference focusing on Objectivism.[21] In addition, two Objectivist philosophers (Tara Smith and James Lennox) hold tenured positions at two of the fifteen leading American philosophy departments.[22] Objectivist programs and fellowships have been supported at the University of Pittsburgh[23], University of Texas at Austin[24] and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill[25]. The Ayn Rand Society, dedicated to fostering the scholarly study of Objectivism, is affiliated with the American Philosophical Association's Eastern Division.[26]

Rand is not found in the comprehensive academic reference texts The Oxford Companion to Philosophy or The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. A lengthy article on Rand appears in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy;[27] she has an entry forthcoming in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,[28] as well as a brief entry in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy which features the following passage:

The influence of Rand’s ideas was strongest among college students in the USA but attracted little attention from academic philosophers. … Rand’s political theory is of little interest. Its unremitting hostility towards the state and taxation sits inconsistently with a rejection of anarchism, and her attempts to resolve the difficulty are ill-thought out and unsystematic.

Allan Gotthelf (chairman of the Ayn Rand Society)[29] responded unfavorably to this entry and came to her defense.[30] He and other scholars have argued for more academic study of Objectivism, viewing Rand's philosophy as a unique and intellectually interesting defense of liberalism that is worth debating.[31]
Despite academic disregard for Objectivism, particularly early on, Ayn Rand's books remain popular, selling over 400,000 copies per year.[32]

[edit] Monographs
Ayn Rand's designated intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, published Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (E. P. Dutton), a comprehensive survey of Ayn Rand's philosophy. Objectivism is central to Ronald Merrill's introductory monograph The Ideas of Ayn Rand (Open Court.) Monographs on specific aspects of Objectivism include Viable Values (Rowman & Littlefield) and Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: the Virtuous Egoist (Cambridge University Press) by Tara Smith, The Evidence of the Senses (Louisiana State University Press) by David Kelley, and The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts (The Ayn Rand Institute Press) by Harry Binswanger.
[edit] References
1.^ So identified by sources including: 
Hicks, Stephen. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006), s.v. "Ayn Rand" Retrieved June 22, 2006.

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Objectivism Characterized
The Autonomist ^ | 1/30/04 | Reginald Firehammer

Posted on Sunday, February 08, 2004 11:41:10 PM by Hank Kerchief

 
Objectivism Characterized

I was recently criticized for mischaracterizing Objectivism, which was surprising because the object of the criticism had almost nothing to do with Objectivism itself and was a characterization of something else altogether. Since I have already been criticized for my, "characterizations of Objectivism," I might as well make my characterization of Objectivism explicit, so my critics will not have to guess what they are from implications in other works. Now my explicit characterization may be just as open to criticism, possibly more so, but at least we will know what is being criticized.

What is Objectivism?

Objectivism is the name of a specific philosophy. That philosophy is the work of one person, and that person is Ayn Rand. We do not mean Ayn Rand never learned anything from any other philosophers, or that no one else ever helped her clarify any of her ideas; we mean, in its final form, to the extent it was complete, it is her philosophy, and no one else's.

The name, Objectivism, was chosen by Ayn Rand as the specific name of her philosophy. She toyed with other names, such as, "existentialism," which would have been a good name, since her philosophy emphasizes the primacy of existence, but was rejected since it already named a school of philosophy that contradicted most of her own. About her chosen name, Ayn Rand said:

"If you wonder why I am so particular about protecting the integrity of the term 'Objectivism,' my reason is that 'Objectivism' is the name I have given to my philosophy—therefore, anyone using that name for some philosophical hodgepodge of his own, without my knowledge or consent, is guilty of the fraudulent presumption ... of trying to pass his thinking off as mine.... What is the proper policy on this issue? If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with—and then indulge in any flights of fancy you wish, on your own."
[Ayn Rand, "To the Readers of The Objectivist Forum,” The Objectivist Forum, Vol. 1, No. 1, ARI FAQ]

Who Speaks for Objectivism?

Ayn Rand specifically designated the course by Leonard Peikoff as the official version of her philosophy. She wrote: "Until or unless I write a comprehensive treatise on my philosophy, Dr. Peikoff's course is the only authorized presentation of the entire theoretical structure of Objectivism, i.e., the only one that I know of my own knowledge to be fully accurate."
[Ayn Rand, The Any Rand Letter, quoted in the preface of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.]

If we take Ayn Rand seriously, the only official version of Objectivism is that which is explicated in the writings of Ayn Rand herself, and, possibly, the compiled version of Dr. Peikoff's course, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Neither the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) nor Leonard Peikoff, speaking on their own, speaks for Objectivism. In general, the ARI, it appears, attempts to be consistent with Objectivism as Ayn Rand explicated it, but they do not officially represent Objectivism's teachings. Only Ayn Rand's works do that.

What About the "Randian" Cult?

Is there a Randian cult? Is Ayn Rand worshiped as a mystic authority, the great revelator of philosophic wisdom that must never be contradicted or doubted?

In this world, anything is possible, and there are some who speak of Ayn Rand in almost worshipful terms, but the accusation is usually leveled at those who only wish to preserve the fact that Objectivism is a specific philosophy of a specific person, and that variations or changes to that philosophy should not be called Objectivism.

However much the ARI, for example, is guilty of "Rand worship," it is their mandate to preserve Ayn Rand's Objectivism. ARI, like all other organizations is comprised of human beings, none of whom are infallible or omniscient. They are undoubtedly guilty of mistakes, both in their actions and their teachings; but to the extent they choose to defend Objectivism against anything other than that philosophy, as Ayn Rand explicated it, they are absolutely correct. It is hardly cultic to ruthlessly protect a concept against irrational challenges.

Preserving the integrity of Objectivism, however, does not mean Objectivism itself is sacrosanct. We are very much opposed to those who speak of Ayn Rand as though she were the last word in philosophy; but, we are very much opposed to those who do not recognize that she, and only she, is the last word in Objectivism.

Even her protégé's work contains at least two contradictions, one minor and attributable to Dr. Peikoff himself, the other major and more serious, attributable to Objectivism itself.

The minor contradiction is found in these two quotes from Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand; "Consciousness is not inherent in the fact of existence as such; a world without conscious organisms is possible," (p. 5); and, "The Objectivist view of existence culminates in the principle that no alternative to a fact of reality is possible or imaginable," (p. 23).

The second quote is half correct and half incorrect. Alternatives to facts of reality are imagined all the time and positively embraced both as religions and philosophies. It is the nature of imagination to construct what is contrary to the facts of reality. If it were not, nothing new would ever be invented. We may excuse this mistake as rhetoric, but the contradiction resulting from the true part of the statement cannot be "forgiven."

If, "no alternative to a fact of reality is possible," is true, then, "a world without conscious organisms is possible," is not true, because such a world would be an alternative to the fact, in reality, the world includes conscious organisms.

The contradiction is obvious; the metaphysical and epistemological significance ought to be equally apparent. It is at least evidence that Objectivism, even in sanctioned works, is not the final word on philosophy. The major contradiction is both more subtle and more important, but is too large a subject for this article, and will be fully addressed elsewhere.

New Philosophy

Ayn Rand correctly observed that knowledge is open-ended; no knowledge, scientific, technological, or philosophical is ever complete.

We regard Objectivism is the highest achievement in and greatest contribution to philosophy since Locke, and Ayn Rand the most recent name in that series of true contributors to the field of philosophy beginning with Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, to Aristotle, Peter Abelard, William of Occam, Francis Bacon, and John Locke. (Thomas Aquinas is intentionally excluded, because, in spite of his historical importance to the field of Philosophy, his "contributions" were negative and harmful to it.)

Ayn Rand acknowledged Aristotle as the only one she was philosophically indebted to, nevertheless, Objectivism is conceptually, the next step in philosophy after Locke (and it seems hardly possible that Rand did not see the relationship between her ethics of egoism and Locke's concept of "rational self-interest").

If philosophy is to flourish, if there is to be progress in our understanding of the nature of this world and ourselves that enables us to live successfully in it, Objectivism must not be the last step, but only the latest step, from which future progress must be launched. Just as Objectivism is not called "Lockeianism," new philosophy ought not be called Objectivism.

The Spread of Objectivism

In Chris Matthew Sciabarra's excellent article, "The Cultural Ascendancy of Ayn Rand," [The Atlasphere, 12/31/03] he concluded, "When Rand has become so much a part of the vernacular that her ideas are filtered through cartoons and comics, fiction and film, I think it is safe to assume that she has not only survived culturally, but flourished. And for those who are enamored of Rand’s philosophy, the cultural apex will be reached when her ideas are so embedded in both academia and in the American psyche that they will have brought about a veritable intellectual revolution."

There are two important facts about this article which will escape the notice of most. First, Dr. Sciabarra has the intellectual honesty not to call himself an Objectivist, or to call his views Objectivism. Secondly, while it is obvious Dr. Sciabarra celebrates the spread of the concepts of Ayn Rand's Objectivism into all areas of intellectual culture, he does not call this spread a, "movement."

Objectivism is Not a Movement

Ayn Rand, did speak of Objectivism as a movement. She said, "Objectivism is a philosophical movement; since politics is a branch of philosophy."
[Ayn Rand, "Choose Your Issues," The Objectivist Newsletter, Jan. 1962]

But she emphasized that it was not an organized movement. "I regard the spread of Objectivism through today's culture as an intellectual movement—i.e., a trend among independent individuals who share the same ideas—but not as an organized movement."
[Ayn Rand, "A Statement of Policy," The Objectivist, June 1968]

The spread of Objectivist concepts throughout todays culture is exactly as Rand observed and Dr. Sciabarra described it. If this were all that was meant by an "Objectivist movement," the concept would be acceptable.

But this is not all that is meant today by those who talk about "the Objectivist movement." While the promotion of the ideas of Objectivism is good, and the spread of those ideas is celebratory, the idea of an Objectivist movement to accomplish these things is mistaken and anti-philosophical.

Problems of an Objectivist Movement

An "Objectivist movement," is a mistake for several reasons, which we will only briefly mention:

It is intentionally, "organized." Organizations tend be authoritarian self-appointed spokesman for Objectivism, which, oddly enough, produces a kind of friction and conflict among those who might otherwise agree except for their allegiances to their particular "Objectivist" organizations.

The collective nature of organizations must not be overlooked. An organization must have some set of standards of policy and practice to which all members agree. Such agreement is almost always artificial, and those who cannot go along with the artifice, eventually rebel or are "kicked out."

Promoting an Objectivist movement makes Objectivism the very thing Objectivists reject, doctrinaire and cultic, something to be studied and embraced, not something to be critically examined and understood. We hear language like "Converting to Objectivism," or "becoming an Objectivist," or "accepting Objectivism," they way Christians accept their Savior.

An Objectivist movement makes Objectivism an end in itself, as though the purpose of philosophy were to make everyone an Objectivist. But Objectivism is only a stage in philosophy, not an end. It is the furthest we've gotten so far, and anyone who wishes to make progress in philosophy must learn the principles of Ayn Rand's Objectivism to be in a position to make any real advances in that field. Learning Objectivism should be a means, not an end, just as learning analytic geometry, while useful in itself, is also the means to learning the calculus.

Promoting Objectivism as a movement invites syncretism. Whether intentional or not, there is the attempt to make Objectivism conform to and include ideas that are not Objectivist at all. We see articles like, Carl Menger's Economics of Well-Being: Almost Objectivism and other's attempt to make the Austrian School of Economics, Hayek, and von Mises part of the "Objectivist fold." There are even Christian Objectivists. No kidding!

If just anything, however similar or different from Objectivism as Ayn Rand espoused it, calls itself Objectivism, the word itself ceases to have any meaning. If Objectivism is a major philosophical contribution, and new philosophy is going to begin there, that "place" must be clearly designated. It does not matter if what is different from Objectivism is correct, if it is different, it is not Objectivism. New philosophy, even starting with Ayn Rand's Objectivism, does not need to agree with Objectivism on every point, but if it disagrees and calls itself Objectivism, how can it be known, when someone calls something Objectivism, which version is meant? Philosophers should be extremely careful to insure the meaning of the words they use are clearly defined and understood. There cannot be different versions of Objectivism without confusion.

Objectivism Characterized

So just how do I characterize Objectivism. I characterize it as a mistake—not the content, but the name.

When Ayn Rand was asked what she called her philosophy, she should have looked her questioner in the eye, and stated firmly, "philosophy!" In the same sense that there is only chemistry, or biology, or physics, there is only philosophy. While we speak of Newtonian physics, and associate relativity and quantum mechanics with Einstein, these only designate various stages in the development of physics, we do not give special names to those stages.

We might designate the stage of philosophy achieved by Ayn Rand as Randian philosophy, but it is as much a mistake to call that stage Randianism or Objectivism as it would be to call the stage of physics achieved by Newton, Newtonianism.

Objectivism itself should not be promoted, the concepts of Objectivism ought to be. Certainly, when those concepts are discussed, when they are specifically those which Ayn Rand originated or defined, her authorship must be acknowledged.

Promote Ayn Rand for her twin accomplishments: as one of the greatest authors of fiction and one of the most important contributors to the field of philosophy in history. Promote the concepts of her philosophy as correct principles in that field. In what name should those concepts be promoted? In the name of what they are, philosophy.

—Reginald Firehammer (1/30/04)

TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: aynrand; objectivism; philosophy; principles
A bit esoteric, mostly of interest to those already interested in the philosophy of Objectivism or Ayn Rand.
1 posted on Sunday, February 08, 2004 11:41:10 PM by Hank Kerchief
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To: Fzob; P.O.E.; PeterPrinciple; reflecting; DannyTN; FourtySeven; x; dyed_in_the_wool; Zon; ...
PHILOSOPHY PING

(If you want on or off this list please freepmail me.)

Hank
2 posted on Sunday, February 08, 2004 11:42:40 PM by Hank Kerchief
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To: Hank Kerchief
This is an excellent essay on Objectivism: Why I Am Not An Objectivist - Michael Huemer

I have even been in the habit of recommending it to others as an introduction to the field of metaphysics.
3 posted on Sunday, February 08, 2004 11:47:23 PM by explodingspleen
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To: Hank Kerchief
I like "Atlas Shrugged", I've read it three times. Ayn Rand is to be complimented on her ability to say things that no one else was willing to say. However, she did have an unfortunate tendency to go on and on and on in her writing. She would take a thousand words to say something that could have been said in twenty.

Objectivism is not something that I subscribe to, although I do agree with some of the ideas and ideals espoused by Objectivism. Has anyone else noticed how many smug, self-satisfied and throughly annoying people gravitate towards Objectivism in a manner reminiscent of moths swarming around a patio light bulb on a dark summer night?
4 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 12:37:59 AM by Elliott Jackalope (We send our kids to Iraq to fight for them, and they send our jobs to India. Now THAT'S gratitude!)
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To: Elliott Jackalope
I have noticed it .... I was once one of them, and Rand's light is alluring indeed. But, moths who do this, sooner or later, either die in their attempts to get the light, or fly away.

The turning point for me was children. Ayn Rand simply didn't address, with efficacy, issues I faced with regards to my kids as they grew up.

So, I flew away. I'm less annoying now. :)
5 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 6:34:48 AM by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/laocoon)
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To: Hank Kerchief
Thanks Hank


Bump for later
6 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 6:39:36 AM by WhiteGuy (Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...)
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To: Hank Kerchief
That was a lot to read, but it din't really say, in easy to understand terms, what objectivism is. I've never read any of her stuff, so could you give me the objectivism for dummies explanation? Thanks
7 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 8:07:32 AM by stuartcr
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To: stuartcr
...could you give me the objectivism for dummies explanation?

Well, it is an entire philosophy and a wee bit difficult to summarize in a few short sentences.

If you are really interested in what it is, this is a good resource: Objectivist Links for Autonomists

And this is the best concise description of the entire philosophy I know of: Importance of Philosophy

And for a really short summary, go here: What is Objectivism?

Hank
8 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 11:59:45 AM by Hank Kerchief
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To: Hank Kerchief
tHANKs for the ping. My 15 yo son is reading Rand right now, so this is timely.
9 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 2:19:44 PM by mamaduck (I follow a New Age Guru . . . from 2000 years ago.)
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To: Hank Kerchief
Ayn Rand will live on as long as there are college sophomores.
10 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 2:23:38 PM by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Aquinasfan
Ayn Rand will live on as long as there are college sophomores.

There are more Catholic college sophomores than Objectivist college sophomores.

...apropos of nothing.

Hank
11 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 3:04:01 PM by Hank Kerchief
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To: Hank Kerchief
...apropos of nothing.

It's funny! And it's funny because it has a basis in truth. How many people go through the Rand thing in college, and then grow out of it?
12 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 3:11:24 PM by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Hank Kerchief
Thanks...philosophies are like religious beliefs.....since no one is any better or worse than any other, or even correct or incorrect for that matter, I'll stick with my own.
13 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 3:15:34 PM by stuartcr
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To: stuartcr
Thanks...philosophies are like religious beliefs.....since no one is any better or worse than any other, or even correct or incorrect for that matter,...

I'd be curious to know how you know that.

I'll stick with my own.

Everybody does. The result is our current world.

Hank
14 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 3:28:59 PM by Hank Kerchief
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To: Hank Kerchief
By the lack of proof otherwise.

Always has been, always will be...as long as we are human, and can think.
15 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 3:55:41 PM by stuartcr
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To: Hank Kerchief
Objectivism is a wonderful philospohy for superior human beings to live by. It's getting all those pesky inferior human beings to live by it that's the problem...

I'm still a huge fan of Rand's ability to show Socialism for what it is and rhetorically destroy it. To me, that's Atlas Shrugged's greatest contribution to literature and philosophy, not it's advocacy of Objectivism.
16 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 4:01:07 PM by Mr. Jeeves
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To: Hank Kerchief
What objectivists never seem to do (well) is show how objectivist principles have been applied in real life and what the results were (both intended and unintended). I tend toward pragmatism; I like to know what works and how to put it to use.
17 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 4:11:21 PM by templar
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To: Hank Kerchief
The biggest problem with Ayn Rand's philosophy is that it's a fraud. She makes a great show of applying "reason" to "reality," but somehow, unaccountably, she fails to recognize certain inconvenient characteristics of reality, such as this example of brutality in nature.

I've seen a lot of folks try to say that humans are exceptions, because we're self-aware. But the justification for such exceptionalism is not supported even by an objective look at human history -- much less that of nature in general. (Indeed, if we were to follow Rand, and base our moral claims on what we can observe "in reality," then Social Darwinism would rule the field. Not coincidentally, Rand's superheroic protagonists are rather Darwinian themselves.)

There are far too many examples of brutal people succeeding, for Rand's claims of "absoluteness" to make any sense. If we are to base right and wrong on what "Reason" tells us, then we would not get Rand's answer.
18 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 4:11:30 PM by r9etb
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.
19 posted on Monday, February 09, 2004 8:10:31 PM by StriperSniper (Manuel Miranda - Whistleblower)
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Joel's Army

[[Read More Here|http://www.letusreason.org/Latrain10.htm]]

Remember the song that went, "Oh when the saints, come marchin' in, oh when the saints come marchin in, Lord I want to be in that number when the Saints come marchin' in." This is not the tune you'll find Joel's army sings because they are not looking to be brought up to Jesus but waiting for Christ (the anointing) to be brought down upon them to march through the land.

The church that once looked toward being taken away to heaven (Jn.14) has been taught by some to change her focus. In about the mid-70's a triumphalist post-millennial doctrine appeared. Instead of watching for the blessed coming of the Lord the goal became to establish the Kingdom on earth. Doctrines about the rapture, tribulation, an end time apostasy with a literal personal Antichrist were taught as deceptions. Without a tribulation ahead, there is no need to be vigilant, discerning or watchful. With no apostasy, there is no need to look for deception, only blessing. The desire for heavenly things has faded out, and Restorationist Christians no longer "look up". They look around them and consider how to transform the world and rule over it. When Christ comes back they will hand over a Christian earth.

"In all revolutions there are noisy and dangerous times as THE OLD ORDER Is replaced by the now ... after the dust settles. WE CAN PROCEED TO BUILD the beautiful kingdom that the Lord has purposed from the foundations of the World" - Vinson Synan, one of the leaders of A.D. 2000 (FULNESS, Jan - Feb. 1990. Vinson Synan. p. 24.)

Many believe Israel was replaced by the Church in prophecy despite it brought back into its land and the city of Jerusalem reclaimed in 1967. The focus of attention became the earth, rather than the eternal heavenly kingdom. The blessings of God are now, instead of rewards later. The nations and all people are to be Christianized. Taking the nations for God will be accomplished by becoming an army fighting a war against spiritual hosts of wickedness and driving them out of the land. With our newly discovered powers that are taught by the new leaders (apostles and prophets)we can now bind and loose the wicked ones and punish evil.

Ern Baxter said in 1975:.We have individual salvation - but in the nation we have corporate salvation...God’s people are going to start to exercise rule and they’re going to take dominion over the power of Satan. As the rod of his strength goes out of Zion, he will change legislation, he will chase the devil off the face of God’s earth and God’s people will bring about God’s purposes and God’s reign. (MacPherson "Can The Elect Be Deceived" 1986)

Deliverance is now throughout cities and nations as well as Christians. Despite there is no example or teaching that a Christian can be so inhabited some of the best selling books are all about this.(oppression is not the same as possession) Through their teaching, demonization in Christians was also birthed and deliverance ministries through exorcism by the laying on of hands.

Not all Dominionists, Charismatics and restorationists believe the same things, especially how it is to be accomplished. Few still believe in a rapture, but there are many variables. So I'm not addressing all but a certain group that has mainly been affiliated with the Vineyard and the prophet/apostle movement from Kansas City and the Latter Rain teachers.

The latter Rain is run on the rail of misinterpreted Scriptures and spiritualizing their context. Hosea 6:3 tells us the Lord will come as the Latter Rain, and James 5:7 speaks of the Latter Rain, but ties it together with the coming of the Lord. The "former and latter rain" refers to the agricultural calendar of the land of Israel although it has a spiritual truth. The latter rain was essential for bountiful crop harvest in Israel. This corresponds to the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost as Peter proclaimed this is like that of Joel but was not the ultimate fulfillment. Joel 2:23 also speaks of a harvest of abundance. But the modern interpreters have given Joel's army new significance. Joel's army will purge the earth (the cleansing) of all wickedness and rebellion and even judge the apostate Church (which is those who do not join their fraternity of miracle workers). They will overcome death itself, they will redeem all creation, and restore the earth. The Church will inherit the earth, and rule the nations all before Christ comes back. When he (Jesus) does come we are to hand the kingdom over to him and he will say job well done, enter into the kingdom. The real Joel's army in Joel 2 does NO miracles and marches strictly through the land of Israel making destruction, there is no blessing from Joel's army marching. If one reads through about Joel's army they find that they will be destroyed in the end.

Because Joel's army is called God's army they think that they are his people. they may be doing Gods will but they certainly are not his Church or saints. In the same way Cyrus was called Gods shepherd Isa.44:28 he was given all the kingdoms of the earth Ezra 1:2, 2 chron.36:23, He was called Gods anointed Isa. 45:1"Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held-- to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut." Sounds familiar? Nebuchadnezzar was also called Gods servant Jer. 43:10"and say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Behold, I will send and bring Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will set his throne above these stones that I have hidden. And he will spread his royal pavilion over them."One must consider the actions of these men's teachings in light of what Joel is actually saying. So despite their new interpretation, the Bibles definition still stands. They may be called Gods army but they are not his people. Joel's army is the raising up of a devouring army of locusts, (destroyers) to bring judgement upon the land. Whether its Israel or the church, its not good.

Much of this is being preached from the pulpits big and small without the congregant's ever blinking. Without being able to identify phrases they don't know what they are ingesting. Many churches have turned into Latter Rain churches by default or influence, some knowingly and some not.

Benny Hinn shows his latter Rain ties with "The lord said this , this is where my people will rise up as an army and bring millions into the kingdom of God." (Benny Hinn Honolulu Blaisdale Jan.21 1999)

Jack Deere states "This army is unique…when this army comes , its large and mighty. it's so mighty that there has never been anything like it before. Not even when, Moses not even David, not even Paul . what's going to happen, now will transcend what Paul did, what David did what Moses did…

Rick Joyner teaches ""What is about to come upon the earth is not just a revival, or another awakening; it is a veritable revolution. The vision was given in order to begin to awaken those who are destined to radically change the course, and even the very definition of Christianity. The dismantling of organizations and disbanding of some works will be a positive and exhilarating experience for the Lord's faithful servants...the Lord will raise up a great company of prophets, teachers, pastors and apostles that will be of the spirit of Phinehas ... this "ministry of Phinehas" will save congregations, and at times, even whole nations. …Nations will tremble at the mention of their name..."(THE HARVEST, Rick Joyner)

Notice Its not the name of Jesus they will tremble at but THEIR NAME. All this from a vision to awaken the destined.

So if one does not involve themselves in this then they are not faithful servants. But our attention should be on the statement of changing the course and definition of Christianity. What person in all of history has ever said this? Certainly Martin Luther's contribution was to bring the Church back to its correct doctrine and purpose. Is this what Joyner and others mean? Certainly not, as we look at the following statements of explaining what they want it to be like.

"In the near future we will not be looking back at the early church with envy because of the great exploits of those days, but all will be saying that He certainly did save the best wine for last. The most glorious times in all of history have not come upon us. You, who have dreamed of one day being able to talk with Peter, John and Paul, are going to be surprised to find that they have all been waiting to talk to you." (Rick Joyner, The Harvest Morning Star, 9, 1990)

This means the apostles were not special in starting the Church and having divine miracles, we are. Think about the ramifications of this proposal. This means if the Church began with them and today's Church with its SUPER apostles and prophets will do greater things. Then the Church really begins all over again.

Nowhere does Scripture teach that the Church will do wonders like this in the end. Jesus actually WARNED that these signs and wonders at the end are to DECEIVE THE ELECT.(MT.24) Is anyone paying attention to the Scripture and the time we are living in?

Mormons are not the only ones who have false modern apostles. John a true apostle said the Church did. Rev.2:2 "And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars;" Notice John says they have tested them. Paul said the Church did as well 2 Cor. 11:13 "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ." Notice Paul says they transform themselves to look like they do. How? By their teaching, authority and could very well have had manifestations of power.

" The early church was a firstfruits offering, truly this will be a harvest! It was said of the Apostle Paul that he was turning the world upside down; it will be said of the apostles soon to be anointed that they have turned an upside down world right side up." (Rick Joyner, The Harvest, 128-129) So from what I can gather Joyner says that they are going to reverse what the Apostle Paul did.

Peter Wagner has recently written a book called the New Apostolic Churches which explains the new Apostolic Spirit that is raising international leaders. It is from these Churches that the new Christianity will go forth and be implemented throughout the world.

We are not talking about those who plant churches or are leaders of movements or denominations, but those who claim Spiritual authority JUST LIKE the Apostles, by revelations and miracles. This boasting before the facts is a constant theme throughout these men's writings.

Joseph Smith of the Mormons in May 1844 proclaimed this: "I have more to boast of than any man ever had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a church together since the days of Adam.…Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I." While the boasting may be for slightly different reasons essentially, the end result is the same. Some will do what even the apostles were unable to do.

Jack Deere explains Joel 2 in the context of Ezekiel 9: "When this army comes, He says it’s large and it’s mighty. It’s so mighty that there’s never been anything like it before…‘begin the slaughter and begin it in the temple and begin it with the elders, the leaders of my people.’ And they walk through the land and they start and they begin to slaughter and you know it’s already started with the biggest names in His household? He has already started the slaughter…and it is coming now among the Church."( It Sounds Like the Mother of All Battles, Jack Deere, VMI, Joel’s Army, 1990, "Joel’s Army")

'' ...this army is totally unique. This army, there's never been one like it and there never will be one like it in ages to come. ...Its so mighty that there's never been anything like it before. Not even Moses, not even David, not even Paul. What's going to happen now will transcend what Paul did, what David did .. what Moses did, even though Moses parted the Red Sea ... there'll be a numerous company. . , Revelation hints at this when it talks about the 144,000 that follow the Lamb wherever He goes and no one, no one can harm that 144,000. See, that's a multiple of 12. What's 12? Twelve is the number of the Apostles, 12 is Apostolic government. And when you take an important number in the Bible and you multiply if, it means you intensify it. So, 12, 000 times 12, 000 = 144,000. That is the ultimate in Apostolic government. Revelation talks about that. Well, here Joel is talking about it now in different words, a powerful, a MIGHTY ARMY with many Paul's many Moses', many David's." ( VINEYARD MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL 1990.)

This is portraying an "elite" special group which is exactly what the Jehovah's Witnesses teach. The Jehovah's Witnesses claim that they are the 144,000 of Revelation 7 and 14. Both The JW's And Deere are wrong. The Bible means just what it says in this instance, they are Jews from the 12 tribes who are evangelists not an army and certainly not a destructive one as in Joel. This genuine Revival they are waiting for (as the main participants) is introduced by the sealing of the 144,000 Jewish Evangelists. Those who respond to their message will literally lose their head over it.

Terry Virgo, in "Restoration in the Church" says this is about God visiting the Church! It is treated as the coming of the GLORY of Christ, in the Latter Rain visitation, not the physical coming. And "the result of that visitation is that the poor misguided flock is UNITED and transformed into a majestic war-horse - a great vehicle of power and energy, a fearsome, awe-inspiring, effective tool of WAR. The sheep become "mighty men treading down the enemy in battle" … and the flock is TRANSFORMED CORPORATELY (they become the Corporate Christ).

As Jewel Grewe so clearly put it," The MANIFESTED SONS believe they are establishing a new and glorious Kingdom - led by a NEW BREED of men of women. The "Joel's Army" now individually manifest as Sons of God. would be revealed to the world as many "saviours" who would take dominion and execute judgment."

Jack Deere speak of an invincible army. He says, "...they won't be able to kill this army." John Wimber also stated, "those in this army will have the 'kind of anointing ... his kind of power ... anyone who wants to harm them must die".

Paul Cain says that out of this unity will come an army, Joel's Army, based on Joel 2: "I told you about ... this recurring [35 year-old] vision I had.... The angel of the Lord said, 'You're standing at the crossroads of life. What do you see?' And I saw a brilliantly lit billboard which reads, 'Joel's Army now in training.' . . . .I believe one day soon Joel's Army will be in training ... until it graduates into the stadium .... But a right understanding of the plan of God for this generation brings this tremendous inclusion.... God's offering to you, this present generation, a greater privilege than was ever offered any generation at any time from Adam clear down through the millennium."

"I had a vision of you people coming from . . . a circle of maybe a hundred miles and I saw people coming from every major city within that circumference and a great conclave was taking place, and it was the training of Joel's Army. . . . I believe that people are going to come together by the thousands and train for the Army of the Lord. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I mean, that's long overdue." (Grace Ministries tape)

Paul Cain has prophesied a day when sporting events throughout the world will be cancelled because the stadiums will be used for revival meetings. He says the Lord gave him this vision around the late fifties or early sixties ,and it his been repeated more than 100 times since then. This spectacular happening will see millions brought to Christ in a short period of time.

"I had a dream that became a recurring dream, and it was about all the stadiums - and we've told this hundreds and hundreds of time all across America, all over the world, in fact - and I saw these stadiums and football fields, soccer fields and sports arenas, all of them filled with thousands of people, sometimes over 100,000 in each place" (Christ Chapel, August 30, 1995). This is much more than what we have seen from Promise Keepers, in fact we may be only seeing the first of these gatherings .

I don't think everyone is in the same way involved but the statements seem uncannily the same. Coach McCartney wants unity and every church involved. In a Promise Keepers gathering in the Detroit Silver Dome stadium in April 1995, founder Bill McCartney, speaks of a great army like Cain and others, "We have a great army that we are assembling. They're the Christian men of this nation. However, our leadership, our clergy are not uniform. Our clergy are divided. . . . There's no unity of command. . . …We have to assume that responsibility. We have to say, 'Are we impacting our clergy in a way that's going to take them and make them all that they have to be in order to lead this army?' Because the shepherds are the ones God's chosen to lead us out of here" (Promise Keepers Meeting, April 29, 1995, Detroit Silver Dome).

The last time I read the Scripture it was Jesus who was the captain of the Lords army, and he was in charge then, as he is now in the Church. Who will be the leaders or leader of this Church army? We have no appointed Generals except self appointed ones today.God has made local church's as part of the universal Church, each is autonomous. None answer to a leadership that controls them all since they are to be called men in the pastorate listening to Gods direction for their communities as well as in the world.

'Why wouldn't you want to be a part of what God wants to do with His hand-picked leaders?' . . . I think Almighty God is going to rip open the hearts of our leaders. I think He's going to tear them open. And I think he's going to put them back together again as one. One leadership. We've got to have one leadership, one leadership only. We've got to have everybody hitting on all cylinders. There's only one race. It's the human race. There's only one culture. Its Christ before culture. Christ culture - that's all that there is." (Promise Keepers Meeting, April 29, 1995, Detroit Silver Dome).

Scripture verse for this? NONE

The bible says no such thing, it says the opposite. And it becomes a dangerous precedent when a few control the many, church or not! Jesus said the field is the world. The wheat and tares grow up together. And we had better be able to distinguish the difference in our day. This concept of unity was tried by the Catholic Church to integrate religion with the state and politics. And it became the downfall of a Church that was kept pure by persecution. We may yet see the "holy wars" like the early Holy Roman Empire revived to try and produce what only Christ can as the Prince of Peace.

Rick Joyner who seems to be a main promoter of an end time army wrote from his visions about "a bloody civil war" in the Church. (Latter Rain Revival, 1996) that the blues and the grays in his end-time war scenario in the church is that just likened to the American Civil war. He interprets this with "In dreams and visions blue often represents heavenly-mindedness – the sky is blue - and gray speaks of those who live by the power of their own minds – the brain is often called gray matter - This will be a conflict between those who may be genuine Christians, but who live mostly according to their natural minds and human wisdom, and those who follow the Holy Spirit." (Morningstar Prophetic Bulletin, 5/96 )

Spoken like a true Gnostic. First he has a dream of prophecy that is not biblical, then he himself interprets the meaning by the colors from dreams, which are from the view of his human understanding.

Joyner says, "I do not believe that this [prophecy] can now be stopped, or that the Lord wants it stopped" The main reason for the spiritual civil war is over the institution of spiritual slavery and " to drive the accuser out of the church, and for the church then to come into a unity that would otherwise be impossible." descriptions like 'this is the church's greatest victory, her finest hour, triumphantly marching, empowered for victory' are commonplace for those who want to assert Gods kingdom on earth now. But by this method the are exhibiting a master to slave relationship which operates on power. This is not the servitude that Christ said would be found in his followers.

Joyner contradicts himself by saying "Criticism is one of the ultimate manifestations of pride because, whenever we criticize someone else we are by that assuming that we are superior to them, Pride brings that which any rational human being should fear the most - God's resistance. We would be better off having all of the demons in hell resisting us than God!" (Epic Battles of The Last Days, p.23, Rick Joyner) That's exactly what Joel's army ends up to be, resisted by God and destroyed.

What I see in Joyner's writings is much criticism of the Church, but it is disguised as dreams and visions from the Lord for guidance. All one has to do is read his writings and it won't be long before they see certain Christians demonized in graphic detail. To be rational one must use their mind, something of which he has already drawn a line in the sand on his own imaginary battlefield as the enemy. As he has accused the brethren of not being spiritual, even to the point of identifying the "Antichrist" as the orthodox church. (Weighed and Found Wanting, Bill Randles, p. 64.) As far as I'm concerned, criticism does not have to be severe, it can be advantageous to ones growth if it presents the truth and is done with right motive's.

May we have the full armor of God on as Joel's army begins to march and challenges the historic view of Christianity. Yes, there just may be a civil war, but it certainly would not be necessary if those who aggressively want to change the Church and the world by power would get back to the literal interpretation of the Scriptures for its guidance, and let God be God.

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On the Anointing
Translated by John D. Turner

    [....] according to [....] the type of [...] see him. It is fitting for you at this time to send thy Son Jesus Christ and anoint us so we might be able to trample upon the snakes and the heads of the scorpions and all the power of the Devil since he is a shepherd of the seed. Through him we have known thee. And we glorify thee : Glory be to thee, the Father in the Son, the Father in the Son, the Father in the Holy Church and in the holy angels! From now he abides forever in the perpetuity of the Aeons, forever until the untraceable Aeons of the Aeons. Amen.

Selection made from James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, revised edition. HarperCollins, San Fransisco, 1990.

On the Baptism A
Translated by John D. Turner

    This is the fullness of the summary of knowledge which summary was revealed to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Monogenes. These are the sure and necessary items so that we may walk in them. But they are those of the first baptism [......The First] baptism is the Forgiveness of sins [...] said, [...] you to the [...] your sins the [...] is a pattern of the [...] of the Christ which is the equal of the [..within] him [...]. For the [...] of Jesus [...]. Moreover, the first baptism is the forgiveness of sins. We are brought from those of the right, that is, into the imperishability which is the Jordan. But that place is of the world. So we have been sent out of the world into the Aeon. For the interpretation of John is the Aeon, while the interpretation of that which is the upward progression, that is, our Exodus from the world into the Aeon.

On the Baptism B
Translated by John D.Turner

    [..... from the ] world into the Jordan and from the blindness of the world into the sight of God, from the carnal into the spiritual, from the physical into the angelic, from the created into the Pleroma, from the world into the Aeon, from the servitudes into sonship, from entanglements into one another, from the desert into our village, from the cold into the hot, from [...] into a [...] and we [...] into the [....thus] we were brought from seminal bodies into bodies with a perfect form. Indeed I entered by way of example the remnant for which the Christ rescued us in the fellowship of his Spirit. And he brought us forth who are in him, and from now on the souls will become perfect spirits. Now the things granted us by the first baptism [....invisible ...which] is his, since [.......speak][about...]....

Excerpt taken from James R.Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990

On the Eucharist (A)
Translated by John D. Turner

    We give thanks to you and we celebrate the eucharist, O Father, remembering for the sake of thy Son, Jesus Christ that they come forth [...] invisible [...] thy [Son....] his [love...] to [knowledge ......] they are doing thy will through the name of Jesus Christ and will do thy will now and always. They are complete in every spiritual gift and every purity. Glory be to thee through thy Son and they offspring Jesus Christ from now and forever. Amen.

On the Eucharist (B)
Translation by John D. Turner

    [...] in the [...] the word of the [....the] holy one it is [...] food and [drink...] Son, since you [...] food of the [...] to us the [...] in the [life ..] he does [not boast...] that is[...] Church [...] you are pure [...] thou art the Lord. Whenever you die purely, you will be pure so as to have him [...] everyone who will guide him to food and drink. Glory be to thee forever. Amen.

On the Origin of the World
("The Untitled Text")

Translated by Hans-Gebhard Bethge and Bentley Layton

Seeing that everybody, gods of the world and mankind, says that nothing existed prior to chaos, I, in distinction to them, shall demonstrate that they are all mistaken, because they are not acquainted with the origin of chaos, nor with its root. Here is the demonstration.

How well it suits all men, on the subject of chaos, to say that it is a kind of darkness! But in fact it comes from a shadow, which has been called by the name 'darkness'. And the shadow comes from a product that has existed since the beginning. It is, moreover, clear that it existed before chaos came into being, and that the latter is posterior to the first product. Let us therefore concern ourselves with the facts of the matter; and furthermore, with the first product, from which chaos was projected. And in this way the truth will be clearly demonstrated.

After the natural structure of the immortal beings had completely developed out of the infinite, a likeness then emanated from Pistis (Faith); it is called Sophia (Wisdom). It exercised volition and became a product resembling the primeval light. And immediately her will manifested itself as a likeness of heaven, having an unimaginable magnitude; it was between the immortal beings and those things that came into being after them, like [...]: she (Sophia) functioned as a veil dividing mankind from the things above.

Now the eternal realm (aeon) of truth has no shadow outside it, for the limitless light is everywhere within it. But its exterior is shadow, which has been called by the name 'darkness'. From it, there appeared a force, presiding over the darkness. And the forces that came into being subsequent to them called the shadow 'the limitless chaos'. From it, every kind of divinity sprouted up [...] together with the entire place, so that also, shadow is posterior to the first product. It was <in> the abyss that it (shadow) appeared, deriving from the aforementioned Pistis.

Then shadow perceived there was something mightier than it, and felt envy; and when it had become pregnant of its own accord, suddenly it engendered jealousy. Since that day, the principle of jealousy amongst all the eternal realms and their worlds has been apparent. Now as for that jealousy, it was found to be an abortion without any spirit in it. Like a shadow, it came into existence in a vast watery substance. Then the bile that had come into being out of the shadow was thrown into a part of chaos. Since that day, a watery substance has been apparent. And what sank within it flowed away, being visible in chaos: as with a woman giving birth to a child - all her superfluities flow out; just so, matter came into being out of shadow, and was projected apart. And it did not depart from chaos; rather, matter was in chaos, being in a part of it.

And when these things had come to pass, then Pistis came and appeared over the matter of chaos, which had been expelled like an aborted fetus - since there was no spirit in it. For all of it (chaos) was limitless darkness and bottomless water. Now when Pistis saw what had resulted from her defect, she became disturbed. And the disturbance appeared, as a fearful product; it rushed to her in the chaos. She turned to it and blew into its face in the abyss, which is below all the heavens.

And when Pistis Sophia desired to cause the thing that had no spirit to be formed into a likeness and to rule over matter and over all her forces, there appeared for the first time a ruler, out of the waters, lion-like in appearance, androgynous, having great authority within him, and ignorant of whence he had come into being. Now when Pistis Sophia saw him moving about in the depth of the waters, she said to him, "Child, pass through to here," whose equivalent is 'yalda baoth'.

Since that day, there appeared the principle of verbal expression, which reached the gods and the angels and mankind. And what came into being as a result of verbal expression, the gods and the angels and mankind finished. Now as for the ruler Yaltabaoth, he is ignorant of the force of Pistis: he did not see her face, rather he saw in the water the likeness that spoke with him. And because of that voice, he called himself 'Yaldabaoth'. But 'Ariael' is what the perfect call him, for he was like a lion. Now when he had come to have authority over matter, Pistis Sophia withdrew up to her light.

When the ruler saw his magnitude - and it was only himself that he saw: he saw nothing else, except for water and darkness - then he supposed that it was he alone who existed. His [...] was completed by verbal expression: it appeared as a spirit moving to and fro upon the waters. And when that spirit appeared, the ruler set apart the watery substance. And what was dry was divided into another place. And from matter, he made for himself an abode, and he called it 'heaven'. And from matter, the ruler made a footstool, and he called it 'earth'.

Next, the ruler had a thought - consistent with his nature - and by means of verbal expression he created an androgyne. He opened his mouth and cooed to him. When his eyes had been opened, he looked at his father, and he said to him, "Eee!" Then his father called him Eee-a-o ('Yao'). Next he created the second son. He cooed to him. And he opened his eyes and said to his father, "Eh!" His father called him 'Eloai'. Next, he created the third son. He cooed to him. And he opened his eyes and said to his father, "Asss!" His father called him 'Astaphaios'. These are the three sons of their father.

Seven appeared in chaos, androgynous. They have their masculine names and their feminine names. The feminine name is Pronoia (Forethought) Sambathas, which is 'week'.
And his son is called Yao: his feminine name is Lordship.
Sabaoth: his feminine name is Deity.
Adonaios: his feminine name is Kingship.
Elaios: his feminine name is Jealousy.
Oraios: his feminine name is Wealth.
And Astaphaios: his feminine name is Sophia (Wisdom).
These are the seven forces of the seven heavens of chaos. And they were born androgynous, consistent with the immortal pattern that existed before them, according to the wish of Pistis: so that the likeness of what had existed since the beginning might reign to the end. You will find the effect of these names and the force of the male entities in the Archangelic (Book) of the Prophet Moses, and the names of the female entities in the first Book of Noraia.

Now the prime parent Yaldabaoth, since he possessed great authorities, created heavens for each of his offspring through verbal expression - created them beautiful, as dwelling places - and in each heaven he created great glories, seven times excellent. Thrones and mansions and temples, and also chariots and virgin spirits up to an invisible one and their glories, each one has these in his heaven; mighty armies of gods and lords and angels and archangels - countless myriads - so that they might serve. The account of these matters you will find in a precise manner in the first Account of Oraia.

And they were completed from this heaven to as far up as the sixth heaven, namely that of Sophia. The heaven and his earth were destroyed by the troublemaker that was below them all. And the six heavens shook violently; for the forces of chaos knew who it was that had destroyed the heaven that was below them. And when Pistis knew about the breakage resulting from the disturbance, she sent forth her breath and bound him and cast him down into Tartaros. Since that day, the heaven, along with its earth, has consolidated itself through Sophia the daughter of Yaldabaoth, she who is below them all.

Now when the heavens had consolidated themselves along with their forces and all their administration, the prime parent became insolent. And he was honored by all the army of angels. And all the gods and their angels gave blessing and honor to him. And for his part, he was delighted and continually boasted, saying to them, "I have no need of anyone." He said, "It is I who am God, and there is no other one that exists apart from me." And when he said this, he sinned against all the immortal beings who give answer. And they laid it to his charge.

Then when Pistis saw the impiety of the chief ruler, she was filled with anger. She was invisible. She said, "You are mistaken, Samael," (that is, "blind god"). "There is an immortal man of light who has been in existence before you, and who will appear among your modelled forms; he will trample you to scorn, just as potter's clay is pounded. And you will descend to your mother, the abyss, along with those that belong to you. For at the consummation of your (pl.) works, the entire defect that has become visible out of the truth will be abolished, and it will cease to be, and will be like what has never been." Saying this, Pistis revealed her likeness of her greatness in the waters. And so doing, she withdrew up to her light.

Now when Sabaoth, the son of Yaldabaoth, heard the voice of Pistis, he sang praises to her, and he condemned the father [...] at the word of Pistis; and he praised her because she had instructed them about the immortal man and his light. Then Pistis Sophia stretched out her finger and poured upon him some light from her light, to be a condemnation of his father. Then when Sabaoth was illumined, he received great authority against all the forces of chaos. Since that day he has been called "Lord of the Forces".

He hated his father, the darkness, and his mother, the abyss, and loathed his sister, the thought of the prime parent, which moved to and fro upon the waters. And because of his light, all the authorities of chaos were jealous of him. And when they had become disturbed, they made a great war in the seven heavens. Then when Pistis Sophia had seen the war, she dispatched seven archangels to Sabaoth from her light. They snatched him up to the seventh heaven. They stood before him as attendants. Furthermore, she sent him three more archangels, and established the kingdom for him over everyone, so that he might dwell above the twelve gods of chaos.

Now when Sabaoth had taken up the place of repose in return for his repentance, Pistis also gave him her daughter Zoe (Life), together with great authority, so that she might instruct him about all things that exist in the eighth heaven. And as he had authority, he made himself first of all a mansion. It is huge, magnificent, seven times as great as all those that exist in the seven heavens.

And before his mansion he created a throne, which was huge and was upon a four-faced chariot called "Cherubin". Now the Cherubin has eight shapes per each of the four corners, lion forms and calf forms and human forms and eagle forms, so that all the forms amount to sixty-four forms - and seven archangels that stand before it; he is the eighth, and has authority. All the forms amount to seventy-two. Furthermore, from this chariot the seventy-two gods took shape; they took shape so that they might rule over the seventy-two languages of the peoples. And by that throne he created other, serpent-like angels, called "Seraphin", which praise him at all times.

Thereafter he created a congregation of angels, thousands and myriads, numberless, which resembled the congregation in the eighth heaven; and a firstborn called

Israel - which is, "the man that sees God"; and another being, called Jesus Christ, who resembles the savior above in the eighth heaven, and who sits at his right upon a revered throne. And at his left, there sits the virgin of the holy spirit, upon a throne and glorifying him. And the seven virgins stand before her, [...] possessing thirty harps, and psalteries and trumpets, glorifying him. And all the armies of the angels glorify him, and they bless him. Now where he sits is upon a throne of light <within a> great cloud that covers him. And there was no one with him in the cloud except Sophia <the daughter of> Pistis, instructing him about all the things that exist in the eighth heaven, so that the likenesses of those things might be created, in order that his reign might endure until the consummation of the heavens of chaos and their forces.

Now Pistis Sophia set him apart from the darkness and summoned him to her right, and the prime parent she put at her left. Since that day, right has been called justice, and left called wickedness. Now because of this, they all received a realm in the congregation of justice and wickedness, [...] stand [...] upon a creature [...] all.

Thus, when the prime parent of chaos saw his son Sabaoth and the glory that he was in, and perceived that he was greatest of all the authorities of chaos, he envied him. And having become wrathful, he engendered Death out of his death: and he (viz., Death) was established over the sixth heaven, <for> Sabaoth had been snatched up from there. And thus the number of the six authorities of chaos was achieved. Then Death, being androgynous, mingled with his (own) nature and begot seven androgynous offspring. These are the names of the male ones: Jealousy, Wrath, Tears, Sighing, Suffering, Lamentation, Bitter Weeping. And these are the names of the female ones: Wrath, Pain, Lust, Sighing, Curse, Bitterness, Quarrelsomeness. They had intercourse with one another, and each one begot seven, so that they amount to forty-nine androgynous demons. Their names and their effects you will find in the Book of Solomon.

And in the presence of these, Zoe, who was with Sabaoth, created seven good androgynous forces. These are the names of the male ones: the Unenvious, the Blessed, the Joyful, the True, the Unbegrudging, the Beloved, the Trustworthy. Also, as regards the female ones, these are their names: Peace, Gladness, Rejoicing, Blessedness, Truth, Love, Faith (Pistis). And from these are many good and innocent spirits. Their influences and their effects you will find in the Configurations of the Fate of Heaven That Is Beneath the Twelve.

And having seen the likeness of Pistis in the waters, the prime parent grieved very much, especially when he heard her voice, like the first voice that had called to him out of the waters. And when he knew that it was she who had given a name to him, he sighed. He was ashamed on account of his transgression. And when he had come to know in truth that an immortal man of light had been existing before him, he was greatly disturbed; for he had previously said to all the gods and their angels, "It is I who am god. No other one exists apart from me." For he had been afraid they might know that another had been in existence before him, and might condemn him. But he, being devoid of understanding, scoffed at the condemnation and acted recklessly. He said, "If anything has existed before me, let it appear, so that we may see its light."

And immediately, behold! Light came out of the eighth heaven above and passed through all of the heavens of the earth. When the prime parent saw that the light was beautiful as it radiated, he was amazed. And he was greatly ashamed. As that light appeared, a human likeness appeared within it, very wonderful. And no one saw it except for the prime parent and Pronoia, who was with him. Yet its light appeared to all the forces of the heavens. Because of this they were all troubled by it.

Then when Pronoia saw that emissary, she became enamored of him. But he hated her because she was on the darkness. But she desired to embrace him, and she was not able to. When she was unable to assuage her love, she poured out her light upon the earth. Since that day, that emissary has been called "Adam of Light," whose rendering is "the luminous man of blood," and the earth spread over him, holy Adaman, whose rendering is "the Holy Land of Adamantine." Since that day, all the authorities have honored the blood of the virgin. And the earth was purified on account of the blood of the virgin. But most of all, the water was purified through the likeness of Pistis Sophia, who had appeared to the prime parent in the waters. Justly, then, it has been said: "through the waters." The holy water, since it vivifies the all, purifies it.

Out of that first blood Eros appeared, being androgynous. His masculinity is Himireris, being fire from the light. His femininity that is with him - a soul of blood - is from the stuff of Pronoia. He is very lovely in his beauty, having a charm beyond all the creatures of chaos. Then all the gods and their angels, when they beheld Eros, became enamored of him. And appearing in all of them, he set them afire: just as from a single lamp many lamps are lit, and one and the same light is there, but the lamp is not diminished. And in this way, Eros became dispersed in all the created beings of chaos, and was not diminished. Just as from the midpoint of light and darkness Eros appeared and at the midpoint of the angels and mankind the sexual union of Eros was consummated, so out of the earth the primal pleasure blossomed. The woman followed earth. And marriage followed woman. Birth followed marriage. Dissolution followed birth.

After that Eros, the grapevine sprouted up out of that blood, which had been shed over the earth. Because of this, those who drink of it conceive the desire of sexual union. After the grapevine, a fig tree and a pomegranate tree sprouted up from the earth, together with the rest of the trees, all species, having with them their seed from the seed of the authorities and their angels.

Then Justice created Paradise, being beautiful and being outside the orbit of the moon and the orbit of the sun in the Land of Wantonness, in the East in the midst of the stones. And desire is in the midst of the beautiful, appetizing trees. And the tree of eternal life is as it appeared by God's will, to the north of Paradise, so that it might make eternal the souls of the pure, who shall come forth from the modelled forms of poverty at the consummation of the age. Now the color of the tree of life is like the sun. And its branches are beautiful. Its leaves are like those of the cypress. Its fruit is like a bunch of grapes when it is white. Its height goes as far as heaven. And next to it (is) the tree of knowledge (gnosis), having the strength of God. Its glory is like the moon when fully radiant. And its branches are beautiful. Its leaves are like fig leaves. Its fruit is like a good appetizing date. And this tree is to the north of Paradise, so that it might arouse the souls from the torpor of the demons, in order that they might approach the tree of life and eat of its fruit, and so condemn the authorities and their angels. The effect of this tree is described in the Sacred Book, to wit: "It is you who are the tree of knowledge, which is in Paradise, from which the first man ate and which opened his mind; and he loved his female counterpart and condemned the other, alien likenesses and loathed them."

Now after it, the olive tree sprouted up, which was to purify the kings and the high priests of righteousness, who were to appear in the last days, since the olive tree appeared out of the light of the first Adam for the sake of the unguent that they were to receive.

And the first soul (psyche) loved Eros, who was with her, and poured her blood upon him and upon the earth. And out of that blood the rose first sprouted up, out of the earth, out of the thorn bush, to be a source of joy for the light that was to appear in the bush. Moreover, after this the beautiful, good-smelling flowers sprouted up from the earth, different kinds, from every single virgin of the daughters of Pronoia. And they, when they had become enamored of Eros, poured out their blood upon him and upon the earth. After these, every plant sprouted up from the earth, different kinds, containing the seed of the authorities and their angels. After these, the authorities created out of the waters all species of beast, and the reptiles and birds - different kinds - containing the seed of the authorities and their angels.

But before all these, when he had appeared on the first the first day, he remained upon the earth, something like two days, and left the lower Pronoia in heaven, and ascended towards his light. And immediately darkness covered all the universe. Now when she wished, the Sophia who was in the lower heaven received authority from Pistis, and fashioned great luminous bodies and all the stars. And she put them in the sky to shine upon the earth and to render temporal signs and seasons and years and months and days and nights and moments and so forth. And in this way the entire region upon the sky was adorned.

Now when Adam of Light conceived the wish to enter his light - i.e., the eighth heaven - he was unable to do so because of the poverty that had mingled with his light. Then he created for himself a vast eternal realm. And within that eternal realm he created six eternal realms and their adornments, six in number, that were seven times better than the heavens of chaos and their adornments. Now all these eternal realms and their adornments exist within the infinity that is between the eighth heaven and the chaos below it, being counted with the universe that belongs to poverty. If you want to know the arrangement of these, you will find it written in the Seventh Universe of the Prophet Hieralias.

And before Adam of Light had withdrawn in the chaos, the authorities saw him and laughed at the prime parent because he had lied when he said, "It is I who am God. No one exists before me." When they came to him, they said, "Is this not the god who ruined our work?" He answered and said, "Yes. If you do not want him to be able to ruin our work, come let us create a man out of earth, according to the image of our body and according to the likeness of this being, to serve us; so that when he sees his likeness, he might become enamored of it. No longer will he ruin our work; rather,we shall make those who are born out of the light our servants for all the duration of this eternal realm." Now all of this came to pass according to the forethought of Pistis, in order that man should appear after his likeness, and should condemn them because of their modelled form. And their modelled form became an enclosure of the light.

Then the authorities received the knowledge (gnosis) necessary to create man. Sophia Zoe - she who is with Sabaoth - had anticipated them. And she laughed at their decision. For they are blind: against their own interests they ignorantly created him. And they do not realize what they are about to do. The reason she anticipated them and made her own man first, was in order that he might instruct their modelled form how to despise them, and thus to escape from them.

Now the production of the instructor came about as follows. When Sophia let fall a droplet of light, it flowed onto the water, and immediately a human being appeared, being androgynous. That droplet she molded first as a female body. Afterwards, using the body she molded it in the likeness of the mother, which had appeared. And he finished it in twelve months. An androgynous human being was produced, whom the Greeks call Hermaphrodites; and whose mother the Hebrews call Eve of Life (Zoe), namely, the female instructor of life. Her offspring is the creature that is lord. Afterwards, the authorities called it "Beast", so that it might lead astray their modelled creatures. The interpretation of "the beast" is "the instructor". For it was found to be the wisest of all beings.

Now, Eve is the first virgin, the one who without a husband bore her first offspring. It is she who served as her own midwife. For this reason she is held to have said:

It is I who am the part of my mother; and it is I who am the mother.
It is I who am the wife; it is I who am the virgin.
It is I who am pregnant; it is I who am the midwife.
It is I who am the one that comforts pains of travail.
It is my husband who bore me; and it is I who am his mother.
And it is he who is my father and my lord.
It is he who is my force; What he desires, he says with reason.
I am in the process of becoming; yet I have borne a man as lord.

Now these through the will <...> The souls that were going to enter the modelled forms of the authorities were manifested to Sabaoth and his Christ. And regarding these, the holy voice said, "Multiply and improve! Be lord over all creatures." And it is they who were taken captive, according to their destinies, by the prime parent. And thus they were shut into the prisons of the modelled forms until the consummation of the age.

And at that time, the prime parent then rendered an opinion concerning man to those who were with him. Then each of them cast his sperm into the midst of the navel of the earth. Since that day, the seven rulers have fashioned man with his body resembling their body, but his likeness resembling the man that had appeared to them. His modelling took place by parts, one at a time. And their leader fashioned the brain and the nervous system. Afterwards, he appeared as prior to him. He became a soul-endowed man. And he was called Adam, that is, "father", according to the name of the one that existed before him.

And when they had finished Adam, he abandoned him as an inanimate vessel, since he had taken form like an abortion, in that no spirit was in him. Regarding this thing, when the chief ruler remembered the saying of Pistis, he was afraid lest the true man enter his modelled form and become its lord. For this reason he left his modelled form forty days without soul, and he withdrew and abandoned it. Now on the fortieth day, Sophia Zoe sent her breath into Adam, who had no soul. He began to move upon the ground. And he could not stand up.

Then, when the seven rulers came, they saw him and were greatly disturbed. They went up to him and seized him. And he (viz., the chief ruler) said to the breath within him, "Who are you? And whence did you come hither?" It answered and said, "I have come from the force of the man for the destruction of your work." When they heard, they glorified him, since he gave them respite from the fear and the anxiety in which they found themselves. Then they called that day "Rest", in as much as they had rested from toil. And when they saw that Adam could stand up, they were glad, and they took him and put him in Paradise. And they withdrew up to their heavens.

After the day of rest, Sophia sent her daughter Zoe, being called Eve, as an instructor, in order that she might make Adam, who had no soul, arise, so that those whom he should engender might become containers of light. When Eve saw her male counterpart prostrate, she had pity upon him, and she said, "Adam! Become alive! Arise upon the earth!" Immediately her word became accomplished fact. For Adam, having arisen, suddenly opened his eyes. When he saw her, he said, "You shall be called 'Mother of the Living'. For it is you who have given me life."

Then the authorities were informed that their modelled form was alive and had arisen, and they were greatly troubled. They sent seven archangels to see what had happened. They came to Adam. When they saw Eve talking to him, they said to one another, "What sort of thing is this luminous woman? For she resembles that likeness which appeared to us in the light. Now come, let us lay hold of her and cast her seed into her, so that when she becomes soiled she may not be able to ascend into her light. Rather, those whom she bears will be under our charge. But let us not tell Adam, for he is not one of us. Rather let us bring a deep sleep over him. And let us instruct him in his sleep to the effect that she came from his rib, in order that his wife may obey, and he may be lord over her."

Then Eve, being a force, laughed at their decision. She put mist into their eyes and secretly left her likeness with Adam. She entered the tree of knowledge and remained there. And they pursued her, and she revealed to them that she had gone into the tree and become a tree. Then, entering a great state of fear, the blind creatures fled.

Afterwards, when they had recovered from the daze, they came to Adam; and seeing the likeness of this woman with him, they were greatly disturbed, thinking it was she that was the true Eve. And they acted rashly; they came up to her and seized her and cast their seed upon her. They did so wickedly, defiling not only in natural ways but also in foul ways, defiling first the seal of her voice - that had spoken with them, saying, "What is it that exists before you?" - intending to defile those who might say at the consummation (of the age) that they had been born of the true man through verbal expression. And they erred, not knowing that it was their own body that they had defiled: it was the likeness that the authorities and their angels defiled in every way.

First she was pregnant with Abel, by the first ruler. And it was by the seven authorities and their angels that she bore the other offspring. And all this came to pass according to the forethought of the prime parent, so that the first mother might bear within her every seed, being mixed and being fitted to the fate of the universe and its configurations, and to Justice. A prearranged plan came into effect regarding Eve, so that the modelled forms of the authorities might become enclosures of the light, whereupon it would condemn them through their modelled forms.

Now the first Adam, (Adam) of Light, is spirit-endowed and appeared on the first day. The second Adam is soul-endowed and appeared on the sixth day, which is called Aphrodite. The third Adam is a creature of the earth, that is, the man of the law, and he appeared on the eighth day [...] the tranquility of poverty, which is called "The Day of the Sun" (Sunday). And the progeny of the earthly Adam became numerous and was completed, and produced within itself every kind of scientific information of the soul-endowed Adam. But all were in ignorance.

Next, let me say that once the rulers had seen him and the female creature who was with him erring ignorantly like beasts, they were very glad. When they learned that the immortal man was not going to neglect them, rather that they would even have to fear the female creature that had turned into a tree, they were disturbed, and said, "Perhaps this is the true man - this being who has brought a fog upon us and has taught us that she who was soiled is like him - and so we shall be conquered!"

Then the seven of them together laid plans. They came up to Adam and Eve timidly: they said to him, "The fruit of all the trees created for you in Paradise shall be eaten; but as for the tree of knowledge, control yourselves and do not eat from it. If you eat, you will die." Having imparted great fear to them, they withdrew up to their authorities.

Then came the wisest of all creatures, who was called Beast. And when he saw the likeness of their mother Eve he said to her, "What did God say to you? Was it 'Do not eat from the tree of knowledge'?" She said, "He said not only, 'Do not eat from it', but, 'Do not touch it, lest you die.'" He said to her, "Do not be afraid. In death you shall not die. For he knows that when you eat from it, your intellect will become sober and you will come to be like gods, recognizing the difference that obtains between evil men and good ones. Indeed, it was in jealousy that he said this to you, so that you would not eat from it."

Now Eve had confidence in the words of the instructor. She gazed at the tree and saw that it was beautiful and appetizing, and liked it; she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she gave some also to her husband, and he too ate it. Then their intellect became open. For when they had eaten, the light of knowledge had shone upon them. When they clothed themselves with shame, they knew that they were naked of knowledge. When they became sober, they saw that they were naked and became enamored of one another. When they saw that the ones who had modelled them had the form of beasts, they loathed them: they were very aware.

Then when the rulers knew that they had broken their commandments, they entered Paradise and came to Adam and Eve with earthquake and great threatening, to see the effect of the aid. Then Adam and Eve trembled greatly and hid under the trees in Paradise. Then the rulers did not know where they were and said, "Adam, where are you?" He said, "I am here, for through fear of you I hid, being ashamed." And they said to him ignorantly, "Who told you about the shame with which you clothed yourself? - unless you have eaten from that tree!" He said, "The woman whom you gave me - it is she that gave to me and I ate." Then they said to the latter, "What is this that you have done?" She answered and said, "It is the instructor who urged me on, and I ate."

Then the rulers came up to the instructor. Their eyes became misty because of him, and they could not do anything to him. They cursed him, since they were powerless. Afterwards, they came up to the woman and cursed her and her offspring. After the woman, they cursed Adam, and the land because of him, and the crops; and all things they had created, they cursed. They have no blessing. Good cannot result from evil.

From that day, the authorities knew that truly there was something mightier than they: they recognized only that their commandments had not been kept. Great jealousy was brought into the world solely because of the immortal man. Now when the rulers saw that their Adam had entered into an alien state of knowledge, they desired to test him, and they gathered together all the domestic animals and the wild beasts of the earth and the birds of heaven and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. When he saw them, he gave names to their creatures.

They became troubled because Adam had recovered from all the trials. They assembled and laid plans, and they said, "Behold Adam! He has come to be like one of us, so that he knows the difference between the light and the darkness. Now perhaps he will be deceived, as in the case of the Tree of Knowledge, and also will come to the Tree of Life and eat from it, and become immortal, and become lord, and despise us and disdain us and all our glory! Then he will denounce us along with our universe. Come, let us expel him from Paradise, down to the land from which he was taken, so that henceforth he might not be able to recognize anything better than we can." And so they expelled Adam from Paradise, along with his wife. And this deed that they had done was not enough for them. Rather, they were afraid. They went in to the Tree of Life and surrounded it with great fearful things, fiery living creatures called "Cheroubin", and they put a flaming sword in their midst, fearfully twirling at all times, so that no earthly being might ever enter that place.

Thereupon, since the rulers were envious of Adam they wanted to diminish their (viz., Adam's and Eve's) lifespans. They could not (, however,) because of fate, which had been fixed since the beginning. For to each had been allotted a lifespan of 1,000 years, according to the course of the luminous bodies. But although the rulers could not do this, each of the evildoers took away ten years. And all this lifespan (which remained) amounted to 930 years: and these are in pain and weakness and evil distraction. And so life has turned out to be, from that day until the consummation of the age.

Thus when Sophia Zoe saw that the rulers of the darkness had laid a curse upon her counterparts, she was indignant. And coming out of the first heaven with full power, she chased those rulers out of their heavens, and cast them down into the sinful world, so that there they should dwell, in the form of evil spirits (demons) upon the earth.

[...], so that in their world it might pass the thousand years in Paradise - a soul-endowed living creature called "phoenix". It kills itself and brings itself to life as a witness to the judgment against them, for they did wrong to Adam and his generation, unto the consummation of the age. There are [...] three men, and also his posterities, unto the consummation of the world: the spirit-endowed of eternity, and the soul-endowed, and the earthly. Likewise, the three phoenixes <in> Paradise - the first is immortal; the second lives 1,000 years; as for the third, it is written in the Sacred Book that it is consumed. So, too, there are three baptisms - the first is the spiritual, the second is by fire, the third is by water. Just as the phoenix appears as a witness concerning the angels, so the case of the water hydri in Egypt, which has been a witness to those going down into the baptism of a true man. The two bulls in Egypt possess a mystery, the sun and the moon, being a witness to Sabaoth: namely, that over them Sophia received the universe; from the day that she made the sun and the moon, she put a seal upon her heaven, unto eternity.

And the worm that has been born out of the phoenix is a human being as well. It is written (Ps 91:13 LXX) concerning it, "the just man will blossom like a phoenix". And the phoenix first appears in a living state, and dies, and rises again, being a sign of what has become apparent at the consummation of the age. It was only in Egypt that these great signs appeared - nowhere else - as an indication that it is like God's Paradise.

Let us return to the aforementioned rulers, so that we may offer some explanation of them. Now, when the seven rulers were cast down from their heavens onto the earth, they made for themselves angels, numerous, demonic, to serve them. And the latter instructed mankind in many kinds of error and magic and potions and worship of idols and spilling of blood and altars and temples and sacrifices and libations to all the spirits of the earth, having their coworker fate, who came into existence by the concord between the gods of injustice and justice.

And thus when the world had come into being, it distractedly erred at all times. For all men upon earth worshiped the spirits (demons) from the creation to the consummation - both the angels of righteousness and the men of unrighteousness. Thus did the world come to exist in distraction, in ignorance, and in a stupor. They all erred, until the appearance of the true man.

Let this suffice so far as the matter goes. Now we shall proceed to consideration of our world, so that we may accurately finish the description of its structure and management. Then it will become obvious how belief in the unseen realm, which has been apparent from creation down to the consummation of the age, was discovered.

I come, therefore, to the main points regarding the immortal man: I shall speak of all the beings that belong to him, explaining how they happen to be here.

When a multitude of human beings had come into existence, through the parentage of the Adam who had been fashioned, and out of matter, and when the world had already become full, the rulers were master over it - that is, they kept it restrained by ignorance. For what reason? For the following: since the immortal father knows that a deficiency of truth came into being amongst the eternal realms and their universe, when he wished to bring to naught the rulers of perdition through the creatures they had modelled, he sent your likenesses down into the world of perdition, namely, the blessed little innocent spirits. They are not alien to knowledge. For all knowledge is vested in one angel who appeared before them; he is not without power in the company of the father. And <he> gave them knowledge. Whenever they appear in the world of perdition, immediately and first of all they reveal the pattern of imperishability as a condemnation of the rulers and their forces. Thus when the blessed beings appeared in forms modelled by authorities, they were envied. And out of envy the authorities mixed their seed with them, in hopes of polluting them. They could not. Then when the blessed beings appeared in luminous form, they appeared in various ways. And each one of them, starting out in his land, revealed his (kind of) knowledge to the visible church constituted of the modelled forms of perdition. It (viz., the church) was found to contain all kinds of seed, because of the seed of the authorities that had mixed with it.

Then the Savior created [...] of them all - and the spirits of these are manifestly superior, being blessed and varying in election - and also (he created) many other beings, which have no king and are superior to everyone that was before them. Consequently, four races exist. There are three that belong to the kings of the eighth heaven. But the fourth race is kingless and perfect, being the highest of all. For these shall enter the holy place of their father. And they will gain rest in repose and eternal, unspeakable glory and unending joy. Moreover, they are kings within the mortal domain, in that they are immortal. They will condemn the gods of chaos and their forces.

Now the Word that is superior to all beings was sent for this purpose alone: that he might proclaim the unknown. He said, "There is nothing hidden that is not apparent, and what has not been recognized will be recognized." And these were sent to make known what is hidden, and the seven authorities of chaos and their impiety. And thus they were condemned to death.

So when all the perfect appeared in the forms modelled by the rulers, and when they revealed the incomparable truth, they put to shame all the wisdom of the gods. And their fate was found to be a condemnation. And their force dried up. Their lordship was dissolved. Their forethought became emptiness, along with their glory.

Before the consummation of the age, the whole place will shake with great thundering. Then the rulers will be sad, [...] their death. The angels will mourn for their mankind, and the demons will weep over their seasons, and their mankind will wail and scream at their death. Then the age will begin, and they will be disturbed. Their kings will be intoxicated with the fiery sword, and they will wage war against one another, so that the earth is intoxicated with bloodshed. And the seas will be disturbed by those wars. Then the sun will become dark, and the moon will cause its light to cease. The stars of the sky will cancel their circuits. And a great clap of thunder will come out of a great force that is above all the forces of chaos, where the firmament of the woman is situated. Having created the first product, she will put away the wise fire of intelligence and clothe herself with witless wrath. Then she will pursue the gods of chaos, whom she created along with the prime parent. She will cast them down into the abyss. They will be obliterated because of their wickedness. For they will come to be like volcanoes and consume one another until they perish at the hand of the prime parent. When he has destroyed them, he will turn against himself and destroy himself until he ceases to exist.

And their heavens will fall one upon the next and their forces will be consumed by fire. Their eternal realms, too, will be overturned. And his heaven will fall and break in two. His [...] will fall down upon the [...] support them; they will fall into the abyss, and the abyss will be overturned.

The light will [...] the darkness and obliterate it: it will be like something that has never been. And the product to which the darkness had been posterior will dissolve. And the deficiency will be plucked out by the root (and thrown) down into the darkness. And the light will withdraw up to its root. And the glory of the unbegotten will appear. And it will fill all the eternal realm.

When the prophecy and the account of those that are king becomes known and is fulfilled by those who are called perfect, those who - in contrast - have not become perfect in the unbegotten father will receive their glory in their realms and in the kingdoms of the immortals: but they will never enter the kingless realm. For everyone must go to the place from which he has come. Indeed, by his acts and his knowledge, each person will make his (own) nature known.

Selection made from James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, revised edition. HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990.

IMCPL Offers Live, Online Tutoring for Students of All Ages from Tutor.com

Library News & Announcements RSS Feed September 28, 2009

With school in full swing, the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library has expanded its popular online tutoring program, Live Homework Help®, to offer more services for every member of the community.

Powered by Tutor.com and accessed from the Library’s website, Live Homework Help® now includes the Student Center, College Center and Career Center that provide live, one-to-one tutoring, a real-time writing center and 24/7 access to worksheets, videos and tutorials in just about any subject.

The live, online tutoring and resume writing services are available from 2 - 10 p.m. seven days a week and are entirely free. Live Homework Help® also serves Spanish-speaking learners.

In 2008, over 6,500 local students completed one-to-one homework help and tutoring sessions using Live Homework Help® through IMCPL’s website. This school year, students of all ages as well as job seekers can find the help they need. Tutor.com has a network of over 2,000 certified tutors and career specialists who are ready to provide the following types of help in each of the new centers.

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IMCPL is one of over 1,800 public libraries nationwide that offer Live Homework Help® through Tutor.com.

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Trinity offers many fully accredited Oxford Method (Self-Study) Degrees in various areas of ministry specialty. You may also want to review our Life Experience Degree Program for degree programs that recognize credit for life experience gained through both ministry and secular fields. Trinity Institute has been empowering workers in the field for Christ since 1999, and we aren't going anywhere. We are fully accredited and endorsed by the American Theological Education Association. We verify all degrees for potential employers.
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<div style="text-align: center;">Q </div> Q is the designation for a gospel that no longer exists, but many think must have existed at one time. In fact, even though no copy of this gospel has survived independently, some nineteenth-century scholars found fragments of such an early Christian composition embeded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
By putting these two gospels beside that of Mark, scholars realized that when Matthew and Luke are telling the story about Jesus, for the most part they both follow the order and often even the wording of Mark. But, into this common narrative outline, Matthew and Luke each insert extra sayings and teachings of Jesus. And although Matthew and Luke do not put these sayings in the same order, nevertheless they each repeat many of the same sayings, sometimes word for word.

Since for other reasons it seems unlikely that either Matthew or Luke could have copied from the other, how can this sort of agreement be explained? The answer appears to be that Matthew and Luke each had two sources in common: the Gospel of Mark and another gospel, now lost, a collection of sayings known only as Q.

Q stands for "Quelle," the German word for source. Although no actual copy of Q has ever been found, many scholars are convinced that such a document once circulated in early Christian communities. Since it was difficult to get excited about something that did not exist, Q remained a hypothesis that lingered on the edges of scholarly research. But in 1945, a chance discovery in Egypt provided surprisingly new evidence that rekindled interest in the possible existence of Q.

Two brothers were looking for fertilizer at the base of cliffs in the Egyptian region of Nag Hammadi, where the Nile bends on its way from Chenoboskeia to Pabau. As they searched, the brother called Mohammad Ali hit a hard object, concealed under the ground. It proved to be a huge earthen jar, closed with a shallow red dish. At first Mohammad Ali was afraid to open the jar, lest a jinn might be closed up inside it. But finally he summoned the courage to break it, hoping that it might contain gold. Out tumbled, not gold, but twelve books bound in gazelle leather.

These books would prove one of the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century. And one of the reasons for their importance is the valuable evidence they provide for the existence of the sayings collection known as Q.

These manuscripts, now known as the Nag Hammadi Library, contained a complete manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas. A fragment of this gospel, written in Greek, had been found earlier at Oxyrynchos in Egypt. But it was only a fragment. The text found at Nag Hammadi, although complete, was written in Coptic, which was the form of the Egyptian language in use during later Roman imperial times.

On the basis of this text, however, scholars were able to reconstruct the Gospel of Thomas in Greek, the original language of its composition. By this means, they were able to compare its contents with those of writings found in the New Testament.

The Gospel of Thomas is very different from the gospels that have become part of the New Testament. It contains no narrative material, nor is there any story of the birth, the life, or the death of Jesus. It consists only of sayings, 114 in all, each preceded by the phrase, "And Jesus said." The collected sayings of the Gospel of Thomas are designated by its author as "the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke."

Some of the sayings from the Gospel of Thomas are very much like those found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, for example:"Jesus said, 'Come to me, for my yoke is easy and my mastery is gentle, and you will find repose.'" (#90) But others are puzzling: "Jesus said, 'Become passers by.'" (#42).

According to this author, salvation is achieved in the recognition of one's origin (the light) and one's destiny (the repose). And in order to return to his or her origin, the disciplemust separate from the world by "stripping off" the garment of flesh and "passing by" corruptible human existence.

For New Testament scholars, one of the most interesting things about this gospel is that its author (who calls himself Didymos Judas Thomas) appears to have used sayings from the same collection used by Matthew and Luke. But for this author and his community, the meaning of these sayings was clearly very different. The Gospel of Thomas, therefore, provided exciting new evidence for the existence of an earlier collection of sayings used by a variety of Christian communities.

In 1989, a team of researchers led by James M. Robinson of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont, CA, began a most unlikely task: the "reconstruction" of the Gospel of Q. Robinson and his team are accomplishing this by a highly detailed literary analysis of Matthew, Luke, and Thomas. Their painstaking work goes "verse by verse, word by word, case ending by case ending." After nearly ten years of work, the results of their efforts are soon to be published as the Critical Edition of Q.

The "recovery" of the Q gospel has stimulated a debate about the nature early Christian communities, and by extension, the origins of Christianity itself. One scholar, Burton Mack, has advanced a radical thesis: that at least some Christian communities did not see Jesus as a Messiah; they saw him as a teacher of wisdom, a man who tried to teach others how to live. For them, Jesus was not divine, but fully human. These first followers of Jesus differed from other Christians whose ritual and practice was centered on the death and the resurrection of Jesus. Their did not emerge as the "winners" of history; perhaps because the maintaining the faith required the existence of a story that included not only the life of Jesus but also his Passion.

Read more on the Q in this Atlantic Monthly article The Search for a No-Frills Jesus.

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http://www.saud.ku.edu/ngore/nilsweb/cinvablocks/index.html Earth blocks

http://www.permaculture.com/

http://www.mha-net.org/ masonry heater

http://www.ahouseofstraw.com

http://www.smartblock.com/

http://www.zianet.com/papercrete/structures.asp Some cool photos

http://www.livingshelter.com/

http://www.wuzzyfuzzy.com/groovy_houses.htm

http://www.formblock.com.au/ Cool photos

http://www.geckostone.com/lwc.html

http://www.fiberfoamconcrete.com/

ABOUT PAPERCRETE

By Tim Pye

Papercrete, aka fibrous cement, was originally patented in 1926, but it was not considered to be commercially viable. Today it is being rediscovered as a "new" alternative building material. Papercrete has been termed by some as a "modern day adobe." Papercrete can be made into blocks or poured into forms to make a monolithic wall. The material is homemade and consists of paper (3 parts), clay/dirt and sand (2 parts), and Portland cement (1 part). The paper used can be almost anything; newspaper, junk mail, cardboard, etc. So much of our daily consumables are surrounded with paper and take up millions of tons per year in our waste dumps. All the paper you need is free for the asking. Sand and/or sandy dirt is usually found on site. One way to recycle paper is to build with it. Here's why...........

SOME PROPERTIES OF PAPERCRETE

INSULATION VALUE - up to R-2.8 per inch, depending on density and ingredients (comparable to fiberglass at R-3.0 per inch). LIGHTWEIGHT - most papercrete weighs 15 to 20 lbs. per cubic foot, depending on density and mix. (Concrete weighs137 lbs. per cubic foot.) Almost anyone can lift and build with papercrete blocks. HAS COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH AND TENSILE STRENGTH - papercrete walls can support roof loads (not yet code approved) and can span across window and door openings with little or no header, if desired. TERMITE PROOF - termites do not touch papercrete! FIRE RESISTANT - papercrete cannot burst into flame. If exposed to intense heat and fire it will smolder slowly until extinguished. After the fire is out, simply dig out the char and patch with papercrete. ABSORBS SOUND AND VIBRATION - may do well in earthquake prone areas. ABSORBS WATER INSTANTLY - not a plus for housing projects. After construction is complete and the walls are dry, the exterior needs to be sealed. A papercrete stucco mix can be applied without the need of chicken wire, and then can be painted.
"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the Ark. Professionals, on the other hand, built the Titanic." ~ Author Unknown

http://binarywolf.com/249/diy-parabolic-reflector.htm


http://binarywolf.com/249/pie-tin-antenna.htm

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http://www.epos-ps.com/products.asp?pid=1275&ppid=1276

account   R227474
pass     angels#1

2-1-08

Peters Auto Service
3624 Carson Ave 
Indianapolis, IN 46227 


(317) 784-8151

Philosophy is inescapable.
Your philosophy is your worldview, which is a backdrop for all thought and a context for all knowledge. The decision about examining philosophy is between: 1) to make your philosophy explicit, or 2) to be a slave to the subconscious notions, principles, and other people's philosophies picked up throughout life. To ignore the topic of philosophy is to be doomed to the second choice. Examining your philosophy will allow you to discover and root out all errors and contradictions and allow you to more easily acquire knowledge and to think in concepts rather than concretes.

    A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation -- or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown. Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It


This site explores the importance of philosophy and presents many of the important concepts and questions that must be considered. It will tell you how to base your philosophy on reason rather than randomness, which will lead to clarity, certainty, success, and happiness. The alternative to an explicit rational philosophy is an indifference that leads to confusion and often failure.

Philosophy is not some arcane field important only to old men in ivory towers. It explicitly asks and answers fundamental, inescapable questions such as "How can I know something?" and "What should I do?" Without some answer to these questions, no knowledge or action is possible. Again, the only choice is to explicitly examine the underlying assumptions involved or to be at the mercy of the random flotsam picked up throughout life.

You can start by learning the major ideas and how they're related by looking at the Concept Chart and clicking on the various concepts, which index into the more complete set of information contained in the Five Branches of Philosophy section.


Site Map
Concept Chart
Introduction to the Five Branches of Philosophy
Metaphysics
Axiom
Existence Exists
Identity
Consciousness
Reality is Absolute: The Primacy of Existence
Causality
Nothing
Contradiction
An Entity is a Sum of Its Parts
Mental Entities
The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made
Epistemology
Philosophy
Objectivity
Logic
Reason
Knowledge
Standard Of Evaluation
Perception
Concepts
Definitions
Words
Emotions
Integration
Values
Certainty
Deduction
Induction/Abstraction
Focus
Evasion
Context
Fundamentals
Knowledge is Hierarchical
The Arbitrary
Ethics
Life as the Moral Standard
Morality is a Guide to Living
Reason is Man's Means of Survival
Values
Virtue
Self-Interest
Harmony of Interests
Self Reliance / Independence
Productiveness
Integrity
Honesty
Pride
Justice
Benevolence
Rationality
Metaphysical Justice
Free Will
Courage
Trader Principle
Politics
The Initiation of Force
Rights

# Right to Life
# Right to Liberty
# Right to Property
# Right to the Pursuit of Happiness
# Right to Free Speech
# Right to Self Defense

Necessity of Government
The Proper Role of Government
Laissez Faire Capitalism
Taxation
Law
Rule of Law
Constitutions
Separation of Powers
Checks and Balances
Federalism
An Armed Populace: The Right to Bear Arms
Trial by Jury
Voting
Capitalism
Financing a Government
The Death Penalty
Abortion
Fraud
Esthetics
Man's need for art
Art
Sense Of Life
Literature
Painting
Sculpture
Music
Drama
Dance
Song
Misbegotten Notions:
Mystical Metaphysics
Primacy of Consciousness
Interdependence Theory
Omnipotence
God
Malevolent Universe Premise
Miracles
Irrational Epistemology
Faith
A Priori Knowledge
Philosopher's Deduction Fallacy
Subjectivism
Polylogism
Determinism
Skepticism
Evil Ethics
Subjective Value
Intrinsic Value
Original Sin
Altruism
Collectivism
Egalitarianism
Environmentalism
The Ethics of Intentions
Duty
Compromise
Pacifism
Moral Relativism
Multiculturalism
Morality as a limit on action
Hedonism
Humility
Vegetarianism
Bloody Politics
Socialism
Communism
Fascism
Anarchism
Anarcho-Capitalism
Adjustment to Government Intervention
The Poor Suffer Under Capitalism
Military Draft
Zoning Laws
Public Schools
Redistribution of Wealth
Public Welfare
Roads and Infrastructure
Democracy
Antitrust
Positive Rights
A "Mixed" Economy
Government Regulations (The FDA)
Money
Social Security
Campaign Finance Reform
Post-Modern Esthetics
Everything is Art
Destruction of Meaning
Innovation in Art
Dictionary of Concepts

http://importanceofphilosophy.com/


Philosophy is inescapable.
Your philosophy is your worldview, which is a backdrop for all thought and a context for all knowledge. The decision about examining philosophy is between: 1) to make your philosophy explicit, or 2) to be a slave to the subconscious notions, principles, and other people's philosophies picked up throughout life. To ignore the topic of philosophy is to be doomed to the second choice. Examining your philosophy will allow you to discover and root out all errors and contradictions and allow you to more easily acquire knowledge and to think in concepts rather than concretes.

    A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation -- or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown. Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It


This site explores the importance of philosophy and presents many of the important concepts and questions that must be considered. It will tell you how to base your philosophy on reason rather than randomness, which will lead to clarity, certainty, success, and happiness. The alternative to an explicit rational philosophy is an indifference that leads to confusion and often failure.

Philosophy is not some arcane field important only to old men in ivory towers. It explicitly asks and answers fundamental, inescapable questions such as "How can I know something?" and "What should I do?" Without some answer to these questions, no knowledge or action is possible. Again, the only choice is to explicitly examine the underlying assumptions involved or to be at the mercy of the random flotsam picked up throughout life.

You can start by learning the major ideas and how they're related by looking at the Concept Chart and clicking on the various concepts, which index into the more complete set of information contained in the Five Branches of Philosophy section.


Site Map
Concept Chart
Introduction to the Five Branches of Philosophy
Metaphysics
Axiom
Existence Exists
Identity
Consciousness
Reality is Absolute: The Primacy of Existence
Causality
Nothing
Contradiction
An Entity is a Sum of Its Parts
Mental Entities
The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made
Epistemology
Philosophy
Objectivity
Logic
Reason
Knowledge
Standard Of Evaluation
Perception
Concepts
Definitions
Words
Emotions
Integration
Values
Certainty
Deduction
Induction/Abstraction
Focus
Evasion
Context
Fundamentals
Knowledge is Hierarchical
The Arbitrary
Ethics
Life as the Moral Standard
Morality is a Guide to Living
Reason is Man's Means of Survival
Values
Virtue
Self-Interest
Harmony of Interests
Self Reliance / Independence
Productiveness
Integrity
Honesty
Pride
Justice
Benevolence
Rationality
Metaphysical Justice
Free Will
Courage
Trader Principle
Politics
The Initiation of Force
Rights

# Right to Life
# Right to Liberty
# Right to Property
# Right to the Pursuit of Happiness
# Right to Free Speech
# Right to Self Defense

Necessity of Government
The Proper Role of Government
Laissez Faire Capitalism
Taxation
Law
Rule of Law
Constitutions
Separation of Powers
Checks and Balances
Federalism
An Armed Populace: The Right to Bear Arms
Trial by Jury
Voting
Capitalism
Financing a Government
The Death Penalty
Abortion
Fraud
Esthetics
Man's need for art
Art
Sense Of Life
Literature
Painting
Sculpture
Music
Drama
Dance
Song
Misbegotten Notions:
Mystical Metaphysics
Primacy of Consciousness
Interdependence Theory
Omnipotence
God
Malevolent Universe Premise
Miracles
Irrational Epistemology
Faith
A Priori Knowledge
Philosopher's Deduction Fallacy
Subjectivism
Polylogism
Determinism
Skepticism
Evil Ethics
Subjective Value
Intrinsic Value
Original Sin
Altruism
Collectivism
Egalitarianism
Environmentalism
The Ethics of Intentions
Duty
Compromise
Pacifism
Moral Relativism
Multiculturalism
Morality as a limit on action
Hedonism
Humility
Vegetarianism
Bloody Politics
Socialism
Communism
Fascism
Anarchism
Anarcho-Capitalism
Adjustment to Government Intervention
The Poor Suffer Under Capitalism
Military Draft
Zoning Laws
Public Schools
Redistribution of Wealth
Public Welfare
Roads and Infrastructure
Democracy
Antitrust
Positive Rights
A "Mixed" Economy
Government Regulations (The FDA)
Money
Social Security
Campaign Finance Reform
Post-Modern Esthetics
Everything is Art
Destruction of Meaning
Innovation in Art
Dictionary of Concepts

Brian's English Teacher  ph. 789-4905

Helina Samuels  phone 607-5482

Faye Warfield phone 977-3723


  
Accessible Staffing
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admissions@excelsior.edu 
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ATC Healthcare
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mbeaty@gbod.org 
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tbell@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
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(317) 898-3562  
  
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  - bob@bobcardwell.com 
 
 
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briancard01@msn.com 
  
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(317) 971-9700  
 
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Ervie.Brooks@fssa.IN.gov 
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larissambrown@sbcglobal.net
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Alpine Counselling Center
765-449-9115  
 
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sburk@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
Robert Cardwell  - bbbob_99 
bbbob_99@yahoo.com
13177839572  
 brian cardwell  - pimpshizzzit 
17654304574  
 Jeff Cardwell  
cardwell@amidoitbest.com 
 
Jeff Cardwell  
jcardwell@cardwelldoitcenter.com 
 Betty Cardwell  
13172419630  
 Jeff Cardwell  
jcardwell@phpnetwork.org 
 
Jeff Cardwell  
jcardwell@cardwellhomecenter.com 
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bobcardwell@hotmail.com 
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zcardwel@purdue.edu
(765) 495-5313  
 
Brian Cardwell  
17654304574  
 Robert C (Bob) Cardwell  
robert.cardwell@fssa.in.gov 
 Bob Cardwell  
cardwell.bob@gmail.com 
 
 
Carestaff Inc. Staffing
msnider@carestaffindy.com
(317) 334-0655  
 Emily Casto  
 
  
cehresman@msdkpt.k12.in.us 
 
Terrell Charleston  
ACME
(317) 255-5251  
 Wesleyan College  
graduate@indwes.edu 
 Deferred Comp  
Deferred Comp
(877) 848-5838  
 
Compassion Center (CompassionCenter)  
784-3786  
  
connie19@earthlink.com 
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jdelaney@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
Jane A Dell  
Jane.Dell@fssa.in.gov 
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Dr. John Desanto
317-355-2200  
  
dolsten@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
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staff_marie@yahoo.com 
 Jeanette M Duncan  
Jeanette.Duncan@fssa.IN.gov 
 Keith Eberg (StateFarmInsurance)  
State Farm Insurance
317-887-1400  
 
(Indiana Attorney General Office)  
eherrera@atg.state.in.us 
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emvision@eyemed.sento.com 
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pever1@sbcglobal.net 
 
Nancy Ferguson  
nancyferguson@hotmail.com 
 Jim Frank  
(317) 908-2849  
 Jim Frank  
317-908-2849  
 
Jim Frank  
sargeantsmith@juno.com 
 Jessica Gilson  
jgilson@purdue.edu 
 Frank Gilson  
frank.gilson@hotmail.com 
 
 
ginamventresca@hotmail.com 
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Susan.Godsey@fssa.in.gov 
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317-3551234  
 
Richard Hahn  
317-355-1234  
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harneyg@loancare.net 
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thartley@doc.in.gov 
 
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headd@cfmh.org 
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MHolbrook@tippecanoe.in.gov
765-423-9347  
 
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ahooper@msdpt.k12.in.us
317-789-4905  
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Larue Carter Hospital
(317) 941-4100  
 
Mike Howe  
mhowe@maryrigg.org
317-639-6106  
 CMH Human (Resources)  
cc1903@cfmh.org 
 Beverly J (Jeanie) Humphrey  
Larue Carter Hospital
beverly.humphrey@fssa.in.gov 
 
Beverly J (Jeanie) Humphrey  
beverly.humphrey@fssa.in.gov 
  
jdelaney@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 (Delaney)  
jdelaney@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
Jessica  
(317) 789-9425  
 (studentapartment)  
joanz24@yahoo.com 
  
jobs@cmhcinc.org 
 
Teresa G Johnson  
teresa.johnson2@fssa.in.gov 
 Bettye Johnson  
Bettye.Johnson@fssa.IN.gov 
  
Kelleron Staffing
sheliabaker@kelleronmedicalstaffing.com
(708) 748-3800  
 
Paul Klepfer (PK)  - drpk55 
drpk55@yahoo.com
765-643-4680  
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p.klepfer@insightbb.com 
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indylaw10@sbcglobal.net 
 
Tobie Kniess  - indylaw10@sbcglobal.net 
 
 Paul Kohlhoff  
Valparaiso University School of Law
paul.kohlhoff@valpo.edu
(219) 465-7903  
 Paul Kohlhoff  
Tax Clinic
paul.kohlhoff@valpo.edu 
 
MADELINE KOLAR  
(317) 293-9171  
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 Lee Ladd  
(317) 985-1337  
 
larissambrown@sbcglobal.net  - larissambrown@sbcglobal.net 
 
  
larissambrown@sbcglobal.net 
  
Larue Carter Hospital
(317) 941-4100  
 
Marilyn Laster  
lastermarilyn@sbcglobal.net 
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317-291-2121  
 Timothy A Lines  
timothy.lines@fssa.in.gov 
 
TERESA Mahin (Keyboard)  
tmahin@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market  
(317) 786-3485  
 marshlpn@netzero.net  
marshlpn@netzero.net
765-749-7608  
 
marshlpn@netzero.net  
marshlpn@netzero.net
(765) 749-7608  
  
Maxim
(317) 585-1691  
 Brandon W McAfee  
Brandon.McAfee@fssa.IN.gov 
 
Karen J McKinney  
Karen.McKinney@fssa.IN.gov 
 David Meade  
 
 Elizabeth A Miller  
Elizabeth.Miller@fssa.in.gov 
 
(ModernDentist)  
Modern Dental
317-787-1320  
  
MSN Staffing
toniwest@msnhealthcare.com
(800) 676-8326 #204  
  
nancyjfinch@indy.rr.com 
 
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ISLAND RESIDENTIAL REPAIRS
SCislander@hargray.com
(843) 757-7691  
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(812) 392-0878  
  - nurserose_98 
nurserose_98@yahoo.com 
 
June Panchot  
(317) 462-3697  
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Kimberly.Patterson@fssa.IN.gov 
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lpierce@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
 
Prescrition Solutions
(800) 562-6223  
 Brahmananda Reddy  
chnandu@yahoo.com 
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mkrichert@verizon.net 
 
Phil Riley  
(317) 413-8879  
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Todd.Rittman@fssa.IN.gov 
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Wendover Financial
tammy_m_robbins@eds.com
336-605-2443  
 
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glen@wesleyfoundation.org 
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ACME 
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tinar@libertyhealth.com 
 
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laurasgrace@yahoo.com 
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laurasgrace@yahoo.com 
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Accessible
(317) 593-3683  
 
(FreeScrapMetalRemoval)  
sale-362187487@craigslist.org 
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scarroll@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
Diane E Schaaf  
Diane.Schaaf@fssa.IN.gov 
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ATC
(812) 498-7317  
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jsessions@msdpt.k12.in.us 
 
(Shebazz)  
405-7025  
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317-405-7025  
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LCH
(317) 924-9146  
 
Phyllis Shobe  
Phyllis.Shobe@fssa.IN.gov 
  
sigmatemp@sigmakappanhc.org 
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Linda.Sims@fssa.in.gov 
 
David E Skirvin  
David.Skirvin@fssa.IN.gov 
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(317) 481-8977  
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csmith@fullerengr.com 
 
sparks3717  - sparks3717 
 
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tspicer@msdpt.k12.in.us 
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jspray@indygov.org
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Ann Tao  
(765) 642-0257  
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(765) 426-8067  
  
theupperroommagazine@upperroom.org 
 
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Vittoria.Tucker@fssa.in.gov 
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LCH
(317) 977-3723  
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winston4804@sbcglobal.net 
 
Corrine Woodcock  
(317) 244-0112  
  
wpeebles@msdpt.k12.in.us 
  
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(765) 447-2200  
 
Amanda Yates  
LCH
(317) 422-9506  
 Zhang Zhicheng  
joanz24@yahoo.com 
 Laura Zimmerman  
(765) 742-0400 x173  
 
 
Zionsville Presbyterian Church 
   

Heather phone number 371-6313

LCH EVE SHIFT Report Rooms
2A 		6114
3A 		4148
4A 		4177
2C 		4038
3C 		4398
3E 		4433
4B 		4163
4E 		6188
4C 		4515


nt Date: 10/05/2007 02:16 pm  Copyright 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved.

<a href="http://www.photolava.com/code/9crh.html">1 Photo at PhotoLava.com</a>

<html><a href="http://www.photolava.com/view/9crh.html"><img src="http://img106.mytextgraphics.com/photolava/2007/11/10/holierthanguns-48gjwx9w1.png" alt="Free Photo hosting by PhotoLava.com" border="0"/></a></html>


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<html><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/cardwell.bob/MyPictures/photo#5094305148893436786"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/cardwell.bob/RrKbisk8m3I/AAAAAAAAANU/oj-BW_PFGrg/s800/b2b0.jpeg" /></a></html>

<html><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1222/1433199571_a398799a8e.jpg">Home 1986-1994</a></html>

<html><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1407/1434100390_0d075438d4.jpg">Home 1994-1997</a></html> 

<html><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/261/2778/1024/jimfrank.jpg">Jim Frank</a></html> 








Here is a photo of Jeanie and I from 1998. It is our first photo together. It was taken in Nashville, TN., and was at the Wild Horse Saloon.

<html><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/cardwell.bob/JeanieRoy/photo#5109368968684834514"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/cardwell.bob/RuggAaTdDtI/AAAAAAAAA40/rtEfijRsdPQ/s400/1109615283_4fac3ebaae.jpg" /></a></html>

Here is the last photo taken of Jeanie and I. It was 2002. It was shortly after her brain surgery. I had recently told her she was dying. This was before her radiation treatment.  This was about eight months before her death.
<html><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/cardwell.bob/JeanieRoy/photo#5109368972979801858"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/cardwell.bob/RuggAqTdDwI/AAAAAAAAA5M/g6zarMW-sAg/s400/1110457388_53909fc077.jpg" /></a></html>

Here is a photo of Rick from 1974
[img[http://bp0.blogger.com/_fwukQ1dvAw8/RvmdVhwzcxI/AAAAAAAABLQ/puGmx3Ow1WE/s400/rick21974.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114291845021790994"]]

Here is a photo of Rick from 2007
[img[http://bp0.blogger.com/_fwukQ1dvAw8/RvmddhwzcyI/AAAAAAAABLY/wJshgGwITqM/s400/rickbrace.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114291982460744482"]]

This photo from before Rick broke his neck shows his motto.
[img[http://photos1.blogger.com/img/261/2778/400/gohell.jpg]]

How to Plan Your Podcast

Before you get started with your podcast, you need to make a few decisions. Don’t worry. This isn’t going to be a long drawn out process. I'm sure you just want to get your voice on the internet as quickly as possible.

There are just a few questions that need to be answered first. I want to help you make a quality podcast that will attract and keep more listeners.

Here are a few things you need to decide for your podcast:

• What's the topic of your podcast?
• What's the format of your podcast?
• How long will each episode be?
• How often are you going to release new shows?

Trust me. If you take just a little time to think about these things now, then your podcast will turn out much better. A well-planned podcast will get more listeners. It will also keep you focused and make it easier in the long run.

[[Plans for a Cooking Rocket Stove|http://www.repp.org/discussiongroups/resources/stoves/Still/AprovechoPlans/englishjustaplans.pdf]]

Plato, Republic 588A-589B

Translated by James Brashler

"Since we have come to this point in a discussion, let us again take up the first things that were said to us. And we will find that he says, 'Good is he who has been done injustice completely. He is glorified justly.' Is not this how he was reproached?"

"This is certainly the fitting way!"

And I said, "Now then, we have spoken because he said that he who does injustice and he who does justice each has a force."

''How then?"

"He said, 'An image that has no likeness is the rationality of soul,' so that he who said these things will understand. He [...] or not? We [...] is for me. But all [...] who told them [...] ruler, these now have become natural creatures - even Chimaera and Cerberus and all the rest that were mentioned. They all came down and they cast off forms and images. And they all became a single image. It was said, 'Work now!' Certainly it is a single image that became the image of a complex beast with many heads. Some days indeed it is like the image of a wild beast. Then it is able to cast off the first image. And all these hard and difficult forms emanate from it with effort, since these are formed now with arrogance. And also all the rest that are like them are formed now through the word. For now it is a single image. For the image of the lion is the one thing and the image of the man is another. [...] single [...] is the [...] of [...] join. And this [...] much more complex than the first. And the second is small."

"It has been formed."

"Now then, join them to each other and make them a single one - for they are three - so that they grow together, and all are in a single image outside of the image of the man just like him who is unable to see the things inside him. But what is outside only is what he sees. And it is apparent what creature his image is in and that he was formed in a human image.

"And I spoke to him who said that there is profit in the doing of injustice for the man. He who does injustice truly does not profit nor does he benefit. But what is profitable for him is this: that he cast down every image of the evil beast and trample them along with the images of the lion. But the man is in weakness in this regard. And all the things that he does are weak. As a result he is drawn to the place where he spends time with them. [...]. And he [...] to him in[...]. But he brings about [...] enmity [...]. And with strife they devour each other among themselves. Yes, all these things he said to everyone who praises the doing of injustice."

"Then is it not profitable for him who speaks justly?"

"And if he does these things and speaks in them, within the man they take hold firmly. Therefore especially he strives to take care of them and he nourishes them just like the farmer nourishes his produce daily. And the wild beasts keep it from growing.

Writing and Speaking

How do you actually begin a novel - by working out the plot, or starting with a character? And which is best?

The answer is probably pretty much what you expected: no one method is “best”. In fact, many authors have begun their first novel by working from a plot idea, then switched to starting with a character for their second. Here, we ll look at the pros and cons of both methods.

Starting With Plot

FOR: You know where the story is going and what all characters have to do next. You don t have to sit there wondering how on earth your character is going to get out of the pickle you ve put him in - because you planned all that in Week 1. Even if you have to make some changes, you know your story well enough to compensate.

AGAINST: A highly structured plot can become sterile and flat. Characters are too locked in and fail to excite the author, let alone the reader. Because plot is all , your characters never really come to life. They go through the motions - but you re all too conscious that you re a puppet master. Pinocchio ain t got nuthin on YOUR wooden characters. Gloom, gloom.

Starting With A Character

FOR: You know your character so well that motivation is never an issue. The plot is never implausible. All action is driven by the character s needs, wants and responses. Conflict works well because you know the secondary characters well too.

AGAINST: Your character never realizes his/her potential because the plot is too slight. The stakes aren t high enough the outcome is predictable the storyline worn.

What To Do?

Either method can work - or either method can be a disaster. Start with whatever gets your creative juices flowing, then weave plot and character together as you write.

How to Weave Plot and Character

Not many aspiring novelists start a novel by sitting down at the computer with absolutely NO idea of where to start. (”Oh, I think I ll write a novel today! Now let s see… what can I write about?”)

Most writers have at least a vague sense of where they re going. They may:

have a vivid image of a character in mind
be able to imagine a character in a certain situation that requires decisions and action have a general theme in mind have a definite beginning, middle and end planned have a vague idea based on a movie plot or an actor or a news item or a current affairs guest

… and so it goes on! Very, very few people start with a completely blank slate. So, given that you have either some idea of the plot, or some idea of the character, where do you go next?

3 Tips for Developing Plot Out of Character

a. What does your character DO?

You can build a plot from where your character is now, in his/her life or career. Some examples:

If your character is a mother: what could threaten to turn her life upside down? What is her strongest drive? What does she want from life? What is important to her? What would make her risk everything she holds dear?
If your character is a corporate high flyer: What is important to her? What could bring her down? Who might go down with her? What does she have to lose? How could you raise the stakes? If your character is a doctor: What might he see or do in the course of his work that could have an impact on his life? What kind of doctor is he? Who might be plotting against him? Who might he want to save, and how?

b. What is your character s secret?

Does she have a secret life - e.g. teacher by day, psychic hotline contact by night? Does she have a secret baby in her past… or a secret lover?
Does he have a serious crime in his past that is about to catch up with him? What is it? Could it mean doing time? Was the character framed? Did he let someone else take the rap? Might someone be looking for revenge? Does she have a secret yearning? Has she always wanted to be someone else or do something else? What happens if she shocks everyone by acting on her secret yearning?

c. Who does your character know?

Some examples:

An old school friend - once a best friend , now on a slippery slope in life - in trouble, and involving our lead character.
A workmate who asks the character to cover for him. A lie grows out of all proportion and leads to serious repercussions. The character is caught up by events and can t stop them. A corrupt politician or police officer who mistakenly sees the character as powerless and a good fall guy . What happens?

3 Tips for Developing Character Out of Plot

a. Choose a character with traits that are necessary for the kind of growth you need

If your plot requires a character who will develop courage under fire , and show great character growth - then choose that character carefully. Think about the *qualities* your character needs rather than worrying about looks. What particular skills/traits will he or she need to have?

b. Choose a character that will surprise the reader

If you have a screwball character in mind - or perhaps a mild-mannered desk jockey - think about how their lives are about to change, and how their reactions might surprise the reader. Perhaps link their actions to a secret in their past, a secret threat, or a secret yearning.

c. Choose a character with a fatal flaw

Your plot demands swift and decisive action. The stakes are high many lives will be lost or a country/city faces ruin. You need a character with a fatal flaw so that near the climax of the story, all appears lost. What is that flaw? At what stage of the story will the revelation of this flaw have the most impact?
Which particular fatal flaw will work best with the kind of plot you ve created? A gambling addiction? An inability to admit he s wrong? A weakness for beautiful women?

These are just a few tips. A couple of hours brainstorming will give you pages of ideas and fend off the dreaded writer s block.

Whether you start with a character or start with a plot, you need to have vivid, strong characters or all your hard work will be for nothing. I ll leave you with a few words from New York literary agent Don Maass about the importance of strong characters (from his book Writing the Breakout Novel):

“What do folks remember most about a novel? I have asked this question many times, of all different kinds of people. Your answer is probably the same as that of most readers: the characters. Great characters are the key to great fiction. A high-octane plot is nothing without credible, larger-than-life, highly developed enactors to make it meaningful…. Hot plot devices may propel a protagonist into action, even danger, but how involving is that when the action taken is what anybody would do?

“Indeed, it is a common fault of beginning thriller writers to slam an Everyman, your average Joe, into the middle of something big and terrible. Such stories usually feel lackluster because the main character is lackluster. A plot is just a plot. It is the actions of a person that makes it memorable or not. Great characters rise to the challenge of great events.”

Want to download 5 - yes, FIVE - e-books full of good advice on technique and career-building for writers? You can have instant access to The Writing4Success Tipsheet Library here:
http://www.writing4success.com
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "What Comes First - Characters or Plot?", url: "http://www.resource-onlinesite.com/2007/11/05/what-comes-first-characters-or-plot/" });

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admin @ November 5, 2007

Lincoln Plowman is a victim of "Cottey-Think". He spent so much time with his mentor, hero, and puppet-master, that he is starting to sound like him. Plowman should be thrown off the City-Co. Council and into jail. In jail, his on-the-job knowledge will help him immensely. We have to get rid of all these Cottey Crooks for once and all. We need to rid local government from the taint of corruption from that fallen political boss Jack Cottey.

1/27/2009 7:10:11

http://www.podbean.com/podcast_hosting_audio_video_blog_hosting?service=Basic&page=start-podcast


http://computer.howstuffworks.com/how-to-podcast.htm

http://www.podspew.com/

Podcast Hosting

Let’s talk about podcast hosting and how to publish your podcast to the internet. There are a number of podcast hosting solutions available. There are also a number of important things to know about hosting your podcast to avoid future problems or excessive money drain.

First I’ll explain what you need to do in order to publish your podcast online. Then I’ll give you my recommendations for hosting tools and services. This will save you a lot of time and big headaches. I can even suggest a way to get your podcast online for free.
The Basic Steps of Publishing Your Podcast

To publish your podcast to the internet, you usually need to do the following:

1. Register a Web Address – also called a domain name
2. Find/Buy Web Hosting – to store your blog/site and your audio files on the internet
3. Start a Blog - this is your web site for posting your show notes, links, etc.
4. Create an RSS Feed – this is the feed that your listeners subscribe to so they can automatically download new episodes of your podcast

These four things make up a typical podcast hosting setup for publishing your show to the internet: web address, hosting, blog & RSS feed. There are a number of tools and services you can use for each of these four things.

I have created three recommended solutions for you to choose from depending on your podcasting goals & needs. Each solution includes suggested tools or services that provide you with each of the four things listed above.

Let’s go over the four podcast hosting steps in more detail. Then I’ll give you my recommended tools and services for each.
Register a Web Address

To have a web address that points to your podcast’s site, you have to register and pay for what is called a domain name. Google.com is an example of a domain name. It’s the web address that takes you to Google’s search site.

This is also sometimes called a URL. Just to be clear, when I say “domain name” or “URL”, I’m just talking about your web address.

Some podcasters use a free service like Blogger or Libsyn for their blog. These services give you a web address that looks like this:

yourpodcastname.libsyn.com

yourpodcastname.blogspot.com

This works fine, but it’s not the most convenient web address for telling people where to find your podcast. It’s a little harder to remember a URL like that. For marketing and promotion, it’s best to register your own web address that’s easy for people to remember.

Fortunately, Libsyn and Blogger also give you the option of registering your own web address and using it with their service.

You can usually register your own web address for less than $10/yr. I’ll show you where do this for less than $5/yr. This is really very little to pay to have a web address that is easier to remember and use in your marketing.

If you want to save the expense of registering your own domain name, then skip the next section and continue on reading about your blog.
How to Register Your Web Address (Domain Name)

Before you can register a web address, you have to see if it’s available. Then you sign up with a web address registry and pay a small yearly fee. Then you tell the registry where your site is located on the internet.

The most popular kind of domain name is dot-com although there are also dot-net and dot-org and many others. Some people type or remember dot-com even if you tell them dot-net or dot-org address just because it’s a more common and recognized type of web address.

Here are some tips for choosing your web address:

* Choose a web address that is easy to remember
* Don’t make your address it too long
* Choose a dot-com name if possible
* It’s best to make your web address the same as the name of your podcast
* Choose a name and web address for your podcast that are meaningful to your potential listener and that will draw them in to listen (see my podcast promotion e-book for more info in this)
* If there’s a keyword or term that you would like to be ranked well for in the search engines, it’s helpful to use that word/phrase in your web address
* For example: If you want to start a podcast on dog training, you might consider a web address and podcast name such as DogTrainingPodcast.com.
* If the name of your podcast is something like THE Dog Training Podcast, register the web address WITHOUT “the” in it or register both TheDogTrainingPodcast.com AND DogTrainingPodcast.com. That way both of them can point to your podcast site. Many people will forget or add a “the” when typing in the web address.

I check web address availability using 000domains. I have to be honest. I don’t ever register domains through them, but I like their search tool because I can check the availability of several domain names all at once.

You might already have a few ideas of what you’d like your web address to be. Go to 000domains, type your web address ideas into the box, click “start searching” and it will tell you which are available.

Once you choose your web address, I suggest registering it with 1and1. They are very inexpensive and have dependable service. I’ve registered many domains with them.

Your web host should give you instructions on how to point your web address to your web site.
Web Hosting

Web hosting gives you a place on the internet to store the files for your blog, web site and podcast so they are available 24/7 for your listeners and site visitors.

I’ve used many different web hosting services and had lots of web sites over the last several years. Here’s what I’ve found that you need in a web host.

Support: You need easy access to technical & billing support from your web host. Often I choose a web host based on their great support alone. There are thousands of hosts that all have similar prices. Support is often what sets them apart.

Some web hosts don’t have phone support, but are still very quick with email questions or have live online chat with technicians. As long as I can get a good answer fast, then I’m happy. Other web hosts are just slow to respond. You want to avoid these hosts. There are a lot of cheap hosts out there, but usually you get what you pay for.

Storage: At the very least I recommend you have 1 gigabyte (GB), which is equal to 1000 megabytes (MB), of storage. You need to be sure you have room for your site/blog files, your images and your audio. Many of the web hosts that I use and recommend give you a gigabyte or more of storage. Eventually you may need more than this.

You’ll need enough storage to keep as many episodes online as you want to make available at a time. You may want to archive several, or even all, of your past shows for your listeners to download.

The amount of storage you need for your audio files will depend on the following:

* The length of each show
* The audio quality of your MP3 files (the higher the quality the bigger the file)
* How often you produce shows
* How many past shows you want to make available at a time to your listeners

If you used the raw audio data that you record into your computer, the files would be way too big for people to download fast. That is why you save your final podcast audio as an MP3 file. This process is also called encoding an MP3 or compressing your audio file.

File compression uses a special program to shrink the file to a tenth of its size or even smaller. This makes the audio file more manageable to upload and download on the internet. The tradeoff is that the more you compress the file, the lower the audio quality will be.

The quality is determined by what is called the bit rate of the MP3. Don’t worry too much about what this means. You just need to know that a higher bit rate gives better audio quality which means the file contains more data which produces a bigger file size.

Click here to see a chart that shows how this works.

To give you an idea of typical file sizes, an MP3 of a song that you download is probably 3 to 5 MBs. Music MP3s are usually encoded at a bit rate of 128 kbps.

The size of a podcast MP3 file depends on the length and audio quality (amount of MP3 compression) of the show.

Click here to open the chart from above again to help you estimate how big your podcast files size will be.

To determine how much storage you need:

1. In the first column, find the type of podcast you plan to produce. The second column tells you what kind of MP3 encoding to save your podcast with. The third column gives you an idea of what kind of audio quality to expect from that type of encoding.

2. In the last column, take the size figure and multiply it by the typical length of your podcast. If you’re just getting started, you’ll have to estimate this. This will give you an idea of how big (how many MBs) each of your podcast files will be.

3. Multiply this size of each podcast file by the number of podcasts you want to be able to store on your site at once.

Example: I encode GothamCast at 96 kbps (talk with some music). At this bit rate, the file size is about 0.7 MB per minute. My average show length is 30 minutes. My average MP3 file size is 30 x 0.7 = 21 MB.

I release about 3 episodes per month. So I fill about 63 MB of storage each month. If I want to be able to have a whole year’s worth of episodes available on my site at once, I need:

12 months x 3 episodes per month x 21 MB per episode = 756 MB

I need 756 MB of storage for my audio files (or about ¾ of a GB). If you do a similar show but release an episode 2-3 times a week, you can see how the storage can start adding up quickly.

Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the amount of data that your web host allows to be transfered to and from your web site each month (some hosts also set daily limits).

This is a big issue in podcasting because the audio files that are being downloaded by your listeners are large. This means you’ll have a lot of transfer from your web site. You have to be sure that your host allows you enough bandwidth to accommodate your audience.

Using the storage chart above, you should have already calculated how many MBs each of your podcast files will be. You’ll also need this to calculate how much data transfer you’ll have from your web site.

To calculate your monthly bandwidth usage:

1. Take the average size of each of your podcasts files
2. Multiply that by the number people that download each episode
3. Multiply that by the number of shows you release each month

If you’re just getting started, you’ll have to estimate how big of an audience you want to be able to handle from your site.

Example: If you have 300 people download a podcast that is 20 MB you will have about 20 x 300 = 6000 MB or 6 GB of data transfer for each show. If you release four shows each month this adds up to 24 GB of transfer per month.

You have to make sure that your web host allows you enough bandwidth (data transfer) each month. There are a couple of hosting solutions that allow you unlimited bandwidth. This comes with a couple tradeoffs, though. We’ll talk more about this.
Start a Blog

Using a blog is the easiest way to publish your podcast. I don’t want to get into a definition of a blog (short for weblog), but if you aren’t familiar with blogs, here’s a quick overview.

A blog:

* Is an online journal or publication that’s frequently updated by its author(s).
* Is a quick way to publish a series of thoughts, commentary, opinion, writings, etc. (called entries or posts) listed in chronological order
* Requires very little tech knowledge to use
* Uses a news feed that can be subscribed to by the readers
* Is an easy way to publish your podcast and maintain your podcast site

NOTE: If you would like to read more about what a blog is, click here.

Your podcast is basically just a blog with audio. Podcasting uses the same feed technology as many blogs. Your audience receives the audio file through the feed in addition to the text.

Usually each blog entry/post is one episode of your podcast. The post consists of your show notes (an outline of the episode’s contents), links to any related information or sources and probably a link to the MP3 file for the episode. The feed from your blog tells the subscriber’s podcatcher where to download the audio file.

There are dozens of ways to create and maintain a blog. Some are free and some cost some money. I’ll give you some suggestions for blogging tools. If you already have a blog, then you can just adapt it to use with your podcast.
Create an RSS Feed

One of the great things about listening to podcasts is that you can subscribe to what’s called an RSS feed. Once you’re subscribed, your podcatcher will check the feed regularly for new episodes. When a new episode is posted, the podcatcher will automatically download the audio file for you to listen to.

As a podcaster, you create and update your RSS feed for your listeners to subscribe to. Don’t worry. This is easier than it sounds. I’ll show you what you need to do, but first let’s talk about what an RSS feed is.

An RSS feed is nothing more than a specially formatted text file. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. This is just a set of rules that outlines how the information in the feed fill needs to be formatted.

Before you start sweating, you don’t need to worry about understanding RSS or writing out the feed file by hand. There are ways to create it automatically. You won’t be writing code or trying to remember the RSS format. This will be done for you.

In a blog feed, the RSS feed text file includes a list of the recent posts and information about each one such as title, date, author, etc. An RSS feed for a podcast is the same, except it also includes information about your MP3 file such as its web address and file size. The podcatcher uses this information to find and download the audio file.

Each time you post a new podcast episode, you need to update your RSS feed with information about it so your listeners’ podcatchers will detect and download the file.

NOTE: RSS feeds files are written in a language called XML. I just mention this so that you know that if the term XML is mentioned in relation to podcasting, it’s probably referring to the RSS or podcast feed.
My Recommended Podcast Hosting Solutions

Whoah! That’s seems like a lot. How do you get it all up and running?!?

Fortunately there are a number of tools and services that take care of it for you and make it easy! Let’s talk about my favorites.

I have three podcast hosting solutions that I recommend. I’ve divided them into three levels ranging from just dabbling to big time personal or business goals in podcasting.

Choose which of the following three descriptions best fits you and your podcasting goals right now. In each section I give my recommendation for setting up your podcast hosting.
Casual Hobbyist Level

The hobbyist level is for those who are just podcasting for fun. This is you if you don’t want to spend much (or any) money right now. You’ll be satisfied with a small to medium sized audience.

You don’t need to spend money on the better services since a little downtime on your web site or podcast won’t cause any major problems. Your podcast is not critical to what you are doing. Keeping accurate subscriber and download stats is not important at this level.

For this level of podcaster I suggest some tools and services that will get you up and running quickly and conveniently and won’t cost you a dime.

For your blog, I suggest using Google’s free Blogger service.

To create an RSS feed that is podcast-enabled, I suggest using Feedburner. This is also a free service that adds a lot great features to your feed including subscriber stats.

Blogger by itself uses what is called an Atom feed. This is the wrong kind of feed format. Feedburner converts the feed to a podcast-ready RSS format.

Finally, for storing your podcast files online, you can use Ourmedia. This is a non-profit service that allows you to store media files for free. You just register an account and start posting.

Ourmedia provides a way to upload your files to their site through your web browser. They also have software that you can download and use to upload your files.

Once you upload a podcast file to Ourmedia, you will be provided with a link to that you can use in your blog and feed. Your listeners will download the MP3 from Ourmedia through your site and/or feed.

Ourmedia gives you unlimited downloads and bandwidth for free! Sounds too good to be true! Well, there are downsides.

The first limitation is that your media cannot be copyrighted. (I've now discovered that your content can have a traditional copyright on Ourmedia, although, it makes most sense to use a Creative Commons license.)

A big limitation on Ourmedia is that the podcast file may not be available right away after upload. This won’t work for you if your podcast is time sensitive.

Also, there will be very little support with Ourmedia & no uptime guarantee. Again, it's a non-profit site.

If you have other questions on how Ourmedia works or their mission, here is their Frequently Asked Questions page.

NOTE: Ourmedia also gives you a blog and a feed for the media you post. You could just use your Ourmedia feed with feedburner to make it a podcast feed. I prefer the look, feel and features of Blogger blogs. I will be using a Blogger blog for this tutorial.

The rest of this tutorial will mostly focus on using the Casual Hobbyist solution for launching a podcast. This solution will get you started very quickly and for free.

Casual Hobbyist Recommendations:
Blog Service/Tool:
Blogger
RSS Feed Generation:
Feedburner
File Storage/Hosting:
Ourmedia
Pros:
Free, quick to get started, easy to use
Cons:
Minimal support, no stats, no guarantee for uptime of your files for download, limited customization of your site/blog, podcast not available right away after upload
Hobbyist or Small Business Level

At this level your goal is to have a small to medium-sized audience. You’ll need plenty of bandwidth as you gain more subscribers.

For this I recommend a podcast hosting service called Liberation Syndication (Libsyn). Libsyn offers unmetered bandwidth. This means there is no limit on the amount of data that is downloaded or transferred from your web site. This means as your audience grows you will not be charged more for bandwidth.

You pay according to how much data you upload each month. This depends on show length, quality and frequency. For example, with Libsyn's Podcast Basic account, you can upload 100 MBs each month. This is enough to upload a 20-minute high quality music program once a week.

For the most part, the guys at Libsyn have done a great job at providing hosting to a lot of podcasters. Their prices are hard to beat. It sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it comes at a bit of a trade off in my opinion. They’ve had some trouble with downtime here and there.

The support is limited as it is only four guys running the company. They’re usually very helpful and jump on problems quickly, but it seems they’re going through some growing pains. They are also basically still a startup. This comes with some potential uncertainty for the future of their company.

Libsyn gives you, in one easy place, all the elements you need (blog, feed, etc.) to publish your podcast to the internet. They also give you the ability to customize the look and design of your site/blog a little (which you will probably want at this level).

Finally, Libsyn gives you good stats so you have an idea of how many people are subscribing and listening to your podcast.

If you already have a web site or blog for your podcast, you can still use Libsyn to host your podcast files and link to them on your blog so you can enjoy unmetered bandwidth.

Hobbyist & Small Business Recommendations:
Blog Service/Tool:
Libsyn
RSS Feed Generation:
Libsyn
File Storage/Hosting:
Libsyn
Pros:
Can’t beat the price, all-in-one solution, easy to use, unmetered bandwidth, good stats
Cons:
Limited support, startup company, some downtime, limited customization
Serious Hobbyist or Business Level

At this level your podcast is critical to your goals as a business or hobbyist. You plan to grow an audience that is as large as possible and want to dependably deliver your podcast to them.

A podcaster at this level wants dependable uptime and service in his/her hosting, the ability to customize their site to their needs and stats that are as accurate as possible.

To accomplish this I recommend getting your own web hosting account and installing Wordpress, a free blogging software. This is a widely popular blogging platform that has a strong community for support and customization of your blog/site.

Wordpress is easy to use. It has an interface that is user-friendly for posting new episodes and show notes to your blog. It also creates the podcast feed for you.

Another thing I like about Wordpress is there are a lot of plugins available for adding great features to your blog. Also, all the code is open source. This means that you can have a programmer alter or customize it to your needs.

For web hosting I recommend Powweb or Globat. I use both of these to host web sites and podcasts. They are dependable, professional and offer good support and an uptime guarantee. In addition, their prices are great.

The reason I recommend these hosts over Libsyn at this level is that I’ve seen too many reports of downtime with Libsyn (although they are always improving their service).

You’re giving up the unmetered bandwidth of Libsyn for a bigger and more dependable company. Although, both of my recommended hosts offer lots of bandwidth (the most I have seen from any host at that level). Also, you can buy more bandwidth or additional accounts as needed.

Serious Hobbyist or Business Recommendations:
Blog Service/Tool:
Wordpress
RSS Feed Generation:
Wordpress (plus Feedburner if you want)
File Storage/Hosting:
Powweb or Globat
Pros:
Reasonable pricing, great service, uptime guarantee, good stats, lots of options for customization and adding features, easy to use
Cons:
Bandwidth limitations (although both hosts offer more bandwidth than other hosts at the same price)
A Note on Dedicated Web Servers

If you are a big business or corporation starting a podcast (or if your podcast has gotten extremely popular), then you may want a dedicated server for hosting your files. This means you rent your own internet-grade computer that is dedicated to hosting just your media.

This gives you top notch dependability, storage, speed and bandwidth for running your site and delivering your podcast to your audience.

If your business is that big, then you may already have a dedicated server for your site. If not, you probably have an information technology guy that can get you hooked up.

For dedicated servers, I recommend using GoDaddy.
Podcast Hosting Solution Summary

Click here to open a chart that summarizes all three of my recommended podcast hosting solutions.

Podcast Hosting:
The Casual Hobbyist Solution
Step-by-Step >>

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Podcast Promotion

I'm always testing new ways to promote my podcasts. In addition to being a podcaster, I'm an internet marketer, so I have plenty of ideas to share. The best way to keep up to date on my latest tips is to subscribe to my podcasting e-zine.

When you sign up I'll send you a free gift, my ebook on how to promote your podcast to find more listeners.
The tips in this audio file have helped me greatly increase the number of listeners I get. By following the things I reveal in this MP3 file, you'll show up in more searches and get more clicks and traffic from people browsing iTunes and other directories.

To get this audio tip now, sign up for my email newsletter below. Don't worry, I won't send you any spam. I hate junk email, too. I have a strict privacy policy and will never share or sell your e-mail. You can unsubscribe anytime.

Once you sign up, I'll send you a link to download the special audio tip. It's a gift from me to you.

Then you'll continue to get exclusive tips from me on how to create a podcast, then publish and promote it to find more listeners.

I'll also keep you up to date on the constantly changing world of podcasting. Podcasting is moving at the speed of light. New technologies are always emerging.

By subscribing to my ezine, you'll stay current on the latest developments in podcasting and updates to this site.
Free Email Newsletter

Subscribe today to the Podcast Mastery newsletter and YOU get:

* A recording of my Marketing Your Podcast seminar including slides, audio and video (1h22m)
* An excerpt of my book, Promoting Your Podcast
* Regular exclusive podcasting tips

First Name:
Primary Email:

Your information will never be shared. We will never send you spam. Privacy Policy

Podcast Publishing: A Filename for Your Podcast

Now that you have your podcast “in the can”, you need to publish it to the internet for the whole world to hear. Are you getting excited?

First we’re going to talk about preparing your MP3 file and then uploading it to the internet.
How to Name Your MP3 File
So It Makes Sense for Your Listeners

Before you upload your podcast you should decide on a naming convention for your podcast files. We already talked about using the ID3 tags in the MP3 file. If you haven’t yet filled these out, or if you need a review, you can read about ID3 tags here. Once you establish a convention for your ID3 tags and your file names, stick to it and be consistent.

Why is this important? You’ll make it much easier to find, organize and listen to your podcast by carefully naming your files. First, a good file name will make it easy to put your podcast files in sequential order on your listener’s computer. Also, they will be able to tell at a glance what show and episode the file is from.

Believe me. Your listeners will appreciate it if you make an effort to do this right. A happy listener is one that will stick around to hear more. If you don’t pay attention to these details, your listeners will probably demand it of you eventually. You may as well take care of it now.

I suggest one of two conventions for naming your podcast file.

podcast initials-episode #.mp3

podcast initials-date.mp3

Either of these conventions will make it easy for you and your listener to sort your podcast in chronological order.

Let me give you some examples. For GothamCast, I name my MP3s like this:

GothamCast001.mp3
GothamCast002.mp3
Etc.

For another of my podcasts, The Podcasting Underground, I name like this.

TPU001.mp3
TPU002.mp3
etc.

You’ll notice that with GothamCast I don’t use initials. The name is short enough I just use the full name. Then I tack on the episode number. With The Podcasting Underground, I use the initials TPU to make it shorter.

Why do I stick zeros in front of single-digit episode numbers? Some operating systems won’t list files in the right order if you name them like this:

Podcast1.mp3
Podfast2.mp3
…
…
Podcast9.mp3
Podcast10.mp3
Podcast11.mp3

Podcast11 would actually be listed before Podcast1. I won’t go into why. That’s just the way some operating systems, such as Windows, work. If you stick a couple zeros in front of single digits, then your files will be listed in order.

Another format is to include the date like this:

GothamCast-2005-09-21

By putting the 2005 before the month and day, all the 2005 podcasts will be listed together and in order. Again, it’s all about making it easy for your listeners to find, recognize and organize your podcast files.

You’ll notice I used hyphens in the last example. If you want to space things out, I suggest using a hyphen (-) or underscore (_). I’d avoid any other characters, including spaces.

Avoid file names that are too long. That last example with the date is about as long as I would make the filename. For awhile I experimented with using a few description keywords about the episode when I name a file. This made for a very long filename. I figured if Windows can handle it, why not?

Well, I then discovered that the player in the Yahoo Podcast Directory wouldn’t play those files. That was a problem considering they’d just put my podcast on the front page as New and Noteable and traffic was coming in. I had to hurry and release a new episode with a shorter filename so that when someone hit the listen button, it would work.

I don’t know why this was a problem, but the moral of the story is it is safest to keep your filenames from being too long.

That brings me to one more thing. I didn’t go back and change the long filenames of the podcasts that I had already uploaded and released. The reason for this is that many podcatchers look at the filename as an indicator of a whether there is something new to download.

If I changed the filename online and in the feed, some podcatchers might download it again thinking it was a new episode. My listeners would get a repeat download. This may not seem like a big deal, but some listeners get upset when that happens and might even unsubscribe.
SUMMARY

Before you upload your podcast you should choose a format for naming your MP3 files then stick to it and be consistent. This will make it easier for your listeners to find, organize and listen to your podcast.

I suggest on of the following formats for your podcast filenames:

podcast initials-episode #.mp3 OR podcast initials-date.mp3

Now we'll take a look at uploading your MP3 file.

Podcast Tutorial: Four Basic Steps

This podcast tutorial is broken down into four steps:

1. Plan
2. Produce
3. Publish
4. Promote

Let's take a quick look at each section of the podcast tutorial.
Plan Your Podcast

I know you are probably anxious to press record and get your voice on the net. But a little planning will help you stay focused. In the end you will produce a better podcast that will attract and keep more listeners. This will also make your job as a podcaster a lot easier.

In the planning section I will raise a few questions for you to consider and help you make some important decisions about:

* Podcast Topic
* Podcast Format
* Choosing a location for your podcast

We'll also talk about how to outline and plan each episode of your podcast before you record.
Produce Your Podcast

This is where you will open the mic and start talking (or whatever else you plan on doing in your podcast). In this section, I'll go over podcasting gear and podcasting software.

We'll also learn how to record your podcast and create an MP3 file in the Audacity Tutorial.
Publish Your Podcast

Once you've created your first podcast, you need to prepare it for publishing and post it to the internet. This section covers topics such as:

* Creating an MP3 File
* ID3 Tags for Podcasts
* Podcast Hosting (blogs, web hosting, RSS feeds)
* Free Podcast Hosting
* Naming Your Podcast File
* Uploading Your Podcast
* Writing Podcast Show Notes
* Posting Show Notes

Promote Your Podast

Of course you'll want more listeners for your podcast. You want to become a recognized expert and celebrity on the internet now that you have your own show, right?

In this section we'll talk about how to find listeners for your podcast.

Ready to get started? Let's get to it...

[img[http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/images/how-to-podcast.jpg]]

http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/index.htm

How to Podcast

how to podcast tutorialIf you're looking for tutorials on how to create a podcast then you've come to the right place. This is the home of the free how to podcast tutorial that uses:

* Everyday Terms (I won't try to impress you with geek speak)
* Step-by-Step Instructions
* Informative Articles
* Video Tutorials
* and Real World Examples

If you already know how to create a podcast and have your show posted online, then you'll be interested in the podcasting tips and podcating tutorials that I share on my blog and on my podcast. I talk about things such as:

* Promoting Your Podcast
* Improving Your Audio Quality
* Upgrading Your Podcast Studio
* Making Money with Podcasting
* and much more...

If you're still trying to figure out what a podcast is and why you should start a podcast, then take a look at my podcasting articles page.
My how to podcast tutorial is free and will help you start fast, using gear you probably already own and for very little cost.

I can even show you how to create a podcast for free depending on your goals and circumstances.

From there I'll help you continue to improve your podcast, find listeners and even make money with podcasting if you'd like. The best way to stay current on my lastest resources and updates is to sign up for my ezine (below or to the right).

When you sign up I'll send you a free gift, a free audio tip on how to get more listeners from the podcast directories..
The tips in this audio file have helped me greatly increase the number of listeners I get.. By following the things I reveal in this MP3 file, you'll show up in more searches and get more clicks and traffic from people browsing iTunes and other directories.

Once you sign up, I'll send you a link to download the special audio tip. It's a gift from me to you.

Then you'll continue to get exclusive tips from me on how to create a podcast, then publish and promote it to find more listeners.

I'll also keep you up to date on the constantly changing world of podcasting. Podcasting is moving at the speed of light. New technologies are always emerging.

By subscribing to my podcasting ezine, you'll stay current on the latest developments in podcasting and my latest tips.

Subscribe today to the Podcast Mastery newsletter and YOU get:

* A recording of my Marketing Your Podcast seminar including slides, audio and video (1h22m)
* An excerpt of my book, Promoting Your Podcast

First Name:
Primary Email:

Your information will never be shared. We will never send you spam. Privacy Policy

Be sure to bookmark the how to podcast tutorial (might I suggest you add it to del.icio.us by clicking here) and check back in soon.

You can also take a look at The Podcasting Underground. This is a podcast for you, the podcaster. It's packed with news and tips to help you succeed in podcasting.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER THE HOW TO PODCAST TUTORIAL

Talk to you soon,

Jason's Signature

http://www.jasonvanorden.com/magictriad/Jason%20Van%20Orden%20-%20NME%202008%20-%20The%20Magic%20Triad%20(Outline).pdf

http://www.jasonvanorden.com/magictriad/Jason%20Van%20Orden%20-%20NME%202008%20-%20The%20Magic%20Triad%20(slides).pdf

[img[http://img.timeinc.net/popsci/images/2007/08/virtphd_485.jpg]]

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technology/49d9e79d0fa64110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

Your Virtual Ph.D.
No more pencils, no more books: With PopSci's guide to the best continuing-ed programs on the Web, you can lose the paper and still gain a grade-A education

By Christine Cyr | August 2007

Want to master a new computer language? Brush up on your calculus? Learn how to fix your car? No sweat. With the vast array of college courses and podcasts available online, the apple of knowledge is ripe for the clicking. Here, we've narrowed the options to our favorites—the best of the geeky best, from free podcasts and lectures to accredited distance-learning programs from major universities.
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION PROGRAMS:

MIT OpenCourseWare

What Is It? Similar in philosophy to open-source software, OpenCourseWare offers anyone free access to course materials for virtually all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses. Once upon a time, you needed at least a library card to get a free education. But with this site, you can get rocket-scientist smart without even paying late fees.

Why's It Cool? This is a site for people who enjoy the pure pleasure of learning. You won't get credit for any of the course work—in fact, you won't even have access to teachers—but if you're a self-starter and curious, you can dabble in any of the subjects that MIT offers.

Can't Miss? The sheer volume of subjects available is stunning. The site offers course materials in everything from aeronautics to biological engineering to linguistics.

Harvard Extension School

What Is It? The Harvard Extension School provides access to roughly 100 online courses in art, science, math and technology, all from the comfort of your couch. Upcoming fall courses range from an introduction to Greek literature to a variety of Web-development classes.

Why's It Cool? These courses bring students right into the classroom with video lectures that are posted along with the other course materials. Bonus: Distance learners are always welcome to drop in on the real lecture if they happen to be passing through campus.

Can't Miss? For a sneak peek of what these courses are like, a few sample lectures are available online.

Stanford Center for Professional Development

What Is It? The school offers more than 250 courses in subjects ranging from bioengineering to nanotechnology. Coursework is delivered through a variety of mediums, including the Internet, television broadcast, videotapes and two-way video. Scientists and engineers flock to this program to enhance their professional skills.

Why's It Cool? The classes fit a wide variety of educational needs. Students can enroll in short courses and seminars aimed at improving skills in specific areas, or they can sign up for the long haul with certificate programs and even graduate-degree programs.

Can't Miss? Instructors include some of the crème de la crème of Stanford's school of engineering.

SINGLE-SUBJECT COURSES:

O'Reilly School of Technology

What Is It? Whether you're a coding novice or an open-source enthusiast, the O'Reilly School of Technology has a class in Web development to suit your needs, including HTML, Linux/Unix, Java and XML, to name just a few. The school also offers certificate programs in a variety of subjects like Linux/Unix system administration and .NET programming. Students gain credits through the University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education.

Why's It Cool? Course materials dispense with convoluted tech-speak and instead go for a casual, fun tone that makes the information easier to retain.

Can't Miss? Anyone who uses the Internet regularly could benefit from learning HTML. The "Introduction to HTML and CSS" course fits that bill perfectly and provides a great base for moving on to more complicated classes.

The NetMath Program through the University of Illinois

What Is It? This granddaddy of online math programs has been helping home-schoolers, university kids and professionals put two and two together since 1991. The school's offerings include algebra and trigonometry, analytic geometry, and calculus for business. Students receive credits from the University of Illinois, an accredited Big Ten university.

Why's It Cool? With a holistic learning approach that engages the whole brain (including the part that likes to have fun), NetMath takes the "I want to jump out the window" out of math class. Each course incorporates interactive software that gives students a more exciting and memorable way to learn than old-school, one-dimensional textbooks.

Can't Miss? The program uses Mathematica software to help students visualize abstract algebraic concepts.

Auto Mechanic program at Ashworth University

What Is It? You can become your own grease monkey with this professional-level auto repair course. The program offers a series of 20 lessons that teach everything from engine assembly to fixing a car's heating and air conditioning systems.

Why's It Cool? The lessons are just as well suited to the auto enthusiast who wants to tinker in his own garage as it is to pre-professional mechanics.

Can't Miss? The tools—this course comes with lots of 'em. Included in the cost of the class is a wrench set, socket wrench set, screwdrivers and tire gauge.

PC Repair at Penn Foster Career School

What Is It? Penn Foster offers a sequence of classes designed for people who want to become PC-repair technicians. The courses will teach you how to repair PCs, printers and PDAs, as well as cover PC operating systems and data recovery. Sick of calling in the professionals every time your PC crashes? Complete this program, and you'll be able to do it yourself.

Why's It Cool? You don't need to be a computer whiz to take these classes. The first lessons teach the basics of computer language and the fundamental elements of hardware and software—all at a pace you can set yourself.

Can't Miss? If you're actually looking to switch careers and become a full-fledged PC repair technician, the Penn Foster Career School will help you find a job.

PODCASTS:

NASA Podcasts

What Is It? NASA's experts bring you this fun, free series of audio shows on flight, space and a range of other subjects pertaining to the solar system and the universe.

Why's It Cool? Think you're signing up for a sleep-inducing audio lecture? Not so: These shows are pure edutainment. Load them onto your iPod, and learn a little something during your next long commute.

Can't Miss? Check out the program on the power of acoustics and resonance, in which country musician Clint Black explains how his guitar is like a rocket.

Astronomy Cast

What Is It? This weekly podcast reaches for the stars, covering everything about astronomy, from cosmology to Castor and Pollux.

Why's It Cool? The hosts of each episode, Fraser Cain (from Universe Today) and Pamela L. Gay (from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville), are entertaining and well-informed.

Can't Miss? Be sure to download episode 31, "String Theory, Time Travel, White Holes, Warp Speed, Multiple Dimensions, and Before the Big Bang," in which Gay disproves most of the theories behind science fiction.

Quirks and Quarks

What Is It? The Canadian Broadcasting System presents its popular Quirks and Quarks science radio show in the form of a podcast. Recent episodes have included segments on crayfish sex, the future of human evolution, and water on Mars.

Why's It Cool? The Canucks know their science, and they're great at picking out topics that make for good cocktail-party conversation—you know, the quirky ones.

Can't Miss? One episode suggests that we might reduce global warming with an Earth "sunscreen."

Naked Scientists

What Is It? The BBC presents this weekly podcast, hosted by researchers at the University of Cambridge.

Why's It Cool? The hosts are funny and the subject matter is always engaging. The whole family will enjoy hearing about topics like venoms and toxins, out-of-body experiences, and Armageddon-like natural disasters.

Can't Miss? The episode on extreme survival is about how different life-forms—fish in Antarctica, divers in the ocean, and fighter pilots high in the sky—endure dangerous environments.

Posting Podcast Show Notes

Below is a video tutorial demonstrating how to post your show notes to a blog hosted on Blogger. This video is a bit longer, but it covers a lot including:

    * How to link to your podcast file so it will show up in your feed
    * How to use different text formatting in your show notes
    * How to include images in your post
    * How to link to other web pages

Once you have gone through this video tutorial, you will have officially published an episode of your podcast! You can subscribe to your feed to be sure that everything is working correctly.

Posting Your Podcast Show Notes to Blogger

This tutorial is for my recommended free podcasting solution for the casual hobbyist podcaster. If you are using Libsyn or another blogging platform, you will need to refer to their help/support for info on posting to your blog and updating your feed.

http://www.meditationsociety.com/week16.html website on Meditation and Prayer

The difference between prayer and meditation can be understood by saying that during prayer, we ask God for something, and during meditation, God speaks to us.

When we pray, it is considered advantageous to spiritual growth to pray selflessly. All religions direct their followers to have faith in God and to demonstrate that faith by having confidence that everything that happens or will happen to you is guided by God for your evolution in holiness. This being the case, it is completely unnecessary to pray for anything for oneself. Thus, selfless prayer is ideal. For instance, a not very developed person may pray to God to be relieved from their own suffering, while a highly developed person would see their own suffering as a gift or test of God to make them a stronger person. They would most likely send out prayers for God to relieve others from their suffering. So the formula for spiritual growth could be stated to be "the more selfless the prayer, the more advanced the pray-er".

The souls who pray totally selflessly are most likely to be the most advanced meditatively as well. Their meditation would be empty of limited selfish desire and therefore they will be able to fill limitlessly with God's direction, inspiration, light,and love. The "Prayer Meditation" is as follows:

Sit quietly in your sacred place. Relax and center yourself. Witness yourself praying to God. Witness silently, detached, without commentary, judgement, or comparisons. Say a prayer for yourself. Say a prayer for someone else. Say a prayer for everyone and everything. Do this again and again for a total of 3 cycles or do it for a total of 12 times or until it feels like you've done it enough. By the act of Witnessing, you will eventually clearly see that you feel really good when you pray for others. You may even be somewhat spiritually embarrassed in front of yourself when you witness yourself praying selfishly. As always, it is appropriate at times like that to simply inwardly say "Oh Well" and then go back to the meditation instead of scolding yourself, feeling sad, or in any way dwelling on it negatively. For this and for all the times you see yourself as an egotist or unevolved or whatever, be gentle with yourself and laugh and learn lovingly from your goofyness.

As you practice this technique, you will automatically become less and less self-centered and more and more selfless. We actually spend hours and hours every day subconsciously praying to fulfill our desires and ego trips. As this suffering-causing habit lessens, we become more and more ready to listen silently as God whispers lovingly to us.

Let us pray that you and everyone and everything will soon gain the bliss selflessness brings and live happily ever after.

Preparing Your First Podcast Episode

Are you getting excited to record your first podcast episode? With just a little more preparation, you'll be ready to press the record button.

I should warn you that creating your first espisode will take longer than you might expect. In fact, podcasting in general can take longer than you think. That is why carefully preparing each show before you dive in is important. It will make the production process quicker and easier if you have thought things through before-hand.
Create Your Show Outline

Before you record each episode, it is a good idea to write up an outline. This is a list of the things you'll include in this show. An outline will help you stay on track and not lose your place in the middle of recording.

Even if your podcast is as simple as just you talking with no extra clips or music, it is a good idea to give a little thought to what you are going to say. You want to make a quality show that will bring listeners back.

In addition, the outline will make it easier to create your show notes later. We'll talk more about show notes when we talk about publishing your podcast. For now, you just need to know that show notes are an outline of what is in the show to help listeners see what they can expect to hear.

You can create your outline in whatever way works for you. It just needs to be easy for you to read as you record. It should be organized in whatever way makes sense to you.

I like to outline my shows in Microsoft Word using the outline view. Here is an example of the first half of the outline for my first episode of GothamCast:

Find something that works for you. If you think you can go from the top of your head, fine. Some podcasters just turn on the mic and ramble. Sometimes it turns out fine and sometimes it stinks. I would encourage you to use an outline as you'll find it easier to record and your shows will turn out better.

You’ll notice I color code audio clips in red. At this stage you'll want to decide what music you'll lead into and out of the show with. What other audio clips will you play? What order do you want them? Maybe you have an interview clip that you want to play and then comment on.

Your outline may be more or less detailed than mine. It will probably depend on the complexity of your show or how casual or formal you want to make it.

The time will go quickly once you get started recording. You probably don’t need as much material in your outline as you think. You'll get the feel for it as you go. Soon you'll have a system that runs smoothly.
Writing a Script

Personally I don't like to write out a script word for word. This tends to make things sound too rigid. Some people feel like they need an exact script. Some can read from a script and sound natural.

An outline keeps me on track but allows me to be free and natural in the way I speak. You can try an exact script if you'd like. Find out what works well for you.
Should You Record On-the-Fly or Edit in Post-Production?

There are two ways to produce your podcast: you can record it “on the fly”, in real-time as you go, or you can record it in segments then put it together and edit it after everything is recorded and you have collected all your audio.

When you record “on the fly”, you have to prepare all the audio you'll use and have it all cued and ready to go. You hit record and then start talking. When you want to play an audio clip or song, you press play on the player at the appropriate time while you are still recording.

This takes a lot of preparation and practice. If you make a mistake, it is harder to go back and edit. You may have to record all over again. Either that or you just leave the mistakes and live with them.

Recording “on the fly” can save you a lot of time if you can do just one take and settle for what you get. This takes experience. You need to be comfortable enough with the process to make it work.

If your show is short or very simple (for example just an intro song and you talking for ten minutes or so) then it may be easy enough for you to record “on the fly”.

Some podcasters prefer to just record and leave in whatever little mistakes might happen. There is a certain intimate and human element to doing a show like this.

Of course, you risk it not sounding as professional if you're not experienced enough to do it in one take. You have to consider your audience and how they will perceive a show that is not polished.

For now I suggest recording in segments, collecting your audio clips and then putting it all together in post-production. Post-production is everything you do after you are done recording to get the final audio file ready for publishing to the internet.

Pros

Cons
Recording On-the-Fly

1. Can save you a lot of time by cutting down on the amount of recording and production needed. This is a big benefit if your time is limited.

1. Takes more experience.
2. Takes a lot of planning.
3. Can be harder to go back and fix mistakes. You may just have to live with them.
4. You need more expensive equipment to use audio processing going into your computer/recorder.

Editing in
Post-Production

1. You will probably end up with a more polished product that sounds more professional.
2. You don't have to think about so many things at once while you record. You just talk and add the other things later.
3. You can try different audio effects and processing on your audio after it is recorded to get it just the way you want it.

1. Takes more time after you have finished recording. Recording is usually the fun part for most people. The longer it takes you to record, the less likely you are to get around to recording.

I'll show you how to use free audio editing software to edit and put your clips together. Don’t worry. I'll walk you through it.

Putting the show together in post-production takes more time, but it allows you to take things one step at a time. There is less pressure to get it right all at once. It is easier to edit out or just delete mistakes.

This is the approach we are going to take for now in this tutorial: recording in segments then editing in post-production.
Collect and Organize Your Information and Audio Clips

When you write your outline, you should also pull together your research on the topics you'll be talking about. If you'll be commenting on something you read, you might want to print it and have it ready with your notes. If you'll be covering news headlines, get them ready. Pull together your stories, jokes, music, or whatever else you plan to use. This is also a good time to collect the audio clips that you'll be using into one folder on your computer.

This is the prep stage so that when you get in front of the mic and hit record you won’t freeze up. Believe me. You can be going along just fine and all of a sudden you’ll forget your name. Getting organized will help you feel confident. Recording your show will be easier if you're prepared.

If you are going to record on-the-fly, then you will need to cue up all of your audio clips in advance. I like to use Quicktime to do this becuase you can open more than one player at a time and sitck each clip in it's own player.

The following image shows you an audio program called Audacity which records audio. We'll be talking about it more in a bit. You can also see severall Quicktime players open to play audio clips such as my opening theme song, my outro clip and some other sounds during the show.

If you set up to record like this, you'll also need to set the volume for each clip so that when you play a sound it's not suddenly louder than the segment before it. If you're going to use music underneath your talking, be sure to set the music volume low enough so that it won't distract from what you're saying.

That's all I will say about that right now as later I will have a tutorial about recording on-the-fly.
SUMMARY

A little preparation before recording a show will keep you on track and help you remember what you want to include in the show. Writing an outline is a good way to think out your show and make the recording process easier.

Before recording, it's a good idea to write an outline, collect any information you plan on using and put all the audio clips you need in one place on your computer.

You can record a show either “on the fly” or edit it in post production. Recording “on the fly” takes careful planning and experience but can save you time. Editing the show in post-production takes more time, but it's easier to record and polish your show this way. This is the method we will be using for now in this tutorial.

http://www.calendarsquick.com/printables/free.html

http://www.calendarsquick.com/printables/free.html

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Back to Health Care Regulatory Services

http://www.cnaindiana.org/form1.html



QMAT TRAINING SITES FOR THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS        
                          Created on: 09/27/2007
                          Posted to the Web on: 10/10/2007
  AREA 31 CAREER CENTER                                                      
     BEN DAVIS HIGH SCHOOL
     INDIANAPOLIS IN 46214
     Telephone (317)243-5524
  CNA INSTITUTE OF INDIANA                                                   
     3901 W 86TH ST SUITE 397
     INDIANAPOLIS IN 46260
     Telephone (317)872-2245
  IVY TECH COMMUNITY COLLEGE - HEALTH SERVICES                               
     50 W FALL CREEK PKWY NORTH DR
     INDIANAPOLIS IN 46208
     Telephone (317)921-4800
  LARUE D CARTER MEMORIAL HOSP                                               
     2601 COLD SPRING ROAD
     INDIANAPOLIS IN 46222
     Telephone (317)941-4000
  NURSE AIDE TRAINING CENTER, INC                                            
     1815 N MERIDIAN ST, SUITE 300
     INDIANAPOLIS IN 46202
     Telephone (317)927-7359

4 Things We Can All Learn From One Of America's Oldest Religious Communities

By Alena Hall, www.huffingtonpost.com
View Original
June 18th, 2014

Sunlight pours into the plain, open room through its many windows. Men and women of all ages gather in rows of simple wooden benches all aligned to face the center of the room, facing one another. Together they sit in stillness and silence, actively waiting for inspiration to arrive.

For at least an hour each week, Quakers -- or more formally known as the Religious Society of Friends -- come together in this room for what is called a meeting for worship. While the structure varies from meetinghouse to meetinghouse and from perspective to perspective, this tradition (comparable to a church service) offers valuable insights into how one can live a mindful and fulfilling life -- with or without the religious context.

Quakerism and this accompanying practice emerged in mid-17th century England during a time of religious turmoil. George Fox founded this protestant society out of dissatisfaction with the Church of England, and a group of Friends brought it to the Pennsylvania colony in the American Northeast in the early 1680s. They aim to embody the values of pacifism, community, simplicity and equality throughout their daily lives, placing a special emphasis on these gatherings.

Many meetings for worship are not led by a minister, filled with hymns or guided by scripture readings. Instead, Friends sit together and wait silently and patiently to connect with the Divine spirit. Should they feel moved to share thoughts inspired by this spiritual connection, they simply stand and do so. If not, they continue to sit and search for guidance and direction peacefully. No two meetings for worship are the same. One day the room will remain silent throughout the entirety of the meeting, while another will be full voices sharing the messages they felt inspired to share.

Even for those who do not feel compelled to connect to a higher power, the tradition of meeting for worship embodies several core Quaker beliefs that help Friends lead a mindful, connected and fulfilling life.

They value silence and stillness.

The purpose of silence and stillness within a meeting for worship closely resembles that of meditation: It serves not only as time to relax and gather your thoughts, but also as a means of opening up to the guidance of one’s Inner Light and being aware of its power. The practice of sitting together in this manner is often referred to as ”expectant waiting.” Clearing the mind and setting aside other thoughts and activities, Friends open their minds to the potential presence of the Holy Spirit and the enlightening connection that can occur when it arrives.

They appreciate community.

While Friends focus heavily on their individual connections to the higher power, they also value the power of their “gathered community.” The meetings for worship bring everyone together to collectively search for the word of God, as opposed to having them meditate independently. Quakers rely on unity and trust within their communities -- both inside and outside the meetinghouse -- which helps them to create open-minded conversation and cooperation.

They stick to simplicity.

"The meeting house is not a consecrated edifice, and if there is anything holy about it, it must be the lives of the people who meet there,” said president of Haverford College and fellow Quaker William Wistar Comfort.

The meetinghouse’s appearance isn’t the only thing in a Quaker’s life that appears plain and simple. Because their connection with God serves as the highest value in their lives, they believe he will provide all that they need and thus lead lives of material simplicity. In fact they view material wealth as a spiritual distraction that often leads to environmental destruction as well (stewardship to the planet is another core value of modern Quakerism).

They emphasize equality.

Because they believe that all people are beloved by God and regard that connection as the most important aspect of life, Friends acknowledge a fundamental brotherhood and sisterhood among all people. The innate ability to embody that divine Inner Light encourages them to treat every person with the same amount of respect. This belief directly relates their active participation in social justice movements, from women's rights to anti-slavery to prison reform.

Some of the country’s top educational institutions were founded on Quaker principles: Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University and Swarthmore College to name a few. And handfuls of America’s youth are being exposed to these values at even younger ages.

Primary and secondary Quaker schools throughout the Northeastern United States not only include weekly meetings for worship as a part of students’ schedules, but also highlight the importance of creating community with one another, acting compassionately, living peacefully and appreciating their natural surroundings. By the time they reach adulthood, they have a heightened sense of mindfulness that so many of us are only beginning to learn. This ability to harness the power of inward contemplation then guides them openly and curiously into the world that waits outside of their intimate community.

In a Q-and-A with Open Salon writer Alan Nothnagle last year, Claus Bernet, a Berlin-based author, religious historian, and social worker who is also Germany’s leading authority on Quakerism, shared his insights on the strong, positive and mindful example Friends set for the rest of the modern world.

“Quakerism offers a very special 'form' that I personally find extremely appealing: A unique form of devotion, coming together, and worship, namely silent meditation,” he said. “Modern Quakerism offers many things that are in heavy demand today: A healthy blend of calm and activity, self-responsibility, personal experience of God, and human sympathy. At least, that’s their promise.”

Bernet also commented on how the decisive intention to be present and form an inner strength is something that the Quaker faith and Buddhist practice share. Both believe that people can find the power of the Divine within themselves, creating a sense of calm, peace and contentedness with life. He, however, is not the first person to make this connection.

Japanese Zen Buddhist Teruyasu Tamura spent 1989 studying Quakerism at Swarthmore College and wrote A Zen Buddhist Encounters Quakerism shortly thereafter. In his writings, Tamura explains how modern Friends and Zen Buddhists share mysticism as their core experience of faith, while also stressing simplicity and moderation in their lifestyles. And in some respects, he found that the Quakers proved more successful in embodying their beliefs than the Buddhists.

"A bodhisattra [sic] (an enlightened one who vows to return until all sentient beings are enlightened) is supposed to save others before saving themselves," he said. "But Zen has done very little to save the poor and the suffering. It seems to me that Quakers have been far greater Bodhisattras [sic] than Zen Buddhists."

Tamura considers the most significant difference between Quakerism and Zen Buddhism to be the vocal nature of meetings of worship when Friends feel moved to speak, which would otherwise disturb the “mystical experience” of Zen meditation. However, despite his heritage, he acknowledges the value of a religion that blends his Zen roots with Quaker methods of worship and social witness.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that the Quakers arrived in the American Northeast in the early 1680s. While they settled in Pennsylvania at that time, they maintained a presence in the American Northeast as early at the 1650s.
Want more news, blogs, and cat videos? Click here to dive deeper into The Huffington Post.

[img[http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/NavGraphics/Jesus.JPG]]

READY FOR JESUS

"Ready for Jesus", says Jeanie.

Jeanie had gone to her father's church and asked to be baptized. Though it was a Baptist Church, they were not too friendly to her regarding baptism. She had never been to church much before she got sick. The pastor wanted her to jump through a bunch of hoops to prove that she was worthy. The tumor was so fast growing that Jeanie did not have the time for this contrition.

Jeanie was admitted to the hospital within a few days. I called a friend who is a Chaplain. After some discussion of Jeanie and the circumstances, Chaplain Ladd agreed to meet me at the hospital and baptize Jeanie.

Shortly after Jeanie was admitted to the hospital, I bought her a big study Bible and started the process to have her baptized at the hospital. I had to get permission from the hospital and Jeanie's attending physician. The hospital wanted to approve only a "sprinkle" baptism, performed at the hospital bed. Chaplain Ladd insisted that he could only follow his belief and practice with a total immersion baptism. After several phone calls and discussion, the hospital finally agreed. Jeanie was to be totally immersed in a hospital tub, while medical staff watched over her.

I visited Jeanie a few times before her emergency surgery. At the time, she, nor I, knew how sick she was. While visiting one day, Jeanie and I discussed religion. We discussed what being "saved"meant and the Christian plan for salvation. A nurse came in the room and started doing some work behind a privacy screen. I summed up saying that, "Being born again is like starting life all over again. It doesn't matter what you have done in the past. You are a new person."

The nurse came out from behind the screen sobbing. She had obviously heard our discussion and I was embarrassed. I know now that this nurse knew how sick Jeanie was and that her condition was hopeless.

I would not learn that Jeanie was dying till a few days after her surgery. Jeanie would not learn of her rapidly approaching death until a month later. I told her at a park, where I use to take my kids, while we had ice cream cones.

The next day after seeing the tearful nurse, I met Chaplain Ladd at Jeanie's bedside. He discussed the ritual of baptism and salvation with Jeanie. We had a prayer of repentance.

When I approached the nursing staff about the scheduled baptism, there was initially some confusion. Apparently, the plan had not been shared with the staff. There were some phone calls and discussion. The staff had to find a place with an appropriate tub to use. They finally found one on a different ward, which was used by the physical therapy department. Two black nurse's aids were assigned to help us out.

We dressed Jeanie in two generic hospital gowns. One was put on in the usual style and opened to the back. The other was put on to tie in the front, to insure some degree of privacy while we transversed the halls.

The tub room was cold in blue tile and steel handrails. Chaplain Ladd said the deep and old-fashioned tub was satisfactory. He filled the tub and checked periodically to make sure the temperature was just right as the two attendants stood holding Jeanie steady.

Chaplain Ladd got Jeanie in the tub. He instructed her to fold her arms across her chest. The two aids got ready with towels. He and Jeanie said a brief prayer. Chaplain Ladd recited a brief passage from the Bible and laid her back into the water.

Jeanie was immersed. As she rose up out of the water, the two black female workers broke out in the gospel song "Amazing Grace." Chaplain Ladd and I joined in. We were all baptized with tears by the end of the verse.

At the time, I didn't know how sick Jeanie was, nor that she would be left child-like and die so quickly.

Jeanie's impairment became quite obvious after her surgery. She was confused and delusional. She thought she was in the hospital to deliver her baby. She was not pregnant. Sadly, she would never experience the act of giving birth. Most of us, her friends and family, thought this irrational thinking would clear up. Jeanie kept the delusion of having a baby for nine months, until her death.

After being released from the hospital, Jeanie did get a little better, but she never improved to have the functioning ability above a four-year-old child.

I cared for Jeanie fulltime while she steadily declined to death. There were many days of doing nothing except watching TV and eating meals. A few times Jeanie would ask me questions that were difficult for me to answer. Once in the middle of the night she asked me if she should try chemotherapy since the surgery and radiation therapy had failed. I told her that we could talk to her doctor about it in a few weeks at her next appointment. She replied by asking, "Will I be alive then?" I answered honestly, and with a lump in my throat, " I don?t know."

Other times we would play talk and act silly to one another. She would play word games like a child. One of the games we played was remembering people's names and the meaning of words. One word Jeanie could not remember was sanctified. I reminded her of being baptized quite frequently and explained what that meant. She could not understand. I would usually end up explaining and then sum up by saying, "It means you are ready for Jesus." Jeanie would repeat this several times in an excited child-like manner and it seemed to make her happy.

Just saying and repeating "ready for Jesus" seemed to bring her some peace and comfort.

Jeanie steadily declined in health and functioning. Just months before, she had been a witty, beautiful, and athletic woman. By the time she went to a nursing home, just shortly before her death, she had the mind of a child and the body of a ninety-year-old woman. Her face was round and distorted, her bones brittle, and her muscles wasted away. I remember her once looking in the mirror and crying about her appearance. These periods of despair were sparse and she was always the type to pick her spirits up and go on.

Jeanie's memorial services were on April 1, 2003, April Fools' Day. She was cremated at her request. Knowing Jeanie's personality, I am sure she has had a laugh over the date of her services. She had the most distinct laugh. It was loud, vibrant, and bawdy. I can still hear it deep in my head.

Every now and then I pause and think about Jeanie and her death. If the moment is quiet and I still my soul, I can still her say "ready for Jesus", and it brings me comfort too.

<html><center><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/cardwell.bob/JeanieRoy/photo#5109368972979801858"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/cardwell.bob/RuggAqTdDwI/AAAAAAAAA5M/g6zarMW-sAg/s400/1110457388_53909fc077.jpg" /></a></center></html>
My Last Photo with Jeanie in July of 2002

http://www.lac.org/toolkits/standards/standards.htm#model

RECOMMENDED KEY PROVISIONS
The Legal Action Center recommends that state laws prohibiting employment
discrimination against people with criminal records contain the following key provisions:
􀂃 Protect applicants for employment or licensing from discrimination by
both private and public employers, including licensing agencies.1 For ease
of implementation, states may decide that their laws should only apply to
employers of sufficient size to trigger other anti-discrimination laws in that
state.
􀂃 Protect applicants from discrimination based on records indicating they
were arrested, but not convicted. Employers should not be able to inquire
about applicants’ arrest records when those arrests did not lead to
convictions.2
􀂃 Apply to employers at all stages of employment: hiring, retention,
promotion, and dismissal. The statute should not simply apply to hiring
decisions.
􀂃 State that for employers to consider a conviction, there should be an
individualized determination and the conviction should bear some type of
rational relationship to the employment. Some states require that the
conviction be substantially related to the employment.3
􀂃 Make clear to employers how they should determine whether the
conviction is related to the employment.4 Important factors for employers
to consider are:
o the nature of the crime for which the applicant was convicted;5
o whether the applicant has been rehabilitated;6
o the time elapsed since the applicant was arrested;7 and
o the applicant’s age when he or she was arrested.8
1 This is the practice in Hawaii, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania.
2 States that specifically prohibit consideration of arrest records include Connecticut, New Mexico, New
York, and Wisconsin.
3 Wisconsin uses the “substantially related” standard, as does Delaware in its licensing requirements.
4 Virtually every state with an anti-discrimination statute (Arizona, Connecticut, Kansas, Kentucky,
Minnesota, New Mexico, and Washington) provides some type of balancing test for employers.
5 States requiring employers to consider this factor include Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota,
New York, and Pennsylvania.
6 States requiring employers to consider this factor include Connecticut, Minnesota, New Mexico, and New
York.
7 States requiring employers to consider this factor include Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, and
Washington.

RFK Speech on the death of MLK

Aeschylus on the getting of wisdom

He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despair, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

- Aeschylus, Agamemnon, line 179ff.
(as misquoted/paraphrased by Robert F. Kennedy upon the assassination of Martin Luther King, , and then also inscribed on RFK's grave)

http://easylink.playstream.com/historyplace/thp-rfk-mlk.ra

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

(Interrupted by applause)

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

(Interrupted by applause)

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much. (Applause)

Robert F. Kennedy - April 4, 1968

Radcliff Gandi
4263 Burkhart Dr.
Apt. C
Indianapolis, IN.  46227

http://www.iwmf.org/training/radio/module2/index.php

READ RIGHT FOR READING COMPREHENSION

At first sight, reading comprehension tests look challenging especially if you are given long essays to answer only two to three questions. While reading, you might notice your attention waning, or feeling sleepy. Do not be discouraged because there are various tactics and long range strategies that make comprehending even long, boring essays easier.

Your friends before your foes. It is always best to tackle essays or passages with familiar subjects rather than those with unfamiliar ones. This approach applies the same logic as tackling easy questions before hard ones. Skip passages that do not interest you and leave them for later when there is more time left.

Read through the entire passage and the questions before you do anything. Many students try reading the questions first and then looking for answers in the passage thinking this approach is more efficient. What these students do not realize is that it is often hard to navigate in unfamiliar roads. If you do not familiarize yourself with the passage first, looking for answers become not only time-consuming but also dangerous because you might miss the context of the answer you are looking for.

Familiarize yourself with reading comprehension questions. If you are familiar with the common types of reading comprehension questions, you are able to take note of important parts of the passage, saving you the time you might consume looking for answers. There are six major kinds of reading comprehension questions.

Main Idea- Questions that ask for the central thought or significance of the passage.
Specific Details- Questions that asks for explicitly stated ideas.
Drawing Inferences- Questions that asks for a statement’s intended meaning.
Tone or Attitude- Questions that test your ability to sense the emotional state of the author.
Context Meaning- Questions that ask for the meaning of a word depending on the context.
Technique- Questions that ask for the method of organization or the writing style of the author.

Choosing Titles. Sometimes reading comprehension questions may ask you to choose a title for the passage. Choices that will be given would often be ideas taken from the passage but the best answer would always be the one that relays the central idea of the passage.

Read. Read. Read. The best preparation for reading comprehension tests is always to read, read and read. If you are not used to reading lengthy passages, you are sure to lose concentration. Increase your attention span by making a habit out of reading.

Reading Comprehension tests become less daunting when you have trained yourself to read and understand fast. Always remember that it is easier to understand passages you are interested in. Do not read through passages hastily. Make mental notes of ideas that you think might be asked. The best way to tackle reading comprehension exams is by reading so take your time and read through the given passages.

http://librivox.org/

Red-Letter Christians believe that Evangelicalism has been exploited by both right-wing and left-wing political movements, and they endeavor to create an Evangelical movement that focuses on the teachings of Jesus Christ, particularly in regard to social issues. "Red-Letter" refers to New Testament verses printed in red letters to emphasize the actual words that Jesus spoke without the use of quotations (see Red letter edition). This movement was initiated by authors Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis who felt the Religious Right spend too much time on two issues: abortion and homosexuality. They believe Christians should be promoting biblical values such as peace, building strong families, the elimination of poverty, and other important social issues.[1]

The social issues valued by Red-Letter Christians include taking care of the poor, spreading the Gospel, and loving one's enemies. They believe that these are the issues that Jesus spoke of directly, and therefore these issues should be political priorities. Other issues such as homosexual rights, abortion, and war are viewed as important but over-emphasized by both liberals and conservatives.

On the reason for creating Red-Letter Christians, Tony Campolo said, "The purpose of this gathering was not to create a religious left movement to challenge the religious right, but to jump-start a religious movement that will transcend partisan politics."[2]. Campolo has released a book to help explain this, called Red Letter Christians, A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics, (Regal Books, February 2008).

Assumptions

1.	Staffing agencies are to complement our staffing structure. 
2.	Staffing agencies are to be available 24 hrs. daily to meet our emergency staffing needs.
3.	Staffing agencies are to be picked first by lowest bid, whenever possible. 
4.	During periods of critical staff shortage, agencies are hired on a first come [first filled] basis.


Suggestions for Staffing agencies to increase their utilization

1.	Have a standby list of available workers for each shift. I would suggest one nurse and three C.N.A.’s .  When the hospital calls for help, the staff is ready to come in.
2.	Have an agency staff person available 24 hrs per day to take phone calls/emails for requests for C.N.A. and nurse help. This agency staff person should have the agency resources available to call for workers to fill our needs. This agency staff person should have access to the master schedule of who is to work at LCH and be able to answer questions about confirmations, absents, and tardiness.

http://www.vistatuneuptips.com/recommends/repair-vista/?gclid=CKDJw6iM9I8CFTgrOAodFU88Lw

[[Practice Quiz|http://www.bobcardwell.com/bibleliteracyquiz.htm]]


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[[Practice the Bible Literacy Quiz|&lt;html&gt;http://www.bobcardwell.com/bibleliteracyquiz.htm&lt;br&gt;&lt;/html&gt;]]</html>

http://religiousstudies.tiddlyspot.com/

ICARE proposes “Restoration of Rights” Bill

ICARE's policy committee is proposing a far-reaching omnibus bill that would assist formerly incarcerated persons with gaining employment, by implementing the following changes to NYS law and policy:

    * A Certificate of Restoration to take the place of a "Certificate of Relief from Disabilities" and a "Certificate of Good Conduct"
    * Automatic Sealing for specified criminal convictions
    * Protections against unlawful discrimination by employers and licensing authorities

If you or your organization is interested in getting involved, please contact Susan at 212/280-1386 or susan@nyicare.org
Circles of Care Restorative Justice Ministry
ICARE is training small groups within congregations to write letters to incarcerated persons, and provide community support upon release. In partnership with prison chaplains and the Fortune Society, ICARE volunteers become a vital link in the reentry process. To learn more about our “Circles of Care” program, please contact 212/280-1386.

Ten-Minute ICARE Documentary Available

http://www.resume-ideas.com/

Revisiting Recovery
March 20, 2006

By Teresa Hanssens, MS, OTR/L

The recovery model, a person-centered approach to treatment of an individual with mental illness, stems from the psychosocial rehabilitation model, at least in part, as per Marvin Elias, Clubhouse director at Chestnut Place in Philadelphia.

Recovery is about a person asserting the maximum control over his/her treatment. It is a way of living a satisfying, hopeful life despite symptoms of illness. 1

The recovery model is extensively discussed in the literature and considered an integral part of community-based mental health treatment. Its use is specifically seen in Clubhouses, as I witnessed during a recent visit. I spoke with the director and a member of very good standing, who told me her story:

"Recovery is a lifelong journey. It is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I have PTSD, used drugs and alcohol-my life was a mess. I got my life back with the Clubhouse. Recovery is being independent, free, being able to go into your records. We can participate in whatever we want."

This member's recovery process has led her to hold a position on the advisory board of the Clubhouse and the Pennsylvania Board of Mental Health. She is a founding member of the Pennsylvania Clubhouse Coalition and has written grants to expand Clubhouse services. She fits the textbook definition of someone who truly has developed new meaning and purpose in her life as she has risen above the catastrophic effects of her illness. She has blossomed with the choices/opportunities that she has found so readily at Chestnut Place.

At the Clubhouse, members are expected to voice their opinions in all aspects of the operation, whether through working in the various units such as clerical, food service, education (to name a few), participating in transitional employment, or engaging in available leisure activities. Such assumption of control and active engagement in daily life is a vital part of the recovery process.

Elias noted key aspects of the recovery model as applicable to the Clubhouse approach:

It allows a chance for members to make a choice to take initiative.

An environment that fosters making choices is at the central core of the model, and is conducive to the exploration of many opportunities.

It is vital to acknowledge that everyone's values, perceptions, wants, needs and expectations may be different. Individual assessment and planning is key; it is important to recognize everyone has abilities that may be unique.

When asked if there are any downsides to the Recovery Model, Elias responded, "It has the potential to become an 'ism.' It would be a mistake to attribute everything to the environment and disregard the role of genetics/biology in the recovery of individuals."

The recovery model is viewed as less applicable in an inpatient setting yet still integral in the treatment of many individuals. The medical model takes precedence in acute psychiatry due to the short lengths of stay, the severity of symptomatology, and frequent lack of insight on the part of patients admitted in highly acute states.

So how do we reconcile use of the evidence-based medical model with the recovery model? Specifically, how do we effectively treat acutely ill individuals in an inpatient setting when perhaps they are minimally able to make decisions or exercise good judgment regarding treatment?

Some, like Frederick Frese, a consumer and psychologist, would say the two models are compatible. That is, there is a continuum of recovery that would support the gradual regaining of control over one's life as the person becomes responsive to external interventions. The inpatient treatment team should respond with allowing the client increasing opportunities to make decisions and encourage internal locus of control.2

As occupational therapists, how can we facilitate such use of the recovery model in an inpatient setting? Initially, one can grade activities to provide just the right amount of simple decision making in structured activities, particularly craft/task groups and cooking groups. The therapist may then seek out opportunities for patients to have increased autonomy, such as encouraging patient choice of contributions to be made in prevocational groups or creative community projects such as poster making, unit decorating, or newsletter production.

Further chances for the patient to assert control over his/her treatment could occur in the guided assumption of community leadership roles. As president or vice president of the community the individual can suggest areas for improvement/change, respond to peer concerns, and help set a positive tone in the milieu.

These are just a few examples of how an OT can apply the recovery model to daily interventions in order to help individuals begin the long journey into recovery.

Reference
1, 2: Frese (FJ) et al. (2001). Psychiatric Services. Vol. 52(11). 1462-68.

Teresa Hanssens, MS, OTR/L, has practiced in the area of mental health for over 15 years. She is currently employed full time at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Teresa has experience in both inpatient and community-based settings, and developed the first OT program in one of Philadelphia's largest community mental health center's partial programs. Teresa has been interested in further exploring the psychosocial aspects of occupational therapy in the acute care setting. She has served as adjunct faculty at several Philadelphia OT programs, and enjoys her role as guest lecturer on mental health issues. Readers may contact her @ 215-662-2814 or Thanssens@msn.com.
Copyright ©2008 Merion Publications
2900 Horizon Drive, King of Prussia, PA 19406 • 800-355-5627
Publishers of ADVANCE Newsmagazines
www.advanceweb.com

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Here is a photo of Rick from 1974
[img[http://bp0.blogger.com/_fwukQ1dvAw8/RvmdVhwzcxI/AAAAAAAABLQ/puGmx3Ow1WE/s400/rick21974.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114291845021790994"]]

Here is a photo of Rick from 2007
[img[http://bp0.blogger.com/_fwukQ1dvAw8/RvmddhwzcyI/AAAAAAAABLY/wJshgGwITqM/s400/rickbrace.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114291982460744482"]]

Here is a photo before Rick broke his neck and represents his moto.
[img[http://photos1.blogger.com/img/261/2778/400/gohell.jpg]]

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<html><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf" width="288" height="192" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&RGB=0x000000&feed=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Fcardwell.bob%2Falbumid%2F5107965446427619841%3Fkind%3Dphoto%26alt%3Drss" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed></html>

"Rock of Ages" is a popular Christian hymn by Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady written in 1763 and first published in The Gospel Magazine in 1775.
The Rock of Ages, Burrington Combe where the Rev. Toplady is reputed to have sheltered from a storm

According to a famous but largely unsubstantiated story, Rev. Toplady drew his inspiration from an incident in the gorge of Burrington Combe in the Mendip Hills in England. Toplady, a preacher in the nearby village of Blagdon, was travelling along the gorge when he was caught in a storm. Finding shelter in a gap in the gorge, he was struck by the title and scribbled down the initial lyrics on a playing card.

The fissure that is believed to have sheltered Toplady is now marked as the "Rock of Ages", both on the rock itself and on some maps, and is also reflected in the name of a nearby tea shop.

Lyrics
Search Wikisource Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Rock of Ages

"When my eyelids close in death" was originally written as "When my eye-strings break in death".[1]
[edit] Music settings

It is usually sung to the hymn tune "Toplady" by Thomas Hastings, or "Redhead 76" by Richard Redhead.
[edit] Theology

Some[who?] have viewed the hymn as a criticism of the theology of John Wesley and the early Methodists, citing the line, "Thou must save, and Thou alone." This line was believed to refer to the Wesleyan notion that human beings decide to be saved and thus play a role in salvation, an idea which Toplady and his Calvinist colleagues rejected.
[edit] Uses

The hymn was a favourite of Prince Albert, who asked it to be played to him on his deathbed, as did Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart. It was also played at the funeral of William Ewart Gladstone.[2]

In his book Hymns That Have Helped, W. T. Stead reported "when the London went down in the Bay of Biscay, 11 January 1866, the last thing which the last man who left the ship heard as the boat pushed off from the doomed vessel was the voices of the passengers singing "Rock of Ages".[2]
[edit] Other

This hymn was regarded as one of the Great Four Anglican Hymns [3] in the 19 century.
[edit] Translations

The hymn has appeared in other languages including German (as Fels der Ewigkeit) and Swedish (Klippa, du som brast för mig).

There were also Latin translations by William Gladstone as Jesus, pro me perforatus and by Canadian linguist Silas Tertius Rand as Rupes saeculorum, te.[4][5] On reading this version, Gladstone wrote to Rand, "I at once admit that your version is more exact than mine".[6]
[edit] References

1. ^ Barkeley, J.M. (1979) Handbook to the Church Hymnary, 3 ed. London: Oxford University Press, p.96
2. ^ a b "Rock of ages". Cyberhymnal. http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/r/o/rockages.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-07.
3. ^ The History And Use Hymns And Hymn-Tunes, by Rev David Breed, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1934
4. ^ Littell's Living Age, November 1882. It originally appeared in The Spectator in the late 1850's.
5. ^ Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns by Henry Sweetser Burrage, Brown Thurston & company, 1888, p. 345
6. ^ Jeremiah S. Clark, The dying Indian's dream: a poem by Silas Tertius Rand. Windsor, N.S.: C. Knowles, 1881. p. 24

<html>[img[http://bp3.blogger.com/_OOlW-1cKA6k/R0R7x6_yPHI/AAAAAAAAARU/5N1W-F6EWf0/s400/stovepost.jpg]]

[img[http://weblife.org/capturing_heat/capturing_heat_files/tmp190-19.jpg]] &nbsp;[[Read a Rocket Stove Blog|http://www.homegrownevolution.com/2007/11/our-rocket-stove.html]]
 Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Our Rocket Stove
~Low-tech is the new high-tech, and the best example of the low-tech revolution is the miraculous rocket stove-a stove that makes it possible to cook with small twigs-no logs needed! Best of all rocket stoves are easy to build. We liked the idea so much that we decided to build a permanent one just off our back deck for entertaining and as a backup to our gas stove should an emergency take out our utilities.

The rocket stove was developed for use in poor nations where wood used for cooking has led to the vast, wholesale, deforestation of large swaths of the earth's surface. Rocket stoves can be built out of metal or masonry and consist of a L shaped tube, at the bottom of which you place your wood. The chimney effect creates a highly efficient, largely smoke-free burn. There's no need to cut down a tree to cook your dinner-all you need is a few small branches or twigs.

Before we built the rocket stove we considered making a cob oven, a mud domed wood fired oven in which you can cook bread and pizza. There's a trend in the eco-world to build cob ovens and we felt a certain pressure to keep up with the eco-Joneses. We started to build the base for one and then began to think about how often we would actually build a fire, especially considering that it has to burn for several hours before a cob oven gets hot enough to cook in. Also, where would we get the logs? And how good is it to burn such a fire and contribute to Los Angeles' already smog choked air?

Staring at the bricks we had scavenged to build the base of cob oven, we realized that we could re-purpose them for a permanent backyard rocket stove that we would actually use. Furthermore we realized that our rocket stove could burn some of the palm fronds that regularly tumble down from the iconic palm trees that line our old L.A. street.

Here's the materials we used:

36 bricks
4-inch aluminum stove pipe elbow
4-inch stove pipe
ash (scavenged from park BBQs)
1 tin can
50 pound bag of premixed concrete for the base
mortar mix
grill (scavenged)

The first step was to make a small foundation for the rocket stove. We fashioned a 18 by 18-inch by 4-inch slab with 2 x 4 lumber and a bag of premixed cement. Folks in cold places will need to make a deeper foundation to avoid frost heave.

Next we built a brick cube, leaving a small hole for the bottom of the stovepipe. For advice on how to build with brick we recommend taking a look at this. As you can see our masonry could use some more practice, but the results are not too bad-we like to think of our stove as being a bit "rustic". You can avoid the hassle of brickwork by making a simpler rocket stove-check out these two instructional videos, one for a metal model, and another version using bricks. We chose brick largely for aesthetic reasons and we're satisfied with the results.

Drawing from Capturing Heat

The next step is to put the pipe together fitting the elbow up into the longer pipe, and sized so that the top of the pipe is just below the bottom of the grill. Check out our earlier post for a video that can help with this part of the assembly. Serendipitously, on a bike ride, we found a grill in the middle of Sunset Boulevard that fit the opening in our brick rocket stove exactly.

You pour the ash into the completed brick cube to fill the space between the pipe and the inside wall. The ash acts as insulation to increase the efficiency of the stove. You could also use vermiculite but note that sand or soil will not work. Insulation works because of small pockets of air between particles, hence the need for ash or vermiculite, which are also non-combustible. We used a piece of scrap sheet metal with a 4-inch circular hole cut in it to keep the ash from spilling out the gap between the pipe and the squarish opening at the bottom.

Lastly you use a tin can sliced down the side and flattened out to form a shelf which you insert into the elbow at the bottom of the stove. Note the drawing above for the shape of the shelf. You put your twigs and kindling on this shelf and start the stove up with newspaper underneath the shelf. As the twigs burn you push them in over the edge to keep the fire going.

Our first test run of the stove was very successful-we boiled a pot of water and cooked some eggs in a a pan. The fire burned cleanly with little smoke except during start up. For more info on rocket stoves check out the Aprovecho Research Center.

And please people don't burn wood inside and watch out for embers. Make sure you put the fire out completely when you are done cooking!
Posted by Homegrown Evolution at 10:21 PM
Labels: preparedness, rocket stove
15 comments:

Ant B said...

WOW!
8:00 PM
BettyJ said...

Is there a way one could adapt this to using logs? We have plenty after making a clearing in woods where we plan to have a home. Also, I would appreciate ideas to get out there before we actually have our home there (a home before a home). I don't know if this can be done considering the size of our family: a couple in their 40s and 5 boys between the ages of 9 and 18.
5:28 PM
Homegrown Revolution said...

Hi Bettyj,

I'm no engineer, but I have seen other rocket stoves larger than the one I built. So I'm guessing that a rocket stove could be scaled up to handle a log, but that would kind of miss the point which is that rocket stoves are designed to make burning small pieces of kindling instead of whole logs. There is a book I have not seen yet by Ianto Evans called Rocket Mass Heaters-Superefficient Woodstoves You Can Build that has more info on rocket stoves.

As for how to live while another house is being built, friends of mine who have done this have all relied on cheap, junky trailers. I guess it would depend on how comfortable your family is with camping. I love camping, but it makes some people cranky. Combining it with moving and a construction project could be difficult.

Best of luck if you try it, and let us know how it goes.

PS
Ms. Homegrown Revolution just chimed in from the other room to suggest putting those boys to work and making them build something!
10:54 PM
Jennifer said...

How much heat does that little puppy throw? Would it work as a low tech radiant heater for an outdoor party on a chilly night? How close can you sit to it when it's hot?~
</html>

<html>This article is printed from http://www.SelfGrowth.com

Home School and Home Schooling
Rocket Stove -- a Perfect Science Lesson and Family Preparedness Lesson
By George Stancliffe
Jun 2, 2008

I'm a homeschool dad. I'm now also very big into "Being Prepared" (my brother was living in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina hit). These are two of the big reasons that I was so interested in making a Rocket Stove when I found out about them recently.

I did some research on Rocket Stoves and found out some interesting things that you will want your children to learn while working on this project:

Did you know that:

1. Rocket Stoves are twice as efficient as other wood-burning stoves?
2. Rocket Stoves can cook a whole meal with only a few twigs?
3. Rocket Stoves are the Perfect 'Emergency Stove' that you can use if electricity and normal commercial supplies are somehow cut off or unavailable?
4. Because the fire is contained within the insulated section of the stovepipe, the heat of the fire is unable to radiate outward (like a 'normal' campfire). This forces the heat upward, where it is used to cook the food. This is why Rocket Stoves are hotter and more efficient than regular campfires.
5. Even if you had a Solar Cooker for emergency use, that wouldn't be helpful at night, or in cloudy weather like a Rocket Stove would.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that every family needs to have their own Rocket Stove. But the Rocket Stove is a relatively recent invention. So people have no way of getting one unless they make their own. So I did what everyone else was doing-I made my own prototype.

As I did so, I realized that having my son build his own Rocket Stove would be the perfect educational "science project" for learning about:
heat transfer,
heat loss,
insulation,
how air helps fires burn hotter and more efficiently,
fire safety,
ecologic friendliness,
industrial arts skills,
basic mechanics, and
how to help plan ahead for family emergencies.

That's a lot of education for one small project (and well worth the effort).

The Rocket Stove instructions that I was able to obtain showed how to make one with a large 5-gallon can. But I couldn't find such a large can anywhere, so I adapted the instructions and improvised my own Rocket Stove using two "#10" cans (sometimes called 'institutional sized' cans) attached together, to make the exterior frame of the stove, with 4-inch stovepipe serving as the fire chamber. Between the stovepipe and the tin-can exterior frame is a void filled with vermiculite (a low-weight insulator that helps the stove to be very efficient). The vermiculite is kept into place by means of a metal O-ring (made from the lid of one of the tin cans) that is placed near the top of the stovepipe.

To see a more detailed description of construction along with several photos of different steps of construction, follow this link:

http://www.speedreading4kids.com/rocket.htm

This version of the Rocket Stove has several advantages over other 'camp stoves':

1. It's more portable
2. It's just right for small groups or individuals.
3. It hardly uses any fuel to cook a meal. Just a few twigs is all.
4. You can find free 'fuel' for the Rocket Stove almost anywhere.
5. It takes up very little space when you pack it, leaving room for more important items. In an emergency, you won't have much room to spare.

After making my Rocket Stove prototype, I took it on a Boy Scout campout with my son, to test it out.

It was a hit.

The Boy Scouts were trying to cook their dinners at the camp fire, and it was going slow. After a few minutes, I pulled out my Rocket Stove, quickly set it up and got the fire roaring within a minute. In about 3-4 minutes, I had my dinner fully cooked. Suddenly, all of the Boy Scouts were interested in my stove (they were still waiting for their food to cook). Now they each want to build their own Rocket Stove (including my son).

Today, as I write this, my son is excitedly building his own Rocket Stove (under my supervision).

So, if you are looking for a good science project for a homeschooled boy (or girl), I highly recommend making a Rocket Stove. Your child will be happy, and your family will be better prepared for emergencies.

--George Stancliffe

Author's Bio

George Stancliffe is the author of SPEED READING 4 KIDS, a manual for teaching your children to read a whole lot faster, with better comprehension. The methods used in SPEED READING 4 KIDS are more 'kid-friendly' that other methods. The results are guaranteed, even for ADHD, ADD and Dyslexic children.
</html>

ph. 765-412-4332

Rosary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosary#Rosaries_in_other_Christian_traditions
Jump to: navigation, search

Our Lady of Lourdes appearing at Lourdes with Rosary beads.The Rosary (from Latin roscum, meaning "rose garden"[1] or "garland of roses"[2]) is a popular traditional Roman Catholic devotion. The term denotes both a set of prayer beads and the devotional prayer itself, which combines vocal (or silent) prayer and meditation. The prayers consist of repeated sequences of the Lord's Prayer followed by ten recitations of the Hail Mary and a single recitation of "Glory Be to the Father"; each of these sequences is known as a decade. The recitation of each decade is accompanied by meditation on one of the Mysteries of the Rosary, which are events in the lives of Jesus Christ and his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Theologian Romano Guardini defined the Roman Catholic emphasis on the rosary as “participation in the life of Mary, whose focus was Christ”.[3] His statement echoed the view that in Roman Catholic Mariology the path to Christ is through Mary, with Mariology being inherent in Christology; a sentiment also expressed by saints such as Louis de Montfort who was a strong rosary advocate.[4][5] Pope Leo XIII also viewed the rosary as a vital means to participate in the life of Mary and to find the way to Christ (see the section on Rosary Pope below).[6]

The traditional fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary were finalized by the 16th century. The mysteries are grouped into three sets: the joyful mysteries, the sorrowful mysteries, and the glorious mysteries. In 2002, Pope John Paul II announced five new optional mysteries, the luminous mysteries, bringing the total number of mysteries to twenty.

The rosary is part of the Catholic veneration of Mary, which has been promoted by numerous popes, especially Leo XIII, known as "The Rosary Pope", who issued eleven encyclicals on the rosary and created the feast, Mary, Queen of the Holy Rosary. Pope Pius V, introduced the rosary into the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar as the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, celebrated on October 7. Most recently, on May 3, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI stated, that the Rosary is experiencing a new Springtime. It is one of the most eloquent signs of love that the young generation nourish for Jesus and his Mother.[7] To Benedict XVI, the rosary is a meditation on all important moments of salvation history.[7] Before him, Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae[8] built on the "total Marian devotion" pioneered by Saint Louis de Montfort. Pope Pius XII and his successors actively promoted the veneration of the Virgin in Lourdes and Fatima, which is credited with a new resurgence of the rosary within the Catholic Church.[9]

The rosary is sometimes used by other Christians, especially in the Anglican Communion and the Old Catholic Church, and also by some Lutherans. Evangelical Protestants, however, such as Baptists and Presbyterians do not use it and actively discourage their members from using this method of prayer.

Many similar prayer practices exist in popular Roman Catholicism, each with its own set of prescribed prayers and its own form of prayer beads, such as the prayer rope in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. These other devotions and their associated beads are usually referred to as "chaplets."

The term is also used to refer to similar beads in other religions.[10]

A series of articles on
Roman Catholic
Mariology

General articles
Overview of Mariology •
Veneration of the Blessed Virgin • History of Mariology

Expressions of devotion
Art • Music • Architecture

Specific articles
Apparitions • Saints • Popes • Dogmas and Doctrines • Movements & Societies

Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Key dates
2 Rosary beads
2.1 Rosary beads for other prayers
3 The Mysteries
3.1 Joyful Mysteries
3.2 Sorrowful Mysteries
3.3 Glorious Mysteries
3.4 Luminous Mysteries
4 Days of recitation
5 Approved form
5.1 Common pious additions
5.2 Rosary as a family prayer
6 Rosary in Marian apparitions
7 The Rosary Pope
8 Other forms of the Roman Catholic Rosary
8.1 Paternosters
8.2 The Servite Rosary
8.3 "St. Anthony's Rosary"
8.4 The Franciscan Crown
8.5 The Bridgettine Rosary
8.6 The Trinitarian Rosary
8.7 Single-decade rosaries
9 Rosaries in other Christian traditions
10 Wearing of the Rosary
11 As penance or reparation
12 Power of the Rosary
13 Rosary manufacturing and distribution
14 Gallery of Rosary in Marian art
15 See also
16 References
17 Further Reading
18 External links

[edit] History

"Madonna with the Rosary" by Murrillo, 1650, an example of Roman Catholic Marian art featuring the rosary.There are differing views on the history of the rosary. According to tradition, the rosary was given to Saint Dominic in an apparition by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the year 1214 in the church of Prouille. This Marian apparition received the title of Our Lady of the Rosary.[11] However, most scholarly research suggests a more gradual and organic development of the rosary.[12]

Prayers with beads like the rosary may have begun as a practice by the laity to imitate the monastic Liturgy of the Hours, during the course of which the monks prayed the 150 Psalms daily. As many of the laity and even lay monastics could not read, they substituted 150 repetitions of the Our Father (Pater noster in Latin) for the Psalms, sometimes using a cord with knots on it to keep an accurate count.[12] During the middle ages, evidence suggests that both the Our Father and the Hail Mary were recited with prayer beads. In the 7th century, Saint Eligius wrote of using a counting device to keep track of the 150 Hail Marys of the Psalter of Mary.[13] In 13th century Paris, four trade guilds existed of prayer bead makers, who were referred to as paternosterers, and the beads were referred to as paternosters, suggesting a continued link between the Our Father (Pater noster in Latin) and the prayer beads.[12] In the 12th century, the rule of the English anchorites, the Ancrene Wisse, specified how groups of fifty Hail Marys were to be broken into five decades of ten Hail Marys each.[12] Gradually, the Hail Mary came to replace the Our Father as the prayer most associated with beads. Eventually, each decade came to be preceded by an Our Father, which further mirrored the structure of the monastic Liturgy of the Hours.

The practice of meditation during the recitation of the Hail Marys is attributed to Dominic of Prussia (1382-1460), a Carthusian monk, who called it "Life of Jesus Rosary" [9] The German monk from Trier added a sentence to each of the fifty Hail Mary's already popular at his time, using quotes from scriptures. Promoted by his superior Adolf von Essen and others, his practice became popular among Benedictines and Carthusians from Trier to adjoining Belgium and France, [9] where it was greatly promoted by the preaching of the Dominican priest Alan de Rupe, who helped to spread the devotion in France, Flanders, and the Netherlands between 1460 and his death in 1475.[14] From the 16th to the early 20th century, the structure of the rosary remained essentially unchanged.[12] There were fifteen mysteries, one for each of the fifteen decades. In the 20th century the addition of the Fatima Prayer to the end of each decade became popular. There were no other changes until 2002 when John Paul II instituted five optional new Luminous Mysteries.

Since the 17th century, the Rosary began to appear as an element in key pieces of Roman Catholic Marian art, often in art that depicts the Virgin Mary. Key examples include Murrillo's Madonna with the Roary at the Museo del Prado in Spain, and the statute of Madonna with Rosary at the church of San Nazaro Maggiore in Milan. Several Roman Catholic Marian churches around the world have also been named after the rosary, e.g. Our Lady of the Rosary Basilica, in Rosario Argentina, the Rosary Basilica in Lourdes and Nossa Senhora do Rosário in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

[edit] Key dates
The following table are key dates in the development of the rosary.

4th century prayer rope used by the Desert Fathers to count repetitions of the Jesus Prayer
In the 7th century, St. Eligius (c.588-660) wrote of making a chair adorned with 150 gold and silver nails to aid in the recitation of the Psalter of Blessed Mary, which substituted one Hail Mary for each of the Psalms. [13]
In the early 8th century, Venerable Bede (d. 733) attests that churches and public places in France and England had prayer beads available for the faithful to use. [13]
c. 1075 Lady Godiva refers in her will to "the circlet of precious stones which she had threaded on a cord in order that by fingering them one after another she might count her prayers exactly" (Malmesbury, "Gesta Pont.", Rolls Series 311)[12]
A rule for anchorites in mid-12th century England gives directions on how fifty Hail Marys are to be said divided into sets of ten, with prostrations and other marks of reverence.[12]
It is recorded in 12th century Mary-legends (Marien-legenden) that a certain Eulalia was told to pray five decades slowly and devoutly instead of fifteen decades in a hurry.[12]
It is recorded by a contemporary biographer that St. Aibert, who died in 1140, recited 150 Hail Marys daily, 100 with genuflexions and 50 with prostrations.[15][16]
1160 Saint Rosalia is buried with a string of prayer beads[12]
1214 traditional date of the legend of Saint Dominic's reception of the rosary from the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Rosary[11]
It is recorded of St. Louis of France (1214-70) that "without counting his other prayers the holy King knelt down every evening fifty times and each time he stood upright then knelt again and repeated slowly an Ave Maria." [17]
Mid-13th century word "Rosary" first used (by Thomas of Champitre, in De apibus, ii. 13),[18] not referring to prayer beads but in a Marian context.
1268 A reference to guild of "paternosterers" in Paris in "Livre des métiers" of Stephen Boyleau.[12]
Early 15th century, Dominic of Prussia, a Carthusian, introduces 50 mysteries, one for each Ave Maria[19][20]
c. 1514 Hail Mary prayer attains its current form.[21]
1569 Pope Pius V established the current form of the original 15 mysteries[22]
1587 A Book on the Rosary entitled Rosario della Sacratissima Vergine Maria by Ven. Luis de Granada is published in Italian, which uses a similar method to the fourth method of the five methods of praying the rosary by St. Louis-Marie de Montfort.[23]
1597 first recorded use of the term "rosary" to refer to prayer beads.[24]
1917 Our Lady of Fatima is said to ask that the Fatima Prayer be added to the Rosary. Her visionaries state that she also asks for the Rosary to be said to stop the war, and as part of the Immaculate Heart's reparation.
1974 Pope Paul VI issues the Apostolic Letter Marialis Cultus which devotes 14 sections to the use of the rosary within the Roman Catholic Church.[25]
2002 Pope John Paul II introduces the Luminous Mysteries as an option for Roman Catholics in an Apostolic Letter on the Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae.[26]

[edit] Rosary beads

Rosary beadsA rosary provides a physical method of keeping track of the number of Hail Marys said. The fingers are moved along the beads as the prayers are recited. By not having to keep track of the count mentally, the mind is more able to meditate on the mysteries. A five decade rosary contains five groups of ten beads (a decade), with additional large beads before each decade. The Hail Mary is said on the ten beads within a decade, while the Our Father is said on the large bead before each decade. A new mystery is meditated upon at each of the large beads. Some rosaries, particularly those used by religious orders, contain fifteen decades, corresponding to the traditional fifteen mysteries of the rosary. Both five and fifteen decade rosaries are attached to a shorter strand, which starts with a crucifix followed by one large, three small, and one large beads before connecting to the rest of the rosary. The recitation of the rosary is started on the short strand, reciting the Apostle's Creed at the crucifix, an Our Father at the first large bead, three Hail Marys on the next three beads, then a Glory be to the Father on the next large bead. The recitation of the decades then follows. Although counting the prayers on a string of beads is customary, the prayers of the rosary do not actually require a set of beads, but can be said using any type of counting device, by counting on one's fingers, or by counting by oneself without any device at all.

The beads can be made from a wide variety of materials including wood, bone, glass, crushed flowers, semi-precious stones such as agate, jet, amber, or jasper, or precious materials including coral, crystal, silver, and gold. Rosaries are sometimes made from the seeds of the "rosary pea" or "bead tree". Today, the vast majority of rosary beads are made of glass, plastic, or wood. Early rosaries were strung on strong thread, often silk, but modern ones are more often made as a series of chain-linked beads. Our Lady's Rosary Makers produce some 7 million rosaries annually that are distributed to those in economic and spiritual need.[27]

It is especially common for beads to be made of material with some special significance, such as jet from the shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela, or olive seeds from the Garden of Gethsemane. Beads are sometimes made to enclose sacred relics, or drops of holy water. A set of blessed rosary beads is a sacramental.

In addition to a string of beads the rosary comes in other forms for ease of use. A ring rosary is a finger ring with eleven knobs on it, ten round ones and one crucifix. A rosary bracelet is one with ten beads and often a cross or medal as well. The most modern form is the rosary card. A rosary card is either one with a "handle" that moves like a slide rule to count the decade, or it has a whole rosary with bumps similar to Braille.

[edit] Rosary beads for other prayers
Main article: Rosary based prayers
Rosary beads are at times used to say Roman Catholic rosary based prayers which do not involve the Hail Mary and the mysteries of the rosary. Examples include the Chaplet of Divine Mercy introduced by Saint Faustina Kowalska and the Rosary of the Holy Wounds introduced by the Venerable Sister Mary Martha Chambon.[28] These prayers often use rosary beads, but their words and format do not correspond to the usual mysteries. Both Saint Faustina Kowalska and the Venerable Sister Mary Martha Chambon attributed these prayers to Jesus as part of their visions of Jesus Christ.[29]

[edit] The Mysteries

The Crucifixion of Jesus - the fifth of the Sorrowful MysteriesThe recitation of the Rosary is traditionally dedicated to one of three sets of "Mysteries" to be said in sequence, one per day: the Joyful (sometimes Joyous) Mysteries; the Sorrowful Mysteries; and the Glorious Mysteries. Each of these three sets of Mysteries has within it five different themes to be meditated on, one for each decade of ten Hail Marys. Pope John Paul II, in his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (October 2002), recommended an additional set called the Luminous Mysteries (or the "Mysteries of Light").[26] Catholic faithful who prefer the original fifteen mysteries point to the belief that the Rosary is Mary's Psalter, containing 150 Hail Marys in its body for the 150 Psalms.[30] The Luminous Mysteries make the total 200, but incorporate Christ's ministry.

In addition to meditating upon the events of the mysteries, many people associate certain virtues, or fruits, with each mystery. (The following list of mysteries and the fruits associated with them[31] corresponds to moments in the life, passion, and death of Jesus and Mary's participation in them chronologically.)

[edit] Joyful Mysteries
The Annunciation. Fruit of the Mystery: Humility
The Visitation. Fruit of the Mystery: Love of Neighbor
The Nativity. Fruit of the Mystery: Poverty (poor in spirit), Detachment from the things of the world, Contempt of Riches, Love of the Poor
The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Fruit of the Mystery: Purity
The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. Fruit of the Mystery: True Wisdom and True Conversion.

[edit] Sorrowful Mysteries
The Agony in the Garden. Fruit of the Mystery: Sorrow for Sin, Uniformity with the will of God
The Scourging at the Pillar. Fruit of the Mystery: Mortification
The Crowning with Thorns. Fruit of the Mystery: Contempt of the world
The Carrying of the Cross. Fruit of the Mystery: Patience
The Crucifixion. Fruit of the Mystery: Salvation

[edit] Glorious Mysteries
The Resurrection. Fruit of the Mystery: Faith
The Ascension. Fruit of the Mystery: Hope and desire for Heaven
The Descent of the Holy Spirit. Fruit of the Mystery: Holy Wisdom to know the truth and share with everyone
The Assumption of Mary. Fruit of the Mystery: Grace of a Happy Death and True Devotion towards Mary
The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Fruit of the Mystery: Perseverance and Crown of Glory

[edit] Luminous Mysteries
The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. Fruit of the Mystery: Openness to the Holy Spirit
The Wedding at Cana. Fruit of the Mystery: To Jesus through Mary
Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Fruit of the Mystery: Repentance and Trust in God
The Transfiguration. Fruit of the Mystery: Desire for Holiness
The Institution of the Eucharist. Fruit of the Mystery: Adoration

[edit] Days of recitation
Day of recitation With the Luminous Mysteries Without the Luminous Mysteries
Sunday The Glorious Mysteries Advent: The Joyful Mysteries
Lent to Palm Sunday: The Sorrowful Mysteries
Ordinary Time, Easter to Sunday before Advent: The Glorious Mysteries

Monday The Joyful Mysteries The Joyful Mysteries
Tuesday The Sorrowful Mysteries The Sorrowful Mysteries
Wednesday The Glorious Mysteries The Glorious Mysteries
Thursday The Luminous Mysteries The Joyful Mysteries
Friday The Sorrowful Mysteries The Sorrowful Mysteries
Saturday The Joyful Mysteries The Glorious Mysteries

[edit] Approved form
A sign of the cross on the Crucifix and then the "Apostles' Creed";
An "Our Father" on the first large bead;
A "Hail Mary" on each of the three small beads with the following intentions (the theological virtues):
For the increase of faith
For the increase of hope
For the increase of charity
A "Glory Be to the Father" on the next large bead;
Announce the mystery
An "Our Father" on the large bead
A "Hail Mary" on each of the adjacent ten small beads;
A "Glory Be to the Father" on the next large bead;
Again an Our Father, ten Hail Marys, the Glory Be to the Father, and Fatima Prayer for each of the following decades;
A "Hail Holy Queen" and a sign of the cross.

[edit] Common pious additions
Many people add a recitation of the Fatima Decade Prayer at the end of each Decade. Others add a recitation of a pious Eucharistic prayer "O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine" at the end of each decade in honor of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. In the practice of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, they have an additional decade for the intentions of the students or the Blessed Virgin Mary.

A pious German custom is to insert a phrase in the middle of each Hail Mary (after "... blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus ... "), which refers to the specific mystery being meditated upon. [32][33] This custom was incorporated into St. Louis de Montfort's second method out of his five Methods of Praying the Rosary.[34]

In the practice of the Dominican Order, the opening prayers of the rosary mirror the opening of the Divine Office:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth will proclaim your praise.
Incline your aid to me, O God.
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

[edit] Rosary as a family prayer
Rosary is usually prayed in Church during afternoon or evening hours. Many Catholics pray the rosary on their own, when alone. But the rosary is also an old family prayer. This specific family devotion has been supported be several popes including Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Ingruentium Malorum:

The custom of the family recitation of the Holy Rosary is a most efficacious means. What a sweet sight - most pleasing to God - when, at eventide, the Christian home resounds with the frequent repetition of praises in honor of the High Queen of Heaven! Then the Rosary, recited in the family, assembled before the image of the Virgin, in an admirable union of hearts, the parents and their children, who come back from their daily work. It unites them piously with those absent and those dead. It links all more tightly in a sweet bond of love, with the most Holy Virgin, who, like a loving mother, in the circle of her children, will be there bestowing upon them an abundance of the gifts of concord and family peace. [35]

[edit] Rosary in Marian apparitions
The need to pray the rosary and its power has been reported in Marian apparitions for centuries. As a recent example, in the reported messages of Our Lady of Akita, Sister Agnes Sasagawa stated that in 1973 she was told by the Virgin Mary: "Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach." In 1988 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) gave definitive judgement on Our Lady of Akita messages as reliable and worthy of belief.[36]

The rosary was also prominently featured in the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1858, where Saint Bernadette Soubirous stated that in the initial meeting: "The Lady took the rosary that she held in her hands and she made the sign of the cross".

The apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima are sometimes also called Our Lady of the Rosary because the children related that the Lady in the apparition specifically identified Herself as "the Lady of the Rosary." The three children at Our Lady of Fátima stated that the Lady asked them to say the Rosary every day, reiterating many times that the Rosary was the key to personal and world peace.

[edit] The Rosary Pope
One of the forces that drove the spread of the rosary during the 19th century among Roman Catholics was the influence of the Rosary Pope, a title given to Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) because he issued a record eleven encyclicals on the rosary, instituted the Catholic custom of daily rosary prayer during the month of October, and in 1883 created the Feast of Queen of the Holy Rosary. [37]

Leo XIII, the Rosary Pope, explained the importance of the rosary as the one road to God, from the father to the Son, to his Mother, and from her to the human race. He emphasized that no human creature can change this and therefore there exists only one road for the faithful, to the mother and from her to Christ and through Christ to the father. The rosary is a vital means to participate in the life of Mary and to find the way to Christ. [6] This emphasis on the path through Mary to Christ (which was also a basis for some of Louis de Montfort's writings) has since been a key direction in Roman Catholic Mariology, with Mariology being viewed as inherent in Christology, and the rosary paving that path.[38][39]

[edit] Other forms of the Roman Catholic Rosary

[edit] Paternosters
In Monastic Houses, monks were expected to pray the Divine Office daily in Latin, the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic Church. In some Houses, lay brothers who did not understand Latin or who were illiterate were required to say the Lord's Prayer a certain number of times per day while meditating on the Mysteries of the Incarnation of Christ. Since there were 150 Psalms, this could number up to 150 times per day. To count these repetitions, they used beads strung upon a cord and this set of prayer beads became commonly known as a Pater noster, which is the Latin for "Our Father". Lay people adopted this practice as a form of popular worship. The Paternoster could be of various lengths, but was often made up of 5 “decades” of 10 beads, which when performed three times made up 150 prayers. Other Paternosters, most notably those used by lay persons, may have had only had 10 beads, and may have also been highly ornamented. As the Rosary (ring of flowers) incorporating the Hail Mary prayer became more common, it was often still referred to as a Paternoster.

[edit] The Servite Rosary
In 1233, seven of the members of a Florentine Confraternity devoted to the Holy Mother of God were gathered in prayer under the presidency of Alessio Falconieri. According to tradition, Mary appeared to the young men and exhorted them to devote themselves to her service, in retirement from the world. They retired to the deserted slopes of Monte Senario near Florence, where they experienced another vision of Mary. There they formed a new Order called the Servants of Mary, or Servites, in recognition of their special manner of venerating Our Lady of Sorrows. The seven-"week" Servite Rosary is variously called the Servite Chaplet; Rosary of the Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and the Seven Swords Rosary. A set of introductory prayers for the Servite Rosary was written by St. Alphonsus Liguori in his book The Glories of Mary.[40]

[edit] "St. Anthony's Rosary"
The Irish (specifically the Gaelic-speaking) and their descendants have a tradition of saying thirteen Aves rather than ten, in honour of St. Anthony of Padua, whose feast day is 13 June. Also called the St. Anthony Chaplet, its prayers are accompanied by a poem called the Miraculous Responsory or si quideris, written by Saint Bonaventure. Like most chaplets, it is available at Catholic book shops.

[edit] The Franciscan Crown
In 1263, Saint Bonaventure, Minister General of the Order, encouraged liturgical devotion honoring the mystery of the Visitation. The Franciscan rosary, or as it is properly called, the Franciscan Crown, developed in early part of the 15th century, and was officially established in 1422. The Franciscan Crown consists of seven decades of Hail Marys, each preceded by an Our Father and followed by a Glory Be, and completed by two more Hail Marys after the 7th decade to complete the number 72 which is thought to be the age of Mary at the time of her Assumption. The Crown recalls the seven joys of Mary and how she responded to the grace of God in her life. In addition to developing this Marian devotion, the Franciscans are credited with adding the final words to the Hail Mary: Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners (from the writings of St. Bernardino of Siena) now and at the hour of our death (from the writings of the Servite Fathers and the Roman Breviary).'

[edit] The Bridgettine Rosary
The rosary as prayed by the Bridgettine order comprises 7 Our Fathers (to honour the joys and sorrows of the Blessed Virgin), and 63 Hail Marys, one for each (presumed) year of her life before the Assumption. The layout of the beads is a loop containing six decades, together with a short string of beads leading to the crucifix.[41] An example of the Bridgettine rosary may be seen depicted on the statue of the Crowned Virgin in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.

[edit] The Trinitarian Rosary
A trinitarian rosary can comprise the same basic form as the traditional Marian rosary with 5 decades of 10 beads and introductory prayers, et cetera. Or it may be used with the Anglican or other variants of the rosary. The primary prayer of a trinitarian rosary is non-marian and comprises a prayer to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, e.g., "Almighty God, Almighty God, Heavenly King, You are the Lord! Blessed art thou in heaven, and blessed is thy sacred word! Holy Jesus, eternally begotten son of God, send your Holy Spirit upon us and kindle in our hearts the fire of your divine love!".[42][43]

Irish penal rosary
A Single-decade ring rosary
An alternative design.
[edit] Single-decade rosaries
Religious persecution of Catholics began in England and Ireland under Henry VIII in 1540 and continued until about 1731. During what has been called the Penal Times, death became the common penalty for attending a Mass or harboring a priest. Small, easily hidden rosaries were used to avoid detection. Sometimes rather than a cross, other symbols of specific meanings were used:

Hammer: nails of the cross;
Nails: crucifixion;
Spear: wound;
Halo: crown of thorns;
Cords: scourging;
Chalice: Last Supper;
Rooster: crowing/resurrection.
These rosaries, especially the smaller ring-type, have since become known as soldiers' rosaries, because they were often taken into battle by soldiers, most notably during WWI. These single-decade rosary variations can be worn as a ring or carried easily and are still popular. A rosary ring is a ring worn around the finger with 10 indentations and a cross on the surface, representing one decade of a rosary. This is often worn as jewelry, and used through the day. Some ring rosaries use a small bearing on the inside of the ring to permit easy turning. A finger rosary is similar to a ring, but is a bit larger. Rosaries like these are used by either rotating or just holding them between a finger and thumb while praying. A hand rosary is a decade in a complete loop, with one bead separated from ten other beads, this is meant to be carried while walking or running, so as not to entangle the larger type. Credit card-sized Rosaries have also appeared, especially among members of militaries, where holes or bumps represent the prayers and the persons praying move their fingers along the bumps to count prayers.

Single-decade rosaries are also called chaplets.

[edit] Rosaries in other Christian traditions
While use of the Roman Catholic rosary has gradually been adopted by many Eastern Catholics, many Eastern Catholic churches have undertaken a campaign of liturgical de-Latinization, removing imported devotions and practices (such as the rosary) that have obscured and replaced traditional and authentic devotions and practices of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Subsequently, the most common prayer used in the Eastern Christian Churches (Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic) is the Jesus Prayer, which makes use of the more ancient prayer rope (chotki), a knotted rope (rather than beads) joined together with a knotted cross. The prayer rope is not as fixed in form as the Western rosary (it may have 10, 33, 50, 100, or 500 knots on it), and it normally makes use of beads only as dividers between sections. The Eastern prayer rope is often divided into decades, but it may also be divided into sections of 25 or some other number, or not divided at all.

Among High Church Anglicans, Anglican prayer beads are sometimes used. This set is also known as the "Anglican Rosary"[44] or as "Christian prayer beads," the latter term arising from the popularity this set has gained among Christians of various other traditions. Anglican bead sets contain 28 beads in groups of seven called "weeks," with an additional large bead before each. In total, there are 33 beads representing the years of Jesus' life on Earth. A number of Anglicans use the Jesus Prayer, just like the Eastern Christians, but there are no Church-appointed prayers or meditations in the Anglican practice. Some Anglo-Catholics use the traditional Roman Catholic rosary.

A recent creation known as the Ecumenical Miracle Rosary uses the same beads as the Roman Catholic rosary but with different prayers and with mysteries which focus on Christ's miracles.

[edit] Wearing of the Rosary
Wearing of a Rosary that one actually uses to pray is neither uncommon nor sacrilegious in various Roman Catholic-adherent cultures and was a common practice in the Medieval and Renaissance periods, particularly among religious (monks, nuns, and friars). Rosaries are also worn hanging from or looped over a belt, particularly with some religious habits, pinned to and hanging from a shoulder or neckline, or wrapped around a wrist or arm as a bracelet. Some Christians feel that it is sacrilegious for a non-believer to wear a rosary around the neck. This is particularly true in Roman Catholic cultures that have histories of persecution, particularly among the Irish and English Catholics. Because Irish Catholic tradition is often seen as normative in the United States and Canada, this has been the source of some conflict in the past. The Roman Catholic Church states: "Sacred objects, set aside for divine worship by dedication or blessing, are to be treated with reverence. They are not to be made over to secular or inappropriate use, even though they may belong to private persons"[45]. Thus it is acceptable to wear a rosary if one is doing so to show veneration, however it is not acceptable if one is wearing the rosary irreverently, such as wearing it as a piece of jewelry. Many saints have worn their rosary around the neck, and in the Secret of the Rosary, it is mentioned that a person put his rosary around his neck to keep devils away from him.

Rosaries or rosary-like necklaces are often worn for non-religious purposes as a fashion or jewelry item, and are sold in different variations in popular jewelry and clothing stores. Such ornamental use, especially the wearing of a rosary around the neck, was heavily popularized by singer Madonna in the early 1980s and has experienced a come-back in recent years. Wearing a rosary around the neck can be considered disrespectful if the person wearing it does not affiliate with the Christian religion. Ornate or medieval-style rosary sets are occasionally featured in goth fashion.

[edit] As penance or reparation
Praying the rosary may be prescribed by priests as a form of penance after confession. Penance in this form is not generally intended as a "punishment"; rather, it is meant to encourage reflection upon and spiritual growth from past sins.[citation needed]

Some forms of the Roman Catholic rosary are aimed at reparation for the sins of others. An example is the Rosary of the Holy Wounds first introduced at the beginning of the 20th century by the Venerable Sister Mary Martha Chambon, a Roman Catholic nun of the Monastery of the Visitation Order in Chambery, France. [28] This rosary is somewhat similar in structure to the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, is said on the usual rosary beads and is intended as an Act of Reparation to Jesus Christ for the sins of the world.[46]

[edit] Power of the Rosary
The rosary has been featured in the writings of Roman Catholic figures from saints to popes and continues to be mentioned in reported Marian apparitions, with a number of promises attributed to the power of the rosary.

As early as the fifteenth century, legend alleged that through Saint Dominic and Blessed Alan de Rupe the Blessed Virgin Mary made fifteen specific promises to Christians who pray the rosary.[47] The fifteen rosary promises range from protection from misfortune to meriting a high degree of glory in heaven.[48] In support of this statement Patrick Cardinal Hayes of New York provided his imprimatur to this effect.[49]

In the 18th century, the French priest Louis de Montfort elaborated on the importance of the rosary and its power in his widely read book the Secret of the Rosary.[50] He emphasized the power of the rosary and provided specific instructions on how it should be prayed, e.g. with attention, devotion and modesty (reverence), with reflective pauses [51] between the beads and smaller pauses between phrases of the prayers.[52]

[edit] Rosary manufacturing and distribution
Rosaries are in rare cases made of expensive materials from gold and silver to mother of pearl and Swarovski black diamond designs. Yet most rosaries used in the world today for praying are made of simple plastic or wooden beads connected by cords or strings. Roman Catholic missionaries in Africa have reported that rosaries made of tree bark have been used there for praying for the lack of conventional rosaries. It is widely reported that the demand for rosaries in third world countries far outweighs the supply.

Plastic beads are inexpensive to make, but not easy to assemble. Hence the major cost component for making simple rosaries is the assembly effort. A large number of inexpensive rosary beads are manufactured in the orient, specially in China and Taiwan, although Italy has a strong manufacturing presence in moderate cost and high end rosaries.

Assembled rosaries are often purchased as retail religious items. Yet literally hundreds of millions of rosaries have been made and distributed free of charge by Roman Catholic volunteers worldwide. A number of rosary making clubs exist around the world for the purpose of making and distributing rosaries to missions, hospitals, prisons, etc. free of charge. The largest such non-profit organization in the United States is Our Lady's Rosary Makers whose 17,000 members annually distribute roughly 7 million free rosaries. A good number of other volunteer-based clubs and groups exist worldwide and distribute tens of millions of free rosaries every year.

[edit] Gallery of Rosary in Marian art
The rosary has been featured in a number of works of Roman Catholic Marian art and rosary statutes appear in many Roman Catholic Marian churches.

Madonna and rosary by Nicola Porta

Madonna with rosary, by Guido Reni, 1596

Madonna offering Saint Norbert a rosary by August Palme, 1860

Madonna with the Rosary by Murillo, 1650

Madonna of the Rosary statute, Naples, Italy

Rosary Madonna, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Madonna with Rosary, Italy

Madonna with Rosary by Josef Mersa, Italy

[edit] See also
Look up rosary in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.Rosary Pope
Catholic devotions
The Angelus
Prayer rope
Prayer beads
Our Lady's Rosary Makers
Saint Louis de Montfort's Secret of the Rosary
Methods of praying the rosary
Legion of Mary
Encyclical Ingruentium Malorum by Pope Pius XII
Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae by Pope John Paul II
Anglican devotions
Western Rite Orthodoxy and prayer of the Marian Rosary
Japa mala or Juzu for Asian prayer beads
Tasbeeh for Islamic prayer beads
Roman Catholic Marian art

[edit] References
^ "Rosary." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper. 03 May. 2008.
^ "Rosary". Wedgewood, Hensleigh. A Dictionary of English Etymology. 2nd ed. London: Trubner & Co., 1872. pg 544.
^ A Heinz, Rosenkranz, Marienlexikon, Eos, St.Ottilien, 1993, 555
^ Mariology Is Christology in Vittorio Messori, "The Mary Hypothesis" Rome, 2005
^ Louis de Montfort, in God Alone
^ a b Encyclical Jucunda Semper 8.9.1894 quoted in Marienlexikon,Eos St. Ottilien, 1988 42
^ a b ihmhermitage.stblogs.com/2008/05/15/benedict-xvi-on-the-rosary/
^ Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae
^ a b c Heinz, 555
^ rosary - definition of rosary by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia
^ a b Catherine Beebe, St. Dominic and the Rosary ISBN 0898705185
^ a b c d e f g h i j "New Advent CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: The Rosary". Retrieved on 2008-04-17.
^ a b c O'Reilly, Bernard. True Men as We Need Them: A Book of Instruction for Men in the World. New York: P.J. Kennedy and Sons. (1878) p. 217.
^ McNicholas, J.T. "Alanus de Rupe". The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907.
^ CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Rosary
^ CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Hail Mary
^ New Advent CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Hail Mary
^ "Rosary - LoveToKnow 1911". Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
^ Mysteries of the life of
^ "New Advent CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Dominic of Prussia". Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
^ "New Advent CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Hail Mary". Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
^ "CONSUEVERUNT ROMANI Pope Pius V". Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
^ http://books.google.com/books?id=QnsEXlVs-uwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Luis+inauthor:Granada+Rosario&as_brr=1&ei=EvgHSPuwD5yMjAGp0Zi8Dg
^ "Online Etymology Dictionary - Rosary". Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
^ Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Letter Marialis Cultus http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19740202_marialis-cultus_en.html
^ a b "Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae". Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
^ "Our Lady's Rosary Makers" website. <www.olrm.org>. Access date: 15 May 2008.
^ a b Ann Ball, 2003 Encyclopedia of Catholic Devotions and Practices ISBN 087973910X
^ Michael Freze, 1993, Voices, Visions, and Apparitions, OSV Publishing ISBN 087973454X
^ St. Louis-Marie de Montfort explains this correlation
^ St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, Methods for saying the rosary, first and third method
^ Rosary Prayers in German
^ Rosary Prayers in Several Languages
^ Methods for Saying the Rosary
^ Ingruentium Marlorum 13
^ EWTN on Akita apparitions [1]
^ in Lauretanische Litanei, Marienlexikon, Eos, St. Ottilien, 1988, p.41
^ At the center of this mystery, in the midst of this wonderment of faith, stands Mary. As the loving Mother of the Redeemer, she was the first to experience it: "To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator"! Pope John Paul II, in Redemptoris Mater, 51
^ See Pius XII Mystici corporis Christi; John Henry Newman: Mariology is always christocentric, in Michael Testa, Mary: The Virgin Mary in the Life and Writings of John Henry Newman 2001; Mariology Is Christology in Vittorio Messori, "The Mary Hypothesis" Rome, 2005
^ Liguori, Alphonsus. The Glories of Mary. (trans. from Italian) London: Redemptorist Fathers, St. Mary's. (1852) pp. 611-614
^ "New Advent CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Use of Beads at Prayers".
^ "Non-Marian, Trinitarian Rosary".
^ "Another Trinitarian Rosary".
^ http://www.episcopalian.org/grace/anglican_rosary.htm
^ Quick Questions (This Rock: October 2004)
^ Michael Freze, 1993, Voices, Visions, and Apparitions, OSV Publishing ISBN 087973454X
^ Dominican Fathers on the Rosary http://www.rosary-center.org/nconobl.htm
^ Holyrosary.org http://www.theholyrosary.org/power.html
^ Rosary promises http://www.catholic.org/clife/mary/promises.php
^ Saint Louis de Montfort http://www.themontfortacademy.org/Pages/BioStLouisdeMontfort1.html
^ De Montfort, St. Louis-Marie. Secret of the Rosary, Forty-Fourth Rose (paragraph 127)
^ Writings of Saint Louis de Montfort http://www.montfort.org.uk/Writings/MontWork.html

[edit] Further Reading
Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy: A Consideration of the Rosary by J. Neville Ward (Doubleday, 1973); revised as Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy: Meditations on the Rosary (Seabury Classics, 2005) - an ecumenical Methodist minister's book on the Rosary. ISBN 1596280123
Rosary of Our Lady of Sorrows, Friar Servants of Mary, Chicago, Illinois, 1990.
"Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages" by Anne Winston-Allen (1997, Pennsylvania State University Press) - the most current source in English on the history and development of the Rosary in its earliest years. ISBN 0-2710-1631-0
The Lourdes Pilgrim, by Oliver Todd, Matthew James Publishing, 2003, p. 41.
God Alone: The Collected Writings of St. Louis Marie De Montfort, by Saint Louis de Montfort, Montfort Publications, 1995 ISBN 0910984557
Pope Pius XII Rosary encyclical Ingruentium Malorum on the Vatican website
Pope John Paul II Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariaeon the Vatican website

[edit] External links
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Rosary of the Blessed Virgin MaryThe Holy Rosary - Its History, Essence, and Spiritual Fruits (includes the Fifteen Promises)
"Rosary" from the Catholic Encyclopedia
The Holy Rosary
How to recite the Holy Rosary Printer-friendly PDF document (includes prayers, bead use, mysteries)
Handy PDF Downloadable Rosary Pamphlets The Traditional 15 Mysteries.
Rosary Prayer Guide: How to Pray the Rosary
Guide to Making a Knot Rosary
Perpetual Web Rosary A continuing and interactive online rosary
The Rosary at Borg in-Nadur, Malta
Simulation of construction and creation of the Rosary online
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This is a book I am currently reading. After you get past the goofy fantasy and sci fi set up it offers some profound truths and insights. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.


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[[Basic Law]] for all of World:

"Take what you need and leave the rest."


[[Takers]] are a people often referred to as "civilized." Particularly, the culture born in an Agricultural Revolution that began about 10,000 years ago in the Near East. Civilized mankind.
 
[[Leavers]] are people of all other cultures; sometimes referred to as "primitive." 
 
A [[story]] is an interrelation between the gods, man, and the Earth, with a beginning, middle, and end. 
 
To [[enact]], is to strive to make a story come true. 
 
A [[culture]] is a people who are enacting a story. 
 


"So we have a new pair of names for you: The Takers are 'those who know good and evil' and the Leavers are 'those who live in the hands of the gods'."

"The premise of the Takers' story is 'The world belongs to man.' ...The premise of the Leavers' story is 'Man belongs to the world.'"

"For three million years, man belonged to the world and because he belonged to the world, he grew and developed and became brighter and more dexterous until one day, he was so bright and so dexterous that we had to call him Homo sapiens sapiens-- which means he was us."

"The Leavers' story is 'the gods made man for the world, the same way they made salmon and sparrows for the world. This seems to have worked well so far so we can take it easy and leave the running of the world to the gods'."

http://www.stellacameron.com/contrib/plot.html

SIX STEPS TO A PERFECT PLOT

by Stella Cameron

Already I betray myself--again. The title Six Steps to a Perfect Plot shows I can't be trusted. There is no such animal as a perfect plot, only a plot as near to perfect as the writer can make it, and, more importantly, a plot that works.

What doesn't work in a plot is what doesn't work. If the reader stops, frowns, re-reads, and stops again--there's something very wrong. The cause of this pause may be loss of viewpoint control, chronological slips, failure to provide adequate pegs into the setting or, much more likely, an inconsistency in plot. These inconsistencies, whether they result in an uneasy sense of implausibility, or actually slap the reader between the eyes with an impossibility--these inconsistencies result from careless plotting compounded by either failure to double check each development, or some vague, but suicidal conviction that no one will notice the blunder!

My job is to help you learn how to assemble a plot, and how to bullet proof that plot.

1. Gathering. The question I often hear and always groan over is: "Where do you get your ideas." A natural question from a non-writer, I suppose, but a puzzling question from someone who is a writer. We get our ideas from a place we can't see or touch--our imaginations. What sets the fiction writer's imagination apart from other types of imagination is the way it collects and organizes. The way it gathers.

A painter may look at a tipped vase, strewn flowers, spattered water and see--a tipped vase, strewn flowers, spattered water. A composition of visual fact to be translated onto canvas as close to reality as possible.

A fiction writer might look at the same assembly and see, what? A tipped vase, strewn flowers, spilled water--what comes to mind for some of you?

I'll play with the image for a moment: She opened the door to find a bouquet on the step--a bouquet with a card on top, a card from? The card is signed by a man employed by the advertising firm she works for. She calls a female co-worker and excitedly tells her Mr. X has sent the flowers. Is she excited enough to be less than cautious, maybe? That's possible. Excited enough not to question someone else (we don't have to know who it is at this point) someone else arriving at that exact moment with a, "Surprise! Surprise!" approach?

Into the kitchen. Guard down. Take down the vase. Cut the stems on the flowers. Fill the vase with water. Drop in the flowers. Laugh. And die?

That's how the mind of this fiction writer works. That's where my ideas come from--in there, somewhere. And I suspect many of you would go through a similar process.

Think of yourselves as gatherers. Cultivate the shady side of your minds where impressions can grow freely, where those impressions can take root and spread into fully expanded ideas and the realized basis of plot.

This gathering is license to designate a favorite place to do absolutely nothing but think. That would qualify as a job benny, folks.

The gathering phase of plotting also expands to incorporate a host of concrete and not so concrete tools of your trade. A magazine or newspaper article presents a story. To you, this story presents an idea, a foundation for something quite different. You'll save that article. A snatch of something on the car radio starts the mill turning. You'll write that down when you can, and save it. A movie, a television show, a stage play or musical invokes a mood. Examine that mood as soon as you can--preferably in your favorite thinking spot--make notes and save them. The title of a song, or a line from the lyrics suggest a scenario. Save that. Scenes snatched through the car window--save them. Scents are evocative. Poke around in the sensations evoked by scent, write down your conclusions, and save them.

Become the owner of many file cabinets. Or many cardboard boxes. Or heaps of brown paper sacks, or whatever you can assemble to hold your "string and sealing wax and lots of fancy stuff." Gather, gather, gather.

And if you need a nice solid assurance that all this gathering of stuff isn't so much flim flam, remember your childhood. I remember mine. I was a gatherer then, and I wager you were, too. We collected things to use in various games. And we saved them in boxes and bags and drawers. And we put those treasures through their paces, talking as we played, usually in different voices for different characters. And we invented stories, and created sound effects. Often we returned to one of our wonderful invented worlds again and again, picking up the action as if developing a serialized piece, an endless soap opera-like drama.

Watch children now, your children or someone else's, and you'll see them repeating the process.

It works, this gathering. It works for children's play and it works when adult writers take and refine the system to launch themselves into a plot.

And there will be a wonderful added benefit to validating your special gifts here. You'll finally know you don't have a PD. Personality disorder.

2. Selection: This is the simple point. When you're ready for the serious plotting process, choose the strongest idea. Or let it choose you. Sort through your mind, and the boxes, and bags, and drawers--and bam, the strongest idea will convince you you've chosen well. In fact, you'll wonder why there was ever any doubt.

This is also the time to assemble all the balls of string and sealing wax that relate to the idea you're going to run with. Notes jotted on napkins, pieces of paper torn from notebooks, entire notebooks, photographs--and maybe you need to listen again to a piece of music while recalling a scent through the car window in early fall. A map, a building plan, reference books on an industry, occupation, or location. Perhaps you need to make some charts. A family tree. A chronology chart. A floor plan for a house of your own design, or a garden layout.

Select and expand, and immerse yourself in your wonderful idea and its trappings.

This might be a good spot to noodle around with your spilled flowers again: Perhaps you find a clipping from a newspaper about a woman who faked her own disappearance. And you draw a plan of the lower floor in the house where the flowers were delivered--and the garden through which the person who brought them walked. Then there's a map of the town where the woman who got the flowers lives--and a reference book or two on the advertising business, and some details on insurance and claiming insurance with or without a body. You decide to read up on faking ID, and on the legal aspects of arrest on suspicion of murder. What you don't do at this stage is set out to become an authority on any of these subjects. You concentrate on knowing only what you must know to tell your story.

This is what can happen when a fiction writer remembers a vivid impression he or she has gathered and plays a little "what- if," then reads a selected newspaper article, and makes a connection to the impression. You can then announce with pride that you are AB. Absolutely brilliant!

3. People: I call this step "people," rather than "characters," because more, and more, I am convinced that in good, fully realized fiction, we people our storylines with real people. Too often I find myself reading, and failing to actually see the people come alive. I've decided this happens because the writer created "characters" that were more caricatures than people. This means, too one-dimensional to be mistaken for people.

In truth, throughout every phase of the plotting process you're working with your people, your conflict, and your setting. The obvious question is: which comes first? The answer to that is: bits and pieces of all elements come at the same time, they come side by side, falling over each other, spurring each other on, adding to each other, puffing up the caricature into character, and people, and giving them bones to fight over, and a place to hold the fight.

We have to have a place to at least think of as the start, so I start thinking about gathering ideas, move to expanding ideas, then to developing the people.

The hero and heroine are, naturally, the most important members of the cast. These two have to fit the roles you've developed from taking an idea and expanding that idea. Their backgrounds, personalities, and skills must make them appropriate.

As you build these people, you constantly check and cross-check their history, past and present, to make sure you haven't chosen poorly. It's paramount to give them the right kind of baggage to drag with them. The heroine who takes her first breath on page one of your book is an obvious 130 lb newborn. She's got a lovely, but empty face, no wrinkles in her clothes, and no wrinkles in her soul. Her heart is empty of anything but emotions she'll start learning at 25, the age you've given her. She's boring. She's already dead, so don't expect us to care about her.

Back to the story that's brewing--the flower story: Her name is Emily. She's twenty-five and ought to be pretty. She is pretty if you don't look too hard. The eyes take it. No hope in there--that beaten-down-and-don't-care-anymore hopelessness. A smart woman. Smart but trapped by old patterns, old habits. Men treat women badly. She knows this because she grew up watching it. She was never going to let it happen to her--but she did. But she broke free. At last she broke free--or did she?

Emily is the woman who opened the door to flowers on her doorstep. We're building here.

One character doesn't make a novel. I need a hero. I need secondary characters. I need traits and agendas for those characters. I'll build them just as I built Emily.

Mike is a man who knows what he wants. He was born knowing what he wanted and he's been going after it ever since. He's also honorable, loyal and smart--and confident. Understanding women isn't something he's worked real hard at, he never had a reason to before. He does now. There's a woman he thinks he wants, and wants very much. She works at the office and he's tried to get to know her but she doesn't cut him any slack. He doesn't like that, but he can't get her out of his head. It doesn't help that she applied for the promotion that was given to him instead. Nor is it a plus that her ex-husband is one of the firm's biggest accounts and that it's rumored the guy still thinks of his ex as his property.

I've started to make a hero. He's taking shape. Not a perfect man by any means. In fact, he's full of flaws and I'll find a whole lot more as I work with him. I think he'll do just fine. I like him already.

Major characters lead to secondary characters. Major and secondary characters lead to minor characters. The time you spend fleshing them out depends on the weight you intend to give them. That was a pun. No acronym comes to mind.

4. Wants(alias conflict): Aha, but we've already started building conflict as we built our people, haven't we? Exactly. No part of the plotting process exists on its own. When we work on characterization, we always work on conflict. Unless we're too busy with silver eyes that shine like a polished coffee urn, and arrogant, sardonic eyebrows that slash heavenward like dark thunderbolts prepared to challenge God. And unless we present these facts without using them to convey mood, setting, action, and so on. Get hung up on the lovely bodies and you'll miss the fascinating guts.

Cut to the guts and you'll reveal conflict.

Remember the golden rule of story. Only trouble is interesting. And if your story is to capture a busy reader's attention and hold it, your characters must be in trouble and get into more trouble. The root of all this trouble comes from want, that's why I called this step, "wants." Each of your people must want something they can't simply ask for, or buy. They want so badly they hurt from the wanting. The hurt can only be eased by keeping on, keeping on after what they want. They have to get what they want or they're doomed to eternal unhappiness or, almost worse, a passionless existence--or, they may even die. Too extreme? No way. The more extreme the better--as long as you keep your idea in view, your contributing factors appropriate, and your characters in character.

Remember: Trouble is story. Want causes trouble. Two characters=twice the want=twice the trouble. Your people must have the potential to stop each other from satisfying want, and the capability of healing/fulfilling want.

This theory extends to secondary characters. They want, too. Even if their primary want is to help the hero or heroine get what they want--they want, and because they do, they are in place to help complicate story.

Let's revisit our "blossoming" story: Emily wants to be free of her overbearing ex-husband (you did know Emily was the woman Mike wants, didn't you?). Emily's ex-husband was physically and mentally abusive, and continues to make threats. She is afraid of him. He's told her that if he ever sees her with another man, he'll kill her--and the man. Emily wants peace. Emily wants, for the first time in her life, to make decisions based on her own wants. Emily wants to love and be loved on her own terms, eventually. Emily does not want to be pushed, or frightened, or drawn into complicated relationships, or to look over her shoulder expecting to be shot. Emily is ambitious and wants to advance. Emily wants Mike's job and believe's it should have been hers in the first place. BTW--that's "by the way" as any messer-about-with-computers knows--btw, Emily does rather want Mike, too. Emily wants a lot, and everything she wants adds conflict to her life, conflict to the story.

It's growing. I feel it. Now I'm ME. Manic Euphoric.

5. Motivate: But we've been motivating.

Of course we have. As I've already mentioned several times; this is a CD process. It's co-dependent, one facet facilitates another, and another, and all facets facilitate the whole.

But we make mistakes--mistakes of innocent omission. Story is not life, but an author's vision of a fabrication of a selected sequence from life. In the process of plot, in the rushes of enthusiasm, the pits of despair followed by the relief of, "I've got it!" inconsistencies creep in. They happen to all of us. Those moments when, if we don't catch the problem, the reader goes back a few pages, or a few chapters, searching for what he's certain he must have missed--the part of the sequence that motivates a later action. If he doesn't discover he read a little too fast and that what he thinks isn't there is, in fact, clearly stated, the writer's in trouble.

A writer who repeatedly tosses action into a plot, gets it on the page--and past her editor--without adequately motivating that action, is going to be SOL, simply out of luck, when that reader sees another book by the same author. The reader will buy someone else's title instead.

Motivate. You can motivate anything. I particularly enjoy playing with motivation. I have a large, loose-leafed binder with dividers in it. I mention the dividers because they happen to be there. They don't mean anything but I think they used to.

At various stages of a book I stop and pose questions to myself. These questions get a page each. I think through the plot, consider each action I've initiated, and address the following question: Why? Often I follow with another, why? Perhaps there are a series of whys. Then, where? Then I add, how? And often, what? Frequently, in the intrigue portion of the plot, I have to use, who? I cross-check as if I were in the cockpit of a plane and about to take off. Back and forth, back and forth.

Hearts and Flowers, cont: Mike is thirty-two years old and has never married. Why? He didn't meet anyone he wanted to marry until Emily. Why? Because his needs were met by those relationships he did have. And he never felt an emotional connection to a woman before.

Emily is abducted and the scene left behind suggests she was attacked. She will be presumed to have been murdered. Why? Because she's convinced someone to help her scare her ex-husband into leaving her alone. How? By framing him and getting him arrested on suspicion of abducting her. Why? Because he's a coward and won't hold up. And Emily thinks that if the truth about his behavior is in the open, he may leave her alone--actually, this is Emily's faint hope--she's desperate and grabbing for any vague chance of freedom.

This exercise goes on and on until there are no more questions. But then, it has to be exhaustive because I'm OC.

6. On Location: This is where you decide on the scenes you will use to tell you story. Oh, but we've done that--sort of--because we've asked "where?" In this case we haven't done that at all. Until now, "where" has been a general question. Where? New York. That type of where. Or where?--at home, or where?--in a cab.

Now you choose location for impact, not just for setting. Now you start organizing a few pivotal scenes that act as anchors to the entire plot.

I don't outline a book in detail. I do make many loose outlines. Armed with my proposal, which reads like a long cover blurb, I decide how the book opens and what the first scene will be. This scene must be designed for maximum impact and is probably the most important scene in the piece. Before someone disputes this point, we don't have to argue that there are other, more pivotal scenes in any story--this is true. But if the first scene doesn't reach out and take the reader by the heart or the gut, the crisis scenes may never get read.

**I invite you to read some of my first scenes. These are available elsewhere on this site. Each one was written and written again to accomplish what I know is so important as a story opens.

First scenes are about heart, about mood, about pace, about making the reader want to know what happens next, and next, and next. First scenes are about making the reader care. If you can pull that off, you've succeeded with one very important part of your task.

Now you proceed, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, to build your story. You don't really build it like a brick and mortar house because although there may be wonderful eye-appeal in a brick house, there isn't the type of drama we're looking for. You build a brick house and there it stands. It's a fact. How about building your story the way you build a cathedral of playing cards? You choose the position just right and if you don't choke you keep building to the tippy-top. Choose wrong, and the whole thing falls down.

Decide what the next scene must convey, how it will move the story forward, change the characters, complicate the plot. Then decide what scene you will use as a platter to carry all these tasty morsels.

More Hearts and Flowers: The scene must reveal the identity of the person who delivered the flowers to Emily, the person who, supposedly, abducted her. Actually, she wasn't abducted. Emily staged the whole thing and dropped out of sight. When she called her co-worker and told her Mr. X. had sent her flowers, she was setting him up. Mr. X., who works for the same firm as Emily, has been keeping her ex-husband informed of her movements. She wants attention focused on Mr. X. because she expects him to squeal on her former husband. He will, she's sure, finger the other man to get himself off the hook.

We're in New York. This is a huge scene. We want to pull out stops, add as much drama as possible. Do we set the stage in an anonymous office, or do we have our Mr. X. confronted at the American Cafe at Rockerfeller Center? Skaters on the ice. The hunted man sees the police approach, cut off from view in snatches as if they were disjointed frames in a movie. Are they coming toward him? No. He's meeting Emily's ex-husband. It's cold. His breath makes clouds in the air. The scent of charbroiled steak sickens him. There are snow flurries. He's cold. No, he's hot. The police are coming toward him. People around him are slick, befurred, bejewelled--expensive. He's worked too damn hard for a place among them to be humiliated in front of them.

We've got it, folks. This is where our scene will unfold. This is the assembled cast, the emotion of the moment, and we know what's going to happen. At least we know the police are coming to ask him questions, probably to ask him to "assist them in their investigations." We're going to have drama.

Sarah Palin and the new Apostolic reformation
http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2008/3255
by Russ Bellant
October 28, 2008

Sarah Palin has been associated all her adult life with churches and political groups that are way out of the theological and political mainstream. Her extreme policy views as Governor reflect this background and raise questions about what kind of vice president John McCain seeks to have voters endorse.

It has been widely reported that McCain barely knew Palin and his team never fully evaluated her to determine her fitness to be vice president.

A recent report in The Anchorage Daily News stated that evangelist Franklin Graham made the Palin connection to McCain, not Republican professionals. Graham, the once-estranged son of Billy Graham, has strong ties to the various strands of the religious rightwing. He met with McCain on June 30 at his headquarters in Boone, North Carolina, after which Graham issued a statement praising McCain’s "personal faith" and prayed for "God’s will to be done in this upcoming election."

The Daily News concluded that "subsequent events suggest that the price of support for McCain by the fundamentalist Christian leadership would be a vice presidential candidate of their liking. Governor Palin was a logical choice for Franklin Graham, whose ties to Alaska include a palatial, by Alaska bush standards, second home in Port Alsworth, a community that has served as a retreat for Christian fundamentalist leaders."

Graham has been the keynote speaker at Palin’s annual prayer breakfasts for the last two years. When she fired the Public Safety Director over what is being investigated as a family matter, few noticed that she hired a local police chief, Chuck Kopp, who was "a rising star in Alaska’s Christian conservative movement," according to the Daily News. He was a frequent speaker at religious and "patriotic" gatherings, but perhaps more significantly he was a director of a Bible training camp in Port Alsworth primarily funded by Graham.

Those and other ties give credence to Graham’s support for Palin. When her nomination was ratified at the Republican convention, Graham called to congratulate her through the cell phone of Rev. Jerry Prevo, a Republican delegate who is considered the leader of Alaska’s evangelical movement, according to the Washington Post. He is also on the board of directors of Graham’s charity, Samaritan’s Purse.

A recent report in the New Yorker stated that conservative writers around the National Review and the Weekly Standard had met with Palin in 2007 and some had advocated for her.

The Nation reported that she had been vetted by the secretive Council for National Policy just before the convention, but that meeting may have been more of a ratification of the McCain selection. The Council is composed of several hundred of the foremost leaders and funders of the ultraconservative right wing, including billionaires from the Amway families, the Prince families ( the Blackwater mercenary operations in Iraq ), as well as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Phyllis Schlafly and the late Jerry Falwell.

While McCain may have trusted Graham to help him out of the political decline he was experiencing at the time he named Palin as his vice presidential pick, he would have benefited by having a thorough review of her character before he took the plunge with her name.

McCain would have found that she supported Ron Paul, not himself, in the Republican primaries; that she tried to ban books not to her liking; that her amateurish land deals ( building on land that the city did not own ) put Wasilla in deep debt; she also tried to fire people that disagreed with her or crossed her family. He would have found that she was active in churches that are part of a movement that excoriates major Christian denominations while building a movement to take dominion over society. He would have found a Governor who flirts in a fringe rightwing pro militia political party that wants Alaska to secede from the United States.

Until 2002, Palin was a member of the Wasilla Assembly of God. While the name suggests a church of a conservative Pentecostal denomination, it was and is more than that. The background of this and other Palin churches needs more than a thirty second word bite to explain, which is why so little has been written about it.

Palin, since her ascension to Governor in 2006, has been attending the Juneau Christian Center in the state capitol, as well as two nondenominational churches, Wasilla Bible Church and Church on the Rock. All of these churches are in the New Apostolic Reformation ( NAR ), a movement that seeks to sweep away established Christianity, take the reins of governments and purge evil as they see it from the world. These views shape the outlook of their congregants, including those of Sarah Palin.

Once a marginal and condemned campaign, NAR’s foremost leader, C. Peter Wagner, estimates his movement to now have as many churches as the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. They have hundreds of millions of dollars, mass communications networks, political infrastructure and many youth ministries at their disposal.

Origins of movements are always an arbitrary judgment, but many trace this phenomenon to the Latter Rain revival movement of the late 1940’s that began in Saskatchewan and spread across the continent, prophesying end times. In Detroit, the Bethesda Missionary Temple ( now Bethesda Christian Church in Sterling Heights ) became a national beacon for the movement.

Much of the movement was occurring within the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination. The Assemblies of God Superintendent at the time condemned the Latter Rain as "the reappearance of enthusiastic mysticism common in church history." Many Assemblies churches left the denomination to grow the movement on their own.

Unbridled by no denominational accountability, they developed concepts of sinless, sainted, perfect leaders that would themselves become gods or godlike. Others saw themselves as first century apostles leading a reformation, not for the saving of souls, but for temporal power. Many evolved cultic control over members, demanding deep submission to "anointed" leaders.

Ministries were created to penetrate business, church denominations, governments and political parties. Prayer breakfasts have been held at the Pentagon that won over many generals and admirals, for instance. When Sarah Palin was campaigning for Governor, Wasilla Assembly of God held a special service to outline the need to penetrate government, business, media, education and other social sectors and then laid hands on her for winning the election.

Many recruited to the task of being placed in positions were instructed to keep their affiliations and mission secret so that the true scope of the campaign would not be known until they took power. Others went further underground, organizing cell churches to prepare for apocalyptic battle.

The Latter Rain evolved into the NAR of today with many types of self-anointed apostles and prophets. Some of them travel through Palin’s churches. They promote creationism, antigay justifications, end-times doom and building the end time army, sometimes called Joel’s army, referenced as a terrifying army in the Book of Joel.

The Wasilla Assembly of God, where Palin still comes for special events, has a three-year youth Masters Commission as an alternative to college. NAR leaders are part of the teaching program. Palin spoke at their recent graduation exercise in June, according to the New York Times. Palin has been in a prayer warrior group for 20 years, according to the Times. When she speaks on conservative Christian radio, she refers to support from "prayer warriors."

She appointed an elder of her Wasilla Bible Church to a vacated State Representative seat in 2007. He promptly sought to outlaw late term abortions and is promoting a state mandate that "intelligent design" be taught in public schools.

The Juneau Christian Church that she attends when she is in the estate capitol is affiliated with leaders of the "Toronto Blessing," an ultra-charismatic practice that includes "Holy Laughter" (otherwise known as hysterical laughter), howling, barking like dogs, screaming, spasmodic jerking and rolling on floors as part of, even the substance of, "church" services. This may sound harmless, but it binds members together in perceived antidemonic "power evangelism" to turn their cities into citadels for the righteous. One of these leaders exhorted the congregants to great applause when he claimed their movement is "going to shake this nation to its very foundations, to its very core...its going to shake America like a tsunami" and told them they would have to risk death for the cause.

Palin has to accept many of these beliefs to be in good stead and be upheld as she has been by these churches. Did McCain ask her whether she accepts the creationist dogma that the earth is only 6,000 years old? What does that mean for her policy of science and education? Did her militant antiabortion views cause her to force women who were rape victims in Wasilla to pay for rape kits on their own in order to prove they had been assaulted in order to reduce the number of rape claims and ensuing demands for abortion? Did Palin, as one minister reported, conduct sidewalk harassment outside of a doctor’s office because she performed abortions at the local hospital, in order to intimidate the doctor?

Finally, does she hold views on the Biblical end times that welcomes the long-prophesied war with Russia as a precursor to the Millenium? In her interview with ABC’s Charles Gibson, war with Russia seemed fine with her.

In September 2000, when she was Mayor of Wasilla, Palin asked the City Council to make Wasilla part of Bill Gothard’s City of Character program. Unbeknownst to the Council, Gothard runs secretive Christian paramilitary training camps. His practice of extreme submission of participants in his Institute of Basic Life Principles has been cited for abuse by officials in Indiana and is a source of controversy in evangelical circles. Gothard tries to use his entrée into municipalities to develop training programs in police departments, as well as have government sponsors for his indoctrination practices.

A powerful theme throughout the NAR movement is that the U.S. must become a "Christian nation," which means the truly godly ( NAR leaders ) must rule and reign. Some have backed a small political party, the Constitution Party, ( actually the third largest political party in the U.S. ), which calls for the establishment of "Biblical law," a term used by some party founders to advocate replacing the Constitution with Old Testament law.

With this kind of background, what does it say for McCain’s judgment, for his concern for the leadership of our country, that he would select her to be vice president of the United States, even when she stated that she was unsure what the duties of the VP were? He stated at the time that she was the most qualified person in the United States for this position. He has selected the most extreme elected official holding high office to now be one weak heartbeat from the presidency. Already some of Palin’s NAR supporters are issuing "imprecatory prayers" that God kill McCain so that Palin becomes President. They want his soul saved first, however.

The Republican machinery has responded to McCain’s choice by keeping her away from the media, sending her to safe crowds on a scripted leash. She may be the only VP candidate who does not hold a press conference and allow questions to be asked of her.

Incidentally, the Ron Paul guy that she backed against McCain in the primaries, has not returned the favor to Palin. He has endorsed the Constitution Party candidate, a Florida megachurch pastor.

And finally, John Hagee, the "spiritual advisor that McCain dumped when researcher Bruce Wilson produced videotapes of Hagee saying God used Hitler to teach Jews a lesson- well, he will be at Palin’s church in Juneau in March 2009.

VERSE:
   If you do not obey the LORD, and if you rebel against his
commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your
fathers.
    -- 1 Samuel 12:15

http://www.screenwriting.info/

http://www.writing.com/main/writing

ome key questions to answer in a synopsis

What is this story about?

Who are the main characters?

What do these characters want?

Why do they want it?

What stands in their way of getting it?

How to write a great synopsis

Write your synopsis in the present tense.

Focus on your characters and what is happening to them.

Give the editor a sense of the setting, tone and pace of your novel – they are your reader and you have to entice them.

Make sure you follow the editor’s instructions/guidelines for your synopsis. Some editors ask for short, single spaced synopses. Others like longer synopses that are double-spaced.

Don’t just reproduce the first pages of your novel. Make your synopsis as creative as you can but it must also be a true representation of your story at the same time.

Do not leave out your ‘cliff-hangers’. As hard as it is, you have to tell them exactly what happens in your book – this means everything!

Include all the sub-plots and how they interact/affect your main plot and characters.

Don’t include your character’s physical description unless it affects the plot in an important way (i.e. ‘Kathy’ has long brown curly hair, brown eyes, and a beautiful smile…etc. It is more of; ‘Kathy’s stubborn streak only increased her chances of coming to blows with ‘Richard’…).

Don’t include any secondary characters unless they are important to the plot and also affect your main characters.

Put your name and the book title in the upper right hand corner. Papers easily get shuffled and this helps keep your submission together.

Try reading your synopsis aloud to yourself. Listen to the flow of your sentences. You’ll find room for reconstruction by doing this and it will make all the difference for your synopsis. Also have someone read it out loud and listen to how it sounds as a second party – this will give you a good indication of what the editor will read/hear in your synopsis.

If you’re still having trouble creating your synopsis, try writing a brief descriptive paragraph like those found on the backs of novels. Try summing up your book in that way first. Be explosive. Then begin to expand it from there, making sure to include all the important events of your book and main character information.

**Important: If and when the editor requests to see your manuscript, make sure you mark your proposal/manuscript ‘requested material’ on the outside of the package so it will not get buried in the ‘slush’ pile. This will ensure that your editor will get your manuscript immediately.

Writing a synopsis is not an impossible feat and but it does take time, energy, and patience. When writing your synopsis, write with confidence. A synopsis is your way of selling your novel. Take your time in writing it but don’t take forever! These tips to writing a synopsis will only aid in making yours better. Good luck with your writing!

Secret Gospel of Mark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

* 1 Content
o 1.1 Lacunae and continuity
+ 1.1.1 The Young Man in the Linen Cloth
+ 1.1.2 The Lacuna in the Trip to Jericho
* 2 Issues of authenticity
* 3 Interpretation of Secret Mark
o 3.1 The theory of a "secret initiation"
* 4 Notes
* 5 References
* 6 External links

[edit] Content

In the Mar Saba letter, the Secret Gospel of Mark is described as a second "more spiritual" version of the Gospel of Mark composed by the evangelist himself. Its purpose was supposedly to encourage knowledge (gnosis) among more advanced Christians, and it was said to be in use in liturgies in Alexandria.[1]

The letter includes two excerpts from the Secret Gospel. The first is to be inserted, Clement states, between what are verses 34 and 35 of Mark 10:

The second excerpt is very brief and is to be inserted, according to Clement, in Mark 10:46:

And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them.

While Clement endorses these two passages as authentic to the secret gospel of Mark, he rejects as a Carpocratian corruption the words "naked man with naked man".

These two excerpts comprise the entirety of the secret gospel material; no separate text of the secret gospel is known to survive, if indeed such a text or any further material contained within this gospel ever existed.

[edit] Lacunae and continuity

The two excerpts suggest resolutions to some puzzling passages in the canonical Mark.

[edit] The Young Man in the Linen Cloth

In Mark 14:51-52, a young man in a linen cloth is seized during Jesus' arrest, but he escapes at the cost of his clothing. To some interpreters, this passage may seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the narrative, and it has been suggested that the young man is Mark himself. The first excerpt, however, recounts an earlier encounter of Jesus with such a young man in a cloth. However, the majority of commentators hold that the boy lived in or near the garden and after being awakened, ran out, half-dressed, to see what all the noise was about (vv. 46-49). W. L. Lane thinks that Mark mentioned this episode in order to make it clear that "all [not only the disciples] fled, leaving Jesus alone in the custody of the police."[2]

[edit] The Lacuna in the Trip to Jericho

The second excerpt fills in an apparent lacuna in Mark 10:46:

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.

The lack of any action in Jericho is interpreted by some as meaning that something has been lost from the text, and the second excerpt gives a brief encounter at this point. Helmut Koester and J. D. Crossan have argued, because of the narrative discontinuity, that Secret Mark preceded the canonical Mark, leaving open the question of whether the canonical Mark is an abbreviated Secret Mark, with an original "Mark for the uninitiated" having been lost.

[edit] Issues of authenticity

The Secret Gospel is known only from the Mar Saba letter, which is itself only known from the copy discovered by Morton Smith. Therefore at least three questions of authenticity arise:

1. whether the Mar Saba letter is a genuine letter of Clement
2. whether Clement's quotations are accurate
3. whether the excerpts quoted reflect a genuine Marcan tradition

In 1982 Morton Smith summarized the state of the question as follows:

1. Attribution to Clement was accepted.
2. Clement's attribution of the excerpts to "Mark" was rejected.
3. The source of the excerpts was variously ascribed to a separate apocryphal gospel, a pastiche of canonical material, or an expansion of the canonical text using early material of unknown provenance.

The authenticity of the Mar Saba letter itself has long been the subject of controversy. The manuscript and the book where it was found have disappeared; all that remains are photographs made by Professor Smith in 1958 and by other scholars in 1976.[3] Morton Smith's discovery was for long never scrutinized by other experts, because the copy of the letter had been seen by no other scholar than Smith. In 1976, G.A.G. Stroumsa and three other scholars relocated the document and took color photographs. The book was taken from Mar Saba to the library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem in 1977, where the letter (a manuscript) was cut from the book (a print) as part of the library's scheme to house such material separately; it was again photographed, by librarian Kallistos Dourvas. The manuscript cannot now be relocated and the second and third photo series were only published after 1999. Thus, the letter is presently only documented in the three sets of photographs, at least one photo of which shows Smith's initials written on the page. The ink and fiber was never subjected to examination.[citation needed]

In addition, prior to Smith's discovery of the Secret Gospel, he had written about Mark's mystery of the Kingdom of God and forbidden sexual practices, which coincidentally were a key part of the Gospel that he then discovered.[citation needed]

Further when Peter Jeffery examined the photographs supplied by Smith, he claimed to observe a "forger's tremor." The letters had not actually been written at all, but drawn with shaky pen lines, and with lifts of the pen in the middle of strokes. Comparisons with Morton Smith's own rendering of Greek letters revealed that the same unusual formation of the letters theta and lambda in the Secret Gospel of Mark matched Smith's own peculiar formation of those letters.[citation needed]

Scholars Philip Jenkins, Robert M. Price and Scott G. Brown noticed parallels between The Secret Gospel of Mark and a novel by James Hunter published in 1940 entitled The Mystery of Mar Saba.[4]

A fuller account of the evidence for both the forgery of this letter and Dr Smith's part in it is spelt out in Stephen Carlson's The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2005).

[edit] Interpretation of Secret Mark

According to N. T. Wright most scholars who accept the text as genuine see in the Secret Gospel of Mark a considerably later gnostic adaptation of Mark in a gnostic direction.[5]

F. F. Bruce sees the story of the young man of Bethany clumsily based on the raising of Lazarus in the Gospel of John and evidently no independent parallel or even source to this story.[6]

The statement "Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God" has been interpreted as a reference to the rites of baptism. The idea that Jesus practised baptism is absent from the synoptic gospels, though it is introduced in the Gospel of John. Several further echoes of Secret Mark are identifiable in the canonic Mark, according to textual analysts.

[edit] The theory of a "secret initiation"
This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this section if you can. (February 2007)

Another theory was presented in the May 9, 2005 Issue of the Canadian Magazine Maclean's by Brian Bethune:

"One of these techniques is known as intercalation: the evangelist frames one story within another, leading readers to understand the first in light of the second."

In Mark 10:35, James and John ask Christ for positions of higher honour once Jesus is an earthly ruler. Jesus responds "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"

This baptism is thought to represent Jesus' crucifixion.[7] If the boy whom Jesus raised from the dead in the Secret Gospel of Mark was taken privately to learn the secret that was available only to those who had died and were "reborn," through knowing Jesus, it would be, by speculation, the true price one has to pay to enter the kingdom of God. However, Jesus' statement in verse 45, that he came "to give his life as a ransom for many," makes such a reading of his previous statement problematic.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Theissen, Gerd; Annette Merz (1998). The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, p. 46. ISBN 0800631226.
2. ^ Mark (NICNT), pp. 527-28
3. ^ New York Times article by Peter Steinfels, published 31 March 2007
4. ^ Peter Jeffery, The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery (Yale University Press, 2006 ISBN: 0300117604)
5. ^ N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 1996, p 49
6. ^ F. F. Bruce, "The 'Secret' Gospel of Mark
7. ^ Daniel J. Harrington, Mark (New Jerome Bible Commentary), p. 618.

[edit] References

* Stephen C. Carlson, Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark, Baylor University Press, 2005.
* Peter Jeffery, The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery (Yale University Press, 2006 ISBN: 0300117604)
* Robert M. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament Harper and Row, 1963: Chapter 8: The Gospel of Mark
* Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark Harvard University Press, 1973 [the scholarly version].
* Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark [updated version 2005 with foreword from Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels]
* Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade. in series Studies in Homosexuality, Vol XII: Homosexuality and Religion and Philosophy. Ed. Wayne Dynes & Stephen Donaldson. New York and London: Garland, 1992. pp. 295-307.
* Morton Smith, Jesus, the Magician, (New York: Harper & Row) 1978.
* The Apocryphon of James, or, "The Secret Book of James" http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/secretjames.html
* Catholic Encyclopedia, "Clement of Alexandria," http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04045a.htm
* Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1971. pp. 122-126.
* Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament, Pilgrim Press, 2003.

[edit] External links

* What happened to the copy of Clement's letter?
* Second Thoughts on the Secret Gospel by Robert M Price
* Charles W. Hedrick with Nikolaos Olympiou, "Secret Mark" The Fourth R, Volume 13,5; (Sept/Oct 2000): contains account of manuscript history and color images of the manuscript
* Review of Stephen Carlson's "The Gospel Hoax" - review of book which presents evidence that Smith created Secret Mark as a hoax.
* Wieland Willker, "Secret Gospel of Mark Homepage": detailed description of the manuscript, images, Greek and English text, current developments.
* Early Christian Writings website: Secret Mark. Text and on-line resources.
* Early Christian Writings website: the "Mar Saba Letter" of Clement
* Miles Fowler, "Identification of the Bethany Youth in the Secret Gospel of Mark with other Figures Found in Mark and John" proposes that some 1st-century Christians understood that up to five seemingly separate youths now found in Mark, Secret Mark, and John, were identical.
* Shawn Eyer, "The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel According to Mark: How Morton Smith's Discovery of a Lost Letter by Clement of Alexandria Scandalized Biblical Scholarship": scholarly and popular response to the discovery
* Brian Bethune, "Mark's secret gospel": Macleans article discussing the secret gospel and controversy surrounding it.
* F. F. Bruce: The 'Secret' Gospel of Mark (Ethel M. Wood Lecture delivered before the University of London on 11 February 1974)

[img[http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1980/1101800922_400.jpg]]


This is just a random generated date.

I can't quite remember much about this time.  I must have been getting ready for vacation as I was in Florida, Fort Myers on Election Day  and Halloween. Ronald Reagan won as president.  

Me and my g/f took her son, Max, Trick and Treating.

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Bloch-SermonOnTheMount.jpg]]

This is built on the Ruby on Rails platform

http://www.serversidewiki.com/

Indianapolis

Blue Hole

Plainfield Pits

Frog City

House of Blue Lights

Lover's Lane

Downtown Catacombs

The tunnel

Shelby Lynne
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Shelby Lynne
Shelby Lynne (2008)
Shelby Lynne (2008)
Background information
Birth name Shelby Lynne Moorer
Born October 22, 1968 (1968-10-22) (age 39)
Origin Quantico, Virginia, United States
Genre(s) Country, pop, rock
Occupation(s) singer-songwriter
Instrument(s) voice, guitar
Years active 1988-present
Label(s) Epic (1988–1992)
Morgan Creek / Mercury (1993–1994)
Magnatone / Curb (1995–1996)
Island (1998–2002)
Capitol (2003–2006)
Lost Highway (2007–present)
Website www.shelbylynne.com

Shelby Lynne (born Shelby Lynne Moorer, October 22, 1968, Quantico, Virginia) is an American country music singer, songwriter and actress. She won a Grammy Award in 2001 for Best New Artist.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Biography
o 1.1 Early life
o 1.2 Early career
o 1.3 Breakthrough
o 1.4 Additional projects
* 2 Personal life
* 3 Discography
o 3.1 Studio albums
o 3.2 Compilation albums
o 3.3 Singles
* 4 References
* 5 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Shelby Lynne grew up in Frankville, Alabama. Her father was a local bandleader and her mother a harmony-singing teacher, and as children, she and her younger sister Allison Moorer — later a country recording artist in her own right — sometimes joined their parents on-stage to sing along. While the family was living in the small town of St. Stephens, Alabama, Lynne's father, an abusive alcoholic, shot and killed her mother and then himself when Lynne was 17[1].

The sisters briefly lived with an aunt until Lynne turned 18, whereupon she married a friend from home. The marriage lasted only a year. Lynne began supporting herself and her sister by playing music in local clubs and eventually the two moved to Nashville. Lynne appeared on TNN's Nashville Now in 1987, and soon landed a recording contract with Epic Records.

[edit] Early career

Lynne's first recording for Epic was a duet with George Jones, "If I Could Bottle This Up", which became a top-50 hit in 1988. Epic teamed Lynne with producer Billy Sherrill for her 1989 debut album Sunrise. The follow-up, 1990's Tough All Over, took more of a mainstream country direction, and 1991's Soft Talk found Lynne moving into slick country-pop.

Lynne placed several songs on the country charts during this period, but none managed to break into the top 20. Critics generally regarded her as a promising talent, and she won the ACM's Top New Female Vocalist in 1990.

However, she was tiring of the lack of control she was afforded over her image and musical direction. She split from Epic and signed with the smaller Morgan Creek label, debuting with 1993's Temptation, an exercise in Bob Wills-style Western swing and big band jazz. The label folded not long after, and she moved on to Magnatone for 1995's Restless, which marked a return to contemporary-style country. Afterward, Lynne disappeared from recording for several years.

[edit] Breakthrough

Lynne moved to Palm Springs in 1998 and released the confessional and eclectic Rhythm and Blues album I Am Shelby Lynne in 1999 (released in US in 2000) to wide critical acclaim; on the strength of the album Lynne won a Grammy award for "Best New Artist", despite the fact that she had been recording and releasing records for more than ten years (which she referred to in her acceptance speech).

Her 2001 follow up album, Love, Shelby featured a slicker, more pop-influenced sound. This album was a moderate commercial success but received mixed reviews. In 2003, Lynne released the critically-acclaimed Identity Crisis produced, engineered, and mixed by Bruce Robb (producer) in association with Bruce Robb Productions. Though not a commercial success, many magazines rated the album among the best of 2003. 2005's Suit Yourself has also been well received by critics. Lynne's most recent album - Just a Little Lovin', released on January 29, 2008 — is a tribute to singer Dusty Springfield, which has garnered favorable press as well.

[edit] Additional projects
Shelby Lynne (2008)
Shelby Lynne (2008)

Not long after the September 11 attacks, Lynne was a part of the high-profile gathering of artists at Radio City Music Hall in New York City who paid tribute to John Lennon, an event broadcast in October 2001 on The WB as Come Together: A Night for John Lennon's Words and Music. In the concert, Lynne performed Lennon's song "Mother".

In 2002 she sings a duet with Raul Malo (The Mavericks) On his first solo-album called Today. The song is titled "Takes Two To Tango".

Shelby guests on three songs on her sister Allison Moorer's live album 'Show', released in 2003.

In 2004, Lynne was featured in a duet version of alternative rock band Live's song "Run Away." This rendition can be found on the band's greatest hits compilation Awake: The Best of Live.

Lynne portrayed Carrie Cash in the 2005 Johnny Cash biographical film, Walk the Line. Two years later in 2007, Lynne appeared in an episode of the Showtime original series Head Case with Alexandra Wentworth. Also in 2007, she performed background vocals on Marc Cohn's fourth album, Join the Parade, and contributed to "Forever Cool," a 2007 album from Capitol/EMI featuring contemporary artists in duets with the late Dean Martin. Alongside Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Lynne performed a duet of one of Martin's best known tunes, "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You".

In addition to work on her own most recent album, Lynne wrote "She Knows Where She Goes", one of the songs featured on Allison Moorer's 2008 album, Mockingbird. The album overall focuses on the works of various female singer-songwriters, including Lynne, June Carter Cash, Gillian Welch and others.

[edit] Personal life

Shelby Lynne has neither confirmed or denied rumors that she is a lesbian. She told The New York Times in a 2007 interview "I've done everything on every corner of the universe but I'm not going to make an annoucement about it". [2]

When Lynne was questioned about her sexual orientation in a January 2008 interview with The Advocate she said "its not anybody's business who I sleep with or who I f---! I don't give a s--t what the magazine is. People are going to come up with whatever they want to come up with on their own; I don't have to make announcements".[3]

[edit] Discography

[edit] Studio albums
Year Album Chart Positions Label
US Country US 200 US Heat
1989 Sunrise 61 Epic
1990 Tough All Over 31
1991 Soft Talk 55
1993 Temptation 55 21 Morgan Creek/Mercury
1995 Restless 72 Magnatone
1999 I Am Shelby Lynne 165 18 Mercury/Island
2001 Love, Shelby 109 1 Island
2003 Identity Crisis 160 5 Capitol
2005 Suit Yourself 11
2008 Just a Little Lovin' 41 Lost Highway

[edit] Compilation albums
Year Album Label
2000 This Is Shelby Lynne: The Best of the Epic Years Epic
Epic Recordings
2006 The Definitive Collection Mercury

[edit] Singles
Year Song Chart Positions Album
US Country US AC CAN Country
1988 "If I Could Bottle This Up" (w/ George Jones) 43 Friends in High Places (George Jones album)
1989 "Under Your Spell Again" 93 Single only
"Hurtin' Side" 38 Sunrise
"Little Bits and Pieces" 62 85
1990 "I'll Lie Myself to Sleep" 26 37 Tough All Over
"Things Are Tough All Over" 23 19
1991 "What About the Love We Made" 45 86
"The Very First Lasting Love" (w/ Les Taylor) 50 41 Soft Talk
"Don't Cross Your Heart" 54 95
1993 "Feelin' Kind of Lonely Tonight" 69 Temptation
"Tell Me I'm Crazy"
1995 "Slow Me Down" 59 Restless
"I'm Not the One"
2000 "Leavin'" I Am Shelby Lynne
"Gotta Get Back" 26
2001 "Killin' Kind"A Love Shelby
2002 "Wall in Your Heart" 22
2003 "Telephone" Identity Crisis
"Lonesome"
2005 "I Won't Die Alone" Suit Yourself
"Go With It"
2007 "Anyone Who Had a Heart" Just a Little Lovin'

* A Peaked at #30 on Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks chart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_of_the_cross

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Christus_Ravenna_Mosaic.jpg/478px-Christus_Ravenna_Mosaic.jpg]]

The Sign of the Cross, or Signum crucis in Latin, is a ritual hand motion made by members of many but not all branches of Christianity. It may be accompanied by the trinitarian formula. For Christians the motion symbolizes the Cross on Calvary by tracing the shape of the cross in the air or on one's own body. There are two principal forms, one followed by Eastern Orthodox Churches, and the other by the Western Churches (Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Roman Catholicism) and Oriental Orthodoxy. The sign is rarely used by non-liturgical or evangelical Protestants.
Contents

* 1 The gesture
* 2 Use of the sign
* 3 Origins of the sign of the cross
* 4 Low-Church attitudes
o 4.1 Lutheranism
o 4.2 Methodism
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

The gesture

The hand. The open right hand is used in the Churches of the West. The five open fingers represent The Five Wounds of Christ. Though this is the most common method of crossing by Western Christians, other forms are sometimes used. The West also employs the "Small Sign of the Cross" in which a small cross is traced with the thumb over the forehead, lips, and breast of the individual while whispering the words "May Christ's words be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart". This is used at the Proclamation of the Gospel at Holy Mass and also is commonly used when blessing oneself with holy water when leaving or entering a church. In the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the thumb, index, and middle finger are brought to a point, symbolizing the Trinity (the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit/Ghost, three persons sharing a single essence), the remaining two fingers (kept pressed together and touching the palm) representing the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ. However, the Russian Orthodox in the past used two fingers brought to a point with the three remaining fingers pressed down. Russian Old Believers still use this form. The Oriental Orthodox (Armenians, Copts, Ethiopians etc.) generally use the "Western" direction as well, though often with the Byzantine finger formation.
Detail of the painting Boyarynya Morozova by Vasily Surikov depicting a defiant Old Believer holding up two fingers (instead of three) during her arrest.
Detail of the painting Boyarynya Morozova by Vasily Surikov depicting a defiant Old Believer holding up two fingers (instead of three) during her arrest.

In Russia until the reforms of Patriarch Nikon in the 17th century, it was customary to make the sign of the cross with two fingers (symbolising the dual nature of Christ). The enforcement of the three-finger sign was one of the reasons for the schism with the Old Believers whose congregations continue to use the two-finger sign of the cross.

The motion. The sign of the Cross is made by touching the hand sequentially to the forehead, sternum, and both shoulders, accompanied by the Trinitarian formula: at the forehead: In the name of the Father (or In nomine Patris in Latin); at the stomach or heart: and of the Son (et Filii); across the shoulders from left to right: and of the Holy Spirit/Ghost (et Spiritus Sancti); and finally: Amen.

There are several interpretations, according to Church Fathers:[1] the forehead symbolizes Heaven; the stomach, the earth; the shoulders, the place and sign of power. Also, the hand to the forehead may be seen as a prayer to the Father for wisdom; the hand to the stomach as a prayer to the Son who became incarnate; and the hand to the shoulders as a prayer to the Holy Spirit.
Position of the fingers used by Old Believers while making the sign of the cross.
Position of the fingers used by Old Believers while making the sign of the cross.

There are some variations: for example a person may first place the right hand in holy water. After moving the hand from one shoulder to the other, it may be returned to the stomach. It may also be accompanied by the recitation of a prayer e.g the Jesus Prayer, or simply "Lord have mercy". In some cultures it is customary to kiss one's hand or fingers at the conclusion of the gesture.

Sequence Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) gave the following instruction:

The sign of the cross is made with three fingers, because the signing is done together with the invocation of the Trinity. ... This is how it is done: from above to below, and from the right to the left, because Christ descended from the heavens to the earth, and from the Jews (right) He passed to the Gentiles (left). Others, however, make the sign of the cross from the left to the right, because from misery (left) we must cross over to glory (right), just as Christ crossed over from death to life, and from Hades to Paradise. [Some priests] do it this way so that they and the people will be signing themselves in the same way. You can easily verify this — picture the priest facing the people for the blessing — when we make the sign of the cross over the people, it is from left to right...

Writers such as Herbert Thurston, author of the article Sign of the Cross in the Catholic Encyclopedia interpret this as indicating that at that time both Eastern and Western Christians moved the hand from the right shoulder to the left. However, Thurston confesses that the point is not entirely clear. He quotes another liturgist who inclined to the opinion that in this passage of Innocent III,[2] and in those of Belethus,[3] Sicardus[4] and Durandus,[5] which are usually appealed to in proof of this, these authors had in mind the small cross made upon the forehead or external objects, in which the hand moves naturally from right to left, and not the big cross made from shoulder to shoulder.

Today, Western Christians and the Oriental Orthodox touch the left shoulder before the right. Orthodox Christians use the right-to-left movement. A Greek catechetical textbook attempted to explain the difference between the Latin and the Greek customs by saying that the right side is associated with holiness, and the heart (on the left) with the spirit, so that those who, in mentioning the Holy Spirit, used the Latin phrase "Spiritus Sancti" (noun before adjective) touched left before right, while those who said, in Greek, "τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος" (adjective before noun) did the opposite.

[edit] Use of the sign

The Sign of the Cross may be made by individuals upon themselves as a form of prayer, and by clergy upon others or objects as an act of blessing. Priests are allowed to bless using the right hand, while bishops may bless simultaneously with both, the left mirroring the right. While individuals may make it at any time, clergy must make it at specific times (as in liturgies), and it is customary to make it on other occasions (see below).

During rituals such as the Roman Catholic Mass the Sign is required at certain points: the laity sign themselves at the beginning of the Eucharist, at the Gospel and at the final blessing; additionally, the celebrant makes the Sign over the bread and wine before the Words of Institution (i.e. words of Christ). In the Tridentine Mass the priest signs the bread and wine 25 times during the Canon of the Mass, ten times before and fifteen times after they have been consecrated. In the Mass of Paul VI the priest signs them once only and before the consecration. Roman Catholic bishops make the Sign of the Cross three times when they are blessing a large group of people, at the names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Icon of St. Basil the Great depicting the manner in which an Orthodox priest or bishop holds his hand when he blesses.
Icon of St. Basil the Great depicting the manner in which an Orthodox priest or bishop holds his hand when he blesses.

In the Eastern traditions, both celebrant and congregation make the Sign of the Cross much more frequently than in Western Christianity. It is customary in some Eastern traditions to cross oneself at each petition in a litany, and to closely associate oneself with a particular intention being prayed for or with a saint being named. The Sign of the Cross is also made upon entering or leaving a church building, at the start and end of personal prayer, when passing the main altar (which represents Christ), whenever all three persons of the Trinity are addressed, and when approaching an icon.

When an Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic bishop or priest blesses with the sign of the cross, he holds the fingers of his right hand in such a way that they form the Greek abbreviation for Jesus Christ "IC XC". The little finger is extended to make the "I"; the index finger and middle finger are also raised, with the middle finger bent slightly so that the two fingers together form the "X"; the thumb touches the lowered third finger to signify the two "C"s. When a priest blesses in the sign of the cross, he positions the fingers of his right hand in the manner described as he raises his right hand, then moves his hand downwards, then to his left, then to his right. A bishop blesses with both hands (unless he is holding some sacred object such as a blessing cross, chalice, Gospel Book, icon, etc.), holding the fingers of both hands in the same configuration, but when he moves his right hand to the left, he simultaneously moves his left hand to the right, so that the two hands cross, the left in front of the right, and then the right in front of the left. The blessing of both priests and bishops consists of three movements, in honour of the Holy Trinity.

Some Christians make the Sign of the Cross in a way that may seem idiomatic: for example, in response to perceived blasphemy. Others sign themselves to seek God's blessing before or during an event with uncertain outcome. In Latin countries people often sign themselves in public. Athletes can be seen crossing themselves before entering the field or while concentrating for competition.

In societies with constant Christian observance the Sign of the Cross is employed during everyday activities. For example the spoon crosses the newly poured mixture before stirring, housewives bless food when placing it in the oven, potters bless the clay before creating a vessel, and one slicing bread crosses the bread with the knife before cutting, as bread is considered to represent the body of Christ.

During persecutions, such as in Communist Romania, some believers would hide the gesture by moving their tongues in a cross pattern inside their mouths.

[edit] Origins of the sign of the cross
Ravenna mosaic, 6th c.: Jesus is portrayed gesturing a sign of the cross with his right hand facing outward, like a Christian priest giving a blessing. (Christ Pantocrator).
Ravenna mosaic, 6th c.: Jesus is portrayed gesturing a sign of the cross with his right hand facing outward, like a Christian priest giving a blessing. (Christ Pantocrator).

The Christian sign of the cross was originally made with the right hand thumb and across the forehead only. The custom is attested to as early as the second century[citation needed].

Vestiges of this practice remain: some Christians sign a cross on their forehead to hear the Gospels during Mass; foreheads are marked with an ash cross on Ash Wednesday; holy oil (called chrism) is applied on the forehead for the sacrament of Confirmation. Around year 200 in Carthage (modern Tunisia, Africa), Tertullian says: "We Christians wear out our foreheads with the sign of the cross". It is thought that by the end of the second century Christians signed the cross on their forehead before taking any risk, such as embarking on a journey[citation needed].

By the fourth century, the sign of the cross involved other parts of the body beyond the forehead. By the sixth century, these variations of smaller signs across the body became the one larger sign used now[citation needed].

[edit] Low-Church attitudes

Although the Sign of the Cross dates to early Christianity, it was generally rejected by the Reformers and is mostly absent from Protestantism. Since the Reformation it has generally been rejected by Protestants and some Low-Church Anglicans as being a Catholic practice.

[edit] Lutheranism

Among Lutherans the practice was widely retained. For example, Luther's Small Catechism states that it is expected before the morning and evening prayers. In addition, the sign of the cross is customary in the Divine Service.[6][7] Rubrics in Contemporary Lutheran worship manuals, including Evangelical Lutheran Worship,[8] Lutheran Service Book,[9] Lutheran Book of Worship[10] and Lutheran Worship[11] provide for making the sign of the cross at certain points in the liturgy. Although Lutheranism never abandoned the practice of of making the sign of the cross in principle, it was largely in disuse until the liturgical renewal movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, the sign of the cross has become more commonplace among Lutherans at worship.

[edit] Methodism

The United Methodist Church is essentially a product of the Protestant Reformation and consequently tends to be iconoclastic — that is rejecting statues, icons, and many other practices which it sees as being "Catholic".[12] Currently the sign of the cross is made regularly by few Methodists, but on Ash Wednesday it is almost always applied by the elder on the laity.[13]

[edit] See also

* Christian cross
* Christian symbolism
* Prayer in Christianity
* Veneration
* Genuflection
* Trinitarian formula

[edit] References

1. ^ Prayer Book, edited by the Romanian Orthodox Church, several editions (Carte de rugăciuni - Editura Institutului biblic şi de misiune al Bisericii ortodoxe române, 2005),
2. ^ De myst. Alt., II, xlvi.
3. ^ xxxix
4. ^ III, iv.
5. ^ V, ii, 13.
6. ^ "Why Do Lutherans Make the Sign of the Cross?". Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Retrieved on 2007-06-16.
7. ^ "Sign of the Cross". Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Retrieved on 2007-09-12.
8. ^ Minneapolis:Augsburg Fortress, 2006
9. ^ St. Louis: Concordia, 2006
10. ^ Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1978
11. ^ St. Louis: Concordia, 1982
12. ^ "Can United Methodists use the sign of the cross?". United Methodist Church. Retrieved on 2007-06-16.
13. ^ "What is the significance of ashes being placed on the forehead on Ash Wednesday?". Retrieved on 2007-06-16.

[edit] External links

* Sign of the Cross - entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia
* Why Do Lutherans Make the Sign of the Cross? - from the ELCA website (broken link)
* Sign of the Cross - from the LCMS website
* Sign of the Cross - from the Episcopal Church's website
* The Power of the Sign of the Cross - (Ukrainian church)
* The Sign of the Cross - a Traditional Catholic perspective
* Significance of the Sign of the Cross
* How to Make a Sign of Cross Correctly (Eastern Orthodox)
* On making the Sign of The Cross (Old Believers)
* Sign of the Cross (Old Believers)
* The Church Council of the Hundred Chapters(1551) (Old Believers)
* A site with Marian prayers in different languages; some of the languages have the Sign of the Cross
* Another site with the Lord's Prayer in multiple languages; some of the languages also have the Sign of the Cross

Employees of McDonald's, car wash charged with aiding prostitution
"Going to clean this place up, just like I did New Orleans"—Serpas

As part of a new police vice crackdown, employees at McDonald's and Shur Brite Car Wash were arrested last week and charged with aiding and abetting prostitution.

Brooke Caron, 17, an employee at the McDonald's on Franklin Road, was arrested by Metro Police last Tuesday, accused of selling a Big Mac to an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute.

Caron, a Hillsboro high schooler who works at McDonald's after school to earn spending money, was led away in cuffs with tears running down her face.

"That lady comes through the drive-through all the time," she said. "I thought it was weird when she said into the microphone, 'I am a prostitute and I would like a Big Mac,' but people say all kinds of strange stuff. I just got her food, and then they arrested me."

"It wasn't just a Big Mac; it was a combo, with fries and a Coke," noted Police Chief Ronal Serpas. "Providing nutrition to prostitutes is directly abetting their illegal activities," the chief added. "Their bodies are the commodity that is being sold, and the food fuels the body. It's a clear legal connection."

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Relationship_between_synoptic_gospels.png/461px-Relationship_between_synoptic_gospels.png]]

A TiddlyWiki Web Notebook

Bob's Personal Wiki

So how should we make the sign of the Cross correctly?

We are to put together the first three fingers of the right hand, which symbolizes the Unity of the Holy Inseparable Trinity. The other two fingers should be bent towards the palm signifying the descent of the Son of God to earth from Heaven (two fingers being the image of two natures of Christ). The fingers put together first touch the forehead — to sanctify the mind, then — the belly near the solar plexus — for sanctification of feelings, then to the right and finally to the left shoulder — to sanctify one’s bodily strength. We bow only after the hand is dropped along the body. Why? Because we have just shown the Calvary Cross on ourselves and we bow to it. Incidentally, there is one more widespread mistake: a bow performed simultaneously with the sign of the Cross. We should not do that (break the Cross).

In many old textbooks on the law of God the lower end of the sign of the Cross is mistakenly proposed to be made at the level of the breast. In that case the Cross appears as if it is upside down (the lower part is shorter) and involuntarily it turns into a cross of the Satanists.

The sign of the Cross follows a believer everywhere. We make this sign when we get up and go to bed, going out of our house and entering a church; we make the sign of the Cross both over ourselves and the meal before eating. The sign of the Cross of Christ sanctifies all and everything, so when a believer is making this sign over himself it is brings him closer to salvation and is good for his soul.

789-4867

Guidance Office 789-4867

http://shs.msdpt.k12.in.us/

Speaking In Tongues: An Orthodox Perspective

Fr. George Nicozisin
Speaking in Tongues, "Glossolalia," a popular practice with many Churches today, is a phenomenon which can be traced to the days of the Apostles. A decade ago, Speaking in Tongues was encountered only in Pentecostal Churches, Revival Meetings, Quaker gatherings and some Methodist groups. Today, Glossolalia is also found in some Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches.

The Greek Orthodox Church does not preclude the use of Glossolalia, but regards it as one of the minor gifts of the Holy Spirit. If Glossolalia has fallen out of use it is because it served its purpose in New Testament times and is no longer necessary. However, even when used, it is a private and personal gift, a lower form of prayer. The Orthodox Church differs with those Pentecostal and Charismatic groups which regard Glossolalia as a pre requisite to being a Christian and to having received the Holy Spirit.

Serapion of Egypt, a fourth century contemporary of St. Athanasios summarized Eastern Orthodox theology:

"The Anointing after Baptism is for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, that having been born again through Baptism and made new through the laver of regeneration, the candidates may be made new through the gifts of the Holy Spirit and secured by this Seal may continue steadfast."

Bishop Maximos Aghiorghoussis, Greek Orthodox Diocese of Pittsburgh and world-reknowned Orthodox theologian on the Holy Spirit states it this way: "For Orthodox Christians, Baptism is our personal Paschal Resurrection and Chrismation is our personal Pentecost and indwelling of the Holy Spirit." There are two forms of Glossolalia:

* Pentecost Glossolalia happened this way: Fifty days after the Resurrection, while the disciples were gathered together, the Holy Spirit descended upon them and they began to speak in other languages. Jews from all over the civilized world who were gathered in Jerusalem for the religious holiday stood in amazement as they heard the disciples preaching in their own particular language and dialect (like in a United Nations Assembly). They understood!
* Corinthian Glossolalia is different. St. Paul, who had founded the Church of Corinth, found it necessary to respond to some of their problems, i.e., division of authority, moral and ethical problems, the eucharist, the issue of death and resurrection and how the Gifts of the Holy Spirit operated. In chapter 12, St. Paul lists nine of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, i.e., knowledge, wisdom, spirit, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues and interpreting what another says when he speaks in tongues.

Specifically, Corinthian Glossolalia was an activity of the Holy Spirit coming upon a person and compelling him to external expressions directed to God, but not understood by others. In Pentecost Glossolalia, while speaking in several different tongues, both the speaker and the listener understood what was uttered. The Glossolalia manifested in Corinth was the utterance of words, phrases, sentences, etc., intelligible to God but not to the person uttering them. What was uttered needed to be interpreted by another who had the gift of interpretation.

When the person spoke, his soul became passive and his understanding became inactive. He was in a state of ecstasy. While the words or sounds were prayer and praise, they were not clear in meaning and gave the impression of something mysterious. The phenomenon included sighs, groanings, shoutings, cries and utterances of disconnected speech, sometimes jubilant and some times ecstatic. There is no question-the Church of Corinth had Glossolalia; St. Paul attests to that and makes mention of it. But he also cautions the Corinthian Christians about excessive use; especially to the exclusion of the other more important gifts.

It appears St. Paul was questioned about the working of the Holy Spirit through the Gifts. Corinth was greatly influenced by Greek paganism which included demonstrations, frenzies and orgies all intricately interwoven into their religious practices. In post Homeric times the cult of the Dionysiac orgies made their entrance into the Greek world. According to this, music, the whirling dance, intoxication and utterances had the power to make men divine; to produce a condition in which the normal state was left behind and the inspired person perceived what was external to himself and the senses.

In other words, the soul was supposed to leave the body, hence the word ecstasy (ek stasis). They believed that while the being was absent from the body, the soul was united with the deity. At such times, the ecstatic person had no consciousness of his own.

The Corinthians of Paul's time were living under the influence of Dionysiac religious customs. It was natural that they would find certain similarities more familiar and appealing. Thus the Corinthians began to put more stress on certain gifts like glossolalia. No doubt the Apostle was concerned that their ties and memories of the old life should be reason enough to regulate the employment of Glossolalia. In chapter 14, he says:

"I would like for all of you to speak in strange tongues; but I would rather that you had the gift of proclaiming God's message. For the person who proclaims God's message is of greater value than the one who speaks in strange tongues-unless there is someone who can explain what he says, so the whole Church may be edified. So when I come to you, my brethren, what use will I be to you if I speak in strange tongues? Not a bit, unless I bring to you some revelation from God or some knowledge or some inspired message or some teaching."

Apostolic times were a unique period rich with extraordinary and supernatural phenomena for the history of mankind. The Lord God set out to make new creations through the saving grace of His Son and implemented into perfection through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit endowed men and women with many gifts in order to bring this about. One of its gifts during New Testament times was Glossolalia. But even from New Testament times, it would seem Glossolalia began to phase out. St. Paul, it seems, indicates later in chapter 14 that Glossolalia should be minimized and understood preaching maximized. Justin Martyr, a prolific mid-century writer lists several kinds of gifts but does not mention Glossolalia. Chrysostom wrote numerous homilies on Books of the New Testament during the fourth century but does not appear to make mention of Glossolalia as noted in First Corinthians.

Many Christian writers, certainly the mystics, wrote about states of ecstasy during praise and worship, of seeing visions of God's heavenly kingdom, of what they perceived eternal life with Christ to be, of how the Holy Spirit spoke to them and through them, to others. But theirs was always understood, intelligible, comprehensible communication. Perhaps they could not describe in earthly and material frames of reference what they saw and experienced, but they were conscious and fully aware of what was happening. They were not in some state of senselessness. Even the monks on Mount Athos who experience divine communication and have reached a plateau of holiness, do not speak in tongues. They speak in words that are intelligible and utter clear words in hymn and praise of God and His truth.

What then is the Orthodox Christian perspective on Glossolalia? The Orthodox Christian viewpoint on Glossolalia is based on St. Paul's words in chapter fourteen of the same Epistle: "I thank God that I speak in strange tongues much more than any of you. But in Church worship I would rather speak five words that can be understood, in order to teach others, than speak thou sands of words in strange tongues." (verses 18-19) In chapter thirteen, St. Paul says, "Set your hearts, then, on the more important gifts. Best of all, however, is the following way." Then St. Paul proceeds and shares with his readership the greatest gift of all - Love!

The Orthodox Church does not rule out Glossolalia. She simply does not regard it as one of the important ones. Better to "speak five words that can be understood ... than speak thousands of words in strange tongues." This is the Orthodox Christian viewpoint.

http://www.rueed.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.Display&menusection=3&subsection=272&ID=272

Spencerian College
Louisville, Kentucky

Spencerian College was founded in 1892 by Enos Spencer, a nationally recognized business educator of his time. In the history book entitled Beginning of the Business School, author Charles G. Reigner states: “The name Spencerian has imbedded itself in the consciousness of the American people. The name has been associated with business schools for almost a hundred years. It is an honored name.”

Download Factsheet

Spencerian College still proudly stands for quality career education, expanding into Allied Health and Technology as a growing dynamic institution. Thousands of Spencerian graduates hold positions in business, medical professions, and industry all across the country, and employers continue to seek Spencerian graduates to meet their employment needs. Spencerian specializes in medical areas at the main campus in Louisville and medical and technical programs at the branch campus in Lexington.

The A.A.S. in Nursing degree builds on the technical background of licensed practical nursing, offering LPN graduates the training and education to enable them to sit for the licensing exam to become Registered Nurses. Throughout all courses, the nursing process is used to address goals and assist individuals to meet their basic human needs. The primary goal of the program is to prepare the beginning practitioner to meet the needs of the person and their community. Gordon’s “Functional Health Patterns” and Abraham Maslow’s "Hierarchy of Needs" have been incorporated as the basis for theory in the nursing program. Core nursing components include Professional Behaviors, Communication, Assessment, Clinical Decision Making, Caring Interventions, Teaching and Learning, Collaboration, and Managing Care.

College Program Outline

General Education Requirements using Rue Education Total Learning Systems™

Using Rue’s step-by-step instruction, comprehensive learning materials and the Rue online network of tutors and mentors, you learn at your own pace. When fully prepared, schedule your exams at a testing facility in your area.

Introduction to Psychology
Introduction to Sociology
Microbiology
Human Anatomy & Physiology
Human Growth & Development
English Composition
College Mathematics
Spencerian Online Program

The Associate in Nursing degree of Applied Science is available through distance education. Spencerian classes are offered online or in a web assisted format where students complete a portion of the course online and a portion on campus.

LPN to RN Bridge
Health Deviations I
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Health Deviations II
Health Deviations III Part I
Seminar in Management and Professional Development
NS Health Deviations III Part II

Structure of Your Short Story

http://www.write101.com/shortstory.htm

Novice writers are often given this advice on how to structure their short stories:

    * Put a man up a tree
    * Throw stones at him
    * Get him down

When you come to think of it, it's good advice for any writer. So follow the steps in the plan below to start writing great short stories.

Short Story Plan 

Start with a situation - a problem to be resolved for your protagonist ( the man up the tree).

Then present the problems that can occur (throw some stones):

    * Misunderstandings / mistaken identity / lost opportunities etc

The final step is to show how you can solve the problem - get the man down from his leafy perch - safely.

    * Love triumphs / good conquers evil / honesty is the best policy / united we stand 

When you've finished writing, always (always) proof-read your work to check your spelling, punctuation and grammar. Don't spoil all your hard work by presenting an unprofessional image to your readers.

http://www.studygs.net/

http://www.clarke.edu/page.aspx?id=16790

http://www.marx.org/archive/marx/works/subject/guides/index.htm

[[Study Tips|http://www.studyguidezone.com/resource_tips.htm]]

[img[http://www.kk.org/cooltools/supercat.jpg]]

DIY, portable cooktop
09-02-08
Super Cat Alcohol Stove

supercat.jpg

I've made four kinds of alcohol stoves: the previously-reviewed Pepsi Can Stove, the Turbo Cat II, the Peyo Revolution, and the Super Cat. Of the four stoves I built and tested with a stopwatch (in my 60-degree garage), the Super Cat boiled water the fastest. While one of the others took as long as seven minutes to boil 500ml of water, the Super Cat did it in roughly 4 minutes and 30 seconds, and required no fuel re-fills to do so. Your use may vary, but regardless, the Super Cat called for the least number of materials and tools to make. A lot of tin can stoves require assembly with JB Weld, as well as cutting apart cans with scissors and X-Acto blades, which can lead to getting cut on sharp aluminum. To make the Super Cat, all you need to do is open the can (cat food, hence the name), dump the contents, and drill or punch holes in the prescribed pattern. Since it's just a simple dish of fuel that you light in the middle, the stove does not require a primer dish to pre-heat the stove, nor does it require a pot stand. The stove is actually designed to have the pot sit on top. Without the pot on top, it burns much less efficiently; it needs it there to force the fire out the side holes. In the field -- once on a summer mountaineering trip and twice camping -- it's held up and functioned great. It definitely seems more crush-proof than the other stoves. The only disadvantage: I had to throw out the cat food because I don't have a cat!

-- Steve Schmitt

Super Cat Alcohol Stove

 

[[Search here|http://www.imcpl.org/cgi-bin/irntop.pl]]

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7b/Likens.jpg]]

Sylvia Marie Likens (January 3, 1949 - October 26, 1965) was an American murder victim from Indianapolis. She was tortured to death by Gertrude Baniszewski (née Van Fossan), her children, and other children from their neighborhood. Her parents, carnival workers, had left Sylvia and her sister Jenny in the care of the Baniszewski family three months before her death in exchange for twenty dollars a week. Her torture and murder were described by the prosecutor in Baniszewski's trial as "the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana."[1]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Background
* 2 Abuse and death of Sylvia Likens
* 3 Trial
* 4 In media
* 5 References
* 6 Further reading

[edit] Background

Sylvia Likens was the third child of carnival workers Betty and Lester Likens. Her birth came between two sets of fraternal twins, Diana and Daniel (two years older), and Jenny and Benny (two years younger). The Likens family moved many times during Sylvia's childhood, and Sylvia was often boarded out or forced to live with relatives while her parents were working. Lester and Betty's marriage was also often unstable.[2]

In 1965, Sylvia and her sister Jenny, who was disabled from polio, were living with their mother in Indianapolis when Betty was arrested and jailed for shoplifting. Lester, who had recently separated from Betty, arranged for his daughters to board with Gertrude Baniszewski, the mother of Paula, a girl with [img[whom Sylvia and Jenny had become acquainted. Although the Baniszewski family was poor, with seven children, three spoons, and no stove, Lester Likens, as he reported in the trial, "didn't pry" into their condition of the house, and encouraged Baniszewski to "straighten his daughters out".[3] He agreed to pay her twenty dollars a week.

[edit] Abuse and death of Sylvia Likens

Baniszewski, described by the Indianapolis Star as a "haggard, underweight asthmatic"[3] suffering from depression and the stress of several failed marriages, began taking her anger out on the Likens girls, beating them with paddles after their parents' payments failed to come on time.

Sylvia in particular became a target of abuse. Baniszewski accused her of stealing candy she had bought from a grocery store and humiliated her when she admitted that she had once had a boyfriend. She kicked Sylvia in the groin and accused her of being pregnant. Paula Baniszewski, who was in fact pregnant at the time, became enraged and knocked Sylvia onto the floor. Sylvia seems to have become convinced that she was pregnant, although medical examination proved that she was not and could not have been.[4]

Sylvia retaliated by spreading rumors at their high school that Paula and her sister Stephanie were prostitutes, this prompted Stephanie's boyfriend, Coy Hubbard, to attack Sylvia physically. This seemed to have been welcomed by Mrs. Baniszewski, who encouraged neighborhood children to torment Sylvia, including, among other things, by putting cigarettes out on her skin and forcing her to remove her clothes and inserting a Coke bottle into her vagina.[3]

After Sylvia admitted stealing a gym suit, without which she was unable to attend gym class, Baniszewski pulled Sylvia out of school and did not allow her to leave the house. When she wet her bed, she was locked in the cellar and forbidden from using the toilet. Later, she was forced to consume feces and urine. Baniszewski began to carve the words "I'm a prostitute and proud of it!" into Sylvia's stomach with a heated needle. Richard Hobbs later finished the carving when Baniszewski wasn't able to.[5]

Sylvia attempted to escape a few days before her death. As punishment, she was tied in the basement and given only crackers to eat. On October 26, 1965, after multiple beatings, she died of brain hemorrhage, shock, and malnutrition.[3]

Some of the children tried reviving Sylvia before realizing it was a lost cause.

[edit] Trial

Baniszewski sent Richard Hobbs to call the police from a nearby payphone. When they arrived, she handed them a letter she had forced Sylvia to write a few days previously, addressed to her parents. This letter stated that she had agreed to have sex with a group of boys in exchange for money, they dragged her away in their car, beat her up, burned her multiple times, and carved the inscription into her skin. Before the police left, however, Jenny Likens approached them, saying: "Get me out of here and I'll tell you everything."[6]

During the highly-publicized trial, Baniszewski denied responsibility for Sylvia's death, pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. She claimed that she was too distracted by her ill health and depression to control her children. Attorneys for the children on trial (Paula and John Baniszewski, Richard Hobbs, and Coy Hubbard) claimed that they had been pressured by Baniszewski. When Marie Baniszewski, Gertrude's eleven-year-old daughter, was called to the stand as a witness for the defense, she broke down and admitted that she had been forced to heat the needle with which Hobbs carved Sylvia Likens' skin and that she had seen her mother beating and forcing Sylvia into the basement. In his closing statement, Baniszewski's lawyer said: "I condemn her for being a murderess... but I say she's not responsible because she's not all here!" and tapped his head.[7]

On May 19, 1966, Gertrude Baniszewski was convicted of first-degree murder, but spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison. Her daughter Paula, who had given birth to a daughter named Gertrude during the trial, was convicted of second-degree murder and also given a life term. Richard Hobbs, Coy Hubbard, and John Baniszewski were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two-to-21-year terms.[3]

The boys would spend two years in prison. In 1971, Paula and Gertrude Baniszewski were granted another trial. Paula pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was released two years later.[3] Gertrude, however, was again convicted of first-degree murder. She came up for parole in 1985, and despite a public outcry and petitions against her release, the parole board took her good behavior in prison into account, and she was set free.

Gertrude Baniszewski changed her name to Nadine van Fossan and moved to Iowa, where she died of lung cancer in 1990. When Jenny Likens, who was then married and living in Beech Grove, Indiana, saw her obituary in the newspaper, she clipped it out and mailed it to her mother with the note: "Some good news. Damn old Gertrude died. Ha ha ha! I am happy about that." Jenny Likens Wade died of a heart attack on June 23, 2004 at the age of 54.[8]

After the Jonesboro school massacre, John Baniszewski, now known as John Blake, gave a statement claiming that young criminals were not beyond help and describing how he had managed to turn his life around.[9]

[edit] In media

* Feminist Kate Millett wrote a semi-fictional book relating to the incident, The Basement: Meditations on a Human Sacrifice. Millett stated in an interview that the murder of Sylvia Likens "is the story of the suppression of women. Gertrude seems to have wanted to administer some terrible truthful justice to this girl: that this was what it was to be a woman."[10]
* Author Natty Bumppo (formerly John Dean) wrote an account of the murder, The Indiana Torture Slaying.[10]
* Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door is a fictional story loosely based on the murder set in the 1950s and a movie based on the book was released in 2007.[10]
* Patte Wheat's By Sanction of the Victim is a fictional story based on the incident, set in the 1970s.[citation needed]
* A play called Hey, Rube, written by Janet McReynolds, was produced but never published.[11]
* The true-crime encyclopedia Bloodletters and Badmen by Jay Robert Nash contains an entry on Baniszewski and the case, though some details are inaccurate.[citation needed]
* The film An American Crime starring Catherine Keener as Baniszewski, Ellen Page as Likens, and Jeremy Sumpter as Coy Hubbard premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.[10]

[edit] References

1. ^ Time Magazine, 27 May, 1966
2. ^ Crime Library
3. ^ a b c d e f Indianapolis Star Sylvia Likens 1965 murder
4. ^ Crime Library
5. ^ Crime Library
6. ^ Crime Library
7. ^ Crime Library
8. ^ Suitcase of Sorrow, Indianapolis Star
9. ^ Crime Library
10. ^ a b c d A Midwest Nightmare, Too Depraved to Ignore, New York Times
11. ^ Pam Regensberg. "Santa actor being investigated in Ramsey case", Longmont, Colorado Times-Call, March 8, 1997. Retrieved on 2007-07-26.

[edit] Further reading

* The Torturing Death of Sylvia Marie Likens at The Crime Library (Court TV)
* The Indiana Torture Slaying by John Dean at Borf Books (Borf Books)
* Sylvia Marie Likens at Find A Grave

[img[http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/notorious_murders/young/likens/1a-where-body-found200.jpg]]

346: Home Alone

A 79-year-old woman, Mary Ann, dies in Los Angeles. She's lived alone for decades. No one knows her—or her next of kin. There's a body to be buried, a house full of stuff to get rid of. It so happens there's a county bureaucracy for just this type of problem. In this show, we follow around the person charged with figuring out what to do with the remains of Mary Ann's life. This and other stories about what happens when people are left alone.

Prologue.

Yvonne has lived by herself for 12 years, ever since her last child moved out. She eats dinner by herself, takes care of the house on her own, and usually spends most holidays alone. She explains why she’s perfectly happy this way—and has no desire to live with anyone else. (4 minutes)

Act I. Plot Without a Story.

Mary Ann was an elderly woman living by herself in Los Angeles County. She wasn’t married, didn’t have children, wasn’t in touch with any of her family. When she became sick and went to the hospital, the only contact she had was Sue, the woman who delivered her prescriptions from the pharmacy. Then, Mary Ann died. There was a body to be buried, a house full of stuff to get rid of—but no family or friends to deal with it all. Luckily, there was Emily, an investigator for the Los Angeles Public Administrator’s Office. It’s her job to take care of the remains of lives like Mary Ann’s. Eric Klinenberg reports the story. He’s a sociologist, whose most recent book is, Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media. (15 minutes)

Song: "Tenuous Gears," Micalavera

Act Two. Boy Interrupted.

Growing up, Clevins Browne moved all over New York with his mother, in different apartments and homeless shelters. But that all changed when he was 12, and they got an apartment in a public housing complex in Brooklyn. Then, when he had just turned 15, his mom collapsed in pain while they were watching TV at home. Clevins called 911, and then hid in the closet, so he wouldn’t be taken away by child services. He stayed in the apartment by himself—with no money, hardly any food—until his mother came home from the hospital: five months later. Clevins talked to This American Life producer Sarah Koenig, about how he survived. (22 minutes)

Song: "Space Kay," Daniel Lanois

Act Three. The Man Who Came to Dinner.

When she was in kindergarten, Jennifer, along with her brother and mother, was held hostage by an armed gunman for four days. Their father was a drug dealer and had disappeared with a bunch of cocaine that belonged to someone else. The gunman had been sent to hold the family hostage until he returned the drugs. But the gangsters didn’t count on Jennifer’s mother being so tough—frightening enough, in fact, to almost make the guy leave. And not only that: her mother was so composed, that Jennifer and her brother never even knew they were being held hostage. (13 1/2 minutes)

Song: "Hope There’s Someone," Antony and the Johnsons

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1052625/home_made_tv_antenna/

Training Acceleration Grant (TAG)
Objectives:

All companies located in Indiana are eligible to apply for TAG. To qualify, a company must select and meet one of the following core objectives:

1. Increase personal income for Hoosier workers: To meet this objective, wage increases must be awarded upon completion of the training. Documentation of the wage increases must be submitted to IDWD.

2. Promote small business growth: To be eligible for this objective, an employer must have 100 or less employees. To achieve this objective, the grantee must demonstrate how the grant has improved the growth or success of the company.

3. Foster job retention and expansion: To meet this objective, an employer must demonstrate that training is necessary to retain jobs or support an expansion. Increasing efficiency, improving competitiveness, and facilitating the use of new technology are some examples of meeting this objective. The grantee is required to report on the results of this objective to IDWD within three months after the grant has closed.

4. Close skill gaps identified through WorkKeys© assessments: To meet this objective, an employer must have a WorkKeys© profile on file with IDWD and have employees who have identified skill gaps through WorkKeys© assessments. Upon conclusion of the training, the grantee is required to submit pre and post training assessment scores to IDWD.

Eligibility:

- Only employees of Indiana employers are eligible for training.
- Training must result in a portable, industry-recognized credential.
- Seminars and general Certificates of Completion do not qualify as an outcome.
- Training or continuing education required by federal, state or industry guidelines is not covered. Training must give companies and their employees the skills to surpass their competitors. Examples are: OSHA, FDA requirements, insurance adjusters, real estate licenses.
- Municipalities, public utilities, governmental agencies and public educational institutions are not eligible.
- Projects must meet one of the core objectives of the Training Acceleration Grant program.
- Trainees must be full-time, incumbent workers who have passed their probationary period. Contract and temporary workers are not eligible.
- Employers must submit a pre-application to their regional IDWD Business Consultant prior to completing the TAG application. Pre-applications can be completed on the TAG web portal. Examples of the information required can be found on the applications page of this site.

Training Providers:

Indiana training providers are preferred except in the following cases:

1. An out-of-state training provider will be considered if the applicant can demonstrate that no Indiana vendor can provide the training.
2. Geographic proximity to an out-of-state provider is more cost effective than using an Indiana provider.

- Special consideration is given to projects that use Ivy Tech State College.
- Internal or on-staff training providers are not eligible for training funds.

Source: Indiana Economic Development Corporation

Indiana Workforce Page: http://www.in.gov/dwd/

Training Acceleration Grant General InfoTAG Home | Application Information | Guidelines | Regional Contacts | Grantee Forms

Printable and Quick Jump
(Printable Version of the Overview and Guidelines)

General EligibilityEligible Companies

Only companies registered with the Indiana Secretary of State and legally permitted to operate within Indiana are eligible for TAG funds.
An employer cannot have any outstanding tax liabilities with the State of Indiana.
An employer must pay into the Unemployment Insurance fund and the Incumbent Worker Training fund. Exceptions can be made for nurses and other healthcare related training.
Government entities are not eligible to receive TAG funds.
Eligible Trainees

Only employees who work within the state of Indiana are eligible for training.
All trainees receiving TAG-funded training must be full-time workers who have passed their probationary period by the time of their enrollment. Contract or temporary workers are not eligible.
If a company has more than 100 employees, its executive and management level professionals are NOT eligible to receive TAG-funded training. Front-line supervisors are eligible.
Eligible Training

Training must result in a portable, national or industry-recognized credential.
Training required by federal, state, or industry guidelines is not eligible (i.e. OSHA, FDA requirements, real estate licenses, etc.).
Seminars and general Certificates of Completion do not qualify as an eligible credential.
Continuing Education Units are not eligible under TAG.
Associate degrees are an acceptable credential. Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees are permitted only in the nursing field.
A minimum of six college credit hours is considered an eligible credential in conjunction with pursuit of an Associate Degree or for similar coursework that builds upon each other.
Training must be limited to two years and all credentials must be obtainable within those two years. Exceptions to obtaining credentials within two years can be made for college degrees or apprenticeships.

Core Objectives
A company must select and achieve one of the following “Core Objectives” of the Training Acceleration Grant program:

Increase personal income for Hoosier workers: To meet this objective, wage increases must be awarded upon completion of training. Documentation of the wage increases must be submitted to IDWD before the grant is closed.

Promote small business growth: Only employers with 100 or fewer employees are eligible for this objective. To achieve this objective, the grantee must demonstrate how the grant contributed to the growth or success of the company.

Foster job retention and expansion: To meet this objective, an employer must demonstrate that training is necessary to retain jobs or support an expansion. A report on the results of this objective will need to be submitted to IDWD within three months after training has ended.

Close skill gaps identified through WorkKeys® assessments: To meet this objective, an employer must have a WorkKeys® profile on file with IDWD and skill gaps identified through WorkKeys® assessments. Upon conclusion of the training, the grantee will need to submit pre-training and post-training assessment scores.

Note: The outcomes of these objectives may affect future TAG participation.

Training Providers
Provider Eligibility

Internal or on-staff trainers are not eligible for TAG funds.
The training provider must be accredited by a governing organization or otherwise demonstrate an ability to provide the requested training. Proof of accreditation or qualifications may be requested.
Indiana Training Providers

Indiana-based training providers are preferred over out-of-state training providers.
Special consideration is given to projects that use Ivy Tech Community College.
Out-of-State Training Providers

The use of an out-of-state training provider is considered justified under the following circumstances:

º The applicant can demonstrate that no Indiana vendor can provide the training.

º The geographic proximity to an out-of-state provider is more cost effective than using an Indiana provider.
Written justification explaining why an out-of-state training provider is preferable to an in-state provider must be submitted with the TAG application.

Budget Constraints
Budget Constraints

TAG funds can be used for the following:
Tuition
Contract services
Books
Lab fees
Technology fees
One-time exam fees

TAG funds cannot be used for the following (however, these ineligible grant expenditures can be used as matching funds):
Supplies (i.e. paper, pens, etc.)
Equipment (i.e. machines, hardware, software, etc.)
Travel
Wages and benefits (i.e. health coverage, insurance, etc.)
Fees for rental of space secured for training purposes
Requests should be limited to an average of $3,500 per trainee per year.

Training costs should be competitive.

A company is not eligible for more than $200,000 per year. Under special circumstances, a company may petition for consideration in excess of $200,000.
Matching Funds Requirements:

Matching funds are required and may be cash or in-kind (i.e. training space, materials, equipment, etc.).
Matching funds can include any costs associated with training.
Companies with more than 100 employees must provide a dollar-to-dollar match of funds requested from TAG.
The match required for companies with 100 or fewer employees is based upon the following scale:
TAG Matching Funds Scale

Total Number of Employees
Required Match
(Percentage of Requested Amount)

1-10
10%

11- 20
20%

21- 30
30%

31- 40
40%

41- 50
50%

51- 100
75%

The grantee must provide and account for the matching funds as agreed upon in the approved application and budget.
Match for participant wages and benefits are limited to wages and benefits earned while “on-the-clock” and in training. Grantee must retain copies of records to account for matching wages and benefits.
Monetary incentives offered to trainees to attend training (i.e. bonuses, etc.) can be used as match.
The value of match, in terms of travel expenses, sustenance, lodging, etc. will be determined in accordance with grantee written policies and procedures.

In the absence of such policies and procedures, the value will be determined in accordance with state policies regarding such items.
The value of in-kind contributions is determined by the current market value of the contribution and must be substantiated with proper documentation.
Administration of Consortium GrantsDefinition of Consortium

A consortium consists of three or more companies preferably those with 100 or fewer employees that are seeking similar training through a single TAG grant. A key advantage of a consortium is that it allows smaller companies to take advantage of training that would be too costly otherwise. For example, a small rural company would like industrial maintenance training for one person. To customize this training for one employer would be cost prohibitive. Recruiting other employers in the area with the same training needs would reduce costs.

Consortium Grant Administrator

A third party can be the grant administrator of a consortium. In such a case, the grant administrator is the legal recipient of the grant funds.

Responsibility of a Consortium Grant Administrator

The consortium grant administrator is responsible for the application process and management of a TAG grant on behalf of all participating companies. This includes submitting the application, providing all requested information to IDWD, modifying the grant agreement, requesting reimbursement, and all other duties deemed necessary to properly manage the grant. In return for these services the grant administrator can collect administrative fees from TAG funds.

Eligible Consortium Grant Administrators

All entities registered with the Indiana Secretary of State to legally operate within Indiana are eligible to be a consortium grant administrator.
The grant administrator and training provider can be the same entity, but it cannot collect both administrator fees and training provider fees.
The grant administrator is not required to pay into the Unemployment Insurance fund or the Incumbent Worker Training fund. However all participating companies are required to do so. Exceptions can be made for healthcare related training.
Administrative Fees for Consortium Grant Administrators

In return for the services provided by a consortium grant administrator, compensation can be requested from TAG funds.
Administrative fees cannot exceed 10% of the approved amount requested.
Matching funds cannot be included when calculating the administrative fee.
The number of trainees, the number of training providers, and the complexity of the overall project may also be taken under consideration when determining the approval for administration fees.
Match Requirement for a Consortium

Each participating company is required to meet its individual match requirement as determined by its employment size.
Unless the consortium grant administrator is participating in training, it is not required to contribute match.
Eligible Training in a Consortium

All companies in the consortium must be in related fields or seeking training and credentials within the same field.

Example of an Acceptable Consortium: Multiple companies from different fields seeking information technology certifications.

Example of an Unacceptable Consortium: A hospital seeking to train nurses, a manufacturer seeking welding certifications and a small business wanting computer training is not acceptable. There must be a common thread that links the training needs of all the participating companies.
Non-Consortium Grant AdministratorsA solitary company may choose not to manage its awarded grant and elect to have a third party manage the grant on its behalf. Under such a circumstance the following guidelines apply:

The Third Party Administrator Form must be completed in full and submitted with the application.
Expenses associated with the administration of the grant are not eligible to be paid for with TAG funds.
What if my application is denied?All applicants are encouraged to re-apply for training funds in the event their application is denied. The IDWD Business Consultants are available to review the guidelines and the
evaluation check list with you, discuss the reasons the application was denied, and assist in revising it. The revised application will undergo the same review as the original application.

TestimonialsNatascha Tomlinson, HR manager at Shafer Gear Works in South Bend, talks about the ease of getting a Training Acceleration Grant (MPG; 5,182KB, 1:00 sec.) Left click to play.

Shelby Parham, Senior HR Advisor of The Care Group LLC in Indianapolis says the Indiana Department of Workforce Development and their resources have been phenomenal (MPG; 7,667KB, 1:28) Left click to play.

Additional InformationTAG Hotline: 800-465-4616

The following links will provide you with additional information

Printable Brochure (197 KB)
2006 Annual Training Report (162 pages)
PY 04-05 Grants

Map of 2005 Awards

Claimant Self Service
Employer Self Service
Job Matching
Employer Job Posting
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"Takers" are a people often referred to as "civilized." Particularly, the culture born in an Agricultural Revolution that began about 10,000 years ago in the Near East. Civilized mankind.

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Advice on Novel Writing by Crawford Kilian

Foreword by the Author

1. Developing Efficient Work Habits
2. Elements Of A Successful Story
* In the opening...
* In the body of the story...
* In the conclusion...
* Throughout the story...
3. Style: Checklist For Fiction Writers
4. Manuscript Format
5. Storyboarding
6. Ten Points on Plotting
7. The Story Synopsis
8. Understanding Genre: Notes on the Thriller
9. Symbolism and all that
* The Natural Cycle
* The Natural Versus the Human World
* The Hero's Quest: Mysterious or unusual birth
* Symbolic Images
* Symbolic Characters
10. Narrative Voice
11. Constructing a Scene
12. Show And Tell: Which Is Better?
13. Character In Fiction
* The Character Resume
14. ``Let's Talk About Dialogue,'' He Pontificated
* Some Dialogue Conventions to Consider:
15. Writing A Query Letter About Your Novel
* The Letter Itself
16. Researching Publishers and Agents
17. Reading a Contract
* Delivery Of Satisfactory Copy
* Permission for Copyrighted Material
* Grant Of Rights
* Proofreading and Author's Corrections
* Advances and Royalties
* Author's Warranties and Indemnities
* Copies to Author
* Option Clause
* Going Out of Print
* A Word of Advice

Afterword by the Author

Foreword by the Author
A little later tonight (Thursday, Nov 5 [1992]), I'm going to start sending in a series of items about writing fiction for the mass market. Some of these I posted a few days ago, provoking a remarkable amount of e-mail asking for copies of this or that posting. So I decided I'd start from the top and go through the whole batch in a couple of stages.

Altogether I'll be sending 17 separate ``handouts'' from my commercial fiction course. They range from good work habits to the reading of contracts. Please--don't read them as divine revelation. They come out of my experience, which may not be anything like yours or that of other writers. But if they save you some time, energy and grief, I'll be glad.

The files total about 180K--enough for a short book. I'll number each one as Fiction Advice plus a number and keyword. If you miss some of them, I'll try to post them directly, but sometimes people's addresses don't make sense to my computer...

Why am I doing this? Well, a year or so ago someone e-mailed me with that very question. I thought for a minute and then replied to this effect: When you're young, and you think you have the talent, you wonder how you can make the talent serve you. When you're older, you wonder how you can serve the talent. This is some small part of my service. God bless, work hard, write honestly, take pride in your craft!

Crawford Kilian
Communications Department
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver, BC Canada V7G 1H7
Usenet: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca

Writer's Digest - $ 39.92
Writer's Digest Magazine is known as the leading publication for for professional and aspiring writers. Working professionals edit monthly columns in Writer's Digest to enhance the writing of fiction, nonfiction, dramatic works and poetry. Each issue of Writer's Digest is filled with expert instruction, inspiration, and information on all aspects of the writing life: from how to target manuscripts and captivate editors, to effectively overcome writer's block and negotiate fees.
Developing Efficient Work Habits
Different writers face different advantages and drawbacks in forming good writing habits. The circumstances of your personal life may make it easy or hard to find writing time, but time itself is not the real issue--it's habit. Writing must be something you do regularly, like brushing your teeth. The writer who waits for inspiration will wait even longer for a complete, published novel.

Writing habits flourish best in routine, but the efficient writer also exploits opportunity.

Routine: Set aside some time every day when you can work undisturbed for an hour or two--first thing in the morning, during lunch, after dinner, whenever you can set aside other demands. Ideally, it's the same time of day. Your family and friends will soon build their routines around yours. With luck, they will resent your unscheduled appearances during your writing time, and will send you packing back to your desk.

Keep your writing equipment (paper, pens, software manuals, etc.) in your writing place, close at hand. Minimize distractions like interesting new magazines and books. Try to find a writing time when few people phone or visit. If a cup of coffee and some background music make you feel less lonely, by all means enjoy them.

Use household chores as thinking time: a chance to review what you've done so far and to consider where your writing should go next. Walking the dog or vacuuming the carpet can provide more ideas than you expect. This is really just ``controlled daydreaming,'' letting your mind freewheel in a particular direction: What the heroine should do in the next chapter, how the hero would respond to escaping a car bomb, how the villain developed his evil character. But the process doesn't seem to work if you just sit and stare at the wall. You need to be up and moving in some automatic pattern.

Don't lean on others for editorial advice and encouragement--least of all people you're emotionally involved with. Spouses, friends and roommates rarely have both editorial perceptiveness and the tact to express it without infuriating you or breaking your heart. Empty praise will get you nowhere; unconstructive criticism can destroy your novel in an instant.

Instead, be your own editor: set aside regular times to write yourself letters discussing your own work, articulating what's good and less good in it. In the process you'll easily solve problems that could otherwise grow into full-blown writer's block. On a computer, the letters can form a continuous journal, recording your reactions to the evolving work. Checking back to the first journal entries can help keep you on track--or dramatically show how far you've moved from your original concept.

Writing a letter to yourself is especially helpful if you're beginning to have anxieties about the story. Sometimes we try to suppress those anxieties, which only makes them worse. Anxiety turns to frustration and despair, and finally we abandon the whole project. If you can actually write down what bothers you about your heroine, or your plot, or whatever, the answer to the problem often suggests itself. The act of turning our chaotic thoughts into orderly sentences seems to lead to much quicker and more satisfying solutions.

In addition to these self-addressed letters, keep a daily log of your progress. Word processors with word-count functions are powerful encouragers. The log can give you a sense of accomplishment, especially on big projects, and can enable you to set realistic completion deadlines. For example, if you know you can write 500 words in an hour, and you write three hours a week, you can have a completed novel manuscript of 75,000 words in 50 weeks. If you write ten hours a week, the ms. will be complete in 15 weeks.

Compile a ``project bible.'' This is a list of facts, names, and so on that you expect to be using for constant reference. If you have some important research findings you plan to use, put them in the bible along with their sources. Include lists of characters' names (with descriptions, so their eyes don't change color), unusual words or spellings, etc. The best format for this bible may be a looseleaf binder you can carry with you. (A word of caution: If your bible gets too big to carry easily, you're defeating its purpose.)

Opportunity: If you decide you ``can't write'' unless you're seated at your Gigabyte II computer with Mozart on the stereo and no one else in the house, you're just making life harder for yourself. Your ordinary domestic routine will always contain ``dead time''--periods when you're away from home (or at least away from your workplace) with no other task at hand. You might be waiting in a doctor's office, on a bus, or trapped in a large, dull meeting. Use that dead time constructively by carrying your notebook bible in which you can record at least a few lines of a rough draft. Or you might jot down some background notes about your project, or a self-editing idea that's just occurred to you. You can then use these when you're back at your desk producing finished text.

These are general habits that will help you at all stages of the novel-writing process. But you may also find that you need to understand those stages and adapt your habits to each of them. You may not do yourself any good if you plunge into the writing phase before you've worked out a decent outline. So let's take a look at the stages of the novel-writing process, and then consider some techniques to maximize your efficiency in each of them.
Elements Of A Successful Story
If your novel or short story is going to work, it's going to need all the right components. Used without imagination or sensitivity, those elements may produce only formula fiction. But, like a good cook with the right materials and a good recipe, you can also create some pleasant surprises.

Many writers, like many good cooks, don't need to think consciously about what they're throwing in the pot. But as an apprentice you should probably think about how your story matches up with the following suggestions. They all have to do, essentially, with bringing your characters and readers from a state of ignorance to a state of awareness: Can our heroine find happiness as a journalist? We don't know, but we'll find out. Can our hero found a family dynasty in the Nevada wilderness? We don't know, but we'll find out.

In the opening...
Show us your main characters, or at least foreshadow them: We might see your heroine's mother getting married, for example. Or we might see a crime committed which will bring in your hero to investigate.

Show one or more characters under some kind of appropriate stress. For example, if the hero must perform well under enemy fire in the climax, show him being shot at in Chapter One--and performing badly. If the heroine must resist temptation at the end, show her (or someone else) succumbing to temptation in the beginning.

Show us who's the ``good guy,'' who's the ``bad guy.'' That is, in whom should we make an emotional investment? Whose side are we on? Even if the hero is morally repugnant (a hired killer, for example), he should display some trait or attitude we can admire and identify with. The villain can be likable but set on a course we must disapprove.

Show what's at stake. Editors and readers want to know this right away. (That's why the blurb on the jacket usually tells us: ``Only one person can save the West/defend the Galactic Empire/defeat the vampires...'')What does the hero stand to gain or lose? What will follow if the villain wins?

Establish the setting--where and when the story takes place.

Establish the area of conflict . If the setting is the Nanaimo coal mines at the turn of the century, the area of conflict may be relations between miners and owners, or within a family of miners, or within a single miner's personality.

Foreshadow the ending. If the hero dies in a blizzard at the end, a few flakes of snow may fall in the first chapter.

Set the tone of the story: solemn or excited, humorous or tragic.

In the body of the story...
Tell your story in scenes, not in exposition. A scene contains a purpose, an obstacle or conflict, and a resolution that tells us something new about the characters and their circumstances.

Develop your characters through action and dialogue. Show us, don't tell us, what's going on and why (not He was loud and rude, but ``Get outa my way, you jerk!'' he bellowed.).

Include all the elements you need for your conclusion. If everything depends on killing the victim with a shotgun, show us the shotgun long before it goes off.

Give your characters adequate motivation for their actions and words. Drama is people doing amazing things for very good reasons. Melodrama is people doing amazing things for bad or nonexistent reasons.

Develop the plot as a series of increasingly serious problems. (The heroine escapes the villain in Chapter 5 by fleeing into the snowy mountains; now in Chapter 6 she risks death in an avalanche.) Establish suspense by making solution of the problems uncertain (How will the heroine escape the avalanche and avoid freezing to death in Chapter Seven?).

Make solutions of the problems appropriate to the characters (Good thing she took Outward Bound training in Chapter One).

In the conclusion...
Present a final, crucial conflict when everything gained so far is in danger and could be lost by a single word or deed: this is the climax, which reveals something to your readers (and perhaps to your characters) which has been implicit from the outset but not obvious or predictable.

Throughout the story...
Remember that nothing in a story happens at random . Why is the heroine's name Sophia? Why is she blind? Why is her dog a black Lab? The easy answer is that you're the God of your novel and that's the way you want things. But if you have a conscious reason for these elements, the story gains in interest because it carries more meaning: For example, ``Sophia'' means ``wisdom'' and the name can provide a cue to the reader.

Use image, metaphor and simile with a conscious purpose, not just because a phrase ``sounds good.''

Maintain consistent style, tone, and point of view.

Know the conventions of the form you're working in, and break them only when you have a good reason to. For example, if it's conventional for the private eye to be an aggressive, hard-drinking single man, you're going to shake up the reader if your private eye is a yogurt-loving, shy mother of three school-age children. You'll shake up the reader even more if she goes around pistol-whipping people; as a private eye, her behavior will still depend on her personality and limitations.
Style: Checklist For Fiction Writers
As you begin to develop your outline, and then the actual text of your novel, you can save time and energy by making sure that your writing style requires virtually no copy editing. In the narrative:

1. Do any sentences begin with the words ``There'' or ``It''? They can almost certainly benefit from revision. (Compare: There were three gunmen who had sworn to kill him. It was hard to believe. or: Three gunmen had sworn to kill him. He couldn't believe it.)

2. Are you using passive voice instead of active voice? (Compare: Is passive voice being used?) Put it in active voice!

3. Are you repeating what you've already told your readers? Are you telegraphing your punches?

4. Are you using trite phrases, cliches, or deliberately unusual words? You'd better have a very good reason for doing so.

5. Are you terse? Or, alternatively, are you on the other hand expressing and communicating your thoughts and ideas with a perhaps excessive and abundant plethora of gratuitous and surplus verbiage, whose predictably foreseeable end results, needless to say, include as a component part a somewhat repetitious redundancy?

6. Are you grammatically correct? Are spelling and punctuation correct? (This is not mere detail work, but basic craft. Learn standard English or forget about writing novels.)

7. Is the prose fluent, varied in rhythm, and suitable in tone to the type of story you're telling?

8. Are you as narrator intruding on the story through witticisms, editorializing, or self-consciously, inappropriately ``fine'' writing?

In the dialogue:

9. Are you punctuating dialogue correctly, so that you neither confuse nor distract your readers?

10. Are your characters speaking naturally, as they would in reality, but more coherently?

11. Does every speech advance the story, revealing something new about the plot or the characters? If not, what is its justification?

12. Are your characters so distinct in their speech--in diction, rhythm, and mannerism--that you rarely need to add ``he said'' or ``she said''?

Manuscript Format
Once your book appears in print, your publisher will return your manuscript as ``dead matter.'' At that point it's of interest only to future Ph.D. candidates. But when it first arrives in the publisher's office, it ought to look as inviting, clean and professional as you can make it. You want to make sure it's as readable (and correctable) as possible; don't give the editor an excuse to reject you because you make her eyes hurt, and she can't even find room to insert proper spelling.

Ideally, you'll submit your manuscript in laser-printed form. If you can't afford that, then use an inkjet printer (used with good bond paper, it's almost as good as laser), a good dot-matrix printer, or an electric typewriter. If your dot-matrix printer has a pale ribbon and you can't replace it, make a darker photocopy of the original printout.

Consider your choice of font. A sans serif font is legible but not readable--that is, you can recognize a word or phrase quickly, but reading page after page would be exhausting. A boldface font is even worse. A serif font is more readable, so by all means choose one for the body of your manuscript text. Point size is also important. For the Mac, 12-point Times isn't bad, and it lets you put a lot of text on one page. But 14-point Times is more readable.

(This issue, by the way, recently kicked up a big fuss in this newsgroup; some people argued that only a monospace font was acceptable. I finally phoned Del Rey Books to see if they preferred a monospace font like Courier, or a more flexible font. The editor I talked to obviously thought I was bonkers; they don't much care as long as they can read the manuscript.)

Paper should be standard 8.5x11, 20 lb. white bond. If you use fanfold paper in a dot-matrix printer, make sure it's reasonably heavy. (You will of course separate each page and remove the strips on the sides.) Give yourself a margin of at least an inch top and bottom, and an inch or an inch and a half on the sides. Double-space your text. Do not put an extra double-space between paragraphs, unless you want a similar gap on the printed page to indicate a change of scene or passage of time. Indent each paragraph about half an inch. If you are using a font with letters that take up variable amounts of space, a single space after a period is enough. If you are using a typewriter or a monospace font, two spaces are better. Either way, a single space should follow every comma, semicolon, and colon. If you can, use an ``em dash'' with no spaces between the dash and the surrounding words. Two hyphens -- are an acceptable substitute. Underline text only if you cannot italicize it.

Do not use a right-justified margin! It may look tidy, but it creates gaps between words that make reading hard. Avoid hyphenations. Also avoid ``widows and orphans''--that is, a paragraph that begins on the last line of a page, or a paragraph that ends on the first line the following page. Most word processors can kick such paragraphs onto the next page. This may create huge lower margins, but it's better than breaking a paragraph.

Be sure that each page displays a plain Arabic numeral in the upper right-hand corner. Otherwise, don't bother with a header. They're not going to scatter your ms. or lose the title page. And when you send it in, don't bind it in a cute cover. Send it loose, in a typing-paper box. Make sure you have at least two copies on disk (in separate locations) or a photocopy. In 1979 I sent half a manuscript (240 pages, a year's work) to my editor in New York; he sent it back a couple of months later, but I'm still waiting for it. Fortunately I had a carbon copy.

The publisher may want you to send along a disk with the manuscript on it, as well as the hard copy. When I did that recently, I found that the editor just poured my files into a new font and layout and sent me the page proofs for correction. That meant all the mistakes I found were my own; I couldn't blame some clumsy typesetter. This is the downside of the computer revolution, folks.

Storyboarding
``Storyboarding'' usually means arranging a sequence of images for a film or commercial. But you can storyboard a novel also, and it can be a helpful way to organize the plot.

That's because we don't normally think plot. We have an idea for a story (immigrant boy founds family dynasty in Nevada wilderness) and a random assortment of mental images (encounter with a grizzly bear, wild ride to rescue son from kidnappers, gorgeous blonde swimming nude in icy stream, showdown with eastern gangsters wanting land for casino). How do we get from these fragments to a coherent plot?

Writing a letter to yourself may help, but first try this: Take a stack of 3x5 cards and jot down an image or scene on each one, just in the order the ideas occur to you. It might look something like this:

Jesse rides into town, confronts Caleb Black about his fraudulent mining-shares deal. Caleb denies everything, threatens to shoot Jesse if he talks about it.

When you have five or ten or twenty such cards, lay them out in the sequence you envisage for the story. You certainly don't have a card for each scene in the novel, but you have the scenes that your subconscious seems to want to deal with.

You also have numerous gaps. How do you get Jesse from his silver mine in Nevada to the deck of the Titanic? How does Caleb get in touch with the three hired killers from San Francisco? How does Jesse's grandson respond to the first offer from the gangster syndicate that wants to build a casino on the site of the old mine?

Now you turn your thoughts to just those gaps, and new ideas occur to you. That means more cards. Maybe some of the new ideas are better than the original ones, so some of the old cards go in the trash. New characters emerge to fulfill functions in the story. Your research into Nevada history suggests still more scenes which might go into this or that part of the novel; still more cards go into your growing deck.

The story may eventually end up as a series of flashbacks, but for now stick to straight chronological order. Maybe the whole story occurs during a three-hour siege of a secluded mansion; maybe it stretches across a century and a continent. Whatever the ``real time'' of your story, you may see that the cards clump naturally around certain periods of the plot and you see no need for events to fill in the gaps. That's fine; maybe you've found the natural divisions between chapters or sections of the story.

Keep asking yourself why. Why Nevada, why mining, why a gorgeous naked blonde? Don't keep a scene in your storyboard unless you can justify it as a way to dramatize a character's personality, to move the story ahead, to lend verisimilitude. If you absolutely must have a scene in which Jesse's true love Sophia goes skinnydipping in an icy creek and then nearly drowns, what good will the scene do for the story?

Once you have at least the main sequence of events clearly mapped out on your cards, you can begin to transfer them to a more manageable synopsis or outline. More about that in a later posting.
Ten Points on Plotting

1. Nothing should happen at random. Every element in a story should have significance, whether for verisimilitude, symbolism, or the intended climax. Names, places, actions and events should all be purposeful. To test the significance of an element, ask: Why this place and not another? Why this name and not another? Why this action, this speech, and not others--or none at all? The answers should be: To persuade the reader of the story's plausibility; to convey a message about the theme of the story; to prepare the reader for the climax so that it seems both plausible and in keeping with the theme.
2. Plot stems from character under adversity. A mild-mannered person cannot achieve his goals by an out-of-character action like a violent assault, unless we have prepared the reader for it by revealing a glimpse of some suppressed aspect of his personality that can be plausibly released by stress. And the stress itself must also be plausible, given the circumstances of the story.
3. Each character has an urgent personal agenda. Too much is at stake to abandon that agenda without good reason. We may not share the character's urgency, but we should be able to see why he cares so much about what he's doing. A character who acts without real motivation is by definition melodramatic, doing outrageous things for the sake of the thrill it gives the reader--not because it makes sense for the character to do so.
4. The plot of a story is the synthesis of the plots of its individual characters. Each character has a personal agenda, modified by conflict or concordance with the agendas of others. The villain doesn't get everything his way, any more than the hero does; each keeps thwarting the other, who must then improvise under pressure. If the hero is moving northwest, and the villain is moving northeast, the plot carries them both more or less due north--at least until one or the other gains some advantage.
5. The plot ``begins'' long before the story. The story itself should begin at the latest possible moment before the climax, at a point when events take a decisive and irreversible turn. We may learn later, through flashbacks, exposition, or inference, about events occurring before the beginning of the story.
6. Foreshadow all important elements. The first part of a story is a kind of prophecy; the second part fulfills the prophecy. Any important character, location, object should be foreshadowed early in the story. The deus ex machina is unacceptable; you can't pull a rabbit out of your hat to rescue your hero. But you can't telegraph your punch either--your readers don't want to see what's coming, especially if your characters seem too dumb to see it. The trick is to put the plot element into your story without making the reader excessively aware of its importance. Chance and coincidence, in particular, require careful preparation if they are going to influence the plot.
7. Keep in mind the kind of story you're telling. Any story is about the relationship of an individual to society. A comic story describes an isolated individual achieving social integration either by being accepted into an existing society or by forming his own. This integration is often symbolized by a wedding or feast. A tragic story describes an integrated individual who becomes isolated; death is simply a symbol of this isolation. The plot should keep us in some degree of suspense about what kind of story we're reading. Even if we know it's a comedy, the precise nature of the comic climax should come as a surprise. If we know the hero is doomed, his downfall should stem from a factor we know about but have not given sufficient weight to.
8. Ironic plots subvert their surface meanings. Here, an ordinarily desirable goal appears very unattractive to us: the hero marries, but chooses the wrong girl and turns his story into a tragedy. Or the hero may die, but gains some improvement in social acceptance as a result--by becoming a martyr or social savior, for example.
9. The hero must eventually take charge of events. In any plot the hero is passive for a time, reacting to events. At some point he must try to take charge. This is the counterthrust, when the story goes into high gear. In some cases we may have a series of thrusts and counterthrusts; in the opening stages of the plot, the counterthrust helps define the hero's character and puts him in position for more serious conflicts (and counterthrusts) later in the story. You could even say that every scene presents the hero with a problem; his response is his counterthrust. In the larger structure of the plot, the counterthrust often comes after the hero's original plan of action has failed; he has learned some hard lessons and now he will apply them as he approaches the climax of the story.
10. Plot dramatizes character. If all literature is the story of the quest for identity, then plot is the roadmap of that quest. Every event, every response, should reveal (to us if not to them) some aspect of the characters' identities. Plot elements dramatize characters' identities by providing opportunities to be brave or cowardly, stupid or brilliant, generous or mean. These opportunities come in the form of severe stress, appropriate to the kind of story you're telling. A plot element used for its own sake--a fistfight, a sexual encounter, an ominous warning--is a needless burden to the story if it does not illuminate the characters involved. Conversely, the reader will not believe any character trait that you have not dramatized through a plot device.

The Story Synopsis
The story synopsis or outline can take many forms; it has no rigid format. But the synopsis, like the manuscript, should be double-spaced and highly legible, with frequent paragraphing.

Some synopses cover the whole story, while others supplement a portion of completed manuscript and presuppose the reader's familiarity with that portion. If you have broken your novel into chapters, that's a useful way to divide your synopsis also. You may find, however, that what you thought would fit into one chapter will expand into two or three.

The major element of the synopsis, and sometimes the only element, is the narrative.

* Usually in present tense:

On a fine spring day in 1923, Lucy Williams applies for a job working for a mysterious millionaire.
* Names and describes major characters:

Lucy's new boss is Donald Matthews, a handsome young businessman scarcely older than Lucy, but with an unsavory reputation as a rumored bootlegger.
* Summarizes major events in the story:

Hurrying home through the storm, Lucy bumps into Kenneth Holwood, Donald's former partner. Holwood seems deranged, and hints at some terrible secret in Donald's past.
* Indicates the story's point of view:

Lucy mails the package despite her qualms; she wonders what it might contain. Meanwhile, in a shabby hotel room across town, Holwood meticulously plans the death of Donald Matthews. (This shows us that the story's point of view is third-person omniscient; we will skip from one viewpoint to another as events require.)
* Contains virtually no dialogue:

Donald invites Lucy to dinner at a notorious speakeasy, saying she'll enjoy herself more than she thinks she will.

A list of major characters' names (with brief descriptions) can sometimes be helpful in keeping the story straight; if used, such a list usually goes at the beginning of the synopsis.

A background section sometimes precedes the synopsis itself, especially if the story's context requires some explanation. (This seems especially true of science fiction, fantasy, and historical novels, where the plot may hinge on unfamiliar story elements.) Otherwise, such explanation simply crops up where required in the synopsis.

How long should a synopsis be? I've sold some novels with just two or three pages. Other writers may write forty or fifty pages of outline. If your purpose is to interest an editor before the novel is completed, and you expect the total ms. to run to 90,000 to 120,000 words, a synopsis of four to ten doublespaced pages should be adequate. After all, you're trying to tempt the editor by showing her a brief sample, giving her grounds for a decision without a long investment in reading time.

Should you stick to your synopsis? Not necessarily. It's there to help you and your editor, not to dictate the whole story. Like the itinerary of a foreign tour, it should give you a sense of direction and purpose while leaving you free to explore interesting byways; it should also give you a quick return to the main road if the byway turns into a dead end.

Understanding Genre: Notes on the Thriller
``Genre'' simply means a kind of literature (usually fiction) dealing with a particular topic, setting, or issue. Even so-called ``mainstream'' fiction has its genres: the coming-of-age story, for example. In the last few decades, genre in North America has come to mean types of fiction that are commercially successful because they are predictable treatments of familiar material: the Regency romance, the hard-boiled detective novel, the space opera. Some readers, writers and critics dismiss such fiction precisely because of its predictability, and they're often right to do so. But even the humblest hackwork requires a certain level of craft, and that means you must understand your genre's conventions if you are going to succeed--and especially if you are going to convey your message by tinkering with those conventions. For our purposes, a ``convention'' is an understanding between writer and reader about certain details of the story. For example, we don't need to know the history of the Mexican-American War to understand why a youth from Ohio is punching cattle in Texas in 1871. We don't need to understand the post-Einstein physics that permits faster-than-light travel and the establishment of interstellar empires. And we agree that the heroine of a Regency romance should be heterosexual, unmarried, and unlikely to solve her problems through learning karate.

As a novice writer, you should understand your genre's conventions consciously, not just as things you take for granted that help make a good yarn. In this, you're like an apprentice cook who can't just uncritically love the taste of tomato soup; you have to know what ingredients make it taste that way, and use them with some calculation.

So it might be useful for you, in one of your letters to yourself about your novel, to write out your own understanding and appreciation of the form you're working in. I found this was especially helpful with a couple of my early books, which fell into the genre of the natural-disaster thriller. Your genre analysis doesn't have to be in essay form; it just has to identify the key elements of the genre as you understand them, and that in turn should lead to ideas about how to tinker with the genre's conventions. And that, in turn, should make your story more interesting than a slavish imitation of your favorite author.

As an example, here are my Own views about the thriller:

1. The thriller portrays persons confronting problems they can't solve by recourse to established institutions and agencies; calling 911, or a psychiatrist, won't help matters in the slightest.
2. The problems not only threaten the characters' physical and mental safety, they threaten to bring down the society they live in: their families, their communities, their nations. This is what is at stake in the story, and should appear as soon as possible.
3. The solution to the characters' problems usually involves some degree of violence, illegality, technical expertise, and dramatic action, but not more than we can plausibly expect from people of the kind we have chosen to portray.
4. The political thriller portrays characters who must go outside their society if they are to save it, and the characters therefore acquire a certain ironic quality. They must be at least as skilled and ruthless as their adversaries, yet motivated by values we can understand and admire even if we don't share them.
5. The disaster thriller portrays characters who are either isolated from their society or who risk such isolation if they fail. That is, either they will die or their society will fall (or both) if they do not accomplish their goals. In the novel of natural disaster, the disaster comes early and the issue is who will survive and how. In the novel of man-made disaster, the issue is how (or whether) the characters will prevent the disaster.
6. The characters must be highly plausible and complex; where they seem grotesque or two-dimensional, we must give some valid reason for these qualities. They must have adequate motives for the extreme and risky actions they take, and they must respond to events with plausible human reactions. Those reactions should spring from what we know of the characters' personalities, and should throw new light on those personalities.
7. The protagonist's goal is to save or restore a threatened society; it is rarely to create a whole new society. In this sense, the thriller is usually politically conservative, though irony may subvert that conservatism.
8. At the outset the protagonist only reacts to events; at some point, however, he or she embarks on the counterthrust, an attempt to take charge and overcome circumstances.
9. The progress of the protagonist is from ignorance to knowledge, accomplished through a series of increasingly intense and important conflicts. These lead to a climactic conflict and the resolution of the story.
10. With the climax the protagonist attains self-knowledge as well as understanding of his or her circumstances (or at least we attain such knowledge). This knowledge may well create a whole new perspective on the story's events and the characters' values: A murder may turn out to have been futile, or loyalty may have been betrayed. We should prepare for these insights early in the novel, so that the protagonist's change and development are logical and believable.

Symbolism and all that
Maybe you never got anything out of your literature courses except a strong dislike for ``analyzing a story to death.'' Sometimes the symbolic interpretation of a story or poem can seem pretty far-fetched.

Nevertheless, as soon as you start writing, you start writing on some kind of symbolic level. Maybe you're not conscious of it, but it's there: in your characters, their actions, the setting, and the images. (Some writers are very powerful symbolists, but don't realize it; that's why authors are often poor critics of their own work.)

You may argue that your writing simply comes out of your own life and experience, and has nothing to do with ``literary'' writing. Well, no doubt you'll include elements of your own life, but whether you like it or not you'll find yourself treating that experience like gingerbread dough: You'll shape it into a mold to create a gingerbread man, or you'll have a shapeless mess on your hands.

What you write is really a kind of commentary on everything you've read so far in your life. If you get a kick out of romance novels, and you write one based on your own torrid love life which is quite different from most romances, your novel is still a comment on what you've read.

This is not the place for a long discussion of the theory of fiction. You should learn at least the basics of that theory, however, and no better source exists than Anatomy of Criticism, by Northrop Frye. You may find parts of it heavy going, but it will repay your efforts by letting you look at your own work more perceptively, and by enabling you to develop structure and symbol more consciously.

To paraphrase Frye very crudely, every story is about a search for identity. That identity depends largely on the protagonist's position (or lack of position) in society. A tragic story shows a person who moves from a socially integrated position (the Prince of Denmark, the King of Thebes) to a socially isolated one (a dead prince, a blind beggar). A comic story shows a person moving from social isolation (symbolized by poverty, lack of recognition, and single status) to social integration (wealth, status, and marriage to one's beloved).

Fiction in the western tradition draws on two major sources: ancient Greek literature, and the Judaeo-Christian Bible. Both sources are concerned with preservation or restoration of society, and with the individual hero as savior or social redeemer. Hamlet wants to redeem Denmark from his uncle's usurpation; Oedipus wants to save Thebes from the curse that he himself unintentionally placed on it.

In precisely the same way, the private eye redeems his society by identifying who is guilty (and therefore who is innocent); the frontier gunman risks his life to preserve the honest pioneers; the mutant telepath faces danger to search for fellow-mutants.

Now, you can play this straight or you can twist it. The private eye may find that everyone is guilty. The gunman may be in the pay of crooked land speculators. The mutant may find he is sterile, that his talents will die surface meaning. Winston Smith, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, is happily integrated at the end of the story, but we don't share his happiness.

How you use symbols can also undercut or change your apparent meaning. Let's take a look at some common symbols and patterns, and how they can comment on your story.
The Natural Cycle
Day to night, spring to winter, youth to old age. These suggest all kinds of imagery: light=goodness, darkness=evil

spring=hope, winter=despair

girl=innocence, crone=evil knowledge, impending death

Northrop Frye argues that we associate images of spring with comedy; images of summer with romance; images of autumn with tragedy; images of winter with satire and irony. Note, however, that here ``comedy'' means a story of social unification; ``tragedy'' means a story of social isolation; and ``romance'' means a story in which the characters are larger than life and encounter wonders usually not seen in reality.

Bear in mind that images associated with these cycles are usually all you need: at the end of Nineteen Eighty-Four, a cold April wind kills the crocuses that ought to promise hope and renewal. Similarly, autumn leaves can symbolize an aging person, a dying society, or the onset of evil.

The Natural Versus the Human World
Desert versus garden

Sinister forest versus park

Pastoral world versus city

In western literature, the journey from innocence to experience is often symbolized by the protagonist's journey from an idyllic world close to nature, to an urban world that has closed itself against nature. (In Biblical terms, this is the journey from Eden through the desert of the fallen world, to the Heavenly City.) Returns to the natural world are sometimes successful; sometimes the protagonist manages to bring the urban world into a new harmony with nature. In other cases, an urban hero finds meaning and value through some kind of contact with nature.

The Hero's Quest: Mysterious or unusual birth
Prophecy that he will overthrow the present order, restore a vanished order

Secluded childhood among humble people in a pastoral setting

Signs of the hero's unusual nature

Journey-quest -- a series of adventures and ordeals that test the hero, culminating in a climactic confrontation

Death -- real or symbolic

Rebirth

Recognition as savior-king; formation of new society around him

Symbolic Images
A symbol may be good or evil, depending on its context, and the author is quite free to develop the context to convey a particular symbolism. For example, the tree is usually a symbol of life--but not if you use it as the venue for a lynching, or you turn its wood into a crucifix or a gibbet. Here are some images and their most common symbolic meanings:

* Garden: nature ordered to serve human needs (paradis is a Persian word for garden)
* Wilderness: nature hostile to human needs
* River: life, often seen as ending in death as the river ends in the sea
* Sea: chaos, death, source of life
* Flower: youth, sexuality; red flowers symbolize death of young men
* Pastoral animals: Ordered human society
* Predatory animals: Evil; threats to human order
* Fire: light, life or hell and lust
* Sky: heaven, fate or necessity
* Bridge: Link between worlds, between life and death

Symbolic Characters
Different types of characters recur so often that they've acquired their own names. Here are some of the most common:

* Eiron: One who deprecates himself and appears less than he really is; includes most types of hero (Ulysses, Frodo, Huck Finn). The term ``irony'' derives from eiron.
* Alazon: An imposter, one who boasts and presents himself as more than he really is; subtypes include the braggart soldier (General Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove) and obsessed philosopher-mad scientist (Saruman, Dr. Strangelove). In my novel Tsunami, I named my villain Allison; although he starts as a movie director, he ends up as a braggart soldier.
* Tricky slave: Hero's helper (Jim in Huckleberry Finn; Gollum in The Lord of the Rings).
* Helpful giant: Hero's helper; in tune with nature (Ents in TLOR; Chewbacca in Star Wars).
* Wise old man: Hero's helper; possessor of knowledge (Gandalf, Obi-Wan Kenobi).
* Buffoon: Creates a festive mood, relieves tension (Sam Gamgee, Mercutio).
* Churl: Straight man, killjoy or bumpkin (Uriah Heep).
* Fair maiden: Symbol of purity and redemption (Rowena) or of repressed sexuality (any number of Ice Maidens).
* Dark woman: Symbol of lust and temptation (or of natural sexuality).
* Hero's double: Represents the dark side of the hero's character (Ged's shadow in Wizard of Earthsea).

Since these images are much older than what is now politically correct, they can cause problems; readers may see them as affirmations of old, oppressive social values. However, many modern writers now use them ironically to criticize, not endorse, the values the images originally expressed. Nevertheless, be aware that if your heroines are always blonde virgins and your villainesses are always seductive brunettes, you may be sending a message you don't consciously intend.

Be aware also that you're perfectly free to develop your own symbolic system. Just as the ``Rosebud'' sled in Citizen Kane symbolizes Kane's lost childhood innocence, you can make a symbol out of a hat rack, a catcher's mitt, or an old bus schedule. You're also free to make your symbols understandable to your readers, or to keep them part of your private mythology. If you associate a catcher's mitt with your the death of your hero's father, the reader will understand--on some level--what you're trying to say. If the catcher's mitt seems important to your hero, but you don't tell us why, we can only guess at the symbolic meaning.

Don't try too self-consciously to be ``symbolic.'' But if certain images, objects or events seem to dominate your thinking about your novel, write yourself a letter about them. See whether they might indeed carry some symbolic level of meaning, and if that level is in harmony with your conscious intent.
Narrative Voice
Someone in your story has to tell us that Jeff pulled out his gun, that Samantha smiled at the tall stranger, that daylight was breaking over the valley. That someone is the narrator or ``author's persona.''

The author's persona of a fictional narrative can help or hinder the success of the story. Which persona you adopt depends on what kind of story you are trying to tell, and what kind of emotional atmosphere works best for the story.

The persona develops from the personality and attitude of the narrator, which are expressed by the narrator's choice of words and incidents. These in turn depend on the point of view of the story.

First-person point of view is usually subjective: we learn the narrator's thoughts, feelings, and reactions to events. In first-person objective, however, the narrator tells us only what people said and did, without comment.

Other first-person modes include:

* the observer-narrator, outside the main story (examples: Mr. Lockwood in Wuthering Heights, Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby)
* detached autobiography (narrator looking back on long-past events)
* multiple narrators (first-person accounts by several characters)
* interior monologue (narrator recounts the story as a memory; stream of consciousness is an extreme form of this narrative)
* dramatic monologue (narrator tells story out loud without major interruption)
* letters or diary (narrator writes down events as they happen)

If the point of view is first-person, questions about the persona are simple: the character narrating the story has a particular personality and attitude, which is plausibly expressed by the way he or she describes events.

The second-person mode is rare: You knocked on the door. You went inside. Very few writers feel the need for it, and still fewer use it effectively.

If the point of view is third-person limited, persona again depends on the single character through whose eyes we witness the story. You may go inside the character's mind and tell us how that character thinks and feels, or you may describe outside events in terms the character would use. Readers like this point of view because they know whom to ``invest'' in or identify with.

In third-person objective, we have no entry to anyone's thoughts or feelings. The author simply describes, without emotion or editorializing, what the characters say and do. The author's persona here is almost non-existent. Readers may be unsure whose fate they should care about, but it can be very powerful precisely because it invites the reader to supply the emotion that the persona does not. This is the persona of Icelandic sagas, which inspired not only Ernest Hemingway but a whole generation of ``hard-boiled'' writers.

If the point of view is third-person omniscient, however, the author's persona can develop in any of several directions.

1. ``Episodically limited.'' Whoever is the point of view for a particular scene determines the persona. An archbishop sees and describes events from his particular point of view, while a pickpocket does so quite differently. So the narrator, in a scene from the archbishop's point of view, has a persona quite different from that of the pickpocket: a different vocabulary, a different set of values, a different set of priorities. (As a general rule, point of view should not change during a scene. So if an archbishop is the point of view in a scene involving him and a pickpocket, we shouldn't suddenly switch to the pickpocket's point of view until we've resolved the scene and moved on to another scene.)
2. ``Occasional interruptor.'' The author intervenes from time to time to supply necessary information, but otherwise stays in the background. The dialogue, thoughts and behavior of the characters supply all other information the reader needs.
3. ``Editorial commentator.'' The author's persona has a distinct attitude toward the story's characters and events, and frequently comments on them. The editorial commentator may be a character in the story, often with a name, but is usually at some distance from the main events; in some cases, we may even have an editorial commentator reporting the narrative of someone else about events involving still other people. The editorial commentator is not always reliable; he or she may lie to us, or misunderstand the true significance of events.

Third-person omniscient gives you the most freedom to develop the story, and it works especially well in stories with complex plots or large settings where we must use multiple viewpoints to tell the story. It can, however, cause the reader to feel uncertain about whom to identify with in the story. If you are going to skip from one point of view to another, start doing so early in the story, before the reader has fully identified with the original point of view.

The author's persona can influence the reader's reaction by helping the reader to feel close to or distant from the characters. Three major hazards arise from careless use of the persona:

1. Sentimentality. The author's editorial rhetoric tries to evoke an emotional response that the story's events cannot evoke by themselves--something like a cheerleader trying to win applause for a team that doesn't deserve it. A particular problem for the ``editorial commentator.''
2. Mannerism. The author's persona seems more important than the story itself, and the author keeps reminding us of his or her presence through stylistic flamboyance, quirks of diction, or outright editorializing about the characters and events of the story. Also a problem for the editorial commentator. However, if the point of view is first person, and the narrator is a person given to stylistic flamboyance, quirks of diction, and so on, then the problem disappears; the persona is simply that of a rather egotistical individual who likes to show off.
3. Frigidity. The persona's excessive objectivity trivializes the events of the story, suggesting that the characters' problems need not be taken seriously: a particular hazard for ``hardboiled'' fiction in the objective mode, whether first person or third person.

Verb tense can also affect the narrative style of the story. Most stories use the past tense: I knocked on the door. She pulled out her gun. This is usually quite adequate although flashbacks can cause awkwardness: I had knocked on the door. She had pulled out her gun. A little of that goes a long way.

Be careful to stay consistently in one verb tense unless your narrator is a person who might switch tenses: So I went to see my probation officer, and she tells me I can't hang out with my old buddies no more.

Some writers achieve a kind of immediacy through use of the present tense: I knock on the door. She pulls out her gun. We don't feel anyone knows the outcome of events because they are occurring as we read, in ``real time.'' Some writers also enjoy the present tense because it seems ``arty'' or experimental. But most readers of genre fiction don't enjoy the present tense, so editors are often reluctant to let their authors use it. I learned that the hard way by using present tense in my first novel, The Empire of Time; it was enough to keep the manuscript in editorial limbo for months, and the final offer to publish was contingent on changing to past tense. Guess how long I agonized over that artistic decision!
Constructing a Scene
The basic unit of fiction is not the sentence or the paragraph, but the scene. Every scene in a story has both a verbal and a nonverbal content. The verbal content may be a young man fervently courting a girl, or the President of the United States deciding whether to go ahead with a nuclear attack on a biological-warfare research center. The nonverbal content appears in the way you present the scene: You want your reader to think that the young man is touchingly awkward, or obnoxiously crude; that the president is a shallow twerp or a deeply sensitive man facing a terrible decision.

In effect, you are like an attorney presenting a case to the jury: You supply the evidence, and the jury supplies the verdict. If you tell us that the young man is touchingly awkward, we may well disbelieve you. But if you show us his awkward behavior, and we say, ``Aw, the poor lunk!''--then your scene has succeeded.

Every scene presents a problem of some kind for one or more characters, and shows us how the characters deal with that problem. That, in turn, shows us something about the characters and moves the story ahead.

Here's an exercise I've found useful with my fiction-writing students. I give them about 30 minutes to take the following elements to construct a scene that dramatizes the elements and leads to a decisive resolution:

* A taxi and public-transit strike that's completely tied up downtown traffic
* Donald Benson, a 35-year-old businessman: male chauvinist, aggressive personality, with business troubles
* Helene Williams, his 22-year-old secretary: insecure in her new job, able to make friends easily, knows the city well
* The need to get Donald to a hotel out at the airport to make a crucial presentation to a potential investor from Los Angeles; the investor will be flying out in four hours.

Give yourself half an hour to write such a scene, so that the reader will finish it knowing all this information. I predict you'll be amazed at how quickly you can produce the scene, and at how it leads logically to another scene. The key is *knowing what you want to show your reader about your characters and their problems.* Once you know that, everything else follows pretty easily. So consider what's going on in your own story. What do you want your reader to think about your heroine? That she's shy but determined? That she thinks no man could ever love her? That she's perceptive about other women but baffled by men? Whatever those traits may be, you should be able to think of logical, plausible events that could force her to show them to us.

In some cases, your plot will give you some automatic scenes. If your heroine is flying from New York to Frankfurt, maybe her seatmate is an attractive man who studiously ignores her; maybe the German customs people give her a hard time but she insists on her rights; maybe the heroine sees the attractive man greeted by a woman he seems to dote on even though the perceptive heroine can see the woman despises him. And so on.

How long should a scene be? Long enough to make its point. A scene may run to just a sentence or two, or it may take up 20 pages. When it ends, we should know more about the characters involved, and their problems should have increased. This doesn't mean endlessly increasing gloom, but it means that even a success only clears the way for a more stressful scene to come. The hero may disarm the terrorist bomb in the daycare center, but the resulting publicity will make him a marked man; now the terrorists will try to kill him or his loved ones.

How many characters should take part in a scene? As few as possible. Even a debate in Congress isn't going to involve every last representative. Here's a tip in this connection: If your plot demands a fairly large cast--for example, your protagonist is the commanding officer of an infantry platoon, or the headmistress of a girls' school--don't introduce a whole mob of characters at once. Bring in your protagonist first, in a scene that demonstrates the character's key traits (courage, leadership, self-hatred, whatever). Then bring in each of the supporting characters in a scene that lets him or her display key traits as well, while deepening our understanding of the protagonist and moving the plot along.

This way we build up interest in the story by building up interest in the varied and complex characters. Tolkien does it in The Lord of the Rings; Kurosawa does it in Seven Samurai. Learn from the old masters!
Show And Tell: Which Is Better?
Novice writers (and some professionals) often fall into the trap of ``expositing'' information instead of presenting it dramatically. Sometimes exposition is inevitable, or even desirable. Lloyd Abbey, in his brilliant SF novel The Last Whales, gives us exactly one line of human dialogue; his characters, all being whales, can't speak to one another, so the narrator must tell us what they think and do. Gabriel Garca Marquez can also write superb exposition for page after page.

Most of us ordinary mortals, however, need to dramatize our characters and their feelings. Otherwise our readers will tire of our editorials.

Consider the following expository and dramatic passages. Which more adequately conveys what the author is trying to show to the reader?

Vanessa was a tall woman of 34 with shoulder-length red hair and a pale complexion. She often lost her temper; when she did, her fair skin turned a deep pink, and she often swore. She was full of energy, and became impatient at even the slightest delay or impediment to her plans. Marshall, her chief assistant, was a balding, mild-mannered, nervous man of 54 who was often afraid of her. He was also annoyed with himself for letting her boss him around.

------------------------------

Vanessa abruptly got up from her desk. A shaft of sunlight from the window behind her seemed to strike fire from her long red hair as she shook her head violently.

``No, Marshall! God damn it, this won't do! Didn't I make myself clear?''

``Yes, Vanessa, b-but--''

``And you understood what I told you, didn't you?'' Her pale skin was flushing pink, and Marshall saw the signs of a classic outburst on the way. She took a step toward him, forcing him to look up to meet her gaze; she must be a good three inches taller. He raised his hands in supplication, then caught himself and tried to make the gesture look like the smoothing of hair he no longer had. He felt sweat on his bald scalp.

``Vanessa, it was a--''

``It was another one of your screw-ups, Marshall! We're committed to a Thursday deadline. I'm going to make that damn deadline, whether or not you're here to help me. Now, am I going to get some cooperation from you, or not?''

Marshall nodded, cursing himself for his slavish obedience. Fifty-four years old, and taking orders from a bitch twenty years younger. Why didn't he just tell her to shove it?

``All the way, Vanessa. We'll get right on it.''

``Damn well better.'' Her voice softened; the pink faded from her cheeks. ``Okay, let's get going.''

Comment: A paragraph of exposition has turned into a scene: the portrayal of a conflict and its resolution. The scene has also prepared us for further scenes. Maybe Marshall's going to destroy himself for Vanessa, or poison her; maybe Vanessa's going to learn how to behave better. Most importantly, the authorial judgments in the exposition are now happening in the minds of the characters and the mind of the reader--who may well agree with Marshall, or side with Vanessa.

Here's another example:

Jerry was 19. Since leaving high school a year before, he had done almost nothing. He had held a series of part-time jobs, none of them lasting more than a few weeks. His girl friend Judy, meanwhile, was holding down two summer jobs to help pay for her second year of college. Jerry controlled her with a combination of extroverted charm and bullying sulkiness. Secretly he envied her ambition and feared that she would leave him if he ever relaxed his grip on her.

------------------------------

``Hey, good-lookin','' Jerry said as he ambled into the coffee shop and took his usual booth by the window.

``Hi,'' said Judy. She took out her order pad.

``Hey, I'm real sorry about what I said last night. I was way outa line.''

``Would you like to order?''

``Hey, I said I was sorry, all right? Gimme a break.''

``That's fine. But Murray says not to let my social life get in the way of my job. So you've got to order something for a change.''

He snorted incredulously. ``Hey, I'm broke, babe.''

She stared out the window at the traffic. ``You can't hang out here all day for the price of a cup of coffee, Jerry. Not any more. Murray says he'll have to let me go if you do.''

``Well, tell him to get stuffed.''

``Jerry, be reasonable. I can't. I need this job.''

``Christ, you already got the job at the movie theatre.''

``That's nights, and it hardly pays anything. I've got my whole second year at college to pay for this summer. Jerry, maybe we can talk about this after I get off work, okay?''

``Yeah, right. See you Labor Day, then.''

``Jerry, don't be a smartass. See you at four, okay?''

He got up, shrugging. ``Yeah, sure. Guess I'll go over to the bus station and read comic books until then.'' He glared at her. ``Don't be too nice to the guys who come in here. I find out you been fooling around with anybody, you know you're in trouble, right?''

``Right, Jerry. I'm really sorry. See you later.''

Comment: Again we have a conflict that promises to lead to further conflicts and their resolution. We want to know if Judy will ditch Jerry, or Jerry will smarten up. Their relationship reveals itself through their dialogue, not through the author's editorializing.

Note that both these examples involve a power struggle. Someone is determined to be the boss, to get his or her way. Most scenes present such a struggle: someone decides on pizza or hamburgers for dinner, someone chooses the date for D-Day, someone comes up with the winning strategy to defeat the alien invaders or elect the first woman president. We as readers want to see the resources thrown into the struggle: raw masculinity, cynical intelligence, subtle sexual manipulation, political courage, suicidal desperation.

Depending on which resources win, we endorse one myth or another about the way the world operates: that raw masculinity always triumphs, that political courage leads nowhere, and so on. Of course, if we are writing ironically, we are rejecting the very myths we seem to support. By using raw macho bullying mixed with a little self-pity, Jerry seems to win his power struggle with Judy. But few readers would admire him for the way he does it, or expect him to succeed in the long term with such tactics.

Think carefully about this as you develop your scenes. If your hero always wins arguments in a blaze of gunfire, he may become awfully tiresome awfully fast. If your heroine keeps bursting into tears, your readers may want to hand her a hankie (better yet, a towel) and tell her to get lost. Ideally, the power struggle in each scene should both tell us something new and surprising about the characters, and hint at something still hiding beneath the surface--like the insecurity that underlies Jerry's and Vanessa's bullying.

Character In Fiction
Plausible, complex characters are crucial to successful storytelling. You can develop them in several ways.

1. Concreteness. They have specific homes, possessions, medical histories, tastes in furniture, political opinions. Apart from creating verisimilitude, these concrete aspects of the characters should convey information about the story: does the hero smoke Marlboros because he's a rugged outdoorsman, or because that's the brand smoked by men of his social background, or just because you do?
2. Symbolic association. You can express a character's nature metaphorically through objects or settings (a rusty sword, an apple orchard in bloom, a violent thunderstorm). These may not be perfectly understandable to the reader at first (or to the writer!), but they seem subconsciously right. Symbolic associations can be consciously ``archetypal'' (see Northrop Frye), linking the character to similar characters in literature. Or you may use symbols in some private system which the reader may or may not consciously grasp. Characters' names can form symbolic associations, though this practice has become less popular in modern fiction except in comic or ironic writing.
3. Speech. The character's speech (both content and manner) helps to evoke personality: shy and reticent, aggressive and frank, coy, humorous. Both content and manner of speech should accurately reflect the character's social and ethnic background without stereotyping. If a character ``speaks prose,'' his or her background should justify that rather artificial manner. If a character is inarticulate, that in itself should convey something.
4. Behavior. From table manners to performance in hand-to-hand combat, each new example of behavior should be consistent with what we already know of the character, yet it should reveal some new aspect of personality. Behavior under different forms of stress should be especially revealing.
5. Motivation. The characters should have good and sufficient reasons for their actions, and should carry those actions out with plausible skills. If we don't believe characters would do what the author tells us they do, the story fails.
6. Change. Characters should respond to their experiences by changing--or by working hard to avoid changing. As they seek to carry out their agendas, run into conflicts, fail or succeed, and confront new problems, they will not stay the same people. If a character seems the same at the end of a story as at the beginning, the reader at least should be changed and be aware of whatever factors kept the character from growing and developing.

The Character Resume
One useful way to learn more about your characters is to fill out a ``resume'' for them--at least for the more important ones. Such a resume might include the following information:

Name:
Address & Phone Number:
Date & Place of Birth:
Height/Weight/Physical Description:
Citizenship/Ethnic Origin:
Parents' Names & Occupations:
Other Family Members:
Spouse or Lover:
Friends' Names & Occupations:
Social Class:
Education:
Occupation/Employer:
Social Class:
Salary:
Community Status:
Job-Related Skills:
Political Beliefs/Affiliations:
Hobbies/Recreations:
Personal Qualities (imagination, taste, etc.):
Ambitions:
Fears/Anxieties/Hangups:
Intelligence:
Sense of Humor:
Most Painful Setback/Disappointment:
Most Instructive/Meaningful Experience:
Health/Physical Condition/Distinguishing Marks/Disabilities:
Sexual Orientation/Experience/Values:
Tastes in food, drink, art, music, literature, decor, clothing:
Attitude toward Life:
Attitude toward Death:
Philosophy of Life (in a phrase):

You may not use all this information, and you may want to add categories of your own, but a resume certainly helps make your character come alive in your own mind. The resume can also give you helpful ideas on everything from explaining the character's motivation to conceiving dramatic incidents that demonstrates the character's personal traits. The resume serves a useful purpose in your project bible, reminding you of the countless details you need to keep straight.
``Let's Talk About Dialogue,'' He Pontificated
Dialogue has to sound like speech, but it can't be a mere transcript; most people don't speak precisely or concisely enough to serve the writer's needs. Good dialogue has several functions:

* To convey exposition: to tell us, through the conversations of the characters, what we need to know to make sense of the story.
* To convey character: to show us what kinds of people we're dealing with.
* To convey a sense of place and time: to evoke the speech patterns, vocabulary and rhythms of specific kinds of people.
* To develop conflict: to show how some people use language to dominate others, or fail to do so.

Each of these functions has its hazards. Expository dialogue can be dreadful:

``We'll be in Vancouver in thirty minutes,'' the flight attendant said. ``It's Canada's biggest west coast city, with a population of over a million in the metropolitan area.''

Dialogue can convey character, but the writer may bog down in chatter that doesn't advance the story.

``When I was a kid,'' said Julie, ``I had a stuffed bear named Julius. He was a sweet old thing, and whenever I was upset I'd howl for him.'' (Unless Julie is going to howl for Julius when her husband leaves her, this kind of remark is pointless.)

Dialogue that conveys a specific place and time can become exaggerated and stereotyped:

``Pretty hot ootside, eh?'' remarked Sergeant Renfrew of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. ``Good day to get oot of the hoose and oot on the saltchuck, eh? Catch us a couple of skookum salmon, eh?''

Dialogue that develops conflict has to do so while also conveying exposition, portraying character, and staying true to the time and place:

``Gadzooks,'' said Sergeant Renfrew as he dismounted from his motorcycle. ``Wouldst please present thy driver's licence and registration, madam?''

``Eat hot lead, copper!'' snarled Sister Mary Agnes as she drew the .45 from within her habit.

Some Dialogue Hazards to Avoid:

* Too much faithfulness to speech: ``Um, uh, y'know, geez, well, like, well.''
* Unusual spellings: ``Yeah,'' not ``Yeh'' or ``Yea'' or ``Ya.''
* Too much use of ``he said,'' ``she said.''
* Too much variation: ``he averred,'' ``she riposted''
* Dialect exaggeration: ``Lawsy, Miz Scahlut, us's wuhkin' jes' as fas' as us kin.''
* Excessive direct address: ``Tell me, Marshall, your opinion of Vanessa.'' ``I hate her, Roger.'' ``Why is that, Marshall?'' ``She bullies everyone, Roger.''

Some Dialogue Conventions to Consider:
Each new speaker requires a new paragraph, properly indented and set off by quotation marks.

``Use double quotations,'' the novelist ordered, ``and remember to place commas and periods inside those quotation marks.''

``If a speaker goes on for more than one paragraph,'' the count responded in his heavy Transylvanian accent, ``do not close off the quotation marks at the end of the first paragraph.

``Simply place quotation marks at the beginning of the next paragraph, and carry on to the end of the quotation.''

Use ``he said'' expressions only when you must, to avoid confusion about who's speaking. You can signal increasing tension by moving from ``he said'' to ``he snapped,'' to ``he snarled,'' to ``he bellowed furiously.'' But the dialogue itself should convey that changing mood, and make such comments needless.

Action as well as speech is a part of dialogue. We expect to know when the speakers pause, where they're looking, what they're doing with their hands, how they respond to one another. The characters' speech becomes just one aspect of their interactions; sometimes their words are all we need, but sometimes we definitely need more. This is especially true when you're trying to convey a conflict between what your characters say and what they feel: their nonverbal messages are going to be far more reliable than their spoken words.

Speak your dialogue out loud; if it doesn't sound natural, or contains unexpected rhymes and rhythms, revise it.

Rely on rhythm and vocabulary, not phonetic spelling, to convey accent or dialect.

If you are giving us your characters' exact unspoken thoughts, use italics. If you are paraphrasing those thoughts, use regular Roman type):

Now what does she want? he asked himself. Isn't she ever satisfied? Marshall wondered what she wanted now. She was never satisfied.

If you plan to give us a long passage of inner monologue, however, consider the discomfort of having to read line after line of italic print. If you wish to emphasize a word in a line of italics, use Roman: Isn't she ever satisfied?
Writing A Query Letter About Your Novel
The query can be a quick way to tell whether your novel might be of interest to a particular publisher--without having to wait until some editor finds your manuscript deep within her slush pile. The query should give the editor an idea of your story (and a sense of the way you're handling it) that's clear enough to help her decide if it's worth considering. If the idea sounds good, you know the complete manuscript (or sample chapters) will enjoy a prompt and careful reading. If the idea doesn't sound right for her, she may tell you why, and perhaps suggest either a new approach or another publisher.

Some queries are very short, and others are long indeed--novel outlines masquerading as letters. Consider the following suggestions as guidelines, not ironclad laws:

1. Supply a short, pungent description of what the book is about: a desperate attempt to escape a narcotics bust, an unexpected journey that leads to romance and danger in 1930s China, an aging gunfighter's attempt to prove himself again in the Mexican Revolution.
2. If not obvious from your plot outline, identify the audience your book is aimed at: hardcore space-opera fans, teenage girls, Regency-romance readers.
3. Be able to tell the editor what makes this novel different from others in the genre: a twist in the plot, a new angle on the hero, an unusual setting.
4. Your credentials may be helpful, if only as a dedicated and knowledgeable reader in the genre, or as an observant resident of the city you've set your novel in. These are not trivial qualifications: If you don't know and love the genre you're writing in, it will show. And if you don't know the history and folklore of your setting, the story will lack depth.
5. Display in your query some of the excitement and energy you want to bring to your story--show how and why this story matters to you, and it'll matter to your editor.

The Letter Itself
Ideally, your query letter ought to run to a page or a little more, organized something like this:

First paragraph: Tell us what kind of novel you've written, or are now writing. How long is it, when and where is it set? Describe the hero and heroine, and perhaps one or two other major characters. What's their predicament? How are they proposing to get out of it? And why should we care--that is, what's at stake?

Second paragraph: Describe what happens in the middle of the novel--how your characters interact, what conflicts arise among them.

Third paragraph: The resolution of the novel--the climax and its outcome, and tying up loose ends.

Fourth paragraph: Why this story interests you, what your qualifications are for writing it, and some questions for the editor: If this story interests you, would you like the whole ms., or an outline and sample chapters? Do you have any specific ms. requirements I should be aware of?

Obviously this pattern will vary depending on the nature of the query: If you've included an outline and sample chapters, the plot summary will be very brief or nonexistent, and the query will focus on your background and your questions for the editor. If the book is completed, the plot summary will be easier to supply than if you have only a rough idea of where the book is going.

The query letter is a blurb for your novel, and like any blurb it needs to pique the reader's interest and make the reader wonder: ``How is that going to turn out?" The quality of writing in the query had better be first-rate, especially if you haven't included an elegantly written chapter or two. If your query is clumsy or riddled with English errors, the editor will be less than eager to see more of your prose.

Because the query requires little time to read and respond to, it can help you quickly identify potential markets and definite non-markets. But it can't pre-sell your novel; at best, it can only create a cautiously welcoming attitude in an editor who knows how tough it is to sell a first novel during a recession.

Will your query reveal such a knockout story idea that the publisher will steal it--turn you down, pass on your idea to one of their hack writers, and publish it for their own profit? This may be the single most common anxiety of novices, but the sad truth is that your idea probably isn't worth stealing. In fact, the editor may wearily see it as the umpteenth standard variation on some ancient plot, one she's seen a dozen times just this week. This is not to say your idea should be positively weird; most story ideas in genre fiction are indeed variations on ancient plots. The trick is to make the variations appear to be fresh, surprising, and full of potential storytelling power. A query is a direct approach to an editor. But you may well be aware that many, many publishing houses no longer even consider queries or submissions that do not come through an agent. In my next posting I'll consider what that implies in the selling of your novel.
Researching Publishers and Agents
Too many people submit manuscripts to publishers.

Simply to read enough of those manuscripts to judge them unworthy would take the full-time services of several salaried editors. Most publishers simply can't afford to plow through the slush pile in hopes of someday finding a Great Novelist.

So they indicate in Writer's Market that they will consider only ``agented submissions''--work that a professional literary agent, who knows the market, thinks has some sales potential.

That simply draws fire onto the agents, who now find that they too have huge slush piles. And, like the publishers, the agents can't make money reading unsalable junk.

Where does that leave you?

In better shape than you think. If you've hammered out a credible but surprising plot about interesting people in a hell of a jam, and you're showing them in action instead of telling us what they're like, and your grammar, spelling and punctuation are first-rate--you're already ahead of 80 per cent of your competition.

Now the problem is finding the right market. Too many novice writers simply fire off their work to a publisher they've vaguely heard of, or one that's supposed to be prestigious, or even one that happens to be conveniently located right in town. (Those were precisely my three motives in submitting my first children's book to Parnassus Press. They bought it, which shows that sometimes even ignoramuses can get lucky. By rights I should have had to send the ms. to a couple of dozen houses before hitting the right one--if I ever did.)

Publishers tend to carve out special markets for themselves. A couple of sharp editors can dominate a genre; because they know how to reach a certain kind of reader, they attract a certain kind of writer. Or a publisher may be passionately devoted to supporting a certain kind of fiction, but is deeply uninterested in any other kind. A feminist publisher wouldn't have the faintest idea how to market a men's action-adventure novel, and wouldn't care to learn. A children's publisher won't care how well-crafted your murder mystery is. And so on.

So step one is almost embarrassingly obvious: Notice which houses publish the kind of story you're working on. Look carefully at the story elements in the titles they publish; Del Rey fantasy novels, for example, require magic as a major component, not just frosting or a gimmick to get the hero somewhere interesting. Out of all the publishers in North America, only a few are potentially yours.

Then consult those potential publishers' entries in Writer's Market and see what they have to say about their own needs and who their editors are in specific genres. You may learn that your work in progress is too long, or too short, or needs some particular quality like a heroine aged over 35. You may also learn how long it takes them to respond to queries and submissions. Don't take those statements as legally binding promises; responses almost always take far longer, especially for unagented submissions.

Writer's Market also lists publishers by the genres they publish. This list can lead you to houses you're not familiar with, but don't just rush your ms. off to some publisher in Podunk. Check out the entries of these houses also, and also track down some of their recent titles in your genre. If they strike you as dreadful garbage, avoid them. Better to stay unpublished than to be trapped with a bad publisher.

Another useful source of research information is the publishing trade press. Quill and Quire in Canada, and Publisher's Weekly in the US, are much more up-to-date than any annual can be. So if the top horror editor in New York has just moved to a new publisher, or a publisher is starting a new line of romance novels aimed at Asian women, you may adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. Magazines like The Writer and Writer's Digest supply similar market news.

If every possible publisher warns you off with "No unagented submissions," you then have to go through a similar process with literary agents. You should be able to find an annually updated list of agents in your local library or the reference section of a good bookstore. Some agents, like Scott Meredith and Richard Curtis, have even written books themselves about the publishing business; these are worth reading.

As a general rule, you probably need an agent in the city where most of your publishers are. That, as a general rule, means New York City. You also need an agent who knows the market for your particular genre, so your work will go as promptly as possible to the most likely markets. (Some agents may submit a work in multiple copies to all potential publishers; this can really speed up the process.)

But also bear in mind that the phone and fax can put almost anyone in close touch with the New York market, so an agent in Chicago or Los Angeles or Miami may be quite as effective as somebody in Manhattan--and may also be familiar with regional publishers.

Consider whether you want a big agent with scores or hundreds of clients, or a small outfit. The big agent may have clout but little stake in promoting you; the small agent may work hard for you, but lack entree to some editors. Talk to published writers, if possible, about their experiences with agents; sometimes a sympathetic author can suggest a good one.

No agent, however good, can sell your work to an editor who doesn't want to buy it. What the agent offers the editor is a reasonably trustworthy opinion about the marketability of a particular manuscript. It's in the agent's interest to deal only in work with serious sales potential, and to get it quickly into the hands of its most likely buyers.

You may therefore have to query a number of agents before you find one who's willing to take you on. And you may find that some highly reputable agents won't look at your stuff unless you pay them to.

This is not a racket. If you agree to the agent's terms, the reading may give you a very frank response. Sometimes you'll get a detailed critique that may devastate your ego but teach you just what you need to learn. In many cases the agent will waive the reading fee if he feels you're a commercial possibility and you're willing to sign on as one of his clients. That should be an encouraging offer indeed.

Sometimes an agent will take you on but strongly suggest certain kinds of revisions, or even that you tackle a completely different kind of story. Listen carefully; you're getting advice from someone who knows the market and wants to share in your prosperity. At least one of my novels greatly profited from the advice of an agent who thought my originally proposed ending was a disaster.

Your agreement with an agent may take the form of a detailed contract, or a simple agreement over the phone, or something in between. Be sure you understand and accept the terms your agent requires: Ten per cent of what he makes you, or 15? Deductions for photocopying, postage and phone bills? Control over all your writing, or just your fiction output?

Once you have an agent, don't be a pest. When he's got something to report, he'll let you know. If you've got something to report, like the completion of the manuscript or an idea for turning it into a series, let the agent know. Otherwise, stay off the phone and stick to your writing.

In some cases, of course, you may find you've sold a novel on your own hook and then decide to go looking for an agent. Under these happy circumstances you should find it fairly easy to get an agent's interest. If the publisher's already offered you a contract (and you haven't signed yet), the agent may be willing to take you on and then bargain a better deal for you. But you'll probably do all right even if you negotiate that first contract on your own. Most publishers are honorable and decent people; sometimes their integrity is positively intimidating. Even if they weren't honorable, your first book is likely to make so little money that it wouldn't be worth it to screw you out of spare change.

Reading a Contract
When you do finally receive a publisher's contract, you may feel your heart sink. It runs to several pages of single-spaced text, highly flavored with legalese and organized in a daunting sequence of numbered paragraphs and subparagraphs. Who knows what thorns lurk in such a thicket?

Actually, not too many. Most of your contract is standard ``boilerplate'' text that protects you as much as the publisher. It is often possible, even for a novice, to negotiate specific aspects of the contract.

Still, it helps to know what you're getting yourself into, so let us take a look at some of the key passages you're likely to find in your contract.

Delivery Of Satisfactory Copy
If you're selling your novel on the strength of sample chapters and an outline, the publisher wants assurance that you'll submit the full manuscript (often with a second copy), at an agreed-upon length, by an agreed-upon date. If your full ms. doesn't measure up, or arrives too late, the publisher has the right to demand return of any money you've received.

In practice the publisher is usually much more flexible. He may bounce your ms. back to you with a reminder that you don't get the rest of your advance until the ms. is ``satisfactory.'' He (or more likely the editor) will tell you in exquisite detail what you still need to do to achieve ``satisfactory"''status. A late ms. also means you won't collect the balance of your advance until it arrives, and it may also cause delays in final publication--as I learned to my sorrow with Greenmagic.

Permission for Copyrighted Material
If you want to include the lyrics of a pop song in your novel, or quote something as an epigraph, it's up to you to obtain the rights to such material, and to pay for them if necessary. If you leave it to the publisher, he'll charge you; if he can't get permission, and the novel doesn't work without such material, the deal is off and you have to repay any advance you've received. Obviously, this is an extreme case; normally you just drop the lines from the song or poem, and carry on.

Grant Of Rights
You are giving the publisher the right to make copies of what you've written. These copies may be in hardcover, softcover, audio cassette, filmstrip, comic book, or whatever. You are also specifying in which parts of the world the publisher may sell such copies. For example, a sale to a British publisher may specifically exclude North America, leaving you free to sell North American rights separately.

You may also be giving the publisher rights to sell foreign translations, to print excerpts in other books or periodicals as a form of advertising, or to sell copies to book clubs. Normally such sales require your informed, written consent.

Proofreading and Author's Corrections
You agree that you will proofread the galleys or page proofs of your novel and return the corrected pages promptly. If your corrections amount to actual revision of the original manuscript, and will require re-typesetting more than 10 per cent of the book, the publisher will charge you for such costs. This can very easily destroy any income you might have earned from the book.

Advances and Royalties
This spells out how much the publisher will pay you, and when. The most common agreement is payment of one-third of the advance on signing the contract; one-third on delivery of a satisfactory complete ms.; and one-third on publication date. You may be able to negotiate half on signing and half on delivery; otherwise, you are in effect lending the publisher some of your advance until a publication date that may be over a year away.

Royalties are generally a percentage of the list price of the book. For hardcover books, the usual royalties is ten per cent of list price. So a novel retailing for $24.95 will earn its author $2.50 per copy. For mass-market paperbacks, royalty rates can range from four per cent to eight per cent, usually with a proviso that the rate will go up after sale of some huge number of copies--150,000 seems to be a popular target. A paperback selling at $5.95, with an eight per cent royalty, will therefore earn you about 47 cents. A ``trade'' paperback, intended for sale in regular bookstores rather than supermarkets and other mass outlets, will probably earn a comparable rate; the list price, however, will likely be higher and the number of copies sold will be lower.

Whatever the royalty rates, you're likely to get only half as much for sales to book clubs or overseas markets. (This is especially painful for Canadian authors with American publishers: sales in your own country, as ``foreign'' sales, earn only half the U.S. royalty rate.)

You will also agree to split the take from certain kinds of licensing sales. For example, if your novel is a hardback and some other house wants to bring out a paperback edition, you can normally expect a 50 per cent share of what the paperback house pays. Sometimes a paperback house will license a hardback edition (in hopes of getting more critical attention for your book and hence selling more copies in paperback eventually); in such a case you should expect 75 per cent of the deal.

If you can possibly avoid it, do not agree to give your publisher a share of any sale to movies or TV. A film or TV show based on your novel will boost the publisher's sales quite nicely; he doesn't need a slice off the top of a deal that will surely pay you more than the publisher did. But if the book seems highly unlikely to interest Hollywood, you might offer a slice of film rights in exchange for a richer advance, with a proviso that an actual film or TV sale will also produce an additional chunk of money from the publisher.

The publisher will normally not charge for the production of versions of your novel in Braille or other formats for the handicapped. So you will get no money from this source.

The publisher should agree to supply you with two royalty statements a year. Each will cover a six-month reporting period, and each should arrive about 90 days after the close of that period. So a statement for January-June should reach you at the end of September. This will probably be a computer printout, and may be confusing. But it will indicate the number of copies shipped, the number returned unsold by booksellers, and the number presumably sold. The publisher will hold back on some of the royalty ``against further returns.'' Whatever remains is the actual number on which the publisher owes you money.

Chances are that your advance will have consumed any potential royalties for the first reporting period, and perhaps for the second as well. Once you have ``earned out'' your advance, however, you should expect a check with each royalty statement.

Do not sign a contract that does not explicitly promise you at least two royalty statements a year. Some publishers promise a statement only after the novel has earned out its advance. This means you may go for years--or forever--without knowing what your sales have been.

Author's Warranties and Indemnities
Here you are promising that this is indeed your work, that it isn't obscene, a breach of privacy, libelous, or otherwise illegal. If you do get into trouble, you agree to cooperate with the publisher's legal defense, and you agree to pay your share of the costs instead of asking the publisher, booksellers, or others to do so. If the publisher's lawyer thinks the manuscript poses legal problems, you agree to make the changes required to solve those problems--or to allow the publisher to do so.

You may find an insurance rider as part of your contract; this is intended to protect both you and the publisher from suffering total financial disaster if you get caught in a losing lawsuit.

Copies to Author
You will get a certain number of free copies, and will pay a reduced rate for more copies. That means you will still pay for those copies, and you should.

Option Clause
Pay attention to this one! This says you are giving the publisher right of first refusal on your next book (or at least your next book of this particular genre). The option clause means the publisher will give the next book a close, prompt reading. You should expect a response within 90 days, but some contracts specify 90 days after publication of your current book. That means you might have to wait for months, maybe over a year, until the publisher sees the initial reaction to your first book.

In practice, though, you probably will get a quicker response than that. If the publisher does make you an offer, you have the right to refuse it; you can then take your second book to any other publisher you like. However, you can't sell it to anyone else unless you get better terms for it than your original publisher offered.

You may well find yourself trapped as a result. If you need money in a hurry, you may feel you've got to accept a bad offer rather than spend months or years shopping your ms. around the market until you find a more generous publisher. And then, of course, your second contract will include an option clause for the third novel!

Your best hope in this case is that sales of the first book will warrant a heftier advance on the second or third book. And if the publisher still won't cooperate, you can then go to another publisher with at least some respectable sales figures that show you deserve a better deal.

Going Out of Print
Request for it to be reprinted; if he doesn't want to, you can then demand that all rights revert to you. You are then free to sell the book to another publisher. (I have done this a couple of times. You don't make as much money on the resale, but at least the book stays out on the market longer.) You may be able to acquire the plates or film from which copies of your novel were made, making it possible for a new publisher to bring your book out quite cheaply.

You will probably not make any money from ``remaindered'' copies that the publisher may sell to a book jobber at a deep discount. In some contracts, however, the author may indeed receive some percentage of such sales. It's also possible to buy copies of your book at a similar low price.

A Word of Advice
If at all possible, go over the contract with the editor or publisher, asking whatever questions arise. Then take your contract to an agent, lawyer, or professional writer. Chances are that it's perfectly okay. But even if you don't find something sneaky in the fine print, you'll have a clearer understanding of what you and your publisher have committed yourselves to. If something arises later on, like a problem over the option clause or the frequency of royalty statements, it won't come as a total shock.

Finally, bear in mind that if you have read this far, you are seriously interested in mastering an art and craft that rewards very few practitioners--novices or experts. Fiction in print is still relatively popular, but only relatively. For every reader you might attract, TV or films or recordings attract hundreds of consumers. You will work for months or years to create a product that is theoretically eternal, but in practice has a shelf-life of a few weeks. Most of your readers will, two months after reading your work, be unable to recall anything about the story (including your name)--maybe not even whether they liked it or not. And you will reach more readers with a punchy, witty letter to the editor of a metropolitan daily than you're likely to reach with your novel.

Is it worth it? Only you can answer that question. My answer has been yes, and I don't regret it. Writing ten novels has been not only fun but an education; I can hardly wait to find out what the eleventh novel will teach me.

Afterword by the Author
Good heavens--17 files in 15 minutes! Ain't technology grand!

Slight correction: the files total about 100K; I miscounted.

Doubtless some postings have typos or noise... but I hope enough got through to do you some good and encourage you to take a shot at writing fiction--or another shot at that damn novel you've been chipping away at for the last few years.

I hope my comments draw some responses, criticism, rebuttals, anecdotal evidence, aspersions on my ancestry, and anything else that may come to mind. But unless you want to share painful intimacies via e-mail, why not put your comments in the newsgroup where everyone can benefit from them! Thanks for your interest and your patience.

Cheers, CK

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[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/TetMap.jpg/300px-TetMap.jpg]]

he Tet Offensive (Tet Mau Than), or officially, Tổng Công Kích/Tổng Khởi Nghĩa - General Offensive, General Uprising, was a three-phase military campaign conducted between 30 January and 23 September 1968, by the combined forces of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF or Viet Cong) and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) during the Vietnam War.[5] The purpose of the operations, which were unprecedented in this conflict in their magnitude and ferocity, was to strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) and to spark a general uprising among the population that would then topple the Saigon government, thus ending the war in a single blow.[6]

The operations are referred to in the West as the Tet Offensive because they were timed to begin during the early morning hours of 31 January, Tết Nguyên Đán, the lunar new year holiday. For reasons that are still not completely understood, a wave of attacks began on the preceding morning in the I and II Corps Tactical Zones. This early attack did not, however, cause undue alarm or lead to widespread allied defensive measures. When the main NLF-PAVN operation began the next morning, the offensive was countrywide in scope and well coordinated, with more than 80,000 communist troops striking more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of the six autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district towns, and the national capital.[7] The offensive was the largest military operation yet conducted by either side up to that point in the war.

The initial Communist attacks stunned allied forces and took them by surprise, but most were quickly contained and beaten back, inflicting massive casualties on the NLF. The exceptions were the fighting that erupted in the old imperial capital of Huế, where intense fighting lasted for a month, and the continuing struggle around the U.S. combat base at Khe Sanh, where fighting continued for two more months. Although the offensive was a military disaster for communist forces, it had a profound effect on the American administration and shocked the American public, which had been led to believe by its political and military leaders that the communists were, due to previous defeats, incapable of launching such a massive effort.

The majority of Western historians have concluded that the offensive ended in June, which easily located it within framework of U.S. political and military decisions that altered the American commitment to the war. In fact, the General Offensive continued, according to plan, through two more distinct phases. The second phase began on 5 May and continued until the end of the month. The third began on 17 August and only ended on 23 September.

1. Who wrote the first four books of the New Testament?

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

2. Who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament?

Most conservative scholars hold that the Pentateuch was written by Moses.

3. What two Old Testament books are named for women?

Esther and Ruth.

4. What are the Ten Commandments?

1. I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before Me.

2. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

4. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife-or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:2-17)

5. What is the Greatest Commandment?

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew22:37,38)

6. What is the second Greatest Commandment?

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew22:39)

7. What is the Golden Rule?

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Matthew 7:12)

8. What is the Great Commission?

“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19,20)

9. What was the test of a prophet, to know that he was truly from God?

He had to be 100% accurate in his prophecies. The penalty for a false prophet was death by stoning. (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)

10. To whom did God give the 10 Commandments?

Moses. (Exodus 20)

11. Which two people did not die?

Genesis 5:24 says that Enoch, who was Noah's great- grandfather, “walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” The other was the Old Testament prophet Elijah, who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind with a chariot and horses of fire. (2 Kings 2:11)

12. What is the root of all kinds of evil?

The love of money. (1 Timothy 6:10)

13. What is the beginning of wisdom?

The fear of the Lord. (Psalm 111:10)

14. Who delivered the Sermon on the Mount?

The Lord Jesus. (Matthew 5-7)

15. How did sickness and death enter the world?

Romans 5:12 says that sin entered the world though one man, and death through sin. The fall of man is recorded in Genesis 3, where God's perfect creation was spoiled by Adam's sin.

16. Who was the Roman governor who sentenced Christ to death?

Pontius Pilate. (Matthew 27:26)

17. Who are the major prophets?

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

18. What people group is the Old Testament about?

The Hebrews, who became the nation of Israel. They were descendants of Abraham though Isaac.

19. What happened while the Lord Jesus was in the desert for 40 days?

He was tempted by the devil.&nbsp;&nbsp; (Matthew 4:1) Hebrews 4:15&nbsp;&nbsp; tells us that He was tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin.

20. How many people were on Noah's ark?

Eight: Noah and his wife, his three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. (Genesis 7:13)

21. Who was the first murderer?

Cain, who killed his brother Abel. (Genesis 4:8)

22. Which person was afflicted with terrible trials but trusted God through it all?

Job. (See Book of Job)

23. Who was Israel's most well-known and well-loved king?

David. (1 Chronicles 29:28)

24. Who was “the weeping prophet?”

Jeremiah.

25. Who was thrown into the lion's den?

Daniel. (Daniel 6)

26. Who were the two people in the famous fight with a stone and a sling?

David and Goliath. (1 Samuel 17)

27. What is the book of Acts about?

The early years of the church, as the gospel begins to spread throughout the world.

28. What are epistles?

Letters.

29. On what occasion was the Holy Spirit given to the church?

Pentecost. (Acts 2:1-4)

30. Whom did God command to sacrifice his only son?

Abraham. (Genesis 22:2)

31. What was the Old Testament feast that celebrated God's saving the firstborn of Israel the night they left Egypt?

Passover. (Exodus 12:27)

32. Who was the Hebrew who became prime minister of Egypt?

Joseph. (Genesis 41:41)

33. Who was the Hebrew woman who became Queen of Persia?

Esther. (Esther 2:17)

34. Who was the pagan woman who became David's great-grandmother?

Ruth. (Ruth 4:17)

35. Which angel appeared to Mary?

Gabriel. (Luke 1:26)

36. How did the Lord Jesus die?

He gave up His life while being crucified. (John 19:18)

37. What happened to Him three days after He died?

He was raised from the dead. (John 20)

38. What happened to the Lord Jesus 40 days after His resurrection?

He ascended bodily into heaven. (Acts 1:9-11)

39. What should we do when we sin, in order to restore our fellowship with God?

1 John 1:9 tells us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

40. How did the universe and world get here?

Genesis 1:1 tells us, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” We are told further in Colossians 1:16 and 17 that the Lord Jesus Christ was the one who did the creating.

41. Where did Satan and the demons come from?

Satan was originally the best and the brightest angel, but he sinned in his pride, wanting to be God. Some of the angels followed him, and these “fallen angels” were cast out of heaven. (Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28)

42. Who directed the writing of the Bible?

The Holy Spirit. (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21)

43. Where was the Lord Jesus before He was conceived in Mary?

In heaven. (Philippians 2:6-11, 1 Corinthians 15:49)

44. Who taught in parables?

The Lord Jesus. (Matthew 13:3)&nbsp;&nbsp; Jesus' Parables

45. What are parables?

A short, simple story with a spiritual point.

46. Which two animals talked with human speech?

The serpent in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:3) and Balaam's donkey (Numbers 22:28)

47. With which woman did David commit adultery?

Bathsheba. (2 Samuel 11)

48. Which one of their sons succeeded David as king?

Solomon. (2 Samuel 12:24)

49. Who was the female judge of Israel?

Deborah. (Judges 4:4)

50. Who was the wisest man in the world?

Solomon. (1 Kings 3:12)

51. Who was the first man?

Adam. (Genesis 2:20)

52. Who was the most humble man on earth?

Moses. (Numbers 12:3)

53. Who was the strongest man on earth?

Samson. (Judges 13-16)

54. Where were the two nations of God's people taken into captivity?

Israel was taken into Assyria (2 Kings 17:23), and Judah into Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:20).

55. Which cupbearer to a foreign king rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem?

Nehemiah. (Nehemiah 2:5)

56. Who were the two Old Testament prophets who worked miracles?

Elijah and Elisha. (1 Kings 17 - 2 Kings 6)

57. Which Old Testament prophet spent three days in the belly of a great fish?

Jonah. (Jonah 1:17)

58. What is the last book of the Old Testament?

Malachi.

59. For which Israelite commander did the sun stand still?

Joshua. (Joshua 10)

60. Who was the first king of Israel?

Saul. (1 Samuel 13:1)

61. Who built the temple in Israel?

Solomon. (1 Kings 6)

62. Which of the twelve tribes of Israel served as priests?

Levites. (Deuteronomy 10:8)

63. Which city fell after the Israelites marched around it daily for seven days?

Jericho. (Joshua 6:20)

64. What did God give the Israelites to eat in the wilderness?

Manna and quail. (Exodus 16)

65. Which two people walked on water?

Jesus and Peter. (Matthew 14:29)

66. Who was the first martyr?

Stephen. (Acts 7)

67. Who betrayed Jesus to the priests, and for how much?

Judas betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave. (Matthew 26:14-15)

68. What is the Lord's Prayer?

69. Who was the first person to see the risen Lord?

Mary Magdalene. (John 20:16)

70. Which prophet and cousin of the Lord was beheaded?

John the Baptist. (John 14:10)

71. To what country did the young Jesus and His parents escape when Herod was threatening His life?

Egypt. (Matthew 2:13-15)

72. What was Christ's first miracle?

He turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana. (John 2:11)

73. Which one of the Lord's personal friends did He raise from the dead?

Lazarus. (John 11)

74. Who was the greatest missionary of the New Testament?

Paul. (see book of Acts)

75. Who was Paul's first partner?

Barnabas. (Acts 13:2)

76. Whom did an angel release from prison?

Peter. (Acts 12)

77. Which event caused God to splinter human language into many tongues?

The building of the Tower of Babel. (Genesis 11)

78. Which chapter of an Old Testament prophet's book gives a detailed prophecy of the Messiah's death by crucifixion?

Isaiah 53.

79. Who wrestled all night with the Lord and was left with a permanent limp?

Jacob. (Genesis 32:22-32)

80. Which two pastors did Paul write letters to?

Timothy and Titus.

81. Who was hailed as a god when he was bitten by a snake but nothing bad happened?

Paul. (Acts 28:5-6)

82. Which two New Testament writers were brothers of the Lord Jesus?

James and Jude. (Matthew 13:55)

83. Which two New Testament books were written by a doctor?

Luke and Acts. (2 Timothy 4:11)

84. Who had a coat of many colors?

Joseph. (Genesis 37:3)

85. In what sin did Aaron lead the Israelites while his brother Moses was up on the mountain talking to God?

They made an idol in the form of a golden calf. (Exodus 32)

86. How many books are there in the entire Bible?

66: 39 in the Old Testament, and 27 in the New Testament.

87. What's the difference between John the Baptist and the John who wrote several New Testament books?

John the Baptist was a prophet who proclaimed the kingdom of God was near in preparation for his cousin Jesus' ministry. The John who wrote the gospel of John, the epistles-1, 2 and 3 John-and Revelation, was one of the twelve apostles and one of those closest to the Lord, along with Peter and James. He called himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

8. Who saw the Lord appear to him in a burning bush?

Moses. (Exodus 3)

89. How many sons did Jacob have?

Twelve. They were the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. (Genesis 35:22)

90. Who gave up his birthright for a bowl of stew?

Esau. (Genesis 25:33)

91. Which Psalm starts out, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want"?

Psalm 23.

92. Who disowned the Lord Jesus three times before a cock crowed?

Peter. (Matthew 26:69-75)

93. What did the Lord do just before the Last Supper to demonstrate His love and humility?

He washed the disciples' feet. (John 13:5)

94. Where is the New Testament Hall of Faith?
Hebrews 11.

95. Who appeared with the Lord in glory on the Mount of Transfiguration?

Elijah and Moses. (Mark 9:4)

96. Who is the second Adam?

The Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)

97. Which Old Testament prophet married a prostitute because God told him to?

Hosea. (Hosea 1:2)

98. What are the two sacred ordinances that the Lord commanded us to observe?

Baptism (Matthew 28:19,20) and Communion, or the Lord's Table (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).

99. What are supernatural enablings that allow a believer to serve the Body of Christ with ease and effectiveness?

Spiritual gifts. (Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4:8-13, 1 Peter 4:10-11)

100. Whose tomb was Christ buried in?

Joseph of Arimathea. (Matthew 27:57-60)

101. Who wrote the book of Hebrews?

Nobody knows.

102. Which is the epistle of joy?

Philippians.

103. What is the book of Revelation about?

The end of the world.

104. Who is the bride of Christ?

The church-that is, all who have trusted Him for salvation. (Ephesians 5:25-27, Revelation 19:7-8)

Body of Christ

The "Scholars' Translation" of the Gospel of Thomas

by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer
These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.

1 And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."

2 Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]"

3 Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you.

When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."

4 Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live.

For many of the first will be last, and will become a single one."

5 Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.

For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. [And there is nothing buried that will not be raised."]

6 His disciples asked him and said to him, "Do you want us to fast? How should we pray? Should we give to charity? What diet should we observe?"

Jesus said, "Don't lie, and don't do what you hate, because all things are disclosed before heaven. After all, there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and there is nothing covered up that will remain undisclosed."

7 Jesus said, "Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human."

8 And he said, The person is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of little fish. Among them the wise fisherman discovered a fine large fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and easily chose the large fish. Anyone here with two good ears had better listen!

9 Jesus said, Look, the sower went out, took a handful (of seeds), and scattered (them). Some fell on the road, and the birds came and gathered them. Others fell on rock, and they didn't take root in the soil and didn't produce heads of grain. Others fell on thorns, and they choked the seeds and worms ate them. And others fell on good soil, and it produced a good crop: it yielded sixty per measure and one hundred twenty per measure.

10 Jesus said, "I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I'm guarding it until it blazes."

11 Jesus said, "This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away.

The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. During the days when you ate what is dead, you made it come alive. When you are in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?"

12 The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?"

Jesus said to them, "No matter where you are you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."

13 Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to something and tell me what I am like."

Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just messenger."

Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."

Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like."

Jesus said, "I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended."

And he took him, and withdrew, and spoke three sayings to him. When Thomas came back to his friends they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"

Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and devour you."

14 Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.

When you go into any region and walk about in the countryside, when people take you in, eat what they serve you and heal the sick among them.

After all, what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, it's what comes out of your mouth that will defile you."

15 Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father."

16 Jesus said, "Perhaps people think that I have come to casy peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war.

For there will be five in a house: there'll be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, and they will stand alone.

17 Jesus said, "I will give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart."

18 The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us, how will our end come?"

Jesus said, "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is.

Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."

19 Jesus said, "Congratulations to the one who came into being before coming into being.

If you become my disciples and pay attention to my sayings, these stones will serve you.

For there are five trees in Paradise for you; they do not change, summer or winter, and their leaves do not fall. Whoever knows them will not taste death."

20 The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us what Heaven's kingdom is like."

He said to them, It's like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky.

21 Mary said to Jesus, "What are your disciples like?"

He said, They are like little children living in a field that is not theirs. when the owners of the field come, they will say, "Give us back our field." They take off their clothes in front of them in order to give it back to them, and they return their field to them.

For this reason I say, if the owners of a house know that a thief is coming, they will be on guard before the thief arrives and will not let the thief break into their house (their domain) and steal their possessions.

As for you, then, be on guard against the world. Prepare yourselves with great strength, so the robbers can't find a way to get to you, for the trouble you expect will come.

Let there be among you a person who understands.

When the crop ripened, he came quickly carrying a sickle and harvested it. Anyone here with two good ears had better listen!

22 Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom."

They said to him, "Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?"

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

23 Jesus said, "I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and they will stand as a single one."

24 His disciples said, "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it."

He said to them, "Anyone here with two ears had better listen! There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world. If it does not shine, it is dark."

25 Jesus said, "Love your friends like your own soul, protect them like the pupil of your eye."

26 Jesus said, "You see the sliver in your friend's eye, but you don't see the timber in your own eye. When you take the timber out of your own eye, then you will see well enough to remove the sliver from your friend's eye."

27 "If you do not fast from the world, you will not find the kingdom. If you do not observe the sabbath as a sabbath you will not see the Father."

28 Jesus said, "I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty.

But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways."

29 Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, that is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, that is a marvel of marvels.

Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty."

30 Jesus said, "Where there are three deities, they are divine. Where there are two or one, I am with that one."

31 Jesus said, "No prophet is welcome on his home turf; doctors don't cure those who know them."

32 Jesus said, "A city built on a high hill and fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden."

33 Jesus said, "What you will hear in your ear, in the other ear proclaim from your rooftops.

After all, no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, nor does one put it in a hidden place. Rather, one puts it on a lampstand so that all who come and go will see its light."

34 Jesus said, "If a blind person leads a bind person, both of them will fall into a hole."

35 Jesus said, "One can't enter a strong person's house and take it by force without tying his hands. Then one can loot his house."

36 Jesus said, "Do not fret, from morning to evening and from evening to morning, [about your food--what you're going to eat, or about your clothing--] what you are going to wear. [You're much better than the lilies, which neither card nor spin.

As for you, when you have no garment, what will you put on? Who might add to your stature? That very one will give you your garment.]"

37 His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?"

Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample then, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."

38 Jesus said, "Often you have desired to hear these sayings that I am speaking to you, and you have no one else from whom to hear them. There will be days when you will seek me and you will not find me."

39 Jesus said, "The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.

As for you, be as sly as snakes and as simple as doves."

40 Jesus said, "A grapevine has been planted apart from the Father. Since it is not strong, it will be pulled up by its root and will perish."

41 Jesus said, "Whoever has something in hand will be given more, and whoever has nothing will be deprived of even the little they have."

42 Jesus said, "Be passersby."

43 His disciples said to him, "Who are you to say these things to us?"

"You don't understand who I am from what I say to you.

Rather, you have become like the Judeans, for they love the tree but hate its fruit, or they love the fruit but hate the tree."

44 Jesus said, "Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven."

45 Jesus said, "Grapes are not harvested from thorn trees, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit.

Good persons produce good from what they've stored up; bad persons produce evil from the wickedness they've stored up in their hearts, and say evil things. For from the overflow of the heart they produce evil."

46 Jesus said, "From Adam to John the Baptist, among those born of women, no one is so much greater than John the Baptist that his eyes should not be averted.

But I have said that whoever among you becomes a child will recognize the kingdom and will become greater than John."

47 Jesus said, "A person cannot mount two horses or bend two bows.

And a slave cannot serve two masters, otherwise that slave will honor the one and offend the other.

"Nobody drinks aged wine and immediately wants to drink young wine. Young wine is not poured into old wineskins, or they might break, and aged wine is not poured into a new wineskin, or it might spoil.

An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, since it would create a tear."

48 Jesus said, "If two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move from here!' and it will move."

49 Jesus said, "Congratulations to those who are alone and chosen, for you will find the kingdom. For you have come from it, and you will return there again."

50 Jesus said,

"If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?' say to them, 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.'

If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.'

If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'"

51 His disciples said to him, "When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?"

He said to them, "What you are looking forward to has come, but you don't know it."

52 His disciples said to him, "Twenty-four prophets have spoken in Israel, and they all spoke of you."

He said to them, "You have disregarded the living one who is in your presence, and have spoken of the dead."

53 His disciples said to him, "is circumcision useful or not?"

He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."

54 Jesus said, "Congratulations to the poor, for to you belongs Heaven's kingdom."

55 Jesus said, "Whoever does not hate father and mother cannot be my disciple, and whoever does not hate brothers and sisters, and carry the cross as I do, will not be worthy of me."

56 Jesus said, "Whoever has come to know the world has discovered a carcass, and whoever has discovered a carcass, of that person the world is not worthy."

57 Jesus said, The Father's kingdom is like a person who has [good] seed. His enemy came during the night and sowed weeds among the good seed. The person did not let the workers pull up the weeds, but said to them, "No, otherwise you might go to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them." For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be conspicuous, and will be pulled up and burned.

58 Jesus said, "Congratulations to the person who has toiled and has found life."

59 Jesus said, "Look to the living one as long as you live, otherwise you might die and then try to see the living one, and you will be unable to see."

60 He saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb and going to Judea. He said to his disciples, "that person ... around the lamb." They said to him, "So that he may kill it and eat it." He said to them, "He will not eat it while it is alive, but only after he has killed it and it has become a carcass."

They said, "Otherwise he can't do it."

He said to them, "So also with you, seek for yourselves a place for rest, or you might become a carcass and be eaten."

61 Jesus said, "Two will recline on a couch; one will die, one will live."

Salome said, "Who are you mister? You have climbed onto my couch and eaten from my table as if you are from someone."

Jesus said to her, "I am the one who comes from what is whole. I was granted from the things of my Father."

"I am your disciple."

"For this reason I say, if one is whole, one will be filled with light, but if one is divided, one will be filled with darkness."

62 Jesus said, "I disclose my mysteries to those [who are worthy] of [my] mysteries.

Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing."

63 Jesus said, There was a rich person who had a great deal of money. He said, "I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing." These were the things he was thinking in his heart, but that very night he died. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!

64 Jesus said, A person was receiving guests. When he had prepared the dinner, he sent his slave to invite the guests. The slave went to the first and said to that one, "My master invites you." That one said, "Some merchants owe me money; they are coming to me tonight. I have to go and give them instructions. Please excuse me from dinner." The slave went to another and said to that one, "My master has invited you." That one said to the slave, "I have bought a house, and I have been called away for a day. I shall have no time." The slave went to another and said to that one, "My master invites you." That one said to the slave, "My friend is to be married, and I am to arrange the banquet. I shall not be able to come. Please excuse me from dinner." The slave went to another and said to that one, "My master invites you." That one said to the slave, "I have bought an estate, and I am going to collect the rent. I shall not be able to come. Please excuse me." The slave returned and said to his master, "Those whom you invited to dinner have asked to be excused." The master said to his slave, "Go out on the streets and bring back whomever you find to have dinner."

Buyers and merchants [will] not enter the places of my Father.

65 He said, A [...] person owned a vineyard and rented it to some farmers, so they could work it and he could collect its crop from them. He sent his slave so the farmers would give him the vineyard's crop. They grabbed him, beat him, and almost killed him, and the slave returned and told his master. His master said, "Perhaps he didn't know them." He sent another slave, and the farmers beat that one as well. Then the master sent his son and said, "Perhaps they'll show my son some respect." Because the farmers knew that he was the heir to the vineyard, they grabbed him and killed him. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!

66 Jesus said, "Show me the stone that the builders rejected: that is the keystone."

67 Jesus said, "Those who know all, but are lacking in themselves, are utterly lacking."

68 Jesus said, "Congratulations to you when you are hated and persecuted;

and no place will be found, wherever you have been persecuted."

69 Jesus said, "Congratulations to those who have been persecuted in their hearts: they are the ones who have truly come to know the Father.

Congratulations to those who go hungry, so the stomach of the one in want may be filled."

70 Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you."

71 Jesus said, "I will destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to build it [...]."

72 A [person said] to him, "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me."

He said to the person, "Mister, who made me a divider?"

He turned to his disciples and said to them, "I'm not a divider, am I?"

73 Jesus said, "The crop is huge but the workers are few, so beg the harvest boss to dispatch workers to the fields."

74 He said, "Lord, there are many around the drinking trough, but there is nothing in the well."

75 Jesus said, "There are many standing at the door, but those who are alone will enter the bridal suite."

76 Jesus said, The Father's kingdom is like a merchant who had a supply of merchandise and found a peal. That merchant was prudent; he sold the merchandise and bought the single pearl for himself.

So also with you, seek his treasure that is unfailing, that is enduring, where no moth comes to eat and no worm destroys."

77 Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.

Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

78 Jesus said, "Why have you come out to the countryside? To see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see a person dressed in soft clothes, [like your] rulers and your powerful ones? They are dressed in soft clothes, and they cannot understand truth."

79 A woman in the crowd said to him, "Lucky are the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you."

He said to [her], "Lucky are those who have heard the word of the Father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, 'Lucky are the womb that has not conceived and the breasts that have not given milk.'"

80 Jesus said, "Whoever has come to know the world has discovered the body, and whoever has discovered the body, of that one the world is not worthy."

81 Jesus said, "Let one who has become wealthy reign, and let one who has power renounce ."

82 Jesus said, "Whoever is near me is near the fire, and whoever is far from me is far from the kingdom."

83 Jesus said, "Images are visible to people, but the light within them is hidden in the image of the Father's light. He will be disclosed, but his image is hidden by his light."

84 Jesus said, "When you see your likeness, you are happy. But when you see your images that came into being before you and that neither die nor become visible, how much you will have to bear!"

85 Jesus said, "Adam came from great power and great wealth, but he was not worthy of you. For had he been worthy, [he would] not [have tasted] death."

86 Jesus said, "[Foxes have] their dens and birds have their nests, but human beings have no place to lay down and rest."

87 Jesus said, "How miserable is the body that depends on a body, and how miserable is the soul that depends on these two."

88 Jesus said, "The messengers and the prophets will come to you and give you what belongs to you. You, in turn, give them what you have, and say to yourselves, 'When will they come and take what belongs to them?'"

89 Jesus said, "Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Don't you understand that the one who made the inside is also the one who made the outside?"

90 Jesus said, "Come to me, for my yoke is comfortable and my lordship is gentle, and you will find rest for yourselves."

91 They said to him, "Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you."

He said to them, "You examine the face of heaven and earth, but you have not come to know the one who is in your presence, and you do not know how to examine the present moment.

92 Jesus said, "Seek and you will find.

In the past, however, I did not tell you the things about which you asked me then. Now I am willing to tell them, but you are not seeking them."

93 "Don't give what is holy to dogs, for they might throw them upon the manure pile. Don't throw pearls [to] pigs, or they might ... it [...]."

94 Jesus [said], "One who seeks will find, and for [one who knocks] it will be opened."

95 [Jesus said], "If you have money, don't lend it at interest. Rather, give [it] to someone from whom you won't get it back."

96 Jesus [said], The Father's kingdom is like [a] woman. She took a little leaven, [hid] it in dough, and made it into large loaves of bread. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!

97 Jesus said, The [Father's] kingdom is like a woman who was carrying a [jar] full of meal. While she was walking along [a] distant road, the handle of the jar broke and the meal spilled behind her [along] the road. She didn't know it; she hadn't noticed a problem. When she reached her house, she put the jar down and discovered that it was empty.

98 Jesus said, The Father's kingdom is like a person who wanted to kill someone powerful. While still at home he drew his sword and thrust it into the wall to find out whether his hand would go in. Then he killed the powerful one.

99 The disciples said to him, "Your brothers and your mother are standing outside."

He said to them, "Those here who do what my Father wants are my brothers and my mother. They are the ones who will enter my Father's kingdom."

100 They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, "The Roman emperor's people demand taxes from us."

He said to them, "Give the emperor what belongs to the emperor, give God what belongs to God, and give me what is mine."

101 "Whoever does not hate [father] and mother as I do cannot be my [disciple], and whoever does [not] love [father and] mother as I do cannot be my [disciple]. For my mother [...], but my true [mother] gave me life."

102 Jesus said, "Damn the Pharisees! They are like a dog sleeping in the cattle manger: the dog neither eats nor [lets] the cattle eat."

103 Jesus said, "Congratulations to those who know where the rebels are going to attack. [They] can get going, collect their imperial resources, and be prepared before the rebels arrive."

104 They said to Jesus, "Come, let us pray today, and let us fast."

Jesus said, "What sin have I committed, or how have I been undone? Rather, when the groom leaves the bridal suite, then let people fast and pray."

105 Jesus said, "Whoever knows the father and the mother will be called the child of a whore."

106 Jesus said, "When you make the two into one, you will become children of Adam, and when you say, 'Mountain, move from here!' it will move."

107 Jesus said, The kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety- nine and looked for the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, 'I love you more than the ninety- nine.'

108 Jesus said, "Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him."

109 Jesus said, The (Father's) kingdom is like a person who had a treasure hidden in his field but did not know it. And [when] he died he left it to his [son]. The son [did] not know about it either. He took over the field and sold it. The buyer went plowing, [discovered] the treasure, and began to lend money at interest to whomever he wished.

110 Jesus said, "Let one who has found the world, and has become wealthy, renounce the world."

111 Jesus said, "The heavens and the earth will roll up in your presence, and whoever is living from the living one will not see death."

Does not Jesus say, "Those who have found themselves, of them the world is not worthy"?

112 Jesus said, "Damn the flesh that depends on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh."

113 His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"

"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

[Saying added to the original collection at a later date:] 114 Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

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The (First) Apocalypse of James

Translated by William R. Schoedel


    It is the Lord who spoke with me: "See now the completion of my redemption. I have given you a sign of these things, James, my brother. For not without reason have I called you my brother, although you are not my brother materially. And I am not ignorant concerning you; so that when I give you a sign - know and hear."

    "Nothing existed except Him-who-is. He is unnameable and ineffable. I myself am also unnameable, from Him-who-is, just as I have been given a number of names - two from Him-who-is. And I, I am before you. Since you have asked concerning femaleness, femaleness existed, but femaleness was not first. And it prepared for itself powers and gods. But it did not exist when I came forth, since I am an image of Him-who-is. But I have brought forth the image of him so that the sons of Him-who-is might know what things are theirs and what things are alien (to them). Behold, I shall reveal to you everything of this mystery. For they will seize me the day after tomorrow. But my redemption will be near."

    James said, "Rabbi, you have said, 'they will seize me.' But I, what can I do?" He said to me, "Fear not, James. You too will they seize. But leave Jerusalem. For it is she who always gives the cup of bitterness to the sons of light. She is a dwelling place of a great number of archons. But your redemption will be preserved from them. So that you may understand who they are and what kinds they are, you will [...]. And listen. They are not [...] but archons [...]. These twelve [...] down [...] archons [...] upon his own hebdomad."

    James said, "Rabbi, are there then twelve hebdomads and not seven as there are in the scriptures?" The Lord said, "James, he who spoke concerning this scripture had a limited understanding. I, however, shall reveal to you what has come forth from him who has no number. I shall give a sign concerning their number. As for what has come forth from him who has no measure, I shall give a sign concerning their measure"

    James said, "Rabbi, behold then, I have received their number. There are seventy-two measures!" The Lord said, "These are the seventy-two heavens, which are their subordinates. These are the powers of all their might; and they were established by them; and these are they who were distributed everywhere, existing under the authority of the twelve archons. The inferior power among them brought forth for itself angels and unnumbered hosts. Him-who-is, however, has been given [...] on account of [...] Him-who-is [...] they are unnumbered. If you want to give them a number now, you will not be able to do so until you cast away from your blind thought, this bond of flesh which encircles you. And then you will reach Him-who-is. And you will no longer be James; rather you are the One-who-is. And all those who are unnumbered will all have been named."

    <James said,>, "Rabbi, in what way shall I reach Him-who-is, since all these powers and these hosts are armed against me?" He said to me, "These powers are not armed against you specifically, but are armed against another. It is against me that they are armed. And they are armed with other powers. But they are armed against me in judgment. They did not give [...] to me in it [...] through them [...]. In this place [...] suffering, I shall [...]. He will [...] and I shall not rebuke them. But there shall be within me a silence and a hidden mystery. But I am fainthearted before their anger."

    James said, "Rabbi, if they arm themselves against you, then is there no blame?"

        You have come with knowledge, 
        that you might rebuke their forgetfulness. 
        You have come with recollection, 
        that you might rebuke their ignorance. 

    But I was concerned because of you.

        For you descended into a great ignorance, 
        but you have not been defiled by anything in it. 
        For you descended into a great mindlessness, 
        and your recollection remained. 
        You walked in mud, 
        and your garments were not soiled, 
        and you have not been buried in their filth, 
        and you have not been caught. 

    And I was not like them, but I clothed myself with everything of theirs.

        There is in me forgetfulness, 
        yet I remember things that are not theirs. 
        There is in me [....], 
        and I am in their [...]. 

    [...] knowledge [...] not in their sufferings [...]. But I have become afraid before them, since they rule. For what will they do? What will I be able to say? Or what word will I be able to say that I may escape them?"

    The Lord said, "James, I praise your understanding and your fear. If you continue to be distressed, do not be concerned for anything else except your redemption. For behold, I shall complete this destiny upon this earth as I have said from the heavens. And I shall reveal to you your redemption."

    James said, "Rabbi, how, after these things, will you appear to us again? After they seize you, and you complete this destiny, you will go up to Him-who-is." The Lord said, "James, after these things I shall reveal to you everything, not for your sake alone but for the sake of the unbelief of men, so that faith may exist in them. For a multitude will attain to faith and they will increase in [...]. And after this I shall appear for a reproof to the archons. And I shall reveal to them that he cannot be seized. If they seize him, then he will overpower each of them. But now I shall go. Remember the things I have spoken and let them go up before you." James said,"Lord, I shall hasten as you have said." The Lord said farewell to him and fulfilled what was fitting.

    When James heard of his suffering and was much distressed, they awaited the sign of his coming. And he came after several days. And James was walking upon the mountain which is called "Gaugelan", with his disciples, who listened to him because they had been distressed, and he was [...] a comforter, saying, "This is [...] second [...]" Then the crowd dispersed, but James remained [...] prayer [...], as was his custom.

    And the Lord appeared to him. Then he stopped (his) prayer and embraced him. He kissed him, saying, "Rabbi, I have found you! I have heard of your sufferings, which you endured. And I have been much distressed. My compassion you know. Therefore, on reflection, I was wishing that I would not see this people. They must be judged for these things that they have done. For these things that they have done are contrary to what is fitting."

    The Lord said, "James, do not be concerned for me or for this people. I am he who was within me. Never have I suffered in any way, nor have I been distressed. And this people has done me no harm. But this (people) existed as a type of the archons, and it deserved to be destroyed through them. But [...] the archons, [...] who has [...] but since it [...] angry with [...] The just [...] is his servant. Therefore your name is "James the Just". You see how you will become sober when you see me. And you stopped this prayer. Now since you are a just man of God, you have embraced me and kissed me. Truly I say to you that you have stirred up great anger and wrath against yourself. But (this has happened) so that these others might come to be."

    But James was timid (and) wept. And he was very distressed. And they both sat down upon a rock. The Lord said to him, "James, thus you will undergo these sufferings. But do not be sad. For the flesh is weak. It will receive what has been ordained for it. But as for you, do not be timid or afraid". The Lord ceased.

    Now when James heard these things, he wiped away the tears in his eyes and very bitter [...] which is [...]. The Lord said to him, "James, behold, I shall reveal to you your redemption. When you are seized, and you undergo these sufferings, a multitude will arm themselves against you that <they> may seize you. And in particular three of them will seize you - they who sit (there) as toll collectors. Not only do they demand toll, but they also take away souls by theft. When you come into their power, one of them who is their guard will say to you, 'Who are you or where are you from?' You are to say to him, 'I am a son, and I am from the Father.' He will say to you, 'What sort of son are you, and to what father do you belong?' You are to say to him, 'I am from the Pre-existent Father, and a son in the Pre-existent One.' When he says to you, [...], you are to say to him [...] in the [...] that I might [...]."

    '[...] of alien things?' You are to say to him, 'They are not entirely alien, but they are from Achamoth, who is the female. And these she produced as she brought down the race from the Pre-existent One. So then they are not alien, but they are ours. They are indeed ours because she who is mistress of them is from the Pre-existent One. At the same time they are alien because the Pre-existent One did not have intercourse with her, when she produced them.' When he also says to you, 'Where will you go?', you are to say to him, 'To the place from which I have come, there shall I return.' And if you say these things, you will escape their attacks.

    "But when you come to these three detainers who take away souls by theft in that place [...] these. You [...] a vessel [...] much more than [...] of the one whom you [...] for [...] her root. You too will be sober [...]. But I shall call upon the imperishable knowledge, which is Sophia who is in the Father (and) who is the mother of Achamoth. Achamoth had no father nor male consort, but she is female from a female. She produced you without a male, since she was alone (and) in ignorance as to what lives through her mother because she thought that she alone existed. But I shall cry out to her mother. And then they will fall into confusion (and) will blame their root and the race of their mother. But you will go up to what is yours [...] you will [...] the Pre-existent One."

    "They are a type of the twelve disciples and the twelve pairs, [...] Achamoth, which is translated 'Sophia'. And who I myself am, (and) who the imperishable Sophia (is) through whom you will be redeemed, and (who are) all the sons of Him-who-is - these things they have known and have hidden within them. You are to hide <these things> within you, and you are to keep silence. But you are to reveal them to Addai. When you depart, immediately war will be made with this land. Weep, then, for him who dwells in Jerusalem. But let Addai take these things to heart. In the tenth year let Addai sit and write them down. And when he writes them down [...] and they are to give them [...] he has the [...] he is called Levi. Then he is to bring [...] word [...] from what I said earlier [...] a woman [...] Jerusalem in her [...] and he begets two sons through her. They are to inherit these things and the understanding of him who [...] exalts. And they are to receive [...] through him from his intellect. Now, the younger of them is greater. And may these things remain hidden in him until he comes to the age of seventeen years [...] beginning [...] through them. They will pursue him exceedingly, since they are from his [...] companions. He will be proclaimed through them, and they will proclaim this word. Then he will become a seed of [...]."

    James said, "I am satisfied [...] and they are [...] my soul. Yet another thing I ask of you: who are the seven women who have been your disciples? And behold all women bless you. I also am amazed how powerless vessels have become strong by a perception which is in them." The Lord said, "You [...] well [...] a spirit of [...], a spirit of thought, a spirit of counsel of a [...], a spirit [...] a spirit of knowledge [...] of their fear. [...] when we had passed through the breath of this archon who is named Adonaios [...] him and [...] he was ignorant [...] when I came forth from him, he remembered that I am a son of his. He was gracious to me at that time as his son. And then, before <I> appeared here, <he> cast them among this people. And from the place of heaven the prophets [...]."

    James said, "Rabbi, [...] I [...] all together [...] in them especially [...]." The Lord said, "James, I praise you [...] walk upon the earth [...] the words while he [...] on the [...]. For cast away from you the cup which is bitterness. For some from [...] set themselves against you. For you have begun to understand their roots from beginning to end. Cast away from yourself all lawlessness. And beware lest they envy you. When you speak these words of this perception, encourage these four: Salome and Mariam and Martha and Arsinoe [...] since he takes some [...] to me he is [...] burnt offerings and [...]. But I [...] not in this way; but [...] first-fruits of the [...] upward [...] so that the power of God might appear. The perishable has gone up to the imperishable and the female element has attained to this male element."

    James said, "Rabbi, into these three (things), then, has their [...] been cast. For they have been reviled, and they have been persecuted [...]. Behold [...] everything [...] from anyone [...]. For you have received [...] of knowledge. And [...] that what is the [...] go [...] you will find [...]. But I shall go forth and shall reveal that they believed in you, that they may be content with their blessing and salvation, and this revelation may come to pass."

    And he went at that time immediately and rebuked the twelve and cast out of them contentment concerning the way of knowledge [...].

    [...]. And the majority of them [...] when they saw, the messenger took in [...]. The others [...] said, "[...] him from this earth. For he is not worthy of life." These, then, were afraid. They arose, saying, "We have no part in this blood, for a just man will perish through injustice" James departed so that [...] look [...] for we [...] him.

 

The Apocalypse of James

The (Second) Apocalypse of James

Translated by Charles W. Hedrick


    This is the discourse that James the Just spoke in Jerusalem, which Mareim, one of the priests, wrote. He had told it to Theuda, the father of the Just One, since he was a relative of his. He said, "Hasten! Come with Mary, your wife, and your relatives [...] therefore [...] of this [...] to him, he will understand. For behold, a multitude are disturbed over his [...], and they are greatly angry at him. [...] and they pray [...]. For he would often say these words and others also."

    "He used to speak these words while the multitude of people were seated. But (on this occasion) he entered and did <not> sit down in the place, as was his custom. Rather he sat above the fifth flight of steps, which is (highly) esteemed, while all our people [...] the words [...]."

    "[...]. I am he who received revelation from the Pleroma of Imperishability. (I am) he who was first summoned by him who is great, and who obeyed the Lord - he who passed through the worlds [...], he who [...], he who stripped himself and went about naked, he who was found in a perishable (state), though he was about to be brought up into imperishability. - This Lord who is present came as a son who sees, and as a brother was he sought. He will come to [...] produced him because [...] and he unites [...] make him free [...] in [...] he who came to [...]."

    "Now again am I rich in knowledge and I have a unique understanding, which was produced only from above and the [...] comes from a [...]. I am the [...] whom I knew. That which was revealed to me was hidden from everyone and shall (only) be revealed through him. These two who see I <...> (and) they have already proclaimed through these words: "He shall be judged with the unrighteous". He who lived without blasphemy died by means of blasphemy. He who was cast out, they [...]."

    "[...] the flesh and it is by knowledge that I shall come forth from the flesh. I am surely dying, but it is in life that I shall be found. I entered in order that they might judge [...] I shall come forth in [...] judge [...] I do not bring blame against the servants of his [...]. I hasten to make them free and want to take them above him who wants to rule over them. If they are helped, I am the brother in secret, who prayed to the Father until he [...] in [...] reign [...] imperishability [...] first in [...]."

        I am the first son who was begotten. - 
        He will destroy the dominion of them all. - 
        I am the beloved. 
        I am the righteous one. 
        I am the son of the Father. 
         
        I speak even as I heard. 
        I command even as I received the order. 
        I show you even as I have found. 

    Behold, I speak in order that I may come forth. Pay attention to me in order that you may see me!

    "If I have come into existence, who then am I? For I did <not> come as I am, nor would I have appeared as I am. For I used to exist for a brief period of time [...]."

    "Once when I was sitting deliberating, he opened the door. That one whom you hated and persecuted came in to me. He said to me, "Hail, my brother; my brother, hail." As I raised my face to stare at him, (my) mother said to me, "Do not be frightened, my son, because he said 'My brother' to you (sg.). For you (pl.) were nourished with this same milk. Because of this he calls me "My mother". For he is not a stranger to us. He is your step-brother [...]."

    "[...] these words [...] great [...] I shall find them, and they shall come forth. However, I am the stranger, and they have no knowledge of me in their thoughts, for they know me in this place. But it was fitting that others know through you.

    "<You are> the one to whom I say: Hear and understand - for a multitude, when they hear, will be slow witted. But you, understand as I shall be able to tell you. Your father is not my father. But my father has become a father to you.

    "This virgin about whom you hear - this is how [...] virgin [...] namely, the virgin. [...], how [...] to me for [...] to know [...] not as [...] whom I [...]. For this one (masc.) [...] to him, and this also is profitable for you. Your father, whom you consider to be rich, shall grant that you inherit all these things that you see.

    "I proclaim to you to tell you these (words) that I shall speak. When you hear, therefore, open your ears and understand and walk (accordingly)! It is because of you that they pass by, activated by that one who is glorious. And if they want to make a disturbance and (seize) possession [...] he began [...] not, nor those who are coming, who were sent forth by him to make this present creation. After these things, when he is ashamed, he shall be disturbed that his labor, which is far from the aeons, is nothing. And his inheritance, which he boasted to be great, shall appear small. And his gifts are not blessings. His promises are evil schemes. For you are not an (instrument) of his compassion, but it is through you that he does violence. He wants to do injustice to us, and will exercise dominion for a time allotted to him.

    "But understand and know the Father who has compassion. He was not given an inheritance that was unlimited, nor does it have a (limited) number of days, but it is as the eternal day [...] it is [...] perceive [...]. And he used [...]. For in fact he is not one (come) from them, (and) because of this, he is despised. Because of this he boasts, so that he may not be reproved. For because of this he is superior to those who are below, those by whom you were looked down upon. After he imprisoned those from the Father, he seized them and fashioned them to resemble himself. And it is with him that they exist.

    "I saw from the height those things that happened, and I have explained how they happened. They were visited while they were in another form, and, while I was watching, they came to know <me> as I am, through those whom I know.

    "Now before those things have happened they will make a [...]. I know how they attempted to come down to this place that he might approach [...] the small children, but I wish to reveal through you and the spirit of power, in order that he might reveal to those who are yours. And those who wish to enter, and who seek to walk in the way that is before the door, open the good door through you. And they follow you; they enter and you escort them inside, and give a reward to each one who is ready for it.

        For you are not the redeemer nor a helper of strangers. 
        You are an illuminator and a redeemer of those who are mine, 
        and now of those who are yours. 
        You shall reveal (to them); you shall bring good among them all. 
         
        You they shall admire because of every powerful (deed). 
        You are he whom the heavens bless. 
        You he shall envy, he who has called himself your Lord. 
        I am the [...] those who are instructed in these things with you. 
         
        For your sake, they will be told these things, and will come to rest. 
        For your sake, they will reign, and will become kings. 
        For your sake, they will have pity on whomever they pity. 
         
        For just as you are first having clothed yourself, 
        you are also the first who will strip himself, 
        and you shall become as you were before you were stripped." 

    "And he kissed my mouth. He took hold of me, saying, "My beloved! Behold, I shall reveal to you those things that (neither) the heavens nor their archons have known. Behold, I shall reveal to you those things that he did not know, he who boasted, "[...] there is no other except me. Am I not alive? Because I am a father, do I not have power for everything?" Behold, I shall reveal to you everything, my beloved. Understand and know them, that you may come forth just as I am. Behold, I shall reveal to you him who is hidden. But now, stretch out your hand. Now, take hold of me."

    "And then I stretched out my hands and I did not find him as I thought (he would be). But afterward I heard him saying, "Understand and take hold of me." Then I understood, and I was afraid. And I was exceedingly joyful.

    "Therefore, I tell you judges, you have been judged. And you did not spare, but you were spared. Be sober and [...] you did not know.

        He was that one whom he who created the heaven and the earth 
        and dwelled in it, did not see. 
        He was this one who is the life. 
        He was the light. 
        He was that one who will come to be. 
         
        And again he shall provide an end for what has begun, 
        and a beginning for what is about to be ended. 
        He was the Holy Spirit and the Invisible One, 
        who did not descend upon the earth. 
        He was the virgin, and that which he wishes, happens to him. 
        I saw that he was naked, and there was no garment clothing him. 
        That which he wills, happens to him [...]. 

    "Renounce this difficult way, which is (so) variable, and walk in accordance with him who desires that you become free men with me, after you have passed above every dominion. For he will not judge (you) for those things that you did, but will have mercy on you. For (it is) not you that did them, but it is your Lord (that did them). He was not a wrathful one, but he was a kind Father.

    "But you have judged yourselves, and because of this you will remain in their fetters. You have oppressed yourselves, and you will repent, (but) you will not profit at all. Behold him who speaks and seek him who is silent. Know him who came to this place, and understand him who went forth (from it). I am the Just One, and I do <not> judge. I am not a master, then, but I am a helper. He was cast out before he stretched out his hand. I [...].

    "[...] and he allows me to hear. And play your trumpets, your flutes and your harps of this house. The Lord has taken you captive from the Lord, having closed your ears, that they may not hear the sound of my word. Yet you will be able to pay heed in your hearts, and you will call me 'the Just One.' Therefore, I tell you: Behold, I gave you your house, which you say that God has made - that (house) in which he promised to give you an inheritance through it. This (house) I shall doom to destruction and derision of those who are in ignorance. For behold, those who judge deliberarate [...]."

    On that day all the people and the crowd were disturbed, and they showed that they had not been persuaded. And he arose and went forth speaking in this manner. And he entered (again) on that same day and spoke a few hours. And I was with the priests and revealed nothing of the relationship, since all of them were saying with one voice, 'Come, let us stone the Just One.' And they arose, saying, 'Yes, let us kill this man, that he may be taken from our midst. For he will be of no use to us.'

    And they were there and found him standing beside the columns of the temple beside the mighty corner stone. And they decided to throw him down from the height, and they cast him down. And they [...] they [...]. They seized him and struck him as they dragged him upon the ground. They stretched him out and placed a stone on his abdomen. They all placed their feet on him, saying 'You have erred!'

    Again they raised him up, since he was alive, and made him dig a hole. They made him stand in it. After having covered him up to his abdomen, they stoned him in this manner.

    And he stretched out his hands and said this prayer - not that (one) which it is his custom to say:

        'My God and my father, 
        who saved me from this dead hope, 
        who made me alive through a mystery of what he wills, 
         
        Do not let these days of this world be prolonged for me, 
        but the day of your light [...] remains 
        in [...] salvation. 
         
        Deliver me from this place of sojourn! 
        Do not let your grace be left behind in me, 
        but may your grace become pure! 
         
        Save me from an evil death! 
        Bring me from a tomb alive, because your grace - 
        love - is alive in me to accomplish a work of fullness! 
         
        Save me from sinful flesh, 
        because l trusted in you with all my strength, 
        because you are the life of the life! 
         
        Save me from a humiliating enemy! 
        Do not give me into the hand of a judge who is severe with sin! 
        Forgive me all my debts of the days (of my life)! 
         
        Because I am alive in you, your grace is alive in me. 
        I have renounced everyone, but you I have confessed. 
        Save me from evil affliction!

The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles

Translated by Douglas M. Parrott and R. McL.Wilson

[...] which [...] purpose [... after ...] us [...] apostles [...]. We sailed [...] of the body. Others were not anxious in their hearts. And in our hearts, we were united. We agreed to fulfill the ministry to which the Lord appointed us. And we made a covenant with each other.

We went down to the sea at an opportune moment, which came to us from the Lord. We found a ship moored at the shore ready to embark, and we spoke with the sailors of the ship about our coming aboard with them. They showed great kindliness toward us as was ordained by the Lord. And after we had embarked, we sailed a day and a night. After that, a wind came up behind the ship and brought us to a small city in the midst of the sea.

And I, Peter, inquired about the name of this city from residents who were standing on the dock. A man among them answered, saying, "The name of this city is Habitation, that is, Foundation [...] endurance." And the leader among them holding the palm branch at the edge of the dock. And after we had gone ashore with the baggage, I went into the city, to seek advice about lodging.

A man came out wearing a cloth bound around his waist, and a gold belt girded it. Also a napkin was tied over his chest, extending over his shoulders and covering his head and his hands.

I was staring at the man, because he was beautiful in his form and stature. There were four parts of his body that I saw: the soles of his feet and a part of his chest and the palms of his hands and his visage. These things I was able to see. A book cover like (those of) my books was in his left hand. A staff of styrax wood was in his right hand. His voice was resounding as he slowly spoke, crying out in the city, "Pearlsl Pearlsl"

I, indeed, thought he was a man of that city. I said to him, "My brother and my friend!" He answered me, then, saying, "Rightly did you say, 'My brother and my friend.' What is it you seek from me?" I said to him, "I ask you about lodging for me and the brothers also, because we are strangers here." He said to me, "For this reason have I myself just said, 'My brother and my friend,' because I also am a fellow stranger like you."

And having said these things, he cried out, "Pearls! Pearls!" The rich men of that city heard his voice. They came out of their hidden storerooms. And some were looking out from the storerooms of their houses. Others looked out from their upper windows. And they did not see (that they could gain) anything from him, because there was no pouch on his back nor bundle inside his cloth and napkin. And because of their disdain they did not even acknowledge him. He, for his part, did not reveal himself to them. They returned to their storerooms, saying, "This man is mocking us."

And the poor of that city heard his voice, and they came to the man who sells this pearl. They said, "Please take the trouble to show us the pearl so that we may, then, see it with our (own) eyes. For we are the poor. And we do not have this [...] price to pay for it. But show us that we might say to our friends that we saw a pearl with our (own) eyes." He answered, saying to them, "If it is possible, come to my city, so that I may not only show it before your (very) eyes, but give it to you for nothing."

And indeed they, the poor of that city, heard and said, "Since we are beggars, we surely know that a man does not give a pearl to a beggar, but (it is) bread and money that is usually received. Now then, the kindness which we want to receive from you (is) that you show us the pearl before our eyes. And we will say to our friends proudly that we saw a pearl with our (own) eyes" - because it is not found among the poor, especially such beggars (as these). He answered (and) said to them, "If it is possible, you yourselves come to my city, so that I may not only show you it, but give it to you for nothing." The poor and the beggars rejoiced because of the man who gives for nothing.

The men asked Peter about the hardships. Peter answered and told those things that he had heard about the hardships of the way. Because they are interpreters of the hardships in their ministry.

He said to the man who sells this pearl, "I want to know your name and the hardships of the way to your city because we are strangers and servants of God. It is necessary for us to spread the word of God in every city harmoniously." He answered and said, "If you seek my name, Lithargoel is my name, the interpretation of which is, the light, gazelle-like stone.

"And also (concerning) the road to the city, which you asked me about, I will tell you about it. No man is able to go on that road, except one who has forsaken everything that he has and has fasted daily from stage to stage. For many are the robbers and wild beasts on that road. The one who carries bread with him on the road, the black dogs kill because of the bread. The one who carries a costly garment of the world with him, the robbers kill because of the garment. The one who carries water with him, the wolves kill because of the water, since they were thirsty for it. The one who is anxious about meat and green vegetables, the lions eat because of the meat. If he evades the lions, the bulls devour him because of the green vegetables."

When he had said these things to me, I sighed within myself, saying, "Great hardships are on the road! If only Jesus would give us power to walk it!" He looked at me since my face was sad, and I sighed. He said to me, "Why do you sigh, if you, indeed, know this name "Jesus" and believe him? He is a great power for giving strength. For I too believe in the Father who sent him."

I replied, asking him, "What is the name of the place to which you go, your city?" He said to me, "This is the name of my city, 'Nine Gates.' Let us praise God as we are mindful that the tenth is the head." After this I went away from him in peace.

As I was about to go and call my friends, I saw waves and large high walls surrounding the bounds of the city. I marveled at the great things I saw. I saw an old man sitting and I asked him if the name of the city was really Habitation. He [...], "Habitation [...]." He said to me, "You speak truly, for we inhabit here because we endure."

I responded, saying, "Justly [...] have men named it [...], because (by) everyone who endures his trials, cities are inhabited, and a precious kingdom comes from them, because they endure in the midst of the apostasies and the difficulties of the storms. So that in this way, the city of everyone who endures the burden of his yoke of faith will be inhabited, and he will be included in the kingdom of heaven."

I hurried and went and called my friends so that we might go to the city that he, Lithargoel, appointed for us. In a bond of faith we forsook everything as he had said (to do). We evaded the robbers, because they did not find their garments with us. We evaded the wolves, because they did not find the water with us for which they thirsted. We evaded the lions, because they did not find the desire for meat with us. We evaded the bulls [...] they did not find green vegetables.

A great joy came upon us and a peaceful carefreeness like that of our Lord. We rested ourselves in front of the gate, and we talked with each other about that which is not a distraction of this world. Rather we continued in contemplation of the faith.

As we discussed the robbers on the road, whom we evaded, behold Lithargoel, having changed, came out to us. He had the appearance of a physician, since an unguent box was under his arm, and a young disciple was following him carrying a pouch full of medicine. We did not recognize him.

Peter responded and said to him, "We want you to do us a favor, because we are strangers, and take us to the house of Lithargoel before evening comes." He said, "In uprightness of heart I will show it to you. But I am amazed at how you knew this good man. For he does not reveal himself to every man, because he himself is the son of a great king. Rest yourselves a little so that I may go and heal this man and come (back)." He hurried and came (back) quickly.

He said to Peter, "Peter!" And Peter was frightened, for how did he know that his name was Peter? Peter responded to the Savior, "How do you know me, for you called my name?" Lithargoel answered, "I want to ask you who gave the name Peter to you?" He said to him, "It was Jesus Christ, the son of the living God. He gave this name to me." He answered and said, "It is I! Recognize me, Peter." He loosened the garment, which clothed him - the one into which he had changed himself because of us - revealing to us in truth that it was he.

We prostrated ourselves on the ground and worshipped him. We comprised eleven disciples. He stretched forth his hand and caused us to stand. We spoke with him humbly. Our heads were bowed down in unworthiness as we said, "What you wish we will do. But give us power to do what you wish at all times."

He gave them the unguent box and the pouch that was in the hand of the young disciple. He commanded them like this, saying, "Go into the city from which you came, which is called Habitation. Continue in endurance as you teach all those who have believed in my name, because I have endured in hardships of the faith. I will give you your reward. To the poor of that city give what they need in order to live until I give them what is better, which I told you that I will give you for nothing."

Peter answered and said to him, "Lord, you have taught us to forsake the world and everything in it. We have renounced them for your sake. What we are concerned about (now) is the food for a single day. Where will we be able to find the needs that you ask us to provide for the poor?"

The Lord answered and said, "O Peter, it was necessary that you understand the parable that I told you! Do you not understand that my name, which you teach, surpasses all riches, and the wisdom of God surpasses gold, and silver and precious stone(s)?"

He gave them the pouch of medicine and said, "Heal all the sick of the city who believe in my name." Peter was afraid to reply to him for the second time. He signaled to the one who was beside him, who was John: "You talk this time." John answered and said, "Lord, before you we are afraid to say many words. But it is you who asks us to practice this skill. We have not been taught to be physicians. How then will we know how to heal bodies as you have told us?"

He answered them, "Rightly have you spoken, John, for I know that the physicians of this world heal what belongs to the world. The physicians of souls, however, heal the heart. Heal the bodies first, therefore, so that through the real powers of healing for their bodies, without medicine of the world, they may believe in you, that you have power to heal the illnesses of the heart also.

"The rich men of the city, however, those who did not see fit even to acknowledge me, but who reveled in their wealth and pride - with such as these, therefore, do not dine in their houses nor be friends with them, lest their partiality influence you. For many in the churches have shown partiality to the rich, because they also are sinful, and they give occasion for others to sin. But judge them with uprightness, so that your ministry may be glorified, and that my name also, may be glorified in the churches." The disciples answered and said, "Yes, truly this is what is fitting to do."

They prostrated themselves on the ground and worshipped him. He caused them to stand and departed from them in peace. Amen.

The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles

The Apocalypse of Adam

Translated by George W. MacRae

The revelation which Adam taught his son Seth in the seven hundreth year, saying:

Listen to my words, my son Seth. When God had created me out of the earth, along with Eve, your mother, I went about with her in a glory which she had seen in the aeon from which we had come forth. She taught me a word of knowledge of the eternal God. And we resembled the great eternal angels, for we were higher than the god who had created us and the powers with him, whom we did not know.

Then God, the ruler of the aeons and the powers, divided us in wrath. Then we became two aeons. And the glory in our heart(s) left us, me and your mother Eve, along with the first knowledge that breathed within us. And it (glory) fled from us; it entered into [...] great [...] which had come forth, not from this aeon from which we had come forth, I and Eve your mother. But it (knowledge) entered into the seed of great aeons. For this reason I myself have called you by the name of that man who is the seed of the great generation or from whom (it comes). After those days, the eternal knowledge of the God of truth withdrew from me and your mother Eve. Since that time, we learned about dead things, like men. Then we recognized the God who had created us. For we were not strangers to his powers. And we served him in fear and slavery. And after these things, we became darkened in our heart(s). Now I slept in the thought of my heart.

And I saw three men before me whose likeness I was unable to recognize, since they were not the powers of the God who had created us. They surpassed [...] glory, and [...] men [...] saying to me, "Arise, Adam, from the sleep of death, and hear about the aeon and the seed of that man to whom life has come, who came from you and from Eve, your wife."

When I had heard these words from the great men who were standing before me, then we sighed, I and Eve, in our heart(s). And the Lord, the God who had created us, stood before us. He said to us, "Adam, why were you (both) sighing in your hearts? Do you not know that I am the God who created you? And I breathed into you a spirit of life as a living soul." Then darkness came upon our eyes.

Then the God who created us, created a son from himself and Eve, your mother. I knew sweet desire for your mother, for [...] in the thought of my [...] I knew a sweet desire for your mother. Then the vigor of our eternal knowledge was destroyed in us, and weakness pursued us. Therefore the days of our life became few. For I knew that I had come under the authority of death.

Now then, my son Seth, I will reveal to you the things which those men whom I saw before me at first revealed to me: after I have completed the times of this generation and the years of the generation have been accomplished, then [...] slave [...]. (p.68 blank)

For rain-showers of God the almighty will be poured forth, so that he might destroy all flesh [of God the almighty, so that he might destroy all flesh] from the earth on account of the things that it seeks after, along with those from the seed of the men to whom passed the life of the knowledge which came from me and Eve, your mother. For they were strangers to him. Afterwards, great angels will come on high clouds, who will bring those men into the place where the spirit of life dwells [...] glory [...] there, [...] come from heaven to earth. Then the whole multitude of flesh will be left behind in the waters.

Then God will rest from his wrath. And he will cast his power upon the waters, and he will give power to his sons and their wives by means of the ark along with the animals, whichever he pleased, and the birds of heaven, which he called and released upon the earth. And God will say to Noah - whom the generations will call 'Deucalion' - "Behold, I have protected <you> in the ark, along with your wife and your sons and their wives and their animals and the birds of heaven, which you called and released upon the earth. Therefore I will give the earth to you - you and your sons. In kingly fashion you will rule over it - you and your sons. And no seed will come from you of the men who will not stand in my presence in another glory."

Then they will become as the cloud of the great light. Those men will come who have been cast forth from the knowledge of the great aeons and the angels. They will stand before Noah and the aeons. And God will say to Noah, "Why have you departed from what I told you? You have created another generation so that you might scorn my power." Then Noah will say, "I shall testify before your might that the generation of these men did not come from me nor from my sons. [...] knowledge.

And he will [...] those men and bring them into their proper land, and build them a holy dwelling place. And they will be called by that name and dwell there six hundred years in a knowledge of imperishability. And the angels of the great Light will dwell with them. No foul deed will dwell in their heart(s), but only the knowledge of God.

Then Noah will divide the whole earth among his sons, Ham and Japheth and Shem. He will say to them, "My sons, listen to my words. Behold, I have divided the earth among you. But serve him in fear and slavery all the days of your life. Let not your seed depart from the face of God the Almighty. [...] I and your [...] son of Noah, "My seed will be pleasing before you and before your power. Seal it by your strong hand, with fear and commandment, so that the whole seed which came forth from me may not be inclined away from you and God the Almighty, but it will serve in humility and fear of its knowledge."

Then others from the seed of Ham and Japheth will come, four hundred thousand men, and enter into another land and sojourn with those men who came forth from the great eternal knowledge. For the shadow of their power will protect those who have sojourned with them from every evil thing and every unclean desire. Then the seed of Ham and Japheth will form twelve kingdoms, and their seed also will enter into the kingdom of another people.

Then [...] will take counsel [...] who are dead, of the great aeons of imperishability. And they will go to Sakla, their God. They will go in to the powers, accusing the great men who are in their glory.

They will say to Sakla, "What is the power of these men who stood in your presence, who were taken from the seed of Ham and Japheth, who will number four hundred <thousand> men? They have been received into another aeonfrom which they had come forth, and they have overturned all the glory of your power and the dominion of your hand. For the seed of Noah through his sons has done all your will, and (so have) all the powers in the aeons over which your might rules, while both those men and the ones who are sojourners in their glory have not done your will. But they have turned (aside) your whole throng."

Then the god of the aeons will give them (some) of those who serve him [...]. They will come upon that land where the great men will be who have not been defiled, nor will be defiled, by any desire. For their soul did not come from a defiled hand, but it came from a great commandment of an eternal angel. Then fire and sulphur and asphalt will be cast upon those men, and fire and (blinding) mist will come over those aeons, and the eyes of the powers of the illuminators will be darkened, and the aeons will not see them in those days. And great clouds of light will descend, and other clouds of light will come down upon them from the great aeons.

Abrasax and Sablo and Gamaliel will descend and bring those men out of the fire and the wrath, and take them above the aeons and the rulers of the powers, and take them away [...] of life [...] and take them away [...] aeons [...] dwelling place of the great [...] there, with the holy angels and the aeons. The men will be like those angels, for they are not strangers to them. But they work in the imperishable seed.

Once again, for the third time, the illuminator of knowledge will pass by in great glory, in order to leave (something) of the seed of Noah and the sons of Ham and Japheth - to leave for himself fruit-bearing trees. And he will redeem their souls from the day of death. For the whole creation that came from the dead earth will be under the authority of death. But those who reflect upon the knowledge of the eternal God in their heart(s) will not perish. For they have not received spirit from this kingdom alone, but they have received (it) from a [...] eternal angel. [...] illuminator [...] will come upon [...] that is dead [...] of Seth. And he will perform signs and wonders in order to scorn the powers and their ruler.

Then the god of the powers will be disturbed, saying, "What is the power of this man who is higher than we?" Then he will arouse a great wrath against that man. And the glory will withdraw and dwell in holy houses which it has chosen for itself. And the powers will not see it with their eyes, nor will they see the illuminator either. Then they will punish the flesh of the man upon whom the holy spirit came.

Then the angels and all the generations of the powers will use the name in error, asking, "Where did it (the error) come from?" or "Where did the words of deception, which all the powers have failed to discover, come from?"

Now the first kingdom says of him that he came from [...]. A spirit [...] to heaven. He was nourished in the heavens. He received the glory of that one and the power. He came to the bosom of his mother. And thus he came to the water.

And the second kingdom says about him that he came from a great prophet. And a bird came, took the child who was born, and brought him onto a high mountain. And he was nourished by the bird of heaven. An angel came forth there. He said to him "Arise! God has given glory to you." He received glory and strength. And thus he came to the water.

The third kingdom says of him that he came from a virgin womb. He was cast out of his city, he and his mother. He was brought to a desert place. He was nourished there. He came and received glory and strength. And thus he came to the water.

The fourth kingdom says of him that he came from a virgin. [...] Solomon sought her, he and Phersalo and Sauel and his armies, which had been sent out. Solomon himself sent his army of demons to seek out the virgin. And they did not find the one whom they sought, but the virgin who was given them. It was she whom they fetched. Solomon took her. The virgin became pregnant and gave birth to the child there. She nourished him on a border of the desert. When he had been nourished, he received glory and power from the seed from which he was begotten. And thus he came to the water.

And the fifth kingdom says of him that he came from a drop from heaven. He was thrown into the sea. The abyss received him, gave birth to him, and brought him to heaven. He received glory and power. And thus he came to the water.

And the sixth kingdom says that [...] down to the aeonwhich is below, in order to gather flowers. She became pregnant from the desire of the flowers. She gave birth to him in that place. The angels of the flower garden nourished him. He received glory there, and power. And thus he came to the water.

And the seventh kingdom says of him that he is a drop. It came from heaven to earth. Dragons brought him down to caves. He became a child. A spirit came upon him and brought him on high to the place where the drop had come forth. He received glory and power there. And thus he came to the water.

And the eighth kingdom says of him that a cloud came upon the earth and enveloped a rock. He came from it. The angels who were above the cloud nourished him. He received glory and power there. And thus he came to the water.

And the ninth kingdom says of him that from the nine Muses one separated away. She came to a high mountain and spent (some) time seated there, so that she desired herself alone in order to become androgynous. She fulfilled her desire and became pregnant from her desire. He was born. The angels who were over the desire nourished him. And he received glory there, and power. And thus he came to the water.

The tenth kingdom says of him that his god loved a cloud of desire. He begot him in his hand and cast upon the cloud above him (some) of the drop, and he was born. He received glory and power there. And thus he came to the water.

And the eleventh kingdom says that the father desired his own daughter. She herself became pregnant from her father. She cast [...] tomb out in the desert. The angel nourished him there. And thus he came to the water.

The twelfth kingdom says of him that he came from two illuminators. He was nourished there. He received glory and power. And thus he came to the water.

And the thirteenth kingdom says of him that every birth of their ruler is a word. And this word received a mandate there. He received glory and power. And thus he came to the water, in order that the desire of those powers might be satisfied.

But the generation without a king over it says that God chose him from all the aeons. He caused a knowledge of the undefiled one of truth to come to be in him. He said, "Out of a foreign air, from a great aeon, the great illuminator came forth. And he made the generation of those men whom he had chosen for himself shine, so that they could shine upon the whole aeon"

Then the seed, those who will receive his name upon the water and (that) of them all, will fight against the power. And a cloud of darkness will come upon them.

Then the peoples will cry out with a great voice, saying, "Blessed is the soul of those men because they have known God with a knowledge of the truth! They shall live forever, because they have not been corrupted by their desire, along with the angels, nor have they accomplished the works of the powers, but they have stood in his presence in a knowledge of God like light that has come forth from fire and blood.

"But we have done every deed of the powers senselessly. We have boasted in the transgression of all our works. We have cried against the God of truth because all his works [...] is eternal. These are against our spirits. For now we have known that our souls will die the death."

Then a voice came to them, saying "Micheu and Michar and Mnesinous, who are over the holy baptism and the living water, why were you crying out against the living God with lawless voices and tongues without law over them, and souls full of blood and foul deeds? You are full of works that are not of the truth, but your ways are full of joy and rejoicing. Having defiled the water of life, you have drawn it within the will of the powers to whom you have been given to serve them.

"And your thought is not like that of those men whom you persecute [...] desire [...]. Their fruit does not wither. But they will be known up to the great aeons, because the words they have kept, of the God of the aeons, were not committed to the book, nor were they written. But angelic (beings) will bring them, whom all the generations of men will not know. For they will be on a high mountain, upon a rock of truth. Therefore they will be named "The Words of Imperishability and Truth," for those who know the eternal God in wisdom of knowledge and teaching of angels forever, for he knows all things."

These are the revelations which Adam made known to Seth, his son, And his son taught his seed about them. This is the hidden knowledge of Adam, which he gave to Seth, which is the holy baptism of those who know the eternal knowledge through those born of the word and the imperishable illuminators, who came from the holy seed: Yesseus, Mazareus, Yessedekeus, the Living Water.

The Apocalypse of Adam

The Apocalypse of Paul

Translated by George W. MacRae and William R. Murdock

[...] the road. And he spoke to him, saying, "By which road shall I go up to Jerusalem?" The little child replied, saying, "Say your name, so that I may show you the road". The little child knew who Paul was. He wished to make conversation with him through his words in order that he might find an excuse for speaking with him.

The little child spoke, saying, "I know who you are, Paul. You are he who was blessed from his mother`s womb. For I have come to you that you may go up to Jerusalem to your fellow apostles. And for this reason you were called. And I am the Spirit who accompanies you. Let your mind awaken, Paul, with [...]. For [...] whole which [...] among the principalities and these authorities and archangels and powers and the whole race of demons, [...] the one that reveals bodies to a soul-seed."

And after he brought that speech to an end, he spoke, saying to me, "Let your mind awaken, Paul, and see that this mountain upon which you are standing is the mountain of Jericho, so that you may know the hidden things in those that are visible. Now it is to the twelve apostles that you shall go, for they are elect spirits, and they will greet you." He raised his eyes and saw them greeting him.

Then the Holy Spirit who was speaking with him caught him up on high to the third heaven, and he passed beyond to the fourth heaven. The Holy Spirit spoke to him, saying, "Look and see your likeness upon the earth." And he looked down and saw those who were upon the earth. He stared and saw those who were upon the [...]. Then he gazed down and saw the twelve apostles at his right and at his left in the creation; and the Spirit was going before them.

But I saw in the fourth heaven according to class - I saw the angels resembling gods, the angels bringing a soul out of the land of the dead. They placed it at the gate of the fourth heaven. And the angels were whipping it. The soul spoke, saying, "What sin was it that I committed in the world?" The toll-collector who dwells in the fourth heaven replied, saying, "It was not right to commit all those lawless deeds that are in the world of the dead". The soul replied, saying, "Bring witnesses! Let them show you in what body I committed lawless deeds. Do you wish to bring a book to read from?"

And the three witnesses came. The first spoke, saying, "Was I not in the body the second hour [...]? I rose up against you until you fell into anger and rage and envy." And the second spoke, saying, "Was I not in the world? And I entered at the fifth hour, and I saw you and desired you. And behold, then, now I charge you with the murders you committed." The third spoke, saying, "Did I not come to you at the twelfth hour of the day when the sun was about to set? I gave you darkness until you should accomplish your sins." When the soul heard these things, it gazed downward in sorrow. And then it gazed upward. It was cast down. The soul that had been cast down went to a body which had been prepared for it. And behold, its witnesses were finished.

Then I gazed upward and saw the Spirit saying to me, "Paul, come! Proceed toward me!". Then as I went, the gate opened, and I went up to the fifth heaven. And I saw my fellow apostles going with me while the Spirit accompanied us. And I saw a great angel in the fifth heaven holding an iron rod in his hand. There were three other angels with him, and I stared into their faces. But they were rivalling each other, with whips in their hands, goading the souls on to the judgment. But I went with the Spirit and the gate opened for me.

Then we went up to the sixth heaven. And I saw my fellow apostles going with me, and the Holy Spirit was leading me before them. And I gazed up on high and saw a great light shining down on the sixth heaven. I spoke, saying to the toll-collector who was in the sixth heaven, "Open to me and the Holy Spirit who is before me." He opened to me.

Then we went up to the seventh heaven, and I saw an old man [...] light and whose garment was white. His throne, which is in the seventh heaven, was brighter than the sun by seven times. The old man spoke, saying to me, "Where are you going, Paul? O blessed one and the one who was set apart from his mother`s womb." But I looked at the Spirit, and he was nodding his head, saying to me, "Speak with him!". And I replied, saying to the old man, "I am going to the place from which I came." And the old man responded to me, "Where are you from?" But I replied, saying, "I am going down to the world of the dead in order to lead captive the captivity that was led captive in the captivity of Babylon." The old man replied to me saying, "How will you be able to get away from me? Look and see the principalities and authorities." The Spirit spoke, saying, "Give him the sign that you have, and he will open for you." And then I gave him the sign. He turned his face downwards to his creation and to those who are his own authorities.

And then the <seventh> heaven opened and we went up to the Ogdoad. And I saw the twelve apostles. They greeted me, and we went up to the ninth heaven. I greeted all those who were in the ninth heaven, and we went up to the tenth heaven. And I greeted my fellow spirits.

The Apocalypse of Paul

The Apocalypse of Peter

Translated by James Brashler and Roger A. Bullard

As the Savior was sitting in the temple in the three hundredth (year) of the covenant and the agreement of the tenth pillar, and being satisfied with the number of the living, incorruptible Majesty, he said to me, "Peter, blessed are those above belonging to the Father, who revealed life to those who are from the life, through me, since I reminded they who are built on what is strong, that they may hear my word, and distinguish words of unrighteousness and transgression of law from righteousness, as being from the height of every word of this Pleroma of truth, having been enlightened in good pleasure by him whom the principalities sought. But they did not find him, nor was he mentioned among any generation of the prophets. He has now appeared among these, in him who appeared, who is the Son of Man, who is exalted above the heavens in a fear of men of like essence. But you yourself, Peter, become perfect in accordance with your name with myself, the one who chose you, because from you I have established a base for the remnant whom I have summoned to knowledge. Therefore be strong until the imitation of righteousness - of him who had summoned you, having summoned you to know him in a way which is worth doing because of the rejection which happened to him, and the sinews of his hands and his feet, and the crowning by those of the middle region, and the body of his radiance which they bring in hope of service because of a reward of honor - as he was about to reprove you three times in this night."

And as he was saying these things, I saw the priests and the people running up to us with stones, as if they would kill us; and I was afraid that we were going to die.

And he said to me, "Peter, I have told you many times that they are blind ones who have no guide. If you want to know their blindness, put your hands upon (your) eyes - your robe - and say what you see."

But when I had done it, I did not see anything. I said "No one sees (this way)."

Again he told me, "Do it again."

And there came in me fear with joy, for I saw a new light greater than the light of day. Then it came down upon the Savior. And I told him about those things which I saw.

And he said to me again, "Lift up your hands and listen to what the priests and the people are saying."

And I listened to the priests as they sat with the scribes. The multitudes were shouting with their voice.

When he heard these things from me he said to me, "Prick up your ears and listen to the things they are saying."

And I listened again, "As you sit, they are praising you".

And when I said these things, the Savior said, "I have told you that these (people) are blind and deaf. Now then, listen to the things which they are telling you in a mystery, and guard them, Do not tell them to the sons of this age. For they shall blaspheme you in these ages since they are ignorant of you, but they will praise you in knowledge."

"For many will accept our teaching in the beginning. And they will turn from them again by the will of the Father of their error, because they have done what he wanted. And he will reveal them in his judgment, i.e., the servants of the Word. But those who became mingled with these shall become their prisoners, since they are without perception. And the guileless, good, pure one they push to the worker of death, and to the kingdom of those who praise Christ in a restoration. And they praise the men of the propagation of falsehood, those who will come after you. And they will cleave to the name of a dead man, thinking that they will become pure. But they will become greatly defiled and they will fall into a name of error, and into the hand of an evil, cunning man and a manifold dogma, and they will be ruled without law."

"For some of them will blaspheme the truth and proclaim evil teaching. And they will say evil things against each other. Some will be named: (those) who stand in (the) strength of the archons, of a man and a naked woman who is manifold and subject to much suffering. And those who say these things will ask about dreams. And if they say that a dream came from a demon worthy of their error, then they shall be given perdition instead of incorruption."

"For evil cannot produce good fruit. For the place from which each of them is produces that which is like itself; for not every soul is of the truth, nor of immortality. For every soul of these ages has death assigned to it in our view, because it is always a slave, since it is created for its desires and their eternal destruction, in which they are and from which they are. They love the creatures of the matter which came forth with them."

"But the immortal souls are not like these, O Peter. But indeed, as long as the hour is not yet come, it (the immortal soul) shall resemble a mortal one. But it shall not reveal its nature, that it alone is the immortal one, and thinks about immortality, having faith, and desiring to renounce these things."

"For people do not gather figs from thorns or from thorn trees, if they are wise, nor grapes from thistles. For, on the one hand, that which is always becoming is in that from which it is, being from what is not good, which becomes destruction for it and death. But that which comes to be in the Eternal One is in the One of the life and the immortality of the life which they resemble."

"Therefore all that which exists not will dissolve into what exists not. For deaf and blind ones join only with their own kind."

"But others shall change from evil words and misleading mysteries. Some who do not understand mystery speak of things which they do not understand, but they will boast that the mystery of the truth is theirs alone. And in haughtiness they shall grasp at pride, to envy the immortal soul which has become a pledge. For every authority, rule, and power of the aeons wishes to be with these in the creation of the world, in order that those who are not, having been forgotten by those that are, may praise them, though they have not been saved, nor have they been brought to the Way by them, always wishing that they may become imperishable ones. For if the immortal soul receives power in an intellectual spirit -. But immediately they join with one of those who misled them."

"But many others, who oppose the truth and are the messengers of error, will set up their error and their law against these pure thoughts of mine, as looking out from one (perspective) thinking that good and evil are from one (source). They do business in my word. And they will propagate harsh fate. The race of immortal souls will go in it in vain, until my Parousia. For they shall come out of them - and my forgiveness of their transgressions, into which they fell through their adversaries, whose ransom I got from the slavery in which they were, to give them freedom that they may create an imitation remnant in the name of a dead man, who is Hermas, of the first-born of unrighteousness, in order that the light which exists may not believed by the little ones. But those of this sort are the workers who will be cast into the outer darkness, away from the sons of light. For neither will they enter, nor do they permit those who are going up to their approval for their release."

"And still others of them who suffer think that they will perfect the wisdom of the brotherhood which really exists, which is the spiritual fellowship of those united in communion, through which the wedding of incorruptibility shall be revealed. The kindred race of the sisterhood will appear as an imitation. These are the ones who oppress their brothers, saying to them, "Through this our God has pity, since salvation comes to us through this," not knowing the punishment of those who are made glad by those who have done this thing to the little ones whom they saw, (and) whom they took prisoner."

"And there shall be others of those who are outside our number who name themselves bishop and also deacons, as if they have received their authority from God. They bend themselves under the judgment of the leaders. Those people are dry canals."

But I said " I am afraid because of what you have told me, that indeed little (ones) are, in our view, the counterfeit ones, indeed, that there are multitudes that will mislead other multitudes of living ones, and destroy them among themselves. And when they speak your name they will be believed."

The Savior said, "For a time determined for them in proportion to their error they will rule over the little ones. And after the completion of the error, the never-aging one of the immortal understanding shall become young, and they (the little ones) shall rule over those who are their rulers. The root of their error he shall pluck out, and he shall put it to shame so that it shall be manifest in all the impudence which it has assumed to itself. And such ones shall become unchangeable, O Peter."

"Come therefore, let us go on with the completion of the will of the incorruptible Father. For behold, those who will bring them judgment are coming, and they will put them to shame. But me they cannot touch. And you, O Peter, shall stand in their midst. Do not be afraid because of your cowardice. Their minds shall be closed, for the invisible one has opposed them."

When he had said those things, I saw him seemingly being seized by them. And I said "What do I see, O Lord? That it is you yourself whom they take, and that you are grasping me? Or who is this one, glad and laughing on the tree? And is it another one whose feet and hands they are striking?"

The Savior said to me, "He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me."

But I, when I had looked, said "Lord, no one is looking at you. Let us flee this place."

But he said to me, "I have told you, 'Leave the blind alone!'. And you, see how they do not know what they are saying. For the son of their glory instead of my servant, they have put to shame."

And I saw someone about to approach us resembling him, even him who was laughing on the tree. And he was <filled> with a Holy Spirit, and he is the Savior. And there was a great, ineffable light around them, and the multitude of ineffable and invisible angels blessing them. And when I looked at him, the one who gives praise was revealed.

And he said to me, "Be strong, for you are the one to whom these mysteries have been given, to know them through revelation, that he whom they crucified is the first-born, and the home of demons, and the stony vessel in which they dwell, of Elohim, of the cross, which is under the Law. But he who stands near him is the living Savior, the first in him, whom they seized and released, who stands joyfully looking at those who did him violence, while they are divided among themselves. Therefore he laughs at their lack of perception, knowing that they are born blind. So then the one susceptible to suffering shall come, since the body is the substitute. But what they released was my incorporeal body. But I am the intellectual Spirit filled with radiant light. He whom you saw coming to me is our intellectual Pleroma, which unites the perfect light with my Holy Spirit."

"These things, then, which you saw you shall present to those of another race who are not of this age. For there will be no honor in any man who is not immortal, but only (in) those who were chosen from an immortal substance, which has shown that it is able to contain him who gives his abundance. Therefore I said, 'Every one who has, it will be given to him, and he will have plenty.' But he who does not have, that is, the man of this place, who is completely dead, who is removed from the planting of the creation of what is begotten, whom, if one of the immortal essence appears, they think that they possess him - it will be taken from him and be added to the one who is. You, therefore, be courageous and do not fear at all. For I shall be with you in order that none of your enemies may prevail unto you. Peace be to you, Be strong!"

When he (Jesus) had said these things, he (Peter) came to himself.

Apocalypse of Peter

he Apocryphon of James

Translated by Francis E. Williams

James writes to [...]: Peace be with you from Peace, love from Love, grace from Grace, faith from Faith, life from Holy Life!

Since you asked that I send you a secret book which was revealed to me and Peter by the Lord, I could not turn you away or gainsay (?) you; but I have written it in the Hebrew alphabet and sent it to you, and you alone. But since you are a minister of the salvation of the saints, endeavor earnestly and take care not to rehearse this text to many - this that the Savior did not wish to tell to all of us, his twelve disciples. But blessed will they be who will be saved through the faith of this discourse.

I also sent you, ten months ago, another secret book which the Savior had revealed to me. Under the circumstances, however, regard that one as revealed to me, James; but this one ... [untranslatable fragments]

... the twelve disciples were all sitting together and recalling what the Savior had said to each one of them, whether in secret or openly, and putting it in books - But I was writing that which was in my book - lo, the Savior appeared, after departing from us while we gazed after him. And five hundred and fifty days since he had risen from the dead, we said to him, "Have you departed and removed yourself from us?" But Jesus said, "No, but I shall go to the place from whence I came. If you wish to come with me, come!"

They all answered and said, "If you bid us, we come."
He said, "Verily I say unto you, no one will ever enter the kingdom of heaven at my bidding, but (only) because you yourselves are full. Leave James and Peter to me, that I may fill them." And having called these two, he drew them aside and bade the rest occupy themselves with that which they were about.

The Savior said, "You have received mercy ...
(7 lines missing)
Do you not, then, desire to be filled? And your heart is drunken; do you not, then, desire to be sober? Therefore, be ashamed! Henceforth, waking or sleeping, remember that you have seen the Son of Man, and spoken with him in person, and listened to him in person. Woe to those who have seen the Son of Man; blessed will they be who have not seen the man, and they who have not consorted with him, and they who have not spoken with him, and they who have not listened to anything from him; yours is life! Know, then, that he healed you when you were ill, that you might reign. Woe to those who have found relief from their illness, for they will relapse into illness. Blessed are they who have not been ill, and have known relief before falling ill; yours is the kingdom of God. Therefore, I say to you, 'Become full, and leave no space within you empty, for he who is coming can mock you."

Then Peter replied, "Lo, three times you have told us, 'Become full'; but we are full."
The Savior answered and said, "For this cause I have said to you, 'Become full,' that you may not be in want. They who are in want, however, will not be saved. For it is good to be full, and bad to be in want. Hence, just as it is good that you be in want and, conversely, bad that you be full, so he who is full is in want, and he who is in want does not become full as he who is in want becomes full, and he who has been filled, in turn attains due perfection. Therefore, you must be in want while it is possible to fill you, and be full while it is possible for you to be in want, so that you may be able to fill yourselves the more. Hence, become full of the Spirit, but be in want of reason, for reason <belongs to> the soul; in turn, it is (of the nature of) soul."

But I answered and said to him, "Lord, we can obey you if you wish, for we have forsaken our fathers and our mothers and our villages, and followed you. Grant us, therefore, not to be tempted by the devil, the evil one."
The Lord answered and said, "What is your merit if you do the will of the Father and it is not given to you from him as a gift while you are tempted by Satan? But if you are oppressed by Satan, and persecuted, and you do his (i.e., the Father's) will, I say that he will love you, and make you equal with me, and reckon you to have become beloved through his providence by your own choice. So will you not cease loving the flesh and being afraid of sufferings? Or do you not know that you have yet to be abused and to be accused unjustly; and have yet to be shut up in prison, and condemned unlawfully, and crucified <without> reason, and buried as I myself, by the evil one? Do you dare to spare the flesh, you for whom the Spirit is an encircling wall? If you consider how long the world existed <before> you, and how long it will exist after you, you will find that your life is one single day, and your sufferings one single hour. For the good will not enter into the world. Scorn death, therefore, and take thought for life! Remember my cross and my death, and you will live!"

But I answered and said to him, "Lord, do not mention to us the cross and death, for they are far from you."
The Lord answered and said, "Verily, I say unto you, none will be saved unless they believe in my cross. But those who have believed in my cross, theirs is the kingdom of God. Therefore, become seekers for death, like the dead who seek for life; for that which they seek is revealed to them. And what is there to trouble them? As for you, when you examine death, it will teach you election. Verily, I say unto you, none of those who fear death will be saved; for the kingdom belongs to those who put themselves to death. Become better than I; make yourselves like the son of the Holy Spirit!"

Then I asked him, "Lord, how shall we be able to prophesy to those who request us to prophesy to them? For there are many who ask us, and look to us to hear an oracle from us."
The Lord answered and said, "Do you not know that the head of prophecy was cut off with John?"
But I said, "Lord, can it be possible to remove the head of prophecy?"
The Lord said to me, "When you come to know what 'head' means, and that prophecy issues from the head, (then) understand the meaning of 'Its head was removed.' At first I spoke to you in parables, and you did not understand; now I speak to you openly, and you (still) do not perceive. Yet, it was you who served me as a parable in parables, and as that which is open in the (words) that are open.

"Hasten to be saved without being urged! Instead, be eager of your own accord, and, if possible, arrive even before me; for thus the Father will love you."

"Come to hate hypocrisy and the evil thought; for it is the thought that gives birth to hypocrisy; but hypocrisy is far from truth."

"Do not allow the kingdom of heaven to wither; for it is like a palm shoot whose fruit has dropped down around it. They (i.e., the fallen fruit) put forth leaves, and after they had sprouted, they caused their womb to dry up. So it is also with the fruit which had grown from this single root; when it had been picked (?), fruit was borne by many (?). It (the root) was certainly good, (and) if it were possible for you to produce the new plants now, <you> would find it."

"Since I have already been glorified in this fashion, why do you hold me back in my eagerness to go? For after the labor, you have compelled me to stay with you another eighteen days for the sake of the parables. It was enough for some <to listen> to the teaching and understand 'The Shepherds' and 'The Seed' and 'The Building' and 'The Lamps of the Virgins' and 'The Wage of the Workmen' and the 'Didrachmae' and 'The Woman.'"

"Become earnest about the word! For as to the word, its first part is faith; the second, love; the third, works; for from these comes life. For the word is like a grain of wheat; when someone had sown it, he had faith in it; and when it had sprouted, he loved it, because he had seen many grains in place of one. And when he had worked, he was saved, because he had prepared it for food, (and) again he left (some) to sow. So also can you yourselves receive the kingdom of heaven; unless you receive this through knowledge, you will not be able to find it."

"Therefore, I say to you, be sober; do not be deceived! And many times have I said to you all together, and also to you alone, James, have I said, 'Be saved!' And I have commanded you to follow me, and I have taught you what to say before the archons. Observe that I have descended and have spoken and undergone tribulation, and carried off my crown after saving you. For I came down to dwell with you, so that you in turn might dwell with me. And, finding your houses unceiled, I have made my abode in the houses that could receive me at the time of my descent."

"Therefore, trust in me, my brethren; understand what the great light is. The Father has no need of me, - for a father does not need a son, but it is the son who needs the father - though I go to him. For the Father of the Son has no need of you."

"Hearken to the word, understand knowledge, love life, and no one will persecute you, nor will anyone oppress you, other than you yourselves."

"O you wretches; O you unfortunates; O you pretenders to the truth; O you falsifiers of knowledge; O you sinners against the Spirit: can you still bear to listen, when it behooved you to speak from the first? Can you still bear to sleep, when it behooved you to be awake from the first, so that the kingdom of heaven might receive you? Verily, I say unto you, had I been sent to those who listen to me, and had I spoken with them, I would never have come down to earth. So, then, be ashamed for these things."

"Behold, I shall depart from you and go away, and do not wish to remain with you any longer, just as your yourselves have not wished it. Now, therefore, follow me quickly. This is why I say unto you, 'For your sakes I came down.' You are the beloved; you are they who will be the cause of life in many. Invoke the Father, implore God often, and he will give to you. Blessed is he who has seen you with Him when He was proclaimed among the angels, and glorified among the saints; yours is life. Rejoice, and be glad, as sons of God. Keep his will, that you may be saved; accept reproof from me and save yourselves. I intercede on your behalf with the Father, and he will forgive you much."

And when we had heard these words, we became glad, for we had been grieved at the words we have mentioned before. But when he saw us rejoicing, he said, "Woe to you who lack an advocate! Woe to you who stand in need of grace! Blessed will they be who have spoken out and obtained grace for themselves. Liken yourselves to foreigners; of what sort are they in the eyes of your city? Why are you disturbed when you cast yourselves away of your own accord and separate yourselves from your city? Why do you abandon your dwelling place of your own accord, making it ready for those who want to dwell in it? O you outcasts and fugitives, woe to you, for you will be caught! Or do you perhaps think that the Father is a lover of mankind, or that he is won over without prayers, or that he grants remission to one on another's behalf, or that he bears with one who asks? - For he knows the desire, and also what it is that the flesh needs! - (Or do you think) that it is not this (flesh) that desires the soul? For without the soul, the body does not sin, just as the soul is not saved without the spirit. But if the soul is saved (when it is) without evil, and the spirit is also saved, then the body becomes free from sin. For it is the spirit that raises the soul, but the body that kills it; that is, it is it (the soul) which kills itself. Verily, I say unto you, he will not forgive the soul the sin by any means, nor the flesh the guilt; for none of those who have worn the flesh will be saved. For do you think that many have found the kingdom of heaven? Blessed is he who has seen himself as a fourth one in heaven!"

When we heard these words, we were distressed. But when he saw that we were distressed, he said, "For this cause I tell you this, that you may know yourselves. For the kingdom of heaven is like an ear of grain after it had sprouted in a field. And when it had ripened, it scattered its fruit and again filled the field with ears for another year. You also, hasten to reap an ear of life for yourselves, that you may be filled with the kingdom!"

"And as long as I am with you, give heed to me, and obey me; but when I depart from you, remember me. And remember me because when I was with you, you did not know me. Blessed will they be who have known me; woe to those who have heard and have not believed! Blessed will they be who have not see, yet have believed!"

"And once more I prevail upon you, for I am revealed to you building a house which is of great value to you when you find shelter beneath it, just as it will be able to stand by your neighbors' house when it threatens to fall. Verily, I say unto you, woe to those for whose sakes I was sent down to this place; blessed will they be who ascend to the Father! Once more I reprove you, you who are; become like those who are not, that you may be with those who are not."

"Do not make the kingdom of heaven a desert within you. Do not be proud because of the light that illumines, but be to yourselves as I myself am to you. For your sakes I have placed myself under the curse, that you may be saved."

But Peter replied to these words and said, "Sometimes you urge us on to the kingdom of heaven, and then again you turn us back, Lord; sometimes you persuade and draw us to faith and promise us life, and then again you cast us forth from the kingdom of heaven."

But the Lord answered and said to us, "I have given you faith many times; moreover, I have revealed myself to you, James, and you (all) have not known me. Now again, I see you rejoicing many times; and when you are elated at the promise of life, are you yet sad, and do you grieve, when you are instructed in the kingdom? But you, through faith and knowledge, have received life. Therefore, disdain the rejection when you hear it, but when you hear the promise, rejoice the more. Verily, I say unto you, he who will receive life and believe in the kingdom will never leave it, not even if the Father wishes to banish him."

"These are the things that I shall tell you so far; now, however, I shall ascend to the place from whence I came. But you, when I was eager to go, have cast me out, and instead of accompanying me, you have pursued me. But pay heed to the glory that awaits me, and, having opened your heart, listen to the hymns that await me up in the heavens; for today I must take (my place at) the right hand of the Father. But I have said (my) last word to you, and I shall depart from you, for a chariot of spirit has borne me aloft, and from this moment on, I shall strip myself, that I may clothe myself. But give heed; blessed are they who have proclaimed the Son before his descent, that when I have come, I might ascend (again). Thrice blessed are they who were proclaimed by the Son before they came to be, that you might have a portion among them."

Having said these words, he departed. But we bent (our) knee(s), I and Peter, and gave thanks, and sent our heart(s) upwards to heaven. We heard with our ears, and saw with our eyes, the noise of wars, and a trumpet blare, and a great turmoil.

And when we had passed beyond that place, we sent our mind(s) farther upwards, and saw with our eyes and heard with our ears hymns, and angelic benedictions, and angelic rejoicing. And heavenly majesties were singing praise, and we, too, rejoiced.

After this again, we wished to send our spirit upward to the Majesty, and after ascending, we were not permitted to see or hear anything, for the other disciples called us and asked us, "What did you hear from the Master. And what has he said to you? And where did he go?"

But we answered them, "He has ascended, and has given us a pledge, and promised life to us all, and revealed to us children (?) who are to come after us, after bidding us love them, as we would be saved for their sakes."

And when they heard (this), they indeed believed the revelation, but were displeased about those to be born. And so, not wishing to give them offense, I sent each one to another place. But I myself went up to Jerusalem, praying that I might obtain a portion among the beloved, who will be made manifest.

And I pray that the beginning may come from you, for thus I shall be capable of salvation, since they will be enlightened through me, by my faith - and through another (faith) that is better than mine, for I would that mine be the lesser. Endeavor earnestly, then, to make yourself like them, and pray that you may obtain a portion with them. For because of what I have said, the Savior did not make the revelation to us for their sakes. We do, indeed, proclaim a portion with those for whom the proclamation was made - those whom the Lord has made his sons.

The Apocryphon of James

Translated by Ron Cameron

James writes to you. Peace be with you from Peace, love from Love, grace from Grace, faith from Faith, life from Holy Life!

Since you asked me to send you a secret book which was revealed to me and Peter by the Lord, I could neither refuse you nor speak directly to you, but I have written it in Hebrew letters and have sent it to you - and to you alone. But inasmuch as you are a minister of the salvation of the saints, endeavor earnestly and take care not to recount this book to many - this which the Savior did not desire to recount to all of us, his twelve disciples. But blessed are those who will be saved through faith in this discourse.

Now I sent you ten months ago another secret book with the Savior revealed to me. But that one you are to regard in this manner, as revealed to me, James.

Now the twelve disciples were sitting all together at the same time, and, remembering what the Savior had said to each one of them, whether secretly or openly, they were setting it down in books. And I was writing what was in my book - lo, the Savior appeared, after he had departed from us while we gazed at him. And five hundred and fifty days after he arose from the dead, we said to him: "Have you gone and departed from us?"

And Jesus said: "No, but I shall go to the place from which I have come. If you desire to come with me, come."

They all answered and said: "If you bid us, we'll come."
He said: "Truly I say to you, no one ever will enter the Kingdom of Heaven if I bid him, but rather because you yourselves are full. Let me have James and Peter, in order that I may fill them." And when he called these two, he took them aside, and commanded the rest to busy themselves with that with which they had been busy.

The Savior said; "You have received mercy....
(7 lines missing) Do you not desire, then, to be filled? And is your heart drunk? Do you not desire, then, to be sober? Therefore, be ashamed! And now, waking or sleeping, remember that you have seen the Son of Man, and with him you have spoken, and to him you have listened. Woe to those who have seen the Son of Man! Blessed are those who have not seen the Man, and who have not consorted with him, and who have not spoken with him, and who have not listened to anything from him. Yours is life! Know, therefore, that he healed you when you were ill, in order that you might reign. Woe to those who have rested from their illness, because they will relapse again into illness! Blessed are those who have not been ill, and have known rest before they became ill. Yours is the Kingdom of God! Therefore I say to you, become full and leave no place within you empty, since the Coming One is able to mock you."

Then Peter answered: "Lord, three times you have said to us 'Become full', but we are full."
The Lord answered and said: "Therefore I say unto you, become full, in order that you may not be diminished. Those who are diminished, however, will not be saved. For fullness is good and diminution is bad. Therefore, just as it is good for you to be diminished and, on the other hand, bad for you to be filled, so also the one who is full is diminished; and the one who is diminished is not filled as the one who is diminished is filled, and the one who is full, for his part, brings his sufficiency to completion. Therefore, it is fitting to be diminished while you can still be filled, and to be filled while it is still possible to be diminished, in order that you can fill yourselves the more. Therefore become full of the spirit but be diminished of reason. For reason is of the soul; and it is soul."

And I answered, and said to him: "Lord, we can obey you if you wish. For we have forsaken our forefathers and our mothers and our villages and have followed you. Grant us, therefore, not to be tempted by the wicked Devil."
The Lord answered and said: "What is your merit when you do the will of the Father if it is not given to you by him as a gift, while you are tempted by Satan? But if you are oppressed by Satan and are persecuted and you do the Father's will, I say that he will love you and will make you equal with me and will consider that you have become beloved through his providence according to your free choice. Will you not cease, then, being lovers of the flesh and being afraid of sufferings? Or do you not know that you have not yet been mistreated and have not yet been accused unjustly, nor have you yet been shut up in prison, nor have you yet been condemned lawlessly, nor have you yet been crucified without reason, nor have you yet been buried shamefully, as was I myself, by the evil one? Do you dare to spare the flesh, you for whom the spirit is an encircling wall? If you contemplate the world, how long it is before you and also how long it is after you, you will find that your life is one single day and your sufferings, one single hour. For the good will not enter the world. Scorn death, therefore, and take concern for life. Remember my cross and my death and you will live."

And I answered and said to him: "Lord, do not mention to us the cross and the death, for they are far from you."
The Lord answered and said: "Truly I say to you, none will be saved unless they believe in my cross. But those who have believed in my cross, theirs is the Kingdom of God. Therefore, become seekers for death, just as the dead who seek for life, for that which they seek is revealed to them. And what is there to concern them? When you turn yourselves towards death, it will make known to you election. In truth I say to you, none of those who are afraid of death will be saved. For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who have put themselves to death. Become better than I; make yourselves like the son of the Holy Spirit."

Then I questioned him: "Lord how may we prophesy to those who ask us to prophesy to them? For there are many who ask us and who look to us to hear an oracle from us."
The Lord answered and said: "Do you not know that the head of prophecy was cut off with John?"
And I said: "Lord, it is not possible to remove the head of prophecy, is it?"
The Lord said to me: "When you come to know what 'head' is, and that prophecy issues from the head, then understand what is the meaning of 'Its head was removed'. I first spoke with you in parables, and you did not understand. Now, in turn, I speak with you openly, and you do not perceive. But it is you who were to me a parable in parables and what is apparent in what are open.

"Be zealous to be saved without being urged. Rather, be ready on your own and, if possible, go before me. For thus the Father will love you.

"Become haters of hypocrisy and evil thought. For it is thought which gives birth to hypocrisy, but hypocrisy is far from the truth.

"Let not the Kingdom of Heaven wither away. For it is like a date palm shoot whose fruits poured down around it. It put forth leaves and, when they budded, they caused the productivity of the date palm to dry up. Thus it is also with the fruit which came from this single root; when the fruit was picked, fruits were collected by many harvesters. It would indeed be good if it were possible to produce these new plants now; for then you would find the Kingdom.

"Since I have been glorified in this manner before this time, why do you all restrain me when I am eager to go? You have constrained me to remain with you eighteen more days for the sake of the parables. It sufficed for some persons to pay attention to the teaching and understand 'The Shepherds' and 'The Seed' and 'The Building' and 'The Lamps of the Virgins' and 'The Wage of the Workers' and 'The Double Drachma' and 'The Woman'.

"Become zealous about the Word. For the Word's first condition is faith; the second is love; the third is works. Now from these comes life. For the Word is like a grain of wheat. When someone sowed it, he believed in it; and when it sprouted, he loved it, because he looked forward to many grains in the place of one; and when he worked it, he was saved, because he prepared it for food. Again he left some grains to sow. Thus it is also possible for you all to receive the Kingdom of Heaven: unless you receive it through knowledge, you will not be able to find it.

"Therefore I say to you, be sober. Do not go astray. And many times I have said to you all together - and also to you alone, James, I have said - 'Be saved!' And I have commanded you to follow me, and I have taught you the response in the presence of the rulers. Observe that I have descended, and I have spoken, and I have troubled myself, and I have received my crown, when I saved you. For I have descended to dwell with you in order that you also may dwell with me. And when I found that your houses had no ceilings over them, I dwelt in houses which would be able to receive me when I descended.

"Therefore, obey me, my brothers. Understand what the great light is. The Father does not need me. For a father does not need a son, but it is the son who needs the father. To him I am going, for the Father of the Son is not in need of you.

"Pay attention to the Word. Understand Knowledge. Love Life. And no one will persecute you, nor will any one oppress you, other than you yourselves.

"O you wretched! O you unfortunates! O you dissemblers of the truth! O you falsifiers of knowledge! O you sinners against the spirit! Do you even now dare to listen, when it behooved you to speak from the beginning? Do you even now dare to sleep, when it behooved you to be awake from the beginning, in order that the Kingdom of Heaven might receive you? In truth I say to you, it is easier for a holy one to sink into defilement, and for a man of light to sink into darkness, than for you to reign - or even not to reign!

"I have remembered your tears and your grief and your sorrow. They are far from us. Now, then, you who are outside the inheritance of the Father, weep where it behooves you and grieve and proclaim that which is good, since the Son is ascending appropriately. In truth I say to you, had it been to those who would listen to me that I was sent, and had it been with them that I was to speak, I would have never descended upon the earth. And now, then, be ashamed on account of them.

"Behold, I shall depart from you. I am going and I do not desire to remain with you any longer - just as you yourselves have not desired. Now, then, follow me quickly. Therefore I say to you, for your sake I have descended. You are the beloved; you are those who will become a cause of life for many. Beseech the Father. Implore God often, and he will give to you. Blessed is the one who has seen you with him when he is proclaimed among the angels and glorified among the saints. Yours is life! Rejoice and be glad as children of God. Keep his will in order that you may be saved. Take reproof from me and save yourselves. I intercede on your behalf with the Father, and he will forgive you much."

And when we heard these things, we became elated, for we had been depressed on account of what we had said earlier. Now when he saw our rejoicing, he said: "Woe to you who are in want of an advocate! Woe to you who are in need of grace! Blessed are those who have spoken freely and have produced grace for themselves. Make yourselves like strangers; of what sort are they in the estimation of your city? Why are you troubled when you oust yourselves of your own accord and depart from your city? Why do you abandon your dwelling place of your own accord, readying it for those who desire to dwell in it? O you exiles and fugitives! Woe to you, because you will be caught! Or perhaps you imagine that the Father is a lover of humanity? Or that he is persuaded by prayers? Or that he is gracious to one on behalf of another? Or that he bears with one who seeks? For he knows the desire and also that which the flesh needs. Because it is not the flesh which yearns for the soul. For without the soul the body does not sin, just as the soul is not saved without the Spirit. But if the soul is saved when it is without evil, and if the spirit also is saved, then the body becomes sinless. For it is the spirit which animates the soul, but it is the body which kills it - that is, it is the soul which kills itself. Truly I say to you, the Father will not forgive the sin of the soul at all, nor the guilt of the flesh. For none of those who have worn the flesh will be saved. For do you imagine that many have found the Kingdom of Heaven? Blessed is the one who has seen himself as a fourth one in Heaven."

When we heard these things, we became distressed. Now when he saw that we were distressed, he said: "This is why I say this to you, that you may know yourselves. For the Kingdom of Heaven is like an ear of grain which sprouted in a field. And when it ripened, it scattered its fruit and, in turn, filled the field with ears of grain for another year. You also: be zealous to reap for yourselves an ear of life, in order that you may be filled with the Kingdom.

"As long as I am with you, give heed to me and obey me. But when I am to depart from you, remember me. And remember me because I was with you without your knowing me. Blessed are those who have known me. Woe to those who have heard and have not believed! Blessed are those who have not seen but have had faith!

"And once again I persuade you. For I am revealed to you building a house which is very valuable to you, since you take shelter under it; in the same way it will be able to support the house of your neighbors when theirs is in danger of falling. In truth I say to you, woe to those on behalf of whom I was sent down to this place! Blessed are those who are to ascend to the Father. Again I reprove you. You who are, make yourselves like those who are not, in order that you may come to be with those who are not.

"Let not the Kingdom of Heaven become desolate among you. Do not become arrogant on account of the light which illumines. Rather, become to yourselves in this manner, as I am to you. For I have placed myself under the curse, in order that you may be saved"

And Peter answered to this and said: "Sometimes you urge us on to the Kingdom of Heaven, and other times you turn us away, Lord. Sometimes you persuade us and impel us to faith and promise us life, and other times you expel us from the Kingdom of Heaven."

And the Lord answered and said to us: "I have given you faith many times. Moreover, I have revealed myself to you, James, and you have not known me. Again, now I see you rejoicing many times. And when you are elated over the promise of life, are you nevertheless glum? And are you distressed when you are taught about the Kingdom? But you through faith and knowledge have received life. Therefore, scorn rejection when you hear it, but, when you hear the promise, be the more glad. In truth I say to you, the one who will receive life and believe in the Kingdom will never leave it - not even if the Father desires to banish him!

"These things I shall say to you for the present. But now I shall ascend to the place from which I have come. But you, when I was eager to go, have driven me out, and, instead of your accompanying me, you have pursued me. But give heed to the glory which awaits me, and, having opened your hearts, listen to the hymns which await me up in heaven. For today I am obliged to take (my place) at the right hand of my Father. Now I have said my last word to you. I shall part from you. For a chariot of wind has taken me up, and from now on I shall strip myself in order that I may clothe myself. But give heed: blessed are those who have preached the Son before he descended, in order that, when I have come, I may ascend. Thrice-blessed are thos who were proclaimed by the Son before they came into being, in order that you may have a portion with them."

When he said these things, he went away. And we knelt down, I and Peter, and gave thanks, and sent our hearts up to heaven. We heard with our ears and saw with our eyes the sound of wars and a trumpet call and a great commotion.

And when we passed beyond that place, we sent out minds up further. And we saw with our eyes and heard with our ears hymns and angelic praises and angelic jubilation. And heavenly majesties were hymning, and we ourselves were jubilant.

After this, we also desired to send our spirits above to the Majesty. And when we ascended, we were permitted neither to see nor to hear anything. For the rest of the disciples called to us and questioned us: "What is it that you have heard from the Master?" And, "What has he said to you?" And, "Where has he gone?"

And we answered them: "He has ascended." And, "He has given us a pledge and has promised us all life and disclosed to us children who are to come after us, since he has bid us to love them, inasmuch as we will be saved for their sake."

And when they heard, they believed the revelation, but were angry about those who would be born. Then I, not desiring to entice them to scandal, sent each one to another place. But I myself went up to Jerusalem, praying that I may obtain a portion with the beloved who are to be revealed.

And I pray that the beginning may come from you, for thus I can be saved. Because they will be enlightened through me, through my faith and through another's which is better than mine, for I desire that mine become the lesser. Endeavor earnestly, therefore, to make yourself like them, and pray that you may obtain a portion with them. For apart from what I have recounted, the Savior did not disclose revelation to us. For their sake we proclaim, indeed, a portion with those for whom it was proclaimed, those whom the Lord has made his children.

The Apocryphon of John
(The Secret Book of John - The Secret Revelation of John)

Translated by Frederik Wisse

The Apocryphon of John is commonly referenced by two other names: The Secret Book of John and The Secret Revelation of John, depending upon how the word "Apocryphon" is translated. Their are four surviving Coptic manuscripts of this text: two shorter version found in the Berlin Codex; and Nag Hammadi Codex III, and two longer version, found in Nag Hammadi Codex II and IV. This translation prepared by Dr. Wisse for the Nag Hammadi Library in English uses all four manuscripts to produce a single text.

Separate translations of the short and long version, along with extensive additional resources, are available in the Apocryphon of John Collection of the Gnostic Society Library.

Visit the Apocryphon of John Collection for more information

The teaching of the savior, and the revelation of the mysteries and the things hidden in silence, even these things which he taught John, his disciple.

And it happened one day, when John, the brother of James - who are the sons of Zebedee - had come up to the temple, that a Pharisee named Arimanius approached him and said to him, "Where is your master whom you followed?" And he said to him, "He has gone to the place from which he came." The Pharisee said to him, "With deception did this Nazarene deceive you (pl.), and he filled your ears with lies, and closed your hearts (and) turned you from the traditions of your fathers."

When I, John, heard these things I turned away from the temple to a desert place. And I grieved greatly in my heart, saying, "How then was the savior appointed, and why was he sent into the world by his Father, and who is his Father who sent him, and of what sort is that aeon to which we shall go? For what did he mean when he said to us, 'This aeon to which you will go is of the type of the imperishable aeon, but he did not teach us concerning the latter, of what sort it is."

Straightway, while I was contemplating these things, behold, the heavens opened and the whole creation which is below heaven shone, and the world was shaken. I was afraid, and behold I saw in the light a youth who stood by me. While I looked at him, he became like an old man. And he changed his likeness (again), becoming like a servant. There was not a plurality before me, but there was a likeness with multiple forms in the light, and the likenesses appeared through each other, and the likeness had three forms.

He said to me, "John, John, why do you doubt, or why are you afraid? You are not unfamiliar with this image, are you? - that is, do not be timid! - I am the one who is with you (pl.) always. I am the Father, I am the Mother, I am the Son. I am the undefiled and incorruptible one. Now I have come to teach you what is and what was and what will come to pass, that you may know the things which are not revealed and those which are revealed, and to teach you concerning the unwavering race of the perfect Man. Now, therefore, lift up your face, that you may receive the things that I shall teach you today, and may tell them to your fellow spirits who are from the unwavering race of the perfect Man."

And I asked to know it, and he said to me, "The Monad is a monarchy with nothing above it. It is he who exists as God and Father of everything, the invisible One who is above everything, who exists as incorruption, which is in the pure light into which no eye can look.

"He is the invisible Spirit, of whom it is not right to think of him as a god, or something similar. For he is more than a god, since there is nothing above him, for no one lords it over him. For he does not exist in something inferior to him, since everything exists in him. For it is he who establishes himself. He is eternal, since he does not need anything. For he is total perfection. He did not lack anything, that he might be completed by it; rather he is always completely perfect in light. He is illimitable, since there is no one prior to him to set limits to him. He is unsearchable, since there exists no one prior to him to examine him. He is immeasurable, since there was no one prior to him to measure him. He is invisible, since no one saw him. He is eternal, since he exists eternally. He is ineffable, since no one was able to comprehend him to speak about him. He is unnameable, since there is no one prior to him to give him a name.

"He is immeasurable light, which is pure, holy (and) immaculate. He is ineffable, being perfect in incorruptibility. (He is) not in perfection, nor in blessedness, nor in divinity, but he is far superior. He is not corporeal nor is he incorporeal. He is neither large nor is he small. There is no way to say, 'What is his quantity?' or, 'What is his quality?', for no one can know him. He is not someone among (other) beings, rather he is far superior. Not that he is (simply) superior, but his essence does not partake in the aeons nor in time. For he who partakes in an aeon was prepared beforehand. Time was not apportioned to him, since he does not receive anything from another, for it would be received on loan. For he who precedes someone does not lack, that he may receive from him. For rather, it is the latter that looks expectantly at him in his light.

"For the perfection is majestic. He is pure, immeasurable mind. He is an aeon-giving aeon. He is life-giving life. He is a blessedness-giving blessed one. He is knowledge-giving knowledge. He is goodness-giving goodness. He is mercy and redemption-giving mercy. He is grace-giving grace, not because he possesses it, but because he gives the immeasurable, incomprehensible light.

"How am I to speak with you about him? His aeon is indestructible, at rest and existing in silence, reposing (and) being prior to everything. For he is the head of all the aeons, and it is he who gives them strength in his goodness. For we know not the ineffable things, and we do not understand what is immeasurable, except for him who came forth from him, namely (from) the Father. For it is he who told it to us alone. For it is he who looks at himself in his light which surrounds him, namely the spring of the water of life. And it is he who gives to all the aeons and in every way, (and) who gazes upon his image which he sees in the spring of the Spirit. It is he who puts his desire in his water-light which is in the spring of the pure light-water which surrounds him.

"And his thought performed a deed and she came forth, namely she who had appeared before him in the shine of his light. This is the first power which was before all of them (and) which came forth from his mind, She is the forethought of the All - her light shines like his light - the perfect power which is the image of the invisible, virginal Spirit who is perfect. The first power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation, she glorified the virginal Spirit and it was she who praised him, because thanks to him she had come forth. This is the first thought, his image; she became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father, the first man, the holy Spirit, the thrice-male, the thrice-powerful, the thrice-named androgynous one, and the eternal aeon among the invisible ones, and the first to come forth.

"<She> requested from the invisible, virginal Spirit - that is Barbelo - to give her foreknowledge. And the Spirit consented. And when he had consented, the foreknowledge came forth, and it stood by the forethought; it originates from the thought of the invisible, virginal Spirit. It glorified him and his perfect power, Barbelo, for it was for her sake that it had come into being.

"And she requested again to grant her indestructibility, and he consented. When he had consented, indestructibility came forth, and it stood by the thought and the foreknowledge. It glorified the invisible One and Barbelo, the one for whose sake they had come into being.

"And Barbelo requested to grant her eternal life. And the invisible Spirit consented. And when he had consented, eternal life came forth, and they attended and glorified the invisible Spirit and Barbelo, the one for whose sake they had come into being.

"And she requested again to grant her truth. And the invisible Spirit consented. And when he had consented, truth came forth, and they attended and glorified the invisible, excellent Spirit and his Barbelo, the one for whose sake they had come into being.

"This is the pentad of the aeons of the Father, which is the first man, the image of the invisible Spirit; it is the forethought, which Barbelo, and the thought, and the foreknowledge, and the indestructibility, and the eternal life, and the truth. This is the androgynous pentad of the aeons, which is the decad of the aeons, which is the Father.

"And he looked at Barbelo with the pure light which surrounds the invisible Spirit, and (with) his spark, and she conceived from him. He begot a spark of light with a light resembling blessedness. But it does not equal his greatness. This was an only-begotten child of the Mother-Father which had come forth; it is the only offspring, the only-begotten one of the Father, the pure Light.

"And the invisible, virginal Spirit rejoiced over the light which came forth, that which was brought forth first by the first power of his forethought, which is Barbelo. And he anointed it with his goodness until it became perfect, not lacking in any goodness, because he had anointed it with the goodness of the invisible Spirit. And it attended him as he poured upon it. And immediately when it had received from the Spirit, it glorified the holy Spirit and the perfect forethought, for whose sake it had come forth.

"And it requested to give it a fellow worker, which is the mind, and he consented gladly. And when the invisible Spirit had consented, the mind came forth, and it attended Christ, glorifying him and Barbelo. And all these came into being in silence.

"And the mind wanted to perform a deed through the word of the invisible Spirit. And his will became a deed and it appeared with the mind; and the light glorified it. And the word followed the will. For because of the word, Christ the divine Autogenes created everything. And the eternal life <and> his will and the mind and the foreknowledge attended and glorified the invisible Spirit and Barbelo, for whose sake they had come into being.

"And the holy Spirit completed the divine Autogenes, his son, together with Barbelo, that he may attend the mighty and invisible, virginal Spirit as the divine Autogenes, the Christ whom he had honored with a mighty voice. He came forth through the forethought. And the invisible, virginal Spirit placed the divine Autogenes of truth over everything. And he subjected to him every authority, and the truth which is in him, that he may know the All which had been called with a name exalted above every name. For that name will be mentioned to those who are worthy of it.

"For from the light, which is the Christ, and the indestructibility, through the gift of the Spirit the four lights (appeared) from the divine Autogenes. He expected that they might attend him. And the three (are) will, thought, and life. And the four powers (are) understanding, grace, perception, and prudence. And grace belongs to the light-aeon Armozel, which is the first angel. And there are three other aeons with this aeon: grace, truth, and form. And the second light (is) Oriel, who has been placed over the second aeon. And there are three other aeons with him: conception, perception, and memory. And the third light is Daveithai, who has been placed over the third aeon. And there are three other aeons with him: understanding, love, and idea. And the fourth aeon was placed over the fourth light Eleleth. And there are three other aeons with him: perfection, peace, and wisdom. These are the four lights which attend the divine Autogenes, (and) these are the twelve aeons which attend the son of the mighty one, the Autogenes, the Christ, through the will and the gift of the invisible Spirit. And the twelve aeons belong to the son of the Autogenes. And all things were established by the will of the holy Spirit through the Autogenes.

"And from the foreknowledge of the perfect mind, through the revelation of the will of the invisible Spirit and the will of the Autogenes, <the> perfect Man (appeared), the first revelation, and the truth. It is he whom the virginal Spirit called Pigera-Adamas, and he placed him over the first aeon with the mighty one, the Autogenes, the Christ, by the first light Armozel; and with him are his powers. And the invisible one gave him a spiritual, invincible power. And he spoke and glorified and praised the invisible Spirit, saying, 'It is for thy sake that everything has come into being and everything will return to thee. I shall praise and glorify thee and the Autogenes and the aeons, the three: the Father, the Mother, and the Son, the perfect power.'

"And he placed his son Seth over the second aeon in the presence of the second light Oriel. And in the third aeon the seed of Seth was placed over the third light Daveithai. And the souls of the saints were placed (there). And in the fourth aeon the souls were placed of those who do not know the Pleroma and who did not repent at once, but who persisted for a while and repented afterwards; they are by the fourth light Eleleth. These are creatures which glorify the invisible Spirit.

"And the Sophia of the Epinoia, being an aeon, conceived a thought from herself and the conception of the invisible Spirit and foreknowledge. She wanted to bring forth a likeness out of herself without the consent of the Spirit, - he had not approved - and without her consort, and without his consideration. And though the person of her maleness had not approved, and she had not found her agreement, and she had thought without the consent of the Spirit and the knowledge of her agreement, (yet) she brought forth. And because of the invincible power which is in her, her thought did not remain idle, and something came out of her which was imperfect and different from her appearance, because she had created it without her consort. And it was dissimilar to the likeness of its mother, for it has another form.

"And when she saw (the consequences of) her desire, it changed into a form of a lion-faced serpent. And its eyes were like lightning fires which flash. She cast it away from her, outside that place, that no one of the immortal ones might see it, for she had created it in ignorance. And she surrounded it with a luminous cloud, and she placed a throne in the middle of the cloud that no one might see it except the holy Spirit who is called the mother of the living. And she called his name Yaltabaoth.

"This is the first archon who took a great power from his mother. And he removed himself from her and moved away from the places in which he was born. He became strong and created for himself other aeons with a flame of luminous fire which (still) exists now. And he joined with his arrogance which is in him and begot authorities for himself. The name of the first one is Athoth, whom the generations call the reaper. The second one is Harmas, who is the eye of envy. The third one is Kalila-Oumbri. The fourth one is Yabel. The fifth one is Adonaiou, who is called Sabaoth. The sixth one is Cain, whom the generations of men call the sun. The seventh is Abel. The eighth is Abrisene. The ninth is Yobel. The tenth is Armoupieel. The eleventh is Melceir-Adonein. The twelfth is Belias, it is he who is over the depth of Hades. And he placed seven kings - each corresponding to the firmaments of heaven - over the seven heavens, and five over the depth of the abyss, that they may reign. And he shared his fire with them, but he did not send forth from the power of the light which he had taken from his mother, for he is ignorant darkness.

"And when the light had mixed with the darkness, it caused the darkness to shine. And when the darkness had mixed with the light, it darkened the light and it became neither light nor dark, but it became dim.

"And the archons created seven powers for themselves, and the powers created for themselves six angels for each one until they became 365 angels. And these are the bodies belonging with the names: the first is Athoth, a he has a sheep's face; the second is Eloaiou, he has a donkey's face; the third is Astaphaios, he has a hyena's face; the fourth is Yao, he has a serpent's face with seven heads; the fifth is Sabaoth, he has a dragon's face; the sixth is Adonin, he had a monkey's face; the seventh is Sabbede, he has a shining fire-face. This is the sevenness of the week.

"But Yaltabaoth had a multitude of faces, more than all of them, so that he could put a face before all of them, according to his desire, when he is in the midst of seraphs. He shared his fire with them; therefore he became lord over them. Because of the power of the glory he possessed of his mother's light, he called himself God. And he did not obey the place from which he came. And he united the seven powers in his thought with the authorities which were with him. And when he spoke it happened. And he named each power beginning with the highest: the first is goodness with the first (authority), Athoth; the second is foreknowledge with the second one, Eloaio; and the third is divinity with the third one, Astraphaio); the fourth is lordship with the fourth one, Yao; the fifth is kingdom with the fifth one, Sabaoth; the sixth is envy with the sixth one, Adonein; the seventh is understanding with the seventh one, Sabbateon. And these have a firmament corresponding to each aeon-heaven. They were given names according to the glory which belongs to heaven for the destruction of the powers. And in the names which were given to them by their Originator there was power. But the names which were given them according to the glory which belongs to heaven mean for them destruction and powerlessness. Thus they have two names.

"And having created [...] everything, he organized according to the model of the first aeons which had come into being, so that he might create them like the indestructible ones. Not because he had seen the indestructible ones, but the power in him, which he had taken from his mother, produced in him the likeness of the cosmos. And when he saw the creation which surrounds him, and the multitude of the angels around him which had come forth from him, he said to them, 'I am a jealous God, and there is no other God beside me.' But by announcing this he indicated to the angels who attended him that there exists another God. For if there were no other one, of whom would he be jealous?

"Then the mother began to move to and fro. She became aware of the deficiency when the brightness of her light diminished. And she became dark because her consort had not agreed with her."

And I said, "Lord, what does it mean that she moved to and fro?" But he smiled and said, "Do not think it is, as Moses said, 'above the waters.' No, but when she had seen the wickedness which had happened, and the theft which her son had committed, she repented. And she was overcome by forgetfulness in the darkness of ignorance and she began to be ashamed. And she did not dare to return, but she was moving about. And the moving is the going to and fro.

"And the arrogant one took a power from his mother. For he was ignorant, thinking that there existed no other except his mother alone. And when he saw the multitude of the angels which he had created, then he exalted himself above them.

"And when the mother recognized that the garment of darkness was imperfect, then she knew that her consort had not agreed with her. She repented with much weeping. And the whole pleroma heard the prayer of her repentance, and they praised on her behalf the invisible, virginal Spirit. And he consented; and when the invisible Spirit had consented, the holy Spirit poured over her from their whole pleroma. For it was not her consort who came to her, but he came to her through the pleroma in order that he might correct her deficiency. And she was taken up not to her own aeon but above her son, that she might be in the ninth until she has corrected her deficiency.

"And a voice came forth from the exalted aeon-heaven: 'The Man exists and the son of Man.' And the chief archon, Yaltabaoth, heard (it) and thought that the voice had come from his mother. And he did not know from where it came. And he taught them, the holy and perfect Mother-Father, the complete foreknowledge, the image of the invisible one who is the Father of the all (and) through whom everything came into being, the first Man. For he revealed his likeness in a human form.

"And the whole aeon of the chief archon trembled, and the foundations of the abyss shook. And of the waters which are above matter, the underside was illuminated by the appearance of his image which had been revealed. And when all the authorities and the chief archon looked, they saw the whole region of the underside which was illuminated. And through the light they saw the form of the image in the water.

"And he said to the authorities which attend him, 'Come, let us create a man according to the image of God and according to our likeness, that his image may become a light for us.' And they created by means of their respective powers in correspondence with the characteristics which were given. And each authority supplied a characteristic in the form of the image which he had seen in its natural (form). He created a being according to the likeness of the first, perfect Man. And they said, 'Let us call him Adam, that his name may become a power of light for us.'

"And the powers began: the first one, goodness, created a bone-soul; and the second, foreknowledge, created a sinew-soul; the third, divinity, created a flesh-soul; and the fourth, the lordship, created a marrow-soul; the fifth, kingdom created a blood-soul; the sixth, envy, created a skin-soul; the seventh, understanding, created a hair-soul. And the multitude of the angels attended him and they received from the powers the seven substances of the natural (form) in order to create the proportions of the limbs and the proportion of the rump and the proper working together of each of the parts.

"The first one began to create the head. Eteraphaope-Abron created his head; Meniggesstroeth created the brain; Asterechme (created) the right eye; Thaspomocha, the left eye; Yeronumos, the right ear; Bissoum, the left ear; Akioreim, the nose; Banen-Ephroum, the lips; Amen, the teeth; Ibikan, the molars; Basiliademe, the tonsils; Achcha, the uvula; Adaban, the neck; Chaaman, the vertebrae; Dearcho, the throat; Tebar, the right shoulder; [...], the left shoulder; Mniarcon, the right elbow; [...], the left elbow; Abitrion, the right underarm; Evanthen, the left underarm; Krys, the right hand; Beluai, the left hand; Treneu, the fingers of the right hand; Balbel, the fingers of the left hand; Kriman, the nails of the hands; Astrops, the right breast; Barroph, the left breast; Baoum, the right shoulder joint; Ararim, the left shoulder joint; Areche, the belly; Phthave, the navel; Senaphim, the abdomen; Arachethopi, the right ribs; Zabedo, the left ribs; Barias, the right hip; Phnouth the left hip; Abenlenarchei, the marrow; Chnoumeninorin, the bones; Gesole, the stomach; Agromauna, the heart; Bano, the lungs; Sostrapal, the liver; Anesimalar, the spleen; Thopithro, the intestines; Biblo, the kidneys; Roeror, the sinews; Taphreo, the spine of the body; Ipouspoboba, the veins; Bineborin, the arteries; Atoimenpsephei, theirs are the breaths which are in all the limbs; Entholleia, all the flesh; Bedouk, the right buttock (?); Arabeei, the left penis; Eilo, the testicles; Sorma, the genitals; Gorma-Kaiochlabar, the right thigh; Nebrith, the left thigh; Pserem, the kidneys of the right leg; Asaklas, the left kidney; Ormaoth, the right leg; Emenun, the left leg; Knyx, the right shin-bone; Tupelon, the left shin-bone; Achiel, the right knee; Phnene, the left knee; Phiouthrom, the right foot; Boabel, its toes; Trachoun, the left foot; Phikna, its toes; Miamai, the nails of the feet; Labernioum - .

"And those who were appointed over all of these are: Zathoth, Armas, Kalila, Jabel, (Sabaoth, Cain, Abel). And those who are particularly active in the limbs (are) the head Diolimodraza, the neck Yammeax, the right shoulder Yakouib, the left shoulder Verton, the right hand Oudidi, the left one Arbao, the fingers of the right hand Lampno, the fingers of the left hand Leekaphar, the right breast Barbar, the left breast Imae, the chest Pisandriaptes, the right shoulder joint Koade, the left shoulder joint Odeor, the right ribs Asphixix, the left ribs Synogchouta, the belly Arouph, the womb Sabalo, the right thigh Charcharb, the left thigh Chthaon, all the genitals Bathinoth, the right leg Choux, the left leg Charcha, the right shin-bone Aroer, the left shin-bone Toechtha, the right knee Aol, the left knee Charaner, the right foot Bastan, its toes Archentechtha, the left foot Marephnounth, its toes Abrana.

"Seven have power over all of these: Michael, Ouriel, Asmenedas, Saphasatoel, Aarmouriam, Richram, Amiorps. And the ones who are in charge over the senses (are) Archendekta; and he who is in charge over the receptions (is) Deitharbathas; and he who is in charge over the imagination (is) Oummaa; and he who is over the composition Aachiaram, and he who is over the whole impulse Riaramnacho.

"And the origin of the demons which are in the whole body is determined to be four: heat, cold, wetness, and dryness. And the mother of all of them is matter. And he who reigns over the heat (is) Phloxopha; and he who reigns over the cold is Oroorrothos; and he who reigns over what is dry (is) Erimacho; and he who reigns over the wetness (is) Athuro. And the mother of all of these, Onorthochrasaei, stands in their midst, since she is illimitable, and she mixes with all of them. And she is truly matter, for they are nourished by her.

"The four chief demons are: Ephememphi, who belongs to pleasure, Yoko, who belongs to desire, Nenentophni, who belongs to grief, Blaomen, who belongs to fear. And the mother of them all is Aesthesis-Ouch-Epi-Ptoe. And from the four demons passions came forth. And from grief (came) envy, jealousy, distress, trouble, pain, callousness, anxiety, mourning, etc. And from pleasure much wickedness arises, and empty pride, and similar things. And from desire (comes) anger, wrath, and bitterness, and bitter passion, and unsatedness, and similar things. And from fear (comes) dread, fawning, agony, and shame. All of these are like useful things as well as evil things. But the insight into their true (character) is Anaro, who is the head of the material soul, for it belongs with the seven senses, Ouch-Epi-Ptoe.

"This is the number of the angels: together they are 365. They all worked on it until, limb for limb, the natural and the material body was completed by them. Now there are other ones in charge over the remaining passions whom I did not mention to you. But if you wish to know them, it is written in the book of Zoroaster. And all the angels and demons worked until they had constructed the natural body. And their product was completely inactive and motionless for a long time.

"And when the mother wanted to retrieve the power which she had given to the chief archon, she petitioned the Mother-Father of the All, who is most merciful. He sent, by means of the holy decree, the five lights down upon the place of the angels of the chief archon. They advised him that they should bring forth the power of the mother. And they said to Yaltabaoth, 'Blow into his face something of your spirit and his body will arise.' And he blew into his face the spirit which is the power of his mother; he did not know (this), for he exists in ignorance. And the power of the mother went out of Yaltabaoth into the natural body, which they had fashioned after the image of the one who exists from the beginning. The body moved and gained strength, and it was luminous.

"And in that moment the rest of the powers became jealous, because he had come into being through all of them and they had given their power to the man, and his intelligence was greater than that of those who had made him, and greater than that of the chief archon. And when they recognized that he was luminous, and that he could think better than they, and that he was free from wickedness, they took him and threw him into the lowest region of all matter.

"But the blessed One, the Mother-Father, the beneficent and merciful One, had mercy on the power of the mother which had been brought forth out of the chief archon, for they (the archons) might gain power over the natural and perceptible body. And he sent, through his beneficent Spirit and his great mercy, a helper to Adam, luminous Epinoia which comes out of him, who is called Life. And she assists the whole creature, by toiling with him and by restoring him to his fullness and by teaching him about the descent of his seed (and) by teaching him about the way of ascent, (which is) the way he came down. And the luminous Epinoia was hidden in Adam, in order that the archons might not know her, but that the Epinoia might be a correction of the deficiency of the mother.

"And the man came forth because of the shadow of the light which is in him. And his thinking was superior to all those who had made him. When they looked up, they saw that his thinking was superior. And they took counsel with the whole array of archons and angels. They took fire and earth and water and mixed them together with the four fiery winds. And they wrought them together and caused a great disturbance. And they brought him (Adam) into the shadow of death, in order that they might form (him) again from earth and water and fire and the spirit which originates in matter, which is the ignorance of darkness and desire, and their counterfeit spirit. This is the tomb of the newly-formed body with which the robbers had clothed the man, the bond of forgetfulness; and he became a mortal man. This is the first one who came down, and the first separation. But the Epinoia of the light which was in him, she is the one who was to awaken his thinking.

"And the archons took him and placed him in paradise. And they said to him, 'Eat, that is at leisure,' for their luxury is bitter and their beauty is depraved. And their luxury is deception and their trees are godlessness and their fruit is deadly poison and their promise is death. And the tree of their life they had placed in the midst of paradise.

"And I shall teach you (pl.) what is the mystery of their life, which is the plan which they made together, which is the likeness of their spirit. The root of this (tree) is bitter and its branches are death, its shadow is hate and deception is in its leaves, and its blossom is the ointment of evil, and its fruit is death and desire is its seed, and it sprouts in darkness. The dwelling place of those who taste from it is Hades, and the darkness is their place of rest.

"But what they call the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is the Epinoia of the light, they stayed in front of it in order that he (Adam) might not look up to his fullness and recognize the nakedness of his shamefulness. But it was I who brought about that they ate."

And to I said to the savior, "Lord, was it not the serpent that taught Adam to eat?" The savior smiled and said, "The serpent taught them to eat from wickedness of begetting, lust, (and) destruction, that he (Adam) might be useful to him. And he (Adam) knew that he was disobedient to him (the chief archon) due to light of the Epinoia which is in him, which made him more correct in his thinking than the chief archon. And (the latter) wanted to bring about the power which he himself had given him. And he brought a forgetfulness over Adam."

And I said to the savior, "What is the forgetfulness?" And he said "It is not the way Moses wrote (and) you heard. For he said in his first book, 'He put him to sleep' (Gn 2:21), but (it was) in his perception. For also he said through the prophet, 'I will make their hearts heavy, that they may not pay attention and may not see' (Is 6:10).

"Then the Epinoia of the light hid herself in him (Adam). And the chief archon wanted to bring her out of his rib. But the Epinoia of the light cannot be grasped. Although darkness pursued her, it did not catch her. And he brought a part of his power out of him. And he made another creature, in the form of a woman, according to the likeness of the Epinoia which had appeared to him. And he brought the part which he had taken from the power of the man into the female creature, and not as Moses said, 'his rib-bone.'

"And he (Adam) saw the woman beside him. And in that moment the luminous Epinoia appeared, and she lifted the veil which lay over his mind. And he became sober from the drunkenness of darkness. And he recognized his counter-image, and he said, 'This is indeed bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.' Therefore the man will leave his father and his mother, and he will cleave to his wife, and they will both be one flesh. For they will send him his consort, and he will leave his father and his mother ... (3 lines unreadable)

"And our sister Sophia (is) she who came down in innocence in order to rectify her deficiency. Therefore she was called Life, which is the mother of the living, by the foreknowledge of the sovereignty of heaven. And through her they have tasted the perfect Knowledge. I appeared in the form of an eagle on the tree of knowledge, which is the Epinoia from the foreknowledge of the pure light, that I might teach them and awaken them out of the depth of sleep. For they were both in a fallen state, and they recognized their nakedness. The Epinoia appeared to them as a light; she awakened their thinking.

"And when Yaltabaoth noticed that they withdrew from him, he cursed his earth. He found the woman as she was preparing herself for her husband. He was lord over her, though he did not know the mystery which had come to pass through the holy decree. And they were afraid to blame him. And he showed his angels his ignorance which is in him. And he cast them out of paradise and he clothed them in gloomy darkness. And the chief archon saw the virgin who stood by Adam, and that the luminous Epinoia of life had appeared in her. And Yaltabaoth was full of ignorance. And when the foreknowledge of the All noticed (it), she sent some and they snatched life out of Eve.

"And the chief archon seduced her and he begot in her two sons; the first and the second (are) Eloim and Yave. Eloim has a bear-face and Yave has a cat-face. The one is righteous but the other is unrighteous. (Yave is righteous but Eloim is unrighteous.) Yave he set over the fire and the wind, and Eloim he set over the water and the earth. And these he called with the names Cain and Abel with a view to deceive.

"Now up to the present day, sexual intercourse continued due to the chief archon. And he planted sexual desire in her who belongs to Adam. And he produced through intercourse the copies of the bodies, and he inspired them with his counterfeit spirit.

"And the two archons he set over principalities, so that they might rule over the tomb. And when Adam recognized the likeness of his own foreknowledge, he begot the likeness of the son of man. He called him Seth, according to the way of the race in the aeons. Likewise, the mother also sent down her spirit, which is in her likeness and a copy of those who are in the pleroma, for she will prepare a dwelling place for the aeons which will come down. And he made them drink water of forgetfulness, from the chief archon, in order that they might not know from where they came. Thus, the seed remained for a while assisting (him), in order that, when the Spirit comes forth from the holy aeons, he may raise up and heal him from the deficiency, that the whole pleroma may (again) become holy and faultless."

And I said to the savior, "Lord, will all the souls then be brought safely into the pure light?" He answered and said to me, "Great things have arisen in your mind, for it is difficult to explain them to others except to those who are from the immovable race. Those on whom the Spirit of life will descend and (with whom) he will be with the power, they will be saved and become perfect and be worthy of the greatness and be purified in that place from all wickedness and the involvements in evil. Then they have no other care than the incorruption alone, to which they direct their attention from here on, without anger or envy or jealousy or desire and greed of anything. They are not affected by anything except the state of being in the flesh alone, which they bear while looking expectantly for the time when they will be met by the receivers (of the body). Such then are worthy of the imperishable, eternal life and the calling. For they endure everything and bear up under everything, that they may finish the good fight and inherit eternal life."

I said to him, "Lord, the souls of those who did not do these works (but) on whom the power and Spirit descended, (will they be rejected?" He answered and said to me, "If) the Spirit (descended upon them), they will in any case be saved, and they will change (for the better). For the power will descend on every man, for without it no one can stand. And after they are born, then, when the Spirit of life increases and the power comes and strengthens that soul, no one can lead it astray with works of evil. But those on whom the counterfeit spirit descends are drawn by him and they go astray."

And I said, "Lord, where will the souls of these go when they have come out of their flesh?" And he smiled and said to me, "The soul in which the power will become stronger than the counterfeit spirit, is strong and it flees from evil and, through the intervention of the incorruptible one, it is saved, and it is taken up to the rest of the aeons."

And I said, "Lord, those, however, who have not known to whom they belong, where will their souls be?" And he said to me, "In those, the despicable spirit has gained strength when they went astray. And he burdens the soul and draws it to the works of evil, and he casts it down into forgetfulness. And after it comes out of (the body), it is handed over to the authorities, who came into being through the archon, and they bind it with chains and cast it into prison, and consort with it until it is liberated from the forgetfulness and acquires knowledge. And if thus it becomes perfect, it is saved."

And I said, "Lord, how can the soul become smaller and return into the nature of its mother or into man?" Then he rejoiced when I asked him this, and he said to me, "Truly, you are blessed, for you have understood! That soul is made to follow another one (fem.), since the Spirit of life is in it. It is saved through him. It is not again cast into another flesh."

And I said, "Lord, these also who did not know, but have turned away, where will their souls go?" Then he said to me, "To that place where the angels of poverty go they will be taken, the place where there is no repentance. And they will be kept for the day on which those who have blasphemed the spirit will be tortured, and they will be punished with eternal punishment."

And I said, "Lord, from where did the counterfeit spirit come?" Then he said to me, "The Mother-Father, who is rich in mercy, the holy Spirit in every way, the One who is merciful and who sympathizes with you (pl.), i.e., the Epinoia of the foreknowledge of light, he raised up the offspring of the perfect race and its thinking and the eternal light of man. When the chief archon realized that they were exalted above him in the height - and they surpass him in thinking - then he wanted to seize their thought, not knowing that they surpassed him in thinking, and that he will not be able to seize them.

"He made a plan with his authorities, which are his powers, and they committed together adultery with Sophia, and bitter fate was begotten through them, which is the last of the changeable bonds. And it is of a sort that is interchangeable. And it is harder and stronger than she with whom the gods united, and the angels and the demons and all the generations until this day. For from that fate came forth every sin and injustice and blasphemy, and the chain of forgetfulness and ignorance and every severe command, and serious sins and great fears. And thus the whole creation was made blind, in order that they may not know God, who is above all of them. And because of the chain of forgetfulness, their sins were hidden. For they are bound with measures and times and moments, since it (fate) is lord over everything.

"And he (the chief archon) repented for everything which had come into being through him. This time he planned to bring a flood upon the work of man. But the greatness of the light of the foreknowledge informed Noah, and he proclaimed (it) to all the offspring which are the sons of men. But those who were strangers to him did not listen to him. It is not as Moses said, 'They hid themselves in an ark' (Gn 7: 7), but they hid themselves in a place, not only Noah, but also many other people from the immovable race. They went into a place and hid themselves in a luminous cloud. And he (Noah) recognized his authority, and she who belongs to the light was with him, having shone on them because he (the chief archon) had brought darkness upon the whole earth.

"And he made a plan with his powers. He sent his angels to the daughters of men, that they might take some of them for themselves and raise offspring for their enjoyment. And at first they did not succeed. When they had no success, they gathered together again and they made a plan together. They created a counterfeit spirit, who resembles the Spirit who had descended, so as to pollute the souls through it. And the angels changed themselves in their likeness into the likeness of their mates (the daughters of men), filling them with the spirit of darkness, which they had mixed for them, and with evil. They brought gold and silver and a gift and copper and iron and metal and all kinds of things. And they steered the people who had followed them into great troubles, by leading them astray with many deceptions. They (the people) became old without having enjoyment. They died, not having found truth and without knowing the God of truth. And thus the whole creation became enslaved forever, from the foundation of the world until now. And they took women and begot children out of the darkness according to the likeness of their spirit. And they closed their hearts, and they hardened themselves through the hardness of the counterfeit spirit until now.

"I, therefore, the perfect Pronoia of the all, changed myself into my seed, for I existed first, going on every road. For I am the richness of the light; I am the remembrance of the pleroma.

"And I went into the realm of darkness and I endured till I entered the middle of the prison. And the foundations of chaos shook. And I hid myself from them because of their wickedness, and they did not recognize me.

"Again I returned for the second time, and I went about. I came forth from those who belong to the light, which is I, the remembrance of the Pronoia. I entered into the midst of darkness and the inside of Hades, since I was seeking (to accomplish) my task. And the foundations of chaos shook, that they might fall down upon those who are in chaos and might destroy them. And again I ran up to my root of light, lest they be destroyed before the time.

"Still for a third time I went - I am the light which exists in the light, I am the remembrance of the Pronoia - that I might enter into the midst of darkness and the inside of Hades. And I filled my face with the light of the completion of their aeon. And I entered into the midst of their prison, which is the prison of the body. And I said, 'He who hears, let him get up from the deep sleep.' And he wept and shed tears. Bitter tears he wiped from himself and he said, 'Who is it that calls my name, and from where has this hope come to me, while I am in the chains of the prison?' And I said, 'I am the Pronoia of the pure light; I am the thinking of the virginal Spirit, who raised you up to the honored place. Arise and remember that it is you who hearkened, and follow your root, which is I, the merciful one, and guard yourself against the angels of poverty and the demons of chaos and all those who ensnare you, and beware of the deep sleep and the enclosure of the inside of Hades.

"And I raised him up, and sealed him in the light of the water with five seals, in order that death might not have power over him from this time on.

"And behold, now I shall go up to the perfect aeon. I have completed everything for you in your hearing. And I have said everything to you that you might write them down and give them secretly to your fellow spirits, for this is the mystery of the immovable race."

And the savior presented these things to him that he might write them down and keep them secure. And he said to him, "Cursed be everyone who will exchange these things for a gift or for food or for drink or for clothing or for any other such thing." And these things were presented to him in a mystery, and immediately he disappeared from him. And he went to his fellow disciples and related to them what the savior had told him.

Jesus Christ, Amen.

The Apocryphon According to John

The Book of Thomas the Contender

Translated by John D. Turner

The secret words that the savior spoke to Judas Thomas which I, even I, Mathaias, wrote down, while I was walking, listening to them speak with one another.

The savior said, "Brother Thomas while you have time in the world, listen to me, and I will reveal to you the things you have pondered in your mind.

"Now, since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself, and learn who you are, in what way you exist, and how you will come to be. Since you will be called my brother, it is not fitting that you be ignorant of yourself. And I know that you have understood, because you had already understood that I am the knowledge of the truth. So while you accompany me, although you are uncomprehending, you have (in fact) already come to know, and you will be called 'the one who knows himself'. For he who has not known himself has known nothing, but he who has known himself has at the same time already achieved knowledge about the depth of the all. So then, you, my brother Thomas, have beheld what is obscure to men, that is, what they ignorantly stumble against."

Now Thomas said to the lord, "Therefore I beg you to tell me what I ask you before your ascension, and when I hear from you about the hidden things, then I can speak about them. And it is obvious to me that the truth is difficult to perform before men."

The savior answered, saying, "If the things that are visible to you are obscure to you, how can you hear about the things that are not visible? If the deeds of the truth that are visible in the world are difficult for you to perform, how indeed, then, shall you perform those that pertain to the exalted height and to the pleroma which are not visible? And how shall you be called 'laborers'? In this respect you are apprentices, and have not yet received the height of perfection."

Now Thomas answered and said to the savior, "Tell us about these things that you say are not visible, but are hidden from us."

The savior said, "All bodies [...] the beasts are begotten [...] it is evident like [...] this, too, those that are above [...] things that are visible, but they are visible in their own root, and it is their fruit that nourishes them. But these visible bodies survive by devouring creatures similar to them with the result that the bodies change. Now that which changes will decay and perish, and has no hope of life from then on, since that body is bestial. So just as the body of the beasts perishes, so also will these formations perish. Do they not derive from intercourse like that of the beasts? If it, too derives from intercourse, how will it beget anything different from beasts? So, therefore, you are babes until you become perfect."

And Thomas answered, "Therefore I say to you, lord, that those who speak about things that are invisible and difficult to explain are like those who shoot their arrows at a target at night. To be sure, they shoot their arrows as anyone would - since they shoot at the target - but it is not visible. Yet when the light comes forth and hides the darkness, then the work of each will appear. And you, our light, enlighten, O lord."

Jesus said, "It is in light that light exists."

Thomas, spoke, saying, "Lord, why does this visible light that shines on behalf of men rise and set?"

The savior said, "O blessed Thomas, of course this visible light shines on your behalf - not in order that you remain here, but rather that you might come forth - and whenever all the elect abandon bestiality, then this light will withdraw up to its essence, and its essence will welcome it, since it is a good servant."

Then the savior continued and said, "O unsearchable love of the light! O bitterness of the fire that blazes in the bodies of men and in their marrow, kindling in them night and day, and burning the limbs of men and making their minds become drunk and their souls become deranged [...] them within males and females [...] night and moving them, [...] secretly and visibly. For the males move [...] upon the females and the females upon the males. Therefore it is said, "Everyone who seeks the truth from true wisdom will make himself wings so as to fly, fleeing the lust that scorches the spirits of men." And he will make himself wings to flee every visible spirit."

And Thomas answered, saying, "Lord, this is exactly what I am asking you about, since I have understood that you are the one who is beneficial to us, as you say."

Again the savior answered and said, "Therefore it is necessary for us to speak to you, since this is the doctrine of the perfect. If, now, you desire to become perfect, you shall observe these things; if not, your name is 'Ignorant', since it is impossible for an intelligent man to dwell with a fool, for the intelligent man is perfect in all wisdom. To the fool, however, the good and bad are the same - indeed the wise man will be nourished by the truth and (Ps. 1:3) "will be like a tree growing by the meandering stream" - seeing that there are some who, although having wings, rush upon the visible things, things that are far from the truth. For that which guides them, the fire, will give them an illusion of truth, and will shine on them with a perishable beauty, and it will imprison them in a dark sweetness and captivate them with fragrant pleasure. And it will blind them with insatiable lust and burn their souls and become for them like a stake stuck in their heart which they can never dislodge. And like a bit in the mouth, it leads them according to its own desire. And it has fettered them with its chains and bound all their limbs with the bitterness of the bondage of lust for those visible things that will decay and change and swerve by impulse. They have always been attracted downwards; as they are killed, they are assimilated to all the beasts of the perishable realm."

Thomas answered and said, "It is obvious and has been said, 'Many are [...] those who do not know [...] soul.'"

And the savior answered, saying, "Blessed is the wise man who sought after the truth, and when he found it, he rested upon it forever and was unafraid of those who wanted to disturb him."

Thomas answered and said, "It is beneficial for us, lord, to rest among our own?"

The savior said, "Yes, it is useful. And it is good for you, since things visible among men will dissolve - for the vessel of their flesh will dissolve, and when it is brought to naught it will come to be among visible things, among things that are seen. And then the fire which they see gives them pain on account of love for the faith they formerly possessed. They will be gathered back to that which is visible. Moreover, those who have sight among things that are not visible, without the first love they will perish in the concern for this life and the scorching of the fire. Only a little while longer, and that which is visible will dissolve; then shapeless shades will emerge, and in the midst of tombs they will forever dwell upon the corpses in pain and corruption of soul."

Thomas answered and said, "What have we to say in the face of these things? What shall we say to blind men? What doctrine should we express to these miserable mortals who say, "We came to do good and not curse," and yet claim, "Had we not been begotten in the flesh, we would not have known iniquity"?"

The savior said, "Truly, as for those, do not esteem them as men, but regard them as beasts, for just as beasts devour one another, so also men of this sort devour one another. On the contrary, they are deprived of the kingdom since they love the sweetness of the fire and are servants of death and rush to the works of corruption. They fulfill the lust of their fathers. They will be thrown down to the abyss and be afflicted by the torment of the bitterness of their evil nature. For they will be scourged so as to make them rush backwards, whither they do not know, and they will recede from their limbs not patiently, but with despair. And they rejoice over [...] madness and derangement [...] They pursue this derangement without realizing their madness, thinking that they are wise. They [...] their body [...] Their mind is directed to their own selves, for their thought is occupied with their deeds. But it is the fire that will burn them."

And Thomas answered and said, "Lord, what will the one thrown down to them do? For I am most anxious about them; many are those who fight them."

The savior answered and said, "What is your own opinion?"

Judas - the one called Thomas - said, "It is you, lord, whom it befits to speak, and me to listen."

The savior replied, "Listen to what I am going to tell you and believe in the truth. That which sows and that which is sown will dissolve in the fire - within the fire and the water - and they will hide in tombs of darkness. And after a long time they shall show forth the fruit of the evil trees, being punished, being slain in the mouth of beasts and men at the instigation of the rains and winds and air and the light that shines above."

Thomas replied, "You have certainly persuaded us, lord. We realize in our heart, and it is obvious, that this is so, and that your word is sufficient. But these words that you speak to us are ridiculous and contemptible to the world since they are misunderstood. So how can we go preach them, since we are not esteemed in the world?"

The savior answered and said, "Truly I tell you that he who will listen to your word and turn away his face or sneer at it or smirk at these things, truly I tell you that he will be handed over to the ruler above who rules over all the powers as their king, and he will turn that one around and cast him from heaven down to the abyss, and he will be imprisoned in a narrow dark place. Moreover, he can neither turn nor move on account of the great depth of Tartaros and the heavy bitterness of Hades that is steadfast [...] them to it [...] they will not forgive [...] pursue you. They will hand [...] over to [...] angel Tartarouchos [...] fire pursuing them [...] fiery scourges that cast a shower of sparks into the face of the one who is pursued. If he flees westward, he finds the fire. If he turns southward, he finds it there as well. If he turns northward, the threat of seething fire meets him again. Nor does he find the way to the east so as to flee there and be saved, for he did not find it in the day he was in the body, so that he might find it in the day of judgment."

Then the savior continued, saying, "Woe to you, godless ones, who have no hope, who rely on things that will not happen!

"Woe to you who hope in the flesh and in the prison that will perish! How long will you be oblivious? And how long will you suppose that the imperishables will perish too? Your hope is set upon the world, and your god is this life! You are corrupting your souls!

"Woe to you within the fire that burns in you, for it is insatiable!

"Woe to you because of the wheel that turns in your minds!

"Woe to you within the grip of the burning that is in you, for it will devour your flesh openly and rend your souls secretly, and prepare you for your companions!

"Woe to you, captives, for you are bound in caverns! You laugh! In mad laughter you rejoice! You neither realize your perdition, nor do you reflect on your circumstances, nor have you understood that you dwell in darkness and death! On the contrary, you are drunk with the fire and full of bitterness. Your mind is deranged on account of the burning that is in you, and sweet to you are the poison and the blows of your enemies! And the darkness rose for you like the light, for you surrendered your freedom for servitude! You darkened your hearts and surrendered your thoughts to folly, and you filled your thoughts with the smoke of the fire that is in you! And your light has hidden in the cloud of [...] and the garment that is put upon you, you [...]. And you were seized by the hope that does not exist. And whom is it you have believed? Do you not know that you all dwell among those who that [...] you as though you [...]. You baptized your souls in the water of darkness ! You walked by your own whims!

"Woe to you who dwell in error, heedless that the light of the sun which judges and looks down upon the all will circle around all things so as to enslave the enemies. You do not even notice the moon, how by night and day it looks down, looking at the bodies of your slaughters!

"Woe to you who love intimacy with womankind and polluted intercourse with them! Woe to you in the grip of the powers of your body, for they will afflict you! Woe to you in the grip of the forces of the evil demons! Woe to you who beguile your limbs with fire! Who is it that will rain a refreshing dew on you to extinguish the mass of fire from you along with your burning? Who is it that will cause the sun to shine upon you to disperse the darkness in you and hide the darkness and polluted water?

"The sun and the moon will give a fragrance to you together with the air and the spirit and the earth and the water. For if the sun does not shine upon these bodies, they will wither and perish just like weeds or grass. If the sun shines on them, they prevail and choke the grapevine; but if the grapevine prevails and shades those weeds and all the other brush growing alongside, and spreads and flourishes, it alone inherits the land in which it grows; and every place it has shaded it dominates. And when it grows up, it dominates all the land and is bountiful for its master, and it pleases him even more, for he would have suffered great pains on account of these plants until he uprooted them. But the grapevine alone removed them and choked them, and they died and became like the soil."

Then Jesus continued and said to them, "Woe to you, for you did not receive the doctrine, and those who are [...] will labor at preaching [...]. And you are rushing into [...] will send them down [...] you kill them daily in order that they might rise from death.

"Blessed are you who have prior knowledge of the stumbling blocks and who flee alien things.

"Blessed are you who are reviled and not esteemed on account of the love their lord has for them.

"Blessed are you who weep and are oppressed by those without hope, for you will be released from every bondage.

"Watch and pray that you not come to be in the flesh, but rather that you come forth from the bondage of the bitterness of this life. And as you pray, you will find rest, for you have left behind the suffering and the disgrace. For when you come forth from the sufferings and passions of the body, you will receive rest from the good one, and you will reign with the king, you joined with him and he with you, from now on, for ever and ever, Amen."

The Book of Thomas The Contender Writing To the Perfect

Remember me also, my brethren, in your prayers:
Peace to the saints and those who are spiritual.

<html>http://www.prayerbook.ca/bcp.html</html>

Free Podcast Hosting:
The Casual Hobbyist Solution Step-by-Step

Now we'll take a look at how to set up free podcast hosting. This solution is ideal for the casual hobbyist podcaster but has limitations when it comes to dependability and control. I talked about this in the podcast hosting section.

If your podcasting goals are related to business or involve a medium- to large-sized audience, then I suggest you choose one of my other podcast hosting recommendations. This free solution won't work for everyone.

If you're NOT planning on using my free podcast hosting recommendations, then you can skip this page and continue reading on the next page about preparing and uploading your podcast file.

NOTE: There are video tutorials available on this page. They are marked with a icon. When you click a tutorial link, it will open the video in a new browser window.

To play the videos, you will need to download the latest version of the free Flash player. The best way to view the video tutorial is with your browser in full screen mode. You can switch your browser in and out of full screen mode by pressing F11. Try it now.

You'll recall that in my outline of the free podcast hosting solution for the casual hobbyist podcaster I recommend using the following.

Ourmedia: mp3 file storage

Blogger: blog service and host

Feedburner: to create a podcast-ready RSS feed

Now let's get started setting up your free podcast hosting with these three services..

Creating an Ourmedia Account

How to Create a Blogger Account

How to Configure Blogger for Podcasting

Creating a Feedburner Account

Now that you have created a feedburner account and feed, your blog is podcast-ready. You want to make sure to make your feed address available to your visitors and listeners.

A common way to do this is to include a small orange icon that says RSS, XML, or Feed to your blog site. These icons are often called chiclets. You may have seen this in the sidebar of other blogs. The following video will show you how to add a chiclet to your blog sidebar in Blogger.

Adding a Podast Feed Chiclet and Link to Your Blog Sidebar

Now that you have your free podcast hosting all setup, let's take a look at how to prepare your file to be uploaded.

Podcast Publishing:
A Filename for Your Podcast >>

<< Podcast Hosting

<html>[[The Cob Builder's Handbook|http://weblife.org/cob/]]

[img[http://weblife.org/cob/images/cob_cover.jpg]]

The Cob Builders Handbook

You Can Hand-Sculpt Your Own Home

Front Cover - Back Cover
Table Of Contents:

Acknowledgements and Warning

INTRODUCTION
What is cob?
Why build with cob?

DESIGNING YOUR HOME SWEET HOME!
Things to do to get ready
Think Small
Think Rounded
Make the Most of the Climate
Design with passive solar access in mind
Other things to think about when designing
One Story or More?
Noise
Plan for Future Additions Now
Designing the Entrance
Buttresses
Permits

CHOOSING YOUR SITE
Here's a list of some things to consider when looking for land:
Finding your home site
Choosing the house site includes:
Put the house where it belongs
Pick a site that is naturally comfortable
Passive solar planning
Harvesting your own wood
Wind
Noise
Boundaries
Getting the site ready to build!

GATHERING MATERIALS

DRAINAGE
Test Holes
Making Your Drainage
Creating drainage on a flat site
Berms
Ditch drains

THE FOUNDATION
Making the foundation
Planning the foundation (Footing or Plinth)
Designing the door area
Setting up the door frame
Tamping tips
How deep do I make the foundation?
How wide do I make the foundation?
How high do I make the foundation?
Moisture barrier between the foundation and the cob?
Getting plumbing and electric wire into the house
Stone Foundations
Choosing stones
Making a stone foundation
To Mortar or not to Mortar?
Some Other Foundation Options
Poured concrete
Concrete blocks mortared together
Railroad ties and gravel
Earth-filled tires
Agricultural bags filled with earth and tamped
Foundation and drainage summary

FLOORS
General Info to Consider
Make the floor higher than the ground outside
Making the floor
Tamping the ground
Finding level for the floor
Base (or layers of base materials) under the floor
Floor base options
Cob floor surface
Floor surface recipe
Putting down a cob floor
Drying your earth floor
Sealing an earth floor
Caring for a cob floor
Repairing a cob floor
Some other floor surface options

COB GLORIOUS COB!
Making Test Bricks
More details about cob ingredients
Sand
Clay
Straw
Tools
Here's how to make cob
Putting the cob on the wall
Cobbing by foot
Cobbing by hand
Tapering your walls and how wide to make the top of the foundation
Putting the cob to bed at night
Control the wall drying
Sculpting cob shelves and furniture
Burying in shelves, counters, and loft floors
Scaffolds
Electric wiring
Other things to think about
Termites and silverfish
Planning for future additions
Interior walls
Tips for happy cobbers
The cob builders checklist

WINDOWS AND DOORS
Arches
Lintels
Putting the windows and doors in the wall
Things to consider before putting in the windows and doors
Passive solar design - getting the most out of your windows
Ventilation
Views
Noise
Magic windows
Some glass safety tips
Getting rid of unwanted windows
Fun window ideas
Replacing broken glass

ROOFS
Components of a roof system
Beams
Rafters
Nogs or blocks
Bracing
Vertical Posts
Roof sheathing
Gutters
Some common roofs
Domes and Vaults
Cone shaped roof
Shed roof
Gable roof
Gambrel roof
Hipped or Pyramid
Organic shaped roof
Roof design and planning
Building the roof before the walls
Putting the roof on as you build the top of the wall
Roof surfacing
Some roof surface options
Insulation
Ceiling
Possible ceiling materials

PLASTER (RENDER)
Purposes of plaster
Mixing plaster (render)
Basic earth plaster
Plaster additions
Applying the plaster or render
Other Plasters
Alis and Paint
Some ideas on adding color

FINISHING TOUCHES

BACKWORD

BOOKS TO READ

The author hopes the information in this book will be shared with everyone. Therefore parts of this book may be reproduced and shared without the permission of the author, so long as the information is freely given and the source is acknowledged. No parts of this book may be reproduced for profit without the prior written permission of the author. Send any such requests for permission to:

GROUNDWORKS P.O. Box 381, Murphy, OR 97533, U.S.A.

Illustrations by Becky Bee
Book Design by Becky Bee, Alex McMillan, Mitch Spiralstone
Book Layout by Alex McMillan

Ordering Information
For additional copies of this book send your address and US$19.95 per book plus:
(within the US or Canada) US$4.00 shipping costs for the first book and US$1.00 for each additional book
(outside the US or Canada) US$10.00 shipping costs for the first book plus US$2.50 for each additional book
to: GROUNDWORKS P.O. Box 381, Murphy, OR 97533, U.S.A.
Contact us for bulk ordering details and overseas shipping prices.

Cob Builders Handbook Home Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks also to: Mitch, Alex, The Yellow Pages Book Club, Sun Ray, Bella and Richard,

Ianto and Michael, Billie Miracle, Sequoia, Jill, Jean, Evelyn, The Steens, The Adobeland Galz,

The Southern Oregon Women's Writers Group, and all the wonderful people who have encouraged and facilitated the birth and evolution of this book.

Please send in your comments and ideas. They may be included in the next edition.
BE FOREWARNED!

Cob gets under your fingernails, into your bones and deep in your heart! If you build with cob, you will be transformed and you will never be the same!

Caution: Cob is addicting! Becky and all the people who have contributed to this book do not assume responsibility for the financial, mental, and physical health and happiness resulting from the use of this book. It's all yours!

Neither do we assume responsibility for damages, losses or injuries that may arise from the use of the information in this book. Every project and situation is unique. Please use good judgment and common sense. Take care of yourself and Mother Earth.
HAPPY BUILDING!!

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this handbook is to show you how you can build your own magical, practical, long-lasting home for very little money and have a wonderful time doing it!

Cob is in the early stages of being rediscovered in the modern world. Ideas and innovations are popping up all the time. I wish I could say I learned cob from the folks of the past generation, but I can't. I am sharing my "modern" cob experience and current thoughts.

Because cob is such a tactile kind of thing, I usually teach about it via hands-on workshops. It's easy to show people how to do it. When I sat down to write this book, I was amazed at how many words it takes to describe something that fingers can understand without a single word! Cobbing is easy. All the text makes a simple thing seem a lot more complicated than it really is. Try it! You can do it! Think of the words in this book as a reminder of what your common sense and ancient memory already know.

My intention in writing this handbook is to encourage the rebirth of natural building. This book is designed to make it easy for you to join other pioneers in this wholesome adventure. It is written for people with or without building experience. I hope this is the kind of book that you will want to keep and pass on to young people to inspire them to build natural homes in the future. (I wish that it could be made out of cob so it would last for hundreds of years.)

Building with cob is a powerful political action, greatly reducing the need for the mortgage systems, lumber and construction industries, and petrochemical companies. Cob builders spend less of their lives working to pay for all of the above, and more time living. Making homes with natural materials gathered gently from the earth improves the likelihood of the survival of life itself.

Throughout history, women have worked together homemaking, farming, cooking and raising children. This is the glue of community. Today in the modern western world, most women are isolated from one another and are usually dependent on men and/or the patriarchal system for their shelter. Cobbing is a way for women to re-experience a sense of community and be empowered to make more life choices for themselves.

This book is put together by me, Becky Bee. I've loved building as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I built tree houses and designed underground forts. I grew up in Central America and spent a year in Africa. The beauty and serenity of the natural houses there felt like home to me. When I was living in New Zealand during the eighties, I was excited to find cob homes in the western world.

As long as I can remember I've had the vision of sustainable living - the garden, the handmade house, the little creek. I love the idea of being part of nature.

I've enjoyed creating lots of different kinds of buildings: log cabins, sweat lodges, tents, teepees, straw bale, adobe, conventional frame, recycled wood and cob homes. I was first introduced to cob in 1989 at a workshop offered by Bella and Richard Walker in New Zealand.

In 1993 I took a course in pottery, fell in love with clay sculpting, and found the artist in myself. Around that time, I again went to a cob workshop, this time being taught by lanto Evans and Michael Smith. I picked their brains and cobbed with them that year. We learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Cob building brought together my loves: clay, people, health, beauty, home and building!

I have been researching cob and teaching about it ever since. I love the feeling of being part of a team working together to create a strong, sensuous building. I am absolutely delighted to have found something that I love to do that makes sense, in a world where lots of things don't!
[Ring of Dancers]

What is cob?

If you would like to skip the introduction and go straight to the chapter on cobbing, click here.

The dictionary lists one of the root meanings of cob as a 'lump' or 'mass'. One definition of cobble is 'to make'. And a cobber is 'a friend'. So let's cobble a cob house with our cobbers!

Cobbing is a process best described as mud daubing. Earth, sand and straw are mixed together and massaged onto the foundation, creating thick load-bearing walls. It's like hand-sculpting a giant pot to live in.

Earthen homes are common in Africa, the Middle East, India, Afghanistan, Asia, Europe, South and Central America. Easily one-third of the world's population is currently living in homes made of unbaked earth.

The three most common forms of earth buildings are adobe, rammed earth and cob. In the southwestern United States, the five hundred year old Taos Pueblo, as well as many homes and churches, are made of adobe. Adobe is a form of building using unfired earth. Dirt, straw and water - the same ingredients as in cob - are made into bricks which are then sun dried and built into walls with a "cob-like" mortar. Some very old Native American structures like the Casa Grande ruin in Arizona are made out of cob. These are described locally as being built of "puddled or coursed adobe".

There is evidence that cob building began in Europe about 800 years ago. Some buildings that were built in the 16th and 17th centuries are still standing today. In England, there are approximately 50,000 cob buildings still in use today. Most of these were constructed in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Unfortunately, with the advent of fired brick construction, and political alliances between brick makers and the masons, the skill and art of making homes out of cob almost died out in Europe over the last century. Since 1980, the traditional craft of cob building has been enjoying a revival, mostly in the form of repairs or additions to existing buildings, with some new structures being built as well. In 1996 in Britain, four new cob buildings were under construction with building council approval.

Why build with cob?

It's fun and enlightening! It inspires getting acquainted with and connected to nature, oneself and one's fellow cobbers. Building with cob definitely enhances well-being.

Cob is gentle on the planet. Using cob reduces the use of wood, steel, and toxic building supplies.
Getting to know Mother Earth

It's fun to use your mind to figure out how moisture, gravity, heat, seasons, temperature, and water function in nature. Observe how nature creates form and beauty. Notice patterns in nature's structures, in plants, bones, a snail shell, bubbles, a cobweb, a nest, etc.

Get to know your environment so you can treat it respectfully. Notice how your actions affect nature. Gather what you need for building in places where you will cause the least damage/impact. Learn which trees to cut, and at what time of the year. Where does your home fit into nature gracefully?

Cobbing is a fun way to get to know Mother Nature. Building with cob satisfies some ancient human urge and reminds you that you really are part of the natural world.
It's fun being in charge of the creation of your own home.

Cobbing requires defining what it is that you want. This process will give you a clearer picture of who you are! You will be the creator of your environment in every step of the process: designing, building, and decorating!

Cobbing connects you to the long forgotten memories of building with nature that have been stored in your cells and passed down from your ancestors. It will help you remember that you are a child of Mother Earth. You'll get to know the inventor in yourself, the artist, the inspired creator, the designer, the organizer, the homemaker. Become familiar with your own ingenuity and intelligence. Stretch your ability to visualize and to answer questions. Cobbing will help you develop confidence in the many facets of your being.

Cobbing is good for your body! Watch as it gets stronger, harder and healthier! You'll learn to move efficiently and pace yourself. Cobbing is rhythmic, slow and constant so your fitness kind of sneaks up on you. I've heard claims of cob healing just about everything from anorexia to arthritis!

Cob building sites are usually quiet and safe places for people to be. Cob structures make nontoxic, healthy indoor environments for the occupants.
Cob helps you get to know yourself in relation to others.

It's easy to inspire others to participate in cob building projects because it's so fun and satisfying. People are happy when they are part of a team making something beautiful and useful! Cobbing lends itself to sharing, co-creation and group decision making. It reminds us that we can still function as a clan.

Cobbing together inspires deep sharing and friendship. Wonderful conversations seem to arise out of the mud! Cob building sites welcome people of all ages and abilities to join in the fun!
{Dancers Around a Cob House]
IT'S EASY!

You can do it! Cob is a flexible and forgiving medium. It requires dedication more than physical strength, and willingness to experiment more than skills. Building with cob is an easy way to go on a big adventure!
IT'S AFFORDABLE!

Did you think you might have to pay rent forever? Now that you have this book, you'll see there's a way out! If you have a place to build on, and you're a good scrounger, and if you're good at getting people together for house raising parties, your cob home can cost as little as $10 a square foot! A well-designed cob home will save you money on energy bills too! A conventional house made of concrete, 2x6s, chip board, plastic, fiberglass, vinyl, aluminum, composition shingle will cost at least $65 a square foot. (These are 1996 prices.)
IT'S COMFORTABLE!

The organic shapes of cob walls are pleasing to the eye. Walking into a rounded cob home is like walking into a hug.

Naturally cool in the summer and warm in the winter, a cob home will keep you comfy year round. The thermal mass of the walls slows down changes in the temperature. Heat from a fire and from the sun will be absorbed and radiated back to you during the cooler nights. Cob walls also muffle sound, making a quiet indoor space.
IT'S LONG LASTING!

No, cob homes don't melt in a downpour. Cob homes last for centuries. With the revival of cob and other natural building techniques, the next few generations can choose not to spend their lives paying off a mortgage. Cob homes don't require much maintenance either.
YEAH FOR COB!! It's too good and it is true!!
DESIGNING YOUR HOME SWEET HOME!

[Cob House Layout] You can make a house that looks like any other, or you can take advantage of cob's sculptability and make a unique building, one of a kind.

[Cob House] A simple house with a sleeping loft, and clearstory windows to let in the light.

Things to do to get ready

* Go over this book once or twice to get familiar with cob concepts. Read the checklist (page 103) and visualize your home.

* Read books. At the library you probably won't find much on cob. Read up on other types of earthen construction and natural building. Books on permaculture, foundations and drainage, stone wall building, house design, passive solar design, electricity and plumbing, and roof construction will be helpful. (See the recommended reading list at the end of this book.)

* Go to a cob workshop if at all possible. Getting your hands in it will give you lots of information, inspiring ideas, confidence and rekindle your cellular knowledge. Workshops are a good way to get familiar with the material you will be building with.

* Observe, define and document what it is about different environments that appeals to you. Visit buildings that feel good to you. Check out the natural buildings in your area. Collect your ideas, sketches and photographs in a scrap book. Include the ideas you come up with while reading this book.

* Take design lessons from Mother Nature. Spend time in nature noticing how she puts things together. What shapes appeal to you? Colors? Textures?

* Assess your resources: What do you have in the way of time, energy, money, materials, skills and helpers? If you decide to have workshop(s) and/or house raising parties, set the dates and start advertising. Get your friends inspired.

* Use your imagination as you design. Keep in mind the feelings you would like to evoke in your home. Be flexible about your design. Once you've established the foundation, the spirit of cob will help you design from there up.

* Design your home so it belongs where it is. Spend lots of time on your site during the design process. Plan any roads, parking, energy systems, water sources, the garden-orchard areas, etc., at the same time, so that everything will work together gracefully. Include the sheds and storage areas in the design. It is important to make sure the home site will be as dry as possible. Plan a drainage system that moves water away from your house. (Read the chapter on choosing a site for your home carefully! See page 17.)

* Start gathering materials: roofing materials, doors, windows, etc. These elements will influence the personality of your design.

* After you've started forming some clear ideas, make small cob models, ideally right on the future home site. The models can be made of potter's clay or cob. This exercise is incredibly valuable and will teach you a lot about your design ideas. You can mock up your design full-scale with stacked straw bales too.

* Allow plenty of time for the designing and building processes. A home full of love is made by people who take the time to love the process.
Think Small

Building a house (even a small house) is a big project! It's best to start something that you can finish without too much stress. You can always add a room on later. If you become a cob addict you can add on each year.

Smaller buildings usually require wood of smaller dimensions to support the roof. This reduces the need to cut trees and spend money.
[House Plan]

A well-designed small building is all a person needs. It's cozy and easier to maintain. Measure the rooms where you live now so you can quantify the sizes of spaces.

A small home encourages more time spent outside in Mother Nature. Design outdoor living spaces around your home. Patios, covered porches and doorways that invite you outside add a lot to a home.

Design your home around what you intend to do in it. Write down your daily activities and think about what time of day you're likely to do each thing. Take advantage of natural light and heat when the sun shines into different parts of the house. Make a rough sketch using circular shapes to represent your daily activities. This will give you a basic layout for your design. Try arranging the layout in a variety of ways. How can one place be used for more than one purpose? Plan the flow of people-traffic carefully.

[House Plan]

Remember to include lots of storage space (at least 15% of the floor area). A small house feels bigger when it's tidy and not cluttered. Design in lots of closets, shelves, niches, and hooks. Plan a shed off the house for wood and tool storage.

People almost never stand right next to a wall. This means the walls don't need to be as tall as you are, if the ceiling is slanted/ sloped. Be willing to let go of what you're used to while you are imagining your home. The lower the walls, the less work you'll have to do to make them, and the less energy it will take to heat your home. Make sure you won't bump your head on the eaves while walking outside.

Think about efficient use of kitchen space. An old wive's tale says to put your sink, refrigerator and stove in a triangular relationship to each other. Old wives probably know what they're talking about. Notice kitchens. Which ones are comfortable and efficient? What makes them that way? Copy them. Arrange a visit to see the inside of a yacht or houseboat to get some good ideas for kitchens designed to take up a minimum amount of space.

It's easy to make beautiful furniture out of cob. Furniture that's built against the walls takes up a lot less room than movable furniture and leaves the floor space more open.
[Cozy Woman Sitting]
Think Rounded

Now is your chance to let go of the straight, square concept of home. Observe nature. She rarely uses a straight line and her graceful structures have survived many tests of time.

Curved walls are more stable than straight ones. The tighter the curve, the stronger the wall. A long straight wall wants to fall over. A curved wall holds itself up.
cob-9.jpg

If you must make a long straight wall, add a buttress or two. (See page 13 for more on buttresses.) When a cob wall curves tightly, you can deduct a few inches off its thickness because a curve is so strong. Where a cob wall is long and straight, increase the thickness of the wall.

As you imagine the walls, also start visualizing the roof and how it will sit on the building. The roof design can be refined as you build.

A wall defines the space on either side of it. Generally people are more comfortable in spaces with positive angles. (More than 80 degrees and less than 180 degrees.)
cob-10.jpg

This is easily done for more than one room if the rooms are all squares or right angles, but it's a little trickier if you want rounded walls. It's easy to see how nature solves this dilemma by looking at the honey comb of a bee hive, or a cluster of bubbles that are sitting on a flat surface. Each wax cell or bubble represents a "room" that is made up of comfortable angles. This also demonstrates a very efficient use of space, maximizing the size of each room in relation to the amount of surface area (or walls).
cob-11.jpg

A partial wall, like a counter or built in furniture, is enough to create the feeling of a comfortably shaped room or space.

Keep this concept in mind while you are designing the outdoor spaces around your home too. Take into consideration other buildings, fences, trees and the outdoor terrain. These too, will define the space.
Make the Most of the Climate
Design with passive solar access in mind

If you live in a temperate climate where the sun shines during the cold months, use the heat of the sun to heat your home. Using passive solar design means you'll use less energy, money and fuel to stay warm. Let the sun shine in! This is an important part of designing your home. (Read the sections on passive solar design on pages 58 and 114-117 very carefully.)
cob is thermal mass

This means it is dense stuff that holds the heat from the sun or the fire for a long time, radiating it back out into a room slowly. It also takes a long time to heat up. In most climates where humans live, this helps create a pleasant indoor temperature. Cob is naturally cool in hot summers, and can absorb solar warmth in the winter. It tempers the climate throughout the year and does the same on a smaller scale throughout the day/night cycle. Cob is ideal in desert areas where it holds the night's cool throughout the day, slowly heating up to release the day's warmth at night. Pay attention to the weather in your area through the seasons. The more sun you get during the colder months, the more practical a solar designed home will be.

If you live where it's really hot or cold around the clock, you may want to insulate or 'outsulate' your cob walls with something that is full of air pockets, and synthetically regulate the temperature by heating or cooling the interior. Adding more straw, pumice, vermiculite, or even styrofoam packaging chips to the outer or inner layer of cob may increase the insulation value.
Other things to think about when designing
One Story or More?

* A two-story house is more economical and efficient because the foundation and roof are the most expensive energy consuming parts of building. When you increase your living space by building vertically, you use fewer materials in the roof and foundation.
* Heat goes to the upper story. If you are like me and you like to sleep where it's cool and where it's easy to get to the bathroom, you might want to put the sleeping place downstairs. If you have plumbing it will be easier and quieter to keep it all on the lower story.
* You'll need lots of lumber for constructing the floor of the second story. Stairs take up more space than you think on the lower level.
* Stairs or ladders can be hazardous and difficult for the old and young. It is trickier to get a multi-story house to look like it belongs in its environment. It's more awkward and dangerous to work further off the ground. The walls will have to be thicker at the bottom to support a second story. This means you'll need more cob and a more heavy duty foundation.

Noise

Cob walls do an excellent job cutting noise, windows less so. Hopefully the noisy side is not the sunny side. Design accordingly.
Plan for Future Additions Now

If you plan to add onto your home in the future, it's important to design the different stages so they complement each other well. Keep future addition(s) in mind as you design. Make sure the water will run straight off every roof into a gutter, and not onto another roof. (See page 38 for more about future additions.) You may want to consider a C, L, S, or U shape for modular building.
Designing the Entrance

The entrance to a home is a big part of its personality. It creates an impression for everyone as they come and go. It's worth investing thought and imagination into this important aspect of designing your home. (See the section on designing the door area, page 36.)

[Doorway]
Buttresses

To strengthen a wall design, either because you want a thin wall or because you've decided to make a long straight wall, plan in some buttresses to help support it. A buttress is a secondary construction that adds lateral support to the wall.
Buttress protruding from wall

A big buttress with a door in it makes a romantic entry to the garden or courtyard.It can be on the inside or outside of the wall. It will need its own foundation.

Interior walls that join the exterior walls serve as buttresses. Any substantial blob of cob, like a fireplace or furniture against the wall, will give the main outer walls lateral support. Furniture and interior walls will support less weight than the main walls so they can have less substantial foundations.

Interior walls take up precious space so the thinner you can make them, the more space you'll have.

Ideally, you'll plan the buttresses as you plan the home so they can be built at the same time as the main walls. This will make a strong connection between the main wall and the buttress and their foundations.

If you build a buttress on the outer side of the wall, it must be protected from the rain -either with extra long eaves or with its own little roof. The same is true for outdoor garden or patio walls.
Flat stones or tiles can be carefully laid right on the top of the buttress to make a roof. cob-15.jpg
Permits

If you live where building permits are required and you want to get the building permitted, you will probably run into some resistance. Some commissions don't require permits for buildings under a certain size. Many counties will permit a pole structure and won't be too fussy about what you use to fill between the poles. The New Zealand planning commission has recently drawn up the requirements for building cob houses. They still require an engineer's approval before the building permit is granted. There's lots of work to be done before cob becomes an acceptable building material in most parts of the western world. Good luck! When dealing with building officials it is helpful to think of them as your friends and ask for their help.
[Stylish Doorway]

CHOOSING YOUR SITE

You know what they say: the three most important things about real estate are location, location, location! It's true for your cob home too!
Here's a list of some things to consider when looking for land:

* Getting land to build on is the first and probably the biggest step towards your dream of "home sweet home". Reading this book will give you some good ideas about what to look for. Take your time, use your intuition and be brave! If you choose to lease or rent land, make sure you have a very clear, written legal agreement with the landowner that ensures your right to live on the land.

* Who will you live with? Are you sure you want to live with this person(s)? Make clear agreements regarding the use of the land with your land partners.

* Your feelings: do you love the place? Are you ready and willing to make a commitment to this piece of land?

* Restrictions: building codes, covenants, zoning, minerals, water, and access rights

* Future plans for the surrounding areas: clear cut? a non-organic farm? noisy factory?

* History of the land

* Economics: price of the land, payment plan

* Climate: solar access, rainfall, wind, potential disasters: earth-quake, hurricane, flood, etc.

* Good homesite(s), drainage

* Dependable year round water source for drinking and irrigation

* Erosion: flood plains? clear cuts uphill of the land?

* Neighbors: privacy, noise, property lines

* Surrounding community: diversity, culture, schools

* Views

* Toxic pollutants in the area, or on the land

* Can you get what you need and want in a nearby town-resources, services, jobs, economic health of the area?

* Accessibility: check out economic and environmental costs of road building and maintenance, commuting distance to town, road conditions
Finding your home site

Once you get land, you can start deciding where your home will be situated on it. It's a good idea to allow lots of time for this important step. Observing the land in all the seasons can be extremely helpful! Spend as much time as possible on the land. To make it easy for you to hang out there, set up a little camp kitchen, shelter, hammock, etc.

Read the design section of this handbook while you're considering your site options. Also read the section on drainage to help you choose a spot that will minimize your drainage work. It may be helpful to read up on permaculture, which is a design system that considers the multi-facets of life in the planning process.
Choosing the house site includes:

* Choosing the water source and planning how to get it to the house. Will you be using water from the county system, a well, a spring or a stream? Will it get to your house by gravity feed or will it be pumped? Will it flow all year?

* Designing the septic or waste system. Generally the simpler the system, the better. There are lots of books about these subjects, everything from outhouses to by-the-code plumbing. (see The Humanure Handbook)

* Visualizing the access and parking. Building roads is one of the most destructive things people do to Mother Earth. Roads are often the cause of erosion and landslides, so plan them very carefully. Designing a road is complicated and can be expensive. Take the time to learn as much as you can about it. Do not assume that the guys you hire to do the road know what they are doing. Keep an eye on the road during heavy rains. Take your shovel out and adjust the road where necessary to protect it from erosion.

Do you want to see approaching cars? Do you want them to see you? Cars are noisy, stinky and usually pretty ugly. I suggest keeping the parking lot out of your view as much as possible. The approach and entrance to your home will influence your home's character.

It's very convenient to be able to drive a load of sand or rocks right up to the homesite during construction, so you may want to at least make a temporary road for that purpose.

* Laying out the walking path(s) to and from the house, garden, outhouse, etc. These need to be practical and direct. Design them with surface water runoff in mind. Use the same strategies as for making a road. Walking paths can easily become creek beds!

* Analyzing the soil. Where is the best soil for plants? Where is it naturally the most stable and dry for building? What is a practical route for a road? Where can you find the best cob mix? (Read the Cob Glorious Cob Chapter for more about cob mixes.)

* Finding a place for your garden and orchard. Do you like your garden to be close to the house? If you can see it from indoors through a window, it invites you to spend time in it. If there's critters to keep out, you'll need to build a fence. If you think fences are ugly, you may decide to put the garden where you can't see its fence from the house. Or make a pretty fence that you'll enjoy seeing from indoors.

Placing the homesite near a fertile garden spot on your land will save you a lot of soil improvement work.

Unless you live in Eden, you'll probably need to water your garden. Think about the water system when you choose the garden spot. Will you be using the runoff from your roof for the garden and/or orchard?

You may want a road to the garden. If you can drive truckloads of composting materials right to the spot, you will save yourself many wheelbarrow trips.

Put the house where it belongs

A home that suits its environment is a joy to the heart Choosing a site and designing your home are intricately interwoven. Becoming familiar with the land will inspire your design. Forget what conventional houses look like and let your creative imagination run free. Let the design grow out of the place as much as possible.
Pick a site that is naturally comfortable

Pretend you're an animal living outdoors. Find the coziest spots on your land. Where does the sun shine? Notice the winds. Cold sinks to the lowest places and flows over the ground much like water. Where will the cold air sit? Where will it flow? Observe the land carefully in all the seasons. Go there in the biggest storms and on the hottest days. Consider any natural disaster potential like fire or flood and avoid high risk places. Remember that if you put your house on your favorite spot, your favorite spot will be gone.
A dry place is good for the health of your home.

It is important to keep any home as dry as possible. Choose an already naturally dry spot such as a rocky outcrop, or a little rise or ridge. Avoid low areas that will hold the damp. Avoid places where water-loving plants grow, eg. ferns or horsetails. Observe the land carefully during heavy rains. Talk to the former owners and/or neighbors about what happens during high water or flooding. In the wet season, dig some two foot deep test holes on your proposed sites to see how well those areas drain. If the holes fill with water, you'll either want to choose a drier site or create a dry island for your home. (Read the Drainage chapter for how to do this.)
Passive solar planning

Carefully read the sections on passive solar design in the Windows and Doors chapter (pages 114-117).

If you live in a tropical climate, choose a shady, breezy place for your house. If you live in a temperate place where the sun shines during the cold months, catch the sun to heat your home.

To find the approximate direction from which the sun will shine, stand on your possible homesite, face the sun at noon, and hold out your arms at right angles to each other.
[Arms Length]

That's roughly it! The area you're looking at between your hands is where the strongest sunshine will be coming from. Does anything obstruct the useful sun? If there are substantial things in the way like hills or mountains you will probably want to move the home site.
cob-19.jpg

The sun travels high in the sky in the summer and lower in the sky in the winter. The further from the equator you live, the lower the path of the sun will be in the winter. You can find out the exact angle of the sun in different seasons from charts in passive solar books.

You may want to position your home so that deciduous trees can shade it in the summer, or plant some so they'll grow as soon as possible to keep you cool in the hot season. When they lose their leaves in the winter, sunlight can pass through them to light and heat your house. It's wonderful to see the fruit forming and ripening right outside your window.
cob-20.jpg cob-21.jpg

Where the land is protected from grazing animals, the forest will grow back. Think ahead. What used to be a clearing can turn into a dark, damp site. If this is the case where you live, you may need to cut down the baby trees and the undergrowth to keep your site drier and more open, and to keep roots from weakening your foundations. Think ahead about any evergreens on the sunny side of your home site. They will grow and block your precious sunshine. Either move the home site or consider cutting down the trees. Are these the trees that will provide your lumber/firewood needs?
Harvesting your own wood

Trees can be used for beautiful, round rafters, poles or posts. If you want poles for building, thin the forest intentionally or clear trees from the site. Skin them as soon as they are cut. The fresher the tree, the easier it is to peel the bark off.. You can get a special tool for this job called a draw knife, but a hatchet and/or sharpened shovel work fine. Dry the wood in the shade up on blocks to keep it off the ground. The bigger trees can be sawed into boards for roof sheathing, ceiling, and whatever else you want milled timber for. If you don't have a mill, you can get someone with a portable one to come out to your land and do the job. If you want to have the wood cut up at the mill, they will be able to advise you on how to transport and dry the boards.

When choosing a site, consider the trees in the area carefully. Tree roots will grow and can weaken or even destroy a foundation. Any roots below the foundation will have to be removed.
Wind

Do you want the wind blowing on your house? Find a spot that suits you. If it's a cold place, you'll probably want a wind-protected spot behind trees or natural terrain. If you want to plant a windbreak, the sooner you do it, the sooner it will grow. If you live where it gets hot, breezes are an asset for ventilation. (See the section on ventilation, page 118.)
Noise

When choosing your site consider the noise levels in different areas of your land. Night is the best time to really hear noise.
Boundaries

Before you look for a home site it is very important to find out how close to the neighbors' boundaries you are legally allowed to build. In some places it can be as far as 200 feet!

GETTING THE SITE READY TO BUILD!

Now that you've put all these factors into the amazing computer on top of your shoulders and have come up with the place, it's time to prepare the site for action. Congratulations!!

* Clear trees and brush that are on the site.

* Develop the access.

* Get water to the site.

* Dig an outhouse or figure out a waste system.

* If there isn't a house on the land, set up a temporary shelter and a fire, a cooking set-up, a hammock, and a tent site. Make it inviting to hang out on the land.

* Gather the tools you'll need and make a dry, safe spot to store them.

* Set up a tarp over the construction site for shade and rain protection. This sounds easier than it is. The tarp roof needs to be designed with care. Make sure the water will not run onto the walls or puddle in the middle and pull down the tarp with its weight. If you decide to build the roof of your house first, obviously you won't need the tarp covering.

* Get electricity in if you want it.

* Gather materials and get them to the site. Put everything in the most convenient place so you won't have to move anything more times than necessary. Keep the wood and straw dry. Store glass carefully. (See pages 23-24 for a list of materials to collect.)

* Have a site celebration and blessing.

* Start the drainage and foundation. Yippee!
GATHERING MATERIALS

Remember, for thousands of years people have used what they had and what they could find to build their homes. What follows is a fancy list of all the things you could possibly want while building. The more of this stuff you collect before you start construction, the fewer times you'll have to stop once you get started.
Essential stuff

* a reasonably healthy body or the power of persuasion and friends with reasonably healthy bodies

* a fairly determined, flexible brain

* friends to help

* water for cob and a way to transport it: hoses, nozzle, faucet (tap), buckets, water source

* drinking water

* a place to store things from the elements

* stones for foundation or whatever you're using for a foundation (like tires, broken concrete pieces, mortar, forms if you're pouring your foundation, etc.)

* gravel and perforated pipe or tile for the drainage ditches

* sand, clay and straw (See how to make cob, starting on page 78, to estimate how much you'll need of each.)

* a vehicle, ideally a pickup truck, or at least a friend with one

* little tarps, approximately 7x9 feet or bigger, for mixing cob

* cobbing tools: squirt bottles, sticks and/or stones to massage the cob together, machete, meat cleaver, and burlap bags or tarps to cover the cob (See pages 51 and 77 for more specific tool lists.)

* big bits of wood to span door and window openings if you are not arching the cob over the openings (See the section on lintels page 107.)

* roofing stuff: wood, rafters, sheathing and insulating stuff (See roof chapter beginning on page 123.)

* windows, a modern "necessity"

* door(s), and wood for door frame(s). [Linked Dancers]

* step ladder or two, 6 foot or taller

* lots of big buckets, multipurpose

Other useful stuff

* [Footprints]carpentry tools: hammer, nails, saw, square, pencil, tape measure

* leveling tools: level, taper wedge for the level, long straight 2x4, clear plastic tube for the water level (See page 60.), string

* earth moving tools: wheel barrow, shovels, pick, hoe

* plumbing and electrical stuff if you plan to have them, and pipe to run through the walls or foundation

* stuff to set up an on-site kitchen if there isn't one to use near by, at least coffee and tea making stuff

* big tarps to cover the site, (or build the roof first)

* string

* rope for putting up tarps

* scrap wood for bracing and scaffold supports, planks and extra straw bales for scaffolds
* sill materials: flat stones, brick, tile

* Piles of lovely things on site while you build will inspire the artist in you. pretty things to bury in walls: hooks, rocks, tiles, seashells, magic things, colored glass, and colored bottles.

[Footprints]gracefully shaped wood for hangers, hooks, curtain rods, decorations shelves

* plastering stuff: swimming pool trowel, mortar trowel, smooth burnishing stones, pretty colored clays, manure from grass eating animals, pigments, charcoal for black pigment.

* hydrated builders' lime if you want to whitewash

DRAINAGE

Drainage is one of the most important aspects in the longevity of your home, so give it plenty of attention. Water can be very bad for your house. (See page 19 for how to choose a dry place for your home.)

The object of the drainage system is to divert water away from your structure. You will be creating a dry island for your home to sit on. In some areas, a berm will be all you need to redirect water. In others, a French drain and/or a berm will redirect the water. There are more details about these drainage systems late in this chapter.

If you have the time, there are advantages to starting the drainage before building. While you are making your house, you can observe how the drain is working and adjust it if necessary. Cover the ditch with plywood to prevent accidents. It will lessen the risk of flooding during construction. And when you are finished building, you will be able to sit down and relax sooner in your new home! If your weather and timing is such that you are unlikely to get flooded out while building, the drainage can be done after you've finished the house.
Test Holes

The first part of the drainage job will be to get to know your land's natural drainage. In the wet season, dig a few test holes where you imagine your house will be, as well as digging some holes uphill of it. Do the holes drain well or do they fill up with water? This will give you a good idea about what's going on under the ground and how much you'll have to do to divert water. A sandy, pebbly soil will let water filter through. A soil with high clay content will expand when wet and block water from percolating through it. (Make a little fence around the test holes or cover them with flat rocks or plywood to avoid twisted ankles.)
Making Your Drainage

You may want to use earth-moving equipment, if you have a big job or if there's equipment there anyway for the road building. If you do get machines in to do work, watch them very carefully! Their drivers probably do not have the same familiarity or respect for the land that you do, and can do a lot of damage in a short time. Digging by hand is usually more accurate and less destructive to the land.

The flooded homes I've seen were caused by poorly planned earth-works, human interference upstream (damming, clear cutting, destabilizing earth), or by building where it has always flooded.

Mark where your foundation will be with straw bales, stones, or wooden stakes. Step back and look at the site from a distance. Imagine where the underground water and surface water will flow.

On a sloped site, create a drain and/or berm starting uphill and flowing around the house. (See illustrations next page.) Your drainage system will direct water to the sides and downhill of your home.

Consider how you can make use of the water you divert from your homesite (a pond, garden,trees etc). At least make sure it isn't causing erosion. If you won't be catching the water from the roof gutters for drinking or gardens, you might want to channel it into the drainage system too.
Creating drainage on a flat site

Avoid building on level sites if possible. They are better for gardening and much more challenging to keep dry. Obviously there has to be somewhere for the water to go, so if you must build on the flat, you'll have to create a place for water to flow to. Make a ditch all the way around the house, draining into a big hole filled with round river stones and/or pumice. This will hold the water and let it soak slowly into the surrounding ground, away from your house or into your water-loving garden planted on top of the drainage area.

In Eastern Nigeria, people solved the problem of building on low, flat, wet land by piling dirt into raised platforms and making their cob homes on top of these, out of the wet. If you do this, remember to tamp the dirt often as you build up the platform.
[Home on a Raised Platform]
Berms
[Berm Drawing]

To divert surface runoff, shovel dirt into a narrow, long, hill-shaped form as shown.

You've just made a berm. Make sure the edges extend far enough beyond your structure, so that the water leaving the berm and flowing freely down the hill will miss your building. You might want to direct the water from your berm to nourish your garden or orchard. If you decide to make a drain and a berm, put the berm uphill of the drain.

For more information about drainage, go to the library and read up on as many methods of drainage as you can find.
Notice the shape of the drain. The lead-in "nose" of the drain helps keep the area above the drain drier.Ditch drains

For wetter climates and underground water, make a ditch drain. After making the ditch, you may want to observe the drain functioning under wet conditions before you fill it in. If so, set up walkways so people and wheelbarrows can get across easily, and put up barrier fences so no one falls in.
How deep do I make the drainage ditch?

Test holes and observing the results after you've dug the ditch will help you see whether you've gone deep enough and whether it flows all the way. (Does the floor stay dry when it's rained a lot?)
[Drainage Ditch]

Your test holes will also give you an indication as to how the water flows under the surface. Ideally, the bottom of the drain will be lower than the bottom of the foundation. (See illustration page 55.) The deeper the drain, the safer you are, and the more gravel you will need to fill it. If your drainage ditch is quite a way uphill from your home on a steep slope, it's impractical to make the ditch deeper than the foundation. You'll have to use your judgment about how deep to go to catch any water that might otherwise end up at the house. You might get away with simply making it deeper than the foundation in relation to the surface of the ground.

Slope of the ground

For proper drainage, you will need to slope the ground level away from your home in every direction. To achieve this, dig on the uphill [Drain Drawing]side of your homesite until you've created a slight downhill angle from the house, then dig your drain at the bottom of that slope. You will be doing three things at once: creating drainage, making a place for a walkway or patio, and getting dirt for building. While you're digging, put the dirt somewhere handy for later use. (Hint: Inside the building is a convenient place to mix cob. Leave enough room to maneuver a wheelbarrow.)

How far is the drain from the foundation?
A drain right under the foundation will be enough in dry climates, or can serve as a secondary drain in wet conditions. It also reduces the chance of movement caused by frost.

The drain can be right under the foundation, or it can be anywhere from 1-10 feet or more away. If you want to leave the drain open while you're cobbing, it'll be more convenient if it's far enough from your house to be out of the way while you are building. Make sure the water will flow from the house to the drain!

How wide do I make the drainage ditch?

It needs to be wide enough to fit a 4 inch perforated pipe and 2 or 3 inches of gravel on either side of the pipe. You will need enough room to get your arms in to lay the pipe. (See tips on page 31.)
Completing the drain

You can either do this step before you start the house, or wait until you're sure the drain will function like you want it to, after a series of heavy rains. If your soil has a lot of clay, sliding a shovel along the sides of the ditch will make the clay smooth and slick. This can harden and create a water resistant barrier that blocks the water from entering the drain. Try to avoid this by roughing the sides to allow water in.

Lay 2 inches or more of 1-2 inch diameter round river gravel in the ditch. (Crushed gravel takes a lot more energy, big machines and gas to make, and its flat sides sit closer together, leaving less space for the water to flow in, but if that's all you can get, it'll do.) Next, lay the perforated 4 inch plastic pipe on top of the gravel. If you don't like plastic, you can go the old fashioned way and use cylinders of ceramic tile laid end-to-end. You will be creating an empty space for the water to flow along after it runs in through the perforations or between the tiles.
Tips for laying the pipe so water flows all the way

Start at the high point in the ditch and run the pipe or tiles at a slight slant to where you want the water to go. Here's a trick to make sure the pipe or tiles will drain the way you want them to. (You'll need at least a 1/4 inch drop for every 10 foot length.) Starting at the high point, lay a long, reasonably straight 2x4 on top of the pipe or tiles. Place a level on top of it. When the air bubble in the level is off center to the uphill side of the ditch, you know the water will flow. Hold the pipe or tile against the 2x4 and fill in underneath the pipe or tile with more gravel. Then move along the pipe or tiles until you get to the outlet. This ensures that you won't have low points where the water will pool instead of happily flowing down its new course.
[Pipe Drain with Level]

When you have the pipe or tiles where you want them, fill the ditch almost to the top with round clean gravel. Fill it the rest of the way with 3 inches of straw and/or a 1/8 inch stack of newspapers to help filter out the dirt particles that might clog the spaces between the pieces of gravel, or block the holes in the pipe. (See illustration on page 55.)

Pathways or garden walls can be built right on top of the drains or cover the drain with topsoil and plants. Do not cover it with a clay soil because the water will have a hard time getting through it and into the drain.
THE FOUNDATION
puzzling together a stone foundation
MAKING THE FOUNDATION

YOUR HOME IS ONLY AS STURDY AS YOUR FOUNDATION

Keep the purposes of the foundation in mind as you plan and build. The foundation goes under the walls:

* to support the weight of the walls and roof (cob is very heavy)
* to create a stable base for your structure and to minimize the ground movement under your structure
* to keep cob walls away from ground moisture.

Once the foundation is made it will establish your options for all aspects of the building. Read this book carefully before you start on your foundation. Libraries and other organizations in the natural building network have lots of information on how to build various types of foundations. Before deciding what kind of foundation to make, assess your options, materials, resources, and the time that you have available.

Give yourself lots of time for the foundation work!

You'll end up with a stronger foundation, and have much more fun making it, if you feel you have plenty of time to work on it.

PLANNING THE
FOUNDATION
(Footing or Plinth)
cob-33.jpg

It's generally a good idea to modify the land as little as possible.

The soil is most likely to slip where it's been disturbed:
- where the bank has been cut,
- where soil has been added to make a level surface (see arrows).

cob-34.jpg

If you're building on a steep hillside, instead of taking one big bite out of the hill,

take two or more smaller bites, and make different floor heights.

cob-35.jpgThis will minimize the disturbance to the land and the amount of retaining work that will need to be done to discourage the soil from slipping.

You may decide to build up the floor on the downhill side of the house site.
cob-36.jpg

If you dare, and if the hill is not super wet, the retaining wall can second as a foundation. If you decide to do this, it will require lots of care to keep the water out of the house!

cob-37.jpgIf you do, it's still a good idea to put the foundation on solid subsoil. If the hill is steep and you are adding a lot of in-fill to level the floor, build a heavy duty foundation that's tall enough to support the floor in-fill.

You might need to build a retaining wall on the uphill side of the house.

This will ensure that the hill stays where it is, after you've taken away the supporting soil when you've levelled for the house site.
cob-38.jpg

Make the wall extra heavy duty and add a good drainage system and maybe a moisture barrier as well to keep your wall and floor as dry as possible. Slant the foundation stones into the drainage area. Place the cob wall on top of the solid part of the retaining/foundation wall. Do not put the door opening on the same side of the house as the retaining wall. It would be an invitation to water.
Designing the door area

It is vital that you read the following chapter on floors (starting page 57) to help you design your foundation and threshold.

The positioning of the door(s) must be decided when you are designing your foundation. Underneath the door, the height of the foundation must be lower than the height of the rest of the foundation. The depth of the foundation under the door may need to be increased so that there will be enough material to make sure the foundation is continuous. If you live where the ground is stable, you may opt to have no foundation under the doors or a much less substantial foundation under the doors and under any sunny, glass-filled, lightweight walls.

Decide what material you will use for the top surface of the threshold, and build it accordingly. If you are using the foundation stone itself, make sure it is as flat as possible so the bottom of the door seals well.

Make sure that the threshold will be a dry place.

* Slant the outdoors ground away from the threshold.

* Plan to extend the roof eaves or add a porch to protect this area from rain.

* In temperate climates, place the door somewhere other than into the prevailing wind, or on the cold side of the house. In hot climates you may want to put it on the windy side of your house.

* Raise the wooden door frame above ground level to prevent rot.

* Where the ground level is a lot lower than the floor level, you may decide to make outdoor steps or a ramp up to the door. (During building you'll want a ramp for dragging tarps of cob and for wheelbarrows.)

cob-39.jpg

Consider which way the door will swing open. It invites you to go the way it swings. (If you live where it snows a lot, make the door open inward so you don't get trapped inside by snow piling up against the door.) However, doors opening in take up precious indoor space.
Setting up the door frame

Get your door and framing material. If you are not a carpenter, this is a great time to invite a carpenter friend over to give you a hand. When you've built the foundation to the bottom of the door opening, set up the door frame, attach it to the foundation, level it, and brace it well. Putting the door frame up as you build the foundation and before you start cobbing saves you future headaches. You'll be assured that the frame for the door will fit well against the foundation and the cob. Carefully build the foundation to the frame. You can fill in any gaps between the frame and the foundation with cob later. Add the keying system to the frame so that it will be attached to the cob as you build. (See page 111 for details about keying systems.)
[Raised Frame]

[Buried Bolts]

If you are doing a poured foundation, bury bolts into the concrete to attach the door frame to.

There will be a potential rot spot where the wood door frame comes closest to touching the ground. Handle with care.

Raise the frame off the ground with a flat stone or sturdy brick. Make sure that whatever you use will not get in the way when the door swings open.
View from above
Planning for a future addition

If you want to add another room in the future, extend the foundation for the addition while you are building the present foundation. (You don't have to build it all, just the first 1-2 feet.) This will ensure a strong connection between the two stages of the foundation.

Make a second threshold and door frame leading into the future addition.

If you haven't found a door yet, make the opening to fit a common sized door. Leave the door open for easier access while building. Then insulate and board up the opening, or have two future addition outside doors until you add on. (See page 100 for more on future additions.)

Other things to think about

* Where the wall makes a sharp curve, it is naturally strong. The wall and the foundation at a curve can be slightly thinner (to save material and labor) than under the straighter parts of the wall.

* Make the foundation and the wall extra-wide at door openings and in heavy support areas.

* If you plan on a very heavy roof, like ceramic or concrete tiles, add an extra inch or two of width in the supporting walls for good luck.

* The foundation under interior walls can be less substantial than for the outside walls, because there will be no need for protection from moisture or frost. Unless the interior walls will have the job of supporting the loft or roof weight, they can be thinner (8 to 10 inches at the base, at least 5 inches at the top.) Again, remember you can curve these walls for strength.

* Any buttresses you're planning will need foundations under them. (See design section, page 13 for more information about buttresses.) Built-in furniture that will be against the wall can have its foundations built into the main foundation at the same time, and can serve as little buttresses. Because built-in furniture will be supporting much less weight than a wall, it will need a less substantial foundation.

Tamping tips

[Tamping Tools]Regardless of what type of foundation you decide on, always tamp the soil on the your foundation trench to compress the soil and minimize future movement.

A simple tamper can be made from a heavy piece of a tree (4 or 5 inches across). Either drill a hole and stick a dowel or pipe through the hole to make a handle, or chop a handgrip with a hatchet. Another option is to screw a piece of plywood (1 foot square + or -) onto the bottom of your tamper. The tampers can have bells or bottle caps nailed loosely to add some percussion to the tamping rhythm. (A 'tamporine'.) Another simple tamper can be made out of a 2 1/2 inch (plus or minus) metal pipe filled with packed dirt or stones and capped on the ends. You can use the special caps they make for the tops of fences. The metal pipe can have a flat piece of steel (1 foot square, + or -) welded onto the bottom. The smaller the bottom of the tamper, the more pounds per square inch you'll get out of it.

Tamping is hard work. Do a little at a time and pass it on to the next person. Remember to keep your knees bent, the tamper close to your body, and breathe a lot. To save effort, lift the tamper and let gravity do the tamping. Even though you might not be able to see the results, this is a very important step and will do a lot towards stabilizing the ground under the house.

Always tamp the ground before building onto it.
How deep do I make the foundation?

Check with your local planning department or building contractors about foundation requirements and customs in your area. They will be able to give you information on the types of soil, how deep you'll have to go to avoid freezing, and the likelihood of earthquakes. Usually they go for overkill, but this will give you some useful information.

Scrape off the topsoil and put it on the garden area. Dig down (at the very least 6 inches) to SOLID subsoil or rock. You can tell when you get to the subsoil because it is so much harder to dig. Dig down to where you will be reasonably safe from frost heave. Pile the soil somewhere handy for making cob mixes later.

Roughly level the base of the foundation ditch.
[Stone Steps]

Where the ground is sloped, you can make steps to sit the foundation on.

This will help prevent the house from sliding down the hill. You can even angle the steps slightly into the hill.

Dig out any roots near the foundation. Live ones can grow into the foundation and pry it apart. Big dead roots under the foundation will decay, leaving a hollow spot in the ground under your house.

For those of you who live where the ground freezes deeply, a substantially deeper foundation will be needed. Doing a deep rock foundation will take a lot of rock, dedication, effort, and time. If you want the look of a stone foundation, you may want to make a reinforced poured-concrete base up to ground level for your stonework to sit on. Embed the first layer of stonework into the top of the wet concrete.

You may decide to make the foundation beneath the door deeper than the rest so you can create a strong continuous foundation. (See illustration page 36.)

Often a few inches of gravel are placed directly beneath the foundation. If you decide to do this, make sure you dig the trench that much deeper for the gravel. Tamp the ground before you put the gravel in, then tamp the gravel after it is in the trench.

The gravel under the foundation is good for:

* a secondary drain in case water makes it past your drainage system
* minimizing frost heave damage in very cold climates
* making a stronger base in very soft soils
* all the drainage you'll need in very dry areas.
How wide do I make the foundation?

To estimate how thick your cob walls are going to be, and therefore how wide to make the foundation, see the wall building section (page 86).

Make the ditch for the foundation as wide as the foundation will be, plus enough room to work in comfortably.

Where the ground touches the foundation, the cold or heat of the earth will be transferred into the foundation and into your dwelling. Where temperatures are extreme, insulate the outside of the foundation with something that blocks the transfer of cold or heat and does not absorb water. Modern construction folk use that blue Styrofoam stuff. In the United States, it's called 'Formular'. We've yet to come up with something natural that works well as an outside foundation insulation. Even gravel might help, though. (Refer to page 55 to see where insulation goes.) If you plan to insulate the foundation, leave room for that, too.
[Foundation Drawings]

For strength, make the base of the foundation wider than the top. You can do this by tapering the sides steeply, or by making the first couple layers underground a foot or more wider than the rest of the foundation.

A tree trunk is wider at the base to give it strength. If you like the cave look with a rounded connection between the wall and the floor, build the foundation extra wide at the bottom with a steep taper. This could be done on the inside or the outside or both.
How high do I make the foundation?

Build your foundation at the very least 8 inches higher than ground level. Make it higher if you live where it's wet, where there's a lot of windblown rain, or if you simply love stone work. If you are making a two-story building, make the foundation at least 16 inches high. A common height for a foundation is 18 inches above ground level. You can check with the local builders to find out what they suggest in your area.
Moisture barrier between the foundation and the cob?

Mortar, concrete and earth slowly draw up moisture. One would think that the obvious solution to this would be to put something waterproof somewhere in the wall to block the moisture from the ground. Easier said than done! Wherever there is a moisture barrier and temperature differences, moisture condenses. Moisture barriers limit the ability of the wall to breathe. If moisture gets in, as it invariably does, a barrier will slow down the drying process.

I haven't noticed any moisture problems in the structures we've built with stone foundations, thanks to their good drainage systems. Creating a good drainage system is the best way to keep your foundation, floor, and walls as dry as possible.

Another minus to using a moisture barrier is that it can weaken the connection between the cob and the foundation. There are two schools of thought in the natural building fields on how to think about moisture barriers.

Some say the breathability is vital, never use a moisture barrier. Others say they work OK on top of the foundation to keep the moisture from wicking up into the wall.

The most natural type of barrier I've heard of is flat stones embedded on the top of the concrete or soil cement foundation to stop the upward flow of water from getting into the wall. Remember to slant the stones toward the center of the wall and towards each other so the cob doesn't slide off the wall. (See illustrations on page 49.)
Getting Plumbing and electric wire into the house

Plumbing and electricity are pretty easy to do yourself. The library or a knowledgeable friend is all you need to get an understanding.

If there's any chance you'll want electricity and/or indoor plumbing, be sure to lay some 4 inch (or bigger) pipes through the width of the wall or foundation for the wires and the water pipes to run through.

You'll need a water intake and a drain outlet. These can be put at the bottom of the foundation (for buried wire and pipes) or through the foundation.
[Pipes Running Through Foundation]

If you bury the pipes between the foundation stones, make sure the stones are not leaning on the pipe but onto other stones. If you live where it freezes, the water pipes will need protection from the frost where they are exposed to the outside air. Angle the pipes for the plumbing slightly down towards the outside, so that if a leak develops, it'll run out. (See wiring section on page 99.)

You can put the access pipes on top of the foundation and cob them in place. The wiring and plumbing is usually pretty ugly so you may want to put them lower in the foundation so they will be less obvious.

Any extra space between the access pipe and the plumbing pipe or electric wire can be filled later with cob or plaster.

Firewood box in the foundation
Some folks put a firewood box opening through the foundation. The box can be filled from the outside so you won't have to carry firewood in through the house. Make the foundation extra deep if you want the foundation to be continuous.
Stone Foundations

Stone looks the best and will still look the best a few thousand years from now, after your home has returned to the elements. The easiest foundation I've ever seen was a giant boulder with the house built right on top of it! Unless you have such a thing, you'll be gathering smaller stones as pieces for your foundation puzzle.
Choosing stones

Ideally, you'll be able to gather stone from the site or nearby. Old quarries and along nearby road cuts are good places to scrounge rock. When you start collecting, you'll see beautiful ones all over! A 20 foot round building will require roughly 8 tons of stone. Be conscious! Remember, gathering materials impacts the environment.

[Stone]

Find stones that have two somewhat parallel sides. The more brick-shaped your stones are, the easier they are to build with. Make sure to pick ones that are up for the job. Leave soft, cracked, flaky ones where they are. When in doubt, throw them down on the ground to see if they'll break. Collect stones of different sizes and lots of little wedges.

[Hand Print]
Sometimes you may want to modify the shape of a stone. A steel mallet can be used to whack off unwanted protrusions. Practice helps you learn how rock breaks. Of course, each one has its own personality. You'll get a feel for it. Wear eye protection.

[Hand Print]
If rocks are not available, big broken-up concrete pieces make a good substitute. They stack easily because they usually have two parallel sides. Sometimes construction companies will even deliver their garbage concrete to your place. If the pieces are too big to handle, whack them with a sledge hammer. Remember to wear eye and ear protection.

[Hand Print]
If you like to vary your tasks, you can gather enough stones to start building, build for awhile, then go back and gather some more.

[Hand Print]
Gather stones that are as big as you can lift comfortably, and do it with care. You'll need your back everyday for the rest of your life.

If you would rather leave the collecting job to someone else, cement suppliers and landscape firms often have rocks for sale by the truckload. Check to see that they're suitable for building before you buy. They will deliver them.
Suggestions for moving rocks

Get one of the dumping-type wheelbarrows with two wheels for transporting the rocks. These are sometimes called gardening carts. This will save a lot of work. I think they're wonderful.
With one of these you can simply:
cob-49.jpg

roll the rocks in,
cob-50.jpg

lever the barrow to the upright position

3)
cob-51.jpg

and pull it to where you want them,

4)
cob-52.jpg

then dump.

[Rock Cradle]
The Rock Cradle

When I was in Australia, I learned about the rock cradle, a clever back-saving tool for moving big rocks. They made them out of reinforcing mesh used for concrete slabs (cut to approximately 9 feet by 2 feet). This can be bent into a cradle shape by using some brute force and a piece of pipe slipped over the wire ends for leverage.

The mesh in Australia is made out of small diameter rebar and is much more heavy duty than the mesh I've been able to find in my town in Oregon. I tried making one out of the reinforcing mesh that I could get, and it wasn't up to the job. A welding friend may be able to help you create a strong enough mesh for a rock cradle. It may be possible to adapt this design and make a rock cradle [Two Folks Carrying a Stone]out of heavy duty canvas.

A large stone can be rolled onto the cradle and one person on each side of the cradle can safely share the weight of the stone. You'll need to wear gloves so the metal doesn't chafe the skin on your hands. For bigger stones, a strong stick or crowbar can be stuck through the handles of the cradle and four or more people can carry the weight.
THE ROCK GAME

The rock game is a living room/lounge game that will teach you a lot about puzzling rocks together for your foundation. It's a very entertaining right brain game for all and a great conversation piece!! Collect special pretty rocks of different shapes, sizes and colors. Get some wedge shaped ones and some concave ones. Too many flat ones are boring. Keep your rocks for the game in a big bowl or large wooden tray. You can use a special little rock game rug to protect your floor.

One person decides which kind of structure to make in the beginning of each game: multiple arches, domes, little foundations, towers, or getting all the rocks on. Go around the circle taking turns adding a rock. Make up your own rules as you play.

You can get new rocks and throw out 'old' ones anytime as you learn which kinds of rocks stack well and which ones don't. This game will help you learn which rocks to collect for your foundation and how they fit together.

I hope you enjoy this game as much as I do!

Thanks Robbi and Ashley for teaching me this wonderful game!

Making a stone foundation
cob-55.jpg

Leave plenty of time! Building a foundation is a delightful puzzle. Well, that depends on what kind of person you are. As far as I can tell there are two kinds: the ones who love stone puzzles and the ones who hate them. I've noticed that some days I'm on and others I'm not, so give it more than one day to decide which kind you are. If you fall under the second category you might choose to do some other kind of foundation, or find a friend or two who love stone puzzles.

It makes sense to spend a lot of time looking at the rocks to see what shape you need and which rock fits where, instead of using your muscle to lift and fit them together by trial and error. Take your time. Hurrying and rock work are opposite concepts. Rocks have been around for a long time and they like to move slowly. Stonework at its best is an incredible meditation.

Some people say to wear sturdy shoes and gloves for stonework. That won't help nearly as much as keeping your soft little fingers and toes out from between a rock and a hard place. If you're working with someone else, be careful of each other's fingers and toes, or work on separate sections of the wall. Be mindful!

Remember to tamp!

The bottom is a good place for the biggest, heaviest stones. Find where they want to sit firmly and snuggle them up close to each other. Keep in mind that you are also creating the base for the next layer of stones to rest on. Remember to make the bottom of the foundation wider than the top. Moving stones around at or below ground level is especially hard on the back, so take it easy. Lay stones all along the bottom of the foundation trench. (See page 50 to help you decide whether or not to use mortar.)

Cover each vertical crack of the preceding layer with a stone.
cob-56.jpg
Looking from the top of the wall

Stones have a mind of their own. They seem to know where they want to be. Don't argue with them: you will lose every time. Make sure each stone is happy by standing on it and rocking it. (Is this where the word "rocking" comes from?) If it wiggles, move it until it's secure, or use a small strong rock as a wedge to stabilize it. It is easier to stabilize a stone that is resting on three points than on four. Long stones that run the whole width of the wall every once in a while add strength. Continue along, carefully fitting each stone into its place. Fill any empty spaces with small stones: they help hold their big sisters in place.

Patience and practice are very useful at this point. Remember to stand up often and stretch your back by leaning backwards to re-squish the discs between the vertebrae back into a rounder shape. Drink lots of water! Too much rock work at a time is too much rock work. Take it easy. Warning! For the folks who love puzzles this can be very addictive.

As soon as you get above ground level, the shape of the foundation will be permanently visible. Stand back and look at your artwork from a distance. Do you want an interior wall that is perfectly vertical all the way down to the floor? If so, build the foundation so it will line up with the vertical plane of the wall. On the outside, do you want the same angle as the exterior wall taper (2 inches in 3 feet) or do you want the super stable look of a steeply tapered base? Build accordingly.

If you want to see exposed stone, use ones that create the look that you want to see on the sides. Save the prettiest stones that you want to see forever and use them above ground near the entrance or patio areas. To highlight these you can stick them out a little from the plane of the rest of the wall. Use your artist's license.

Continue building until you reach the height you've decided on. The top needs to be rough so the cob has something to hold on to. It's best if the upper facets of the top layer of stone angle either into the center of the wall or into each other. If you are using mortar, do not make any places on the top where water will pool.
If the foundation stones slant down and out, the wet cob will tend to slip off the wall at those places.
[Foundation Slants]
To Mortar or not to Mortar?

The purpose of mortar is to discourage the stones from moving.
Options
No mortar
If you have good stones and you're good at fitting them together, you can use no mortar at all. Many of the old cob homes in England are built on dry stacked stone foundations. You can cob in the gaps between stones from the outside to keep wind and critters out.

Cob mortar
Many of the ancient Anasazi buildings (in the Southwestern United States) were built using cob or earthen mortar, along with a lot of attention and skill in placing the stones. Some of these earthen mortars have a little lime added to them.

Lime mortar
Some ancient sites and many European walls were built using lime mortar between the stones. This was basically lime mixed with sand. You'll have to do some research to find out more about lime mortars. I have never used them so I can't give you much help.

Concrete mortar
This is the modern version of earth or lime based mortars. It consists of sand, lime, cement and water.

Concrete and rebar wall with a stone facade
This is what stone walls have devolved to. The library will have books on how to make these modern fake-stone walls.
to mix up concrete mortar

The recipe is as follows: one part premixed mortar cement to three or four parts sand of various sized particles, and water. (You can make your own mortar cement by using 2/3 portland cement with 1/3 dry builder's lime instead of premix.) Use three parts sand if you follow instructions well, four if you are conservative and want to stretch the cement a little farther. The production of cement is very bad for the environment so the less you use, the better. Caution: cement burns skin and eyes! Wear gloves and eye protection.

When you make up the mortar, mix small batches and use immediately. First mix the dry ingredients well, then add the water. It will start to cure as soon as the cement gets wet. Mix it in a wheelbarrow using a hoe or trowel, or on a piece of plastic or tarp by shifting the stuff back and forth.
[Folks Carrying Mortar]

You can use a wet mortar, or a dry one. When making a wet mortar, watch out because it will go from too dry to too wet very quickly. Add the water carefully until the mix makes stiff peaks. If it does get too wet, it's OK to add a little sand to stiffen it up. When using a dry mortar, barely moisten your ingredients. Mix well. Then it's ready to use!

tools you'll need for mortar

--trowel
--wheelbarrow, cart or plastic sheet for mixing
--gloves
--water
--hose and spray nozzle, good for lightly wetting the curing mortar
--hoe for stirring, there are special hoes for this job with holes in them
--whisk broom
--wire brush
--tarp or something to cover the curing mortar

mortaring the stones

Squish mortar into the cracks between the stones you've already set, wiggling it in with a trowel or stick until the holes are full. You can add small stones too. Do this after each course of stone is laid. Clean your tools, gloves, and wheelbarrow before the mortar hardens on them.

For a dry mix, barely moisten the ingredients and wet the surfaces of the stones generously before troweling the mortar into place. If you are using a dry mix for your foundation, you may decide to make up a wet mortar for the places between the stones on the very outside surface of the foundation - the dry mix tends to fall off the sides of the foundation before it cures.
[Someone Applying Mortar to Stones]
curing the mortar

Cover the fresh mortar with a tarp or with damp burlap bags.
If you've laid the mortar in the morning, you can come back in the evening or the next day and tidy up any joints and stone faces that will be visible. A wet whisk broom will do the job unless the mortar has hardened too much, in which case use a wire brush.
Keep your mortar work covered for a week or so. Spray water on it every day so it doesn't dry out too fast. This is very important to the strength of the mortar.
When you add more stone to a partially cured section of the foundation, be gentle so you won't dislodge yesterday's work.

Some Other Foundation Options

Regardless of which type of foundation you choose, remember to tamp the ground under it and put in the pipes for the plumbing and electricity.
Poured concrete

Think twice about using a lot of cement! Its production requires mining, transportation, and heating materials to very high temperatures twice. This entails burning fossil fuels and often creates hazardous waste. Concrete makes an enormous contribution towards ozone depletion and air pollution.

It's common to add reinforcing steel to a concrete foundation. The library will have lots of information about how to reinforce this type of foundation.

Remember to add steel anchor bolts to attach the door frame to the foundation. Be aware that wood meeting concrete forms a

potential rot spot. Wood treated with poison will fight off the rot longer than untreated wood. Some builders also put a moisture barrier between the concrete and the wood.
A standard concrete mix is made of 1 part Portland cement, 2 parts sand and 3 parts gravel. You can mix it yourself or get it delivered already mixed to the site. Wet concrete does not stick well to dry concrete so ideally it should be poured all at once. Embed sharp-edged stones on the top before it cures. This will make a rough surface for the cob to hold on to.

Make sure the concrete cures slowly by keeping it wet and covered for a week or two before starting to cob.
Soil cement

Soil cement is otherwise known as 'poor people's concrete'. Soil cement is weaker than concrete but it is a good option for areas with limited rock and no road access, or for people who want to minimize their use of cement.

Depending on your soil (sandy is best) add up to 9 parts soil to 1 part cement plus water. Stir well. Use immediately. Make up some test batches with different amounts of cement and from different soil types until you find a suitable mix. Remember to put some stones on top of the soil cement for the cob to hold onto.

Soil cement can also be used for floors or made into large flat bricks for stepping stones or floor 'tiles'.
forms for poured concrete or soil cement

Any poured foundation will need forms to hold the cement mixture in place until it's cured enough to hold itself up. The library will have information on building forms and pouring concrete.

Conventional forms are made out of wood. If you'll be building a rounded house, you'll need a rounded foundation which is very difficult to form using wood. Scrap sheet metal held in place with stakes driven into the ground, or straw bales with stakes holding them in place, are simple, inexpensive forms foundation walls. Tie the tops of the stakes to each other to ensure that the concrete doesn't push the forms apart.
[Hay Bale Concrete Form]

Line the bales with cardboard, or whatever you have handy, to keep the concrete off them. The straw bales will be used later in the cob walls.
[Person Curving a Straw Bale]

To curve a straw bale, lean it up against something at a 45 degree angle and apply weight to the middle of the bale until you have the shape you want.

Concrete blocks mortared together

The library will have books that can tell you about this common way of building a foundation.
Railroad ties and gravel

As with any type of foundation, remember to tamp the gravel well and to make an adequate drainage system around the house. The creosote used in railroad ties is toxic, so you may want to use these for outdoor walls, sheds and furniture.
[Railroad Tie Foundation]
Earth-filled tires

You may want to set these on a tamped, gravel-filled trench to prevent possible rising damp. Pound earth into the tires with a big sledge hammer. Stagger the tires on top of each other like you would bricks. For more information on this, look up "Earth Ships" at the library.

[Earth Filled Tires]
Agricultural bags filled with earth and tamped

The white woven plastic seed or fertilizer bags are basically forms for rammed earth bricks.

If you're building where it's very dry, this type of foundation can be laid right on the tamped ground. If not, it's best used as an above ground addition to a stone or concrete foundation. Or build it on top of a gravel filled trench, because the earth in the bags may wick moisture.

Bags are filled while in place with slightly dampened, sandy earth. The tops of the bags are secured by folding them over and pinning them with a nail, or folding and leaning them against the last filled bag. Then tamp them well. Pound sharpened sticks or bamboo into the bags, so that the sticks protrude out for the cob to hold onto. The bags will disintegrate quickly in the sun, so cover them with plaster as soon as possible. You'll be surprised how well plaster will stick to the woven plastic!
cob-66.jpg

I have heard that you can buy rolls of continuous bag material before it's been cut up for bags to use for this type of construction.

Building with these and with agricultural bags are systems developed by Nader Khalili. For more information on this contact: 0376 Shangri-La Avenue, Hesperia, CA, USA 92345.
cob-68.jpg

When burying the pipe for the electric and/or plumbing,
rest the rocks on other rocks rather than on the pipe.

Foundation and drainage summary
[Foundation Summary]

FLOORS

Thank you Athena, Bill, and Robert for all you've learned and taught about earth floors! Books on patio floors might give you some other clever floor ideas. Remember, you can use more than one type of floor in different sections of your home.
[Layered Floor]
General Info to Consider
Accessing the underground temperature

The temperature in the ground below frost line is the average yearly air temperature. (The temperature in the ground is the same all year round.) Find out what that temperature is and if it's a comfortable temperature you'll want to connect your floor to the ground. If your average yearly temperature is not pleasant, you may want to move to a more reasonable climate or consider insulating your floor from the ground. To get an idea, call the local concrete folks and ask them what the insulation requirements are in your area.

If some insulation is added under the floor, the heat absorbed by the floor will reflect back to you quicker, but you then lose some of your connection to that average yearly temperature. There may be data on optimum thickness for an insulated thermal mass floor in your climate.

When you build, you will be creating a protected zone in the ground under the structure. It will be shaded from the heat and protected from the freezing by the house. The indoor heating and cooling and the sun shining through the windows will also affect the temperature in this area. If you live in a climate with extreme temperatures, you may want to insulate around the perimeter of the foundation down to the frost line to keep the heat from escaping through the frozen and/or wet ground surface. This is usually done by burying a special water resistant styrofoam (sometimes called Formula) between the foundation and the ground all the way around the house. (2 inches is rated at R10, 3 inches at R15.) The styrofoam stuff needs to be protected from the ultraviolet sunlight. Check with local builders or the building department about how deep, and how much to insulate in your climate's conditions.
Collecting passive solar heat with the floor

The floor is one of the best areas to store the sun's heat, because it's where most of the sun rays hit after coming through the windows. This is why it is valuable to make the floor out of something that has plenty of thermal mass. That means make the floor out of something heavy and dense like earth, brick, or stone.

When I lived in an old house with an uninsulated concrete slab in a temperate climate, I was amazed at how comfortable it was. In the hot summers, that house was cooler than all my friends' houses. And in the winter, the floor was cold to the touch but that house needed a lot less heating than I expected. I put down rugs in the areas where my feet touched the floor and was cozy enough. In the rooms where the sun shone onto the floors, I left the floors bare so they could soak up the heat from the sun.
Cold sink

Cold air is like water. It will flow to the lowest point on your floor. If you design your floor with a low spot, the coldest air will flow off the floor where your feet hang out and into the lower cold air reservoir. Put the cold, sink spot on the cold side of the

house. Because this will be the coldest place in your home, it is an ideal place for cold food storage if you don't have electricity, or if you'd rather not have a refrigerator. You might be delightfully surprised, with a little adjustment to your habits, how easy it is to live without an electric fridge. If you live where it's very hot, you may want to make the cold sink area a living space, a cool bedroom, or summertime living room.

Stepping the floors to different levels is an easy way to deal with a sloped site. The differing floor levels define and separate indoor spaces and enhance the interest in a room. Steps from one floor level to another must be at least 4 inches high and at most 9 inches to prevent stubbed toes. The step(s) where the floor level changes can be flowing organic shapes or straight edges. Take this into consideration when planning your foundation. During construction, make temporary ramps where the steps will be. This will make life easier while you are dragging the tarps full of cob around the floor area during cobbing. Make the actual step later when you've finished the walls.
Planning the floor at the door threshold

The door's threshold limits your choices about the height of the floor at the entrance. When designing the foundation and threshold, it is helpful to estimate floor height(s). Ideally, the threshold will be at the same height as the floor surface. Your floor can be built directly on the ground. Read on to help you decide how thick your floor will be.

Make the floor higher than the ground outside
Avoid 'CSP Syndrome' (covered swimming pool syndrome).[The Right Way]

Plan for the finished floor to be at least 2 inches above the outside ground level.
Remember, the ground outside can be lowered as you dig soil for constructing the wall. Make sure the ground slopes away from your home in all directions.

Making the floor
Tamping the ground

It's easiest to decide the floor height(s) early on in the design and construction processes. That way you can do the rough leveling of the floor area before you start to build. It's also best to decide what kind of floor you are going to make before you start building, so you can dig down to, or fill in to, the appropriate height. If you leave it until after the builders have tramped back and forth across the ground, it will be a lot harder to dig the dirt out to level it.

Scrape off the topsoil in the floor area and put it where your garden will be. Any subsoil that you dig out of the floor area can be used for making cob. The building process and all those feet will help do a lot of the tamping work for your future floor. If you are building up the floor level, you can do that before you build or anytime during the building process to make the most of the tamping feet of the builders.

Go over the ground and each layer of floor base with your tamper. You can't tamp too much. You may even want to rent or borrow an electric powered vibrating compacting machine to save you work.
Finding level for the floor

To help you estimate a level floor surface, use a long level, string level, or water level. If you use a long level, sit it on top of a straight 2x4, like you used for getting the slope for the drainage. (See the illustration on page 31.)
using and designing a water level

Attach a 3/4 inch clear plastic hose to a container, a bucket, or an old kettle. Put a clamp or a tap on the hose so you can open and close the flow from the container to the hose. Set the container in a secure spot where it's above the highest point on the floor area. Fill the container with colored water. Hold the free end of the hose above the container and open the clamp so the colored water can flow into the hose. The water in the hose will always seek the same level as in the container, so you can establish even floor heights by measuring down from the water level in the hose all around the floor area. There are other types of water levels. Any sort will do the job.
[Water Level]
marking your estimated floor height

Knowing the floor height will help you measure the heights of the counters, seats, windows, etc. as you build. Mark the future floor height on stakes pounded into the ground inside the floor area. If you plan more than one floor height, mark each one with stakes. Put the stakes somewhere out of the way because they can be perfect toe stubbers! Once the foundation is made, the

floor height can be marked along the inside of the foundation with a chalk line or pencil. Give yourself plenty of space on either side of a door before raising or lowering the floor level.

Base (or layers of base materials) under the floor

(See illustration of layers that make up the floor, on page 57).
Reasons for putting a base under the floor:

* Usually the floor needs to be filled in so that it is at least 2 or 3 inches higher than the outdoor ground level to insure it will stay dry. You may have to bring in some fill to raise the floor. It's OK if the floor's base makes the floor higher than the foundation, and makes the floor butt up against the cob walls as long as you've planned for this when placing the doors, and heights of the seats and counters.

* The base helps the floor to breathe, and therefore keeps it drier. The air spaces between the particles in the base discourage capillary action of water that might sneak in under your floor area.

* The base is made of stabilizing materials that flex, minimizing the stress on the floor when the ground moves.

* The base provides a little insulation which speeds up the time it takes the heat to be reflected back into the house.

Moisture barrier between the ground and the floor?

The general rule with natural building is to avoid moisture barriers if possible. With good drainage design and an adequate gravel base, your floor shouldn't need a moisture barrier.
Floor base tests

You can make floor base experiments in 4 or 5 inch plastic potted plant containers. Fill them with the materials you have available, and tamp each layer. Then push them out of the container molds. See which are the toughest. Regardless which base you decide on, tamp, tamp, tamp!
Floor base options
the ground as a base
cob floor layers, ground

It is possible that the ground is OK just as it is. A good drainage system around the house should keep your floor dry. Some soils are very stable and drain well and an added base may be unnecessary. Remember that the finished floor needs to be higher than the outside ground level.
gravel as a base

There's this great stuff you can get at the concrete supply place called road base. It's what's used under the roads for drainage and stabilizing. It is crushed rock in various sized pieces, usually 3/4 inch on down to powder (called "3/4 minus" in America).

Four inches (or more) of road base, dampened and tamped, make a very stable and very cheap base for your floor. Some people sift it and put down layers of the different sized particles that separated out, starting with the largest and layering up to the smallest sized particles.

You can use gravel (river or crushed) or shale for the base of your floor instead.

Remember to tamp it well. If you live where the ground water level is high, you may want to make an extra thick (10 inches or so) base or a layer of large gravel and a layer of road base. The gravel will discourage water from wicking up into the floor. If you use a thick base for your floor, it is important to make your ceilings that much higher too.
sandy or silty soil layer as a base

A leveled layer of dampened, tamped, sandy or silty soil, two or three inches thick, is sometimes used as a base or as an added layer on top of the gravel or road base layer. This needs to have enough clay in it to bind itself together when it's dry. If you are making a floor of flat stones and bricks, the sandy or silty soil makes a good bedding for them.

You can put pipes under the floor to heat your house. Hot water circulates through the coils of pipe, heating up the floor and the interior space. I have never done a floor with heating coils in it, but there is information available on putting heating pipes into concrete slabs. You can modify this information using natural materials. If you want to bury pipes under the floor, you can put them in this soil layer, but only if you are not adding a screen layer that will insulate the heating pipes from the interior.
optional screen layer

Some natural builders put a 3 or 4 inch layer of tamped light clay/straw (see page 143 for instructions on making light clay/straw) over the gravel before putting down the soil. This prevents the soil from sifting into the spaces between the chunks of gravel and adds a little layer of insulation. The light clay/straw is tamped well or compressed when you tamp the soil layer. It will crush down to an inch or less. Loose straw or old sheets or newspaper would serve the same screening purpose, like on top of the drainage ditch. If you are troweling a cob floor right onto the base, you won't need to worry about it filling in the air spaces between the gravel.

Other possibilities for an insulating base layer are to mix clay slip with vermiculite, perlite, or pumice.

Cob floor surface

A one-piece cob floor is the longest lasting type of earth floor. The floor surface sits on top of whatever you've decided to use for the base layer.

You can make a floor with one 3/4 inch layer or two 1/2 to 3/4 inch layers of your cob floor mix (with optional additives) thinned down to a consistency that can be troweled on. Make it as dry as possible but wet enough to trowel. The less moisture there is when you lay it down, the quicker it will dry and the less it will crack. Keeping your trowel wet while working on the floor will make it a lot easier to smooth the surface.

tools you'll need

* shovel
* wheelbarrow, cart, or tarp for mixing
* a 4 foot level taped to a 2x4 on edge and/
* or a water level
* chalk line [Trowel]
* pencil
* trowels
* bucket for storing some of your dry mix for future repairs
* plywood squares for standing on to protect the floor surface

Floor surface recipe

The floor is basically the same stuff as the walls, sometimes with extra sand added

depending on your original mix. (See page 72 for proportions for making cob.) Sift all the ingredients quite finely for the final layer of floor.

If you use straw in your floor mix, chop or grate it finely. Use shorter pieces of straw and less if you don't want it to show in the floor surface. The straw can be grated quite small. (See page 153 for information on how to break up the straw.) If you have a clay rich soil and a shortage of sand, use more straw instead of the sand. Some natural builders don't use any straw in their floors. Make tests until you find a recipe that works.
Possible additions to a standard cob mix for floors

Go over the section on plaster additions (pages 154-156) and apply that info to the floor mix.

glue. Adding a little Elmers glue helps harden the floor.

ground psyllium seed husk. This is a wonderful addition to a cob floor! Have you ever noticed tennis courts or tracks that feel like "soft" concrete? Psyllium gives them that soft, rubbery feel. This makes the floor easier on your legs and on your dishes. A little bit of this stuff goes a long way. Too much will make it hard to trowel. Make up some test batches with different amounts of this additive in each until you find the percentage that works best. For a 12 foot diameter round room, you'll need about a pound of psyllium.

manure. A very common ingredient for earthen floors in many parts of the world. This can be used as the fiber in your recipe.

blood. Ox blood is a common ingredient in old floor recipes. It's supposed to make the floor a lot harder. These days you can buy blood meal at plant nurseries. Use this on the top layer.

wood ash. This is an additive that I have come across in old literature. I haven't tried it yet.

oil. A little bit of oil can be added to the last layer of floor. You'll probably want to use an oil coating on the finished floor, in which case adding oil to the wet floor mix would be unnecessary.

flour. Like with plaster, the addition of flour paste will harden the surface.
test batches for the floor surface

Try out different floor recipes before you decide which one(s) to use. Do lots of tests. Outdoors, make little samples of the base material and trowel the test mixes onto it. A two foot round sample will be plenty. Let the samples dry, protecting them from direct sun and from rain. How do they look? See how they hold up when you walk on them. Once you've narrowed down what works, make some larger test batches of the same recipe to make sure it's the one you want. You can try out your homemade sealants (see page 66) on the samples too.

Make test batches varying the ratio of sand to clay, until you come up with a recipe that doesn't crack and holds up when you walk on it. Cracking means too much clay, and too much sand will cause the floor to slough off when walked on. If you are doing more than one layer, you can make the bottom layer 75-85% sand and small gravel.

Putting down a cob floor

Ideally, you'll be able to trowel down each layer of the whole floor in one day. You can mix up enough material for the whole floor layer a day or two ahead of time and let it cure. For a big floor, start in the morning so you'll have the whole day to put it down if you need it.

Make sure the base for your cob floor is as clean as possible. The base then needs to be dampened. Otherwise, the dry material under the floor will suck the moisture out of the floor quickly, and it will be more likely to crack. Spray it lightly again and again so it soaks in well but doesn't create puddles.

Start laying the floor furthest from the door, working your way toward the door. That way you can get out without walking over your beautifully troweled floor. Oops!

Working back and forth across the floor, add a 1/2 to 1 inch layer of floor mixture in reachable swathes (2 feet or so). Leave the edge slanting toward you (45 degreesish) and scratched to make a rough surface for the next strip of fresh floor mixture to adhere to. Spray the slanting edge with water when you're ready to attach the next bit to it. Lay your next strip of floor, etc., etc., until you're done!
[Cob Floor]

Around the edges, where the floor meets the foundation or the walls, is a tricky place. The already dry walls quickly sap the moisture from the floor where wall and floor touch.

Sometimes the floor will shrink away from the walls as it dries, leaving a gap there. You can take some of your floor mixture and let it dry a little, or mix in some dry ingredients until it's as dry as it can be and still be malleable. Squish this together in your hands, roll it into a sausage shape, and put it down around the edges of the floor. Trowel it flat as you do the rest of the floor. The drier mix will minimize the shrinkage. (Thanks Athena! Good idea!)

After the first layer of floor has hardened to the leather-hard stage, you can add the next layer. When your last layer of floor has hardened to the leather-hard stage, go back over it with a squirt bottle and trowel if you want a glossy smooth finish. Stand and work from plywood squares to minimize footprints.

If you've used too much clay and the top layer cracks, you can add another very thin layer of floor. Remember to dampen what's there before applying the next layer.

How to connect one day's floor work to the next

Sometimes it turns out that you can't do the floor in one fell swoop, or that you need to join the floor of a new addition to an old floor. Where the floors connect is a potential weak spot. If you know you'll be adding on to a floor, make sure you leave the edge sloped and scored well. That means scratch it up so the surface is rough and the next layer will be able to key into the scratches. When it's time to add on, wet the sloped edge really well and trowel down the new floor.

Save some of your original dry mix so you can use it for repairs later on.
Leveling the floor

The floor doesn't have to be exactly level. Slight undulations make a floor feel more natural and friendly. Have you ever seen anything (other than water) perfectly level in nature?

Establish where you want the floor height, and draw or snap chalk lines on the walls or foundation to guide you when you're troweling down the floor.

You can use a 2x4 with a level taped to it, and drag it across the wet floor to "scrape" it level. You can lay down guides running parallel to each other and close enough for the 2x4 leveler to span. These can be made of thin stops of the floor mixture or thin strips of wood that need to be removed as soon as possible and the gap they made filled and troweled.

Here's a little trick to prevent you from getting too far off level. While you are putting the base in and/or troweling the floor surface, nail big headed nails into the ground with the tops a tiny bit lower than the final floor height. Start with one nail and level the tops of the other nails to it and then to each other. Put them as far apart as your longest level will reach. This will give you a guide while you are putting down the floor. The last layer of floor can cover the tops of the nails. You could use little piles of the floor mix in place of the nails. Let these dry some before putting down the floor, so they're hard enough to hold up to the leveling job without squishing.

Drying your earth floor

After you've put down your floor, let it dry completely. This will take a few weeks, depending on your climatic conditions. It's best to stay off it. Protect the floor from direct sun and from freezing. A layer of loose straw will help protect the floor. This will slow down the drying some, so you may want to remove the straw when the conditions don't warrant protection. If you live where it's hot and dry, it might be a good idea to cover the floor with tarps or straw during the day to slow the drying and minimize cracking.

If you have to walk on the floor while you're working on it or before it's completely dry, put down 2 foot squares of plywood and step on them or you'll have footprints.

This is a good time to get firewood, put the gutters up, work on the drains, finish the porches, plant the fruit trees, visit non-cobbing friends and family, or go sit down and read a book.
Sealing an earth floor

The sealant for earth floors needs to soak into the floor rather than forming a hard (crackable) skin on top of the floor.
floor sealant recipe

The basic recipe is boiled linseed oil (if you have an aversion to linseed oil, you could try other oils, possibly coconut?) and solvent (turpentine, mineral spirits or a citrus solvent). The solvent thins the oil and helps it soak into the floor. This sealant looks good on stone and brick too. Experiment!

CAUTION!! Oils and solvents are very flammable and can spontaneously combust. Be careful!

The first coat can be pure oil, because at this point the floor will be very porous. Adding solvent helps it soak in after the previous coat has made the floor less porous. The second coat can be 3/4 oil to 1/4 solvent. The third coat can be 1/2 oil and 1/2 solvent. The fourth coat can be 1/4 oil and 3/4 solvent. (This last mixture can be used whenever you want to increase the shine of the floor, like maybe once or twice a year.)
putting the sealant on the floor

Let the floor dry thoroughly before sealing.

Warm the mixture in a double boiler carefully. Stop before the mixture gets to the point of smoking. Paint it onto the floor while it's still hot. It will absorb better if the floor is warm too.

Put the coating on with a paint roller or a large brush. Use a brush around the edges just like you would if you were painting. Let each application dry, then put on the next one. Apply as much as the floor can absorb and no more. If it puddles on the surface, mop it up.

If you want a really polished look, try heating up beeswax mixed with a little solvent and oil. Paint this on as a final varnish for the floors. Experiment on your floor tests, or in out-of-the-way places on your floor until you come up with a finish you like.

Caring for a cob floor

This kind of floor is softer than what you're probably used to and will require gentleness. Pad the feet of the chairs so they don't gouge the floor. Take your high heels off at the door. Don't drag furniture across it. Use your common sensitivity. One good thing about a softer floor is that it will be gentle on your feet and legs.
Repairing a cob floor

If the floor gets a ding in it, or if one of the cracks starts to enlarge, it's best to patch it as soon as you can. Holes grow when walked on. It's the same philosophy as, "a stitch in time saves nine." Dig the hole out, creating a bigger hole with the edges slanting so that the bottom of the hole is wider than the top.
[Cob Floor Hole]

Moisten the hole well and patch it with the mix that you saved from the original floor for just this purpose. Seal it like you did the original floor once the repair has dried.

If you know you'll be hard on the floor in certain areas, you can put rugs down to protect the heavy wear spots. You may want to make the floor out of something more durable in those places, like brick or stone.

Some other floor surface options
flat stones

These can be set into a silty or sandy soil layer. Put the flattest sides up. The stones can be laid with or without mortar between them. You can use a cob, soil cement, or concrete mortar to fill in the spaces between the stones or bricks. (See the section on mortars in the chapter on foundations, pages 50-51.)
brick

Bricks are expensive if you buy them new. See if you can scrounge up some used ones. Old bricks have become popular and are harder to come by than they used to be. Good luck! Bricks can be used with or without mortar. They can be laid slightly crooked to each other to create a flowing pattern that will suit organic-shaped walls better than the usual parallel rows.
heavy clay

Some earth floors are made thicker and with a heavy clay content. This type of floor is often wetter and is poured into the house. If it is wet enough, it will level the surface itself like water would. Some folks mix the floor right in the house, throwing the ingredients in, adding water, and treading it in place in a big, muddy party.

This kind of floor is allowed to crack up naturally and then the cracks are filled in with a different colored mortar to create a flagstone look. The partially hard floor can be cut into tiles or shapes to give it a controlled place to crack, and then those cracks can be filled. The 'grout' or mortar can be thinned down and drizzled from a pitcher or tin can into the cracks.

This type of floor is usually 4 inches thick, either poured all at once or in two 2 inch

layers. It will take a long time to dry - so if you live where the humidity is high, you'll probably want to decide against this kind of floor.
rammed earth

A floor can be made of rammed earth. Cob ingredients (minus the straw) are mixed well and laid down almost dry (ever so slightly moist) onto the floor base. Tamp the earth really well with a flat tamper. A good floor tamper can be made by welding a 12 inch (or less) square flat piece of steel onto a steel pipe, or by screwing a 12 inch (or less) piece of plywood to your wooden tamper. I suggest you make tests in potted plant containers and see what you think. An advantage to this type of floor is that it will dry quickly. Although it is not as durable as a cob floor, it is good under tile or carpets.
soil cement

(See page 52 in foundation chapter for more about soil cement.) Make up test batches as if you are mixing cob, but add different amounts of cement to the dry ingredients. You'll probably want a soil cement floor to be at least 4 inches deep. Try tamping some of the tests. Dry the samples. Did they crack? Are they strong enough to walk on? The surface can be cut, printed, or pressed to look like tiles or shapes. The spaces between the tiles can be filled with a different colored soil cement to look like grout. Soil cement can be used to make tiles. Both these tiles and the poured soil cement can also be used for the floors of patios and porches.

You can use a rototiller to make soil cement floors (or even roads) if you have a sandy soil. Figure on making them 5 inches deep. Calculate how much cement to add (6 to 10%) to each square yard or meter.

Sprinkle the cement on and mix it all up dry with the rototiller. Then spray it with water and rototill it again. You can tell if you have the right amount of water if you can squeeze it into a ball and it holds together, and if when you break the ball in half, it doesn't crumble. Then rake it smooth and tamp it well. Remember to let it cure slowly.
tiles

Tiles make a very beautiful flooring. They are expensive in some places. You can always get seconds or broken tiles and make a mosaic floor. Broken organic shapes look great with the rounded walls. You can make your own tiles out of soil cement, fired clay, concrete or even wood.
wood

To make a loft or second-story floor, simply bury the supporting beams and/or joists into the cob.
[Embedded Loft]

You may want to put the floor in as you build. That way, where the cob wall and the floor meet, the squared ends of the floor boards will be buried in the cob wall. This makes the finishing work easier than cutting curves on all the boards if you put the floor in later. The floor will serve as a scaffolding while you cob the second story. Protect it so it doesn't get wrecked during construction.

I have never built a wooden floor on the ground floor of a cob house. To me that would waste the opportunity to have a thermal mass floor that offers heat storage. It would also use precious wood. If you do decide to make a wood floor you might want to consider the following:

* Floor joists or joist supports can be built into the foundation or walls.

* Wooden floors need lots of ventilation under them. Make the floor high enough so plenty of air can get under there. Make plenty of vents. Cover the vents well so critters can't get in.

* You may want to make the floor high enough to crawl under to fix plumbing or wiring, or to set rat traps.

* The space under the floor would be a good cool place for food or wine storage.

* Remember to add height to the walls to compensate for the amount of height you'll lose by raising the floor.

* I've seen wooden floors laid directly on a concrete slab that has heating coils buried in it. The heat from the pipes keeps the floor dry enough to keep it from rotting. The same thing would probably be true using heating pipes in a cob slab under a wooden floor.

COB GLORIOUS COB!

I suggest you read through this chapter once before you try cobbing.
How does cob work?

Soil usually contains sand and clay which are the main ingredients of cob. Cob is sand 'mortared' together with clay and strengthened with straw. Imagine the cob as a miniature mortared, reinforced, stone wall. The sand particles, like the stones in a stone wall, provide strength. The clay serves as the mortar. The straw does the reinforcing job of the rebar (reinforcing steel).

You will be sculpting a semi-liquid that will turn to "stone".
A COB RECIPE

50%-85% sand
50%-15% clay
straw to taste
water

The recipe for cob is pretty flexible. Lots of variations work well.

Materials vary so you'll have to make up some test bricks until you find the best recipe for your ingredients.

The amount of straw is hard to quantify. I like to add as much as I can, until each piece of straw is surrounded by the earth mix. You'll need to stop adding straw before there's too much straw, or the cob will fall apart. The more clay in the mix, the more straw you can add. Try it. You'll get a feel for it. Read on for more details.

Test your soil

Soil is made up of various sized particles: tiny stones, sand, silt, clay, and organic matter. To find soil suitable for building material, first scrape away the top organic layer. Use this top soil for nourishing your garden plants. Examine what's underneath. You will be able to tell a lot by feeling and looking at the soil. Can you recognize sand particles and sticky clay?

Take a cup or two of soil from various potential house sites and from various depths. (Soil samples can vary a lot even a few feet from each other.) Take out any stones or pebbles. Put each sample in a quart jar. Label each jar, recording the depth and where the soil came from. Then fill the jars 3/4 of the way to the top with water. Shake well. I mean really well. Shake that baby! Then let it settle. If your soil has sand, silt and clay in it, you'll get three distinct layers.

The sand is the heaviest and will sink to the bottom immediately as you watch. The silt will settle next, more slowly, and the clay will stay suspended in the water for a while then settle on top of the silt.
[Soil Test Jar]

This will give you a rough idea of the ratio of sand, silt, and clay at each spot on the land. If your soil only has one or two components to it, it will be difficult to know what the layer(s) are. See if you can tell by feeling. Make jar tests with other soils until you find one that separates into three layers. Then you can get to know the feel of sand, silt, and clay.

Start out by making test bricks using just the soil from your site. If you need to import materials, stretch the recipe to use as much of the on-site soil as possible. Too much clay in the cob mix will make it shrink and crack as it dries. Too much sand in the mix makes the cob crumbly and hard to sculpt, and when dry, sand sloughs off if you touch the cob. If you run into these situations, you'll know you've stretched it too far. Depending on your materials, recipes with as much as 50% clay and 50% sand or as little as 15% clay and 85% sand can work.

Making Test Bricks

To figure out a good mix for your soil, make up some test bricks. Try various recipes and combinations, making sure you label each one carefully so you can reproduce the best ones.

Make your first couple of test bricks out of the soil from the site or from where you've dug out for the foundation. If you're lucky, you may have a soil that works for cob as it is without adjusting the sand/clay ratio. After the jar test, you'll have some idea what you might want to add for the other test bricks. Make tests adding more and more sand until you've stretched it to the point of too much sand. You'll be able to recognize that point because the mix won't hold together well and will be hard to form into bricks. The sand will slough off when you rub the dried brick. You can take the experiment to the opposite extreme and add too much clay so the brick cracks while drying. You will learn a lot doing these tests. Make three samples of each sand/clay mix, adding different amounts of straw until you get a feel for how much you need.

One easy way to check the clay shrinkage in your test bricks is to bury in a stick the same length as the brick. The cob might shrink but the stick won't. You can write the recipe for that brick on the stick with a permanent felt pen.
[Test Brick]

When the bricks have dried completely, have a look at them. Eliminate the ones with the biggest cracks because they have too much clay in them. Does the sand come off when you rub the bricks? If so, those have too much sand. Try breaking the others. You can drop them from one or two feet up to test their strength. The ones that are hardest to break are the best recipes. Leave them out in the weather or simulate some rain and observe which ones are the most resilient. Analyze what amounts of straw made the strongest bricks. Now you have a good basic recipe. Lots of variations will work just fine, so don't be too much of a perfectionist about all this. You may want to stretch the recipe so you can use as big a proportion as possible of the soil you have on-site.

If you want to reassure yourself and do a more extensive test, build a garden wall, an outdoor sculpture, or a bench, and observe how hard it dries and how well it weathers. Remember, your walls will be protected from the rain by a roof.

More details about cob ingredients
SAND

Sand particles are the main building blocks of cob. Ideally, each particle will have rough angled sides so the sand pieces interlock with each other, helping to hold the cob together. If the sand particles are rounded and smooth like ocean beach sand, they'll be more likely to slide off each other.

Sand that's made up of various sized particles makes a strong cob mix. The pieces can vary a lot, I think some pebbles and small rocks also strengthen the cob. Don't be too fussy about this. If in doubt, make test bricks to see if what you have will work.

If the soil from the site is short on sand, have a look around your property. Soil can vary a lot even within just a few feet. Often the movement of water in streams or rivers, past or present, has left sand deposits somewhere.

If you need to buy sand, go to a concrete supply place and ask for coarse concrete sand or 'reject' sand. In most places it's pretty cheap. For an extra fee they will usually deliver it to your site in a big dump truck, if you have a decent access road. Or you can haul it yourself, a truckload at a time. The gravel yard will load it for you. Don't let them overload your truck! If you can't drive all the way to the cob site, take it as far as you can, then load it directly into your wheelbarrow or garden cart to carry it the rest of the way.

It can be tricky to figure out how much sand you'll need. It depends on the size of your house, the thickness of the walls, the number and size of the window and door openings, and how much sand you'll have to add to your soil to get a good mix.

Remember: if you plan to make an earthen floor, sand will also be a major ingredient of your floor. You can roughly estimate all this by volume. If you're getting the sand yourself as you need it, it will be less important to know the total amount. If you're having sand delivered, ask what the minimum delivery is. If that seems reasonable for your plans, order that amount. You can always get more later if you need it. If there's extra, you can probably use it for landscaping, gardening or future building projects.

CLAY

Clay's job is to hold things together. Clay is one of Mother Earth's magic mysteries. Legends of many cultures tell how the first people were made out of clay.

Clay is made of very small platelet-shaped particles held together by the friction of their surfaces. The particles are small enough to remain in suspension in water for a little while. Clay expands when wet and shrinks when dry. Some clays change size more dramatically when wet or dry than others do. Clays also differ in stickiness and ability to glue things together. Most soils that I've come across, in eastern Australia, northern New Zealand, and the northwestern United States, have had plenty of clay in them so I haven't had to import clay.

If you have very sandy soil and need to add clay, you'll have to find some. Gathering and adding clay can be a lot of work so if you have to do this, figure out a cob recipe with as little clay as you can get away with. You don't need much, especially if you can find a good sticky clay and add a minimum of straw.

Where to look for clay
Often the deeper you dig down, the more clay you'll find in your soil. The sides of streams or rivers are likely places to find clay deposits because the water has worn into the lower layers of soil. Look along the sides of roads where the earth has been cut. Hopefully you can find some in a location where you can load it into your truck.

Clay is used by tile and brick manufacturers and can be purchased cheaply from them.

If you need to add clay to your soil, either mix the clay in water first, or dry it and crush it to a powder before adding it to your cob mix.
Adding the clay wet

Soak clay-rich soil overnight (at least). This will help it to mix well with the water and make it easier to break up the clay. If your soil has almost enough clay, you can separate clay from some of the soil that you won't be using for the cob, and add it to your mixes to raise the clay content. Use the same principle as the jar test: put soil into a big garbage can, barrel or pit, fill it with water, and stir it a lot with a hoe or by mushing it up with your feet.
Straw bale mixing pit One easy way to make a pit is to build the sides of the pit with straw bales and line it with a tarp. The clay will become suspended in the water and then settle out on top of the dirt. You can scoop off this purer clay and add it to your mix. Straining through a mesh sieve helps break up those stubborn lumps of clay. When you add wet clay, you can thin it down with water until you can use the clay "soup" for the liquid and clay proportions in your recipe. You may need to add a little more water directly to your mix if it is too dry.

Powdering dry clay

If you add dry clay to the sand, you'll need to powder it first and mix it with the sand while dry, then add the water. This is a dusty job and bad for your lungs, so wear a mask. The dry clods of clay can be crushed with a tamper or stomped on with boots. It can be grated through a wire-mesh screen. Driving your car over the clay clods with the windows rolled up is a good way to avoid the dust. If you plan way ahead, the clay can be left for a year or two exposed to the weather so that the sun, rain, and freezing will help it to break down naturally.
Silt

Some silt in your cob mix is OK. Cob made with a large proportion of silt is weaker but if that's all you have, try it. Make a test wall first and see how it holds up. Your test wall could be a garden wall, a bench, or any other small structure you can think of. Silt has larger, more gritty particles than clay does. One way to help you establish whether the material is clay or silt is to make it into a dough ball and cut it with a knife. If it's clay, the cut surface will be shiny - if it's dull, it is silt. Organic matter thrives in silt. If there's lush plant growth on the soil, it probably has a lot of silt in it and would be wasted in cob. It's much better used in the garden. You may find a layer of clay under the silt.

STRAW

Straw adds tensile strength to the cob.

If you have a clay-rich soil and limited sand, you can use a heavier clay proportion by adding extra straw. If you have a very sandy mix, it won't be able to hold as much straw. That's OK.

Straw is the stalks of grasses or grains left after the nutritious seed heads and leaves have been removed. It's cheap stuff, often baled for easy handling and transportation. The fresher it is, the stronger it is, so avoid old straw that's started to decompose. Make sure to keep the straw dry until you're ready to use it. Do not use hay. It decomposes.

Some people think certain lengths are better than others but I just throw it in as it comes out of the bale and it seems to work great. The straw will soak up some of the water in your cob mix, drying it slightly.

Get at least 10 bales for making a small cottage or for each large room. More is good.

Extra straw bales are wonderful to have at the building site. They serve as scaffolding supports, ladders, walls for clay-making pits, chairs, backrests, tables, even beds. Eventually they'll become great garden mulch or erosion control.

If you're an ambitious purist, you can gather your own grass stalks or experiment with other plant fibers.
Water

I usually use plain fresh water in the cob mixes. I have tried all of the following ideas and they all seem to work fine.

* Some folks say rainwater is best.

* You can soak manure in the water and use that water for making cob.

* Some olden-day recipes say that to strengthen the cob you should add a little bit of lime putty to the water (3%). (See page 162 for how to make lime putty.)

Tarps

When I first started making cob, I used to turn it with a garden fork. Mixing the cob on a tarp is a much easier way to stir the ingredients and save your back, so get a good supply of tarps. Any big tarp of sturdy material will do (7x9 foot or bigger). Those awful woven blue plastic ones work well. They're light and the dirt doesn't stick to them much, but they do disintegrate after a while. The fibers from the shredded tarps can be added to the cob mix for reinforcing and to keep them out of the landfills, tips or dumps. Old awnings from recreational vehicles are good for the job too, and last longer than the tarps. RV repair shops are often happy to get rid them.

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cobbing tools:

* sticks and stones that fit your hand
* shovel and spade
* pick
* tarps
* machete
* squirt bottle (put a hole through the lid with a nail if you don't have a squirt nozzle lid)
* hose with nozzle
* wheelbarrow
* 3 foot level, wedge and tape to attach the wedge to the level (See page 87.)
* buckets
* plumb bob or something heavy tied to a string to help you see a vertical line
* whisk broom
* ladder

Here's how to make cob

Cob is mixed with a combination of stirring and compression. In my experience, the best way to achieve this combination is with feet and tarps.

Clear a few places at the site for mixing areas. The closer they are to the foundation, the less energy it'll take to get the cob to its destination. Inside the building is a good place for at least one mixing area. Leave enough room to walk around the mixing sites easily. Use your brain to minimize work. If you've imported ingredients, pile them in sensible places to streamline the process. For example, if the sand pile is two steps closer to the building (but not crowding walkways) you'll save miles of steps during the building process.

cob-85.jpgIf you need to add sand or clay to your soil, you can measure out proportions by the shovel full, or by the bucket full until you can do it by eye and by feel.
Throw some soil on a tarp

Break up the clods with your tamper or your shoes

Adding sand

If you are adding sand, shovel the sand onto the tarp and stir it into the crushed soil until the two are well-mixed. You can do this by pulling up the edges of the tarp and rolling the ingredients around on the tarp.

Adding clay

If the soil you are working with is so sandy that you have to add clay, you can either add clay soup or add dry powdered clay to dry sand. Wear a mask when adding and stirring dry clay to your mix.

cob-87.jpgStirring and treading the mix

Stirring and treading well is a big part of the magic that turns your ingredients into cob.
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To stir, stand on one edge of the tarp and lift up the tarp on the opposite side of the mix. Pull it towards you, turning the mix over onto itself. Don't lift the edge of the tarp at your feet or push the mix to turn it. That's too hard on your back. The more you roll the tarp, the faster the cob mixes.

Then add water. You're after a cookie dough consistency. Tread on the mix with your feet. It's easier to feel the mix with bare feet, and for some mysterious reason, bare feet mix the cob faster than shoed feet. Don't despair, your feet will return to nature and toughen up quickly.
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Stir the mix often by pulling up the edges of the tarp, while you're treading. It's impossible to tread the mix too much, so go for it. You'll notice how it changes plasticity as you tread on it.

If your soil has a lot of sharp rocks in it, you can gradually toughen up your feet or give in and wear shoes. Smooth soled ones work best because the cob doesn't stick to them so much. Another option is to sift the dirt through a 1/2 inch wire screen. This is a lot of work and puts dust into your lungs. Wear a mask if you do this! Breathing dust is bad for you! Be aware that the clods that won't go through the sieve easily are the hardest and best pieces of high clay-content soil. These can be forced through the sieve, or crushed and then sieved. Or these precious little lumps of clay can be soaked overnight, then put through the sieve wet or mushed up by foot. You can save the gravel that you end up with after sieving for your drains, or put it back into the cob after you've finished mixing it.

When your mix begins holding together in a giant loaf when you turn it with the tarp, it's time to add straw.
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Adding straw

When you add straw to the mix, it will dry it out quite a bit. If the mix is too dry to add lots of straw, you can either add less straw or add water. You will soon get a feel for the consistency you're after. Remember this ancient knowledge is imprinted in your cells. Trust yourself. Experiment.
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Flatten the cob loaf down by treading on it. Grab an armful of straw and sprinkle some onto the mix. Step on it so it sticks into the cob a little and pull the tarp up, making a cinnamon roll of dirt-dough and straw-sugar. Tread on it until it's flattened out into a pancake again, and add more straw. Make another cinnamon roll. Do this three or four times until you have enough straw in the mix. Too much straw will cause the mix to fall apart. Try adding a lot to a small mix so you can see what too much straw feels like.
Cob too dry?

A cob mix that's too dry will be crumbly, won't want to stick together very well, and won't take straw well. Add water and stir until the mix is the consistency of cookie dough. Too much sand or too much straw can also cause a crumbly mix.
Cob too wet?

When you build with a mix that is too wet, you'll see that it won't keep its shape because it can't hold up its own weight. It will start to bulge out on the sides of the wall. The technical term for this is "ooging". (All cob oogs. The wetter the cob, the sooner it oogs.) If it's too wet, add a little dry sand, dirt, or straw and tread it in. If you add a large amount of dry stuff, use roughly the same ratio of dirt and sand as your original recipe. You can also dry a mix by treading it into a pancake so the air can get to it, and letting it sit for a few hours or overnight. You'll quickly get a feel for it.
Letting the mix cure

Because it is so much easier to mix the cob if it's on the wet side, you may want to do it that way and let the mix sit for a day or two to dry out before you put it on the walls. When mixes sit, something magic happens and they become more elastic and easier to work. You'll get a feel for how wet to make them and for how much they'll dry during a night. If they're too wet, uncover them and let them sit a little longer. Once you get into the swing of cobbing, you can make mixes on all your tarps at the end of the day when you're warmed up. In the mornings you can get inspired and warmed up by cobbing onto the walls.

Curing is not necessary. It's fine to make a mix and put it directly onto the wall. I suggest you try letting a batch of cob sit, though, to see if you can feel an improvement.

Avoid leaving the mix covered for too long because the straw will start to rot and stink, and lose some of its strength. If you do this accidentally, it's no big deal, put it on the wall anyway. It will stop stinking as soon as it dries.
Other ways to mix cob

In the old days in Europe, farm animals were often used to mix the cob. The ingredients were shoveled into a circle around a post. The horses or oxen were tied to the post and walked round and round treading the cob mixture.

In recent times people have used various machines to make big batches of cob, and to speed up the process. Caution: if you let a batch of cob sit wet for too long, the straw will start to rot. It's a good idea to only mix big batches when you know you'll have time to get the cob onto the wall fairly soon. One strategy is to mix a big batch of the clayey soil and sand and add the straw to only the portion of the mixture that you know you can use within a week or so.

Cement mortar mixers will mix cob if you can handle the fumes and noise. As with manual mixing, the clayey soil and sand is mixed first, then the straw added. The cob has to be mixed wetter than with other types of mixing to allow the cement mixer to turn without too much stress. This means the mix may have to sit a day or two to dry to the right consistency. Straw can be added manually to the mix.

Tractors or four wheel drive vehicles can make quick work of the cob mixing job. I've seen the process happen unintentionally in peoples muddy driveways. Simply pile the soil and sand and drive back and forth over them. Add the straw after the other ingredients have been mixed well, then drive over the mixture again until it's well stirred.

Heavy earth moving machinery can be used to mix up big batches of cob. Front end loaders are great! They can do the job of compiling and mixing the ingredients. The finished cob mix can be scooped up in the loader and raised to the height of the wall. You can climb into the loader and hand-sculpt the walls without having to lift the cob up onto the wall by hand.

Putting the cob on the wall

cob-91.jpgDrag the mix on the tarp to the spot where you want to build. Anywhere is fine. If the foundation is low enough, two people can roll the mix off the tarp and up onto the foundation. If the foundation or walls are too high to roll the cob up onto, you can make a ramp to drag it up or lift it by handfuls, tubfuls or buckets onto the foundation.

If you haven't already put the pipes in for the electricity and plumbing, now is the time to do it!

Cobbing by foot

sometimes called 'pise', (pronounced 'pee say')
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This is a method of squishing the cob mix down onto your foundation by stepping on it. This pushes the cob into the spaces between the foundation stones.

Keep adding cob and compressing it together with your weight. When the sides start bulging out, get a friend to use their feet for a form.
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Get your weight off the cob when it starts bulging out too much on the sides, technically called 'ooging'. Let the cob harden for a day or two, until it can support your weight. You can cut off the oog later with a big knife or spade, before it's hardened completely. If you like foot cobbing and have good balance, you can do it all the way to the top of the walls. Make the walls thick enough so you can come back and tidy them up by cutting off the rough, protruding cob with a machete or spade.
Cobbing by hand

Cobbing by hand is more gentle and controlled, creating more finished walls. Hand cobbing will allow you to build up a little further before the cob starts ooging because your weight is not added to the wall.
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To loosen the cob from the tarp and make it easy to pick up, roll the mix in the tarp like you would for stirring. Lift handfuls of cob onto the walls and massage it all together with your hands and a stick.

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Thumbs are a great tool for the job but they do get tired, and thumb nails get sanded-down from shoving them into the cob. Give your thumbs a rest by replacing them with a stone or stick part of the time. You can use your palms and knuckles too. One hand can be the form as the other compresses the cob against the form and incorporates it into the cob below it.

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It's easiest if you can keep your upper body weight over your arms, using gravity to help you push and massage the cob together.

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It's important to make your house one massive hunk of cob, avoiding weak connections between 'layers'. When adding cob to a wall, you may need to re-wet the last application of cob so it's soft enough to massage the new cob into it.

Do not smooth out the surface of the cob too much or it will dry as a hard skin, which will slow the drying in the wall beneath it.

When you're cobbing, you are creating a surface for future cob to be built onto. Make sure you get into the habit of making a flat surface on the top edges of the wall, not a rounded one, so the next "layer" of cob has ample surface area to sit on comfortably, instead of sliding off.

Tapering your walls and how wide to make the top of the foundation

Make the bottom of the wall wider than the top. I usually make the interior side of the wall pretty straight up and down. It's a matter of taste. If you want your walls to grow organically, use your common sense. You can angle the wall for the first foot or so and then make it straight up, imitating a tree trunk or the interior of a cave.
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The wall has less and less weight to support as it goes up, so it doesn't need to be as thick as it gets nearer to the top. You can taper the outside of the wall. Tapering cuts down on the amount of cob you'll need and makes the house that much lighter. The angled shape is a stable shape. Taper two inches for every three feet of height.
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On average, a wall will need to be 9 or 10 inches wide at the top, tapering out 2 inches for every 3 feet of height. If your wall is 9 feet tall, start by taking the 9 inches you'll want at the top and add 6 inches (2 for every 3 feet of the height) which comes to 15 inches. Add another inch or two for good luck. So that's 16 inches at the bottom of the cob wall and at the top of the stone foundation. If you're planning two stories, use the same formula. These calculations are vital for deciding the width of the foundation.

Cut a wedge measuring 2 inches x 3 feet out of styrofoam or wood and tape it to one side of the level. Leaning the wedge side of the level against the outside wall, get the bubble to read level. The edge of the wedge will then show you the taper you're after. Cut off the bumps on the wall to form the plane you want. Use the other side of the level for your interior vertical line.
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Keep an eye on the outside planes of the wall as you cob.

As you build, you will be creating the vertical planes on the sides of the walls that you will always see. As you add cob, keep an eye on both the inside and outside plane of the wall. Cob has a mind of its own. It's surprising how hard it is to keep the walls growing the way you want them to by just using your eye. If you don't check a level often, it's easy to build a lot of unnecessary width into a wall before you realize you're going wonky.

Cobbers tend to push the wall away from themselves as they massage new cob onto the wall. This sometimes distorts it towards the other side of the wall from where they're working. It's helpful to cob with a friend, with one person inside the house and the other outside, working opposite each other, keeping an eye on the vertical plane on 'your' side of the wall.

When working on a tightly curved section of the wall, work mostly from the outside of the curve. Cob curves tend to lean outwards as the wall goes up.
Ooging

If you keep adding a lot of cob at once, it will eventually start to oog or bulge out on the sides, pushed out by its own weight. When that happens, stop cobbing in that spot and move on to a different section of the wall. If you have a big house-raising party and you manage to get to the point where the whole wall is ooging, pat yourselves on the back, make mixes in all the tarps to cure for tomorrow, and call it a day. Unless you live in a very humid climate, the wall will be dry enough the next day to chop off the oog and keep cobbing.
Over build the sides and trim them later

It's much easier and stronger to chop off cob than to add it to a dry, or even a partly dry, surface. It's better to make your walls too thick and bulgy than too thin and dippy.
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The walls can be checked with the level and trimmed to give you a more exact shape. Do this in the mornings before you start cobbing. A machete, meat cleaver, or spade are good tools for shaping the walls. Chopping cob will dull your tools, but they seem to work just fine without sharpening. A 2x4 held on its side and scraped across the wall helps to make a flat surface. When you're doing the trimming, stand back occasionally and look at the walls from a distance to give yourself perspective.

The cob that you chopped or scraped off can be re-wet, retread a little, and recycled back into the wall, or thrown into an almost-finished new mix and tread in a little.

Another totally different approach is to build the whole house, leaving the sides of the walls all lumpy and messy. Then after the walls are built, wet them down really well and carve them into their final shape all at one time. A hoe or shovel are good carving tools to use along with your big knives.

Putting the cob to bed at night

At the end of a cobbing day, remember to make sure you haven't left any dips in the sides of the walls and poke holes in the tops of the walls to allow for drying and re-wetting. The holes serve another purpose too. They provide a key for the new cob to hold onto. When you continue cobbing, push the fresh cob down into the holes. When you've finished cobbing for the day, poke finger-sized holes with a stick in the top of the wall. Make them 3 or 4 inches apart, especially along the edges.
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When you want to cob again, you can fill the holes with water if the old cob needs re-wetting. A hose with a spray nozzle is perfect for the re-wetting job. Keep some squirt bottles full of water around the cob site for re-wetting smaller areas as you cob. You will soon get the feel for how much to wet it so that you can work the new mix into the old.

Control the wall drying

It is easier to get the previously applied cob and the new cob to stick together if the moisture levels are similar. This means that you are riding the fine line between keeping the top of the wall as moist as possible so the next cob layer will adhere to it, and letting the lower part of the wall dry enough to support the weight of more cob.

Cover the tops of the walls with dampened straw, burlap sacks, and/or tarps and kiss it good night.
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If you suspect heavy rain is coming, you can cover the walls with tarps or sacks. To speed up drying, you can place lots of dry straw on top of the wall under the tarps or sacks. If it's likely to be windy, weigh down the covers so they won't blow off. The rain won't hurt your wall seriously but it will, obviously, slow down the drying time.

It's a good idea to keep your fresh walls out of strong direct sun and harsh winds, which will dry the outside surface too quickly, and can cause cracks on the dried surface as the inner cob dries and shrinks. Protect the walls with shade or by covering them. If you're cobbing where the temperature drops below freezing at night, pile straw bales or loose straw on the sides and on top of the walls to prevent them from cracking up. You could use old sleeping bags or anything that insulates. Take the covers off during the day so the walls can dry.

If you'll be back to do some more cobbing in the next few days, stop working on the walls while you still have enough energy to make up some cob mixes to cure. It's a delight to have mixes ready at the start of a new cobbing day. Because these mixes will be curing and drying out for awhile, you can mix them extra wet which is easier and quicker.

I also like to tidy up so when I return to the site it feels welcoming, and I can find my clean tools.

It's as simple as that! Keep cobbing and sculpt your home!
What if the cob dries out completely before you get back to it?

It's OK. Fill the holes in the top of the wall again and again with water until the cob is rehydrated. Be careful to really incorporate the first new layer of cob. Use a stick and push the new cob hard into the old. Another trick is to sew the layers together with straw, pushing pieces of straw through the new mix into the holes in the old cob.

If you know that you'll be leaving the partially finished building for a long time, there are a few things you can do to make it easier to connect the next 'layer' of cob.

* Leave the top of the walls rough, with lots of humps and holes and valleys.

* Make the re-wetting holes extra wide and deep.

* Cover the top of the walls with wet burlap sacks and let the rain fall onto the walls.

* You can push small sticks or bamboo into the cob on the tops of the walls 4 or 5 inches down, leaving 4 or 5 inches sticking up. Put them every foot or so and poking out at different angles. The sticks will be buried in the new cob when you continue building.

Patching an already dried wall

Plaster adheres beautifully to cob and will cover minor dips and smooth out the overall contours of the walls. But if you want to make a more major change and add new cob to the old, start by wetting the dry cob as much as possible. Drill, carve, or hack with a hammer claw holes in the hardened cob for the new cob to hold onto. You can hammer some old nails partway into the dry cob to help support the cob you're adding.
How to destroy dry cob

If you want to add a window or door, or change something in an already dry wall, get out the battering ram. You will soon have a new respect for the strength of cob and a healthy appreciation for taking the time to plan carefully. A 3/4 inch steel pipe can be sledge hammered through the wall many times where you want an opening. Wetting the wall again and again helps. Try an axe or hatchet to chop out what's left. It is much easier to fill in an unwanted door or window than to chop one out!
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Push straw into the tops of the wall leaving some of the straw sticking out to help knit the next cob application to the previous one.

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Sculpting cob shelves and furniture

Cob is amazing stuff. It's so strong you can sculpt it out from the wall to create shelves and benches that project into the room (this is called a cantilever). Built-in surfaces for storage and seating maximize your interior space. Make yourself a beautiful window seat by cantilevering a bench out at the bottom of a big window. When you build indoor furniture consider the final floor height, so the seats are at a good position. You can copy the measurements and angles of one of your favorite chairs or couches to help you create a comfy seat. If you want a wide seat or shelves, you may want to build up the thickness of the wall or foundation under the cantilever before you start sculpting it. This will save you time because making a cantilever is time consuming, careful work.

Add extra straw and clay to your cob mix for cantilevering. Build out a little at a time, leaving a rough holey surface. Let it dry enough to support itself before adding the new cob.
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Take extra care to make sure the new addition is well attached to the last cob. Cantilevering takes patience and a little practice. Sometimes the cantilever falls off. Don't panic, keep at it, just add on a little slower. You can stick little sticks or straw into the cantilever, sticking out into where the next cob will be added. This will help hold the weight until the cob hardens and add to the tensile strength.
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If you use something to temporarily hold up the cantilever while it hardens, like a bucket or straw bale, make sure you remove it within a day, or it'll get stuck as the cob dries and shrinks.

You can always chop away furniture and shelves if you decide you don't like them later on. It's possible to add cob furniture after the building is made, but it will be easier and stronger to do it as the building grows.
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Cob fireplaces

Fireplaces can be sculpted out of cob. Fireplaces are very beautiful and romantic, but not very fuel efficient. The Earthbuilders Encyclopedia has blueprints for a fireplace and lots of tips for adobe brick fireplaces that can be easily adapted to cob. See the recommended reading list at the back of the book.
Cob around wood stoves

I suggest doing some reading to get an understanding of the basics of wood stove efficiency. A metal wood stove and stovepipe can be surrounded by cob, leaving access to the door of course. It's a good idea to insulate between the hot metal and the cob with vermiculite or wood ashes. The insulation insures that the fire will burn hotter and more efficiently. After the heat gets through the insulation, it will be stored in the cob, radiating heat into your house after the fire has died down. Stoves can heat up cob benches for toasty bum-warming seats. In many countries, the stoves and pipes are all made out of cob. See the 'Books to Read' section (page 173) for recommended reading on masonry (cob) stoves.
Relief sculptures on the walls.

Cob is a medium that invites sculpture! It's super flexible. You can make relief sculpture as you cob. You can also make artistic dips and holes in the wall. Or you can cob a bulge onto the side of the wall and when it's hardened a little, carve it to the shape you want. You can add a sculpture to a dry wall if you rough it up well, re-wet it, and add some nails pounded part way in to help the fresh cob stick. When adding large sculptures to an already dry wall, use large nails. You can add one part mushed up newspaper pulp to one part cob to lighten the weight.

If you decide you can't live with your sculpture or you want to change it, go for it. One of the wonderful things about cob is you can chop and change it indefinitely.

Burying in shelves, counters, and loft floors

cob-111.jpgAny wooden shelves, shelf supports, counter tops, or wood to support cupboards or lofts can be embedded into the cob as you build. It's much easier to sculpt cob around wood than to cut the wood later to the organic shape of the dry cob. Everything that you build in as you go will save you a lot of fussy wood cuts later. You may want to keep the wood clean by covering it with cloth or plastic while you build. The counter, loft, and sturdy shelves can serve as scaffolding. Make sure the cob has hardened enough to support the protruding wood with your weight on it before you stand on it.

If you choose to put your counter or loft in later, you can leave a little cob shelf (2 or 3 inches) to set it on.

To support something small like a counter or shelf, compensate by making the walls a little thicker below the ledge. For a loft, you might want to make the whole wall a little thicker from the foundation up. You can cut the counter (or floorboards) to fit and set it on the ledge. Fill any gaps between the counter and the wall with cob or plaster.

Counters may need extra 'legs' to support their outside edge. These can be made out of wood or you can build cob pillars. These can also support shelves under the counter. If you want to attach cupboard doors, bury in a piece of wood to attach the hinges to. Remember to add something to help key the wood to the cob.
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For two-story houses, you can save space by burying pieces of wood for steps that protrude out from the walls into the room. The cob is very strong and can easily hold the wood in place. This stair system has been used for centuries but is not very safe for little kids and will not pass any building code.
Making niches or cubbies in the walls
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Niches are recessed spaces built into walls to create an altar, bookcase or a place for candles. These are fun to sculpt in as you build. If you finish a wall and then wish you had built a niche, you can carve one out later. This is much easier to do if the cob is still wet.

If you bury colored bottles though the back wall of the candle or light fixture niches, you'll see the colored light shining through the walls when you're outdoors.
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The tops of the niches can be treated like any other opening. They will need a lintel or an arch. If you make niches less than a foot wide, you can forget about the lintel or arch rule and let your imagination go.

The thinner walls in the back of the niche will be less insulating than the thicker parts of the wall. If you live where it's really cold, you may decide to forget the niche idea. Books are good insulation so you could make a bookcase niche and keep the shelves close together and full.

SCAFFOLDS

You'll need something to stand on as your walls grow to keep your upper body weight over the wall. Standing on straw bales or on planks that are resting on straw bales works well for the lower part of the wall. Only stack the bales two high; three is too precarious. The straw bales against the walls will slow down the drying so you may want to move them once in awhile to give each part of the wall a chance to dry out.
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It's OK to stand on the partially dried window sills, cantilevers, and built-in furniture. Use your judgment. You can straddle the wall, sitting on it like a horse.

As your walls get higher, pieces of wood can be buried through the walls to support the scaffolding planks, both inside and out. Put the supports into the walls at least a foot from an opening.
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Four or five feet off the ground is a good place for the first scaffolding supports. Depending on how tall your walls are and how agile you are, you may want to put more supports every two or three feet. Be safe, rest strong planks on the buried wooden supports and attach them well. Add some additional sticks to help hold up the outsides of the scaffolding supports. (See illustration.) You can use a ladder or straw bale steps to get up onto your scaffolding. The cob can be piled into dishpans or tubs and set up onto the scaffold, then lifted up onto the top of the wall.

cob-117.jpg When you're finished cobbing, the supports can be left in the walls to permanently carry the weight of shelving or cabinets. In many countries, the scaffolding sticks are left in the walls as decorative ladders and to stand on during replastering later.

If you want to remove them, they can be sawed off and plastered over or they can be knocked out of the walls with a sledge hammer, and you can fill the hole with cob before you plaster.

On the sunny, glass-intensive wall, it's likely that you won't have enough cob between the windows to hold embedded scaffold supports. A simple scaffold can be set up using two stepladders with the scaffolding planks running between the ladders, and resting on the ladder rungs (not on the top of the ladders!) Make sure the ladders are well-balanced where they stand.

Electric wiring

If you haven't put the access pipes for the electric wire and plumbing through the foundation, make sure you set them on top of the foundation and cob them in place. If you haven't decided exactly where the access pipes should go, just put in extra ones and fill the ones you don't need later with cob. (See more about this in the chapter on foundations, page 43.)

Because cob is completely fire proof, electric wires can be buried right into the cob walls or put in conduit pipes and buried in as you build. Bury them at least an inch deep in the wall to avoid chopping into the wires later when you do the final shaping of the walls. Mark where the wires are buried in the cob so you can find them in the future.

To hold the electric receptacle boxes in the cob, get a piece of wood a little bigger than the box, and nail or screw it to the back of the box. Cob it in where you want it. If you'd rather deal with finishing the electricity later, leave a hole and, when you get to it, embed the box into the hole with cob.

Another approach to installing the electric wires is to carve a groove out of the cob where you want the wires to be, either when it's wet or dry. Lay the wiring in the grooves after you've finished the walls and just fill the groove with cob or plaster afterwards.

Other things to think about
Termites and silverfish
cob-118.jpg

I know very little about termites, but would like to pass on an idea I heard in Australia. The concern was that the termites might bore up through the cob and get at the wood in the frames and the roof. One suggestion was to place termite mesh through the wall with tin strips welded or soldered to the sides, protruding out of the wall about 3/4 of an inch both inside and out.

Termite mesh is a heavy duty mesh available where termites are a problem. It has holes too small for the termites to get through but will allow the walls to breathe. The solid strip of tin makes it easy for the home-owner to see whether the termites have built their own little cob tunnel over the tin. The tunnels can simply be knocked down to discourage the termites from getting up the wall. Any other ideas?

In Australia, I talked with an old friend who lived in a mud brick (adobe) home that she had built herself and had been living in for 12 years. She said she had a problem with silverfish (little destructive moths) breeding in the walls and eating holes in her books and clothes. She hadn't found a nontoxic solution. If any of you have some tips you would like to share about this, please let us know so we can include them in another edition of this book. Thanks!
Planning for future additions

Planning things in advance always saves work, so think ahead. If you know you'll be adding on later, build the beginning of the foundation for the future addition where it attaches to the original foundation. This way the foundations will be tied together well. Put in the door frame that will access the new room. You can either hang the door or temporarily board up and insulate the opening.

cob-119.jpgAs you cob the surface where the addition will one day be added, partially bury sticks and leave them sticking out into the future wall's location.

You can also leave keying holes in that part of the wall. Where walls are protected from the rain, you can leave a stair/step with sticks and holes.

Interior walls

Interior walls take up precious inside space. You may want to make them as thin as possible, unless they are load bearing and/ or sound barriers.

All the interior partition walls can be partially supported by the main cob walls at the places where they meet. Elsewhere, they can be supported with posts or milled lumber running from the ceiling to the floor. These posts can be buried into the floor or set on top of something to keep them off the ground. The wooden uprights can be used to help support the roof and/or a loft.

Wattle and daub is a name for a type of construction used in many countries for centuries. Walls are made of woven sticks to form a net or mesh, then covered on both sides with a thin layer of cob. This is a way to make thinner interior walls. Thinner walls inside are an advantage because you don't use as much precious space.

The woven sticks can be beautiful room dividers just by themselves.

Interior walls can be made using woven sticks, metal mesh or fencing covered with layers of newspaper or magazine pages dipped in clay slip. (See page 147 for more details.)

2x4 frame walls can be used for interior walls. Because these are so straight and flat, it takes a little imagination to get them to look right with the organic shapes of the cob. Plywood and sheet-rock will take an earthen plaster or thick earthen paint to help them match the cob walls.

Thin cob walls will block the noise pretty well, giving you more privacy between rooms. If the interior walls are not responsible for holding up the roof beams, they can be made as thin as 5 inches at the top with a 1 inch in 3 foot taper. Make some test walls and see how thin you can get away with.

If the interior walls are helping to hold up the roof or the loft, make them thick enough at the place where the roof beams will rest to support them.

cob-120.jpgVery thin walls can be made out of peg board. The board can be bent to make lovely flowing walls. The plaster squishes through the holes to attach itself to the peg board.

TIPS FOR HAPPY COBBERS

cob-121.jpgCobbing is most fun when done with others! Having regular weekend cob house-raising, potluck parties is a great way to get to know your neighbors, and a fun way to play with your friends and get your house built.

It is important for your health to drink plenty of water while you're cobbing. Because it doesn't seem like hard work, it's easy to get dehydrated. Encourage cobbers to drink by having inviting drinking water easily accessible on the site. Remind each other to drink.

Do like the English do and have morning and afternoon tea on the site. A little rest and a snack help keep cobbers keen.

Take time to be artistic. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to use all your amazing imagination and creativity. You can bury magic things in the walls. Make up rituals. Allow sacredness and beauty in your life.

Cob walls preserve things that are buried in them very well. It's fun to bury a time capsule, a bottle full of things that are likely to last a few centuries (coins, computer disks, ceramic, plastic). This will tell a story about our time in history. An archaeologist hundreds of years from now will have some clues about you, the mysterious modern/ ancient builder.

Singing, drumming, and cobbing go together perfectly. Work goes faster and tiredness disappears! People can reach states of total ecstasy combining these three things. Remember to enjoy yourself and your cobbing friends!

It's fun to have a special photo album / journal of the building process. This can be combined with a guest book, or have a separate book for co-creators and visitors to sign and make comments in.

If you want to cob when it's too cold for your fingers, wear those cloth gloves whose fingers have been dipped in green rubbery stuff. You can wear thinsulite liners under them for extra warmth. If you need to wear shoes, the less tread the better, because the mud won't stick to them so much.
The cob builders checklist

On the following page is the check list. Read over it to get ideas. This is to help you remember what to add to the walls as you build. I recommend that you enlarge, photocopy and laminate the checklist. Hang it up at the building site so it's easy for you to check it often as your home grows.

COB BUILDERS CHECKLIST
SELECT SITE

develop access
design house
gather materials and tools
get water to site
set up temporary shelter for while you build
plan drainage and floor levels
create drainage
do septic
make cob tests

FOUNDATION

dig for foundation to solid ground, below frost level� remember foundation for buttresses and fireplace (optional)
plan for foundation insulation (optional)
lay pipes for water and electric wires and for fire vent (slanting to outside of house &amp; overhanging wall)
build door threshold
set up, square, plumb, and brace door frame
put keying system on outside of door frame
build foundation and door threshold

WALLS�FIRST TWO FEET

put pipes in for water and electric wires if you haven't already put them in foundation
set up electric
start cobbing
build in stove and/or fireplace as you go and bury woodstove pipe in wall (optional)
start cantilevering for benches (top of seat height usually 14" from floor)
put in low vent to admit air on cool side of house
build in branches for future additions
if you're having wooden upright supports for floor-to-ceiling shelving, put them up and brace
incorporate wood into walls for (optional)
lower cupboard shelving
lower ladder rungs
bench support poles (inside &amp; out)
opening for firewood box
install electric outlets (optional)
angle backs of benches so they're comfy
roughly level floor(s) as you gather cob mix material
establish wall taper angle as you build
build window seats

WALLS�TWO TO FOUR FEET

key in window sills and windows on sun-facing wall
bury shelf supports or create cantilevered cob shelves
sculpt in niches
leave ledges to support counter-tops or bury counters into walls; if necessary, add posts for counter supports
put in openable windows (keyed to cob)
bury scaffolding supports 3-1/2 to 4 feet up walls (inside and out) and brace them
keep incorporating branches for future additions
continue wall taper

WALLS�FOUR FEET AND UP

put in lintels or arches over windows
sculpt art into walls or fatten wall for future carving art (optional)
add more niches and shelves
sculpt/install lighting fixtures
incorporate wood for
cupboard supports
hanging artwork
branches for closet racks, hat &amp; coat hooks
hooks for hanging kitchen stuff (pot racks)
curtain rod supports at tops of windows
build in wooden support poles for porch roofs, awnings, firewood shed, etc.
if you're making a loft, leave ledges and bury support beam in the wall
put an openable vent on highest wall

ROOF

bury rafters and keys for rafters
put up roof beams and rafters�attach keys
put up ceiling or leave a place in cob to slide ceiling sheathing onto
insert screened tubes in cob between rafters to ventilate insulation space
insulate roof well
install roofing
hang gutters (this is very important!)
put in stove pipe, chimney, flashing, skylights

PLASTERING

if you're using lime, mix up putty and let it sit at least two weeks
make and analyze some plaster experiments
carve and shape walls
wet walls
plaster (multiple layers if desired)
embed tiles vertically along "wet" counters and for decoration on sills, etc.
paint walls or lime wash (optional)
preserve exposed wood

FINISHING TOUCHES

hang doors and windows
hook up plumbing fixtures
do electrical finishing work
wood shelves, counters, shutters, lids, curtain rods, cupboard doors

FLOOR

if you've put off doing drainage, do it now!
do some floor material experiments
roughly level floor if you haven't already
build step edges at elevation changes
tamp
for an earthen floor, level guide nails; lay floor; dry; lay next layer; dry; oil, and/or wax

MOVE IN &amp; BEAUTIFY

create landscape elements porches outdoor walls paths
trellises
benches
outdoor fire
gardens

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The Concept of Our Great Power

Translated by Frederik Wisse

The Perception of Understanding
The Concept of the Great Power

He who will know our great Power will become invisible, and fire will not be able to consume him. But it will purge and destroy all of your possessions. For everyone in whom my form will appear will be saved, from (the age of) seven days up to one hundred and twenty years. (Those) whom I constrained to gather all that is fallen - and the writings of our great Power, in order that he may inscribe your name in our great light - and their thoughts and their works may be ended, that they may be purged, and be scattered and be destroyed, and be gathered in the place which no one in it sees. But you will see me, and you will prepare your dwelling places in our great Power.

Know how what has departed came to be, in order that you may know how to discern what lives to become: of what appearance that aeon is, or what kind it is, or how it will come to be. Why do you not ask what kind you will become, (or) rather how you came to be?

Discern what size the water is, that it is immeasurable (and) incomprehensible, both its beginning and its end. It supports the earth; it blows in the air where the gods and the angels are. But in him who is exalted above all these there is the fear and the light, and in him are my writings revealed. I have given them as a service to the creation of the physical things, for it is not possible for anyone to stand without that One, nor is it possible for the aeon to live without him. It is he who possesses what is in him by discerning (it) in purity.

Then behold the Spirit and know where he is. He gave himself to men that they may receive life from him every day, since he has his life within him; he gives to them all.

Then the darkness together with Hades took the fire. And he (the darkness) will release from himself what is mine. His eyes were not able to endure my light. After the spirits and the waters moved, the remainder came into being: the whole aeon of the creation, and their <powers>. The fire came forth from them and the Power came in the midst of the powers. And the powers desired to see my image. And the soul became its replica.

This is the work that came into being. See what it is like, that before it comes into being it does not see, because the aeon of the flesh came to be in the great bodies. And there were apportioned to them long days in the creation. For when they had polluted themselves and had entered into the flesh, the father of the flesh, the water, avenged himself. For when he had found that Noah was pious (and) worthy - and it is the father of the flesh who holds the angels in subjection. And he (Noah) preached piety for one hundred and twenty years. And no one listened to him. And he made a wooden ark, and whom he had found entered it. And the flood took place.

And thus Noah was saved with his sons. For if indeed the ark had not been meant for man to enter, then the water of the flood would not have come. In this way he intended (and) planned to save the gods and the angels, and the powers, the greatness of all of these, and the <nourishment> and the way of life. And he moves them from the aeon (and) nourishes them in the permanent places. And the judgment of the flesh was unleashed. Only the work of the Power stood up.

Next the psychic aeon. It is a small one, which is mixed with bodies, by begetting in the souls (and) defiling (them). For the first defilement of the creation found strength. And it begot every work: many works of wrath, anger, envy, malice, hatred, slander, contempt and war, lying and evil counsels, sorrows and pleasures, basenesses and defilements, falsehoods and diseases, evil judgments that they decree according to their desires.

Yet you are sleeping, dreaming dreams. Wake up and return, taste and eat the true food! Hand out the word and the water of life! Cease from the evil lusts and desires and (the teachings of) the Anomoeans, evil heresies that have no basis.

And the mother of the fire was impotent. She brought the fire upon the soul and the earth, and she burned all <the> dwellings that are in it. And its shepherd perished. Moreover, when she does not find anything else to burn, she will destroy herself. And it will become incorporeal, without body, and it will burn matter, until it has cleansed everything, - and all wickedness. For when it does not find anything else to burn, it will turn against itself until it has destroyed itself.

Then, in this aeon, which is the psychic one, the man will come into being who knows the great Power. He will receive (me) and he will know me. He will drink from the milk of the mother, in fact. He will speak in parables; he will proclaim the aeon that is to come, just as he spoke in the first aeon of the flesh, as Noah. Now concerning his words, which he uttered, he spoke in all of them, in seventy-two tongues. And he opened the gates of the heavens with his words. And he put to shame the ruler of Hades; he raised the dead, and he destroyed his dominion.

Then a great disturbance took place. The archons raised up their wrath against him. They wanted to hand him over to the ruler of Hades. Then they recognized one of his followers. A fire took hold of his soul. He (Judas?) handed him over, since no one knew him (Jesus?). They acted and seized him. They brought judgment upon themselves. And they delivered him up to the ruler of Hades. And they handed him over to Sasabek for nine bronze coins. He prepared himself to go down and put them to shame. Then the ruler of Hades took him. And he found that the nature of his flesh could not be seized, in order to show it to the archons. But he was saying: "Who is this? What is it? His word has abolished the law of the aeon. He is from the Logos of the power of life." And he was victorious over the command of the archons, and they were not able by their work to rule over him.

The archons searched after that which had come to pass. They did not know that this is the sign of their dissolution, and (that) it is the change of the aeon. The sun set during the day; that day became dark. The evil spirits were troubled. And after these things he will appear ascending. And the sign of the aeon that is to come will appear. And the aeons will dissolve.

And those who would know these things that were discussed with them, will become blessed. And they will reveal them, and they will become blessed, since they will come to know the truth. For you have found rest in the heavens.

Then many will follow him, and they will labor in their birthplaces. They will go about; they will write down his words according to (their) desire.

Behold, these aeons have passed. What size is the water of the aeon that has dissolved? What dimensions do aeons have? How will men prepare themselves, and how will they be established, and how will they become indestructible aeons?

But at first, after his preaching - it is he who proclaims the second aeon, and the first. And the first aeon perished in the course of time. He made the first aeon, going about in it until it perished, while preaching one hundred and twenty years in number. This is the perfect number that is highly exalted. He made the border of the West desolate, and he destroyed the East. Then your seed and those who wish to follow our great Logos and his proclamation - [...]

Then the wrath of the archons burned. They were ashamed of their dissolution. And they fumed and were angry at the life. The cities were <overturned>; the mountains dissolve. The archon came, with the archons of the western regions, to the East, i.e., that place where the Logos appeared at first. Then the earth trembled, and the cities were troubled. Moreover, the birds ate and were filled with their dead. The earth mourned together with the inhabited world; they became desolate.

Then when the times were completed, then wickedness arose mightily even until the final end of the Logos. Then the archon of the western regions arose, and from the East he will perform a work, and he will instruct men in his wickedness. And he wants to nullify all teaching, the words of true wisdom, while loving the lying wisdom. For he attacked the old, wishing to introduce wickedness and to put on dignity. He was incapable, because the defilement of his garments is great. Then he became angry. He appeared and desired to go up and to pass up to that place.

Then the appointed time came and drew near. And he changed the commands. Then the time came until the child had grown up. When he had come to his maturity, then the archons sent the imitator to that man in order that they might know our great Power. And they were expecting from him that he would perform for them a sign. And he bore great signs. And he reigned over the whole earth and all those who are under heaven. He placed his throne upon the end of the earth, for "I shall make you god of the world". He will perform signs and wonders. Then they will turn from me, and they will go astray.

Then those men who will follow after him will introduce circumcision. And he will pronounce judgment upon those who are from the uncircumcision, who are the (true) people. For in fact he sent many preachers beforehand, who preached on his behalf.

When he has completed the established time of the kingdom of the earth, then the cleansing of the souls will come, since wickedness is stronger than you. All the powers of the sea will tremble and dry up, And the firmament will not pour down dew. The springs will cease. The rivers will not flow down to their springs. And the waters of the springs of the earth will cease. Then the depths will be laid bare and they will open. The stars will grow in size, and the sun will cease.

And I shall withdraw with everyone who will know me. And they will enter into the immeasurable light, (where) there is no one of the flesh nor the wantonness of the first to seize them. They will be unhampered (and) holy, since nothing drags them down. I myself protect them, since they have holy garments, which the fire cannot touch, nor darkness nor wind nor a moment, so as to cause one to shut the eyes.

Then he will come to destroy all of them. And they will be chastised until they become pure. Moreover their period, which was given to them to have power, which was apportioned to them, (is) fourteen hundred and sixty years. When the fire has consumed them all, and when it does not find anything else to burn, then it will perish by its own hand. Then the [...] will be completed [...] the second power [...] the mercy will come [...] through wisdom [...]. Then the firmaments will fall down into the depth. Then the sons of matter will perish; they will not be, henceforth.

Then the souls will appear, who are holy through the light of the Power, who is exalted, above all powers, the immeasurable, the universal one, I and all those who will know me. And they will be in the aeon of beauty of the aeon of judgment, since they are ready in wisdom, having given glory to him who is in the incomprehensible unity; and they see him because of his will, which is in them. And they all have become as reflections in his light. They all have shone, and they have found rest in his rest.

And he will release the souls that are being punished, and they will come to be in purity. And they will see the saints and cry out to them, "Have mercy on us, O Power who art above all powers!" For [...] and in the tree of iniquity that exists [...] to him their eyes. And they do not seek him because they do not seek us, nor do they believe us, but they acted according to the creation of the archons and its other rulers. But we have acted according to our birth of the flesh, in the creation of the archons, which gives law. We also have come to be in the unchangeable aeon.

The Concept of Our Great Power

The Cosmic Orphan
Fifteenth Editon
Loren Eiseley

When I was a young lad of that indefinite but important age when one begins to ask, Who am I? Why am I here? What is the nature of my kind? What is growing up? What is the world? How shall I live in it? Where shall I go? I found myself walking with a small companion over a high railroad trestle that spanned a stream, a country bridge, and a road. One could look fearfully down, between the ties, at the shallows and ripples in the shining water some 50 feet below. One was also doing a forbidden thing, against which our parents constantly warned. One must not be caught on the black bridge by a train. Something terrible might happen, a thing called death.

From the abutment of the bridge we gazed down upon the water and saw among the pebbles the shape of an animal we knew only from picture books-a turtle, a very large, dark mahogany-coloured turtle. We scrambled down the embankment to observe him more closely. From the little bridge a few feet above the stream, I saw that the turtle, whose beautiful markings shone in the afternoon sun, was not alive and that his flippers waved aimlessly in the rushing water. The reason for his death was plain. Not too long before we had come upon the trestle, someone engaged in idle practice with a repeating rifle had stitched a row of bullet holes across the turtle's carapace and sauntered on.

My father had once explained to me that it took a long time to make a big turtle, years really, in the sunlight and the water and the mud. I turned the ancient creature over and fingered the etched shell with its forlorn flippers flopping grotesquely. The question rose up unbidden. Why did the man have to kill something living that could never be replaced? I laid the turtle down in the water and gave it a little shove. It entered the current and began to drift away. "Let's go home," I said to my companion. From that moment I think I began to grow.

"Papa," I said in the evening by the oil lamp in our kitchen. "Tell me how men got here." Papa paused. Like many fathers of that time he was worn from long hours, he was not highly educated, but he had a beautiful resonant voice and he had been born on a frontier homestead. He knew the ritual way the Plains Indians opened a story.

"Son," he said, taking the pattern of another people for our own, "once there was a poor orphan." He said it in such a way that I sat down at his feet. "Once there was a poor orphan with no one to teach him either his way, or his manners. Sometimes animals helped him, sometimes supernatural beings. But above all, one thing was evident. Unlike other occupants of Earth he had to be helped. He did not know his place, he had to find it. Sometimes he was arrogant and had to learn humility, sometimes he was a coward and had to be taught bravery. Sometimes he did not understand his Mother Earth and suffered for it. The old ones who starved and sought visions on hilltops had known these things. They were all gone now and the magic had departed with them. The orphan was alone; he had to learn by himself; it was a hard school."

My father tousled my head; he gently touched my heart. "You will learn in time there is much pain here," he said. "Men will give it to you, time will give it to you, and you must learn to bear it all, not bear it alone, but be better for the wisdom that may come to you if you watch and listen and learn. Do not forget the turtle, nor the ways of men. They are all orphans and they go astray; they do wrong things. Try to see better."

"Yes, papa," I said, and that was how I believe I came to study men, not the men of written history but the ancestors beyond, beyond all writing, beyond time as we know it, beyond human form as it is known today. Papa was right when he told me men were orphans, eternal seekers. They had little in the way of instinct to instruct them, they had come a strange far road in the universe, passed more than one, black, threatening bridge. There were even more to pass, and each one became more dangerous as our knowledge grew. Because man was truly an orphan and confined to no single way of life, he was, in essence a prison breaker. But in ignorance his very knowledge sometimes led from one terrible prison to another. Was the final problem then, to escape himself, or, if not that, to reconcile his devastating intellect with his heart? All of the knowledge set down in great books directly or indirectly affects this problem. It is the problem of every man, for even the indifferent man is making, unknown to himself, his own callous judgment.

Long ago, however, in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls hidden in the Judaean Desert, an unknown scribe had written: "None there be, can rehearse the whole tale." That phrase, too, contains the warning that man is an orphan of uncertain beginnings and an indefinite ending. All that the archaeological and anthropological sciences can do is to place a somewhat flawed crystal before man and say: This is the way you came, these are your present dangers; somewhere, seen dimly beyond, lies your destiny. God help you, you are a cosmic orphan, a symbol-shifting magician, mostly immature and inattentive without humility of heart. This the old ones knew long ago in the great deserts under the stars. This they sought to learn and pass on. It is the only hope of men.

What have we observed that might be buried as the Dead Sea Scrolls were buried for 2,000 years, and be broken out of a jar for human benefit, brief words that might be encompassed on a copper scroll or a ragged sheet of vellum? Only these thoughts, I think, we might reasonably set down as true, now and hereafter. For a long time, for many, many centuries, Western man believed in what we might call the existent world of nature; form as form was seen as constant in both animal and human guise. He believed in the instantaneous creation of his world by the Deity; he believed its duration to be very short, a stage upon which the short drama of a human fall from divine estate and a redemption was in progress.

Worldly time was a small parenthesis in eternity. Man lived with that belief, his cosmos small and man-centred. Then, beginning about 350 years ago, thoughts unventured upon since the time of the Greek philosophers began to enter the human consciousness. They may be summed up in Francis Bacon's dictum: "This is the foundation of all. We are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do."
When in following years scientific experiment and observation became current, a vast change began to pass over Western thought. Man's conception of himself and his world began to alter beyond recall. "'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone," exclaimed the poet John Donne, Bacon's contemporary. The existing world was crumbling at the edges. It was cracking apart like an ill-nailed raft in a torrent-a torrent of incredible time. It was, in effect, a new nature comprising a past embedded in the present and a future yet to be.

First, Bacon discerned a mundus alter, another separate world that could be drawn out of nature by human intervention-the world that surrounds and troubles us today. Then, by degrees, time depths of tremendous magnitude began, in the late 18th century, to replace the Christian calendar. Space, from a surrounding candelabrum of stars, began to widen to infinity. The Earth was recognized as a mere speck drifting in the wake of a minor star, itself rotating around an immense galaxy composed of innumerable suns. Beyond and beyond, into billions of light years, other galaxies glowed through clouds of wandering gas and interstellar dust. Finally, and perhaps the most shocking blow of all, the natural world of the moment proved to be an illusion, a phantom of man's short lifetime. Organic novelty lay revealed in the strata of the Earth. Man had not always been here. He had been preceded, in the 4,000,000,000 years of the planet's history, by floating mollusks, strange fern forests, huge dinosaurs, flying lizards, giant mammals whose bones lay under the dropped boulders of vanished continental ice sheets.

The Orphan cried out in protest, as the cold of naked space entered his bones, "Who am I?" And once more science answered. "You are a changeling. You are linked by a genetic chain to all the vertebrates. The thing that is you bears the still aching wounds of evolution in body and in brain. Your hands are made-over fins, your lungs come from a creature gasping in a swamp, your femur has been twisted upright. Your foot is a reworked climbing pad. You are a rag doll resewn from the skins of extinct animals. Long ago, 2,000,000 years perhaps, you were smaller, your brain was not large. We are not confident that you could speak. Seventy million years before that you were an even smaller climbing creature known as a tupaiid. You were the size of a rat. You ate insects. Now you fly to the Moon."

"This is a fairy tale," protested the Orphan. "I am here, I will look in the mirror."

"Of course it is a fairy tale," said the scientists, "but so is the world and so is life. That is what makes it true. Life is indefinite departure. That is why we are all orphans. That is why you must find your own way. Life is not stable. Everything alive is slipping through cracks and crevices in time, changing as it goes. Other creatures, however, have instincts that provide for them, homes in which to hide. They cannot ask questions. A fox is a fox, a wolf is a wolf, even if this, too, is illusion. You have learned to ask questions. That is why you are, an orphan. You are the only creature in the universe who knows what it has been. Now you must go on asking questions while all the time you are changing. You will ask what you are to become. The world will no longer satisfy you. You must find your way, your own true self."

"But how can I?" wept the Orphan, hiding his head. "This is magic. I do not know what I am. I have been too many things."

"You have indeed," said all the scientists together. "Your body and your nerves have been dragged about and twisted in the long effort of your ancestors to stay alive, but now, small orphan that you are, you must know a secret, a secret magic that nature has given to you. No other creature on the planet possesses it. You use language. You are a symbol-shifter. All this is hidden in your brain and transmitted from one generation to another. You are a time-binder, in your head symbols that mean things in the world outside can fly about untrammeled. You can combine them differently into a new world of thought or you can also hold them tenaciously throughout a lifetime and pass them on to others."

Thus out of words, a puff of air, really, is made all that is uniquely human, all that is new from one human generation to another. But remember what was said of the wounds of evolution. The brain, parts of it at least, is very old, the parts laid down in sequence like geological strata. Buried deep beneath the brain with which we reason are ancient defense centres quick to anger, quick to aggression, quick to violence, over which the neocortex, the new brain, strives to exert control. Thus there are times when the Orphan is a divided being striving against himself. Evil men know this. Sometimes they can play upon it for their own political advantage. Men crowded together, subjected to the same stimuli, are quick to respond to emotion that in the quiet of their own homes they might analyze more cautiously.

Scientists have found that the very symbols which crowd our brains may possess their own dangers. It is convenient for the thinker to classify an idea with a word. This can sometimes lead to a process called hypostatization or reification. Take the word "Man," for example. There are times when it is useful to categorize the creature briefly, his history, his embracing characteristics. From this, if we are not careful of our meanings, it becomes easy to speak of all men as though they were one person. In reality men have been seeking this unreal man for thousands of years. They have found him bathed in blood, they have found him in the hermit's cell, he has been glimpsed among innumerable messiahs, or in meditation under the sacred bô tree; he has been found in the physician's study or lit by the satanic fires of the first atomic explosion.

In reality he has never been found at all. The reason is very simple: men have been seeking Man capitalized, an imaginary creature constructed out of disparate parts in the laboratory of the human imagination. Some men may thus perceive him and see him as either totally beneficent or wholly evil. They would be wrong. They are wrong so long as they have vitalized this creation and call it "Man." There is no Man; there are only men: good, evil, inconceivable mixtures marred by their genetic makeup, scarred or improved by their societal surroundings. So long as they live they are men, multitudinous and unspent potential for action. Men are great objects of study, but the moment we say "Man" we are in danger of wandering into a swamp of abstraction.

Surveying our fossil history perhaps we are not even justified as yet in calling ourselves true men. The word carries subtle implications that extend beyond us into the time stream. If a remote half-human ancestor, barely able to speak, had had a word for his kind, as very likely he did, and just supposing it had been "man," would we approve the usage, the shape-freezing quality of it, now? I think not. Perhaps no true orphan would wish to call himself anything but a traveler. Man in a cosmic timeless sense may not be here.

The point is particularly apparent in the light of a recent and portentous discovery. In 1953 James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick discovered the structure of the chemical alphabet out of which all that lives is constituted. It was a strange spiral ladder within the cell, far more organized and complicated than 19th-century biologists had imagined; the tiny building blocks constantly reshuffled in every mating had both an amazing stability and paradoxically, over long time periods, a power to alter the living structure of a species beyond recall. The thing called man had once been a tree shrew on a forest branch; now it manipulates abstract symbols in its brain from which skyscrapers rise, bridges span the horizon, disease is conquered, the Moon is visited.
Molecular biologists have begun to consider whether the marvelous living alphabet which lies at the root of evolution can be manipulated for human benefit. Already some varieties of domesticated plants and animals have been improved. Now at last man has begun to eye his own possible road into the future. By delicate excisions and intrusions could the mysterious alphabet we carry in our bodies be made to hasten our advancements into the future?

Already our urban concentrations, with all their aberrations and faults, are future-oriented. Why not ourselves? It is in our power to perpetuate great minds ad infinitum? But who is to judge? Who is to select this future man? There is the problem. Which of us poor orphans by the roadside, even those peering learnedly through the electron microscope, can be confident of the way into the future? Could the fish unaided by nature have found the road to the reptile, the reptile to the mammal, the mammal to man? And how was man endowed with speech? Could men choose their way? Suddenly before us towers the blackest, most formidable bridge of our experience. Across what chasm does it run?

Biologists tell us that in the fullness of times more than ninety percent of the world's past species have perished. The mammalian ones in particular are not noted for longevity. If the scalpal, the excising laser ray in the laboratory, were placed in the hands of one person, some one poor orphan, what would he do? If assured, would he reproduce himself alone? If cruel, would he by indirection succeed in abolishing the living world? If doubtful of the road, would he reproduce the doubt? "Nothing is more shameful than assertion without knowledge," the great Roman statesman and orator Cicero once pronounced as though he had foreseen this final bridge of human pride-the pride of a god without foresight.
After the disasters of the second World War when the dream of perpetual progress died from men's minds, an orphan of this violent century wrote a poem about the great extinctions revealed in the rocks of the planet. It concludes as follows:

I am not sure I love
the cruelties found in our blood
from some lost evil tree in our beginnings.
May the powers forgive and seal us deep
when we lie down,
May harmless dormice creep and red leaves fall
over the prisons where we wreaked our will.
Dachau, Auschwitz, those places everywhere.
If I could pray, I would pray long for this.

One may conclude that the poet was a man of doubt. He did not regret man; he was confident that leaves, rabbits, and songbirds would continue life, as, long ago, a tree shrew had happily forgotten the ruling reptiles. The poet was an orphan in shabby circumstances pausing by the roadside to pray, for he did pray despite his denial; God forgive us all. He was a man in doubt upon the way. He was the eternal orphan of my father's story. Let us then, as similar orphans who have come this long way through time, be willing to assume the risks of the uncompleted journey.

We must know, as that forlorn band of men in Judaea knew when they buried the jar, that man's road is to be sought beyond himself. No man there is who can tell the whole tale. After the small passage of 2,000 years who would deny this truth?

The ten years of the dark ages began on Jan. 28, 2000.

I will try to relate this as accurately as I can. It is a time filled with despair and shame. It was a time of a downward spiral which seemed that would never end. It started with an arrest. It proceeded with the lost of everything I thought gave meaning to my life.

I have lost in excess of $200, 000 in income. I have lost all respect in professional circles, any and all professional colleagues, and lost of any social standing.

I am 54 years old and I am starting over again. I wonder how much life I have to live. I will never get back the material things. Perhaps I will never get back my friends. It seems that all I have left to strive for is my social standing and having the opportunity to to do the work I love. And perhaps doing this work til the end of my life. It would be a great honor and I would be forever greatful.

Back to 2000. It was Friday night. It was the end of my work week. I had gotten ready for bed and was waiting for the Jay Leno Show to come on. It was a 11:30 p.m. I received a phone call.

It was Jeanie. It was not unusual to get phone calls from Jeanie at this time of night. It was about the time he was ready to leave work. She stated that someone at her work was having a birthday, or some celebration, so she, her cousins, and some of the gang at work was going to the Carson Pub to party. She asked if I wanted to come. I hesitated, but I was off the next day so I said okay.

I had on sweats. I put on my shoes. I grabbed a hat and coat and went to the Carson Pub.

I had a 98 S10 pickup at the time. I drove to the bar near the intersection of Thompson and Carson Ave.

Jeanie and the entourage has already arrived. In addition to Jeanie, there was Beth White, Donna Roy [her cousin] and her boyfriend, and two Mexican guys.

The Carson Pub was having karoke that night. Jeanie and her cousin like to sing.

Jeanie got upset about something that night and seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder. These were her friends and she invited me. She even spent much of the evening dancing with others.

The weather outside turned bad. As in a lot of pubs, TV were continually on. The news alerts said a bad snow storm was coming in so, the bar staff decided to close at 1 AM. I guess they were looking for any excuse to close early.

The group talked about going somewhere else and it was decided to go to Jeanie and Donna's apartment. It was just a couple of miles away.

Jeanie drove her car and I drove my truck. We all pretty much arrived at the same time and went up stairs to Jeanie's apartment.

We settled in. Jeanie started fixing drinks and I went to turn on the stereo. I changed stations and Jeanie got real nasty with me. I said, or thought, "you invited me. Why are you being so mean?"

I said something to the effect that I was tired of her treating me so bad. I went down the hallway to get a photo off the bulletin board that she had taken, with out me knowing it, from my house. I knew she had it because I was over a few days earlier. I told her I was going back there and get my picture. It was a picture of Jeanie and I had the Wildhorses Saloon in Nashville, TN, taken in 1998.

Jeanie followed me down the hall beating me and calling me names. I turned into the bed room and turned around. I distinctly remembered something that I always taught in my classes on anger management. I remember saying to myself, "don't raise you hands above her elbows." This is one of the most basic principles taught how to deal with anger in a volatile and heated fight. I also remember thinking that "those guys out there are going to think I am beating her."

As I walked down the hallway, Jeanie kept hitting me and cursing. I remember thinking, "what if I going to say to these people. They are going to think I done something to her." I remember trying to say it was okay in a feeble attempt to settle things. I even signaled with my hands, moving my palms down signaling calm.

I went to shake the hand of one of the Mexicans and tired to tell him it was ok. He stood up and I guess I thought he was getting in my space or was going to attack me. I also remember being real mad so and insulted, so I have to admit it could have been some of the motivation. I slapped him and left.

I went down stairs, walked to my car, and drove home. I went to bed. I fell a sleep with the TV on.

I was a waken about two hours later by my cell phone. Jeanie was contrite. She said she wanted to spend the night and was coming over. She missed me and was sorry, etc. She was also very drunk. I said no and even thought about getting up and leaving. She said she was calling cause I had recently taken away her key to the upstairs apartment where I slept. She had come over one night and was able to get in downstairs, but the interior door to the upstairs apartment was locked and she couldn't wake me up. She had stayed on the couch downstairs.

A few minutes later, I heard a knock on my door. I went down stairs and opened the door. To my shock, it was two deputies.
They forced their way in, not that I gave any resistance. They used their flashlights and started going through my sock drawers and other things. I never did learn what they were looking for.

They asked me to come downstairs. I put on some house slippers. They asked me to come outside. I slipped on the payment as it had snowed on top of an ice layer. The house shoes did offer much protection. As I fell down my cat ran out the door. When I got up, the officer told me to put my hands behind me. I kept asking what was going on. He would not tell me. He put me in the back of the car without a coat and with my house slippers on. He fiddle and wrote for a while. He then started driving toward downtown. About ten minutes later he finally told me that I was under arrest for two counts of battery. I was shocked. I asked for what and who did I batter. He never told me and took me on to jail.

That is the short story. That is what happen. I will detail more and the flesh out later on. I would have never guessed that this would have cost me so much. If I had an inkling of the toll, I would have fought the matter much more legally. It would have been better to lose everything I had then and be free than to lose everything over a period of months and still be in bondage these many years later.

I called into work on Monday, I was going to call in sick. The CIU manager, Gina Rizzo, got on the phone. She said that Captain Lincoln Plowman had called and wanted me to call him. He apparently had told her about the arrest. I called Plowman later in the day. He told me that I was banned from the jail and the medical office. He said that I needed to turn in my keys and all credentials. My brother Rick took them down to Plowman's office later after the Captain had called a few times threatening to come get them himself. I believe some of Plowman's hostility and anger stemmed from a meeting two weeks prior where he wanted me to lie and change a report that I had written for the IU research team and the ad hoc committee on jail overcrowding.

This was quite a shock. Just a few days after an improper arrest, I was determined guilty and banned from my work at the jail. Almost all of my work had to do with the criminal justice system. If I was banned from the jail, I could not do my job.

I became physically ill. I started having panic attacks.

I got into see my doctor in a couple of days. I told him what happened and the stress I was suffering. I also told him about the panic attacks and the physical problems. He ran some tests.

While I had been a borderline diabetic for a few years, the tests showed that I had went to full diabetes. Perhaps it was the stress.

Due to the stress and the medical problems, my doctor put me on FML. I had over six months of sick time saved up. I ended using in all.

The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth

Translated by James Brashler, Peter A. Dirkse, and Douglas M. Parrott

"My father, yesterday you promised me that you would bring my mind into the eighth and afterwards you would bring me into the ninth. You said that this is the order of the tradition."
"My son, indeed this is the order. But the promise was according to human nature. For I told you when I initiated the promise, I said, 'If you hold in mind each one of the steps.' After I had received the spirit through the power, I set forth the action for you. Indeed, the understanding dwells in you; in me (it is) as though the power were pregnant. For when I conceived from the fountain that flowed to me, I gave birth."

"My father, you have spoken every word well to me. But I am amazed at this statement that you have just made. For you said, 'The power that is in me'."
He said, "I gave birth to it (the power), as children are born."

"Then, my father, I have many brothers, if I am to be numbered among the offspring."
"Right, my son! This good thing is numbered by ... (3 lines missing) ... and [...] at all times. Therefore, my son, it is necessary for you to recognize your brothers and to honor them rightly and properly, because they come from the same father. For each generation I have called. I have named it, because they were offspring like these sons."

"Then, my father, do they have (a) day?"
"My son, they are spiritual ones. For they exist as forces that grow other souls. Therefore I say that they are immortal."

"Your word is true; it has no refutation from now on. My father, begin the discourse on the eighth and the ninth, and include me also with my brothers."
"Let us pray, my son, to the father of the universe, with your brothers who are my sons, that he may give the spirit of eloquence."

"How do they pray, my father, when joined with the generations? I want to obey, my father."
(2 lines missing) ... But it is not [...]. Nor is it a [...]. But he is satisfied with her [...] him [...]. And it is right for you to remember the progress that came to you as wisdom in the books, my son. Compare yourself to the early years of life. As children (do), you have posed senseless, unintelligent questions."

"My father, the progress that has come to me now, and the foreknowledge, according to the books, that has come to me, exceeding the deficiency - these things are foremost in me."
"My son, when you understand the truth of your statement, you will find your brothers, who are my sons, praying with you."

"My father, I understand nothing else except the beauty that came to me in the books."
"This is what you call the beauty of the soul, the edification that came to you in stages. May the understanding come to you, and you will teach."

"I have understood, my father, each one of the books. And especially the ... (2 lines missing) ... which is in [...]."
"My son, [...] in praises from those who extolled them."

"My father, from you I will receive the power of the discourse that you will give. As it was told to both (of us), let us pray, my father."
"My son, what is fitting is to pray to God with all our mind and all our heart and our soul, and to ask him that the gift of the eighth extend to us, and that each one receive from him what is his. Your part, then, is to understand; my own is to be able to deliver the discourse from the fountain that flows to me."

"Let us pray, my father: I call upon you, who rules over the kingdom of power, whose word comes as (a) birth of light. And his words are immortal. They are eternal and unchanging. He is the one whose will begets life for the forms in every place. His nature gives form to substance. By him, the souls of the eighth and the angels are moved ... (2 lines missing) ... those that exist. His providence extends to everyone [...] begets everyone. He is the one who [...] the aeon among spirits. He created everything. He who is self-contained cares for everything. He is perfect, the invisible God to whom one speaks in silence - his image is moved when it is directed, and it governs - the one mighty power, who is exalted above majesty, who is better than the honored (ones), Zoxathazo a oo ee ooo eee oooo ee oooooo ooooo oooooo uuuuuu oooooooooooo ooo Zozazoth.

"Lord, grant us a wisdom from your power that reaches us, so that we may describe to ourselves the vision of the eighth and the ninth. We have already advanced to the seventh, since we are pious and walk in your law. And your will we fulfill always. For we have walked in your way, and we have renounced [...], so that your vision may come. Lord, grant us the truth in the image. Allow us through the spirit to see the form of the image that has no deficiency, and receive the reflection of the pleroma from us through our praise.

"And acknowledge the spirit that is in us. For from you the universe received soul. For from you, the unbegotten one, the begotten one came into being. The birth of the self-begotten one is through you, the birth of all begotten things that exist. Receive from us these spiritual sacrifices, which we send to you with all our heart and our soul and all our strength. Save that which is in us and grant us the immortal wisdom."

"Let us embrace each other affectionately, my son. Rejoice over this! For already from them the power, which is light, is coming to us. For I see! I see indescribable depths. How shall I tell you, my son? [...] from the [...] the places. How shall I describe the universe? I am Mind, and I see another Mind, the one that moves the soul! I see the one that moves me from pure forgetfulness. You give me power! I see myself! I want to speak! Fear restrains me. I have found the beginning of the power that is above all powers, the one that has no beginning. I see a fountain bubbling with life. I have said, my son, that I am Mind. I have seen! Language is not able to reveal this. For the entire eighth, my son, and the souls that are in it, and the angels, sing a hymn in silence. And I, Mind, understand."

"What is the way to sing a hymn through it (silence)?"
"Have you become such that you cannot be spoken to?"

"I am silent, my father. I want to sing a hymn to you while I am silent."
"Then sing it, for I am Mind."

"I understand Mind, Hermes, who cannot be interpreted, because he keeps within himself. And I rejoice, my father, because I see you smiling. And the universe rejoices. Therefore, there is no creature that will lack your life. For you are the lord of the citizens in every place. Your providence protects. I call you 'father', 'aeon of the aeons', 'great divine spirit'. And by a spirit he gives rain upon everyone. What do you say to me, my father, Hermes?"
"Concerning these things, I do not say anything, my son. For it is right before God that we keep silent about what is hidden."
"Trismegistus, let not my soul be deprived of the great divine vision. For everything is possible for you as master of the universe."
"Return to <praising>, my son, and sing while you are silent. Ask what you want in silence."

What he had finished praising, he shouted, "Father Trismegistus! What shall I say? We have received this light. And I myself see this same vision in you. And I see the eighth, and the souls that are in it, and the angels singing a hymn to the ninth and its powers. And I see him who has the power of them all, creating those <that are> in the spirit."

"It is advantageous from now on, that we keep silence in a reverent posture. Do not speak about the vision from now on. It is proper to sing a hymn to the father until the day to quit (the) body."

"What you sing, my father, I too want to sing."
"I am singing a hymn within myself. While you rest yourself, be active in praise. For you have found what you seek."

"But is it proper, my father, that I praise because I am filled in my heart?"
"What is proper is your praise that you will sing to God, so that it might be written in this imperishable book."

"I will offer up the praise in my heart, as I pray to the end of the universe and the beginning of the beginning, to the object of man's quest, the immortal discovery, the begetter of light and truth, the sower of reason, the love of immortal life. No hidden word will be able to speak about you, Lord. Therefore, my mind wants to sing a hymn to you daily. I am the instrument of your spirit; Mind is your plectrum. And your counsel plucks me. I see myself! I have received power from you. For your love has reached us."
"Right, my son."

"Grace! After these things, I give thanks by singing a hymn to you. For I have received life from you, when you made me wise. I praise you. I call your name that is hidden within me: a o ee o eee ooo iii oooo ooooo ooooo uuuuuu oo ooooooooo ooooooooo oo. You are the one who exists with the spirit. I sing a hymn to you reverently."

"My son, write this book for the temple at Diospolis in hieroglyphic characters, entitling it 'The Eighth Reveals the Ninth.'"
"I will do it, my <father>, as you command now."

"My <son>, write the language of the book on steles of turquoise. My son, it is proper to write this book on steles of turquoise, in hieroglyphic characters. For Mind himself has become overseer of these. Therefore, I command that this teaching be carved on stone, and that you place it in my sanctuary. Eight guardians guard it with [...] of the Sun. The males on the right are frog-faced, and the females on the left are cat-faced. And put a square milk-stone at the base of the turquoise tablets, and write the name on the azure stone tablet in hieroglyphic characters. My son, you will do this when I am in Virgo, and the sun is in the first half of the day, and fifteen degrees have passed by me."
"My father, everything that you say I will do eagerly."

"And write an oath in the book, lest those who read the book bring the language into abuse, and not (use it) to oppose the acts of fate. Rather, they should submit to the law of God, without having transgressed at all, but in purity asking God for wisdom and knowledge. And he who will not be begotten at the start by God comes to be by the general and guiding discourses. He will not be able to read the things written in this book, although his conscience is pure within him, since he does not do anything shameful, nor does he consent to it. Rather, by stages he advances and enters into the way of immortality. And thus he enters into the understanding of the eighth that reveals the ninth."
"So shall I do it, my father."

"This is the oath: I make him who will read this holy book swear by heaven and earth, and fire and water, and seven rulers of substance, and the creating spirit in them, and the <unbegotten> God, and the self-begotten one, and him who has been begotten, that he will guard the things that Hermes has said. And those who keep the oath, God will be reconciled with them and everyone whom we have named. But wrath will come to each one of those who violate the oath. This is the perfect one who is, my son."

http://books.google.com/books?id=SbIeptwbooAC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=the+holy+book+of+the+great+invisible+spirit&source=web&ots=_DiY0qUkg1&sig=eKWUk9_wPZdt-_UzBAxFWKZB1U0#PPA5,M1

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.”

The Exegesis on the Soul

Translated by William C. Robinson Jr.

Wise men of old gave the soul a feminine name. Indeed she is female in her nature as well. She even has her womb.

As long as she was alone with the father, she was virgin and in form androgynous. But when she fell down into a body and came to this life, then she fell into the hands of many robbers. And the wanton creatures passed her from one to another and [...] her. Some made use of her by force, while others did so by seducing her with a gift. In short, they defiled her, and she [...] her virginity.

And in her body she prostituted herself and gave herself to one and all, considering each one she was about to embrace to be her husband. When she had given herself to wanton, unfaithful adulterers, so that they might make use of her, then she sighed deeply and repented. But even when she turns her face from those adulterers, she runs to others and they compel her to live with them and render service to them upon their bed, as if they were her masters. Out of shame she no longer dares to leave them, whereas they deceive her for a long time, pretending to be faithful, true husbands, as if they greatly respected her. And after all this they abandon her and go.

She then becomes a poor desolate widow, without help; not even a measure of food was left her from the time of her affliction. For from them she gained nothing except the defilements they gave her while they had sexual intercourse with her. And her offspring by the adulterers are dumb, blind and sickly. They are feebleminded.

But when the father who is above visits her and looks down upon her and sees her sighing - with her sufferings and disgrace - and repenting of the prostitution in which she engaged, and when she begins to call upon his name so that he might help her, [...] all her heart, saying "Save me, my father, for behold I will render an account to thee, for I abandoned my house and fled from my maiden`s quarters. Restore me to thyself again." When he sees her in such a state, then he will count her worthy of his mercy upon her, for many are the afflictions that have come upon her because she abandoned her house.

Now concerning the prostitution on the soul, the Holy Spirit prophesies in many places. For he said in the prophet Jeremiah (3:1-4),

If the husband divorces his wife and she goes and takes another man, can she return to him after that? Has not that woman utterly defiled herself? "And you prostituted yourself to many shepherds and you returned to me!" said the lord. "Take an honest look and see where you prostituted yourself. Were you not sitting in the streets defiling the land with your acts of prostitution and your vices? And you took many shepherds for a stumbling block for yourself. You became shameless with everyone. You did not call on me as kinsman or as father or author of your virginity".

Again it is written in the prophet Hosea (2:2-7),

Come, go to law with your mother, for she is not to be a wife to me nor I a husband to her. I shall remove her prostitution from my presence, and I shall remove her adultery from between her breasts. I shall make her naked as on the day she was born, and I shall make her desolate like a land without water, and I shall make her longingly childless. I shall show her children no pity, for they are children of prostitution, since their mother prostituted herself and put her children to shame. For she said, "I shall prostitute myself to my lovers. It was they who gave me my bread and my water and my garments and my clothes and my wine and my oil and everything I needed." Therefore behold I shall shut them up so that she shall not be able to run after her adulterers. And when she seeks them and does not find them, she will say, 'I shall return to my former husband, in those days I was better off than now."

Again he said in Ezekiel (16:23-26),

It came to pass after much depravity, said the lord, you built yourself a brothel and you made yourself a beautiful place in the streets. And you built yourself brothels on every lane, and you wasted your beauty, and you spread your legs in every alley, and you multiplied your acts of prostitution. You prostituted yourself to the sons of Egypt, those who are your neighbors, men great of flesh.

But what does "the sons of Egypt, men great of flesh" mean, if not the domain of the flesh and the perceptible realm and the affairs of the earth, by which the soul has become defiled here, receiving bread from them, as well as wine, oil, clothing, and the other external nonsense surrounding the body - the things she thinks she needs.

But as to this prostitution, the apostles of the savior commanded (Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25; 1Th 4:3; 1 Co 6:18; 2 Co 7:1): "Guard yourselves against it, purify yourselves from it," speaking not just of the prostitution of the body but especially that of the soul. For this reason the apostles write to the churches of God, that such prostitution might not occur among us.

Yet the greatest struggle has to do with the prostitution of the soul. From it arises the prostitution of the body as well. Therefore Paul, writing to the Corinthians (1Co 5:9-10), said, "I wrote you in the letter, 'Do not associate with prostitutes,' not at all (meaning) the prostitutes of this world or the greedy or the thieves or the idolaters, since then you would have to go out from the world." - here it is speaking spiritually - "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood - as he said (Ep 6:12) - but against the world rulers of this darkness and the spirits of wickedness."

As long as the soul keeps running about everywhere copulating with whomever she meets and defiling herself, she exists suffering her just deserts. But when she perceives the straits she is in and weeps before the father and repents, then the father will have mercy on her and he will make her womb turn from the external domain and will turn it again inward, so that the soul will regain her proper character. For it is not so with a woman. For the womb of the body is inside the body like the other internal organs, but the womb of the soul is around the outside like the male genitalia which is external.

So when the womb of the soul, by the will of the father, turns itself inward, it is baptized and is immediately cleansed of the external pollution which was pressed upon it, just as garments, when dirty, are put into the water and turned about until their dirt is removed and they become clean. And so the cleansing of the soul is to regain the newness of her former nature and to turn herself back again. That is her baptism.

Then she will begin to rage at herself like a woman in labor, who writhes and rages in the hour of delivery. But since she is female, by herself she is powerless to beget a child. From heaven the father sent her her man, who is her brother, the firstborn. Then the bridegroom came down to the bride. She gave up her former prostitution and cleansed herself of the pollutions of the adulterers, and she was renewed so as to be a bride. She cleansed herself in the bridal chamber; she filled it with perfume; she sat in it waiting for the true bridegroom. No longer does she run about the market place, copulating with whomever she desires, but she continued to wait for him - (saying) "When will he come?" - and to fear him, for she did not know what he looked like: she no longer remembers since the time she fell from her father's house. But by the will of the father <...> And she dreamed of him like a woman in love with a man.

But then the bridegroom, according to the father's will, came down to her into the bridal chamber, which was prepared. And he decorated the bridal chamber.

For since that marriage is not like the carnal marriage, those who are to have intercourse with one another will be satisfied with that intercourse. And as if it were a burden, they leave behind them the annoyance of physical desire and they turn their faces from each other. But this marriage [...]. But once they unite with one another, they become a single life. Wherefore the prophet said (Gn 2:24) concerning the first man and the first woman, "They will become a single flesh." For they were originally joined one to another when they were with the father before the woman led astray the man, who is her brother. This marriage has brought them back together again and the soul has been joined to her true love, her real master, as it is written (cf. Gn 3:16; 1 Co 11;1; Ep 5:23), "For the master of the woman is her husband."

Then gradually she recognized him, and she rejoiced once more, weeping before him as she remembered the disgrace of her former widowhood. And she adorned herself still more so that he might be pleased to stay with her.

And the prophet said in the Psalms (Ps 45:10-11): "Hear, my daughter, and see and incline your ear and forget your people and your father's house, for the king has desired your beauty, for he is your lord."

For he requires her to turn her face from her people and the multitude of her adulterers, in whose midst she once was, to devote herself only to her king, her real lord, and to forget the house of the earthly father, with whom things went badly for her, but to remember her father who is in heaven. Thus also it was said (Gn 12:1) to Abraham: "Come out from your country and your kinsfolk and from your father`s house"

Thus when the soul had adorned herself again in her beauty [...] enjoyed her beloved, and he also loved her. And when she had intercourse with him, she got from him the seed that is the life-giving spirit, so that by him she bears good children and rears them. For this is the great, perfect marvel of birth. And so this marriage is made perfect by the will of the father.

Now it is fitting that the soul regenerates herself and become again as she formerly was. The soul then moves of her own accord. And she received the divine nature from the father for her rejuvenation, so that she might be restored to the place where originally she had been. This is the resurrection that is from the dead. This is the ransom from captivity. This is the upward journey of ascent to heaven. This is the way of ascent to the father. Therefore the prophet said (Ps 103:1-5):

"Praise the lord, O my soul, and, all that is within me, (praise) his holy name. My soul, praise God, who forgave all your sins, who healed all your sicknesses, who ransomed your life from death, who crowned you with mercy, who satisfies your longing with good things. Your youth will be renewed like an eagle's."

Then when she becomes young again, she will ascend, praising the father and her brother, by whom she was rescued. Thus it is by being born again that the soul will be saved. And this is due not to rote phrases or to professional skills or to book learning. Rather it is the grace of the [...], it is the gift of the [...]. For such is this heavenly thing. Therefore the savior cries out (Jn 6:44), "No one can come to me unless my Father draws him and brings him to me; and I myself will raise him up on the last day."

It is therefore fitting to pray to the father and to call on him with all our soul - not externally with the lips, but with the spirit, which is inward, which came forth from the depth - sighing; repenting for the life we lived; confessing our sins; perceiving the empty deception we were in, and the empty zeal; weeping over how we were in darkness and in the wave; mourning for ourselves, that he might have pity on us; hating ourselves for how we are now.

Again the savior said (cf Mt 5:4, Lk 6:12): "Blessed are those who mourn, for it is they who will be pitied; blessed, those who are hungry, for it is they who will be filled."

Again he said (cf. Lk 14:26), "If one does not hate his soul he cannot follow me." For the beginning of salvation is repentance. Therefore (cf. Acts 13:24), "Before Christ`s appearance came John, preaching the baptism of repentance."

And repentance takes place in distress and grief. But the father is good and loves humanity, and he hears the soul that calls upon him and sends it the light of salvation. Therefore he said through the spirit to the prophet (cf. 1 Cl 8:3), "Say to the children of my people, 'If your sins extend from earth to heaven, and if they become red like scarlet and blacker than sackcloth, and if you return to me with all your soul and say to me 'my Father!', I will heed you as a holy people.'"

Again another place (Is 30:15), "Thus says the lord, the holy one of Israel: "If you return and sigh, then you will be saved and will know where you were when you trusted in what is empty."

Again he said in another place (Is 30:19-20), "Jerusalem wept much, saying, 'Have pity on me.' He will have pity on the sound of your weeping. And when he saw, he heeded you. And the lord will give you bread of affliction and water of oppression. From now on, those who deceive will not approach you again. Your eyes will see those who are deceiving you."

Therefore it is fitting to pray to God night and day, spreading out our hands towards him as do people sailing in the middle of the sea: they pray to God with all their heart without hypocrisy. For those who pray hypocritically deceive only themselves. Indeed, it is in order that he might know who is worthy of salvation that God examines the inward parts and searches the bottom of the heart. For no one is worthy of salvation who still loves the place of deception.

Therefore it is written in the poet (Homer, Odyssey 1.48-1.59), "Odysseus sat on the island weeping and grieving and turning his face from the words of Calypso and from her tricks, longing to see his village and smoke coming forth from it. And had he not received help from heaven, he would not have been able to return to his village."

Again Helen <...> saying (Odyssey 4.260-261), "My heart turned itself from me. It is to my house that I want to return."

For she sighed, saying (Odyssey 4.261-4.264), "It is Aphrodite who deceived me and brought me out of my village. My only daughter I left behind me, and my good, understanding, handsome husband."

For when the soul leaves her perfect husband because of the treachery of Aphrodite, who exists here in the act of begetting, then she will suffer harm. But if she sighs and repents, she will be restored to her house.

Certainly Israel would not have been visited in the first place, to be brought out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, if it had not sighed to God and wept for the oppression of its labors.

Again it is written in the Psalms (6:6-9), "I was greatly troubled in my groaning. I will bathe my bed and my cover each night with my tears. I have become old in the midst of all my enemies. Depart from me, all you who work at lawlessness, for behold the lord has heard the cry of my weeping and the lord has heard my prayer."

If we repent, truly God will heed us, he who is long suffering and abundantly merciful, to whom is the glory for ever and ever. Amen!

The Expository Treatise on the Soul

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In December 1945 an Arab peasant made an astonishing archeological discovery in Upper Egypt. Rumors obscured the circumstances of this find-perhaps because the discovery was accidental, and its sale on the black market illegal. For years even the identity of the discoverer remained unknown. One rumor held that he was a blood avenger; another, that he had made the find near the town of Naj 'Hammádì at the Jabal al-Tárif, a mountain honeycombed with more than 150 caves. Originally natural, some of these caves were cut and painted and used as grave sites as early as the sixth dynasty, some 4,300 years ago.

Thirty years later the discoverer himself, Muhammad 'Alí al-Sammán; told what happened. Shortly before he and his brothers avenged their father's murder in a blood feud, they had saddled their camels and gone out to the Jabal to dig for sabakh, a soft soil they used to fertilize their crops. Digging around a massive boulder, they hit a red earthenware jar, almost a meter high. Muhammad 'Alí hesitated to break the jar, considering that a jinn, or spirit, might live inside. But realizing that it might also contain gold, he raised his mattock, smashed the jar, and discovered inside thirteen papyrus books, bound in leather. Returning to his home in al-Qasr, Muhammad 'All dumped the books and loose papyrus leaves on the straw piled on the ground next to the oven. Muhammad's mother, 'Umm-Ahmad, admits that she burned much of the papyrus in the oven along with the straw she used to kindle the fire.

A few weeks later, as Muhammad 'Alí tells it, he and his brothers avenged their father's death by murdering Ahmed Isma'il. Their mother had warned her sons to keep their mattocks sharp: when they learned that their father's enemy was nearby, the brothers seized the opportunity, "hacked off his limbs . . . ripped out his heart, and devoured it among them, as the ultimate act of blood revenge."

Fearing that the police investigating the murder would search his house and discover the books, Muhammad 'Alí asked the priest, al-Qummus Basiliyus Abd al-Masih, to keep one or more for him. During the time that Muhammad 'Alí and his brothers were being interrogated for murder, Raghib, a local history teacher, had seen one of the books, and suspected that it had value. Having received one from al-Qummus Basiliyus, Raghib sent it to a friend in Cairo to find out its worth.

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Sold on the black market through antiquities dealers in Cairo, the manuscripts soon attracted the attention of officials of the Egyptian government. Through circumstances of high drama, as we shall see, they bought one and confiscated ten and a half of the thirteen leather-bound books, called codices, and deposited them in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. But a large part of the thirteenth codex, containing five extraordinary texts, was smuggled out of Egypt and offered for sale in America. Word of this codex soon reached Professor Gilles Quispel, distinguished historian of religion at Utrecht, in the Netherlands. Excited by the discovery, Quispel urged the Jung Foundation in Zurich to buy the codex. But discovering, when he succeeded, that some pages were missing, he flew to Egypt in the spring of 1955 to try to find them in the Coptic Museum. Arriving in Cairo, he went at once to the Coptic Museum, borrowed photographs of some of the texts, and hurried back to his hotel to decipher them. Tracing out the first line, Quispel was startled, then incredulous, to read: "These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which the twin, Judas Thomas, wrote down." Quispel knew that his colleague H.C. Puech, using notes from another French scholar, Jean Doresse, had identified the opening lines with fragments of a Greek Gospel of Thomas discovered in the 1890's. But the discovery of the whole text raised new questions: Did Jesus have a twin brother, as this text implies? Could the text be an authentic record of Jesus' sayings? According to its title, it contained the Gospel According to Thomas; yet, unlike the gospels of the New Testament, this text identified itself as a secret gospel. Quispel also discovered that it contained many sayings known from the New Testament; but these sayings, placed in unfamiliar contexts, suggested other dimensions of meaning. Other passages, Quispel found, differed entirely from any known Christian tradition: the "living Jesus," for example, speaks in sayings as cryptic and compelling as Zen koans:

Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

What Quispel held in his hand, the Gospel of Thomas, was only one of the fifty-two texts discovered at Nag Hammadi (the usual English transliteration of the town's name). Bound into the same volume with it is the Gospel of Philip, which attributes to Jesus acts and sayings quite different from those in the New Testament:

. . . the companion of the [Savior is] Mary Magdalene. [But Christ loved] her more than [all] the disciples, and used to kiss her [often] on her [mouth]. The rest of [the disciples were offended] . . . They said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you as (I love) her?"

Other sayings in this collection criticize common Christian beliefs, such as the virgin birth or the bodily resurrection, as naïve misunderstandings. Bound together with these gospels is the Apocryphon (literally, "secret book") of John, which opens with an offer to reveal "the mysteries [and the] things hidden in silence" which Jesus taught to his disciple John.

Muhammad 'Alí later admitted that some of the texts were lost--burned up or thrown away. But what remains is astonishing: some fifty-two texts from the early centuries of the Christian era--including a collection of early Christian gospels, previously unknown. Besides the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, the find included the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel to the Egyptians, which identifies itself as "the [sacred book] of the Great Invisible [Spirit]." Another group of texts consists of writings attributed to Jesus' followers, such as the Secret Book of James, the Apocalypse of Paul, the Letter of Peter to Philip, and the Apocalypse of Peter.

What Muhammad 'Alí discovered at Nag Hammadi, it soon became clear, were Coptic translations, made about 1,500 years ago, of still more ancient manuscripts. The originals themselves had been written in Greek, the language of the New Testament: as Doresse, Puech, and Quispel had recognized, part of one of them had been discovered by archeologists about fifty years earlier, when they found a few fragments of the original Greek version of the Gospel of Thomas.

About the dating of the manuscripts themselves there is little debate. Examination of the datable papyrus used to thicken the leather bindings, and of the Coptic script, place them c. A.D. 350-400. But scholars sharply disagree about the dating of the original texts. Some of them can hardly be later than c. A.D. 120-150, since Irenaeus, the orthodox Bishop of Lyons, writing C. 180, declares that heretics "boast that they possess more gospels than there really are,'' and complains that in his time such writings already have won wide circulation--from Gaul through Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor.

Quispel and his collaborators, who first published the Gospel of Thomas, suggested the date of c. A.D. 140 for the original. Some reasoned that since these gospels were heretical, they must have been written later than the gospels of the New Testament, which are dated c. 60-l l0. But recently Professor Helmut Koester of Harvard University has suggested that the collection of sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, although compiled c. 140, may include some traditions even older than the gospels of the New Testament, "possibly as early as the second half of the first century" (50-100)--as early as, or earlier, than Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John.

Scholars investigating the Nag Hammadi find discovered that some of the texts tell the origin of the human race in terms very different from the usual reading of Genesis: the Testimony of Truth, for example, tells the story of the Garden of Eden from the viewpoint of the serpent! Here the serpent, long known to appear in Gnostic literature as the principle of divine wisdom, convinces Adam and Eve to partake of knowledge while "the Lord" threatens them with death, trying jealously to prevent them from attaining knowledge, and expelling them from Paradise when they achieve it. Another text, mysteriously entitled The Thunder, Perfect Mind, offers an extraordinary poem spoken in the voice of a feminine divine power:

For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin....
I am the barren one, and many are her sons....
I am the silence that is incomprehensible....
I am the utterance of my name.

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These diverse texts range, then, from secret gospels, poems, and quasi-philosophic descriptions of the origin of the universe, to myths, magic, and instructions for mystical practice.

Why were these texts buried-and why have they remained virtually unknown for nearly 2,000 years? Their suppression as banned documents, and their burial on the cliff at Nag Hammadi, it turns out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early Christianity. The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century. We have long known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came from what their opponents wrote attacking them. Bishop Irenaeus, who supervised the church in Lyons, c. 180, wrote five volumes, entitled The Destruction and Overthrow of Falsely So-called Knowledge, which begin with his promise to set forth the views of those who are now teaching heresy . . . to show how absurd and inconsistent with the truth are their statements . . . I do this so that . . . you may urge all those with whom you are connected to avoid such an abyss of madness and of blasphemy against Christ.

He denounces as especially "full of blasphemy" a famous gospel called the Gospel of Truth. Is Irenaeus referring to the same Gospel of Truth discovered at Nag Hammadi' Quispel and his collaborators, who first published the Gospel of Truth, argued that he is; one of their critics maintains that the opening line (which begins "The gospel of truth") is not a title. But Irenaeus does use the same source as at least one of the texts discovered at Nag Hammadi--the Apocryphon (Secret Book) of John--as ammunition for his own attack on such "heresy." Fifty years later Hippolytus, a teacher in Rome, wrote another massive Refutation of All Heresies to "expose and refute the wicked blasphemy of the heretics."

This campaign against heresy involved an involuntary admission of its persuasive power; yet the bishops prevailed. By the time of the Emperor Constantine's conversion, when Christianity became an officially approved religion in the fourth century, Christian bishops, previously victimized by the police, now commanded them. Possession of books denounced as heretical was made a criminal offense. Copies of such books were burned and destroyed. But in Upper Egypt, someone; possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St. Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction--in the jar where they remained buried for almost 1,600 years.

But those who wrote and circulated these texts did not regard themselves as "heretics. Most of the writings use Christian terminology, unmistakable related to a Jewish heritage. Many claim to offer traditions about Jesus that are secret, hidden from "the many" who constitute what, in the second century, came to be called the "catholic church." These Christians are now called gnostics, from the Greek word gnosis, usually translated as "knowledge." For as those who claim to know nothing about ultimate reality are called agnostic (literally, "not knowing"), the person who does claim to know such things is called gnostic ("knowing"). But gnosis is not primarily rational knowledge. The Greek language distinguishes between scientific or reflective knowledge ("He knows mathematics") and knowing through observation or experience ("He knows me"), which is gnosis. As the gnostics use the term, we could translate it as "insight," for gnosis involves an intuitive process of knowing oneself. And to know oneself, they claimed, is to know human nature and human destiny. According to the gnostic teacher Theodotus, writing in Asia Minor (c. 140-160), the gnostic is one has come to understand who we were, and what we have become; where we were... whither we are hastening; from what we are being released; what birth is, and what is rebirth.

Yet to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know God; this is the secret of gnosis. Another gnostic teacher, Monoimus, says:

Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. Look for him by taking yourself as the starting point. Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own and says, "My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body." Learn the sources of sorrow:, joy, love, hate . . . If you carefully investigate these matters you will find him in yourself.

What Muhammad 'All discovered at Nag Hammadi is, apparently, a library of writings, almost all of them gnostic. Although they claim to offer secret teaching, many of these texts refer to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and others to the letters of Paul and the New Testament gospels. Many of them include the same dramatic personae as the New Testament--Jesus and his disciples. Yet the differences are striking.

Orthodox Jews and Christians insist that a chasm separates humanity from Its creator: God is wholly other. But some of the gnostics who wrote these gospels contradict this: self-knowledge is knowledge of God; the self and the divine are identical.

Second, the "living Jesus" of these texts speaks of illusion and enlightenment, not of sin and repentance, like the Jesus of the New Testament. Instead of coming to save us from sin, he comes as a guide who opens access to spiritual understanding. But when the disciple attains enlightenment, Jesus no longer serves as his spiritual master: the two have become equal--even identical.

Third, orthodox Christians believe that Jesus is Lord and Son of God in a unique way: he remains forever distinct from the rest of humanity whom he came to save. Yet the gnostic Gospel of Thomas relates that as soon as Thomas recognizes him, Jesus says to Thomas that they have both received their being from the same source:

Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out.... He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him."

Does not such teaching--the identity of the divine and human. the concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented not as Lord, but as spiritual guide sound more Eastern than Western? Some scholars have suggested that if the names were changed, the "living Buddha" appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas attributes to the living Jesus. Could Hindu or Buddhist tradition have influenced gnosticism?

The British scholar of Buddhism, Edward Conze, suggests that it had. He points out that "Buddhists were in contact with the Thomas Christians (that is, Christians who knew and used such writings as the Gospel of Thomas) in South India." Trade routes between the Greco-Roman world and the Far East were opening up at the time when gnosticism flourished (A.D. 80-200); for generations, Buddhist missionaries had been proselytizing in Alexandria. We note, too, that Hippolytus, who was a Greek speaking Christian in Rome (c. 225), knows of the Indian Brahmins--and includes their tradition among the sources of heresy:

There is . . . among the Indians a heresy of those who philosophize among the Brahmins, who live a self-sufficient life, abstaining from (eating) living creatures and all cooked food . . . They say that God is light, not like the light one sees, nor like the sun nor fire, but to them God is discourse, not that which finds expression in articulate sounds, but that of knowledge (gnosis) through which the secret mysteries of nature are perceived by the wise.

Could the title of the Gospel of Thomas--named for the disciple who, tradition tells us, went to India--suggest the influence of Indian tradition?

These hints indicate the possibility, yet our evidence is not conclusive. Since parallel traditions may emerge in different cultures at different times, such ideas could have developed in both places independently. What we call Eastern and Western religions, and tend to regard as separate streams, were not clearly differentiated 2,000 years ago. Research on the Nag Hammadi texts is only beginning: we look forward to the work of scholars who can study these traditions comparatively to discover whether they can, in fact, be traced to Indian sources.

Even so, ideas that we associate with Eastern religions emerged in the first century through the gnostic movement in the West, but they were suppressed and condemned by polemicists like Irenaeus. Yet those who called gnosticism heresy were adopting--consciously or not--the viewpoint of that group of Christians who called themselves orthodox Christians. A heretic may be anyone whose outlook someone else dislikes or denounces. According to tradition, a heretic is one who deviates from the true faith. But what defines that "true faith"? Who calls it that, and for what reasons?

We find this problem familiar in our own experience. The term "Christianity," especially since the Reformation, has covered an astonishing range of groups. Those claiming to represent "true Christianity" in the twentieth century can range from a Catholic cardinal in the Vatican to an African Methodist Episcopal preacher initiating revival in Detroit, a Mormon missionary in Thailand, or the member of a village church on the coast of Greece. Yet Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox agree that such diversity is a recent--and deplorable--development. According to Christian legend, the early church was different. Christians of every persuasion look back to the primitive church to find a simpler, purer form of Christian faith. In the apostles' time, all members of the Christian community shared their money and property; all believed the same teaching, and worshipped together; all revered the authority of the apostles. It was only after that golden age that conflict, then heresy emerged: so says the author of the Acts of the Apostles, who identifies himself as the first historian of Christianity.

But the discoveries at Nag Hammadi have upset this picture. If we admit that some of these fifty-two texts represents early forms of Christian teaching, we may have to recognize that early Christianity is far more diverse than nearly anyone expected before the Nag Hammadi discoveries.

Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it, actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second, they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific forms of church institution. But every one of these-the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure--emerged in its present form only toward the end of the second century. Before that time, as Irenaeus and others attest, numerous gospels circulated among various Christian groups, ranging from those of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, to such writings as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth, as well as many other secret teachings, myths, and poems attributed to Jesus or his disciples. Some of these, apparently, were discovered at Nag Hammadi; many others are lost to us. Those who identified themselves as Christians entertained many--and radically differing-religious beliefs and practices. And the communities scattered throughout the known world organized themselves in ways that differed widely from one group to another.

Yet by A. D. 200, the situation had changed. Christianity had become an institution headed by a three-rank hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons, who understood themselves to be the guardians of the only "true faith." The majority of churches, among which the church of Rome took a leading role, rejected all other viewpoints as heresy. Deploring the diversity of the earlier movement, Bishop Irenaeus and his followers insisted that there could be only one church, and outside of that church, he declared, "there is no salvation." Members of this church alone are orthodox (literally, "straight-thinking") Christians. And, he claimed, this church must be catholic-- that is, universal. Whoever challenged that consensus, arguing instead for other forms of Christian teaching, was declared to be a heretic, and expelled. When the orthodox gained military support, sometime after the Emperor Constantine became Christian in the fourth century, the penalty for heresy escalated.

The Gospel of Philip

Translated by Wesley W. Isenberg

A Hebrew makes another Hebrew, and such a person is called "proselyte". But a proselyte does not make another proselyte. [...] just as they [...] and make others like themselves, while others simply exist.

The slave seeks only to be free, but he does not hope to acquire the estate of his master. But the son is not only a son but lays claim to the inheritance of the father. Those who are heirs to the dead are themselves dead, and they inherit the dead. Those who are heirs to what is living are alive, and they are heirs to both what is living and the dead. The dead are heirs to nothing. For how can he who is dead inherit? If he who is dead inherits what is living he will not die, but he who is dead will live even more.

A Gentile does not die, for he has never lived in order that he may die. He who has believed in the truth has found life, and this one is in danger of dying, for he is alive. Since Christ came, the world has been created, the cities adorned, the dead carried out. When we were Hebrews, we were orphans and had only our mother, but when we became Christians, we had both father and mother.

Those who sow in winter reap in summer. The winter is the world, the summer the other Aeon (eternal realm). Let us sow in the world that we may reap in the summer. Because of this, it is fitting for us not to pray in the winter. Summer follows winter. But if any man reap in winter he will not actually reap but only pluck out, since it will not provide a harvest for such a person. It is not only [...] that it will [...] come forth, but also on the Sabbath [...] is barren.

Christ came to ransom some, to save others, to redeem others. He ransomed those who were strangers and made them his own. And he set his own apart, those whom he gave as a pledge according to his plan. It was not only when he appeared that he voluntarily laid down his life, but he voluntarily laid down his life from the very day the world came into being. Then he came first in order to take it, since it had been given as a pledge. It fell into the hands of robbers and was taken captive, but he saved it. He redeemed the good people in the world as well as the evil.

Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.

Names given to the worldly are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect. Thus one who hears the word "God" does not perceive what is correct, but perceives what is incorrect. So also with "the Father" and "the Son" and "the Holy Spirit" and "life" and "light" and "resurrection" and "the Church (Ekklesia)" and all the rest - people do not perceive what is correct but they perceive what is incorrect, unless they have come to know what is correct. The names which are heard are in the world [...] deceive. If they were in the Aeon (eternal realm), they would at no time be used as names in the world. Nor were they set among worldly things. They have an end in the Aeon.

One single name is not uttered in the world, the name which the Father gave to the Son; it is the name above all things: the name of the Father. For the Son would not become Father unless he wore the name of the Father. Those who have this name know it, but they do not speak it. But those who do not have it do not know it.

But truth brought names into existence in the world for our sakes, because it is not possible to learn it (truth) without these names. Truth is one single thing; it is many things and for our sakes to teach about this one thing in love through many things. The rulers (archons) wanted to deceive man, since they saw that he had a kinship with those that are truly good. They took the name of those that are good and gave it to those that are not good, so that through the names they might deceive him and bind them to those that are not good. And afterward, what a favor they do for them! They make them be removed from those that are not good and place them among those that are good. These things they knew, for they wanted to take the free man and make him a slave to them forever.

These are powers which [...] man, not wishing him to be saved, in order that they may [...]. For if man is saved, there will not be any sacrifices [...] and animals will not be offered to the powers. Indeed, the animals were the ones to whom they sacrificed. They were indeed offering them up alive, but when they offered them up, they died. As for man, they offered him up to God dead, and he lived.

Before Christ came, there was no bread in the world, just as Paradise, the place were Adam was, had many trees to nourish the animals but no wheat to sustain man. Man used to feed like the animals, but when Christ came, the perfect man, he brought bread from heaven in order that man might be nourished with the food of man. The rulers thought that it was by their own power and will that they were doing what they did, but the Holy Spirit in secret was accomplishing everything through them as it wished. Truth, which existed since the beginning, is sown everywhere. And many see it being sown, but few are they who see it being reaped.

Some said, "Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit." They are in error. They do not know what they are saying. When did a woman ever conceive by a woman? Mary is the virgin whom no power defiled. She is a great anathema to the Hebrews, who are the apostles and the apostolic men. This virgin whom no power defiled [...] the powers defile themselves. And the Lord would not have said "My Father who is in Heaven" (Mt 16:17), unless he had had another father, but he would have said simply "My father".

The Lord said to the disciples, "[...] from every house. Bring into the house of the Father. But do not take (anything) in the house of the Father nor carry it off."

"Jesus" is a hidden name, "Christ" is a revealed name. For this reason "Jesus" is not particular to any language; rather he is always called by the name "Jesus". While as for "Christ", in Syriac it is "Messiah", in Greek it is "Christ". Certainly all the others have it according to their own language. "The Nazarene" is he who reveals what is hidden. Christ has everything in himself, whether man, or angel, or mystery, and the Father.

Those who say that the Lord died first and (then) rose up are in error, for he rose up first and (then) died. If one does not first attain the resurrection, he will not die. As God lives, he would [...].

No one will hide a large valuable object in something large, but many a time one has tossed countless thousands into a thing worth a penny. Compare the soul. It is a precious thing and it came to be in a contemptible body.

Some are afraid lest they rise naked. Because of this they wish to rise in the flesh, and they do not know that it is those who wear the flesh who are naked. It is those who [...] to unclothe themselves who are not naked. "Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Co 15:50). What is this which will not inherit? This which is on us. But what is this, too, which will inherit? It is that which belongs to Jesus and his blood. Because of this he said "He who shall not eat my flesh and drink my blood has not life in him" (Jn 6:53). What is it? His flesh is the word, and his blood is the Holy Spirit. He who has received these has food and he has drink and clothing. I find fault with the others who say that it will not rise. Then both of them are at fault. You say that the flesh will not rise. But tell me what will rise, that we may honor you. You say the Spirit in the flesh, and it is also this light in the flesh. (But) this too is a matter which is in the flesh, for whatever you shall say, you say nothing outside the flesh. It is necessary to rise in this flesh, since everything exists in it. In this world, those who put on garments are better than the garments. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the garments are better than those that put them on.

It is through water and fire that the whole place is purified - the visible by the visible, the hidden by the hidden. There are some things hidden through those visible. There is water in water, there is fire in chrism.

Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not appear as he was, but in the manner in which they would be able to see him. He appeared to them all. He appeared to the great as great. He appeared to the small as small. He appeared to the angels as an angel, and to men as a man. Because of this, his word hid itself from everyone. Some indeed saw him, thinking that they were seeing themselves, but when he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mount, he was not small. He became great, but he made the disciples great, that they might be able to see him in his greatness.

He said on that day in the thanksgiving, "You who have joined the perfect light with the Holy Spirit, unite the angels with us also, as being the images." Do not despise the lamb, for without it, it is not possible to see the king. No one will be able to go in to the king if he is naked.

The heavenly man has many more sons than the earthly man. If the sons of Adam are many, although they die, how much more the sons of the perfect man, they who do not die but are always begotten. The father makes a son, and the son has not the power to make a son. For he who has been begotten has not the power to beget, but the son gets brothers for himself, not sons. All who are begotten in the world are begotten in a natural way, and the others are nourished from the place whence they have been born. It is from being promised to the heavenly place that man receives nourishment. [...] him from the mouth. And had the word gone out from that place, it would be nourished from the mouth and it would become perfect. For it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another. We receive conception from the grace which is in one another.

There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.

"The Father" and "the Son" are single names; "the Holy Spirit" is a double name. For they are everywhere: they are above, they are below; they are in the concealed, they are in the revealed. The Holy Spirit is in the revealed: it is below. It is in the concealed: it is above.

The saints are served by evil powers, for they are blinded by the Holy Spirit into thinking that they are serving an (ordinary) man whenever they do so for the saints. Because of this, a disciple asked the Lord one day for something of this world. He said to him, "Ask your mother, and she will give you of the things which are another's."

The apostles said to the disciples, "May our entire offering obtain salt." They called Sophia "salt". Without it, no offering is acceptable. But Sophia is barren, without child. For this reason, she is called "a trace of salt". Wherever they will [...] in their own way, the Holy Spirit [...], and her children are many.

What the father possesses belongs to the son, and the son himself, so long as he is small, is not entrusted with what is his. But when he becomes a man, his father gives him all that he possesses.

Those who have gone astray, whom the spirit begets, usually go astray also because of the Spirit. Thus, by one and the same breath, the fire blazes and is put out.

Echamoth is one thing and Echmoth, another. Echamoth is Wisdom simply, but Echmoth is the Wisdom of death, which is the one who knows death, which is called "the little Wisdom".

There are domestic animals, like the bull and the ass and others of this kind. Others are wild and live apart in the deserts. Man ploughs the field by means of the domestic animals, and from this he is nourished, he and the animals, whether tame or wild. Compare the perfect man. It is through powers which are submissive that he ploughs, preparing for everything to come into being. For it is because of this that the whole place stands, whether the good or the evil, the right and the left. The Holy Spirit shepherds everyone and rules all the powers, the "tame" ones and the "wild" ones, as well as those which are unique. For indeed he [...] shuts them in, in order that [...] wish, they will not be able to escape.

He who has been created is beautiful, but you would <not> find his sons noble creations. If he were not created, but begotten, you would find that his seed was noble. But now he was created (and) he begot. What nobility is this? First, adultery came into being, afterward murder. And he was begotten in adultery, for he was the child of the Serpent. So he became a murderer, just like his father, and he killed his brother. Indeed, every act of sexual intercourse which has occurred between those unlike one another is adultery.

God is a dyer. As the good dyes, which are called "true", dissolve with the things dyed in them, so it is with those whom God has dyed. Since his dyes are immortal, they become immortal by means of his colors. Now God dips what he dips in water.

It is not possible for anyone to see anything of the things that actually exist unless he becomes like them. This is not the way with man in the world: he sees the sun without being a sun; and he sees the heaven and the earth and all other things, but he is not these things. This is quite in keeping with the truth. But you saw something of that place, and you became those things. You saw the Spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father. So in this place you see everything and do not see yourself, but in that place you do see yourself - and what you see you shall become.

Faith receives, love gives. No one will be able to receive without faith. No one will be able to give without love. Because of this, in order that we may indeed receive, we believe, and in order that we may love, we give, since if one gives without love, he has no profit from what he has given. He who has received something other than the Lord is still a Hebrew.

The apostles who were before us had these names for him: "Jesus, the Nazorean, Messiah", that is, "Jesus, the Nazorean, the Christ". The last name is "Christ", the first is "Jesus", that in the middle is "the Nazarene". "Messiah" has two meanings, both "the Christ" and "the measured". "Jesus" in Hebrew is "the redemption". "Nazara" is "the Truth". "The Nazarene" then, is "the Truth". "Christ" [...] has been measured. "The Nazarene" and "Jesus" are they who have been measured.

When the pearl is cast down into the mud, it becomes greatly despised, nor if it is anointed with balsam oil will it become more precious. But it always has value in the eyes of its owner. Compare the Sons of God: wherever they may be, they still have value in the eyes of their Father.

If you say, "I am a Jew," no one will be moved. If you say, "I am a Roman," no one will be disturbed. If you say, "I am a Greek, a barbarian, a slave, a free man," no one will be troubled. If you say, "I am a Christian," the [...] will tremble. Would that I might [...] like that - the person whose name [...] will not be able to endure hearing.

God is a man-eater. For this reason, men are sacrificed to him. Before men were sacrificed, animals were being sacrificed, since those to whom they were sacrificed were not gods.

Glass decanters and earthenware jugs are both made by means of fire. But if glass decanters break, they are done over, for they came into being through a breath. If earthenware jugs break, however, they are destroyed, for they came into being without breath.

An ass which turns a millstone did a hundred miles walking. When it was loosed, it found that it was still at the same place. There are men who make many journeys, but make no progress towards any destination. When evening came upon them, they saw neither city nor village, neither human artifact nor natural phenomenon, power nor angel. In vain have the wretches labored.

The eucharist is Jesus. For he is called in Syriac "Pharisatha," which is "the one who is spread out," for Jesus came to crucify the world.

The Lord went into the dye works of Levi. He took seventy-two different colors and threw them into the vat. He took them out all white. And he said, "Even so has the Son of Man come as a dyer."

As for the Wisdom who is called "the barren," she is the mother of the angels. And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples [...]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them,"Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."

The Lord said, "Blessed is he who is before he came into being. For he who is, has been and shall be."

The superiority of man is not obvious to the eye, but lies in what is hidden from view. Consequently, he has mastery over the animals which are stronger than he is and great in terms of the obvious and the hidden. This enables them to survive. But if man is separated from them, they slay one another and bite one another. They ate one another because they did not find any food. But now they have found food because man tilled the soil.

If one goes down into the water and comes up without having received anything, and says "I am a Christian," he has borrowed the name at interest. But if he receives the Holy Spirit, he has the name as a gift. He who has received a gift does not have to give it back, but of him who has borrowed it at interest, payment is demanded. This is the way it happens to one when he experiences a mystery.

Great is the mystery of marriage! For without it, the world would not exist. Now the existence of the world [...], and the existence of [...] marriage. Think of the [...] relationship, for it possesses [...] power. Its image consists of a defilement.

The forms of evil spirit include male ones and female ones. The males are they which unite with the souls which inhabit a female form, but the females are they which are mingled with those in a male form, though one who was disobedient. And none shall be able to escape them, since they detain him if he does not receive a male power or a female power, the bridegroom and the bride. One receives them from the mirrored bridal chamber. When the wanton women see a male sitting alone, they leap down on him and play with him and defile him. So also the lecherous men, when they see a beautiful woman sitting alone, they persuade her and compel her, wishing to defile her. But if they see the man and his wife sitting beside one another, the female cannot come into the man, nor can the male come into the woman. So if the image and the angel are united with one another, neither can any venture to go into the man or the woman.

He who comes out of the world, and so can no longer be detained on the grounds that he was in the world, evidently is above the desire of the [...] and fear. He is master over [...]. He is superior to envy. If [...] comes, they seize him and throttle him. And how will this one be able to escape the great [...] powers? How will he be able to [...]? There are some who say, "We are faithful" in order that [...] the unclean spirits and the demons. For if they had the Holy Spirit, no unclean spirit would cleave to them. Fear not the flesh nor love it. If you fear it, it will gain mastery over you. If you love it, it will swallow and paralyze you.

And so he dwells either in this world or in the resurrection or in the middle place. God forbid that I be found in there! In this world, there is good and evil. Its good things are not good, and its evil things not evil. But there is evil after this world which is truly evil - what is called "the middle". It is death. While we are in this world, it is fitting for us to acquire the resurrection, so that when we strip off the flesh, we may be found in rest and not walk in the middle. For many go astray on the way. For it is good to come forth from the world before one has sinned.

There are some who neither will nor have the power to; and others who, if they will, do not profit; for they did not act since [...] makes them sinners. And if they do not will, justice will elude them in both cases: and it is always a matter of the will, not the act.

An apostolic man in a vision saw some people shut up in a house of fire and bound with fiery [...], lying [...] flaming [...], them in [...] faith [...]. And he said to them, "[...] able to be saved?" [...], "They did not desire it. They received [...] punishment, what is called 'the [...] darkness', because he [...]."

It is from water and fire that the soul and the spirit came into being. It is from water and fire and light that the son of the bridal chamber (came into being). The fire is the chrism, the light is the fire. I am not referring to that fire which has no form, but to the other fire whose form is white, which is bright and beautiful, and which gives beauty.

Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way. There is a rebirth and an image of rebirth. It is certainly necessary to be born again through the image. Which one? Resurrection. The image must rise again through the image. The bridal chamber and the image must enter through the image into the truth: this is the restoration. Not only must those who produce the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, do so, but have produced them for you. If one does not acquire them, the name ("Christian") will also be taken from him. But one receives the unction of the [...] of the power of the cross. This power the apostles called "the right and the left." For this person is no longer a Christian but a Christ.

The Lord did everything in a mystery, a baptism and a chrism and a eucharist and a redemption and a bridal chamber. [...] he said, "I came to make the things below like the things above, and the things outside like those inside. I came to unite them in the place." [...] here through types [...]and images.

Those who say, "There is a heavenly man and there is one above him" are wrong. For it is the first of these two heavenly men, the one who is revealed, that they call "the one who is below"; and he to whom the hidden belongs is that one who is above him. For it would be better for them to say, "The inner and outer, and what is outside the outer". Because of this, the Lord called destruction the "the outer darkness": there is not another outside of it. He said, "My Father who is in secret". He said, "Go into your chamber and shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father who is in secret" (Mt 6:6), the one who is within them all. But that which is within them all is the fullness. Beyond it, there is nothing else within it. This is that of which they say, "That which is above them".

Before Christ, some came from a place they were no longer able to enter, and they went where they were no longer able to come out. Then Christ came. Those who went in, he brought out, and those who went out, he brought in.

When Eve was still with Adam, death did not exist. When she was separated from him, death came into being. If he enters again and attains his former self, death will be no more.

"My God, my God, why, O Lord, have you forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34). It was on the cross that he said these words, for he had departed from that place.

[...] who has been begotten through him who [...] from God.

The [...] from the dead. [...] to be, but now [...] perfect. [...] flesh, but this [...] is true flesh. [...] is not true, but [...] only possess an image of the true.

A bridal chamber is not for the animals, nor is it for the slaves, nor for defiled women; but it is for free men and virgins.

Through the Holy Spirit we are indeed begotten again, but we are begotten through Christ in the two. We are anointed through the Spirit. When we were begotten, we were united. None can see himself either in water or in a mirror without light. Nor again can you see in light without mirror or water. For this reason, it is fitting to baptize in the two, in the light and the water. Now the light is the chrism.

There were three buildings specifically for sacrifice in Jerusalem. The one facing the west was called "The Holy". Another, facing south, was called "The Holy of the Holy". The third, facing east, was called "The Holy of the Holies", the place where only the high priest enters. Baptism is "the Holy" building. Redemption is the "Holy of the Holy". "The Holy of the Holies" is the bridal chamber. Baptism includes the resurrection and the redemption; the redemption (takes place) in the bridal chamber. But the bridal chamber is in that which is superior to [...] you will not find [...] are those who pray [...] Jerusalem who [...] Jerusalem, [...] those called the "Holy of the Holies" [...] the veil was rent, [...] bridal chamber except the image [...] above. Because of this, its veil was rent from top to bottom. For it was fitting for some from below to go upward.

The powers do not see those who are clothed in the perfect light, and consequently are not able to detain them. One will clothe himself in this light sacramentally in the union.

If the woman had not separated from the man, she should not die with the man. His separation became the beginning of death. Because of this, Christ came to repair the separation, which was from the beginning, and again unite the two, and to give life to those who died as a result of the separation, and unite them. But the woman is united to her husband in the bridal chamber. Indeed, those who have united in the bridal chamber will no longer be separated. Thus Eve separated from Adam because it was not in the bridal chamber that she united with him.

The soul of Adam came into being by means of a breath. The partner of his soul is the spirit. His mother is the thing that was given to him. His soul was taken from him and replaced by a spirit. When he was united (to the spirit), he spoke words incomprehensible to the powers. They envied him [...] spiritual partner [...] hidden [...] opportunity [...] for themselves alone [...] bridal chamber, so that [...].

Jesus appeared [...] Jordan - the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven. He who was begotten before everything, was begotten anew. He who was once anointed, was anointed anew. He who was redeemed, in turn redeemed (others).

Indeed, one must utter a mystery. The Father of everything united with the virgin who came down, and a fire shone for him on that day. He appeared in the great bridal chamber. Therefore his body came into being on that very day. It left the bridal chamber as one who came into being from the bridegroom and the bride. So Jesus established everything in it through these. It is fitting for each of the disciples to enter into his rest.

Adam came into being from two virgins, from the Spirit and from the virgin earth. Christ therefore, was born from a virgin to rectify the Fall which occurred in the beginning.

There are two trees growing in Paradise. The one bears animals, the other bears men. Adam ate from the tree which bore animals. He became an animal and he brought forth animals. For this reason the children of Adam worship animals. The tree [...] fruit is [...] increased. [...] ate the [...] fruit of the [...] bears men, [...] man. [...] God created man. [...] men create God. That is the way it is in the world - men make gods and worship their creation. It would be fitting for the gods to worship men!

Surely what a man accomplishes depends on his abilities. For this reason, we refer to one`s accomplishments as "abilities". Among his accomplishments are his children. They originate in a moment of ease. Thus his abilities determine what he may accomplish, but this ease is clearly evident in the children. You will find that this applies directly to the image. Here is the man made after the image accomplishing things with his physical strength, but producing his children with ease.

In this world, the slaves serve the free. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the free will minister to the slaves: the children of the bridal chamber will minister to the children of the marriage. The children of the bridal chamber have just one name: rest. Altogether, they need take no other form, because they have contemplation, [...]. They are numerous [...] in the things [...] the glories [...].

Those [...] go down into the water. [...] out (of the water), will consecrate it, [...] they who have [...] in his name. For he said, "Thus we should fulfill all righteousness." (Mt 3:15)

Those who say they will die first and then rise are in error. If they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they will receive nothing. So also when speaking about baptism they say, "Baptism is a great thing," because if people receive it they will live.

Philip the apostle said, "Joseph the carpenter planted a garden because he needed wood for his trade. It was he who made the cross from the trees which he planted. His own offspring hung on that which he planted. His offspring was Jesus, and the planting was the cross." But the Tree of Life is in the middle of the Garden. However, it is from the olive tree that we got the chrism, and from the chrism, the resurrection.

This world is a corpse-eater. All the things eaten in it themselves die also. Truth is a life-eater. Therefore no one nourished by truth will die. It was from that place that Jesus came and brought food. To those who so desired, he gave life, that they might not die.

God [...] garden. Man [...] garden. There are [...] and [...] of God. [...] The things which are in [...] I wish. This garden is the place where they will say to me, "[...] eat this or do not eat that, just as you wish." In the place where I will eat all things is the Tree of Knowledge. That one killed Adam, but here the Tree of Knowledge made men alive. The law was the tree. It has power to give the knowledge of good and evil. It neither removed him from evil, nor did it set him in the good, but it created death for those who ate of it. For when he said, "Eat this, do not eat that", it became the beginning of death.

The chrism is superior to baptism, for it is from the word "Chrism" that we have been called "Christians," certainly not because of the word "baptism". And it is because of the chrism that "the Christ" has his name. For the Father anointed the Son, and the Son anointed the apostles, and the apostles anointed us. He who has been anointed possesses everything. He possesses the resurrection, the light, the cross, the Holy Spirit. The Father gave him this in the bridal chamber; he merely accepted (the gift). The Father was in the Son and the Son in the Father. This is the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Lord said it well: "Some have entered the Kingdom of Heaven laughing, and they have come out [...] because [...] a Christian, [...]. And as soon as [...] went down into the water, he came [...] everything (of this world), [...] because he [...] a trifle, but [...] full of contempt for this [...] the Kingdom of Heaven [...] If he despises [...], and scorns it as a trifle, [...] out laughing. So it is also with the bread and the cup and the oil, even though there is another one superior to these.

The world came about through a mistake. For he who created it wanted to create it imperishable and immortal. He fell short of attaining his desire. For the world never was imperishable, nor, for that matter, was he who made the world. For things are not imperishable, but sons are. Nothing will be able to receive imperishability if it does not first become a son. But he who has not the ability to receive, how much more will he be unable to give?

The cup of prayer contains wine and water, since it is appointed as the type of the blood for which thanks is given. And it is full of the Holy Spirit, and it belongs to the wholly perfect man. When we drink this, we shall receive for ourselves the perfect man. The living water is a body. It is necessary that we put on the living man. Therefore, when he is about to go down into the water, he unclothes himself, in order that he may put on the living man.

A horse sires a horse, a man begets man, a god brings forth a god. Compare the bridegroom and the bride. They have come from the [...]. No Jew [...] has existed. And [...] from the Jews. [...] Christians [...] these [...] are referred to as "The chosen people of [...]," and "The true man" and "Son of Man" and "the seed of the Son of Man". This true race is renowned in the world [...] that the sons of the bridal chamber dwell.

Whereas in this world the union is one of husband with wife - a case of strength complemented by weakness(?) - in the Aeon (eternal realm), the form of the union is different, although we refer to them by the same names. There are other names, however; they are superior to every other name that is named and are stronger than the strong. For where there is a show of strength, there those who excel in strength appear. These are not separate things, but both of them are this one single thing. This is the one which will not be able to rise above the heart of flesh.

Is it not necessary for all those who possess everything to know themselves? Some indeed, if they do not know themselves, will not enjoy what they possess. But those who have come to know themselves will enjoy their possessions.

Not only will they be unable to detain the perfect man, but they will not be able to see him, for if they see him, they will detain him. There is no other way for a person to acquire this quality except by putting on the perfect light and he too becoming perfect light. He who has put it on will enter [...]. This is the perfect [...] that we [...] become [...] before we leave [...]. Whoever receives everything [...] hither [...] be able [...] that place, but will [...] the Middle as imperfect. Only Jesus knows the end of this person.

The priest is completely holy, down to his very body. For if he has taken the bread, he will consecrate it. Or the cup or anything else that he gets, he will consecrate. Then how will he not consecrate the body also?

By perfecting the water of baptism, Jesus emptied it of death. Thus we do go down into the water, but we do not go down into death, in order that we may not be poured out into the spirit of the world. When that spirit blows, it brings the winter. When the Holy Spirit breathes, the summer comes.

He who has knowledge of the truth is a free man, but the free man does not sin, for "He who sins is the slave of sin" (Jn 8:34). Truth is the mother, knowledge the father. Those who think that sinning does not apply to them are called "free" by the world. Knowledge of the truth merely makes such people arrogant, which is what the words, "it makes them free" mean. It even gives them a sense of superiority over the whole world. But "Love builds up" (1 Co 8:1). In fact, he who is really free, through knowledge, is a slave, because of love for those who have not yet been able to attain to the freedom of knowledge. Knowledge makes them capable of becoming free. Love never calls something its own, [...] it [...] possess [...]. It never says,"This is yours" or "This is mine," but "All these are yours". Spiritual love is wine and fragrance. All those who anoint themselves with it take pleasure in it. While those who are anointed are present, those nearby also profit (from the fragrance). If those anointed with ointment withdraw from them and leave, then those not anointed, who merely stand nearby, still remain in their bad odor. The Samaritan gave nothing but wine and oil to the wounded man. It is nothing other than the ointment. It healed the wounds, for "love covers a multitude of sins" (1 P 4:8).

The children a woman bears resemble the man who loves her. If her husband loves her, then they resemble her husband. If it is an adulterer, then they resemble the adulterer. Frequently, if a woman sleeps with her husband out of necessity, while her heart is with the adulterer with whim she usually has intercourse, the child she will bear is born resembling the adulterer. Now you who live together with the Son of God, love not the world, but love the Lord, in order that those you will bring forth may not resemble the world, but may resemble the Lord.

The human being has intercourse with the human being. The horse has intercourse with the horse, the ass with the ass. Members of a race usually have associated with those of like race. So spirit mingles with spirit, and thought consorts with thought, and light shares with light. If you are born a human being, it is the human being who will love you. If you become a spirit, it is the spirit which will be joined to you. If you become thought, it is thought which will mingle with you. If you become light, it is the light which will share with you. If you become one of those who belong above, it is those who belong above who will rest upon you. If you become horse or ass or bull or dog or sheep, or another of the animals which are outside or below, then neither human being nor spirit nor thought nor light will be able to love you. Neither those who belong above nor those who belong within will be able to rest in you, and you have no part in them.

He who is a slave against his will, will be able to become free. He who has become free by favor of his master, and has sold himself into slavery, will no longer be able to be free.

Farming in the world requires the cooperation of four essential elements. A harvest is gathered into the barn only as a result of the natural action of water, earth, wind and light. God's farming likewise has four elements - faith, hope, love, and knowledge. Faith is our earth, that in which we take root. And hope is the water through which we are nourished. Love is the wind through which we grow. Knowledge, then, is the light through which we ripen. Grace exists in four ways: it is earthborn; it is heavenly; [...] the highest heaven; [...] in [...].

Blessed is the one who on no occasion caused a soul [...]. That person is Jesus Christ. He came to the whole place and did not burden anyone. Therefore, blessed is the one who is like this, because he is a perfect man. For the Word tells us that this kind is difficult to define. How shall we be able to accomplish such a great thing? How will he give everyone comfort? Above all, it is not proper to cause anyone distress - whether the person is great or small, unbeliever or believer - and then give comfort only to those who take satisfaction in good deeds. Some find it advantageous to give comfort to the one who has fared well. He who does good deeds cannot give comfort to such people, for he does not seize whatever he likes. He is unable to cause distress, however, since he does not afflict them. To be sure, the one who fares well sometimes causes people distress - not that he intends to do so; rather, it is their own wickedness which is responsible for their distress. He who possesses the qualities (of the perfect man) bestows joy upon the good. Some, however, are terribly distressed by all this.

There was a householder who had every conceivable thing, be it son or slave or cattle or dog or pig or corn or barley or chaff or grass or [...] or meat and acorn. Now he was a sensible fellow, and he knew what the food of each one was. He served the children bread [...]. He served the slaves [...] and meal. And he threw barley and chaff and grass to the cattle. He threw bones to the dogs, and to the pigs he threw acorns and slop. Compare the disciple of God: if he is a sensible fellow, he understands what discipleship is all about. The bodily forms will not deceive him, but he will look at the condition of the soul of each one and speak with him. There are many animals in the world which are in a human form. When he identifies them, to the swine he will throw acorns, to the cattle he will throw barley and chaff and grass, to the dogs he will throw bones. To the slaves he will give only the elementary lessons, to the children he will give the complete instruction.

There is the Son of Man and there is the son of the Son of Man. The Lord is the Son of Man, and the son of the Son of Man is he who creates through the Son of Man. The Son of Man received from God the capacity to create. He also has the ability to beget. He who has received the ability to create is a creature. He who has received the ability to beget is an offspring. He who creates cannot beget. He who begets also has power to create. Now they say, "He who creates begets". But his so-called "offspring" is merely a creature. Because of [...] of birth, they are not his offspring but [...]. He who creates works openly, and he himself is visible. He who begets, begets in private, and he himself is hidden, since [...] image. Also, he who creates, creates openly. But one who begets, begets children in private.

No one can know when the husband and the wife have intercourse with one another, except the two of them. Indeed, marriage in the world is a mystery for those who have taken a wife. If there is a hidden quality to the marriage of defilement, how much more is the undefiled marriage a true mystery! It is not fleshly, but pure. It belongs not to desire, but to the will. It belongs not to the darkness or the night, but to the day and the light. If a marriage is open to the public, it has become prostitution, and the bride plays the harlot not only when she is impregnated by another man, but even if she slips out of her bedroom and is seen. Let her show herself only to her father and her mother, and to the friend of the bridegroom and the sons of the bridegroom. These are permitted to enter every day into the bridal chamber. But let the others yearn just to listen to her voice and to enjoy her ointment, and let them feed from the crumbs that fall from the table, like the dogs. Bridegrooms and brides belong to the bridal chamber. No one shall be able to see the bridegroom with the bride unless he become such a one.

When Abraham [...] that he was to see what he was to see, he circumcised the flesh of the foreskin, teaching us that it is proper to destroy the flesh.

Most things in the world, as long as their inner parts are hidden, stand upright and live. If they are revealed, they die, as is illustrated by the visible man: as long as the intestines of the man are hidden, the man is alive; when his intestines are exposed and come out of him, the man will die. So also with the tree: while its root is hidden, it sprouts and grows. If its root is exposed, the tree dries up. So it is with every birth that is in the world, not only with the revealed but with the hidden. For so long as the root of wickedness is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved. When it is revealed, it perishes. That is why the Word says, "Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees" (Mt 3:10). It will not merely cut - what is cut sprouts again - but the ax penetrates deeply, until it brings up the root. Jesus pulled out the root of the whole place, while others did it only partially. As for ourselves, let each one of us dig down after the root of evil which is within one, and let one pluck it out of one's heart from the root. It will be plucked out if we recognize it. But if we are ignorant of it, it takes root in us and produces its fruit in our heart. It masters us. We are its slaves. It takes us captive, to make us do what we do not want; and what we do want, we do not do. It is powerful because we have not recognized it. While it exists it is active. Ignorance is the mother of all evil. Ignorance will result in death, because those who come from ignorance neither were nor are nor shall be. [...] will be perfect when all the truth is revealed. For truth is like ignorance: while it is hidden, it rests in itself, but when it is revealed and is recognized, it is praised, inasmuch as it is stronger than ignorance and error. It gives freedom. The Word said, "If you know the truth, the truth will make you free" (Jn 8:32). Ignorance is a slave. Knowledge is freedom. If we know the truth, we shall find the fruits of the truth within us. If we are joined to it, it will bring our fulfillment.

At the present time, we have the manifest things of creation. We say, "The strong who are held in high regard are great people. And the weak who are despised are the obscure." Contrast the manifest things of truth: they are weak and despised, while the hidden things are strong and held in high regard. The mysteries of truth are revealed, though in type and image. The bridal chamber, however, remains hidden. It is the Holy in the Holy. The veil at first concealed how God controlled the creation, but when the veil is rent and the things inside are revealed, this house will be left desolate, or rather will be destroyed. And the whole (inferior) godhead will flee from here, but not into the holies of the holies, for it will not be able to mix with the unmixed light and the flawless fullness, but will be under the wings of the cross and under its arms. This ark will be their salvation when the flood of water surges over them. If some belong to the order of the priesthood, they will be able to go within the veil with the high priest. For this reason, the veil was not rent at the top only, since it would have been open only to those above; nor was it rent at the bottom only, since it would have been revealed only to those below. But it was rent from the top to bottom. Those above opened to us the things below, in order that we may go in to the secret of the truth. This truly is what is held in high regard, (and) what is strong! But we shall go in there by means of lowly types and forms of weakness. They are lowly indeed when compared with the perfect glory. There is glory which surpasses glory. There is power which surpasses power. Therefore, the perfect things have opened to us, together with the hidden things of truth. The holies of the holies were revealed, and the bridal chamber invited us in.

As long as it is hidden, wickedness is indeed ineffectual, but it has not been removed from the midst of the seed of the Holy Spirit. They are slaves of evil. But when it is revealed, then the perfect light will flow out on every one. And all those who are in it will receive the chrism. Then the slaves will be free and the captives ransomed. "Every plant which my father who is in heaven has not planted will be plucked out." (Mt 15:13) Those who are separated will unite [...] and will be filled. Every one who will enter the bridal chamber will kindle the light, for [...] just as in the marriages which are [...] happen at night. That fire [...] only at night, and is put out. But the mysteries of that marriage are perfected rather in the day and the light. Neither that day nor its light ever sets. If anyone becomes a son of the bridal chamber, he will receive the light. If anyone does not receive it while he is here, he will not be able to receive it in the other place. He who will receive that light will not be seen, nor can he be detained. And none shall be able to torment a person like this, even while he dwells in the world. And again when he leaves the world, he has already received the truth in the images. The world has become the Aeon (eternal realm), for the Aeon is fullness for him. This is the way it is: it is revealed to him alone, not hidden in the darkness and the night, but hidden in a perfect day and a holy light.

The Gospel According to Philip

Overview:
There is a widespread belief among post-Christians, liberal Christians, some mainline Christians, and secularists that the authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke:

*Were not named "Matthew" and "Luke."
*Were not eye witnesses to Jesus' ministry in Palestine.
*Relied on a growing oral tradition of the early Christian movements concerning Jesus' teachings. *Copied much of their material from a pre-existing document.

The German researchers who pioneered in this work called this lost document "Quelle" which means "source". This is usually abbreviated as "Q."

The Gospel of Q remains a hypothetical document. No intact copy has ever been found. No reference to the document in early Christian writings has survived. Its existence is inferred from an analysis of the text of Matthew and Luke. Much of the content of Matthew and Luke were derived from the Gospel of Mark. But there were also many passages which appear to have come from Q.

Many theologians and religious historians believe that Q's text can be reconstructed by analyzing passages that Matthew and Luke have in common.
If the Gospel of Q exists, it might best be regarded as a reconstructed Gospel. Many believe that it was written much earlier than the four canonical gospels in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament): Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. It may have been the first of the 40 or so Gospels that were written and used by the early Christian movements.

The Gospel of Q is different from the canonical gospels in that it does not extensively describe events in the life of Jesus. Rather, it is largely a collection of sayings -- similar to the Gospel of Thomas. Q does not mention events like Jesus' virgin birth, his selection of 12 disciples, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension to heaven, etc. It represents those parts of Jesus' teachings that his followers remembered and recorded about 20 years after his death. "He is presented as "a charismatic teacher, a healer, a simple man filled with the spirit of God. Jesus is also a sage, the personification of Wisdom, cast in the tradition of King Solomon.

If the Gospel of Q did exist, then it is extremely important to religious liberals. It may contain the earliest descriptions of beliefs, behaviors and expectations of one group of Jesus' followers. Many liberals are convinced that the canonical Gospels contain extensive material that is not historical, including non-existent events in Jesus' life, words that he did not say, teachings that he did not make, and actions that he did not take. Having access to a document written decades before the canonical gospels may allow liberal theologians to separate what they regard as fact from fiction in the Christian Scripture's descriptions of the life of Jesus.

To most religious conservatives, the Gospel of Q is a non-issue. As Eta Linnemann comments, it doesn't exist and:

"...is nothing but fantasy....Such totally subjective arrangements, depending on dubious suggestions about the historical background, amount to novelistic trifling with early Christian origins." 2
To those who believe that God inspired the authors of the Bible to write error-free text, it matters not one iota whether some of the Gospel content was derived from an earlier document. The Holy Spirit has guaranteed that the Bible is inerrant.

The Gospel of Thomas

Translated by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer

(Visit the Gospel of Thomas Collection for additional information)

These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.

1. And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."

2. Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]"

3. Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father's) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.

4. Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live.

For many of the first will be last, and will become a single one."

5. Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.

For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. [And there is nothing buried that will not be raised.]"

6. His disciples asked him and said to him, "Do you want us to fast? How should we pray? Should we give to charity? What diet should we observe?"

7. Jesus said, "Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human."

8. And he said, "The person is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of little fish. Among them the wise fisherman discovered a fine large fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and easily chose the large fish. Anyone here with two good ears had better listen!"

9. Jesus said, "Look, the sower went out, took a handful (of seeds), and scattered (them). Some fell on the road, and the birds came and gathered them. Others fell on rock, and they didn't take root in the soil and didn't produce heads of grain. Others fell on thorns, and they choked the seeds and worms ate them. And others fell on good soil, and it produced a good crop: it yielded sixty per measure and one hundred twenty per measure."

10. Jesus said, "I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I'm guarding it until it blazes."

11. Jesus said, "This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away.

12. The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?"

Jesus said to them, "No matter where you are you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."

13. Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to something and tell me what I am like."

Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just messenger."

Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."

Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like."

Jesus said, "I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended."

And he took him, and withdrew, and spoke three sayings to him. When Thomas came back to his friends they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"

Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and devour you."

14. Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.

When you go into any region and walk about in the countryside, when people take you in, eat what they serve you and heal the sick among them.

After all, what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, it's what comes out of your mouth that will defile you."

15. Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father."

16. Jesus said, "Perhaps people think that I have come to cast peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war.

For there will be five in a house: there'll be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, and they will stand alone."

17. Jesus said, "I will give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart."

18. The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us, how will our end come?"

Jesus said, "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is.

Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."

19. Jesus said, "Congratulations to the one who came into being before coming into being.

If you become my disciples and pay attention to my sayings, these stones will serve you.

For there are five trees in Paradise for you; they do not change, summer or winter, and their leaves do not fall. Whoever knows them will not taste death."

20. The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us what Heaven's kingdom is like."

He said to them, "It's like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky."

21. Mary said to Jesus, "What are your disciples like?"

He said, "They are like little children living in a field that is not theirs. When the owners of the field come, they will say, 'Give us back our field.' They take off their clothes in front of them in order to give it back to them, and they return their field to them.

As for you, then, be on guard against the world. Prepare yourselves with great strength, so the robbers can't find a way to get to you, for the trouble you expect will come.

Let there be among you a person who understands.

When the crop ripened, he came quickly carrying a sickle and harvested it. Anyone here with two good ears had better listen!"

22. Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father's) kingdom."

They said to him, "Then shall we enter the (Father's) kingdom as babies?"

23. Jesus said, "I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and they will stand as a single one."

24. His disciples said, "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it."

He said to them, "Anyone here with two ears had better listen! There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world. If it does not shine, it is dark."

25. Jesus said, "Love your friends like your own soul, protect them like the pupil of your eye."

26. Jesus said, "You see the sliver in your friend's eye, but you don't see the timber in your own eye. When you take the timber out of your own eye, then you will see well enough to remove the sliver from your friend's eye."

27. "If you do not fast from the world, you will not find the (Father's) kingdom. If you do not observe the sabbath as a sabbath you will not see the Father."

28. Jesus said, "I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty.

But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways."

29. Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, that is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, that is a marvel of marvels.

Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty."

30. Jesus said, "Where there are three deities, they are divine. Where there are two or one, I am with that one."

31. Jesus said, "No prophet is welcome on his home turf; doctors don't cure those who know them."

32. Jesus said, "A city built on a high hill and fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden."

33. Jesus said, "What you will hear in your ear, in the other ear proclaim from your rooftops.

After all, no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, nor does one put it in a hidden place. Rather, one puts it on a lampstand so that all who come and go will see its light."

34. Jesus said, "If a blind person leads a blind person, both of them will fall into a hole."

35. Jesus said, "One can't enter a strong person's house and take it by force without tying his hands. Then one can loot his house."

36. Jesus said, "Do not fret, from morning to evening and from evening to morning, [about your food--what you're going to eat, or about your clothing--] what you are going to wear. [You're much better than the lilies, which neither card nor spin.

As for you, when you have no garment, what will you put on? Who might add to your stature? That very one will give you your garment.]"

37. His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?"

38. Jesus said, "Often you have desired to hear these sayings that I am speaking to you, and you have no one else from whom to hear them. There will be days when you will seek me and you will not find me."

39. Jesus said, "The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.

As for you, be as sly as snakes and as simple as doves."

40. Jesus said, "A grapevine has been planted apart from the Father. Since it is not strong, it will be pulled up by its root and will perish."

41. Jesus said, "Whoever has something in hand will be given more, and whoever has nothing will be deprived of even the little they have."

42. Jesus said, "Be passersby."

43. His disciples said to him, "Who are you to say these things to us?"

"You don't understand who I am from what I say to you.

Rather, you have become like the Judeans, for they love the tree but hate its fruit, or they love the fruit but hate the tree."

44. Jesus said, "Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven."

45. Jesus said, "Grapes are not harvested from thorn trees, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit.

46. Jesus said, "From Adam to John the Baptist, among those born of women, no one is so much greater than John the Baptist that his eyes should not be averted.

But I have said that whoever among you becomes a child will recognize the (Father's) kingdom and will become greater than John."

47. Jesus said, "A person cannot mount two horses or bend two bows.

And a slave cannot serve two masters, otherwise that slave will honor the one and offend the other.

Nobody drinks aged wine and immediately wants to drink young wine. Young wine is not poured into old wineskins, or they might break, and aged wine is not poured into a new wineskin, or it might spoil.

An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, since it would create a tear."

48. Jesus said, "If two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move from here!' and it will move."

49. Jesus said, "Congratulations to those who are alone and chosen, for you will find the kingdom. For you have come from it, and you will return there again."

50. Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?' say to them, 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.'

If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.'

If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'"

51. His disciples said to him, "When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?"

He said to them, "What you are looking forward to has come, but you don't know it."

52. His disciples said to him, "Twenty-four prophets have spoken in Israel, and they all spoke of you."

He said to them, "You have disregarded the living one who is in your presence, and have spoken of the dead."

53. His disciples said to him, "Is circumcision useful or not?"

He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."

54. Jesus said, "Congratulations to the poor, for to you belongs Heaven's kingdom."

55. Jesus said, "Whoever does not hate father and mother cannot be my disciple, and whoever does not hate brothers and sisters, and carry the cross as I do, will not be worthy of me."

56. Jesus said, "Whoever has come to know the world has discovered a carcass, and whoever has discovered a carcass, of that person the world is not worthy."

57 Jesus said, "The Father's kingdom is like a person who has [good] seed. His enemy came during the night and sowed weeds among the good seed. The person did not let the workers pull up the weeds, but said to them, 'No, otherwise you might go to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them.' For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be conspicuous, and will be pulled up and burned."

58. Jesus said, "Congratulations to the person who has toiled and has found life."

59. Jesus said, "Look to the living one as long as you live, otherwise you might die and then try to see the living one, and you will be unable to see."

60. He saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb and going to Judea. He said to his disciples, "that person ... around the lamb." They said to him, "So that he may kill it and eat it." He said to them, "He will not eat it while it is alive, but only after he has killed it and it has become a carcass."

They said, "Otherwise he can't do it."

He said to them, "So also with you, seek for yourselves a place for rest, or you might become a carcass and be eaten."

61. Jesus said, "Two will recline on a couch; one will die, one will live."

Salome said, "Who are you mister? You have climbed onto my couch and eaten from my table as if you are from someone."

Jesus said to her, "I am the one who comes from what is whole. I was granted from the things of my Father."

"I am your disciple."

"For this reason I say, if one is whole, one will be filled with light, but if one is divided, one will be filled with darkness."

62. Jesus said, "I disclose my mysteries to those [who are worthy] of [my] mysteries.

63 Jesus said, "There was a rich person who had a great deal of money. He said, 'I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing.' These were the things he was thinking in his heart, but that very night he died. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!"

64. Jesus said, "A person was receiving guests. When he had prepared the dinner, he sent his slave to invite the guests.

The slave went to the first and said to that one, 'My master invites you.' That one said, 'Some merchants owe me money; they are coming to me tonight. I have to go and give them instructions. Please excuse me from dinner.'

The slave went to another and said to that one, 'My master has invited you.' That one said to the slave, 'I have bought a house, and I have been called away for a day. I shall have no time.'

The slave went to another and said to that one, 'My master invites you.' That one said to the slave, 'My friend is to be married, and I am to arrange the banquet. I shall not be able to come. Please excuse me from dinner.'

The slave went to another and said to that one, 'My master invites you.' That one said to the slave, 'I have bought an estate, and I am going to collect the rent. I shall not be able to come. Please excuse me.'

The slave returned and said to his master, 'Those whom you invited to dinner have asked to be excused.' The master said to his slave, 'Go out on the streets and bring back whomever you find to have dinner.'

Buyers and merchants [will] not enter the places of my Father."

65. He said, "A [...] person owned a vineyard and rented it to some farmers, so they could work it and he could collect its crop from them. He sent his slave so the farmers would give him the vineyard's crop. They grabbed him, beat him, and almost killed him, and the slave returned and told his master. His master said, 'Perhaps he didn't know them.' He sent another slave, and the farmers beat that one as well. Then the master sent his son and said, 'Perhaps they'll show my son some respect.' Because the farmers knew that he was the heir to the vineyard, they grabbed him and killed him. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!"

66. Jesus said, "Show me the stone that the builders rejected: that is the keystone."

67. Jesus said, "Those who know all, but are lacking in themselves, are utterly lacking."

68. Jesus said, "Congratulations to you when you are hated and persecuted; and no place will be found, wherever you have been persecuted."

69. Jesus said, "Congratulations to those who have been persecuted in their hearts: they are the ones who have truly come to know the Father.

Congratulations to those who go hungry, so the stomach of the one in want may be filled."

70. Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you."

71. Jesus said, "I will destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to build it [...]."

72. A [person said] to him, "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me."

He said to the person, "Mister, who made me a divider?"

He turned to his disciples and said to them, "I'm not a divider, am I?"

73. Jesus said, "The crop is huge but the workers are few, so beg the harvest boss to dispatch workers to the fields."

74. He said, "Lord, there are many around the drinking trough, but there is nothing in the well."

75. Jesus said, "There are many standing at the door, but those who are alone will enter the bridal suite."

76. Jesus said, "The Father's kingdom is like a merchant who had a supply of merchandise and found a pearl. That merchant was prudent; he sold the merchandise and bought the single pearl for himself.

So also with you, seek his treasure that is unfailing, that is enduring, where no moth comes to eat and no worm destroys."

77. Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.

Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

78. Jesus said, "Why have you come out to the countryside? To see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see a person dressed in soft clothes, [like your] rulers and your powerful ones? They are dressed in soft clothes, and they cannot understand truth."

79. A woman in the crowd said to him, "Lucky are the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you."

80. Jesus said, "Whoever has come to know the world has discovered the body, and whoever has discovered the body, of that one the world is not worthy."

81. Jesus said, "Let one who has become wealthy reign, and let one who has power renounce <it>."

82. Jesus said, "Whoever is near me is near the fire, and whoever is far from me is far from the (Father's) kingdom."

83. Jesus said, "Images are visible to people, but the light within them is hidden in the image of the Father's light. He will be disclosed, but his image is hidden by his light."

84. Jesus said, "When you see your likeness, you are happy. But when you see your images that came into being before you and that neither die nor become visible, how much you will have to bear!"

85. Jesus said, "Adam came from great power and great wealth, but he was not worthy of you. For had he been worthy, [he would] not [have tasted] death."

86. Jesus said, "[Foxes have] their dens and birds have their nests, but human beings have no place to lay down and rest."

87. Jesus said, "How miserable is the body that depends on a body, and how miserable is the soul that depends on these two."

88. Jesus said, "The messengers and the prophets will come to you and give you what belongs to you. You, in turn, give them what you have, and say to yourselves, 'When will they come and take what belongs to them?'"

89. Jesus said, "Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Don't you understand that the one who made the inside is also the one who made the outside?"

90. Jesus said, "Come to me, for my yoke is comfortable and my lordship is gentle, and you will find rest for yourselves."

91. They said to him, "Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you."

He said to them, "You examine the face of heaven and earth, but you have not come to know the one who is in your presence, and you do not know how to examine the present moment."

92. Jesus said, "Seek and you will find.

In the past, however, I did not tell you the things about which you asked me then. Now I am willing to tell them, but you are not seeking them."

93. "Don't give what is holy to dogs, for they might throw them upon the manure pile. Don't throw pearls [to] pigs, or they might ... it [...]."

94. Jesus [said], "One who seeks will find, and for [one who knocks] it will be opened."

95. [Jesus said], "If you have money, don't lend it at interest. Rather, give [it] to someone from whom you won't get it back."

96. Jesus [said], "The Father's kingdom is like [a] woman. She took a little leaven, [hid] it in dough, and made it into large loaves of bread. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!"

97. Jesus said, "The [Father's] kingdom is like a woman who was carrying a [jar] full of meal. While she was walking along [a] distant road, the handle of the jar broke and the meal spilled behind her [along] the road. She didn't know it; she hadn't noticed a problem. When she reached her house, she put the jar down and discovered that it was empty."

98. Jesus said, "The Father's kingdom is like a person who wanted to kill someone powerful. While still at home he drew his sword and thrust it into the wall to find out whether his hand would go in. Then he killed the powerful one."

99. The disciples said to him, "Your brothers and your mother are standing outside."

He said to them, "Those here who do what my Father wants are my brothers and my mother. They are the ones who will enter my Father's kingdom."

100. They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, "The Roman emperor's people demand taxes from us."

He said to them, "Give the emperor what belongs to the emperor, give God what belongs to God, and give me what is mine."

101. "Whoever does not hate [father] and mother as I do cannot be my [disciple], and whoever does [not] love [father and] mother as I do cannot be my [disciple]. For my mother [...], but my true [mother] gave me life."

102. Jesus said, "Damn the Pharisees! They are like a dog sleeping in the cattle manger: the dog neither eats nor [lets] the cattle eat."

103. Jesus said, "Congratulations to those who know where the rebels are going to attack. [They] can get going, collect their imperial resources, and be prepared before the rebels arrive."

104. They said to Jesus, "Come, let us pray today, and let us fast."

Jesus said, "What sin have I committed, or how have I been undone? Rather, when the groom leaves the bridal suite, then let people fast and pray."

105. Jesus said, "Whoever knows the father and the mother will be called the child of a whore."

106. Jesus said, "When you make the two into one, you will become children of Adam, and when you say, 'Mountain, move from here!' it will move."

107. Jesus said, "The (Father's) kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, 'I love you more than the ninety-nine.'"

108. Jesus said, "Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him."

109. Jesus said, "The (Father's) kingdom is like a person who had a treasure hidden in his field but did not know it. And [when] he died he left it to his [son]. The son [did] not know about it either. He took over the field and sold it. The buyer went plowing, [discovered] the treasure, and began to lend money at interest to whomever he wished."

110. Jesus said, "Let one who has found the world, and has become wealthy, renounce the world."

111. Jesus said, "The heavens and the earth will roll up in your presence, and whoever is living from the living one will not see death."

Does not Jesus say, "Those who have found themselves, of them the world is not worthy"?

112. Jesus said, "Damn the flesh that depends on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh."

113. His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"

"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

[Saying probably added to the original collection at a later date:]
114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life."

Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

Selection from Robert J. Miller, ed., The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version. (Polebridge Press, 1992, 1994).

The Gospel of Thomas

Translated by Thomas O. Lambdin

(Visit the Gospel of Thomas Collection for additional information)

These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.

(1) And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."

(2) Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

(4) Jesus said, "The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same."

(5) Jesus said, "Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you . For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest."

(6) His disciples questioned him and said to him, "Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray? Shall we give alms? What diet shall we observe?"
Jesus said, "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered."

(7) Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man."

(8) And he said, "The man is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them the wise fisherman found a fine large fish. He threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the large fish without difficulty. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear."

(9) Jesus said, "Now the sower went out, took a handful (of seeds), and scattered them. Some fell on the road; the birds came and gathered them up. Others fell on the rock, did not take root in the soil, and did not produce ears. And others fell on thorns; they choked the seed(s) and worms ate them. And others fell on the good soil and it produced good fruit: it bore sixty per measure and a hundred and twenty per measure."

(10) Jesus said, "I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes."

(11) Jesus said, "This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it what is alive. When you come to dwell in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?"

(12) The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be our leader?"
Jesus said to them, "Wherever you are, you are to go to James the righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."

(13) Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like."
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel."
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

(14) Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will give rise to sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned; and if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. When you go into any land and walk about in the districts, if they receive you, eat what they will set before you, and heal the sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but that which issues from your mouth - it is that which will defile you."

(15) Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father."

(16) Jesus said, "Men think, perhaps, that it is peace which I have come to cast upon the world. They do not know that it is dissension which I have come to cast upon the earth: fire, sword, and war. For there will be five in a house: three will be against two, and two against three, the father against the son, and the son against the father. And they will stand solitary."

(17) Jesus said, "I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind."

(18) The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be."
Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."

(19) Jesus said, "Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. If you become my disciples and listen to my words, these stones will minister to you. For there are five trees for you in Paradise which remain undisturbed summer and winter and whose leaves do not fall. Whoever becomes acquainted with them will not experience death."

(20) The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like."
He said to them, "It is like a mustard seed. It is the smallest of all seeds. But when it falls on tilled soil, it produces a great plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky."

(21) Mary said to Jesus, "Whom are your disciples like?"
He said, "They are like children who have settled in a field which is not theirs. When the owners of the field come, they will say, 'Let us have back our field.' They (will) undress in their presence in order to let them have back their field and to give it back to them. Therefore I say, if the owner of a house knows that the thief is coming, he will begin his vigil before he comes and will not let him dig through into his house of his domain to carry away his goods. You, then, be on your guard against the world. Arm yourselves with great strength lest the robbers find a way to come to you, for the difficulty which you expect will (surely) materialize. Let there be among you a man of understanding. When the grain ripened, he came quickly with his sickle in his hand and reaped it. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear."

(22) Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom."
They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?"
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."

(23) Jesus said, "I shall choose you, one out of a thousand, and two out of ten thousand, and they shall stand as a single one."

(24) His disciples said to him, "Show us the place where you are, since it is necessary for us to seek it."
He said to them, "Whoever has ears, let him hear. There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness."

(25) Jesus said, "Love your brother like your soul, guard him like the pupil of your eye."

(26) Jesus said, "You see the mote in your brother's eye, but you do not see the beam in your own eye. When you cast the beam out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to cast the mote from your brother's eye."

(27) <Jesus said,> "If you do not fast as regards the world, you will not find the kingdom. If you do not observe the Sabbath as a Sabbath, you will not see the father."

(28) Jesus said, "I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty. And my soul became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight; for empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. But for the moment they are intoxicated. When they shake off their wine, then they will repent."

(29) Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty."

(30) Jesus said, "Where there are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him."

(31) Jesus said, "No prophet is accepted in his own village; no physician heals those who know him."

(32) Jesus said, "A city being built on a high mountain and fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden."

(33) Jesus said, "Preach from your housetops that which you will hear in your ear. For no one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel, nor does he put it in a hidden place, but rather he sets it on a lampstand so that everyone who enters and leaves will see its light."

(34) Jesus said, "If a blind man leads a blind man, they will both fall into a pit."

(35) Jesus said, "It is not possible for anyone to enter the house of a strong man and take it by force unless he binds his hands; then he will (be able to) ransack his house."

(36) Jesus said, "Do not be concerned from morning until evening and from evening until morning about what you will wear."

(37) His disciples said, "When will you become revealed to us and when shall we see you?"
Jesus said, "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then will you see the son of the living one, and you will not be afraid"

(38) Jesus said, "Many times have you desired to hear these words which I am saying to you, and you have no one else to hear them from. There will be days when you will look for me and will not find me."

(39) Jesus said, "The pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys of knowledge (gnosis) and hidden them. They themselves have not entered, nor have they allowed to enter those who wish to. You, however, be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves."

(40) Jesus said, "A grapevine has been planted outside of the father, but being unsound, it will be pulled up by its roots and destroyed."

(41) Jesus said, "Whoever has something in his hand will receive more, and whoever has nothing will be deprived of even the little he has."

(42) Jesus said, "Become passers-by."

(43) His disciples said to him, "Who are you, that you should say these things to us?"
<Jesus said to them,> "You do not realize who I am from what I say to you, but you have become like the Jews, for they (either) love the tree and hate its fruit (or) love the fruit and hate the tree."

(44) Jesus said, "Whoever blasphemes against the father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven."

(45) Jesus said, "Grapes are not harvested from thorns, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they do not produce fruit. A good man brings forth good from his storehouse; an evil man brings forth evil things from his evil storehouse, which is in his heart, and says evil things. For out of the abundance of the heart he brings forth evil things."

(46) Jesus said, "Among those born of women, from Adam until John the Baptist, there is no one so superior to John the Baptist that his eyes should not be lowered (before him). Yet I have said, whichever one of you comes to be a child will be acquainted with the kingdom and will become superior to John."

(47) Jesus said, "It is impossible for a man to mount two horses or to stretch two bows. And it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters; otherwise, he will honor the one and treat the other contemptuously. No man drinks old wine and immediately desires to drink new wine. And new wine is not put into old wineskins, lest they burst; nor is old wine put into a new wineskin, lest it spoil it. An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, because a tear would result."

(48) Jesus said, "If two make peace with each other in this one house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move Away,' and it will move away."

(49) Jesus said, "Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return."

(50) Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where did you come from?', say to them, 'We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?', say, 'We are its children, we are the elect of the living father.' If they ask you, 'What is the sign of your father in you?', say to them, 'It is movement and repose.'"

(51) His disciples said to him, "When will the repose of the dead come about, and when will the new world come?"
He said to them, "What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it."

(52) His disciples said to him, "Twenty-four prophets spoke in Israel, and all of them spoke in you."
He said to them, "You have omitted the one living in your presence and have spoken (only) of the dead."

(53) His disciples said to him, "Is circumcision beneficial or not?"
He said to them, "If it were beneficial, their father would beget them already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become completely profitable."

(54) Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven."

(55) Jesus said, "Whoever does not hate his father and his mother cannot become a disciple to me. And whoever does not hate his brothers and sisters and take up his cross in my way will not be worthy of me."

(56) Jesus said, "Whoever has come to understand the world has found (only) a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world."

(57) Jesus said, "The kingdom of the father is like a man who had good seed. His enemy came by night and sowed weeds among the good seed. The man did not allow them to pull up the weeds; he said to them, 'I am afraid that you will go intending to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them.' For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be plainly visible, and they will be pulled up and burned."

(58) Jesus said, "Blessed is the man who has suffered and found life."

(59) Jesus said, "Take heed of the living one while you are alive, lest you die and seek to see him and be unable to do so."

(60) <They saw> a Samaritan carrying a lamb on his way to Judea. He said to his disciples, "That man is round about the lamb."
They said to him, "So that he may kill it and eat it."
He said to them, "While it is alive, he will not eat it, but only when he has killed it and it has become a corpse."
They said to him, "He cannot do so otherwise."
He said to them, "You too, look for a place for yourself within repose, lest you become a corpse and be eaten."

(61) Jesus said, "Two will rest on a bed: the one will die, and the other will live."
Salome said, "Who are you, man, that you ... have come up on my couch and eaten from my table?"
Jesus said to her, "I am he who exists from the undivided. I was given some of the things of my father."
<...> "I am your disciple."
<...> "Therefore I say, if he is destroyed, he will be filled with light, but if he is divided, he will be filled with darkness."

(62) Jesus said, "It is to those who are worthy of my mysteries that I tell my mysteries. Do not let your left (hand) know what your right (hand) is doing."

(63) Jesus said, "There was a rich man who had much money. He said, 'I shall put my money to use so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouse with produce, with the result that I shall lack nothing.' Such were his intentions, but that same night he died. Let him who has ears hear."

(64) Jesus said, "A man had received visitors. And when he had prepared the dinner, he sent his servant to invite the guests.
He went to the first one and said to him, 'My master invites you.' He said, 'I have claims against some merchants. They are coming to me this evening. I must go and give them my orders. I ask to be excused from the dinner.'
He went to another and said to him, 'My master has invited you.' He said to him, 'I have just bought a house and am required for the day. I shall not have any spare time.'
He went to another and said to him, 'My master invites you.' He said to him, 'My friend is going to get married, and I am to prepare the banquet. I shall not be able to come. I ask to be excused from the dinner.'
He went to another and said to him, 'My master invites you.' He said to him, 'I have just bought a farm, and I am on my way to collect the rent. I shall not be able to come. I ask to be excused.'
The servant returned and said to his master, 'Those whom you invited to the dinner have asked to be excused.' The master said to his servant, 'Go outside to the streets and bring back those whom you happen to meet, so that they may dine.' Businessmen and merchants will not enter the places of my father."

(65) He said, "There was a good man who owned a vineyard. He leased it to tenant farmers so that they might work it and he might collect the produce from them. He sent his servant so that the tenants might give him the produce of the vineyard. They seized his servant and beat him, all but killing him. The servant went back and told his master. The master said, 'Perhaps he did not recognize them.' He sent another servant. The tenants beat this one as well. Then the owner sent his son and said, 'Perhaps they will show respect to my son.' Because the tenants knew that it was he who was the heir to the vineyard, they seized him and killed him. Let him who has ears hear."

(66) Jesus said, "Show me the stone which the builders have rejected. That one is the cornerstone."

(67) Jesus said, "If one who knows the all still feels a personal deficiency, he is completely deficient."

(68) Jesus said, "Blessed are you when you are hated and persecuted. Wherever you have been persecuted they will find no place."

(69) Jesus said, "Blessed are they who have been persecuted within themselves. It is they who have truly come to know the father. Blessed are the hungry, for the belly of him who desires will be filled."

(70) Jesus said, "That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves. That which you do not have within you will kill you if you do not have it within you."

(71) Jesus said, "I shall destroy this house, and no one will be able to build it [...]."

(72) A man said to him, "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me."
He said to him, "O man, who has made me a divider?"
He turned to his disciples and said to them, "I am not a divider, am I?"

(73) Jesus said, "The harvest is great but the laborers are few. Beseech the Lord, therefore, to send out laborers to the harvest."

(74) He said, "O Lord, there are many around the drinking trough, but there is nothing in the cistern."

(75) Jesus said, "Many are standing at the door, but it is the solitary who will enter the bridal chamber."

(76) Jesus said, "The kingdom of the father is like a merchant who had a consignment of merchandise and who discovered a pearl. That merchant was shrewd. He sold the merchandise and bought the pearl alone for himself. You too, seek his unfailing and enduring treasure where no moth comes near to devour and no worm destroys."

(77) Jesus said, "It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

(78) Jesus said, "Why have you come out into the desert? To see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see a man clothed in fine garments like your kings and your great men? Upon them are the fine garments, and they are unable to discern the truth."

(79) A woman from the crowd said to him, "Blessed are the womb which bore you and the breasts which nourished you."
He said to her, "Blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, 'Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.'"

(80) Jesus said, "He who has recognized the world has found the body, but he who has found the body is superior to the world."

(81) Jesus said, "Let him who has grown rich be king, and let him who possesses power renounce it."

(82) Jesus said, "He who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is far from the kingdom."

(83) Jesus said, "The images are manifest to man, but the light in them remains concealed in the image of the light of the father. He will become manifest, but his image will remain concealed by his light."

(84) Jesus said, "When you see your likeness, you rejoice. But when you see your images which came into being before you, and which neither die not become manifest, how much you will have to bear!"

(85) Jesus said, "Adam came into being from a great power and a great wealth, but he did not become worthy of you. For had he been worthy, he would not have experienced death."

(86) Jesus said, "The foxes have their holes and the birds have their nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head and rest."

(87) Jesus said, "Wretched is the body that is dependant upon a body, and wretched is the soul that is dependent on these two."

(88) Jesus said, "The angels and the prophets will come to you and give to you those things you (already) have. And you too, give them those things which you have, and say to yourselves, 'When will they come and take what is theirs?'"

(89) Jesus said, "Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Do you not realize that he who made the inside is the same one who made the outside?"

(90) Jesus said, "Come unto me, for my yoke is easy and my lordship is mild, and you will find repose for yourselves."

(91) They said to him, "Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you."
He said to them, "You read the face of the sky and of the earth, but you have not recognized the one who is before you, and you do not know how to read this moment."

(92) Jesus said, "Seek and you will find. Yet, what you asked me about in former times and which I did not tell you then, now I do desire to tell, but you do not inquire after it."

(93) <Jesus said,> "Do not give what is holy to dogs, lest they throw them on the dung-heap. Do not throw the pearls to swine, lest they [...] it [...]."

(94) Jesus said, "He who seeks will find, and he who knocks will be let in."

(95) Jesus said, "If you have money, do not lend it at interest, but give it to one from whom you will not get it back."

(96) Jesus said, "The kingdom of the father is like a certain woman. She took a little leaven, concealed it in some dough, and made it into large loaves. Let him who has ears hear."

(97) Jesus said, "The kingdom of the father is like a certain woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking on the road, still some distance from home, the handle of the jar broke and the meal emptied out behind her on the road. She did not realize it; she had noticed no accident. When she reached her house, she set the jar down and found it empty."

(98) Jesus said, "The kingdom of the father is like a certain man who wanted to kill a powerful man. In his own house he drew his sword and stuck it into the wall in order to find out whether his hand could carry through. Then he slew the powerful man."

(99) The disciples said to him, "Your brothers and your mother are standing outside."
He said to them, "Those here who do the will of my father are my brothers and my mother. It is they who will enter the kingdom of my father."

(100) They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, "Caesar's men demand taxes from us."
He said to them, "Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, give God what belongs to God, and give me what is mine."

(101) <Jesus said,> "Whoever does not hate his father and his mother as I do cannot become a disciple to me. And whoever does not love his father and his mother as I do cannot become a disciple to me. For my mother [...], but my true mother gave me life."

(102) Jesus said, "Woe to the pharisees, for they are like a dog sleeping in the manger of oxen, for neither does he eat nor does he let the oxen eat."

(103) Jesus said, "Fortunate is the man who knows where the brigands will enter, so that he may get up, muster his domain, and arm himself before they invade."

(104) They said to Jesus, "Come, let us pray today and let us fast."
Jesus said, "What is the sin that I have committed, or wherein have I been defeated? But when the bridegroom leaves the bridal chamber, then let them fast and pray."

(105) Jesus said, "He who knows the father and the mother will be called the son of a harlot."

(106) Jesus said, "When you make the two one, you will become the sons of man, and when you say, 'Mountain, move away,' it will move away."

(107) Jesus said, "The kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine sheep and looked for that one until he found it. When he had gone to such trouble, he said to the sheep, 'I care for you more than the ninety-nine.'"

(108) Jesus said, "He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him."

(109) Jesus said, "The kingdom is like a man who had a hidden treasure in his field without knowing it. And after he died, he left it to his son. The son did not know (about the treasure). He inherited the field and sold it. And the one who bought it went plowing and found the treasure. He began to lend money at interest to whomever he wished."

(110) Jesus said, "Whoever finds the world and becomes rich, let him renounce the world."

(111) Jesus said, "The heavens and the earth will be rolled up in your presence. And the one who lives from the living one will not see death." Does not Jesus say, "Whoever finds himself is superior to the world?"

(112) Jesus said, "Woe to the flesh that depends on the soul; woe to the soul that depends on the flesh."

(113) His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"
<Jesus said,> "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'here it is' or 'there it is.' Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

(114) Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

The Gospel
According to Thomas

Gospel of Truth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Gospel of Truth is one of the Gnostic texts from the New Testament apocrypha found in the Nag Hammadi codices ("NHC"). It exists in two Coptic translations, a Subachmimic rendition surviving almost in full in the first codex (the "Jung Codex") and a Sahidic in fragments in the twelfth.

History

The Gospel of Truth was probably written in Greek between 140 and 180 by Valentinian Gnostics (or, as some posit, by Valentinus himself). It was known to Irenaeus of Lyons, who objected to its Gnostic content and declared it heresy. Irenaeus declares it one of the works of the disciples of "Valentinius", and the similarity of the work to others thought to be by Valentinus and his followers has made many scholars agree with Irenaeus on this point.

But the followers of Valentinus, putting away all fear, bring forward their own compositions and boast that they have more Gospels than really exist. Indeed their audacity has gone so far that they entitle their recent composition the Gospel of Truth, though it agrees in nothing with the Gospels of the apostles, and so no Gospel of theirs is free from blasphemy. For if what they produce is the Gospel of Truth, and is different from those which the apostles handed down to us, those who care to can learn how it can be show from the Scriptures themselves that [then] what is handed down from the apostles is not the Gospel of Truth. [1]

After its Coptic translations and their burial at Nag Hammadi, the text had been lost until the Nag Hammadi discovery.

Style

The text is written with strong poetic skill (notable even in translation), and includes a heavily cyclical presentation of themes. It is not a "gospel" in the sense of an account of the works of Jesus of Nazareth, but is better understood as a homily. The text is generally considered by scholars one of the best written texts in the whole Nag Hammadi collection, considering its worth highly as both a great literary work and a gnostic exegesis on several gospels, canonical and otherwise.

The work cites "Galatians, John, 1 John, Revelations, Matthew, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Hebrews" from the NT. Of these it cites the Johannine Gospel the most often. It is also influenced by Thomas, for instance at one point (22.13-19) it cites John 3:8 alongside Thomas 28.

Content

The text describes a theory of the rise of Error in personified (female) form. The ignorance and yearning to see the Father bred fear, which coalesced into a fog by which Error gained power.

It then describes Jesus as having been sent down by God to remove the ignorance. Jesus was a teacher confounding the other scribes and teachers, and asserted they were foolish since they tried to understand the world by analysing the law. But Error grew angry at this, and nailed Jesus to a tree. It also proceeds to describe how it is knowledge which grants salvation, which constitutes eternal rest, describing ignorance as a nightmare.

Having next described the parable of the good shepherd, in an esoteric manner, it then describes how feeding the hungry and giving rest to the weary is to be understood as feeding spiritual hunger, and resting the world weary.

This is followed by a parable about anointing, the meaning of which is obscure, but may be connected with the way in which a sealed amphora meant it was full, a metaphor for knowledge - having the final "seal" in the jigsaw and you understand, but without it, the scraps of understanding you have put together can still be easily undone:

But those whom he has anointed are the ones who have become perfect. For full jars are the ones that are usually anointed. But when the anointing of one jar is dissolved, it is emptied, and the reason for there being a deficiency is the thing through which its ointment goes. For at that time a breath draws it, one by the power of the one with it. But from him who has no deficiency no seal is removed, nor is anything emptied. But what he lacks the Perfect Father fills again.

Aside from a final description of achieving rest by gnosis, the remainder of the text concerns a treatise on the connection between the relationship between the Son and the Father, and the relationship of a name to its owner. The prime example of this is the phrase it uses that the name of the Father is the Son, which is to be understood in the esoteric manner that the Son is the name, rather than as meaning that Son was a name for the Father.

Relation to Valentinian Fragments

Layton printed eight fragments of Valentinian literature, each a quote which a Church Father claimed to take from the Valentinian corpus although none from the "Gospel of Truth". Layton further noted where the excerpts agree with one another.

"Fragment G", which Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis 6.52.3-4) related to "On Friends", asserts that there is shared matter between Gnostic Christian material, and material found in "publicly available books"; which is the result of "the law that is written in the [human] heart". Layton relates this to GTr 19.34 - when Jesus taught, "in their hearts appeared the living book of the living which is written in the Father's thought and intellect". Both rely on a shared concept of pre-existent yet obscured knowledge, which had emanated from the Father of the Gnostics.

"Fragment F" also comes from the Stromateis, 4.89.1-3. Directed to the Gnostics, it calls the congregation "children of eternal life" and hopes that they will "nullify the world without being yourselves nullified". Layton relates the former to GTr 43.22 at the end of the work, which emphasises that the Gnostics are the Father's children and will live eternally. Layton relates the latter to GTr 24.20, which proposes to "nullify the realm of appearance" and then explains this as the world which lacks the Father.

References

1. ^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses (3.11.9)

* Bentley Layton, "The Gnostic Scriptures", The Anchor Bible Reference Library, Doubleday, NY 1987.
* Harold W. Attridge and George W. MacRae, "The Gospel of Truth (Introduction and Translation)", from The Nag Hammadi Library, James M. Robinson (ed.), pp. 38-51
* Text of the Gospel of Truth

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Truth"
Categories: Christian texts | Gnostic Gospels

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The Gospel of Truth

Translated by Robert M. Grant

The gospel of truth is joy to those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of knowing him by the power of the Logos, who has come from the Pleroma and who is in the thought and the mind of the Father; he it is who is called "the Savior," since that is the name of the work which he must do for the redemption of those who have not known the Father. For the name of the gospel is the manifestation of hope, since that is the discovery of those who seek him, because the All sought him from whom it had come forth. You see, the All had been inside of him, that illimitable, inconceivable one, who is better than every thought.

This ignorance of the Father brought about terror and fear. And terror became dense like a fog, that no one was able to see. Because of this, error became strong. But it worked on its hylic substance vainly, because it did not know the truth. It was in a fashioned form while it was preparing, in power and in beauty, the equivalent of truth. This then, was not a humiliation for him, that illimitable, inconceivable one. For they were as nothing, this terror and this forgetfulness and this figure of falsehood, whereas this established truth is unchanging, unperturbed and completely beautiful.

For this reason, do not take error too seriously. Thus, since it had no root, it was in a fog as regards the Father, engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears in order, by these means, to beguile those of the middle and to make them captive. The forgetfulness of error was not revealed. It did not become light beside the Father. Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him. What exists in him is knowledge, which was revealed so that forgetfulness might be destroyed and that they might know the Father, Since forgetfulness existed because they did not know the Father, if they then come to know the Father, from that moment on forgetfulness will cease to exist.

That is the gospel of him whom they seek, which he has revealed to the perfect through the mercies of the Father as the hidden mystery, Jesus the Christ. Through him he enlightened those who were in darkness because of forgetfulness. He enlightened them and gave them a path. And that path is the truth which he taught them. For this reason error was angry with him, so it persecuted him. It was distressed by him, so it made him powerless. He was nailed to a cross. He became a fruit of the knowledge of the Father. He did not, however, destroy them because they ate of it. He rather caused those who ate of it to be joyful because of this discovery.

And as for him, them he found in himself, and him they found in themselves, that illimitable, inconceivable one, that perfect Father who made the all, in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks, since he retained in himself their perfection, which he had not given to the all. The Father was not jealous. What jealousy, indeed, is there between him and his members? For, even if the Aeon had received their perfection, they would not have been able to approach the perfection of the Father, because he retained their perfection in himself, giving it to them as a way to return to him and as a knowledge unique in perfection. He is the one who set the All in order and in whom the All existed and whom the All lacked. As one of whom some have no knowledge, he desires that they know him and that they love him. For what is it that the All lacked, if not the knowledge of the Father?

He became a guide, quiet and in leisure. In the middle of a school he came and spoke the Word, as a teacher. Those who were wise in their own estimation came to put him to the test. But he discredited them as empty-headed people. They hated him because they really were not wise men. After all these came also the little children, those who possess the knowledge of the Father. When they became strong they were taught the aspects of the Father's face. They came to know and they were known. They were glorified and they gave glory. In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father and, from before the foundation of the All, is in that incomprehensible part of him.

This is the book which no one found possible to take, since it was reserved for him who will take it and be slain. No one was able to be manifest from those who believed in salvation as long as that book had not appeared. For this reason, the compassionate, faithful Jesus was patient in his sufferings until he took that book, since he knew that his death meant life for many. Just as in the case of a will which has not yet been opened, for the fortune of the deceased master of the house is hidden, so also in the case of the All which had been hidden as long as the Father of the All was invisible and unique in himself, in whom every space has its source. For this reason Jesus appeared. He took that book as his own. He was nailed to a cross. He affixed the edict of the Father to the cross.

Oh, such great teaching! He abases himself even unto death, though he is clothed in eternal life. Having divested himself of these perishable rags, he clothed himself in incorruptibility, which no one could possibly take from him. Having entered into the empty territory of fears, he passed before those who were stripped by forgetfulness, being both knowledge and perfection, proclaiming the things that are in the heart of the Father, so that he became the wisdom of those who have received instruction. But those who are to be taught, the living who are inscribed in the book of the living, learn for themselves, receiving instructions from the Father, turning to him again.

Since the perfection of the All is in the Father, it is necessary for the All to ascend to him. Therefore, if one has knowledge, he gets what belongs to him and draws it to himself. For he who is ignorant, is deficient, and it is a great deficiency, since he lacks that which will make him perfect. Since the perfection of the All is in the Father, it is necessary for the All to ascend to him and for each one to get the things which are his. He registered them first, having prepared them to be given to those who came from him.

Those whose name he knew first were called last, so that the one who has knowledge is he whose name the Father has pronounced. For he whose name has not been spoken is ignorant. Indeed, how shall one hear if his name has not been uttered? For he who remains ignorant until the end is a creature of forgetfulness and will perish with it. If this is not so, why have these wretches no name, why do they have no sound? Hence, if one has knowledge, he is from above. If he is called, he hears, he replies, and he turns toward him who called him and he ascends to him and he knows what he is called. Since he has knowledge, he does the will of him who called him. He desires to please him and he finds rest. He receives a certain name. He who thus is going to have knowledge knows whence he came and whither he is going. He knows it as a person who, having become intoxicated, has turned from his drunkenness and having come to himself, has restored what is his own.

He has turned many from error. He went before them to their own places, from which they departed when they erred because of the depth of him who surrounds every place, whereas there is nothing which surrounds him. It was a great wonder that they were in the Father without knowing him and that they were able to leave on their own, since they were not able to contain him and know him in whom they were, for indeed his will had not come forth from him. For he revealed it as a knowledge with which all its emanations agree, namely, the knowledge of the living book which he revealed to the Aeons at last as his letters, displaying to them that these are not merely vowels nor consonants, so that one may read them and think of something void of meaning; on the contrary, they are letters which convey the truth. They are pronounced only when they are known. Each letter is a perfect truth like a perfect book, for they are letters written by the hand of the unity, since the Father wrote them for the Aeons, so that they by means of his letters might come to know the Father.

While his wisdom mediates on the logos, and since his teaching expresses it, his knowledge has been revealed. His honor is a crown upon it. Since his joy agrees with it, his glory exalted it. It has revealed his image. It has obtained his rest. His love took bodily form around it. His trust embraced it. Thus the logos of the Father goes forth into the All, being the fruit of his heart and expression of his will. It supports the All. It chooses and also takes the form of the All, purifying it, and causing it to return to the Father and to the Mother, Jesus of the utmost sweetness. The Father opens his bosom, but his bosom is the Holy Spirit. He reveals his hidden self which is his son, so that through the compassion of the Father the Aeons may know him, end their wearying search for the Father and rest themselves in him, knowing that this is rest. After he had filled what was incomplete, he did away with form. The form of it is the world, that which it served. For where there is envy and strife, there is an incompleteness; but where there is unity, there is completeness. Since this incompleteness came about because they did not know the Father, so when they know the Father, incompleteness, from that moment on, will cease to exist. As one's ignorance disappears when he gains knowledge, and as darkness disappears when light appears, so also incompleteness is eliminated by completeness. Certainly, from that moment on, form is no longer manifest, but will be dissolved in fusion with unity. For now their works lie scattered. In time unity will make the spaces complete. By means of unity each one will understand itself. By means of knowledge it will purify itself of diversity with a view towards unity, devouring matter within itself like fire and darkness by light, death by life.

Certainly, if these things have happened to each one of us, it is fitting for us, surely, to think about the All so that the house may be holy and silent for unity. Like people who have moved from a neighborhood, if they have some dishes around which are not good, they usually break them. Nevertheless the householder does not suffer a loss, but rejoices, for in the place of these defective dishes there are those which are completely perfect. For this is the judgement which has come from above and which has judged every person, a drawn two-edged sword cutting on this side and that. When it appeared, I mean, the Logos, who is in the heart of those who pronounce it - it was not merely a sound but it has become a body - a great disturbance occurred among the dishes, for some were emptied, others filled: some were provided for, others were removed; some were purified, still others were broken. All the spaces were shaken and disturbed for they had no composure nor stability. Error was disturbed not knowing what it should do. It was troubled; it lamented, it was beside itself because it did not know anything. When knowledge, which is its abolishment, approached it with all its emanations, error is empty, since there is nothing in it. Truth appeared; all its emanations recognized it. They actually greeted the Father with a power which is complete and which joins them with the Father. For each one loves truth because truth is the mouth of the Father. His tongue is the Holy Spirit, who joins him to truth attaching him to the mouth of the Father by his tongue at the time he shall receive the Holy Spirit.

This is the manifestation of the Father and his revelation to his Aeons. He revealed his hidden self and explained it. For who is it who exists if it is not the Father himself? All the spaces are his emanations. They knew that they stem from him as children from a perfect man. They knew that they had not yet received form nor had they yet received a name, every one of which the Father produces. If they at that time receive form of his knowledge, though they are truly in him, they do not know him. But the Father is perfect. He knows every space which is within him. If he pleases, he reveals anyone whom he desires by giving him a form and by giving him a name; and he does give him a name and cause him to come into being. Those who do not yet exist are ignorant of him who created them. I do not say, then, that those who do not yet exist are nothing. But they are in him who will desire that they exist when he pleases, like the event which is going to happen. On the one hand, he knows, before anything is revealed, what he will produce. On the other hand, the fruit which has not yet been revealed does not know anything, nor is it anything either. Thus each space which, on its part, is in the Father comes from the existent one, who, on his part, has established it from the nonexistent. [...] he who does not exist at all, will never exist.

What, then, is that which he wants him to think? "I am like the shadows and phantoms of the night." When morning comes, this one knows that the fear which he had experienced was nothing. Thus they were ignorant of the Father; he is the one whom they did not see. Since there had been fear and confusion and a lack of confidence and doublemindness and division, there were many illusions which were conceived by him, the foregoing, as well as empty ignorance - as if they were fast asleep and found themselves a prey to troubled dreams. Either there is a place to which they flee, or they lack strength as they come, having pursued unspecified things. Either they are involved in inflicting blows, or they themselves receive bruises. Either they are falling from high places, or they fly off through the air, though they have no wings at all. Other times, it is as if certain people were trying to kill them, even though there is no one pursuing them; or, they themselves are killing those beside them, for they are stained by their blood. Until the moment when they who are passing through all these things - I mean they who have experienced all these confusions - awake, they see nothing because the dreams were nothing. It is thus that they who cast ignorance from them as sheep do not consider it to be anything, nor regard its properties to be something real, but they renounce them like a dream in the night and they consider the knowledge of the Father to be the dawn. It is thus that each one has acted, as if he were asleep, during the time when he was ignorant and thus he comes to understand, as if he were awakening. And happy is the man who comes to himself and awakens. Indeed, blessed is he who has opened the eyes of the blind.

And the Spirit came to him in haste when it raised him. Having given its hand to the one lying prone on the ground, it placed him firmly on his feet, for he had not yet stood up. He gave them the means of knowing the knowledge of the Father and the revelation of his son. For when they saw it and listened to it, he permitted them to take a taste of and to smell and to grasp the beloved son.

He appeared, informing them of the Father, the illimitable one. He inspired them with that which is in the mind, while doing his will. Many received the light and turned towards him. But material men were alien to him and did not discern his appearance nor recognize him. For he came in the likeness of flesh and nothing blocked his way because it was incorruptible and unrestrainable. Moreover, while saying new things, speaking about what is in the heart of the Father, he proclaimed the faultless word. Light spoke through his mouth, and his voice brought forth life. He gave them thought and understanding and mercy and salvation and the Spirit of strength derived from the limitlessness of the Father and sweetness. He caused punishments and scourgings to cease, for it was they which caused many in need of mercy to astray from him in error and in chains - and he mightily destroyed them and derided them with knowledge. He became a path for those who went astray and knowledge to those who were ignorant, a discovery for those who sought, and a support for those who tremble, a purity for those who were defiled.

He is the shepherd who left behind the ninety-nine sheep which had not strayed and went in search of that one which was lost. He rejoiced when he had found it. For ninety-nine is a number of the left hand, which holds it. The moment he finds the one, however, the whole number is transferred to the right hand. Thus it is with him who lacks the one, that is, the entire right hand which attracts that in which it is deficient, seizes it from the left side and transfers it to the right. In this way, then, the number becomes one hundred. This number signifies the Father.

He labored even on the Sabbath for the sheep which he found fallen into the pit. He saved the life of that sheep, bringing it up from the pit in order that you may understand fully what that Sabbath is, you who possess full understanding. It is a day in which it is not fitting that salvation be idle, so that you may speak of that heavenly day which has no night and of the sun which does not set because it is perfect. Say then in your heart that you are this perfect day and that in you the light which does not fail dwells.

Speak concerning the truth to those who seek it and of knowledge to those who, in their error, have committed sin. Make sure-footed those who stumble and stretch forth your hands to the sick. Nourish the hungry and set at ease those who are troubled. Foster men who love. Raise up and awaken those who sleep. For you are this understanding which encourages. If the strong follow this course, they are even stronger. Turn your attention to yourselves. Do not be concerned with other things, namely, that which you have cast forth from yourselves, that which you have dismissed. Do not return to them to eat them. Do not be moth-eaten. Do not be worm-eaten, for you have already shaken it off. Do not be a place of the devil, for you have already destroyed him. Do not strengthen your last obstacles, because that is reprehensible. For the lawless one is nothing. He harms himself more than the law. For that one does his works because he is a lawless person. But this one, because he is a righteous person, does his works among others. Do the will of the Father, then, for you are from him.

For the Father is sweet and his will is good. He knows the things that are yours, so that you may rest yourselves in them. For by the fruits one knows the things that are yours, that they are the children of the Father, and one knows his aroma, that you originate from the grace of his countenance. For this reason, the Father loved his aroma; and it manifests itself in every place; and when it is mixed with matter, he gives his aroma to the light; and into his rest he causes it to ascend in every form and in every sound. For there are no nostrils which smell the aroma, but it is the Spirit which possesses the sense of smell and it draws it for itself to itself and sinks into the aroma of the Father. He is, indeed, the place for it, and he takes it to the place from which it has come, in the first aroma which is cold. It is something in a psychic form, resembling cold water which is [...] since it is in soil which is not hard, of which those who see it think, "It is earth." Afterwards, it becomes soft again. If a breath is taken, it is usually hot. The cold aromas, then, are from the division. For this reason, God came and destroyed the division and he brought the hot Pleroma of love, so that the cold may not return, but the unity of the Perfect Thought prevail.

This is the word of the Gospel of the finding of the Pleroma for those who wait for the salvation which comes from above. When their hope, for which they are waiting, is waiting - they whose likeness is the light in which there is no shadow, then at that time the Pleroma is about to come. The deficiency of matter, however, is not because of the limitlessness of the Father who comes at the time of the deficiency. And yet no one is able to say that the incorruptible One will come in this manner. But the depth of the Father is increasing, and the thought of error is not with him. It is a matter of falling down and a matter of being readily set upright at the finding of that one who has come to him who will turn back.

For this turning back is called "repentance". For this reason, incorruption has breathed. It followed him who has sinned in order that he may find rest. For forgiveness is that which remains for the light in the deficiency, the word of the pleroma. For the physician hurries to the place in which there is sickness, because that is the desire which he has. The sick man is in a deficient condition, but he does not hide himself because the physician possesses that which he lacks. In this manner the deficiency is filled by the Pleroma, which has no deficiency, which has given itself out in order to fill the one who is deficient, so that grace may take him, then, from the area which is deficient and has no grace. Because of this a diminishing occurred in the place which there is no grace, the area where the one who is small, who is deficient, is taken hold of.

He revealed himself as a Pleroma, i.e., the finding of the light of truth which has shined towards him, because he is unchangeable. For this reason, they who have been troubled speak about Christ in their midst so that they may receive a return and he may anoint them with the ointment. The ointment is the pity of the Father, who will have mercy on them. But those whom he has anointed are those who are perfect. For the filled vessels are those which are customarily used for anointing. But when an anointing is finished, the vessel is usually empty, and the cause of its deficiency is the consumption of its ointment. For then a breath is drawn only through the power which he has. But the one who is without deficiency - one does not trust anyone beside him nor does one pour anything out. But that which is the deficient is filled again by the perfect Father. He is good. He knows his plantings because he is the one who has planted them in his Paradise. And his Paradise is his place of rest.

This is the perfection in the thought of the Father and these are the words of his reflection. Each one of his words is the work of his will alone, in the revelation of his Logos. Since they were in the depth of his mind, the Logos, who was the first to come forth, caused them to appear, along with an intellect which speaks the unique word by means of a silent grace. It was called "thought," since they were in it before becoming manifest. It happened, then, that it was the first to come forth - at the moment pleasing to the will of him who desired it; and it is in the will that the Father is at rest and with which he is pleased. Nothing happens without him, nor does anything occur without the will of the Father. But his will is incomprehensible. His will is his mark, but no one can know it, nor is it possible for them to concentrate on it in order to possess it. But that which he wishes takes place at the moment he wishes it - even if the view does not please anyone: it is God`s will. For the Father knows the beginning of them all as well as their end. For when their end arrives, he will question them to their faces. The end, you see, is the recognition of him who is hidden, that is, the Father, from whom the beginning came forth and to whom will return all who have come from him. For they were made manifest for the glory and the joy of his name.

And the name of the Father is the Son. It is he who, in the beginning, gave a name to him who came forth from him - he is the same one - and he begat him for a son. He gave him his name which belonged to him - he, the Father, who possesses everything which exists around him. He possess the name; he has the son. It is possible for them to see him. The name, however, is invisible, for it alone is the mystery of the invisible about to come to ears completely filled with it through the Father`s agency. Moreover, as for the Father, his name is not pronounced, but it is revealed through a son. Thus, then, the name is great.

Who, then, has been able to pronounce a name for him, this great name, except him alone to whom the name belongs and the sons of the name in whom the name of the Father is at rest, and who themselves in turn are at rest in his name, since the Father has no beginning? It is he alone who engendered it for himself as a name in the beginning before he had created the Aeons, that the name of the Father should be over their heads as a lord - that is, the real name, which is secure by his authority and by his perfect power. For the name is not drawn from lexicons nor is his name derived from common name-giving, But it is invisible. He gave a name to himself alone, because he alone saw it and because he alone was capable of giving himself a name. For he who does not exist has no name. For what name would one give him who did not exist? Nevertheless, he who exists also with his name and he alone knows it, and to him alone the Father gave a name. The Son is his name. He did not, therefore, keep it secretly hidden, but the son came into existence. He himself gave a name to him. The name, then, is that of the Father, just as the name of the Father is the Son. For otherwise, where would compassion find a name - outside of the Father? But someone will probably say to his companion, "Who would give a name to someone who existed before himself, as if, indeed, children did not receive their name from one of those who gave them birth?"

Above all, then, it is fitting for us to think this point over: What is the name? It is the real name. It is, indeed, the name which came from the Father, for it is he who owns the name. He did not, you see, get the name on loan, as in the case of others because of the form in which each one of them is going to be created. This, then, is the authoritative name. There is no one else to whom he has given it. But it remained unnamed, unuttered, `till the moment when he, who is perfect, pronounced it himself; and it was he alone who was able to pronounce his name and to see it. When it pleased him, then, that his son should be his pronounced name and when he gave this name to him, he who has come from the depth spoke of his secrets, because he knew that the Father was absolute goodness. For this reason, indeed, he sent this particular one in order that he might speak concerning the place and his place of rest from which he had come forth, and that he might glorify the Pleroma, the greatness of his name and the sweetness of his Father.

Each one will speak concerning the place from which he has come forth, and to the region from which he received his essential being, he will hasten to return once again. And he want from that place - the place where he was - because he tasted of that place, as he was nourished and grew. And his own place of rest is his Pleroma. All the emanations from the Father, therefore, are Pleromas, and all his emanations have their roots in the one who caused them all to grow from himself. He appointed a limit. They, then, became manifest individually in order that they might be in their own thought, for that place to which they extend their thoughts is their root, which lifts them upward through all heights to the Father. They reach his head, which is rest for them, and they remain there near to it so that they say that they have participated in his face by means of embraces. But these of this kind were not manifest, because they have not risen above themselves. Neither have they been deprived of the glory of the Father nor have they thought of him as small, nor bitter, nor angry, but as absolutely good, unperturbed, sweet, knowing all the spaces before they came into existence and having no need of instruction. Such are they who possess from above something of this immeasurable greatness, as they strain towards that unique and perfect one who exists there for them. And they do not go down to Hades. They have neither envy nor moaning, nor is death in them. But they rest in him who rests, without wearying themselves or becoming involved in the search for truth. But, they, indeed, are the truth, and the Father is in them, and they are in the Father, since they are perfect, inseparable from him who is truly good. They lack nothing in any way, but they are given rest and are refreshed by the Spirit. And they listen to their root; they have leisure for themselves, they in whom he will find his root, and he will suffer no loss to his soul.

Such is the place of the blessed; this is their place. As for the rest, then, may they know, in their place, that it does not suit me, after having been in the place of rest to say anything more. But he is the one in whom I shall be in order to devote myself, at all times, to the Father of the All and the true brothers, those upon whom the love of the Father is lavished, and in whose midst nothing of him is lacking. It is they who manifest themselves truly since they are in that true and eternal life and speak of the perfect light filled with the seed of the Father, and which is in his heart and in the Pleroma, while his Spirit rejoices in it and glorifies him in whom it was, because the Father is good. And his children are perfect and worthy of his name, because he is the Father. Children of this kind are those whom he loves.

The Gospel of Truth

Translated by Harold W. Attridge and George W. MacRae

The gospel of truth is joy for those who have received from the Father of truth the grace of knowing him, through the power of the Word that came forth from the pleroma, the one who is in the thought and the mind of the Father, that is, the one who is addressed as 'the Savior', (that) being the name of the work he is to perform for the redemption of those who were ignorant of the Father, while in the name of the gospel is the proclamation of hope, being discovery for those who search for him.

When the totality went about searching for the one from whom they had come forth - and the totality was inside of him, the incomprehensible, inconceivable one who is superior to every thought - ignorance of the Father brought about anguish and terror; and the anguish grew solid like a fog, so that no one was able to see. For this reason, error became powerful; it worked on its own matter foolishly, not having known the truth. It set about with a creation, preparing with power and beauty the substitute for the truth.

This was not, then, a humiliation for him, the incomprehensible, inconceivable one, for they were nothing, the anguish and the oblivion and the creature of deceit, while the established truth is immutable, imperturbable, perfect in beauty. For this reason, despise error.

Thus, it had no root; it fell into a fog regarding the Father, while it was involved in preparing works and oblivions and terrors, in order that by means of these it might entice those of the middle and capture them.

The oblivion of error was not revealed. It is not a [...] from the Father. Oblivion did not come into existence from the Father, although it did indeed come into existence because of him. But what comes into existence in him is knowledge, which appeared in order that oblivion might vanish and the Father might be known. Since oblivion came into existence because the Father was not known, then if the Father comes to be known, oblivion will not exist from that moment on.

Through this, the gospel of the one who is searched for, which <was> revealed to those who are perfect, through the mercies of the Father, the hidden mystery, Jesus, the Christ, enlightened those who were in darkness through oblivion. He enlightened them; he showed (them) a way; and the way is the truth which he taught them.

For this reason, error grew angry at him, persecuted him, was distressed at him, (and) was brought to naught. He was nailed to a tree (and) he became fruit of the knowledge of the Father. It did not, however, cause destruction because it was eaten, but to those who ate it, it gave (cause) to become glad in the discovery, and he discovered them in himself, and they discovered him in themselves.

As for the incomprehensible, inconceivable one, the Father, the perfect one, the one who made the totality, within him is the totality, and of him the totality has need. Although he retained their perfection within himself, which he did not give to the totality, the Father was not jealous. What jealousy indeed (could there be) between himself and his members? For if this aeon had thus received their perfection, they could not have come [...] the Father. He retains within himself their perfection, granting it to them as a return to him, and a perfectly unitary knowledge. It is he who fashioned the totality, and within him is the totality, and the totality was in need of him.

As in the case of a person of whom some are ignorant, he wishes to have them know him and love him, so - for what did the totality have need of if not knowledge regarding the Father? - he became a guide, restful and leisurely. In schools he appeared, (and) he spoke the word as a teacher. There came the men wise in their own estimation, putting him to the test. But he confounded them, because they were foolish. They hated him, because they were not really wise.

After all these, there came the little children also, those to whom the knowledge of the Father belongs. Having been strengthened, they learned about the impressions of the Father. They knew, they were known; they were glorified, they glorified. There was manifested in their heart the living book of the living - the one written in the thought and the mind of the Father, which from before the foundation of the totality was within his incomprehensibility - that (book) which no one was able to take, since it remains for the one who will take it to be slain. No one could have become manifest from among those who have believed in salvation unless that book had appeared. For this reason, the merciful one, the faithful one, Jesus, was patient in accepting sufferings until he took that book, since he knows that his death is life for many.

Just as there lies hidden in a will, before it is opened, the fortune of the deceased master of the house, so (it is) with the totality, which lay hidden while the Father of the totality was invisible, being something which is from him, from whom every space comes forth. For this reason Jesus appeared; he put on that book; he was nailed to a tree; he published the edict of the Father on the cross. O such great teaching! He draws himself down to death, though life eternal clothes him. Having stripped himself of the perishable rags, he put on imperishability, which no one can possibly take away from him. Having entered the empty spaces of terrors, he passed through those who were stripped naked by oblivion, being knowledge and perfection, proclaiming the things that are in the heart, [...] teach those who will receive teaching.

But those who are to receive teaching are the living, who are inscribed in the book of the living. It is about themselves that they receive instruction, receiving it from the Father, turning again to him. Since the perfection of the totality is in the Father, it is necessary for the totality to ascend to him. Then, if one has knowledge, he receives what are his own, and draws them to himself. For he who is ignorant is in need, and what he lacks is great, since he lacks that which will make him perfect. Since the perfection of the totality is in the Father, and it is necessary for the totality to ascend to him, and for each one to receive what are his own, he enrolled them in advance, having prepared them to give to those who came forth from him.

Those whose name he knew in advance were called at the end, so that one who has knowledge is the one whose name the Father has uttered. For he whose name has not been spoken is ignorant. Indeed, how is one to hear, if his name has not been called? For he who is ignorant until the end is a creature of oblivion, and he will vanish along with it. If not, how is it that these miserable ones have no name, (that) they do not have the call? Therefore, if one has knowledge, his is from above. If he is called, he hears, he answers, and he turns to him who is calling him, and ascends to him. And he knows in what manner he is called. Having knowledge, he does the will of the one who called him, he wishes to be pleasing to him, he receives rest. Each one's name comes to him. He who is to have knowledge in this manner knows where he comes from and where he is going. He knows as one who, having become drunk, has turned away from his drunkenness, (and) having returned to himself, has set right what are his own.

He has brought many back from error. He has gone before them to their places, from which they had moved away, since it was on account of the depth that they received error, the depth of the one who encircles all spaces, while there is none that encircles him. It was a great wonder that they were in the Father, not knowing him, and (that) they were able to come forth by themselves, since they were unable to comprehend or to know the one in whom they were. For if his will had not thus emerged from him - for he revealed it in view of a knowledge in which all its emanations concur.

This is the knowledge of the living book, which he revealed to the aeons at the end as his letters, revealing how they are not vowels nor are they consonants, so that one might read them and think of something foolish, but (rather that) they are letters of the truth, which they alone speak who know them. Each letter is a complete <thought>, like a complete book, since they are letters written by the Unity, the Father having written them for the aeons, in order that by means of his letters they should know the Father.

While his wisdom contemplates the Word, and his teaching utters it, his knowledge has revealed <it>. While forebearance is a crown upon it, and his gladness is in harmony with it, his glory has exalted it, his image has revealed it, his repose has received it into itself, his love has made a body over it, his fidelity has embraced it. In this way, the Word of the Father goes forth in the totality, as the fruit of his heart and an impression of his will. But it supports the totality, purifying them, bringing them back into the Father, into the Mother, Jesus of the infinite sweetness.

The Father reveals his bosom. - Now his bosom is the Holy Spirit. - He reveals what is hidden of him - what is hidden of him is his Son - so that through the mercies of the Father, the aeons may know him and cease laboring in search of the Father, resting there in him, knowing that this is the (final) rest. Having filled the deficiency, he abolished the form - the form of it is the world, that in which he served. - For the place where there is envy and strife is deficient, but the place where (there is) Unity is perfect. Since the deficiency came into being because the Father was not known, therefore, when the Father is known, from that moment on, the deficiency will no longer exist. As in the case of the ignorance of a person, when he comes to have knowledge, his ignorance vanishes of itself, as the darkness vanishes when the light appears, so also the deficiency vanishes in the perfection. So from that moment on, the form is not apparent, but it will vanish in the fusion of Unity, for now their works lie scattered. In time, Unity will perfect the spaces. It is within Unity that each one will attain himself; within knowledge, he will purify himself from multiplicity into Unity, consuming matter within himself like fire, and darkness by light, death by life.

If indeed these things have happened to each one of us, then we must see to it above all that the house will be holy and silent for the Unity - as in the case of some people who moved out of dwellings having jars that in spots were not good. They would break them, and the master of the house would not suffer loss. Rather, <he> is glad, because in place of the bad jars (there are) full ones which are made perfect. For such is the judgment which has come from above. It has passed judgment on everyone; it is a drawn sword, with two edges, cutting on either side. When the Word appeared, the one that is within the heart of those who utter it - it is not a sound alone, but it became a body - a great disturbance took place among the jars, because some had been emptied, others filled; that is, some had been supplied, others poured out, some had been purified, still others broken up. All the spaces were shaken and disturbed, because they had no order nor stability. Error was upset, not knowing what to do; it was grieved, in mourning, afflicting itself because it knew nothing. When knowledge drew near it - this is the downfall of (error) and all its emanations - error is empty, having nothing inside.

Truth appeared; all its emanations knew it. They greeted the Father in truth with a perfect power that joins them with the Father. For, as for everyone who loves the truth - because the truth is the mouth of the Father; his tongue is the Holy Spirit - he who is joined to the truth is joined to the Father's mouth by his tongue, whenever he is to receive the Holy Spirit, since this is the manifestation of the Father, and his revelation to his aeons.

He manifested what was hidden of him; he explained it. For who contains, if not the Father alone? All the spaces are his emanations. They have known that they came forth from him, like children who are from a grown man. They knew that they had not yet received form, nor yet received a name, each one of which the Father begets. Then, when they receive form by his knowledge, though truly within him, they do not know him. But the Father is perfect, knowing every space within him. If he wishes, he manifests whomever he wishes, by giving him form and giving him a name, and he gives a name to him, and brings it about that those come into existence who, before they come into existence, are ignorant of him who fashioned them.

I do not say, then, that they are nothing (at all) who have not yet come into existence, but they are in him who will wish that they come into existence when he wishes, like the time that is to come. Before all things appear, he knows what he will produce. But the fruit which is not yet manifest does not know anything, nor does it do anything. Thus also, every space which is itself in the Father is from the one who exists, who established it from what does not exist. For he who has no root has no fruit either, but though he thinks to himself, "I have come into being," yet he will perish by himself. For this reason, he who did not exist at all will never come into existence. What, then, did he wish him to think of himself? This: "I have come into being like the shadows and phantoms of the night." When the light shines on the terror which that person had experienced, he knows that it is nothing.

Thus, they were ignorant of the Father, he being the one whom they did not see. Since it was terror and disturbance and instability and doubt and division, there were many illusions at work by means of these, and (many) empty fictions, as if they were sunk in sleep, and found themselves in disturbing dreams. Either (there is) a place to which they are fleeing, or without strength they come (from) having chased after others, or they are involved in striking blows, or they are receiving blows themselves, or they have fallen from high places, or they take off into the air, though they do not even have wings. Again, sometimes (it is as) if people were murdering them, though there is no one even pursuing them, or they themselves are killing their neighbors, for they have been stained with their blood. When those who are going through all these things wake up, they see nothing, they who were in the midst of all these disturbances, for they are nothing. Such is the way of those who have cast ignorance aside from them like sleep, not esteeming it as anything, nor do they esteem its works as solid things either, but (rather,) they leave them behind like a dream in the night. The knowledge of the Father, they value as the dawn. This is the way each one has acted, as though asleep at the time when he was ignorant. And this is the way he has <come to knowledge>, as if he had awakened. {and} Good for the man who will return and awaken. And blessed is he who has opened the eyes of the blind.

And the Spirit ran after him, hastening from waking him up. Having extended his hand to him who lay upon the ground, he set him up on his feet, for he had not yet risen. He gave them the means of knowing the knowledge of the Father and the revelation of his Son. For when they had seen him and had heard him, he granted them to taste him, and to smell him, and to touch the beloved Son.

When he had appeared, instructing them about the Father, the incomprehensible one, when he had breathed into them what is in the thought, doing his will, when many had received the light, they turned to him. For the material ones were strangers, and did not see his likeness, and had not known him. For he came by means of fleshly form, while nothing blocked his course, because incorruptibility is irresistible, since he, again, spoke new things, still speaking about what is in the heart of the Father, having brought forth the flawless Word.

When light had spoken through his mouth, as well as his voice, which gave birth to life, he gave them thought and understanding, and mercy and salvation, and the powerful spirit from the infiniteness and the sweetness of the Father. Having made punishments and tortures cease - for it was they which were leading astray from his face some who were in need of mercy, in error and in bonds - he both destroyed them with power and confounded them with knowledge. He became a way for those who were gone astray, and knowledge for those who were ignorant, a discovery for those who were searching, and a support for those who were wavering, immaculateness for those who were defiled.

He is the shepherd who left behind the ninety-nine sheep which were not lost. He went searching for the one which had gone astray. He rejoiced when he found it, for ninety-nine is a number that is in the left hand, which holds it. But when the one is found, the entire number passes to the right (hand). As that which lacks the one - that is, the entire right (hand) - draws what was deficient and takes it from the left-hand side and brings (it) to the right, so too the number becomes one hundred. It is the sign of the one who is in their sound; it is the Father. Even on the Sabbath, he labored for the sheep which he found fallen into the pit. He gave life to the sheep, having brought it up from the pit, in order that you might know interiorly - you, the sons of interior knowledge - what is the Sabbath, on which it is not fitting for salvation to be idle, in order that you may speak from the day from above, which has no night, and from the light which does not sink, because it is perfect.

Say, then, from the heart, that you are the perfect day, and in you dwells the light that does not fail. Speak of the truth with those who search for it, and (of) knowledge to those who have committed sin in their error. Make firm the foot of those who have stumbled, and stretch out your hands to those who are ill. Feed those who are hungry, and give repose to those who are weary, and raise up those who wish to rise, and awaken those who sleep. For you are the understanding that is drawn forth. If strength acts thus, it becomes even stronger. Be concerned with yourselves; do not be concerned with other things which you have rejected from yourselves. Do not return to what you have vomited, to eat it. Do not be moths. Do not be worms, for you have already cast it off. Do not become a (dwelling) place for the devil, for you have already destroyed him. Do not strengthen (those who are) obstacles to you, who are collapsing, as though (you were) a support (for them). For the lawless one is someone to treat ill, rather than the just one. For the former does his work as a lawless person; the latter as a righteous person does his work among others. So you, do the will of the Father, for you are from him.

For the Father is sweet, and in his will is what is good. He has taken cognizance of the things that are yours, that you might find rest in them. For by the fruits does one take cognizance of the things that are yours, because the children of the Father are his fragrance, for they are from the grace of his countenance. For this reason, the Father loves his fragrance, and manifests it in every place. And if it mixes with matter, he gives his fragrance to the light, and in his repose, he causes it to surpass every form (and) every sound. For it is not the ears that smell the fragrance, but (it is) the breath that has the sense of smell and attracts the fragrance to itself, and is submerged in the fragrance of the Father, so that he thus shelters it, and takes it to the place where it came from, from the first fragrance, which is grown cold. It is something in a psychic form, being like cold water which has frozen (?), which is on earth that is not solid, of which those who see it think it is earth; afterwards, it dissolves again. If a breath draws it, it gets hot. The fragrances, therefore, that are cold are from the division. For this reason, faith came; it dissolved the division, and it brought the warm pleroma of love, in order that the cold should not come again, but (that) there should be the unity of perfect thought.

This <is> the word of the gospel of the discovery of the pleroma, for those who await the salvation which is coming from on high. While their hope, for which they are waiting, is in waiting - they whose image is light with no shadow in it - then, at that time, the pleroma is proceeding to come. The <deficiency> of matter came to be not through the limitlessness of the Father, who is coming to give time for the deficiency, although no one could say that the incorruptible one would come in this way. But the depth of the Father was multiplied, and the thought of error did not exist with him. It is a thing that falls, (and) it is a thing that easily stands upright (again), in the discovery of him who has come to him whom he shall bring back. For the bringing-back is called 'repentence'.

For this reason, incorruptibility breathed forth; it pursued the one who had sinned, in order that he might rest. For forgiveness is what remains for the light in the deficiency, the word of the pleroma. For the physician runs to the place where sickness is, because that is the will that is in him. He who has a deficiency, then, does not hide it, because one has what the other lacks. So the pleroma, which has no deficiency, but (which) fills up the deficiency, is what he provided from himself for filling up what he lacks, in order that therefore he might receive the grace. For when he was deficient, he did not have the grace. That is why there was diminution existing in the place where there is no grace. When that which was diminished was received, he revealed what he lacked, being (now) a pleroma; that is the discovery of the light of truth which rose upon him because it is immutable.

That is why Christ was spoken of in their midst, so that those who were disturbed might receive a bringing-back, and he might anoint them with the ointment. This ointment is the mercy of the Father, who will have mercy on them. But those whom he has anointed are the ones who have become perfect. For full jars are the ones that are usually anointed. But when the anointing of one (jar) is dissolved, it is emptied, and the reason for there being a deficiency is the thing by which its ointment goes. For at that time a breath draws it, a thing in the power of that which is with it. But from him who has no deficiency, no seal is removed, nor is anything emptied, but what he lacks, the perfect Father fills again. He is good. He knows his plantings, because it is he who planted them in his paradise. Now his paradise is his place of rest.

This is the perfection in the thought of the Father, and these are the words of his meditation. Each one of his words is the work of his one will in the revelation of his Word. While they were still depths of his thought, the Word, which was first to come forth, revealed them, along with a mind that speaks the one Word in silent grace. He was called 'thought', since they were in it before being revealed. It came about, then, that he was first to come forth, at the time when the will of him who willed desired it. And the will is what the Father rests in, and is pleased with. Nothing happens without him, nor does anything happen without the will of the Father, but his will is unsearchable. His trace is the will, and no one will know him, nor is it possible for one to scrutinize him, in order to grasp him. But when he wills, what he wills is this - even if the sight does not please them in any way before God - desiring the Father. For he knows the beginning of all of them, and their end. For at their end, he will question them directly. Now, the end is receiving knowledge about the one who is hidden, and this is the Father, from whom the beginning came forth, (and) to whom all will return who have come forth from him. And they have appeared for the glory and the joy of his name.

Now the name of the Father is the Son. It is he who first gave a name to the one who came forth from him, who was himself, and he begot him as a son. He gave him his name, which belonged to him; he is the one to whom belongs all that exists around him, the Father. His is the name; his is the Son. It is possible for him to be seen. The name, however, is invisible, because it alone is the mystery of the invisible, which comes to ears that are completely filled with it by him. For indeed, the Father's name is not spoken, but (rather,) it is apparent through a Son.

In this way, then, the name is a great thing. Who, therefore, will be able to utter a name for him, the great name, except him alone to whom the name belongs, and the sons of the name, in whom rested the name of the Father, (who) in turn themselves rested in his name? Since the Father is unengendered, he alone is the one who begot him for him(self) as a name, before he brought forth the aeons, in order that the name of the Father should be over their head as lord, that is the name in truth, which is firm in his command, through perfect power. For the name is not from (mere) words, nor does his name consist of appellations, but (rather,) it is invisible. He gave a name to him alone, since he alone sees him, he alone having the power to give him a name. For he who does not exist has no name. For what name is given to him who does not exist? But the one who exists, exists also with his name, and he alone knows it, and (he) alone (knows how) to give him a name. It is the Father. The Son is his name. He did not, therefore, hide it in the thing, but it existed; as for the Son, he alone gave a name. The name, therefore, is that of the Father, as the name of the Father is the Son. Where indeed would compassion find a name, except with the Father?

But no doubt one will say to his neighbor: "Who is it who will give a name to him who existed before himself, as if offspring did not receive a name from those who begot <them>?" First, then, it is fitting for us to reflect on this matter: What is the name? It is the name in truth; it is not therefore the name from the Father, for it is the one which is the proper name. Therefore, he did not receive the name on loan, as (do) others, according to the form in which each one is to be produced. But this is the proper name. There is no one else who gave it to him. But he <is> unnamable, indescribable, until the time when he who is perfect spoke of him alone. And it is he who has the power to speak his name, and to see it.

When, therefore, it pleased him that his name, which is loved, should be his Son, and he gave the name to him, that is, him who came forth from the depth, he spoke about his secret things, knowing that the Father is a being without evil. For that very reason, he brought him forth in order to speak about the place, and (about) his resting-place, from which he had come forth, and to glorify the pleroma, the greatness of his name, and the sweetness of the Father. About the place each one came from, he will speak, and to the region where he received his establishment, he will hasten to return again and to take from that place - the place where he stood - receiving a taste from that place, and receiving nourishment, receiving growth. And his own resting-place is his pleroma.

Therefore, all the emanations of the Father are pleromas, and the root of all his emanations is in the one who made them all grow up in himself. He assigned them their destinies. Each one, then, is manifest, in order that through their own thought <...>. For the place to which they send their thought, that place, their root, is what takes them up in all the heights, to the Father. They possess his head, which is rest for them, and they are supported, approaching him, as though to say that they have participated in his face by means of kisses. But they do not become manifest in this way, for they are not themselves exalted; (yet) neither did they lack the glory of the Father, nor did they think of him as small, nor that he is harsh, nor that he is wrathful, but (rather that) he is a being without evil, imperturbable, sweet, knowing all spaces before they have come into existence, and he had no need to be instructed.

This is the manner of those who possess (something) from above of the immensurable greatness, as they wait for the one alone, and the perfect one, the one who is there for them. And they do not go down to Hades, nor have they envy nor groaning nor death within them, but (rather) they rest in him who is at rest, not striving nor being twisted around the truth. But they themselves are the truth; and the Father is within them, and they are in the Father, being perfect, being undivided in the truly good one, being in no way deficient in anything, but they are set at rest, refreshed in the Spirit. And they will heed their root. They will be concerned with those (things) in which he will find his root, and not suffer loss to his soul. This is the place of the blessed; this is their place.

For the rest, then, may they know, in their places, that it is not fitting for me, having come to be in the resting-place, to speak of anything else. But it is in it that I shall come to be, and (it is fitting) to be concerned at all times with the Father of the all, and the true brothers, those upon whom the love of the Father is poured out, and in whose midst there is no lack of him. They are the ones who appear in truth, since they exist in true and eternal life, and (since they) speak of the light which is perfect, and (which is) filled with the seed of the Father, and which is in his heart and in the pleroma, while his Spirit rejoices in it and glorifies the one in whom it existed, because he is good. And his children are perfect and worthy of his name, for he is the Father; it is children of this kind that he loves.

The Gospel of the Egyptians

Translated by Alexander Bohlig and Frederik Wisse

The holy book of the Egyptians about the great invisible Spirit, the Father whose name cannot be uttered, he who came forth from the heights of the perfection, the light of the light of the aeons of light, the light of the silence of the providence <and> the Father of the silence, the light of the word and the truth, the light of the incorruptions, the infinite light, the radiance from the aeons of light of the unrevealable, unmarked, ageless, unproclaimable Father, the aeon of the aeons, Autogenes, self-begotten, self-producing, alien, the really true aeon.

Three powers came forth from him; they are the Father, the Mother, (and) the Son, from the living silence, what came forth from the incorruptible Father. These came forth from the silence of the unknown Father.

And from that place, Domedon Doxomedon came forth, the aeon of the aeons and the light of each one of their powers. And thus the Son came forth fourth; the Mother fifth; the Father sixth. He was [...] but unheralded; it is he who is unmarked among all the powers, the glories, and the incorruptions.

From that place, the three powers came forth, the three ogdoads that the Father brings forth in silence with his providence, from his bosom, i.e., the Father, the Mother, (and) the Son.

The <first> ogdoad, because of which the thrice-male child came forth, which is the thought, and the word, and the incorruption, and the eternal life, the will, the mind, and the foreknowledge, the androgynous Father.

The second ogdoad-power, the Mother, the virginal Barbelon, epititioch[...]ai, memeneaimen[...], who presides over the heaven, karb[...], the uninterpretable power, the ineffable Mother. She originated from herself [...]; she came forth; she agreed with the Father of the silent silence.

The third ogdoad-power, the Son of the silent silence, and the crown of the silent silence, and the glory of the Father, and the virtue of the Mother, he brings forth from the bosom the seven powers of the great light of the seven voices. And the word is their completion.

These are the three powers, the three ogdoads that the Father, through his providence, brought forth from his bosom. He brought them forth at that place.

Domedon Doxomedon came forth, the aeon of the aeons, and the throne which is in him, and the powers which surround him, the glories and the incorruptions. The Father of the great light who came forth from the silence, he is the great Doxomedon-aeon, in which the thrice- male child rests. And the throne of his glory was established in it, this one on which his unrevealable name is inscribed, on the tablet [...] one is the word, the Father of the light of everything, he who came forth from the silence, while he rests in the silence, he whose name is in an invisible symbol. A hidden, invisible mystery came forth:
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE oooooooooooooooooooooo uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (the 7 vowels, 22 times each).

And in this way, the three powers gave praise to the great, invisible, unnameable, virginal, uncallable Spirit, and his male virgin. They asked for a power. A silence of living silence came forth, namely glories and incorruptions in the aeons [...] aeons, myriads added on [...], the three males, the three male offspring, the male races ...
(IV 55, 5-7 adds: ... the glories of the Father, the glories of the great Christ, and the male offspring, the races ...)
... filled the great Doxomedon-aeon with the power of the word of the whole pleroma.

Then the thrice-male child of the great Christ, whom the great invisible Spirit had anointed - he whose power was called 'Ainon' - gave praise to the great invisible Spirit and his male virgin Yoel, and the silence of silent silence, and the greatness that [...] ineffable. [...] ineffable [...] unanswerable and uninterpretable, the first one who has come forth, and (who is) unproclaimable, [...] which is wonderful [...] ineffable [...], he who has all the greatnesses of greatness of the silence at that place. The thrice-male child brought praise, and asked for a power from the great, invisible, virginal Spirit.

Then there appeared at that place [...], who [...], who sees glories [...] treasures in a [...] invisible mysteries to [...] of the silence, who is the male virgin Youel.

Then the child of the child, Esephech, appeared.

And thus he was completed, namely, the Father, the Mother, the Son, the five seals, the unconquerable power which is the great Christ of all the incorruptible ones. ...
... (one line unrecoverable)
... holy [...] the end, the incorruptible [...], and [...], they are powers and glories and incorruptions [...]. They came forth ...
... (5 lines unrecoverable)
... This one brought praise to the unrevealable, hidden mystery [...] the hidden ...
... (4 lines unrecoverable)
... him in the [...], and the aeons [...] thrones, [...] and each one [...] myriads of powers without number surround them, glories and incorruptions [...] and they [...] of the Father, and the Mother, and the Son, and the whole pleroma, which I mentioned before, and the five seals, and the mystery of mysteries. They appeared ...
... (3 lines unrecoverable)
... who presides over [...], and the aeons of [...] really truly [...] and the ...
... (4 lines unrecoverable)
... and the really truly eternal aeons.

Then providence came forth from silence, and the living silence of the Spirit, and the Word of the Father, and a light. She [...] the five seals which the Father brought forth from his bosom, and she passed through all the aeons which I mentioned before. And she established thrones of glory, and myriads of angels without number who surrounded them, powers and incorruptible glories, who sing and give glory, all giving praise with a single voice, with one accord, with one never-silent voice, [...] to the Father, and the Mother, and the Son [...], and all the pleromas that I mentioned before, who is the great Christ, who is from silence, who is the incorruptible child Telmael Telmachael Eli Eli Machar Machar Seth, the power which really truly lives, and the male virgin who is with him, Youel, and Esephech, the holder of glory, the child of the child, and the crown of his glory, [...] of the five seals, the pleroma that I mentioned before.

There, the great self-begotten living Word came forth, the true god, the unborn physis, he whose name I shall tell, saying, [...]aia[...] thaOthOsth[...], who is the son of the great Christ, who is the son of the ineffable silence, who came forth from the great invisible and incorruptible Spirit. The son of the silence and silence appeared ...
... (one line unrecoverable)
... invisible [...] man and the treasures of his glory. Then he appeared in the revealed [...]. And he established the four aeons. With a word he established them.

He brought praise to the great, invisible, virginal Spirit, the silence of the Father, in a silence of the living silence of silence, the place where the man rests ...
... (two lines unrecoverable)

Then there came forth at/from that place the cloud of the great light, the living power, the mother of the holy, incorruptible ones, the great power, the Mirothoe. And she gave birth to him whose name I name, saying, ien ien ea ea ea, three times.

For this one, Adamas, is a light which radiated from the light; he is the eye of the light. For this is the first man, he through whom and to whom everything came into being, (and) without whom nothing came into being. The unknowable, incomprehensible Father came forth. He came down from above for the annulment of the deficiency.

Then the great Logos, the divine Autogenes, and the incorruptible man Adamas mingled with each other. A Logos of man came into being. However, the man came into being through a word.

He gave praise to the great, invisible, incomprehensible, virginal Spirit, and the male virgin, and the thrice-male child, and the male virgin Youel, and Esephech, the holder of glory, the child of the child and the crown of his glory, and the great Doxomedon-aeon, and the thrones which are in him, and the powers which surround him, the glories and the incorruptions, and their whole pleroma which I mentioned before, and the ethereal earth, the receiver of God, where the holy men of the great light receive shape, the men of the Father of the silent, living silence, the Father and their whole pleroma, as I mentioned before.

The great Logos, the divine Autogenes, and the incorruptible man Adamas gave praise, (and) they asked for a power and eternal strength for the Autogenes, for the completion of the four aeons, in order that, through them, there may appear [...] the glory and the power of the invisible Father of the holy men of the great light which will come to the world, which is the image of the night. The incorruptible man Adamas asked for them a son out of himself, in order that he (the son) may become father of the immovable, incorruptible race, so that, through it (the race), the silence and the voice may appear, and, through it, the dead aeon may raise itself, so that it may dissolve.

And thus there came forth from above the power of the great light, the Manifestation. She gave birth to the four great lights: Harmozel, Oroiael, Davithe, Eleleth, and the great incorruptible Seth, the son of the incorruptible man Adamas.

And thus the perfect hebdomad, which exists in hidden mysteries, became complete. When she receives the glory, she becomes eleven ogdoads.

And the Father nodded approval; the whole pleroma of the lights was well pleased. Their consorts came forth for the completion of the ogdoad of the divine Autogenes: the Grace of the first light Harmozel, the Perception of the second light Oroiael, the Understanding of the third light Davithe, the Prudence of the fourth light Eleleth. This is the first ogdoad of the divine Autogenes.

And the Father nodded approval; the whole pleroma of the lights was well pleased. The <ministers> came forth: the first one, the great Gamaliel (of) the first great light Harmozel, and the great Gabriel (of) the second great light Oroiael, and the great Samlo of the great light Davithe, and the great Abrasax of the great light Eleleth. And the consorts of these came forth by the will of the good pleasure of the Father: the Memory of the great one, the first, Gamaliel; the Love of the great one, the second, Gabriel; the Peace of the third one, the great Samblo; the eternal Life of the great one, the fourth, Abrasax. Thus were the five ogdoads completed, a total of forty, as an uninterpretable power.

Then the great Logos, the Autogenes, and the word of the pleroma of the four lights gave praise to the great, invisible, uncallable, virginal Spirit, and the male virgin, and the great Doxomedon-aeon, and the thrones which are in them, and the powers which surround them, glories, authorities, and the powers, <and> the thrice-male child, and the male virgin Youel, and Esephech, the holder of glory, the child of the child and the crown of his glory, the whole pleroma, and all the glories which are there, the infinite pleromas <and> the unnameable aeons, in order that they may name the Father the fourth, with the incorruptible race, (and) that they may call the seed of the Father the seed of the great Seth.

Then everything shook, and trembling took hold of the incorruptible ones. Then the three male children came forth from above, down into the unborn ones, and the self-begotten ones, and those who were begotten in what is begotten. The greatness came forth, the whole greatness of the great Christ. He established thrones in glory, myriads without number, in the four aeons around them, myriads without number, powers and glories and incorruptions. And they came forth in this way.

And the incorruptible, spiritual church increased in the four lights of the great, living Autogenes, the god of truth, praising, singing, (and) giving glory with one voice, with one accord, with a mouth which does not rest, to the Father, and the Mother, and the Son, and their whole pleroma, just as I mentioned <before>. The five seals which possess the myriads, and they who rule over the aeons, and they who bear the glory of the leaders, were given the command to reveal to those who are worthy. Amen.

* * * Then the great Seth, the son of the incorruptible man Adamas, gave praise to the great, invisible, uncallable, unnameable, virginal Spirit, and the <male virgin, and the thrice-male child, and the male> virgin Youel, and Esephech, the holder of glory and the crown of his glory, the child of the child, and the great Doxomedon-aeons, and the pleroma which I mentioned before; and asked for his seed.

Then there came forth from that place the great power of the great light Plesithea, the mother of the angels, the mother of the lights, the glorious mother, the virgin with the four breasts, bringing the fruit from Gomorrah, as spring, and Sodom, which is the fruit of the spring of Gomorrah which is in her. She came forth through the great Seth.

Then the great Seth rejoiced about the gift which was granted him by the incorruptible child. He took his seed from her with the four breasts, the virgin, and he placed it with him in the fourth aeon (or, in the four aeons), in the third great light Davithe.

After five thousand years, the great light Eleleth spoke: "Let someone reign over the chaos and Hades." And there appeared a cloud whose name is hylic Sophia [...] She looked out on the parts of the chaos, her face being like [...] in her form [...] blood. And the great angel Gamaliel spoke to the great Gabriel, the minister of the great light Oroiael; he said, "Let an angel come forth, in order that he may reign over the chaos and Hades." Then the cloud, being agreeable, came forth in the two monads, each one of which had light. [...] the throne, which she had placed in the cloud above. Then Sakla, the great angel, saw the great demon who is with him, Nebruel. And they became together a begetting spirit of the earth. They begot assisting angels. Sakla said to the great demon Nebruel, "Let the twelve aeons come into being in the [...] aeon, worlds [...]." [...] the great angel Sakla said by the will of the Autogenes, "There shall be the [...] of the number of seven [...]." And he said to the great angels, "Go and let each of you reign over his world." Each one of these twelve angels went forth. The first angel is Athoth. He is the one whom the great generations of men call [...]. The second is Harmas, who is the eye of the fire. The third is Galila. The fourth is Yobel. The fifth is Adonaios, who is called 'Sabaoth'. The sixth is Cain, whom the great generations of men call the sun. The seventh is Abel; the eighth Akiressina; the ninth Yubel. The tenth is Harmupiael. The eleventh is Archir-Adonin. The twelfth is Belias. These are the ones who preside over Hades and the chaos.

And after the founding of the world, Sakla said to his angels, "I, I am a jealous god, and apart from me nothing has come into being," since he trusted in his nature.

Then a voice came from on high, saying, "The Man exists, and the Son of the Man." Because of the descent of the image above, which is like its voice in the height of the image which has looked out through the looking out of the image above, the first creature was formed.

Because of this, Metanoia came into being. She received her completion and her power by the will of the Father, and his approval, with which he approved of the great, incorruptible, immovable race of the great, mighty men of the great Seth, in order that he may sow it in the aeons which had been brought forth, so that through her (Metanoia), the deficiency may be filled up. For she had come forth from above, down to the world, which is the image of the night. When she had come, she prayed for (the repentance of) both the seed of the archon of this aeon, and <the> authorities who had come forth from him, that defiled (seed) of the demon-begetting god which will be destroyed, and the seed of Adam and the great Seth, which is like the sun.

Then the great angel Hormos came to prepare, through the virgins of the corrupted sowing of this aeon, in a Logos-begotten, holy vessel, through the holy Spirit, the seed of the great Seth.

Then the great Seth came and brought his seed. And it was sown in the aeons which had been brought forth, their number being the amount of Sodom. Some say that Sodom is the place of pasture of the great Seth, which is Gomorrah. But others (say) that the great Seth took his plant out of Gomorrah and planted it in the second place, to which he gave the name 'Sodom'.

This is the race which came forth through Edokla. For she gave birth through the word, to Truth and Justice, the origin of the seed of the eternal life, which is with those who will persevere, because of the knowledge of their emanation. This is the great, incorruptible race which has come forth through three worlds to the world.

And the flood came as an example, for the consummation of the aeon. But it will be sent into the world because of this race. A conflagration will come upon the earth. And grace will be with those who belong to the race, through the prophets and the guardians who guard the life of the race. Because of this race, famines will occur, and plagues. But these things will happen because of the great, incorruptible race. Because of this race, temptations will come, a falsehood of false prophets.

Then the great Seth saw the activity of the devil, and his many guises, and his schemes, which will come upon his (Seth's) incorruptible, immovable race, and the persecutions of his powers and his angels, and their error, that they acted against themselves.

Then the great Seth gave praise to the great, uncallable, virginal Spirit, and the male virgin Barbelon, and the thrice-male child Telmael Telmael Heli Heli Machar Machar Seth, the power which really truly lives, and the male virgin Youel, and Esephech, the holder of glory and the crown of his glory, and the great Doxomedon-aeon, and the thrones which are in him, and the powers which surround them, and the whole pleroma, as I mentioned before. And he asked for guards over his seed.

Then there came forth from the great aeons four hundred ethereal angels, accompanied by the great Aerosiel and the great Selmechel, to guard the great, incorruptible race, its fruit, and the great men of the great Seth, from the time and the moment of Truth and Justice, until the consummation of the aeon and its archons, those whom the great judges have condemned to death.

Then the great Seth was sent by the four lights, by the will of the Autogenes and the whole pleroma, through <the gift> and the good pleasure of the great invisible Spirit, and the five seals, and the whole pleroma.

He passed through the three parousias which I mentioned before: the flood, and the conflagration, and the judgment of the archons and the powers and the authorities, to save her (the race) who went astray, through the reconciliation of the world, and the baptism through a Logos-begotten body which the great Seth prepared for himself secretly through the virgin, in order that the saints may be begotten by the holy Spirit, through invisible, secret symbols, through a reconciliation of the world with the world, through the renouncing of the world, and the god of the thirteen aeons, and (through) the convocations of the saints and the ineffable ones, and (through) the incorruptible bosom, and (through) the great light of the Father, who pre-existed with his Providence, and established through her the holy baptism that surpasses the heaven, through the incorruptible, Logos-begotten one, even Jesus the living one, even he whom the great Seth has put on. And through him, he nailed the powers of the thirteen aeons, and established those who are brought forth and taken away. He armed them with an armor of knowledge of this truth, with an unconquerable power of incorruptibility.

There appeared to them the great attendant Yesseus Mazareus Yessedekeus, the living water, and the great leaders, James the great and Theopemptos and Isaouel, and they who preside over the spring of truth, Micheus and Michar and Mnesinous, and he who presides over the baptism of the living, and the purifiers, and Sesengenpharanges, and they who preside over the gates of the waters, Micheus and Michar, and they who preside over the mountain, Seldao and Elainos, and the receivers of the great race, the incorruptible, mighty men <of> the great Seth, the ministers of the four lights, the great Gamaliel, the great Gabriel, the great Samblo, and the great Abrasax, and they who preside over the sun, its rising, Olses and Hypneus and Heurumaious, and they who preside over the entrance into the rest of eternal life, the rulers Mixanther and Michanor, and they who guard the souls of the elect, Akramas and Strempsouchos, and the great power Heli Heli Machar Machar Seth, and the great invisible, uncallable, unnameable, virginal Spirit, and the silence, and the (first) great light Harmozel, the place of the living Autogenes, the God of the truth, and <he> who is with him, the incorruptible man Adamas, the second, Oroiael, the place of the great Seth, and Jesus, who possesses the life, and who came and crucified that which is in the law, the third, Davithe, the place of the sons of the great Seth, the fourth, Eleleth, the place where the souls of the sons are resting, the fifth, Yoel, who presides over the name of him to whom it will be granted to baptize with the holy baptism that surpasses the heaven, the incorruptible one.

But from now on, through the incorruptible man Poimael, and they who are worthy of (the) invocation, the renunciations of the five seals in the spring-baptism, these will know their receivers as they are instructed about them, and they will know them (or: be known) by them. These will by no means taste death.

* * * IE ieus EO ou EO Oua! Really, truly, O Yesseus Mazareus Yessedekeus, O living water, O child of the child, O glorious name! Really truly, aiOn o On (or: O existing aeon), iiii EEEE eeee oooo uuuu OOOO aaaa{a}. Really, truly, Ei aaaa OOOO, O existing one who sees the aeons! Really, truly, aee EEE iiii uuuuuu OOOOOOOO, who is eternally eternal! Really, truly, iEa aiO, in the heart, who exists, u aei eis aei, ei o ei, ei os ei (or: (Son) forever, You are what you are, You are who you are)!

This great name of yours is upon me, O self-begotten Perfect one, who is not outside me. I see you, O you who are visible to everyone. For who will be able to comprehend you in another tongue? Now that I have known you, I have mixed myself with the immutable. I have armed myself with an armor of light; I have become light! For the Mother was at that place because of the splendid beauty of grace. Therefore, I have stretched out my hands while they were folded. I was shaped in the circle of the riches of the light which is in my bosom, which gives shape to the many begotten ones in the light into which no complaint reaches. I shall declare your glory truly, for I have comprehended you, sou iEs ide aeiO aeie ois, O aeon, aeon, O God of silence! I honor you completely. You are my place of rest, O Son Es Es o e, the formless one who exists in the formless ones, who exists raising up the man in whom you will purify me into your life, according to your imperishable name. Therefore, the incense of life is in me. I mixed it with water after the model of all archons, in order that I may live with you in the peace of the saints, you who exist really truly forever.

* * * This is the book which the great Seth wrote, and placed in high mountains on which the sun has not risen, nor is it possible (that it should do so). And since the days of the prophets and the apostles and the preachers, the name has not at all risen upon their hearts, nor is it possible (that it should do so). And their ear has not heard it.

The great Seth wrote this book with letters in one hundred and thirty years. He placed it in the mountain that is called 'Charaxio,' in order that, at the end of the times and the eras, by the will of the divine Autogenes and the whole pleroma, through the gift of the untraceable, unthinkable, fatherly love, it may come forth and reveal this incorruptible, holy race of the great savior, and those who dwell with them in love, and the great, invisible, eternal Spirit, and his only-begotten Son, and the eternal light, and his great, incorruptible consort, and the incorruptible Sophia, and the Barbelon, and the whole pleroma in eternity. Amen.

* * * The Gospel of <the> Egyptians. The God-written, holy, secret book. Grace, understanding, perception, (and) prudence (be) with him who has written it - Eugnostos the beloved, in the Spirit - in the flesh, my name is Gongessos - and my fellow lights in incorruptibility. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, Ichthus. God-written (is) the holy book of the great, invisible Spirit. Amen.

The Holy Book of the Great
Invisible Spirit.
Amen.

The H.O.P.E. Team
 3rd Annual Summit 16Sep04

List of persons that attended our 3rd Annual Summit
  	Name 	Category 	Area Covered
  	Don Hawkins
Sunflower Properties, LLC
3532 E 10th St
Indianapolis, IN 46201
317-631-1852 Voice - 317-687-1852 Fax
mr@donhawkins.com
www.sunflowerproperties.net 	  	 
AIM 	Andrea Conley
AfterCare for Indiana through Mentoring
4118 Edgemere Ct. Apt. B-2
Indianapolis, IN  46205 	  	 
AIM 	Kimberly Webb
AfterCare for Indiana through Mentoring
7646 E. Placing Road
Indianapolis, IN  46226 	  	 
  	LaTosha Williams 	  	 
AIM 	Kelly Williams
AfterCare for Indiana through Mentoring
4236 Lakeway Drive
Indianapolis, IN 46205
317-542-7089 	  	 
  	Carolyn Coleman
Women In Motion Volunteer
947 N. Penn #601
Indianapolis, IN 	  	 
  	Dana Waddell
1955 Yacht Harbor Circle
Indianapolis, IN 46260
317-252-4398 	  	 
  	Patty McCartney
Salvation Army
540 N. Alabama Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-637-5551 	  	 
	Leah Mills
540 N. Alabama Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-225-2794 		
  	Laura Burke
3902 Caroline Avenue
Indianapolis, IN 46205
317-543-3211 	  	 
  	Cherry Weff
Salvation Army
540 N. Alabama Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-687-3714 	  	 
  	Renee Jackson
Salvation Army
540 N. Alabama Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-637-5551 Ext. 103 	  	 
IPS 	Rebecca Bibbs
Indianapolis Public School
120 E. Walnut St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-226-4530
bibbsr@mps.k12.in.us 	  	 
IPD 	David Allender
Indianapolis Police Department Juvenile Division
2451 N. Keystone Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46218
317-327-6610
a6707@indybov.org 	  	 
  	Christine Perkins
Robert Half Accountemps
135 N. Penn
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-638-8367
chris.perkins@accountemps.com 	  	 
  	Giannine Paul
Robert Half Accountemps
135 N. Penn
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-638-8367
giannine.paul@rhi.com 	  	 
  	Tishika Jackson
GEO Foundation
302 S. Meridian Street #201
Indianapolis, IN  46225
317-24-3760
tishika.jackson@geofoundation.org 	  	 
  	Tim Gidman
Choose to Thrive
3532 E. 10th Street
Indianapolis, IN  46201
317-716-8186
choosetothrive@yahoo.com 	  	 
  	Kim Boyd
Vincennes Univ.
725 N. Oriental Street
Indianapolis, IN  46201
317-974-0530 	  	 
CNC 	Ruth Wilson
Citizens Neigh. Coalition
317-926-2640 	  	 
CNC 	Zeola Adair
Citizens Neigh. Coalition
2308 Guilford Ave.
317-926-2640 	  	 
  	Natalie Bachm
Bethlehem House
130 E. 30th St.
Indianapolis, IN  46205
317-920-1519 	  	 
  	Elsie Siddle
Indpls. Chapter I.B.E.
2703 Hillside
317-924-1687
ic_ibe@yahoo.com 	  	 
  	Paulette Fain
Rehab Resource
P.O. Box 11291
Indianapolis, IN  46201
317-637-3701
info@rehabresource.org 	  	 
I.B.E. 	Quiane Graham
I.B.E.
3145 N. Meridian
Indianapolis, IN 46208
317-925-2702 Ext. 13
ggrahm@ibeonline.com 	  	 
  	Teena Tinsley
Channels of Hope
130 E. 30th Street
317-920-1519 	  	 
  	Mark Anthony
Channels of Hope
130 E. 30th St.
317-920-1519 	  	 
  	Shelley Covington
RGC Press Kimbayah Prisoner
P.O. Box 2921 517 W. 30th st.
317-418-2860 / 317-923-5644
rgcpress@iquest.net 	  	 
  	May Jordan
4220 Verona Ct.
317-897-2275 	  	 
  	Tyrone Chad
School of VU
IUPUI 	  	 
  	Carla Sargent
9856 Scott Ct.
Indianapolis, IN 46235
317-899-3869 	  	 
  	Pastor James P. Smith
7210 Avalon Trail Dr.
317-812-9154 	  	 
IBLC 	Bill Crawford
IBLC
200 W. Washington Room 402
317-232-9874 	  	 
  	Kari Brown
Channels of Hope
130 E. 30th St.
317-920-1519 	  	 
COH 	Valerie Jones
Channels of Hope
130 E. 30th St.
317-920-1519 	  	 
  	Sherry Hicks
637 W. 29th St.
Indianapolis, IN  46208
317-923-8295 	  	 
COH 	George Wooden
Channels of Hope
130 E. 30th St.
317-920-1519 	  	 
PPL 	Charise Collins
PPL
2430 E. 25th Street
317-658-2586 	  	 
  	Yulonda Nicholson
317-541-0366 	  	 
  	Sherrell Sweatt
3425 N. Rural
Indianapolis, IN  46218
317-514-0366 	  	 
  	Florine Jennings
Salvation Army
540 N. Alabama St. I
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-637-5551 	  	 
  	Sandra Watkins
Salvation Army
540 N. Alabama St. I
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-637-5551 	  	 
  	Marilyn Knoy
DWD-WOTC
10 N. Senate
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-232-7746 	  	 
  	Michael Vaughn
2936 Oxford Lane
317-923-1063 	  	 
  	Joyce Johnson 	  	 
  	Dana Muldrow
Twenty First Century Scholars
815 W. Michigan St. UC-B-10
Indianapolis, IN  46202
317-274-5509
dalmuldre@iupui.edu 	  	 
  	Wendy Heckman
1102 S. Franklin Road #38
Indianapolis, IN  46239
317-356-0718 	  	 
  	Mikko Jones
Vincennes U/Veterans Upward Bound 	  	 
  	Daryl Hall
Dept. of Correction Juvenile Programs
302 N. Washington St. Room E 334
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-233-8861 	  	 
  	Edyth Be Jarnett
555 Mass. Ave. #604
317-634-1380 	  	 
  	Dorothy Heurn
Martin U
2170 Avondale Pl.
317-418-4810
nhayher@aol.com 	  	 
  	Dana Mathews
Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic
2310 N. Park Ave.
Indianapolis, IN  46205
317-415-5337
dmathews@gclegalclinic.org 	  	 
  	Chet Bolls
H.O.P.E 	  	 
  	Wendi Middleton
Angel's Wings
P.O. Box 21232
Indianapolis, IN  46221
317-691-3304
angleswingsinc@yahoo.com 	  	 
  	Tamiko Neely
Angel's Wings
P.O. Box 21232
Indianapolis, IN  46221
317-691-3304
angleswingsinc@yahoo.com 	  	 
  	ML Colman
McAna
317-925-3577 	  	 
  	Marshall Lewis
317-280-1604 	  	 
  	Chris Talline 	  	 
  	Mary Armstrong Smith
Helpline
Dial 211 from any phone 	  	 
  	Deb Whitaker
Helpline
Dial 211 from any phone 	  	 
  	Ann Gardner
Veterans Upward Bound
317-927-9605 	  	 
  	George Grigsby
317-345-5772 	  	 
  	Mary Bronaugh
3646 Fall Creek Pkwy.
317-926-4903 	  	 
  	Glinn H
Wayne Township Schools ABE
5248 W. Raymond St.
Indianapolis, IN  46241
317-248-8616 	  	 
  	Cherry Webb
540 N. Alabama
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-687-3714 	  	 
  	Marjorie Tucker
Covenant Fellowship Baptist Church
910 E. 46th St.
317-457-4933
soulchile64@yahoo.com 	  	 
  	Sharon Karr
Possibility Network
10150 Lantern
Fishers, IN
sharon@indianalearn.com 	  	 
  	Patsy Pitts
John Boner/Career Corner
2210 E. 10th St.
Indianapolis, IN  46201
317-264-1379
ppitts@enn.org 	  	 
  	Erin Ward
Mentoring Children of Promise
4720 Kingsway Dr.
Indianapolis, IN  46205
317-472-8505
eward@choicesteam.org 	  	 
  	Robert Abron
2866 N. Chester Ave.
3177-250-2944 	  	 
  	Tonya Hegwood
Goodwill Industries
1635 W. Michigan
317-524-4540
tonyahegwood@sbcglobal.net 	  	 
  	Jim Boyd
Indpls. Urban League
777 Indiana Ave.
317-693-7603
jboyd@indplsul.org 	  	 
  	Mary Fran Crowley
Choices, INC.
4701 N. Keystone #150
317-205-8309
mfcrowley@choicesteam.org 	  	 
  	Karen Rench
DWD
10 N. Senate
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-233-8273
krench@ded.state.in.us 	  	 
  	Sharon Langlots
PUB
10 N. Senate
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-232-7371
slanlotz@dwd.state.in.us 	  	 
  	Cindy Kicinski
Workone Goodwill
2525 N. Shadeland Ave.
Indianapolis, IN  46219 	  	 
  	Don Kent
Work One Goodwill
2525 N. Shadeland Ave.
Indianapolis, IN  46219
317-358-4500
dkent@goodwill-indy.org 	  	 
  	Brandon Jackson
Kat/IPS
7309 Meridian Hills Ct.
317-340-2038 	  	 
AIM 	Carlette Duffy, Resource Coordinator
Aftercare for Indiana Through Mentoring
3190 N. Meridian
Indianapolis, IN  46208
317-920-6850 	  	 
  	Phyllis A.Carr
Associate to President
2171 Avondale Place
Indianapolis, IN  46218
317-543-4828
pcarr@martin.edu 	  	 
	Ann Gardner
Veterans Upward Bound
3833 N. Meridian Street, Suite 110
Indianapolis, IN  46208
317-927-9605
jgardner@indian.vinu.edu 	  	 
  	Dorothy Herron
2171 Station Street
P.O.Box 18567
Indianapolis, IN 46218
317-917-3360
317-543-3262
dherron@martin.edu 	  	 
MCCOY 	John Brandon
Marion Count Commission on Youth
3901 N. Meridian
Indianapolis, IN  46208
317-921-1288
john.brandon@mccoyouth.org 	  	 
  	Krystal Howard
Vincennes University
3833 N. Meridian Street, Suite 110
Indianapolis, IN 46208
317-927-9605
jgardner@indian.vinu.edu 	  	 
  	Wade Vannerson
Martin University
2171 Avondale Place
P.O. Box 18567
Indianapolis, IN  46218
317-543-3259
wvannerson@martin.edu 	  	 
  	Rhonda Shipley
State of Indiana Department of Correction
Indiana Government Center South
302 West Washington St., E-334
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-234-0323
rshipley@coa.doc.state.in.us 	  	 
  	Dana L. Blank
Indiana Women's Prison
401 N. Randolph Street
Indianapolis, IN 46201-3099
317-639-2671
dblank@iwp.doc.state.in.us 	  	 
  	Sharon Langlotz
Indiana Workforce Development
10 N. Senate Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46204-2277
317-232-7371
slanglotz@dwd.state.in.us 	  	 
  	Jennifer Outlaw
Marion County Superior Court Probation Department
200 East Washington Street, Room T322
Indianapolis, IN 46204-3311
317-327-3243
joutlaw@indygov.org 	  	 
  	Lyman B. Rhodes, II
200 East Washington Street Suite 1501
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-327-5775
lrhodes@indygov.org
www.icaam.org 	  	 
WCTY 	Alan Dhayer
200 East Washington Street
Suite G-22, City County Building
Indianapolis,IN  46204
317-327-8652
adayer@indygov.org
www.indygov.org/cable 	  	 
  	Lori L. Wynne
IndyPendence Job Corps Center
Operator for the U.S. Department of Labor
222 East Ohio St. Suite 300
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-524-6777
wynnel@ajcc.jobcorps.org 	  	 
MCSD 	Michael Wolley
Marion County Sheriff's Department
40 S. Alabama St.
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-231-8312 	  	 
  	Susan Brandenburg
Marion Superior Court Probation Department
200 E. Washington St. Room W125
Indianapolis, IN  46204-3311 	  	 
  	David M. Allender
Indianapolis Police Department
2451 N. Keystone Avenue
Indianapolis, IN  46218 	  	 
IUL 	Jeanette Kersh
Indianapolis Urban League
777 Indiana Ave.
Indianapolis, IN  46202
317-693-7603
jkersh@indplsul.org 	  	 
  	Rodney Nichols
The Possibility Network
10150 Lantern Road Suite 125
Fishers, IN  46038
317-806-7800
www.indianalearn.com 	  	 
  	J Woods
Indianapolis, IN
317-5066874
allenimagery@tmail.com 	  	 
  	Patrick McDaniel
Sober Living Alternatives
6240 E. 11th St.
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-375-8087
VM/Pager 1-888-479-1584 	  	 
  	Cheryl A. Justice
CraineHouse
3535 N. Pennsylvania St.
Indianapolis, IN 46205
317-925-2833 	  	 
  	Nate Rush
Bethlehem House
130 East 30th St.
Indianapolis, IN  46205
317-920-1519
nrush@aol.com 	  	 
  	Joyce Spears
The Possibility Network
10150 Lantern Road Suite 125
Fishers, IN  46038
317-806-7800
joyce@indianalearn.com 	  	 
  	Jhadijah Curtis
Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana Inc.
1635 W. Michigan St. Indianapolis, IN 46222
kcurtis@goodwill-indy.org 	  	 
  	John T. Smith
1426 W. 29th St. Suite 101
Indianapolis, IN  46208
317-612-6800
jsmith@pace-oar.org 	  	 
  	James Logan
Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program
1835 N. Meridian St.
Indianapolis, IN  46202
317-931-3055 Ext. 128
james.logan@clarian.org 	  	 
  	Leslie V. Kelly
Choices -Children of Prisoners
4720 Kingsway Dr. Suite 110
Indianapolis, IN  46205
317-726-2121
lkelly@kidwrap.org 	  	 
ABC 	Matthew Raibley
American Business Corporation
222 E. Ohio St. Suite 700
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-217-2121 Ext. 102
matthew@abcworks.net 	  	 
TLC 	Evelyn Alexander-Davis
Transitional Life Connections
P.O. Box 22051
Indianapolis, IN 46222
317-822-1057
evdavis@iquest.net 	  	 
  	Solomon R.A. Knight
Young Men, Inc.
3302 N. Arsenal
Indianapolis, IN 46226
317-923-7690 work
317-523-1656 cell 	  	 
  	James Tanniehill
Real estate Investor
317-329-5582 Business
317-289-1396 Cell 	  	 
UEA 	Kelly L. Beckett
Urban Enterprise Association, Inc.
2507 Bloyd Avenue
Indianapolis, IN  46218
317-974-4420
kbeckett@u-e-a.org 	  	 
  	Mark Cassini
Exodus Refugee/Immigration, Inc.
4550 N. Central Avenue
Indianapolis, IN  46205
317-921-0836
mcassini@exodusrefugee.org 	  	 
YMCA 	Ryan Scott
501 N. Shortridge Rd.
Indianapolis, IN  46219
317-357-8441
rscott@indymca.org 	  	 
  	Rev. Clarence C. Moore, B.S., Senior Pastor
Kumbayah Prisoner Ministry
517 West 30th St.
Indianapolis, IN  46208
317-923-5644
www.nne.org 	  	 
  	Shannon C. Driver
HO2PE House
Helping Other Offenders Prosper & Excel, Inc.
2705 N. Rader St.
Indianapolis, IN 46208
317-924-3110
www.hoope.org 	  	 
  	Michael Woods
Urban Enterprise Association
2507 Bloyd Avenue
Indianapolis, IN  46218
317-974-4420
mwoods@u-e-a-.org
www.u-e-a.org 	  	 
  	Diane Burhannon
Fathers and Families
2835 N. Illinois St.
Indianapolis, IN  46208
317-921-5939
dianeburhannon@wishard.edu
www.fatherresouce.org 	  	 
  	Dana Mathews
Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic
2301 N. Park Avenue
Indianapolis, IN  46205
317-415-5337
dmathews@nclegalclinic.org 	  	 
  	Mary Shannon
Potter and Clay Ministries Inc.
610 n. Sherman Drive Suite B
Indianapolis, In 46201
317-685-2222
www.potterandclayministries.org 	  	 
  	Linda Phipps, PHR
American Business Corporation
222 East Ohio St. Suite 700
Indianapolis, IN  46204
317-217-1271 Ext. 106
linda@abcworks.net 	  	 
  	Maria Tsvetkova
1621 N. Kent St., Fourth Floor
Arlington, VA 22209
703-248-0161
mtsvetkova@ird-dc.org
www.ird-dc.org 	  	 
  	Debra Mills
Indiana Woman's Prison
401 N. Randolph Street
Indianapolis, IN  46201
317-639-2671 ext. 249
dmills@iwp.doc.state.in.us 	  	 
  	Tishika Jackson, M.S. Ed.
GEO Foundation
302 S. Meridian ST. Suite 201
Indianapolis, IN 46225
317-524-3760
tishika.jackson@geofoundation.org
www.geofoundation.org 	  	 
  	Tammy Atwood
Community Outreach Coordinator
Indiana Women's Prison
401 N. Randolph St.
Indianapolis, IN 46201
317-639-2671 ext. 309
tatwood@iwp.doc.state.in.us 	  	 
  	Carlette Duffy
AfterCare for Indiana through Mentoring
3190 N. Meridian St.
Indianapolis, IN  46208
317-920-6850 p
317-435-5987 c
cmduffy@iupui.edu 	  	 
  	Charise Collins
Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.
2430 Galaxy Court
Indianapolis, IN 46229
317-658-2556 cell
317-898-1602 home office
celohim@aol.com 	  	 
  	J.T. Ferguson, Jr.
K&K Professional Services
5652 Georgetown Rd.
Indianapolis, IN  46254
317-297-4378 	  	 
  	Indya Peoples
Indiana's Juvenile Reentry Program
3190 N. Meridian St.
Indianapolis, IN  46208
317-920-6848
ipeoples@iupui.edu 	  	 
  	Shelley D. Covington
RGC Press
P.O. Box 2921
Indianapolis, IN  46206
317-418-2860
1-800-204-6044
rgcpress@iquest.net 	  	 
  	Debbie Spain
3019-3021 N. Delaware
Indianapolis, IN  46208
www.spainsresliving.com 	  	 
  	S. Lee Ladd
P.O. Box 44163
Indianapolis, IN  46244
317-870-9217 	  	 
  	Betty Jennings
Salvation Army
Case Manager
317-637-5551 ext.126 	  	 
  	Ray A. Larkins
5431 West 81st St.
Indianapolis, IN 46268-1610
317-532-3389 ext. 1573
ind1ral@ups.com 	  	 
  	Krystal Howard
Veterans Upward Bound
317-927-9605 	  	 
  	Marilynn Roberson
21st
8112 Louisville Drive Apt.O
317-899-0934
mrobe09268@aol.com 	  	 
  	Chaplain Doris J. Woodruff, M.Div.
Indiana Government Center South
302 W. Washington St. E-329
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-233-5236
dwoodruff@coa.doc.state.in.us 	  	 
  	Marjorie Tucker
Covenant Fellowship Baptist Church
910 E. 46th St.
317-457-4933
soulchile64@yahoo.com 	  	 
  	Sharon Karr
Posibility Network
101050 Lantern Road
Fishers, IN 
sharon@indianalearn.com 	  	 
  	Patsy Pitts
John Boner/Career Corner
2210 E. 10th St.
Indianapolis, IN  46201
317-264-1379
ppitts@enn.org 	  	 
  	Erin Ward
Mentoring Children Of Promise
4720 Kingsway dr.
Indianapolis, IN 46205
317-472-8505
eward@choicesteam.org 	  	 
  	Deby Crislip
Work One
2525 N. Shadeland Ave. C-1
Indianapolis, IN 46219
317-358-4521 	  	 
  	Mark Cassini
Exodus Refugee/Immigration, Inc.
4550 N. Central Ave.
Indianapolis, IN  46205
317-921-0836
mcassini@exodusrefugee.org 	  	 
MCCOY 	Starla Hart
Marion County Commission on Youth
3901 N. Meridian St.
Indianapolis, IN 46208
317-921-1286
starla.hart@mccoyouth.org 	  	 
  	  	  	 
  	  	  	 
  	  	  	 
  	  	  	 

The H.O.P.E. Team
P.O. Box 1724
Indianapolis, IN 46206
	

(317) 822-HOPE Voice
(317) 687-1852 Fax
mail@thehopeteam.com Email Address

The Gospel of the Egyptians

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Translated by Alexander Bohlig and Frederik Wisse

From that place, the three powers came forth, the three ogdoads that the Father brings forth in silence with his providence, from his bosom, i.e., the Father, the Mother, (and) the Son.

These are the three powers, the three ogdoads that the Father, through his providence, brought forth from his bosom. He brought them forth at that place.

Then there appeared at that place [...], who [...], who sees glories [...] treasures in a [...] invisible mysteries to [...] of the silence, who is the male virgin Youel.

Then the child of the child, Esephech, appeared.

He brought praise to the great, invisible, virginal Spirit, the silence of the Father, in a silence of the living silence of silence, the place where the man rests ...
... (two lines unrecoverable)

Then the great Logos, the divine Autogenes, and the incorruptible man Adamas mingled with each other. A Logos of man came into being. However, the man came into being through a word.

And thus the perfect hebdomad, which exists in hidden mysteries, became complete. When she receives the glory, she becomes eleven ogdoads.

And after the founding of the world, Sakla said to his angels, "I, I am a jealous god, and apart from me nothing has come into being," since he trusted in his nature.

Then the great angel Hormos came to prepare, through the virgins of the corrupted sowing of this aeon, in a Logos-begotten, holy vessel, through the holy Spirit, the seed of the great Seth.

The Holy Book of the Great
Invisible Spirit.
Amen.

The Hypostasis of the Archons
(The Reality of the Rulers)

Translated by Bentley Layton

On account of the reality of the authorities, (inspired) by the spirit of the father of truth, the great apostle - referring to the "authorities of the darkness" - told us that "our contest is not against flesh and blood; rather, the authorities of the universe and the spirits of wickedness." I have sent this (to you) because you inquire about the reality of the authorities.

Their chief is blind; because of his power and his ignorance and his arrogance he said, with his power, "It is I who am God; there is none apart from me." When he said this, he sinned against the entirety. And this speech got up to incorruptibility; then there was a voice that came forth from incorruptibility, saying, "You are mistaken, Samael" - which is, "god of the blind."

His thoughts became blind. And, having expelled his power - that is, the blasphemy he had spoken - he pursued it down to chaos and the abyss, his mother, at the instigation of Pistis Sophia. And she established each of his offspring in conformity with its power - after the pattern of the realms that are above, for by starting from the invisible world the visible world was invented.

As incorruptibility looked down into the region of the waters, her image appeared in the waters; and the authorities of the darkness became enamored of her. But they could not lay hold of that image, which had appeared to them in the waters, because of their weakness - since beings that merely possess a soul cannot lay hold of those that possess a spirit - for they were from below, while it was from above. This is the reason why "incorruptibility looked down into the region (etc.)": so that, by the father's will, she might bring the entirety into union with the light.

The rulers laid plans and said, "Come, let us create a man that will be soil from the earth." They modeled their creature as one wholly of the earth. Now the rulers [...] body [...] they have [...] female [...] is [...] with the face of a beast. They had taken some soil from the earth and modeled their man after their body and after the image of God that had appeared to them in the waters. They said, "Come, let us lay hold of it by means of the form that we have modeled, so that it may see its male counterpart [...], and we may seize it with the form that we have modeled" - not understanding the force of God, because of their powerlessness. And he breathed into his face; and the man came to have a soul (and remained) upon the ground many days. But they could not make him arise because of their powerlessness. Like storm winds they persisted (in blowing), that they might try to capture that image, which had appeared to them in the waters. And they did not know the identity of its power.

Now all these things came to pass by the will of the father of the entirety. Afterwards, the spirit saw the soul-endowed man upon the ground. And the spirit came forth from the Adamantine Land; it descended and came to dwell within him, and that man became a living soul. It called his name Adam, since he was found moving upon the ground. A voice came forth from incorruptibility for the assistance of Adam; and the rulers gathered together all the animals of the earth and all the birds of heaven and brought them in to Adam to see what Adam would call them, that he might give a name to each of the birds and all the beasts.

They took Adam and put him the garden, that he might cultivate it and keep watch over it. And the rulers issued a command to him, saying, "From every tree in the garden shall you eat; yet from the tree of recognizing good and evil do not eat, nor touch it; for the day you eat from it, with death you are going to die."

They [...] this. They do not understand what they have said to him; rather, by the father's will, they said this in such a way that he might (in fact) eat, and that Adam might <not> regard them as would a man of an exclusively material nature.

The rulers took counsel with one another and said, "Come, let us cause a deep sleep to fall upon Adam." And he slept. - Now the deep sleep that they "caused to fall upon him, and he slept" is Ignorance. - They opened his side like a living woman. And they built up his side with some flesh in place of her, and Adam came to be endowed only with soul.

And the spirit-endowed woman came to him and spoke with him, saying, "Arise, Adam." And when he saw her, he said, "It is you who have given me life; you will be called 'mother of the living'. - For it is she who is my mother. It is she who is the physician, and the woman, and she who has given birth."

Then the authorities came up to their Adam. And when they saw his female counterpart speaking with him, they became agitated with great agitation; and they became enamored of her. They said to one another, "Come, let us sow our seed in her," and they pursued her. And she laughed at them for their witlessness and their blindness; and in their clutches she became a tree, and left before them her shadowy reflection resembling herself; and they defiled it foully. - And they defiled the stamp of her voice, so that by the form they had modeled, together with their (own) image, they made themselves liable to condemnation.

Then the female spiritual principle came in the snake, the instructor; and it taught them, saying, "What did he say to you? Was it, 'From every tree in the garden shall you eat; yet - from the tree of recognizing good and evil do not eat'?"
The carnal woman said, "Not only did he say 'Do not eat', but even 'Do not touch it; for the day you eat from it, with death you are going to die.'"
And the snake, the instructor, said, "With death you shall not die; for it was out of jealousy that he said this to you. Rather your eyes shall open and you shall come to be like gods, recognizing evil and good." And the female instructing principle was taken away from the snake, and she left it behind, merely a thing of the earth.
And the carnal woman took from the tree and ate; and she gave to her husband as well as herself; and these beings that possessed only a soul, ate. And their imperfection became apparent in their lack of knowledge; and they recognized that they were naked of the spiritual element, and took fig leaves and bound them upon their loins.

Then the chief ruler came; and he said, "Adam! Where are you?" - for he did not understand what had happened. And Adam said, "I heard your voice and was afraid because I was naked; and I hid."
The ruler said, "Why did you hide, unless it is because you have eaten from the tree from which alone I commanded you not to eat? And you have eaten!"
Adam said, "The woman that you gave me, she gave to me and I ate." And the arrogant ruler cursed the woman.
The woman said, "It was the snake that led me astray and I ate." They turned to the snake and cursed its shadowy reflection, [...] powerless, not comprehending that it was a form they themselves had modeled. From that day, the snake came to be under the curse of the authorities; until the all-powerful man was to come, that curse fell upon the snake.

They turned to their Adam and took him and expelled him from the garden along with his wife; for they have no blessing, since they too are beneath the curse. Moreover, they threw mankind into great distraction and into a life of toil, so that their mankind might be occupied by worldly affairs, and might not have the opportunity of being devoted to the holy spirit.

Now afterwards, she bore Cain, their son; and Cain cultivated the land. Thereupon he knew his wife; again becoming pregnant, she bore Abel; and Abel was a herdsman of sheep. Now Cain brought in from the crops of his field, but Abel brought in an offering (from) among his lambs. God looked upon the votive offerings of Abel; but he did not accept the votive offerings of Cain. And carnal Cain pursued Abel, his brother.

And God said to Cain, "Where is Abel, your brother?"
He answered saying, "Am I, then, my brother's keeper?"
God said to Cain, "Listen! The voice of your brother's blood is crying up to me! You have sinned with your mouth. It will return to you: anyone who kills Cain will let loose seven vengeances, and you will exist groaning and trembling upon the earth."

And Adam knew his female counterpart Eve, and she became pregnant, and bore Seth to Adam. And she said, "I have borne another man through God, in place of Abel." Again Eve became pregnant, and she bore Norea. And she said, "He has begotten on me a virgin as an assistance for many generations of mankind." She is the virgin whom the forces did not defile.

Then mankind began to multiply and improve. The rulers took counsel with one another and said, "Come, let us cause a deluge with our hands and obliterate all flesh, from man to beast." But when the ruler of the forces came to know of their decision, he said to Noah, "Make yourself an ark from some wood that does not rot and hide in it - you and your children and the beasts and the birds of heaven from small to large - and set it upon Mount Sir."

Then Orea came to him, wanting to board the ark. And when he would not let her, she blew upon the ark and caused it to be consumed by fire. Again he made the ark, for a second time.

The rulers went to meet her, intending to lead her astray. Their supreme chief said to her, "Your mother Eve came to us." But Norea turned to them and said to them, "It is you who are the rulers of the darkness; you are accursed. And you did not know my mother; instead it was your female counterpart that you knew. For I am not your descendant; rather it is from the world above that I am come."

The arrogant ruler turned, with all his might, and his countenance came to be like (a) black [...]; he said to her presumptuously, "You must render service to us, as did also your mother Eve; for I have been given [...]." But Norea turned, with the might of [...]; and in a loud voice, she cried out up to the holy one, the God of the entirety, "Rescue me from the rulers of unrighteousness and save me from their clutches - forthwith!"

The <great> angel came down from the heavens and said to her, "Why are you crying up to God? Why do you act so boldly towards the holy spirit?"
Norea said, "Who are you?" The rulers of unrighteousness had withdrawn from her.
He said, "It is I who am Eleleth, sagacity, the great angel who stands in the presence of the holy spirit. I have been sent to speak with you and save you from the grasp of the lawless. And I shall teach you about your root."

(Norea apparently now speaking) Now as for that angel, I cannot speak of his power: his appearance is like fine gold and his raiment is like snow. No, truly, my mouth cannot bear to speak of his power and the appearance of his face!

Eleleth, the great angel, spoke to me. "It is I," he said, "who am understanding. I am one of the four light-givers, who stand in the presence of the great invisible spirit. Do you think these rulers have any power over you? None of them can prevail against the root of truth; for on its account he appeared in the final ages; and these authorities will be restrained. And these authorities cannot defile you and that generation; for your abode is in incorruptibility, where the virgin spirit dwells, who is superior to the authorities of chaos and to their universe."

But I said, "Sir, teach me about the faculty of these authorities - how did they come into being, and by what kind of genesis, and of what material, and who created them and their force?"

And the great angel Eleleth, understanding, spoke to me: "Within limitless realms dwells incorruptibility. Sophia, who is called Pistis, wanted to create something, alone without her consort; and her product was a celestial thing. A veil exists between the world above and the realms that are below; and shadow came into being beneath the veil; and that shadow became matter; and that shadow was projected apart. And what she had created became a product in the matter, like an aborted fetus. And it assumed a plastic form molded out of shadow, and became an arrogant beast resembling a lion. It was androgynous, as I have already said, because it was from matter that it derived.

Opening his eyes, he saw a vast quantity of matter without limit; and he became arrogant, saying, "It is I who am God, and there is none other apart from me". When he said this, he sinned against the entirety. And a voice came forth from above the realm of absolute power, saying, "You are mistaken, Samael" - which is, 'god of the blind'.

And he said, "If any other thing exists before me, let it become visible to me!" And immediately Sophia stretched forth her finger and introduced light into matter; and she pursued it down to the region of chaos. And she returned up to her light; once again darkness [...] matter.

This ruler, by being androgynous, made himself a vast realm, an extent without limit. And he contemplated creating offspring for himself, and created for himself seven offspring, androgynous just like their parent. And he said to his offspring, "It is I who am god of the entirety."

And Zoe (Life), the daughter of Pistis Sophia, cried out and said to him, "You are mistaken, Sakla!" - for which the alternative name is Yaltabaoth. She breathed into his face, and her breath became a fiery angel for her; and that angel bound Yaldabaoth and cast him down into Tartaros below the abyss.

Now when his offspring Sabaoth saw the force of that angel, he repented and condemned his father and his mother, matter. He loathed her, but he sang songs of praise up to Sophia and her daughter Zoe. And Sophia and Zoe caught him up and gave him charge of the seventh heaven, below the veil between above and below. And he is called 'God of the forces, Sabaoth', since he is up above the forces of chaos, for Sophia established him.

Now when these (events) had come to pass, he made himself a huge four-faced chariot of cherubim, and infinitely many angels to act as ministers, and also harps and lyres. And Sophia took her daughter Zoe and had her sit upon his right to teach him about the things that exist in the eighth (heaven); and the angel of wrath she placed upon his left. Since that day, his right has been called 'life'; and the left has come to represent the unrighteousness of the realm of absolute power above. It was before your time that they came into being.

Now when Yaldabaoth saw him (Sabaoth) in this great splendor and at this height, he envied him; and the envy became an androgynous product, and this was the origin of envy. And envy engendered death; and death engendered his offspring and gave each of them charge of its heaven; and all the heavens of chaos became full of their multitudes. But it was by the will of the father of the entirety that they all came into being - after the pattern of all the things above - so that the sum of chaos might be attained.

"There, I have taught you about the pattern of the rulers; and the matter in which it was expressed; and their parent; and their universe."

But I said, "Sir, am I also from their matter?"
"You, together with your offspring, are from the primeval father; from above, out of the imperishable light, their souls are come. Thus the authorities cannot approach them, because of the spirit of truth present within them; and all who have become acquainted with this way exist deathless in the midst of dying mankind. Still, that sown element will not become known now. Instead, after three generations it will come to be known, and it has freed them from the bondage of the authorities' error."

Then I said, "Sir, how much longer?"
He said to me, "Until the moment when the true man, within a modeled form, reveals the existence of the spirit of truth, which the father has sent.
Then he will teach them about everything, and he will anoint them with the unction of life eternal, given him from the undominated generation.
Then they will be freed of blind thought, and they will trample underfoot death, which is of the authorities, and they will ascend into the limitless light where this sown element belongs.
Then the authorities will relinquish their ages, and their angels will weep over their destruction, and their demons will lament their death.
Then all the children of the light will be truly acquainted with the truth and their root, and the father of the entirety and the holy spirit. They will all say with a single voice, 'The father's truth is just, and the son presides over the entirety", and from everyone unto the ages of ages, "Holy - holy - holy! Amen!'"

The Reality
of the Rulers

The Interpretation of Knowledge

Translated by John D. Turner


    (13 lines missing)
    ... they came to believe by means of signs and wonders and fabrications. The likeness that came to be through them followed him, but through reproaches and humiliations before they received the apprehension of a vision they fled without having heard that the Christ had been crucified. But our generation is fleeing since it does not yet even believe that the Christ is alive. In order that our faith may be holy (and) pure, not relying upon itself actively, but maintaining itself planted in him, do not say: "Whence is the patience to measure faith?", for each one is persuaded by the things he believes. If he disbelieves them, then he would be unable to be persuaded. But it is a great thing for a man who has faith, since he is not in unbelief, which is the world.

    Now the world is the place of unfaith and the place of death. And death exists as ... (14 lines missing)... likeness and they will not believe. A holy thing is the faith to see the likeness. The opposite is unfaith in the likeness. The things that he will grant them will support them. It was impossible for them to attain to the imperishability [...] will become [...] loosen [...] those who were sent [...]. For he who is distressed will not believe. He is unable to bring a great church, since it is gathered out of a small gathering.

    He became an emanation of the trace. For also they say about the likeness that it is apprehended by means of his trace. The structure apprehends by means of the likeness, but God apprehends by means of his members. He knew them before they were begotten, and they will know him. And the one who begot each one from the first will indwell them. He will rule over them. For it is necessary for each one ... (25 lines missing)... the Savior removed himself, since it is fitting. Indeed, not ignorant but carnal is the word who took him as a husband. And it is he who exists as an image, since that one (masc.) also exists, as well as that one (fem.) who brought us forth. And she caused him to know that she is the Womb. This is a marvel of hers that she causes us to transcend patience. But this is the marvel: he loves the one who was first to permit a virgin [...]. It is fitting to [...] her [...] unto death [...] desire to practice ... (23 lines missing)Therefore she yielded to him in her path. He was first to fix our eye upon this virgin who is fixed to the cross that is in those places. And we see that it is her water which the supreme authority granted to the one in whom there is a sign. This is the water of immortality which the great powers will grant to him while he is below in the likeness of her young son. She did not stop on his account. She [...] the [...] he became [...] in the [...] word that appears to the [...]. He did not ... (13 lines missing)... in [...] through [...] come from those places. Some fell in the path. Others fell in the rocks. Yet still others he sowed in the thorns. And still others he gave to drink [...] and the shadow. Behold [...] he [...] And this is the eternal reality before the souls come forth from those who are being killed.

    But he was being pursued in that place by the trace produced by the Savior. And he was crucified and he died - not his own death, for he did not at all deserve to die because of the church of mortals. And he was nailed so that they might keep him in the Church. He answered her with humiliations, since in this way he had borne the suffering which he had suffered. For Jesus is for us a likeness on account of ... (14 lines missing)... this [...] the entire structure and [...] the great bitterness of the world [...] us with the [...] by thieves [...] the slaves [...] down to Jericho [...] they received [...]. For [...] down to those who will wait while the entire defect restrains them until the final reality that is their portion, since he brought us down, having bound us in nets of flesh. Since the body is a temporary dwelling which the rulers and authorities have as an abode, the man within, after being imprisoned in the fabrication, fell into suffering. And having compelled him to serve them, they constrained him to serve the energies. They split the Church so as to inherit ... (9 lines missing)... power to [...] and [...] and [...] having touched [...] before [...] it is the beauty that will [...] wanted to [...] and to be with [...] fighting with one another [...] like others [...] virgin [...] to destroy [...] wound [...] but she [...] she likens herself to the [...] her since they had struck [...] imperishable. This [...] that he remain [...] virgin. The [...] her beauty [...] faithfulness [...] and therefore [...] her. He hastened [...] he did not put up with [...] they despise [...]. For when the Mother had ... (5 lines missing)... the Mother [...] her enemy [...] the teaching [...] of the force [...] nature [...] behold a maiden [...] he is unable [...] first [...] the opposite [...]. But how has he [...] maiden [...] he was not able [...] he became [...] killed him [...] alive [...] he reckoned her [...] better than life [...] since he knows that if [...] world created him [...] him to raise him [...] up from [...] upon the regions [...] those whom they rule [...]. But [...] emitted him [...] he dwells in him [...] the Father of the All [...] be more to her [...] him. He ... (8 lines missing)... like [...] into [...] he has them [...] them [...] each one will be worthy [...] take him and [...] the teacher should hide himself as if he were a god who would embrace his works and destroy them. For he also spoke with the Church and he made himself her teacher of immortality, and destroyed the arrogant teacher by teaching her to die.

    And this teacher made a living school, for that teacher has another school: while it teaches us about the dead writings, he, on the other hand, was causing us to remove ourselves from the surfeit of the world; we were being taught about our death through them.

    Now this is his teaching: Do not call to a father upon the earth. Your Father, who is in heaven, is one. You are the light of the world. They are my brothers and my fellow companions who do the will of the Father. For what use is it if you gain the world and you forfeit your soul? For when we were in the dark, we used to call many "father," since we were ignorant of the true Father. And this is the great conception of all the sins ... (8 lines missing)... pleasure. We are like [...] him to [...] soul [...] men who [...] the dwelling place.

    What now is the faith laid down by the master who released him from the great ignorance and the darkness of the ignorant eye? He reminded him of the good things of his Father and the race. For he said to him, "Now the world is not yours, may you not esteem the form that is in it as advantageous; rather (as) disadvantageous and (as) a punishment." Receive now the teaching of the one who was reproached - an advantage and a profit for the soul - and receive his shape. It is the shape that exists in the presence of the Father, the word and the height, that let you know him before you have been led astray while in (the) flesh of condemnation.

    Likewise I became very small, so that through my humility I might take you up to the great height, whence you had fallen. You were taken to this pit. If now you believe in me, it is I who shall take you above, through this shape that you see. It is I who shall bear you upon my shoulders. Enter through the rib whence you came and hide yourself from the beasts. The burden that you bear now is not yours. Whenever you (fem.) go ... (14 lines missing)... from his glory [...] from the first. From being counted with the female, sleep brought labor and the sabbath, which is the world. For from being counted with the Father, sleep brought the sabbath and the exodus from the world of the beasts. For the world is from beasts and it is a beast. Therefore he that is lost has been reckoned to the crafty one, and that one is from the beasts that came forth. They put upon him a garment of condemnation, for the female had no other garment for clothing her seed except the one she brought on the sabbath. For no beast exists in the Aeon. For the Father does not keep the sabbath, but (rather) actuates the Son, and through the Son he continued to provide himself with the Aeons. The Father has living rational elements from which he puts on my members as garments. The man ... (11 lines missing)... this is the name. The [...] he emitted himself and he emitted the reproached one. The one who was reproached changed (his) name and, along with that which would be like the reproach, he appeared as flesh. And the humiliated one has no equipment. He has no need of the glory that is not his; he has his own glory with the name, which is the Son. Now he came that we might become glorious through the humiliated one that dwells in the places of humiliation. And through him who was reproached we receive the forgiveness of sins. And through the one who was reproached and the one who was redeemed we receive grace.

    But who is it that redeemed the one who was reproached? It is the emanation of the name. For just as the flesh has need of a name, so also is the flesh an Aeon that Wisdom has emitted. It received the majesty that is descending, so that the Aeon might enter the one who was reproached, that we might escape the disgrace of the carcass and be regenerated in the flesh and blood of ... (8 lines missing)... destiny. He [...] and the Aeons [...] they accepted the Son although he was a complete mystery [...] each one of his members [...] grace. When he cried out, he was separated from the Church like portions of the darkness from the Mother, while his feet provided him traces, and these scorched the path of the ascent to the Father.

    But what is the way and manner (in) which it (fem.) became their head? Well, it (fem.) made the dwelling place to bring forth the light to those who dwell within him, so that they might see the ascending Church. For the Head drew itself up from the pit; it was bent over the cross and it looked down to Tartaros so that those below might look above. Hence, for example, when someone looks at someone, then the face of the one who looked down looks up; so also once the Head looked from the height to its members, our members went above, where the Head was. And it, the cross, was undergoing nailing for the members, and solely that they might be able ... (7 lines missing)... have [...] because they were like [...] slave. The consummation is thus: He whom she indicated will be completed by the one who indicated. And the seeds that remain will endure until the All is separated and takes shape.

    And thus the decree will be fulfilled, for just as the woman who is honored until death has the advantage of time, so too will it give birth. And this offspring will receive the body appointed for it, and it will become perfect. He has a generous nature, since the Son of God dwells in him. And whenever he acquires the All, whatever he possesses will <be dissolved> in the fire because it greatly despised and outraged the Father.

    Moreover, when the great Son was sent after his small brothers, he spread abroad the edict of the Father and proclaimed it, opposing the All. And he removed the old bond of debt, the one of condemnation. And this is the edict that was: Those who made themselves enslaved have become condemned in Adam. They have been brought from death, received forgiveness for their sins, and been redeemed by ... (9 lines missing)... since we are worthy [...] and [...] but I say [...] and these [...]. For [...] is worthy to [...] God. And the Father [...] the Christ removed himself from all these, since he loves his members with all his heart. One who is jealous sets his members against one another. If he is not jealous, he will not be removed from (the) other members and the good which he sees.

    By having a brother who regards us as he also is, one glorifies the one who gives us grace. Moreover, it is fitting for each of us to enjoy the gift that he has received from God, and that we not be jealous, since we know that he who is jealous is an obstacle in his (own) path, since he destroys only himself with the gift and he is ignorant of God. He ought to rejoice and be glad and partake of grace and bounty. Does someone have a prophetic gift? Share it without hesitation. Neither approach your brother jealously nor ... (8 lines missing)... chosen as they [...] empty as they escape [...] fallen from their [...] are ignorant that [...] in this way they have [...] them in [...] in order that they may reflect perforce upon the things that you want them to think about when they think about you. Now your brother also has his grace: Do not belittle yourself, but rejoice and give thanks spiritually, and pray for that one, in order that you might share the grace that dwells within him. So do not consider him foreign to you, rather, (as) one who is yours, whom each of your <fellow> members received. By loving the Head who possesses them, you also possess the one from whom it is that these outpourings of gifts exist among your brethren.

    But is someone making progress in the Word? Do not be hindered by this; do not say: ''Why does he speak while I do not?", for what he says is (also) yours, and that which discerns the Word and that which speaks is the same power. The Word ... (13 lines missing)... eye or a hand only, although they are a single body. Those who belong to us all serve the Head together. And each one of the members reckons it as a member. They cannot all become entirely a foot or entirely an eye or entirely a hand, since these members will not live alone; rather they are dead. We know that they are being put to death. So why do you love the members that are still dead, instead of those that live? How do you know that someone is ignorant of the brethren? For you are ignorant when you hate them and are jealous of them, since you will not receive the grace that dwells within them, being unwilling to reconcile them to the bounty of the Head. You ought to give thanks for our members and ask that you too might be granted the grace that has been given to them. For the Word is rich, generous and kind. Here he gives away gifts to his men without jealousy, according to ... (11 lines missing)... appeared in each of the members [...] himself [...] since they do not fight at all with one another on account of their difference(s). Rather, by laboring with one another, they will work with one another, and if one of them suffers, they will suffer with him, and when each one is saved, they are saved together.

    Moreover, if they would wait for the exodus from the (earthly) harmony, they will come to the Aeon. If they are fit to share in the (true) harmony, how much the more those who derive from the single unity? They ought to be reconciled with one another. Do not accuse your Head because it has not appointed you as an eye but rather as a finger. And do not be jealous of that which has been put in the class of an eye or a hand or a foot, but be thankful that you do not exist outside the Body. On the contrary, you have the same Head on whose account the eye exists, as well as the hand and the foot and the rest of the parts. Why do you despise the one that is appointed as [...] it desired to [...] you slandered [...] does not embrace [...] unmixed body [...] chosen [...] dissolve [...] of the Aeon [...] descent [...] however plucked us from <the> Aeons that exist in that place. Some exist in the visible Church - those who exist in the Church of men - and unanimously they proclaim to one another the Pleroma of their aeon. And some exist for death in the Church on whose behalf they go - she for whom they are death - while others are for life. Therefore they are lovers of abundant life. And each of the rest endures by his own root. He puts forth fruit that is like him, since the roots have a connection with one another and their fruits are undivided, the best of each. They possess them, existing for them and for one another. So let us become like the roots, since we are equal [...] that Aeon [...] those who are not ours [...] above the [...] grasp him [...] since [...] your soul. He will [...] we gave you to him. If you purify it, it abides in me. If you enclose it, it belongs to the Devil. Even if you kill his forces that are active, it will be with you. For if the soul is dead, still it was enacted upon (by) the rulers and authorities.

    What, now, do you think of as spirit? Or why do they persecute men of this sort to death? Are they not satisfied to be with the soul and seek it? For every place is excluded from them by the men of God so long as they exist in flesh. And when they cannot see them, since they (the men of God) live by the spirit, they tear apart what appears, as if thus they can find them. But what is the profit for them? They are senselessly mad! They rend their surroundings! They dig the earth! [...] him [...] hid [...] exists [...] purify [...] however [...] after God [...] seize us [...] but we walk [...]. For if the sins are many, how much the more now is the jealousy of the Church of the Savior. For each one was capable of both (types) of transgression, namely that of an adept, and (that of) an ordinary person. It is still a single ability that they possess. And as for us, we are adepts at the Word. If we sin against it, we sin more than Gentiles. But if we surmount every sin, we shall receive the crown of victory, even as our Head was glorified by the Father.

 

The Interpretation of Knowledge

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Christogram with Jesus Prayer in Romanian: Doamne Iisuse Hristoase, Fiul lui Dumnezeu, miluieşte-mă pe mine păcătosul ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner").
Christogram with Jesus Prayer in Romanian: Doamne Iisuse Hristoase, Fiul lui Dumnezeu, miluieşte-mă pe mine păcătosul

("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner").

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“ Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

* 1 Origins
* 2 Theology
o 2.1 Scriptural roots
o 2.2 Palamism, the underlying theology
o 2.3 Repentance in Eastern Orthodoxy
o 2.4 Distinctiveness from analogues in other religions
* 3 Practice
o 3.1 Psychosomatic techniques
o 3.2 Levels of the prayer
* 4 Variants of repetitive formulas
* 5 In various languages
* 6 In art
* 7 Notes
* 8 See also
* 9 External links

[edit] Origins

The prayer's origin is most likely the Egyptian desert, which was settled by the monastic Desert Fathers in the fifth century.[3]

[edit] Theology

See also: Eastern Orthodox Christian theology

The Jesus Prayer is composed of two statements. The first one is a statement of faith, acknowledging the divine nature of Christ. The second one is the acknowledgment of ones own sinfulness. Out of them the petition itself emerges: "have mercy."[4][dubious – discuss]

[edit] Scriptural roots

Theologically, the Jesus Prayer is considered to be the response of the Holy Tradition to the lesson taught by the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, in which the Pharisee demonstrates the improper way to pray by exclaiming: "Thank you Lord that I am not like the Publican", whereas the Publican prays correctly in humility, saying "Lord have mercy on me, the sinner" (Luke 18:10-14).[7]

[edit] Palamism, the underlying theology
Icon of the Transfiguration of Jesus by Theophanes the Greek (15th century, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). Talking with Christ: Elijah (left) and Moses (right). Kneeling: Peter, James, and John.
Icon of the Transfiguration of Jesus by Theophanes the Greek (15th century, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). Talking with Christ: Elijah (left) and Moses (right). Kneeling: Peter, James, and John.

Main article: Tabor Light

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (June 2008)

For the Eastern Orthodox the knowledge of the uncreated energies is usually linked to apophatism.[10]

[edit] Repentance in Eastern Orthodoxy