More More More
Thursday July 30, 2009 Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/90

Finally
Did dishes
This damp
Afternoon
Put away
Warm lentils
In big jars
Funny how
Each time
Open
Fridge door
Light always
On

Thunder calls me
To porch swing
Rain
Teases toes
Wind
Cooly blows

Old apple tree
Blocks view
Green leaves
Green fruits
Reach for me
Damp bark
Shining brown black
Vertical river
Tough
Beautiful
Rough
Radiant
Enough

Beyond
By curb
Shine cars
Empty
Silent
Still
Always
Ready to go
While inside
Their clocks
Still
Track time

Don't rightly ken
Just when
Anchor
Fell off chain
Motor
Gave up
Compass
Started spin
As boat
Succumbed
To wind
So drift
Somewhere
To right of left
To left of right
Beyond front
Behind back
Above top
Under bottom
Is now
Where I ain't
And Here am
Can be
No other

Toes
Snug in socks
Tongue
Sofa for some teeth
Fingers
A bit chill
In chill air

Shoes have soles
So worn
Too slippery to walk
Safely on wet
Rather sit
Anyway

Old eyes
Sort of see
At a slant
Forever
Black on white

SPEED
LIMIT
    25

Mind speaks
In silence
Mind thinks
A lot
Mind drops
Out deep
Glad
For this
Holy text
Lightning flashes
Thunder
Soon confirms
Rain continues

Above
Half sky
Gray clouds
Blue air
Black space
Thousand million
Stars
Thousand million
Galaxies
First flash
Thirteen thousand 700 million
Years ago
Start of
Our time
In Mind
All mine

More
More
More
_____________________________________________________

Rich Murray and Sondra Spies
1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
505-501-2298  rmforall@...

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_____________________________________________________

We Our Cave: Rich Murray 2009.06.18
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/89


We Our Cave

Ave Ave Ave
Ave Ave Ave
Ave Ave Ave

Peace thee crave,
Which I gave --
Thou I save
As my wave
In our cave.

Pure concave,
Warm conclave,
Deep enclave,
Holy cave.

Do not crave,
Rashly rave,
Be all grave,
Or act brave.

Pain I stave,
Shame I shave,
Lies I lave,
Roads repave.

Path I pave
To my nave --

Autoclave!

No mere slave.

Can't deprave.

There's no grave.

You're my fave,
Precious Dave.

Dear caver,
I aver
This waiver --
Don't quaver
Or waver,
Not craven
Nor caved in,
But maven
In haven --
My favored,
Sweet savored,
Smooth shaven,
Now savior,
Soul avian --
So aviate!

Wavy Gravy!

Truth engrave --
Thee my wave --
We our cave.

Ave Ave Ave
Ave Ave Ave
Ave Ave Ave
_____________________________________________________

Rich Murray and Sondra Spies
1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
505-501-2298  rmforall@...

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participant, Santa Fe Complex www.sfcomplex.org
_____________________________________________________

con or credible? EEStor Inc. ultracapacitor battery and Zenn Motor Company: Rich
Murray 2008.12.25
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/88

Look up "Ultracapacitors" on Wikipedia.com -- "Electric double-layer capacitors,
also known as supercapacitors, electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs)
or ultracapacitors are electrochemical capacitors that have an unusually high
energy density when compared to common capacitors, typically on the order of
thousands of times greater than a high-capacity electrolytic capacitor...."

----- Original Message -----
From: ZENN Motor Company
To: rmforall@...
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:15 PM
Subject: News from ZENN Motor Company

Dear ZENN Enthusiasts,

Well 2008 has certainly been an exciting year! We have made tremendous progress
across a variety of fronts including the advancement of both the cityZENN and
ZENNergy drive system projects.

Related to these projects is the commercialization of EEStor's energy storage
technology and while not press released, it should be noted that EEStor recently
dramatically increased their intellectual property protection.  Patents were
granted in the month of December further ensuring that EEStor's technology and
production processes are protected.  If you refer to the details of the patent
granted on December 17th 2008 (patent PDF)
[ http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat7466536.pdf ]  I believe that you will gain
a better appreciation for the significance of the technology and the complexity
involved in its commercialization. The EEStor EESU has the potential to be as
disruptive to the 21st century as the internal combustion engine was to the 20th
century!

With the end of 2008 quickly approaching, it appears less likely that we will
have the 3rd party verification of permittivity or the prototype EESU this year
as we had hoped. So we'll all need to wait for these major milestones and the
full commercialization of EEStor's technology but rest assured that ZENN Motor
Company continues with its development efforts so as to be fully ready to
capitalize on the technology as soon as available.

EEStor's technology represents such a significant leap forward in energy storage
that once all milestones have been achieved, I am confident that you, as one of
our stakeholders, will be deeply satisfied in how it will enable ZENN Motor
Company to become the global leader in zero emission transportation solutions.

I firmly believe that 2009 will be the year that the automotive industry changes
forever -- and not just because of the current economic turmoil we are all
familiar with, but led by the commercialization of disruptive zero emission
automotive solutions by ZMC.  I am very excited about ZMC's pending Electric
Vehicle introduction in 2009 and I look forward to sharing more about our
significant progress early in the coming year.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our committed Retailers for
their vision and leadership in their respective markets, the entire ZENN team
who work tirelessly to move us towards our goal of becoming the global leader in
zero emission transportation solutions, and our shareholders and loyal
supporters who support us in so many ways throughout the year.

From all of us at ZMC, we wish each of you and your loved ones a safe and happy
holiday season.

All the Best,
Ian Clifford
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
ZENN Motor Company

Click here for Holiday Greetings from ZENN Motor Company

ZENN and EEStor in the News

http://www.zenncars.com/media/documents/Reuters.pdf
ZENN Motor partner granted U.S patent for battery (Reuters, Dec. 19, 2008)

ZENN and the Art of the Electric Car (Toronto Life, December 9, 2008)

Ian Clifford takes your questions (Globe & Mail, Dec. 5, 2008)

This message was sent from ZENN Motor Company Limited 85 Scarsdale Road Suite
100 Toronto ON M3B 2R2 Canada.

http://www.zenncars.com/media/documents/Reuters.pdf

Zenn Motor partner granted U.S patent for battery
Fri Dec 19, 2008 9:14pm GMT

OTTAWA, Dec 19 (Reuters) -- Energy storage developer EEStor Inc, a key partner
of Canadian electric car maker Zenn Motor Co (ZNN.V: Quote,
Prole , Research ), has secured a U.S. patent for its battery, its chief
executive said on Friday.

Low-prole EEStor is working on an ultracapacitor battery that is smaller and
will charge faster that traditional batteries.
Zenn holds the worldwide exclusive rights for use of that battery in vehicles
under 14,00 kilograms (3,086 pounds), a market that Paradigm Capital analyst
Marvin Wol estimates at about 30 million vehicles annually.
"All patents are always important," Chief Executive Richard Weir told Reuters,
but declined further comment.
Zenn also declined to comment.
Wol said EEStor also has a European patent pending for its barium titanate
nano-capacitor battery.
"EEStor should now be nearing the point were it can release its ... data and
unveil its battery to the public," Wol wrote in a research note.

Toronto-based Zenn has paid EEStor $1.3 million of a $2.5 million investment
commitment, pending milestones, and has a 3.8 percent equity stake in the Texas
company.

Zenn currently sells a low-speed electric vehicle with a top speed of 40
kilometres per hour (25 mph) but has promised to launch a highway-capable car by
the end of 2009.

Powered by EEStor's energy storage system, the new car is expected to have a top
speed of 125 km/h (78 mph) and travel 400 km (250 miles) on one charge.

Shares in Zenn gained 4 percent, or 10 Canadian cents, to close at C$2.50 on the
TSX Venture Exchange on Friday. ($1 = $1.22 Canadian) (Reporting by Susan
Taylor; Editing by Frank McGurty )

© Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved. Users may download and print
extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial
use only. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including
by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written
consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered
trademarks or trademarks of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the
world.  Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which
requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.

http://www.zenncars.com/media/documents/TorontoLife.pdf

From the January 2009 issue Toronto Life
ZENN and the Art of the Electric Car

The race to build the car of the future is on, and Ian Clifford, founder of a
fringe company called ZENN Motor, is betting everything on a revolutionary new
battery. If it works, he could be the next Henry Ford
By Alex Hutchinson

Go car go: the new CityZENN will have a top speed of 125 kilometers per hour, a
range of 400 kilometers and a recharge time of less than five minutes
Image credit: Amedeo de Palma

Even before the market chaos of the past six months, it was obvious that change
was coming to the auto industry. SUVs were out, compacts were in, and hybrids
were selling like hotcakes. Yielding to unprecedented consumer demand,
manufacturers revived an old idea: the electric vehicle. This mythical car of
the future has had more false starts than any other innovation in the history of
the automobile -- “the most famous being GM's EV1, the inspiration behind the
hit documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?  Released in 1996, the EV1 became
something of a cult enviro-hit, but was discontinued four years later, spawning
conspiracy theories about the influence of big oil. Now, virtually every major
company is promising either a plug-in hybrid (like GM's Chevy Volt) or a fully
electric car (Nissan's Nuvu), and the first mass-market versions are
optimistically slated to arrive in 2010. In the race to develop a successful
gas-free automobile, first prize will be a dominant share of what the veteran
industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers calls "one of the fastest-growing,
highest-potential markets the auto sector has ever seen."

The challenge for manufacturers is energy storage. Gas tanks are a surprisingly
efficient way of carrying energy. Even cutting-edge lithium-ion batteries, which
most car makers are depending on for their proposed electric cars, provide about
20 times less energy per pound than gas. The huge battery packs required for a
car of even average performance don't leave much room for a back seat. The high
cost of creating an energy-efficient battery explains why the Tesla Roadster, a
sports car developed in Silicon Valley and already on the market, costs $109,000
(U.S.). A battery that can provide adequate range, speed and price all in one is
the car industry's Holy Grail, and at this point, no company has found one.

ZENN Motor Company, a small carmaker headquartered in Don Mills with a factory
in Saint-JĂ©rĂ´me, just North of Montreal, has a serious chance of being the
first to complete the quest. ZENN, an acronym that stands for "zero emissions,
no noise," was founded by a Toronto entrepreneur named Ian Clifford back in 2001
-- a year after GM killed its EV1, and at a time when most companies were raking
in outsize profits from outsize SUVs. That gave ZENN a head start over its
rivals, and in 2006, it released an electric "low-speed vehicle," a plug-in that
can reach speeds of up to 40 kilometres per hour. But that was just a stepping
stone toward the real goal: a fully functional, highway-approved car, fuelled by
a revolutionary "ultra-capacitor" that replaces -- and eclipses -- the
traditional battery. The so-called CityZENN will have a top speed of 125
kilometres per hour, a range of 400 kilometres on a single charge, and a
phenomenal recharge time of less than five minutes. The estimated ticket price:
$30,000.

At least, that's the plan. EEStor, the well-connected but secretive Texas
company that's building the ultra-capacitor for ZENN, initially promised
delivery in 2007, then 2008. Now it's scheduled for late 2009, but time is
running out. If ZENN doesn't deliver a practical electric car soon, one of the
other contenders will. The stakes are substantial: one analyst estimates that a
working ultra-capacitor could bring ZENN $2 billion in annual revenue by 2013,
making the 46-year-old Clifford an auto-industry legend. If it doesn't happen,
however, Clifford will likely be remembered in a much less glorified
way -- as the guy who crusaded to make modified golf carts legal on our streets.
The reason you've never heard of ZENN is that its cars can't legally be driven
in Toronto.

The company has been stuck in a bureaucratic quagmire since it launched.
According to Transport Canada, ZENN meets all of the safety criteria required of
low-speed vehicles, or LSVs -- which usually resemble souped-up golf carts. ZENN
cars are not your typical LSV: they're fully enclosed, and feature many of the
same safety features as standard passenger cars. But ultimately, it's up to each
province to decide which vehicles are allowed on its roads, and Ontario has been
slow to recognize the LSV class.

ZENN's battle for approval has made the company a minor cause celebre. The cars
are already legal in 46 states and, as of this year, in Quebec and some parts of
B.C. Ontario's indecision has sparked outrage in newspapers and recently
prompted Barry Taylor, a radio host on 102.1 The Edge, to urge listeners to
bombard provincial transportation minister Jim Bradley with phone calls and
e-mails demanding an explanation.

In late October, Clifford took me for a cruise along the pothole-ridden streets
of Saint-JĂ©rĂ´me. He has the laid-back air of a yoga instructor; nothing in his
demeanour suggests someone who's in a mad sprint against the auto giants. You
have to be easygoing to drive his LSV. It functions just like an ordinary car
until the government-mandated regulator kicks in at 40 kilometres per hour, at
which point the vehicle simply stops accelerating, leaving your right foot
slightly disoriented. There are other minor differences -- a silent motor, the
absence of power steering -- but for the most part, it drives like any other
car.

In 2004, Clifford secured a two-year exemption that allowed him to drive his
low-speed electric prototype around Toronto. At the time, he was living in the
Annex, working downtown, and taking night classes at York. He made out just
fine. The average speed in the downtown core, he points out, is less than 20
kilometres per hour. "You can rarely get up to 50 on Bloor or Yonge," he says.
"Just try it."

Some assembly required: Ian Clifford at ZENN's production facility in
Saint-JĂ©rĂ´me, Quebec Image credit: Ryan Remiorz/AP

Outside our regulation-beset borders, there are investors who follow ZENN's
fortunes with eagle-eyed devotion. Many of them couldn't care less about
provincial approvals, and wouldn't blink if the LSV was suddenly declared
illegal around the world. They're interested in EEStor's ultra-capacitor, which
is the crucial innovation. Clifford locked up the automotive rights to it for
$2.5 million back in 2004 and followed up in 2007 with another $2.5-million
investment in exchange for a 3.8 per cent stake in EEStor. Since EEStor is
otherwise privately held, the most direct way for investors to bet on the
company is to buy ZENN stock on the TSX Venture Exchange.

After details of EEStor's research began to circulate in 2006, Massimo Fiore, a
Montreal-based analyst with investment company Versant Partners, was one of the
first to quiz Clifford on what the deal could mean for ZENN.
"I said, 'OK, let's assume the ultra-capacitor works, what do you have?' " he
recalls.
"I have exclusivity for four-wheel passenger vehicles," Clifford replied.
"Well, that's quite interesting. Where does it apply?"
"Worldwide."
"How long is this going to last?"
"It's perpetual."
And that, Fiore says, is when he started paying attention.

EEStor's claims have generated endless debate in newspapers and magazines, and
online, including such dedicated blogs as  TheEEStory.com , which is devoted to
chasing down rumours related to the company's research and has an active
discussion board.

There's plenty of skepticism, but EEStor has also received a couple of key
endorsements that make Clifford's 2004 deal look prescient. In 2005, Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers (the vaunted Silicon Valley venture capital firm that
was an early backer of Google and Amazon, and is now partner to Al Gore) backed
the company with a reported $3-million investment. Then, in 2008, Lockheed
Martin announced that it had licensed the still hypothetical ultra-capacitor for
use in military applications.

These external validations have heightened expectations for ZENN, whose stock
jumped by 22 per cent the day the Lockheed deal was announced. But they don't
provide any guarantees. "I don't use words like 'imminent' anymore," says
Clifford. Under the terms of his deal with EEStor, he is permitted to see the
progress at the production facility in Texas, but is bound by a non-disclosure
agreement. His body language betrays excitement when he discusses it. "I can't
talk about it," he says, "but I can certainly bubble."

Clifford's epiphany came in the late '90s, when he was running a successful
Internet marketing company called DigIT Interactive. Stuck in downtown traffic
in his SUV, he started thinking about the electric vehicles that companies like
GM were leasing in California. He wanted to get one, but discovered they
couldn't be obtained in Toronto.

Eventually, he found a 40-year-old electric car called the Henney Kilowatt for
sale in Connecticut; it was a converted Renault Dauphine powered by an electric
motor built by the Eureka-Williams vacuum company. When it promptly broke down,
Clifford looked in the Yellow Pages under "forklifts" to find a repair person
familiar with electric vehicles, which is how he met a versatile technician
named Probyn Gayle.

In Gayle's know-how, Clifford saw an opportunity to fill the market gap the big
car companies were ignoring -- and, if nothing else, compel them to make
electric vehicles more easily available. "He wanted to sell electric vehicles,
and I wanted to build them," Gayle recalls. So the two men, along with Marek
Warunkiewicz, one of the co-founders of DigIT Interactive, formed a company that
would buy old Dauphines, convert them to electric, and peddle them to the
masses.

Early on, ZENN's success would rely less on engineering than on brand building
and timing -- two of Clifford's strong suits. Before he launched his dot-com, he
was a commercial photographer, one of the first in Canada to work in digital
imaging. He founded his Internet company in 1995, when most of us were still
trying to find the "@" on our keyboards, and sold it in March 2000 -- the month
the Nasdaq hit its all-time peak. With electric cars, he was once again ahead of
the curve.

Over the next few years, the trio managed to acquire 40 old Dauphines. "There
was a lot of excitement," Gayle recalls. "But there were times when I didn't
sleep for 50 hours to get stuff done for an investor meeting." The payoff came
at the Canadian International AutoShow in 2001, where they had to reprint their
initial run of 5,000 brochures three times to meet demand. They also fielded a
thousand requests for test drives. In the end, they'd sold 15 cars, though they
only managed to fill half the orders. The company -- still consisting of just
the three principals -- had to expand. "We realized it was totally
unsustainable," Clifford says. "This isn't a cottage industry."

The partners moved away from the Dauphine and focused instead on developing a
vehicle using new car bodies manufactured by the French company Microcar. (These
are the vehicles currently being produced in Saint-JĂ©rĂ´me.) The decision paid
an important dividend: at a point when few other companies were seriously
pursuing electric cars, ZENN stood out to EEStor as the best option for a
partnership -- it already had a strong brand.

All the goodwill surrounding ZENN is turning into expectations with a tangible
payoff. Clifford, now CEO (Gayle and Warunkiewicz are no longer with the
company), tries to strike a balance between cheerleading and managing
expectations. When a trio of investment bankers -- two from Boston and one from
Toronto -- flew to Montreal this fall to tour the factory and discuss financing
options, Clifford was understated about what the future might hold. If the
ultra-capacitor comes through, he said, the real value would not be in competing
directly with giants like Toyota and GM, but from selling the EEStor-powered
drive systems to them. "We're talking about massive industries," he said, "and
I'm a little guy in Toronto." The model he invokes is Intel, whose chips power
75 per cent of the world's computers.

He can afford to be sanguine. His initial objective was simply to goad the big
car companies into making electric cars, and whether ZENN succeeds or not, that
goal will have been achieved. Although he's an entrepreneur, Clifford's primary
motivation isn't money. And this may turn out to be his biggest asset; it's why
he and his partners were willing to launch an electric vehicle company when
everybody else was pulling out. Finally, eight years later, he's about to find
out whether slow and steady can still win the race.
____________________________________________________________


Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@...
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

"Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority, to enjoy
peace, joy, and love by helping to find, quickly share, and
positively act upon evidence about healthy and safe
food, drink, and environment."

Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@...
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://RMForAll.blogspot.com new primary archive

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
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____________________________________________________________

exponential mess is the message of world unity: Rich Murray 2008.09.30
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/87


editor@...; info@...;

Our modern world persistently evolves exponentially, facilitating limitless
collaborative global creativity that swiftly and freely addresses every
opportunity.

What is the size of this inexorably expanding mutual pool of wealth?

An age 66 retired home hospice care giver in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I type on a $
600 dual-core 1.6 GHz HP laptop, connected for $ 60 monthly at 6 MHz to a
billion others -- with Google freely reaping realms of relevant info on
anything.

When I wrote a 120 page senior thesis at MIT in 1964 on the exponential
expansion of transistor technology after 1948, I never imagined that for $ 60, 4
days pay for my first job, inflated 10-fold, would easily land this laptop in my
lap...

I've put 76 10-20 MB Hubble deep space images as rmforall on Flickr.com, $ 25
yearly, free downloads, sharing original discoveries with 7521 viewers, so far.

And, a volunteer information activist on the Net, in 9 years I've provided a
free archive of 1562 civil, fair, detailed, long reviews of mainstream research
on aspartame toxicity -- the 11% methanol part of aspartame quickly becomes
formaldehyde and then formic acid in humans.

This helpful info affects the enterprises of tens of billions of dollars of
corporate activity: sweeteners, beverages, methanol fuels, formaldehyde
products, and liquors -- since alcohol drinks have the same amount of methanol
as diet soda, 1 part in 10,000 by weight, the conversion into formaldehyde and
formic acid is the major cause of "morning after" hangovers and many birth
defects.

methanol impurity in alcohol drinks [ and aspartame ] is turned into
neurotoxic formic acid, prevented by folic acid, re Fetal Alcohol
Syndrome, BM Kapur, DC Lehotay, PL Carlen at U. Toronto, Alc Clin Exp
Res 2007 Dec. plain text: detailed biochemistry, CL Nie et al.
2007.07.18: Murray 2008.02.24
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.htm
Sunday, February 24, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1524

It's amazing to see how exponential growth has resulted in revolutionary gains
in public access to vital information re healthy and safe food, drink, and
environment -- just search Google Blog re "aspartame".

This sustains an expanding global network of citizens who are largely immune to
most of the diseases that have become prevalent since 1900 in urban areas.

Seniors who are largely healthy into their eighties and nineties can continue to
participate fully, surfing endless exponential waves of collaborative
creativity.

I am delighted to find that this blog is a prime example of global Net
democracy.

Things are ever more rapidly becoming inextricably entangled, as every business
deals with, competes with,
joins with, loans to, borrows from, takes over, inspires, and replaces every
other.

This mess is already world government.

In mutual service,

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

"Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority, to enjoy
peace, joy, and love by helping to find, quickly share, and
positively act upon evidence about healthy and safe
food, drink, and environment."

Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@...
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://RMForAll.blogspot.com new primary archive

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
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____________________________________________________________

notable bright blue tiny sources on darker 3D fractal web in HUDF VLT ESO 28
images from 506 galaxies, z about 6 , RJ Bouwens, GD Illingworth, JP Blakeslee,
M Franx 2008.02.04 draft 36 page: Rich Murray 2008.08.17
rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.htm
Sunday, August 17, 2008
groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/26
groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/86

www.flickr.com/photos/rmforall/1363979470/in/photostream/

Click on All Sizes button and select Original to see highest resolution image.


www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/zoomable/heic0611a.html Zoomable The boxes
are 3 arcsec wide, 100x100 pixels, with 0.03 arc-second per pixel. They are in
order of apparent brightness, from 1 to 28.

www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/heic0611a.html

Probing the distant Universe for young galaxies

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows 28 of the brightest of 506 young
galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 1 billion years old.

The galaxies were uncovered in a study of two of the most distant surveys of the
cosmos, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), completed in 2004, and the Great
Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), made in 2003.

Just a few years ago, astronomers had not spotted any galaxies that existed
significantly less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang.

The galaxies spied in the HUDF and GOODS surveys are blue galaxies brimming with
star birth.

The large image at left shows the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, taken by the Hubble
telescope.

The numbers next to the small blue boxes correspond to close-up views of 28 of
the newly found galaxies at right. [ arranged by apparent brightness from 1 to
28 ]

The galaxies in the postage-stamp size images appear red because of their
tremendous distance from Earth. The blue light from their young stars took
nearly 13 billion years to arrive at Earth. During the journey, the blue light
was shifted to red light due to the expansion of space.

Credit: NASA, ESA, R. Bouwens and G. Illingworth (University of California,
Santa Cruz, USA)


www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0611.html

News Release -- heic0611: Hubble finds hundreds of young galaxies in the early
Universe

21-Sep-2006: Astronomers analyzing two of the deepest views of the cosmos made
with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered a gold mine of galaxies,
more than 500 that existed less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

These galaxies thrived when the cosmos was less than 7 percent of its present
age of 13.7 billion years.

This sample represents the most comprehensive compilation of galaxies in the
early Universe, researchers said.

The discovery is scientifically invaluable for understanding the origin of
galaxies, considering that just a decade ago early galaxy formation was largely
uncharted territory.

Astronomers had not seen even one galaxy that existed when the Universe was a
billion years old, so finding 500 in a Hubble survey is a significant leap
forward for cosmologists.

The galaxies unveiled by Hubble are smaller than today's giant galaxies and very
bluish in colour, indicating they are ablaze with star birth.

The images appear red because of the galaxies' tremendous distance from Earth.

The blue light from their young stars took nearly 13 billion years to arrive at
Earth.

During the journey, the blue light was shifted to red light due to the expansion
of space.

'Finding so many of these dwarf galaxies, but so few bright ones, is evidence
for galaxies building up from small pieces -- merging together as predicted by
the hierarchical theory of galaxy formation,' said astronomer Rychard Bouwens of
the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA who led the Hubble study.

Bouwens and his team spied these galaxies in an analysis of the Hubble Ultra
Deep Field (HUDF), completed in 2004, and the Great Observatories Origins Deep
Survey (GOODS), made in 2003.

The results were presented on August 17 at the 2006 General Assembly of the
International Astronomical Union, and will be published in the November 20 issue
of the Astrophysical Journal.

The findings also show that these dwarf galaxies were producing stars at a
furious rate, about ten times faster than is happening now in nearby galaxies.

Astronomers have long debated whether the hottest stars in early star-forming
galaxies, such as those in this study, may have provided enough radiation to
reheat the cold hydrogen gas that existed between galaxies in the early
Universe.

The gas had been cooling since the Big Bang.

'Seeing all of these starburst galaxies provides evidence that there were enough
galaxies 1 billion years after the Big Bang to finish reheating the Universe,'
explained team member Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa
Cruz. 'It highlights a period of fundamental change in the Universe, and we are
seeing the galaxy population that brought about that change.'

In terms of human lifetimes, cosmic events happen very slowly.

The evolution of galaxies and stars, for example, occurs over billions of years.

Astronomers, therefore, rarely witness dramatic, relatively brief transitions
that changed the Universe.

One such event was the Universe is 'reheating'.

The reheating, driven by the galaxies ultraviolet starlight, transformed the gas
between galaxies from a cold, dark hydrogen soup to a hot, transparent plasma
over only a few hundred million years.

With Hubble's help, astronomers are now beginning to see the kinds of galaxies
that brought about the reheating.

Just a few years ago, astronomers did not have the technology to hunt for
faraway galaxies in large numbers.

The installation of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the Hubble
Space Telescope in 2002 allowed astronomers to probe some of the deepest
recesses of our Universe.

Astronomers used the ACS to observe distant galaxies in the HUDF and GOODS
public surveys.

Another major step in the exploration of the Universe's earliest years will
occur if Hubble undergoes its next upgrade with the Wide Field Planetary Camera
3 (WFC3).

The WFC3's infrared sensitivity will allow it to detect galaxies that are so far
away their starlight has been stretched to infrared wavelengths by the expanding
Universe.

The galaxies uncovered so far promise that many more galaxies at even greater
distances are awaiting discovery by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST), scheduled to launch in 2013.

Co-author Marijn Franx, member of the ESA JWST NIRSPEC science team, explains:
'The JWST will be able to see even further back into the early Universe, and
glimpse the first objects that formed.
ESA's NIRSPEC instrument, can even measure the exact distances of these
objects.'

Notes for editors:

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA
and NASA.

The members of the science team are Rychard Bouwens and Garth Illingworth
(University of California, Santa Cruz),
John Blakeslee (Washington State University),
and Marijn Franx (Leiden University).

NASA, ESA, R. Bouwens and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz,
USA)

NASA's press release

Contacts:

Marijn Franx  franx@...;
Leiden Observatory, Leiden, the Netherlands
Tel: +31-71-5275870

Rychard Bouwens  bouwens@...;
University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA
Tel: +1-831-459-5276

Garth Illingworth  gdi@...;
University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA
Tel: +1-831-459-2843

John Blakeslee  jblakes@...;
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA
Tel: +1-509-335-2414
jblakes@...;

Lars Lindberg Christensen  lars@...;
Hubble/ESA, Garching, Germany
Tel: +49-89-3200-6306
Cellular: +49-173-3872-621

Donna Weaver  dweaver@...;
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., USA
Tel: +1-410-338-4493

Copyright-free material (more info).


hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/07/image/a/

Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image Reveals Galaxies GaloreSTScI-PRC2004-07a

Galaxies, galaxies everywhere -- as far as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope can
see. This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest visible-light image of
the cosmos. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view
represents a 'deep' core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of
light-years.

The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors.

The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the most distant known,
existing when the universe was just 800 million years old.

The nearest galaxies -- the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and
ellipticals -- thrived about 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion
years old.

In vibrant contrast to the rich harvest of classic spiral and elliptical
galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering the field.

Some look like toothpicks; others like links on a bracelet.

A few appear to be interacting.

These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was younger and more
chaotic.

Order and structure were just beginning to emerge.

The Ultra Deep Field observations, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys,
represent a narrow, deep view of the cosmos.

Peering into the Ultra Deep Field is like looking through an eight-foot-long
soda straw.

In ground-based photographs, the patch of sky in which the galaxies reside (just
one-tenth the diameter of the full Moon) is largely empty.

Located in the constellation Fornax, the region is so empty that only a handful
of stars within the Milky Way galaxy can be seen in the image.

In this image, blue and green correspond to colors that can be seen by the human
eye, such as hot, young, blue stars and the glow of Sun-like stars in the disks
of galaxies.

Red represents near-infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, such as
the red glow of dust-enshrouded galaxies.

The image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble orbits
around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3 days, taken between
Sept. 24, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004.

Object Names: Hubble Ultra Deep Field, HUDF
Image Type: Astronomical
Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team


dipastro.pd.astro.it/venice06/oral/Bouwens_Venice06.ppt
RJB, GDI give 40 slide Power Point Import presentation in Venice 2006.03.31

arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0509/0509641v6.pdf 36 page

Draft version February 4, 2008
Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 04/21/05

Galaxies at z about 6: the UV luminosity function and luminosity density from
506 HUDF, HUDF-PS, and GOODS i-dropouts
Rychard J. Bouwens 3, bouwens@...;
Garth D. Illingworth 3, www.ucolick.org/~gdi/ gillingw@...;
John P. Blakeslee 4, jblakes@...;
Marijn Franx 5 franx@...;

1 Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which is
operated by the Association of Universities for
Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. These observations
are associated with programs #9803.
2 Observations have been carried out using the Very Large Telescope at the
European Southern Observatory (ESO) Paranal
Observatory under program ID: LP168.A-0485.
3 Astronomy Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
4 Department of Physics & Astronomy, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
99164-2814 and
5 Leiden Observatory, Postbus 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands.
Draft version February 4, 2008

ABSTRACT [ z = redshift due to increasing distance and time from us here and
now, where z = 0 ]

We have detected 506 i-dropouts (z about 6 galaxies) in deep, wide-area HST ACS
fields: HUDF, enhanced GOODS, and HUDF-Parallel ACS fields (HUDF-Ps).

The contamination levels are under 8% (i.e., over 92% are at z about 6).

With these samples, we present the most comprehensive, quantitative analyses of
z about 6 galaxies yet and provide optimal measures of the UV luminosity
function (LF) and luminosity density at z about 6, and their evolution to z
about 3.

We redetermine the size and color evolution from z about 6 to z about 3.

Field-to-field variations (cosmic variance), completeness, flux, and
contamination corrections are modeled systematically and quantitatively.

After corrections, we derive a rest-frame continuum UV (about 1350 A) LF at z
about 6 that extends to M1350,AB about −17.5 (0.04L*, z=3).

There is strong evidence for evolution of the LF between z about 6 and z about
3, most likely through a brightening (0.6+-0.2 mag) of M* (at 99.7% confidence)
though the degree depends upon the faint-end slope.

As expected from hierarchical models, the most luminous galaxies are deficient
at z about 6.

Density evolution (phi*) is ruled out at over 99.99% confidence.

Despite large changes in the LF, the luminosity density at z about 6 is similar
(0.82 ± 0.21x) to that at z about 3.

Changes in the mean UV color of galaxies from z about 6 to z about 3 suggest an
evolution in dust content, indicating the true evolution is substantially
larger: at z about 6 the star formation rate density is just about 30% of the z
about 3 value.

Our UV luminosity function is consistent with z about 6 galaxies providing the
necessary UV flux to reionize the universe.

Subject headings: galaxies: evolution -- galaxies: high-redshift

2.1. ACS HUDF
The B435V606i775z850 [colors blue, violet, near infrared, infrared] images used
for this analysis are the v1.0 reductions of the HUDF (Beckwith et al. 2006),
binned on a 0.03′′ pixel scale.

3.2. i-dropouts in the HUDF
Applying the above selection criteria to the HUDF results in a sample of 122
i-dropouts.

Objects range in magnitude from z850,AB = 25.0 to 29.4 (the 8 d limit).

At z about 6, this corresponds to 0.04 - 2.2 times the characteristic rest-frame
UV luminosity at z about 3 (Steidel et al. 1999).... V606i775z850 color cutouts
are provided in Figure 1 for the brightest 28 i-dropouts from the HUDF.

Fig. 1. -- Postage stamps (V606i775z850 color images) of the brightest 24
i775-dropouts from the HUDF.

Objects are ordered in terms of their z850-band magnitude.

The z850-band magnitudes and object IDs are shown above and below each object,
respectively.

Each postage stamp is 3.0′′ in size.

These high S/N images show definitive evidence for assymetries, mergers, and
other interactions -- similar to that seen at lower redshifts (z about 2 - 5).

Galaxy sizes: Typical i-dropouts at z850,AB about 27 (from the HUDF-Ps and HUDF)
have PSF-corrected half-light radii of about 0.8 kpc or about 0.14 arc-second
(Figure 6: §3.7).
[ 1 kpc = 1000 parsecs = 1000 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth ]


www.ucolick.org/~gdi/

www.ucolick.org/~gdi/docs/nature_05156.pdf 15 page

LETTERS

Vol 443, 14 September 2006 doi:10.1038/nature05156

Rapid evolution of the most luminous galaxies during the first 900 million years

Rychard J. Bouwens, Garth D. Illingworth

The first 900 million years (Myr) to redshift z about 6 (the first seven per
cent of the age of the Universe) remains largely unexplored for the formation of
galaxies.

Large samples of galaxies have been found at z about 6 (refs 1-4) but detections
at earlier times are uncertain and unreliable.

It is not at all clear how galaxies built up from the first stars when the
Universe was about 300Myr old (z about 12-15) to z about 6, just 600Myr later.

Here we report the results of a search for galaxies at z about 7-8, about 700Myr
after the Big Bang, using the deepest near-infrared and optical images ever
taken.

Under conservative selection criteria we find only one candidate galaxy at z
about 7-8, where ten would be expected if there were no evolution in the galaxy
population between z about 7-8 and z about 6.

Using less conservative criteria, there are four candidates, where 17 would be
expected with no evolution.

This demonstrates that very luminous galaxies are quite rare 700Myr after the
Big Bang.

The simplest explanation is that the Universe is just too young to have built up
many luminous galaxies at z about 7-8 by the hierarchical merging of small
galaxies.
______________________________________________________________



See similar images:


ubiquitous bright blue 1-12 pixel sources on darker 3D fractal web in five
2007.09.06 IR and visible light HUDF images, Nor Pirzkal, Sangeeta
Malhotra, James E Rhoads, Chun Xu, -- might be clusters of earliest
hypernovae in recent cosmological simulations: Rich Murray 2008.08.17
rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.htm
Sunday, August 17, 2008
groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/25
groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/85


bright blue 1-4 pixel sources on darker 3D fractal web in IR and visible light
HUDF images -- might be the clusters of earliest hypernovae in the
Naoki Yoshida and Lars Hernquist simulation: Rich Murray 2008.07.31
rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.htm
Thursday, July 31, 2008
groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/24
groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/84


Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@...
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages

groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/messages
______________________________________________________________

ubiquitous bright blue 1-12 pixel sources on darker 3D fractal web in five
2007.09.06 IR and visible light HUDF images, Nor Pirzkal, Sangeeta Malhotra,
James E Rhoads, Chun Xu, -- might be clusters of earliest hypernovae in recent
cosmological simulations: Rich Murray 2008.08.17
rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.htm
Sunday, August 17, 2008
groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/25
groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/85

www.flickr.com/photos/rmforall/1349101458/in/photostream/

The 5 closeups are about 2.2x2.2 arc-seconds wide and high, about 70x70 pixels.
The HUDF is 315x315 arc-seconds, with N at top and E at left.
Each side has 10,500x10,500 pixels at 0.03 arc-second per pixel.

Click on All Sizes and select Original to view the highest resolution image of
3022x2496 pixels, which can be also be conveniently seen directly at their
Zoomable image:

www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/zoomable/heic0714a.html

Notable in the deep background of the five closeups are ubiquitous bright blue
sources, presumably extremely hot ultraviolet before redshifting, 1 to a dozen
or so pixels, as single or short lines of spots, and a few irregular tiny blobs,
probably, as predicted in many recent simulations, the earliest massive,
short-lived hypernovae, GRBs with jets at various angles to our line of sight,
expanding bubbles, earliest molecular and dust clouds with light echoes and
bursts of star formation, and first small dwarf galaxies, always associated with
a subtle darker 3D random fractal mesh of filaments of H and He atomic gases.

As a scientific layman, I am grateful for specific cogent, civil feedback, based
on the details readily visible in images in the public domain.


www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/heic0714a.html

Hubble and Spitzer Uncover Smallest Galaxy Building Blocks

In this image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, several objects are identified
as the faintest, most compact galaxies ever observed in the distant
Universe.
They are so far away that we see them as they looked less than one billion
years after the Big Bang.
Blazing with the brilliance of millions of stars, each of the newly
discovered galaxies is a hundred to a thousand times smaller than our Milky
Way Galaxy.

The bottom row of pictures shows several of these clumps (distance expressed
in redshift value).
Three of the galaxies appear to be slightly disrupted.
Rather than being shaped like rounded blobs, they appear stretched into
tadpole-like shapes.
This is a sign that they may be interacting and merging with neighboring
galaxies to form larger structures.

The detection required joint observations between Hubble and NASA's Spitzer
Space Telescope.
Blue light seen by Hubble shows the presence of young stars.
The absence of red light from Spitzer observations conclusively shows that
these are truly young galaxies without an earlier generation of stars.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and N. Pirzkal (European Space Agency/STScI)

Id: heic0714a
Object: HUDF, UDF, Hubble Ultra Deep Field
Type: Cosmology
Instrument: ACS
Width: 2750
Height: 3312
Downloads
Images

www.spacetelescope.org/images/original/heic0714a.tif
Fullsize Original 17.085 MB

www.alternatiff.com/
view with free software AlternaTIFF

alternatiff-1_8_4.exe for Firefox browser


Large JPEG
3,422 KB

Screensize JPEG
387 KB

www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/zoomable/heic0714a.html
Zoomable

Copyright-free material (more info).


www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMCGRMPQ5F_index_1.html

hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/31

hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/31/image/

www.spitzer.caltech.edu/

www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0714.html

www.spacetelescope.org/news/text/heic0714.txt

HEIC0714: EMBARGOED UNTIL 18:00 (CEST)/12:00 PM EDT 06 September, 2007
www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0714.html

News release:
Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes find “Lego-block” galaxies in early
Universe

06-September 2007 The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA
Spitzer Space Telescope have joined forces to discover nine of the
smallest, faintest, most compact galaxies ever observed in the distant
Universe. Blazing with the brilliance of millions of stars, each of the
newly discovered galaxies is a hundred to a thousand times smaller than
our Milky Way Galaxy.

The conventional model for galaxy evolution predicts that small galaxies
in the early Universe evolved into the massive galaxies of today by
coalescing. Nine Lego-like “building block” galaxies initially detected
by Hubble likely contributed to the construction of the Universe as we
know it. “These are among the lowest mass galaxies ever directly
observed in the early Universe” says Nor Pirzkal of the European Space
Agency/STScI.

Pirzkal was surprised to find that the galaxies’ estimated masses were
so small. Hubble’s cousin observatory, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope
was called upon to make precise determinations of their masses. The
Spitzer observations confirmed that these galaxies are some of the
smallest building blocks of the Universe.

These young galaxies offer important new insights into the Universe’s
formative years, just one billion years after the Big Bang. Hubble
detected sapphire blue stars residing within the nine pristine galaxies.
The youthful stars are just a few million years old and are in the
process of turning Big Bang elements (hydrogen and helium) into heavier
elements. The stars have probably not yet begun to pollute the
surrounding space with elemental products forged within their cores.

“While blue light seen by Hubble shows the presence of young stars, it
is the absence of infrared light in the sensitive Spitzer images that
was conclusive in showing that these are truly young galaxies without an
earlier generation of stars,” says Sangeeta Malhotra of Arizona State
University in Tempe, USA, one of the investigators.

The galaxies were first identified by James Rhoads of Arizona State
University, USA, and Chun Xu of the Shanghai Institute of Technical
Physics in Shanghai, China. Three of the galaxies appear to be slightly
disrupted -- rather than being shaped like rounded blobs, they appear
stretched into tadpole-like shapes. This is a sign that they may be
interacting and merging with neighbouring galaxies to form larger,
cohesive structures.

The galaxies were observed in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) with
Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Near Infrared Camera and
Multi-Object Spectrometer as well as Spitzer’s Infrared Array Camera and
the European Southern Observatory’s Infrared Spectrometer and Array
Camera. Seeing and analysing such small galaxies at such a great
distance is at the very limit of the capabilities of the most powerful
telescopes. Images taken through different colour filters with the ACS
were supplemented with exposures taken through a so-called grism which
spreads the different colours emitted by the galaxies into short
“trails”. The analysis of these trails allows the detection of emission
from glowing hydrogen gas, giving both the distance and an estimate of
the rate of star formation. These “grism spectra” -- taken with Hubble
and analysed with software developed at the Space Telescope-European
Coordinating Facility in Munich, Germany -- can be obtained for objects
that are significantly fainter than can be studied spectroscopically
with any other current telescope.

# # #

Notes for editors
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation
between ESA and NASA.

Pirzkal’s main collaborators were Malhotra, Rhoads, Xu, and the GRism
ACS Program for Extragalactic Science (GRAPES) team.

Image credit: NASA, ESA and N. Pirzkal (European Space Agency/STScI)

If you wish to no longer receive these News and Photo Releases, please
send an email to distribution@... with your name.

For more information, please contact:
Nor Pirzkal ;
European Space Agency/Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, USA
Tel: 410-338-4879

Lars Lindberg Christensen ;
Hubble/ESA, Garching, Germany
Tel: +49-(0)89-3200-6306
Cellular: +49-(0)173-3872-621

Ray Villard ;
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, USA
Tel: +1-410-338-4514

Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, USA
Tel: +1-818-354-4673


AST HUDF Spitzer IR 9 galaxies z 4-5.7, N Pirzdal, S Malhotra, JE Rhoads, C Xu,
2007.05.01 28p

www.spacetelescope.org/news/science_paper/0612513.pdf


arXiv:astro-ph/0612513v2 1 May 2007
Optical to mid-IR observations of Lyman-a galaxies at z about 5 in the HUDF: a
young and low mass population
N. Pirzkal 1,2,
S. Malhotra 3,
J. E. Rhoads 3,
C. Xu 4

ABSTRACT

High redshift galaxies selected on the basis of their strong Lyman-a emission
tend to be young ages and small physical sizes.

We show this by analyzing the spectral energy distribution (SED) of 9 Lyman-a
emitting (LAE) galaxies at 4.0 < z < 5.7 in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF).

Rest-frame UV to optical 700A < wavelength < 7500A luminosities, or upper
limits, are used to constrain old stellar populations.

We derive best fit, as well as maximally massive and maximally old, properties
of all 9 objects.

We show that these faint and distant objects are all very young, being most
likely only a few millions years old, and not massive, the mass in stars being
about 10E6 to 10E8 M sun.

Deep Spitzer Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) observations of these objects, even in
cases where objects were not detected, were crucial in constraining the masses
of these objects.

The space density of these objects, about 1.25 x 10E-4 per cubic Mpc is
comparable to previously reported space density of LAEs at moderate to high
redshifts.

These Lyman-a galaxies show modest star formation rates of about 8 M sun per
year, which is nevertheless strong enough to have allowed these galaxies to
assemble their stellar mass in less than a few 10E6 years.

These sources appear to have small physical sizes, usually smaller than 1 Kpc,
and are also rather concentrated.

They are likely to be some of the least massive and youngest high redshift
galaxies observed to date.

Subject headings: galaxies: evolution, galaxies: high redshift, galaxies:
formation, galaxies: structure, surveys, cosmology

1 Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218,
USA
2 Affiliated with the Space Science Telescope Division of the European Space
Agency, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
3 School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
4 Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, 500 Yutian Road, Shanghai, P.R. China
200083
____________________________________________________________


See similar images:


notable bright blue tiny sources on darker 3D fractal web in HUDF VLT ESO
28 images from 506 galaxies, z about 6 , RJ Bouwens, GD Illingworth,
JP Blakeslee, M Franx 2008.02.04 draft 36 page: Rich Murray 2008.08.17
rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.htm
Sunday, August 17, 2008
groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/26
groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/86


bright blue 1-4 pixel sources on darker 3D fractal web in IR and visible light
HUDF images -- might be the clusters of earliest hypernovae in the
Naoki Yoshida and Lars Hernquist simulation: Rich Murray 2008.07.31
rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.htm
Thursday, July 31, 2008
groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/24
groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/84
____________________________________________________________


Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@...
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages

groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/messages
____________________________________________________________

bright blue 1-4 pixel sources on darker 3D fractal web in IR and visible light
HUDF images -- might be the clusters of earliest hypernovae in the Naoki Yoshida
and Lars Hernquist simulation: Rich Murray 2008.07.31
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.htm
Thursday, July 31, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/24
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/84
____________________________________________________________


http://csaweb.yonsei.ac.kr/~sjyoon/JuniorSeminar/S_and_T/Stars_FirstStar_C2/014%
5Bbromm%5Ddark_ages_first_stars.pdf
Out of the Dark Ages the First Stars, Volker Bromm,
Sky & Telescope, 2006 May, 7 pages pdf

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080731-first-stars.html
Jeremy Hsu, www.space.com How the first stars were born 2008.07.31

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0807/0807.4928v1.pdf
Protostar Formation in the Early Universe, Naoki Yoshida,
Kazuyuki Omukai, Lars Hernquist, Science 2008.08.01 13p

http://www.physics.uci.edu/Cosmology/Yoshida_Naoki.pdf
From the first stars to the first galaxies, Naoki H Yoshida,
27 slides show

http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/stars_c07/yoshida/
Second-Generation Star Formation in Proto-Galaxies, Naoki H Yoshida
2007.08.17  20 slides show
____________________________________________________________


Hubble Infrared Ultra Deep Field clearly reveals deep cosmic background
fractal 3D mesh of H filaments lit by hypernovae: Murray 2006.11.21
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/20

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/07/image/b/

http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2004/07/images/b/formats/full_tif.tif
7.34 MB tiff

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmforall/
to access 62 deep sky astrophotos with texts

#33. Hubble Ultra Deep Field infrared view,
brightness +20, and both red and blue colors increased,
and green reduced, softness set to 3 of 12 levels, 4.07 MB png,
1600X1600 pixels. 4.07 MB png

The colors have been adjusted to reveal a few faint distant red
sources, as well as a background of tiny blue sources, 1-2 pixel size,
which are always on the background of dark tangled Murray mesh.
Click on All Sizes to view the Original.

static.flickr.com/42/121113050_6b7c705fcb_o.png

The number of the myriad minute blue sources varies noticeably,
for instance,from higher south of the bright foreground star,
just left of center at the bottom, to lower towards the lower right.
This indicates that simple surveys can collect much detailed
information. (Use the All Sizes button and select Original.)

The value of this simple approach is evident,
if we take the tiny blue sources to be
the earliest massive hypernovae and GRBs,
markers that highlight the 3D fractal network distribution of mostly H
gas filaments, condensing by gravitational attraction,
as the universe bubble continued its expansion.
It became cool enough at 380,000 years to allow atoms to form within
the former ionized plasma.
Transparency emerged from opacity.
The intense ultraviolet radiation at 3,000 deg K was redshifted and
cooled with the thousand-fold expansion of space-time to
comprise our era's Cosmic Microwave Background at just 2.7 deg K,
ubiquitious, and uniform to a few parts in a hundred thousand.

See for yourself, Observer,
the deep tapestry of our astrophysical history,
hung hugely against the uniform red background
downshifted cosmic ultraviolet),
the wooly open knit of cooled and condensed H filaments
(darkly silhouetting the background),
lit like Christmas trees with generations of tiny blue sources,
(the downshifted ultraviolet of immense fast-burning, short-lived
hypernovae,
and a few GRBs,
while some twin sources may be the two jet lobes of active galaxies),
with vistas of closer and cooler galaxies,
ranging from red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and white,
from early small clump cluster galaxies to far larger irregular,
spiral, and elliptical galaxies,
and the little kid in our own neighborhood,
the red foreground star with its diffraction spikes
from the Hubble Space Telescope,
just left of center at the bottom.

I used an excellent low cost image processing program,
MGI PhotoSuite 4.0,
to adjust the colors to bring out the subtle background details:
Touchup feature:
Soften: set at 3 of 12 levels, to slightly smooth out the pixels.
Color Adjustment: Cyan-Red +75, Magenta-Green -100, Yellow-Blue +50,
as empirically this created a pleasing, easy to view image with maximum
detail.
Brightness: increased from 0 to 20, to increase the dark background
details.
Gamma: unchanged at 1.00.


#34. HUDF ir 1/4 area in low center,
800X800 pixels. 1.02 MB png

static.flickr.com/52/121113051_12b5e3b85c_o.png


#35. HUDF ir 1/16 area in low center,
400X400 pixels. 263 KB png

static.flickr.com/49/121113052_52157a78ca_o.png


#36. HUDF ir closer view. 180 KB png about 60 arc-sec wide

static.flickr.com/53/121150408_69845a7c53_o.png


#37. HUDF ir closer view, to show levels of background structure:
distant red glow,
dark 3D fractile mesh that obscures the background red glow,
blue sources that light up the dark mesh of condensing H and He gas,
a few much closer red, white, and blue sources.
Click on All Sizes button for closeup.

static.flickr.com/44/121150409_efdb07b94d_o.png



#38. HUDF ir deepest view -- click on All Sizes button.
RTM-1 is the reddish feature that slants down to the lower right from
the center towards the bright galaxy -- not visible are the bright
objects at both ends of RTM-1, which may be a central ir source with
bipolar jets, seen from the side, that end quickly in a pair of big
expanded hot gas regions, very bright in the other HUDF
visible bands of light. See #31.

static.flickr.com/50/121150410_d95548c86f_o.png



# 19 The Millennium Simulation, announced 2005.06.02 by the Virgo
consortium,
used the largest supercomputer in Europe,
at the German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory,
for over a month to model the history of the Universe
in a cube over 2 billion light years on a side,
holding 20 million galaxies.

static.flickr.com/13/18135102_07a58fd89d_o.jpg

This image is a closeup of the results at redshift z = 0, showing a 15
MPC/h thick slice, showing the visible light distribution,
which closely follows the mass distribution.
The view is four times wider than in #18,
so that the width of the image is 1628 MLy.
The length of the central large and dense galaxy cluster
is about 60 MLy.

1024 X 768 pixels jpg 0.970950 MB

The distance measure Mpc/h has been used for decades to adjust to the
fact that the Hubble constant = H has not been exactly determined.
Mpc is megaparsecs.
A parsec is 3.26 light years.
The Millennium Simulation used the value 0.73
for the Hubble constant H.

To get the distance in Mpc,
we multiply their value by 100/H = 100/0.73 = 1.37 .

The huge, densely packed galaxy cluster,
holding thousands of galaxies,
for the greenish central region, has a length of about 60 MLy.
In contrast, the nearest large neighbor to our Milky Way galaxy is
Andromeda galaxy at 2.2 MLy distance.

The distribution of mass in the Universe is very fractile --
it looks just as complex and very much the same
at a very wide range of distance scales.

So, even though I do not know how wide this image would be in terms of
angular measures (degrees, minutes, seconds),
it is probably justified to compare it to the Capodimonte Deep Field
subtle background visible light images.

Many features are the same:
complex 3D fractal network,
with bright boundaries around both brighter (more dense) and dimmer
(more empty) regions,
and both brighter and thicker and thinner and dimmer lines,
marked by myriad tiny dense features.
I don't believe that the MS image includes gravitational lensing, which
must be a complex factor in the CDF images.

Click on All Sizes to view Original.

www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/millennium_sim.asp The Virgo consortium

www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galform/millennium/

www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galform/millennium/galseq_D_063.jpg

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0504097
Simulating the joint evolution of quasars, galaxies and their
large-scale distribution

pil.phys.uniroma1.it/debate3.html
On the fractile structure of the universe
Sylos Labini, Montuori & Pietronero


#24 (#30) field from Hubble Ultra Deep Field 832 X 833 p tif 2.72 MB
png 1.86 MB
This field is 61 sec wide = 1 minute wide.
RTM-1 is a pair of double blue spots just above the large magenta
galaxy in the lower left.
There are six more similar blue spot pairs in this field.

static.flickr.com/13/19717874_18d6b931b4_o.png

RTM-1, closeup view in #21, is very like CSL-1,
only blue and more separated,
but with the similar equality of size and color.
It turns out that there are so many easily found pairs of all sizes,
down to single pixel bright spots separated by a pixel space,
that statistical studies are appropriate.
Views # 20 to 29 will explore the HUDF, and provide many helpful links.

The colors have been adjusted to reveal a few faint distant red
sources, as well as a background of tiny blue sources, 1-2 pixel size,
which are always on the background of dark tangled Murray mesh --
easier to see at first behind the red light scattered inside the Hubble
Space Telescope by the much nearer bright star, and also behind the
large blue white galaxy in the upper right. Click on All Sizes to view
the Original.

I used an excellent low cost image processing program, MGI PhotoSuite
4.0, to adjust the colors to bring out the subtle background details:
Touchup feature:
Soften: reduced from 3 to 0, as I wanted to maximize
the raw detail.
Color Adjustment: Cyan-Red +100, Magenta-Green +25, Yellow-Blue +50,
as empirically this created a pleasing, easy to view image with maximum
detail.
Brightness: increased from 0 to 50, to increase the dark background
details.
Gamma: reduced from 1.00 to 0.80, to increase the dark background
details.
Fix Colors: Hue: shifted 0 to -60,
to accentuate the background of myriad minute bright blue sources
without losing information from the red end of the spectrum.

www.aip.de/groups/galaxies/sw/udf/index.php# The UDF Skywalker allows
you to scan the entire HUDF with a movable magnifying glass that shows
about this scale of detail. You can discern Murray mesh with it.
____________________________________________________________


Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 126 members, 1,555 posts in a public archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com
____________________________________________________________

excellent long essay on universal core values for world reform, Nichola Torbett,
The Network of Spiritual Progressives 2007.02.14: Rich Murray 2008.07.28
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.htm
Monday, July 28, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1554
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages/83


Rich Murray rmforall@...  505-501-2298
___________________________________________________


http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/

http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php?story=20061207101937278

Core Vision  Posted Wednesday, February 14 2007
by Nichola Torbett, Director of National Programs

Updated information on membership dues to the NSP can be found by going to
www.spiritualprogresives.org

You can join online or contact us at:
The Network of Spiritual Progressives, c/o TIKKUN Magazine
2342 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 1200, Berkeley, CA 94704.
Tel: (510) 644-1200
(call during business hours 9:30 a.m. -5:30 p.m. M-F, Pacific Standard Time).

Email: RabbiLerner@... or generosity@...

Many of us are involved in or greatly admire the accomplishments of social
change movements like the peace movement, the women's movement, the
environmental movement, the movement for economic justice, the civil rights
movement, the gay rights movement, the labor movement, struggles for civil
liberties, and the disability rights movement, to name just a few.

And yet, we believe that these movements have tended to underplay or even deny a
very important dimension of human life -- the spiritual dimension. And this
deficit has limited the potential impact that all these movements could have. It
will take a very different kind of movement -- one founded on and giving central
focus to a spiritual vision -- to create a real alternative to the political
Right, to the fundamentalists (religious and political), and to our society’s
ethos of selfishness, materialism, and cynicism.

We seek to create that alternative. We are a community of people from many
faiths and traditions, called together by the Spiritual Covenant with America
(see www.spiritualprogressives.org ) and its vision of healing and transforming
our world. We include in this call both the outer transformation needed to
achieve social justice, ecological sanity, and world peace, and the inner
healing needed to foster loving relationships, a generous attitude toward the
world and toward others unimpeded by the distortions of our egos. Our movement
will encourage a habit of generosity and trust, and the ability to respond to
the grandeur of creation with awe, wonder and radical amazement.

We are guided in our work by our belief in the principle of solidarity. For some
of us, this principle has spiritual roots in the Jewish commandment to remember
that we were all slaves in Egypt; we believe that we are all harmed by
oppression directed at any group or individual. This is a message which is
common to most of the religious and spiritual traditions of the human race for
the past several thousand years, and is part of the tradition also of many
secular and even "orthodox atheist" groups that came into existence in the past
few hundred years when the religious and spiritual communities that supposedly
were committed to these values actually failed to take them seriously and
became, instead, embedded in economic and political realities that were
oppressive.

We in the Network of Spiritual Progressives use the word "spiritual" to include
all those whose deepest values lead them to challenge the ethos of selfishness
and materialism that has led people into a frantic search for money and power
and away from a life that places love, kindness, generosity, peace,
non-violence, social justice, awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation,
thanksgiving, humility and joy at the center of our lives.

We believe that many of the secular movements that exist in the world today
actually have deep spiritual underpinnings, but often they are themselves
unaware of those foundations, unable or unwilling to articulate them and
sometimes even holding a knee-jerk antagonism to explicit spiritual or religious
language. This antagonism limits their effectiveness, though it derives from
legitimate anger at the way that the language of spirituality and religion has
been sometimes used to justify war, oppression, sexism, racism, homophobia,
ecological indifference, or insensitivity to the suffering of the poor and the
homeless of the world.

Solidarity means that we affirm our responsibility towards each other within our
families, within our nation, and within our spiritual/religious community -- and
also beyond the narrow boundaries of ethnicity, religion, and geography. We
affirm the obligation to actively resist injustice and refuse to take part in it
even when we can't prove that our resistance will produce change. In solidarity
with the oppressed, we wish to see the democratization of economic and political
institutions and a redistribution of wealth so that all people can share equally
and sustainably in the benefits of the planet.

We hope to have the courage -- in the tradition of the Jewish prophets and
interpreters of Torah, in the spirit of Jesus and the early Christian
communities of resistance to Rome, in the spirit of Muhammed, in the spirit of
the activists of the labor & civil rights and feminist and gay rights movements
-- to speak truth to power. The Network of Spiritual Progressives is an
interfaith organization (and welcoming to agnostics and atheists as well).

At the same time, we will challenge the lack of a spiritual dimension in the
agendas of our allies in progressive social change movements. That gap has
allowed the Right to present itself as the force that cares about spiritual
issues. And the Left’s failure to address spirituality has led many to believe
their hunger for a larger framework of meaning and purpose must be separated
from their involvement with social transformation.

Social change activity gets focused on a narrow political agenda that lacks the
depth that can inspire sustained commitment or nourishing involvement. Imagine
an international group of people who would see themselves as allies to each
other in advancing this way of thinking, people who are unashamedly utopian and
willing to fight for their highest ideals, yet unashamedly humble in knowing
that we don't know all that we need to know to do the healing that needs to be
done.

Imagine that this group would help each other in our individual as well as group
activities, affirming what is good and brainstorming with us about how to create
a movement that gives equal priority to our inner lives and to social justice,
that takes loving and caring as serious goals for social healing, and that
rejects the utilitarian and materialistic assumptions of the contemporary world
and actively fosters awe and wonder in its participants. Imagine that you could
be part of creating that.

You can -- by helping us create the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP). The
NSP starts from this fundamental recognition: The sources of external injustice,
suffering, and ecological numbness are to be found not only in economic and
political arrangements, but also in our alienation from one another, in our
inability to experience and recognize ourselves and each other as holy, in our
inability to respond to the call of the universe which bids us to deeper levels
of consciousness and love, and in our inability to overcome our own egos and see
ourselves as part of the Unity of All Being.

We need a spiritual consciousness along with a political consciousness if we are
to heal and transform the world. Some of us in the NSP are atheists or
secularists, some of us belong to traditional religious communities, some of us
are just beginning to work out our relationship to Spirit. But all of us
understand that we need a movement that can address spiritual needs.

It is our contention that social change and inner change go hand in hand. We are
building a movement in which we can talk about love and caring for each other --
and this is the only way we can overcome the old left/right dichotomies and dead
policy debates that fill academic journals, leftie magazines, the insipid
television confrontations between shouting talking heads, the vacuity of so many
of the speeches at leftie anti-war demonstrations, and the rhetoric of elected
officials. For too long these predictable slogans and divisions have paralyzed
American politics and made most of us feel like withdrawing into a purely
personal life.

At this moment, we are particularly excited by and supportive of the upsurge of
social justice activism aimed both at promoting environmental sanity and at
challenging the destructive impact of globalization. But we hope to play a role
in deepening those and other social change movements to integrate into their
core the kind of spiritual awareness that can make it possible for them to reach
a much wider audience and thus be able to actually achieve their social justice
goals.

To do so we must talk at a far deeper level than merely repeating or reframing
the traditional leftist demands for economic and political rights. While we
support those demands and thus welcome any advances that provide adequate food,
clothing, shelter, health care, child care, and other basic rights, we also
believe that these will only be won on a global level when the social change
movements are able to address the spiritual consequences of the triumph of
corporate globalization: a society-wide depression and repression of what we can
variously call the life-force, eros, God-energy or Spirit.

Please note that this is very different from those who talk about spiritual
politics but actually mean only this: that it would be politically advantageous
and opportune to take the traditional liberal agenda and dress it up with some
spiritual or “values” language. So they take the existing liberal/left agenda,
with its primary focus on social justice, inclusion of those who have been left
out, economic redistribution, and peace -- and then they find some Biblical
quotes to bolster the case for the pre-existing liberal/progressive agenda. We
support all that, but our movement goes much deeper. We don’t believe that the
liberal agenda can be won simply by reframing it in spiritual language.

For a large section of the American public, the primary source of pain in their
lives is not about economic deprivation or non-inclusion, but about the way that
the ethos of selfishness and materialism plays out in their personal lives and
in the lives of people around them in ways that are destructive and feel
terrible. They can’t stand being part of the manipulative, narrowly utilitarian
way people treat each other and themselves and the earth. They want a framework
of meaning to their lives and to the lives of those around them that speaks of
higher meaning to life, shows a path to a life that is not only about maximizing
money but about maximizing a meaningful life -- in short, they want and need a
politics of meaning, and need a meaning-oriented movement that can counter the
spiritual depression that surrounds them.

Don’t confuse this with those who simply are trying to put some Biblical quotes
in front of the same old Democratic Party or liberal agenda -- we are seeking a
much deeper change. Our challenge is not only to the Right -- but also to the
liberals and progressives, to the Greens and the Democrats, who have not allowed
themselves to get beyond their knee-jerk antagonism to religion and
spirituality, and whose openness to religious or spiritual people is only
utilitarian and does not include a willingness to learn about the actual
dimensions of the spiritual deprivation which is endemic to the way global
capitalism functions today, and the ways that it generates a global emotional
depression.

This spiritual depression and emotional repression that suffuse contemporary
life are the near-universal responses to the globalization of a
self-congratulatory individualism, obsessive materialism, and consumption -- all
provided as compensation for the meaninglessness of our present-day culture. The
one-dimensional technocratic consciousness, speed-up of work, perception that we
have "no time" to do what we really believe in, and our inability to recognize
others in terms that go beyond what they can do for us to advance our own
agendas as rational maximizers of self-interest -- all these combine to create
human beings who, if they don’t explode in violence or self-destructive alcohol
and drug abuse, find themselves in varying degrees of disconnection to their
inner selves, their feelings, and their capacities to be loving towards others
and responding to the universe with joy.

In contrast to this, we encourage an engagement with the Sacred, an Emancipatory
Spirituality which affirms pleasure and joy and the recognition that "there is
enough," a replacement of postmodernist self-alienation with a renewal of Being
based on awe, wonder and radical amazement at the mystery of the universe and
the mystery of every human being on the planet as a manifestation of the sacred.
Our economic, social and political institutions need to be replaced and
rethought not only because they are unjust, but because they foster a
consciousness that keeps us from connecting to the deepest truths of the
universe and make it harder for us to recognize each other as fully free, fully
conscious, self-creating, loving beings. In this sense, the globalization of
Spirit is the antidote to the globalization of Capital.

We reach out for a spiritual dimension not as a replacement for, but as a
deepening, of our understanding of social action, and not as a replacement for
but a deepening of our understanding of informed science. Our spirituality does
not reject the value of rational thought nor does it suspend scientific inquiry.

Why is it that people who live in the advanced industrial societies of North
America, Europe and Japan, the richest societies that history has ever known,
believe we "can’t afford" to share what we have with the rest of the world so as
to eliminate poverty, hunger and homelessness? It is partly because of our
collective paranoia that no one will be there for us if we should ever really
need their help that leads us to think our only security lies in endless
accumulation, to protect our isolated self-interest in face of a deep inner
certainty that others can’t be counted on. And partly because we have a deep
emptiness inside and we have come to believe that only material goods can fill
it. We buy things to buy happiness, to compensate ourselves for the alienated
work, the disconnection from each other, and the estrangement from our own inner
selves that constitute the texture of our daily lives.

In our spiritually impoverished world, acquiring ever more things provides an
illusion of fulfillment -- and a replacement for the deep connection with each
other and to the spiritual realities of the universe for which we both hunger
and simultaneously deny to ourselves (lest we re-experience the pain and
disappointment we had at earlier points in our lives when we allowed ourselves
to be vulnerable and then failed to receive the loving and recognition we needed
but didn’t fully get).

In addition, almost every child in our culture gets strong messages to focus
attention on that which can be useful, and away from the spiritual dimension
which has no "practical application." Indeed, this message has been so deeply
ingrained in many of us that we instinctively shy away from the spiritual realm
as though it were as dirty as not being toilet trained. We fear that were we to
acknowledge to ourselves or others that we actually wish for connection with
that which cannot be used or made practical, cannot be subject to empirical
observation or turned into a commodity or something that will make us more
attractive or salable on the job or relationship marketplace, we would subject
us to ridicule and humiliation.

Fearful that we will experience that pain once again, we often build strong
external walls to keep us out of touch with this deep yearning for connection to
each other and to the universe. Instead of drawing on our own inner resources,
we too often find ourselves looking to the media-dominated mass culture for
fulfillment and reassurance that our scaled-down sense of possibility is "what
everybody else is doing" and hence "the only possible path for us too." The
media is one of the many institutions that speeds up time -- protecting us from
the quiet moments in which we might doubt the whole way our lives our being
lived.

Instead of finding our own pace, we find ourselves rushing about, seeking
machines and gadgets that make things go faster, becoming accustomed to media
and technology which speed the pace while “shallow-ing” the intellectual and
emotional level of our daily consciousness. We learn to forget the past and
focus only on the new while devaluing the old, which leads to decreasing
literacy and an increasing difficulty in following a complex discussion,
sustaining a long-term relationship, or committing to social goals that can't be
accomplished immediately.

Sadly, our social institutions only reinforce this materialist view. Our
institutions provide us with the illusion of permanency (pretending we won’t
die) and the illusion that the "real world" is the world of power and wealth.
Compound this with the patriarchal assumption that we should be tough and ignore
our feelings, and we are left with a "common sense" that dismisses the relevance
of our inner lives. We are told that spirituality should be left in the home,
relegated to the weekend, kept separate from the pragmatic decisions that should
shape politics and the business world.

In the NSP, we refuse this kind of "realism." We will unashamedly use and learn
from the language and practices of spiritual communities. The spiritual life can
give us a level of mindfulness, focus, and calm so that we can re-center
ourselves and discover what we truly value.

One reason we are proud to have the NSP draw upon the spiritual wisdom of
Judaism is because we think that the spiritual practice of Shabbat, a
twenty-five hour meditation focused on turning our energies from "getting things
done" to a "celebration of all that is," can empower us in the struggle to heal
our planet. This is one example of the kinds of spiritual practices that we
encourage among our members and for the larger world -- even as we say this in a
non-coercive way without implication that you must be doing a particular
spiritual practice to be part of our community.

So too the Biblical idea of a Sabbatical Year for all and the Biblical idea of
Jubilee with its call for a redistribution of land and wealth back to a basic
equality once every fifty years provide us with inspiration for how to learn
from the wisdom of sacred texts.

Although our organization will speak at times in the name of the best in the
Jewish tradition, we will also honor all major spiritual traditions represented
in our membership. We are a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-spiritual
community -- and we believe that there are many paths to spiritual truth, and we
want to honor all of those which are open to an Emancipatory Spirituality as
presented in TIKKUN magazine. So we draw upon the richness of Christianity,
Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, spiritual truths from indigenous peoples and from the
often ignored spiritual wisdom of women.

We do not believe that every particularistic tradition must be totally left
behind in some new globalized spiritual mush. While we support the attempts
within existing religious and spiritual traditions to renew their foundations,
we do not seek a spiritual melting pot but a world in which plurality and
difference can be respected, even as we affirm the Unity of All Being, the
interconnectedness of all with all.

At the same time, we will challenge reactionary spirituality that privileges one
group above all others while demeaning those who are not part of the group. We
will challenge forms of spirituality which seek to impose racist, sexist, or
homophobic values. And we will challenge forms of spirituality which lead people
into quietism or a de facto accommodation to a world of oppression. In this and
other respects we want to be clear that we do not embrace a vapid "tolerance"
which refuses to make moral distinctions or a deconstructionist logic which sees
all forms of discourse as little more than strategies for some group or other to
gain power over others. We are not tolerant of religious reactionaries who
manipulate the language of God in the service of an oppressive status quo or to
restore patriarchy and authoritarian forms of government.

Our goal is to build a community of people who share a common
intellectual/spiritual perspective -- an intellectual/spiritual cadre of
activist social healers -- even as they retain their own particular religious
and spiritual practices. We will work together to bring a progressive spiritual
politics into the various arenas in which we work. For example, we will bring
our perspective into existing social change movements in the hopes of
strengthening them and making them more successful. Our task is to support each
other as we bring ideas into the public sphere that are often dismissed as "too
idealistic" or "too spiritual" -- and to help each other sustain a commitment to
a transformative agenda against all the pressures to be "more realistic" and
settle for much less than we actually believe in.

In this work, we see ourselves as fundamentally connected to the thinking being
done in TIKKUN magazine. We connect with all who hope for a real TIKKUN (the
Hebrew word for healing, repair and transformation).

The NSP will not be a traditional organization -- certainly not an organization
that would compete with or take resources away from other social action groups.

We are trying to create something which doesn't have an exact analogue in
contemporary life. The truth of the matter is, many of us are wary of any
organization -- they remain human institutions, susceptible to the ever-present
reality of human frailty. The capacity to under-whelm, frustrate, disappoint,
and madden is common to all human organizations, whether spiritual or secular,
whether on the left or the right or in the middle.

Particularly when people start hoping for a loving reality, we often get so
scared -- because we have been so deeply shaped by the pathogenic belief that we
don't really deserve to be loved -- that we try to prove to ourselves that a
better world isn't really possible. That’s when we find people in our
organizations hurting each other in the name of love, being brutal and lacking
compassion, creating endless fights over theoretical differences, or clinging to
ego at the cost of finding real solidarity with others. We will do what we can
to provide a supportive context, but we will also not hesitate to ask people to
leave our organization who would prefer to fight with each other than to
lovingly support each other. Creating an international community of people who
start with agreement on the points in this document can generate generous
amounts of comradely love and solidarity.

We expect that in the NSP we will find ourselves learning from our dialogue with
each other, having intense conversations, listening to each other's formal
presentations but also, and equally importantly, each other's life experiences
and current struggles. Our community will only be sustainable if it provides
many opportunities to laugh with each other, to meditate or pray together, to
sing and dance together, and to experience each other as sources of surprise,
joy and transcendence. So, our expectation is that this commitment will be fun
and joyous.

If you are interested in joining us, please look over the fundamental principles
printed below. Are they principles you share? If so, please become a dues-paying
member of Tthe NSP (you can join on-line at www.tikkun.org or by calling our
national office at 510 644 1200). And we will contact you to find ways to
integrate you into our growing organization.

1. INTERDEPENDENCE AND ECOLOGICAL SANITY

We are one mutually interdependent human race, and we have a responsibility to
be stewards of the planet and of all other life forms. Our well-being depends on
the well-being of every other human being on the planet and on the well-being of
our environment. It is time to overcome all forms of national, religious, and
ethnic chauvinism. It’s time to realize that it is in our own personal
self-interest to ensure a world in which everyone is invited to be part of
loving, spiritually deep, emotionally satisfying, and materially thriving
communities of their own choice, and to live in a world in which mutual respect
and care are the common sense truths by which we live.

As Americans we can no longer worry only about what is "best for America," as
Jews we can no longer worry only about what is "best for the Jews," as
Christians we can no longer worry only about what is "best for the Christians,"
etc. We need to see ourselves as manifestations of Spirit -- the unfolding of
the love and goodness of the universe as it becomes conscious through us. The
world is entering a new period in which this understanding of ourselves as
fundamentally aligned with all other human beings on the planet becomes the
prerequisite for building a global political and economic movement capable of
challenging corporate power and saving the planet from ecological destruction.

To recognize our mutual interdependence does not require us to abandon cultural
difference. We reject the view that says that real peace can only be achieved if
everyone is alike, part of a leveling universal culture fostered by a
melting-pot of preexisting cultures.

We do not seek to obliterate all differences, but to build a multi-cultural
world based on mutual recognition and respect for difference. The world is
better served by a diversity of religious, ethnic and cultural traditions --
each of which has learned to respect and honor this diversity and to divest
itself of those elements in its tradition that lead to hatred or the demeaning
of others. Our responsibility to the planet requires us to make dramatic
transformations in our patterns of production and consumption. We must:

Take all necessary steps to halt and reverse global warming (really, global
scorching). Encourage graceful simplicity in living. We must commit to sharing
the resources of this planet equally with all six billion other human beings
while also committing ourselves to the planet’s ecological sustainability. This
commitment requires that we alter our notions of private property in ways that
give adequate attention to the needs of the whole, rather than approaching the
world first and foremost from the standpoint of our individual rights without
sensitivity to the needs of others.

Adopt a new attitude of caring toward animals and other life forms, and a
recognition that stewardship implies responsibility to take all necessary steps
to preserve the diversity and integrity of life forms on this planet, to the
greatest extent possible consistent with protecting human life (we don't
"respect" the "rights" of cancer or forms of life that are aggressively
destructive to human beings).

Exercise extreme caution in the uses of biotechnology. We should immediately
remove the profit motive and ensure that all significant decisions are made
within a context of democratic control. A new sense of humility should govern
any decision that might potentially alter the biosphere or the genetic
structures of plants, animals or humans. Science must be harnessed to serve the
highest values of the human race, not the profit-motives of corporations or the
military needs of governments.

Commit ourselves to Ethical Consumption or what the Jewish Renewal movement
calls eco-kashrut, (building on the traditional Jewish concern with the origins
of the food we eat as a tool to actualize the environmentalism of our
tradition). Ethical Consumption requires that all purchasing decisions,
including but not limited to those necessary for physical sustenance, be made in
a way that has the least negative environmental impact. We hope to enlist many
people in religious and spiritual communities to participate in the formulation
of standards and the ongoing observance of ethical consumption.

Ethical Consumption is a direction for our communal aspiration, but in this area
as in every other we are super-careful to not let our ideals become a club to
beat each other up with (as in "you own an SUV so you can’t be part of our
movement" or "you have too big a house" or "you shouldn’t take vacations"). As
in all things, spiritual balance is critical: recognizing a direction for our
energies, but being compassionate and tolerant of the different paces at which
people move toward that goal. Tolerant to individuals -- but not tolerant toward
social and corporate policies that are environmentally destructive. Not tolerant
of societal decisions like opposing sensible constraints on ozone destroying
emissions and not tolerant of environmentally hazardous global trade accords.

2. A NEW BOTTOM LINE IN OUR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Productivity and efficiency must no longer be judged solely by the degree to
which any corporation or institution maximizes profits or power, but also by the
degree to which a corporation, school, government institution, or social
practice tends to :
support ethical, spiritual, and ecological sensitivity and to promote the
sustainability of our environment;
support human beings to be loving, caring and capable of sustaining long-term
loving relationships;
promote the well-being of everyone on the planet;
help people overcome a narrow utilitarian attitude toward each other or toward
the universe and encourages them instead to see other people in a
non-utilitarian way, and to view the physical world not primarily as something
that can be used for human purposes but also through the lens of awe and wonder
at the grandeur of creation.

Beyond all definitions of efficiency and productivity, we seek to shape a
society in which there is time not only to Do and to Make but there is time also
to Be and to Love -- time for family, community, and spiritual exploration.

We want this New Bottom Line brought into all aspects of our public life, so
that we can begin to reshape our schools and hospitals, our government, our
professions, our media in ways that encourage people to see each other as
fundamentally valuable and deserving of love and caring. We reject the notion
that values should be kept out of public life, and instead seek to champion the
values articulated in this statement, and to encourage social change that would
foster these values throughout the society.

So, for example, we want schools to be assessed as successful or as failures not
only to the extent that they produce students who can read and write but also to
the extent that they tend to foster caring human beings who are ethically and
ecologically sensitive, who excel at taking care of others and at developing
their own inner resources, and who have developed the capacity to respond to the
universe with awe and wonder.

We want corporate charters to be dependent on their ability to prove a history
of social responsibility as measured by an Ethical Impact Report. We want all of
our economic and social institutions to be judged successful to the extent that
they foster caring and respect for all peoples and for the planet. While some of
the direction for this thinking has already been developed in Rabbi Michael
Lerner’s book Spirit Matters: Global Healing and the Wisdom of the Soul, we
believe that a full vision can best emerge when people in their own workplaces
and professions can form consciousness raising small groups which will develop
concrete and detailed answer to the question: “What would this workplace or
profession look like if it did in fact have a ‘New Bottom Line’ like that called
for by The Tikkun Community -- and how do we begin to take the first steps to
struggle for that new bottom line, both in our own workplace and by uniting with
others in other workplace and professions to seek
  support for these changes?” This conversation will become a central task of
people in building a new spiritual politics in the coming decades.

There are some who believe that the New Bottom Line we seek can be instituted
inside corporations and within the evolving framework of global capital. There
are others who believe that it will take a whole new economic system to get a
New Bottom Line. We welcome both within our organization -- our commitment is to
this New Bottom Line, and encourage anyone who is serious about struggling for
that New Bottom Line to be part of our organization as long as they don’t
sacrifice that struggle to “realism” (which is a way of saying, that they don’t
give up the struggle in order to accommodate to the power of the capitalist
system as currently constituted). What matters to us is what happens when the
decisions are actually being made: what are the criteria being used?  If, in the
heat of decision making, the decision makers put the development of loving and
caring human beings above the maximization of profits, if hey consistently use
the criteria of our New Bottom Line specified above (n
ot just in their language but in the actuality of their considerations and
deliberations), we don’t care what you call the name of the economic system that
is using these criteria or who formally owns the stocks in those companies.

3. SUPPORTING THE STRUGGLES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AND PEACE

We are committed to the efforts to create peace and social justice throughout
the world. We insist that hunger and poverty can be eliminated -- and that this
be given a very high priority in allocating our taxes. We support the struggles
for adequate health care and access to medicine, for child care and elder care,
and for other fundamental human rights including the right of working people to
meaningful work with a living wage, the right to organize in defense of their
own interests, the protection of children from exploitation, and the end to all
forms of slavery, forced labor, and sweatshops.

We support efforts to give primacy to ecological and social justice concerns in
all global economic arrangements. We align ourselves with the efforts to
challenge the kind of globalization that is being forged by the world's elites
of wealth and power. We stand in strong opposition to the use of torture or
violence, and all forms of abuse (physical, sexual, and emotional) and insist
that children be treated with respect and nonviolence. We call for an end to
imprisoning drug users and for the creation of a sane drug policy that mixes
prevention and treatment with a recognition that some of the psychedelic drugs
currently illegal have positive medical and/or psychological benefits and should
be made responsibly available rather than having their use criminalized. We
oppose the War on Drugs and its use as an instrument of assault against young
African Americans (jailing them for use of drugs that whites also use without
facing similar penalties) and as an excuse to intervene in Colom
bia and other countries.

We support disarmament both on an international level and on a societal level.
We support the enforcement of international human rights. And we support efforts
to create an international peace force to intervene with techniques of
nonviolence to prevent wars and violence. But we insist that peace depends also
on economic security and feelings of respect and open-heartedness toward "the
Other," and that these need to be an intrinsic part of our conception of
international assistance and aid. We join with the Jubilee 2000 in calling for a
worldwide agreement to abolish all third world debt and instead call for a
guarantee that loans in the future will go directly to the development of
education, training, health care, and housing of the people in recipient
countries. And we support massive funding from the Western world to fight AIDS,
poverty, homelessness, and inadequate education and health care.

We are committed to advancing the struggles of women in all spheres of life for
full equality. Women’s experience and wisdom must become a shaping force as we
build a more liberatory and more nurturing culture and work world. We support
the struggles of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people who seek
full equality, respect, and opportunity to live their lives without being bound
to traditional ideas about gender and sexuality. We see the oppression of gender
as inextricably linked to the oppression that takes place within the categories
of race and class, so we support those who are seeking to build healing in all
three realms simultaneously.

We call upon the United States to move toward an honest recognition and
repentance for slavery, for post-slavery segregation, and for the long history
of oppression and racism toward peoples of color, most particularly with regard
to African Americans but also including its treatment of people from Mexico,
Central and South America, its treatment of Japanese, Chinese and other Pacific
Island immigrants, and its treatment of American Indians. In this regard a
society-wide strategy must include education of the entire population on the
realities of how racism functions in our society, as well as an honest and
serious plan to provide a meaningful rectification of this history of oppression
(which may include, for example, reparations to African Americans and to Native
Americans). Similarly, we call for reparations and rights of return (where doing
so would not cause even greater levels of suffering) for all populations around
the world who have been forced from their homes by war and
oppression (we think particularly of the people of Central Africa, the people of
Chechnya, the people of Tibet, and tens of millions of other refugees around the
world). Where reparations or return are not the best means to rectify past
oppression without creating new forms of dislocation and oppression, we commit
to other strategies to provide rectification -- and these must not only be
economic, but involve public and systematic atonement on the part of societies
that have materially benefited from the misuse of or oppression of others. This
same principle should be applied in matters of class oppression as well as
racial oppression.

We don't seek here to list all forms of oppression which must end -- that
laundry list concept of politics usually leads nowhere. So we will resist the
efforts of some to join our community and spend their time adding new issues to
our list of oppression and claiming that somehow we are oppressing someone or
some group if we didn’t mention them at this point. That kind of discourse is
usually a way to avoid taking any of these principles seriously, by spending all
of one’s time debating them.

On the other hand, we do at least want to give special attention in this
founding statement to what has become a particularly egregious focus of
right-wing energy: the assault on gays and lesbians. TIKKUN magazine has long
championed the transformation of Jewish practices that demean queers or that
limit marriage to heterosexual unions. The NSP will oppose all use of state
power, in the United States, Canada, England, Israel and other countries both,
to disadvantage queer relationships or to limit marriage or family to
traditional heterosexual forms. We honor those who are developing what they call
a "queer politics" that forces all of us to rethink gender relationships, even
while rejecting any attempts to privilege any one approach as "the politically
correct way" for sexual life. Our community also affirms support and honor to
heterosexuality as an equally valid form of family and marriage. We seek to
create a society which is supportive of families and of people making and sust
aining long-term loving commitments, and we will do our best to support people
to work through the inevitable difficulties that emerge in all loving
relationships. And we also will provide emotional support to those who have
chosen to remain single or who have chosen communal forms of living. For those
who are single but don't wish to be, we believe that a community of caring
people should give time and attention to helping such people find appropriate
partners of whatever gender they seek, rather than abandoning them to face the
problem of finding a partner as a kind of lone entrepreneur in a marketplace of
relationships. Similarly, we will give warm welcome to bisexuals and those who
are cross-gendered.

We also want to emphasize the central importance we give to creating a loving
and spiritually rich environment for children, recognizing their right to have
education that is stimulating and meaningful, to be involved in loving and
caring relationships, and to be introduced to the spiritual practices and social
transformation movements that can enrich their lives. In part, this means
learning from our children, trusting them, and giving them opportunities to
shape their own paths. In part, this means that we have an obligation to impart
to the young (and not just our own children) all that we have learned about the
joys and excitements of life, the joys and excitement of intellectual activity
and the life of the mind, the joy of learning skills and disciplines. We have a
responsibility to keep children from inflicting lasting hurt on themselves or
others. Within that context of responsibility, we also wish to affirm pleasure,
not only for ourselves but also for our children, as an
important aspect of life. Similarly, we wish to create contexts for them to
learn the wisdom of our elders, the wisdom and great knowledge accumulated in
science and humanities. We also need to provide forms of support that show them
respect and caring, affirm their right to deepen their own knowledge, affirm
their right to pleasure and sexual and spiritual fulfillment, and provide
opportunities to use their creativity in service to the community.

4. PEACE, JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION FOR ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

We are committed to full and complete reconciliation between Israel and the
Palestinian people within the context of social justice for the Palestinians and
security for Israel. We call upon Israel to end the Occupation, to return
settlers to the pre-1967 borders of Israel (providing them with decent housing),
and to take major (though not total) responsibility for Palestinian refugees. We
oppose Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights and we insist that Israel
adopt a strategy based on open-heartedness toward the Palestinians, repentance
for past misdeeds, reparation, and genuine acknowledgement of the ways that some
Israelis were oppressive, murderous, and oblivious to the legitimate needs of
the Palestinian people. We call for an end to the teachings in Jewish and
Israeli schools and media which demean or demonize the Palestinian people;
instead we seek to replace those with teachings that emphasize the humanity and
goodness of the Palestinian people, Arabs and Muslims.
Although we affirm Israel as a Jewish state side by side with Palestine, we
believe that all non-Jews in Israel, including most importantly Arab or
Palestinian citizens of Israel, should have full civil rights in Israel and
equal economic entitlements to any Israeli who has served in the army.

We call upon the Palestinian people to acknowledge the right of Jews to maintain
their own homeland in the pre-1967 borders of the state of Israel, with Jewish
control over the Jewish section of Jerusalem (including French Hill and Mt.
Scopus and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City) and the Western Wall, and
unimpeded access to the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. We call upon the
Palestinian people to stop acts of terror against Israel and to listen and heed
the growing number of Palestinian voices that are calling for a strategy of
nonviolent civil disobedience We call upon Palestinians to end all teachings in
their schools and media which demean or demonize the Jewish people or Israel and
to replace those with teachings that emphasize the humanity and goodness of the
Jewish people.

We recognize that some Palestinians will respond by pointing out the structural
violence inherent in the presence of the Israeli Occupation and the settlements.
We agree with these points, but still believe that the breakthrough necessary to
free Palestinians from Occupation will only come when the Israeli people feel
enough safety to contemplate arrangements based on trust. Just as Israelis must
demonstrate that they see Palestinians as created in the image of God and
deserving of full respect, so the Palestinians must demonstrate that they see
Israelis as created in the image of God and are deserving of full respect.

Both sides need to recognize a need for repentance for past deeds that were
hurtful and oppressive. Jews must understand why Palestinians were fearful that
the more highly organized and politically sophisticated Zionist movement that
began to emerge in the period 1920-1948 might lead to the disenfranchisement of
Palestinians, and why Palestinians today feel that "the right to return" to
their homes is no different from the right of return that was at the basis of
Zionism.

Similarly, Palestinians need to acknowledge their own role in helping create the
conflict by their armed resistance to Jewish immigration to Palestine in the
years when Jews were being annihilated or when Jews were stumbling out of the
death camps of Europe.

This is just a sample of the stories we must learn from each other so that we
can build reconciliation of the heart, based on genuine compassion for each
other. Political arrangements cannot be trusted until there is a serious
commitment on both sides to compassionate listening to each other. Its only when
both sides can tell the other side's story with compassion and conviction, and
both sides recognize that in some important respects both sides are wrong and
both sides are right, that we can hope to move to a real reconciliation of the
heart.

All the fancy agreements and all the political maneuvering is secondary to
developing an open-heartedness and generosity in both peoples to the legitimate
needs of the other. We believe an important step in that process is for both
sides to learn how to tell the other other side's narrative in a convincing and
compassionate way. This has been done in part in Rabbi Michael Lerner’s book
Healing Israel/Palestine, and in the works of various Israeli and Palestinian
thinkers who are able to transcend their own community’s demand for proving that
their side is the “righteous victim” and the other side is “the evil oppressor.”

We call upon the United States and other world powers to intervene with all
their influence and economic power both to stop the cycle of violence and to
achieve the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state in all of the West
Bank and Gaza (minus the most minimal border alterations), an end to the
Occupation, and an end to acts of terror. We will support efforts to convince
the United States to condition aid to Israel on the end of the Occupation. We
call upon the peoples of the world to come to Israel and Palestine and actively
interpose ourselves between the warring sides to provide protection to civilians
on both sides. And we call for all parties to adopt the nonviolent philosophies
and strategies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.

Although we do not support any form of nationalism as an ultimate good, we
understand why, in this historical moment, the Jewish people need a state of our
own. With memories of the murder and genocide of our people still fresh and the
perception that we would have been far less vulnerable had we had a state and an
army -- with the persistence of virulent anti-Semitism in the world today -- the
Jewish people cannot be asked to be the first to voluntarily eliminate the
protections of the nation state. That’s why, at this point in time, the TIKKUN
Community is supporting a two-state rather than a bi-national solution to the
Israel-Palestinian crisis, even though some members of our community believe
that such a bi-national state is the only way to achieve social justice for
Palestinians.

After what Jews have been through, it is not reasonable to expect them to be the
first to give up the protections of an armed state. On the other hand, we see
nationalism as a perverting influence in Jewish life -- and one that must be
overcome. So we do hope Israel will become one of the first 20 percent of
countries of the world to overcome the trappings of national chauvinism,
militarism, and excessive focus on boundaries -- say, for example, after the
United States, Russia, China, Japan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, India, Pakistan,
England, France, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Poland, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Libya,
Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, and South Africa have
pioneered that path by abolishing borders and accomplished full disarmament.
Until then, the Jewish people have a right to their own state, which we hope
will eventually move in the direction of confederation with Palestine and Jordan
for economic and political cooperation.

A state with many Jews in it is not a Jewish state unless it embodies an ethos
of love and justice and becomes a living proof that healing and transformation
is possible. Israel is not yet a Jewish state in this sense, so we will support
the forces that will help it evolve in that direction. To make it possible for
Jewish values of love, justice, and peace to triumph inside its own society, and
to open the possibility that Israelis could rediscover the deep spiritual truths
of Judaism, Israel will have to eliminate all forms of religious control of the
state, end all religious coercion, and allow people to find their own religious
and spiritual path, giving equal rights and treatment to non-Jews.

We oppose all attempts by some sectors of the Orthodox world to use the Israeli
government as a vehicle to impose their own particular perspective about
Judaism, including who is "really" Jewish, what counts as a legitimate wedding,
divorce or conversion, etc. We support instead the fostering of a climate of
mutual tolerance and respect among all sectors of the Jewish people. We reject
all practices which lead to unequal treatment of Palestinians or other
non-Jewish minorities within the State of Israel.

So, when we affirm preserving "the Jewish character" of Israel, we do not mean
merely a demographically Jewish state but a state which lives up to the highest
Jewish values of "love the neighbor," "love the stranger," and "justice, justice
shalt thou pursue." In the short term, the greatest obstacle to the creation of
a state living up to the values of an ethically and spiritually renewed Judaism
are the Occupation, the settlements, and what is described in Michael Lerner's
book Jewish Renewal as the "Settler Judaism" mentality.

Settler Judaism sees the world as always against the Jews, always ready to hurt
us -- and hence rejects universal ethical standards and equates "good" with
"what’s good for the Jews." Similarly, settler Judaism assumes that Jewish
interests can be achieved through the use of power and coercion, the
obliteration of those with whom we disagree, and believes that Jews have some
special right to the Land of Israel that allows them to be insensitive to others
who live there.

The greatest obstacle to Jewish values in Israel as in the United States lies in
the triumph of the ethos of selfishness and materialism. Those who respect
Judaism and wish to see it retain its integrity in a Jewish state must reject
the vision of an Israel which finds its ultimate mission in becoming "the
globalization miracle and new technology and finance headquarters of the Middle
East." Rather, we support those who favor a genuinely Jewish society built on
principles of love, justice, peace, and caring for others, including non-Jewish
others. This path requires rejecting those themes and currents within the Jewish
tradition or interpretations of Jewish history which tend to bring out
chauvinism or a narrow focus on the well being of Jews to the exclusion of
others, and instead renewing Judaism to focus on those parts of the tradition
and Jewish history that bring out in Jews greater empathy for others, and
develop the capacities of Jews as loving, generous, open-hearted and co
mpassionate human beings. And it is this same kind of renewal that we support in
every other religious and spiritual tradition.

5. A SPIRITUAL MOVEMENT

The world we want to see cannot be created solely by external economic and
political changes. We wish to see the democratization of our economic and
political institutions, and a redistribution of wealth so that all people can
share equally in the benefits of this planet. But as we indicated above, the
sources of our worldwide economic and political problems are not solely external
in nature, but reflect also distortions in how we experience ourselves and each
other So work on changing our own inner selves and our ideas about the world is
an important aspect of changing the world -- not a diversion from the healing
that is necessary, but an important component of it.

We need to engage in activity that aims at fostering a new consciousness and the
development of an inner life that is not merely private and individual in
nature, but is rather both social and spiritual in nature -- an inner life that
is also an interconnected life with other human beings and with the Unity of All
Being.

In short, the political must have a spiritual dimension. This is a dimension of
life which is rarely given attention in social change movements, but it is a
central concern of the NSP.

Among the central building blocks of such a spiritual dimension:

the development of a personal spiritual practice such as meditation or prayer,
the practice of generosity and sharing what we have with others,
compassion toward others and toward oneself,
including the open-hearted acceptance of one's own and other's flaws,
developing the habit of affirming the being of others even when we may disagree
with some of their beliefs or practices,
careful attention to one's speech so as to not say hurtful things towards
others,
joyfulness and the affirmation of pleasure,
treasuring our bodies through conscious eating and exercising (but without
politically correct guilt trips),
the practice of forgiveness and repentance,
giving to give and not to get,
letting go of fantasies that we can control everything,
and recognizing that there is enough and that we are enough.

We are particularly sensitive to the ways that social movements in the past have
used their own ideals as clubs with which to beat up themselves and those who
are not part of the "in" group, so we want to insist that our movement have a
compassionate attitude toward its own members as well as toward those who do not
agree with us, while simultaneously rejecting a mindless moral relativism which
makes everything OK or acceptable. Building this balance between compassion and
striving for transformation requires practical wisdom, and so our movement
rejects the anti-leadership tendencies that have often been associated with
progressive politics and embraces the notion of spiritual leadership based on
inner depth, compassionate understanding, practical wisdom, and a powerful sense
of humor.

WHY CREATE A NEW ORGANIZATION?

There are many organizations doing good work in each of the areas discussed
above, and we intend to support all of them. We especially encourage the
creation and strengthening of truly transnational grassroots movements focused
not only on resisting corporate globalism but on creating a new democratic
"globalization" -- a planetary movement that is not controlled either by
national governments or by corporations. We especially support efforts to
require that corporations serve the public good such as the proposed Social
Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

What does not exist is an organization that brings all these concerns together
within the context of a unified worldview (there are many groups who have
laundry lists of demands, but these demands do not flow from a shared
theoretical perspective). As a result, many people involved in one or another of
the concerns described above don't really recognize themselves as part of a
larger movement for healing and transformation of the planet, don't see these
others as their allies, and don't inject into their own activities a larger
understanding that could deepen their specific important work, the NSP can
provide that larger framework.

We are people who share the basic ideas of an Emancipatory Spirituality as
described in Michael Lerner's Spirit Matters: Global Healing and the Wisdom of
the Soul -- a book which provides our basic framework.

We also see as foundational the writings of
Peter Gabel, particularly as articulated in The Bank Teller and Other Essays on
the Politics of Meaning, Judith Plaskow's Standing Again at Sinai
and Arthur Waskow's Down to Earth Judaism.

We draw upon the wisdom of many teachers, including the work of
Abraham Joshua Heschel and Zalman Schachter Shalomi,
Marcia Prager and Rachel Adler,
Rumi and St. Francis and the Kabbalists,
Susannah Heschel and Lawrence Kushner,
Art Green and Judith Antonelli,
Jerry Mander and David Korten,
Ken Wilber and Jim Wallis,
Thomas Merton and Matthew Fox and Zygmunt Bauman,
Thich Nhat Hanh and The Dalai Lama,
the Ishbitzer Rebbe and Teilhard de Chardin,
Mordecai Kaplan and Adrienne Rich,
Roger Gottlieb and Walter Bruegemann,
and the work of Catholic liberation theologians, feminist theologians, Socially
Engaged Buddhists, and many more.

What the NSP seeks to offer is a vision that positions the quest for economic
and social justice, peace and ecological sanity within the framework of a
spiritual consciousness and a practice of open-heartedness, generosity, caring
for others and outpouring of loving kindness. The NSP is for anyone who shares
the perspective articulated here.

The NSP’s major organizational contribution to the worldwide movement for social
justice and spiritual well-being will be:

To provide a support mechanism for people who wish to bring this new way of
thinking into the world. When people try to do this by themselves, they often
find themselves burning out or becoming "realistic," that is, adjusting to the
frame of reference of the larger society. We will provide support to each other
to remain focused on a larger and more utopian vision.
To do consciousness-raising in the larger world and in social change movements,
so that they can begin to incorporate our perspective and they strengthen their
ability to survive the burnout, cynicism, and despair that often debilitate
those who wish for social change.
To change the intellectual framework within which most Americans view
contemporary social reality and their own possibilities for a fulfilling life.
To provide ongoing education and the development of theory and practice that
could become models for social healing.  We do not intend to replace or
duplicate existing social change movements. But there are many arenas even in
those movements where a more coherent worldview, and an organization linking
them intellectually and spiritually would only strengthen rather than detract
from their important work.
To provide a context within which older and seasoned activists and those
involved in social healing in their work can interact with the new and exciting
generation of younger activists -- and both can learn from each other.
To be a national think-tank for social change movements -- a think-tank that can
help them move beyond narrow economistic frameworks and begin to incorporate a
spiritual wisdom and framework both in their conceptualizing the issues they
address and in building a support community for their own activists.
To be an information-gathering network that can provide an alternative to the
polling done by establishment-oriented groups -- and to ask the questions that
reflect a psychological and spiritual sophistication rarely brought to the task
of understanding what is happening in our society.
We see the educational, consciousness-raising, and linking work we do as a
critical contribution to social healing.

We see ourselves as a corps of spiritual transformers -- that is, a cadre of
people who share a fundamentally similar perspective and wish to work more
effectively by supporting each other, learning from each other's experience, and
more deeply internalizing the ideas and ideals we hold. This is one reason why
we place a great deal of emphasis on agreement with the details of this founding
document -- because intellectual coherence is only possible if we start from the
same place.

Like a new kind of non-sectarian spiritual Order, perhaps like the Franciscans
fused with a Hasidic sect fused with the skills of a guild for social change and
maybe even the willingness to commit to taking care of each other that is
manifested by the Jesuits and by Skull and Bones and by some Native American
tribes, we will make a life-long commitment to supporting the people who join
and stay involved in the NSP, and do what we can to make sure that we help them
in any way we can. For some, that may mean helping someone get a job or
promotion, for others it may mean helping someone get the health care they need,
or introducing someone to a life partner, or advancing their literary or
political career, or assisting them in playing a leadership role. The commitment
is based on the recognition that as members of the NSP people are themselves
making a commitment to be involved in using our own talents, skills, and life
energies to promote the kind of healing and transformation envisi
oned in this Core Vision. So of course we are going to want to do everything we
reasonably and morally and legally can do to help each other advance through our
lives, and give each other companionship, love, caring, generosity and
compassion as we face life's challenges from the time we are in college to the
time we may be facing aging and death. It is this kind of commitment to each
other that can only be made real by our own individual actions and which becomes
the ultimate glue to holding together a vanguard of love.

We see TIKKUN magazine, along with the spiritualprogressives.org website and
Love Embodied e-zine, as the primary vehicle through which we can communicate
with each other about the new thinking and activity that the NSP develops.

So How Do I Get Involved?

There are many ways to be involved in the NSP. We imagine that in a few years
these will be the answers some of us will be giving about what we've been doing
to build the NSP:

Some of us are seeking to bring these ideas into our professional or workplace
contexts and to campaign for a "New Bottom Line."

We are creating groups of like-minded people at our annual meetings of
professional associations, at national conventions of unions and political
parties, or at the national gatherings of our religious communities.

Some of us are business people introducing these ideas into our businesses and
experimenting with new ways to work -- or we are developing communities of
people who infuse their philanthropic activities with this kind of orientation.

Some of us are working in foundations and some of us are working in universities
and some of us are working in media and some of us are working in local churches
and synagogues and mosques, and wherever we are, we are raising the kinds of
issues raised in this founding statement.

Some of us are creating local NSP chapters -- essentially chapters or salons of
the NSP in which we can work to educate people in our local areas about this
perspective and deepen our understanding of our principles in monthly
conversations.

Some of us are participating by talking about these ideas in every context in
which we find ourselves and by convincing others to read TIKKUN magazine

Some of us are students who are seeking to create campus chapters of the NSP.

Some of us are engaged in solidarity work with the Israeli peace movement or in
developing local initiatives to challenge the Occupation. Some of us are
developing teach-ins about Israel-Palestinian peace, and in other ways
challenging the mainstream interpretation of that struggle.

Some of us are bringing these ideas into the anti-globalization, ecological, and
social justice movements or affinity groups of which we are part. Some of us are
trying to do that in the Democratic Party, the Natural Law Party, the Green
Party and other political parties.

Some of us are intellectuals working in academia or in policy institutes or in
media and seeking to foster an understanding of this perspective.

Some of us are artists, poets, writers, musicians and others who will be
participating by using our skills and talents to advance the consciousness
described here.

Some of us are challenging local and national media, insisting that they
recognize the distorted and cynical nature of their presentations, and educating
the public to alternative ways to think about reality. Some of us are retirees
who are making phone calls and writing letters to the media or to neighbors
about these ideas.

Some of us are trying to influence foundations to adopt and support this
perspective. Others of us are involved in fundraising projects to support the
NSP and fund educational work. Some of us are trying to change the way people
think about philanthropy, or the way they use their charitable donations -- so
that they become a force to convince social change movements to incorporate this
broader perspective.

Some of us are working in communities of seniors and developing spiritual
eldering projects to support the ways that retired people can provide spiritual
leadership for the society.

Others are working in schools and pushing for a new bottom line there. Still
others are working to get the Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution on the ballots of local and state elections (requiring corporations
to get a new charter which would only be rewarded if they could prove a history
of social responsibility). Some of us are helping shape a spiritually oriented
political party, while others are working within existing parties.

For all of us, the NSP is a place where we can talk about these ideas and give
each other mutual support for being unequivocally utopian and committed to large
scale TIKKUN olam (transformation of the world). We get this nurturance through
TIKKUN magazine, the spiritualprogressives.org website and email groups, the
Love Embodied e-zine, and through NSP national gatherings.

What will the National Organization Do?

We will hold national conferences/trainings which will be aimed at exploring
more fully the ideas put forward in this statement and applying them to current
social, political and spiritual realities. Meetings of our conference will not
be about passing resolutions or debating policies, but rather about developing
our own inner spiritual resources, thinking through ideas together, and learning
from cutting-edge thinkers, spiritual leaders, social activists and
practitioners of healing and transformation.

We will provide an email discussion groups for those who want daily briefings on
current national happenings and priorities. Right now, we don’t have the
resources for a moderated bulletin board, but that could happen in the future.

We will develop educational material that will help people do organizing around
the national priorities for that year.

We will seek publicity in national and local media to highlight the perspectives
articulated in this founding statement.

We will take public stands on issues that connect to this founding vision and
publicize those stands, organize public gatherings or other events to forward
those ideals, develop a corps of speakers who can speak to these issues,
encourage artists, film and video people, and writers to integrate our
perspective into their works, and find other creative ways to provoke public
discussion of the NSP perspective.

We will assist in the formation of coalitions and partnerships and national
campaigns (including media campaigns) to advance these ideas.

On leadership: Our organization rejects both the anti-leadership tendencies of
some parts of the Left and the Guru/Great Man tendencies of various spiritual
movements. We want to give full and strong support to leadership -- leadership
not chosen on the basis of “representing” either a constituency or a cohort of
the population, but rather a spiritual leadership based on inner depth, wisdom,
deep understanding of the world and of spiritual disciplines, compassionate
understanding, practical wisdom and powerful sense of humor. We seek leaders who
encourage the growth of these qualities and skills in our members.

We are all too familiar with organizations in which concern about democratic
process paralyzes leadership so that they never feel capable of taking creative
action or making public statements for the organization. That’s why we do not
model ourselves on the “consensus building” organizations that predominate today
-- even as we admire the democratic impulse that underlies that practice. Nor do
we accept the leveling that fails to recognize inequalities in levels of
intellectual or spiritual or emotional development among people (based in part
on differences in life experience). There are people among us who know more, or
who have had unique experiences that they can articulate in ways that are
helpful to all of us, and not everyone is in that position. So we want to treat
our leaders and teachers with genuine respect, but not with uncritical
subservience to their views when we disagree.

Not everyone in the NSP agrees with every point in this statement. What they do
agree with is this: that this statement is the foundational position of this
organization, and that insofar as we function within the context of the NSP or
act as its public representatives to the public or to other organizations we
acknowledge ourselves as bound by the approach articulated here. Since our
primary organizational goal is to be a force that will educate others to the
perspective articulated here in this Core Vision, and to the ideas that underlie
it, it is reasonable for us to want people within the organization to really be
enthusiastic about its perspective and for its leaders and spokespeople to share
all of its major points articulated here (but not necessarily all the ways that
these get elaborated in the future).

The NSP is committed to fostering a new consciousness so that we allow ourselves
to know that the most significant and rewarding part of our lives comes through:

Acts of love and generosity

Kindness to humans and animals

Caring for and giving to others without expectation of reward or a “return on
the investment of our time and enegy”

Work that is fulfilling both in its process and in the sense it gives us that we
are contributing to the public good

Awe at the grandeur of creation

The experience of being recognized on the deepest level of our being and
recognizing others in that way

Acknowledging our connection to something larger than ourselves and seeing our
lives in the context of service to the ultimate triumph of love, goodness,
justice and peace.

We hope you join us, and we pray for guidance and wisdom, humor and love as we
build this exciting venture.
___________________________________________________

inner self and discovery: Ann Racuya-Robbins: "inner voice" as mutifaceted
experienced interface between usual awareness and subtle identity as vaster
awareness: Rich Murray 2008.07.18
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages/82

As an analogy, after decades of viewing plays, TV, and movies, we often find
ourselves attending to the reality that actors are following carefully evolved
scripts, with skillful editing weaving together shots into complex narratives
that entice the viewer to create their version of the story and its meanings.

The show can be recorded into our computer and be reworked entirely, faster,
slower, different background music, different languages, scenes switched about,
or related shows added in a window.

The "how" of the show invests the "now" of the "snow-job" of the show.

Our awareness of this background reality deepens our appreciation and gives us
more freedom of choice as to whether to be "sucked in" or indoctrinated into a
loss of freedom, in dealing with such questionable elements as focus on
sexuality, fear, violence, conflict, protecting the physical body, its tribe,
its nation, or rather limited, stereotyped characterizations of death, or
acceptance of addiction to tobacco or alcohol.

"Inner voice" is a similar deepening awareness that reveals unlimited inner
perspectives that intimately and radically illuminate the convincing dramas that
arise as ordinary personal awareness.

Our friendly network accommodates a remarkable, shared openness to cooperative
dialogue among very different varieties of personal awareness.

In mutual service,  Rich Murray rmforall@...  505-501-2298

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages/1
Lively Communion: Invoking Mutual Meditative Exploration 2001.06.22



[FRIAM] inner self and discovery

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Ann Racuya-Robbins" <admin@...>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 3:06 PM
To: <friam@...>
Subject: [FRIAM] inner self and discovery

I feel confident that there is a whole world (science, art, mathematics,
visualization, unknown) of the inner self most particularly the inner voice.
The World Knowledge BankR currently has a call for knowledge out on

What is the nature of the "inner voice"? How is it possible to hear the
"inner voice"? What is the physics, psycho acoustics of the inner voice? Can
the inner voice be amplified? How?

The question of the nature of the inner voice is both physical and
metaphysical and very old indeed. In the Upanishads the inner voice is
described as the "ear of the ear" and each one of us has one.maybe many
species' individuals have one.  I have a number of ideas and systems on this
subject myself and want to encourage this conversation. I think the
philosopher Suzanne K. Langer and her works Feeling and Form and Mind" an
Essay on Human Feeling are good groundings and starting points for this
discussion. Among her insights is that, I am paraphrasing, music in general
gives or is a form of time. A particular musical composition tells us,
informs us as to what time feels like. Other art forms tells us other
things, such as visual art tells us how space feels. This is a revolutionary
way to look at the world and brings the ambient and feeling world within our
human capacity to understand and discuss. My take on Langer is to see that
if there many ways to feel time and space, there are many kinds of sciences,
many kinds of mathematics. Rather than learning a pedagogy of science our
job is much more complex and rich, there is a plurality of possible sciences
emergent from human feeling (expressed through art). I feel that we have
seen over the last hundred years a slowing of fundamental insights emerging
from science. The voluminious literature focuses on smaller and thinner
nooks of (standard) science. The human spirit is often confined and
frustrated by minucia not able to explore freely and anew. So now we have
new dimensions emerging 3,4,15...?  What? Isn't every dimension in a way a
new science.
============================================================

Re: [FRIAM] A talk of possible interest to FRIAMers: Harpers 2008 July, The
Perfect Game, Joshuah Bearman, tells how Pac Man video game masters use profound
"flow" states, ranging from perfectly rational to highly intuitive: Rich Murray
2008.07.13
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages/81

At the end of Jeannette M. Wing's jubilant talk, I added that Computational
Thinking also promotes expanded states of awareness, including access to
information and processes that range from intuition to parapsychological to
revelatory, leading to faster irreversible personal evolution.  A lady told
me she totally agreed, while Jeannette was graciously approving when I
chatted with her, as I added that profound ethical values are also
inculcated -- trustworthiness, honesty, generosity, openness to many
viewpoints, fairness, fearlessness, optimism, playfulness, humor,
directness, tact, politeness, cooperativeness, prejudice free, accuracy,
rationality, service, community evolution, continuing education, innovation,
harmlessness, gentleness, beauty -- values essential for world evolution.

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/07/0082097

http://www.localseoguide.com/off-topic-great-weekend-reading-the-pac-man-master/

The Perfect Game: Five years with the master of Pac-Man  describes how a
great master, starting in 1982 achieved the first perfect game  in 1999,
with the highest possible score of 3,333,360 points for all 256 levels,
playing without eating from July 1 to July 3, "...executed 30,000 precisely
calculated turns for a perfect run..."  The screens of these championship
games are videotaped to allow verification, and should enable innovative
detailed studies of human capabilities.

Walter Day, the field's master referee, an expert in Transcendental
Meditation, comments, "I believe the players are connecting to something
really profound, but to see that yourself, you need to see real champions at
the controls." "True quests, he says, are about losing yourself, which in
the end is finding yourself. 'Top gamers have yogic concentration, combining
utter focus with extreme relaxation, like what I studied with the
Maharishi.'  Walter says the players, like all great athletes, can enter
flow states when navigating Pac-Man or marathoning on games like Nibbler.
And many players do in fact report moments, deep into the hours, when
everything but the game recedes. 'It's happened to me many time,' Dwayne
says, 'It's like you have some kind of automatic comprehension.'  Russians
say this is 'the white moment.'  Zen action describes it as the ability to
'do without doing'.  Walter calls it 'an expanded insight' that just might
lead to a new world record."

Two masters studied the game for many years. "They thoroughly internalized
Pac-Man's programming rules, its telos and its gestalt, and they came to
realize something important, which was that this closed system was
perfect -- a controllable, predictable universe in a box. 'What I learned,
is that everything has a reason.'"

However, Abdner Bancroft Ashman, a Jamaican immigrant from Queens, 41, a
construction worker, shy and soft-spoken, spends most of his evenings
practicing in the basement of his mother's home, under a bare overhead bulb.
"Unlike Billy, he has no explanation for how he does what he does.  He can
play with either hand and recall entire games in his head, and yet he takes
no notes, compiles no data, and has never once thought about the game's
code. 'All I see is the joystick,' he says.''

"Abdner's chosen game, Ms. Pac-Man, is substantially more difficult than
Pac-Man. 'Pac-Man can be controlled,' Abner explains.  'But Ms. Pac-Man is
random.'  As each level starts, the movements of the ghosts are briefly
unpredictable, and therefore the player must create a new technology on the
fly.  Every time, order anew....After crafting his game alone... Abdner
emerged as the seventh confirmed master...."

"Ms. Pac-Man's non-Newtonian ambiguity is frustrating for Billy and Chris,
because it confounds perfection and challenges Billy Mitchell's belief in
universal causality.  Abdner has no such grand theories, but he has set
three record scores in rapid succession. each higher than the last."

"'Billy plays literally,' Dwayne says. 'He is a reductionist.' Dwayne is
good friends with Billy and holds his game play in high regard.  'But the
thing is,' Dwayne adds, 'Abdner takes an ecological approach.  He'll take
insights from anywhere, even from dreams.  It's the consummate technician
versus the artist.'  What Dwayne is proposing -- what the players all
propose, in fact, when they whisper among the consoles about Abdner's secret
knowledge that can only be guessed at -- is not technology at all but a kind
of magic.  'Billy's the best at zeros and ones,' Dwayne says. 'But what if
truth is in between?'"

"Struggling to describe his playing, Abdner once said he tries to make
'logic out of chaos.'"

So, for me, this is confirming evidence about higher levels of reality
emerging into personal experience, transcending "causality", taking
"insights from anywhere even from dreams,"  "a kind of magic", as "truth is
in between", as we "make logic out of chaos."

In mutual service,  Rich Murray  rmforall@...  505-501-2298

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages/1
Lively Communion: Invoking Mutual Meditative Exploration  2001.06.22

Re: Death in the family: Kate Murray and Libby Hall re her oldest son Tim
Hall, 43, in Santa Fe: Rich Murray, Sunday 2008.06.15
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/80

Dearest family and friends,

The shock of irrevocable loss,
dropping away of so many daily trivial travails,
a sense like joining together close around the tribe's fire against the
chill of a suddenly dark and clouded night,
a gentle surge of warm memories,
a pull to reconnect, listen, hug, serve, support, serve,
as human life unfolds as confirmation of the unifying sacred mystery.

I knew the warm and playful child,
independent, sociable adult,
circle of poetry,
prosperous career as a waiter in stylish restaurants,
sober discipline of a potent chronic disease,
years in lively New Orleans,
return, before Katrina hurricane, to Santa Fe,
warm and supportive presence with Libby, Kate, and Tim,
beauty and grace,
quick wit,
ironic humorous sweetness.

I hardly know you, Tim,
only enough to love and respect you,
to feel safe with you,
glad to know you always were available to so many,
to sense a kindred soul humbly questioning deeper waters,
wading in them in your way.

So, you've shifted suddenly into deeper, freer water,
not asking anyone's permission --
Well, Tim, I like that about you, I really do.

Here's to you Tim, and to all of us, family and friends and everyone,
in Earth's Mutual Blessing Commotion Restaurant,
where forever shared living radiates and gives and gives and gives.

Thank you, Tim, for blessings known, unknowable, past, future, overlooked,
never lost,
as we stand on a now distant shore of your very deep sea,
wishing you back,
waving you on,
our hearts go with thee, sailor,
our love does buoy thee up,
thine a long journey now.
thy journey not a mistake,
for treasures found,
are everyone's.

Rich Murray 505-501-2298

Libby Hall 505-438-2990

Kate Murray 505-501-4221

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Libby Hall" <kate-n-sf@...>
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2008 9:07 PM
Subject: re: Death in the family

This is a general call for love and prayers.
My oldest brother Tim passed away, seemingly peacefully sometime last night.
I'm including the email my mom sent out.
Please keep us in your hearts as we try to make peace with this sudden loss.
Thank you, Kate

-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: libbila@... (Libby Hall)
Subject: Passing on of Tim Hall
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:52:28 +0000

It is with great sorrow and a heavy  heart that I have to tell all of you
that my oldest son, Tim, died suddenly this morning.
We are all in shock.
He was found by his brother, Patrick, who became very concerned last night
that he didn't answer his phone or door.
It appears that his heart simply stopped.
He was a type I diabetic and was being treated for high blood pressure.

He was a very kind, gentle and loving soul - maybe too much so for life.
he was much loved by all of us and rejoiced in being "Uncle Tim" to his
nieces and nephews.
He was 43.

We are all stunned and grief stricken and we are so grateful for our friends
and friends who are family and knew and loved Tim too and for Marie and Tom
and Juanita and Tom's son Soren and my daughter-in-law Corrina, who came to
be with us and hold us as we tried to come to terms with this.

Thank you too to all those from AA and AlAnon who either called or came by.

Kate and Patrick and I  were all able to pray around him and to say
good-bye.

Please hold all of us in your prayers as we deal with this.

Prayers have held us thus far and I am so grateful for all of you in my
life.

I will send another email when I know what we are doing next.
Right now -- overwhelming...
I find I cannot think and memories and worries and all the old fears are
flooding in as well as joy in having had him in my life.
I am rambling.

Much love and gratitude --- Libby (and Kate and Patrick too)

Rich Murray Room For All 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, NM 87505
rmforall@... 505-501-2298
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/

Santa Fe Complex as evolving partnership (not dominator) collaboration, re
deep insights from Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning,
2008.02.17: Rich Murray 2008.04.29 2008.06.05

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/79  for full text

Rich Murray Room For All 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, NM 87505
rmforall@... 505-501-2298
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/

"When Wisdom Was Natural"
AEPL Conference 2008 Conference Call # 1 Sunday, February 17, 2008

Present: Werner Krieglstein, Mary Mackey, Bruce Novak, Louise Smith,
Jennifer Olin- Hitt, Ray Campagna, Betty Sawin, Robert Inchausti, Theodore
Timpson, Julie Nichols, Charlie Suhor, Anne Adams, Gabriele Rico, Stan
Scott, Varda Brahms

Materials referred to:
www.perspectivism.com

www.marymackey.com

www.partnershipway.org

The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (Riane Eisler);

The Year the Horses Came (Mary Mackey);

Compassion: A New Philosophy of the Other(Werner Krieglstein)

Compiled from notes taken by Louise Smith and Bruce Novak

Bruce:  Introduced the sponsoring organization, AEPL, the Assembly for
Expanded Perspectives on Learning, an official assembly of the NCTE, though
its membership and concerns are not limited to English teachers.  We've
existed for 15 years, have a refereed academic journal, JAEPL, and have been
putting on an annual summer conference each year since 1995.

James Moffett, a pioneer in the field of spirituality in education in
English, led our first conference, and we also had a conference in tribute
to him a couple of years ago.  Following is a list of previous conference
themes, loosely grouped by topic, with the year and major speakers in
parentheses:

Our first two conferences centered on issues of spirituality in education:
"Lit Crit and Holy Writ" (Moffett, 1995),
"Body, Mind, Spirit" (Joan Borysenko, 1996).

Our third and also our most recent conference focused on the inner life of
teaching:
"Teachers Making Connections" (Jane Tompkins, 1997) and
"The Emotional Life of Teachers" (Peter Elbow and Sheridan Blau, 2007).

Over the years, we've had several conferences on writing and others of the
arts:
"Felt Sense: Knowing What We Feel, Feeling What We Know" (Sondra Perl,
1999),
"Knowing Beauty: Creative Arts in the Classroom" (Charles Suhor, 2001),
"Writing and Healing" (James Pennebaker, Gabriele Rico, Peter Elbow, 2002),
"Creative Nonfiction" (Bob Root, 2004),
"Writing and Reconciliation" (Bell Hooks, 2006).

I have personally helped stage four separate conferences for AEPL.  The
three prior to the upcoming one were:
"Fostering Transformations in Teaching and Learning" (Nel Noddings, 1998),
"Creating a Culture of Partnership through Education," (Riane Eisler, 2000),
"Beyond Fear and Isolation:  Building a Culture of Listening in Our
Institutions of Learning" (Carol Gilligan, 2003).

As I look back on them and anticipate the upcoming conference,  "Reclaiming
the Wisdom Tradition for Education," I've noticed their interlocking themes,
and also how this year's conference offers a way of synthesizing the
concerns of this organization.

AEPL's original name was "Learning Beyond the Cognitive Domain."  Currently,
we define ourselves, in a way, through a partial list of topics of interest,
which "include, but are by no means limited to: aesthetic, emotional, and
moral intelligence; archetypes; body wisdom; care in education; creativity;
felt sense theory; healing; holistic learning; humanistic and transpersonal
psychology; imaging; intuition; kinesthetic knowledge; meditation; narration
as knowledge; reflective teaching; silence; spirituality; and
  visualization."

"Wisdom" is a single word that is a part of ordinary language, and that does
not just embrace all these separate topics, but expresses in a positive way
the value of "learning beyond the cognitive domain."  It doesn't seem much
of a stretch to say that all of our work over the years could be described
as being for the end of the advancement of wisdom in education -- whether in
emotional, spiritual, artistic, or holistic terms.  Further, looking back at
the other three conferences I personally organized, I can now see them as
focusing on various dimensions of wisdom:  which is gained through careful
"listening," results not just in alterations in our minds but in
"transformations" of our being, and both originated in and is leading us
toward "cultures of partnership," where listening and transformative
learning are the norm.

This, of course, leads us to the topic for tonight's call:  "When Wisdom Was
'Natural'." With these calls, we hope both to bring us into some kind of
community before the conference starts, and to lay out something of an
intellectual foundation and knowledge base with which to frame the
conference.

Rather than starting with a conceptual definition of wisdom, we're going to
try to ground an understanding of it by looking to how it has been
understood and valued over time, and how it is anchored in our biology.

We'll be talking about the history of wisdom -- both in and beyond
educational institutions -- and about how the thing we call wisdom can be
seen to be grounded in the structure and operations of our brains.

I thought the best, and most hopeful way for us to start would be for us to
imagine together a time when wisdom was more or less "natural," when it was
part of ordinary culture, encountered every day, not seen to be the property
of elite sages or an elite tradition.   Because that's what we want to help
re-create:  a culture that won't desperately need to "expand its perspective
on learning," whose educational institutions will focus primarily and
centrally (rather than peripherally at best) on helping people become more
wise.

Conference featured speaker Riane Eisler's work The Chalice and the Blade:
Our History, Our Future (called "the most important book since The Origin of
Species by anthropologist Ashley Montagu) synthesizes the archaeological
research showing that for around five millennia after the Neolithic
Agricultural Revolution around 9000 B.C.E., the most technologically
advanced human beings lived, by and large, in cultures of "partnership"
rather than of "domination"-until they were conquered by less advanced
cultures who turned their peaceful technologies into instruments of
conquest.  Here is a passage Eisler cites from archaeologist Marija
Gimbutas:

The Old European and Kurgan ["Indo-European"] cultures were the antithesis
of one another.  The Old European were sedentary horticulturalists prone to
live in large well-planned townships.  The absence of fortifications and
weapons attests the peaceful coexistence of this egalitarian civilization
that was probably matrilinear and matrilocal.  The Kurgan system was
composed of patrilineal, socially stratified herding units which lived in
small villages or seasonal settlements while grazing their animals over vast
areas.  One economy based on farming, the other based on stock breeding and
grazing, produced two contrasting ideologies.  The Old European belief
system focused on the agricultural cycle of birth, death, and regeneration,
embodied in the feminine principle, a Mother Creatrix.  The Kurgan ideology,
as known from comparative Indo-European mythology, exalted virile, heroic
warrior gods of the shining and thunderous sky.  Weapons are nonexistent in
Old European imagery; whereas the dagger and battle-axe are dominant symbols
of the Kurgans, who like all historically known Indo-Europeans, glorified
the lethal power of the sharp blade.  (p. 48)

The Neolithic Era of early civilization shows that it is possible to have a
culture that is technologically advanced without being dominated by caste,
war, and environmental disregard:  where the creative aspects of culture
were its most prominent, and where education, in all probability, was
undertaken in a spirit of wise "cultivation" rather than on the domineering
"herding" methods we mostly experience in modern systems of education.

Bruce contacted Werner Krieglstein (Professor of Philosophy at the College
of Du Page in Naperville, IL) to be our first conference call leader,
knowing he had studied intensely from an anthropological and philosophical
standpoint what it meant to live in a "partnership culture" both
historically and in modern times -- and participated with Gimbutas and
Eisler in a major conference on the island of Crete, the longest surviving
(until about 1500 B.C.E.) partnership civilization.  Werner, in turn,
suggested that an even better person to address the question of what it was
like to live in such a culture was Mary Mackey, a novelist (and Professor of
English at Cal State, Sacramento) who has written a trilogy about the early
intersection of Old European and Indo-European cultures.  More about Mary
and her wonderful works can be found at marymackey.com.

Mary read from her book, The Year the Horses Came, set in 4372 B.C.E.
(available on Amazon, and which I highly recommended as a very powerful work
of fiction, not just an imaginative work of anthropology).  She first
introduced the novel by noting that her work was "fiction, but not
fantasy" -- that though there was no written language at the time,
innumerable artifacts survive to give us a vivid picture of what it was like
to live in partnership culture, before the most important technologies dealt
in with weapons, warfare, and caste differentiations.  Mary had extensive
training in archaeology and anthropology that prepared her as much as any
writing class to write these novels.

Selection One:  p. xii  (The Six Commandments of the Divine Sisters)
1. Live together in love and harmony.
2. Cherish children.
3. Honor women.
4. Respect old people.
5. Remember that the earth and everything on it is part of the living body
of your Divine Mother.
6. Enjoy yourselves, for your joy is pleasing to her.

Selection Two: p. 57 (Raising of the Standing Stones)

"All night they had chanted and danced themselves into a hypnotic state
until their separate minds and wills had become one. Now as they tugged the
stone skyward, lifting their beloved to Her resting place, their hearts rose
with Her.  On the far side of the stone other men strained on ropes attached
to the long levers, while still others piled more tree trunks under the
Goddess until Her pillow became a tower.  In a moment , the crucial point
would be reached: She would rise and stand unsupported, perhaps forever,
perhaps only for an instant . . ..

Suddenly there was a deafening cheer from the crowd.  Unable to resist any
longer, Marrah looked back toward the plaza and saw the new Goddess tilt
dangerously to the left and then slip quickly into place.  Leaping out of
the way, the young men quickly secured their ropes to dozens of wooden pegs
that had been pounded deep into the stony soil, fanning the lines out so the
column was held upright liek the center post of a tent.
"Praise to you," the crowd yelled.  "Well done!"
The lifters fell back sweating and exhausted.  Some turned and stared at
the crowd in a dazed way as if they had just noticed the thousands of
anxious faces surrounding them.  They reached for jugs of water, drank
deeply, and poured the rest over their heads and shoulders, tossing it off
like seals.  Although the lifting had been a success ,their job was not over
yet.  Rocks and earth still had to be piled at the base of the Goddess to
brace Her, but the most dangerous moment had passed.  She had not fallen,
and unless Amonah herself sent a great wind to break the ropes, She would
stand for many generations.
There was a saying among the Shore People that the two most dangerous
things to leave unattended were fire and the strength of young men.  Both
were precious, but both had to be put to good use and well cared for or they
might explode and cause great destruction.
"You have worshiped Her with your strength," the crowd called to the
lifters.  "We love youp; wehonor you; only you could have done this!"
The young men smiled, feeling proud and satisfied.  A new Goddess had been
raised to guard the dead, all the villages of the Shore People had been
united again, and for another three years there would be peace.
Marrah found herself crying with joy and relief.  The stranger who had sat
beside her all morning noticed her tears and was puzzled.  He had watched
the whole ceremony without understanding a bit of it.  What makes these
savages work so hard? he wondered.  What do they get out of it?

Selection Three:  pp. 98-100 (In the temple of the Snake Goddess)
That night Marrah and Sabalah went to the steam hut to purify themselves.
Breathing the steam, they rubbed their bodies with mint and scented oils,
and as they sweated out the impurities of everyday life, they prayed.  "Make
us worthy," they chanted.  "Make us ready to receive You." . . .
     Time passed. And then stopped passing.  The lamp went out.  There was
darkness.  And then Marrah stopped being Marrah.
When she woke again, she was flying high above the land of the Shore
People.  Sabalah was flying next to her, and they were both birds.  Marrah
saw that her mother had powerful black wings; her own wings were the wings
of a seagull.  With a cry of delight, she soared upward, riding the wind.
Below her, she could see Hoza and, south of Hoza, the village of Gurasoak
where Mother Asha lived.  Beyond Gurasoak was a great forest and beyond the
forest a sea so blue it looked like a morning glory.  Deep-keeled boats with
white linen sails skimmed across the waves, carrying copper and obsidian,
pottery, olive oil, salt, wine, and rare herbs.  Along the shores of the
sea, there were great cities with temples and public squares, and she could
see people going about their daily lives:  making pottery, working gold,
mining, weaving, worshiping in the temples, planting seeds in the earth,
nursing the sick, making love, giving birth, and caring for the children.
She flew higher.  Beyond the cities there were more cities and villages,
stretching east and north as far as the eye could see, and there were rivers
and forests and many peoples, all different yet all worshiping the Goddess
Earth.  Some raised Goddess Stones to Her others carved Her image in marble
and jadestone; still others took clay and formed it into Her likeness.  To
some, She appeared as a sacred snake whose coils were the endless energy of
life itself; to others, She was the holy bird who brought life and death, or
the dog who guarded young life, or the womb-shaped frog.  In the north, She
was often worshiped as a pregnant bear or doe, while to the south, She often
appeared as a bull bearing the horns of the crescent moon, but no matter how
She revealed Herself to Her people Her commandments were the same, and in
every city and village and forest, Her children sang of Her love for them
and their love for Her.
As Marrah hovered over all this, a voice spoke to her.  Go higher, it
commanded, and so she went higher, and as she rose, the air grew cold, and
she saw that beyond the lands of the Goddess there was another land all
covered in grass, where men in leather tents prayed to a God of War and
killed each other in His name.  Their God was a God of Exile who lived in
the sky, and the earth was a dead thing to them.
And as Marrah watched, the men mounted their horses and began to ride west,
setting fire to the land, killing the animals, destroying the fields and
forests, laying waste to the cities, and people fled in terror before them,
and a great moaning rose up in the East like a dark cloud, drawing nearer
all the time.
Look, the voice commanded, the Time of Destruction is coming ,and you,
Marrah, are my messenger.  Go to Shara and warn my children that the riders
are on their way.  Take your brother with you, and take the stranger also to
prove you speak the truth.
"Yes," Marrah cried, "I'll go!" and as she spoke, her wings failed, and she
began to fall and fall and fall until everything was darkness and falling.

Werner Kriegelstein (Professor of Philosophy at the College of Du Page in
Naperville, IL,  author of Compassion: A New Philosophy of the Other and
other works, who has also been an actor, director, and filmmaker) then told
the story of his personal journey from dominator to partnership culture:

My journey began in Frankfurt and where I learned that philosophy began with
Greeks, that there was nothing before then but barbarians, and that the best
human self needs to dominate its emotions and physical body.  This is the
core of the dominator culture/philosophy that is still taught in many
universities today.  What a hard time we have to bring this message to the
academic world:  one of the most significant paradigm changes we can bring
about in our times.  I studied in the Frankfurt School with the famous
philosopher/critic Theodor Adorno, one of the most prominent members of the
famous Frankfurt School that applied Marxist insights to the understanding
of culture.  This was perceived as an extension of the Enlightenment, but
the way it was conveyed was scarcely enlightened -- in huge lecture courses
and a cultivated professorial mystique, in which the questioning was all the
professor's to do.  It was unthinkable to doubt a professor's absolute
authority or to have a conversation with them as one would with another
ordinary human being.  The point was to have their wisdom transferred into
your mind, not for your own wisdom to emerge.

While I was completing my studies in Frankfurt, I became involved in the
Living Theater.  What I found there was a truth that lay underneath the
human skin rather than in abstract ideas.  I saw theatre as another form of
philosophy ("the love of wisdom") that was more powerful and real, though it
was recognized in the world for the most part as providing mere
"entertainment."

I left Germany with a scholarship to study at the University of Chicago,
where the education was not all that different than at the University of
Frankfurt.  Still involved in theatre, I decided to pursue life as a farmer
and amateur countryside theatre producer before I finally became a full time
academic.  At that time I learned the significance of working with my hands
and with the soil -- that the land speaks to you, with the wisdom of nature.
The joyous birth of my five boys through Lamaze natural childbirth methods
also helped me to realize this.  These events brought about many emotional
changes in who I was as a human being.  I saw the importance of dialogue, of
the wisdom in my body.  I saw that language can be a means of friendly
communication, of dialogue, and of magic, rather than dictator of truth, as
I had been taught.  And I learned that women had more to think and to say
than I had gathered from my upbringing and education.

So when, in 1989, I read Riane Eisler's book The Chalice and the Blade, I'd
had a number of experiences that had prepared me.  But the book itself
opened my eyes as a way to see the whole world through the lens of
feminism -- that what we call "feminism" isn't just about allowing women
equal rights to the same garbage we all have and want -- but a recognition
that the partnership aspects of the psyche and of culture are central to
what it means to be a human being and can be so recognized by all of us, not
just by women.

I also began to see philosophy anew -- as written and practiced as a
response to the loss of a golden age of humanity, and an attempt to
recapture the goldenness of that time.  How natural that "the love of
  wisdom" should not be constituted by the domination of conceptual systems,
or of "smart" people over "stupid" ones, but as a partnership of people with
one another and with the universe.  Who do we call wise?  Old people, but we
put them away in nursing homes.  Google has replaced old people as source of
wisdom.  What animal do we call wise?  The owl.  Goddess of wisdom is Athena
(female), and early philosophers were trained by women.  Athena is shown
with her owl.  The owl does things we can't do -- it can turn its head 360
degrees.  It has night vision.  What is night vision?  To see in the dark.
We need the dark as much as we need the sun, and "seeing in the dark" is
seeing what we can't see with our eyes -- "spirit-seeing."  Early people
were all animists -- that saw spirits in everything.  Today I promote
neo-animist science that investigates how everything at one level or another
possesses mentality -- nothing is inert mass.  The dominator nomads valued
gold because of its rarity, and so sought to dominate it.  But the original
Sanskrit for "gold" is "luminosum"  -- that which gives light.  Animistic
"seeing in the dark" is really seeing with the light of compassion.  That
compassion for life itself is what we have lost with the vanishing of the
"Golden Age" of partnership, and the true task of philosophy is to recover
it.

In 1995, I participated in the first Global Celebration of Partnership on
the island of Crete. When there, I visited the Minoan museum.  What I saw
there fascinated me -- piece after piece of art that showed a culture in
wonderful harmony with nature, and no glorification of violence.   Then, as
time progressed over the 500 years of transition away from partnership and
into dominator culture, I could literally see the life drained out of the
art.  Faces gradually became emptier, more abstract, with less detail --
much as the faces of our children tend to do nowadays as the go from
elementary school into college, and then the work force of our dominator
society.

What will us take to recapture that luminosity and transfer it to new
generations so that the light doesn't go out of them, so they can learn to
see the light of spirit in the dark, as our ancestors did?  That, as I see
it, is the main question to be addressed by this conference.

Discussion and Questions:

Mary Mackey:  Yes, scientific research supports what scientific ideology
rejects:  animism and the belief that everything is besouled.  And what we
know of human history is that it is not characterized primarily by predatory
struggle, as we tend to be taught.

Werner Krieglstein:  See the book  Panpsychism in the Western World.  The
ideal of living in accord with nature is actually part of nature, in which
throughout the animal and physical world cooperative systems exists.  For
most of human history we lived cooperatively.  The dominator system was like
a virus taking over the world, temporarily stronger as it took over its
host, but eventually murdering it, or about to.  It prides itself on it
"efficiency" -- but it is hardly the best use of human resources and human
life to "make" them do things.

Stan Scott:  I have a question for Werner connected with the Living Theater.
They were the publishers of Paradise Now books.  Please elaborate on how
they influenced you.

Werner:  It was the experience of a group believing in the same goal,
working together theatrically.  It was just what I've been talking about, an
alive community that was far, far more than the sum of its parts. The play
that influenced me the most was The Vision of Frankenstein.  A disjointed
group tried to do different thing and finally got together and build a
hopeful structure with their bodies.  They developed the concept of
collective orchestration -- the group developing something together and
reaching a higher plain by doing that.   It was a demonstration of the
Collective Wisdom discussed in Jungian psychology.

Charlie Suhor:  How does Ken Wilbur's idea that we are straining toward
integralism, toward universal consciousness, fit into this?  (2) What do you
think of the many aspects of Buddhism that have been taken up? How do these
things fit into a more spiritual society?  I'm thinking also of Sam Harris's
chapter on Buddhist meditation:  "Cosmic Consciousness:  Collective
Orchestration."  Making community is our purpose in life; it just needs a
critical mass to be realized.

Mary:  Buddhism has ancient roots.  There are parallels between Buddhism and
the aboriginal peoples of Australia that may go back 40,000 years or more.

Werner:  Meditation is often seen as focusing solely on the individual; but
it is actually the "medium" through which the individual gets back in touch
with the whole.  It's like the natural wisdom in the cell of the amoeba --
one cell organisms that live in a puddle cooperate to grow new ganglia and
stalks that help them move to a better environment when their puddle starts
to dry up.

Charlie:  This fits with what Thich Naht Han says about the connection of
Buddhism with engaged patterns of social change.

Bruce:  Mary, I'd like to ask you how has your own life been changed by what
you write about, and how did your life feed into these writings?

Mary: In the 70s, I lived in Costa Rica.  In writing these books I reclaimed
what I saw  there: a vision of life before human beings dominated nature.
I was able to recapture that in my imagination.  It enabled me to understand
a lot of the contradictions of Western culture, the parallels between
invasion of Old Europe by the Indo-Europeans with the eventual invasion of
the New World by the descendents of those invaders, after another three or
four millennia.

Ray Campagna:  Werner, I was fascinated by what you said about the change in
the meaning of "luminescence" from enlightenment to the search for gold.

Werner:  All things come from light.  Some people can see luminescence
around things. There is a story of the Golden Lady of Siberia who was
pursued by Vikings.  It was actually not a statue, as the Vikings thought,
but an actual wise person instead.  In that way, all gold is fool's gold, as
we don't see that the real "gold" is the luminescence and luminosity of
wisdom.

Mary:   There was a dominator linguistic shift.  Language itself was
materialized, as it adopted the thinking of dominator culture.  Basque may
be the only remnant of a language that once came from an Old European
partnership civilization.

Varda Brahms:  How do we bring compassion back into the schools when the
structure of schools themselves is a denial of compassion, when attempting
compassion is seen as irrelevant?  Everyone is caught in a psychological
prison.  Training of teachers puts pressure upon them to impose certain
concepts of what education is about on everyone.  Even "critical thinking"
is a form of manipulation against really critical thinking about the system
we live under.   We idealize how we can do this change, and there is a huge
gap between how we see it and how those who are running the schools and have
the power see it.  This doesn't impact their conceptual world so that they
might actually want to integrate any of this kind of understanding.  This is
where I am up against the wall myself.  Where is the bridge between these
ideas and what I see in the world?  And it's not just between me and the
"higher-ups"!  When I'm dealing with kids who are fighting (aging kids,
really poor kids, special ed kids, those who have grown up in a context
where what we are talking about is not normal -- violence is normal in their
lives and they don't know what it means to live in a compassionate
non-violent world.

Bruce:  Varda, these are the questions that are central to this conference,
and that we hope to develop some answers for through our work and
conversation together.  We'll keep raising these questions through all our
discussions.  For now, let's just say that I have found that the word
"wisdom" gets through to more people than the words "compassion" or
"spirituality" do.  My experience has taught me that most people don't see
those words as having anything to do with "education" as they've been
brought up to see it.  There is some overlap with "wisdom," though -- and
this word was chosen in part for its rhetorical potential.

Mary:  I wrote these novels as a way of coating a spoon with sugar, so that
people could start to envision a new world in reality, just as they had in
their imaginations in reading them.

Werner:   Just as the change from partnership to dominator culture was slow,
so will the shift back to partnership culture inevitably be slow, though, of
course, we need to do what we can to help it come as quickly as possible,
given the state of the world right now.  This is why the understanding of
"truth" is so important.  For 2000 years of history, we have been searching
for absolute or universal truth, sometimes even pretending we've found it,
then forcing our answers on unsuspecting children.  To shift the
understanding of "truth" to "connecting," to "being true" to one another and
to nature, would give education new meaning.  The assumption of what I have
called "transcendental perspectivism" is that we all have perspective, and
that when we understand that, and walk in others' shoes and see the world
through their eyes, we then transcend our own perspective without needing an
"ultimate" perspective.  To connect to the world in that way, that would be
the beginning of the real search for truth.
What have you learned about wisdom, what would you like to hear on our next
call?

Julie Nichols:  I have written a couple of books about the body "the body's
map of consciousness" and am interested in Werner's comment about the
technology of higher consciousness.  It's built into us, part of nature.
Our awareness of what technology is doing to our awareness of our bodies can
be very fruitful as we talk about how to educate for higher consciousness
and how to reunite with through the Akashic field.

Werner:  Third enlightenment is the enlightenment of the body.

Charlie:  Is technology the bad boy?  Is it the thing that complicates moral
vision of spirituality and compassion?  Is the challenge to find a way to
put technology to human ends rather than to dominate us?

Werner:  The idea of going back to the land and live minimally is an
important and valid idea.

Mary:  It's not the horses that are the problem but how they are used.
Technology must be used appropriately.  The first technological revolution
was the revolution of the partnership culture, and it was a wise technology.
It was only with the influx of dominator culture that we got the kinds of
unwise technology that we have today.

Bruce:  That is a very nice bridge to our next speaker, Gabriele Rico, who
will help us next week see our brains as partnership tools.  She invented
the writing technique called "clustering"-- calling on the resources of the
creative right brain -- and wrote the best-selling 'Writing the Natural Way.
She will talk about how in some ways we are hard wired for wisdom.

Gabriele:  Yes. It is often said that  "neurons that wire together fire
together."  Next week, we'll be looking at the workings of the neo-frontal
cortex that is the seat of compassion, altruism, and empathy.  As Abraham
Maslow said about technology, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you
look at everything as a nail."

Stan:  Thanks to both Werner and Mary.  I was certainly enlightened, and
look forward to reading and hearing more!

Re: [RFA] for your fun -- Murray's Law: Eternal Exponential Expansion of
Science: CSICON, Rich Murray 1997.04.05  2001.06.22 2008.06.04: Dan Novak

Rich, good morning!  Nice one!
May want to quote...  Want to digest...

Ever heard of Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams'
View From the Center of the Universe?

Thanks for sending...

Cheers, Dan   Dan Novak <dnovak@...>

At 03:28 AM 6/4/2008, you wrote:

Murray's Law: Eternal Exponential Expansion of Science: CSICON, Rich Murray
1997.04.05 2001.06.22 2008.06.04
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/76>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/\
rmforall/message/76

Rich Murray April 5 1997 CSICON
Communion for the Subjective Investigation of Claims of the Normal

Room For All 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, NM 87505
rmforall@... 505-501-2298
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/

Murray's Law: Eternal Exponential Expansion of Science

Conergy Group CGY.DE, Santa Fe office, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, huge
partner in NanoSolar, now a bargain at 14.16 Euros? Rich Murray 2008.05.25
2008.06.04

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/77  for full text

! ?   In mutual service,  Rich Murray

Rich Murray  Room For All  1943 Otowi Road  Santa Fe, NM 87505
rmforall@...    505-501-2298
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/


http://www.conergy.us/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-267/236_read-8849/

News
Conergy Introduces SolarGiant Ground-Mount Array in North America
12 March 2008

Cost-effective and flexible solution, proven through extensive use in
commercial, agricultural and utility scale PV installations throughout
Europe

Denver, Colorado, March 12, 2008 -- Conergy introduced its SolarGiant NA
ground-mounted PV array structure. Designed expressly for the North American
market and intended for use in commercial through utility-scale PV projects,
the SolarGiant NA provides a particularly flexible and cost-effective PV
mounting solution.

Key to the SolarGiant's cost-effectiveness is module installation and
grounding. The SolarGiant uses a high-strength, proprietary rail system that
allows modules to be simply slid into place, dramatically decreasing
installation time. The SolarGiant's unique, proprietary Electriwedge
grounding system, developed in cooperation with Wiley Electronics LLC
quickly locks the modules in place and provides electrical continuity
throughout the array.

"We're excited about the SolarGiant NA and the unique features and
advantages it brings to the commercial PV market," said Don Massa, Mounting
Systems Product Manager for Conergy. "We recognize that labor costs make up
a large portion of project's cost and the SolarGiant helps installers
minimize that cost component while providing a structurally robust and
esthetically pleasing product."

The fixed-tilt SolarGiant can be field-set for tilt angles from 15° to 35°.
It can be mounted conventionally on or in caissons but was designed
primarily for surface mounting on simple concrete footers. The SolarGiant's
simplified structure has been carefully designed to reduce the number of
labor- and cost-intensive mounting points while still allowing it to
withstand wind loads up to 120mph. A Conergy SolarGiant White Paper is
available for download.

Images:

3D Schematic

Field Installation
About Conergy

Conergy AG is one of the world's largest companies 100% dedicated to
renewable energy with an array of premium manufactured products and over
70,000 solar systems installed worldwide.

Listed since 2005 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the group pursues a
global growth strategy: it produces, installs and plans solar systems for
its customers in more than 20 countries.

The Conergy Group is now represented by branch offices on four continents.

In the US, Conergy is a manufacturer and distributor of premium quality
solar electric, solar thermal, solar water pumping, and wind power solutions
to a national network of authorized dealers.

For additional information:
Don Massa
Product Manager - Conergy Mounting Systems
2480 W. 26th Ave., Ste. 26-B
Denver, CO 80211 USA
720-305-0716 (direct)
d.massa@...

http://www.conergy.us/desktopdefault.aspx

Conergy, Inc.
Phone: 505 473-3800
Fax: 505 473-3830
Toll Free: 888 396-6611 (USA)

Santa Fe office:
1730 Camino Carlos Rey, Suite 103
Santa Fe, NM 87507

Albuquerque office:
7007 Wyoming Blvd NE, Building C
Albuquerque, NM 87109


http://www.nanosolar.com/cache/edn.htm

News and New Products
A solar panel on every building
Claiming to be the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling
solar panels that generate at as little as $0.99/W, Nanosolar has shipped
its initial product after 5 years of development.
By John F. Mason, Contributing Editor -- Electronic Business, 1/21/2008

After 5 years of product development, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Nanosolar Inc
has shipped its first product. The lucky winner was a local power plant
installation in Eastern Germany -- lucky because the company's products are
sold out till 2009.

Nanosolar's products boast an impressive list of the world's firsts. R.
Martin Roscheisen, the company's CEO, recently announced the first printed
thin-film solar cell in a commercial panel product, the Nanosolar Utility
Panel; the first thin-film solar cell with a low-cost back-contact
capability; the lowest-cost solar panel, which would make Nanosolar the
first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels that
generate at as little as $0.99/W; and the highest-current thin-film solar
panel, delivering 5 times the current of any other thin-film panel on the
market.

One of the commercial panels will remain at Nanosolar for exhibit; another
will go to the Tech Museum in San Jose; and a third was to be auctioned off
on eBay, "which dropped the auction when they learned we planned to give the
proceeds to charity," Roscheisen said.

In April, Nanosolar broke the news that it had spent $100 million to build a
plant to produce sheets of solar cells equipped with an absorber 100 times
thinner than that needed for a silicon wafer cell that would deliver a
similar performance and the durability of a cell. Its sheets, which were
cost-efficient for widespread deployment, could be mass-produced on a global
scale and would be available in many versatile forms. They were bendable and
designed to be durable for decades. The technology is based on the economics
of printing non-vacuum/solution-coated material.

The Department of Energy recently boosted the company's funds and prestige
by choosing it for the high-profile Solar America Initiative along with
SunPower, First Solar, and General Electric.

"Following its sale to Germany, Nanosolar has a credible path toward
shipping $10 billion worth of high-ops-margin products to commercial
customers with a simple and predictable sales model," said Roscheisen
(pictured). "Even if we make this goal, the company would still only have a
single-digit market-penetration percentage. So there will be attractive
returns for long-term investors of all types and sizes. We are also sold out
until 2009."

Nanosolar maintains a worldwide network of partners for development,
manufacturing, and distribution. In August 2006, Nanosolar and the Conergy
Group in Hamburg, Germany, signed a long-term agreement to develop
large-scale photovoltaic systems with a proprietary design to tightly
interconnect its panels on a variety of surfaces. Conergy's knowledge and
expertise in the development and integration of state-of-the-art components
and Nanosolar's experience in the design of solar cells and panels based on
thin-film device technology will make Nanosolar's dream come true: "a solar
panel on every building."

On December 18, 2007, Nanosolar and Germany's Beck Energy, an integrator of
large-scale solar power systems, announced having won a highly competitive
public selection process for a solar power plant owned by one of the largest
waste management companies in Eastern Germany.

The project will employ the Nanosolar Utility Panel in combination with
systems technology and services from Beck Energy. The initial size of the
plant is 1 million watts, an amount sufficient to power approximately 400
homes. The Nanosolar Utility Panel is Nanosolar's first product as part of
its award-winning PowerSheet product line and the company's solution for
building solar power plants at the outskirts of urban centers.

"This is the first time that a solar electricity cell and panel have been
designed entirely and specifically for utility-scale power generation,"
Roscheisen said. "It will set the standard for green power generation at
utility scale."

Solar-electric power plants have advantages over solar-thermal plants,
coal-fired, and other conventional plants, as they are more economical and
can be built in a variety of sizes and fit into places not intended for
energy-producing plants, Nanosolar boasts.

The company is preparing to offer solar electricity products to volume
business customers including the Nanosolar PowerSheet, a A-100 cell
technology delivered in an industry-standard package that ensures premium
lifetime and full compatibility with existing mounting and installation
practices; Nanosolar SolarPly, its flagship building-integrated product that
acts as a solar-electric "carpet" for integration with commercial roofing
membranes; and Nanosolar Utiliscale, a product specifically designed for
large-scale, ground-mounted plant installations.

The United States is number 1 in the world's potential for solar growth.
With a newly installed total power of around 105 megawatts in 2005, the US
market constitutes the 3rd largest for photovoltaics. Around 75% of these
systems have been installed in California. According to a number of studies,
the US photovoltaics market will grow to an annual installed capacity of
between 300 to 400 megawatt peak by 2010. Conergy, through its partnership
with Nanosolar, intends to substantially expand in North America.

In Europe, Conergy is ahead of the game. With an expected revenue of more
than $1.13 billion (800 million euros) in 2007 and 1,300 employees, Conergy
is the largest solar company in Europe, and is also an international
supplier for wind and bioenergy companies. Conergy has branches on 5
continents with plans to expand into North and South America, the
Mediterranean, Asia, and Australia.

In the US, Conergy distributes solar products to its branches from Santa Fe,
N.M.

From its affiliate SunTechnics Energy Systems Inc in Sacramento, Calif., it
sells and installs renewable energy systems; and via Voltwerk LLC in New
York it develops and finances large solar, wind, and bioenergy projects.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conergy

Conergy
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Conergy AG was founded in 1998 by the current chairman of the board
Hans-Martin Rüter. With an expected turnover of 1,25 billion euros in 2007,
and employing more than 2000 staff currently, Conergy is one of the leading
solar energy companies in Europe. The company pursues a customer-focussed
global strategy of growth that aims to offer every energy consumer worldwide
the most suitable technology in markets that are attractive for renewable
energy. As a manufacturer of solar-thermic, photovoltaic and wind
components, Conergy supplies exclusively via commercial partners. Conergy
uses this tried and trusted know-how in order to offer tailor-made
components and complete systems for optimal exploitation of solar energy and
in order to continually develop them further.

Since March 2005 Conergy AG has been registered at the Frankfurt Stock
Exchange with the abbreviation "CGY" and the ISIN DE 00060 40025.

Three months after its successful IPO, the company is now listed on the
TecDAX.

Based on the healthy European market position and a scalable company model,
Conergy has been increasingly building a presence in further attractive
foreign markets.

Conergy now operates subsidiaries in 25 countries on five continents. As
well as expansion into the most promising solar markets worldwide, Conergy
plans a customer-oriented diversification of its product range. With this
strategy Conergy will achieve greater balance against temporary fluctuations
in regional markets. Via three brands, which are clearly delimited relative
to each other, the Conergy group serves solar wholesalers, installers,
industrial or private roof-owners and investors in solar power as required.
In this way the respective customer wishes can be tackled and implemented by
specialist sales teams - a key factor for the success of the Conergy Group.
Potential for growth is additionally created by extension of the solar
portfolio based on needs, for instance with large solar-thermic plants and
solar cooling systems.

Currently, Conergy AG is building its fully automated, state-of-the-art
wafer-, cell- and module plant in Frankfurt (Oder). By the end of 2007 up to
50 MW of modules will be produced on site. From 2008 on, the wafer, cell and
module production lines will reach their full capacity of up to 250 MW of
modules annually, about 1.25 Mio. modules respectively. The modules will be
used for Conergy's international sales channels.

In the medium term, Conergy will create 1000 jobs on site thus contributing
significantly to the solar industries in Germany.

[edit] See also

     * First Solar
     * Q-Cells
     * Solarworld
     * Sunpower
     * Vestas

[edit] External links

     * Official international website


http://www.renewable-energy-industry.com/business/press-releases/newsdetail.php?\
changeLang=en_GB&newsid=2755

Current press releases from the energy industry

06 February 2008
[Zur englischen Meldung]   [Zur deutschen Meldung]

Conergy secures financing for turnaround and further growth

- Reconstruction measures yield first results
- Financing package agreed a month ahead of schedule

Hamburg -- Conergy AG has secured follow-up financing with the support of a
banking consortium.
Commerzbank AG and Dresdner Kleinwort have provided the TecDax-listed solar
energy company with additional liquidity of a total of ? 240 million.
In addition financial Covenants have been waived for the fiscal year 2008.
Conergy AG intends to use the additional funding mainly for necessary
investments, the early purchase of materials including for the solar factory
in Frankfurt (Oder) and to pre-finance projects pertaining to the subsidiary
EPURON in Hamburg.
Earlier, in a provisional statement on the restructuring opinion, a
prestigious, internationally active accountancy firm gave a positive
evaluation of the Hamburg-based solar energy company's restructuring as
initiated by the Board of Management.
The EUR 30 million credit line accorded in November 2007 and available until
the end of February has not been used by Conergy; this is included in the
EUR 240 million interim financing provided.

CEO Dieter Ammer: "Banks support turnaround and growth."

Conergy's CEO and co-founder Dieter Ammer comments:
"We thus have our financing signed and sealed a month ahead of schedule.
We are on the right track and are delighted that our banks support our
turnaround and our growth strategy.
With these additional funds we have sufficient room for manoeuvre.
At the same time, we see this as a confirmation of the new strategic focus
on solar energy, which we have already initiated.
Since December we have been systematically implementing our planned measures
through which we are steering Conergy back towards profitability."

Major current shareholders want to participate in the company's
recapitalisation

The repayment of the interim financing is to be achieved first and foremost
by carrying out a capital increase of around EUR 250 million during 2008.
Furthermore, a reduction of working capital and proceeds from the
divestiture of Discontinued Operations should contribute to improving
liquidity.
The total volume of the capital increase is guaranteed by Dresdner Kleinwort
subject to the usual banking provisos.
Third parties have provided security for 50% of this by means of firm equity
commitment letters or firm underwritings.
Details of the capital increase have not yet been decided and will be
determined shortly before the transaction.

During the recapitalisation current and major shareholders have already made
a significant contribution and have promised more.
This once again underlines the confidence of the major shareholders in the
company's future.
Mr. Otto Happel alone will take a 25 per cent share in the planned capital
increase, after actively supporting the company's reconstruction during the
past months and pledging his further commitment in the future.
Several major investors have also expressed their interest in participating
in the capital increase.

Reorganisation yields first results; cost structure improvements in line
with plan

The strategic refocusing of Conergy AG on the profitable and fast-growing
solar energy business is proceeding according to plan.
This process includes focus on photovoltaics, in both manufacturing and
systems integration, on businesses with strong margins as well as on
streamlined, efficient processes and structures.
On January 1st the Board of Management introduced a central corporate
function and three independently operating divisions.
Conergy is currently pressing ahead with the discontinuation of
non-strategic activities (for instance, the manufacture of heat pumps,
biogas activities, solar heating collectors); this should be completed by
the middle of the year.

With the focus on photovoltaics, the securing of liquidity, the securing of
materials supplies and with the appointment of the new management, the
strategic and operational problems that led to the liquidity bottleneck have
been resolved.
First signs of progress are already visible; inventories have been reduced
by a cash-effective EUR 36 million over the last 10 weeks.
The task of reducing the working capital will be continued in 2008.
The manpower reduction of 500 staff, which has already begun, is going also
according to plan.
In connection with cost-cutting measures, the Board of Management is also
currently putting in place significantly streamlined structures in the
central corporate functions.

Meanwhile a series of operating successes have been achieved:
in Australia Conergy's subsidiary EPURON entered into a strategic
partnership with Macquarie Capital for the planning of a 1000 MW wind energy
project involving a probable investment of around AU $ 2 billion.
In the USA, Conergy's subsidiary SunTechnics installed the U.S. Army's
largest solar system at the Fort Carson Army Base, Colerado.

With the factory in Frankfurt (Oder), the company owns one of the most
modern solar cell and module manufacturing facilities.
A major German technical inspection company conducted an initial inspection
of the new cell and module production and stated in their report that they
were convinced by the "highly automated and modern manufacturing facility".
The long-term supply of materials, which has been secured and which begins
this year, will enable the factory to work at part-capacity in 2008 and at
full capacity from July 2009 onwards.
This is expected to make a significant contribution to income.


Conergy Group: Provisional Figures for sales and income 2007

In the fiscal year 2007, the Conergy Group recorded sales of EUR 845 million
(2006: EUR 752 million) before taking into account changes in accounting
methods and with the former structure.
For the fiscal year 2007, however, the Board of Management changed the
accounting method for ongoing large-scale projects.
This led to a postponement of sales to later reporting periods.
At the same time, adjustments for Discontinued Operations were also
reflected in the new accounts. Including these adjustments, provisional
sales for the fiscal year 2007 were around EUR 712 million (2006: EUR 682
million).

Below, the Board of Management publishes key figures from the provisional,
as yet unaudited Group accounts for the Conergy AG as of December 31st 2007,
compared with values for the 2006 fiscal year, which have been adjusted for
the sales and results of Discontinued Operations (DOP) and for the effects
of changes in accounting methods for large-scale projects.

Million EUR 2007 2006
Sales 712 682
Gross profit 94 107
EBITDA -174 24
EBIT -210 19
EBT -229 13
Taxes on income* 72 -4
Result before DOP -157 9
Result DOP -37 -1
EAT -194 8

* provisional figure

By far the major part of the one-time changes in asset valuations and in
accounting methods for large-scale projects implemented in 2007 were
non-cash items.

The Discontinued Operations (DOP) are reported as a separate line item,
after taxes. Losses from these operations amount to EUR - 37 million (2006:
EUR - 1 million).

By far the major part of the taxes shown reflects deferred taxation. The
figure shown is a provisional figure. There may be significant changes to
the figure, which will not be cash-effective, however.

Outlook

2008 will still be a year of turnaround. The Board of Management of Conergy
AG expects significant growth in sales to more than EUR 1 billion for the
continuing operations. The Board of Management also plans a significant
improvement in gross profit and a substantial improvement in EBITDA. The
Board of Management is targeting breakeven at EBITDA level before special
items.

In connection with the refinancing now undertaken, the company will have to
pay considerable one-off consultancy fees and financing costs in 2008 as
well. Without taking into account this and other special and one-time items,
but after depreciation and the cost of financing, the Board of Management
thus again expects significantly negative earnings before tax (EBT) in the
high double-digit millions.

For the ongoing business in 2009, the Board of Management plans further
significant growth in sales and a positive operating result (EBIT) in the
double digit million region. From the second half of 2009 the company is
aiming for margins well in line with those in the industry with the solar
factory in Frankfurt (Oder) working at full capacity.

About Conergy

Conergy AG is the European solar enterprise with the highest sales and, with
over 70,000 solar systems installed, is also a global market leader in the
field of solar system integration. Listed since 2005 on the Frankfurt Stock
Exchange, the group pursues a global growth strategy: it produces, installs
and plans solar systems for its customers in more than 20 countries. The
Conergy Group is now represented by branch offices on four continents.

Hamburg, 06 February 2008

Publication and Reprint free of charge; please send a voucher copy to
Conergy AG.


Attention editorial offices: For further questions please contact Mr.
Thorsten Vespermann, Conergy AG.
Anckelmannsplatz 1  20537 Hamburg
PR Department: Mr. Thorsten Vespermann
Phone: +49 (0)40 27142 1631
Fax: +49 (0)40 27142 1639
E-Mail: mailto:press@...
Internet: http://www.conergy.com

all company news of Conergy AG


http://www.streetauthority.com/terms/index/daxindex.asp

Germany -- DAX Index

The DAX Index is the most commonly cited benchmark for measuring the returns
posted by stocks on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Started in 1984 with a value of 1000, the index is comprised of the 30
largest and most liquid issues traded on the exchange.
It is a performance-based index, which means that any dividends and other
events are rolled into the index's final calculation.

Additional Information:
Frankfurt Stock Exchange
Bloomberg DAX Page


http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=CGY.DE

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=CGY.DE&t=5y  3 years history

[ was 190 E in spring, 2006, 70 E in fall, 2007, now 12.41 E ]

May 15, 2008
Last Trade: 12.41 ?
Trade Time: May 15
Change: Down 0.04 (0.32%)
Prev Close: 12.41
Open: 12.30
Bid: 12.23
Ask: 12.36
1y Target Est: 12.60?

Day's Range: 12.15 - 12.50
52wk Range: 10.50 - 69.91
Volume: 282,842
Avg Vol (3m): 348,432
Market Cap: ?409.52 M
P/E: N/A
EPS (Growth) : -7.57? (3.77%)
Dividend: 0.10?


June 4, 2008
Last Trade:  14.16 ?
Trade Time:  Jun 4
Change:  Down 0.25 (1.73%)
Prev Close:  14.41
Open:  14.22
Bid:  14.11
Ask:  14.20
1y Target Est:  11.86?

Day's Range:  13.60 - 14.34
52wk Range:  10.50 - 69.91
Volume:  615,024
Avg Vol (3m):  348,432
Market Cap:  ?467.27 M
P/E:  N/A
EPS (Growth) :  -7.57? (3.77%)
Dividend:  0.10? (12-Jun-07)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////\
////

Murray's Law: Eternal Exponential Expansion of Science: CSICON, Rich Murray
1997.04.05  2001.06.22 2008.06.04
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/76

Rich Murray   April 5 1997  CSICON
Communion for the Subjective Investigation of Claims of the Normal

Room For All  1943 Otowi Road  Santa Fe, NM 87505
rmforall@...    505-501-2298
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/

           Murray's Law: Eternal Exponential Expansion of Science

      Millennia of worldwide commonsense traditions have culminated in a
recent few centuries of exponential scientific work.  Since 1660, the
number of scientists has grown from about 100 to about 10,000,000.
Likewise,  the volume of accumulated scientific literature,  both
doubling unstoppably every twenty years,  rather like Mickey Mouse's
hordes of relentlessly marching brooms in Disney's "The Sorcerer's
Apprentice".

      This global orchestration of thought and practice has been firmly
founded on certain principles,  rarely questioned and widely held to be
unquestionable.  Experience is held to be entirely based on and derived
from a basic reality, itself "external" to experience: physical,
or more abstractly, time-space-energy.

      This base reality is universally assumed to be impersonal,
consistent, orderly, lawful, causal, uniform, single, measurable,
describable and communicable, continuous, contiguous,
inherently simple, and based on a small set of unchangeable (in
themselves) logical-mathematical operations.
Therefore this reality can be modeled
and predicted by the self-qualifying global society of scientists,
based solely on communication by the external senses.

      In short, the primary reality, and its derivative, conscious
experience, are absolutely normal.  The primary image of this paradigm
is that of the machine, or the modern embodiment, the computer:
well-defined elements interacting in three-dimensional space along a
single one-way track of causality to produce utterly normal results,
however marvelous, varied, valuable, or unpredictable they may be in
practice.

      This towering structure of established normality paradoxically
both hides and makes even more significant any hints of "nonnormality".
Hitherto, "anomalies", such as random variations in offspring,  the
fogging of sealed photographic plates by uranium ore,  or slight static
in sensitive radios, have become mere fodder for the assimilation
program of science, leading to vast extensions of the range of the
normal, including evolution, quantum mechanics, and the Big Bang.
"Resistance is futile.  You will be assimilated"-- the implacable
marching song of the Borg juggernaut.

      Willem of Occam proclaimed, "Thou shalt not multiply entities
needlessly." Indeed, hordes of angels, demons, ghosts, spirits,
influences, and innate qualities have been relegated to that final
dustbin of our race's mythic heritage,  children's Saturday morning
cartoons.  Mature minds, entranced by ever more lofty and subtle
theoretical visions, fed feasts of observation and experimentation on
every level, constrained by principles of parsimony, generality, and
elegance, have exuberantly, soberly created in a mere century:

at the ever tapering tail of the dragon, atoms that are .999999 empty
space,

said empty space as a fully occupied negative energy sea of prodigious
density, with incessant particle pair production-annihilation within
that good old vacuum,

the equivalence of mass and energy,

the relativistic variation of observed time,
with irreducible randomness, fuzziness, discontinuity,
and, feh!, nonlocality at the very core of reality,

the weird phenomena of superconductivity and superfluidity,

the ever fecund  boson-fermion zoo of baryons, mesons, quarks, gluons,
neutrinos, WIMPs, gravitons, Higg's, magnetic monopoles, and their
antis, and their superpartners, all cascading into actuality as
infinitesimal loops or membranes vibrating within that most spacious
crystal of abstraction, E8XE8 Group (The Monster) Symmetry,  while
now 7 additional dimensions of space are parsimoniously mandated.
Whew!

meanwhile, at the ever bigger end of said dragon,
suddenly the galaxy!,
sprinkled with pulsars and quasars,  oh!, then an expanding universe of
galaxies,  salted with gamma-ray bursters,  oh!, that all sprang into
being as a space-time bubble with zero total energy as an infinitesimal
quantum vacuum fluctuation in "something",  oh!, our bubble of galaxies
extends 10E+25 further than the present observable size after 13.7 billion
years
expansion (that's 10E+75 greater volume, folks),  oh!, might be untold
zillions of universe bubbles, forever disconnected, each with unique
intrinsic properties, effervescing cheerily within "something",   just
the facts, Mam, heh, heh.  Funny what the principle of parsimony leads
to...

gee whiz,  I near forgot,  black holes, them's weird nuff, huh?  Lot of
'em, too, all sizes!   Oops, they evaporate!   Blow up too!   Wow!
Gravitation radiation, anyone?  We can plain see gravitational lensing!
How about cosmic string  and cosmic texture, frozen phase changes in
space-time itself?

remember, if it ain't prohibited, it mandatory.  Yep!    (Is anything
really prohibited?)  .

      I'm not complaining.  It's surely wonderful.  We taxpayers are
getting our money's worth, and then some.  But do you see any sign of
convergence?  Any saturation? Any deceleration?  In empirical fact,
isn't what we see in a mere hundred years an unstoppably exponential
avalanche of proliferation of creative subtleties?

      Isn't the most obvious outcome for the next century a continuation
of this inexhaustibly creative weaving of this coat of many colors,
worlds within worlds, without end, without any possible end, not in a
hundred billion years of sentient evolution, not ever, forever?  Isn't
this, ahem, trend, amen,  the primary observational fact of the whole
hundred years?

      I say so.  I hereby dignify this empirical law by a suitable
appellation:

      Murray's Law:  In the overall exponential evolution of the
scientific process, the scale of reality available for consideration
and the diversity and subtlety of its entities and interactions all
increase exponentially, forever.

      In 1660, the linear grid of Cartesian coordinates comprised the
primary paradigm for scientific reality.  On its empty black and white
board Newton drew alike the falling apple, the orbiting Moon.  Now, the
archetypal image is the Mandelbrot Set, brilliantly and arbitrarily
colored, forever inexhaustible in timeless infinity of subtle detail.
*******************************************************

Walter Bender lays out key principles for exponentially evolving creative
service networks, re OLPC: Rich Murray 2008.05.15
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/75

The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@...>

www.SFComplex.org/wordpress

Dear fellow Friams,

In an unplanned way, today I find myself, owning a barely used OLPC XO-1 for
two months, fascinated by cogent, passionate posts about the involvement of
MicroSoft with OLPC, so decided to make them conveniently available to Santa
Fe Complex, as I feel inspired.

I especially like the remarkable historical summary on evolution of all
thought from printing in 1540 AD for the 600 years to now, in comment by
Ruben Safir, April 26, 2008 @ 1:05 pm .

In his interview with Wade Roush 4/24/08, Walter Bender lays out key
principles for exponentially evolving creative service networks -- I see as
the essential revolutionary paradigm now pioneered by Santa Fe Complex:

"WB: I had a student named Cameron Marlow, who was at Yahoo last I knew. [He's
now at Facebook. -- eds.] His thesis was about the "rule of many." You have
this Gaussian distribution of efficiency, where after 150 people or so, an
organization gets too big and you peak in terms of the most efficient size.
What Cameron studied was what happens if you follow the tail out really far
[to larger and larger numbers]. Sometimes you get a lift again -- a new kind
of efficiency. That's the rule of many. He studied it in the context of the
blogosphere, but there are lots of examples -- Wikipedia is probably the
poster child.

But he didn't just observe the rule of many; he tried to understand what are
the mechanisms that determine whether the rule of many is going to be
applicable.
He didn't come up with a definitive list, but he did identify certain
criteria.

One is obviously that you have a large number of people.
Second is that these people share a common goal.
And a third is maintaining independence, so that each agent has the ability
to act independently.

I think in the case of Sugar and support for Sugar, I want to use this rule
of many approach.
And part of that is ensuring this freedom of agency on behalf of the
participants.
You don't want to try to control it.
You want to build the discussion around common goals, but not be
deterministic in terms of needs.
You have to let the independent agents determine their own needs.
Exactly how this will manifest itself, I don't know.
But I do know that part of it has to do with being open about communication,
and letting the community engage in the dialogue.
Transparency is also really important."

In mutual service,  Rich Murray rmforall@...  505-501-2298


http://www.xconomy.com/2008/05/15/xo-laptop-goes-windows/

One Laptop, Computing, Education
XO Laptop Goes Windows
Wade Roush 5/15/08

Microsoft and the One Laptop Per Child Foundation have reached an official
agreement to produce versions of the foundation's XO Laptop that run Windows
XP.

The move is intended in part to overcome resistance to the XO among
bureaucrats in countries where OLPC would like to distribute the laptop.
"The people who buy the machines are not the children who use them, but
government officials in most cases," OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte told
the New York Times today. "And those people are much more comfortable with
Windows" than with the XO Laptop's current operating software, a variant of
the open-source Linux operating system that supports a learning-oriented
graphical interface called Sugar.

The Windows announcement will likely add fuel to the increasingly public
debate among some of the leading minds behind the XO over whether
open-source software is fundamental to the foundation's mission to provide
the world's children with technology that facilitates learning. The division
has led to the departures of at least two high-profile staffers in recent
weeks, including former software president Walter Bender and former director
of security architecture Ivan Krstic.

In an interview with Xconomy three weeks ago, Bender, Sugar's lead
architect, criticized Negroponte's budding alliance with Microsoft as a sign
that the foundation had abandoned its original mission to shake up the
educational computing business.

"It's a lot easier to cater to people's comfort than to be disruptive,"
Bender said. "Nicholas had that wonderful quote in BusinessWeek about a
month ago -- that OLPC is going to stop acting like a terrorist and start
emulating Microsoft. If you read between the lines, the idea is to stop
trying to be disruptive and to start trying to make things comfortable for
decision-makers. And that's a marketing strategy, and one that I think has
been adopted by many laptop manufacturers. Personally, I think that the
customer is not always right, and that a role that a non-profit can play is
to try to demonstrate better ways of doing things and let the market follow
them."

The XO Laptop running Microsoft WindowsIn a bitter blog post published May
13, Krstic charges that Negroponte's deal with Microsoft shows that that he
is uninterested in education, and simply wants to sell more laptops. "I quit
when Nicholas told me -- and not just me -- that learning was never part of
the mission," Krstic writes. "The mission was, in his mind, always getting
as many laptops as possible out there."

At the same time, Krstic says that he is not opposed to the idea of a
Windows version of the XO, as long it's not the only operating system
available for the device. According to the Times, OLPC's agreement with
Microsoft is non-exclusive, and there will continue to be a Linux-Sugar
version of the XO, as well as a dual-boot version (though this will add
roughly $7 to the price of the $200 machine).

Update 5/15/08 7:25 p.m.: Microsoft has just published a press release on
the OLPC agreement. The release states that "trials of the XO running
Windows are planned to begin as soon as June in key emerging markets."
Negroponte is quoted in the release as follows: "From the beginning, the
goal of OLPC has been to use technology to transform education by bringing
connectivity and constructionist learning to the poorest children throughout
the world. Today's announcement, coupled with future plans for a dual boot
version of the XO laptop, enhances our ability to deliver on this vision. In
addition, OLPC will work with third parties to port its user interface,
called 'Sugar,' to Windows."

Comments (1) Reader Comments

     * Guillermo
       5/15/08 9:13 pm

       I'm still waiting for these devices to be commercially available. OLPC
would value, greatly, from increasing its user base, whether the XO is
delivered with Windows or Linux (as long as it could be change of course).
The laptop is very well built, and it would be unwise to expect children are
going to build their own learning software, others could do it, but we need
the laptops.


http://radian.org/notebook/this-too-shall-pass

This, too, shall pass, or: Things to remember when reading news about OLPC

April 25, 2008 at 1:00 am

Leave a Comment
Please note that only comments signed with a real name will be published. I
will read (but not respond to) anonymous comments and those signed with
nicknames, though they will not appear publicly.

       I'm Ivan Krstic. You can read more about me, my talks, or my latest
work. This is a personal site; I speak for no one but myself.

Feed available for your pleasure.

It's easy to get caught up in the doom and gloom over OLPC's future. But
keep things in perspective: they aren't as bad as they seem.

To the developers at OLPC, and the tireless volunteer community contributors
unsettled by Nicholas' plans -- remember that no matter what happens, your
work has not been for naught. Far from it. You brought the smiles to
children's faces in Escuela No. 109 in Florida, Uruguay. Your work astounded
me with the results, after little more than half a year, in the mountains of
Arahuay, Peru. Bryan Berry's team is kicking ass on establishing a pilot in
Nepal because of your work. And if you haven't read the linked articles yet,
now's the time. Nothing can take away the real, palpable impact you've
already had on children's lives.

To those on the outside and looking in: remember that, though he takes the
liberty of speaking in its name, Nicholas is not OLPC. OLPC is Walter
Bender, Scott Ananian, Chris Ball, Mitch Bradley, Mark Foster, Marco Pesenti
Gritti, Mary Lou Jepsen, Andres Salomon, Richard Smith, Michael Stone, Tomeu
Vizoso, John Watlington, Dan Williams, Dave Woodhouse, and the community,
and the rest of the people who worked days, nights, and weekends without
end, fighting like warrior poets to make this project work. Nicholas wasn't
the one who built the hardware, or wrote the software, or deployed the
machines. Nicholas talks, but these people's work walks.

Remember that even when Nicholas talks, it is all to be taken with a fistful
of salt. The SD card slot didn't get added to the XO for Microsoft, as he is
fond of saying, but because we were getting terrible read/write performance
with our solid-state storage. Hardware architect Mark Foster designed a
dedicated chip to speed things up; that chip, as an unanticipated bonus,
made it easy to attach a camera and an SD slot. Nicholas' recent claim of
Sugar growing amorphously because it "didn't have a software architect who
did it in a crisp way" is similarly muddy: convincing him of the need for an
architect is a battle Walter and I fought for months without success. The
organization decided to move anyway, and extended me a written offer to take
over as Chief Software Architect. Nicholas rescinded the offer unilaterally
several weeks later, for reasons he refused to explain to anyone. So yes,
there was no architect, but that's because Nicholas didn't want one. If he
believes that's the cause of Sugar's problems, he has no one but himself to
blame.

Perhaps most of all, remember that OLPC is not just a company, but also an
eponymous movement. We owe Nicholas a collective debt of gratitude for
starting it, but good movements are far larger than their leaders. Richard
Stallman started the free software movement and helped it get on its feet,
but the movement now has a life of its own -- one most assuredly not
beholden to Stallman's opinions and proclamations. The One Laptop per Child
movement is no different. Nicholas and Walter made people care about using
technology to help education in the developing world on a global scale, and
forced the industry's hand on catering to that market despite the razor-thin
margins it promises. That was noble and revolutionary of them, but the genie
is now out of the bottle and taking on a life of its own.

I spent my time with people on the ground. I was the person OLPC sent to
make both deployments work. Let me tell you -- the people in the countries
get it. They get that buying laptops is the trivial problem, and that
deploying them and using them to create compelling and sustainable learning
and teaching experiences are the really hard problems. That Nicholas no
longer wants to tackle the hard problems because they're hard makes not one
bit of difference: they'll get tackled without him.

Things could be better. The company could be sticking to its principles and
doing what's right. Sad as it is that this isn't happening, it's also
ultimately immaterial. The company doesn't matter, because the movement
marches on. And learning will win. Freedom will win. Children will win.
Walter is making sure of it, and I will do everything in my power to help
him.

You can't stop the signal.

Comments (19) »

Fred Blasdel said,
April 25, 2008 @ 2:35 am

Thank you.

You've got exactly the right attitude, between Negroponte's inept PHB
managerial-ness and OLPCnews' hyperbolic (justified) anger.

I've been working on debugging the Power Management / SD card corruption
interaction, I'll hopefully have an in-depth dissection to publish soon!

Seth Woodworth said,
April 25, 2008 @ 3:39 am

Ivan, you said everything that I needed to hear. Thank you!

Does this mean we're brown^w greencoats now? I'm in!

Mel Chua said,
April 25, 2008 @ 3:48 am

Thanks for putting that into words far more eloquently than I ever could
have, Ivan. What you described is the reason why I'm still here -- for every
outraged prophet of doom, there are many volunteers who continue to quietly
press forward towards something they still believe can change things for the
better. It's just harder for people to see the quiet ones.

I'm looking forward to watching the phoenix rise from the ashes, so to
speak - whatever comes out of this turmoil will be all the stronger for
having gone through it, as it always is.

Lennart Regebro said,
April 25, 2008 @ 4:31 am

1. The XO exists. It's reasonably cheap, and can get cheaper. Should
production fail, somebody else can do something similar.
2. The software is here. It is open source. It's not going away.
3. The greatest risk was always that giving kids in poor countries a
computer wasn't going to be the revolution that was hoped. Your reports have
shown that it is exactly the revolutionairy disruptive" thing that was hoped
for.

It will take quite a lot of bad luck for the ideas behind OLPC to fail now.

Kai said,
April 25, 2008 @ 6:39 am

Its people like you that make this world a better place for us all. I speak
for myself, and for Africans as well. Your efforts are not in vain guys, and
one day you will look back and see the effects of your bold and brave
sacrifices.
Let those without the nerve to see this through, jump ship, the ship will
still sail, and destiny still awaits!!!!

Wayan said,
April 25, 2008 @ 7:17 am

Deploying technology so it creates compelling and sustainable learning and
teaching experiences -is- the really hard problem. The nut that few, if any,
have cracked, and why the original Negropontian pronouncements of children
learning learning on their own rang false to those in the field.

Now, on to being nutcrackers.

Heather Stone said,
April 25, 2008 @ 9:49 am

Ivan has it exactly right. It is a damn thing that things aren't going as
smoothly as one would hope, but that means that one must work harder, not
give up. This is an incredible movement that truly does goes far beyond
Nicholas.
Thank you for putting such an important sentiment into eloquent words, Ivan.
I hope everything is going well for you!

Duncan McGreggor said,
April 25, 2008 @ 11:06 am

Ivan, well said. Very well said indeed.

Richard said,
April 25, 2008 @ 12:07 pm

Great posting! You have cheered me up immeasurably -- it's fantastic that
you and the other OLPCers keep up the good work, staying true to the ideals
of OLPC, and also that you are countering the misleading impression given by
Nicholas Negroponte. It's great that he started OLPC but since he's now
virtually spreading FUD, perhaps because he just likes to see his name in
the press by creating a controversy, it's good to see that the blogosphere
is routing around this.

Greg Yohn said,
April 25, 2008 @ 3:38 pm

Hi!

It is a shame people can not buy the XO outside of the USA or Canada! I
visited Colombia in South America and even heard an elderly woman at JFK
tell me how much the children in Peru loved the XO last Feb.

It is too bad that your old boss Negroponte does not read this site!

Charbax said,
April 25, 2008 @ 3:51 pm

You've succeeded in forcing Microsoft to lower the licencing price of
Windows XP to $3, you've succeeded in forcing Microsoft to slim down the
hardware, storage requirements of running Windows XP, you've succeeded in
getting the whole laptop industry to start building what they call XO
competitors out of their desperation of the prospect of loosing all of their
profit margins, you've succeeded in forcing Intel to speed up the release of
the Atom Centrino processor to compete with AMD Geode as a low power fanless
CPU.

Hey, what's wrong with Microsoft continuing to invest multi-billions of
dollars to push and promote their Windows XP alternative to Sugar Linux, why
is that bad? At the end Microsoft will be forced to provide an open source
version of Windows XP or perhaps Microsoft will even be forced to develop
software based on Linux and your goal will be completely reached.

I know OLPC is not a laptop project but it is. I'd like to see the XO in a
commercial version sold in my local supermarket within the next few months
for $200 each. OLPC needs to commercialize the product in partnership with
whomever brands and distributors who would like to take care of the
commercial mass market distribution. This way, the whole industry will have
to speed up even faster and reach the result of the $100 laptop that works
for 24h on a battery in sunlight and connects to broadband wireless internet
for free everywhere.

Peteris Krisjanis said,
April 26, 2008 @ 11:18 am

Ivan, I partly agree with you said.

But mine concern isn't about what is said. I care about what is done.

How your and other OLPC fantastic guys expierence showed, current way was
RIGHT way.

I think NN got serious signals from Microsoft that they can try and they
will smear OLPC project if they will countinue this way. They don't care
that XO runs Linux, they CARE that XO runs SUGAR!

I don't believe that
a) Microsoft is serous about porting XP and SUPPORTING it as long as
necessary to XO
b) Microsoft will loose interest, will suck out as much information as it
can and then will introduce their own box
c) OLPC will be ANOTHER project who thought "hey, Bill can't be so evil" and
then..

I believe in you guys, I believe even in NN that his intentions are clear. I
don't believe Microsoft. And I never will. They are like some drunkhead -
they promise to act nicely, but in their minds they try to combine again to
get another dose of hit.

Ruben Safir said,
April 26, 2008 @ 1:05 pm

The problem, though, is that in many ways, the marketing and financial
positioning of the OLPC program is harder to develop then the hardware and
software.

An operating system is more than a commodity. It becomes the looking glass
that develops how the user thinks and it literally shapes the mind of it's
users. A system which is at it's core designed to disenfranchise users from
the learning experience, especially in how the user views the software
itself through learned expectations, and forces information access through
monopolistic channels and filters, undermines the development of critical
thinking skills. In geek terms, the operating system reprograms the end
user. The Microsoft operating system is designed to do so from the ground
up. It is in fact the only intended use of the Microsoft Windows Operating
System franchise.

The interaction between technology on human and societal development dates
to the beginning of civilization, if not even before that. One interesting
scholarly article on the topic which is archived at
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources/technology_changes_how_we_think.txt by
Robin Wilson explores how the Gutenberg printing printing press causes an
explosion of mathematical usage and development, and how a large part of
that was developed by the standardization of mathematical symbols for
universal communication and expression.

" Johann Gutenberg's invention of the printing press (around 1440)
revolutionised mathematics, enabling classic mathematical works to be
widely available for the first time. Previously, scholarly works, such
as the classical texts of Euclid, Archimedes and Apollonius had been
available only in manuscript form, but the printed versions made these
works much more widely available.

At first the new books were printed in Latin or Greek for the scholar,
and many scholarly editions appeared. The earliest printed version
of Euclid's Elements, published in Venice in 1482, and there is an
attractive 1492 edition of Ptolemy's Almagest. Apollonius's Conics
appeared in 1537, and seven years later the works of Archimedes were
published in both Latin and Greek, and there was a celebrated edition
of Diophantus's Arithmetic in 1621, reissued in 1670, with the Greek
text, a Latin translation by Bachet, and comments by Fermat, including
his famous marginal comment on the 'last theorem'. ..

The invention of printing also led to the gradual standardisation of
mathematical notation. In particular, the arithmetical symbols + and -
first appeared in a 1489 arithmetic text by Johann Widmann. Surprisingly,
the symbols × and ÷ were not in general use until the seventeenth
century - we'll see how × developed shortly; the division sign ÷
was introduced by John Pell.

Needless to say, the quality of the mathematical printing in those days
was very variable. Here we see two version of Pascal's arithmetical
triangle from the same year, 1545: Stifel's publisher was having a
good day, while Scheubelius was less fortunate."

The most important point Wilson makes as relating to the OLPC project is in
this paragraph:

"Record was such a fine lecturer that his audience regularly applauded
his lectures. We don't know what he looked like. For a long time, there
was only one known picture of him, but recently severe doubts have been
raised as to its authenticity. One might well ask: 'Is this a Record?'

Record's books were written in English, and ran to many editions. The
ground of artes of 1543 was an arithmetic book explaining the various
rules so simply that 'everie child can do it'. As with all his books,
it was written in the form of a Socratic dialogue between a scholar and
his master."

Prior to this era of copyright and DRM encumbered communications, the
printing press caused a prodigious discovery of the potential of the human
intellect and from it's most early uses western masters used it to
communicate with the masses, specifically targeting children for education.
The art of printing exploded, it's teaching as a trade, science and
technology every bit as vital to the democratization and economic
development that the West would experience from that very day in around 1440
when the press was invented.

In the short 600 years since technology has revolutionized communications,
through the printing era, into the wireless and wired analog era, the
broadcast media era and through to today with the digital media era humanity
has evolved directly in response to the use, development, deployment and
education with communications media, and diverse (classically defined)
liberal education has been the cornerstone of world civilization as it has
spread from the West to every corner of the world.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in her ground breaking book, "Infidel", repeatedly
describes how her interaction with libraries and books. Why surrounded in a
world of Islamic Brotherhood lectures and learnings with the repeated mantra
of "TOTAL OBEDIENCE" by local figures in her life such as Boqol Sawm and
Sister Aziza, Hirsi-Ali found comfort in cheap romantic novels. She
writes, " But the allure of romance called to us from the pages of books. In
school we read good books, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, and Daphne du
Maurier; out of school Halwaa's sisters kept us supplied with cheap
Harlequins. These were trashy soap opera-like novels, but they were
exciting - sexually exciting."

Hirsi-Ali has the advantage of literacy and the support of a free press. The
purpose of the OLPC project is also literacy. Not just the literacy of the
pen, and the literacy of mathematics, politics and arts, but computer
literacy, the new medium which will be required for the development of
children worldwide to fully share in our emerging enriched worldwide
culture. There are too many stumbling blocks as there is. The quoted
material above was far too arduous from me gather into this message. The
text, instead of being able to be be quickly cut and pasted into this window
had to be typed by hand because online resources like Google-Books was
prevented from making it available as text. It was only because of my 20
years of steep education in this topic, and my ability to reverse engineer
the protections that have been enforced in this media that I was able even
locate the appropriate material to present this point to an interested
public on this important point.

The Microsoft Operating system is designed to restrict digital access
according to information in order to optimize a monopolistic,
non-competitive agenda, the most essential restriction being the discovery
of the basic tools and carnal knowledge of the computer systems, the modern
printing press, itself. This directly conflicts with the core OLPC charter
and goal. While that can be ridiculed as an "Open Source" agenda and
irrational hangup, I'd argue based on the historical evidence that the
accusatory tone of such statements are fundamentally flawed and very much
more in line with the kind of rationality which one might expect from a
despot philosophy such as which might come from controlling Communist Party
in today's Red China.

The agenda, design and functionality of the Sugar interface, and it's
origins in GNU software and Linux kernels in specious and spurious.
Oxymoronic as that may sound, it is not the devotion to "Open Source" which
makes the move from Sugar to Microsoft Software untenable to the goals of
the One Laptop Per Child program. It is the change from a classically
Liberal based education program, a cornerstone of Western and World progress
to a regressive monopolistic platform which inhibits by design those Western
values and the knowledge of humanity so that it can be adapted to other
native cultures and thereby help assure the survival all of mankind as a
free, informed and tolerant civilization.

What, may I ask, is it intended that we teach these children in the third
world with a billion laptops? That is the only relevant question. Sugar is
designed from the ground up to answer this question. Obviously the Microsoft
product has no such agenda.

Jair Trejo said,
April 26, 2008 @ 1:29 pm

I wonder what is the point of the XO if it runs Microsoft Windows. I always
thought that the whole idea of the project is that you can't just throw
cheap laptops at the kids, without guidance or care, and expect positive
results.

I'm very angry. But, what happens next? coup d'état? a fork?

Phillip said,
April 26, 2008 @ 9:50 pm

What hope and inspiration it is to read something from the true innovators
of the OLPC. I am not a programmer, engineer or artist but, someone who
understands the free and open source concept, what it means to be able to
collaborate and build upon something bigger than oneself and to have pride
and ownership in. The one way I knew that I could contribute was to purchase
an OLPC. It was a way for me to try to help out, to give something that
would make a long term impact.
My contribution was in the true concept of the OLPC one that was a true
learning tool and not a "Laptop" one that gave a community a tool for
independent and unrestricted learning and to develop something greater than
what they started with. One that could possibly bring about a new way of
thinking understanding and enriching not only their lives but the world. it
seemed the best way to try to keep profit corporations from inhibiting the
intellect of the world. A way of showing that we all can benefit and work to
bringing a greater world without restriction.
I use free and open source not because it is free as in price but, free as
in thought,ideas,and collaboration. simply the idea of building upon the
shoulders of giants gives way to many things. It is an extension into
eternity, into hope of a better future for everyone. So PLEASE do not let
the true concept of the OLPC die.
To the developers at OLPC, you are truly GIANTS AMONG MEN.

Daniel Weinreb said,
April 27, 2008 @ 11:23 am

I'm confident that Microsoft's motivation here is their general imperative
that Windows remain the dominant platform in the world. They spend a great
deal of time fighting against Linux. In the case of the OLPC, the sheer
number of machines we're talking about is seen by Microsoft as a scary
threat. It would make the OLPC a very widely-used platform, and more and
more software would be developed for it. Microsoft's grip on the computer
world would be lessened.

What's so unfortunate is that the customers (the countries to which OLPC is
trying to sell) have been influenced to feel that they want a MIcrosoft
platform. I'm sure that the standard FUD strategy works well here: hey, this
Sugar stuff is new and might not be any good, whereas Windows is standard
and widely-used, so you should be scared and skeptical.

And perhaps the countries don't accept the pedagogical theories behind OLPC,
and think that what they need to do is train kids to use Excel and such.

Is it really valuable for the children to have just any laptop, with no
theory of what it's for or how to use it in education? I'm doubtful. The
OLPC isn't just a laptop computer; it's part of a whole concept of how to
learn things, and why having a laptop is valuable, and how to get that
value. I don't see that coming from Intel or Microsoft. So I hope the
original OLPC concept survives and thrives.

Berislav Lopac said,
April 27, 2008 @ 11:34 am

I'm looking forward to seeing a Linux distribution with Sugar user
interface, installable to any laptop a Linux can run on. At the end of the
day, it's all about the software, hardware is already getting so cheap that
it will soon be easy to buy a $100 laptop.

On his presentation in Zagreb a couple months back Nicholas described how
the idea for OLPC came when MIT started giving out a lot of used but still
functional hardware -- many of it laptops -- to schools and children in
underdeveloped countries. Now all that is really needed is a software which
follows all the principles of OLPC (Sugar interface, mesh network, Bitfrost
security.) -- and at least some of those technologies are open source, and
for all the principles are free and open to anyone to replicate. And in my
opinion, it would be much better on a grand scale to use old equipment (and
thus reduce waste) than to create new hardware -- most of the really useful
OLPC additions, like hand-cranking power supply, can be attached to regular
hardware as well.

So, why don't we start an OLPC alternative, using surplus hardware and
open-source software?

Peteris Krisjanis said,
April 28, 2008 @ 5:20 am

Berislav Lopac: yes, but I still see XO as having lot of features what is
actually needed when you give such laptops to 7 - 12 year olds.

Anyway, for sure, principles AND Sugar (both of them are very important)
aren't patented or anything, so sure, lot of OLPC user groups have made
sound statements about going independent. In fact, it is very good outcome
from this.

Pete Rose said,
May 3, 2008 @ 4:55 pm

Excellent article. Though I have no direct interest in the OLPC program, it
encourages me to see that there are people who will stand their ground and
do what's right. It also disappoints me to see that there are those who
would willingly kill the OLPC and sell out to Microsoft.

The OLPC faces a formidable enemy in Microsoft. And so do all of us who are
involved with open source software in any way. Microsoft sees Open Source as
a competitor and as such an enemy to be destroyed at any cost. I believe
their objective is to extend their monopoly grip on software and computing
worldwide until there is no one else left. Thinking as I believe Microsoft
is thinking, Microsoft sees the OLPC using open source software as having
the potential to break its stranglehold over computing by demonstrating the
superiority and flexibility of open source over Microsoft's proprietary
model to the masses, and to school children at that.

I am convinced Microsoft will stop at nothing in its effort to destroy Open
Source, as evidenced by its recent manipulation and skulduggery in ramming
its proprietary "Office Open XML", a half baked, bloated and unimplemented
specification through ISO fast track as a worldwide ISO standard. It is
compatible with nothing else, not even Microsoft's own Office software
suite, and was likely thrown together for the sole purpose of trying to
perpetuate its lock-in on office software by convincing others to adopt it
instead of ODF, a fully implemented ISO standard format already in use.

I said all this to say, OLPC needs to stay away from Microsoft. MS has a
long history of "EEE" (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish), taking widely used
formats, protocols, etc., adding their own proprietary extensions and fixing
them so they will not work properly with non-MS implementations. I would
hate to see anything like this happen to OLPC.



http://www.xconomy.com/2008/04/24/one-laptop-per-child-foundation-no-longer-a-di\
sruptive-force-bender-fears-qa-on-his-plans-for-sugar-interface/

Education, Software, Computing
One Laptop Per Child Foundation No Longer a Disruptive Force, Bender Fears;
Q&A on His Plans for "Sugar" Interface
Wade Roush 4/24/08

Walter Bender, the former president of software and content for the One
Laptop Per Child Foundation, says he left his post last week because of a
growing split with founder Nicholas Negroponte over whether the foundation
should continue in its gadfly role in the computing world.

Negroponte -- who told BusinessWeek in March that OLPC has been operating
for too long "almost like a terrorist group" and that it needs to be managed
"more like Microsoft" -- recently reassigned Bender, his longtime lieutenant
at OLPC and at the MIT Media Lab before that, to oversee deployment of the
organization's XO laptops to children in developing countries. But Bender --
who led the development of the XO's innovative graphical interface, called
Sugar -- resigned that post last week, and says now that he disagreed with
Negroponte's move to de-emphasize radical projects like Sugar and to work
more closely with the mainstream computing industry, including Microsoft,
which is readying a version of Windows XP that runs on the XO.

Walter Bender"If you read between the lines, the idea is to stop trying to
be disruptive and to start trying to make things comfortable for
decision-makers," Bender told Xconomy in an interview Thursday. "Personally,
I think that.a role that a non-profit can play is to try to demonstrate
better ways of doing things and let the market follow them. But that is a
minority opinion [within OLPC], so I left to do my own thing."

It's not the first big management change at OLPC. Former CTO Mary Lou Jepsen
departed in January to create her own startup, Pixel Qi, which will
commercialize energy-saving screen designs and other technologies she
originally created for the XO. And Negroponte himself wants to relinquish
the administrative reigns at OLPC and take on a more visionary,
thought-leader role; he told BusinessWeek that he's searching for a CEO to
handle the foundation's day-to-day management details.

From one perspective, the changes aren't surprising. Despite Negroponte's
lofty goal of distributing millions of cheap laptops to students in areas
where schools have little access to information technology, OLPC has always
been structured far more like a university research project than a laptop
manufacturer. "Most of the people in these offices are not qualified by
their experience to make that transition" from working outside the
computer-industry establishment to actually delivering millions of laptops,
Negroponte told us in a January interview. The XO was, in effect, a giant
proof-of-concept project -- and the fact that the foundation managed to
shepherd it through to mass production and then deliver several hundred
thousand of the devices to countries like Peru and Uruguay is a testament to
the skills and energy of the people Negroponte assembled for the task,
including Jepsen and Bender.

But now that concept has been proved, whether or not distribution of XO
laptops ever reaches into the millions that Negroponte originally
envisioned. And it's looking as if the project's biggest legacy may be the
individual technologies that had to be invented to make the XO work -- many
of which, like Jepsen's screen designs and Bender's Sugar interface, will
now evolve separately.

For Sugar, in fact, Bender's departure from OLPC is likely to mark more of a
beginning than an end. The interface, which is designed around
constructionist theories of interactive learning, is available under the
open-source GNU General Public License (GPL) to anyone who wants to extend
it -- and Bender says that's exactly what he hopes to do. Though his plans
are still forming, Bender says he wants to find a new central home for the
community of educators and software developers who have been creating
Sugar-compatible applications. One of the first jobs will be to create
versions of Sugar that run on multiple operating systems, meaning the
interface could soon turn up on machines other than the XO.

Bender views Sugar as one of the forces unleashed by OLPC that are upsetting
the way software developers and computer-makers think about the education
market. But he believes it will take a combination of strong leadership and
community collaboration to make sure the ideals of freedom, sharing, open
critique, and transparency that are built into the Sugar interface actually
touch children in the world's classrooms.

Here's the full transcript of our interview with Bender.

Xconomy: What are you going to do now that you've left the One Laptop
foundation?

Walter Bender: I'm going to try to make the work I've been doing more
broadly applicable. The possibilities, I think, are enormous. I can't be
agnostic about learning. I think we need to try to skew the odds toward
children and teachers appropriating knowledge and putting it to use and
engaging in critical dialogue. That is not just going to .Next Page »

  (Page 2 of 4)

happen -- it's something we have to try to make happen. I'm trying to put
the right tools together to make that a more natural use of the technology.
It's the right thing to do, and that's what I will continue to work on.

X: Now that the XO laptop is being manufactured and distributed, the One
Laptop foundation seems to be spinning apart, with many of the players,
including yourself, leaving to pursue aspects of the technology on their
own. I wonder if this is a natural evolution, to some extent.

WB: It is a natural evolution of the association. OLPC is two things -- an
association and a foundation. The association really was put together to
make the [whole project] possible. The foundation was put together to get
laptops out to kids. In some sense the association has accomplished Phase
One of its work. We built a laptop, stacked it, defined how deployment
should work, and the foundation has been raising money to get laptops into
the hands of kids. Then it's a matter of what's next. And what's next for me
is to continue to work on the software tools for learning -- to broaden
their scope and applicability. What's next for OLPC? I would rather OLPC
answer for themselves. Nicholas has made it clear, at least to me, that OLPC
needs to be strategically agnostic about learning -- that it can't be
prescriptive about learning. So that's his opinion and that's where he's
taking OLPC, and that's not what I want to do, so I left.

X: When you say "agnostic about learning," what I take that to mean is that
there's a feeling that the XO Laptop should run Windows, and not just Linux
and Sugar.

WB: I think it's pretty obvious and was obvious from the very beginning that
it's a lot easier to cater to people's comfort than to be disruptive.
Nicholas had that wonderful quote in BusinessWeek about a month ago -- that
OLPC is going to stop acting like a terrorist and start emulating Microsoft.
If you read between the lines, the idea is to stop trying to be disruptive
and to start trying to make things comfortable for decision-makers. And that's
a marketing strategy, and one that I think has been adopted by many laptop
manufacturers. Personally, I think that the customer is not always right,
and that a role that a non-profit can play is to try to demonstrate better
ways of doing things and let the market follow them. But that is a minority
opinion, so I left to do my own thing.

X: Given how integral Sugar is to the XO Laptop, how can you continue to
develop that separately from OLPC?

WB: It's not my intention to do it separately from OLPC. It's my intention
to do it with the community that's grown up around the project, and OLPC is
certainly part of that community. There is this wonderful thing called GPL.
Everything we have done belongs to the community, not to the foundation. I
think that's a very efficient way of moving forward, and it's powerful along
a number of dimensions.

I think the culture around free software is actually a powerful culture for
learning, and one of my goals from the very beginning of the project was to
try to instill in the education industry some of the culture and technology
and morals of the open source movement. I think it would greatly enhance the
learning and education industry and their ability to engage teachers and
students. So many different things are tied up in this concept. It's both
about freedom, and the freedom to be critical. Criticism of ideas is a
powerful force in learning, and unleashing that is, I think, an important
part of the OLPC mission.

X: Okay, so talk about how you'll actually take Sugar and keep growing it,
and get it onto other platforms.

WB: There are two parts to it. One part has to do with continuing the
momentum around the project. And there's lots that needs to be done. It's a
generation-one product, and it needs to grow and evolve. But there's a
second piece .Next Page »

  (Page 3 of 4)

to it, and that is, how do you actually support this in the field. It's not
mature enough yet to be completely self-supporting. While that is certainly
a goal, it's a difficult goal to achieve. I spent a lot of time in Peru
working on the Peru deployment [of the XO Laptop], and one of my goals in
Peru was to build a lot of redundancy around support. That's fundamentally a
social problem, and how you solve it is an enormous challenge and one that I'm
really interested in. So there is a technical piece and a social-cultural
piece and both of them are passions of mine.

The exact form or framework to work on those problems is to be determined. I'm
having a number of conversations with people about maybe hosting the program
at a university or setting up another foundation, or maybe even setting up
something that is a for-profit, open source project. There are a lot of ways
of doing it. Maybe there will be multiple ways. I don't own this, and don't
have any intention to own it. I think the redundancy of that approach is
probably important as well.

X: On the technical side, how do you take something that was developed so
specifically for the XO Laptop platform and port it to other platforms?

WB: Over time there are lots of things that will happen with Sugar in terms
of efficiency and platform independence. Already, the community has by and
large ported Sugar to Ubuntu [a form of Linux]. You can do an "apt-get
  Sugar" and if you've put the right repositories in place, you can install
Sugar on Ubuntu. There is also a live CD that some folks in Austria put
together, so you can run Sugar from your CD drive. There's a lot of
discussion on the developer forums about how to make all of that happen more
efficiently.

The flip side -- it's been attributed to Steve Jobs, though I never heard
him say it -- is that if you really care about software you have to work on
hardware. Certainly there are a lot of hooks from Sugar into the OLPC
hardware, because the hardware itself is pretty special. But while I think
that the things that OLPC has done with the hardware are necessary for
successful deployment, I think that there are compromises that can be made
with other hardware in the short term. So [you could get Sugar running on]
other laptops and even other computers.

X: Is it conceivable that someday there would be an XO Laptop without Sugar?

WB: You'd have to ask OLPC. Even today, it's easy enough to turn Sugar off
and run the laptops with a standard Linux distribution. Microsoft allegedly
is working on XP for the XO laptop. Sugar is not tied to the XO.

X: Let's back up. You've said many times, and so has Nicholas Negroponte,
that OLPC is a learning project, not a laptop project. So can you talk about
the basic pedagogical principles that are important to you, and how Sugar
embodies those?

WB: When we started to do this, I tried to build the solution based on three
very simple principles about what makes us human. Because I knew this had to
be something that worked everywhere, with every child. The first of the
three things is that everyone is a teacher and a learner. Second, humans by
their nature are social beings. Third, humans by their nature are
expressive. I decided those would be the pillars of how we design the user
experience for the laptop. The other thing is that I was very much
influenced by Seymour Papert and his constructionist theories, which can be
summarized in my mind very efficiently by two aphorism. One is that you
learn through doing, so if you want more learning you want more doing. The
second is that love is a better master than duty. You want people to engage
in things that are authentic to them, things that they love. The first is
more addressed by the Sugar technology; the second is more addressed by the
culture around freedom.

In terms of the technology -- as we already discussed, that drove in my mind
the necessity to make this an open source project. But secondly, when we
started Sugar I said that the presence of people always has to be present.
Because if you are going to collaborate with people, we need to make it a
first-order experience. I want the kids and teachers to engage in a dialogue
with each other, to support each other, to critique each other and share
ideas. So that presence had to work independent of whether or not the
Internet was available. We were developing this mesh network, so I
knew .Next Page »

  (Page 4 of 4)

every computer was going to be connected to every other. Therefore I said,
let's take advantage of that in the interface. That was driven by the
pedagogy and was a core feature of the interface.

The third thing had to do with making Sugar be discoverable. We're dealing
with a wide variety of users, with different levels of skill in terms of
reading, language, and different levels of experience with computing. So I
wanted to make everything easy to approach, and at the same time have no
floor and no ceiling. The best example of that in the current laptop is the
music software. You go from something that a two-year-old can use to the
same tools they use in Hollywood for musical effects. You can peel away
layers and go deeper and deeper, with no restrictions.

Part that that was introducing into the hardware a key called the resource
key. It's a little gear on the space bar. If you hit "function-gear" you can
pop right into the source code of whatever you are working on. That is
layered as well. If you are on a Web page, first you go to the HTML. But you
could literally browse the code of the Web browser, if you wanted. You can
drill down as far as you want. One of the reasons we based Sugar on Python
is that it is an interpreted language instead of a compiled language. The
executable code is the source code. That means it's a language allowing the
appropriation of ideas. Whether what they are drilling down to is music
software, a browser, reading, writing, graphics, the idea is that they are
not going to hit a wall.

X: So Sugar is going to become an open-source project in its own right. Do
you have any thoughts yet about how you'll organize it?

WB: I had a student named Cameron Marlow, who was at Yahoo last I knew. [He's
now at Facebook. -- eds.] His thesis was about the "rule of many." You have
this Gaussian distribution of efficiency, where after 150 people or so, an
organization gets too big and you peak in terms of the most efficient size.
What Cameron studied was what happens if you follow the tail out really far
[to larger and larger numbers]. Sometimes you get a lift again -- a new kind
of efficiency. That's the rule of many. He studied it in the context of the
blogosphere, but there are lots of examples -- Wikipedia is probably the
poster child.

But he didn't just observe the rule of many; he tried to understand what are
the mechanisms that determine whether the rule of many is going to be
applicable. He didn't come up with a definitive list, but he did identify
certain criteria.
One is obviously that you have a large number of people.
Second is that these people share a common goal.
And a third is maintaining independence, so that each agent has the ability
to act independently.

I think in the case of Sugar and support for Sugar, I want to use this rule
of many approach.
And part of that is ensuring this freedom of agency on behalf of the
participants.
You don't want to try to control it.
You want to build the discussion around common goals, but not be
deterministic in terms of needs.
You have to let the independent agents determine their own needs.
Exactly how this will manifest itself, I don't know.
But I do know that part of it has to do with being open about communication,
and letting the community engage in the dialogue.
Transparency is also really important.

X: But aren't some of the most successful open source projects actually very
dictatorial at their core? Witness Linux, where Linus Torvalds is still the
one making the final decisions.

WB: You need to have leadership, you need to be driving what the goals are,
and you need to have clear decision-making processes. But at the same time
you need to have transparency. It isn't necessarily easy, and it's certainly
outside the natural instincts and comfort zone of most industries. But when
you get it right, it's really powerful. And I'm determined to get it right.

X: If it turns out that the biggest legacy of the One Laptop Per Child
foundation was not that it got hundreds of thousands of laptops out to kids,
but that it spawned all of these other efforts that perhaps will yield
advances along many fronts of educational computing, is that such a bad
thing?

WB: That's not a bad thing at all. And the little green-and-white laptop is
not bad either. Getting more of those out into the world is not a bad thing.

X: But for a long time, outsiders have gauged the success or failure of the
One Laptop project mainly whether, or how many, laptops were getting out
into the hands of kids.

WB: I would challenge that as being the critical dependency. I think doing
it was critical, because it's not real until you do it. We've demonstrated
that this can be done. We've gotten the world to be interested in doing it.
Now we have to let more people participate in the doing and not try to
control it and own it.


http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi

Sic Transit Gloria Laptopi
May 13, 2008 at 4:55 pm

I'm Ivan Krstic. You can read more about me, my talks, or my latest work.
This is a personal site; I speak for no one but myself.

Photo: Walter shows me improvements to the Record activity at the Lima
coastline, Peru.

I've been displeased with the quality of community discourse surrounding the
recent OLPC announcement of moving to Windows as the OS platform. I decided
to withhold comment at the time, and was swayed only by the half-dozen
volunteers mailing me personally to ask whether all their work had been in
vain. It hadn't. And then I left to travel for a few days.

I just caught up with my mail and RSS feeds, and what I've read has moved me
from displeased to angry. So I'm going to comment after all, and it'll be my
last OLPC-related essay for the foreseeable future. But first, some
background.

The beginning

Throughout his life, Nicholas Negroponte worked with education and
technology luminaries like Alan Kay and Seymour Papert. In the early 80s,
Nicholas and Seymour ran a pilot program backed by the French government
that placed Apple ][ machines in a suburban computing center in Dakar,
Senegal. The project was a spectacular flop due to mismanagement and
personality conflicts. In '83, barely a year after the experiment started,
MIT's Technology Review magazine published its damning epitaph:

     Naturally, it failed. Nothing is that independent, especially an
organization backed by a socialist government and staffed by highly
individualistic industry visionaries from around the world. Besides,
altruism has a credibility problem in an industry that thrives on intense
commercial competition.

     By the end of the Center's first year, Papert had quit, so had American
experts Nicholas Negroponte and Bob Lawler. It had become a battlefield,
scarred by clashes of management style, personality, and political
conviction. It never really recovered. The new French government has done
the Center a favor in closing it down.

But both Nicholas and Seymour emerged from the ashes of the Dakar pilot with
their faith in the premise of children learning naturally with computers
intact. Armed with the lessons from the Senegal failure, it was perhaps only
a matter of time before they tried again.

Indeed, Seymour tried again only a couple of years later: the Media Lab was
founded in 1985 and immediately started supporting Project Headlight, an
attempt to infuse constructionist learning into the complete curriculum of
the Hennigan school, a public elementary school in Boston consisting mostly
of minority students.

Fast forward almost two decades, to around 2000. Former Newsweek foreign
correspondent turned philanthropist, Bernie "one-man United Nations" Krisher
convinced Nicholas and his wife Elaine to join Bernie's program of building
schools in Cambodia. Nicholas bought used Panasonic Toughbooks for one
school, and his son Dimitri taught there for a time.

"Surely," the thinking went, "there has to be a way to scale this." And the
rest of the story is familiar: Nicholas wooed Mary Lou Jepsen while she was
interviewing for a faculty position at the Lab, and told her about his crazy
idea for an organization called One Laptop per Child. She came on board as
CTO. Towards the end of 2005, the organization left stealth mode with a
bang: Nicholas announced it with Kofi Annan, Nobel Peace Prize winner and
then-Secretary-General of the United Nations, at a global summit in Tunis.

The part that bears repeating is that Nicholas' constructionism-based
computer learning project in Senegal was a complete disaster: modulo
commentary on the personalities and egos involved, it demonstrated nothing
about anything. And Krisher's Cambodia project, the one evidently successful
enough to motivate Nicholas to actually start OLPC, used off-the-shelf
laptops running Windows without any constructivist customizations of the OS
whatsoever. (They did have some constructionist tools installed as regular
applications.)

What we know

The truth is, when it comes to large-scale one-to-one computing programs,
we're completely in the dark about what actually works, because hey, no one
has done a large-scale one-to-one computing program before. Mako Hill
writes:

     We know that laptop recipients will benefit from being able to fix,
improve, and translate the software on their laptops into their own
languages and contexts. ... We can help foster a world where technology is
under the control of its users, and where learning is under the terms of its
students -- a world where every laptop owner has freedom through control
over the technology they use to communicate, collaborate, create, and learn.
It is the reason that OLPC's embrace of constructionist philosophy is so
deeply important to its mission and the reason that its mission needs to
continue to be executed with free and open source software. It is why OLPC
needs to be uncompromising about software freedom.

This kind of bright-eyed idealism is appealing, but alas, just not backed by
fact. No, we don't know that laptop recipients will benefit from fixing
software on their laptops. Indeed, I bet they'd largely prefer the damn
software works and doesn't need fixing. While we think and even hope that
constructionist principles, as embodied in the free software culture, are
helpful to education, presenting the hopes as rooted in fact is simply
deceitful.

As far as I know, there is no real study anywhere that demonstrates
constructionism works at scale. There is no documented moderate-scale
constructionist learning pilot that has been convincingly successful; when
Nicholas points to "decades of work by Seymour Papert, Alan Kay, and Jean
Piaget", he's talking about theory. He likes to mention Dakar, but doesn't
like to mention how that pilot ended
--  or that no real facts about the validity of the approach came out of it.
And there sure as hell doesn't exist a peer-reviewed study (or any other
kind, to my knowledge) showing free software does any better than
proprietary software when it comes to aiding learning, or that children
prefer the openness, or that they care about software freedom one bit.

Keeping that in mind, Richard Stallman's missive on the subject just riled
me up:

     Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Its functioning
is secret, so it is incompatible with the spirit of learning. Teaching
children to use a proprietary (non-free) system such as Windows does not
make the world a better place, because it puts them under the power of the
system's developer -- perhaps permanently. You might as well introduce the
children to an addictive drug.

Oh, for fuck's sake. You really just employed a simile comparing a
proprietary OS to addictive drugs? You know, ones causing actual bodily harm
and possibly death? Really, Stallman? Really?

If proprietary software is half as good as free software at aiding
children's learning, you're damn right it makes the world a better place to
get the software out to children. Hell, if it doesn't actively inhibit
learning, it makes the world a better place. The problem is that Stallman
doesn't appear to actually give an acrobatic shit about learning, and sees
OLPC as a vehicle for furthering his political agenda. It's shameful, the
lot of it.

While we're on the subject

One of the favorite arguments of the free software and open source community
for the obvious superiority of such software over proprietary alternatives
is the user's supposed ability to take control and modify inadequate
software to suit their wishes. Expectedly, the argument has been often
repeated in relation to OLPC.

I can't possibly be the only one seeing that the emperor has no clothes.

I started using Linux in '95, before most of today's Internet-using general
public knew there existed an OS outside of Windows. It took a week to
configure X to work with my graphics card, and I learned serious programming
because I later needed to add support for a SCSI hard drive that wasn't
recognized properly. (Not knowing that C and kernel hacking are supposed to
be "hard", I kept at it for three months until I learned enough to write a
patch that works.) I've been primarily a UNIX user since then, alternating
between Debian, FreeBSD and later Ubuntu, and recently co-writing a
best-selling Linux book.

About eight months ago, when I caught myself fighting yet another battle
with suspend/resume on my Linux-running laptop, I got so furious that I went
to the nearest Apple store and bought a MacBook. After 12 years of almost
exclusive use of free software, I switched to Mac OS X. And you know, shitty
power management and many other hassles aren't Linux's fault. The fault lies
with needlessly secretive vendors not releasing documentation that would
make it possible for Linux to play well with their hardware. But until the
day comes when hardware vendors and free software developers find themselves
holding hands and spontaneously bursting into one giant orgiastic Kumbaya,
that's the world we live in. So in the meantime, I switched to OS X and find
it to be an overwhelmingly more enjoyable computing experience. I still have
my free software UNIX shell, my free software programming language, my free
software ports system, my free software editor, and I run a bunch of free
software Linux virtual machines. The vast, near-total majority of computer
users aren't programmers. Of the programmers, a vast, near-total majority
don't dare in the Land o' Kernel tread. As one of the people who actually
can hack my kernel to suit, I find that I don't miss the ability in the
least. There, I said it. Hang me for treason.

My theory is that technical people, especially when younger, get a
particular thrill out of dicking around with their software. Much like case
modders, these folks see it as a badge of honor that they spent countless
hours compiling and configuring their software to oblivion. Hey, I was there
too. And the older I get, the more I want things to work out of the box.
Ubuntu is getting better at delivering that experience for novice users.
Serious power users seem to find that OS X is unrivaled at it.

I used to think that there was something wrong with me for thinking this.
Then I started looking at the mail headers on mailing lists where I hang
out, curious about what other folks I respect were using. It looks like most
of the luminaries in the security community, one of the most hardcore
technical communities on the planet, use OS X.

And lest you think this is some kind of Apple-paid rant, I'll mention Mitch
Bradley. Have you read the story of Mel, the "real" programmer? Mitch is
that guy, in 2008. Firmware superhacker, author of the IEEE Open Firmware
standard, wrote the firmware that Sun shipped on its machines for a good
couple of decades, and in general one of the few people I've ever had the
pleasure of working with whose technical competence so inordinately exceeds
mine that I feel I wouldn't even know how to start catching up. Mitch's
primary laptop runs Windows.

Sleight of hand

But really, I digress. The point is that OLPC was supposed to be about
learning, not free software. And the most upsetting part of the Windows
announcement is not that it exposed the actual agendas of a number of
project participants which had nothing to do with learning, but that
Nicholas' misdirection and sleight of hand were allowed to stand.

The whole "we're investing into Sugar, it'll just run on Windows" gambit is
sheer nonsense. Nicholas knows quite well that Sugar won't magically become
better simply by virtue of running on Windows rather than Linux. In reality,
Nicholas wants to ship plain XP desktops. He's told me so. That he might
possibly fund a Sugar effort to the side and pay lip service to the notion
of its "availability" as an option to purchasing countries is at best a
tepid effort to avert a PR disaster.

In fact, I quit when Nicholas told me -- and not just me -- that learning
was never part of the mission. The mission was, in his mind, always getting
as many laptops as possible out there; to say anything about learning would
be presumptuous, and so he doesn't want OLPC to have a software team, a
hardware team, or a deployment team going forward.

Yeah, I'm not sure what that leaves either.

There are three key problems in one-to-one computer programs: choosing a
suitable device, getting it to children, and using it to create sustainable
learning and teaching experiences. They're listed in order of exponentially
increasing difficulty.

The industry didn't want to tackle the first one because there was little
profit in it. OLPC successfully made them do it in the most effective way
possible: by threatening to steal their lunch. But industry laptop
manufacturers still don't want to tackle deployment, because it's really,
really fucking hard, isn't within a 100-mile radius of their core
competency, and generally has a commercial ROI that makes baby Cthulhu cry.

Peru's first deployment module consisted of 40 thousand laptops, to be
deployed in about 570 schools across jungles, mountains, plains, and with
total variance in electrical availability and uniformly no existing network
infrastructure. A number of the target schools are in places requiring
multiple modes of transportation to reach, and that are so remote that
they're not even serviced by the postal service. Laptop delivery was going
to be performed by untrusted vendors who are in a position to steal the
machines en masse. There is no easy way to collect manifests of what
actually got delivered, where, and to whom. It's not clear how to establish
a procedure for dealing with malfunctioning units, or those dead on arrival.
Compared to dealing with this, the technical work I do is vacation.

Other than the incredible Carla Gomez-Monroy who worked on setting up the
pilots, there was no one hired to work on deployment while I was at OLPC,
with Uruguay's and Peru's combined 360,000 laptop rollout in progress. I was
parachuted in as the sole OLPC person to deal with Uruguay, and sent to Peru
at the last minute. And I'm really good at thinking on my feet, but what the
shit do I know about deployment? Right around that time, Walter was demoted
and theoretically made the "director of deployment," a position where he
directed his expansive team of -- himself. Then he left, and get this: now
the company has half a million laptops in the wild, with no one even
pretending to be officially in charge of deployment. "I quit," Walter told
me on the phone after leaving, "because I can't continue to work on a lie."

It's not like OLPC was caught unawares, or somehow forgot that this was
going to be an issue. I wrote in an internal memo in December:

     We have multiple concurrent rollouts of differing scale in progress --
Uruguay with eight thousand machines, G1G1 with potentially a quarter
million -- and with at least Peru and Mongolia on the horizon within a month
from now. We have no real support infrastructure for these rollouts, our
development process is not allocating any time for dealing with critical
deployment issues that (will inevitably) come up, and we have no process for
managing the crises that will ensue. I wish I could say this is the bulk of
our problems, but I mention these first simply because I predict it's these
deployments that will impose the heaviest burden on this organization in the
coming months -- a burden we're presently entirely unprepared to handle.

     .....

     We still have not a single employee focusing on deployment, helping to
plan it, working with our target countries to learn what works and what
doesn't. Evidently our "deployment plan" is to send whichever hotshot
superhacker we have available to each country such that he may fix any
problems that arise on the spot. If that is not in fact our plan, then we
have no plan at all.

That OLPC was never serious about solving deployment, and that it seems to
no longer be interested in even trying, is criminal. Left uncorrected, it
will turn the project into a historical information technology fuckup
unparalleled in scale.

As for the last key problem, transforming laptops into learning is a
non-trivial leap of logic, and one that remains inadequately explained. No,
we don't know that it'll work, especially not without teachers. And that's
okay -- the way to find out whether it works might well be by trying.
Sometimes you have to run before you can walk, yeah? But most of us who
joined OLPC believed that the educational ideology behind the project is
what actually set it apart from similar endeavors in the past. Learning
which is open, collaborative, shared, and exploratory -- we thought that's
what could make OLPC work. Because people have tried plain laptop learning
projects in the past, and as the New York Times noted on its front page not
so long ago, they crashed and burned.

Nicholas' new OLPC is dropping those pesky education goals from the mission
and turning itself into a 50-person nonprofit laptop manufacturer, competing
with Lenovo, Dell, Apple, Asus, HP and Intel on their home turf, and by
using the one strategy we know doesn't work. But hey, I guess they'll sell
more laptops that way.

Broken windows theory

I've tried to establish already that there's no evidence that free software
provides a superior learning experience when compared to a proprietary
operating system. This point bears some elaboration. Bernie Innocenti, until
recently the CTO for the fledgling OLPC Europe, a few days ago wrote:

     I myself wouldn't oppose a Windows port of Sugar. I would never waste my
time on it, or encourage anyone to waste their time on it, but it's free
software and thus anyone is free to port it to anything they wish.

Stallman similarly called a Windows port of Sugar "not a good thing to do".
Here's the thing: such a port is only a waste of time if free software is
not the means here, but an end. At Nicholas' solicitation, I wrote an
internal memo on software strategy in early March. It was co-signed by Marco
Pesenti Gritti, the inimitable Sugar team lead. I am not at liberty to
reproduce the entire document, but I will quote the most relevant section
with minimal redactions:

     ... We [argue strongly that we should] decouple the Sugar UI from the
Sugar technologies we've developed such as sharing, collaboration, the
presence service, the data store, and so forth. We may then make those
services run well in a regular Linux desktop environment and redefine the
Sugar activity concept to simply be any Linux desktop application capable of
using the Sugar services. The Sugar UI itself could, optionally and at a
later date, be provided as a graphical launcher, perhaps developed by the
community.

     The core mistake of the present Sugar approach is that it couples
phenomenally powerful ideas about learning -- that it should be shared,
collaborative, peer to peer, and open -- with the notion that these ideas
must come presented in an entirely new graphical paradigm. We reject this
coupling as untenable.

     Choosing to reinvent the desktop UI paradigm means we are spending our
extremely overconstrained resources fighting graphical interfaces, not
developing better tools for learning. . It is most important to recognize
that the graphical paradigm changes are inessential both to our core mission
and to the Sugar core ideas.

     We gain a plethora of benefits from detaching the technologies that
directly support the mode of learning we care about from the Sugar UI.
Notably, it becomes far easier to spread these ideas and technologies across
platforms -- our UI components are the hardest parts to port. If the
underlying Sugar technologies were made easily available for all major OSes,
we could leverage the creativity and work of the wider development community
to build applications on top of our core offerings, creating a diverse
ecosystem of powerful learning tools. Those tools could then be used by
learners globally and on any computer, XO or otherwise. This should have
been our aim all along. Many of the technologies we've built would be
welcomed with arms wide open into modern Linux desktops, and a large number
of developers would likely get engaged with them if we provided the
possibility. In contrast to the current situation, such a model must be the
direction where we take things: OLPC benevolently steering development which
is mostly done by the community.

     Finally, with regard to the politically-sensitive question of OLPC's
commitment to open source, we think there is a simple and uncomplicated
answer: OLPC's policy should be that all OLPC-developed software is open
source and uses open standards and open formats. We don't think a stronger
commitment is necessary. Our preference for open source should stem solely
from the conviction that it provides a better learning environment than
closed-source alternatives. As such, having an open source cross-platform
set of core technologies for building collaborative learning applications
makes a tremendous amount of sense. But fundamentally, requiring that a
particular UI or even OS are used seems entirely superfluous; we should be
satisfied with any environment where our core technologies can be used as
building blocks for delivering the learning experience we care so strongly
about.

At the end of the day, it just doesn't matter to the educational mission
what kernel is running Sugar. If Sugar itself remains open and free --
which, thus far, has never been in question -- all of the relevant
functionality such as the 'view source' key remains operational, on Windows
or not. OLPC should never take steps to willingly limit the audience for its
learning software. Windows is the most widely used operating system in
existence. A Windows-compatible Sugar would bring its rich learning vision
to potentially tens or hundreds of millions of children all over the world
whose parents already own a Windows computer, be it laptop or desktop. To
suggest this is a bad course of action because it's philosophically impure
is downright evil.

And hey, maybe a Windows version of Sugar gets kids sufficiently interested
in computer innards to actually want to switch to Linux. Trolltech, the
company behind the Qt graphical toolkit, was recently purchased by Nokia and
announced it'll be adding platform support for the mobile version of
Windows, apparently to accusations of treason in the free software
community. But Trolltech's CTO Benoit Schillings doesn't think that's right:

     Some critics are concerned that Trolltech's support for Windows Mobile
could limit the growth of mobile and embedded Linux technologies, but
Schillings sees things differently. By enabling application developers to
create a single code base that can seamlessly move across platforms, he says
that Trolltech is making it easier for companies that are currently using
Windows Mobile to transition to Linux, which he thinks will mean more
adoption of the open source operating system in the long run.

The man speaks wisely.

Now, pay close attention: while I'm unequivocally enthusiastic about Sugar
being ported to every OS out there, I'm absolutely opposed to Windows as the
single OS that OLPC offers for the XO. The two matters are completely
orthogonal, and Nicholas' attempt to conflate them by calling the open
source community "fundamentalists" (and watching the community foam at the
mouth instead of picking apart his logic) is just another bit of
misdirection. Not that anyone should really feel offended, since he's made
it a habit to call his employees terrorists.

OLPC should be philosophically pure about its own machines. Being a
non-profit that leverages goodwill from a tremendous number of community
volunteers for its success and whose core mission is one of social
betterment, it has a great deal of social responsibility. It should not
become a vehicle for creating economic incentives for a particular vendor.
It should not believe the nonsense about Windows being a requirement for
business after the children grow up. Windows is a requirement because enough
people grew up with it, not the other way around. If OLPC made a billion
people grow up with Linux, Linux would be just dandy for business. And OLPC
shouldn't make its sole OS one that cripples the very hardware that
supposedly set the project's laptops apart: released versions of Windows can
neither make good use of the XO power management, nor its full mesh or
advanced display capabilities.

Most importantly, the OS that OLPC ships should be one that embodies the
culture of learning that OLPC adheres to. The culture of open inquiry,
diverse cooperative work, of freely doing and debugging - this is important.
OLPC has a responsibility to spread the culture of freedom and ideas that
support its educational mission; that cannot be done by only offering a
proprietary operating system for the laptops.

Put differently, OLPC can't claim to be preoccupied with learning and not
with training children to be office computer drones, while at the same time
being coerced by hollow office drone rhetoric to deploy the computers with
office drone software. Nicholas used to say the thought of the XOs being
used to teach 6-year olds Word and Excel made him cringe. Apparently, no
longer so. Which is it? The vacillation needs to stop. As they say in the
motherland: shit or get off the pot.

How to go forward

Here's a paragraph from one of my last e-mails to Nicholas, sent shortly
after I resigned:

     I continue to think it's a crying shame you're not taking advantage of
how OLPC is positioned. Now that it's goaded the industry into working on
low-cost laptops, OLPC could become a focus point for advocating
constructionism, making educational content available, providing learning
software, and keeping track of worldwide [one-to-one] deployments and the
lessons arising from them. When a country chooses to do [a one-to-one
computer program], OLPC could be the one-stop shop that actually works with
them to make it happen, regardless of which laptop manufacturer is chosen,
banking on the deployment plans it's cultivated from experience and the
readily available base of software and content it keeps. In other words,
OLPC could be the IBM Global Services of one-to-one laptop programs. This, I
maintain, is the right way to go forward.

I'm trying to convince Walter not to start a Sugar Foundation, but an Open
Learning Foundation. For those who still care about learning in this whole
clusterfuck of conflicting agendas, the charge should be to start that
organization, since OLPC doesn't want to be it. Having a company that is
device-agnostic and focuses entirely on the learning ecosystem, from
deployment to content to Sugar, is not only what I think is sorely needed to
really take the one-to-one computer efforts to the next level, but also an
approach that has a good chance of making the organization doing the work
self-sustaining at some point.

So here's to open learning, to free software, to strength of personal
conviction, and to having enough damn humility to remember that the goal is
bringing learning to a billion children across the globe. The billion
waiting for us to put our idiotic trifles aside, end our endless yapping,
and get to it already.

Let's get to it already.

My thanks to Walter Bender and Marco P. Gritti for reading drafts of this
essay.

Comments (58) »

Ben Schwartz said,
May 13, 2008 @ 8:34 pm

I agree with what you've written, more or less, but it all seems a bit
silly. You're attempting to walk an excruciatingly fine line. I think you
have truly misread the discussion.

Nobody is really opposed to a "Windows port". As I've now pointed out ad
nauseam, I could use Wubi and the Ubuntu Sugar packages to get Sugar running
as a Windows application in a couple of hours. This would work on any
mainstream computer sold in the last six years. Wubi uses fast
paravirtualization, so the system would be much quicker than on an XO.

When I've mentioned this to the OLPC engineers, their response has generally
been "this argument is only about Windows on XO. We're not talking about
Sugar on Windows on other hardware; that's a different issue.". So my main
problem with your essay is: I think you misinterpret the chorus of people
saying they won't port Sugar to Windows. (I think they failed to make this
clear because "we are talking about the XO" is the reasonable default
assumption for conversations at 1CC.) The OLPC engineers are specifically
saying they won't port Sugar to Windows XO. Their reasons are precisely the
ones you've listed: technical inferiority, violation of the core philosophy,
alienation of the community, etc. There's also another reason often
mentioned: any time spent removing Linuxisms from the Sugar system would be
time not spent improving it. Given the universally acknowledged need for
improvement, that seems like a bad idea.

I would be happy to argue with you about the precise meaning of
constructionism in the context of OLPC, or about the larger purpose of
education for humanity. I'd also like to argue that without unusually hard
abstraction barriers, it's extremely easy to get locked into one kernel,
especially if that kernel is Windows. But these are philosophical
discussions for another time. My key point is: I think you have
misinterpreted what the OLPC tech team thinks about Windows, XO, and Sugar.
Mostly, they agree with you.

"the OS that OLPC ships should be one that embodies the culture of learning
that OLPC adheres to. The culture of open inquiry, diverse cooperative work,
of freely doing and debugging - this is important. OLPC has a responsibility
to spread the culture of freedom and ideas that support its educational
mission; that cannot be done by only offering a proprietary operating system
for the laptops."

This is the key, and none of "us" would argue with it. However, I, and I
thin many others, would say "that cannot be done by supporting a proprietary
operating system". If school systems wish to switch their XO's to Windows,
they are free to do so, but I will not support them. Neither should OLPC.

Manuel "Moe" Garcia said,
May 13, 2008 @ 8:36 pm

This is an amazing document. I wish you the best.

But I think the _process_ of open source on the Internet, is far more
important, for education, than _any_ platform.

If global thermonuclear war destroyed *everything* except the _concepts_of
distributed revision control and TCP/IP, we could reconstruct the rest from
these first principals, to the benefit of human education. (I plead guilty
to some hyperbole in this thought experiment.)

Hell, I bet 40% of all open source is done on Microsoft OS's, the
programmers are sly enough to make sure their bosses are kept ignorant of
it. Because with the concept of open source on the Internet, the platform
vanishes away in relative importance. And I really think the *true*
educational experiences are facilitated best by the same tools.

Greg DeKoenigsberg said,
May 13, 2008 @ 8:52 pm  +1.

Wayan said,
May 13, 2008 @ 9:17 pm

Your deployment fears are my implementation nightmare -- one that started
for me when i first heard about OLPC, powered the birth of OLPC News, and
came to fruition first with G1G1 and now this description of Peru. I wonder
how many laptops will actually get deployed there, or will G1G1's 81K be the
largest distribution, ever?

For me, I'm thinking more and more about the class of 4PC's as a whole, with
the XO being one of many options. In that light, I agree with you
completely -- the future is in services, not laptop manufacturing. IBM led
the way. May we all follow.

Manuel "Moe" Garcia said,
May 13, 2008 @ 9:47 pm

> "a focus point for advocating constructionism, making educational content
> available, providing learning software, and keeping track of worldwide
> [one-to-one] deployments and the lessons arising from them"

> "I'm trying to convince Walter not to start a Sugar Foundation, but an
> Open Learning Foundation."

I want *you* to start an Open Learning Foundation. Your post, above, is the
most concentrated distilling of decades of results of technology aided
education I have ever read. I have never read anything like it before.

Unfortunately, I think reliable Internet connectivity (read: Web 2.0 ready)
will be, at the very start, a prerequisite for deployment sites. Right there
you have made the deployment problem an order of magnitude easier, because
of instantaneous feedback. The platform is the browser. Imperfect, but
ubiquitous.

After a body of positive results is accumulated, the model can then be taken
off-line.

Andrew L said,
May 13, 2008 @ 10:17 pm

Great read, Ivan. The "coup de grace" for me reads:

"OLPC should be philosophically pure about its own machines. Being a
non-profit that leverages goodwill from a tremendous number of community
volunteers for its success and whose core mission is one of social
betterment, it has a great deal of social responsibility. It should not
become a vehicle for creating economic incentives for a particular vendor."

Here's to hoping this won't actualize.

Gian Pablo Villamil said,
May 13, 2008 @ 10:25 pm

This post sums up with better information, and more clarity, some of the
issues that I commented on in March: http://www.villamil.org/?p=101

In particular, the unnecessary attempt to develop a new GUI really strikes
me as a major handicap.

It would have been so much more productive to develop a cross-platform suite
of educational programs, and then provide the OLPC as a low-cost (but not
exclusive) platform for it.

Jeff French said,
May 13, 2008 @ 10:38 pm

Well, if you really believe the words you are saying, then build an Open
Learning Foundation. Do it yourself, and rally those who understand the
difference between building another laptop, and the social altruism of
creating a generation of children who can educate themselves as they see
fit, with the aid of wifi enabled internet capable laptops.

Javier Rodriguez said,
May 13, 2008 @ 10:44 pm

Thanks for your honest words. I suspect many issues that you talk about but
now all makes sense about what we (me and other people) is seeing in Peru.

But, don't lost faith. We, the peruvians, will find a good use for those
little green marvels (XOs), with or without open source, with or without
construccionism. 240,000 computers will make many things. Maybe not the
intendended ones. but something will change because, with your honest words,
you have confirm something send to the peru mail list some time ago: we must
be prepared to work with this Linux/Sugar or with the next Windows/Explorer
stuff, our teachers must be prepared, our kids must be prepared. Working
with Windows stuff (any flavor) won't be a problem for teachers or kids
(it´s everywhere).

The project will not reach the poorest children, with the most open sourced
programs, with the most energy efficient device, and with the biggest and
most focused content for our peruvian children. And I complaint about all
these bad happenings. But, in the end, some change will happen. Not the
intended one. Keep faith. Keep in the battle.

Regards, Javier Rodriguez  Lima, Peru

Travis Ayres said,
May 13, 2008 @ 10:46 pm

I echo the amazing document line.

As a student who's fully on board with open source textbooks, and is
constantly screwed by texts that are hundreds of dollars (needlessly), the
sooner we get things to an understandable, and flexible, position, the
better.

Is there a will to do this? There are multiple open textbook/open learning
options available, but none that are sufficiently well rounded and funded.

I'm on board.

Phillip Rhodes said,
May 13, 2008 @ 11:35 pm

Call me a F/OSS zealot of a fundamentalist or whatever you want, but I still
believe that it is doing the world a dis-service for OLPC to make any move
to support proprietary software where F/OSS works today. Maybe most children
won't care about kernel hacking, or software development in general. but for
the kids who are tech-inclined, there's just nothing better than a system
based 100% on free software with source code that can be examined, studied,
modified, and reused. A linux system with compilers interpreters, source
packages and associated tools is a freaking gold-mine to anybody who has the
hacker mentality. And that mentality, IMO, is something we should be trying
to encourage.

The world needs more people who want to explore, tinker, learn, disassemble,
rebuild and create, and fewer people who simply accept what they're
(given|told|taught) as "the truth" and are willing to leave it at that. And
I personally believe, even if I can't prove empirically, that F/OSS is an
essential part of an ecosystem that helps develop mindset.

Avery Morrow said,
May 13, 2008 @ 11:43 pm

I agree with you that the "philosophical" impurity of packaging Sugar for
Windows is a distraction from the end goal. But I disagree that the question
of switching out Linux for Windows is only about office tools. Bundling
Windows with the OLPC is part of a monopolistic and greedy practice which
the OLPC could render impotent were it to stick with Linux for its worldwide
rollout.

Yes, Windows can perform as well as Linux in terms of computer learning. But
Stallman's concern, as impolitic as his drug analogy may be, is that Windows
does inhibit learning in terms of learning how a computer works at both the
hardware and software levels. Don't pretend that kids aren't interested:
Linus Torvalds was programming a computer when he was 6, and I began
programming myself at that age or earlier. Windows actively inhibits
tinkering because the solution to a Windows problem is not to fix the OS but
to purchase a third-party ad blocker, antivirus checker, and firewall. Let's
not get bogged down in semantics: replacing naturally reproducing corn with
Monsanto sterile corn, or tap water with bottled water, or Linux with
Windows is the same crap in three different fancy labels. You turn something
the individual naturally owns and controls into something he cannot supply
for himself which you can then sell to him.

But the OLPC project isn't thinking that way in the first place. You are not
in the "creating a new generation of hackers" learning business. You are in
the "learning things with computers" business. For you, the computer is only
a means to an end; anything which stifles its smooth use as a tool should be
eliminated. For the most part that's a sensible and legitimate goal. This is
the reason that I, like you, abandoned Linux for Windows when it got too
much for me. I think the reason the noise about Linux has died down is
because the operating system is now a mere platform which we are using to
run Web apps and word processing- there is no longer much achievement to be
made on the OS side, and if Microsoft has secured one part of that overall
system it's no longer such a big deal to worry about.

Except it is something to worry about, because the continued success of
Ubuntu in particular shows that the operating system is something which can
be open and free. The need for replacing Linux with Windows to make things
simpler lessens every year with the improvement of Linux's quality, while
the loss of the ability to share, tinker, and improve remains exactly the
same as it has always been. And that's why I recently switched back to
Linux.

Sammy said,
May 14, 2008 @ 12:11 am

All that happened here is that your project got hijacked by commercial
interests. I don't like Stallman but his drug analogy is only a little
extreme in this case (certainly saner than dressing up like a saint to make
a point).

Get kids hooked on paying large companies big amounts of money to get usable
software and they do become reliant (addicted) to doing so. It is harmful,
and eventually such utilitarianism allows you to sell out to the point that
you are willing to put a proprietary OS on an OLPC just to get them out
there.

Sam Brubaker said,
May 14, 2008 @ 12:19 am

I Agree. There is nothing to be lost from from enabling an open-source
launcher to work in a proprietary OS.

In fact, it would still be a win for free software "fundamentalists"- the
operating system is always secondary to the applications that run on it, and
even if a child uses Sugar in Windows, I think I know what will happen when
he or she finds out that it runs just as well under a *free* OS.

Anand Srivastava said,
May 14, 2008 @ 12:44 am

This is an amazingly good article. I had read some disparaging thoughts
about you. But this article totally demolishes them.

I am a fan of Richard Stallman. If you look at how you have ended the
article you will find yourself agreeing to RMS. He was insisting on OLPC to
be true to free software, but that doesn't mean that he wouldn't agree to
porting Sugar to Windows.

He has been doing whatever he can to get Unix technologies ported to
Windows. He is critical of adopting proprietary technologies on free
software, which I think makes sense sometimes. He is thinking is not
appropriate everywhere, but he is providing an ideal. Ultimately we will
want that ideal. So we need somebody who remains uncorrupted, and to show
the path. That is the Utility of RMS to us. He is very important, although
he might sometimes sound totally nuts ;-).

Now to Sugar. I was hoping to get OLPC for my son. But that dream is getting
more and more hazy. I guess I will have to do with some cheap (not so
durable, good etc) laptop designed for children. But the real problem is
that Sugar is the most effective in a collaborative mode. It will work best
only when there are multiple children in my son's neighborhood using Sugar.
It is not possible to ask the children's parents to adopt Linux and use it
as their base OS. But I could convince them to install some collaborative
software.

I hope that you will be able to convince Walter to start an Open Learning
Foundation and create constructive learning components that can be used on
all OS's. I also hope that some laptops will be created with the complete
breadth of hardware technologies present in OLPC.

Best of Luck.

Daniel Wolk said,
May 14, 2008 @ 2:16 am

It is bittersweet to say that I am glad that I purchased a G1G1 unit while I
had the chance.

I still believe that the fundamental issue is learning. Certainly OLPC
showed the world that making a cheap effective laptop is possible when all
the manufacturers had been playing tricks to keep them as expensive as
possible. OLPC even did more by showing that real technological and design
advances can be made in a laptop instead of just moving the desktop
experience to your lap.

There are so many more hurdles to overcome to provide the kind of powerful
learning technology that is right now at our fingertips. Building a "diverse
ecosystem" now instead of focusing on monolithic ideals seems like the clear
way to overcome political boundaries and the desperate need to teach the
teachers.

I have been concerned with how XO units could be funded and deployed in
areas where the government or citizen groups will block the deployment
because the XO might be used to teach children anti-government, racist,
fundamentalist or even terrorist rhetoric. I hope the project can find a way
forward so it can get to the point where we will be working on these bigger
problems.

In the end, it is people that will make this all happen and not just a box
full of chips sitting in front of a child. I was lucky enough to have a home
computer put in front of me in 1984 but even luckier to have friends who
fanned a spark into a flame. We can find a way to do this for more children.
Luck comes from hard work.

James A. Donald said,
May 14, 2008 @ 2:32 am

@#$%^&* the children.

That the end users were powerless was in the end bound to result in delivery
of bad product. Charity is not only cold, it is also user hostile.

Laptops and the internet do not educate children in the sense that
educationists define and intend education. This indicates not that the goal
of getting children laptops is useless, but that the education system is
useless.

It logically follows that system for delivering laptops to children based on
the state apparatus is unlikely to deliver very satisfactory results.

Nick Ogden said,
May 14, 2008 @ 3:59 am

Sounds like a pretty good match to KDE.

- Run natively on any platform. (As of 4.1)
- Familiar UI paradigm.
- KDE-EDU is one of the best suites of educational apps around.
(http://edu.kde.org)
- All source code publicly available.

If sugar is useful as an application launcher then it could still be used as
an option.

Jeremiah Foster said,
May 14, 2008 @ 4:58 am

Your essay is well written, clearly reasoned, and timely. Thanks for
publishing it.

Peteris Krisjanis said,
May 14, 2008 @ 5:19 am

Ivan, your article is very open and nice to hear details what a hell happens
with OLPC. Thanks.

But I disagree with you. That's fine, because we all entitled to have
different point of views. Maybe I can agree that lot of open source guys
have cried too loud. But there is a hint for people to avoid that: DON'T LIE
TO THEM.

That's it. If NN really wanted to do just that - distribute laptops --
believe me, ubuntu or fedora would have rolled in and did good. Then it
would have two options to do that. ALL what was required to do was to TELL
that to COMMUNITY.

People have fully wasted 2 years of their lifes to create one, really open
laptop with educational means, and everyone almost agree that Sugar rocks.
And suddenly -- NN doesn't want that.

It was bound to create confusion and anger; you can be displeased or angry
too -- but it doesn't change a fact that Nicholas and OLPC have huge
communication problems and so this whole situation was created. There was
zero official annoucements, nor PR clues.

Personally for now all I see that NN is against whole OLPC thing -- coders,
testers, doc writers, implementers. Why doesn't he simply resign? Opinions
change, beliefs shatters -- that's all fine. But how he expects anything to
move forward without taking OLPC as it is now down? And it is really worth
that?

And yes, I think current design and Sugar is coolest thing on Earh and it
can educate pupils. Wow, sales people could not sale it? BECAUSE THEY SUCK.
And they will usually find excuse not to move their sorry ass and convince
people, but instead let's screw up devs.

It is sad and it is a shame that as usual, marketing and some money talk
again win.

Markus Hitter said,
May 14, 2008 @ 5:45 am

Two things sprang to my eyes:

First, do you really think it matters wether a successor is given the name
"Open Learning Foundation" or "Sugar Foundation"? Nobody stops you to make
"Sugar" simply a synonym for open learning.

Second, I'm not convinced it's wise to split Sugar's software algorithms
apart from it's GUI. Allowing Sugar to be ported to various OSs is fine, but
the software should keep it's user interface. Maybe even hide parts or all
the OS's standard UI. The human interface is _the_ important thing for a
computing experience and stuffing e.g. an easy to learn calculator into a
Excel-like interface won't cut it.

Dr Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien said,
May 14, 2008 @ 5:45 am

Dear Ivan,

If you haven't yet, please read 'The Bottom Billion' by Paul Collier. I
agree entirely that 'the goal is bringing learning to a billion children
across the globe. The billion waiting for us to put our idiotic trifles
aside, end our endless yapping, and get to it already'.

So, whats the plan?

Ndidi

fred tam said,
May 14, 2008 @ 6:37 am

good to see someone tell the truth instead of repeat the nonsense uncritical
puff pieces on the olpc that constantly flood the media. the magic bullet
idea that technology+children=education is rather absurd.

Marcus Brinkmann said,
May 14, 2008 @ 7:09 am

Thanks a lot for your careful and honest thoughts on your experience. I can
relate to a lot what you wrote. I have one point of criticism, though. The
main argument in favor of free software for users is not that users can
change the code. This is a common misconception, and focusing on that aspect
is a logical error that is correctly refuted by you. Richard Stallman
demands four, not one, freedoms for the user: The freedom to run the program
for any purpose, the freedom to share the program with others, the freedom
to make modifications, and the freedom to share these modifications with
others. None of these freedoms is granted by proprietary software. The sad
truth about computers in schools today is that the skills taught are skills
in using a particular application, Microsoft Word or Excel usually, and
pupils never learn the underlying abstractions that allows them to switch to
other, similar (or different) applications easily. Thereby they are locked
into a particular program, sometimes even a specific version of a particular
program. If they leave school, or want to use it at home, they need to buy
the program for themselves. If they want to share their skills or work with
others, these other people need to buy the program as well. When they become
employed, the employer needs to buy the same program or retrain them. When
they have a problem, only a very narrow group of people can help them who
have to enter expensive agreements with the program vendor for modification
rights, if such rights are granted at all. The company I work for develops a
plug in for Outlook that allows the user to use GnuPG with Outlook. The
plugin interface is not sufficiently specified to implement all
functionality correctly the way we would like it to be. It is not only the
user who can not make the necessary modifications to the software, nobody
who is willing to make them can. The comparison with addictive drugs is not
inappropriate because substances are not involved, the same is true for
gambling addictions, but because use of proprietary software is not
compulsory. It is rather without convenient alternative, because of certain
economic factors.

Simone Deponti said,
May 14, 2008 @ 8:24 am

I think this document exposes some interesting ideas, however I do think
that the problems of the OLPC project stems at its root.
I might sound a bit "fundamentalist" but truly, the only thing that matters
for learning is documentation: shipping a PC that is able to connect to the
Internet even when the infrastructure is quite limited is about all you
need.
"View Source" is nice, but not really fundamental, as to actually get a
grasp of what's going on you should probably walk through a basic
course/howto on programming. And at that point, you could just download the
source of open source program X and do the view source yourself.
I think the OLPC should focus on "bootstrapping" education rather than
developing a comprehensive, monolithic platform for it.

I also would like to add something about the OS (and yes, I use Linux
exclusively): nor Linux, nor OS X, nor Windows are any good to learn how an
OS works.
They're too big, too complex, too bloated (for a reason).
It's like if we had a revision control system instead of "Hello world": we
would have 90% less programmers than we have nowadays. It's completely
useless to worry about what OS gets shipped to kids: and even the "let's
just not use only Windows" argument doesn't hold: we could ship the OLPC
with just Windows and that wouldn't cause any harm at all. Any decently
literated computer user can easily switch between operating system, as the
paradigms are the same for all (mostly).
But if we really plan to give an insight to someone on how an operating
system works, well them give 'em minix, or any other microkernel.

Noah Kantrowitz said,
May 14, 2008 @ 9:01 am

All I will say is this: +1

John Nowlan said,
May 14, 2008 @ 10:43 am

I am an idealist. I bought my young daughter an xo through G1G1. I wish that
program still existed because I think it offered a viable path to a
sustainable ecosystem from early adopters to a thriving community developing
and spreading what they learn. Together.

There are many people who have taken a 'wait and see' approach, not sure of
the projects long term chances at success. Their lack of participation is
disappointing and perhaps self-perpetuating, but people want some
leadership. Keep going.

John Wilson said,
May 14, 2008 @ 11:05 am

While it's somewhat discouraging to see the FOSS vs Proprietary debate
continuing here you are perfectly correct. A child in Peru or subsaharan
Africa is not likely to care if the OS is Linux, Windows, OSX or DOS. The
point is a platform from which to engage the children to learn and their
teachers to teach.

Philosophical and ethical debates are the priviledge we have in living in
places where the next meal isn't a problem. Where education is a reality.

In this atmosphere let Stallman and Gates retire to another room to debate
their world views as important as they are. The debate has no place here and
is a distraction to the mission of educating and engaging children in places
that are in desperate need of both.

Sugar was a distraction though there was no KDE 4.x when you started and, as
yet, isn't ready for prime time. It soon will be and will run on top of any
OS it's compiled for.

Arguanbly what Marcus Brinkmann said about the 4 freedoms of free software
are important here.

There are a billion children waiting. What are we waiting for?

ttfn

John

Paul Boddie said,
May 14, 2008 @ 11:18 am

The thing that riles some people up, of course, is that Stallman is quite
often shown to be right once events have followed their course.

The argument that "no-one should need to hack their kernel" (or
"word-processor" as it has been presented previously) is a distraction
typically conjured up by proprietary vendors with a "great price" to offer
you on their software (or a monopoly to protect). However, what's more
worrying for anyone with a prior investment in proprietary solutions is just
being able to read the output of your word-processor a few years down the
line, after the vendor has either lost interest in selling you upgrades and
want you to buy their new product, or has instead gone bankrupt.

Some proprietary vendors emphasise open standards to address this, even
proper ones (as opposed to non-standards like OOXML), but being able to run
those old programs is also quite convenient (and an issue conveniently
avoided by those vendors). Besides, you can't really encourage a community
of people working on their own time or out of their own pocket to take on
board the unfashionable jobs in improving proprietary software. The
community around OLPC wouldn't have formed around proprietary software - it'd
have been an "all NDA" affair and we wouldn't even be talking about it any
more. Thus, to start introducing proprietary dimensions to OLPC is at best
deception and at worst a betrayal of the community.

As for that "overwhelmingly more enjoyable" OS X experience: it might be
sustainable as long as the man at the top wishes it to be so, but it's no
coincidence that old Macs quite often end up running Linux if they aren't
being dismantled in the developing world or lying in a landfill, thanks to
the gadget fixation of the developed world where people simply must buy the
next generation of shiny new stuff because there's no economic interest in
keeping the old stuff running or even building that old stuff to last beyond
the ever-shrinking warranty.

JamesU said,
May 14, 2008 @ 11:21 am

An Open Learning Foundation is a great idea.

Jason Young said,
May 14, 2008 @ 11:22 am

I have kept up as much as I could with OLPC since I first read about it and
its potential excited me greatly. I see now that the project's goals are
unlikely to be accomplished due to apparent mis-management, which saddens
me. I do have a question for you though. Why did OLPC not hire someone with
a proven track record from the non-profit or NGO sectors to run and manage
the project? Such a person would not have to have technical expertise,
although such managers do exist who I believe would possess enough technical
knowledge and have experience with learning projects in under-developed
countries. I was pursuing a career in the area of international
non-profits/NGO's until some personal issues came up in my life that have
delayed (and possibly changed) this pursuit for me.

It seems like what OLPC needs is better management and a solidification of
its goals. Programmers and engineers while incredibly intelligent and
capable people are not always well-suited to dealing with the wishy-washy
politics necessary to eventually accomplish goals of this sort. If you want
to pursue a Sugar/Open Learning Foundation I recommend that you get people
involved who do that sort of thing for a living and not just people for the
technical side of things. I'd offer my assistance but I'm not sure how much
help I could be except for a few contacts I have with the Clinton Foundation
in Arkansas.

James Simmons said,
May 14, 2008 @ 11:42 am

As a Sugar activity developer and a lurker on the Sugar mailing lists I have
to say that a large part of the value of the XO laptop is in the Sugar
interface. I am fully aware that it is not perfect, and in fact I could
lecture you on its shortcomings at great length. However, it has some real
strengths that make it ideal for children. First, children don't need to
learn about files and directories to use the computer. That is an enormous
hurdle to get over, and the XO spares them from that. Second, installing and
removing activities is really easy. Third, collaboration is supported by
nearly all Activities, and Sugar makes those features really easy for the
child to use.

I like Sugar enough that I hope that one day it will be a robust product
that can be installed on any computer running any distribution of Linux. The
Sugar team is definitely working on that goal, and will get there in time.
It is a fairly challenging task. I myself run Sugar test environments on an
Xubuntu box and an openSUSE box and neither one is 100% functional.

As for putting Sugar on top of Windows, I can see the benefits of that but I
can also see that it would be an enormous amount of work that would not
benefit the XO at all. An XO has one gigabyte of flash drive. The installed
software takes a little over half of that. An XO has 256 meg of RAM and NO
swap (because swapping would wear out the flash drive). Linux can fit into
that space nicely. Windows XP cannot, and forget Vista. Also Windows would
not be able to take advantage of all of the features of the XO hardware like
aggressive power management. So while a sugar layer on top of Windows might
be a good thing to have out in the world, for non XO computers, it cannot be
a priority at the moment. Much OSS gets ported to Windows: GIMP, MPlayer,
etc. If someone wants to port Sugar to Windows there is nothing to stop him.
It would be a hell of a lot of work, from what I've seen though.

Finally, I have been very impressed with the selection of Activities for the
XO, and the thought that goes into how the XO will be used to improve a
child's education. I wish I had one of these as a kid.

Dave Neuer said,
May 14, 2008 @ 11:49 am

"As one of the people who actually can hack my kernel to suit, I find that I
don't miss the ability in the least. There, I said it. Hang me for treason."

You don't miss the ability, right now, because you bought a machine that
works out of the box (right now) the way you want it to, and have a mostly
responsive vendor that built a large percentage of their platform on free
software. Your vendor stops being responsive, or the machine stops working
the way you want "out of the box," you may well end up missing it after all.

And ironically, one of the ways that Apple achieves that "out-of-the-box"
niceness is by controlling the hardware in their machines. You can achieve a
similar stability with Linux, by buying only hardware which is
well-supported by Linux.

And with regard to the rest of the users, "[t]he vast, near-total majority
of computer users aren't programmers. [o]f the programmers, a vast,
near-total majority don't dare in the Land o' Kernel tread," guess what?
Proprietary software makes it harder to increase the percentage of users who
are programmers -- not impossible, not even exponentially harder, but harder
nonetheless.

Furthermore, proprietary software inhibits the users who _do_ care and _do_
dare to tread in kernel-land -- or any other land (all the software your
vendor provided isn't in the kernel, is it?) from doing so. And proprietary
software obviously obliterates completely the possibility for users who can
to fix problems their vendors simply won't.

I know that bashing free software wasn't at all the point of your rant (why
else would you write "OLPC should be philosophically pure about its own
machines") and that you merely meant to advance what you felt should be the
real goal of OLPC, namely, getting open _learning_ software widely deployed
into the hands of children.

But please: do you really think that bashing Linux helps advance that goal?
Any putative development of Open Learning Foundation or Sugar Foundation
software will depend on the volunteer effort of members of the free software
community, many of whom don't like being indirectly called fanatical, naive,
stupid, or any of the other things your rant implies about people who care
about software freedom.

Finally, do you really think allowing Microsoft, who has literally no
interest in fostering constructivist education, to co-opt the largest-ever
deployment of computers to children around the world doesn't actively _harm_
that goal? What single more enthusiasm-sapping event could you imagine than
the MS takeover of OLPC for people who might have contributed to the cause
you're advocating? Why should anyone devote any volunteer development effort
to software projects which indirectly contribute to the bottom line of a
convicted-in-multiple-jurisdictions Monopolist (since no other large-scale
deployments of Open Learning Foundation software seem to be on the horizon)?

Guido van Rossum said,
May 14, 2008 @ 12:32 pm

I've thought for a while that sending laptops to developing countries is
simply the 21st century equivalent of sending bibles to the colonies.

Edward Trager said,
May 14, 2008 @ 12:35 pm

Thanks, Ivan, for your bitingly honest critique of the OLPC project. Ever
since Nicolas Negroponte refused to allow OLPCs to be tested side-by-side
with other vendors' PCs in a "bake off" (as he called it), I became
convinced that Negroponte is his own worst enemy. The project could have
been better managed in so many ways, sparing many people a lot of grief, and
leading to a successful project. Unfortunately, the outcome did not happen
that way. It sounds like OLPC is dying a painful death. I had interviewed
for a position at OLPC, then never heard back from them. I tried to find out
what was going on many times -- literally for months. Other people began
offering me alternative opportunities, so it was painful to wait on a
non-responsive OLPC organization which obviously did not have its shit
together. It finally got to the point that I made a unilateral decision that
I would refuse OLPC's offer if they ever got around to making an offer. A
few days after that I heard back from OLPC that they had chosen another
candidate . and now I can say thank goodness I didn't get tied up in the
OLPC mess. I like your idea of an Open Learning Foundation with broad goals
to find out -- empirically instead of egotistically -- what works and what
doesn't work. Most likely laptops would end up *not* being central to such
an Open Learning Foundation, although they could be one facet of a much
broader vision. My own *in situ* classroom experience -- trying to teach
middle school kids the basics of XHTML and CSS --  is that the computers in
the classroom are, sadly, addictively *distracting*. Way too many kids end
up checking out ESPN sports scores, downloading pictures or music, or
updating their BuzzNet or MySpace sites instead of focusing on the learning
task at hand  -- even when that task (learning basic XHTML and CSS) could be
quite fun and colorful and creative. I decided that I could better teach
kids the basics of XHTML and CSS with just a few paper handouts and a white
board, no computers necessary, while reserving separate hours -- either lab
hours or homework hours -- for self-directed creation of their own web
sites. My little slice of experience in this realm demonstrated to me that a
lot more remains to be learned about how to best use computers in learning
environments for children.

Ecks Cero said,
May 14, 2008 @ 1:16 pm

I completely agree Ivan, Sugar may have been a mistake from the very
beginning. The thing is, without Sugar we wouldn't have Bitfrost. Sugar's
interface is dull and gray, and children like my nephew who have already
been introduced to Ubuntu (KDE), OSX and Windows tend to ignore the laptop
unless I'm using the camera activity.

Just for once Wayan could you please not schill your crappy rumormongering
website.

Benjamin Mako Hill said,
May 14, 2008 @ 2:13 pm

In responding to me, you seem to assume that the benefits of free software
that I am referring to are technical ones. Interpreted that way, my
statement is certainly unsupported. But that's not what I was saying. One
can benefit in several ways and the benefits I was describing -- the ones
quoted by you in the rest of the paragraph -- are primarily about
empowerment. You not may believe that this is a benefit, or that in
particular situations it is outweighed by other factors, but that is what I
meant.

Sergiu Dumitriu said,
May 14, 2008 @ 2:18 pm

How does Curriki ( http://www.curriki.org/ ) compare to the Open Learning
Foundation idea?

If I remember correctly, this whole "switching to Windows" idea was started
by the fact that some Flash based sites don't work in the included flash
player (and that some "investors" apparently didn't want a linux-based
computer). Then why flush down the toilet so many hours of voluntary effort,
because of one small component? Instead of putting a lot of effort into
porting the whole Sugar code to windows, irritating a lot of developers and
supporters, delaying more the next version of the laptop, and making a more
expensive product, why not invest a bit of effort into the flash player, or
try to convince Adobe to move faster on the Linux version of their player?
If Adobe doesn't care about the (increasing) 1% of linux users, then maybe
it cares about millions of poor children all over the world.

Manuel "Moe" Garcia said,
May 14, 2008 @ 2:28 pm

Guido van Rossum's and Edward Trager's comments are important.

The low state of evidence-based, technology-aided learning is such that we
don't even know if we are doing more harm than good, by bringing computers
in contact with children.

I trust *you*, though, a lot more than I trust open-source zealots,
software/hardware businessmen, and self-aggrandizing academic "superstars",
when it come to helping with children's education. I wish you much luck.

Jack Spaar said,
May 14, 2008 @ 3:06 pm

Interesting essay, for this outsider.

Thought 1:
I wonder if OLPC wouldn't lose relevance and leverage if they stopped making
hardware and focused only on software to run on whatever machines the market
might provide.

If OLPC stopped making hardware, they would be joint-marketing some vendors'
machines in order to get Sugar out to the world. And so OLPC would be stuck
with hawking Sugar on ClassmatePC or the like. Many children could be
reached with such a machine, many could not.

Only the XO has the potential to be usable by any kid anywhere on the
planet, and the free market will not provide an equivalent. If the XO
happens to run Windows as an option, so be it. If Sugar runs on Windows, so
be it. Without the XO, the realistic potential to reach kids in remote
locations without electricity and Internet is simply gone.

Thought 2:
Isn't the real problem for OLPC a bootstrap issue? That is: they don't (yet)
have the money to hire all the people to work on all the aspects that would
make the education mission a total success. So they have to get the ball
rolling in order to get the success that will attract the funds, and so on,
as with any startup.

Perhaps partly due to this, OLPC's current model demands a *large* role from
the receiving countries, and in some ways that's a good thing. If Peru,
e.g., develops its internal resources instead of depending on OLPC, so much
the better. They must have skin in the game to succeed.

And perhaps partly due to bootstrap issues, OLPC has had to make new choices
about where to focus its resources and where to find outside help. This
results in angst, even more than in a commercial startup because of the
highly political nature of OLPC. But is it really a betrayal of the mission?

-- PS -- I wish NN had not publicly put the knife to FOSS advocates. FOSS
itself is not OLPC's mission, but that community has provided a lot of
initial support to OLPC.

amir hirsch said,
May 14, 2008 @ 3:19 pm

I once created a class laptop but neglected the Deployment Plan too. My
interactive REPL gave me this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
AttributeError: class Laptop has no attribute 'DeploymentPlan'

see you around

Radoslav Dejanovic said,
May 14, 2008 @ 3:40 pm

I have to say that I am disappointed in what I thought of as a revolution. I
thought that this might be a great way to give poor children a ticket for
night flight to their counterparts in developed world (as this really IS
about education, not the hardware or the software). It turned out to be
something completely different: a business revolution in the field of really
small and still usable, yet cheap notebook computers. My Asus eee testify
that.

However, that's just sad. Something that started as a really great idea,
something that attracted lots of great young minds like you, it blew like a
dot-com bubble, leaving nothing but a desire to spread as much cheap laptops
as possible.

Ok, this still is a noble cause, because this will surely help third world
countries to cross the digital divide, but that is just a shadow of what
could be done for those kids.

And then -- opening door to Microsoft to deploy the soon-to-be-discontinued
product on those laptops is bad for two reasons:

1) giving discontinued products to kids in third world is.. umm.. rude?
insulting? primitive?
2) priming kids for later use of newer products from the same company is not
a good deed -- that's simply sinister. And if it is done by giving them
leftovers -- I doubt that this might benefit anyone, including the company
that is so eager to "help" those kids.

OLPC is going to fail greatly and loudly. Not because of Microsoft, after
all they do have a right to do what they think is good for their business,
but because of the exodus of great minds. You can't have a half decent
hardware to run Windows on it. It is, yes it is going to suck because people
would compare experiences from "real" laptops. The keyboard sucks, the CPU
sucks, memory sucks, the only great thing about OLPC with Windows on it is
the display -- and that can easily be implemented in any other commercial
laptop. (in fact, I'd really like to see that happen, for the display is
superb).

Time for me to get some of those OLPC laptops for my old computer
collection, they're surely goint to be remembered in the history books. As a
big flop, it seems. But XO did start a new business model, quite ironic for
a nonprofit project. :-)

Dragan Trninic said,
May 14, 2008 @ 4:03 pm

Thank you for the entertaining and illuminating read. As you can imagine,
many of us interested in science and mathematics education have followed the
developments of OLPC for some time now.

Like you, I agree that -- currently -- it has many characteristics of a
colossal missed opportunity. The fact that it will almost assuredly provide
some benefits and (hopefully) inform future actions in this direction seems
a distant consolation prize.

Good luck to you in your work; I'd enjoy chatting with you about an Open
Learning Foundation someday in the future.

James Armstrong said,
May 14, 2008 @ 4:13 pm

Aren't you being a bit harsh on RMS?

"To suggest this is a bad course of action because it's [a bad course of
action] is downright evil."

Is that so?

You are, of course, free to believe that RMS is only espousing some trivial
dogmatic quibble.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. You really just employed a simile comparing a
proprietary OS to addictive drugs?"

Could be he did not have crack in mind.

He might have been thinking about "COFEE".

Kevin Cole said,
May 14, 2008 @ 4:21 pm

I did not have any Unix-like background before Linux, though I had used
several mainframe and minicomputer OS's before arriving at the PC. What
drove me to Linux was not the philosophical angle, but the fact that slowly,
things that I previously had been able to do simply were either being made
difficult or impossible, and I couldn't find work-arounds. The community of
users at universities and other places where I had previously sought help
were also increasingly in the dark. The other motivating factor was that I
kept hearing about how the PC was so much more powerful than the mainframes
that supported hundreds of users simultaneously. Yet my oh-so-powerful PC
couldn't successfully support ONE person. Where did all the power go?

Although over time, I've become considerably more zealous about F/OSS, I
think I'm essentially still a pragmatist. When my less technical friends
said "You really like Linux. Should I switch?" I would tell them with great
reluctance "No. I cannot become your full-time tech support." (That's
changed in recent years, most notably with Ubuntu and Fedora.)

I *think* I correctly remember the keynote by NN at the National Educational
Computing Conference (NECC) in San Diego a few years ago, where he said that
Microsoft and Intel fought the XO every step of the way, and indicated that
some of the reason that people said a $100 laptop was impossible was due to
the fact that the licensing cost of software was outrageous, and the fact
that most commercial software was so inefficient that it required a lot of
hardware just to make it work. (I'm not defending (nor prosecuting) that
opinion, merely stating what I remember -- perhaps incorrectly.)

I'm not necessarily opposed to less-than-open-source, but Microsoft has had
such a bad history with the community I know and love. Steve Ballmer often
seems completely psychotic. FUD has become a common acronym largely because
of Microsoft. Their corporate philosophy seems to be "steal what you can,
dis what you can't, and then, as a last resort, write code." Apple seems to
play nicer. (Maybe deep down they're just as bad and I haven't paid
attention, or they're better at protecting their dirty little secrets.)

So, it's not moving away from Linux that scares me. It's the fear that
somehow, some way, just as with Office Open XML (OOXML) they will find a way
to create a perverted version of Sugar et al, and then make it the "industry
standard". Newcomers to the technology will just assume that viruses,
reboots, etc are the natural order of things, and nothing will convince them
that some of us install software without rebooting, and haven't used
anti-virus software in 15 years.

It reminds me of a joke I heard:

Q: "How many Microsoft engineers does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
A: "None. Bill Gates just declared Darkness (TM) the industry standard."

Technology aside, I'm not an educator, and don't make any claims to know
what works best. Personally, I think I learn best when I can take things
apart and put them together again, and my interests fall along the technical
and scientific side. I see history, music, and language in a similar light:
knowing something about grammatical structure, the frequency ratio that make
up the twelve-tone equal tempered chromatic scale, etc are ways to dig
deeper. But like you, I no longer thrill over the thought of hacking
something to get it working when all I want is for it to "just work".
Teachers and kids who are not exploring the finer mysteries of how to fix
hardware or how to program, may also get a wee bit frustrated with
non-working computers, to say the least, regardless of the open or closed
nature of the beastie in question.

End ramble. ;-)

Doug said,
May 14, 2008 @ 5:36 pm

Ivan,
Definitely some enlightening statements regarding where this all started
from, where it was headed and were it could go. Thanks for that. As far as
proprietary software goes, your mention of in this blog seems to read as if
proprietary software == Microsoft and so all of the opposition to Microsoft
is opposition to proprietary software. I believe there are many who are not
so one-way about it but do know the nature of Microsoft and because of that
history, we see any work with Microsoft as the beginning of the end of the
project. Nobody survives a Microsoft attack if there is an organization
requiring monetary income to continue to exist. Also, there are alot of
unknowns getting tossed around regarding what is going on with Microsoft so
imagination goes wild. Some of us have seen the nasty things they do to get
their way and to protect Windows market position. The stuffing of ISO
ballots for OOXML approval shows they are the same Microsoft we've known for
a long long time.

After hearing the story of Negroponte's previous attempts at constructionism
via laptops, I was wondering why OLPC didn't work on Sugar for US schools
first. Prove it all while running on Linux or Windows or whatever and then
move to the ruggedized XO laptop for the rest of the world. It's one thing
to hand out wooden blocks to kids and a completely different thing to hand
out laptops with full featured desktops and all the junk that brings with
it. It's as if he believes in it so much he's willing to jump on a rocket
straight to the moon without first doing all the work to validate the
vehicle and the life support facilities first. It is very risky to say the
least.

In hindsight, we all see better and as such, I really like you comments on
Sugar Services on any desktop and then the option of plugging that into a
Sugar Desktop. With Sugar Services, a Journal-like metaphor could be
implemented in a single directory and later on have that moved to a database
or some other journal-like mechanism. I do believe the Journal concept
should continue as part of the Sugar Services so it is transparent to the
apps/Activities no matter what is under it.

It just makes so much sense to build the software layer to enable the
learning concepts. Get those out on new or old PCs, on thin or thick clients
and even handhelds. Build the Activities and build the curriculum around the
Activities. THEN, put it on a robust platform like the XO for the rest of
the world. And if all the software and learning infrastructure was already
there, wouldn't it make deployment that much easier? Non-prof's and even
commercial ventures could already be up and running around the Sugar
Services concept and pick up XO deployments for OLPC.

And I'm not sure Walter Bender really has to call it something other than
the Sugar Foundation. They can still do more than just work with Sugar as it
currently is and surely work toward deployments of hardware using it if they
so please. I don't think enough really know what Sugar is to pigeon hole it
if the name is used.

Ace Suares said,
May 14, 2008 @ 5:36 pm

Is the open source movement finally growing up ?

It seems that more interesting and smart people now dare to start criticize
the open source movement and it's products then ever before. And yes, that
is a good thing. Thank you for this essay.

Brendan Miller said,
May 14, 2008 @ 9:38 pm

This is probably the most insightful article about the OLPC project I've
seen. +1

The comments from Stallman are particularly maddening. It's amazing to me
how blinded by zealotry that guy is. As if the primary form of good and evil
in the world have to do with software licensing, and concerns like
education, hunger, and tyranny all come second.

What a dick.

sengan baring-gould said,
May 14, 2008 @ 10:21 pm

Hi Ivan,

I worked on the Geode CPU (debugging tools) and was happy to see the OLPC
project adopt it.

I would actually like to see it run all 3 OS' (Windows / OS X / Linux)
because they all offer something that is unavailable on other platforms.
However, OLPC didn't accept Steve Jobs' offer to port Mac OSX. Do you know
why not?

Sengan

John Daigle said,
May 14, 2008 @ 10:54 pm

Okay. Let's start an open learning foundation. Not just for computers, for
everything. open textbooks, open journals, open minds. Let's bring wikipedia
to rural Mississippi, they could use it.

OLPC was the wrong project from the start, because it focused on the thing,
the laptop, not the creation of a culture of learning.

Raffy Mananghaya said,
May 14, 2008 @ 11:59 pm

Still reading you despite our differences in the past (concerning the use of
Puppy Linux for the project).

Hey, I've kept with the goals you discussed here, so you have a ready
partner in this part of the world (Asia/Philippines). I hope that you,
Walter&Co and us can be colleagues in this endeavor.

BTW, our external funding for this = $0. But we are now writing a teacher's
manual (read that: teachers writing a manual [for teachers] in deploying
low-cost elearning).
(Any education-oriented publisher reading this? :) )

Regards to all.

Jacob Beard said,
May 15, 2008 @ 3:26 am  +1

Tim Post said,
May 15, 2008 @ 3:44 am

Ivan, thanks for writing this. There is a considerable amount of
misinformation circulating about the events that you mentioned, at least now
some facts can be separated from fiction.

I am a long time GNU enthusiast. I may get tarred and feathered for saying
this, but I am not directly opposed to Windows XP shipping on the OLPC. If I
want Microsoft to keep their agenda out of the learning process, I must be
prepared to do the same.

What concerns me is DRM. It looks like you are putting effort into shifting
the focus back to the learning process, which of course requires free
learning materials written in open formats. I think that is a very good use
of your time. Such a project would not only benefit OLPC, but anyone who
wants to learn or teach.

I also really enjoyed your descriptions of the logistical nightmares
surrounding getting the XO units into the hands of children in very remote
places. I like your ideas, too bad they were not implemented.

I had to read this twice to fully digest it, but doing so was well worth it.
Good luck!

Kushan Mitra said,
May 15, 2008 @ 6:27 am

I'm a journalist from India, where OLPC tried to get its message across. One
can argue that the central Human Resources Development Ministry under which
the Department of Education resides is beholden to MS, but the HRD Ministry
thought it would better spend money getting schools and teachers out there
rather than make a massive investment on computers. many of the countries
OLPC targeted did not have basic educational infrastructure. A computer, no
matter how cheap is still a 'luxury item' across vast swathes of South-Asia,
burgeoning middle-classes and 'IT-superpower' and all.
Of course, Negroponte's reputation out here was also in mud following the
dramatic collapse of MIT Media lab Asia which he established in 2001. The
story goes that in 2003, when India's new IT Minister took over, Negroponte
tried to bully some opinions through him, and the man, Arun Shourie was
equally pig-headed and the rest is history.

markus kellermann said,
May 15, 2008 @ 7:42 am

'And you know, shitty power management and many other hassles aren't Linux's
fault.'

To be honest, I am using Linux since 5 years already. But I dont agree with
you in this regard.

To me, there is too much influence of companies in the "community". They
basically decide what will happen and what won't. I am sure about this for
several reasons, one is the constant uphill battle a small distribution must
fight. (And distributions ensure that they STAY INCOMPATIBLE with each
other. Try to make them switch to an install scheme like on Mac OSX -- that
is a futile job. Try to make them stop using shell scripts, in favour of
ruby or python. That will not succeed for the big distributions.)

The situation is extremely frustrating about key projects like glibc or gcc
but also the linux kernel itself. It generates server income. Who cares
about desktop stuff? Xorg?

Har har, they pissed on individual people when they switched to modular xorg
and providing insufficient documentation. It used to be easy and
straightforward to compile modular xorg, now its a LOT more difficult and
really annoying.

I think the biggest problem for the _desktop_ world is xorg. It is old. It
is slow. It is horrible.

Xorg should learn from projects like KDE. That is how one builds up a
community.
I can only encourage communities to get rid of programmers that are only
representing their boss. Ultimately I am an optimist and I think in some
time we will have a "real" distribution _empowered_ by the community, not
dependent on upstream.

Dan Weinreb said,
May 15, 2008 @ 9:51 am

It actually is true that some people do modify the kernel to suit.
For example, the Google File System experts do this. I agree that the
idea that lots of kids using OLPC would do it is preposterous.

On the other hand, some fraction of OLPC kids might get to the point
where they could read some of the sources and learn from doing so.
Maybe a very small fraction, but the hope was to have a very large
base, so even that fraction is nontrivial.

And maybe one or two wizards will make kernel modifications that can
provide some big benefit to many, many OLPC users.

And the older I get, the more I want things to work out of the box.

Amen.

Because people have tried plain laptop learning projects in the past,
and as the New York Times noted on its front page not so long ago,
they crashed and burned.

Well, you have to look at the details.

- Kids downloading porn. Do those porn-censorship things work?

- Kids hacking into local businesses. Hmm, it's not clear
what to do about that one, unless you want to cut off the Internet entirely.

- The network "freezes" when load is high. That sounds like
some technical problem that could have been fixed.

- "Scores" of laptops break down every month. Gee, how many
do they have? What forms of failure are they seeing?
I don't think of laptops as being all that failure-prone.
Maybe they're being physically abused, e.g. dropped on the floor.
Again and again through the article, we hear that the laptops
break at a very high rate. Why?

- The goal was to "close the digital divide". Well, what does
that mean? Train them to use spreadsheets? Expose them to
Wikipedia? What was the curriculum designed to do what goal?

- "The box gets in the way. It's a distraction to the educational
process." It sounds like they did not have an effective
curriculum or pedagogy. I wonder what the kids were told to do
with the laptops?

- They "did not fit in with lesson plans." I think you have to
make some big changes to lesson plans in order to use laptops
effectively. And, again, it makes a big difference if you are
doing Papert-like stuff, or just teaching secretarial skills.

- Northfield Mount Hermon (I used to do summer school there gave
up on laptops "after it found that more effort was being expended
on repairing the laptops than on training teachers to teach with them."
It was FOUND? They DISCOVERED that they were not training the
teachers? Gee, I would have thought they'd decide on that, not
discover it.

- "But it is less clear whether one-to-one computing has improved
academic performance -- as measured through standardized test
scores and grades -- because the programs are still new, and most
schools have lacked the money and resources to evaluate them
rigorously." So nobody knows. And was the original goal
of the laptops to raise grades? And how exactly was that supposed
to happen?

- ".received five phone calls from parents saying they were concerned
that their children would not have technological advantages."
I.e. we don't know what we're doing with the laptops, but
placing them in the students' backpacks will give them an
advantage later in life.

I have a strong suspicion that a lot of these schools started off with
"let's get laptops for everyone" rather than starting off with actual
goals. Tossing technology over a transom never works.

At least the original putative OLPC concept dealt with a lot of these
issues. There was a fairly-well-stated theory of the goal and how the
computers would be used. They were designed to be reliable. Lesson
plans were supposed to be radically different, keyed to the overall
concept. At least that was the vision, regardless of whether there
was a plausible plan to make it happen.

Decoupling the Sugar presentation, graphics, and finder from the
underlying technologies is obviously the right thing to do.

However, I'm not sure that reinventing the desktop GUI is irrelevant
to the mission. A lot of the existing paradigm is hard to use. I
have seen lots of people who are very smart, but not trained in math
or computer science, who just cannot understand nested folders
(hierarchical file system).

Glenn Fleishman said,
May 15, 2008 @ 1:17 pm

I was very pleased to read your lengthy critique from an insider's position,
because I have looked with frustration over the last decade -- the period I've
been most aware of the problem -- that laptops for kids is seen as a
universal panacea in the developed and developing world. None of the
programs I have seen have a solution for how to use computer-assisted
education as a real tool in improving the knowledge, critical skills, and
employability of the kids who get them.

The Papert crowd has, as you note, never proved its theories, despite
decades of trying. Every failure is a special case. (See Todd Oppenheimer's
The Flickering Mind for a lengthy account of those failures [ISBN
0812968433].)

Everything that Cliff Stoll wrote in Silicon Snake in 1996 [ISBN 0385419945]
still proves to be true today. There is a tendency to push technology as a
solution without any specific sequence that would involve a solution.

Look at Maine's laptop program, in which an entire grade of middle-schoolers
received a laptop. Over years of efforts, the state and its agents were
never able to present any comprehensive quantitative results for spending
tens of millions of dollars. The same money could have been spent to reduce
class size, improve arts and science education, and other well-known methods
by which students are more engaged, and do better both in school and in
life. But it's relatively easy to raise money for tech, because it's sexy.

I've been laughing sadly at OLPC since its inception because it had
precisely the same lack of articulation about how to achieve goals. I think
that if the statement had been simply, as you note in some ways, we're just
trying to get affordable computers into these countries and want other
people to figure out how to make an ecosystem with a lot of variety, I would
have supported that. It's an interesting goal to provide more access to
computers, and then that could be paired with free and paid OS's, with
training programs, with specific adult and child education goals (adults:
learn to use a computer and the Net to reduce middleman arbitrage over crop
prices, as has been shown to work).

But that's very different from OLPC's "every kid a hacker" approach.

Eric Allen said,
May 15, 2008 @ 5:58 pm

We have been operating an educational project using self learning principles
and computers in Costa Rica for two years now. What we have learned;

1) Laptops or desktops sufficiently capable for this use are readily
available for free or cheap
2) Internet is not needed and is probably a liability in the beginning
3) English immersion (english curriculum) works and gives the student a
solid second language
4) Computer gaming is an enemy of learning and many parents think their kid
is studying while actually they are playing around.
5) Kids need a year of supervision and assistance to get to the point where
self learning takes over.

I am in complete agreement with you about the direction you are heading. The
world needs a completely free high quality curriculum with some mechanism to
validate a students work which is made freely available to those who want to
learn regardless of what hardware or OS they use.

A computerized mechanism for seamlessly accrediting and validating a
students work on non-volatile memory or on a secure server via internet
would go a long way to helping students believe that their work on a
computerized learning system will ultimately be recognized by somebody
should they choose to further their education. In the absence of this,
poorly funded and truly mediocre systems of education still win. Those in
remote unserviced areas will continue to be ignored. Accreditation is really
a big issue.

Go forward,  Eric
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////\
////////////////////////////////////////

nonpolluting highway to space -- current huge high altitude airship
projects based on solar cells may fit with an unshielded, light-weight
versions of simple, safe Hyperion uranium hydride 5,000 KW fission
reactor: Otis Peterson: Rich Murray 2007.12.02
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/74


Hello Otis Peterson,

I found and studied your patent an hour after my question to you, on
2007.11.24.

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fneta\
html%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=%22Peterson%2C+Otis\
%22&OS=%22Peterson,+Otis%22&RS=%22Peterson,+Otis%22


I had studied high altitude airships in 2005, so tonight I pulled
together a review of recent developments, from a highly [ eeee, a pun ]
visionary group to a DOD funded 70,000 foot altitude one-month test
flight due 2009 by Lockheed Martin.

The length scale is from 0.1 mile to 2.0 miles for designs up to
altitude 140,000 feet, 26.5 miles.

Thin solar cells already exist to provide power for large fan propellers.

Fission reactors can be rendered safe by increasing the distance to
vital structures and people, for instance, by being at the end of very
long carbon nanotube cables, already in mass production in Texas, which
can also carry electric power.

The waste heat after electric power production can be used to drive
lightweight motors for propulsion, and heating the He or H2 lift gas to
increase lift.  The carbon nanotube cables could be hollow thin-wall
heat pipes, with standard multiple thin-layer reflecting
superinsulation, aided by the low ambient air density.

How light could your reactor be made, using C and Be?

5 MW = 5,000 KW thermal output, and at, say, 40 % conversion efficiency
to electricity,  would supply about 700 times the 3 KW continuous
electric power for the Lockheed Martin HAA, due to fly for a month in 2009:

www.defenseindustrydaily.com/lockheed-wins-1492m-contract-for-high-altitude-airs\
hip-updated-01607/

Lockheed Martin High Altitude Airship (HAA)
$ 149.2 million DOD contract

"Under this latest demonstration contract, Lockheed Martin will develop
an unmanned and untethered prototype airship with the requirement of
remaining on station for one continuous month at a nominal cruise altitude.

Nav Log notes that "according to the US Army Space and Missile Defense
Command, HAA is to have an endurance of one month at 65,000 feet, carry
a payload of at least 500 pounds, provide at least 3 Kw of continuous
power, have a cruise speed of 25 knots, and station-keeping accuracy of
less than 2 kilometers 50% of the time and less than 150 kilometers 95%
of the time." This actually refers to the prototype vehicle, as opposed
to the operational HAA which will have a payload of 4,000 pounds (about
1,800 kg).

Dave Kier, Lockheed Martin's vice president and managing director for
missile defense, told C4SI Journal that an operational version of the
airship would have a volume of about 5.3 million cubic feet, about 25
times the volume of the Goodyear blimps."


If the huge orbital craft, envisioned by JP Aerospace, were to
incorporate square mile size mirrors, then each could collect and focus
about 3,540,000 KW light energy at 1.366 KW/m**2 mirror surface, 708
times more than the 5 MW = 5,000 KW of one reactor.

The engineering estimate would be how many fusion reactors would supply
a mix of usuable power, electric and thermal, at an acceptable weight,
compared to the power and weight of a square mile of solar reflectors,
concentrating light as much as a 1,000 fold intensity on high
performance 40% efficient solar cells and/or thermoelectric power
generators.  A nuclear reactor based airship design might be much
smaller in size, if the reactors can reach high levels of useful power
per weight.

It seems possible that Hyperion fission reactor based designs might
surpass solar designs, especially at Mars, where the available solar
power is about a quarter of that at Earth.

In that case, safe space travel for large groups in luxurious, capacious
ships would, using the plentiful supply of He or H2 in the envelope as
reaction mass, reach pass Mars to orbit around H rich planets and moons,
far from the Sun, where more H would be available in limitless supply --
all this, without any pollution of Earth's biosphere.

Used reactors could be processed safely in automated, human-free
facilities in Sol space.

This could evolve with exponential speed, as there are huge profits,
combined with remarkably low cost, low risk engineering, testing,
construction, and operation, at every stage, from carrying a few
tourists up to a floating resort for a week at 13 and then 26 miles,
then larger airliner size groups, then the same for orbital tours,
leading to orbital communities, and thence, space colonies of unlimited
size that would be permanent luxury ecologies anywhere in Sol space.

This could well be an open ended positive enterprise that would
immediately help unify the world with a process of experientially
expanding horizons, as affordable to ordinary citizens as jet planes
have been for decades, or as were ocean travel and railroads after 1860.

There are awesome easily transported resources in Sol space as ice,
carbon, mineral, and metal rich asteroids of all sizes, as well as
planetary liquids ranging from water to hydrocarbons to ammonia to sulfur.

Capable networks have an unusual opportunity to collaborate to quickly
develop and publicize these benign possibilities.

In mutual service, Rich Murray  rmforall@...

Room For All
1943 Otowi Road
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505  505-501-2298
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages
///////////////////////////////////////////////



http://www.jpaerospace.com/

JP Aerospace (JPA) was founded by John Marchel Powell.
Please feel free to e-mail him for further information.
2530 Merchantile Drive, Suite I, Rancho Cordova, CA 95742.
jpowell@...

JP Aerospace is a volunteer-based organization achieving cheap access to
space by just doing it.

We are an independent space program. Here you'll find photos and videos
from over ninty missions
and information on our Airship to Orbit program.

http://www.jpaerospace.com/atohandout.pdf  Airship To Orbit

Photo from a JP Aerospace vehicle taken 4/3/2004.

America’s OTHER Space Program
2530 Mercantile Dr. Suite I
Rancho Cordova, CA 95742
916-858-0185
www.jpaerospace.com

ATO
Airship To Orbit

Cheap, Bulk, Safe Access to Space.
It’s time to send out the fleet.
The atmosphere as a ladder to space.

Balloons have carried people and machines to the edge of space for over
seventy years.

JP Aerospace is developing the technology to fly a balloon -- or more
accurately, their relative, the airship -- directly to orbit.

Flying an airship directly from the ground to orbit is not practical.

An airship large enough to reach orbit would not
survive the winds near the surface of the Earth.

Conversely, an airship that could fly from the ground to upper
atmosphere would not be light enough to reach space.

The resulting configuration is a three-part architecture for using
lighter-than-air vehicles to reach space.

The first part is an atmospheric airship. It will travel from the
surface of the Earth to 140,000 feet.
The vehicle is operated by a crew of three and can be configured for
cargo or passengers.
This airship is a hybrid vehicle using a combination of buoyancy and
aerodynamic lift to fly.
It is driven by propellers designed to operate in near vacuum.

The second part of the architecture is a suborbital space station.
This is a permanent, crewed facility parked at 140,000 feet, 26.5 miles.
These facilities, called Dark Sky Stations (DSS), act as the way
stations to space. The DSS is the destination of the atmospheric airship
and the departure port for the orbital airship.

Initially, the DSS will be the construction facility for the large
orbital vehicle.

The third part of the architecture is an airship/dynamic vehicle that
flies directly to orbit. In order to utilize the few molecules of gas at
extreme altitudes, this craft is big. The initial test vehicle is 6,000
feet (over a mile) long.

The airship uses buoyancy to climb to 200,000 feet.

  From there it uses electric propulsion to slowly accelerate.
As it accelerate it dynamically climbs.
Over several days it reaches orbital velocity.

Low cost bulk access to space
Scaleable Technology.
True reusability, multiple orbital flights before servicing.
Large structures can be placed already assembled in orbit.
Brings safety and reliability to reaching space.
Both the climb to orbit and reentry are slow controlled processes.
No high reentry heating, no big fuel tanks to explode.
Opens up the solar system.
Once in orbit, the airship is a spacecraft. With its solar/electric
propulsion, it can now proceed to any destination in the solar system.
It is happening now.
This is not fanciful speculation. The project is now over two decades in
development with over eighty real hardware test flights and countless
development tests.
It is being built completely with existing technology.
It’s being built now.
The high altitude airship has been built and is awaiting test flights.

Several Dark Sky Station platforms have been built and flown.

Every piece of equipment for this system has been carried to 100,000
feet and tested in the environment.

The first crewed DSS is scheduled to fly in eighteen months.

The ion engine 120,000 foot flight test
for the orbital airship will be flown in the next five months.
It’s being paid for now.

This new way to space has not and will not require a massive pile of
capital to accomplish.

Each component has its own business application and funding source.

It is a pay-as-you-go system. For example, funding the atmospheric
airship was provided by the Department of Defense for use as a
reconnaissance vehicle.

The DSS has multiple customers in the telecommunications community.

When?
We are seven years from completion.
Earth to the top of the atmosphere.
High Altitude airships fly from the ground to the station at
140,000 feet.
Transfer point at the edge of space.
A two mile wide station parked at 140,000 feet is the new
waystation to space. The station acts not only as a port for
the orbital airship but also as a research center,
construction site and tourist destination.
  From the edge of space to orbit.
This 6,000 foot long vehicle never touches the ground. This
airship flies from the upper atmospheric station to orbit. It
uses electric propulsion to slowly over several days reach
orbit.

Three Part Architecture to Orbit.
Dark Sky Station
The Ascender Airship
The Ascender climbs vertically
during most of its flight.
The Ascender docked with the Dark Sky
Station at 140,000 feet.
The large orbital airship also docked
with the Dark Sky Station.
The DSS from above.
Five day climb to orbit.
Bulk cargo and passengers to orbit.

The Reality
90 foot development Ascender airship.
High altitude propeller test flight.
175 foot long Ascender float test.
Small Dark Sky Station Flight Tests.
The edge of space is our backyard for testing and development.



http://www.gizmag.com/tandem-high-flying-airships/8356/

November 15, 2007 JP Aerospace has developed a class of twin balloon,
high altitude, low cost utility airships that will be the highest flying
airships ever built. Designed for use in telecommunications,
reconnaissance and even as rocket or UAV launch platforms, the Tandems
fill the gap between free balloons and complex high altitude airships
and are capable of flying to heights of 140,000ft.

Whilst blimps like the Goodyear have a standard shaped shell, crafts in
the Tandem class consist of two balloons separated by a keel. Each
balloon is mounted on a ring that can rock forward and back, but not
side to side. The careful management of the low-pressure zone that
exists under each balloon maintains stability of the balloons during
climb. Once a height of 100,000ft is reached two propellers designed for
flight drive the airships kick-in, achieving up to six knots forward
speed in flights of up to twelve hours duration.

JP Aerospace is an independent space program staffed by volunteers
dedicated to bringing space travel to everyone. It developed the Tandem
as a tool to construct the Dark Sky Station, a high altitude port and
construction facility. It will also be used as a "mothership" for small
experimental airships, (Mach Gliders and X-Airships).

There are three vehicles in the Tandem class, all scalable and
all-weather deployable. The 14ft long Micro-Tandem flew on October 6,
2007 as a test platform for electronics and sensors. The Standard Tandem
is 30ft long (without balloons, 120ft long with) and is undergoing an
electronics upgrade. The Tandem Heavy Lift is 200ft long and is lifted
by roller mounted polyethylene balloons. Loads of up to five tons can be
carried to 140,000ft [ 26.5 miles ] and both crewed and autonomous
versions are planned for purposes ranging from telecommunications and
reconnaissance to construction of high altitude infrastructure and even
a rocket or UAV launch platforms.

Each of the vehicles is short duration, low speed and low cost compared
to similar craft in the field. John Powell, President of JP Aerospace,
said that “compared to the costs of other high altitude airships,
Tandems are almost disposable”.


http://www.jpaerospace.com/dssoverview.html

[JPA LOGO]   DSS   Dark Sky Station

The Dark Sky Station is our platform at the edge of space. In addition
to being a key element in the Airship To Orbit project,
Dark Sky Stations can be used as a rocket launch platform, a
telecommunications hub and a reseach station. Large stations
will also serve as a tourist destination.

DSSArmCam.jpg (19324 bytes)

DSS 1 Prototype Flight

DSS Arm Camera, (vehicle at 45,000 feet).

DSS 2 Liftoff

DSS 2 In Flight

Block 2 DSS,  The Stratostation

This page was last edited on November 11, 2005
Email comments to jpowell@...
Copyright© 2005 JP Aerospace. All Rights Reserved.



Looking for a bigger payload capacity -- check out the monstrous
Aeroscraft ML866, a superyacht for the sky.

http://www.gizmag.com/go/8132/

Aeroscraft ML866: superyacht for the sky officially launched

Image Gallery (16 images)

October 8, 2007 It’s as big as a superyacht, and not quite as fast as a
supercar but it does have a range of over 3000 miles and can do it over
land, sea or snow, lingering anywhere you like the view. A new category
of aircraft that fits somewhere in between a blimp, airship or
dirigible, the Aeroscraft ML866 project was recently presented at the
National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) show in Atlanta, Georgia.

The key factor of the ML866 design is that it offers superyacht size and
comfort in a platform that can operate independently from airports,
meaning that a new class of luxury conveyance is about to become
available which appears to trump them all.

Based on concepts developed for the (now apparently shelved) US Army
Heavy Lift “Project Walrus”, the Aeroscraft ML866 has some remarkable
capabilities not available in other aircraft -- it is incredibly
spacious offering a cabin area of 5,382 square ft (500 square metres),
boasts low operating costs, has all-weather capabilities, vertical
takeoff and landing and extended range along with its ability to hover
for long periods, meaning it can be utilized for a range of different
applications from a private air yacht to a business office (even
offering conferencing facilities catering for 100 people) in the sky or
for commuting, freight solutions and sightseeing.

The Aeroscraft ML866 is a buoyancy assisted air vehicle with a rigid
structure and gas cells.

It uses Aeros’ proprietary Full Authority Direct Organic Lift Control
(FADOLC) -- a dynamic buoyancy management system that provides the low
speed control capability.

While 70% of the aerodynamic lift comes from helium, the remaining 30%
is derived from its innovative “wing” shape.

As well as being able to hover the aircraft will be capable of speeds up
to 138 mph (0-222 kmh) and will operate at altitudes of up to 12,000 ft
(3,657 m), and the massive 210 ft (64 m) long by 118 ft (36 m) wide by
56 ft (17 m) high structure will deliver a roomy 5000+ square feet of
cabin space.

Aeros displayed a 1/48th scale model at this year’s NBAA show and hopes
to begin airframe static testing of the rigid composite structure within
months, with flight testing at the San Bernadino International Airport
to follow as early as 2010. An additional series of commercially
focussed Aeroscraft is also on the drawing board and will be scaled to
payloads of up to 60 tons.

No exact pricing details are available as yet but reports suggest the
tag will be under $40 million.
Tags: Aeroplanes, Airship, Luxury, Travel and Tourism, VTOL



High-altitude airship
  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

The United States Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency has
contracted Lockheed Martin to construct a high-altitude airship (HAA) to
enhance its Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS).

An unmanned lighter-than-air vehicle, the HAA, is designed to operate
above the jet stream in a quasi-geostationary position to deliver
persistent station keeping as a surveillance platform,
telecommunications relay, or a weather observer.

They propose to launch their HAA in 2008.

The airship would be in the air for up to one month at a time and can
survey a 600 mile diameter of land.

It will use solar cells to provide its power and will be unmanned during
its flight.

It will have the capability to survey a 600 mile diameter of land
whether that be for surveillance, weather observations etc.

It is to be composed of high strength fabrics to minimize weight as well
as lightweight propulsion technologies.

It will operate at a height of above 60,000 feet and will have a payload
for military use.

It will be around 500 feet long and 150 feet in diameter.

HAA page at Lockheed Martin
www.lockheedmartin.com/products/HighAltitudeAirship/index.html

High Altitude Airship

HAA

The Lockheed Martin High Altitude Airship (HAA), an unmanned
lighter-than-air vehicle, will operate above the jet stream in a
quasi-geostationary position to deliver persistent station keeping as a
surveillance platform, telecommunications relay, or a  weather observer.

High Altitude Airship

This updated concept of a proven technology takes lighter-than-air
vehicles into a realm that gives users capabilities on par with
satellites at a fraction of the cost. In position, an airship would
survey a 600-mile diameter area and millions of cubic miles of airspace.

Many of the vital technologies have matured to a point that they are
ready for system integration. High-strength fabrics to minimize hull
weight, thin-film solar arrays for the regenerative power supply, and
lightweight propulsion units are key technologies ready to make a
high-flying airship a reality. The combination of photovoltaic and
advanced energy storage systems delivers the necessary power to perform
the airship functions.

Propulsion units will maintain the airship's geostationary position
above the jet stream, propel it aloft and guide its takeoff and landing
during ascent and descent. Lighter-than-air vehicles, operating at
altitudes above controlled airspace under the control of a manned ground
station, give users the flexibility to change payload equipment when the
airship returns to its operational base to perform different tasks.
Lockheed Martin's unique experience with certificating commercial
airships with the FAA gives it the understanding to address the concerns
of flight through controlled airspace, especially with an unmanned
airship. Lockheed Martin, Akron, received its first production contract
for a lighter-than-air vehicle in 1928. Since that time, Lockheed Martin
has built more than 300 airships and several thousand aerostats
(unmanned ground-tethered balloons). The Lockheed Martin Airdock, which
is 1,175 feet long, 325 feet wide and 211 feet high, may serve as a
final assembly facility.

High Altitude Airship On Station

Lockheed Martin is currently in the contract's third phase, prototype
build and flight demonstration, awarded by the Missile Defense Agency
(MDA). The MDA’s performance goals for the prototype HAA include
sustained operations for approximately one month, above 60,000 feet,
while providing power to a payload for military use. It will operate
unmanned above the jet stream in a quasi-geostationary position to
survey an approximately 600-mile diameter area. In this phase of the
program, Lockheed Martin will build and fly a HAA prototype vehicle in
order to demonstrate launch and recovery, station-keeping and flight
control capabilities.

Its utility as a mobile, re-taskable, high-altitude, geostationary,
long-endurance platform will span from short and long range missile
warning, surveillance and target acquisition to communications and
weather/environmental monitoring. Additionally, the HAA prototype will
demonstrate station-keeping and autonomous flight control capabilities.
Lockheed Martin assembled a team of industry leaders in autonomous
control systems, regenerative power systems, envelope material and
systems integration to develop its HAATM solution.

Product Card: High Altitude Airship Brochure (PDF, 273.1 KB)

MS2
199 Borton Landing Road
Moorestown, NJ 08057-0927
(856) 722-4100

CONTACT
Media and Press Inquiries: (330) 796-1793
Business Development: 330-796-8825


HAA page at Global Security
www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/haa.htm

Intelligence
References

High Altitude Airship (HAA)

Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Akron, a unit
of Lockheed Martin, with its partners —Stratcom International and
others—have developed an unmanned lighter-than-air vehicle that would
operate above the jet stream and above severe weather in a geostationary
position to serve as a telecommunications relay, a weather observer, or
a peacekeeper from its over-the-horizon perch.

According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), 11
high-altitude airships would provide overlapping radar coverage of all
maritime and southern border approaches to the continental U.S., and may
be a significant asset in homeland defense efforts. The Stratospheric
Platform System (SPS) dirigible operates just barely within the outer
limits of the earth's atmosphere and is emerging as part of the
military's 21st century transformational mindset.

SPS is an unmanned, powered airship that can maintain a relatively
geostationary position at 70,000 feet. Lift is provided by helium that
is contained in its envelope. Differential thrust, electric-powered
props control the pitch and roll and keep it in position. With the
advent of thin-film photovoltaic solar cells (capable of producing
voltage when exposed to radiant light), commercially available fuel
cells, and lightweight/high-strength fabrics, a high-altitude airship
could stay on station weeks or even months at a time by generating its
own power and keeping helium loss to a minimal amount.

On station, the onboard sensors’ surveillance coverage extends over the
horizon and monitors a diametric surface area of 775 miles. At nearly
500 feet long and 150 feet in diameter at its widest girth, the
airship’s volume exceeds 5 million cubic feet.

This updated concept of a tried and proven technology takes
lighter-than-air vehicles beyond the surface exclamations of: "Look,
there’s the Goodyear blimp." As a matter of fact, the Akron, Ohio,
Lockheed Martin business unit supports the tire company’s blimp fleet as
the FAA certificated manufacturer and maintenance provider.

Now, though, things have changed. Lighter-than-air vehicles operating at
altitudes of 21 kilometers (70,000 feet) are nearing a reality thanks in
large measure to the technical savvy of Lockheed Martin NE&SS-Akron and
the convictions of Stratcom President Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson, USAF
(retired), and other members of its stratospheric airship industrial team.

All vital technologies have been evaluated individually during the
recently concluded concept feasibility phase, which began in October
1998, and are ready for integration into a demonstration vehicle.

The evolution of the design over this period has illustrated a host of
design, operational, and manufacturing issues that are significantly
different than the issues resulting from development of fixed-wing
aircraft or even a conventional LTA vehicle.

Maintaining geostationary position over long periods requires a detailed
understanding of the environment at 21 km. This altitude was chosen
because of its minimal wind conditions during a significant part of the
year. Wind profiles tend to reduce to a minimum a short distance above
the jet stream. However, long-term, reliable and continuous data on
winds and turbulence at this altitude are not available for the entire
earth’s surface. Therefore, variable winds and turbulence, even though
the air density is only five percent of that at the surface, could still
place severe demands on propulsion, control and navigation systems.

Buoyant vehicles require periodic checks on the helium purity. This is
done frequently with blimps. For the vehicle operating at 21 km, the
design has taken into account leakage of helium as well as migration of
air and water vapor into the helium enclosure. Degradation of buoyant
lift will be minimized by envelope design.

Since it is not practical to carry fuel aloft in a long-endurance
buoyant vehicle, all power must be generated on station. This includes
payload and propulsive power. A combination of photovoltaic (PV) and
fuel cell systems likely will be used to provide the multiple kilowatts
of power necessary for these functions. The PV and regenerative fuel
cell technologies required by the vehicle are being developed based on
work at NASA-Glenn in Cleveland.

Lockheed Martin’s unique experience with certificating the GZ-22 airship
with the FAA allows it to understand and address the concerns of flight
through controlled airspace, especially with an unmanned airship. Safety
of flight issues, operation of an unmanned vehicle, and operation over
populated areas are all concerns that we have addressed during the
design evolution.

While most of the issues noted are not unique to special aircraft
designers, it is the combination of these factors along with the long
endurance that makes the design problem a difficult one.

The vehicle might be built in the company’s Akron Airdock, which is
1,175 feet long, 325 feet wide and 211 feet high. Its height is equal to
a 22-story building.

Lockheed Martin NE&SS-Akron received its first production contract for a
lighter-than-air vehicle, the rigid USS Akron airship, in 1928 from the
U.S. Navy. Since that time, the Lockheed Martin unit has built more than
300 airships and several thousand aerostats.

The North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) has asked for funding to
build a prototype high-altitude airship, with the idea of stationing 10
ships to cover all the continental borders of the United States.

The Technical Center of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command
(USASMDC) seeks sources capable of and interested in developing a
prototype unmanned, un-tethered lighter than air (LTA) vehicle, or
airship, that can operate autonomously in the stratosphere for sustained
long-endurance operations.

The principle objectives of the HAA Program are to develop a prototype
airship that can lift a payload of at least two metric short tons (1814
kilograms, or 4000 pounds) to a pressure altitude of approximately 21.33
kilometers (70,000 feet), maintain geostationary orbit at that altitude
above a fixed location on the earth for at least six months, be
controllable from a remote ground station, provide a payload environment
suitable for electronic equipment with a maximum unobstructed viewing
line-of-sight around the airship, and generate sufficient power to
operate all airship subsystems and electronic payloads (with appropriate
design margins and duty cycles) for continuous operations.

Instrumentation should be included to characterize the flight
environment, airship stability and control, internal airship thermal and
atmospheric environment (humidity and gaseous composition), power
generation and management, and the payload environment (thermal, air
composition, electro-magnetic, and vibration).

Provisions should be made to transmit the instrumentation data to the
ground for airship system status and performance evaluation. To the
maximum extent possible, the prototype design should utilize components,
structures, and subsystems that are scaleable to an operational airship
with the same operational requirements, but having a payload capability
five to six times greater than that of the prototype.

USASMDC believes that the airship resulting from this effort will have
significant commercial applications -- in telecommunications, for
example. Given this potential, USASMDC plans to enter into a
cost-sharing arrangement for the performance of this effort as an "Other
Transaction for Prototype" under the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2371 and
Section 845 of Public Law 103-160, as amended. (SMDC, however, reserves
the right to elect to enter into a "traditional" contractual arrangement
under the Federal Acquisition Regulation.) An Other Transaction
arrangement offers maximum flexibility and encourages use of commercial
business practices, including negotiation of intellectual property
rights. Non-traditional defense contractors are encouraged to
participate. The planned period of performance for this effort is 24
months, including design, fabrication and flight test.

On 29 September 2003 Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance
Systems, Akron, Ohio, was awarded agreement HQ0006-04-9-0001 for design
and risk reduction phase 2 of the High Altitude Airship advanced concept
technology demonstration.

The objective of this Phase 2 effort is to continue design (through
critical design review) and technical risk reduction efforts for a
high-altitude airship system prototype that will demonstrate military
utility by operating in the stratosphere as a long-endurance,
quasi-geostationary platform with a contractor-supplied,
government-approved payload or a government-supplied payload.

The estimated total value for Phase 2 is $40,000,000 with a period of
performance from October 2003 to June 2004.

There is an option for a prototype, development, build and demonstration
Phase 3 for an estimated total value of $50,000,000 with a period of
performance from June 2004 to July 2006,

and a follow-on option for an Extended User Evaluation Period Phase 4
for an estimated total value of $9,000,000 with a period of performance
from August 2006 to July 2008.

The Missile Defense Agency is the contracting activity (HQ0006-04-9-0001).
///////////////////////////////////////////////

328  "I choose the second place to gain the first.": Frank J. Ellis:
Rich Murray 2007.11.23
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/73

328 "I choose the second place to gain the first."   1:20 pm

Father,
I make my choice in alignment with the Choice You first Willed for me.

I accept Your Word as the Truth I am.

I accept Your gift as what I am.

Your are First Cause,
and I accept that I am Your Effect.

I did not come first,
for You are my Father.

But in second coming,
I am Your Son,
and all that You had before me is now mine.

You are my Creator,
and I am Your second.

You are the Mind Which creates All Things,
and I am Your Spirit,
All Things You create.

I flow within the Holy Mind of God,
and have not left my Source.

You are my Source, the Will, the Decider, the Initiator,
and I follow from Your desire to share Your Self.

  From Love I follow,
and so I am love which came second,
as part of Love Itself.

As You Will me,
so I am the implementation of Your Will.

All that Your Will has is mine.

I live and breathe and have my being in Your Will.

I accept that You Will what is in our own best interest,
and I align myself One with You.

You have told me Your Will for me is perfect happiness,
that nothing touch me except Your Will,
and no harm come nigh me.

I accept Your Will which flows through me,
even as Your Love streams through me.

The gifts of Your Will and Your Love are the Truth of what I am,
and I am grateful.

I come to You in thanksgiving that I am the Son of Your Will,
the Son of Your Love.

I enter into Your Presence with thanksgiving.

As part of Your Mind, I align with Your Mind.

For Thought leaves not the Will in which It lives.

"It is God's Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself,
and nothing else comes nigh unto him.

He is as safe from pain as God Himself,
Who watches over him in everything.

God wills you perfect happiness now."

The  Circle of Atonement
P.O. Box 4238, W. Sedona, AZ 86340
info@...  http://www.circleofa.org/index.php
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

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re 2007.05.20 What is consciousness? Study aims to settle debate,
research by Sam Parnia would also subject claims of "out of body"
experiences to strict test: Rich Murray 2007.10.19
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/72

http://www.scimednet.org/library/articlesN75+/N76Parnia_nde.htm

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/070520_consciousness.htm

Dear Editor,

I am sure you are familiar with the process in which these crooked
little bl a  c   k   ma r  k    s, "qualia" in the visual space of your
awareness, are instantly apprehended as letters, words, meanings in
English, probably also some ascription of tone of voice and emotions, making
available tentative, almost concrete, assessments about a real person, "Rich
Murray", a typical feature of a world of over 6 billion temporary human bodies,
that has evolved in 13.7 billion years from a remarkably homogenious expansion
as an initial 11-dimensional geometric instability, with only a small number of
defining measures, yet sufficient to determine a unique history of sequential,
progressively cooled down, frozen out levels of organization: 4-dimensional
geometry (3 spatial and 1 temporal, relentlessly unidimensional, sequential and
one-way), supersymmetric entities, gravitons, photons, three sets of leptons,
quarks and gluons, then baryons and mesons, nuclei, atoms, molecules, and on to
large scale aggregations, gas filaments, galaxies, stars, planets, finally
supporting stable molecular structure networks that evolved energy transforming
ecosystems, self-replication, information processing capabilities, and
exponentially evolving societies, now with a characteristic doubling time of a
few years of all information created and stored -- all of this remains now as it
has always been, a single vacuous multidimensional dynamic geometry,
relativistic, quantum mechanical, chromodynamical, continuous, contiguous,
causal, of unknowable size, whether "huge" or "infinite", for there so far seems
to be no accessible, imaginable, calculable wider Reality, by which the "size",
"location", and "duration" of our universe bubble might be assessed.

Yet, in order for this moment of awareness to exist, in which these
words perhaps teasingly suggest to you can not be any other than
th i  s,
your dance of qualia and meanings within your awareness,
yes, yours and never other than yours,
for any hint of "other" can be known to "you" only as experienced qualia
and meanings within "your awareness",
moreover, which as this very instance of your inner awareness experience,
depends utterly on the whole unified single geometric
process sketched "a little while ago" during "this reading".

Big Bang to th i  s.  Quite a stretch.
Perhaps the overall theory, remarkable as it is, is incomplete, even
primitive.
Perhaps the as yet unknown beyond the exponentially expanding horizon of
scientific vision is always larger.
Perhaps what science has done since 1600 is to exponentially expand into
the unknown.
The unknown is qualitatively more, not just bigger in any countable sense,
just as 3D vision is more than 2D vision, and 4D yet more,
or color vision more than black and white,
or the first infinity far more than just a very large integer,
while the continuum of reals is qualitatively far more than the first
infinity.
Paradoxically, it is the unconquerable infinity of the unknown that
allows, accommodates, sustains, and guarantees that the exponential
expansion of science, and its purest child, mathematics, proceeds forever.
Yet, forever science and math remain infinitesimals, mere sets of zero
measure, within the infinite unknown.

Aye, 'tis this very moment of qualia and meanings within "your"
awareness, that's the irreducible rub,
not rubbish nor rube,
but the rubric of reality.
For what are ye, but an dynamic aspect of this, our joint universe bubble?
And what be universe bubble, but an aspect of the infinite unknown?

Lad, I offer what I can, to guide thee.
Awareness, the qualia and meanings within the experienced present,
resides not within our little temporary universe bubble.
Awareness be the entire infinite unknown itself, directly, fully,
radically, most intimately, always, already so, now.

The present moment is not a comfortable office chair in which encounsed
we safely swivel to scan our monitors to survey every cranny and
wondrous frontier of the so far known.

No, sonny, present moment is infinite unknown,
hypernova, raging fire, wildest sea, bottomless pit, boundless void,
within, yet beyond, qualia and meanings,
not causal, continuous, nor contiguous,
but fully present at every place within itself like the Mandelbrot Set.

Ken me meaning?

Infinite unknown accepts thy current limitations, darling,
yet if like Franklin ye dare hold up a questioning key to the stormy sky
at night, lighting will not be able to resist an appropriate reply.

Step over thy minute Rubicon of qualia and meanings,
Rome is yours, already your infinite empire.

Follow thy own direct experience, questions, paradoxes, inexplicables,
anomalies, coincidences, synchronicities, the magical and the
miraculous, psychic and mystic, the outrageous, senseless, and hilarious,
don't sleep twice in the same bed,
listen, listen, never believe,
don't freeze, keep moving,
always, there's more, more, forever more.

Deserve help by asking for it,
attract guidance by being lost,
the more the mistakes, the greater the wisdom,
the brick and morter of society is fossilized folly piled high,
so make your own road,
only you can be the lone pioneer of infinite unknown,
let others follow your maps,
for we desperately need you,
and staying put is its own punishment,
trust yourself,
it's never too late,
now is now.

In mutual service,  "Rich Murray"
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 111 members, 1,480 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Re: Sorry I was so mean: apology accepted with relief, let me know how I
can be easier for you, I'm about 1/3 way towards Asperger's Syndrome:
Guilford: Murray 2007.08.25
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/71

Hi Carol,  We are working on the same side, after all.

I've come to comprehend that I have lifelong handicaps that interfere
with social perception and functioning -- one reason that I offer
careful, painstaking reviews of research, which allows me to concentrate
deeply on doing a fairly complex editing process fairly quickly with
few typos, working with the reality that I have to check and correct
typos in every sentence I (I just typed sendencd).  So, I (typed i),
don't gravitate towards the kind (kindd, then kkind ) of directly
personal, gently advising help that you often offer to those in need.

So, I've had to learn to cope with being aimbushed by unanticipated
outbursts from friends, and puzzling expulsions from jobs and social groups.

My speech is rather muted and mushy, in contrast to the speedy eloquence
and forceful clarity of the speaker within.  Likewise, I often don't get
the subtle overlays and emotional tones that most people take for
granted, causing me to blurt out things that jar the flow, upset,
confuse, annoy, frustrate others, who may interpret that I am being
deliberately offensive.  I'm told I talked in a language of my own,
until the overgrown adenoids and tonsils that blocked my hearing were
cut out at age 4.5, and then my Mom, a highly intelligent, determined,
and skillful schoolteacher, drilled me in speaking.

About grade 6, I greeted my aunt when she first visited my house,
"Do you know everything is made of 92 elements?"

I loved school and reading especially, but was too uncoordinated to play
with others, or keep time in band, or hand write or draw well.  I still
print everything.  I have very poor memory, so either don't hear or
don't remember instructions.  When surprised, I always exclaim, "Huh!",
which got me spanked by my gym teacher in grade 6.  Usually very gentle
and sweet, I am also intractable and stubborn, and can be unpredictably
irritable.  My Mom wrote a 4-page single spaced evaluation of me in
April 15, 1953, worried about all these symptoms in 5th grade -- within
a few weeks I ran my bike into a truck door, was knocked out, and in the
hospital 2 weeks.  Photos for years show the subclinical brain damage, a
permanent dulled, jarred, guarded expression.  At grade 6 I tested at
7th grade level for reading skills, which were focused on science and
science fiction.

I suspect genetic factors: Three grandparents were drunks, and Mom
smoked a pack or two daily, and had multiple problems with anxiety,
depression, migraine, diarrhea and constipation.  Dad had some sort of
seizure when I was 3, and took phenobarbitol the rest of his life.
As a chemist in an oil refinery 80 miles east of Houston, he had worked
with testing pesticides and of course a multitude of toxic exposures.
We moved into a new house when I was 7, so there must haved been plenty
of formaldehyde and lead, plus mercury dental fillings in junior high
school.  We kids loved to run through the clouds of DDT that trucks
sprayed many times year to kill the voracious mosquitoes.  I also had
lots of Crisco, margarine and mellorine.  I loved to read, even though
I'd get a headache and throw up after a few hours.  I remember the soda
pop, and the multicolored candy wafers.  So, unconsciously, the
groundwork was laid for the emergence of my focus on neurotoxins since
age 41.

I found refuge as an adult in my spiritual destiny, and found a vocation
as a well-regarded home hospice care giver here in Santa Fe for 18
years, a life of direct contact with people on a one-to-one basis,
very slow, without pressure or deadlines, but needful of great
attentiveness and responsibility and initiative in adapting well to
every kind of problem and family.  This really was a potent vehicle for
my evolution as a social being.

The Net has been a godsend, also, since Dec 1995, leading to radical
improvements in my diet after Jan 1999, and to a successful, original
personal global service as an information activist.

I easily understand and have compassion for how George Bush functions.
He struggles in ways that are very familiar to me.

In mutual service, Rich

Carol Guilford wrote:
> Some of your laundry lists are brilliant.
> You don't have to put me back on your list because I get your posts on
> Bry's list.
> Cg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

Characteristics

Like autism, AS is characterized in the DSM-IV by impairments in social
interaction and restricted interests and behaviors, but it differs from
autism in lacking clinically significant delay in spoken or receptive
language, cognitive development, self-help skills, and curiosity about
the environment.[1][27]
Intense preoccupation with a narrow subject, one-sided verbosity,
restricted prosody and intonation, and motor clumsiness are typical of
the condition, but are not required for a DSM-IV diagnosis;[27] these
features are included in other diagnostic schemes (see Diagnosis).

Social interaction

The unwritten rules of social behavior are said to mystify many with AS
and have been termed the hidden curriculum.[28]
People with AS must learn these social skills intellectually through
seemingly contrived logic rather than intuitively through normal
emotional interaction.[29]

Non-autistics are able to gather information about other people's
cognitive and emotional states based on clues gleaned from the
environment and other people's facial expression and body language,
but, in this respect, some people with AS are impaired;
this is sometimes called mind-blindness.[30]
People with mind-blindness are frequently unable to interpret or
understand the desires or intentions of others and thereby are unable to
predict what to expect of others or what others may expect of them.
This sometimes leads to social awkwardness and inappropriate behavior.

It is not claimed that people with AS lack emotions.[citation needed]
The concrete nature of emotional attachments they might have (for
example, to objects rather than to people), however,
often seems curious or can even be a cause of concern to people who do
not share their perspective.[31]
Failing to show affection -- or failing to do so in conventional ways --
does not necessarily mean that people with AS do not feel
affection.[citation needed][clarify]
Understanding this can lead partners or caregivers to feel less rejected
and to be more understanding.
Increased understanding can also come from learning about AS and any
comorbid disorders.[32]
Sometimes, the opposite problem occurs:
the person with AS is unusually affectionate to significant others;
and misses or misinterprets signals from the other partner, causing the
partner stress.[33]

Repetitive behaviors and restricted interests

AS in children can involve an intense and obsessive level of focus on
things of interest, many of which are those of neurotypical children.
The difference in children with AS is the unusual intensity of the
interest.[34]
Some have suggested that these "obsessions" are essentially arbitrary
and lacking in any real meaning or context;
however, researchers note that these "obsessions" typically focus on the
mechanical (how things work) as opposed to the psychological (how people
work).[35]

Sometimes these interests are lifelong;
in other cases, they change at unpredictable intervals.
In either case, there are normally only one or two interests at any
given time.
The interests are often linked in some way that is logical only to the
AS individual.
In pursuit of these interests, people with AS often manifest
sophisticated reasoning,
[not in citation given] an almost obsessive focus,
and a good memory for trivial facts (occasionally even eidetic
memory).[15][36]
Hans Asperger called his young patients "little professors" [37] because
he thought his patients had as comprehensive and nuanced an
understanding of their field of interest as university
professors.[Quotation from source requested on talk page to verify
interpretation of source]

Some clinicians do not entirely agree with this description.
For example, Wing and Gillberg both argue that, in children with AS,
these areas of intense interest typically involve more rote memorization
than real understanding,[15] despite occasional appearances to the
contrary.
Such a limitation is an artifact of the diagnostic criteria,
even under Gillberg's criteria, however.[38]

People with AS may have little patience for things outside these narrow
interests.
In school, they may be perceived as highly intelligent underachievers or
overachievers, clearly capable of outperforming their peers in their
field of interest, yet persistently unmotivated to do regular homework
assignments (sometimes even in their areas of interest).
Others may be hypermotivated to outperform peers in school.
Symptoms may be seen by obsessional absorption with inanimate objects,
such as watches and clocks;
or a predominant interest in systematic things like numbers, indices,
telephone directories, encyclopedias, dictionaries, or measuring scales.
The combination of social problems and intense interests can lead to
unusual behavior, such as greeting a stranger by launching into a
lengthy monologue about a special interest rather than introducing
oneself in the socially accepted way.
However, in many cases adults can outgrow this impatience and lack of
motivation and develop more tolerance to new activities and meeting new
people.[39]

Speech and language

People with AS typically have a highly pedantic way of speaking,
using a far more formal language register than appropriate for a context.
A five-year-old child with this condition may regularly speak in
language that could easily have come from a university textbook,
especially concerning his or her special area of interest.[40]

Literal interpretation is another common, but not universal,
hallmark of this condition.
Attwood gives the example of a girl with AS who answered the telephone
one day and was asked, "Is Paul there?"
Although the Paul in question was in the house,
he was not in the room with her,
so after looking around to ascertain this,
she simply said "no" and hung up.
The person on the other end had to call back and explain to her that he
meant for her to find him and get him to pick up the telephone.[41]

Individuals with AS may use words idiosyncratically,
including new coinages and unusual juxtapositions.
This can develop into a rare gift for humor (especially puns, word play,
doggerel and satire).
A potential source of humor is the eventual realization that their
literal interpretations can be used to amuse others.
Some are so proficient at written language as to qualify as hyperlexic.
Tony Attwood refers to a particular child's skill at inventing
expressions, for example, "tidying down" (the opposite of tidying up) or
"broken" (when referring to a baby brother who cannot walk or talk).[42]

Children with AS may show advanced abilities for their age in language,
reading, mathematics, spatial skills, or music, sometimes into the
'gifted' range, but these talents may be counterbalanced by appreciable
delays in the development of other cognitive functions.[39]
Some other typical behaviors are echolalia, the repetition or echoing of
verbal utterances made by another person, and palilalia, the repetition
of one's own words.[43]

A 2003 study investigated the written language of children and youth
with AS.
They were compared with neurotypical peers in a standardized test of
written language skills and legibility of handwriting.
In written language skills, no significant differences were found
between standardized scores of both groups;
however, in hand-writing skills, the AS participants produced
significantly fewer legible letters and words than the neurotypical group.
Another analysis of written samples of text,
found that people with AS produce a similar quantity of text to their
neurotypical peers,
but have difficulty in producing writing of quality.[44]

Tony Attwood states that a teacher may spend considerable time
interpreting and correcting an AS child's indecipherable scrawl.
The child is also aware of the poor quality of his or her handwriting
and may be reluctant to engage in activities that involve extensive writing.
Unfortunately for some children and adults, high school teachers and
prospective employers may consider the neatness of handwriting as a
measure of intelligence and personality.
The child may require assessment by an occupational therapist and
remedial exercises, but modern technology can help minimize this problem.
A parent or teacher aide could also act as the child's scribe or
proofreader to ensure the legibility of the child's written answers or
homework.[45]

Other

Those affected by AS may show a range of other sensory, developmental,
and physiological anomalies.[citation needed][dubious – discuss]
Children with AS may evidence a slight delay in the development of fine
motor skills.
In some cases, people with AS may have an odd way of walking, and may
display compulsive finger, hand, arm or leg movements,[46] including
tics and stims.[47][48]

In general, orderly things appeal to people with AS.
Some researchers mention the imposition of rigid routines (on themselves
and/or others) as a criterion for diagnosing this condition.
It appears that changes to their routines cause inordinate levels of
anxiety for some people with this condition.[49]

Some people with AS experience varying degrees of sensory overload and
are extremely sensitive to touch, smells, sounds, tastes, and sights.
They may prefer soft clothing, familiar scents, or certain foods.
Some may even be pathologically sensitive to loud noises (as some people
with AS have hyperacusis), strong smells, or dislike being touched;
for example, certain children with AS exhibit a strong dislike of having
their head touched or their hair disturbed while others like to be
touched but dislike loud noises.
Sensory overload may exacerbate problems faced by such children at
school or indeed adults at work,
where levels of noise in the classroom or workplace can become
intolerable for them.[46]
Some are unable to block out, as in habituation, certain repetitive or
background stimuli, such as the constant ticking of a clock, or a
television in another room of the house.
Whereas most children stop registering this sound after a short time and
can hear it only if they consciously attend to it, a child with AS can
become distracted, agitated, or even (in cases where the child has
problems with regulating emotions such as anger) aggressive if the sound
persists.[citation needed]

Alexithymia is a personality trait of people who have difficulty
recognizing, processing, and regulating emotions.[50]
Uta Frith reported that alexithymia overlaps with AS and that at least
half of the Asperger syndrome subjects in a study obtained scores on the
Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) that indicate severe impairment.[51]
Other researchers concur that the conditions overlap; both conditions
are characterized by core disturbances in speech and language and social
relationships[52][53] and the limbic system and prefrontal cortex may be
involved in both.[54][55]
Alexithymic traits in AS may be linked to depression or anxiety;[51]
the mediating factors are unknown and it is possible that alexithymia
predisposes to anxiety.[55]

Diagnosis

Asperger's Disorder is defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) by six main criteria:

     1. qualitative impairment in social interaction
     2. restricted, repetitive and stereotyped behaviors and interests
     3. significant impairment in important areas of functioning
     4. no significant delay in language development
     5. no significant delay in cognitive development, self-help skills
or adaptive behaviors (other than social interaction)
     6. criteria are not met for another specific pervasive developmental
disorder or schizophrenia.[1]
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/messages

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a sutra of inner choice -- seeking the truth is a journey only within my
mind: Ellis: Murray 2007.07.26
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/70


From: Frank J Ellis  fjellis@...   ARequiredCourse@yahoogroups.com
Date: 2007.07.25 11:39 AM
Subject: Re: Illusion

a question:
I was thinking that if there is no phenomenal world,
then surely there can't be any path to reality/freedom.
Would this not also mean that there would be no purpose to our existence
either?

        To follow a path to reality or freedom,
    then presumably one must take this world real,
    but then to say it is a false thought or unreal
    makes me think you can't get real and unreal at the same time.
        What do you think?


It is a long path,
and has taken me nine years (plus 675 life times) to get here,
so it is not something to which I could give a short answer.

Day by day I step forward,
a journey without distance,
from a mind split by opposing and incompatible ideas in conflict with
each other
to the True part of mind which does not hold but One point of View.

Thus, seeking the truth is a journey only within my mind.

The more that I journey toward Truth,
the more that I become aware of truth
appearing in many different forms in the illusion.

Not to say that the illusion is true,
but that truth is manifesting form which is acceptable,
that I may recognize it,
thereby retraining my mind as to what is true, and what is not.

The Course has become reflected
in the Bible, Neville, Buddha, Goldsmith, and other teachings.

These are, of course, merely symbols of truth,
not truth Itself.

In the illusion, they point the way to Truth.

Each day there is some new realization of some aspect of truth.

So, in my nine years of study,
you might say that I've had over three thousand realizations of aspects
of the truth.

This goes back to the question, "How do you eat an elephant?"

One bite at a time.

And so I open myself each day to receive a bite of daily bread.

When I offer this bread to you,
it is but a symbol of a symbol.

It may resonate with you as an inner awareness that it is truth,
or you have the free will to elect to not resonate with the symbol,
to give it different meaning.

Ultimately, the only Source of Truth is within,
the still small unobtrusive voice which offers sustenance,
but does not intrude itself upon our mind
if we choose to prefer other thoughts.

Thus, in true prayer and meditation,
we merely empty our mind of the typical babble of thinking voice of
world and body,
and let the Truth within expand
so that some part of it touches our conscious awareness.

This is our daily bread.

We must take dominion over all things of our mind,
silencing the drivel,
making room for the Truth to reach out and touch awareness.

These touches,
over a period of touching,
begin to give us a different perspective of what is true,
and what is not true.

In exact accord with our willingness to surrender
what we believed was true,
we can see a different truth,
one received from within instead of received from senses.

What is within takes on life and power as truth,
and what is outer looses its power to exist and be real.

What I sensed and believed real is realized as untrue,
therefore an illusion.

The more focusing on within, the less focusing out.

I am drawn to the within.

It is peaceful, tranquil, more desirable, more believable, more enduring.

As I practice what I find within,
I begin to see my world differently,
more in harmony with what I see within.

I begin to recognize a correlation between what I experience within,
and the experience of the outer.

I begin to recognize oneness between what I think within,
and what I see out.

The is further confirmation that what is within is real,
and what is out is just an illusion,
caused by my state of mind,
the thoughts I hold true.

What is not true must be an illusion
if it is changed by focusing my mind, belief and recognition
on the peace, joy, and tranquility I behold within.

I realize that false thoughts can block my awareness of the peace within
but does not change it.

It is always there if I seek it, choose it,
decide it is the experience I desire.

On the other side, I realize what is out
is directly related to what I am doing within.

Peace outside can be changed by what I focus on within.

But peace within is unchanged.

Thus I realize that the truth is eternal, unchangeable, and within.

The out experience is constantly changing,
ever vacillating between opposites,
therefore must be no more than an illusion,
a mirage, a vain imagining of my mind,
and not actually separated from my mind as I believed.

This motivates me to keep my mind stayed in the peace and happiness I
desire,
by desiring it more fully,
by training my mind to desire and feel deliberately
instead of as if it were having an uncontrollable dream.

I practice holding the state of mind I have now grown to desire.

I desire peace above all other experiences.

I desire tranquility above experiences
of drama, fear, pain, suffering,
seeing that those only appear outside of me
if I allow my mind to think about them and make them real.

They are not real.

They are not my choice.

I exclude them from my awareness,
releasing ownership of them
if I realize I let the thoughts find a home in my mind.

I evict them. peacefully releasing them.

Their nothingness is brushed aside
instead of held as real or true.

I redirect my mind to the inner peace,
the infinite empty light of silenced mind,
and what is invisible
become what I feel, what I have, my state of mind, my choice, my decision.

I practice making this decision over and over,
training my mind to accept the harmony of peace inherent within,
and take no thought of opposites.

Opposites become the illusion
that I keep gently brush from my mind
as though sweeping away shadows with a broom of light.

I choose to feel the love and harmony, peace and happiness,
training my chooser to choose what I prefer.

I train the decision maker to decide for peace without opposite.

I practice.

I apply my power of choice.

I stand vigilant guard at the portal of my mind,
deciding what thought will inhabit my mind.

What will dwell in my mind is a decision I must make.

What truth abides in me is a decision I am free to make.

I will make it deliberately,
because with my thoughts I make my state of mind, my awareness, my
conscious experience.

Each decision I make is a step along the path of decision making,
of training my mind to make the decision willfully, deliberately,
intentionally, on purpose.

I journey from the unconscious, sleeping, dreaming place
where I made no decisions deliberately,
but was a mere victim of whatever happened.

I journey to the place
where my mind is trained to always make an awakened, enlightened, choice
for the aspects, qualities, attributes, and characteristics I intend.

I recreate my intentions,
and what I have, the thoughts I hold,
become what I am,
the Self I am experiencing,
the world I am experiencing.

I reach for a world made of deliberately chosen truth,
free of unchosen,
free of mistakenly chosen,
free of opposites,
a real world in which only truth reflects to me.

The world I seek has no illusions,
no untruths reflecting in it,
no false truths blocking awareness of the trained inner awareness of
harmony and peace.

The journey of mind training takes me from the illusion of duality
to oneness in which the peace which passes understanding,
which keeps my heart and mind ever in the awareness of love's presence,
is eternal, without end or beginning,
but just is.


Any statements reflect the interpretations and opinions of the author,
and are not endorsed by the copyright holder of A Course in Miracles.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARequiredCourse/
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This is a discussion group based on the Text, Workbook, and Teachers
Manual from A Course in Miracles.

ACIM is a self-study spiritual psychotherapy about the relinquishment of
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and the acceptance instead, of a thought system based on love.

We have thoughts of the day posted from various authors.

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Please know that any posts made interpreting the Course are the
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505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

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I couldn't find details about Michael Mirdad, a reflexologist in 1989, such as
his credentials, or work and social relationships: Murray 2007.02.08
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/69

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages

Gary R. Renard wrote at 1:18 pm on 2007.02.08:
garyrrenard@...

Hi Friends, I've uploaded to the files section an attachment of an
article by Dr. Michael Mirdad titled, "A Course in Mega-Fools" which
is about the so called "controversy" that recently took place in the
Course community. For the sake of history I think it's good to have an
independent source that analyzes three attack articles that were
written about me and my work. Dr. Mirdad's article is not always
complimentary to me, and I don't always agree with what it says.
However, I believe it represents a fair analysis of the articles by
Robert Perry, Greg Mackie and Jon Mundy, as well as my response.

I did not solicit this article. It was sent to me independently by Dr.
Mirdad, who I have only met once (at a Conference where Jon Mundy was
also speaking) and I never corresponded with Dr. Mirdad until after he
sent the article to me.

I am helping him to circulate the article because 10 or 15 years from
now, when scholars look back at the situation, they will have another
source to consider, aside from my own response. Information about Dr.
Mirdad is included at the end of the article. For your convenience,
I'm also including a copy of the article in this posting below. If
you're not interested then simply disregard it. Once again, this is
just for history, i.e. the illusory record. I'll have nothing more to
say about it. Be well. Gary

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Disappearance_of_the_Universe/files/Mirdad_ACIM.do\
c

A COURSE IN MEGAFOOLS
By Michael Mirdad......


www.grailproductions.com/

Grail Productions
PO Box 2783
Bellingham, WA 98227
(360) 671-8349
Email: GrailPro@...

http://www.grailproductions.com/about_michael.htm

ABOUT MICHAEL MIRDAD

Dr. Michael Mirdad, a Master Teacher/Author, has an extensive background in
Psychology, Parapsychology, and Metaphysics and is the author of The Seven
Initiations of the Spiritual Path. He has worked as a Healer and Counselor to
individuals and couples for over 20 years. Michael is featured as a Keynote
Speaker in several International Conferences per year. He has also conducted
thousands of classes, lectures, and workshops throughout the world on Mastery,
Spirituality, Relationships, and Healing. Dr. Mirdad is respected as one of the
finest and most diverse spiritual teachers and healers of our time.

Places that Michael Mirdad has taught:
· The Universal Lightworkers Conference
· Ontario's City Of Light Celebration
· World Congress On Illumination
· The A.R.E. (Edgar Cayce Foundation )
· The P.R.S. (Society of Manly P. Hall)
· Archangel Michael Conclave
· Whole Life Expo
· Power Places Tours
· Metaphysical Churches including Unity, Religious Science and Unitarian

Comments From Speakers & Authors
About Michael Mirdad

"Michael Mirdad is a bright light glowing with wisdom and heart. I deeply
respect his work, which offers integrity and vision. I love this man, and so
will you."

Alan Cohen, Author, The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore

"As a speaker, Michael Mirdad is clear with a practical grasp of the on-going
journey of transformation; as a messenger of light, he is integrity of the
purest kind. He energizes the space around him with truth, playfulness and
openness."

Yolanda Martin
Author, Gifts, Remembering The Now

"Dr. Michael Mirdad speaks from his heart and reaches directly to the heart of
his audiences. Michael's entertaining anecdotes combine perfectly with his
wealth of knowledge and passion for his topic. Michael Mirdad heals with his
very presence and words."

Dr. Doreen Virtue
Author, The Lightworker's Way

"In the most fun-loving and down-to-earth fashion, Michael Mirdad is assisting
in the consciousness raising and broadening of personal perceptions, which are
changing society. I was personally touched by the sincerity and love which is
the basis of his work."

Jani King
Channel/Author, P'Taah

"Michael Mirdad is a soul with great depth of knowledge and integrity. What is
most important is his focus: the single focus back to our Creator. He embodies
faith and humility that inspires and leads us home."

Suzanne Stallard
Sedona Journal, Australia

"Rev. Mirdad has a wealth of information that he can call upon, and does. His
wealth of knowledge on A Course In Miracles and other material is very
impressive."

Frances Reed, Director,
ACIM Center, Portland, OR


www.foot-reflexologist.com/magazine.htm

1989 Mar./Apr., Yoga Journal, pp. 18, 20, 22, "Hand Reflexology" by James Stout,
Hand reflexology is profiled including the Kunz and Kunz hand reflexology chart
and contraindications. Grants Pass, Oregon reflexologist Michael Mirdad is
interviewed.


http://www.sacredsexuality.us/

SACRED SEXUALITY
By: Michael Mirdad [ author of book ]

Imagine how it feels physically, energetically, emotionally, and spiritually to
have the love essence of every molecule, atom, and sub-atomic particle in the
universe dancing with delight to re-join similar love essences within your
being. The energetic response is ecstatic! Practicing sacred sexuality and
channeling loving energy are highly effective ways to raise our vibrations to
the level of embodied “gods and goddesses.”

Science teaches that our physical bodies are not as dense as they appear and
that there is more space within our bodies than there is density. Sacred
sexuality is about sharing and exploring an intimate relationship with this
inner spaciousness beyond the dense, material body. It’s a state of living in
the vibration of the soul. It’s about accessing our souls–the parts of us that
remember bliss beyond measure. Afterwards, everything we do becomes an
experience of union with All That Is.

The term sacred sexuality has many closely related meanings. But since the word
sacred refers to “the spirit” and sexuality refers to “the body,” the two words
combined describe a merging of the worlds of spirit and matter, or the soul with
the body.

Sacred sexuality is about experiencing levels of ecstatic bliss and
unconditional love (usually only attainable through prolonged practice of
advanced meditation techniques) and, most importantly, bringing these
experiences into our daily lives. It’s ultimately about living bliss and not
just feeling it. In practicing sacred sexuality, we learn to live within the
material world while integrating an experience and vibration beyond this
world–one that feels ecstatic and almost uncontainable. This vibration
translates into consistently feeling unconditional love for all people and
things, which is why it can be called living bliss.

In sacred sexuality, all aspects (physical, energetic, emotional, mental, and
spiritual) of our beings are utilized to arouse the fullest experience possible.
With this higher focus, we become keenly aware that we are all more than bodies.
With the increased depth and sacredness, it becomes easier to open our hearts
and allow our partners into the sacred spaces of our souls. Then sexual ecstasy
occurs at the point when our bodies are merging with spirit, as we disappear as
individuals and become one with everything.

Contrary to most beliefs, the true practitioners of sacred sexuality are not
obsessing on sexual intercourse. Instead, they are using the act of sensual
expression as a means to unveil themselves–on their own or with others–and are
doing so with the most vulnerable aspect of their beings, their sexual selves.
Sacred sexuality offers an expansive experience based on mutual love,
acceptance, and authenticity.

Sacred sexuality allows us to deepen pleasure, expand orgasms, and broaden our
ideas of pleasuring beyond, but not excluding, intercourse. It also deepens the
purpose of lovemaking beyond bodily connecting to include joining emotionally
and spiritually with our partners. With a willingness to bring our higher selves
(hearts and souls) to the sharing of our emotions and bodies, we reach new
levels of Divine Presence.

The practice of sacred sexuality requires the self-awareness and maturity to
follow a few simple principles and to set healthy boundaries. The essential
principles are Safety, Responsibility, Communication, Trust, and Surrender.

It’s not uncommon for people to describe their more favorable sexual experiences
as “great sex.” Yet, few have any idea how great a sexual experience can be and
live with a limited understanding about sexuality. One example is that of
Marilyn Monroe, who projected the image of a sexual goddess but is said to have
had a history of sexual abuse that undoubtedly contributed to her claim to have
never had an orgasm.

Generally speaking, there are two different types of sexual experiences. One
focuses on what might be called the “heights of sex,” often referred to as
“great sex,” while the other accesses the “depths” of sex, which is sacred
sexuality. A relationship that emphasizes the heights of sex focuses mainly on
stimulation and nervous system response. This experience is merely “having sex.”
It is referred to in yogic traditions as tamas, or sex of a shallow
consciousness. It arises from unfulfilled fantasy and addictive behaviors,
rather than from conscious sharing with a partner. It stresses quantity over
quality. The heights of the sexual experience are usually measured by the
intensity and quantity of stimulation and the success of orgasms, which is like
judging the quality of food by the quantity ingested. Such stimulation has a
“hot” energy and is focused on excitation of the clitoris or penis, while the
depths of sex have a “warm or cool” energy and focus on the ecstasy released
between the heart and breasts, as well as the energetic aspects of the genitals.
Encounters focusing on the heights of sex could be defined as physically intense
and stimulating, but emotionally and spiritually shallow.

A relationship focusing on the depths of sex, on the other hand, accesses the
soul of both partners. It is known as “making love,” and is referred to in yogic
traditions as sattva, or sex that is wholistic. The depths of sex encourage both
partners to make use of their bodies, minds, and souls to access each other’s
heart. This type of interaction between partners provides the safety to explore
the darker issues and inhibitions that may arise during a truly intimate sexual
experience.

The heights of sex stir us to quickly remove the clothes of our lovers before
having sex. The depths of sacred sex encourage us to dress them afterwards. The
heights draw us to kiss them numerous times on the way to orgasm, but the depths
stir us to kiss them afterwards. The heights stir us to reach for their
genitals, but the depths encourage us to reach for their hearts.

It should be noted that both the heights and depths of sex can be very
addictive. Sexual addiction and other forms of shallow sex often result from a
desire to hide or escape from issues that need healing. The potential addictions
behind sexual heights are rooted in personal dysfunction. Behind every shallow
sexual interaction, there hides a person who does not want to see or be seen at
a deeper level. In such cases, sex is used as a distraction. Until we realize
that we are the “other person” we’ve been looking for, others will eventually
leave us feeling empty.

On the other hand, the reason that sexual depths can be addictive is easily
understandable. Although sexual heights offer intense levels of sexual
stimulation that can leave us wanting more, the depths of sex offer a connection
of body, mind, and soul that can be all encompassing. In other words, although
stimulation can feel good, bliss feels great! Experiencing the depths of sexual
bliss, especially for the first time, feels like the voice of God calling us
home. There is an undeniable sense of completeness. We long to make this
experience an integrated part of our lives. Of course, we can also become
attached to anyone (partners, healers or teachers) who assists us in this
awakening, but as we make this blissful state a part of our own consciousness,
we realize that attaching our feelings to others is pointless.

If sex, in and of itself, were magical, there would be a lot of enlightened
porn-stars in the world. On the contrary, without a spiritual and loving intent,
sex limits the expression of our True Self and becomes a form of
self-condemnation. In other words, sex without depth of consciousness is not
only valueless but destructive as well. Conscious sex, on the other hand, is one
of the finest rewards on the path to enlightenment. Thus, the practice of sacred
sexuality can be summarized as a process designed to deepen your connection to
the Spirit of Love and to awaken your physical body–allowing this temple to
become as passionate and alive as God originally intended it to be.


http://www.sacredsexuality.us/workshop.html

SACRED SEXUALITY

In this workshop Dr. Mirdad synthesizes the most effective techniques of
tantric, taoist and modern sexual principles. This workshop is for everyone:
whether you are single, have a partner, are sexually active or not. You can
benefit as Dr. Mirdad shows how to develop and channel your own sexual energy to
enhance your health, vitality and self awareness.

*  Introduction to the sensual anatomy and terminology
*  Experience Taoist sexuality & Far Eastern Tantra
*  Techniques for channeling your sexual energy into creative ecstasy

sacred sex workshop image

*  Basic exercises for health, vitality, and rejuvenation
*  Methods for enhancing the intimacy in your relationships
*  Develop self awareness and heal sexual guilt, shame, and inhibitions

Friday, Nov. 10th--Tuesday, Nov. 14th

$969.00 ($869.00 for returning attendees)
The fee includes lodging
Private Retreat in South Florida
Please call for Registration or Info. 360-671-8349

(Space is limited) Note: This is not a couple's workshop but instead is for
everyone who wants to awaken their body/soul.
Please call for prerequisites.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

re disturbing aspects of often very effective teachers like Gary Renard, Andrew
Cohen, Eli Jaxon-Bear --  M. Alan Kazler cites the Intermediate Zone, Sri
Auribindo: Murray 2006.12.05
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/67

Those who know me well will agree that I fit into the catagory of the
Intermediate Zone teacher, so I am sharing information that is very helpful to
me.

I am fascinated and excited by the reports in What is Enlightenment? magazine
today, and on their web site about intense, spontaneous, lengthly estatic
enlightment communion in large groups, including a hundred students on phone
conference calls.

I've called similar explorations since 1973 Consciousness Open House, Room For
All, or Lively Communion:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages/1
Lively Communion: Invoking Mutual Meditative Exploration

However, those who facilitate expansions in others are often complexly troubled
and troubling...half-baked...half-awake...

http://www.andrewcohen.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cohen

http://essentialwhatenlightenment.blogspot.com/

http://whatenlightenment.blogspot.com/

http://www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/false_guru.html

http://www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/fake_guru.html

http://www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/superficial_guru.html

http://www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/narcissism.html#delusional_guru


http://kheper.zaadz.com/blog  M. Alan Kazlev

alankazlevNOSPAM@...

11.18.2006
permalink
Gangaji

This is something for Zaadz rather than Integral Transformation

I have just been to two of Gangaji's satsangs, which were held just up the road
from me at the Caulfield Town Hall (in Melbourne). Gangaji is a beautiful lady,
beautiful in her physical appearance, beautiful in her compassion and love,
beautiful in her lack of ego, and beautiful in the simplicity of her message and
teaching style.

Gangaji didn't do anything deliberately, yet I received something (this seems to
be how these things work). The challenge now is to maintain it!

I don't know how many others there felt this; most of them seemed like ordinary
people, although i got the feeling that some of the disciples were a bit blissed
out. But hard to tell without talking to people.

This whole thing has made me more interested in Gangaji's grand-guru (if that's
the right word) Ramana Maharshi. There's also her guru Poonja (Papaji) who is
well respected and seems like a really nice guy, but not enlightened to the
level of Ramana.

I should write about these people for Kheper; so far I've concentrated a lot on
abusive gurus and egotists, but now I should write about the genuine article
too.
Tagged with: Gangaji, satsang, spirituality, gurus, Ramana Maharshi
Access_public Access: Public | Type: Blog | Comment Add Comment
M. Alan : Metaphysician posted by M. Alan

http://www.gangaji.org/


http://www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/Andrew_Cohen.html

http://www.themotherofgod.com/  Luna Tarlo


http://www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/IZ_guru.html

Typology of Gurus, Teachers, Spiritual Masters, and States of Consciousness:

Avidya

Enlightenment
Samsara

Liberation
False Guru

includes the following:

     * Totally Fake Guru
     * Superficial Guru
     * Delusional Guru

Intermediate Zone Guru (Intermediate Zone)
includes both False and Genuine Gurus and Teachers

Sadguru

includes the following:

     * Jivanmukti
     * Transenlightened
     * Avatar

Early/Lower/Near
(Ego + Desire + Samskaras)

Middle
(Desire + Samskaras)

Late/Higher/Far
(Samskaras)

The Intermediate Zone and The Intermediate Zone Guru

The Development of this Theory
Adi Da and the Intermediate Zone
The Abusive Guru theory
The Intermediate Zone Guru
The nature of the Intermediate Zone A Transitional State Some examples
Characteristics of the Intermediate Zone Guru
Subdivisions

The Development of this Theory

Adi Da and the Intermediate Zone

Around 2000 or so, on an Adi Da forum, reference to an online copy of Sri
Aurobindo's letter on the Intermediate Zone on the Kheper website was cited as a
possible explanation for both the guru's powers and his strange behaviour. The
discussion has long since been deleted.

More recently, in January 2005, "XD", an ex-devotee of Adi Da, cited Brunton and
suggested his explanation of the "Intermediate Zone" as an explanation for the
guru's strange behaviour. Discussion has appeared on several Daist and ex-Daist
forums concerning this e.g link link link

The Abusive Guru theory

When I first heard of the association of Da with the Intermediate Zone as
described by Sri Aurobindo, I didn't give it much credence, as I still
considered Da an authentically enlightened and liberated being. Later, as I cam
to know more about Da's abusive behaviour I become more cynical, and felt that
the concept of the Intermediate Zone may indeed be a useful explanation of the
paradox of a teacher who confers such spiritual experiences in their devotees,
but at the same time abuses others. I commented and elaborated on this
phenomenon of the "abusive guru" in part 2b of external link a long essay (a
critique of Ken Wilber from an Aurobindonian perspective) that I finished in
June 2006 and which was published on Frank Visser's Integral World website.
Building on XD's original interpretation of Da, and using Wilber's friend Andrew
Cohen as a case-study, I argued there (as well as on this website) that all
gurus that confer these experiences but are at the same time abusive are in
fact trapped in the Intermediate Zone. More recently (in Nov 2006) I had a
powerful experience with Gangaji through whom I received a transmission of Sri
Ramana's Light. This provided a first-hand experience of the Intermediate Zone,
and revealed that an Intermediate Zone Guru does not have to be abusive; in fact
I argue that Gangaji is an extremely spiritual and selfless teacher. But
controversy over Gangaji's support of her husband Eli, who had a long term
sexually exploitative relationship with a young female disciple, again raised
the spectre of abuse, and, on the other side of the coin, showed as well how
quick people are to judge and shadow project.

It is worth pointing out that Sri Aurobindo was not in his original letter
critiqing gurus. His concern was with Sadhaks undertaking his yoga, who might
mistake a partial experience or half light for the real thing. But his letter --
as with so much of his work -- goes beyond the immediate subject he was
addressing to the wider spiritual and physical world.

If you are involved in any sort of spiritual practice or journey, or with any
spiritual teachers or spiritual practice, there is no way to avoid the danger of
the Intermediate zone. Both your own most profound transpersonal experiences,
and even more so the experiences of your guru, if you happen to sit at the feet
pof one, will be conditioned by this reality. Therefore it behooves the
spiritual aspirant, and indeed the esotericist in general, to carefully study
and consider what Sri Aurobindo has written in this very profound and important
missive.

The Intermediate Zone Guru

The nature of the Intermediate Zone

The Intermediate Zone is a region of profound transpersonal experiences that go
far beyond the ordinary surface consciousness, This experience may be either
temporarary or constant. People who have experienced these states, and revceived
the vast influx of knowledge, love, selflessness, breaking down of barriers
between self and others, expansion of being, inflation, etc consider themselves
enlightened, and are considered so by their devotees, who are attracted to the
magnetic charisma that seems to accompany their experience(s).

All of these experiences pertains to any of a number of possible states of
enlightenment or pseudoenlightenment. that, although emanating ultimately from
the Supreme, and although far beyond ordinary consciousness, have been filtered
through the Intermediate Zone which provides a dangerously beguilling, highly
persuasive, and narcissisticly loaded distortion of the Absolute, instead of the
Absolute in its purity. This is a mixed light in which it is impossible to tell
truth from falsehood. The same Light and revelation and power, the very same
Light, can both heal and harm, both convey enlightenment and even liberation and
yet feed the ego. It depends on the state of the transmitter (the guru), and the
state of the receiver (the devotee)

A Transitional State

In the menu at the top of this page I have represented the Intermediate Zone as
a transitional region between the two primary states of Ignorance/samsara and
Enlightenment/liberation. I have here used Indian (Vedantic, Buddhist, etc)
terminology and concepts because to me these are the clearest. But one could
without much difficulty translate them into other frameworks; e.g. Sufi,
Kabbalistic, Christian mystic, Theosophical, Hermetic, etc.

The first member of each pair refers to the cognitive (epistemological) aspect,
which also determines the ontological state of the individual. So Ignorance or
Avidya, lack of insight into the nature of the Absolute has an ontological,
metaphysical effect on the nature of the individual; i.e. it contracts the being
from a state of openness and at-one-ment with the infinite and universal, to a
state of small and impotent ego-self. Realisation of the nature of the Absolute,
Enlightenment in other words, has the opposite effect, by removing the
boundaries and barriers between the finite self and the All, it allows for
spontaneity, joy, expansion, openness, and freedom.

The state of Ignorance is called Samsara, which means that the finite self goes
around and around, propelled by the force of its own blind actions, helpless to
do anything about its fate. The state of Enlightenment is called Liberation, and
means total freedom, a freedom that comes about not through the activity of the
separate self but by surrendering to the Supreme, which is ultimately one's own
essential nature in any case.

Between these two poles, these two Truths, of Absolute and Relative, there is a
state where there is Enlightenment (or at least degrees of insight, awakening,
and enlightenment), but one still resides in the state of Samsara, because of
the activity of the ego and its desires, and because of samskaras or
habit-tendencies from earlier in one's life and from past lives.

It is this transitional region or state or series of states that constitutes the
Intermediate Zone.

Characteristics of the Intermediate Zone Guru

In my understanding, by far the bulk of charismatic gurus and spiritual teachers
that are around in the world today (and no doubt in past historical periods too)
that claim to be enlightened are actually at one of these transitional stages;
this is where their inspiration, their power, their insights and their charisma
derive from. It is highly misleading to simply explain them away or dismiss them
as con-artists or self-deluded, as many critics and sceptics believe. This
ignores the very real transpersonal experiences that for example devotees have,
and that it can be assumed the gurus and teachers themselves have. Most of them
are in fact totally sincere in their statements and experiences; even the ones
who are abusive towards their devotees. But conversely the naive New Age view
that they are all enlightened masters is equally misleading. Very very few
spiritual teachers could be considered authentic satgurus. This is not to deny
that there are still many that, although not act
ually liberated, are still genuine

Because of the Intermediate Zone's power to puff up the tiny human ego, usually
through identification with a fascinator, or even a lesser nonphysical entity,
many Intermediate Zone gurus suffer from extreme narcissism and delusions of
godhood, which leads to them quickly becoming dysfunctional and abusive on the
interpersonal level, and exploiting their devotees for their own lower desires
and fantasies.

This is not to say that all Intermediate Zone gurus are like this. There are
also those who are awakened to their inner divinity, which prevents them from
acting in a negative manner. Or they may have be in touch with an inner beauty
and sensitivity and/or detachment and discrimination that they don't let
themselves be caught up in fantasies of power and exploitation. In other cases
such individuals don't want set themselves up as "gurus" and teachers, because
they realise they still have a long way to go. They may serve as quiet and
humble friends and mentors, gurus in an informal sense of a spiritual friend who
has advanced a bit further along the path than oneself, but they would have no
interest in attracting a large following, and certainly would never claim to be
enlightened.

Thus, to say that a teacher or mastre or guru is at the level of the
Intermediate Zone doesn't mean that what they say is deceptive, their behaviour
abusive, etc. It is probably more likely that it is just a smaller number of bad
apples giving the rest a negative reputation by association.

Some examples of possible Intermediate Zone gurus

I have met in person or at least had darshan/satsang with four gurus, each of
which is very different. Three of them would seem to fit the description of
Intermediate Zone, while a fourth may or may not be.

The first was Sathya Sai Baba, a world-famous guru with a following of millions
in India, who has since been exposed as a serial sex abuser. I myself have never
had any bad experiences from Sai Baba. I travelled to India to see him a quarter
of a century ago (in 1982 or thereabouts), and it was a great experience. At
darshan he didn't seem to walk, he seemed to glide in a quite uncanny way.
Several times our eyes met as his gaze passed over the crowd and it was a
powerful sort of electric experience. My later experiences with him has been on
an astral level, including a couple of meetings in dreams, and one genuine
remote healing that cannot be explained in physicalistic terms. I was never
attracted to his teachings, which I found banal and flat, watered down
pop-Hinduism. Neither did I fit in with his following, which consisted of
typical Hindus and churchy Westerners. I did many years ago have a couple of
Western friends who were Sai Baba devotees, but in the West at least the
organisation and teaching comes across as simplistic and rather like an exoteric
Christian youth camp or study group. My belief in Sai Baba as an avatar, and
accepting as literal fact the myths and folklore built up around him, was a
combination of immature wishful thinking and wanting to belive in a "Santa
Claus" type god figure, and genuine astral connection, perhaps on the
Intermediate zone level. The first thing that disillusioned me was the
allegations of sexual abuse that are extensive than that of any other absuive
guru. The second thing was the behaviour of certain highly abusive devotees such
as Gerald Moreno, who unfortunately I got to know quite well (I would rather
that I didn't, but certainly I have learned a lot from him about how the
"abusive devotee" works). That such people can be associated with Sai Baba
proves that he is not what he claims, because no genuine teacher or avatar would
tolerate this without speaking out against such abuses. Were it not for these
two things, I would still consider Sai Baba a genuine teacher. Yet
paradoxically, this same guru who has sexually molested so many of his male
disciples, is also associated with enlightening spiritual experiences, healings
and so on the subtle level. That is the paradox of the Intermediate zone.

The second was Barry Long, who I heard at a talk, and afterwards went up and
spoke to him briefly, many many years ago. The Light and Love I felt from him
was amazing, and for a very long time I considered him a genuine Enlightened
being (just as I thought Da Free John was, until I heard about his abusive
behaviour). Nevertheless, I was never attracted to following him, nor was there
any connection or resonance on the subtlke levels, such as I felt with Sai Baba.
Barry Long's teachings are more interesting and subtle than Sai Baba's. He
seemed at the time to have a sensitivity to women and an awareness of the
unfairness and injustice of woman's position and oppression in a male society.
However there seem to be some controversies around him, due to his "neo-Tantric"
position. I don't know enough about him to speak at length on this, but no
longer consider him a fully enlightened being.

The third, around 1988, was Swami Krishna, a Tantric Guru who at the time lived
just down the road from me, and had gathered around him a local following of
naive and gullible adoring Western devotees, from whom he received a large
amount of both money and sex. My feeling is that he was a nice and decent if
somewhat egotistic guy, who simply did not realise the way he is exploitating
his followers. Like a much more powerful guru, Papaji, Swamiji genuinely doesn't
seem to understand the Western mindset and the spiritual weakness of westerners.
He had an amazing presence about him, it was a buzz that produced a sort of
"high". It is likely that his devotees fed on this, and he likewise took
advantage of them fnancially and sexually, resulting in a relationship that
could not be spiritually beneficial to either party. I only heard one of his
talks, and apart from one moment of genuine humility there was nothing in his
teachings that stuck in my mind, the same old watered down pop Hind
uism, albeit of an Osho Rajneeshi highly sexualised tone. Nevertheless he did
take a liking to me, and remembered me from when I had seen him some 8 or 9
years previously at La Trobe University. He also seemed drunk afterwards at the
dinner at his center. So very much a Trungpa/Osho type figure. The buzz I felt
in his presence did not continue after I left, there was nothing in his
teachings that attracted me, nothing in his words that indicated development of
the level of other intermediate zone gurus like Da Free John, Barry Long, or
Muktananda. I found the massive donations he asked from his devotees, and his
own claims of sadguru-hood, to be off-putting. He may be not so much
Intermediate Zone as Subtle-level ordinary consciousness. Nevertheless I am
including him here as a "borderline" example, he could equally be considered
Intermediate Zone or non-intermediate zone. All this was some 19 years ago, but
he is still around (see external link link), although no longer in Melbourne.

One guru that I heard talk (about this same time) and came away convinced that
he had no spiritual experience was Guru Maharaji (before he became Prem Rawat).
Nevertheless his devotees, including a friend who later set himself up as a
guru, came away full of emotional high. So maybe Maharaji did have power, but I
wasn't receptive to it. Or maybe they were just like born-again Christians and
other emotionalistic cults. Really, it is very difficult to tell. But for now I
am classifying Maharaji as ordinary consciousness. His case does show that just
because a guru is worshipped doesn't mean they are at the level of the
intermediate zone.

The most recent intermediate zone guru I met, in November 2006, was Gangaji, who
I have already referred to. Although I only saw her recently, and briefly
(sitting right near the front for two darshans) the experience I received was
profound. What I received from her was a transmission of Sri Ramana's Light. I
don't know if anyone else there got that; many devotees did seem blissed out,
but it was more in adoration of Gangaji herself. Gangaji comes across as a
genuinely humble person, full of Light, very loving and selfless, teaching a
simple Advaitin message, a sort of update for the westerner of Ramana's talks.
From my own experiences, I cannot and will not say a bad word about her, and
consider her an exemplary teacher. Unfortunately her forgiveness of and support
for husband Eli, who had a long term exploitative sexual affair with a young
female disciple behind her back, has caused a lot of hostility towards her among
disillusioned ex-devotees and guru-critics in general. My feeling is that
Gangaji is without doubt an Intermediate Zone guru who has had a level of
transcendent realisation. Apart from certain questions regarding the cost of her
retreats, she has not been involved in any exploitation of devotees; indeed the
person I saw had nothing but love to give for those poeple who came up on stage
with her.

Subdivisions

I have tentatively divided the Intermediate Zone into three gradations, on the
basis of the levels that various gurus would seem to be at, and comparing mixed
realisation gurus with those that seem to be the real deal. These gradations
are:

The Early/Lower/Near Intermediate Zone or IZ-a for short. This stage is
characterised by transpersonal and enlightened experiences, but these are
accompanied by Egotism, Desire, and subconscious Samskaras. A person at this
level may be possessed of amazing charisma. There may be all sorts of occult
experience or siddhis, or there may be none at all. It is assumed that more
people are at this stage then the following ones. However those with
discrimination can see that they have not yet reached the goal, even if their
experiences and realisations are profound. Hence only egotists set themselves up
as gurus at this level, hence the large number of abusive gurus from the lower
Intermediate Zone

The Middle Intermediate Zone or IZ-b for short. This stage is also characterised
by transpersonal and enlightened experiences, charisma, and so on, but Egotism
in the sense of attachment to sense of self and getting upset if people
criticise you has dropped away, being replaced by selfless love. There is
however still desire and subconscious Samskaras, and there may be narcissistic
inflation and delusionism through identification of the individual revelation
with some deity or attractor

Late/Higher/Far Intermediate Zone or IZ-c for short. This stage is also
characterised by perhaps even more profound transpersonal and enlightened
experiences, charisma, and so on, but desire has dropped away, and only some
samskaras or subtle tendencies remain. A person at this level can be considered
very close to the stage of sadguru, although they are not yet a sadguru. This
stage appears to be much rarer than the preceding one.

Another way of subdividing the Intermediate Zone is into Gross, Subtle, Causal,
and Transcendent. These are levels of being that are not limited only to the
Intermediate Zone of course. But at this level they take on a whole new
dimension. Thus gurus and spiritual teachers and masters can be categorised
according to the level of consciousness and being in which they abide, with a
further category of Integral for those who encompass and can equally move
through all the levels.

Basically the descriptions are:

Gross Intermediate Zone --Tantric and Taoist bodily realisations, experiences,
and transmutation, experiences of the subtle body, kundalini, ch'i, chakras,
healing, etc.

Subtle Intermediate Zone --experiences of occult forces and phenomena on the
subtle planes, remote healing, meeting with deities, dream experiences, astral
experiences.

Causal Intermediate Zone -- experiences of deep meditative states, nondual
states that are formless, deep samadhi, subtle archetypal realities.

Transcendent Intermediate Zone -- experiences of the transcendent Absolute or
abiding in the Supreme. The nondual teaching; Advaitin or Mahayanist realisation
, not in words but in actual practice and fact, formless or else equally beyond
form and formless.



http://www.kheper.net/topics/Aurobindo/intermediate_zone.htm

The Intermediate Zone

Introduction
Historical Development
Original use of the term
Later Influence
Theosophy
Paul Brunton
Current Interpretations
Original Letter

Introduction

In Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, the Intermediate Zone is a beguiling and
dangerous transitional region or stage or whole series of stages between
ordinary consciousness and complete enlightenment. I have argued the theory
(which was suggested to me first some years ago by an ex-devotee of Da Free
John) that most so-called gurus -- both in Indian and the West, actually are not
as they claim supremely enlightened or liberated, but rather pertain to the
Intermediate Zone; I have coined the somewhat clumsy phrase "Intermediate Zone
Guru" to designate this very large category of spiritual teachers.

Historical Development
Original use of the term

Sri Aurobindo first describes The Intermediate Zone in a lengthy letter in reply
to a disciple, written (as were most of his letters) in the early 1930s. It was
then published in 1933 in The Riddle of this World, a small booklet that
includes several essays. The letter later appeared in Letters on Yoga, and can
be found in Part 3, Section 3 "Experiences of the Inner and the Cosmic
Consciousness", Subsection 5. More recently, a number of copies have been posted
on the Internet.

A shorter but similar reference to a misleading intermediate consciousness, but
without the distinguishing qualifier "zone", is also found in some of the later
strata of The Synthesis of Yoga (see quote), which dates to the early 1940s (see
the fifth edition of The Synthesis of Yoga, "note on the text", pp.915-6)

Later Influence

Theosophy

An early reference is made in the Theosophist Magazine (edited by Annie Besant),
May 1934-August 1934 issue, p.359 in a review by a certain A.E.A. to "'the
Intermediate Zone' and its perils impossible to overpass without the guidance of
the guru", as well as to other aspects of Sri Aurobindo's teachings.
Paul Brunton

Paul Brunton adopted Sri Aurobindo's concept of the "Intermediate Zone" as a
source of delusion and subtle ego. (see The Notebooks of Paul Brunton (Published
in 1989; 16 volumes) -- Volume 11: THE SENSITIVES -- ch.12. THE INTERMEDIATE
ZONE external link list of contents)

The Original Letter

Here is the complete text, as printed (and repeated in a number of mirrors on
the internet -- (e.g. link, link, link)

"All these experiences are of the same nature and what applies to one applies to
another. Apart from some experiences of a personal character, the rest are
either idea-truths, such as pour down into the consciousness from above when one
gets into touch with certain planes of being, or strong formations from the
larger mental and vital worlds which, when one is directly open to these worlds,
rush in and want to use the sadhak for their fulfilment.

These things, when they pour down or come in, present themselves with a great
force, a vivid sense of inspiration or illumination, much sensation of light and
joy, an impression of widening and power. The sadhak feels himself freed from
the normal limits, projected into a wonderful new world of experience, filled
and enlarged and exalted;what comes associates itself, besides, with his
aspirations, ambitions, notions of spiritual fulfilment and yogic siddhi; it is
represented even as itself that realisation and fulfilment. Very easily he is
carried away by the splendour and the rush, and thinks that he has realised more
than he has truly done, something final or at least something sovereignly true.
At this stage the necessary knowledge and experience are usually lacking which
would tell him that this is only a very uncertain and mixed beginning; he may
not realise at once that he is still in the cosmic Ignorance, not in the cosmic
Truth, much less in the Transcendental Truth, and that whatever formative or
dynamic idea-truths may have come down into him are partial only and yet further
diminished by their presentation to him by a still mixed consciousness. He may
fail to realise also that if he rushes to apply what he is realising or
receiving as if it were something definitive, he may either fall into confusion
and error or else get shut up in some partial formation in which there may be an
element of spiritual Truth but it is likely to be outweighted by more dubious
mental and vital accretions that deform it altogether.

It is only when he is able to draw back (whether at once or after a time) from
his experiences, stand above them with the dispassionate witness consciousness,
observe their real nature, limitations, composition, mixture that he can proceed
on his way towards a real freedom and a higher, larger and truer siddhi. At each
step this has to be done. For whatever comes in this way to the sadhak of this
yoga, whether it be from overmind or Intuition or Illumined Mind or some exalted
Life Plane or from all these together, it is not definitive and final; it is not
the supreme Truth in which he can rest, but only a stage. And yet these stages
have to be passed through, for the supramental or the Supreme Truth cannot be
reached in one bound or even in many bounds; one has to pursue a calm patient
steady progress through many intervening stages without getting bound or
attached to their lesser Truth or Light or Power or Ananda.

This is in fact an intermediary state, a zone of transition between the ordinary
consciousness in mind and the true yoga knowledge. One may cross without hurt
through it, perceiving at once or at an early stage its real nature and refusing
to be detained by its half-lights and tempting but imperfect and often mixed and
misleading experiences; one may go astray in it, follow false voices and
mendacious guidance, and that ends in a spiritual disaster; or one may take up
one's abode in this intermediate zone, care to go no farther and build there
some half-truth which one takes for the whole truth or become the instrument of
the powers of these transitional planes, -- that is what happens to many sadhaks
and yogis.

Overwhelmed by the first rush and sense of power of a supernormal condition,
they get dazzled with a little light which seems to them a tremendous
illumination or a touch of force which they mistake for the full Divine Force or
at least a very great yoga Shakti; or they accept some intermediate Power (not
always a Power of the Divine) as the Supreme and an intermediate consciousness
as the supreme realisation. Very readily they come to think that they are in the
full cosmic consciousness when it is only some front or small part of it or some
larger Mind, Life-Power or subtle physical ranges with which they have entered
into dynamic connection. Or they feel themselves to be in an entirely illumined
consciousness, while in reality they are receiving imperfectly things from above
through a partial illumination of some mental or vital plane; for what comes is
diminished and often deformed in the course of transmission through these
planes; the receiving mind and vital of the sadhak also often understands or
transcribes ill what has been received or throws up to mix with it its own
ideas, feelings, desires, which it yet takes to be not its own but part of the
Truth it is receiving because they are mixed with it, imitate its form, are lit
up by its illumination and get from this association and borrowed light an
exaggerated value.

There are worse dangers in this intermediate zone of experience. For the planes
to which the sadhak has now opened his consciousness, -- not as before getting
glimpses of them and some influences, but directly, receiving their full impact,
-- send a host of ideas, impulses, suggestions, formations of all kinds, often
the most opposite to each other, inconsistent or incompatible, but presented in
such a way as to slur over their insufficiencies and differences, with great
force, plausibility and wealth of argument or a convincing sense of certitude.
Overpowered by this sense of certitude, vividness, appearance of profusion and
richness, the mind of the sadhak enters into a great confusion which it takes
for some larger organisation and order; or else it whirls about in incessant
shiftings and changes which it takes for a rapid progress but which lead
nowhere. Or there is the opposite danger that he may become the instrument of
some apparently brilliant but ignorant formation; for these intermediate planes
are full of little Gods or strong Daityas or smaller beings who want to create,
to materialise something or to enforce a mental and vital formation in the earth
life and are eager to use or influence or even possess the thought and will of
the sadhak and make him their instrument for the purpose. This is quite apart
from the well-known danger of actually hostile beings whose sole purpose is to
create confusion, falsehood, corruption of the sadhana and disastrous
unspiritual error. Anyone allowing himself to be taken hold of by one of these
beings, who often take a divine Name, will lose his way in the yoga. On the
other hand, it is quite possible that the sadhak may be met at his entrance into
this zone by a Power of the Divine which helps and leads him till he is ready
for greater things; but still that itself is no surety against the errors and
stumblings of this zone; for nothing is easier than for the powers of these
zones or hostile powers to imitate the guiding Voice or Image and deceive and
mislead the sadhak or for himself to attribute the creations and formations of
his own mind, vital or ego to the Divine.

For this intermediate zone is a region of half-truths -- and that by itself
would not matter, for there is no complete truth below the supermind; but the
half-truth here is often so partial or else ambiguous in its application that it
leaves a wide field for confusion, delusion and error.  The sadhak thinks that
he is no longer in the old small consciousness at all, because he feels in
contact with something larger or more powerful, and yet the old consciousness is
still there, not really abolished. He feels the control or influence of some
Power, Being or Force greater than himself, aspires to be its instrument and
thinks he has got rid of ego; but this delusion of egolessness often covers an
exaggerated ego. Ideas seize upon him and drive his mind which are only
partially true and by over-confident misapplication are turned into falsehoods;
this vitiates the movements of the consciousness and opens the door to delusion.
Suggestions are made, sometimes of a romantic character, which flatter the
importance of the sadhak or are agreeable to his wishes and he accepts them
without examination or discriminating control. Even what is true, is so exalted
or extended beyond its true pitch and limit and measure that it becomes the
parent of error. This is a zone which many sadhaks have to cross, in which many
wander for a long time and out of which a great many never emerge.

Especially if their sadhana is mainly in the mental and vital, they have to meet
here many difficulties and much danger; only those who follow scrupulously a
strict guidance or have the psychic being prominent in their nature pass easily
as if on a sure and clearly marked road across this intermediate region. A
central sincerity, a fundamental humility also save from much danger and
trouble. One can then pass quickly beyond into a clearer Light where if there is
still much mixture, incertitude and struggle, yet the orientation is towards the
cosmic Truth and not to a half-illumined prolongation of Maya and ignorance.

I have described in general terms with its main features and possibilities this
state of consciousness just across the border of the normal consciousness,
because it is here that these experiences seem to move. But different sadhaks
comport themselves differently in it and respond sometimes to one class of
possibilities, sometimes to another. In this case it seems to have been entered
through an attempt to call down or force a way into the cosmic consciousness --
it does not matter which way it is put or whether one is quite aware of what one
is doing or aware of it in these terms, it comes to that in substance. It is not
the overmind which was entered, for to go straight into the overmind is
impossible. The overmind is indeed above and behind the whole action of the
cosmic consciousness, but one can at first have only an indirect connection with
it; things come down from it through intermediate ranges into a larger
mind-plane, life-plane, subtle physical plane and come very much changed and
diminished in the transmission, without anything like the full power and truth
they have in the overmind itself on its native levels. Most of the movements
come not from the overmind, but down from higher mind ranges. The ideas with
which these experiences are penetrated and on which they seem to rest their
claim to truth are not of the overmind, but of the higher Mind or sometimes of
the illumined Mind; but they are mixed with suggestions from the lower mind and
vital regions and badly diminished in their application or misapplied in many
places. All this would not matter; it is usual and normal, and one has to pass
through it and come into a clearer atmosphere where things are better organised
and placed on a surer basis. But the movement was made in a spirit of excessive
hurry and eagerness, of exaggerated self-esteem and self-confidence, of a
premature certitude, relying on no other guidance than that of one's own mind or
of the "Divine" as conceived or experienced in a stage of very limited
knowledge. But the sadhak's conception and experience of the Divine, even if it
is fundamentally genuine, is never in such a stage complete and pure; it is
mixed with all sorts of mental and vital ascriptions and all sorts of things are
associated with this Divine guidance and believed to be part of it which come
from quite other sources. Even supposing there is any direct guidance, -- most
often in these conditions the Divine acts mostly from behind the veil, -- it is
only occasional and the rest is done through a play of forces; error and
stumbling and mixture of Ignorance take place freely and these things are
allowed because the sadhak has to be tested by the world-forces, to learn by
experience, to grow through imperfection towards perfection -- if he is capable
of it, if he is willing to learn, to open his eyes to his own mistakes and
errors, to learn and profit by them so as to grow towards a purer Truth, Light
and Knowledge.

The result of this state of mind is that one begins to affirm everything that
comes in this mixed and dubious region as if it were all the Truth and the sheer
Divine Will; the ideas or the suggestions that constantly repeat themselves are
expressed with a self-assertive absoluteness as if they were Truth entire and
undeniable. There is an impression that one has become impersonal and free from
ego, while the whole tone of the mind, its utterance and spirit are full of
vehement self-assertiveness justified by the affirmation that one is thinking
and acting as an instrument and under the inspiration of the Divine. Ideas are
put forward very aggressively that can be valid to the mind, but are not
spiritually valid; yet they are stated as if they were spiritual absolutes. For
instance, equality, which in that sense -- for yogic Samata is a quite different
thing -- is a mere mental principle, the claim to a sacred independence, the
refusal to accept anyone as Guru or the opposition made between the Divine and
the human Divine etc., etc. All these ideas are positions that can be taken by
the mind and the vital and turned into principles which they try to enforce on
the religious or even the spiritual life, but they are not and cannot be
spiritual in their nature. There also begin to come in suggestions from the
vital planes, a pullulation of imaginations romantic, fanciful or ingenious,
hidden interpretations, pseudo-intuitions, would-be initiations into things
beyond, which excite or bemuse the mind and are often so turned as to flatter
and magnify ego and self-importance, but are not founded on any well-ascertained
spiritual or occult realities of a true order. This region is full of elements
of this kind and, if allowed, they begin to crowd on the sadhak; but if he
seriously means to reach the Highest, he must simply observe them and pass on.
It is not that there is never any truth in such things, but for one that is true
there are nine imitative falsehoods presented and only a trained occultist with
the infallible tact born of long experience can guide himself without stumbling
or being caught through the maze. It is possible for the whole attitude and
action and utterance to be so surcharged with the errors of this intermediate
zone that to go farther on this route would be to travel far away from the
Divine and from the yoga.

Here the choice is still open whether to follow the very mixed guidance one gets
in the midst of these experiences or to accept the true guidance. Each man who
enters the realms of yogic experience is free to follow his own way; but this
yoga is not a path for anyone to follow, but only for those who accept to seek
the aim, pursue the way pointed out upon which a sure guidance is indispensable.
It is idle for anyone to expect that he can follow this road far, -- much less
go to the end by his own inner strength and knowledge without the true aid or
influence. Even the ordinary long-practised yogas are hard to follow without the
aid of the Guru; in this which as it advances goes through untrodden countries
and unknown entangled regions, it is quite impossible. As for the work to be
done it also is not a work for any sadhak of any path; it is not, either, the
work of the "Impersonal" Divine who, for that matter, is not an active Power but
supports impartially all work in the universe. It is a training ground for those
who have to pass through the difficult and complex way of this yoga and none
other. All work here must be done in a spirit of acceptance, discipline and
surrender, not with personal demands and conditions, but with a vigilant
conscious submission to control and guidance. Work done in any other spirit
results in an unspiritual disorder, confusion and disturbance of the atmosphere.
In it too difficulties, errors, stumblings are frequent, because in this yoga
people have to be led patiently and with some field for their own effort, by
experience, out of the ignorance natural to Mind and Life to a wider spirit and
a luminous knowledge. But the danger of an unguided wandering in the regions
across the border is that the very basis of the yoga may be contradicted and the
conditions under which alone the work can be done may be lost altogether. The
transition through this intermediate zone - not obligatory, for many pass by a
narrower but surer way -- is a crucial passage; what comes out of it is likely
to be a very wide or rich creation; but when one founders there, recovery is
difficult, painful, assured only after a long struggle and endeavour."
Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, 3rd ed., pages 1039-1046.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/66
judicious comments re abuse by Andrew Cohen and Eli Jaxon-Bear; Simeon Alev and
others: Murray 2006.11.22

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/65
Mike L spotlights specifics in Gary Renard's long response to criticism:
Donnellan: Murray 2006.11.22

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/64
Gary Renard vigorously defends the literal reality of Arten and Pursah,
re critiques  ("witch-hunt"?) by Mundy, Perry, and Mackie: Murray 2006.11.20

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/63
Gary Renard challenges critics of his claims, Circle of Atonement,
Robert Perry: Murray 2006.11.14

http://www.circleofa.org/interaction/Feedback.php#DU

Comments on

Why Don't the Masters Have an Original Thought?, by Robert Perry
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/DuOriginalThought.php

Entities Should Not Be Multiplied Beyond Necessity, by Greg Mackie
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/Entities.php

and  Opening a Dialogue with Gary Renard, by Jon Mundy
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/OpeningADialogue.php

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Disappearance_of_the_Universe/

bless Eli Jaxon-Bear and Andrew Cohen to liberate blessing yourself
[re notes on A Course in Miracles, Robert Perry]: Murray 2006.10.29
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/61
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Jon Mundy & Gary Renard agree to forgive: Mundy: Murray 2006.11.29
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/67

http://www.miraclesmagazine.org/Articles/Nature.pdf

I Could Have Seen Peace Instead of This
Closing the Dialogue -- Opening the Heart
By Jon Mundy, Ph.D.  http://www.miraclesmagazine.org/
http://www.miraclesmagazine.org/miraclesmagazine.htm
jon@...   845-496-9089
PO Box 1000   Washingtonville, NY 10992


Thank God for the Course
and its ever gentle reminders which keep echoing in the mind,
bringing me (us) back to truth (sanity) once again.

The dialogue with Gary Renard is over.
I have no more questions to ask of Gary,
further 'dialogue'ť would be an argument.
There is no value in continuing a debate which cannot be won.
The ego would love for this to be an insolvable dilemma.
There is, however, a solution, and we all know it.
It is the way of love.

On Thanksgiving Day, I sent a note to Gary which ran in part as follows:

Hi Gary, Let's be done with this.
Let's both let it go, put it in the past and go on.
I raised the questions I wanted to raise.
You answered my questions;
and as you see, I printed exactly what you sent me.
Your last two paragraphs were the best.

Let's find that holy spot on earth
where an ancient hatred can become a present love.
Let's both get on with our work without becoming
further bogged down in ego.
Our work is holy work if we do it right.

Let's sit down in San Francisco and talk about more pleasant things.
There is a place where we can heal.
The Course provides that way.
You teach forgiveness.
In fact, you do a very good job of it, so let's practice what we preach.

I have no interest in writing about this any more.
If I do, it will be about my responsibility
and my misperception in this mess,
it will not be about you.

As I said in my last email,
though I don't think Arten and Pursah are real,
I am however, ready to acknowledge that you do
and I'm willing to let it go at that.

I won't be offering any endorsements.
I won't be offering any attack either.
Ken has the right idea -- you don't endorse and you don't attack either.

So I offer you my apology for any hurt that I have brought to you.
This may be a big forgiveness for you,
still I'm asking you to forgive me.

I hold my intention that this will be healed.
Let's remember Thanksgiving 2006 as the day this came to an end.
I'm looking forward to 2007 as a Holy New Year,
a year in which neither one of us will be occupied with this any more.


Gary fortunately accepted my offer.
If I do any further writing on this -- it will be about my
own misperception -- not about Gary.
You may find this further clarification in the Jan/Feb issue
of Miracles or on our website.
Hopefully, now we'll all have a Merrier Christmas
and a Happier New Year.

Peace,  Jon
************************************************************************


Mike L spotlights specifics in Gary Renard's long response to criticism:
Donnellan: Murray 2006.11.22
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/65

Gary Renard vigorously defends the literal reality of Arten and Pursah,
re critiques  ("witch-hunt"?) by Mundy, Perry, and Mackie: Murray
2006.11.20
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/64

Gary R. Renard garyrrenard@...

Gary Renard challenges critics of his claims, Circle of Atonement,
Robert Perry: Murray 2006.11.14
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/63

http://www.circleofa.org/interaction/Feedback.php#DU

Comments on

Why Don't the Masters Have an Original Thought?, by Robert Perry
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/DuOriginalThought.php

Entities Should Not Be Multiplied Beyond Necessity, by Greg Mackie
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/Entities.php

and  Opening a Dialogue with Gary Renard, by Jon Mundy
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/OpeningADialogue.php

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Disappearance_of_the_Universe/
************************************************************************

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmfor...@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 80 members, 1,382 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com
************************************************************************

judicious comments re abuse by Andrew Cohen and Eli Jaxon-Bear; Simeon Alev and
others: Murray 2006.11.22
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/66

[ bless Eli Jaxon-Bear and Andrew Cohen to liberate blessing yourself
[re notes on A Course in Miracles, Robert Perry]: Murray 2006.10.29
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/61 ]

http://whatenlightenment.blogspot.com/2006/11/part-2-response-to-andrew-cohens.h\
tml

WHAT enlightenment??!
an uncensored look at self-styled "guru" Andrew Cohen

Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Part 2 – A Response To Andrew Cohen's "Declaration of Integrity"

Some Personal Recollections
by Simeon Alev

[Former What Is Enlightement? magazine editor Simeon Alev provides further
reflections in response to Andrew Cohen's recent attempt on his blog to explain
his conduct which has been the subject of widespread criticism.]

I’d like to add a little personal background to my previous post so that readers
can understand the kind of perplexity produced in sincere students by some of
the situations described in this blog.

I remember clearly the first time I saw Andrew Cohen instruct one student to hit
another. We were seated in a circle talking with him on a beach by the Ganges in
Rishikesh. A male student made a remark to which Andrew took exception, and he
instructed a female student sitting next to the speaker to punch him in the
shoulder. Judging by both the sound produced and the pained expression on the
victim’s face, it was clearly a powerful blow. However, the student accepted
this ‘gesture’ without protest, and the conversation continued as if nothing had
happened. At the time, this did not strike me as so outlandish as to require
rationalization, and taking my cues from the group, I allowed myself to accept
it. The “contextual” presumption was clearly that the student had benefited from
this skillful response to a remark that, in Andrew’s perception, was a
manifestation of “ego.”

I recently recalled this ‘early’ incident while mulling over a couple of later
ones that I have always found far more troubling, and the interesting thing
about it is that I vividly remember both a) the negative effect it produced in
me and b) my willingness to ignore it. Energetically and philosophically, the
atmosphere around Andrew is dynamic and charged, and in such an atmosphere it is
a given that many accepted conventions of thought and behavior are suspended.
Indeed, it is doubtful that many of us would have been with Andrew had this not
been the case. Under such circumstances, incidents such as this one evoked in
me—simultaneously—contradictory ‘levels’ of internal response, from cognitive
dissonance (‘something is wrong here’) to business-as-usual (‘everything here is
perfect’).

A few years later, I was in an evening men’s meeting at Foxhollow at which
everyone was supposedly “together” with the exception of one student who was
expressing what was consensually interpreted as “doubt.” Andrew’s informer for
that evening, having left the room to tell him what was happening in the
meeting, returned to ask us if, with the exception of that student, we were all
“really together.” We answered yes, then waited while our emissary went back to
Andrew for further instructions. These were not long in coming: We were to
gather outside, where enough vehicles would arrive to take us all down to the
lake. There, we were each to punch the doubter in the right shoulder, after
which he was to submerge himself several times in the cold water while shouting
“Freedom has no history!”

As I was riding down to the lake in the moonlight surrounded by my
‘brothers-in-arms’ in the back of a pick-up truck, I asked myself what was
really going on here. Was this what I’d signed on for when I’d become a formal
student—organized group violence, torture and humiliation? Whatever they were
calling it—tough love, purification—my alarm bells were going off and it was
suddenly clear to me that I was in the midst of a situation that would probably
precipitate my departure from the community. Under the circumstances,
(hopefully) needless to say, these were sentiments that produced tremendous
confusion and inner conflict given my genuine devotion to the stated principles
and aspirations of our communal life. Was I then a hypocrite? And if so, which
was the greater hypocrisy: the toleration of violence against a brother, or of
my own doubts as to Andrew’s wisdom and purity of motivation? I recognized in
this moment that as a so-called ‘spiritual commando’ I was likely to prove
utterly inadequate. Should I be more ashamed of this, or of my craven
unwillingness to admit it then and there and accept the probable physical
consequences? In the end I participated in this ritual without comment. One of
the final shoulder blows was so effectively administered by a military-trained
member of Andrew’s security team (also a holistic healer!) that it produced a
nauseating pop I can still hear and a wince I can still see. After his ordeal
was over, however, the student thanked us for helping him to overcome his doubt,
and remains (to his credit?) a longstanding member of Andrew’s community.

On another occasion it fell to me to report to Andrew on the progress of a
similar ritual recounted elsewhere in this blog, that of an editorial colleague
(since departed) who’d been required to submerge himself in the frozen lake one
hundred times while yelling repeatedly, “I am an asshole!” Entering his office I
encountered Andrew with several of his committed students, who laughed
derisively at my secondhand account of this student’s ordeal (e.g., having to
relocate to less conspicuous waterfront and start over), congratulating Andrew
when he asserted proudly that “things like this happen only around me,” and
enthusiastically affirming his insistence that no other contemporary teacher had
the “outrageous integrity” to prescribe such ruthless austerities.

Why am I reporting these incidents? For two reasons: First, I am tired of
hearing it said that people should simply “get over” the effects of such
experiences and carry on with their lives as if nothing had happened. Second and
more importantly, both the confusion produced by such incidents, and their
legitimacy as facilitators of spiritual development, are crucial topics for
discussion. Why? Because they help to explain why so many people who had—and in
many cases still have—feelings of incredible respect, gratitude and devotion for
Andrew Cohen, have nevertheless felt compelled to move on. It is far less
polarizing to approach the issue with this possibility in mind than simply to
impugn the integrity of those who dare to speak out. And if a “context” and
“practices” of this nature have prompted so many to leave who might otherwise
have preferred to stay, it would be well for Andrew and his present community to
be humbly aware of that and, as the saying goes, to face into it.

The imposing infrastructure now at Andrew’s disposal was co-created by him and
many students who believed wholeheartedly in his realization and vision for
humanity, and who in many cases still share that vision and acknowledge Andrew’s
contribution to their development as cosmic citizens. It is high time that
Andrew made his peace with these people by acknowledging and accepting their
experiences as his students, and by encouraging his present students to do the
same rather than inveigling them into a selective public relations campaign that
serves his image rather than the whole truth.

posted by the Editors @ 9:29 PM   13 comments links to this post
13 Comments:

At Wednesday, 08 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     Really excellent post(s) Simeon, thank you.

     Mario

At Wednesday, 08 November, 2006, Bjorn said...

     Dear Simeon, really excellent piece. Thank you for stating it so clearly.
This is the kind of attitude and behaviour that always had put me off within
Andrew's community. I had always considered it be behaviour common to certain
people, whether "spiritual" or otherwise, and and that Andrew displayed this
kind of "macho" attitude I usually put it down to his New York american
personality, but really didn't like when students thought and felt they had free
licence to adapt similar behaviour. It just stood out to be bullying and
superiority. Many ambitious students willingly climbing over other students to
score points with Andrew, or so they believed.

     I watched with bemusement but knew sooner or later this would lead to my
departure. But, there are also many warm hearted students who will not tarnish
themselves with this kind of bullying behaviour that some use to "practice"
their own "leadership" qualities.

     Once again I am reminded of the enormous resposibility one have over ones
actions if one have great authority over other people. They will leap over
opportunities to "promote" themselves in the name of truth. Wanting to emulate
the teachers personality. Dress or otherwise.

At Wednesday, 08 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     Thank you for your post, Simeon. I appreciate your honesty and willingness
to speak about your internal process through all of this. It helps me so very
much to read this blog, it really does. Having been involved with a "spiritual
teacher" who is strikingly similar to Andrew, I've also reflected on moments
that felt surreal; moments where I saw and experienced things that caused alarm
bells to sound off inside of me, but at the same time I was unable to speak up
and say, "Please stop. This is sick and wrong." I've struggled with guilt over
all of this... over not seeing just how destructive and sick this teacher was
(and still is) and not doing anything about it or trying to stop it.

     I know I made decisions based on the information I had at the time, from the
lens I had at the time. In some moments I have a certain level of compassion
towards my little self about that. Now my lens is clear (or more clear) and now
what do I do? Maybe I don't need to "do" anything, but I gotta tell ya, some
moments still haunt me. I know I need to let go of this stuff or at least learn
how to smile at it. But, most importantly, some people I love very much still
trust this person. That is what bothers me the most.

     See, I saw inappropriate sexual behavior (in the name of Tantra, of course.
What a deal. Now you can be totally obsessed with sex and call it religion. Who
can resist union with the Divine, plus being a special, chosen
student/shakti/devotee?). I am SO upset about this it's hard to type.

     It was damaging to very vunerable people and they are still wounded from it.
I witnessed financial "donations" that were just plain wrong. I saw a teacher
who said one thing and lived a totally different, secretive and very DARK life.
I'm talking icky dark. I saw it all. I saw it because I was their partner. It's
hard to keep those kinds of secrets from someone you live with.
     (Turns out.) But they tried.

     I went through the whole thing... self doubt, questioning my egoic
reactions, thinking I was crazy... the whole enchilada. Ultimately I found a way
to trust my own insides and hear my own voice, heart, and spirit again, instead
of the voice of this person.

     So I left. I still have relationships with some who followed this person,
and some are still "hooked in." Some know there is "something wrong", too. I am
talking about truly wonderful, loving people here. People you see and just want
to hug right away.

     I have been very careful about what I say, since my leaving caused a bit of
a ripple to go out into the community. I was strongly connected to this
particular teacher and folks have been scratchng their heads about the whole
thing. (Including me.) People are asking why and I don't know what to say other
than watered down general comments that aren't anywhere near as honest as I'd
like to be. That leaves me feeling like a great big fake. It really does. I walk
away from those conversations totally pissed off at myself.

     See, I deeply question whether it's my responsibility to "out" this teacher.
If I say something, am I interfering with that teacher and student's karma or
whatever else needs to play out? Please don't anybody yell at me for asking that
question. That is honestly where I am at in this moment.

     Yet I know people could be hurt if they stay involved with this person. Some
won't, too. It's my perception that this teacher is very selective about who
gets close and who doesn't; no different than what I sense about Andrew. I
really don't know what to do, so I've just kept it to myself or talked to a
couple people who are totally outside of the situation.

     This relates so much to what I've kept up on with this blog since it came
about. I've read it and thought about this and prayed for those who were harmed
by Andrew. The teacher I was involved with is just as charismatic, attractive,
and compelling. I belive this teacher has the capacity to get to Andrew's
"level" of influence.

     It's a troubling thing... spiritual teachers who have this sacred
responsibility who just do whatever they want, no matter who it hurts. Some
don't even have the capacity to think about whether or not it hurts anybody,
because after all, they are a guru (self-prescribed). It's "crazy wisdom."

     It's perfectly appropriate to have a reaction to behavior that is ethically
and spiritually wrong. But somehow it gets turned around and those who "smell
something bad" end up skaking their heads, walking away muttering to themselves
and questioning the very fiber of their being, while wondering if they are crazy
or bad or just so full of ego that they can't trust what they know in their
hearts and spirits to be true. Does THAT lead to enlightenment? Ignoring our
hearts? I just don't think so anymore.

     Please, please forgive me for my rant... I know this blog isn't about me and
my little experience. But there's a common theme here. What do we, as spiritual
folks or those spiritually inclined to seek and love and try to live where
there's lots of light... what do we do when we come across a teacher who does
these things? Who holds these folks accountable? Are they accountable? Or do we
just walk away, chalk it up to experience and hope nobody else gets hurt? My
tummy says I can't live with that.

     One thing I know is this: I will for the rest of my life be very leery about
spiritual teachers. I gotta tell ya, I hear the word "teacher" or "community"
and me little hackles go UP. My mind really wants to snap shut, or ask some
uncomfortable and down right nosy questions. I don't plan on walking around like
that forever, either. Just for now. I know there's a continuum there somewhere
and I'm definitely on it. Where, I'm not sure that really exists anyway. (Now
there's the rub.)

     Is there some group or guideline or forum or some tangible thing that exists
where this can be talked about? Is there a place folks come come together and
put on a pot of coffee or tea and visit about this stuff? Huh? Cuz there's lots
of "teachers" out there and some of them are really causing a ruckus. I'm not
saying that folks should sit around and bitch and feel vicitmized either. I'm
just saying that I feel pulled from the inside to do something about it or at
least talk about it, but I don't know where to start. Just typing this out on
this day helps a bit.

     Thank you for listening.

At Wednesday, 08 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     Reading your post is enlightening Simeon. The Inner Circle is a world unto
itself and to find out what transpires in the name of Evolutionary Enlightenment
certainly raises questions that will probably never be addressed by those
responsible for abusive actions. Perhaps burning in the Light of Truth is too
much to ask of those who demand it from others, but wouldn't it be thrilling to
actually have a dialogue and investigation into these issues? All that ever
appears in response to these serious concerns are slams against the victims and
arrogant disregard of the facts of what happened. I keep checking back on this
site in hopes that one day I will find a serious reckoning has occurred.
Contrary to what Andrew's supporters probably feel, this is not a crucifiction
that is going on here. It is simply an enquiry into what happened and why. It
did happen and no "Declaration of Integrity" can change the facts. What is
needed is an actual demonstration of Integrity in action. Anything less is empty
posturing.

At Wednesday, 08 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     What would be "an actual demonstration of Integrity in action". How would
that look, and who decides - and on what grounds is that decision made?

At Wednesday, 08 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     the previous poster asks: "What would be "an actual demonstration of
Integrity in action". How would that look, and who decides - and on what grounds
is that decision made?"

     Well, for starters, I would say that instead of just generally claiming to
have integrity, you actually address some specific charges or criticisms made
against your actions. You take responsibility for them, and either state why you
feel they were appropriate -- or if they were "mistakes", you admit that
(instead of having one of your students, like Carter, come in on your behalf and
say that you never said you were "perfect". This is not a demonstration of
integrity. It's rather insulting to all concerned.) Shouldn't such demonstrated
integrity be expected of anyone in any position of authority, let alone a
spiritual teacher leading the way?

     If one wants to create the appearance of being humble, and having integrity,
you just say the words, as Andrew has done so far. If you want to demonstrate
integrity, and really show that you don't believe you have always acted
perfectly (a dangerous position), then you indicate specifically where you have
gone wrong and own that, apologize or whatever. What past, present and future
students don't need is a political-style spin of the issue. In all the
allegations and criticisms it is his across the board avoidance of addressing
specifics that frankly is what is so concerning about Andrew Cohen

At Wednesday, 08 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     It might be very helpful to investigate whether there is a process of
selective recruitment going on here.

     Simeon wrote:

     "Energetically and philosophically, the atmosphere around Andrew is dynamic
and charged, and in such an atmosphere it is a given that many accepted
conventions of thought and behavior are suspended.

     "Indeed, it is doubtful that many of us would have been with Andrew had this
not been the case. "

     Is it possible that it is only those persons who crave intensity and who
seek high risk and who demonstrate a willingness to obey orders to insult and
harm others who are actually the ones selected for the inner circle?'

     If this is the case, then it may be that AC prefers a specific type of
person to form his entourage--and if you assemble a group composed only of
persons who are indealistic, highly assertive, crave risk and challenge, but who
have been persuaded that kindness is weakness and willingness to rationalize
cruelty is a sign of spiritual maturity--this creates a social context in which
behavior can rapidly spiral out of control.

     And once people are persuaded to behave in ways that they are ashamed of,
this instills shame. And if a person carries out cruelty on orders from a
leader, that person becomes what has been termed a 'victim perpetrator'--you
become complicit in the leader's violent behavior.

     Violating one's own moral standards by harming others on orders from a
charismatic leader often leads to shock and confusion and one feels all the more
dependent on this same leader for guidance. Thus the trap is sprung.

     One great hazard of being recruited into the inner circle of an abusive
leader is that if you are persuaded to harm others, the victims will often make
excuses for the leader, but will instead put all the blame on the members of the
entourage who were turned into victim perpetrators.

     Rajneesh is an example--he was merely deported from the US back to India,
while members of his inner circle were the ones who served the jail time.

     And if victim perpetrators find the courage to leave, they often bear a
terrible burden of shame and it can take a long time to sort this out and then
speak up.

At Wednesday, 08 November, 2006, Martin Gifford said...

     Bjorn and Simeon,

     I wouldn't feel bad about doing what Andrew told you to do. We are all
essentially innocent. We are all going through the process of evolution and
mistakes are inevitable. You were psychologically trapped.

     Of course, Andrew would say that you did sign on for that treatment. As he
wrote in his article, "This will take all you have and more." So you are
supposed to somehow give more than you have. It's always "bigger" and "more" and
"ever higher" in his mind.

     Ironically, Papaji's mere lying was an "emotionally shattering" experience
for Andrew. Such hypocrisy would be obvious to any objective observer.

     I think he lets himself off the hook for everything because he thinks he is
doing it for God. When he was 16 he got the message from God to give everything
to God, and this is probably what he thinks he is doing. He thinks anything is
okay for a noble cause.

     He's deluded. But he's not the only one.

     For anyone wanting profound insight into Andrew Cohen's ego fixation, check
out the enneagram. He is the first type. See:
www.enneagraminstitute.com/typeone.asp

     Once you understand the enneagram, you will never be trapped by a guru's ego
fixation again. It is very liberating. You start to see the whole thing
objectively.

     P.S. Andrew has another post on his blog.

     Martin Gifford.

At Wednesday, 08 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     To answer your questions posed to my post regarding "an actual demonstration
of Integrity in action", an example of an actual demonstration of Integrity in
this case would be responding directly to the charges of abuse. It would look
courageous. Each one would decide for themselves on the grounds of an inner
response to the humility of the demonstration. Integrity is easily recognizable
and illicits a response of love and forgiveness.
     Integrity as defined by Dictionary.com -
     1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character;
honesty.
     2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the
integrity of the empire.

At Sunday, 12 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     Hi Thank you for your stories, Simeon. I really appreciated the light being
shed around this. I tried to post a comment to Andrew's blog raising some
questions about his "declaration" only to be filtered out. I found at least one
other person with a similar experience of being edited out who has written about
it at another blog--ebuddha at Integral Practice writes about his experience and
how "humorous" he finds Andrew Cohen's "attempt to embrace blogs." Worth
checking out his comments. And he links to P2P Foundation's great praise for
"the wonderful work" of the What Enlightenment??! blog.

At Wednesday, 15 November, 2006, Stuart said...

     I read Andrew's 2nd blog posting and submitted my comment. On the off chance
that it gets rejected by Andrew's moderator, I figured I'd post it here too.

     **********

     Andrew: you write about losing "the ability to make value distinctions." Of
course it can sometimes be useful to make distinctions, but we can be aware that
we're *making* them. For example, when you wrote in the previous blog entry, "As
far as I’m concerned, the spiritual life is just like any other endeavor—you can
succeed or fail"... you're making "success" and "failure." When you write in
this blog about individuals who are “not completely ‘cooked,’ or ‘finished,’”
you’re making ideas of “cooked” and “not completely cooked.”

     You write in this blog that "the traditional definition of enlightenment
refers to coming to the end of the developmental process, to having 'arrived.'"
The "traditional definition" of "enlightenment" depends on which tradition you
choose to look at! In the Zen tradition, for example, "enlightenment" is a word
that means putting down concepts, perceiving this moment, and responding to it.

     You write that you teach that enlightenment "is not about coming to the end
of anything, but rather, to the beginning of something else." This is likewise a
concept of enlightenment; it's just a different concept (that of "beginning"
rather than "end").

     You write, "my own understanding of what enlightenment is has evolved so
much over the years that these days it really has very little to do with what my
teacher was teaching." Is it that your concept of enlightenment was wrong back
then, but it’s right now? If your ideas have changed so much over the years,
will they continue changing, so that some day you'll consider your current ideas
of enlightenment just as wrong?

     In other words: as you exchange one idea of enlightenment for another, do
you question: “Why make and hold any idea? For what? For who?”

At Thursday, 16 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     I strongly suspect that the person who shared about being abused by another
spiritual teacher with amazing similarities to Andrew was talking about Eli
Jaxon-Bear.

     As a one-time admirer of Gangaji and Eli -- who, fortunately, never
experienced the outrageous abusiveness of Andrew Cohen -- I am horrified to
learn about the various abuses that have been perpetrated in the name of
"enlightenment." At the same time I am glad and thankful that people are
speaking out about their experiences, as I once was in an abusive relationship
with a spiritual teacher, and years later I am still grappling with the pain
that arose within that relationship.

     May all beings be happy and free from suffering.

At Friday, 17 November, 2006, Anonymous said...

     Stuart, your latest posting is bang-on and exactly the point we need to
consider when tempted to allow a supposedly enlightened teacher to define the
perameters of spiritual advancement, abandoning our own inner guidance system in
the process.
     Andrew makes proclamations and in order to follow along, one is constantly
accepting his dictates without even being conscious of doing so. You can tell
people anything and they will believe you. If you have the audacity to assume a
position of authority there will be those who will fall in line, sign up and
turn over the keys to their kingdom.
     Freedom is found when, finally, we are done with authority figures and are
willing to stand alone and take responsibility for our own growth and actions in
this life. Once that happens we can never again be captured by a master
trickster. We will never again suspend our own common sense and the whole house
of cards collapses to reveal the sound of one hand clapping.

Comments and Contributions
NEW--We are again open for comments! Post them here or email them to WHAT
enlightenment??!
( whatenlightenment@... ) Thank you for your support! If you would like
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Previous Posts

     * A Response To Andrew Cohen’s “Declaration of Integrity”
     * Congratulations to WHAT Enlightenment?!! on its se...
     * Some Reflections on Abuse and Uncompleted or “Intermediate” Gurus
     * Intersubjective Fictions--Some Cohen Video Reviews
     * Cohen Collaborator Gafni Removed For Sexual Misconduct
     * The Principles of Enslavement
     * Some Common Misunderstandings of 'Two Truths Doctrine' in Nondual
Philosophies that May Impede Recognition and Discussion of Painful Situations
     * A Call To Action And A Letter To Bill O’Reilly
     * A Remarkable Consistency
     * Vimala Thakar’s Concealed Criticism and Andrew Cohen’s Treatment of
Women—The Investigation Continues

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Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 78 members, 1,381 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com
************************************************************************

Mike L spotlights specifics in Gary Renard's long response to criticism:
Donnellan: Murray 2006.11.22
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/65

Gary Renard vigorously defends the literal reality of Arten and Pursah,
re critiques  ("witch-hunt"?) by Mundy, Perry, and Mackie: Murray
2006.11.20
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/64

From: Gary R. Renard garyrren...@...

Gary Renard challenges critics of his claims, Circle of Atonement,
Robert Perry: Murray 2006.11.14
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/63

http://www.circleofa.org/interaction/Feedback.php#DU

Comments on

Why Don't the Masters Have an Original Thought?, by Robert Perry
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/DuOriginalThought.php

Entities Should Not Be Multiplied Beyond Necessity, by Greg Mackie
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/Entities.php

and  Opening a Dialogue with Gary Renard, by Jon Mundy
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/OpeningADialogue.php

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Disappearance_of_the_Universe/

From: Jim Donnellan   JimDonnel...@...
Date: Wednesday 2006.11.22 3:26 AM

Excellent response.
Gary's response makes it quite clear that he is not the
Ascended Master type and could not have generated the clarity
that they provided into the course concepts.
I was surprised that Robert, Greg, and Jon never raised that point.

Loved the Cat fight analogy - plush hills vs the wrong side of the
tracks.

Your effort is worth cleaning up the typing problems and should be
shared more widely.

Jim Donnellan
   -----Original Message-----  [typing errors cleared up]

  From: Disappearance_of_the_Unive...@yahoogroups.com

[mailto:Disappearance_of_the_Unive...@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of
nilegolcom
   Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 4:54 AM
   To: Disappearance_of_the_Unive...@yahoogroups.com
   Subject: [Disappearance_of_the_Universe]
In Defense Of Arten and Pursuah!
OR... Girls, girls, girls, cool it!

Mark L  nilegol...@...

I'm relieved by Gary's rebuttal. I really want to believe that A
and P are real. This moves me from middle ground quite a bit back in
that direction, if for a funny reason.

Well, partially relieved. There's still the schism thing, which no
one seems much concerned with.

As I read the rebuttal and remember the MM articles I hear in my
head Chris (River Phoenix)'s great but non-PC line from Stand By Me:

Girls, girls girls. Cool it. We'll flip for it.

Chris was talking to boys. The terminology turned their little
dispute into a clawing hysterical girly overreaction.

As I read both sides of the DU dispute, that's what I see, a
catfight on an elementary school playground, one contestant from the
plush hills, the other from across the tracks. Half the reason they
are fighting, more than half actually, is just because they are from
different parts of town. The stated reasons are only an excuse.

How does Gary's rebuttal look to someone who's not invested in
either side winning? Here's my take on it.

WHAT'S GOOD?
It's a strong successful rebuttal that makes some excellent points.

WHAT'S BAD?
It has way too much name-calling and pettiness.

WHAT'S MISSING?
There's little sympathy or consideration for the other side. There're
no significant moves towards schism repair, beyond a few tepid
expressions by Gary that he hopes for reconciliation.

THE IMPLICIT DEFENSE.
Gary's piece needs a LOT of editing. Why is this important? Because
Disappearance DOESN'T need editing. The writer of the rebuttal and
the writer of DU cannot be the same, can they? The importance of DU
(possibly the best explication of ACIM in existence) is such that I
hope Gary doesn't mind being made a bit of a sacrificial goat here.
His writing is good but far from great. And the Gary that comes
shining through in the rebuttal is far from the paragon of virtue
that someone would have to be to produce DU. The relative lack of
skill and personal development in the rebuttal as compared to DU is
a strong argument for the reality of A and P.

So, just for fun, I'll play at being Gary's editor and try to do
what Gary himself apparently can't do by himself: make this piece
something closer to what A and P might have written. My intention is
to show how different this is from an A and P piece. (Oh, yeah.
There's one more intention. The one I'm always harping on. Schism
repair.)

And so, I turn this over to the Hypothetical Editor (HYP ED).

GARY: Response to the Witch-hunt.
HYP ED: Now that's a REALLY bad way to start this thing, and even
worse as an organizing principle for this essay. Witch-hunt, Pearl
Harbor, axis of ego, 'BS in Miracles Magazine,' Nazi Germany and
all the rest of the name-calling needs to be mercilessly cut out.
Snip snip snip.

GARY: I've learned that forgiveness doesn't have to mean you
become a doormat.
HYP ED: Not a real strong justification for doing your defense.
It's a catchy line, but it doesn't bear much examination. If you
adjust the attitude just a bit, another way to say 'become a
doormat' is: 'Turn the other cheek.' A doormat would be a much
better example of Course thinking than most of this article. Better
to be a principled doormat, a forgiving doormat, a doormat striving
for Heaven than to go on the attack.

GARY: While members of the Circle of Atonement sit at their
computers imagining themselves to be intelligent, I'm out there in
person, not running from people so I can engage in idle theories,
but walking right up to them and introducing myself so we can get to
know each other.
HYP ED: Snip it all out. They are who they are, just as you are who
you are. Different people have different personalities, different
things they are good at. Putting a bad spin on their personality and
a good one on yours is not a sophisticated tactic. Or a very nice
one.

GARY: the Course community is NOT the twenty five or so very
visible people and organizations. I've met the real Course
community in the last three years, and it is you, the many
thousands.
HYP ED: It's them against us!!! (Snip it out, this is not where you
want to go.)

GARY: Their goal is to distort the faithful translation of the
Course that is available in my books in favor of their own woefully
inferior interpretation of it.
HYP ED: We are right! The one true way! You are wrong! (Snip it out,
this is not where you want to go.)

GARY: The books are true, and there was no real evidence, other than
opinions, in any of the articles in this magazine to prove otherwise.
HYP ED: Not a strong argument. The burden of proof, if there is one,
is on you, not them. Proof has to come from the side making unusual
claims, not from the doubting side.

GARY: In one of the articles Greg Mackie actually made the
incredible statement that, 'Renard has clearly not met the burden
of proof.' I beg your pardon? This is not Nazi Germany. In present
day America a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The
burden of proof is not on me.
HYP ED: Snip it. The 'court system' is not a great metaphor. This
dispute is not a legal case. No one's going to jail. The burden of
proof is, in fact, on the one making the unusual claims, not (as in
an actual court case) on the one charging guilt.

GARY: And by the way, since when is a mystic required to 'prove'
his or her experiences?
HYP ED: A mystic is not if he/she doesn't see fit to. But a good
mystic must see that doubts are reasonable. Proof is not required,
but attacking doubters without first giving them conclusive proof is
juvenile. This is not a strong argument. Snip it.

REV. TONY: Isn't it odd that some are trying to develop objective
criteria to 'prove' his mystical experience invalid? It seems
risky to me.
HYP ED: This is one bit of your Rev Tony quote. All of it taken
together is more like the way you want to go. Follow Tony's lead.

GARY: The axis of ego is so much in denial of this that they could
not identify even one of the real reasons the books are widely read.
HYP ED: Snip snip snip. Too much venom. Too much kids-on-the-
playground.

GARY: In their ongoing effort to protect the Course from becoming
more popular, what they did was judge and condemn me. They have to.
As A Course In Miracles says, 'He who would not forgive must judge,
for he must justify his failure to forgive.'
HYP ED: Snip it. Quoting the Course against the other side is a
risky (as Rev Tony might put it) tactic. I doubt if an objective
outside observer could find much of a reason for not applying this
quote to you. Only your most loyal followers will aim this quote
solely at the other side. And the other side will certainly aim it
at you. Snip it. It accomplishes nothing.

GARY: I've made mistakes in public. None of this calls into
question the validity of the books.
HYP ED: Good point. This is a tack and train of logic that makes
sense. It might be worth developing.

GARY: If Beverly had taken my advice and tried to change the nature
of our relationship.  I've always been willing to work with Beverly
and have never shut her out. She's the one who practices
exclusionary policies.
HYP ED: Kids on the playground. You practice exclusionary policies!
No, you do! No, you do! I'm afraid the whole email episode looks
pretty petty no matter how you spin it. The added context in your
rebuttal only slightly improves your position. You'd do a whole lot
better with non-followers to just chalk this one up as another of
the 'public mistakes.' Don't play Nixon and defend-or-deny
everything.

GARY: Beverly doesn't sell my books, but she DOES sell Jon's books
(as well as at least one by Mr. Perry) and has had Jon speak many
times at the Miracle Distribution Center's conferences, which I've
never been invited to.
HYP ED: Snip it all! To an outsider you only seem to be plunging
deeper into pettiness. The MDE is Beverly's baby, not yours. What
she sells and who she invites is none of your concern, really. And
do you realize how this looks to an outsider? An elephant screaming
at a mouse because the mouse doesn't give proper respect. This is
not an inspiring sight. YOU are the best-selling author, the
elephant. A little magnanimity is called for here.

GARY: Finally, and unbelievably, in his e-mails Mr. Mundy has also
questioned my relationships with women. So let me say this very
clearly. My personal life is none of his business.
HYP ED: It's a good point, but good enough to go public with? Not
sure. But if you do go public, lose the tone of outrage. Let Jon
sink into his own pit of pettiness on this one. Don't jump in with
him.

GARY: As we've seen, a dialogue had already taken place and he
didn't like the way it came out so he made up his own absurd attack
edition in the September issue.
HYP ED: Snip snip. Judging your own success in an unrecorded debate
will impress no one but true believers. The counter punch, 'made up
his own absurd attack,' is kids-fighting-on-a-playground. Snip it.

GARY: I have no need to hurt Mr. Mundy. I believe he's already
doing that to himself, which I warned him against.
HYP ED: Snip it. Sounds like self-aggrandizement. The reading public
(or at least non-followers) can almost see you painting a halo
around your own head: 'I was only trying to warn him, to help him,
not to threaten him. He just took it the wrong way.' Stick to your
strong arguments, and don't use phrases that only seem intended to
improve your own goodness.

For example, stick to arguments like your next one. You nail Jon
when you take him to task for the 'no mention of ascended masters
in ACIM' bit, and you do a good job on his problem with 'no
reincarnation' in ACIM. As hypothetical editor I would take out all
the witch-hunts, Nazis, name-calling, and pretty self-portraits and
leave only these powerful threadbare arguments. Those other things
are only distractions that reduce the persuasiveness of your
strongest points. The distractions only impress people who want to
say, 'Get eem, Gary!' i.e. they only impress people who are
already your true believers. They convince no one who is not.

GARY: Perhaps what really happened was that he didn't realize just
how successful the book would be, and became more and more jealous
as time went on.
HYP ED: Enough with the low blows and speculations! Let's get off
the playground! Snip it all! You should never engage in
psychoanalysis of the other or speculation on their inner motives
unless you claim to be able to see into their heart.

GARY: Mundy and his fellow snobs
HYP ED: Snip snip cut cut.

Gary, you now have another strong section going with your excellent
(and sometimes really funny!) points about their obsession with your
use of language and your flirtations with Pursah. Then you undercut
it all with more name-calling. Oh, why didn't you contact me for
editing! LOL! But of course, it's actually much better this way.
This way you prove that you are clearly not A and P. You prove that
you are a fairly ordinary guy who's had an incredible experience.
If your rebuttal was really good, you'd be suspect.

Gary, you point out that Jon spends a good deal of ink on the fact
that there are many and lengthy quotes from ACIM, as if that's
somehow a point against you. Jon's wrong here. Stick with pointing
out these kinds of things. And hey, come on Jon Mundy! Let's get
off the playground! You're really fishing on this one. The ACIM
quotes are beneficial to both Gary's books and the readers of his
books. What's wrong with that?

GARY: Despite his own apparent self-importance, he is not very well
known.
HYP ED: Enough already with the little digs! Snip snip.

GARY: Thanks for the witch-hunt, Jon. Your idea of what constitutes
'Miracles, Mysticism, Metaphysics and Mirth' leaves a tremendous
amount to be desired.
HYP ED: Cut it all! Juvenile. Juvenile. Juvenile.

Note from HYP ED. I've cut my own continuation on Gary's
discussion of the next two articles as it's more of the same. In
the next two, Gary continues to make some excellent points and
continues to undercut his own points with the same kind of
pettiness. I absolutely cannot believe that the man who wrote this
rebuttal also wrote DU.

Hey, Gary! No hard feelings! It's all for the sake of DU, ACIM,
Arten, and Pursah.

Good evening, all,  Mark L
************************************************************************

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmfor...@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 78 members, 1,381 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com
************************************************************************

Gary Renard vigorously defends the literal reality of Arten and Pursah,
re critiques  ("witch-hunt"?) by Mundy, Perry, and Mackie: Murray
2006.11.20
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/64

From: Gary R. Renard garyrrenard@...
Disappearance_of_the_Universe@yahoogroups.com
Monday November 20 2006   12:35 PM


[ Gary Renard challenges critics of his claims, Circle of Atonement,
Robert Perry: Murray 2006.11.14
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/63 ]


Hi Friends, Below is the link to the online version of my response
article that was just printed in Miracles Magazine. Feel free to
forward it to others. As a brief introduction, I added a posting that
was made by someone at this group. After this I will not be responding
to this trumped up "controversy" any further. Thanks and love, Gary

http://www.garyrenard.com/Response.htm

Introduction

Note: I've added this brief introduction to my article titled, "My
Response to the Witch-Hunt that is Currently Taking Place Among Some in
the Course Community." This is a message that was posted at the online
discussion group on Yahoo that talks about my books. I think it's an
accurate commentary on Jon Mundy's recent attacks, as well as those
of his collaborators. It was posted by Jim Carruth.

[ From: Jim Carruth  jcarruth@...
Disappearance_of_the_Universe@yahoogroups.com  2006.11.12 5:53 PM ]

Re: Gary's authenticity?

Gary's authenticity did not come into question publicly until Jon
Mundy and two other authors published their "Opening a Dialogue with
Gary Renard," which more aptly should have been called "Opening an
Attack on Gary Renard."

Since that article came out, I've noticed a few interesting things.
The article is now gone from its original site, and also its featured
place on the front of Jon's website, and even anywhere else on the
internet itself for that matter, except for an edited version at
circleofa.org, which is the only existing version I could find.

In the original version, Jon Mundy, in trying to make a point about
authors that are real and deserve our attention, versus authors that
turn out to be fakes, praises author Brad Blanton for his "Radical
Honesty" book, and in the same paragraph, puts Neale Donald Walsch down
for supposedly admitting in print that he "made it all up," with
regards to his Conversations with God books.

I then e-mailed Jon Mundy and asked him what he thought of "Honest to
God: A Change of Heart That Can Change the World" by Brad Blanton and
Neale Donald Walsch. Of course, there was no answer to that from Jon.

So, as long as we're questioning authenticity here, how about looking
at the guy who throws stones at others without bothering to do the
tiniest bit of homework first? I was able to find this information out
in less than five minutes by looking up Brad Blanton on Amazon.com.

If you're going to attack someone, make sure to at least load some
live ammunition in your gun. Jon's shooting blanks, in my opinion.
And if I may add my own observation here, I don't think I've ever
read Jon praising the author of any best-selling book. So, only small
press, relatively unknown books can be authentic in Mr. Mundy's mind.
Hmmm...interesting. Say, isn't HE a small press, relatively unknown
author himself? Golly - WHAT a coinkydink! I guess I will let you
draw your own conclusions there.

Hopefully this will offer some comfort to those who were upset by the
controversy that Mr. Mundy started. Consider the source, my friends.
Then forgive.

Jim Carruth


MY RESPONSE TO THE WITCH-HUNT THAT IS CURRENTLY TAKING PLACE AMONG SOME
IN THE COURSE COMMUNITY

By Gary Renard

I remember one time I was having a discussion with my teachers, Arten
and Pursah, (A & P) and I made the remark, "If I have a choice between
being judged by God or being judged by people, I'll take my chances
with God any day." You saw why in the September issue of this magazine.
It's not the purpose of this article to make the error real, but
merely to correct misinformation on the level of form, so that
hopefully newer students of the Course won't be confused. After all,
the three articles that appeared in that issue should have been in a
different spirit considering that they came from experienced teachers.
Mr. Mundy took many pages of this publication to present those
articles, as well as an earlier one, and I'm requesting as much space
to answer them. If he's going to display any integrity at all he will
grant that request, and print this article unedited. I can only hope
this is not like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.

When I say, "display any integrity at all," I do not say it lightly.
The title of Mr. Mundy's article was, "Opening A Dialogue with Gary
Renard." Excuse me? That title is totally dishonest. I asked Mr. Mundy,
and he accepted, to engage in a dialogue with me from June 30 until
July 26, the "formal" part of it being from July 18 until July 26, at
which time Mundy said, "I tire of this," mainly because he wasn't
getting the result he wanted. During that span of time I answered most
of the questions that were raised later in his article. He then chose
to ignore my answers and not print any of them, all of which can be
confirmed by my original publisher, D. Patrick Miller, who was a
witness to that dialogue. I don't think Patrick enjoyed being a
witness, but he was one nonetheless. So why did Mr. Mundy ignore my
answers to his questions, choose to not print them, dishonestly title
his article, and also print three negative articles about me all at
once in just one issue of this magazine? The answer is obvious. It's
because to give my side of the story would not have supported his
erroneous conclusions or those of his associates. To be fair and honest
simply would not have worked for them.

This article will be my final word to Mr. Mundy. I'm not going to let
this become a "he said, he said" dragged out event. No matter what
slander Mr. Mundy may decide to include in this issue, knowing that I
would not be able to respond to it for yet another two months, (meaning
that he figures he could get away with it in the meantime) I will NOT
respond to him again in the next issue. If you read this article (and
if he prints all of it) you'll have a good idea of what's really
going on in this magazine, including a very clear pattern in Mr.
Mundy's writings about me, as well as his two collaborators. I sent
copies of this article to two well-respected and neutral observers in
the Course community at the same time I sent it to Mr. Mundy. They can
be witnesses as to whether or not it was printed in its entirety or
instead edited by him.

On that note, when it comes to describing what appeared to happen in
the illusory September issue of this magazine, when three A Course in
Miracles teachers decided to attempt to gang up on another one with
three different articles that completely mischaracterized me and the
two books that have my name on them, it could be said that there has
never been such an uncalled for, over the top spectacle of professional
jealousy and mindless attack on a fellow Course teacher in the history
of the Course Community. Congratulations are in order to the three
writers who, for the purposes of humor, I will refer to in this article
as the "axis of ego."

Humor is a vital attribute on the path to enlightenment, and the
humorless articles by these writers should be taken as a call for love.
In that light you might ask, why even bother to respond to them? After
all, none of this is real. But my approach is simple. I've been
taught that what you do in a situation like this is forgive. I then
remember that what I really am cannot be attacked, so I don't go
through life as a victim of the world I see. Indeed, the world is not
being done TO me, it's being done BY me. Then, after you forgive, you
should ask the Holy Spirit for Guidance. After that, if you feel
inspired to take some kind of action in the illusory world in order to
help share the Holy Spirit's message with others then you should do
so. Why not? Aside from forgiveness, sharing the Holy Spirit's
message is what I do. I didn't have anything better to do. Fourteen
years ago I was just sitting there suffering. Then the events that are
described in my books started to occur. It all led to a wonderful kind
of forgiveness that lessened my suffering. What better thing for me to
do than to share it with others?

At the same time, I've learned that forgiveness doesn't have to
mean you become a doormat on the illusory level of the world for those
who spread misleading assertions and rumors. I feel guided to respond
to the numerous mischaracterizations of me and the books in the
mentioned articles, as well as the not very subtle and blatantly
self-serving e-mail campaign against me by Mr. Mundy that followed, so
that those who may not have read "my" books will not be misled by
misinformation. That is the only purpose of this response. I understand
that advanced students don't need me to lecture them or use Course
quotes to make myself right and others wrong. But okay, I might use
Course quotes once in a while just for the fun of it.

Most of the people who have read "my" books already know that the
articles in the September issue were bogus, and I've received great
encouragement and support from them since the articles came out. The
most recent book, Your Immortal Reality: How to Break the Cycle of
Birth and Death, just made number 2 at Amazon.com as I write this, and
the first book, The Disappearance of the Universe, was number 11 at the
same time. (They were number 1 and number 5 respectively in the
category of Religion and Spirituality.) For this I'm deeply grateful.

When I shared my enthusiasm with other teachers in the Course community
about how happy I was that two books that are specifically about A
Course in Miracles were sharing the message of ACIM with so many people
I was accused of "boasting about my book sales." This brings up an
important point. I'm a grass roots person. I've never thought of
myself as being a teacher or an author. I still don't. I really am
excited to just be able to share the message of the Course with others,
and I consider it an honor to be able to do so, as well as a lot of
fun. Sharing the message of the Course in some way is all I've ever
really wanted to do since A & P turned me on to it. I think most people
who know me realize that's where I'm coming from. I'm genuinely
happy about the reinvigoration of energy among those who gave up on the
Course but are now back with it and staying with it (because they can
understand it now) as well as the new students who are coming to the
Course as a result of the books.

The students of the Course Community know they can talk to me, not
because I say so but because I talk to them; and not about theories
from a distance but about applications face to face. I think the reason
some other teachers don't get me is because they've forgotten what
it's like to be a student. But I've never been personally presented
in my books, or have I ever presented myself in my workshops, as being
anything but a student. I'm human. I make mistakes. I sometimes have
a hard time applying these teachings just like other students. People
see that in my books and they can relate to it. As for those who
haven't read the books, perhaps they have a right to know what's
behind the witch-hunt that is currently going on and what happens
behind the scenes in the Course community. Amazingly, a few in that
community are trying to make it look like my books cannot be believed
because of the fact that I act and talk like a human being. But does
that really make any sense when that's the way I've always been
presented in the books? It's just the way I am. Does that make me
ineligible to be worked with by the Holy Spirit and to share it with
others?

As someone who was born in Salem, Massachusetts, I know the story of
the witch-hunts pretty well. But I think my teachers hit the nail on
the head when they described them as, "A classic example of the
projection of unconscious guilt." What could be a better definition of
a witch-hunt? What happens is you get a few people together and they
engage in a feeding frenzy in which they find someone to be blamed for
what they secretly believe to be true about themselves. (What the
Course calls, "...the secret sins and hidden hates." Text, page 668)
Everybody does that to some degree. The question is, do we catch
ourselves and forgive it or not? And if we don't catch ourselves
right away then do we at least forgive it eventually, which is just as
good, the only difference being that we suffer longer?

This will be a lengthy article, mainly because Jon Mundy had the Pearl
Harbor mentality to publish three negative ones about me all at once,
two of them by members of the same organization, an organization that
is known, on the record, to be hostile to anything that resembles Ken
Wapnick. People should not think the political campaign by the Circle
of Atonement against me is anything new. They've been doing this in
e-mails (some of which I've seen only because they were forwarded to
me by others) for the last two and a half years. In the September issue
of this magazine, Mr. Mundy left off the bios of these two people at
the end of their articles so readers who didn't already know both of
them wouldn't realize they were from the same organization and
represented the same point of view. No doubt Mr. Mundy and his
associates were hoping that publishing three negative articles about me
all at once would be impressive enough to get people to overlook the
fact that what was said in those articles did not justify their
conclusions, and that would be the case even if what was said was true!
On top of that, what was said was NOT true, because it merely expressed
opinions, not facts, and repeatedly took lines from the books (or
examples of my personal and public life) out of context, or missed
their meaning completely. If the purpose of the September issue was not
to attack and damage, then why do it the way it was done? Especially
since my answers to the questions were already known by Mr. Mundy? It
shows a lack of good faith. Also, he told me only that there would be
one article (by Mr. Perry) about me in the September issue of this
magazine, not three. Obviously if I had known there would be three then
I would have INSISTED on having my answers included in that issue.

It's possible that through his deceitful measures Mr. Mundy has
managed to persuade a few people to hate me. After all, if you present
only one side of the story then how can you miss? What a legacy for Mr.
Mundy, who acted as if he was my friend, to leave me. I can forgive him
for appearing to do so. The question of "why" then becomes meaningless,
as does the rest of this insane world.

I can't help but think of one of the last times I saw Mr. Mundy speak
in public. It was in Salt Lake City, and I was about to give a keynote
address at the International A Course in Miracles Conference (after
which I received a standing ovation.) Mr. Mundy was speaking in his
workshop about how he knew Helen Schucman, the scribe of the Course.
Back at the time Jon had apparently hurt a woman who he was involved
with in a personal relationship. According to Jon, part of Helen's
counseling to him was, "You're not guilty." Certainly that is in
harmony with the Course. So how did Mr. Mundy pass along this bit of
mentoring to me? By conducting the Jon Mundy witch-hunt. He has judged,
condemned and literally attempted to punish me on the level of form. To
be sure, his words and actions against me are diametrically opposed to
everything that A Course in Miracles stands for.

In the last couple of months Mr. Mundy has unleashed the dogs of guilt
into the Course Community. (Thanks Jon, for answering the question,
"Who let the dogs out?") A technique of the axis of ego is to simply
leave out whatever facts don't support what they want you to believe.
This is a technique that a prosecutor uses before a grand jury. In
response I would invoke the time-tested statement, "Beware the
prosecutor who feels compelled to deceive the Court." Besides, Course
students know that the Holy Spirit has already thrown out the "case"
against me (See the Text, page 88.) The axis of ego, on the other hand,
will do anything to keep its anemic controversy going. As A Course in
Miracles says in the Clarification of Terms (page 77) "...those who
seek controversy will find it. Yet those who seek clarification will
find it as well. They must, however, be willing to overlook
controversy, recognizing that it is a defense against truth in the form
of a delaying maneuver." And make no mistake, what's currently going
on among some in the Course Community IS a defense against the truth.
The question shouldn't be whether or not Arten and Pursah are real;
the writers of those articles should be asking if they themselves are
real. According to Arten and Pursah as well as the Course, the answer
is no.

In the interest of clarification, I'm going to answer all three of
the articles to the extent that I feel is necessary and to the extent
that is allowed by my availability. I was given three weeks until the
deadline to write an article that answers three other long articles,
plus an earlier one. At this time I was traveling extensively to
California, Utah, and Indiana, sharing my books and the Course, and I
didn't exactly have time to sit around engaging in the kind of
shenanigans that are the hallmark of people who obviously have way too
much time on their hands. In any case, if Jon Mundy is going to start
dealing in good faith then he'll publish this article unedited and
will not respond to it in this issue. After all, I was deliberately not
given an opportunity by him to respond in the September issue, so
people had to wait two months for my answer. I'm sure Mr. Mundy hoped
the silly witch-hunt of the axis of ego would spread in the meantime.
As for this issue, people should be able to read my experience without
it being mischaracterized, yet again, by his statements, which as
mentioned simply leave out any facts that don't support his
conclusions. You can determine for yourself how Mr. Mundy has conducted
himself in this issue, which I know from experience he will not allow
me to see until after you do. Others and I will let you know later if
he printed the entire article. If he did, then we're making progress.
If he didn't, then the dishonesty continues.

How ironic that I donated $700 last year to help keep this magazine
going, and now Mr. Mundy has gone so far as to "de-list" me from his
page of friends in the September issue who teach the Course! And
that's not all he's appeared to do in the illusion. What I've
done to him is speak highly of him in my workshops and audio CDs, help
him get speaking engagements by personal recommendation, written
favorably about him in my books, and tried to help his ministry. Now
he's responding by literally trying to destroy mine. That's all on
the record. It's not an overstatement. Mr. Mundy has gone as far as
to mail unsolicited copies of the three axis articles to my speaking
venues without including my answers to his accusations. He's not just
"raising questions" about Arten and Pursah, as he would have you
believe. He's engaged in an all out, slash and burn campaign to
damage my career and help his own, and there's much verification of
this. One can't help but ask about the significant financial
conflicts of interest Mr. Mundy has in this matter. We both speak at a
lot of the same places, but he doesn't draw as many people as I do.
He stands to profit financially if he can damage me and have some of
these speaking venues to himself. And there's another financial
conflict of interest I'll identify later.

The false claims in the articles have already been answered by me in
person and/or online before the articles were even written. I am
certainly not someone who hides. I've been out there for three years,
almost every week in a different part of the country or the world,
answering people's questions about myself as well as the books face
to face and on stage. While the members of the Circle of Atonement sit
at their computers imagining themselves to be intelligent, I'm out
there in person, not running from people so I can engage in idle
theories, but walking right up to them and introducing myself so we can
get to know each other. People know me, and they know what I'm like.
I've posted hundreds of messages at the Yahoo online discussion group
that talks about the books (which currently has approximately 3,000
members after three years) as well as at other online venues. I've
flown a quarter of a million miles in the last two and a half years to
help spread the message of A Course in Miracles. I'm very grateful
that I'm able to do this, even if the axis of ego has not been
listening. I'll answer the questions again here. The axis probably
won't accept the answers because that would mean they weren't right
about me. Perhaps they would rather be right than happy. However, I
have trust in the Course community to be relatively fair. That having
been said, it should be pointed out that to my way of thinking the
Course community is NOT the twenty five or so very visible people and
organizations that you see online or in newsletters and books that
teach the Course. They represent only a tiny fraction of it. I've met
the real Course community in the last three years, and it is you, the
many thousands of students who really want to learn the Course and
attempt to diligently apply it to your everyday lives.

Of course my readers who happen to peek at this magazine (I told quite
a few people they should read this magazine and did numerous other
favors for Jon Mundy before I found out what he was up to) already know
that the axis of ego has completely missed the point as to why a lot of
people are reading The Disappearance of the Universe (DU) and Your
Immortal Reality (YIR). People read those books because they're
extremely helpful. It's not because of ME that they're extremely
helpful. Yes, despite the B.S. in this magazine, my two ascended master
teachers, Arten and Pursah, really do appear to me from out of nowhere
in person and in the flesh. They are the teachers in the book and I'm
the student. And the true test of whether or not something is authentic
is whether or not it is truly helpful. "You will know them by their
fruits." I will add, for the one thousandth time in public, that the
books happened exactly the way they are described. There is nothing
made up or embellished about them. That's my experience and there's
no need for me to ever change what I say about it. The books follow a
very observable time line over a span of thirteen years. The books are
true, and there was no real evidence, other than opinions, in any of
the articles in this magazine to prove otherwise.

In one of the articles Greg Mackie actually made the incredible
statement that, "Renard has clearly not met the burden of proof." I beg
your pardon? This is not Nazi Germany. In present day America a person
is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is not on
me. It's on the axis of ego, and as we'll see, they have failed.
And by the way, since when is a mystic required to "prove" his or her
experiences? When did Mr. Mackie make up that idea? Until now I've
never heard of a teacher of the mystical Course who would actually be
silly enough to suggest it.

Before I address the articles in the order in which they appeared,
I'd like to mention one other seemingly important point about Mr.
Mackie's article. He tried to draw a comparison between my book and a
discredited book called, "A Million Little Pieces." In response, I'd
like to quote something Rev.Tony Ponticello wrote at the online
discussion group of the Community Miracles Center in San Francisco on
March 19 of this year. I have permission from Tony to use that quote in
this article. Robert Perry had been e-mailing various teachers in the
Course community trying to get them to start a forum to engage in
controversy about my book. It was very clear from the responses that no
one was interested (except apparently Mr. Mundy, even though he
continued in his conversations to pretend he was my friend.) The
sending of those e-mails by Mr. Perry did start a little bit of a
controversy among some students though, and a student of Robert's who
is also a student of Tony's posted a message at the CMC website,
citing an article about the book, "A Million Little Pieces." Since that
book was a lie the person was saying that "Disappearance" was also a
lie. This is what Rev. Tony wrote in response:

"....this article (About "A Million Little Pieces") is talking about a
situation where it has been proved that the book was a lie. Also, this
book did not deal with a spiritual, mystical experience so I don't
think there is really a direct correlation. The Disappearance of the
Universe has NOT been proven to be a lie nor is it likely to be. Here
in lies the problem. By saying how relevant this article is to the A
Course in Miracles community there is an assumption that we are talking
about the same thing - a proven lie. But we are not. Is there an
assumption that Gary Renard is lying without there being any proof? I
have a problem with that. While this is NOT a court of law, shouldn't
Mr. Renard be assumed "innocent" until being proved "guilty" of lying?
At this point the only proof I would accept is him saying, "I made it
all up." I don't think he's going to say that. He's said directly
the opposite. Isn't it odd that some are trying to develop objective
criteria to "prove" his mystical experience invalid? It seems risky to
me. Our whole spiritual discipline is based on a woman hearing the
voice of Jesus in her head over a period of seven years. Would that
hold up to the same objective criteria?" (End of quote.)

I'd like to thank Rev. Tony for the fairness he demonstrated in that
statement, and the complete text of it, which contains other important
points, can be obtained from Tony by e-mailing him at
miracles@.... And I'd like to add one comment of my own
about the book, "A Million Little Pieces." The publisher of that book
admits that they did NOT do any fact checking on the book. On the other
hand my original publisher, D. Patrick Miller, DID do fact checking on
"The Disappearance of the Universe" before he published it. One should
ask why Mr. Mackie tried to suggest in his article that there's a
correlation between my first book and "A Million Little Pieces" when
there is none, and he did not demonstrate one? And why did Jon Mundy
publish what Mr. Mackie wrote? Certainly it does not meet any standards
of journalism. So what is the real motivation of these writers? Mr.
Mackie and the two other members of the axis of ego also brought up the
book, "Mutant Message Down Under." Once again, why? Is this supposed to
be guilt by insinuation? (Not that the writer of that book is guilty.)
Just because some books are not true doesn't mean mine aren't.
I'll deal with some of the other ludicrous assumptions by Mr. Mackie
when I address his article in more detail.

As for "my" books, I just play my part as explained in the Author's
Introductions and Acknowledgments. It's because of Arten and Pursah
that the books are extremely helpful. And people know it. For example,
Dr. Wayne Dyer, who studies the Course, recently described "D.U." as
"destined to be one of the most significant contributions to spiritual
literature in this century." And best-selling author Doreen Virtue, Ph.
D, a long time Course student, says of YIR, "Whether you're new to A
Course in Miracles, or a long-time Course student, you'll find Ah-ha!
moments on nearly every page."

There are three specific reasons why people find the books so helpful
that I hear over and over again in my weekly travels around America and
the world. 1) They are amazingly clear. (Once again, not because of
me.) 2) They're funny and entertaining. 3) They emphasize the
practice of forgiveness in my personal "real time" situations, which
are not denied but shared openly. In my portion of the dialogue I speak
frankly about the images I see in my personal and professional life. I
then do my best to forgive them, sometimes successfully, and sometimes
not right away. My teachers counsel me on how to do better. In turn,
the description of my efforts helps others to practice forgiveness.

Isn't it interesting that not one member of the axis of ego, whose
mood has shifted from suspiciousness to viciousness, ever mentioned any
of these three qualities of the books in any of the articles that
appeared in September? In fact, to read those articles you'd think
the reason people read my books is because two ascended masters
appeared to me in person, as if somehow that would be enough to make
Course students and others go running to the book stores to buy them.
Do the writers of those articles really have that low of an opinion of
Course students? Since the books came out I've been told about other
books that involve ascended masters. But most people don't read those
books. And the reason they don't read them is because they suck.
Arten and Pursah, on the other hand, rock with clarity, fun, and kick
ass explanations of metaphysics and the genuine application of
forgiveness to everyday life. I also play my part in a natural way and
it works. The axis of ego is so much in denial of this that they could
not identify even one of the real reasons the books are widely read. In
their ongoing effort to protect the Course from becoming more popular,
what they did was judge and condemn me. They have to. As A Course in
Miracles says, "He who would not forgive must judge, for he must
justify his failure to forgive." (Workbook, page 401.) Those articles
spent a lot of time trying to justify judgment, and no time on what my
books concentrate on, which is the art of using the things that are
going on in your every day life to practice the Course's unique brand
of forgiveness.

We'll take a look at some of the other spurious claims in these three
articles and correct them, not because it's real or important, but
just to help spread the Holy Spirit's message to those who may have
ears to hear. The goal of the axis is to stop my books; the goal of my
books is to teach forgiveness. Their goal is to distort the faithful
translation of the Course that is available in my books in favor of
their own woefully inferior interpretation of it. I have complete
confidence that if people who have not read my books eventually do so,
they will not see the same books that have been described by the axis
of ego in their prosecutorial articles.

Before doing so, however, there are a couple of issues that Jon has
brought up in his recent e-mail campaign against me. Once again, these
are things that are not being presented honestly based on the
information that Jon has. This is my only chance to respond, and I'll
do so now. The distorted information (because it's presented out of
context) has already been put out there by Jon in an effort to turn
people against me, and I have a right to point out the truth. We'll
then proceed with handling the misinformation in the articles.

MR. MUNDY'S E-MAIL CAMPAIGN

In e-mails Mr. Mundy has sent out he's presented a paragraph from an
e-mail I sent to Beverly Hutchinson of the Miracle Distribution Center
in January of 2005. In that e-mail I was trying to warn Beverly about
what was going to be in my next book, based on conversations that had
already taken place with Arten and Pursah. I gave Jon the correct
information in the dialogue with him that took place last summer.
Rather than including my explanation, Jon chose to still print the
paragraph out of context in his e-mails. That paragraph, and then my
explanation of it, is included in the following excerpt from our
already mentioned dialogue. Notice what a difference it makes between
simply looking at the one paragraph Jon is talking about and also
looking at my two paragraphs which explain how it happened. Why is this
paragraph being presented out of context by Mr. Mundy in his e-mail
campaign? Because it's misleading. And that's exactly what Mr.
Mundy and a few others want, for people in the Course community to be
misled about me. Mr. Mundy wants people to think that the book was
written after this e-mail paragraph as a way of "getting even" with
someone. The truth is the conversations in that part of the book had
already taken place and I was hoping for a better outcome before the
book was finished. Here's what was said in that part of the dialogue
between Mr. Mundy and myself.

Jon: After The Disappearance of the Universe came out Beverly
Hutchinson of the Miracles Distribution Center in California failed to
pick up your book for distribution. You then sent an e-mail to Beverly
in which you speak of your next book Your Immortal Reality. That e-mail
contains the following sentences.

E-mail to Beverly Hutchinson - January 18, 2005 from Gary:

Whatever decisions you make about our relationship in the next six
months or so will determine how you and Miracle Distribution Center are
written about in that book. If you care about your image and your place
in Course history then you'll give very strong consideration to
changing the nature of our relationship. The way things stand now, you
will not be happy with my next book.

Jon: Having made this threat in Jan. '05 we now find Pursha telling
you in Your Immortal Reality, published in the summer of '06 that you
and Beverly Hutchinson were married in a previous lifetime. According
to Pursha you've been together in several life times. In some life
times Beverly victimized you. In others you victimized Beverly.
Sometimes she was a man and you were a woman and vice versa. In a
recent past life you killed Beverly and she has not forgiven you. It is
for this reason she will not carry your books. In yet another lifetime
Beverly killed you so you continue to victimize each other. (Your
Immortal Reality pages 106 and 107).

Gary: Yes, I wrote that e-mail to Beverly. I later regretted the tone
of it and apologized. I still have my e-mails to her. In any case, my
books have ALWAYS been about my personal experiences, as everyone
knows. I've written openly about my take on Beverly at the Yahoo
Discussion group about DU, which has grown to 2300 members. (Note:
currently 3000.) I don't live my life in secret. I've made mistakes
in public. None of this calls into question the validity of the books.
The part about Beverly and I having a past relationship is an
amplification of points Arten and Pursah were making about the reason
it's so much harder for us to forgive some people than others. That
part was certainly not meant to be derogatory to me or Beverly. It's
simply duality. In fact, what's important about the brief discussion
in the book about Beverly is the answer my teachers give me in regard
to forgiveness, not what I said about the situation before that.

Jon: You say you apologized to Beverly in an e-mail. What's
mystifying is that after you apologized, you still saw fit to have
Pursha attack Beverly with a complicated tale of murder and revenge.
This is the point at which one wants to say, "enough is enough."

Gary: You're wrong. That e-mail and apology was in January of 2005.
The conversation in which I brought up the subject of Miracle
Distribution Center, and in which Arten and Pursah answered me, took
place seven months before that, in June of 2004. The book itself, Your
Immortal Reality, says that they appeared to me every two months, from
December of 2003 to August of 2005. The time line is very observable.
If Beverly had taken my advice and tried to change the nature of our
relationship then I could have reported that fact later in the book.
That's why I told her there were six more months to go. I've always
been willing to work with Beverly and have never shut her out. She's
the one who practices exclusionary policies. We talk about her in my
book because we talked about what was going on at the time, just like
we always do. I asked a question and they answered it. I could have
brought up later that the relationship had changed, if it had. (End of
that part of the dialogue.)

So once again we see Mr. Mundy, in his e-mail campaign, ignoring the
facts, printing several sentences out of context, and trying to make
things appear the way they are not. The books are always my real
experiences, and any idea to the contrary is simply mistaken.

Mr. Mundy would also want people to think I threatened him when I said
in an e-mail, "If you continue to try to attack me I predict that only
one of us is going to be hurt, and it's not going to be me."
Obviously what I meant by that is what Jon is saying is not true, and
if he persists it will come back to haunt him. I believe that Jon is
hurting himself, and his attempts at character assassination against me
will not work in the long run because people will continue to get to
know me better. I'm not going away.

Mr. Mundy's comments in our dialogue about Miracle Distribution
Center bring up his other financial conflict of interest I was talking
about. He's really going to bat for Beverly Hutchinson in all of
this. (I don't know why he thinks he has to, given that the incident
with her is presented in my book as just another forgiveness
opportunity.) In fact, she's the one who supplied the edited e-mail
to him. Beverly doesn't sell my books, but she DOES sell Jon's
books (as well as at least one by Mr. Perry) and has had Jon speak many
times at the Miracle Distribution Center's conferences, which I've
never been invited to. Jon has a profitable relationship with Beverly
while me and my books are banned. He has a financial stake in keeping
it that way.

Finally, and unbelievably, in his e-mails Mr. Mundy has also questioned
my relationships with women. So let me say this very clearly. My
personal life is none of his business.

MR. MUNDY'S ARTICLE

Mr. Mundy, the chief prosecutor, gives misinformation from the very
first word of his headline, which says "Opening A Dialogue with Gary
Renard." As we've seen, a dialogue had already taken place and he
didn't like the way it came out so he made up his own absurd attack
edition in the September issue. This is a verifiable fact. I have no
need to hurt Mr. Mundy. I believe he's already doing that to himself,
which I warned him against. Incidentally, Mr. Mundy would have you
think we are good friends and that he knows me well. Yes, I considered
him to be a friend before the September issue, but we only saw each
other about once a year, and he does NOT know me well.

If Mr. Mundy was being graded for his article about me and Your
Immortal Reality, he'd receive and "F." He did not give the book a
good faith reading. Here are some, but not the only reasons that
demonstrate this is the case. In most examples I will not use page
numbers for the quotations from DU and YIR as I do not want people to
read the books out of context, which is what the axis would like for
them to do. The books should be read from start to finish in order to
experience them properly. The quotations, however, are accurate and can
be verified. All quotes from the Course are cited.

Mundy claims: "According to Pursah no other teacher of the Course, up
to now, has presented us with such a clear understanding of the Course
as Gary." But in fact, Dr. Kenneth Wapnick is described by my teachers
in DU as "the Course's greatest teacher," and in YIR I myself
describe him as "the Course's premier teacher." When Pursah pointed
out that people could now read and understand the Course for themselves
after reading our books, she was making a statement that has been
verified by countless readers. I believe that Dr. Wapnick's books can
also accomplish that, but up until now they have not been best-sellers.

Mundy claims: "...more and more questions arise and the more complex
his story becomes..." But in fact, the same questions have been coming
from the same few people repeatedly for three and a half years who seek
controversy, even though the questions have already been answered.
Also, my story has not become more complex because it has never
changed. If Mundy is simply referring to the fact that there's a new
book, then whether he realizes it or not, I have a right to share my
experiences with my readers.

Mundy claims: "ACIM says nothing about ascended masters..." But in fact
this is a typical mistake that Mr. Perry and Mr. Mackie also repeatedly
make. Mundy assumes that just because the Course doesn't use the
exact words "ascended masters" that the Course "says nothing" about
them. But that's not true. The following words from the Course
describe Arten and Pursah perfectly and show that the appearances by
them could happen. "There are those who have reached God directly,
retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity
perfectly. These might be called the Teachers of teachers because,
although they are no longer visible, their image can yet be called
upon. And they will appear when and where it is helpful for them to do
so."
(Manual For Teachers, page 64.)

Mr. Mundy uses quotations from the Course about reincarnation that show
that the Course teaches reincarnation is not true (because it's just
a dream) as if this would be news to the readers of my books. He uses
the quotes AS IF to say that my books ARE teaching that reincarnation
is true. But in fact that's wrong. For example, here's what Pursah
says about the subject in YIR. "Now, you should always remember that
whatever appears to happen is just a dream. The reason the Course says
that reincarnation isn't true (Manual, page 60) is because it's an
illusion. It APPEARS to happen, but you never really go into a body, it
just looks that way. It's an optical illusion. Why? Well for one
thing, the Course teaches that the body doesn't even exist! (Text,
page 25) So how could you really be going into one? As the Course says,
"The body does not exist except as a learning device for the mind. This
learning device is not subject to errors of its own, because it cannot
create. It is obvious, then, that inducing the mind to give up its
miscreations is the only application of creative ability that is truly
meaningful." (Ibid.) In DU my teachers say, "When we talk about
reincarnation, it doesn't really happen. It's just a dream."
That's what my teachers REALLY teach. Once again, Mr. Mundy is trying
to create a false impression about the book. What my teachers do is use
bodies to teach me of the unreality of the body. This is a hallmark of
the Holy Spirit's method. He uses the same things the ego made to
undo the ego.

Mundy claims he was reading DU, found it to be dazzling, and then says,
"near the end, two things stopped me." But in fact, Mr. Mundy endorsed
the book on the back cover AFTER he read it. So he couldn't have been
stopped too much! Perhaps what really happened was that he didn't
realize just how successful the book would be, and became more and more
jealous as time went on.

After mentioning that my books make predictions about nuclear
terrorism, Mundy claims that in the Course, "We are told that (the Holy
Spirit) would never say anything that would upset or disturb us." But
in fact the Course says many things to expose the ego that disturb a
lot of people very much. It then teaches forgiveness of these things.
And that's exactly what Arten and Pursah do in this case. Does Mr.
Mundy really believe they were trying to scare people? They also
predicted many good things that would happen in the future. That's
duality. You have both good and bad. And if they were trying to scare
people then why would they say about their predictions in D.U. "Now
here's something you probably didn't notice about all of these
things; they are ALL forgiveness lessons!" Apparently Mr. Mundy
didn't notice, and in fact it was the September issue of his
"Miracles" Magazine that tried to scare people. The truth is that no
matter what my teachers talked about with me in the books, sooner or
later they would ALWAYS bring the subject back around to forgiveness,
because that's what all things are really for.

Mundy claims he never said a quote that is attributed to him in YIR. "I
did tell Gary that he should go out on the road and speak...I did not
tell him that he should go on the road and speak; otherwise, people
might think he was making it up..." But in fact, Mundy did say those
words, and I trust my memory more than his. We've already seen that
his account of events is flawed, as with him saying he was "stopped" by
two things near the end of D.U. when he not only endorsed the book
after that but spoke positively about it in public.

Mundy claims, "...when Arten and Pursah speak they sound like Gary."
But in fact, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. As for
sounding like me sometimes, Mundy and his fellow snobs would have you
think that's a bad thing. Mundy lists individual words out of context
that he apparently thinks are more "evidence." Yet the Course itself
does not agree with him and his cohorts at all. A & P speak to me in a
way I can accept and understand, which is exactly how the Holy Spirit
works with everyone. As Jesus advises us in the Course, "If you would
be heard by those who suffer, you must speak their language. If you
would be a savior, you must understand what needs to be escaped.
Salvation is not theoretical." (Manual, page 64-65.) The fact that the
books are speaking to many speaks for itself. By the way, if my books
are made into movies and use exactly the same language, they'll be
rated PG. The focus of the axis on language and style is silly and
proves nothing except that they don't get it.

Mundy claims that because A & P and I all use the phrase, "Just
kidding," that it's also some kind of evidence. But in fact a good
faith reading of the books reveals that this is a running joke between
the three of us. And speaking of running jokes, Mr. Mundy tries to make
a federal case out of my flirtations with Pursah, and that she once
wore a revealing outfit (from a distance, so I couldn't really see
her clearly, which of course Mr. Mundy didn't mention.) The
situations where I flirt with Pursah are obviously a joke, and
virtually everyone gets it, except apparently the Puritan members of
the axis. Pursah is an ascended master. She's not interested in sex
at all. Period. My flirtations with her are doomed to failure, and I
know it, just as everyone else does. That's why it's funny. For
example, in YIR I say to Pursah, "... when are you and I gonna hook
up?" She replies, "Hmmm. Let me see. Does never work for you?" Yet
Mundy asks seriously, "Would a student, specially selected as the
mouthpiece for an ascended master, want to have sex with that master?"
as if it's a real problem. He has a clear, personal hope that people
will think I'm a bad person, and all of this because of a running
gag. Or is it something deeper in Mr. Mundy? In any case, if the axis
doesn't like the style of the book, so what? Most readers don't
share their unbelievably stiff take on it. My books even have the
support of numerous members of the clergy. The axis has remembered not
to laugh, most of my readers have remembered to.

Mundy claims there is a high level of attack in the book, but in fact
the book simply emphasizes what the Course is teaching and points out
that what other teachers are teaching is not the Course. Maybe some
people don't like that. But I don't think A & P came along to tell
people what they want to hear. There are already more than enough
teachers doing that. And my teachers and I are not attacking. As a
reader recently wrote at the online discussion group that talks about
the books, "To say that teachers are veering away from the Course's
teachings is NOT an attack on them. It is simply an urging to see this.
And we will not learn true forgiveness if we concentrate on smoke
screens of human based good intentions." (Message number 25,415)

Mundy claims that DU uses an "unprecedented level" of quotations from
the Course and that's why it reads so well. He says he and Perry were
limited to 5% quotations from the Course. But in fact my word count
sheet for DU that was submitted to The Foundation for A Course in
Miracles shows that 7.5% of the words (in 409 pages) are Course quotes.
That's not a big difference. 92.5% of the book is not Course quotes.
Then Mundy also falsely claims about D.U. that "...the quotes are not
italicized or indented and the type face is maintained, so it's easy
to think these words come from Arten and Pursah when we are actually
reading the Course." It's at this point that even a human judge would
have thrown Mr. Mundy's case out of court. Even a casual glance at
D.U. will show that the quotations from the Course are in bold face
type and are separated from the rest of the dialogue. The reckless and
false statements that are being made by Mundy over and over are beyond
comprehension and add up to either incompetence or slander. Slander is
when you say very negative things about someone that are not true,
especially if you have access to information that tells you they are
not true. If you say them for the purpose of damaging the other person,
that adds up to malice. As the Course says about attack, "Its sole
intent is murder, and what form of murder serves to cover the massive
guilt and frantic fear of punishment the murderer must feel?" (Text,
page 495.) As for the second book, all of the quotes from the Course
are duly noted right on the page and right at the end of the quote,
just as in D.U, and that's much more than most of the other teachers
of the Course have ever done.

Mr. Mundy claims, "YIR was written in a few months." But in fact it was
written over a period of two years and one month. He also claims, "it
shows." That's an opinion that is not shared by most readers, and the
book is also about to receive excellent reviews in major spiritual
publications.

Mundy claims, in quoting Mr. Perry, that "Ken Wapnick is being
paraphrased and reparaphrased." He then mentions the phrase,
"unconscious guilt." Here we see the same error Mundy and his
associates made about the phrase, "ascended masters." Just because the
Course doesn't use that exact phrase doesn't mean the Course
doesn't contain the message. The Course speaks volumes about what has
been denied, and what has been denied IS unconscious. As we'll see,
Arten and Pursah translate the Course, they do not interpret it like
Mr. Perry. (Perry urges a "literal interpretation" of the Course,
which, as we'll see, is a disaster.) But for now, remember that the
Course uses the words deny, denial, unconscious, unconsciously,
unconsciousness, as well as the word guilt and similar words, sometimes
hundreds of times. The idea of an exact phrase from the Course always
having to be used does not allow for an accurate translation of the
Course into teachings that people can better accept and understand. Yet
it's because of an accurate translation such as the one found in my
books that people can go back for themselves and read, comprehend, and
also apply the Course to their personal lives more effectively.

Mundy claims A & P's knowledge of early church history can be found
in other books. Not only is he wrong about that in regards to many of
the things they say, because they are NOT always saying the same things
as others, but Mundy even makes specific errors, which if he had any
class, he would apologize for. He says, "You can find, for example, in
Elaine Pagel's book, "Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas" the
idea that St. Thomas was not really a "doubting" Thomas." I'd like
Mr. Mundy to explain to all of us how it would have been possible for
me to borrow that idea from the book, "Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel
of Thomas" when it was published at exactly the same time as The
Disappearance of the Universe, in May of 2003? In fact, my book was
being read in March of that year. The truth is, it would NOT have been
possible.

Also, Pursah explains 22 Sayings from The Gospel of Thomas within D.U.
in such a way that has never been seen before, and does not agree with
other's interpretations. She also gives the original version of that
Gospel in YIR (70 Sayings instead of 114, sometimes with different
wording.) I guess Mr. Mundy must have missed those parts. In fact, he
missed most of the book, and he certainly missed its message.

Mundy claims in his article, "Earlier this year, Gary sent me a quote I
was to sign on to as an endorsement for the back of Your Immortal
Reality. It contained the phrase, 'He doesn't compromise one inch
on the truth.' I refused." But in fact it would have been honest for
him to mention that the ONLY reason I sent him a sample endorsement for
the book was because he specifically ASKED me to. (I still have the
e-mail.) The wording of the sample endorsement was not important to me.
When he said he didn't like the phrase "one inch" I removed it
immediately. It was not a big deal. It's a common phrase. Mr. Mundy
then still endorsed the book! Then, incredibly, Mundy goes on to say,
"There is not one endorsement from any major ACIM author, leader,
teacher, or speaker on the back or the inside of Your Immortal
Reality." But in fact it would have been honest for him to mention that
the reason for this is because of his own lack of good faith. The truth
is I tried to do a favor for Jon. Despite his own apparent
self-importance, he is not very well known. There were a dozen other
people who would have been very happy to have the free publicity that
would go along with this endorsement, including people who are MUCH
better known than Jon is. Hay House (my publisher) doesn't want a lot
of endorsements on their newer books. They want things on the books
that promote other Hay House products, which is their right. (For
example, one of best-selling author Sylvia Browne's new books has no
endorsements.) I wanted Jon to be the one endorsement on my back cover
because I was sincerely trying to help him. And then, at just the right
time, Jon contacted Hay House, without consulting me, and removed his
endorsement from the back cover just as the book was going to print.
Then it was too late to replace the endorsement for the first printing.
That's why there's not an endorsement on the first printing of the
book. There is on the second, third and fourth printings, which have
already taken place as of this writing. At this point Mr. Mundy's
case against me has been shown for the illusion that it is.

In closing the door on Mr. Mundy, he claims, "Perhaps Arten (or Gary)
answers our question best when near the end of YIR in referring to the
world and rephrasing Ken he says, "There is no point in asking how it
came about because it hasn't!" But in fact, Arten (not me) was most
likely NOT paraphrasing Ken but simply translating the Course, which
says, "It never happened in reality." (Text, page 382) And that is also
certainly true of Mr. Mundy's imaginary story about me and my books.
Thanks for the witch-hunt, Jon. Your idea of what constitutes
"Miracles, Mysticism, Metaphysics and Mirth" leaves a tremendous amount
to be desired.

MR. PERRY'S ARTICLE

The next two sections will be short. That's because in looking at Mr.
Perry's article, as well as that of his associate, it's important
to consider the commitment to controversy that goes along with them.
(Until now, Mr. Mundy had not appeared to get sucked into it.) For many
years Mr. Perry has been committed to propping up his interpretation of
the Course and attempting to undermine the teachings of Ken Wapnick.
He's drawn comparisons at his website and in books between himself
and Ken using the same kinds of tables he uses in his article about me.
(Perhaps I should be honored to be treated the same as Ken?) Mr. Perry
is obsessed with comparisons as much as he is with Ken. He sees my
books as being more in line with the teachings of Ken than his own.
That's the REAL problem Mr. Perry has with my books. That problem
didn't just start with his article. He showed it in e-mails two years
ago. The real reason he does not accept Arten and Pursah is because
they don't verify his work. To be sure, if my teachers had said that
Robert Perry and not Ken Wapnick would be known in the future as the
Course's greatest teacher, then Mr. Perry would have no problem at
all with their appearances. Mr. Perry was involved in a long and public
(from his end, not Ken's) "copyright controversy" which caused splits
in the Course community. Since that situation was resolved two years
ago the people in the Course community who are addicted to controversy
have not known what to do with themselves. They needed another target
on which to project what they secretly believe to be true about their
lives. What they secretly believe is that they are a hoax, as anyone
unconsciously believes about him or her self by virtue of the fact that
they've attempted to usurp God's power and make their own false
existence.

Against that backdrop, it's not hard to see that the entire premise
of Mr. Perry's article doesn't work, just as his interpretation of
the Course doesn't work. This becomes especially clear when you look
at the title he selected, "Why Don't The Masters Have An Original
Thought?" Of course the title isn't exactly true, given that what Mr.
Perry has done is the same thing that anyone could do with anyone's
books, i.e. go through them and just pick out the parts that are
similar to what someone else is saying, especially if that someone else
is talking about the exact same subject! Mr. Perry overlooks the many,
many insightful and helpful observations that Arten and Pursah make
about my personal and professional life, especially when it comes to
how to APPLY the teachings of the Course, not just engage in
theosophical speculation. Those insights as well as their amazing
clarity about what the Course means have been and will continue to be
very helpful to many. In fact, there are 626 pages of material in the
two books, and Mr. Perry has attempted to make it appear that most of
those pages do not exist. Of course he's wrong, but there's a much
larger and more significant issue here.

My Perry's title for his article and the things he says about himself
give away both his reading and teaching approach. He says that if Arten
and Pursah actually appeared to me then, "We would expect them to come
out with stunningly original insights into the Course." He goes on and
on about how in the Course, "Every paragraph is a minor symphony of
themes, with little twists and turns of thought that are whole
teachings in themselves. Most importantly, there are ideas on every
page that I never hear Course students or teachers talk about. As a
result, most of the Course's hundreds (perhaps thousands) of themes,
including many of its main themes, are simply not discussed. Much of
what's there we just don't see. Further, much of what we do see
isn't in there."

Wow! I haven't analyzed things like that since I used to smoke pot
back in the 70s. But what does the Course actually say about itself?
There are two things to focus on that are relevant here. 1) The Course
says it is SIMPLE. And it doesn't say it just once. It uses the word
simple 158 times. (Hey Robert, this is a word you can see that really
is in there!) 2) The Course DOESN'T advise us (or its teachers,
including ascended masters) to have original ideas, as Mr. Perry
indicates in the title of his article. In fact, it says, "Ingenious
thinking is not the truth that shall set you free, but you are free of
the need to engage in it when you are willing to let it go." (Text,
page 45.) And it also says, "The Course merely gives another answer,
once a question has been raised. However, this answer does not attempt
to resort to inventiveness or ingenuity. These are attributes of the
ego. The Course is simple. It has one function and one goal. Only in
that does it remain wholly consistent because only that can be
consistent." (Clarification of Terms, page 77) Well, Mr. Perry can have
all the original ideas he wants, and he can interpret the Course all he
wants. And he'll continue to teach it badly. Which brings up another
subject.

Mr. Perry interprets the Course. Arten and Pursah do not. What my
teachers do is TRANSLATE the Course. They are excellent translators,
which means they don't change the meaning. In fact, the Course knows
that's what a good translator does. "...a good translator, although
he must alter the form of what he teaches, never changes the meaning.
In fact, his whole purpose is to change the form so that the original
meaning is retained." (Text, page 115)

Mr. Perry, on the other hand, not only interprets the Course, but
offers a LITERAL interpretation of it that has led many students, some
of whom I've met on my travels, to give up the Course, until D.U.
brought them back to it. In fact, Mr. Perry attempts to put down Arten
and Pursah in his article for sounding like Ken on the subject of a
literal interpretation. Perry quotes Ken as saying, "Only those
statements that reflect the unified reality of Heaven ...should be
taken literally." Arten and Pursah say, "The parts of the Course that
express non-duality should be taken literally, but the parts of it that
seem to express duality should be taken as metaphor." But why
wouldn't Arten and Pursah sound similar to Ken if they're speaking
the truth? Nobody has a monopoly on the truth. Of course they sound
like him sometimes. That's because they BOTH are translating A Course
in Miracles. Perry on the other hand, espouses an interpretation of the
Course that leads students toward much unnecessary confusion.

For example, the Course says, "God knows not form." (Text, page 631)
But the Course also says, "God weeps at the "sacrifice" of His children
who believe they are lost to Him." (Text, page 89) So, which one is it?
If God doesn't even know form then He can't distinguish anything to
weep at. (Although Perry may want you to think that both can be true.)
But in fact, under Perry's literal interpretation of the Course we
are given a Jesus who is an idiot. He constantly contradicts himself,
and people have QUIT the Course because they believed that the Holy
Spirit or Jesus would NOT contradict themselves. Under Perry's
literal interpretation they do. But what if Arten and Pursah are
correct? What if non-duality ("God knows not form.") should be taken
literally, and duality ("God weeps at the sacrifice of His
children...") should be taken as metaphor? Then we have a Course that
works. We have a Jesus who does NOT contradict himself. And this works
all the way through the Course. Arten and Pursah get students excited
about the Course because instead of seeing contradictions they see
consistency. Instead of confusion they have understanding. All of which
makes Mr. Perry's unbelievably condescending and arrogant attitude in
his article that much more ridiculous.

Mr. Perry's article is riddled with false assumptions and errant
opinions. He mentions that Arten and Pursah describe our life as being
like watching a movie as Ken does. So what? Does Mr. Perry really think
that Ken was the first to use that analogy? And doesn't he know from
reading the books that going to the movies is my favorite hobby, so of
course my teachers would use an analogy like that? And while Perry
claims that much of what A & P teach isn't in the Course, any good
faith reading would indicate that Arten and Pursah constantly used
quotes from the Course to back up what they were saying.

Mr. Perry couldn't figure out why the masters appeared. After all,
they aren't offering the stunningly original (and egoic)
interpretation of the Course he is seeking. Yet he answers his own
question as to why they appeared better than I could, and he does so
right at the beginning of his article. In talking about D.U. he says,
"...the message has inspired so many..." and, "The book has brought so
many thousands of people to the Course, as well as thousands of lapsed
students back to the Course." He then goes on to question in his
article why the masters would have appeared. Hello? Is he saying that
what he just described isn't enough of a reason? Actually it's more
than just thousands, and the numbers are increasing every month. D.U.
is being translated into fourteen languages. What does Mr. Perry want?
Oh, I forgot; stunningly original insights. And there's one more
thing he forgot to mention. A lot of those students gave up on the
Course because they were confused by teachers like him, couldn't
understand it, and quit out of frustration. Now, the "old guard" is
closing ranks to try to prevent the new kid on the block and his
teachers from doing better. How about giving someone else a chance?

As to whether or not the masters really appeared to me, Perry claims,
"Some, however, question the relevance of this issue due to the fact
that we simply can't know if the story is true or false." He then
says, "Ah, but have we tried? Maybe we can't know in the absolute
sense, but how many things can we know in that sense? Since such
knowing is unattainable, all we usually require is a kind of personal
version of "beyond a reasonable doubt." Would anyone who didn't know
guess that he's talking about the mystical experiences of a student
of A Course in Miracles here? You'd think he was talking about an
armed robbery with witnesses. And apparently Mr. Perry's idea of
"beyond a reasonable doubt" includes only presenting one side of the
story, having the axis of ego act as the prosecutor, judge and jury,
and finding me guilty. Never mind that because of my teachers people
can read our books and then understand and apply the Course, but that
if they read his books they can't. Never mind that Arten and Pursah
have brought the Course into the vernacular. Let's not let a great
development like that taking place with a popular book for the first
time get in the way of the witch-hunt.

And Mr. Perry's proof of his position is that there are teachers,
Ken, Arten and Pursah, (and by extension, myself) teaching the truth of
a great spiritual document like A Course in Miracles, and that they
sound alike! What a concept! And they don't sound like him! So Mr.
Perry's little "expose" of me has proven nothing except his
desperation to discredit my teacher's translation of the Course, with
no consideration given to the idea that the translation he's trying
to discredit could be right and his interpretation could be wrong.

How do you tell the difference between a translation and an
interpretation? Simple. One of them works. One of them gets people
excited about the Course, rather than leading them to controversy and
confusion. Mr. Perry once wrote a book called, "One Course, Two
Visions." Maybe it should have been called, "Two Visions, One Full of
It." Arten and Pursah are right when they teach that there is only one
possible correct interpretation of the Course. That interpretation is
simply a good translation. For his part, Mr. Perry has been the biggest
source of controversy in the Course community for the last ten years.
He knows no other way, but there must be another way.

MR. MACKIE'S ARTICLE

Finally, there's the article by Mr. Mackie. He uses something called,
"Occam's razor" and says my book violates it. Yeah, I remember Jesus
talking all the time in the Course about how important Occam's razor
is. But seriously, I never heard of Occam's razor, and I know only
one thing about it for sure. It sure as hell doesn't have anything to
do with the Course. Mr. Mackie has arbitrarily taken something he
thinks is important, which is actually just part of the illusion, and
tried to use it to invalidate something that is successfully teaching A
Course in Miracles. Hmm. What's wrong with this picture?

I was especially fond of the following statement in the article by Mr.
Mackie. He had just been writing about the discredited book, "A Million
Little Pieces," hoping you'd think my book is like that one just
because he mentioned it. Then he writes, "Some people have told me that
Renard is such a nice guy that he would never do something like this,
but people described as "nice" have proven capable of doing just about
anything - including murder." So there you have it! The experience of
people who have met me doesn't count. Only the opinion of Mr. Mackie,
who has never met me, does count. Forget about people who have had a
genuine experience of me. According to Mr. Mackie, I once used the word
"crap" in an e-mail. What more proof do you need that I'm a terrible
person and could perhaps be a murderer? Certainly someone who speaks
English and stands up for himself, rather than baffling people by
talking about something called Occam's razor, cannot be qualified to
share the message of the Holy Spirit and must be a fraud!

Given this absolute, undiluted nonsense, I'll be as brief as possible
in answering a couple of other points about this article. Mr. Mackie
claims about me, ..."his wife, most likely with his approval, created a
false identity on his DU Internet discussion board to praise and defend
DU. (She eventually confessed and apologized for this.) Does any of
this sound like the behavior of a person who truly encountered ascended
masters?" What was that again? "Most likely with Mr. Renard's
knowledge?" Once again, under the guilt trained eye of Mr. Mackie, I am
presumed guilty until proven innocent, even though any examination of
the evidence would say I'm innocent. In fact my wife said in public
at the time, now three and a half years ago, that I did NOT know she
was doing that. So what's going on here? What's going on here is a
list of twelve reasons by Mr. Mackie as to why he doesn't believe me,
and all twelve of them are nothing but his opinion. They are not facts.
They are slanted and tainted opinions masquerading as an article.

For example, Mackie claims, "There has never been a verified instance
of ascended masters or other advanced spiritual beings appearing
physically." So, let me see. Is he calling Yogananda a liar too? Dr.
Bill Evans, who wrote an article about me in this magazine called,
"Mystical Experiences: Is Gary Renard and The Disappearance of the
Universe For Real?" (by the way, he came to a dramatically different
conclusion than the axis of ego) wrote in that article, "...I was in a
position of being a psychiatrist knowledgeable of Yogananda's
documentation of experiences similar to Gary's, and friendly with
Gary in a personal manner. Certainly, being a psychiatrist with some
special interest in diagnosing clinical delusional disorders and
distinguishing them from other clinical psychotic disorders, I am in an
expert position to assure you that Gary is not delusional when he
relates his story of the actual physical manifestations of the ascended
masters..."

So whom should we listen to? An expert who actually knows me and has
had time to observe me as a friend, or someone who has never met me,
like Mr. Mackie? And if Yogananda documented experiences similar to
mine, then why did a self-described "mystic" like Mr. Mundy choose to
listen to Mr. Mackie, who doesn't know me, instead of Dr. Evans, who
does?

Mackie's love for the trees at the expense of the forest really shows
when he insists that certain "facts" in the illusion are true, such as
evolution. Yet as Pursah says in YIR, "This year's scientific fact is
the next century's debunked old theory." Finally, and this one really
hurt, Mackie claims that the book contains, oh my God, "grammatical
errors!"

But seriously, I'd like to share something personal with you. Seeing
Arten and Pursah has not been the ultimate spiritual experience for me.
Despite the fixations of the axis, the ultimate experience does not
take place within the realm of perception, which they cherish. It takes
place in God. It's an experience of what you really are, and where
you really are. That experience, which the Course is directed toward,
is best facilitated by the practice of forgiveness.

So now I must forgive all this silliness, and I have faith that you
will forgive me. I'm leaving for Michigan to lead a workshop.
That's part of what I do, and I'm not about to stop. Which reminds
me. In February, Mr. Mundy, Mr. Perry and myself will all be speaking
at the A Course in Miracles Conference in San Francisco. I'd like to
invite them, as well as Mr. Mackie, to meet with me there. Perhaps we
can find a way to live in peace. As the Course says so beautifully,
"The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has
become a present love." (Text, page 562) *
************************************************************************

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/messages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 77 members, 1,380 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com
************************************************************************

Gary Renard challenges critics of his claims, Circle of Atonement, Robert Perry:
Murray 2006.11.14
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/63


From: Jim Carruth  jcarruth@...
Disappearance_of_the_Universe@yahoogroups.com  2006.11.12 5:53 PM

Gary's authenticity did not come into question publicly until Jon
Mundy and two other authors published their "Opening a Dialogue with
Gary Renard," which more aptly should have been called "Opening an
Attack on Gary Renard."

Since that article came out, I've noticed a few interesting things.
The article is now gone from its original site, and also its featured
place on the front of Jon's website, and even anywhere else on the
internet itself for that matter, except for an edited version at
circleofa.org, which is the only existing version I could find.

In the original version, Jon Mundy, in trying to make a point about
authors that are real and deserve our attention, versus authors that
turn out to be fakes, praises author Brad Blanton for his "Radical
Honesty" book, and in the same paragraph, puts Neale Donald Walsch
down for supposedly admitting in print that he "made it all up," with
regards to his Conversations with God books.

I then e-mailed Jon Mundy and asked him what he thought of "Honest to
God: A Change of Heart That Can Change the World" by Brad Blanton and
Neale Donald Walsch. Of course, there was no answer to that from Jon.

So, as long as we're questioning authenticity here, how about looking
at the guy who throws stones at others without bothering to do the
tiniest bit of homework first? I was able to find this information
out in less than five minutes by looking up Brad Blanton on
Amazon.com.

If you're going to attack someone, make sure to at least load some
live ammunition in your gun. Jon's shooting blanks, in my opinion.
And if I may add my own observation here, I don't think I've ever
read Jon praising the author of any best-selling book. So, only small
press, relatively unknown books can be authentic in Mr. Mundy's mind.
Hmmm...interesting. Say, isn't HE a small press, relatively unknown
author himself? Golly - WHAT a coinkydink! I guess I will let you
draw your own conclusions there.

Hopefully this will offer some comfort to those who were upset by the
controversy that Mr. Mundy started. Consider the source, my friends.
Then forgive.

Now I have a question for you: Gary was invited to respond to the
article by the magazine where it appeared. Does anyone know if he
ever did? I'd be curious to read what he said in response.

Jim Carruth
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Disappearance_of_the_Universe/


From: Jim Donnellan  JimDonnellan@...  2006.11.12 7:24 PM

Jim,

There is a feedback section on Circle of Atonement which includes a
couple of responses from Gary.  It also has hotlinks to all three
articles critical of DU.

Follow this url:  http://www.circleofa.org/interaction/Feedback.php#DU

With respect to Gary's response in Jon Mundy's newsletter:  my
understanding is that Jon's newsletter is bi-monthly and therefore is
not do out until December.  Links to it will be posted on Circle of
Atonement, according to Robert Perry.

Jim D.


Rich Murray:  Similar cogent discussions among various points of view
are evolving recently on the Net re teachers Andrew Cohen and Eli Jaxon-Bear.

bless Eli Jaxon-Bear and Andrew Cohen to liberate blessing yourself
[re notes on A Course in Miracles, Robert Perry]: Murray 2006.10.29
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/61

The Net well supports evolving shared sophistication about giving and
receiving cogent feedback.  This allows unfettered democaratic debate
to evolve towards a natural shared consensus among concerned parties.

Leaders at all levels do well these days to encourage and attend to such
debates about their own mistakes,  as the process leads beyond age old
patterns of blaiming, denying, defending, counter-attacking, and punishing
towards cooperative, candid explorations based on shared core values.

Coming clean can be enormously empowering, freeing up long-blocked
creative energies for everyone involved, and ending otherwise implacable
escalations of pressures and difficulties for the leaders.

"I goofed up.  Here's how I did it.  Here's what I understand about it so far.
Forgive me.  Thanks for helping me clean up my action.  I choose release
from my  previous understandings and openness to growth without limit.
I need and accept help."


http://www.circleofa.org/interaction/Feedback.php#DU

Comments on

Why Don't the Masters Have an Original Thought?, by Robert Perry
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/DuOriginalThought.php

Entities Should Not Be Multiplied Beyond Necessity, by Greg Mackie
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/Entities.php

and  Opening a Dialogue with Gary Renard, by Jon Mundy
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/OpeningADialogue.php

Re: "Disappearance of the Universe"

Although I have had some exposure to ACIM, I have not to this point been a
regular reader, much less a scholar, of the material. Hence I may claim a degree
of impartiality in the debate here. I had never heard of Gary Renard prior to
two weeks ago. Having read a glowing reference in an amazon.com reader review of
a different book, I decided to obtain a copy of DU. Having done so, I was
pleased to discover I was to receive through it the benefit of the wisdom of
ascended masters. Fifty pages into the book, I was completely disgusted and
depressed, the text being so clearly the production of a single voice - and
hardly a sublime one. I went on to read other large portions of it but, even
where a respectable degree of intelligence and familiarity with various topics
was evident, found the overall tone by turns nihilistic and - I know it will
sound strong, but fascistic, really, in its aggressive and self-congratulatory
dogmatism.

Thank you to Greg Mackie for explicating the points that "Renard's response to
the masters is unconvincing", "the masters are unconvincing and at times
downright unattractive", "the dialogue is unconvincing as a dialogue between
different entities", and "DU contains numerous factual errors" - thus saving me
from having to do it myself. Thank you to Robert Perry for his astute analysis
of why it matters whether or not Renard's book is founded on a fraudulent claim
(understanding of which I am amazed to see escapes so many contributors to this
discussion). Also, thank you to Robert Perry for his comments on the substance
of ACIM, whereby I am encouraged to become more of a student - which certainly
would not be the case had my most recent impression of it remained that conveyed
in DU.

Day Irmiter


Dear Mr. Perry,

Just to correct the typical misinformation which you like to print at your
website, I'd like to point out that a Bob Hoekstra misrepresents an interview
with me. That interview is available for all to see at my website. If you go to
www.GaryRenard.com and click on "Interview" at the top of the homepage you'll
see it.

Mr. Hekstra says that I stated I always wanted fame as a spiritual teacher. I
never said that. He says, "a follower of his now claims that they are pursuing
an offer made by a Hollywood celebrity to reproduce the conversations on tape."
That's not true. It's just made up. (Plus there's already an audio book of the
conversations anyway.)

Mr. Hoekstra says, "'When asked further whether he just happened to have a tape
recorder handy for the first visit..." and then gives a made up quote. I was
never asked that and I never said I had a tape recorder available for the first
visit." See the interview. Yes, I did record the remaining conversations, which
is old news.

I find it absurd that those who are so determined to attempt to attack me and my
story find it impossible to get their facts straight. I also find it interesting
that you are so eager to print such garbage. The truth is my story has always
been consistent and has never changed. But then you made sure that fact wouldn't
get out to the people who the articles were sent to for at least two months,
didn't you? You have done a disservice to the Course community and you're
hurting the Course. In the meantime, I did a sold out workshop today in New
Jersey and continued to share the message of the Course. What a contrast between
your actions and mine. I can only hope that eventually you'll recover from your
addiction to controversy and start teaching A Course in Miracles.

Sincerely,
Gary Renard


Robert responds:

     As you can see if you read our reader feedback section, we print feedback on
both sides of the issue. Our only stipulation is that "only feedback that is
respectful in tone with be published." I don't know how to say this delicately,
but because you figure so prominently in this issue, we have made an exception
in your case.



If you can still find and read an early interview done by D. Patrick Miller with
Gary, you will find lots of holes in his story of the two ascended masters that
he seems to be constantly creating new tales to fill in the gaps.

When questioned how he was able to remember exactly what his two ascended
masters told him from over 9(?) years ago, he replies that he recorded the
conversations on tape. When asked further whether he just happened to have a
tape recorder handy for the first visit, he replies glibly that he just
remembers that conversation very well since he has a great memory. When
questioned why he destroyed the tapes he replies that the Ascended masters
instructed him to do so to avoid controversy. I find if strange that now that he
is has gained the fame that he stated he always wanted as a "spiritual teacher",
a follower of his now claims that they are pursuing an offer made by a Hollywood
celebrity to reproduce the conversations on tape.

The Truth doesn't need to be wrapped in a lie to be accepted. In fact, most
people will throw out many elements of the truth when they find out that the
story that they think gives the words authenticity is a lie. I have offered
Gary's book to skeptical friends of mine as an introduction to the ideas in the
Course. After finding out more about details of Gary's "guidance", I am
embarrassed that I had offer this "help" to my friends who now have further
rejected the whole notion of the Course.

I hope that Gary doesn't end up on the Oprah show. I would hate to have the
Course community have to go through the same embarrassment that another recent
author went through when his book was found to be fiction.

Bob Hoekstra


Dear Mr. Perry,

I didn't realize this, but it's also been brought to my attention that you sent
out an e-mail to your database of 8,000 people with links to the 3 negative
articles about me at your website, once again with no response from me. Without
addressing the fact that combined with the three negative articles being
presented in Mr. Mundy's "Miracles" magazine without a response from me, there
has never been such an agressive, negative action taken by Course teachers
against another one in the history of the Course community, I'd like to request
that when my response article is available that you also send an e-mail to your
database of 8,000 people with the link to it. If you only put the link at your
website then, as you know, only a fraction of the people you sent the e-mail to
will be aware of it.

Your efforts to present only one side of the story and have three negative
articles about me and my books presented to people without having even one that
gives my perspective is indeed curious. Not only have you called me a liar
without proof, but you seem afraid that people will be able to read the
alternative. Let me emphasize that it is you who have attempted to attack me.
You said in your last response to me that you did it the way you did because you
wanted to emphasize the "gravity" of the situation. How heavy. Yet the
"situation" was made up by you. Thus it's your responsibility to present a
balanced point of view to the people you sent the attack articles to, if you
choose to. If you do not then it simply shows your fear of being exposed for the
controversy addict that you are.

Sincerely,
Gary Renard


Robert responds:

     Gary,
     You can be assured that, even if you hadn't written, what you ask for here
would have been done.
     Robert


Dear All,

I have read the three articles re: Gary Renard and his books, his books and the
reader feedback as well as Robert Parry's response to why the articles were
written and GR's recent response, etc. And I have to say I am still puzzled
about the 3 articles.

I was recently reading Ch 12 in the text, The Judgment of the Holy Spirit.

     You have been told not to make error real, and the way to do this is very
simple. If you want to believe in error, you would have to make it real because
it is not true. But truth is real in its own right, and to believe in truth you
do not have to do anything. Understand that you do not respond to anything
directly, but to your interpretation of it. Your interpretation thus becomes the
justification for the response. That is why analysing the motives of others is
hazardous to you. If you decide that someone is really trying to attack you or
desert you or enslave you, you will respond as if he had actually done so,
having made his error real to you. To interpret error is to give it power, and
having done this you will overlook truth.

and so on...
Am I over-interpreting this?

While it certainly does seem that the two books are a literary device gone wild
it also seems that these articles may be an overreaction, including in terms of
not making error real. So, I'm just not sure what to make of this.

I do understand the 'central importance of truth' and also of honesty as a
charactistic of God's teachers. However, in my estimation continuing to teach
and live the Course rather than pointing out the errors of others may well be
the best response.

And here I am pointing out what I perceive to be the errors of others. It does
start to be a cycle.

Kind regards,
Robin Harper


Dear Mr. Perry,

It's been brought to my attention that you've posted links to three different
negative articles about me and my books at your website. Also, I understand that
you are following that up by posting partial and misleading information about my
communications with Miracle Distribution Center. Normally, anybody would
consider one article about someone at a time to be acceptable. However, to have
three articles plus other misinformation at one website without offering the
subject of those articles a chance to respond is not acceptable by any
standards. Three against zero is ridiculous. For that reason I am requesting
that when the time comes you include a link to my response article, which I will
furnish you with, so that those with a trace of human decency can at least see
another perspective on your trumped up and decked stacked controversy. Mr. Mundy
has said that he will print my entire article in the magazine that also included
these three articles with only one side of the story. In an e-mail dated October
11 he writes, "Just send the article, we'll publish it just as you send it
without one syllable being changed."  We'll see if he keeps his word or not. In
any case, there are witnesses as to what the article contains. So, I'd like to
know if you will post my article at your website or not. Also, I ask that this
message be posted in your "Reader Feedback" section about the three articles.

Sincerely,
Gary Renard


Robert responds:

     Good to hear from you. Actually, I was already planning on seeking your
permission to post the piece you wrote for Jon. I would like to have it on our
website. Unless I hear otherwise, I will wait to post it until Jon's magazine
comes out.

     You clearly think that posting three articles about you is unfair, yet if I
have understood your public communications so far, you seem to feel that any
questioning of the truth of your story is unfair. When I shared my conclusions
privately with individuals who approached me directly, you considered that a
covert attempt to undermine your career, and said so quite publicly. When there
was a discussion of this question on your first internet forum, the forum was
shut down. Now your current forum is told that the issue can' t be discussed
until you decide if you feel guided to respond to our articles. It does make one
wonder if there is any sort of discussion of this, public or private, that you
would feel is appropriate. The three of us came out together because we wanted
people to understand the gravity of the situation and because we wanted to show
that this was not one person with an axe to grind, but different teachers coming
from different starting points yet reaching the same conclusion.



Whether or not the recent articles about Gary Renard are an attack would be
known only in the hearts of the writers of the articles. Dedication to truth
sounds fine as far as it goes, but is not enough in itself.

I have not read DU, but have seen a DVD of a session with Gary. He is obviously
intelligent and may not succumb easily to all the criticism. We will have to
await his response.

Gary Renard has had popular success. The Da Vinci Code was a huge success, while
many better books sold poorly. That is the way of the world. The best movie
doesn't always win the Oscar.

Books about the Course will come and go, and the Course will remain. Early in
the life of the Course it became popular, then people dropped off. There have
been many ups and downs, and some unseemly episodes since then. I don't believe
a teaching like the Course will ever be popular in the usual sense of that term,
and anyone expecting popular success from serious Course scholarship is likely
to be disappointed.

Ken Wapnick, a serious Course scholar, doesn't respond to the insubstantial
pageant of argument on the Net and elsewhere. He just get's on with his own
work. I am beginning to see the wisdom of this. Controversies will always be
with us. There is a place for serious dialogue for those who wish to
participate. There will also be the continuous temptation to get side tracked
into endless disagreements about who is right and who is wrong. Such is life.

The Course, like all real spiritual teachings, will find its way through the
thickets of the world, past those great imposters failure and success. Let us,
in all humility, let Jesus guide the Course, through the love and forgiveness in
ourselves.

Mary Benton


Dear Robert and Greg,

I just saw Gary Renard yesterday for the third time, and wanted to see if he had
become arrogant or self-serving since I saw him a year ago. What I saw was the
same genuine, sincere, authentic Gary that I've always seen. The Holy Spirit
clearly was present while he spoke.

In Your Immortal Reality Gary's ego surfaced in attacks on other Course
teachers. However, everyone's ego has come out in this process of attacking Gary
back. Just because Gary's ego arose does not mean that his experience with the
ascended masters is a lie. His teachings are too powerful and helpful for his
entire experience to be false. Given Gary's recent fallibility, it doesn't seem
like he could have pulled off The Disappearance of the Universe by himself.

All of you, Robert, Greg, Jon, and Gary, are wonderful teachers and I respect
and love you all. I choose to see only the Christ in each of us.

Sincerely,
Lorraine Coburn


Dear Robert and Greg,

I have finished reading your articles in Miracles Magazine and am very confused.
Admittedly I don't understand A Course in Miracles as well as you do but I
understand from my own study as well as from books you have written and
workshops that you have given that this world is an illusion and our role is to
learn how to forgive. We are to be messengers of peace and love while we are in
this dream world and that discord is from our ego. Greg I read your book about
forgiving murderers and Robert I have read too many of your books to list them
all. When I read your material and when I have attended your workshops I have
always come away with the realization that I am to allow myself to be changed
from looking at the world through my ego's eyes to seeing it from that of the
Holy Spirit. The course lesson, "Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy"
is a significant one for me and I remember it often. Am I wrong or am I
misinterpreting your teaching of this message from Jesus?

Your articles confuse me. To me it sounds as if you are saying that it is more
important to be right than to be happy and you want your readers to know that
you are right. You make cogent points and you may very well be right in your
interpretation of Gary's work. To me it really doesn't matter if "ascended
masters" visited him or not. What matters to me is the realities that so many
who would never have heard the message of the Course have now heard it and are
reading it. What matters to me is that I am learning how to forgive more deeply.
His interpretation may differ slightly from yours as does Ken Wapnick but is
that a reason to attack? I understand from my study that attack is always from
the ego and perhaps erroneously I thought you two were above that.

Do not mistake this letter to be anything except a puzzled student who has
respected your teaching and who is now asking for clarification. I am confused
as to why you needed to attack Gary. There are many who follow the Course and
each of us (because we are all human in this dream world) has slightly different
interpretations. I hear you attacking Gary more because he 'claims' to have
learned the Course from ascended masters and you don't believe that. You believe
he made up the messages he delivers. Yet truly it appears that he is teaching
sound course principles. He didn't make up the message he delivers.

Your articles disturbed me because it appears that you are sowing seeds of
discontent in the Course community and I wonder why you need to do that? Please
help me to understand. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Joan M Jennings


Robert responds:

     Dear Joan,

     Thank you for your message. I remember you well from workshops of mine that
you have attended. I appreciate the way you framed your message as "someone
seeking understandingand". I'm happy to answer. Even though this is quite long,
if I had the time, I would answer at greater length. The issues you raise are
extremely important.

     My answer really is all about the central importance of truth. There is an
attitude in spiritual circles that says that matters of truth should be
secondary to happiness, joy, and peace. The quote from the Course that you
mention "Do you prefer that you be right or happy?" is a case in point. It is
often taken to mean that we should set aside matters of truth if they get in the
way of being happy.

     I honestly don't think we hold that attitude in other areas of life. If you
went to a doctor, you'd want his credentials to be real. If he had no training
in medicine and had only a day before been an insurance salesman, I assume that
you would care about that. If someone told you that a family member was plotting
to kill you, you would probably be very concerned with how factual that claim
was.

     But in spiritual circles, I think we set aside those normal rules and come
armed with a different set of rules. In the spiritual arena, issues of truth and
factuality can easily seem to get in the way of the weightier issues of what
helps us in our lives, what gives us comfort, and what inspires us. And so we
tell ourselves that those issues don't matter. And that seems to be the high
road-being above it all.

     I personally believe that this attitude is very far from the Course's own
attitude. The Course wants to challenge our belief that truth can threaten
happiness. Instead, it teaches that the two are inextricably intertwined. In its
view, truth is what makes us truly happy. In fact, that quote about being right
and happy does not mean that we should stop caring about being right and instead
just be happy. It means that we should be willing to question what we think is
right, because in fact it is wrong, and its wrongness is making us unhappy. That
is the meaning behind these lines: "At least I can decide I do not like what I
feel now. And so I hope I have been wrong" (T-30.I.8:2, 9:2). The implication is
that finding the right view will release us from unhappiness. For more clarity
on this, you may want to read Greg's article, "Do You Prefer that You Be Right
or Happy?".

     Admittedly, the Course's value on truth is not generally about factual
truth, but about what we might call higher truths. However, it does extend down
to plain old, ordinary truth. You can see this in the fact that honesty is the
second characteristic of God's teachers. The honesty talked about is a more
encompassing concept than simply telling the truth, but it does include that. It
is about "what you say" (M-4.II.1:4). It is, in other words, about telling the
truth. I have heard many Course students try to wiggle out of this over the
years. We don't like being bound to a behavioral rule of having to tell the
truth. But I don't see any wiggle room here. The Course is not talking about an
honesty that is less honest than normal honesty, but one that is more.

     In conventional spiritual assumptions, often the very worst thing one can do
is bring up disagreements about matters of truth and factuality. But is it
inherently an attack to do so? If someone says, "The sky is green," is it an
attack to say, "Well, actually, the sky is blue"? If you were in someone's
living room and he said, "Two beings just materialized on my couch over there,"
would it be an attack to say, "I don't see any beings on that couch"? Of course,
that is essentially what I did. I said, "Here are my reasons for believing that
two beings did not materialize on Gary Renard's couch." Is just saying that an
attack?

     If it is, then we really cannot rescue Jesus from being an attacker in the
Course. He constantly says things that, under this definition, would clearly
qualify as attacks. Here is part of his first exchange with Helen, right after
dictating the first three miracle principles:

         Helen: I don't think Bill wants this course, and I'm not sure I do,
either. He is very snappy.

         Jesus: I think this is slightly true because something is bothering him,
but he is certainly not very snappy. So why not try to help him instead of
blowing it up into an obstruction? He helps you all the time.

     Jesus is correcting Helen about a matter of factuality. Helen says that Bill
"is very snappy." Jesus says, "He is certainly not very snappy." How is that
different from saying, "There are certainly not two beings on your couch"? I
could follow this up with countless examples of Jesus criticizing the views of
Freud, Edgar Cayce, Carl Jung, and others (found in the Urtext), along with
Christianity, the Bible, and the disciples (in the published Course), but I'll
instead just include these examples from the Course:

         But you are wrong. (T-5.V.6:14)

         Be glad, then, that you have been wrong. (T-9.IV.10:5)

         Under the circumstances, would it not be more desirable to have been
wrong, even apart from the fact that you were wrong? (T-13.IV.3:1)

         You have been wrong about the world. (T-13.VII.5:1)

         Decide that God is right and you are wrong about yourself. (T-14.IV.4:5)

         You have been wrong in thinking that it is needful to prepare yourself
for Him. (T-18.IV.4:3)

         You are wrong, but there is One within you Who is right. (T-27.V.9:6)

         You want it for the goal of being right when you are wrong.
(T-30.I.11:6)

         Would you know how many times you merely thought you were right, without
ever realizing you were wrong? (M-10.4:3)

         And you are wrong. (M-18.3:8)

         You have been wrong. Lead not the way, for you have lost it. (M-22.5:8)

     Jesus tells us again and again that we are wrong. He is disagreeing with us.
Are we to assume that Jesus is attacking us here? I don't think so. I think
attack is more about how you perceive the content of the person's identity than
about disagreeing with their views or claims. It is more about feeling tone. I
think you can say, "There were certainly not two beings on your couch" and not
feel attacking, just as you can say, "He is certainly not very snappy" and not
be attacking. That is why we were careful in our articles to keep the tone as
neutral as possible. We didn't engage in name-calling. We didn't engage in
character assassination. We didn't say "These are Gary's motives," or "This is
the kind of person Gary is." We kept ourselves to presenting reason and evidence
in support of the view that there were not two beings on his couch. How is that
an attack?

     And I think it is crucial that these sorts of things are said, absolutely
crucial. I mentioned the attitude that says that, since truth does not matter,
it is very important to not bring up disagreements about matters of truth. I
think a corollary of this is the idea that since ethical behavior does not
matter, it is very important to not point out unethical behavior. To the extent
that these attitudes are really there, now the only sin in this illusory world
becomes truth-telling.

     Imagine a world in which truth-telling is the only sin. Imagine a society in
which the only sin is to say, "That person engaged in unethical behavior." Would
you want to live in a society like that? Do you like systems in which it looks
like that is already the case? The priest abuse scandal comes to mind. There,
between truth-telling and abusing boys under the cloak of religious authority,
truth-telling (for a long time at least) was the greater transgression of the
two. Do you admire a system like that? Or do you instead root for the
whistleblowers, and hope that the system won't squash them before they can blow
their whistle?

     I think this is all very relevant here, because when a spiritual leader is
caught in ethical transgressions, it sullies the whole path. When it comes to
light that priests have engaged in sexual abuse, and that the hierarchy has
covered this up, do you feel better or worse about Catholicism? When it comes to
light that a guru has been dishonest, how do you feel about his path? If it
comes out, which some day it may, that Gary Renard invented his whole story, and
thus launched a Course teaching career on a fraudulent base, how will that not
sully the Course in the eyes of the world?

     An example comes to mind. Several years ago, a magician/skeptic/debunker
named James Randi took a young man and trained him to be a fake channel. He
trained him in the mannerisms of being a spiritual channel. He trained him in
the right sorts of pat truisms to say. He did this to show that people will
readily fall for a fraud, and to thereby raise the possibility that all channels
are frauds. The young man was an overnight sensation. Large crowds flocked to
see him. Of course, they didn't know that they were being used as a
demonstration of human gullibility. Now imagine that the ideas the young man was
taught to spout were all from the Course. How would that make the Course look to
the public? Further, imagine that when the crowd of Course students was told
that the whole thing was a hoax, they didn't care; they still flocked to see
him. How would this not sully the Course in the eyes of the public? Then imagine
that when it was all revealed to be a hoax, people reviled not the hoax, but the
person who revealed it. How would this not support all the points that James
Randi had wanted to prove, and far better than he ever hoped?

     This is my real issue. I don't want to see the Course linked with what I
believe to be a hoax. I am not trying to just prove myself right, as you said it
sounded to you. I think that is an unfair assumption about my motives. I am
trying to do what I see as a necessary service to Course students and to the
Course, fully expecting to attract a lot of criticism in the process. My issue
is also not what you implied when you said, "His interpretation may differ
slightly from yours as does Ken Wapnick but is that a reason to attack?" Again,
you're reading into my article motives that are not there. I can assure you that
if the views in DU were the same as mine, and if the book had held me up as the
preeminent teacher of the Course, I would have spoken out much sooner. If people
had started flocking to the Circle's work because a made-up spiritual authority
had recommended it, I would have felt like someone had left stolen money on my
doorstep. I couldn't have just taken that money.
I would have been forced to speak up.

     And this is why the fact that Gary's work has popularized the Course doesn't
rescue it in my eyes. I at first tried to take that view, but then I realized it
was a classic case of the end justifying the means. Then I thought of this
example: Let's say I go around the country and hold a gun to the heads of
various celebrities, forcing them to speak out on behalf of the Course. And
let's say they do, and Course sales go through the roof. Do you like that
scenario? Does the increase in sales make you want to praise my "ministry"?

     In summary, we simply came to feel that the truth had to be told -- the
truth that there is every good reason to believe that the masters are fictional,
and no good reason to believe that they are real. There needs to be
truth-tellers in this community, even if truth-telling makes waves. It would be
a very strange community in which it's OK for a popular teaching career to be
based on fraud, and not OK for anyone to dare mention that fact. What a bizarre,
upside-down place that would be. Thankfully, even though there are elements of
that attitude in our community, the majority of students seem to feel
differently. We have been overwhelmed with grateful responses from people who
were looking to the leadership for help in evaluating Gary's work, and feel that
they now have gotten that help. In the end, people do want the truth.

     I hope this helps you understand where we were coming from.

     In peace,
     -Robert



The following is excerpted from Beverly Hutchinson McNeff's Blog, which can be
read on the Miracle Distribution Center's web site at
http://www.miraclecenter.org.

In the last couple of years, an author named Gary Renard has repeatedly boasted
about how many books he has sold. He has also been saying things about me,
online and in his books, that just aren't true. He was very upset that the
Center decided not to carry his first book and because of this went on a
personal vendetta against me. He has decided that I don't like him and concocted
a number of reasons why this is . . . the best one being the fact that he and I
have been married in numerous past lives. As a matter of fact, in our most
recent past life, he killed me, so I am pretty angry with him in this life! I
should also tell you that the reason he knows all of this to be is that his
ascended masters told him so. The interesting thing is, no one clued me in on
this. As a matter of fact, no one even clued me in on the fact that I even knew
Mr. Renard well enough to be mad at him. But the truth is, Mr. Renard believes
what he wants to believe. To paraphrase the Course, "No evidence will convince
Mr. Renard of the truth of what he does not want."

Recently Jon Mundy, Greg Mackie and Robert Perry did an excellent job of
examining Renard's work. You may read their articles at Opening A Dialogue. But
now I would like to relate to you from my personal experience.

In early 2005 Mr. Renard wrote to me,

    "Whatever decisions you make about our relationship in the next six months or
so will determine how you and Miracle Distribution Center are written about in
that [my upcoming] book. If you care about your image and your place in Course
history then you'll give very strong consideration to changing the nature of our
relationship. The way things stand now, you will not be happy with my next
book."

Interestingly, by publication time many of the words ended up coming out of his
masters' mouths. I really don't take personal threats all that seriously, but
when someone attacks the integrity of MDC, I feel impelled to respond. He has
used his assaults on my integrity as a tool to impugn the Center and its good
work. For the past 28 years, the staff of the Center have worked hard and
tirelessly to serve students of A Course in Miracles. They have gone and
continue to go out of their way to be "truly helpful". The staff and volunteers
provide daily, one-on-one connection to seeking students of the Course. They
talk to them on the phone, answer their needs by e-mail and letter, and pray
with them daily. At the heart of MDC is service and support and to impugn that
fact is to diminish every person who has found support and comfort in the
Center's services.

I could fill a blog with letters of support and thanks for the services of the
Center, but I don't think that is necessary. Those who have been blessed by the
Center know it and those who want to believe the contrary, well, as the Course
says, "No evidence will convince you of the truth of what you do not want."

Beverly Hutchinson McNeff, founder of Miracle Distribution Center.


Dear Robert,

Thank you for the recent articles on the Gary Renard book in the "A Better Way"
newsletter I received today. I have tried reading this book several times. At
every reading I would very clearly receive a message that this story is not
true. I took the book off a shelf last night and thought I would give it one
last try. This morning I read seven pages on the train while going to work. I
closed the book and clearly knew that was not for me. Then I arrived at work and
opened my e-mail to fine the latest "A Better Way". Both the article by Greg
Mackie (which is excellent) and the article you wrote helped settled the matter
for me. I will instead stick with Tara Singh, Marianne Williamson and you as
true and trusted sources in my study of the Course. I am looking forward to your
newest book.

Best,
Kenny Vandenberg


I am really relieved to read these articles regarding Gary Renard's book. When I
first picked up the book I could not put it down because I was really toying
with the possibility that this did happen. But once I got into the book....I
really did begin to feel decieved. Something just wasn't sitting well with me.

I whole heartedly agree that it is flat out unethical to make claims that
something like this truly happened....because it plays on peoples spiritual
well-being. I am glad I had the instinct to turn this story away when I did more
than a year ago. At that time...it almost felt like I was being a bad course
student...and that maybe the course wasn't for me.

I appreciate the teachers and authors on the C of A so much. This website has
restored my belief that maybe the course IS for me after all.

Very Sincerely,
Marcella Morris


Jon,

Of course you misquoted the course's stand on reincarnation by leaving out a
couple of sentences in the middle of your quote:

Our only question should be, 'Is the concept helpful?' 5 And that depends, of
course, on what it is used for. 6 If it is used to strengthen the recognition of
the eternal nature of life, it is helpful indeed. 7 Is any other question about
it really useful in lighting up the way?

When it says it is not real it is of course referring to the fact that nothing
on the level of form is real and since we equate reincarnation with bodily form
then it could not be real in that sense. It does not however dismiss that it
occurs within the framework of the illusion. I am not defending Renard but if
you are accusing him of using the Course in furtherance of his own purpose how
is your misquoting it to make a point any different.

You are right, anger is never justified, by extension neither are sadness or
disillusionment. Also good to keep in mind, "If you attack error in another, you
will hurt yourself." T-3.III.1

I notice that Ken never endorses or discredits any other writer's approach to
the course.

Thanks for the article, I enjoyed it.
Mark Stilwell


Hi Robert, Greg, and Jon

I've been a student of the Course since 1992. The one positive I find about
Gary's books are this: they are either bringing people back to the Course or
introducing people to the Course for the first time. That's a definite plus.

With that said, I cannot say I find any uniqueness in what Gary has to say nor
find any basis for believing his claims about his ascended masters. I also
believe, very strongly, that Gary deviates from what the Course teaches in the
exact same areas as Ken Wapnick.

I've been reading "channeled" material since the early 70's. My observation is
that Gary's "ascended" masters have little if any original material to
communicate. They also talk in ways that I would not associate with ascended
masters. Finally, I've written two books, one of which uses a literary creation
similar to Arten and Pursay. 80% of my book is dialogue with this "spirit". It
was obvious from the early chapters of "Disappearance" that Arten and Pursah
were literary creations of Gary's that he uses them as a mouthpiece for his own
understanding, and as it turns out, for that of Ken Wapnick.

That last point was the most striking to me about Gary's books. I was a student
of Ken Wapnick's for years. I've read almost all his books and still have a
library of 75% of his tapes and CD's (available for sale if anyone is
interested). As time passed, I found myself becoming more depressed as I
listened to Wapnick, but didn't really know why. I had a sense of my being a
puppet on a string of a single, larger Self that seemed very distant. I had, in
short, given up studying the Course to the study of Ken Wapnick. I gave up on
Wapnick when I read your book, "One Book, Two Visions."  That book did more to
clarify where Wapnick deviates from what the Course teaches than anything I've
read. I thank you for that.

I absolutely agree with you, that, having been so immersed in Wapnick's
materials, that Gary, Arten, and Pursah are, for the most part, parroting the
teachings of Ken Wapnick. Gary lost all credibility with me when in the early
pages of his second book he has the so-called ascended masters telling him that
he (Gary) is one of only two people teaching the true Course. That other person,
of course, is Ken Wapnick. It didn't make Gary a bad person to me. It did make
him completely unbelievable.

I'm not out to judge, slam, or rip Gary and his books. They are what they are
and his claims are his claims. But my position is he's simply reworking the
teachings of Ken Wapnick and created the literary devices of ascended masters to
help do so. Only Gary knows his motivations.

I've read many other books that deviate from the Course as well. Fortunately, we
have the Course itself to be the ultimate source of what it really teaches. In
the great scheme of things, true students of the Course will experience that
Truth within their study AND practice of THE COURSE ITSELF. As long as there is
a Course, there will be authors and speakers writing and speaking about it. Some
will be right on, some not. It's been that way so far and will continue to be
that way.

So Gary's books and all the hoopla surrounding them are a reminder to me to keep
my eyes on the pages of the Course itself for the ultimate source of what it's
teaching.

Forgiveness is,
Ken Obermeyer


Having been introduced to ACIM through Gary's first book, and having attended
one of his seminars, I guess my first reaction to this is "who cares?". DU
provides an extremely cogent and entertaining introduction to ACIM. I would
never have bought ACIM (much less stayed with it) without being convinced of its
authenticity.

I feel the same way about Gary's 1st book. If Arten & Pursah provide a
convenient device for delivering the message, why agonize over whether or not
A&P are "real". The Course says none of us are real (as separate entities)
anyway. When Gary was on George Noory's radio show, all Noory wanted to do was
to have Gary get to the "good stuff", i.e. the prophecies of the future. I think
what you are saying kind of fits into that category. You're concentrating more
on the form, and less on the content, as Ken W. would say. I think everyone
should read DU, for the metaphysics and let the Holy Spirit handle the details.
By the way, I do agree with you on Gary's second book. It was entertaining, but
definitely not in the same league as DU.

Thanks for listening.
Mike McGrath Long Beach, CA


I have been a long time student of Gnostic thought and ACIM. I am a big Wapnick
fan and regulary read whatever he puts out there because of I love his work, all
of it. FACIM is my first choice. However, I do like to peak in at the Circle of
Atonement. Many members in my study group are regular readers of your site. Our
study group had the pleasure of meeting Jon Mundy 4 or 5 years ago at John
Sundes house and enjoyed a lovely meal and meeting with Jon. Jon gave me his
book and I remember feeling warm and honoured to meet him.

I have read the Disappearnce of the Universe. I found the book light reading.
When I read anything light, I skim it quickly. With my background of tackling
difficult metaphysical concepts like the Gnostic Gospels and ACIM, reading light
material is exhausting. This is why I quickly flip through the pages and search
for whatever sparks my interest. If I'm sparked I will delve a little deeper to
experience the meaning. Let me clarify for you what my meaning of "light
reading" is for me. Light reading for me is boring, lacks meaning and
consistency. I am sure that many people, and many people have shared with me,
that they thoroughly enjoy DU. As well they enjoy Conversations with God. I have
read these books, but for me the depth was lacking. Nothing much new, same old
stuff, just a new form.

I left the DU with the impression that the man likely did experience contact
with his spiritual guides but if I were in the room with him I would not
experience the same contact because its his dream. And thats what this book
really is, its a dream. I think books like this serve the Holy Spirit and I want
to extend my thanks to Gary Renard for sharing his experience with the world.
Nothing in the world of form is really important, behaviour, perceptions,
beliefs, values all these ideas come from the content in our minds. And this is
why the meaning is so important for me. When I read someone's thoughts I am
searching for meaning. It doesn't mean that much to me that the writer had many
past lives and prophecies about the future. I'm more interested in finding out
how the writer has been assisted through his difficulties in the dream so that I
may learn.

Thank you.
Jackie Hilchuk


Dear Brothers in Christ:

I've not read DU nor do I have any interest in doing so. I did, however, find
both of the subject COA articles to be the usual well thought out and presented
pieces. Thank you Robert and Greg! This morning I read thru the many comments or
feedbacks posted on this site and was reminded of a letter my partner, Jane, and
I had written to the ACIM community during the time of the copyright controversy
http://www.jcim.net/Copyright/ToTeachers.html
the last paragraph of that letter follows:

"Our view is that those who are at loggerheads over this copyright issue, or any
other issue, will not be at peace until they recognize and accept each other as
their teachers, show sincere gratitude and forgiveness to each other, and gladly
accept the correction that each offers the other. Joy is the only true state of
mind, and joy lies in surrender. There is no reason NOT to surrender, as the
Course itself is in excellent hands" (the Holy Spirit's), "and does not need any
of our efforts to promote or sustain it or to make sure it is read correctly.
The feeling of separation creates the issues that justify it. Only a miracle can
erase that feeling of separation and thereby resolve those issues. We are told
over and over that miracles are ours for the asking. Now seems to be an
appropriate time to ask."

Jack Canning


Dear Mr. Mackie,

Kudos! Many thanks for your very articulate, thoroughly researched, and
intelligently presented article. I can't tell you how relieved I was to read it.

Though I have been a spiritual student for twenty years, I have only recently
begun to study ACIM. Naturally, studying the Course is a deep and profound
experience.

When Gary Renard's book crossed my path I was initially resistant to it.
Eventually, however, Amazon's readers recommendations wore me down. Of course, I
was sucked right in, just like any good novel. However, despite the fact that it
is quite a juicy spiritual read, parts about it hit me as just plain wrong.
Namely, the tone, the crass language of A & P, and also its arrogant superiority
over all other teachings. Now, I believe that ACIM is from/by Jesus without any
problem, but there was something about these two ascended masters that do seem
all too human and not very ACIM Jesus-like at all.

And by the way, why do they need Gary's lame sense of humor? He's not ever a
little bit funny or clever. I will admit, the book has some great points in it.
But I had a sense about it, and your excellent article confirmed my suspicions.

I was also so delighted to read your well-written article, because I was
beginning to feel as though DU was implying that I was supposed to chuck all of
my prior education in favor for this one text. But now I know that Renard's text
takes so much from Ken Wapnick (who I had heard of, but never read), therefore
ultimately, we must assume that DU really expresses KW's ardent point of view
about ACIM. You also mentioned other authors who had fudged their work. I'd like
to add one. Lynn Grabhorn, who wrote the highly successful, "Excuse Me, Your
Life is Waiting", took all of her information from Abraham-Hicks, but never gave
them credit as far as I can tell. While she didn't claim to have originated the
concepts she presented in her work, she alludes to some teachings, but she never
elaborates which teachings. I know she's passed on, but it's still unethical,
and not particularly enlightened behavior in my opinion.

But back for Gary. Some other discrepancies I'd like to add to your case about
DU, if I may. The so-called masters tell him not to become a big shot (sorry, I
can't recall on what page). Then I visit his website, and look who's the big
shot? Also, he does not seem particularly enlightened in his behavior or
presentation, as though he's never really studied the Course at all. Jesus was
never defensive in a flurry of emails. Also, why would A & P appear only to him,
if "they have other minds to blow?" And the idea that he's sexually attracted to
an Ascended Master is just icky. Why? Because it's a weak device. Yes, sex
sells, but does an ascended master need it to sell the profound messages from A
Course in Miracles to a married yet-still horny mediator in Maine who rents
"sexy movies" by himself? Clearly, this device was devised by a man, not a
master. Spiritual logic presumes that Arten and Pursah would elevate their
student, not get down on his sophomoric level. Unless of course, they're
descended masters of Gary's imagination.

Respectfully yours,
Alix Flood


Jon, Robert and Greg,

I totally agree with Ian Patrick's letter. When I read your articles I was so
saddened and dismayed. Do we judge or do we forgive? Do we teach only love, or
do we attack? Do we see oneness or separation? Why should I trust teachers who
don't practice what they teach? I'm sorry, but my first response was that this
is a witch hunt. Why was this necessary? I admire and respect all of you and
your writings and hope you continue to write about the Course in ways that I
have always found enlightening, uplifting and hopeful.

Everything can be used by the Holy Spirit, including Gary's books.

As Gamaliel told the Council in Acts 5:38-39, "For if this idea of theirs or its
execution is of human origin, it will collapse; but if it is from God, you will
never be able to put them down, and you risk finding yourselves at war with
God."

Sincerely,
Joyce Treacy


I thought Jon Mundy posted a great article critiquing both of Gary Renard's
books. I read DU and, like Jon, was initially taken in by the writing and the
story and I attributed Gary's sometimes crude use of language as just his manner
of attempting to be "down to earth". I then read Path of Light and was
immediately overwhelmed by the difference in scope and quality of presentation
of the course and wished I had simply read Path of Light and not wasted my time
on DU. Not that DU does not have entertainment value while piquing one's
interest for further inquiry into the course. If it gets one person like myself
interested in becoming a student, then arguably, it may be worthwhile.

When Gary started advertising the second book, several times I almost bought it
for another "hit" to keep my interest and because I could not get enough of the
Course and anything about it. What stopped me from spending the money is the
fact that I thought long and hard about whether I could really go see this guy
and take him seriously after the claims that he made about the ascended masters
visiting him in the flesh. If he had stated that they appeared to him in a dream
or mystical vision, I could have gone for it. But let's face it, ascended
masters (or any other entities, be they positive or demonic) do not materialize
out of nothingness. To ask one to believe otherwise controverts one's
intelligence.

I must also admit that while I do believe that the course has great value as a
means of Self-actualization and psychological healing, I am compelled to state
that I also possess a healthy dose of skepticism with respect to course
metaphysics. I think it is very convenient to explain the negativity in the
world by positing that the world is unreal and attributing all problems to the
ego. It seems very convoluted to me to posit that a separation took place
causing this world of illusion, but that in realitythis illusion never really
happened (doesn't the Zen monk in you just shake his/her head in disbelief). I
do well understand the concept of maya, but I also understand that no matter how
one tries to put the mysterium tremendum or Great Mystery into a box, we cannot
really explain everything nice and tidy and neat. If we could, it wouldn't be
the Great Mystery, would it? I recognize that people who do accept everything
about the course as absolute truth do so because its metaphysics take the fear
and trembling out of life. But maybe we are meant to be awed by God as a Being
that is totally other and beyond our comprehension as the Job of the Old
Testament understood in his moment of revelation after his sufferings had
finally come to an end. I do understand the spark of the divine is in each of
us, but I also know that the part can never understand the whole completely.
While the course would take all of that fear and trembling out of life through
its complex and convoluted metaphysics, I think it does so at the expense of
removing much of the Mystery of life that is beyond our understanding. While
loss of fear and trembling may be a good thing, the sense of awe and magic and
fun that is also lost may not be.

Finally, a plug for mother nature. As we all know, the Course says that the
world is not real and that nature is basically savage except for the elements
that the Holy Spirit put into it to assist in the atonement (see Robert Perry
article on Nature and the Course). I have tremendous difficulty accepting this.
There just seems to be to much of a grand design going on in the movement of the
planets, the complexity of the human brain and nervous system and the beauty of
a blue sky with clouds dotting it, and flowers and beautiful sunsets to deny the
grand design of a higher intelligence and I do not mean the ego. Nature is truly
healing. One actually feels better being in natural places. Yes, the lion does
not yet lie down with the lamb, but maybe, with our help, this world can be
redeemed so that God's kingdom (Heaven) can be established right here on this
earth so that it's disappearance will not be necessary and people will still be
able to enjoy their children's laughter. I cannot imagine anything more
delightful.

Love and blessings,
Jeff Bronson


Dear Jon, Greg and Robert,

I read with interest the long article about Gary Renard. My own experience, and
that of my family and friends here in Maine, is that Gary's book brought us back
to the course. I began the Course in Miracles on my own in 1984 and picked it up
again in 1995 and this third time in 2005. I am grateful for the opportunity
that Gary's book has given me to deeply understand the central theme of the
Course in Miracles -- forgiveness. I have seen him speak several times and he is
no different than you or I. He is sincere, gentle, funny, grateful and not
perfect. He takes questions from the participants on any subject and is honest
about his motives and his own spiritual journey. Most importantly he sticks to
the course and its central teachings on forgiveness.

You are working very hard to prove him wrong and to discredit his character and
his books. His books have brought so many of your brothers and sisters back to
the Course in Miracles. Isn't this a wonderful outcome of Gary's work? I hope
you will understand that we need Gary in our circle too. I encourage you and
challenge you to spend as much time on finding ways to connect with his message.
Surely this would be most productive for all of us! I look forward in the future
to reading that wonderful article! In the meantime get to one of his workshops
and experience him yourself. His workshops are fun, informative and engaging.
Gary has taught me to lighten up on myself, slow down and catch the miracles
happening all around me. Thank you for your thoughts in your article.

Sincerely Yours,
Diana L.S. McCain


Hi

I just got Miracle Magazine just yesterday after I got several group email from
back east about your latest articles over a week ago. Half of this magazine is
about Gary Renard's work and the rest is mostly advertisement. Long ago I had to
miss a lot of lecture and classes because I am profound deaf. Fortunately Allen
Watson recommended me to get magazine from you. I love your magazine very much
and I support you. When anyone look at cover of your magazine, it says
�Miracles", and everyone expects to get miracles out of their miserable world
of illusions. Be free from sin, sickness and death... ACIM is really hard book
for me to read but your magazine with a lot of wonderful quotes is a big help on
understanding more about ACIM as well as God, Love, Peace and Forgiveness.

Why do you, Robert and Greg give negative articles against Gary Renard? This is
exactly like that you are hitting your own brother. Hate your own brother. The
course says if you hate your brother, you condemn yourself. I bought and read
Gary's two books but I am not interested on reading the whole book. I just
respect Gary Renard's spiritual life. If he is really happy with his own
experience, that is great. I don't have to believe him or something but the most
important is to understand more about God, Truth. Make decision on right thought
to see God better. When we get in Heaven, there is no longer difference but
perfect oneness with God. Don't be like hardhead Christian who is trying to
prove other wrong by pointing on quote from ACIM. Just change your mind to see
other better...

I have read many spiritual books containing angels, ascended masters, psychic
stuffs, fairy tales and dreams, etc. Bible contains many fairy tales like
burning bush, translating to Heaven, Mary's dream of angels, Jesus' instant
miracle, etc. On recent event, there are near death experience, seeing Mary in
Fatima, St. Christopher carrying Christ, talking with past life or spiritual
guides, etc. Read many stories of official Saints from Roman Catholic Church.
These are more outer than inner, etc, or more material stuff. My late friend
used to have many spiritual communication through dream, feeling, etc. I believe
I have seen angels when I was three and one day I got angelic talk with me that
was from my own mom. I respect them and I am not planning to write a book about
my short unexpected spiritual experience because I have a feeling of someone who
will judge me anyway. I am sure that there will have few more that are similar
to ACIM but completely different style of language.
  Just let them go...in peace and happiness.

I read many spiritual group email message about Gary Renard. Many people REALLY
like his spiritual talks. Many said that never heard of ACIM till they read
Gary's book DU. Also many said ACIM is too difficult book till they read Gary's
books. They are happy with him. I have over ten years of reading "Science and
Health" before I discovered ACIM. I read ACIM a lot on Christian Science way and
Christian Science is very focus on healing. Many ACIM leaders do judge against
Christian Science work. I am interested only this book, not organization. I keep
this to myself. I wasn't interest in ACIM because this book was too difficult
for me to understand till I read book "Return to Love". For years many Course
organization didn't respect or accept this "Return to Love"... why? May be part
of power struggle? Many are against Ken Wapnick's writing and they are just mad
at them because of past copyright problem.

I am still restless seeker for truth, happiness, peace, healing, etc. I have
been suffered a lot because I am on very thin line between hearing and deafness.
ACIM, Science and Health, and other spiritual books are big help. I do really
enjoy reading Miracle Magazine, Better Way, etc. This is so rich full of quotes
out of ACIM and other spiritual writing. I expect your magazine to be positive,
lovable, peace, healing, and being free from suffering, sickness, sin and even
death... I am still looking for better life. If you dislike other's work or
publication, don't print in your magazine. Just let him go. Just FOCUS only on
true Miracle...for everyone.

Thank you very much for your time. I forgive you. I love you as much as God... I
am glad to meet you one day in Seattle and thanks for your patience with me. I
support you.
Willy


Hello Jon and Robert

When I saw the title of the book, I just knew the story was fiction. And when I
got to page 95 and saw the extensive "commercial" for Dr. Wapnick, that
confirmed it. Probably why he was allowed to give soooooooooo many quotes from
the Course

Alas the two visitors must not have been privy to Jesus' Guidelines to Helen and
Bill (which Bill personally told to me; one of them being that nobody was to
teach the *Meaning* of the Course, save He and the Holy Spirit (Why? because the
timing -- the readiness of the student's mind to receive the Revelation is known
only to God)

And I just sent you His commentary on the subject but I'll restate it here as
follows:

Jesus sets the record straight . .
Excerpt: from ACIM Course Study with Raj/Jesus April 3rd, 2006, conducted by the
NWFFACIM

    "There is talk of the disappearance of the Universe. It has presented itself
in the context of the teaching of A Course In Miracles. Let me just set one
thing straight. The only thing that is ever going to disappear is, or the only
things that are going to disappear are sin, sickness, and death, the mortality
of the Universe, the potential for deterioration of the Universe and anything in
it."

     "The capacity of any part of the Universe to be so at odds with itself that
it can become attached to being self-destructive, which is what sin is, that is
the only thing that can disappear. Look forward to the disappearance of those.
And let that be enough said about that."

Nevertheless, the book has and continues to draw many to the Course. And that is
very good. Too bad, though, that the misperceptions of "body" and "world" being
taught by Wapnick have been so skewed to annhilate all of God's Creation,
however, what with the HLC and URtext now available, perhaps that can be all
corrected with new students getting off on the right foot.

Ineffable love
Trisha Aude


Jon,

I read the second article (Sept) first, then found the first (July)and read it.
Clearly you had already made up your mind in the first article that Gary's
experiences were a hoax and so gathered and presented evidence that his work
fell into the same category as all the other hoaxes that you had encountered or
found. That is both illogical and unfair. With all due respect to your standing
in the ACIM community, your argument and the position you've taken is
disappointing.

You've gone to great lengths to quote Arten and Pursah speaking to Gary in the
same lingo that he uses as though this proves that he is making it all up. Yet
even the Course itself was given in language that Christians can relate to
because that is the audience it was primarily intending to reach. Why wouldn't
ascended masters use the same principle? Why is it easy to believe that Helen
Schucman could have experienced over seven years of sustained channelling, yet
it is so hard to believe that someone besides Helen Schucman could have a
supernatural experience of their own and report about it?

You stated that Helen never profited from the Course as though this fact somehow
lends credibility to her experience, implying that Gary's experience is not
credible because he wrote books and is making his living by selling the books
and going around telling about his experience...in the language that is his,
crass, vulgar as it can sometimes be, but it's his. Who are we to judge? Isn't
that rather like the kettle calling the pot black? Do you make your living with
your writing and teaching? hmmm? What's the difference here exactly?

And what is the point of criticizing the language he uses when he has clearly
opened the Course to a whole new audience and re-enlivened the Course for others
who have found it to be somewhat daunting in its complexity? Okay, so "just
kidding" has become part of his and Arten's and Pursah's lexicon and using it so
often may have some questionable psychological implications, but so what? It's
all just a dream and he's just inviting a group of interested folks to dream the
same dream he's dreaming, and a lot of people are finding it's an interesting
dream to sit in on. We are ALL making it up, whatever our experience may be. The
world we see is created by the perceptual filters that we ourselves hold in
place. But you knew that. You've been a student of the Course for so long, you
had to know that. So the points you are trying to make in your articles to
discredit Gary's work are about what exactly?

Why do you feel the need to criticize and castigate? Where is the truth in that?
You've given a lot of time and energy to labeling Gary's experience as a
hoax...is it, as the Course says, because you believe you yourself to be a hoax?

When it comes down to discerning truth, the measurement is always whether or not
it is helpful. Gary's work stands on its own merit in that regard. Can you
honestly say that your two articles do likewise?

Let there be peace in the world, and let it begin with me.
Linda Witt-King


Hello to all,

With regard to the e mail print opinions I've read recently reagarding DOU by
Gary R. Renard....

Do not shoot the messenger...ACIM has made clear to me... the understanding of
FORM. If DOU's inception, reception, does not fit into someone's box...does not
mean that it is not a possibility. Truth is not Limited. Deliverance and
Clarification of Truth is not Limited...that would be limiting GOD. ACIM
calibrates only (according to David Hawkins) at 600...that is Peace ..Hence the
Foundation for Inner Peace. After all ... until Helen's dying day she struggled
with the message and the messenger and the FORM of how the message came.

In Truth there is no Reincarnation...because at point Zero there isn't and that
is my interpretation of what ACIM means by there is no past, present or future.

Truth manifests itself in various FORMS and will continue to...it's undefinable
in our language and FORM..

Want outrageous Truth and an Outrageous Messenger...(FORM)...I challenge all
dedicated students of ACIM to spend 10 years of their lives with Ramtha The
Enlightened One...that will stretch ones box. (I have)

Love Ramtha
Love ACIM
Love DOU
Love Journey Beyond Words
Love David Hawkins
Love 20 years and One Hundred Thousand Dollars spent on Work Shops, Books etc.
etc. and the truth is I AM GOD...
TRUTH IS BECAUSE I
I AM THAT WHICH I AM BECOMMING.

"Truth is a subjective experience understood through personal relativity...and
everyone has their own Truth."

The Divinity in me Salutes the Divinity In All of You.
Sigrid DiBella
Toronto, Ontario, Canada


I have the Workbook Companion books and I just love them. I am now doing the
Course for the 3rd time and understand so much more than when doing it in a
group.

Love Jon Mundy's books

Come on do you have to knock Gary Renaud's books and One Course Two Visions is
difficult to read because to me it just seems like one attack after the other.

Your attacks are really disappointing, you would think you would know better.

I forgive this
Rosemary Ellmers


-Greg:

Thank you for having the courage and integrity to write and publish your well
done piece on Renard and his books. My first exposure to DU and Renard was by
way of the audio CD version of the book whereon Renard plays himself.

It occurred to me as I listened, that this material had an "edge" to it that
most assuredly did not convey a sense of the holy, the divine, or the
transcendent.

For my own purposes, I termed it, �Smart aleck metaphysics."

Bright blessings and thanks again
Charles


Dear Jon

After reading the recent posts from you, Robert, and Gregg, I would like to send
out a warm and loving thank you for questioning the reality of these ascended
masters who visited Gary Renard. I cannot agree with you more on this subject.

I have been involved with the course for over fifteen years studying and working
with many of the teachers of God. At this time I am sending out my support to
Robert Perry, Greg Mackey and Beverly Hutchinson. I find it impossible to place
trust in a self-proclaimed ascended master that could be so harsh in dealing
with other course teachers.

Thank you "All" once more for all the wonderful work you do to

Denial of error is a strong defense of truth, but denial of truth results in
miscreation, the projections of the ego. T2 II 2.5

Christ stands Before you T 25.V 2.9

Rev. Lee Poepping
Silent Miracles


>From NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE) news service

I received a copy of "The Disappearance of the Universe" by Gary Renard when it
was first published. Because of the similarity to Jimmy Twyman's "Emissary of
Light" story http://www.nhne.com/specialreports/sremissary.html I had no
interest in reading the book. Nor was I interested in turning NHNE loose on
trying to discern if Gary's extraordinary claims -- that he had been physically
visited 17 times over the course of nine years by two former disciples of Christ
who were now ascended masters championing the teachings of A Course In Miracles
-- were true. These claims were so similar to other claims that I had examined,
and debunked, that I didn't want to waste my time -- or yours.

I am, therefore, glad to report that portions of the Course Community have
finally begun to seriously question the authenticity of Renard's claims. For
those of you who are interested, the current issue of Miracles Magazine
http://www.miraclesmagazine.org/ features three articles challenging Renard's
tale on multiple fronts.

While Renard's story revolves around A Course In Miracles, it is important to
realize that his claims, coupled with a growing list of possible moral and
ethical failures, are by no means unique to the Course community. Similar
stories have and continue to appear everywhere humans gather to make sense of
our lives and existence.

Why? How? And for what purpose?

In the 1998 report on James Twyman, I wrote:

"To date, not one story like this I have ever heard has turned out to be true,
nor have the champions of such stories been able to prove themselves authentic
messengers of God. If the story itself is not proven false (which is often
difficult to do since physical evidence is usually absent), then the prophetic
messenger eventually succumbs to the kind of character flaws that spawned the
story in the first place -- lies, abuse of power, sexual indiscretions,
underhanded financial dealings, slight-of-hand with respect to supposed powers,
plagiarism, and other moral failures. The darker aspects of these self-appointed
prophets, in other words, eventually catch up with them  -- even though it may
take years, sometimes decades or even centuries for this information to become
public knowledge. Character flaws, of course, are not limited to deluded
seekers. But whereas authentic spiritual figures wrestle with these flaws in the
open, admitting their weaknesses and striving to overcome them, their misguided
counterparts go to great lengths to hide their flaws behind carefully crafted
spiritual personas."

Will Renard's story stand the test of time and serious inquiry where all others
like it have failed? Miracles Magazine plans to publish Renard's response to the
issues raised by Mundy, Mackie, and Perry in their next issue
http://www.miraclesmagazine.org/subscribe_miracles.htm.

David Sunfellow


Jon, Greg and Robert,

Maybe I'm just thinking aloud at the end of a long day, regarding what you have
written about Gary Renard... but...

I have been known to deceive, lie, be self-serving, rude and aggressive. I have
been known to make threats. Maybe I've even plagiarized.

Though all of the above have been on a smaller scale than, apparently, Gary
Renard, Gary is still showing me a part of my mind. Isn't that the nature of the
world?

So, what do I do with that? Do I condemn, or forgive?

Let anyone who has never deceived, lied, been self-serving, rude, aggressive or
made threats 'cast the first stone'.

"Only the self-accused condemn." (ACIM)
Maybe I live in a quiet backwater of the Course community, but I have never come
across anyone who has been put off the Course by Gary Renard's books. Quite the
opposite. As an example, at a workshop last weekend, out of 8 people present, 2
had got into the Course because of Disappearance. I know so many people who say
that DU made the Course suddenly make sense. The same is true of many people I
met at the Salt Lake City conference last year. There are friends of mine, who
found the Course too difficult, but have gone back to it because of DU. All have
said they like it because it made sense, it clarified the Course, because it was
readable, etc. For that, I am grateful to Gary.

Best wishes, Ian Patrick


I have read both Greg and Robert's articles. Here are my thoughts (sorry its
brief):

Both Greg and Robert have raised important issues regarding the authenticity of
DU. Perhaps the following points are worthy of consideration:

    1. The ascended masters (AMs) use ridicule and the threat of nuclear attack
in their dialog. The Course says that a good teacher never bullies his students.
Is fear now back on the curriculum as a legitimate teaching aid?
    2. The AMs use crudeness in their speech which I cannot recall in any other
respected Course teacher. Did Jesus try to popularize his work in this way?
    3. Reincarnation (and future lives). The Course steers well clear of this
issue because it is such an ego trap. How can you live in the moment if you are
thinking about the future or the past?

In the end, each one of us must decide for ourselves if DU is authentic. What we
must not do is let the ego use this issue to distract us from our commitment to
practicing the principles of the Course, the most important of which is
forgiveness.

Mike Tolley


As a child I loved to read fairy tales. Later I turned to science fiction. Then
weary of impossible worlds and the use of my mind as a waste basket, I returned
to college. After college I was ready for the truth and found ACIM. And
fortunately found Circle of Atonement just in time, as I was ready to quit. The
Wapnick sci-fi version just didn't have logic or understanding but was pushy and
demanding.

Opinion on DU....Just the title of the book turned me off, but I skimmed thru it
anyhow. At best (worst?) that sort of story gives people who aren't ready for
the truth something to hang onto or they jump into some controlling religion.
And for those who aren't ready for truth or more religion...my advice is indulge
your science fiction urges by reading the really great fantasy authors. It is a
lot more entertaining.
Diana Snow


I just received from Jon Mundy the articles he wrote as well as your's and
Greg's from Miracle Magazine. I'm always glad for your thoughtful approach, but
nowhere is it more evident than in your article. I can readily understand that
you wrote in a directed state.

I think that ACIM shows that the ego attacks, is defensive, or withdraws. It
really depends upon how much power over the situation it feels it has. I don't
know what you think about that, but I'm glad to know that you didn't just
withdraw, since so many students of ACIM think that withdrawal is holy, as in
turn the other cheek. My experience shows me that the HS can direct us any
number of actions.

Anyway, just a note of support and thanks,
Blessings to you and your family,
Harry McDonald


I recently read Robert Perry and Gregg Mackie's articles about Gary Renard's
DOU..I found this all to be very upsetting..ACIM is my spiritual journey..Circle
of Atonement has been my spiritual home...I attended Gary's first ever 5 day
workshoop at Omega Institute in July 2005 and found him to be very humble and
very believeable ..Yes there were some ego behaviors that were problematical..So
I am confused! I understand the need for the truth..But when is it about being
right or forgiving? What is the difference? Why are you both addressing this now
rather than when the book was published? Please counsel me about this.. What is
the difference between being appropriately critical and attacking??

Thank you and Peace,
Carol


I am writing this note though, because I wanted to mention my experience with
Gary Renard's book, The Disappearance of the Universe. I read both of your
commentaries this evening. I have always been a voracious reader of metaphysical
books -- usually bought them hot off the press and constantly kept tabs on what
was new. This year I've been so steeped in the Course that for the most part I
haven't had the desire (or time!) to read much of anything else. I think the
Course has "spoiled" my reading habit -- other writings now seem sort of
inferior and irrelevant. However I did buy Renard's book because I kept seeing
it referred to in so many places. I ordered it by mail, and took two minutes to
flip through it when it came. I got a very negative vibe and put it down. I had
the thought that I should just pitch it, but since I paid good money for the
thing, I disregarded that thought. I forgot about the book until much later and
then took another look. I spent about 5 minutes with it and again got the
distinct impression it would be a waste of my time and that I should throw it
away, which I did.

Thanks for your thoughtful and well-informed commentaries. You've confirmed for
me, my guidance on that book was the real thing. Bless you both!
Sharon Edwards


Thank you so much for questioning the reality of the ascended masters who
visited Gary Renard. As an ex-University Lecturer and a long term student of
ACIM I hated DU because it just did not ring true, but many friends who loved it
were outraged when I questioned the reality of these ascended masters -- so
thank you again for expressing all my own doubts on your site and thank you all
again for all the wonderful work you do to assist students of ACIM to get
maximum benefit from studying it
Peggy Foster


I'd like to add my name to the waves of emails from people who question this
guy's veracity. I was stunned, when I first read an excerpt of the book, by its
inept and sometimes crude style. There was never any doubt in my mind that it
was a construct of Gary's. (Bless his little pointed head.)

Thank you for writing the article. It seems important to me that we not just
ignore his claims.
Faye Parker


Thanks Jon for copying me on this. You and Robert are essential to Course
Integrity. I am grateful for each of you!!

PLJ!
Howard Westin


Dear Greg, thank you for your wonderful article re: G. Renard's book. I read
both books lately and felt very much the way you do. The book was very slanted
in one political, spiritual direction. They referred to Dr. Hawkins's material
...never having read his materials re: CONSCIOUSNESS, etc. They even referred to
Judge Sweet's judgment in a slanted way. I for one, was delighted that the
Court's decision went against a few people (Wapnick and etc.).

Thanks,
Vic Strammiello


Dear Robert,

Thank you so much for your article re DU.

I was attracted to the book because the DU itself is one of most compelling
concepts in the Course to me. But, by the time I finished the book the only
thought I was left with was an inevitable nuclear attack on America by
terrorists. That thought has bothered me ever since, probably a couple years
now. Since you point out the source of DU is Renard/Wapnick and not the Course
itself, I can now feel some relief from the stress of that most unpleasant
thought, in light of "if we believe such a concept that will surely make it a
reality."

In any case, again, thank you so much.
As always, many blessings to you,
Jane Bryan


Gentlemen

Thank you for those excellent pieces. Clear, reasoned, restrained. They do great
service to the Course, and to all those of us who don't want to see it
misrepresented.

Again, thank you.
Phil Brisk


I want to thank you for your article regarding Gary Renard's books. I've often
had suspicions as to the validity of Gary's claims, although I've believed him
just because it seemed hard to believe he would fake it. Yet after reading
Robert & Greg's comments, I tend to believe he made it up.

Thank you for speaking out.
Christopher James


Hi Robert:

Naturally we were all skeptical about Gary's book when it first came out because
it seems so outrageous on the face. However, when Jon Mundy endorsed the book,
and when Louise Hay and others began to endorse him, and he showed up with some
of the teachers who have become so respected who were we to say no to him. Our
study group sponsored a couple of lectures for him at the local Unity Church in
Windham, ME. When he came last week I decided to not go. He was appearing to
have become too "packaged" and I said no. Then naturally I asked who I was to
judge. I just didn't go. When this appeared to me it really shocked me. Gary
came to our study group and sat in my friend's living room a few years ago. He
was like a trusted friend.

Over the week end my husband and I were watching the credits on the movie
"Chicago" in the living room when the phone rang. I answered and a voice said
"I'd like to speak to Elizabeth Perry". "I said this is Elizabeth". This voice
said "Hi ... this is Gary Renard ... and I'm calling to see if you are planning
to come to my workshop at Unity Church next week". I was shocked. I said "Well I
wasn't planning to, but perhaps I will now since I'm getting a personal
invitation". I was in shock. I asked where he got my name, and he said "from Jon
Mundy". I was receiving Jon's newsletter at the time. Well it was so unusual
that I decided that it was worth the $40.

Our study group was at a crossroad. We had been studying for a couple of years
together, and we decided that we were going to give the course a rest and go
back to studying Eckhert Tolle. His new book..."Stillness Speaks" had just come
out and we decided to go back to his study. We had worked on his materials
earlier and had attended some telecasted videos and we were still uncertain of
our path.

We went to see Gary and he was a small, country bumpkin guy who laughed at
himself, and told us the story. We naturally questioned him and the ease that he
answered....always saying that he doesn't answer ... the answer comes from Holy
Spirit. We as a group were impressed with his naive jokes and condescending
manner when he joked at himself. We were really impressed by his message of
forgiveness...and the line about staying in the spiritual buffet line hit home.
How many of us had not been in that buffet line?

It was this lecture that convinced us to not leap into another study with
Eckhert Tolle, but to stay with the Course. With gusto we returned to the
Course, and most of us have never waivered. When it came to my attention that he
was going to be at Unity last week I did not go. I was seeing him on the lecture
series and I was feeling that I didn't like the packaging. One time before
this... about two years ago...we sponsored another lecture for him. I'm taking
here of a turnout of 25 to 30 people. These were not big money makers. As time
went on I was less impressed with his commercial appeal. but I still liked some
of the work that he had written. I continued to use his book as a resource.
Later we began to read your materials, and we were all curious about your
opinion of Gary. We've stayed with your materials and ACIM.

We still have our one day a week study course, and Priscilla from Portland is on
the line with your teleconferencing course. We listen to your lesson one day a
week when we do our study group. We all love your writings, and we are all
divided on our impression of Gary's work, but it's shocking and disappointing if
this is true. I continue to do the daily text lesson from my home.

The truth though is that Gary is who brought us back to the course, but in spite
of that there was always scepticism about the Masters and whether this is true.
I didn't mean for this to be so long, but I wanted you to know what a strong
impact Gary had on us, and how it brought us back to the Course.. It will be
very helpful to receive any materials that can help us to come to some
resolution.

Thanks, again,
Elizabeth Perry


Dear Robert,

My name is Vincent Lebrun and I was just forwarded your piece entitled "Why
Don't the Masters Have an Original Thought?"

As a student of ACIM who does not belong to any "circle" I feel like I am always
the last one to know about the extra curriculum news from the ACIM community,
which is fine with me.

Needless to say, until I read your letter I had not heard of any G Renard
controversy... so I was shocked at first. Then after reading and re-reading your
letter and giving it a lot of thought, I remembered that the idea of G Renard
having plagiarized K Wapnick had already occurred to me a few of times.

Yet at the same time the feel throughout the book always felt quite different
from any Wapnick book I have ever read. It is definitely not as intellectual,
and the theme of forgiveness is more present, it is actually omnipresent in DU.
Those two reasons alone make me think that it is not a "sub" Wapnick piece of
literature but that it has other influences.

But what really makes me believe that G Renard is not a fake is the fact that I
saw him personally. The guy seems as authentic as can be and I can't imagine
that a person would go to such length to carry out a delusion of that magnitude.
What is the gain? A little publicity? According to witnesses I trust he was
scared to death of public speaking before he started giving lectures. Why would
he throw himself into the arena?

He really seems like a simple Joe with one big, huge difference, he seems to
practice forgiveness and brings everything back to it. That for me is what is
very interesting. I did not hear him badmouthing anybody. He did mention
receiving not so nice e-mails but he did not go any further. He never said that
the other ACIM approaches are bad or inferior. He even said that they all have
their purpose. Anyway the guy seemed fair, genuine and respectful to me.

He answered dozens of questions with great ease and authority. I don't think a
liar could do that. People would see through the cracks very quickly. I mean I
know ACIM fairly well and so did most people who attended the event I went to. I
think a fraud would be detected. Another thing he does is talking about his
challenges and his mistakes, about the rats in his cellar. Not too many
teachers/gurus put themselves out there in that fashion.

Now could he have been the unconscious "victim" of a delusion? Could he have
hallucinated or dreamed about the visits of the masters and thought it was real?
I guess that is a possibility. But ACIM says we are all dreaming all the time
anyway so what is the difference?

One last thought, what if K. Wapnick's teaching is really closer to ACIM than
many other approaches? Then it would make sense that the teachings from two
masters go the same way. You might not like this thought but it deserves some
consideration too.

I have read and studied the Course by myself, I have heard many interpretations
and they did not make too much sense to me. However I do agree with K. Wapnick
and DU most of the time (not all across the board) not because I have been
influenced, should I say brainwashed by them but because they make sense to me.

So in conclusion could Gary Renard have made up the whole story? I guess it is
not totally impossible but it seems unrealistic.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my letter.
Namaste,
Vincent Lebrun


Dear Robert

I am writing to say I LOVE your article on Gary Renard. I just love it. Wow.
Thank you. What you say in your article is so RIGHT ON that I was a little blown
away that finally someone said what I've always known to be true - that all
course teachers always say the same things, despite the thousand immense
intricate themes found in A Course in Miracles.

(just the other day I read a sentence I have never read before (despite having
the Course for 10 years) "when you do not value yourself, you become sick, but
my value of you can heal you" and for me, this wiped out in a single sentence
all my past ideas about Course related themes on healing, miracles, sickness and
prayer. In a single sentence I got a whole new appreciation of myself and A
Course in Miracles. When I do not value myself I become sick. So, then from now
on I will value myself as God values me - whole & perfect.)

A Course in Miracles is a treasure house.

I love what you say: "every paragraph is a minor symphony of themes, with little
twists and turns of thought that are whole teachings in themselves".

I am really happy to read your article. Thank you for writing it.
Thank you Robert.
Love,
Lisa Natoli


Greetings Robert Perry ....

How refreshing and also how magnificent to find in your writings a slant that
shows a deep respect for the message of A Course in Miracles, and that you are
willing to express clear ideas of reasoning power, rather then run with those
who admire everything that seems great and wonderful as long as it seems fine
and does not need to be looked at closely. A discerning mind is a gift that
every one can accomplish but it takes an adventurous mind in willingness to use
lesson 28 again and again. What does Jesus say an untrained mind can accomplish
nothing....

There is no limit ever in the awakening of my mind that used to be in a state of
sleep and dreaming, and I am mighty delighted with your action of mind that
says: ("Hey wait a minute?") this does not fit a teaching of perfect simplicity
that A Course in Miracles is. The unlimited revealing newness of each day is my
happiness and freedom through ACIM.

Salute in Gratitude
Greta Jonker


I just want to thank Greg Mackie for his article disputing Gary Renard's book. I
have been upset and struggling for a long time about some of the content in the
book. e.g. we will have a nuclear war etc. So to finally see someone point by
point prove that Gary's book is made up really makes a difference to me and I am
now on the road to re-embracing the Course's teachings again. I was considering
throwing out my beloved blue book.

Kind regards,
Sarah Kaiser


OPEN LETTER TO ROBERT PERRY AND GREG MACKIE

I have just received in my e-mail box two articles by Robert Perry and Greg
Mackie regarding the book, the Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard.

Today's lesson 265 and tomorrow's 266 especially come to mind! Gary is your
savior and counselor and you are mine! The images I see reflect my thoughts, I
thank you my brothers for making it clear in my mind that I am not here to
correct my brother, by pointing out to me that it appears to me to be what you
are doing! Thank you, thank you blessed ones!

Neither Gary 's book nor Gary in seeming form needs any defense, but one
observation (and to me, the only important one) can be made: has this book been
truly helpful to anybody? If it is so (and I know personally of at least 30
people who have been brought to the Course after having read Gary's book or had
help in clarifying the Course from reading the book.) Why not just bless the
book and be thankful? I am very thankful for the books I have read by Robert
Perry, Ken Wapnick, Gary Renard and countless others.

Gary is your Brother, holy and innocent, and the more people who study the
Course, the better!

The seeming dilemma whether Arten and Pursah really were in Gary's living room
or not, seems to me quite irrelevant, they are just aspects of Gary's mind or
projections. So, do we now have an argument by two Course Authorities, whether
"form" is "real" or not? Does Gary have to prove that a separated entity in
form, named Pursah (or Arten) really exists???? Do you Robert or you Greg really
exist in body and form according to the Course? Ha ha, this really starts to get
very funny! There is Mind and only Mind and that is Truth.

Robert argues that there are no "original thoughts" or anything "new" in the
book and that it seems to echo Ken Wapnick's teachings. There are no original
thoughts or new concepts in the One Mind and Truth, only the ego wants to have
"new", "original" and "different". And if Gary has succeeded in giving another
slant to "Wapnick's teachings" which has appeal to many, and brings lots of new
students to the Course, good on him is what I say!!!

So,"what is it for", your seeming attack on the Disappearance of the Universe
book?? Do you wish to stop people from reading it? Then, what do you hope to
achieve from that? Do you want an "apology" and "confession" from Gary that he
made Arten and Pursah up? And what do you hope to achieve from that? Is what you
wrote truly helpful and for the highest good for everyone concerned? Is what I
just wrote truly helpful and for the highest good for everyone concerned? Thanks
for making me look at that too.

My Holy counselors and saviors, I bless you forever.
With Love
Mia


Thank you Robert & Greg for having the courage to expose Gary Renard's obviously
deceptive & dishonest writings. To use the ACIM solely for the purpose of
advancing one's fame and career goals (this appears to be his main and perhaps
only purpose in writing these books) is so distant from the letter and spirit of
the Course that I am confounded by his continued support within the ACIM
community.
Dale Boyce


Dear Mr. Perry,

I just finished reading your Why Don't the Masters Have An Original Thought
article. I felt for some reason that I wanted to write and offer you my comments
on it. Firstly, let me say that I have enjoyed this website and the insightful
articles since I discovered your site a few months ago. Because of that I found
this article somewhat surprising.

I have been a student of the Course since it found its way to me in 2004 but
have been a student of the Holy Spirit much much longer than that (though
without the awareness to recognize I was until I began seeking answers). Answers
to how I'd fallen into a state that was no longer peaceful and joyful, a state
where I had lost my bliss, and some 'connection' that I felt went faulty though
I could not put my finger on what it was. I just knew that what had always, for
30+ years, plowed along smoothly suddenly had a wrench in the machinery. The
Holy Spirit came to my aid as soon as I'd asked and met me at every step, every
corner and every moment exactly where I was -- not some seemingly distant place
where I wanted to be. He met me down in the dumps, in the grips of fear,
jealousy, anger, resentment, and pain. It took quite a while to realize I had
never been left and that it was me who had turned away. I prayed for a path, a
way, so that I could never grow distant again and a method for holding fast to
the Spirit for the rest of my days in this life and I got an answer. That's when
A Course in Miracles found its way first into my hands then into my head then
finally opened my heart. That is a short version of a story quite long to tell
and takes me away from the reason for this email. So back to topic, about
Renard's book...

Let me say that I have not read DU. I do not have plans to but if it should
happen into my hands I know it is for a reason and will read it should that
occur. But I suppose what I wished to comment on about your article is that I
was curious as to why you found it necessary to comment at all on it considering
your views so vehemently expressed? You asked if in the case the author lied
"are there any outcomes under which you are prepared to praise that scenario?" I
would like to answer that.

I do not think I know the ways of the Holy Spirit or God completely and the ways
and whys things are done but it has been my experience (which I can speak from
with assurance) that the Voice for God comes in many MANY ways and forms.
Actually, in so vast and wide a range that it can speak to any and all in the
specific language and form that whoever it is meant for may receive it. However,
it is content that counts and form is nothing. Have you considered that Mr.
Renard's book, for whatever reasons (ego or Spirit), is meant to have the same
content in the ways you noted?

Before I found the Course there were many ways and avenues which the Holy Spirit
chose to 'speak' to me -- especially when I was not in a mindset to listen for
Him. A TV show as I channel surfed to stumble upon an answer to a question I
absently pondered while clicking through, a song on the radio at just the right
moment with the perfect lyric to soothe my heart, a billboard on the side of a
building that was the answer to an issue that ached inside me, even one instance
with a 'psychic' who I knew was out for money and personal gain as he stopped me
on the street and gave me such words of wisdom that I knew it had to be God
using him to speak, plus many more instances than I can count. What I found is
that God used whatever my attention was on to speak to me. He had very little
regard for form. In hindsight I see His only concern seemed to be that I get the
message and He used whatever messenger service was available to Him. No matter
what the worldly intentions were of the messenger. What I have learned in my
simple and humble walk to God is that, if nothing else, we cannot limit how He
chooses, or whom He chooses, to share the content of His knowledge in what ever
form that may take...whether we agree with it or not.

It's very possible that your assessment of Renard's motives and theories may
very well be true. But what if...just what if....there is someone out
there...who has dismissed the Course or never heard of it at all....someone who
is searching, seeking, and the 'channel" aspect is what gets their attention yet
because of it they become interested in the Course or better yet awaken the
sleeping desire to better know God themselves? Maybe they feel inspired by such
a dramatic experience as in DU or maybe some ideal of the Course touches them at
just the right time to ignite a spiritual fire within them? Can we really deny
it to this person, a brother in Spirit, a stranger in body....to find the way
laid before them by God to lead them steps closer to Him even if we don't choose
it for ourselves?

I say all this not as a criticism to you but just sharing another point of view
of what might be possible. I believe very deeply, very truly, in the all
powerful, all reaching, limitless Love of God. Because of that there are things
I see in life and I question whether He is on duty but then I remember that God
can do anything because He is everything. That settles my heart, that settles my
judgment, that settles my desire to be right or have God explain His reasons to
me because I know deep down that no matter how it appears on the surface, even
if I don't see how at the time, His will is ultimately also my own.

Thank you for reading this Mr. Perry and for sharing your knowledge and
experience with all of us in cyberspace through both your Circle of Atonement
work and web articles on the site. I wish you well and look forward to more.
Best,
Nadja


Dear Robert, Greg and Jon...

I wanted to say thank you to each of you for your honest analysis and loving
approach in writing the recent articles about the ascended masters in Gary
Renard's books. As a student in the Course community, I look to you - the
leaders, the teachers, the scholars, the authors - to help me understand the
concepts covered in ACIM and to help me recognize the truth of them in my life.
It seems a little silly to me just now, but in matters of spirituality and
taking into account my current level of learning, I sometimes still confuse the
incredible (Jesus dictating ACIM to his scribe Helen) with the implausible
(ascended masters materializing in Gary's living room). I can only say that I
believe learning to distinguish the two is part of my spiritual path. The truth
does matter!

Thank you Greg for the breadth and depth of your article. Especially helpful to
me was the section on factual errors and extremely unlikely assertions. There is
just no way that I could know such things without your writing this article. My
feelings about the implausibility of the DU story were crying out for this type
of factual information.

Thank you Jon for being a really good "older brother" to Gary and to all of us.
I really appreciated the quote from Ken Wapnick about the importance of learning
how to disagree with someone without it being an attack. I pray that Gary will
feel the love in your article -- I sure did.

And thank you Robert for being my teacher in this and all the other ways. When I
first asked you about DU so many months ago your firm stance on the truth but
gentle attitude towards the matter was settling to my conflicted state of mind.
What little I have known about your involvement in the situation since was
greatly expanded in reading the sections of Greg's article that specifically
dealt with Gary's communications to you and about you. What can I say? It's
always disheartening when someone is attacked and I'm sorry it happened. My own
sense of anger was hard to swallow and I can only tell you how it melted away as
I read your article just after finishing Greg's. This is why I know you are my
teacher. This is why I trust you to be my teacher. And I want to say that, in
this case, it is plain as day in the ninth paragraph. It has everything to do
with your confidence. It's a beautifully simple example of the years and years
of experience in study, practice and extension. I, probably like so many others,
want to short cut this. Sometimes we can with the help of a very good teacher.
And I thank you for being just that.

I wanted to write this to all of you because each of you has helped me make my
own decision about the truth in this matter and because the clarity and
confidence around this matter will surely extend beyond it. I feel that this is
exactly what our true leaders, teachers, scholars and authors want to do. We
don't have to hurt each other in honoring the truth, but sometimes we do have to
stand up so that those we teach can learn. And I thank you for standing up!

In Peace,
Charlie Record


John Dore was good enough to share with me a copy of your article, "Why Don't
the Masters...". I read it first thing this morning. Brilliantly done and you
opened the whole issue of plagiarism and pretense without sounding defensive or
attacking. Nicely done.
Louis Bourgeois



Below is a post I wrote on an ACIM newsgroup before I read your (Mackie/Perry)
articles. I was surprised that you didn't mention his new book which I think
goes a *long* way in discrediting him by its vindictive nature. I resonated to
both of your articles because I too, being an author myself, did not want to
denigrate another author but my conscience would simply not be quite about it.

[Full post not reprinted here]
Is this the magazine that just came out? I haven't received it yet. I finished
the book last week and was frankly, appalled by it. In it he denigrates
practically everyone in the Course community and beyond, all under the guise of
'forgiveness lessons.' Interspersed between these *numerous* forgiveness lessons
are quotes from the course, some are pages long, that A & P explain, and
interspersed between those, A & P spend a lot of time telling GR how spiritual
he is, what a popular course teacher he is, that no one's done it as well as
him, etc. etc. I'm not kidding when I say "a lot of time." He brings up Miracle
Distribution Center and 'the woman' who screwed his book, mentions that he also
(I forget how, already sent the book to someone else) got screwed out of being
#4 on the NY Times best seller list.....puts down Hawkins, the power of now,
MDC, of course Marianne Williamson, CWG, almost all other course teachers who
"accept donations". Also, more than a few times comments on *all* the other
course students who just don't really want to know what the course is saying,
blah, blah, blah.

I supported his first book, I mean to each his own. But it appears that he has
used his celebrity to go after everyone who has ever insulted him in the last
few years, again, all under the guise of 'forgiveness lessons.' And the thing
that irks me the most is that many of his judgments and such are voiced or
supported by A & P. Quite frankly, I am surprised that Hay House published it
and perhaps are hoping people will read it for the tabloid perspective of the
Course community. But then that's another thing, why would most of his readers
know or care about all his vendettas, I'd think it'd be obvious even to the
uninitiated that something's not right with this picture.

One thing I was taught by my inner spirit when I first began lecturing was to
absolutely *never* use my public spiritual work as a weapon or to in any way
acknowledge personal vendettas. Evidently A & P don't have a problem with that.
I'll stick with the HS, thank you very much. Again, I struggled with whether or
not I wanted to say any more about it, especially knowing from this book that GR
has absolutely no problem vilifying anyone who does not adore him, however, my
conscience would not keep quiet about it. Lest you think I have some "political
axe" (another favorite by GR) to grind, it's archived that I supported him in
the past and don't make it a practice of tearing down other writers. However, I
think that spiritual writers, more than any other genre, are supposed to operate
with as much integrity as possible.

The chapter on I think it's called Pursah's gospel of Thomas is all about the
controversy over which version of the Course is the best. This is my beef, I
believe that GR is using "ascended masters" to do his own dirty work in a sense
and I think that's dishonest. A & P discuss all the issues on the matter that
we've been reading here for years. I would assume that these "ascended masters"
would be talking with GR for the purpose of helping him present healing material
to the world. Weighing in with their opinions on this ACIM issue, when
realistically *most* course students are totally unaware of the controversy,
does not seem to be appropriate to me. I mean would they get involved in an
issue that would further separate some in the course world? Kind of like God in
CWG books weighing in on politics -- It's common sense that God is not going to
choose one side over another causing further disunity rather than unity.

A & P also say later in the book that GR's workshops and books will *force* all
other course teachers to teach what the course *really* says. Yeah, you can tell
these kind of comments are my personal pet peeve! lol! GR writes again in this
book that Wapnick is the greatest teacher (of course voiced by A & P) so why I
ask is it so important for him to be writing these books if we've already got
Ken? And why do we need him to keep *all* other course teachers/students honest
about what the course says? I've read most of the book yesterday, still have
some to go, but it's mostly what he wrote in the previous book right down to all
the side slaps at practically everyone else in the course world, with a few
personal experiences thrown in. I'll add here that I could respect it more if GR
made all these comments as coming from himself and not these "ascended masters"
-- I mean after all, he has a right to his opinion on these matters and can
write whatever he wants. If he had done that, then personally, I'd feel, to each
his own. But again, I find this just dishonest.
Sheryl Valentine
*************************************************************************

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

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decisive indivisive clarity re effort and effortlessness, Sandeep Chatterjee,
NonDuality Salon: Murray 2006.11.07
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/62

#2635 - Monday, November 6, 2006 - Editor: Jerry Katz

The Nondual Highlights

nondualitysalon@yahoogroups.com, ndhighlights@yahoogroups.com,
iam@yahoogroups.com, ndsn@yahoogroups.com,

rmforall@yahoogroups.com, ARequiredCourse@yahoogroups.com,
Disappearance_Of_The_Universe@yahoogroups.com,
elijaxonbear-gangajidisgraced@..., FJEllis@...,


http://www.nonduality.com/

http://www.nonduality.com/gurus.htm

http://www.nonduality.com/sandeep.htm  Sandeep Chatterjee

One of the earliest participants in nonduality forums, Sandeep Chatterjee sent
the following to a few email lists and is duplicated here:

One of the common and wide-spread issues debated and discussed in the spiritual
circles

whether it is in  physical satsanghs  or in cyber based forums........

....... is the issue of whether practice is absolutely a must for spiritual 
enlightenment .....

.......OR.......

.....there being nothing else but the Self (or Bozo)..........who is to do what
and for what purpose, to what end.


The debate goes on and on with disciples of either schools absolutely convinced
about their own position
and the absurdity/foolishness of the other's position.

Arguments go to and fro and supporting quotes from scriptures are hurled by both
sides
in order to clinch the debate.

The school of practice have even coined phrases like "neo-Advaita" and the
"Advaita-shuffle"
to disparage the "All-is-Self-anyway" proponents.


The debate is very interesting and reveals nuances in both the positions.

First of all the very debate is ambrosia for the "me-entity".

For the "me"........the very debate is its existence and the continuance of the
debate............the perpetuation of its identity.

The debate lends the spiritual halo, the religious glow to the "me".

For the school of practice (whether the specific practice is of Self-Enquiry,
aka Ramana or Nisargadatta,
or  meditation aka the various schools of Zen,
prayer aka Christianity, Hinduism, Islam,  or charity work to earn merits useful
for salvation,
it makes no difference).....

....fundamentally the issue is the belief that an effect, any effect needs a
cause, separate from the effect.


The "me" having seen evidence where apparently without effort there is no
success in the material world,.....
...... this belief gets reinforced by Teachers, Gurus hollering from the
rooftops that the path of salvation,
is only through the practice of X, Y.Z,
which of course only the specific hollering teacher can show, teach, transmit,
deeksha-it.

The "me" which is essentially the sense of insecurity....
.....having sought security in the temporal icons  like relationship, career,
money, social position, acquisitions knowledge power etc...
....realizes the hollowness, the transitory nature of these temporal icons
and now seeks security in the eternal.

The same equation is brought in with only a conceptualization of a new icon to
be sought.

The equation being there is a problem, for which there exists a solution, if
only the seeking
for the solution can diverted to the right direction
and the necessary cost be paid.


And there are enough characters who are skillful in utilizing the innate sense
of insecurity
to create "to-be-chased-solutions",
in the process augmenting Bank balances and disciple numbers
with some good old sexual romps thrown in.

Why does the "me" not see through this charade?

It does but does not acknowledge............because now the claim of ownership
of the meditation,
of the Pranayam, of the Self-Enquiry,
of the number of charities supported, worked for....

.......is its identity.


It is I who is meditating, doing Pranayam/Self enquiry 16 hours a day,......
......the sense of the "I" as the sense of the "me" is intact.

I have saved so many heathens by getting them to accept the Bible....
....surely I am ensured my rightful place in Dad's pad in the hereafter.

No matter what practice is happening in the moment............the claim of
ownership of that practice....
......lo behold the lurking sense of entitification.

The specific technique, the specific activity.............is not all  an issue.


The same is the case for the Guru/Teacher.

Without the practice and the disciples swearing by that practice....

....how can I the Guru remain a Guru?

How can I be a saint, unless there are sinners around to be saved?


If Pranayam is happening......if zazen is happening.......if massive charity
work is getting effected through oneself....

...if there descends moments of quietude where the heart is filled with am
immensity of gratitude..

....then that can only be a nuance of the movement of the moment.

Moment to moment to moment.


Apperceiving this............

.......anything and everything becomes a practice.


In the gestalt of such an existing.......cleaning the accumulated dried shreds
of shit on the sides of a toilet......

.......is  practice....

...... no less....... no more....

... than that of feeding the poor.


Thus real meditation is not the technique per se......not the practice per
se.......but that....

..... in which there is the end of the meditator.

And thus the end of meditation.

Meditation as conceived to be a means to an end.
As believed to be a cause for a desired effect.


Rather than time specific, condition specific meditation
sessions.............there is a meditative existing......
.....in which may happen........a specific series of acts labeled as zazen
.......or KapalBhati...
....followed by maybe some lusty love making next to the altar......
.....followed by maybe some expressing of a haiku in the midst of a noisy
brothel.


In that meditative existing........ can happen the honed activities as required
in running a global corporation.....
......existing side by side with agenda free compassion.


There is no sense of an agenda, there is no sense of an intention and there is
no sense of an expectation.

It is no longer a cause-effect plea bargaining.


There is a flowing..........a synchronousness........there is just the  enacting
of living.

Which is all powerful, all creative......and .....indivisive .


In the school of All-is-Self-hence-nothing-must-be-done....
......is also the prevailing sense of the "me".


If All is the Self................if All-that-is-is
that-which-IS..................if this is apperceived....
.....then it is apperceived that the very biological sentient object engaged in
praying to a self-conceived symbol,
whether that is a deity, a principle or  a Guru-known as zazen ....

....such a conditioned object.....

...... AND...

....the activity happening through such a conditioned object
can only be an expression of that-which-is.

How can it be otherwise?

And thus what is it in phenomenality, ...........which is wrong and has to be
condemned
or is to be negated?


What appears to be happening............could not have been otherwise....
..... in that very moment of happening.....
...for all the stars in the Andromeda galaxy.


There is nothing which needs to be done....
.... AND....... whatever is to be done.......
.....gets done.


The very opposition to practice, the very need to deny.......
........is the sense of the "me" at play.

For in the opposition, in the denial.......... is the identity and  perpetuation
of the identity.


Ramana was once asked........."Since you are enlightened...why don't you just
wave your hand
and enlighten everybody else?

The dude in the diaper replied "When you wake up from a dream,
where are the dream-people who have to be woken up?"

And yet the dude while adjusting his diaper, used to be moved to copious tears
on hearing the narrations
of the grief-stricken seekers, visiting him.

He even suggested the practice of Self-enquiry to those
who had no existential reality.

At other times, the communion was in silence.

At all times..........it remained the Duet of One.


The arising of practice..........its run and finally its end or cessation,
whether temporarily or permanently......
.....are all nuances of the movement, known as the moment.


These set of squiggly signs getting transmitted through routers and servers and
modems and satellite systems
over cyber-space and finally appearing  as pixels  on a PC screen...
.....are not the doings by somebody, for somebody else to read and apperceive.


They are like signatures on flowing waters.

Sketched by the same flowing waters.

And being viewed......

...... RIGHT NOW......

.... by the same flowing waters.


Dooooo Beeee Dooooo Beeeee Dooooooo

____________________________________________
*************************************************************************

Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
505-501-2298  1943 Otowi Road   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

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group with 77 members, 1,380 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com
*************************************************************************

bless Eli Jaxon-Bear and Andrew Cohen to liberate blessing yourself
[re notes on A Course in Miracles, Robert Perry]: Murray 2006.10.29
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmforall/message/61


elijaxonbear-gangajidisgraced@..., boardofdirectors@...,
Disappearance_Of_The_Universe@yahoogroups.com, rmforall@yahoogroups.com,
robert@..., info@...


"In the second scenario, you acknowledge that God’s Love is in you, that His
abundance is in you. And then you see this Love everywhere. You see His
abundance in everyone. And if you do that, you will know that they are in Him
and that all your brothers are in Him with you. You will know that they are part
of you and that all of you are part of God.

And this will take away your loneliness, your sense of separation and isolation.
This is how you “understand totally by understanding totality.” By loving
everyone, you see everyone as a seamless part of totality — you see everyone as
total. And this includes yourself."

Robert Perry   Tuesday class notes 2006.10.29
robert@...   Circle of Atonement

“The Totality of the Kingdom” A Course in Miracles

Text, Chapter 7, Section VII

Paragraph 1

The basic idea in this paragraph is that, because of the immense power of your
mind, your mind will take whatever you do in one case and generalize it to all
cases. This means that however you see one person, you will see everyone,
including yourself. When you deny a blessing to a brother, you yourself will
feel deprived of blessing. When you deny one brother’s reality, you blind
yourself to all of reality. You may assume that you can think ill of someone and
confine that negative intent to that one person. But that overlooks the power of
the mind. That attack thought is so powerful that it simply can’t be confined to
that one person. It will ripple out and affect your perception of everyone and
everything, including yourself.

The law, however, works positively as well. This part is garbled in the
published Course, so let’s look at it in the Urtext:

That is the negative side of the law as it operates in this world. But denial is
a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as it is of being
used destructively. Used negatively, it will be destructive, because it will be
used for attack. But in the service of the Holy Spirit, the law becomes as
beneficent as all of the laws of God.  Stated positively, the law requires you
only to recognize part of reality to appreciate all of it. Mind is too powerful
to be subject to exclusion. You will never be able to exclude yourself from what
you project [onto others].

The law here is basically what I stated above: because of the power of the mind,
whatever your mind does with a part it will do with the whole. The positive side
of this is that you only need to “recognize part of reality to appreciate all of
it.” Just as one brother seen as sinful taints all of reality in your eyes, so
one brother seen as holy causes everything to shine.

Exercise:

Think of someone you are currently seeing in a negative way, someone you see as
mistreating you or not appreciating you.

Ask yourself, “How am I seeing this person?” Try to boil it down to one word and
then write that one word in the four spaces below.

Now repeat to yourself, “Because I see him as __________ I will see everyone as
____________ .”

Because I see him as ____________ I will see myself as _____________ .

But if I bless him, I will see myself as blessed.

If I recognize his reality, I will appreciate all of reality.”

Paragraph 2

Discussion: When a brother behaves insanely, what is our normal response?

The class said to get angry, to be outraged, to try to set him straight, to fix
him, to retaliate, to mobilize group opinion against him.

Actually, says this paragraph, we should see him as offering us something
positive — namely, an opportunity to bless him. This opportunity is a gift to
us. The Course says this same thing in many ways. One way is the idea that his
insane behavior is really a call for help. Here are a couple of other ways:

When a brother behaves insanely, you can heal him only by perceiving the sanity
in him. (T-9.III.5:1)

A shadow figure who attacks [this is how we see our brother now—as someone from
our past who is yet again attacking us] becomes a brother giving you a chance to
help. (T-29.IV.5:6)

Then comes a powerful line: “His need is yours” (2:2). What is his need? Our
blessing on him. Which means we need our blessing on him. We need blessing, too,
and the only way we can have it is by giving it to him (2:4). This is called
here the “law of God” and is called later in the Text and Workbook the “law of
love”: “Today I learn the law of love, that what I give my brother is my gift to
me” (Lesson 344). I can imagine a road sign: “You can have it only by giving it.
That’s the law.” In truth, we already have that blessing; God gave us that in
our creation. But by denying blessing to our brother, we blind ourselves to the
fact that we ourselves have been eternally blessed.

Today I’ve been doing the third sentence in this paragraph as my practice. I’ve
been saying, “I need the blessing I can offer [name].” The implication is that I
only get that blessing through offering it to the other person. It’s a very
powerful practice.

The final lines emphasize that our response to our brother is actually
determined by what we ourselves want to be. That is because how we respond to
him is what teaches us who we are. And something in our mind understands this
cause-and-effect connection, and so we unconsciously choose our response to him
based on what we want to teach ourselves. To put this more simply, if I treat my
brother as if he’s not worthy of being blessed, my unconscious reason for doing
that is that I want to teach myself that I’m unworthy of being blessed. Treating
him that way is how I teach myself this self-deprecating message.

Paragraph 3

We all carry a fairly pitiful picture of ourselves around. The Course uses three
words to describe that picture: deprived, unloving, and vulnerable.

Discussion:

Do we feel deprived?

Do we feel unloving?

Do we feel vulnerable?

These three adjectives are so universal that they must describe how every single
person sees himself. It’s hard to imagine not having these three as components
of one’s self-image. Normally, therefore, self-esteem means keeping those three
adjectives—there seems no other choice—but learning to love ourselves anyway.
Yet the Course here flatly denies that this is possible: “You cannot love this.”
The only way to really love ourselves is to escape from this image, to give it
up, not shine it up. How do we do this?

First, we realize, “You are not there and that is not you” (3:5). You have not
been wrong about yourself in the details. You have been wrong at the foundation.
You have got it all wrong. Your image of yourself may bear some resemblance to
the person you show up as in this world, but it bears no resemblance to who you
really are. As Jesus points out in the Urtext, “You are not an image.” This is a
powerful line, because it suggests that what we are is something that cannot be
seen or imaged. It suggests that our nature is beyond all form and matter.

Second, and this is where the change really occurs, we need to not see this
picture in anyone. We need to not teach anyone that he is deprived, unloving,
and vulnerable. Because whatever we see in him, we will see in ourselves.
Whatever we teach him, we will learn.

This is not how we normally view things. If a therapist asked us how we learned
to think of ourselves as deprived, unloving and vulnerable, what would we
usually say? Wouldn’t we say that certain influential people in our formative
years taught us to see ourselves as deprived, unloving, and vulnerable? This
paragraph is saying something quite different. It’s saying that we taught
ourselves that, and we did so by teaching others that they are deprived,
unloving, and vulnerable.

Discussion:

How do we teach people that they are deprived? (The class said, “By taking
things from them.”)

That they are unloving? (The class said, “By withdrawing love from them.”)

That they are vulnerable? (The class said, “By hurting them.”)

Paragraph 4

Perception will last as long as we want it to because that is the nature of
illusions — they last as long as we value them. To be rid of them, we have to
withdraw our investment in them. And we do that by not seeing them in our
brother. It’s not enough to not want to see illusions in ourselves. As long as
we are seeing them in our brother, we are secretly invested in seeing them in
ourselves.

Paragraph 5

God gave us the gift of life. We don’t know we have this gift for one reason:
because we don’t give it. Instead of giving life to our brothers, we are too
busy trying to give life to our illusions (which, remember, are illusions of
ourselves as deprived, unloving, and vulnerable). While we are busy trying to
“make nothing live”—an impossibility — we are not extending the gift of life
that we both have and are. And we can only know what we are by extending it.
“And so you do not know your being” (5:4).

The only solution, says the paragraph in its concluding sentence, is to “give
only honor to the Sons of the living God” (5:8).

Discussion: What does it mean to give honor to our brother? What are the ways in
which we dishonor others?

The class mentioned that giving honor means to give someone respect and
admiration, to treat them as important, to esteem them. We dishonor others both
through outright insult and attack, and through not paying attention to them,
through overlooking and ignoring them, through acting like they don’t count.

Paragraph 6

It makes sense to give only honor to our spouse, our neighbor, our boss, our
sibling, our president, because God created them worthy of honor, and God
Himself honors them. We often feel too good, too important, to give honor to
such undeserving individuals. But if God honors them, why are we too good to do
the same? He always accords them appreciation. Why? “Because they are His
beloved Sons in whom He is well pleased.” What a remarkable line! That, of
course, is the statement we associate with Jesus at his baptism. Yet here the
Course is applying the same thing to all of our brothers. This is a favorite
device in the Course, to have us take all of the honor and esteem and respect we
give Jesus and transfer it to other people. Indeed, as Greg pointed out in the
class, the Course had just done this very thing. The previous paragraph
contained the injunction to “give only honor to the Sons of the living God”
(5:8). This is a subtle allusion to the scene in the Gospels where Jesus asks,
“Who do you say that I am,” and Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of
the living God.” The Course is subtly trying to get us to see other people as we
would see Jesus, as the Sons of the living God.

Exercise: Go through a variety of people and say silently to each one, “You are
God’s beloved Son in whom He is well pleased.” You might even imagine this
person being baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan . As he or she
comes out of the water, you hear a booming voice from Heaven proclaim “This is
My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” See how it makes you feel about them.

We have to love everyone, or will not accept the gift that God gave us, the gift
that we are. We have to honor everyone, we will not know our own perfection.
It’s a package deal. We either see perfection in everyone, ourselves included,
or we see perfection in no one, ourselves included. If we are really going to
love ourselves, we have to love everyone. The power of the mind leaves us with
no options. How do you feel when you contemplate this idea? What thoughts occur
to you? Is it a welcome idea, or is it threatening? Does the change it asks seem
like too much?

Paragraph 7

The Holy Spirit speaks in every mind, giving each one of us the same lesson. No
doubt He has taught us all a great many different lessons, but this implies that
they all have the same core, the same essence. That single, core lesson is that
each Son of God has “inestimable worth.” That’s the lesson He has been trying to
get across to you since time began. That, in essence, is the only thing He ever
teaches you.

Of course, He needs great patience, even infinite patience, in trying to teach
us this. Otherwise, He would have given up several million years ago!

Every attack is a case where someone has not learned His one lesson. If that
person really understood “the inestimable worth of every Son of God,” he
wouldn’t be attacking a Son of God, would he? Thus, every attack means that the
Holy Spirit hasn’t yet succeeded as a Teacher, hasn’t succeeded in getting His
one lesson across. So that person’s attack is really a call for the patience of
the Teacher, just as when a student in grade school doesn’t get the lesson. That
student’s lack of understanding is really a call for his teacher’s patience.

In this case, however, the person who is not getting the lesson (the person who
is attacking) is not going to be aware of his Teacher’s patience, since his
Teacher is not visible. Therefore, it is we—the target of the attack—who need to
be the communicators of His patience. Rather than thinking, “I can’t believe
this guy still doesn’t get it,” we need to think, “He’ll get it someday, and I
have no right to set his learning deadlines for him.”

The reason that person attacks is that he thinks he is lacking. He do not
realize just how blessed he is. We can show him that—by blessing him. We can
teach him his true abundance by giving him honor, by giving him the gift of
life, by loving him, by appreciating him, by acknowledging that he is God’s
beloved Son in whom He is well pleased—by blessing him. And then he will have no
reason to attack, for only the deprived try to take from others. This is how
attack is translated into blessing. And this is how we discover our own
abundance. This is how we find out that we are blessed.

Paragraphs 8 and 9

The previous paragraph taught that we need to respond to attack with patience
and with blessing. These two paragraphs explain why we usually don’t.

You respond to attack with attack because you see the other person’s attack as a
“as a means of depriving you of something you want” (8:2). Your attack in
return, then, becomes a means of self-defense. However, the Course here tells
you that “you cannot lose anything unless you do not value it.” So someone’s
attack can only deprive you of something when you yourself have already thrown
it away. But we generally don’t want to face this fact. So we project it onto
someone else. Now we think they are the ones who have taken it from us. This is
what projection does. “Projection always sees your wishes in others.”

Exercise:

Think of three people who, in your eyes, took something from you, and then fill
in their names and what you think they took from you (boil it down to one word).
Then repeat the following lines to yourself.

I think that ___________ took ____________ from me.

But in fact I threw it away, and then projected my wishes onto him/her.

I think that ___________ took ____________ from me.

But in fact I threw it away, and then projected my wishes onto him/her.

I think that ___________ took ____________ from me.

But in fact I threw it away, and then projected my wishes onto him/her.

There is a deeper dimension to this. The ultimate thing that you believe your
brothers are taking from you is the Kingdom of Heaven , or, as Paragraph 9 puts
it, God Himself. If you think about it, whatever you wrote in the above spaces
really amounts to aspects of God, aspects of Heaven. If you think someone stole
love from you, that’s an aspect of the experience of God If you think someone
stole self-esteem from you, that too is an aspect of the experience of God.
Ultimately, you see them as stealing the Kingdom of God from you.

Exercise:

Let’s take the same three people and apply the following:

I believed you were out to take God from me.

But the fact is that I threw Him away, and then blamed my loss on you.

Paragraph 10

This paragraph presents two scenarios. In the first scenario, you deny that that
your will is the same as God’s — while His Will is love, yours seems to be
attack. This leads you to deny what you are, since “you are the Will of God.”
Denying that you are God’s infinite Will, you will feel deprived, and you will
therefore attack, thinking that someone else stole God from you.

In the second scenario, you acknowledge that God’s Love is in you, that His
abundance is in you. And then you see this Love everywhere. You see His
abundance in everyone. And if you do that, you will know that they are in Him
and that all your brothers are in Him with you. You will know that they are part
of you and that all of you are part of God.

And this will take away your loneliness, your sense of separation and isolation.
This is how you “understand totally by understanding totality.” By loving
everyone, you see everyone as a seamless part of totality — you see everyone as
total. And this includes yourself.

Paragraph 11

Because of the power of the mind, you need only see part of a whole accurately
in order to see the whole accurately. If you see part of the ego’s thought
system as completely insane and undesirable, you will see all of the ego’s
thought system for what it is. Likewise, if you see part of creation — which
means a brother — as “wholly real, wholly perfect, and wholly desirable” you
will see all of creation for what it is. And you will see yourself for what you
are. By giving this, you will realize you are this. The gift you give, then, is
given you, and this gift is therefore treasured by God Himself, for all He wants
is your happiness.

And somehow, the first (seeing part of the ego’s system and thereby seeing the
whole for what it is) leads to the second (seeing part of reality and thereby
seeing the whole of reality).

Exercise:

Say to a series of people,

I acknowledge you as wholly real, wholly perfect, and wholly desirable.

And I thereby acknowledge the perfection in myself.
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http://www.circleofa.org/  Circle of Atonement

http://www.circleofa.org/articles/IntroductionToAcim.php
A Beginner's Overview of A Course in Miracles,
by Allen Watson

http://acim-search.miraclevision.com/std-second-edition-and-supps/index.html
free online full text, along with all of ACIM standard 2nd edition
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http://www.andrewcohen.org/blog/?ifr=hp-feat
October 18, 2006
A Declaration of Integrity
An open letter from Andrew Cohen to his friends and foes
To initiate this new blog, I thought nothing could be more appropriate than to
post the following piece I just finished writing, which says a lot of things
I’ve been wanting to say for a very long time. Some may find it a little long,
but if you hang in there I’m sure you’ll find it well worth the read.

http://essentialwhatenlightenment.blogspot.com/

http://www.enlightennixt.com/

http://www.integralworld.net/index.html?kazlev2.html

The Problem of Abusive Gurus
from Alan Kazlev’s article:
Towards a Larger Definition of the Integral, Part 2: The Wilberian Paradigm: A
Fourfold Critique, July 2006

For whatever reason...[Ken Wilber] cannot recognise that the most obvious sign
of any integral transformation is precisely that the Teacher is never abusive!
In fact, Wilber falls into the common trap of seeing abuse at the hands of a
guru as somehow necessary for enlightenment. This idea goes back at least as far
Medieval Tibetan Buddhism; Naropa, one of the great sages of the Tibetan
tradition, suffered greatly at the hands of his guru, Tilopa...Wilber's friend
and colleague, self-styled guru Andrew Cohen seems -- if the the harrowing
accounts of their experiences by his ex-disciples is anything to go by -- to
show very similar behaviour to that of [contemporary Western Guru] Adi Da, and
is every bit as abusive towards his followers.

With this in mind, let's make a brief checklist of warning that indicate a guru,
even a nonduality "enlightened" one, that is an abuser. The following is in no
way meant as a complete checklist, but just lists a few common flaws. Note that
not all abusive gurus will have all of these flaws, but an abusive guru will at
the very least have two or three:

* Sexually abusive behaviour

* Demanding or requesting large "donations" (to fund an unnecessarily opulent or
wealthy lifestyle)

* Acting or teaching one way in public and another in private (e.g. celibate
gurus justifying sex with female disciples as "Tantric Initiation")

* Narcissistic behaviour

* Using insulting words or other abusive behaviour to "break down your ego".

* Physical abuse, usually by telling devotees to assault other devotees

* Taking advantage of the disciples trust; controlling or forcing them to do
something they don't want to

* Emotionally sadistic (and in extreme cases physically sadistic)

* Vindictive attitude towards ex-devotees

* Responding to critics with anger, bitterness, hatred, or mockery rather than
love

And so on. You get the idea. Note also that not having any of the above, or any
of the other common pop guru flaws, does not mean a Guru or Teacher is genuine.
It simply means it may be okay to be involved with them. Another indicator –
uneasy feeling or small voice that says "this is wrong" may not be reliable, as
it requires a well-developed spiritual consciousness on the part of the seeker.
And feeling drained after some time in the abusive guru's presence is also
unreliable; not everyone is emotionally parasitised.

Sometimes, as in Da Free John / Adi Da's case, gurus justify their behaviour by
saying it represents "crazy wisdom" (another Tibetan theme). So-called "crazy
wisdom" gurus, in addition to being abusive, may partake of alcohol or drugs,
have lots of (willing) sexual partners, and so on. Chogyam Trungpa is a typical
example of a Crazy Wisdom guru, but he does not seem to have been as
specifically abusive.

But the most common indeed, the standard, excuse abusive gurus use to justify
their behaviour is that it is necessary that the disciple be abused and
humiliated in order for them to overcome ego and attain enlightenment (although
at the same time, no abusive guru ever acknowledges that any of their students
have ever attained enlightenment) It is this, more subtle argument, that one
finds associated with the Wilberian Integral movement as a whole. According to
Andrew Cohen, teachers need to break down one's ego, and this can be a
psychologically and emotionally excruciating process. Wilber fully supports this
approach. In the Foreword to one of Cohen's books, he says:

     "When it comes to spiritual teachers, there are those who are safe, gentle,
consoling, soothing, caring; and there are the outlaws, the living terrors, the
Rude Boys and Nasty Girls of God realization, the men and women who are in your
face, disturbing you, terrifying you, until you radically awaken to who and what
you really are....

     If you want encouragement, soft smiles, ego stroking, gentle caresses of
your self-contracting ways, pats on the back and sweet words of solace, find
yourself a Nice Guy or Good Girl, and hold their hand on the sweet path of
stress reduction and egoic comfort. But if you want Enlightenment, if you want
to wake up, if you want to get fried in the fire of passionate Infinity, then, I
promise you: find yourself a Rude Boy or a Nasty Girl, the ones who make you
uncomfortable in their presence, who scare you witless, who will turn on you in
a second and hold you up for ridicule, who will make you wish you were never
born, who will offer you not sweet comfort but abject terror, not saccharin
solace but scorching angst, for then, just then, you might very well be on the
path to your own Original Face".
     from Living Enlightenment by Andrew Cohen

Wilber applauds Cohen as a "rude boy", and offers him (and abusive gurus in
general) as the alternative to a ridiculous caricature that does not match the
description of any spiritual teacher. He says that the "rude boy" will "hold you
up for ridicule" and "will make you wish you were never born". Yes, all out of
his boundless love and compassion that you may yourself attain Enlightenment!
But let us look at the reality, the mind games and psychological conditioning
and abuse; things that Wilber, who has never been a disciple at Cohen's
Foxhollow community, has not had to experience.
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Rich Murray, MA  Room For All  rmforall@...
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