countdown to publication

2009-09-02T19:58:00.003+01:00

This was a question I answered today and felt it was such an interesting one that I reproduce it here. My answer was chosen as a Best Answer for this on Yahoo Answers but really the issue is such an interesting one that I hope you find the questions posed intriguing:
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In creation, did God create 'from nothing' or from something?
Reading Genesis, it's difficult to see which interpretation to put upon it: that God started with nothing (no space-time, no energy, no laws) and created from that; or that God started with those things and framed a universe from them.

Which should I understand, from nothing or from something?

And as a follow-up question (if I may), is God immanent then in that creation in the sense of sustaining it, in the sense of directing it, in the sense of observing it, or in some combination of these (or other) senses?

If you could, please, give me Bible references for these (but please, not a simple cut and paste job; with the references I can find and read the text for myself!)

Many thanks
12 hours ago
Additional Details
@Melie - So, you did actually read the bit when I said please no cut and paste jobs? What was it? 'Please no' means something different in your language!?
11 hours ago

@CodyHas... LOL! There might just be a teensy-little flaw in your logic there! ;-)
11 hours ago

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by sol w Member since:
22 June 2007
Total points:
352 (Level 2) Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
I don't have the bible to hand but can answer from my understanding from having studied various aspects of your questions.
Firstly, let me state that Spiritism, in particular the works by Allan Kardec, even more specifically The Spirits' Book offers the most lucid answers (and ones I have yet to see bettered anywhere) to your questions and many many others.
According to The Spirits' Book (which follows the teachings of Christ yet states the Bible was a text for its time and that many parables of Christ were not ready to be understood then),God
created the world/universe and the spirits who incarnate in the bodies of humans.
The ancients believed that we came from a state of nothingness or a void too.
God created us in a similar way to that in which people decide to have children - for knowing Himself through them too.
Whilst he created us we are of course separate and the choices we make are our own. Where God's influence can be felt (and is felt by the millions or billions who notice it) is in the guides who routinely try and steer us away from danger and onto a good path Thse are frequently spirits who some call Guardian Angels and who were almost all just people who upon dying decided to be a guide and were permitted to be one. This is the still small voice we sometimes hear when a part of us wants to be cruel and spiteful - it is never insistent therefore and denying this is entirely fine - neither I nor anyone truly spiritual, and the same with the spirit-guides, is going to force people to believe anything, or even try.
Nevertheless, I attempt to answer the question from my understanding gleaned from my studies of your excellent and interesting questions. God gives us free will - this means we get the glory if we do good things - even if we've been slightly steered on that path (but if we listened, then we are owed the glory!) and conversely, if we make errors, then there are consequences. Some mention karma and that is one way of describing what happens when injustice is committed in the lifetime/incarnation of a spirit. The following incarnation, things will be balanced consequently, much of what God does is not noticed, but think about it and how else can the world be just unless God does systematically reward and punish? It is the obvious and intelligent answer to many inexplicable injustices, as it were. God is just and I believe does want His children to be happy, but He won't force them to do what He knows would make them happy - they have all the freedom to make their own lives as they see fit. What then happens if someone lives well their entire life? Well, that can lead to them going to a more spiritually developed planet where there is less misery or it might lead a spirit to choose to guide a family member still on earth. Some become angels or archangels and go close to God, apparently.
God loves each and every one of His children despite the vast number and has complete awareness of all things at the same time.
So God is immanent in the sense of observing it, but His direction/sustaining of life on earth is dependent upon each case individually, and in the case of the planet as a whole, in the sense of group karma. So, if someone suffers greatly, prayers to God may or may not relieve that suffering. That is God's decision. Ultimately, a parent wants the child to learn, to make moral progress. Sometimes, picking them up and making them feel better is best. At other times, leaving them to get up themselves and dust themselves off may be wiser, as they will learn something valuable about self-sufficiency or not being a cry-baby perhaps. Each case and each person will have different reactions from God. Many say, Why does God allow War, Suffering? Well, often the spirits involved are on a wheel, if you like, whereon they are one life the aggressor, the next life the victim. If we believe this, though we can still be kind and do our best to mitigate the pain of as many people we can. We are here to learn, to perfect ourselves morally/spiritually and to carry out our mission (our mission may be a very material simple one in many ways, though how we are as a person, how we behave, always has an impact and can be part of the mission).
Perhaps the sentence 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God..' bears testimony to how powerful words are and equally how powerful our thoughts are. May your words and questions lead you to a personal truth - what I appreciate most about Spiritism is that it recommends a questioning stance toward the big issues and the entire book, The Spirits' Book is in the form of questions and answers.
Source(s):
The Spirits' Book by Allan Kardec
Work as a researcher about Spiritism in Brazil

The Genotype Diet

2009-05-06T18:11:00.009+01:00

I previously let you know a little about what The Genotype Diet was going to be before it was made public. I have now been following the advice of Dr D'Adamo (who also wrote about blood type, you might remember) in the book The Genotype Diet by Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo and am very impressed. It is a diet and lifestyle plan that cannot fail to improve the lives of everyone, no matter how fit or healthy.
It was reviewed in The Telegraph in the UK (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3917177/Revealed-the-diet-secrets-to-help-you-fit-into-your-genes.html) and has other write-ups all viewable here (http://www.genotypediet.com)
My last blog post about Apple Computer I reproduced for those who have not seen it, as I found it still inspiration re-reading it in my email inbox from a fair while back. It was also emailed to me by a very good friend who subsequently died of pancreatic cancer so it seemed appropriate to share it.

I am pasting out The Genotype interview below.

An article also appeared in the US saying The Genotype Diet is taking the country by storm and that Oprah Winfrey is a fan. I urge you to get involved with your health and fitness by reading up on it!
N.B. The Blood Type Diet is still highly effective but The Genotype Diet is, if you like, a refinement of that plan based on further research undertaken by Dr D'Adamo. The man is deserving of the Nobel Prize, 100%. Just because science and parts of the media are slow to recognise him in the UK, doesn't take away from the fantastic, life-changing results he is providing everyone who seriously investigates and puts into practise his findings.

Dr Peter J. D'Adamo:
As a naturopath, I have a deep faith in our ability to take control of our bodies. Every day, I treat patients who discover a health, vitality, and joy in life they'd never thought possible, simply by altering what they eat, which supplements they take, and how they exercise.
Yet I had one blind spot. I always assumed that the genetic part of our story had already been written – that the genes we inherited from our parents were the cards we were dealt, the ones we had for life.

Imagine my delight, then, as I began to discover that we have an
enormous power to improve our lives when it comes to our genes. True, we can't add new genes to the mix or eradicate old ones, but the genes we get at conception are only the beginning of the story. From our time in the womb through our childhood, youth, and adulthood, we have the capacity to turn up the volume on some genes, and silence others, vastly improving our capacity for health and happiness. We can understand the trajectory of our life and health – what physical challenges we're likely to face, what disorders we're prone to – and we can respond. All we need is an understanding of our diet and an exercise plan that is right for our particular "genotype".
In traditional scientific practice, the word genotype is used only to describe a person's actual assortment of genes. However, my use of the word includes our relationship with the environment, the influence of family history, and the effects of prenatal history.
My Genotype Diet is based on a simple but radical notion: we have the power to alter the behaviour of our genes. Some of that power belongs to our mothers, during gestation, but a great deal of that power becomes ours from birth.
Whether you realise it or not, you've spent an entire lifetime altering your genetic activity. That first sip of wine triggered your body's genetic ability to detoxify alcohol. That summer tan, activated the genes that control pigment (melanin) production. An infection, a cold or the flu, boosted activity in the bone-marrow genes that produce protective white blood cells. You see, your genes are not a fixed set of preprogrammed instructions. They are a dynamic, active part of your life, influenced by your history but responding every single day to your environment and your diet.
So let me introduce you to my Genotype programme. I have developed individual diet plans, comprising the foods and supplements that I believe will work best to create optimal health, weight, and vitality for each of the six Genotypes I have identified. These genotypes developed over 100,000 years of human history;
they are the Hunter, the Gatherer, the Teacher, the Explorer, the Warrior, and the Nomad. Each Genotype has different issues concerning weight and metabolism, which is why they can benefit from a tailor-made diet. Following your Genotype diet and exercise plan will give your body all the support it needs to attain and maintain your optimal weight.

How to work out your Genotype
There are three Genotype Calculators (basic, intermediate or advanced). You can use the basic calculator below to get up and get going right away. It is the simplest, quickest and easiest to do. But no matter which level you begin the Genotype programme at, you can always return when you have more information and use a more sophisticated calculator. You can find the intermediate and advanced calculators in my book.
Measure the length of your torso and legs
Leg and torso ratios reflect the levels of the growth factor hormones that you encountered in the womb and early childhood. Being short and having short legs appears to increase your risk of being overweight and of developing Type 2 diabetes. Short leg length is correlated with your risk for coronary heart disease. Being tall seems to increase risk of some cancers. Legs that are equal to or shorter than your torso are indicators for Teacher and Explorer Genotypes.

Measure the length of your index and ring fingers
Which is longer, your ring finger or index finger? A longer ring finger means you faced more androgens in the womb (androgens are a precursor of testosterone); a longer index finger means you faced higher levels of oestrogen. In general, more male hormones contribute to an "Andric" (male) shape: longer, leaner, more
muscular.
Longer ring fingers on both hands are a keynote for the Hunter Genotype, although the Explorer and Nomad show this pattern, too. Having longer index fingers on both hands is a hallmark of the Gatherer, although it is also seen in female Nomads, and occasionally in Teachers. A different result on each hand (that is,
having a longer ring finger on one hand and a longer index finger on the other) is a hallmark of the Teacher, although it is also seen in the Gatherer too.

THE SIX GENOTYPES
The Gatherer
Gatherers are nature's survival strategists, adapted to conserve calories as fat. The challenge is to fit their survival programming to the realities of today's overabundant diet.
Typical features
Has a phenomenal capacity for concentrated brain work; a
problem-solver and early adopter of new ideas; tends towards emotional highs and lows.
Body type
Endomorphic body type, always looks "padded", even when at healthy weight. Tends toward a high BMI and waist-to-hip ratio. Lower leg is shorter than upper leg, and index fingers longer than ring fingers.
Blood type
O or B, and mostly Rh-positive. High oestrogen levels.
Strengths
Terrific mental endurance, highly motivated, fertile and potential to age well.
Weaknesses
Gatherers are unsuccessful crash dieters. Appetite regulation can be a problem. Elevated oestrogen sensitivity can stimulate hormonal cancers.
Vulnerable to accumulating damaging chemicals in tissue.
Health risks
Alzheimer's disease, depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, low thyroid activity, obesity, reproductive cancers.
The Teacher
Sinewy and flexible, with great adaptability, the Teacher is a balance between opposing forces. Blessed with a tolerant immune system, the Teacher is burdened by excess altruism, leading to problems dealing with the bad guys.
Typical features
Views the world in a calm way and has close links with nature –
can "see the forest despite the trees".
Body type
Torso usually longer than legs and generally of moderate to short
stature. Andric body type. Index-to-ring-finger ratio often inverted from hand to hand.
Blood type
Often A, occasionally AB. Rhesus-positive. Tolerant immune system but prone to excess bacterial growth in the digestive tract.
Strengths
Successful adapter. Powerful spiritual energy. Ages gracefully. Great mechanical strength and flexibility.
Weaknesses
Sensitive digestive system, but immune system may not detect cancer mutations early on. Can be too detail-oriented.
Health risks
Ear infections, lung, stomach, and bowel problems. Bacterial
infections. Risk of breast cancer in later life.
The Explorer
Muscular and adventurous, the Explorer is a biological problem-solver who can adapt to environmental changes and has an above-average capacity for gene repair. A balanced diet and lifestyle can overcome a vulnerability to hormonal imbalances and brain strain.
Typical features
A lateral thinker concerned with changing concepts. Quirky. Great entrepreneur. Above-average intelligence.
Body type
Often left-handed. Index-to-ring-finger-length ratios are often reverse of what is expected for sex (ie, longer ring fingers in women, longer index fingers in men). Often muscular, broad-headed, with "chiselled" facial features. Torso usually longer than legs.
Blood type
Any ABO. Often Rh-negative. Vulnerable to borderline anaemia.
Sensitive to caffeine, fragrances, medications.
Strengths
Good gene repair and illness-recovery rate; stamina and memory
retention in old age; a problem-solver; ages gracefully.
Weaknesses
Environmental and chemical hypersensitivities. Accident-prone.
Health risks
Liver function compromised. Medically hard to diagnose; blood
irregularities.
The Nomad
A Genotype of extremes, with great sensitivity to environmental condition, especially changes in altitude and pressure, the Nomad is vulnerable to neuromuscular and immune problems.
Typical features
Phlegmatic, easy-going, roll-with-the-punches personality.
Optimistic, rational and fun-loving. Keeps emotions hidden.
Body type
Physically symmetrical, index and ring-finger lengths are usually
symmetrical to sex. Extremes of height – short or tall. Legs usually longer than torso. Waist-to-hip ratios high in men, low in women. Small teeth. Higher-than-average number of redheads, green eyes.
Blood type B and AB, mostly Rh-positive.
Strengths
Great mind-body connection, balanced immune system and good
stress-handling abilities.
Weaknesses
Sensitive digestive tract.
Health risks
Tendency toward "slow infections" such as lingering viral disorders, warts or parasites.
The Hunter
Tall, thin, intense and adrenalin-driven, the Hunter was originally the success story of the human species. Vulnerable to burnout when overstressed, today's Hunter needs to conserve energy for the long haul.
Typical features
Detail-oriented, mechanically-inclined, has a sense of fair play. Handles stress when well nourished.
Body type
Body seems symmetrical, athletic; tall, strong-boned and well-formed, is often "Andric" (tends toward masculine body type). Ring fingers tend to be longer than index ones.
Blood type
Always O.
Strengths
Energetic and metabolically efficient. Eats heartily, without gaining
weight, for optimal stamina and wellbeing.
Weaknesses
Hair-trigger reaction to infections, viruses, allergens. Beware of
midlife burnout, ageing poorly and digestive problems. Adrenal and pituitary glands are vulnerable.
Health risks
Allergies, auto-immune illnesses (asthma or rheumatoid arthritis),
depression, coeliac-like gut problems, reproductive cancers (more common in men).
The Warrior
Strong, lean, and healthy in youth, the Warrior is subject to a rebellion from their body in midlife. With a good diet and lifestyle, the Warrior can overcome the quick-ageing metabolic genes.
Typical features
Charismatic, if occasionally bad-tempered. Nimble-minded. Needs
to learn how to relax. Will pursue a mental challenge until it is mastered.
Body type
Legs usually longer than torso. Slender in youth; pear-shaped or
barrel-chested later in life. Flushes when under stress. Index-to-ring-finger ratios are usually symmetrical.
Blood type
Often A or AB and typically Rh-positive. Blood can clot too easily.
Strengths
Ox-like, recovers well from illness.
Weaknesses
Thrifty metabolism, stores calories as fat. Stress tends to depress immune system and cause blood to thicken.
Health risks
Insulin resistance and obesity in midlife, digestive problems, hormonal imbalance and infertility, heart disease, high blood pressure.
This is just a taster for the GenoType diet; full details about which foods to eat and which to avoid can be found in 'The GenoType Diet’ by Dr Peter J. D’Adamo (Bantam Press).

Apple Computer

2009-03-29T15:00:00.001+01:00

APPLE COMPUTER

Steve Jobs, the brilliant CEO of Apple, gave the commencement address a few weeks ago at Stanford, and I thought it was an outstandingly interesting, really remarkable address. And it hit me particularly hard, because I've always followed my love. I include Job's address below. You might even show it to your kids. This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005, at Stanford.

"I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."

Reading and Writing, plus Editing

2008-09-24T18:36:00.006+01:00

I have had some busy times with my brother's wedding in Greece, which went wonderfully and was a welcome break from the dull English weather. I continue to edit my book and have recently completed reading A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Dune by Frank Herbert and Watership Down by Richard Adams - all books from The BBC Big Read reading list. I highly recommend the list. Out of 60 books I have so far read from the list, I have yet to read one I didn't enjoy.

Back in Action

2008-07-24T16:58:00.001+01:00

I have continued in my absence from the blog with my reading and writing. I have the material for book two and have just begun revisions of book one. I read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo – both from my reading list and both excellent, moving books. I also recently completed Donna Tartt’s The Secret History - another great book on my BBC Big Read list.

Here is another excerpt I picked yesterday in The Manual of the Warrior of Light by Paulo Coelho:

The warrior of light studies the two columns on either side of the door he is trying to open.

One is called Fear and the other is called Desire. The warrior looks at the column of Fear and on it is written: ‘You are entering a dangerous, unfamiliar world where everything you have learned up until now will prove useless.’

The warrior looks at the column of Desire and on it is written: ‘You are about to leave a familiar world wherein are stored all the things you ever wanted and for which you struggled so hard.’

The warrior smiles because nothing frightens him and nothing holds him. With the confidence of one who knows what he wants, he opens the door.

Editing

2007-11-02T14:11:00.000Z

I recently received feedback on the first 10,000 words of Off The Rails from The Literary Consultancy. Not happy feedback, yet I will think about it all and make some changes as a result of this and as a result of the feedback that I was already kindly given here on the blog about my first chapter.

Obviously, the first chapter was a work in progress and there is always so much to amend and do, so as a consequence, I have deleted the post of that first chapter whilst I re-write.

My reading continues. I have finished The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and am reading Jane Austen now, having completed Persuasion and got a third of the way into Emma.

I recently went to see the Monty Python-inspired musical Spamalot with my Brazilian friend Diogo and had a lot of fun. I was also involved in a come and sing The Messiah event as part of the Bloomsbury Festival. This was great fun, even if the guy next to me (not from our choir!) was singing all the voice parts and not watching the conductor (our choir's very own Ronald Corp). The soloists were excellent, as they were last year, and the soprano particularly won me over, same as last year.

I have a memorial concert for a member of Highgate Choral Society tomorrow and the following Saturday 10 November 2007, The Highgate Choral Society will perform Beethoven's 9th Symphony 'Choral', as well as Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem. This will take place at 7.30 pm at All Hallows' Church, Savernake Road, Gospel Oak, London, NW3 2LA. There is a free pre-performance talk by our conductor ROnald Corp at 6.50pm. Tickets are £23, £18, £13 concessions £10. HCS box office: email: box office@hcschoir.com Or call 07952 508234 Or order from Les Aldrich Music Shop 020 8883 5631
http://www.hcschoir.com

Supplements that help you lose weight and stay happy

2007-10-08T17:51:00.000+01:00

These following excerpts are taken from Dr Atkins' Vita-Nutrient Solution - Your Complete Guide To Health. I cannot take responsibility for whether the doses he recommended are wise or not but the level of information is detailed and very useful. As a friend recently asked me about Carnitine, I dedicate this to her.Sadly, Dr Atkins died last winter, I believe it was, when he slipped on ice going to work. Readers know I rate Dr D'Adamo's Eat Right For Your Type health plan above all others, and certainly an A blood type person would become ill if they ate the Atkins diet as they are not genetically suited to eating meat, however, he talked a lot of sense in this book and helped many.

DR ATKINS' VITA-NUTRIENT SOLUTION – YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO NATURAL HEALTH
TRYPTOPHAN: The best sleeping pill not on the market

Tryptophan was nutrition's superstar, the dietary David that single-handedly took on the lucrative Goliath-like market of sedatives, tranquillizers and antidepressants. More and more doctors felt it was a hands-down winner. It relieved depression, induced sleep and soothed anxieties with the best of them.

But to the pharmaceutical industry, this marvellously effective, remarkably safe and freely available nutrient threatened to be a billion-dollar pain in the balance sheet. Industry moguls must have privately wished for tryptophan to be discredited. So, after an improbable event, it was: scandalized, tried, convicted and banished by the very people entrusted to police - not to enrich - the pharmaceutical business.

DANGERS: REAL AND CONTRIVED
Investigators first traced the illnesses to the use of tryptophan supplements, then to a single contaminated batch of the supplement made by one Japanese company that had inexplicably changed their manufacturing procedure. In November of that year the American FDA recalled tryptophan from all over-thecounter shelves. Since then the agency has refused to lift the ban, even though several additional probes of EMS outbreaks in both the United States and Germany later reaffirmed that all of the illnesses and deaths stemmed from that one contaminated batch. Tryptophan itself poses no inherent danger, the research concluded,' and its prior and subsequent use by tens of millions of people for decades has harmed no one.

Prohibiting the use of tryptophan, in fact, presents a more dangerous scenario for people who take pure crystalline amino acid formulas. These forms upset the body's amino acid balance by forcing a drop in blood levels of tryptophan, which can exacerbate symptoms of premenstrual tension in women.' In men, according to another study, the imbalance created by taking tryptophan-free supplements increased anger, annoyance and other indicators of aggression and hostility by as much as 30 per cent.

SEROTONIN BUILDING BLOCK
The key to tryptophan's success is its ability to influence brain chemistry. In our bodies' own chemical factory, it is the biochemical that is converted directly into serotonin, a neurotransmitter that relaxes the mind and instills a sense of emotional wellbeing. The same qualities account for its therapeutic effect on depression. People who are depressed have low blood levels of both serotonin and tryptophan. Prozac, Zoloft, and other members of this family of mood-elevating drugs work by extending the life of serotonin (whatever little of it there may be) in the brain. Tryptophan attacks depression more safely, allowing the body to increase its production of serotonin in the brain.

Tryptophan is also useful against other emotional disorders, such as premenstrual anxiety and depressions and seasonal affective disorder. It also could play a role in treating eating disorders,' alcohol addiction, Down's syndrome, aggressive behaviour, attention deficit/ hyperactivity syndrome, schizophrenia, sleep paralysis and pain syndrome. I find it useful in obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it is perhaps the treatment of choice in Tourette's syndrome.

Tryptophan may have other uses. It and its 5-hydroxy variant have been helpful in fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome." [Editor SBW’s note: 5HTP is also highly recommended to deal with sweet cravings - or carbohydrate cravings when on the O type diet; also, 5HTP is an excellent remedy to keep away depression and stay happy. I take it periodically, Higher Nature’s brand being the best, available in Fresh and Wild, Soho, London or try www.dadamo.com]

SUPPLEMENT SUGGESTIONS
There are abundant sources of tryptophan in all meats, especially duck and wild game. However, supplements are far more effective than food. A 2 gram dose taken right before bed will safely and effectively overcome insomnia.

Heart Disease After a heart attack, several complications are likely, including chest pains (angina), heart rhythm disturbances and heart failure. Taking 2 grams of carnitine per day for four weeks, hospital-based studies show, can cut the number of those complications in half.' That's a better performance than standard drug therapy.
I remain ever optimistic that the over-the-counter prohibition will be lifted. Until it does, find an alternatively oriented doctor who prescribes it, or present your own doctor with the exonerating evidence (compounding pharmacies will fill a doctor's prescription). People with asthma should probably avoid it, because any serotonin precursor could make their breathing worse, and high doses may lead to a noticeable sense of fatigue following exercise." Otherwise it's entirely safe.

Two prescription types are available - L-tryptophan, the natural amino acid, and 5-hydroxy-tryptophan, which is the immediate biochemical precursor of serotonin. I generally prescribe 2-4 grams of L-tryptophan daily, more in severe cases. For the 5-hydroxy version, only a 300-400 mg dose is needed. For either kind, take most of the daily dosage before going to bed, but if daytime anxiety or depression is the problem, it should be taken throughout the day. Always take it before meals, because to be effective the tryptophan or 5-hydroxy must be connected with an amino acid transport system that delivers it to the brain, and the protein in your food will compete with it. Accompany the amino acid with some niacinamide to extend its action. We need tryptophan to manufacture our own niacinamide, and supplements of the B-complex nutrient spare tryptophan for other important tasks, like keeping you happy and relaxed.

CARNITINE: The fat burner

Do you want to know which vita-nutrient I personally take in greatest quantity every day? It's carnitine. For a substance that is supposedly nonessential, carnitine is as necessary a nutrient as you'll ever find. While it's quite true that our bodies make this amino acid, rarely do we have enough to keep us at our healthiest.

The heart is completely dependent upon carnitine; two-thirds of its energy supply comes from the fats that carnitine allows the body to burn. The release of fat for use as fuel also makes this nutrient an important adjunct to any weight-loss or exercise efforts. That's why I never forget my carnitine.

Cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, becomes a distinct possibility without carnitine. The amino acid protects the heart muscle from damage when a heart attack or a spasm cuts off the oxygen supply. It also helps correct that most devastating of blood lipid profiles, the combination of high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol. An irregular heart rhythm will also quickly deplete carnitine stores in the body, creating a deficiency precisely when an optimal amount is most needed. Congestive heart failure flaws our ability to make carnitine, too.' However, taking 900 mg per day improved the health of one group of congestive heart failure patients, significantly increasing both their energy and their ability to exercise.4

Energy and Endurance Anyone who uses carnitine will get an energy boost from the amino acid, which also helps convert body fat into readily available fuel and elevates levels of certain enzymes needed to metabolize sugars, starches and other carbohydrates. Whether you're a casual exerciser or a more dedicated athlete, compensating for the greater amount of carnitine lost through physical activity extends your stamina and reduces the accumulation of lactic acid, the by-product of heavy-duty exertion that's responsible for the `burn' felt inside the muscles. This may enable exercisers to get the `gain' without the `pain', as one study confirmed.

Carnitine also clears the bloodstream of ammonia and aids in creating glycogen, the form in which the body stores glucose. Even marathon athletes can improve their stamina. A daily intake of 2 grams of taurine increased their treadmill performance by nearly 6 per cent,' enough to turn an `also ran' into a gold medalist.

Muscle Loss Anyone with a severe degenerative disease, such as cancer or AIDS, stands to gain from carnitine supplementation. It's a key nutrient for helping to prevent muscle atrophy.' The AIDS drug AZT depletes carnitine, as does Valproate, an antiepileptic drug. Such drug-induced carnitine deficiency can be life-threatening.

Infant Health Although considered `nonessential' for adults, carnitine is officially classified as indispensable for infants. So critical is this early need that researchers once proposed naming the amino acid `vitamin Bb'. Babies usually get carnitine through breast milk or fortified formulas - but not always. Most infant formulas contain carnitine, but it's best to check the label. Breast-feeding mothers who follow a vegetarian diet almost certainly need to take supplements. Carnitine may also be a very important nutrient for protecting children against Reyes
syndrome.

Other Conditions People with low thyroid function need carnitine to help them overcome diminished energy levels and the tendency to gain weight." Kidney dialysis rinses away stockpiles of the amino acid, another reason people who undergo the procedure are often weak, tired and threatened by high triglycerides. Other published studies suggest that carnitine may be of some value in treating diabetes, hypertension, liver disease and immune problems. It may also protect the liver from alcohol and other challenges.

One reason Atkins Center doctors prescribe carnitine so frequently is that it seems, in our experience, to be the nutrient most likely to overcome that bane of many dieters' existence - metabolic resistance to weight loss. For fat to be used up as fuel, carnitine is essential.

SUPPLEMENT SUGGESTIONS
Most of us consume about 30-50 mg of carnitine a day, hardly an optimum amount. While beef is the largest, best source (with chicken, fish, eggs and milk containing smaller amounts), we can't rely simply on eating more red meat. High-protein, highfat meals stimulate carnitine excretion. High-carbohydrate eating is even more futile, because grains and vegetables contain negligible amounts.

To make up for the carnitine gap, a supplement of between 500 mg and 1 gram is the minimum amount we need to take for preventive purposes. For a heart problem, I normally recommend 1-2 grams daily. If you are on heart drugs, you may need less medication, which calls for the supervision of a nutritionally aware cardiologist.

People who get stuck on truly effective diets, such as the Atkins diet, may need 1,500-2,500 mg to break the log jam. To support the body's own synthesis, make sure you take additional amounts of vitamin C, lysine, methionine, iron, vitamin B3 and vitamin B6. People who took 3 grams of ALC per day for a year, to cite one study, displayed far less mental deterioration than did a similar number of people who did not take the supplement.

ALC has performed well in controlled studies involving more than six hundred people afflicted with the disease, and at least one large study showed it to be effective in non-Alzheimer's mental decline in elderly people.

For many of my patients with senile dementia, ALC seems to slow the disease process significantly. Colleagues have also reported that some of their patients have regained some memory ability and kept themselves better grounded in reality. Though ALC is not a ‘cure’, it often does temporarily reverse the downhill course of the disease, especially when combined with high doses of vitamin C and vitamin E.
If ALC helps to fight Alzheimer's, what about Parkinson's disease? Primate studies from this field of research are showing promising results thus far.

Immune Disturbances Results are preliminary, but ALC could Contribute to strengthening the immune system or shielding it from viral attacks. People with chronic fatigue syndrome, whose Immune systems have clearly broken down, have lower than expected levels of ALC. Replenishing the supply alleviates symptoms, such as fatigue and brain fog.'

Establishing an optimal physiological amount of ALC stimulates the overall activity of immune cells in both younger and older adults. A dosage of 2 grams a day for thirty days, according h• one study, improved immune function in people with active pulmonary tuberculosis.'

SUPPLEMENT SUGGESTIONS
Vigorous exercise will aid the body's natural conversion of carnitine into ALC, but taking carnitine supplements is not an effective substitute. Only ALC increases the brain's energy and Protects nerve cells from the harm inflicted by stress and free radicals. For anyone older than forty, in fact, ALC is clearly the nutrient, that has both improved the symptoms of Alzheimer's and reversed the imbalances in brain chemistry that coexist with it.'

Nutritional Value of Different Foods

2007-09-25T18:31:00.000+01:00

NUTRITIONAL VALUE
OF
INDIVIDUAL FOODS & FOOD GROUPS

Foods contain a wide array of nutrients and the following shows the predominant foods containing particular vitamins and minerals. The values are per 100 grams edible portion.

VITAMIN A Liver (lamb) 50,500 iu
Liver (calf) 22,500
Peppers (red chilli) 21,600
Carrrots 11,000
Apricots (dried) 10,900
Kale 8,900
Other good sources: egg yolk, whole milk, yellow, orange & dark green veg. & fruit

Vitamin A from animal source foods occurs mostly as active, preformed vitamin A (retinol), while that from vegetable source occurs as pro-vitamin A (beta-carotene and other carotenoids) which must be converted to active vitamin A by the body to be utilised. The efficiency of conversion varies among individuals, however, beta-carotene is converted more efficiently than other carotenoids. Green and deep yellow vegetables as well as deep yellow fruits are highest in beta-carotene.

CAROTENOIDS {carotenes, xanthophylls, lycopenes} (best source)
Yellow and dark green veg. (e.g. pumpkin, sweet potato, broccoli, kale)
Orange fruits (e.g. papaya, peaches, apricots)
Watermelon
Cherries

VITAMIN D Sardines (canned) 500iu
Salmon
Tuna 350
Sunflower seeds 90
Eggs 50
Mushrooms 40
Other good sources: sunlight, cod-liver oil, butter, herring

VITAMIN E (best source) Safflower oil
Whole grains
Wheat germ
Egg yolk
Vegetable oils
Dark green leafy veg.
Soya beans
Brussels sprouts

VITAMIN K Turnip greens 650 mcg
Broccoli 200
Lettuce 129
Cabbage 125
Beef liver 92
Spinach 89
Other good sources: egg yolks, parsley, kale, legumes, alfalfa, kelp

THIAMIN (B1) Yeast (brewer’s) 15.61 mg
Yeast (torula) 14.01
Wheat germ 2.01
Sunflower seeds 1.96
Pine nuts 1.28
Peanuts (with skins)1.14
Other good sources: beef, cooked dried beans and peas, oats, rice husks

RIBOFLAVIN (B2) Yeast (torula) 5.06 mg
Yeast (brewer’s) 4.28
Liver (lamb) 3.28
Almonds 0.92
Wheat Germ 0.68
Wild rice 0.63
Other good sources: milk products, tuna, salmon, leafy green veg.

NIACIN (B3) Yeast (torula) 44.4 mg
Yeast (brewer’s) 37.9
Rice Bran 29.8
Wheat Bran 21.0
Peanuts (with skin) 17.2
Liver (lamb) 16.9
Other good sources: poultry, legumes, eggs, organ meats, milk, kidney, avocados

PANTOTHENIC ACID (B5)Yeast (brewer’s) 12.0 mg
Yeast (torula) 11.0
Liver (calf) 8.0
Peanuts 2.8
Mushrooms 2.2
Soybean flour 2.0
Other good sources: fish, organ meats, eggs, avocados, dates, sweet potatoes

PYRIDOXINE (B6) Yeast (torula) 3.00 mg
Yeast (brewer’s) 2.50
Sunflower seeds 1.25
Wheat Germ 1.15
Tuna 0.90
Soybeans 0.81
Other good sources: meats, poultry, peanuts, walnuts, egg yolk, soybeans, molasses

FOLIC ACID Yeast (brewer’s) 2022 mcg
Blackeye peas 440
Rice Germ 430
Soy Flour 425
Wheat Germ 305
Liver (beef) 295
Other good sources: dark green vegetables, millet, orange juice, sweet potatoes, rye

VITAMIN B12 Liver (lamb) 104 mcg
Clams 98
Liver (calf) 60
Liver (chicken) 25
Oysters 18
Sardines 17
Other good sources: crab, salmon, egg yolk, beef, kidney

BIOTIN Yeast (brewer’s) 200 mcg
Liver (lamb) 127
Soy flour 70
Soy beans 61
Rice Bran 60
Egg yolk 52
Other good sources: molasses, milk, kidney

CHOLINE Lecithin 2200 mg
Egg yolk 1490
Liver 550
Wheat Germ 406
Soy beans 340
Rice Germ 300
Other good sources: yeast, green leafy veg.

INOSITOL Lecithin 2200 mg
Wheat Germ 770
Navy beans 500
Rice Bran 460
Barley (cooked) 390
Rice Germ 370
Other good sources: brewer’s yeast, liver, dried lima beans, cantaloupes, peanuts

ASCORBIC ACID (VIT. C) Peppers (red chilli) 369 mg
Guavas 242
Peppers (red sweet)204
Kale leaves 186
Parsley 172
Broccoli 113
Other good sources: cantaloupe, cabbage, asparagus, strawberries, sweet potatoes

VITAMIN B17 (Above 500mg per 100 grams edible portion)
Wild blackberry Mung beans
Apple seeds Apricot seeds
Bamboo sprouts Macadamia nuts
Other good sources: in whole kernels of cherries, plums, nectarines and peaches

PARA-AMINOBENZOIC ACID (PABA) (best source)
Spinach Oats
Mushrooms Liver
Sunflower seeds Cabbage
Other good sources: molasses, brewer’s yeast, whole grains, wheat germ

PANGAMIC ACID (B15) (best source) Apricot kernels
Wheat Germ Liver
Pumpkin seeds Yeast
Sunflower seeds
Other good sources: brewer’s yeast, whole brown rice, sesame seeds

BIOFLAVONOIDS (best source)
Rose Hips Grapes
Orange Broccoli
Blackberry Tomato

CALCIUM Kelp 1093 mg
Swiss cheese 925
Cheddar cheese 750
Carob flour 352
Collard leaves 250
Turnip greens 246
Other good sources: broccoli, canned fish with bones, dried peas and beans, walnuts

MAGNESIUM Kelp 760
Wheat Bran 490
Wheat Germ 336
Almonds 270
Cashews 267
Blackstrap Molasses258
Other good sources: vegetables high in chlorophyll, soybeans, seafoods, figs, lemons

PHOSPHORUS Yeast (brewer’s) 1753 mg
Wheat Bran 1276
Pumpkin seeds 1144
Wheat Germ 1118
Sunflower seeds 837
Brazil nuts 693
Other good sources: meats, eggs, poultry, milk products

SODIUM Kelp 3007 mg
Green olives 2400
Dill Pickles 1428
Sauerkraut 747
Cheddar Cheese 700
Scallops 265
Other good sources: milk products, meats, eggs, poultry, fish, artichokes, celery

POTASSIUM Dulse 8060 mg
Kelp 5273
Sunflower seeds 920
Wheat Germ 827
Almonds 773
Raisins 763
Other good sources: bananas, orange juice, apricots, meats, milk, potatoes, celery

IRON Kelp 100.0 mg
Yeast (brewer’s) 17.3
Blackstrap molasses16.1
Wheat Bran 14.9
Pumpkin seeds 11.2
Wheat Germ 9.4
Other good sources: liver, organ meats, lean beef, prune juice, oysters, leafy greens

COPPER Oysters 13.7 mg
Brazil nuts 2.3
Lecithin 2.1
Almonds 1.4
Hazelnuts 1.3
Walnuts 1.3
Other good sources: Wholegrain breads and cereals, shellfish, eggs, poultry, prunes

COBALT (best source) Figs Lettuce
Buckwheat Cabbage
Spinach Watercress

MANGANESE Pecans 3.5 mg
Brazil nuts 2.8
Almonds 2.5
Barley 1.8
Rye 1.3
Buckwheat 1.3
Other good sources: liver, kidneys, spinach, tea, dried peas and beans, wholegrain

ZINC Fresh oysters 148.7 mg
Ginger root 6.8
Round steak 5.6
Lamb chops 5.3
Pecans 4.5
Brazil nuts 4.2
Other good sources: herring, egg yolks, milk pumpkin seeds, ground mustard

CHROMIUM Yeast (brewer’s) 112 mcg
Beef (round) 57
Calf’s Liver 56
Whole Wheat Bread42
Wheat Bran 38
Rye bread 30
Other good sources: meats, clams, corn oil

SELENIUM Butter 146 mcg
Smoked Herring 141
Wheat Germ 111
Brazil nuts 103
Apple Cider Vinegar 89 Scallops 77
Other good sources: liver, kidney, meats, seafood, onions, tomatoes

IODINE Kelp 150,000 mcg
Clams 90
Shrimp 65
Haddock 62
Oysters 50
Pineapple 16
Other good sources: iodised salt, onions

NICKEL Soybeans 700 mcg
Beans (dry) 500
Soyflour 410
Lentils 310
Split peas 250
Green peas 175

SILICON (best source) Unrefined grains and cereals
Root vegetables
Horsetail herb (Equisetum arvense)
Lettuce

SULPHUR (best source) Meat Poultry
Fish Eggs
Milk Legumes
Cabbage Onions
Garlic (High protein foods)

MOLYBDENUM Lentils 155 mcg
Beef Liver 135
Split peas 130
Cauliflower 120
Green Peas 110
Yeast (brewer’s) 109
Other good sources: meats, wholegrain breads and cereals, leafy green veg, legumes

VANADIUM Buckwheat 100 mcg
Parsley 80
Soybeans 70
Safflower oil 64
Eggs 42
Sunflower seed oil 41
Other good sources: fish

ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS [linoleic] (best source)
Vegetable oils-safflower, sunflower, linseed, wheat germ
Sunflower seeds Peanuts
Walnuts Pecans
Almonds Avocado
Evening Primrose oil Starflower oil (Borage)

LINOLENIC (best source) Linseeds (flaxseed) Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)
Salmon Mackerel
Herring Rainbow Trout
Whiting Cod

As can be noted from the above lists of vitamins and minerals, a number of foods appear again and again. These are often called “super foods”, as they are high in a wide range of important nutrients. As well as vitamins and minerals, there are thousands of chemicals in food. All plants contain a chemical army of natural pesticides (phytochemicals) to discourage predators. These can be quite toxic but Human beings appear to have become biologically adapted to most plant toxins so that we not only do not react against them, but also actually suffer if we are deprived of them. Moreover, many phytochemicals are being shown to have a protective role in our health. The cabbage family (Cruciferae) are rich in compounds called glucosinolates. This family includes cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, calabrese, kohlrabi, turnip, radish, swede, mustard greens and kale. One of these glucosinolates is called sinigrin and is found in high levels in Brussels sprouts. Sinigrin has been shown to suppress the development of pre-cancerous cells.

Another glucosinolate is called glucoraphanin and is found in high levels in broccoli. This breaks down into a chemical called sulforaphane. This chemical neutralises substances that cause cancer, or stops them from forming in the first place. It does this through activating the phase 11 enzymes in the detoxication process. Broccoli also contains phenethyl iso-thiocyanate. This chemical prevents certain enzymes from locking onto DNA and causing mutation in genes that cause cancer. Also in broccoli is another chemical called indole-3-carbinol. This helps oestrogen to break down into harmless by-products instead of remaining in a form (oestrone) that can cause breast and other reproductive cancers. It can also inhibit the development of liver cancer. Broccoli is probably the most important cancer preventing food.

Cabbage also contains indole-3-carbinol but in greater levels than broccoli. Cabbage also contains phethyl iso-thiocyanate. This inhibited chemically induced oesophagus cancer in rats. Cabbage also protected them against mammary tumours when exposed to a cocktail of chemical carcinogens. Brassinin, another phytochemical found in cabbage, protected against mammary and skin induced tumours in mice. Cabbage has also been found to be the single most important food in reducing stomach cancer risk.

Tomatoes are the richest source of the carotenoid lycopene which has shown to reduce the risk of prostate cancer. It reduces the harmful effects of radiation exposure and acts as an antioxidant. Tomatoes also contain p-coumaric acid and chlorogenic acid, which block potent cancer causing nitrosamine compounds which are contained in processed meats such as bacon and ham, and tobacco smoke. These phytochemicals are also found in many other fruits and vegetables.

Carrots contain many other carotenoids apart from beta-carotene. Postmenopausal women who eat carrots have less incidence of breast cancer. Carrots also protect smokers from lung cancer, probably due to another carotenoid called xanthophylls. Carrots also contain p-coumaric acid and chlorogenic acids.

Soybeans contain phyto-oestrogens called isoflavonoids and lignans. These are chemically very similar to oestrogen and will occupy the same receptor sites that would otherwise be occupied by the hormone, thus protecting the body from excess exposure. Another type of isoflavonoid in soybeans is called genistein. This directly inhibits the development of many types of cancer by inhibiting the formation of new blood vessels that tumours need to grow.

Parsley offers potent protection against carcinogens and is one of the best inducers of detoxication. Garlic, onions and leeks contain allylic sulphides which can detoxify carcinogens. Capsaican in chilli peppers provides the same effect. Green leafy vegetables contain lutein and zeaxanthin which help prevent macular degeneration. By eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables we can take advantage of their many phytochemicals, helping us to offset carcinogenic and mutating influences.

NB: Editor (SBW’s) note: I use this as an excellent general guide; the blood type guides Eat Right For Your Type, Live Right For Your Type, Cook Right For Your Type and The Complete Blood Type Encyclopedia, all by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo provide the most thorough approach to specific, individual health ever written. I urge you to view this information alongside his work for phenomenal good health and longevity. The author of the above, Stephen Langley, includes a comprehensive summary about Blood Types in the same source The Naturopathy Workbook. To obtain a copy of the latter, go to www.naturopathy-uk.com or email info@naturopathy-uk.com Please omit where you saw this article first and say a friend recommended the Workbook as I’m not sure how strict they are about me posting extracts! To read more about the blood type information, see www.dadamo.com

What your ears, tongue etc say about your health

2007-09-20T18:09:00.000+01:00

Below I continue the article by Stephen Langley from The Naturopathy Workbook. I just finished reading The Magus by John Fowles.

NATUROPATHY
CLINICAL DIAGNOSIS continued

EARS

*Crease across ear lobe: may be a relationship with a weakened heart.
*Itchy and excess wax: Candida albicans, lactose intolerance

TONGUE

· Normal / healthy tongue: pink with fine white coating (moss), slightly moist and is neither too big nor too small for the mouth.

· Inspection of the tongue: Each part of the tongue corresponds to the condition of an organ. To see the condition of the heart for example, one looks at the extreme tip of the tongue, whereas to gauge the state of the lung one looks near the tip.
The progress of illness is also shown on the tongue. As illness improves, the quality of the coating (fur or moss) and the colour become more normal. If the illness worsens, so will the tongue and coating. If the tongue is very red overall or in one area, this indicates the presence of fever or inflammation that is attacking the organ system. The heart, lungs and liver are most vulnerable to damage by heat, which shows up as red on the tip and edges of the tongue.

· Map of the tongue-parts of the tongue and their relationship to organs of the body: tip of tongue (heart and lung zone) relates to organs and functions above the diaphragm eg heart, oesophagus, lung etc (heart being right at tip of tongue).
Centre of tongue (spleen zone) relates to organs and functions between diaphragm and navel eg stomach, pancreas, spleen etc.
Back of tongue (kidney zone) relates to organs and functions below the navel eg. Bladder and kidneys, intestines, uterus, ovaries etc
Sides of tongue (liver zone) relates to organs and functions in lateral areas of the body, between navel and diaphragm eg. Liver and gallbladder, spleen

· Texture- Geographical tongue (mapped tongue): Deficiency of complex B vitamins.

· Colour

*Red: heat, excess condition
*Blue/purple: stagnation, congestion, and poor circulation
*Pale: coldness, deficiency or low vital force
*Bright red (scarlet): internal heat, infection, inflammation

· Shape

*Swollen (flabby): damp present
*Deviation: Paralysis of 12th cranial nerve (hypoglossal) can cause atrophy and deviation towards the paralysed side
*Thin (elongated): Deficient blood or fluids
*Reddened with prominent papillae: excess heat or congealed blood
*Hairy tongue (excess papillae): may follow antibiotic therapy
*Smooth, slick and sore: may be deficiency of riboflavin, niacin, B12, B6 or iron.
*Scalloped at sides (teeth marks): fatigue and loss of vital force digestion/assimilation problems (spleen qi deficiency).

· Coating (fur, moss)

The moss is related to digestion and thus can reflect the state of the digestion system. The ‘fur’ consists of bacteria, food particles and dead cells which accumulate when saliva flow is reduced.

*Slimy: phlegm present
*Yellow: heat, excess
*Thick: excess, spleen disharmony
*Sticky & moist: extreme dampness of stomach and spleen
*White: cold, deficiency
*Dark brown: some form of stagnation

· State

*Dry: heat, excess, not enough fluids
*Short, horizontal cracks: deficiency of vital force (qi)
*Shallow midline crack (not to tip): stomach deficiency
*Deep midline crack (to tip): heart condition
*Leaden: a sign of either extreme heat or extreme cold
*Enlargement of veins under tongue: may be vitamin C deficiency
*Dark veins under tongue: possible kidney problems

· Glossitis: occasionally this condition is a symptom of iron deficient Anaemia, or a lack of vitamin B12, B3, biotin or folate

GUMS

· Normal/healthy gums: the gums (gingivae) normally show a pale red stippled surface. Their margins about the teeth are sharp and the crevices between gums and teeth shallow (eg 1-2mm)
· Bleeding gums: vitamin C and/or zinc or coenzyme Q10 deficiency
· Gingivitis: usually result of irritation by calculus formation) diet too acidic
· Periodontal disease: (often from untreated Gingivitis) reflects high acidity and low bioflavonoid, zinc and coenzyme Q10 status

BODY ODOURS

· Sweet: Possible pre diabetic condition
· Fishy: cold and deficiency
· Rotten, putrefying: heat syndrome, damp
· Oily, fatty: congestion, stagnation

What your skin, hair, nails etc say about your health

2007-09-17T15:26:00.000+01:00

Below I am including more material from The Naturopathy Workbook by Stephen Langley. These are primarily diagnostic tools used by fully qualified Naturopaths. However, knowledge is power, so check yourself and use it as a guide with which to seek further medical tests if necessary. Right, off to choir soon.

NATUROPATHY

CLINICAL DIAGNOSIS:

SKIN

· Normal/ healthy skin: colour normal (netheir too pale or too red) and influenced by ethnic background. Skin turgor (elasticity) in relationship to age and neither clammy or dry.

· Skin colour & pigmentation

*Pallor: cold, deficiency, and lack of vital force
*Abnormal redness: infection or inflammation
*Flushing: heat has entered the blood
*Cyanosis: extreme cold deficiency, stagnation of blood
*Jaundice: liver/gallbladder dysfunction
*Yellow palms & soles: possible hypothyroid, carotenosis

· Skin condition

*Oily: (caused by overactive sebaceous glands) Liver detox/diet and removal of oral contraceptive pill and steroids
*Excessively dry/flaky: deficiency of blood or body fluids, essential fatty acids, possible hypothyroid
*Sweaty/clammy palms: adrenal glands
*Cracked: lack of vitamins A and C, zinc and essential fatty acids
*Thin skin: can occur from long-term steroid use. Bioflavonoids are indicated, especially rutin.
*Hard skin: lack of essential fatty acids
*Elephant skin: ruled by lung qi, seen in long-term smokers
*Moist: Lung disharmony
*Swollen: skin that pits when pressed is a sign of oedema and excess fluids
*Withered: a sign that the fluids are injured
*Stretch marks: loss of elasticity in skin. Vitamin E cream, bioflavonoids and cell salt program during pregnancy (especially calc.fluor)
*Cellulitis: toxic buildup in cells. Clean out lymphatic system with skin brushing, exercise, herbs, lymphatic drainage etc.

HAIR

· Normal hair colour and texture: strong, thick and lustrous. The Kidney controls the stregth and thickness and lung controls sheen.
· Dry hair: excess, heat or stress, possible hypothyroid
· Oily hair: overacidity, reduce refined carbohydrates (sugar, soft drinks etc)
· Excessive hair loss and Alopecia: may be a lack of B vitamins, especially biotin, inositol, zinc, iron and especially lack of protein
· Dry/itchy scalp: lack of essential fatty acids
· Dandruff: controlled by spleen (pancreas) in TCM [Traditional Chinese Medicine] too many refined carbohydrates in the diet
· Greying: lack of B5, PABA, zinc, copper, extreme stress

NAILS

· Normal/healthy nails: pink nail beds and strong, smooth nails
· Nails and systemic diseases

*Splinter haemorrhages (longitudinal dark specks that look like splinters): suggests possible Bacterial endocarditis
*Terry’s nails (proximal ½ of nail is white and distal ½ is normal colour): suggests chronic Liver disease
*Pale: Anaemia (When hands are stretched out, nails should go white when tensed and return to pink when relaxed. If they remain white suggests Anaemia)
*Brown nail beds: Chronic Liver disease

· Nail matrix abnormalities
No ½ moons: lung or colon problem

· Nail and nail-bed abnormalities

*White marks (spots): zinc or vitamin A deficiency
*Ridges and splitting: silica deficiency
*Thick nails: fungal infections
*White nails: liver problems
*Spoon-shaped nails (concave & brittle): severe Iron or zinc deficiency
*Curved nails: usually a variant from normal nails and are not significant (not to be confused with clubbed nails, where the angle between nail and nail base is greatly increased)
*Soft nails: calcium deficiency
*Soft, crumbly and white: fungal infections
*Split nails: mineral deficiencies, especially calcium, magnesium and boron
*Clubbed nails (growing around swollen ends of fingers): respiratory or heart problems among other conditions.
*Pitting: psoriasis (in absence of trauma)
*Ridging (vertical): old age, poor absorption of vitamins A, B & C, calcium, zinc, magnesium and essential fatty acids.
*Ridging (horizontal): injury or infection
*Brittle: deficiency of silica, zinc, Iron, calcium or B12 (Hypothyroid)
*Beau’s lines: transverse depressions in the nails associated with acute, severe illness, usually appearing some weeks later.

FACE

· Correlation between face and body organs

*Weak lungs: will show up as shadows of different colours on the cheeks
*Corrugated cardboard lines across the forehead: indicate toxicity in the Large intestine. The deeper they are, the longer the toxicity has been present. Also can be related to digestion and therefore spleen.
*Small intestine: one deep line on the forehead
*Kidney and adrenal exhaustion: will show up as blue/black shadows under the eyes and ‘bags’ indicating fluid retention.
*Bladder: represented by a dry, red forehead
*Stomach deficiency: will show up as a vertical line between the eyebrows.
*Liver problems (often seen in alcoholics): present as two vertical lines between the eyebrows (either side of stomach line), often a lot of suppressed anger.
*Gall bladder: indicated in receding hairline.
*‘Purse strings’ on upper lip: often seen in women after menopause, and point to a weakness in the reproductive organs-ovaries.
*Cheeks: yellow/grey = constipation, green = liver problem
*Cracks around mouth: possible iron deficiency
*Butterfly rash around mouth: possible iron deficiency
*Butterfly rash around nose: possible B3 deficiency, rosacea

EYES

*Normal/healthy: Clear and bright indicating healthy liver and heart
*Yellow/jaundiced: liver or gallbladder stagnation
*Bloodshot: inability to sleep properly, liver disharmony
*Swollen: liver problem
*Dry: common allergy problem, especially to gluten
*Red: liver problem (excess heat in liver)
*Proptosis of eyes: (bulging of eye ball): possible thyroid problem
*Cataracts (clouding of lens): lack of bioflavonoids and vitamin E
*Bags under the eyes: kidney or adrenal insufficiency
*Floaters/spots: blood deficiency-liver detox
*Dark circles under eyes: possible B3 deficiency
*Itchy or watery: Candida albicans

Day: ??? Lost count!

2007-09-10T18:49:00.000+01:00

Okay, back from a good and needed break. So busy with many things that this is really just a quick note to my dear friends and blog-watchers to say I'm back and will spend time on an occasional basis over the next weeks blooging here. I am still reading The Magus by John Fowles which is partly set in Greece and is a particularly apt read over the summer. Still a lot of work to do and a need to press on with it. Choir now, though my friend is away. Then I have a friend visiting from overseas.

Day 116- Day 118: Holiday

2007-08-23T14:23:00.000+01:00

Okay, today I'm on a break from blogging to sample some Turkish delight! I will be back to this post in two weeks. Recently, I saw my brother, his wife and their twin girls again, which was lovely. They are about six weeks old now: so cute! See you in two weeks.

Day 115: The BBC Big Read List of books

2007-08-19T14:46:00.000+01:00

This is the book list I am reading. The Lord of the Rings was voted the UK's favourite book. I have read the Top 30 books and sometimes dip into the ones nearer the end. I only just discovered that beyond the Top 100 I knew about, there are another 100 listed. A never-ending task, reading this lot, but one that is deeply rewarding.

The BBC Big Read Top 200

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

Day 111 - Day 114: Progress

2007-08-17T15:14:00.000+01:00

I am making some progress with my plans and recently met someone from the BBC who has agreed to read my book as endorsements from well-known people are what I am trying to obtain lately. I also may be able to track down a very great and popular author and approach him for a possible endorsement of my book. Meanwhile, I think I will stay in London to deal with my mail and editing my book. I finished Roald Dahl's Matilda and have now begun The Magus by John Fowles (out of sequence from my reading list, The BBC Big Read). Follow this link to view the complete list of the UK's favourite books: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml

I met up with an old school friend I met on Facebook the other night and it was interesting to reminisce, the evening being enjoyable. It was here, in Soho, that I met the man from the BBC and his partner, both of whom were charming. By the time I got home, I was the worse for wear, but took it easy yesterday. Before I met up with my old friend, I had gone to the cinema to see Pan's Labyrinth and I found it touching and rewarding. Being so busy with my book, I have had no time to keep watching films, so it was great to take that time out to do that. I am planning to write a screenplay, so watching films is part of developing my abilities but my focus is fully on Off The Rails at the moment.

Day 109 & 110: Restless

2007-08-13T17:05:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit restless but am still in London. I hate booking holidays because it is all so boring and time-consuming but I have been looking a bit even though really I think I may have to stay in the UK and push on with things. If I go I will probably return to Crete (even though English yobs are again disgracing themselves in Europe; this time in Crete: obviously, I won't be going where they are!). Due to my holiday restlessness, I will blog occasionally for the next few weeks.

Day 101-108: Back from sunny Sussex!

2007-08-11T15:56:00.000+01:00

Long time no blog! I’m back after a stay in Sussex where I did a little editing but mainly relaxed. Mum and I went to Wakehurst Place – a park with many trees, flowers and lakes, which was lovely. I also met old friends and one of my best friends from my childhood whose children have grown a lot since I last saw them.

I’m getting itchy feet about being back in London; perhaps I will go for a break somewhere. I finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude and have begun Matilda by Roald Dahl (out of sequence in my reading list but I have mislaid my library card). I have also been dipping into Eats, Shoots and Leaves – The Zero Tolerance Guide to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. The back cover of the latter says:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

“Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

“I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “Look it up.”

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

So, punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

This is the zero tolerance guide.

Day 100: Jokes

2007-08-03T16:32:00.000+01:00

Okay, after all the transcribing of the Kardec material, some jokes. After this, I'm off to spend the weekend with my mum.

Positive-Negative
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day.
“In English,” he said, “a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”

A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”

‘Second Funniest Joke in the World’
“Doctor, I can’t pronounce my F’s, T’s and H’s.”
“Well, you can’t say fairer than that then.”

Telemarketing Tips
* Say “No”, over and over. Be sure to vary the sound of each one, and keep a rhythmic tempo, even as they are trying to speak. This is most fun if you can do it until they hang up.
*Answer the phone. As soon as you realize it is a telemarketer, set the receiver down, shout or scream “Oh my God!!!” and then hang up.

Cruising Altitude
The Rev. Ian Paisley was seated next to President Clinton on a recent flight to Ireland. Once the plane was airborne, the flight attendant came around for drink orders. The President asked for a whiskey and soda which was brought and placed before him.
The attendant then asked the minister if he would also like a drink. The Rev. Paisley replied in disgust, “Madam, I’d rather be savagely raped by a brazen whore than let liquor touch these lips.”
The President handed his drink back to the attendant and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know there was a choice…”

Day 99: The Genotype Diet; Paulo Coelho & Re-posted Allan Kardec extracts

2007-08-02T17:05:00.000+01:00

Today's extract is from Paulo Coelho's The Manual of the Warrior of Light. After this, I am re-posting the extracts from The Spirits' Book and The Gospel According To Spiritism, both by Allan Kardec, so that they can be translated by those who don't have English as a first language (the translation tools can't translate scanned text images).

"The warrior of light is a believer.

Because he believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen. Because he is sure that his thoughts can change his life, his life begins to change. Because he is certain that he will find love, that love appears.

Now and then, he is disappointed. Sometimes, he gets hurt.

Then he hears people say: ‘He’s so ingenuous!’

But the warrior knows that it is worth it. For every defeat, he has two victories in his favour.

All believers know this."

Also, here is advance news about Dr Peter J. D'Adamo's exciting new book due out in December, entitled The Genotype Diet taken from an expert blog on the blood type website http://dadamo.com

WEBlog: Dr. Tom Greenfield

Beyond blood type: The GenoType™ Diet Revealed

The IfHI Conference 2007 - The Buttes, Phoenix, AZ.
What a great conference: lots of speakers with new information on
genetics and individuality, all giving the background information
for the new concept revealed by Dr. D'Adamo.

The Book The GenoType™ Diet is to be on sale from December 26th,
2007. The concept takes us beyond blood types, to a new
categorisation of 6 distinct genotypes:

The Hunter
The Gatherer
The Teacher
The Explorer
The Warrior
The Nomad

Although these genotypes include blood group and secretor status
information, they do not all exclusively relate to one single blood
type: individuals fitting into certain genotypes may have one of
several possible blood types. The new additions to the genotypes
over and above the genetic information associated with blood types
includes many easily accessible measurements:

Dermatoglyphic (fingerprint) patterns
D2-D4 ratio (second and fourth finger length)
Tooth shape
Upper to lower leg ratio
Body shape
Head shape

These are associated with 'epigenetic' factors that do not change
the actual genes of the individual, but influence how they are
expressed, like a volume control that can be moved up or down to
vary the amount that a certain gene interacts with the environment.

Other influencing factors on a person's genotype include both
ancestral DNA haplogroups and ayurvedic doshas. It looks like the
result will be the fusion of ancient wisdom, anthropometric
techniques from the last century, and modern cutting edge genetic
science - with a strong influence from the blood type information
that is associated with diet and health.

Each genotype has different disease risks and health benefits, and
the book will outline the best preventitive (sic) strategies for each
type. It promises to be a new generation of naturopathic medicine."

THE SPIRITS' BOOK by ALLAN KARDEC

CHAPTER VIII

EMANCIPATION OF THE SOUL

1. SLEEP AND DREAMS - 2. VISITS BETWEEN THE SPIRITS OF LIVING PERSONS 3. TRANSMISSION OF THOUGHT - 4. LETHARGY, CATALEPSY: APPARENT DEATH - 5. SOMNAMBULISM - 6. TRANCE - 7. SECOND SIGHT - 8.THEORY OF SOMNAMBULISM, TRANCE, AND SECOND-SIGHT.

Sleep and Dreams

400. Does the incarnated spirit reside willingly in his corporeal envelope?
"You might as well ask whether a prisoner willingly remains locked up in prison. The incarnated spirit aspires incessantly after his deliverance; and the grosser his envelope, the more desirous is he to be rid of it."

401. Does the soul take rest, like the body, during sleep?
"No; a spirit is never inactive. The bonds which unite him to the body are relaxed during sleep; and as the body does not then need his presence, he travels through space, and enters into more direct relation with other spirits."

402. How can we ascertain the fact of a spirit's liberty during sleep?
"By dreams. Be very sure that, when his body is asleep, a spirit enjoys the use of faculties of which he is unconscious while his body is awake. He remembers the past, and sometimes foresees the future: he acquires more power, and is able to enter into communication with other spirits, either in this world or in some other.

"You often say, 'I have had a strange dream, a frightful dream, without any likeness to reality'. You are mistaken in thinking it to be so; for it is often a reminiscence of places and things which you have seen in the past, or a foresight of those which you will see in another existence, or in this one at some future time. The body being torpid, the spirit tries to break his chain, and seeks, in the past or in the future, for the means of doing so.

"Poor human beings! how little do you know of the commonest phenomena of your life! You fancy yourselves to be very learned, and you are puzzled by the most ordinary things. To questions that any child might ask, `What do we do when we are asleep?' 'What are dreams?' you are incapable of replying.

"Sleep effects a partial freeing of the soul from the body. When you sleep, your spirit is, for the time being, in the state in which you will be after your death. The spirits who at death are promptly freed from matter are those who, during their life, have had what may be called intelligent sleep. Such persons, when they sleep, regain the society of other spirits superior to themselves. They go about with them, conversing with them, and gaining instruction from them; they even work, in the spirit-world, at undertakings which, on dying, they find already begun or completed. From this you see how little death should be dreaded, since, according to the saying of St. Paul, you 'die daily.'

"What we have just stated refers to spirits of an elevated degree of advancement. As for those of the common mass of men, who, after their death, remain for long hours in the state of confusion and uncertainty of which you have been told by such, they go, during sleep, into worlds of lower rank than the earth, to which they are drawn back by old affections, or by the attraction of pleasures still baser than those to which they are addicted in your world; visits in which they gather ideas still viler, more ignoble, and more mischievous than those which they had professed during their waking hours. And that which engenders sympathy in the earthly life is nothing else than the fact that you feel yourselves, on waking, affectionately attracted towards those with whom you have passed eight or nine hours of happiness or pleasure. On the other hand, the explanation of the invincible antipathies you sometimes feel for certain persons is also to be found in the intuitive knowledge you have thus acquired of the fact that those persons have another conscience than yours, because you know them without having previously seen them with your bodily eyes. It is this same fact, moreover, that explains the indifference of some people for others; they do not care to make new friends, because they know that they have others by whom they are loved and cherished. In a word, sleep has more influence than you think upon your life.

"Through the effects of sleep, incarnated spirits are always in connection with the spirit-world; and it is in consideration of this fact that spirits of a higher order consent, without much repugnance, to incarnate themselves among you. God has willed that, during their contact with vice, they may go forth and fortify themselves afresh at the source of rectitude, in order that they, who have come into your world to instruct others, may not fall into evil themselves. Sleep is the gate opened for them by God, that they may pass through it to their friends in the spirit-world; it is their recreation after labour, while awaiting the great deliverance, the final liberation, that will restore them to their true place.

"Dreams are the remembrance of what your spirit has seen during sleep; but you must remark that you do not always dream, because you do not always remember what you have seen, or all that you have seen. Your dreams do not always reflect the action of your soul in its full development; for they are often only the reflex of the confusion that accompanies your departure or your return, mingled with the vague remembrance of what you have done, or of what has occupied your thoughts, in your waking state. In what other way can you explain the absurd dreams which are dreamed by the wisest as by the silliest of mankind? Bad spirits, also, make use of dreams to torment weak and timid souls.

"You will see, ere long, the development of another kind of dream, a kind which is as ancient as the one you know, but one of which you are ignorant. The dream we allude to is that of Jeanne Darc (Joan of Arc), of Jacob, of the Jewish prophets, and of certain Hindoo ascetics - a dream which is the remembrance of the soul's experiences while entirely freed from the body, the remembrance of the second life, of which I spoke just now.

"You should carefully endeavour, to distinguish these two kinds of dreams among those which you are able to recall: unless you do this, you will be in danger of falling into contradictions and errors that would be prejudicial to your belief."

Dreams are a product of the emancipation of the soul, rendered more active by the suspension of the active life of relation, and enjoying a sort of indefinite clairvoyance which extends to places at a great distance from us, or that we have never seen, or even to other worlds. To this state of emancipation is also due the remembrance which retraces to our memory the events that have occurred in our present existence or in preceding existences; the strangeness of the images of what has taken place in worlds unknown to us, mixed up with the things of the present world, producing the confused and whimsical medleys that seem to be equally devoid of connection and of meaning.

The incoherence of dreams is still farther explained by the gaps resulting from the incompleteness of our remembrance of what has appeared to us in our nightly visions - an incompleteness similar to that of a narrative from which whole sentences, or parts of sentences, have been omitted by chance, and whose remaining fragments, having been thrown together again at random, have lost all intelligent meaning.

403. Why do we not always remember our dreams?
"What you call sleep is only the repose of the body, for the spirit is always in motion. During sleep he recovers a portion of his liberty, and enters into communication with those who are dear to him, either in this world, or in other worlds; but as the matter of the body is heavy and gross, it is difficult for him to retain, on waking, the impressions he has received during sleep, because those impressions were not received by him through the bodily organs."

404. What is to be thought of the signification attributed to dreams?
"Dreams are not really indications in the sense attributed to them by fortune-tellers; for it is absurd to believe that a certain kind of dream announces the happening of a certain kind of event. But they are indications in this sense - viz., that they present images which are real for the spirit, though they may have nothing to do with what takes place in his present corporeal life. Dreams are also, in many cases, as we have said, a remembrance; they may also be sometimes a presentiment of the future, if permitted by God, or the sight of something which is taking place at the time in some other place to which the soul has transported Itself. Have you not many instances proving that persons may appear to their relatives and friends in dreams, and give them notice of what is happening to them? What are apparitions, if not the soul or spirit of persons who come to communicate with you? When you acquire the certainty that what you saw has really taken place, is it not a proof that it was no freak of your imagination, especially if what you saw were something which you had not thought of when you were awake?"

405. We often see in dreams things which appear to be presentiments, but which do not come to pass, - how is this?
"Those things may take place in the experience of the spirit, though not in that of the body; that is to say, that the spirit sees what he wishes to see because he goes to find it. You must not forget that, during sleep, the spirit is always more or less under the influence of matter; that, consequently, he is never completely free from terrestrial ideas, and that the objects of his waking thoughts may therefore give to his dreams the appearance of what he desires or of what he fears, thus producing what may be properly termed an effect of the imagination. When the mind is much busied with any idea, it is apt to connect everything it sees with that idea."

406. When, in a dream, we see persons who are well known to us doing things which they are not in any way thinking of, is it not a mere effect of the imagination?
"Of which they are not thinking? How do you know that it is so? Their spirit may come to visit ours, as yours may go to visit theirs; and you do not always know, in your waking state, what they may be thinking of. And besides, you often, in your dreams, apply to persons whom you know, and according to your own desires, reminiscences of what took place, or is taking place, in other existences."

407. Is it necessary to the emancipation of the soul that the sleep of the body should be complete?
"No; the spirit recovers his liberty as soon as the senses become torpid. He takes advantage, in order to emancipate himself, of every moment of respite left him by the body. As soon as there occurs any prostration of the vital forces, the spirit disengages himself from the body, and the feebler the body, the freer is the spirit."

It is for this reason that dozing, or a mere dulling of the senses, often presents the same images as dreaming.

408. We sometimes seem to hear within ourselves words distinctly pronounced, but having no connection with what we are thinking of,-what is the cause o f this?
"Yes, you often hear words, and even whole sentences, especially when your senses begin to grow torpid. It is sometimes the faint echo of the utterance of a spirit who wishes to communicate with you."

409. Often, when only half-asleep, and with our eyes closed, we see distinct images, figures of which we perceive the minutest details, - is this an effect of vision or of imagination?
"The body being torpid, the spirit tries to break his chain. He goes away and sees; if the sleep were deeper, the vision would be a dream."

410. We sometimes, when asleep, or half-asleep, have ideas which seem to us to be excellent, but which, despite all the efforts we make to recall them, are effaced from our memory on waking, - whence come these ideas?
"They are the result of the freedom of the spirit, who emancipates himself from the body, and enjoys the use of other faculties during this moment of liberty; and they are often counsels given you by other spirits."

- What is the use of such ideas and counsels, since we lose the remembrance of them, and cannot profit by them?
"Those ideas often belong rather to the world of spirits than to the corporeal world; but, in general, though the body may forget them, the spirit remembers them, and the idea recurs to him at the proper time, in his waking state, as though it were an inspiration of the moment."

411. Does the incarnated spirit, when he is freed from matter and acting as a spirit, know the epoch of his death?
"He often has the presentiment of it. He sometimes has a very clear foreknowledge of it; and it is this which gives him the intuition of it in his waking state. It is this, also, which enables some persons to foresee the time of their death with perfect exactness."

412. Can the activity of the spirit, during the repose or the sleep of the body, cause fatigue to the latter?
"Yes, for the spirit is attached to the body, as the captive-balloon is fastened to the post; and, just as the post is shaken by the movements of the balloon, so the activity of the spirit reacts upon the body, and may cause it to feel fatigued."

Visits Between the Spirits of Living Persons

413. The emancipation of the soul during sleep would seem to indicate that we live simultaneously two lives; the life of the body, which is that of exterior relation, and the life of the soul, which it that of occult relation, - is this so?
"During the emancipation of the soul, the life of the latter takes precedence of the life of the body; this, however, does not, strictly speaking, constitute two lives, but rather two phases of one and the same life, for a man: does not live a double life."

414. Can two persons, who are acquainted with each other, visit one another in sleep?
"Yes; and many others, who, in their waking state, do not know that they are acquainted, meet and converse together. You may, without suspecting it, have friends in another country. The fact of going, during sleep, to visit friends, relatives, acquaintances, persons who can be of use to you, is extremely frequent; and you yourselves accomplish these visits almost every night."

415. What can be the use of these nocturnal meetings, since we do not remember them?
"The intuition of them generally remains with you in your waking state, and is often the origin of ideas which afterwards occur to you, as it were, spontaneously, without your being able to account for them, but which are really those you had obtained in the spirit-intercourse carried on by you during your sleep."

416. Can a man ensure the making of spirit-visits by the exertion of his will? Can he do so, for example, by saying to himself, on going to sleep, "I will to-night meet such and such a person in spirit, and speak with him about such and such a thing"?
"This is what takes place. The man falls asleep, and his spirit wakens to the other life; but his spirit is often very far from following out the plan which had been resolved upon by the man, for the life of the man excites but little interest in a spirit when he is emancipated from matter. This statement, however, only applies to men who have already reached a. certain degree of elevation. The others pass their spirit-existence very differently. They give free rein to their passions, or remain inactive. It may happen, therefore, according to the aim of the proposed action, that a spirit may go to see the parties he had, as a man, proposed to visit; but it does not follow that, because he has willed to do so in his waking state, he will necessarily do so in his state of freedom."

417. Can a number of incarnate spirits, during sleep, meet together, and form assemblies?
"Undoubtedly they can. The ties of friendship, old or new, often bring together spirits who are happy to be in each other's company."

By the term old must be understood the ties of friendship contracted in anterior existences. We bring back with us, on waking, an intuition of the ideas which we have derived from these occult meetings, but of the source of which we are ignorant.

418. If a person believed one of his friends to be dead who is not dead, could he meet him as a spirit, and thus learn that he is living? Could he, in such a case, preserve the intuition of this fact on waking?
"He could, certainly, as a spirit, see his friend, and know what is his situation; and if the belief in the death of that friend had not been imposed on him as an expiation, he might retain an impression of his existence, as, in the contrary case, he might retain that of his death:"

Occult Transmission of Thought

419. Whence comes it that the same idea - that of a discovery, for instance - so often suggests itself at the same time to several persons, although they may be at a distance from one another?
"We have already said that, during sleep, spirits communicate with one another; well, when his body awakes, a spirit remembers what he has learned, and the man thinks he has invented it. Thus several persons may find out the same thing at the same time. When you say that an idea is 'in the air,' you employ a figure of speech that is much nearer the truth than you suppose. Every one helps unconsciously to propagate it."

In this way our spirit often reveals to other spirits, without our being aware of it, that which formed the object of our meditations before we went to sleep.

420. Can spirits communicate between themselves when the body is awake?
"A spirit is not enclosed in his body as in a box, but radiates around it in every direction. He can, therefore, hold communication with other spirits even in the waking state, although he does so with more difficulty."

421. How does it happen that two persons, perfectly awake, often have the same thought at the same moment?
"It is because two spirits, who are in sympathy, may communicate their thought to each other even when the body is not asleep."

There is, between spirits, a communication of thoughts which sometimes enables two persons to see and understand one another without having any need of human speech. They may be said to speak the language of spirits.

Lethargy, Catalepsy, Apparent Death

422. In lethargy and catalepsy, the patients generally see and hear what takes place around them, but are unable to manifest their impressions. Is it through the eyes and ears of the body that these impressions are received?
"No; they are received by the spirit. The spirit is conscious but cannot express himself."

- Why can he not express himself?
"The state of his body prevents his doing so; and this state of his bodily organs proves that man consists of something more than a body, since the body no longer works, and yet the spirit acts."

423. Can a spirit, in a state of lethargy, separate from his body, so as to give to the latter all the outward appearances of death, and afterwards come back and inhabit it?
"In lethargy, the body is not dead, for it still accomplishes some of its functions. Its vitality is latent, as in the chrysalis, but is not annihilated; and a spirit is united to his body as long as it remains alive. When once the links which keep them together are broken by the death and disaggregation of the bodily organs, the separation is complete, and the spirit never again comes back to his body. When one who is apparently dead comes to life again, it is because the process of death was not entirely consummated."

424. Is it possible, by means of timely help, to renew the ties which were ready to break, and to give back life to a person who, but for this help, would have definitively ceased to live?
"Yes, undoubtedly; and you have proofs of this every day. Mesmerism often exercises, in such cases, a powerful restorative action, because it gives to the body the vital fluid which it lacks, and which is necessary to keep up the play of the organs."

Lethargy and catalepsy proceed from the same cause, viz., the temporary loss of sensibility and power of motion, from some as yet unexplained physiological condition. They differ in this respect, viz., that, in lethargy, the suppression of the vital force is general, and gives to the body all the appearances of death, whereas, in catalepsy, that suppression is localised, and may affect a more or less extensive portion of the body, while leaving the intelligence free to manifest itself; a fact which does not allow it to be confounded with death. Lethargy is always natural; catalepsy is sometimes spontaneous, but it may be produced and dissipated artificially by mesmeric action.

Somnambulism

425. Is there any connection between natural somnambulism and dreaming?
"In somnambulism the independence of the soul is more complete, and its functions are more developed, than in dreaming, and it has perceptions that it has not in dreaming, which is an imperfect somnambulism.

"In somnambulism, the spirit is entirely freed from the action of matter; the material organs, being in a sort of catalepsy, are no longer receptive of external impressions.

"This state most frequently occurs during sleep, because the spirit is then able to absent itself from the body which is given up to the repose that is indispensable to matter. When somnambulism occurs, it is because the spirit of the sleeper, intent upon doing something or other that requires the aid of his body, makes use of it in a manner analogous to that in which spirits make use of a table, or other material object, in producing the phenomena of physical manifestations, or of a human hand, in giving written communications. In the dreams of which a man is conscious, his organs, including those of memory, are beginning to awaken; and, as they only receive and transmit to the spirit imperfectly the impressions made on them by exterior objects or action, the spirit, who is then in a state of repose, only perceives these impressions through confused and often disconnected sensations, which, in many cases, are still further confused by being mingled with vague remembrances of his present life and anterior existences. It is easy, therefore, to understand why somnambulists do not remember their visions, and why the greater number of the dreams you remember have no rational meaning. I say the greater number, for it sometimes happens that dreams are the consequence of a precise remembrance of events that have occurred in one of your former lives, or even a sort of intuition of the future."

426. Is there any connection between what is called mesmeric somnambulism and natural somnambulism?
"They are the same thing; the only difference between them being that one of them is artificially produced."

427. What is the nature of the agent called the magnetic or mesmeric fluid?
"It is the vital fluid, animalised electricity; a modification of the universal fluid."

428. What is the nature of somnambulic clairvoyance?
"We have told you that it is soul-sight."

429. How can the somnambulist see through opaque bodies?
"It is only to your gross organs that bodies are opaque. Have we not told you that matter is not an obstacle for a spirit, since he passes freely through it? A somnambulist often tells you that he sees through his forehead, his knee, etc., because you, being plunged in matter, do not understand that he can see without the help of organs. He himself, influenced by your ideas, believes that he needs those organs; but, if you left him to himself, he would understand that he sees through every part of his body, or rather, that he sees independently of his body."

430. Since the clairvoyance of the somnambulist is that of hit soul or of his spirit, why does he not see everything, and why does he so often make mistakes?
"In the first place, spirits of low degree do not see and comprehend everything, for, as you know, they still share your errors and your prejudices; and, in the next place, as long as they remain more or less attached to matter, they have not the use of all their spirit-faculties. God has given the faculty of clairvoyance to man for a serious and useful purpose, and not to inform him of what it is not permitted to him to know; and this is why somnambulists do not know everything."

431 What is the source of the somnambulist's innate ideas, and how can he speak correctly of things of which he is ignorant in his waking state, and which are even above his intellectual capacity?
"A somnambulist may possess more knowledge than you give him credit for; but this knowledge is latent in his waking state, because his envelope is too imperfect for him to be able to remember all he knows as a spirit. But, in point of fact, what is he? Like all of us, he is a spirit who has been incarnated in matter for the accomplishment of his mission, and his going into the somnambulic state rouses him from the lethargy of incarnation. We have repeatedly told you that we re-live many times. It is this changing of our existences that causes him to lose sight, in a new connection with matter, of what he may have know in a preceding one. On entering into the state which you call a crisis, he recalls what he has formerly known, but not always with completeness. He knows, but he cannot tell whence he derives his knowledge, nor in what way he possesses it. The crisis over, his reminiscences fade from his consciousness, and he re-enters the obscurity of corporeal life."

Experience shows us that somnambulists also receive communications from other spirits, who tell them what they are to say, and supply what is lacking on their part. This supplementing of their Insufficiency is often and especially witnessed in medical consultations; the spirit of the clairvoyant seeing the malady, and another spirit indicating the remedy required. This double action is often patent to bystanders, and is also frequently revealed by such expressions on the part of the somnambulist as, "I am told to say," or, "I am forbidden to say," etc. In the latter case, it is always dangerous to persist in the effort to obtain a revelation refused by the clairvoyant, because, by doing so, we open the door to frivolous and unscrupulous spirits, who prate about everything without any regard to veracity.

132. How do you explain the power of seeing at a distance possessed by some somnambulists?
"Does not the soul transport itself to a distance during sleep? It does the same thing in somnambulism."

433. Does the greater or less degree of somnambulic clairvoyance depend on the physical organisation of the body, or on the nature of the spirit incarnated in it?
"On both; but there are physical qualities that allow the spirit to liberate himself more or less easily from matter."

434. Are the faculties enjoyed by the somnambulist the same as those possessed by the spirit after death?
"They are the same, but only up to a certain point; for you have to take into account the influence of the matter to which he is still attached."

435. Can somnambulists see other spirits?
"That depends on the nature and degree of their faculties. The greater number of them see other spirits perfectly well, but they do not always recognise them at once as being such, and thus mistake them for corporeal beings; a mistake that is often made by somnambulists, and especially by those among them who know nothing of Spiritism. Not understanding anything of the essence of spirits, they are astonished at seeing them in human form, and suppose them to be living persons."

The same effect is produced at the moment of death in the consciousness of those who suppose themselves to be still living. Nothing about them appears to them to be changed. The spirits around them seem to have bodies like ours, and they take the appearance of their own body to be that of a real body of flesh.

436. When a somnambulist sees objects at a distance, does he see them with his body or with his soul?
"Why should you ask such a question, since it is the soul that sees, and not the body?"

437. Since it is the soul that transports itself to a distance, how is it that the somnambulist feels in his body the sensation of the heat or the cold of the place where his soul is, and which is sometimes very far from the place where his body is?

"His soul has not entirely quitted his body, to which it is still attached by the link which unites them together; it is this link that is the conductor of sensation. When two persons in two different cities correspond with each other by electricity, it is the electricity that constitutes the link between their thoughts, and enables them to communicate with one another as though they were close together."

438. Is the state of the somnambulist influenced after death by the use he has made of his faculty?
"Very considerably; as is done by the good or bad use of all the faculties that God has given to man."

Trance

439. What difference is there between trance and somnambulism?
"Trance is a more refined somnambulism. The soul, when in trance, is still more independent."

440. Does the soul of the ecstatic really enter into higher worlds?
"Yes; he sees them, and perceives the happiness of those who are in them; but there are worlds that are inaccessible to spirits who are not sufficiently purified."

441. When a person in trance expresses the desire to quit the earth, does he speak sincerely, and is he not retained by the instinct of self-preservation?
"That depends on the degree of the spirit's purification. If he sees that his future situation will be better than his present one, he makes an effort to break the links that bind him to the earth."

442. If the ecstatic were left to himself, might his soul definitively quit his body?
"Yes, he might die; and it is therefore necessary to call him back by everything that may attach him to the lower life, and especially by making him see that, if he breaks the chain which keeps him here, he will have taken the most effectual means of preventing his staying in the world in which he perceives that he would be happy."

443. The ecstatic sometimes professes to see things which are evidently the product of an imagination impressed with earthly beliefs and prejudices. What he sees, therefore, is not always real?
"What he sees is real for him; but, as his spirit is always under the influence of terrestrial ideas, he may see it in his own way, or, to speak more correctly, he may express it in a language accommodated, to his prejudices, or to the ideas in which he has been brought up, or to your own, in order the better to make himself understood. It is in this way that he is most apt to err."

444. What degree of confidence should be accorded to the revelations of persons in a state of trance?
"The ecstatic may very frequently be mistaken, especially when he seeks to penetrate what must remain a mystery for man; for he then abandons himself to his own ideas, or becomes the sport of deceiving spirits, who take advantage of his enthusiasm to dazzle him with false appearances."

445. What inductions are to be drawn from the phenomena of somnambulism and of trance? May they not be considered as a sort of initiation into the future life?
"It would be more correct to say that, in those states, the somnambulist may obtain glimpses of his past and future lives. Let man study those phenomena; he will find in them the solution of more than one mystery which his unassisted reason seeks in
vain to penetrate."

446. Could the phenomena of somnambulism and trance be made to accord with theoretic materialism?
"He who should study them honestly, and without preconceived ideas, could not be either a materialist or an atheist."

Second-Sight

447. Is there any connection between the phenomena of what is designated as second-sight and those of dreaming and somnambulism?
"They are all the same thing. What you call second-sight is also a state in which the spirit is partially free, although the body is not asleep. Second-sight is soul-sight."

448. Is the faculty of second-sight a permanent one?
"The faculty of second-sight is permanent, but its exercise is not. In worlds less material than yours, spirits free themselvesfrom matter more easily, and enter into communication with one another simply by thought, without, however, excluding the use of articulate speech. In those worlds, second-sight is, for the greater part of their inhabitants, a permanent faculty. Their normal state may lie compared to that of lucid somnambulism among you; and it is for this reason that they manifest themselves to you more easily than those who are incarnated in bodies of a grosser nature."

449. Does second-sight occur spontaneously, or through an exertion of the will of those who possess that faculty?
"It generally occurs spontaneously; but the will, nevertheless, often plays an important part in producing this phenomenon. Take, for example, the persons who are called fortune-tellers - and some of whom really have that power - and you will find that the action of their will helps them to this second-sight, and to what you call vision."

450. Is second-sight susceptible of being developed by exercise
"Yes; effort always leads to progress, and the veil which covers things becomes more transparent."

- Is this faculty a result of physical organisation?
"Organisation has undoubtedly a great deal to do with it; there are organisations with which it is incompatible."

451. How is it that second-sight appears to be hereditary in certain families?
"This proceeds from similarity of organisation, which is transmitted, like other physical qualities; and also from the development of the faculty through a sort of education, which, also, is transmitted from one generation to another."

452. Is it true that circumstances develop second-sight?
"Illness, the approach of danger, any great commotion, may develop it. The body is sometimes in a state which allows of the spirit's seeing what cannot be seen with the fleshly eye."

Times of crisis and of calamity, powerful emotions, all the causes, in short, which excite the moral nature, may develop second-sight. It would seem as though Providence gave us, when in the presence of danger, the means of escaping it. All sects and all parties subjected to persecution have offered numerous instances of this fact.

453. Are the persons who are gifted with second-sight always conscious of their faculty?
"Not always; it appears to them to be altogether natural, and many of them suppose that, if everybody observed their own impressions, they would find themselves to be possessed of the same power."

454. May we attribute to a sort of second-sight the perspicacity of those persons who, without being remarkably gifted in other ways, possess an unusually clear judgment in relation to the things of everyday life?
"Such clearness of judgment is always due to a freer radiation of the soul, enabling the man to see more correctly than those whose perceptions are more densely veiled by matter."

- Can this lucidity of judgment, in some cases, give the foreknowledge of future events?
"Yes, it may give presentiments; for there are many degrees in this faculty, and the same person may possess all those degrees, as he may possess only some of them."

Explanation of Somnambulism, Trance, and Second-Sight.

455. The phenomena of natural somnambulism occur spontaneously and independently of any known external cause; but, in persons endowed with a special organisation, they may be produced artificially through the action of the mesmeric agent. The only difference between the state designated as mesmeric somnambulism and natural somnambulism is, that the one is artificially produced, while the other is spontaneous.

Natural somnambulism is a notorious fact, the reality of which few now dispute, notwithstanding the marvellous character of the phenomena it presents. Why, then, should mesmeric somnambulism be regarded as more extraordinary or incredible, simply because it is produced artificially, like so many other things? It has been abused by charlatans, some persons will reply; but that fact only affords an additional reason for not leaving it in their hands. When science shall have taken possession of it; charlatanism will have much less credit with the masses; but, meanwhile, as somnambulism, both natural and artificial, is a fact, and as a fact cannot be argued down, it is making its way, despite the ill-will of its adversaries; and obtaining a footing even in the temple of science, which it is entering by a multitude of side-doors, instead of entering by the principal one. Its right to be there will, ere long, be fully recognised.

For the spiritist, somnambulism is more than a physical phenomenon; it is a light thrown on the subject of psychology; it is a state in which we can study the soul, because in it the soul shows itself, so to say, without covering. Now, one of the phenomena which characterise the soul is clear-seeing independently of the ordinary visual organs. Those who contest this fact do so on the ground that the somnambulist does not see at all times, and at the will of the experimentalist, as with the eyes. Need we be astonished if, the means employed being different, the results are not the same? Is it reasonable to demand identical effects in cases in which the instruments employed are not the same? The soul has its properties just as has the eye; and the former must be judged of by themselves, and not by analogy with the latter.

The cause of the clairvoyance of the mesmeric and of the natural somnambulist is identically the same: it is an attribute of the soul, a faculty inherent in every part of the incorporeal being which is in us, and has no other limits than those assigned to the soul itself. The somnambulist sees wherever his soul can transport itself, at no matter what distance.

In sight at distance, the somnambulist does not see from the point at which his body is, and as though through a telescope. The things he sees are present with him, as though he were at the place where they exist, because his soul is there in reality; and it is for this reason that his body is, as it were, annihilated, and seems to be deprived of sensation, until the moment when the soul comes back and retakes possession of it. This partial separation of the soul and the body is an abnormal state, which may last for a longer or shorter time, but not indefinitely; it is the cause of the fatigue felt by the body after a certain lapse of time, especially when the soul during that partial separation, busies itself with some active pursuit. The fact that soul-sight or espirit-sight is not circumscribed, and has no definite seat, explains why somnambulists are unable to assign to it any special organ or focus. They see, because they see, without knowing why or how; their sight, as spirit-sight, having no special focus. If they refer their perception to their body, this focus seems to them to be in the organic centres in which the vital activity is greatest, especially in the brain, in. the epigastric region, or in whatever organ appears to them to be the point at which the bond between the spirit and the body is most tenacious.

The scope of somnambulistic lucidity is not unlimited. A spirit, even when completely free, only possesses the faculties and the knowledge appertaining to the degree of advancement at which he has arrived, a limitation which becomes still further narrowed when he is united with matter, and thus subjected to its influence. This is the reason why somnambulistic clairvoyance is neither universal nor infallible; and its infallibility is all the less to be counted on when it is turned aside from the aim which has been assigned to it by nature, and made a mere matter of curiosity and experimentation.

In the state of comparative freedom in which the somnambulist finds himself, he enters more easily into communication with other spirits, incarnate or disincarnate; and this communication is established through the contact of the fluids which compose their perispirits, and serve, like the electric wire, for the transmission of thought. The somnambulist, therefore, has no need of articulate speech as a vehicle of thought, which he feels and divines; a mode of perception that renders him eminently accessible to, and impressionable by, the influences of the moral atmosphere in which he finds himself. For the same reason, a numerous concourse of spectators, and especially of those who are attracted by a more or less malevolent curiosity, is essentially unfavourable to the manifestation of his peculiar faculties, which close up, so to say, at the contact of hostile influences, and only unfold freely in intimacy, and under the influence of sympathetic surroundings. The presence of those who are malevolent or antipathetic produces upon him the effect of the contact of the hand upon a sensitive plant.

The somnambulist sees, at the same time, his own spirit and his body; they are, so to say, two beings which represent to him his double existence, spiritual and corporeal, and which, nevertheless. are blended into one by the ties which united them together. The somnambulist does not always comprehend this duality, which often leads him to speak of himself as though he were speaking of another person; in such cases, the corporeal being sometimes speaking to the spiritual being, and the spiritual being sometimes speaking to the corporeal being.

The spirit acquires an increase of knowledge and experience in each of his corporeal existences. He loses sight of part of these gains during his reincarnation in matter, which is too gross to allow of his remembering them in their entirety; but he remembers them as a spirit. It is thus that some somnambulists give evidence of possessing knowledge beyond their present degree of instruction, and even of their apparent intellectual capacity. The intellectual and scientific inferiority of a somnambulist in his waking state, therefore, proves nothing against his possession of the knowledge he may display in his lucid state. According to the circumstances of the moment and the aim proposed, he may draw this knowledge from the stores of his own experience, from his clairvoyant perception of things actually occurring, or from the counsels which he receives from other spirits; but, in proportion as his own spirit is more or less advanced, he will make his statements more or less correctly.

In the phenomena of somnambulism, whether natural or mesmeric, Providence furnishes us with undeniable proof of the existence and independence of the soul, by causing us to witness the sublime spectacle of its emancipation from the fetters of the body, and thus enabling us to read our future destiny as in an open book. When a somnambulist describes what is taking place at a distance, it is equally evident that he sees what he describes, and that he does not see it with his bodily eyes. He sees himself at that distant point, and he feels himself to be transported thither. Something of himself, therefore, is really present at that distant point; and that something, not being his body, can only be his soul or his spirit.

While man, in search of the causes of his moral being, loses himself in abstract and unintelligible metaphysical subtleties, God places daily before his eyes, and within reach of his hand, the simplest and most certain means for the study of experimental psychology.

Trance is the state in which the soul's independence of the body is made most clearly visible, and, so to say, palpable, to the senses of the observer.

In dreaming and somnambulism, the soul wanders among terrestrial worlds; in trance, it penetrates into a sphere of existence of another order, into that of the etherealised spirits with whom it enters into communication, without, however, being able to overstep certain limits which it could not pass without entirely breaking the links that attach it to the body. Surrounded by novel splendours, enraptured by harmonies unknown to earth, penetrated by bliss that defies description, the soul enjoys a foretaste of celestial beatitude, and may be said to have placed one foot on the threshold of eternity.

In the state of trance, the annihilation of corporeal ties is almost complete. The body no longer possesses anything more than organic life; and we feel that the soul is only held thereto by a single thread, which any further effort on its part would break for ever.

In this state, all earthly thoughts disappear, and give place to the purified perception that is the very essence of our immaterial being. Entirely absorbed in this sublime contemplation, the ecstatic regards the earthly life as being merely a momentary halt upon our eternal way; the successes and misfortunes of this lower world, its gross joys and sorrows, appear to him only as the futile incidents of a journey of which he is delighted to foresee the end.

It is with ecstatics as with somnambulists; their lucidity may be more or less perfect, and their spirit, according as it is more or less elevated, is also more or less apt to apprehend the truth of things. In their abnormal state, there is sometimes more of nervous excitement than of true lucidity; or, to speak more correctly, their nervous excitement impairs their lucidity, and, for this reason, their revelations are often a mixture of truths and errors, of sublime ideas and absurd or even ridiculous fancies. Inferior spirits often take advantage of this nervous excitement (which is always a source of weakness to those who are unable to control it), in order to subjugate the ecstatic; and to this end they assume to his eyes the appearances which confirm him in the ideas and prejudices of his waking state. This subjugation of clairvoyants by the presentation of false appearances is the "rock ahead" of this order of revealment. But all of them are not equally subject to this dangerous misleading; and it is for us to weigh their statements coolly and carefully, and to judge their revelations by the light of science and of reason.

The emancipation of the soul occurs sometimes in the waking state, and gives, to those who are endowed with the faculty designated by the name of second-sight, the power of seeing, hearing, and feeling, beyond the limits of the bodily senses. They
perceive things at a distance, at all points to which their soul extends its action; they see them, so to say, athwart their ordinary sight, and as though in a sort of mirage.

At the moment when the phenomenon of second-sight occurs, the physical state of the seer is visibly modified. His glance becomes vague; he looks before him without seeing; his physiognomy reflects an abnormal state of the nervous system. It is
evident that his organs of sight have nothing to do with his present perceptions; for his vision continues, even when his eyes are shut. The faculty of second-sight appears to those who are endowed with it to be as natural as ordinary sight. It seems to them to be an attribute of their being; and they are not aware of its exceptional character. They generally forget this fugitive lucidity, the remembrance of which, becoming more and more vague, disappears at length from their memory like a dream.

The power of second-sight varies from a confused sensation to a clear and distinct perception of things present or distant. In its rudimentary state, it gives to some persons tact, perspicacity, a sort of sureness, in their decisions and actions, that may be styled the rectitude of the moral glance. At a higher degree of development, it awakens presentiments; still further developed, it shows to the seer events that have already happened, or that are about to happen.

Natural and artificial somnambulism, trance, and second-sight are only varieties or modifications of the action of one and the same cause. Like dreams, they are a branch of natural phenomena, and have therefore existed in every age. History shows us that they have been known, and even abused, from the remotest antiquity; and they furnish the explanation of innumerable facts which superstitious prejudices have led men to regard as supernatural.

from The Gospel According To Spiritism by Allan Kardec:

CHAPTER 25

SEEK AND YOU WILL FIND

If you help yourself then Heaven will come to your aid. - Behold the fowls of the air. - Provide not gold in your purse.

IF YOU HELP YOURSELF THEN HEAVEN WILL COME TO YOUR AID

1. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you: for every one who asks will receive; and he that seeks will find; and to him that knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there amongst you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, despite being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, which is in Heaven, give good things to those that ask Him?" (MATTHEW, 7: 7-11.)

2. From an earthly point of view the maxim 'Seek and you will find'; is the same as that other one `Help yourself and the heavens will come to your aid.' This is the base of the Law of Work and consequently the Law of Progress, since progress is the child of work, seeing that this puts into action the force of intelligence.

During the infancy of Humanity, Man only used his intelligence in seeking food, as a means of protection against the climate, and defending himself from his enemies. However, God has given Man something more than He gave to animals, which is an incessant desire to better himself. It is this desire that impels him to seek out the best ways of improving his position in life, which duly leads him to make discoveries, to invent things, and to perfect the sciences because it is science that gives him what he lacks. Through Man's research his intelligence heightens and his morals gradually become purified. The needs of the body give way to those of the Spirit. After material nourishment Man needs spiritual nourishment. This is how he passes from savagery to civilisation.

But the amount of progress achieved by each person during a single lifetime is very small indeed, in most cases even imperceptible. How then could humanity progress without pre-existence and the re-existence of the soul? If the souls who daily leave the Earth were never to return, then humanity would be constantly renewing itself with primitive elements, having everything still to do and learn. There would then be no reason why Man should be more advanced today than he was during the first epochs of the world, because at each birth all intellectual work would have to recommence. On the other hand, by returning with the degree of progress realised and acquiring something more each time, the soul then gradually passes from the barbaric state to that of materialistic civilisation, and then on to one of moral civilisation. (See chapter 4, item 17.)

3. If God had exempted Man from bodily work his limbs would have withered. If He had exempted him from intellectual work then his Spirit would have remained in a state of infancy, or mere animal instinct. This is why He made work a necessity by saying: Seek and you will find; work and you will produce. In this way you are the product of your work; you receive the merit of it and recompense in accordance with what has been done.

4. It is by virtue of this principle that the Spirits do not help in sparing men the work of research by bringing them discoveries and inventions prepared and ready for use. Nor in such a way that they would have nothing to do but accept what was put into their hands, without any inconvenience whatsoever, nor even to bend down and pick it up, nor yet to think about it. If things were like that then the laziest could enrich themselves and the most ignorant could become wise at the cost of no effort, and both would have merits attributed to them for things they had not done. No, the Spirits do not come to exempt Man from the Law of Work, but only to show him the goal to be reached and the pathway that leads there, by saying: walk and you will get there. You will find your path strewn with stones; look upon them and then move them. We will give you the necessary strength if you care to utilise it. (See THE MEDIUMS' BOOK,' chapter 26, item 291 onwards.)

5. From the moral point of view, these words of Jesus signify that if we ask for the light, which will show us the way, it will be given. If we ask for strength to resist evil we shall receive it, and if we ask for the assistance of the good Spirits, then they will come to accompany us. Just as the angel of Tobias* [* See Book of Tobias, New Jerusalem Bible. (Translator's comment.)] came to help him, so they will guide us. If we ask for good counsel it will not be refused, and if we knock on His door it will be opened. But we must ask with sincerity, faith, confidence, and fervour. We must present ourselves with humility and not with arrogance, or else we will be abandoned to our own strength and the falls taken will be punishment for our pride.

This then is what is meant by the words: Seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened.

BEHOLD THE FOWLS OF THE AIR

6. "Do not accumulate treasures for yourselves on Earth, where worms and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But accumulate treasures for yourselves in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust can destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

This is why I tell you: Do not be anxious about where you will find something to eat so you can sustain your life, nor where you can get clothes to cover your body. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor store anything in barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

And why do you worry about clothes? Consider how the lilies of the field grow. They do not work, neither do they spin, and still l say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Therefore, if God clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, Oh, you of little faith!

So stop worrying, and saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?' For the Pagans seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need these things.

But first seek the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you. Therefore give no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for the day is its evil. " (MATTHEW, 6: 19-21 & 25-34.)

7. In a literal translation these words would be a denial of all providence, of all work and consequently of all progress. With this kind of principle Man would be limited to waiting passively. His physical and intellectual strengths would remain inactive. If such were the normal conditions on Earth we would never have left the primitive state, and if this condition became the law today then it would only remain to live in total idleness. This could not have been the thought of Jesus, since this would be a contradiction of what He said on other occasions and also contradict the Laws of Nature. God created Man without clothes or shelter, but He gave him intelligence so as to be able to make them. (See chapter 14, item 6 & chapter 25, item 2.)

Consequently these words must not be seen as anything more than the poetical allegory of Providence, which never abandons those who put their confidence in it, but wishes that all work in their turn. If Providence does not always come in the form of material help, then it inspires those ideas from which is found the means of getting out of difficulty. (See chapter 27, item 8.)

God comprehends our necessities and provides for them when needed. Nevertheless, Man is insatiable in his desires and does not always know how to be content with what he has. Possessing what is necessary is not enough for him; he demands that which is superfluous. Then Providence leaves him to himself. Frequently he becomes unhappy through his own fault, and for having paid no attention to the voice that, through the intermediary of his conscience, has given him warning. In these cases the Lord lets him suffer the consequences so that it may serve as a lesson for the future. (See chapter 5, item 4.)

8. The Earth will produce sufficient to feed all its inhabitants when Man discovers how to administer the benefits that it offers according to the Laws of Justice, Charity and Love for one's neighbour. When fraternity reigns amongst all peoples, as it does amongst the provincials of any country, then the momentary superfluity of the one will overcome the insufficiency of another, and everyone will have what is necessary. Then the rich man will consider himself as one who possesses a great quantity of seeds. If he shares them with others they will produce a thousandfold for himself and for them. However, if he eats all the seeds himself, or wastes them and allows the surplus from what he ate to be lost, then nothing will be produced and he will take nothing out of this for others. If he hoards the seeds in his barn then the maggots will devour them. Hence Jesus had said: "Do not accumulate treasures on Earth because they are perishable, but accumulate them in Heaven where they are eternal." In other words, do not give material possessions more importance than the spiritual ones, and know how to sacrifice the first for the second. (See chapter 16, item 7 onwards.)

Charity and fraternity are not decreed under law. If one or the other is not in the heart then selfishness will rule. Consequently it is the task of Spiritism to see that they both penetrate the heart of Man.

PROVIDE NOT GOLD IN YOUR PURSE

9. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses. Do not take a bag for your journey, nor two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, for the workman is worthy of his keep.

10. And in whatever city or town you go to, enquire as to who is worthy to put you up. Then stay there till you leave. And when you enter into a house, give your greeting. And if the house is worthy, let your peace be upon it; but if it is not then let your peace return to you. And whoever does not welcome you or listen to your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgement, than for that city. (MATTHEW, 10: 9-15.)

11. These words, which Jesus directed to His apostles when He sent them to announce the Glad Tidings for the first time, were nothing unusual in those days. They were in accordance with the patriarchal customs of the Orient, when the traveller was always made welcome in the tent. But then in those days travellers were very rare indeed. Among modern peoples the development of travel has created new customs. Very distant lands, where the great movement has not yet penetrated, are the only places to conserve those of ancient times. If Jesus were to return today He could no longer tell His apostles to put themselves on the road without provisions.

Apart from their actual meaning, these words hold a very profound moral sense. In proffering them, Jesus was teaching His disciples to have confidence in Providence. What is more, by having nothing, they could not cause covetousness amongst those who received them. This was the way of distinguishing those who were selfish from those who were charitable. This is why He told them to "Find out who is worthy to put you up." or rather who is human enough to clothe a traveller who has nothing with which to pay. These are the people who will be worthy to receive your words, and who will be recognisable by their charity.

With regard to those who cared neither to receive them nor to listen to them, did He tell His disciples that they should curse them, that they should impose the teachings upon them, or that they should use violence and force so as to convert them? No, He simply told them to go away and seek others who were willing to listen.

Today Spiritism says the same thing to its followers. Do not violate any consciences. Do not force anyone to leave his or her faith in order to adopt yours. Do not excommunicate those who do not think as you do. Welcome all who come to join you, and leave in peace all those who are repelled by your ideas. Remind yourselves of the words of Christ. In other times the heavens were taken over by violence, but today they are taken over by mildness. (See chapter 4, items 10 & 11.)

[NB I include the start of the next chapter, too - SBW]

CHAPTER 26

GIVE FOR FREE WHAT HAS BEEN RECEIVED GRATUITOUSLY

The gift of healing. - Paid prayers. - The moneychangers expelled from the Temple. - Gratuitous mediumship.

THE GIFT OF HEALING

1. "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely you have received, freely give." (MATTHEW, 10: 8.)

2. "Give for free what has been received gratuitously", is what Jesus told His disciples. With this recommendation it is prescribed that no one be charged for something for which nothing has been paid. Now what they had received gratuitously was the faculty of healing those who were sick, and that of expelling devils, that is to say bad Spirits. God gave them this faculty gratis for the alleviation of those who suffer and as a means of propagating faith. Jesus, then, recommended that they should not turn this into an object of commercialisation, neither speculation, nor a means of livelihood.

Day 98: Busy, Busy

2007-08-01T18:45:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, my telecourse went very well and I did a lot of work today as a result. I plan to take a break over the weekend and enjoy the warmer weather in Sussex. Here is a copy of the photo I had done at the photo shoot, by the way. So-so.

Day 97: Harry Potter

2007-07-31T17:50:00.000+01:00

For those keen to know more about the boy wizard, a link is provided here. Also, some news: JK Rowling is already writing two more books - one for children and one not. Both of these she was writing 'before HP took over'. This is according to Yahoo News the other day.

The link is one to an article about Potter with lots of links in it, so rather than endlessly type them in, am just providing her link. It's http://caffeinatedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/07/some-potter-links.html

Right, on to my Telecourse.

Day 96: Keep your Heart Healthy - and your Skin!

2007-07-30T18:29:00.000+01:00

Hawthorn is a great herb to protect the heart and Calendula is great for the skin. As heart problems and skin problems are so common, perhaps this can help us all stay healthy.

Hawthorn – Crataegus oxyacantha
Family: Rosaceae
Parts used: Ripe berry and young (white or pink) blossom.
Actions and medical uses: Cardiovascular tonic, vasodilator, diuretic, astringent, hypotensive sedative.
Systems affected: Cardiovascular, digestive.
Specific indications: The best tonic for the heart and circulatory system. Hawthorn nourishes the heart, assisting it to return to normal activity by either gently stimulating or depressing its activity as needed. Can be used for palpitations of the heart. Used over a period of time, it treats cardiac weakness and/or failure, hypertension, arteriosclerosis and insomnia. Improves digestion.
Combinations: combines well with Yarrow, Lavender and Motherwort for treating high blood pressure; with Motherwort to specifically treat tachycardia (unduly rapid or arrhythmic heartbeat). Combines well with Ginkgo and Horsechestnut as a vascular tonic.
Preparations: Infusion*: 1 cup 3 times a day. Tincture*: 20 to 50 drops 3 times a day. Combined with other appropriate herbs useful as a syrup for treating sore throat.
Other uses: Makes excellent jams and syrups. Ornamental tree.

Calendula (Marigold) – Calendula officinalis
Family: Compositae
Parts used: Whole flower.
Actions and medical uses: Anti-inflammatory, astringent, vulnerary, sytptic, antiseptic, anti-fungal, cholagogue, emmenagogue.
Systems affected: Skin, digestive, reproductive.
Specific indications: An excellent first-aid remedy. Used safely and effectively for all skin inflammations, be they due to injury or infection. Unlike Arnica, Calendula can be put directly onto an open wound. It is recommended to use this soothing flower on burns, external bleeding, bruises, slow healing wounds or skin ulcers. These same actions of Calendula are equally safe and effective for use on the internal skins of the digestive system. Use it for indigestion, digestive inflammation and peptic or duodenal ulcers, where it gives soothing anti-inflammatory action along with healing vulnerary and astringent actions. As a chologogue, it gives relief in gall-bladder problems, aiding digestion. Calendula is reputed to be a normalizer of the female menstrual process. It helps balance the energy of male organs as well.
Combinations: Excellent anti-inflammatory and vulnerary combined with Arnica and St. Johnswort as a compound oil infusion or compound tincture, or with Garlic oil and Mullein flower oil for use as an ear oil. Combines well with Chamomile and Marshmallow for nervous stomach and digestive problems. Combines well with Witch Hazel as a lotion for hemorrhoids and varicose veins, also with Goldenseal and Myrrh as an antiseptic application.
Preparations: Infusion: 1 cup 3 times a day. Tincture: 25-50 drops 3 times a day. Prepare as an oil infusion, lotion or tincture for skin conditions.
Other uses: A gorgeous uplifting yellow-orange dried flower for visual aesthetics in a potpourri.

*How to Prepare
Infusions (tea)
Put one heaping teaspoonful (a teabagful) of cut, powdered or crushed herb leaves and/or flowers (the tender more delicate plant parts) into a preheated cup, pan or teapot (approximately two teaspoonsful if using a fresh undried herb); add boiling water, stir, cover, and let steep for 10 minutes; strain and drink. You have made a natural medicine called an herbal infusion, or call it herb tea. You need to use this infusion within 24 hours. It deteriorates rapidly. Standard dosage is 1 cupful 2 to 3 times a day.

Some mucilaginous herbs such as Marshmallow and Slippery Elm are best prepared as cold infusions. This process extracts the most mucilage from these herbs, and these constituents don’t coagulate in the cold water solvent (menstruum). To make a cold infusion, simply place the cut or powdered herb into a container of cold, distilled water, stir it well, let it steep 5 to 12 hours until the water is slimy, and strain. Adding a little maple syrup gives flavor.

*Tincture
Perhaps it’s easier to buy a ready-made tincture than prepare one. Let me know if you want the instructions to make it, however. NB: If you ever wish to eliminate most of the alcohol from each dose of a tincture, drop the dose to be taken into ¼ to ½ cup of boiling water and simmer 2 minutes, cool and drink. This will not impair the quality of the tincture.

The above is adapted from The Male Herbal by James Green, Herbalist.

Day 94: The Gospel According To Spiritism

2007-07-28T15:33:00.000+01:00

The following extracts continue the theme running through many of the posts on this blog, namely that of the power of positive thinking, prayer and visualization to help get what you want in life.

The Gospel According To Spiritism by Allan Kardec details and explains a universal moral code of conduct, based upon the Teachings of Jesus. It is a book to be read by adepts from all religions and by those who profess no specific religion.

Day 93: continued further (part 3)

2007-07-27T18:42:00.002+01:00

The last of the series today, all stuff I find very interesting. Why am I posting it? Because my purpose in writing this blog is not only to inform people about my book but also to share information to add massive value to people's lives. We are not just physical, and whilst most blogs focus on how to be richer, this one seeks to enrich you on all levels - physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually...

Day 93: continued

2007-07-27T18:34:00.001+01:00

Day 93: More explanation about spiritual phenomena e.g. sleepwalking

2007-07-27T18:16:00.000+01:00

Day 90, 91 & 92: Too Busy to Blog!

2007-07-26T18:45:00.000+01:00

You know you're busy when you can't even find the time to blog! Neither over the past two days nor today did I/do I really have time to blog, but must leave this until tomorrow. Work on my book is progressing but there never seem enough hours in the day. Still, it was good to spend time with my mum and be in the country for a while, even with the rain!

Day 87, 88 & 89: Harry Potter

2007-07-23T15:11:00.000+01:00

On Friday night, I decided to join the queue outside a bookshop for the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I spoke to a woman next to me in the queue, who had read the first six several times and we were both approached by two girls with witches' hats on, who offered us cupcakes and jellybeans and gave us a Harry Potter-themed quiz.

A group of three women from Switzerland joined the back of the queue next to us and we all joined forces to fill in the quiz. One of the Swiss women was a twenty-year-old writer, so we exchanged email addresses.

It became exciting when the queue went so far down Oxford Street that I couldn't see the end of it and we became immune to the lads coming up to us and saying, "Harry Potter dies," or, "Ron dies."

Finally, midnight arrived and we were ushered inside slowly. After three hours waiting it was an immense relief, despite the good company. I said goodbye to my friends - the English one, recently married, half-way through her third book of the day and the Swiss girls heading back to Lausanne the following day after their holiday.

I had thought I would read it straight away, but - on impulse - decided to go to a Latino haunt where the dancing was fun and a contrast to the hours of sitting. After an hour there, I went and read the whole book, although I had a break when a friend rang me and we went around town for a few hours.

Now I'm in Sussex and had a lovely walk with my mother yesterday. Afterwards we met up with the man who was with my mum for five years, called 'Dave' in my book, and he and mum played duets by Mozart on the flute whilst I listened before we went to the pub, where I had a roast (for brunch) and they had drinks. 'David' and I talked about writing and the journey to get published. Today, 'Dave' is teaching my mum how to use the internet and I am posting this in the local library.

Day 86: Prayer

2007-07-20T18:09:00.000+01:00

Prayer

658. Is prayer acceptable to God?
“Prayer is always acceptable to God when dictated by the heart, for the intention is everything in His sight; and the prayer of the heart is preferable to one read from a book, however beautiful it may be, if read with the lips rather than with the thought. Prayer is acceptable to God when it is offered with faith, fervour, and sincerity; but do not imagine that He will listen to that of the vain, proud, selfish man, unless it be offered as an act of sincere repentance and humility.”

659. What is the general character of prayer?
“Prayer is an act of adoration. To pray to God is to think of Him, to draw nearer to Him, to put one’s self in communication with Him. He who prays may propose to himself three things: to praise, to ask, and to thank.”

660. Does prayer make men better?
“Yes; for he who prays with fervour and confidence has more strength for withstanding the temptations of evil, and for obtaining from God the help of good spirits to assist him in so doing. Such help is never refused when asked for with sincerity.”
- How is it that persons who pray a great deal are sometimes very unamiable, jealous, envious, and harsh, wanting in benevolence and forbearance, and even extremely vicious?
“What is needed is not to pray a great deal, but to pray aright. Such persons suppose that all the virtue of prayer is in its length, and shut their eyes to their own defects. Prayer, for them, is an occupation, a means of passing their time, but not a study of themselves. In such cases, it is not the remedy that is inefficacious, but the mode in which it is employed.”

661. Is there any use in asking God to forgive us our faults?
“God discerns the good and the evil: prayer does not hide faults from his eyes. He who asks of God the forgiveness of his faults, obtains that forgiveness only through a change of conduct. Good deeds are the best prayers, for deeds are of more worth than words.”

662. Is there any use in praying for others?
The spirit of him who prays exercises an influence through his desire to do good. By prayer, he attracts to himself good spirits who take part with him in the good he desires to do.”

663. Can we, by praying for ourselves, avert our trials, or change their nature?
“Your trials are in the hands of God, and there are some of them that must be undergone to the very end; but God always takes account of the resignation with which they are borne. Prayer calls to your help good spirits who give you strength to bear them with courage, so that they seem to you less severe. Prayer is never useless when it is sincere, because it gives you strength, which is, of itself, an important result. ‘Heaven helps him who helps himself,’ is a true saying. God could change the order of nature at the various contradictory demands of His creatures; for what appears to be a great misfortune to you, from your narrow point of view, and in relation to your ephemeral life on the earth, is often a great blessing in relation to the general order of the universe; and besides, of how many of the troubles of his life is man himself the author, through his shortsightedness or through his wrong doing! He is punished in that wherein he has sinned. Nevertheless, your reasonable requests are granted more often than you suppose. You think your prayer has not been heeded, because God has not worked a miracle on your behalf; while, in fact, He has really assisted you, but by means so natural that they seem to you to have been the effect of chance or of the ordinary course of things. And, more often still, He suggests to your minds the thought of what you must do in order to help yourselves out of your difficulties.”

664. Is it useful to pray for the dead, and for suffering spirits, and, if so, in what way can our prayers soften or shorten their sufferings? Have they the power to turn aside the justice of God?
“Prayer can have no effect upon the designs of God; but the spirit for whom you pray is consoled by your prayer, because you give him a proof of your interest, and because he who is unhappy is always comforted by the kindness which compassionates his suffering. On the other hand, by your prayer, you excite him to repentance, and to the desire of doing all that lies in him to become happy; and it is this way that you may shorten the term of his suffering, provided that he, on his side, seconds your action by that of his own will. This desire for amelioration, excited by your prayer in the mind of the suffering spirit, attracts to him spirits of higher degree, who come to enlighten him, console him, and give him hope. Jesus prayed for the sheep that have gone astray; thereby showing you that you cannot, without guilt, neglect to do the same for those who have the greatest need of your prayers.”

665. What is to be thought of the opinion that rejects the idea of praying for the dead because it is not prescribed in the gospel?
“Christ has said, to all mankind, ‘Love one another.’ This injunction implies, for all men, the duty of employing every possible means of testifying their affection for each other; but without entering into any details in regard to the manner of attaining that end. If it be true that nothing can turn aside the Creator from applying, to every action of every spirit, the absolute justice of which He is the type, it is none the less true that the prayer you address to Him, on behalf of a suffering spirit for whom you feel affection or compassion, is accepted by Him as a testimony of remembrance that never fails to bring relief and consolation to the sufferer. As soon as the latter manifests the slightest sign of repentance, but only then, help is sent to him; but he is never allowed to remain in ignorance of the fact that a sympathising heart has exerted itself on his behalf, and is always left under the consoling impression that his friendly intercession has been of use to him. Thus your intervention necessarily induces a feeling of gratitude and affection, on his part, to the friend who has given him his proof of kindness and of pity; and the mutual affection enjoined upon all men by Christ will thereby have been developed or awakened between you and him. Both of you will thus have obeyed the law of love and union imposed on all the beings of the universe; that Divine law which will usher in the reign of unity that is the aim and end of a spirit’s education.”**

666. May we pray to spirits?
“You may pray to good spirits as being the messengers of God, and the executants of His will; but their power, which is always proportioned to their elevation, depends entirely on the Master of all things, without whose permission nothing takes place. For this reason, prayers addressed to them are only efficacious if accepted by God.”

**This reply was given by the spirit of M. Monod, the well-known and highly-esteemed Protestant pastor of Paris, deceased in 1856. The preceding reply (no. 664) was given by the spirit of St Louis.

The above extracts are, again, from The Spirits’ Book by Allan Kardec.

Right, tonight I am going to join the hordes of eager book-buyers in central London to buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Then, most likely, I shall tomorrow go to Sussex and stay until Wednesday. Therefore, I may be away from my blog until then, although I shall try and post something if possible.

Day 85: Union of Soul and Body

2007-07-19T17:17:00.000+01:00

More from The Spirits' Book by Allan Kardec. Fascinating...

Union of Soul and Body

344. At what moment is the soul united to the body?
“The union begins at the moment of conception, but is only complete at the moment of birth. From the moment of conception, the spirit designated to inhabit a given body is united to that body by a fluidic link, which becomes closer and closer up to the instant of birth; the cry then uttered by the infant announces that he is numbered among the living.”

345. Is the union between the spirit and the body definitive from the moment of conception? Could the spirit, during this first period of that union, renounce inhabiting the body designed for him?
“The union between them is definitive in this sense – namely, that no other spirit could replace the one who has been designated for that body. But, as the links which hold them together are at first very weak, they are easily broken, and may be severed by the will of a spirit who draws back from the trial he had chosen. But, in that case, the child does not live.”

346. What becomes of a spirit, if the body he has chosen happens to die before birth?
“He chooses another body.”
- What can be the use of premature deaths?
“Such deaths are most frequently caused by the imperfections of matter.”

347. What benefit can a spirit derive from his incarnation in a body which dies a few days after birth?
“In such a case, the new being’s consciousness of his existence is so slightly developed that his death is of little importance. As we have told you, such deaths are often intended mainly as a trial for the parents.”

348. Does the spirit know beforehand that the body he chooses has no chance of living?
“He sometimes knows it; but if he chooses it on this account, it is because he shrinks from the trial he foresees.”

349. When, from any cause, a spirit has failed to accomplish a proposed incarnation, is another existence provided for him immediately?
“Not always immediately. The spirit requires time to make a new choice, unless his instantaneous reincarnation had been previously decided upon.”

350. When a spirit is definitely united to an infant body, and it is thus too late for him to refuse this union, does he sometimes regret the choice he has made?
“If you mean to ask whether, as a man, he may complain of the life he has to undergo, and whether he may not wish it were otherwise, I answer, Yes; but if you mean to ask whether he regrets the choice he has made, I answer, No, for he does not remember that he has made it. A spirit, when once incarnated, cannot regret a choice which he is not conscious of having made; but he may find the burden he has assumed too heavy, and, if he believes it to be beyond his strength, he may have recourse to suicide.”

351. Does a spirit, in the interval between conception and birth, enjoy the use of all his faculties?
“He does so more or less according to the various periods of gestation; for he is not yet incarnated in his new body, but only attached to it. From the instant of conception confusion begins to take possession of the spirit, who is thus made aware that the moment has come for him to enter upon a new existence; and this confusion becomes more and more dense until the period of birth. In the interval between these two terms, his state is nearly that of an incarnated spirit during the sleep of the body. In proportions as the moment of birth approaches, his ideas become effaced, together with his remembrance of the past, of which, when once he has entered on corporeal life, he is no longer conscious. But this remembrance comes back to him little by little when he has returned to the spirit-world.”

352. Does the spirit, at the moment of birth, recover the plenitude of his faculties?
“No; they are gradually developed with the growth of his organs. The corporeal life is for him a new existence; he has to learn the use of his bodily instruments. His ideas come back to him little by little, as in the case of a man who, waking out of slumber, should find himself in a different situation from that in which he was before he fell asleep.”

353. The union of the spirit and the body not being completely and definitively consummated until birth has taken place, can the foetus be considered as having a soul?
“The spirit who is to animate it exists, as it were, outside of it; strictly speaking, therefore, it has no soul, since the incarnation of the latter is only in course of being effected; but it is linked to the soul which it is to have.”

354. What is the nature of intra-uterine life?
“That of the plant which vegetates. The foetus, however, lives with vegetable and animal life, to which the union of a soul with the child-body at birth adds spiritual life.”

355. Are there, as is indicated by science, children so constituted that they cannot live, and if so, for what purpose are they produced?
“That often happens. Such births are permitted as a trial, either for the parents or for the spirit appointed to animate it.”

356. Are there, among still-born children, some who were never intended for the incarnation of a spirit?
“Yes, there are some who never had a spirit assigned to them, for whom nothing was to be done. In such a case, it is simply as a trial for the parents that the child arrives.”
- Can a being of this nature come to its term?
“Yes, sometimes; but it does not live.”
- Every child that survives its birth has, then, necessarily a spirit incarnated in it?
What would it be if such were not the case? It would not be a human being.”

357. What are, for a spirit, the consequences of abortion?
“It is an existence that is null, and must be commenced over again.”

358. Is artificial abortion a crime, no matter at what period of gestation it may be produced?
“Every transgression of the law of God is a crime. The mother, or any other, who take the life of an unborn child, is necessarily criminal; for, by so doing, a soul is prevented from undergoing the trial of which the body thus destroyed was to have been the instrument.”

359. In cases in which the life of the mother would be endangered by the birth of the child, is it a crime to sacrifice the child in order to save the mother?
“It is better to sacrifice the being whose existence is not yet complete than the being whose existence is complete.”

360. Is it rational to treat the foetus with the same respect as the body of a child that has lived?
“In the one, as in the other, you should recognise the will and handiwork of God, and these are always to be respected.”

Day 84: Animals and Men

2007-07-18T18:30:00.000+01:00

Animals and Men more extracts from The Spirits' Book by Allan Kardec

592. If we compare man with the animals in reference to intelligence, it seems difficult to draw a line of demarcation between them; for some animals are, in this respect, notoriously superior to some men. Is it possible to establish such a line of demarcation with any precision?
“Your philosophers are far from being agreed upon this point. Some of them will have it that man is an animal; others are equally sure that the animal is a man. They are all wrong. Man is a being apart, who sometimes sinks himself very low, or who may raise himself very high. As regards his physical nature, man is like the animals, and less well provided for than many of them; for nature has given to them all that man is obliged to invent with the aid of his intelligence for his needs and his preservation. His body is subject to destruction, like that of the animals; but his spirit has a destiny that he alone can understand, because he alone is completely free. Poor human beings who debase yourselves below the brutes! Do you not know how to distinguish yourselves from them? Recognise the superiority of man by his possessing the notion of the existence of God.”

593. Can the animals be said to act only from instinct?
“That, again, is a mere theory. It is very true that instinct predominates in the greater number of animals; but do you not see some of them act with a determinate will? This is intelligence; but of narrow range.”
…
594. Have animals a language?
“If you mean a language formed of words and syllables, no; but if you mean a method of communication among themselves, yes. They say much more to one another than you suppose; but their language is limited, like their ideas, to their bodily wants.”
- There are animals who have no voice; have they no language?
“They understand one another by other means. Have men no other method of communicating with one another than by speech? And the dumb, what do you say of them? The animals, being endowed with the life of relation, have means of giving one another information, and of expressing the sensations they feel. Do you suppose that fishes have no understanding among themselves? Man has not the exclusive privilege of language; but that of the animals is instinctive and limited to the scope of their wants and ideas, while that of man is perfectible, and lends itself to all the conceptions of his intelligence.”

595. Have animals free-will in regard to their actions?
“They are not the mere machines you suppose them to be; but their freedom of action is limited to their wants, and cannot be compared to that of man. Being far inferior to him, they have not the same duties. Their freedom is restricted to the acts of their material life.”

596. Whence comes the aptitude of certain animals to imitate human speech, and why is this aptitude found among birds, rather, for instance, than among apes, whose conformation has so much more analogy to that of man?
“That aptitude results from a particular conformation of the vocal organs, seconded by the instinct of imitation. The ape imitates man’s gestures; birds imitate his voice.”

597. Since the animals have an intelligence which gives them a certain degree of freedom of action, is there, in them, a principle independent of matter?
“Yes; and that survives their body.”
- Is this principle a soul, like that of man?
“It is a soul, if you like to call it so; that depends on the meaning you attach to this word. But it is inferior to that of man. There is, between the soul of the animals and that of man, as great a difference as there is between the soul of man and God.”

598. Does the soul of the animals preserve, after death, its individuality and its self-consciousness?
“It preserves its individuality, but not the consciousness of its me. The life of intelligence remains latent in them.”

599. Does the soul of the beasts the choice of incarnating itself in one kind of animal rather than in another?
“No; it does not possess free-will.”

600. As the soul of the animal survives its body, is it, after death, in a state of erraticity, like that of man?
“It is in a sort of erraticity, because it is not united to a body; but it is not an errant spirit. The errant spirit is a being who thinks and acts of his own free-will; but the soul of the animal has not the same faculty, for it is his self-consciousness which is the principal attribute of the spirit. The soul of the animal is classed after its death, by the spirits charged with that work, and almost immediately utilised; it has not the leisure to enter into connection with other creatures.”

601. Do animals follow a law progress like men?
“Yes; and it is for this reason that, in the higher worlds in which men are further advanced, the animals are more advanced also, and possess more developed means of communication. But they are always inferior to man; and subject to him; they are, for him, intelligent servitors.”
…
602. Do animals progress, like man, through the action of their will, or through the force of things?
“Through the force of things; this is why there is, for them, no expiation.”

603. Have the animals, in the higher worlds, a knowledge of God?
“No; man is a god for them, as spirits were formerly gods for men.”

604. The animals, even the advanced ones of the higher worlds, being always inferior to man, it would seem as though God had created intellectual beings condemned to a perpetual inferiority; such an arrangement does not appear to be in accordance with the unity of design and of progress discernible in all His works.
“Everything in nature is linked together by an enchaining which your intellect cannot yet seize; and things apparently the most discrepant have points of contact at the comprehension of which man will never arrive in his actual state. He may obtain a glimmering of them through an effort of his intelligence; but it is only when that intelligence shall have acquired its full development, and shall have freed itself from the prejudices of pride and of ignorance, that he will be able to see clearly into the work of God; until then, his narrowness of thought causes him to look at everything ffrom a low and petty point of view. Know that God cannot contradict Himself, and that everything in nature is harmonised by the action of general laws that never deviate from the sublime wisdom of the Creator.”
- Intelligence, then, is a common property, and a point of contact, between the soul of the beast and that of man?
“Yes, but the animals have only the intelligence of material life; in man, intelligence gives moral life.”

605. If we consider all the points of contact that exist between man and the animals, does it not seem as though man possessed two souls – viz., an animal soul and a spiritual soul, and that, if he had not the latter, he might still live, but as a brute; in other words, that the animal is a being similar to man, minus the spiritual soul? From which it would follow that the good and bad instincts of man result from the predominance of one or the other of these two souls.
“No, man has not two souls; but the body has its instincts resulting from the sensation of its organs. There is in him only a double nature – the animal nature and the spiritual nature. By his body he participates in the nature of the animals and their instincts; by his soul he participates in the nature of spirits.”
- Thus, besides his own imperfection, which he has to get rid of, a spirit has also to struggle against the influence of matter?
“Yes, the lower a spirit’s degree of advancement, the closer are the bonds which united him with matter. Do you not see that it must necessarily be so? No; man has not two souls: the soul is always one in a single being. The soul of the animal and that of man are distinct from one another, so that the soul of the one cannot animate the body created for the other. But if man have not an animal soul, placing him, by its passions, on a level with the animals, he has his body, which often drags him down to them; for his body is a being endowed with vitality, and that has its instincts, but unintelligent, and limited to the care of its own preservation.”
…
606. Whence do the animals derive the intelligent principle that constitutes the particular kind of soul with which they are endowed?
“From the universal intelligent element.”
- The intelligence of man and of the animals emanates, then, from one and the same principle?
“Undoubtedly; but, in man, it has received an elaboration which raises it above that which animates the brute.”

607. You have stated that the soul of man, at its origin, is in a state analogous to that of human infancy, that its intelligence is only beginning to unfold itself, and that it is essaying to live (190); where does the soul accomplish this earliest phase of its career?
“In a series of existences which precede the period of development that you call humanity.”
The soul would seem, then, to have been the intelligent principle of the inferior orders of creation?
“Have we not said everything in nature is linked together and tends to unity? It is in those beings, of which you are very far from knowing all, that the intelligent principle is elaborated, is gradually individualised, and made ready to live, as we have said, through its subjection to a sort of preparatory process, like that of germination, on the conclusion of which that principle undergoes a transformation and becomes spirit. It is then that the period of humanity commences for each spirit with the sense of futurity, the power of distinguishing between good and evil, and the responsibility of his actions; just as, after the period of infancy comes that of childhood, then youth, adolescence, and ripened manhood. Is the greatest genius humiliated by having been a shapeless foetus in his mother’s womb? If anything ought to humiliate him, it is his lowness in the scale of being, and his powerlessness to sound the depths of the divine designs and the wisdom of the laws that regulate the harmonies of the universe. Recognise the greatness of God in this admirable harmony that establishes solidarity between everything in nature. To think that God could have made anything without a purpose, and have created intelligent beings without a future, would be to blaspheme His goodness, which extends over all His creatures.
Does this period of humanity commence upon our earth?
“The earth is not the starting-point of the earliest phase of human incarnation; the human period commences, in general, in worlds still lower than yours. This, however, is not an absolute rule; and it may happen that a spirit, at his entrance upon the human phase, may be fitted to live upon the earth. Such a case, however, though possible, is infrequent; and would be an exception to the general rule.”

608. Has a man’s spirit, after death, any consciousness of the existences that have preceded his entrance upon the human period?
“No; for it is only with this period that his life, as a spirit, has begun for him. He can scarcely recall his earliest existences as a man; just as a man no longer remembers the earliest days of his infancy, and still less the time he passed in his mother’s womb. This is why spirits tell you that they do not know how they began.”

609. Does a spirit, when once he has entered upon the human period, retain any traces of what he has previously been, that is to say, of the state in which he was in what may be called the ante-human period?
“That depends on the distance that separates the two periods, and the amount of progress accomplished. During a few generations, there may be a reflex, more or less distinct, of the primitive state, for nothing in nature takes place through an abrupt transition, and there are always links which unite the extremities of the chain of beings or of events; but those traces disappear with the development of free-will. The first steps of progress are accomplished slowly, because they are not yet seconded by the will; they are accomplished more rapidly in proportion as the spirit acquires a more perfect consciousness of himself.”

610. The spirits who have said that man is a being apart from the rest of creation are, then, mistaken?
“No, but the question had not been developed; and besides, there are things that can only be known at their appointed time. Man is, in reality, a being apart, for he has faculties that distinguish him from all others, and he has another destiny. The human species is the one which God has chosen for the incarnation of the beings that are capable of knowing Him.”

Day 83: Capital Punishment

2007-07-17T17:31:00.000+01:00

Capital Punishment

More extracts from The Spirits’ Book by Allan Kardec:

760. Will capital punishment disappear some day from human legislation?
“Capital punishment will, most assuredly, disappear in course of time; and its suppression will mark a progress on the part of the human race. When men become more enlightened, the penalty of death will be completely abolished throughout the earth; men will no longer require to be judged by men. I speak of a time a long way ahead of you.”

761. The law of preservation gives man the right to preserve his own life; does he not make use of that same right when he cuts off a dangerous member from the social body?
“There are other means of preserving yourselves from a dangerous individual than killing him; and besides, you ought to open the door of repentance for the criminal, and not close it against him.”

762. If the penalty of death may be banished from civilised society, was it not a necessity in times of less advancement?
“Necessity is not the right word. Man always thinks that a thing is necessary when he cannot manage to find anything better, In proportion as he becomes enlightened, he understands more clearly what is just or unjust, and repudiates the excesses committed, in times of ignorance, in the name of justice.”

763. Is the restriction of the number of the cases in which capital punishment is inflicted an indication of progress in civilisation?
“Can you doubt its being so? Does not your mind revolt on reading the recital of the human butcheries that were formerly perpetrated in the name of justice, and often in honour of the divinity; of the tortures inflicted on the condemned, and even on the accused, in order to wring from him, through the excess of his sufferings, the confession of a crime which, very often, he had not committed? Well, if you had lived in those times, you would have thought all this very natural; and, had you been a judge, you would probably have done the same yourself. It is thus that what seemed to be right at one period seems barbarous at another. The divine laws alone are eternal; human laws change as progress advances; and they will change again and again, until they have been brought into harmony with the laws of God.”

764. Jesus said, “He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword.” Are not these words the consecration of the principle of retaliation? And is not the penalty of death, inflicted on a murderer, an application of this principle?
“Take care! You have mistaken the meaning of these words, as of many others. The only righteous retaliation is the justice of God; because it is applied by Him. You are all, at every moment, undergoing this retaliation, for you are punished in that wherein you have sinned, in this life or in another one. He who has caused his fellow-men to suffer will be placed in a situation in which he himself will suffer what he caused them to endure. This is the true meaning of the words of Jesus; for has He not also said to you, ‘Forgive your enemies,’ and has He not taught you to pray that God may forgive you your trespasses as you forgive those who have trespassed against you, that is to say, exactly in proportion as you have forgiven? Try to take in the full meaning of those words.”

765. What is to be thought of the infliction of the penalty of death in the name of God?
“It is a usurpation of God’s place in the administration of justice. Those who act thus show how far they are from comprehending God, and how much they still have to expiate. Capital punishment is a crime when applied in the name of God, and those who inflict it will have to answer for it as for so many murders.”

Day 82: Global Warming

2007-07-16T18:42:00.000+01:00

The following is an extract from The Weather Channel blog:
July 9, 2007

LIVE EARTH TARGETS YOU AND ME Andrew Freedman, Environmental Writer

In case you were unaware of the Live Earth concerts this past weekend, you
missed out on a prime opportunity to get your inner green on. According to its
organizers, led by Al Gore, the shows on seven continents added up to the
largest single global entertainment event in history.
As in: "ever." As in: "wow."
As in "really?" And: "so what?"
Ok, maybe the event didn't actually bring global concentrations of greenhouse
gases below pre-industrial levels (the observations haven't come in yet), and in
fact the concerts contributed to the climate crisis through emissions associated
with the shows themselves, but it was still a turning point in the fight for
climate change containment. Here's why:
Live Earth was the boldest attempt yet to galvanize the collective worldwide
conscience to focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It was not the
culmination of a movement but rather a sometimes artistically mediocre
beginning.
This is now Day Three of the global movement to solve the climate crisis that
the concerts kicked off. Proceeds from the shows - which drew an estimated
audience of about two billion people worldwide - are being funneled into Al
Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, a group that's planning an advertising
blitz during the '08 elections in the U.S. to make sure climate change is at the
top of the political agenda.
The performances were notable for sticking to the message of thinking globally
and acting locally. Artists and celebrity MCs spoke of the benefits of billions
of people making tiny changes in their lives that would add up to a substantial
reduction in the global carbon footprint.
Key items on the agenda were encouraging people to change light bulbs in their
homes from traditional incandescents to compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) and
advocating driving less and biking more. Attendees and viewers were asked to
sign a detailed pledge to combat climate change at home, on the road and in the
workplace.
Focusing on the small scale seemed odd at first. My parent's generation went to
Woodstock to listen to bands sing about peace on Earth, yet people my age now
groove to CFLs and fully inflated tires. How lame is that?
At times it appeared that the bands from the 1970s and 80s who played Live
Earth, such as Genesis, Crowded House and The Police, didn't understand the
logic behind the small scale focus. I imagined awkward green room conversations.

"Um, Mr. Sting, please remember to mention compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Mr.
Collins forgot to mention them."
"Compact what in the who now?"
"Compact fluorescent light bulbs."
"You brought me here to sing about light bulbs? Do I look like GE to you? I'm
going to sing about the bloody rain forests instead."
Comedian Chris Rock tapped into the dichotomy between holding the biggest
entertainment event ever and using it to talk about light bulbs when he told
concert goers at Britain's Wembley Stadium: "Every day in Jamaica a baby bursts
into flames, so let's do something about this."
The concert's emphasis on inspiring small scale actions in the near term could
prove to be a brilliant move. Gore and company are betting that people will be
more likely to support large scale actions on climate change, including measures
that may cost them money at the gas pump for example, if they're already working
to reduce their own carbon footprint. Gore said as much in a recent interview
with Rolling Stone magazine. "... when people make changes in their own lives,
they are much more likely to become part of a critical mass of public opinion
and to support the bigger policy changes that are going to be needed to really
solve the problem," he said.
Live Earth took Gore's social science framework and beamed it around the world,
although it was unclear whether the performers, attendees and viewers at home
understood that CFLs and driving less won't be enough to solve the problem.
The big question now -- with millions of lives riding on the outcome -- is
whether Live Earth will succeed in jump starting the massive change in public
opinion that Gore and company believe is necessary to rapidly push forward with
mitigating climate change.
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Day 81: Multi-Level Communication

2007-07-15T19:48:00.000+01:00

Previously, I mentioned the value of meditation and self-hypnosis in maintaining health. Taking that further today, I want to share something taken from John Overdurf & Julie Silverthorn’s Training Trances – Multi-Level Communication in Therapy And Training, which is a transcript from a live training:

JOHN: Your conscious mind can be aware of seven plus or minus two chunks of information and your conscious mind can pay attention to whatever is going on at the time.

JULIE: While your unconscious mind knows everything else.

JOHN: Your conscious mind tends to think in a sequential way, because it thinks one thing has to go after another.

JULIE: And your unconscious deals in simultaneity; it has the possibility of dealing with everything simultaneously.

JOHN: Your conscious mind is logical.

JULIE: Your unconscious mind is intuitive and it associates new learnings easily.

JOHN: Your conscious mind tends to think in terms of cause and effect; it’s linear. It says this makes that happen: one thing after another in the same way so that it is sequential and logical.

JULIE: Your unconscious mind knows everything is a cybernetic loop, that one thing merely influences the other, not one thing causes the other. Your unconscious mind knows it’s a cybernetic system.

JOHN: Your conscious mind is constantly asking, why is this true? Why is this the way that it is?

JULIE: Your unconscious mind knows why.

JOHN: The conscious mind generally is the part of you which does the thinking. All the regular thinking, the intellectual thinking which you engage in during the course of the day.

JULIE: Which makes it easier for your unconscious to do all your feeling.

JOHN: Your conscious mind is generally equated with your waking state.

JULIE: And your unconscious with your sleeping and dreaming state.

JOHN: Consciously, you can voluntarily move parts of your body.

JULIE: Yet its your unconscious which moves your body involuntarily.

JOHN: Consciously, you can be aware only of what is happening right now.

JULIE: Yet your unconscious is the storehouse of all your memories.

JOHN: Conscious mind tries to understand problems. It thinks that by understanding problems, it won’t have the problem.

JULIE: If only it would allow the unconscious mind which does know the solution to present you with the solution, then your conscious mind can…

JOHN: Direct the outcome. Your conscious mind can decide what it wants all the rest of you to do.

JULIE: While your unconscious mind expedites the outcome.

JOHN: Conscious mind is deliberate.

JULIE: Unconscious is automatic.

JOHN: Conscious mind is verbal.

JULIE: Unconscious is nonverbal.

JOHN: Conscious mind is analytical.

JULIE: Unconscious mind is able to synthesize things.

JOHN: Conscious mind is most effective when tending to information that’s occurring.

JULIE: While the unconscious mind records all the information to which the conscious mind has attended.

JOHN: So the conscious mind has a limited focus.

JULIE: And the unconscious mind has an unlimited focus.

JOHN: The conscious mind is the domain of your cognitive learnings and understandings.

JULIE: And the unconscious mind is the domain of all your experiential learnings.

JOHN: Notice what that does. How many of you experienced a feeling of something spreading apart or expanding? What we did was very minimal because we virtually read down the list and added only a few words. In actual practice, you may not even need to use the whole list [to induce a trance]. You can be selective. There are a number of other nuances we’ll be adding which will make this far more effective than what you’ve just experienced. Additionally, you can combine this experience with Pacing Current Experience…So, as you’re sitting here, you can pay attention to me consciously…

JULIE: And your unconscious mind, that logical part, can wonder what this is really all about.

JOHN: While your unconscious mind can really be getting to grips with the source of why you’re here.

JULIE: And while your unconscious is doing that, your conscious mind on some level may still be asking why, why would we be doing any of this in the first place?

JOHN: And consciously you can consider what your outcome is. Consciously you can even make a picture of you at the end of the training. [And we reading can make a picture of ourselves with what we want too].

JULIE: You can think about it consciously for as long as you like.

JOHN: Because it’s your unconscious mind that will go back through your history and find all the resourceful experiences you need to combine in various ways that will make that outcome happen.

JULIE: And you’ll know you’ve had that outcome when your unconscious signals you with the right feeling.

JOHN: But that’s not nearly as important as being consciously aware of what’s being said right now each time your eyes blink.

JULIE: And for some of you your eyes blink automatically.

JOHN: Unconsciously.

Day 80: Herbal Actions

2007-07-14T23:42:00.000+01:00

Herbal Actions

There are approximately 120 different actions identified over the ages. However, only 40 of these actions are commonly considered.

Tonic
This is first in the list because it makes perhaps the most important contribution herbal medicine can make in the process of natural healing. Tonic herbs stimulate nutrition by improving the assimilation of essential nutrients by the organs, improve systemic tone and give increased vigor, energy, and strength to the tissues of either specific organs or to the whole body. The list of tonic herbs is long. To name a few: oats, hawthorn, nettles, garlic, goldenseal, calendula, dandelion, Ashwagandha, Ginseng, Oregon Grape, Vervain, Raspberry, Sarsaparilla.

Adaptogen
This is a timely new action concept that is unique to herbal therapeutics. Adaptogenic or hormonal modulating actions increase the body’s resistance and endurance to a wide variety of adverse influences from physical, chemical and biological stress, assisting the body’s ability to cope and adapt. Adaptogens are non-toxic and possess normalizing actions. For example adaptogens tend to normalize high or low blood pressure, under active and over active adrenal glands and possibly other endocrine glands, and high or low blood sugar. This adaptogen action appears to work through hormonal regulation of the stress response which in turn has a modulating effect on human immunity. Siberian Ginseng, Chinese & American Ginseng, Schizandra, Ashwagandha, Licorice, Stinging Nettle, Suma and Astragulus.

Alterative
Herbs that have this property gradually restore health and vitality to the body. They have been referred to as blood cleansers. They help the body assimilate nutrients, eliminate metabolic wastes and restore proper function. Alterative herbs are used to help treat infection, blood toxicity, skin eruptions, impotence and chronic degenerative conditions: Burdock, Red Clover, Nettle, Cleavers, Oregon Grape are merely a few of the commonly used alterative herbs. Nature is generous with these health builders.

Analgesic, Anodyne
These herbs relieve pain when administered orally or externally, but they are not narcotic: Scullcap, Valerian, Passion flower.

Antacid
These herbs neutralize excess acid in the stomach and intestinal tract: Fennel, Catnip, Dandelion, Slippery Elm, Mullein, Meadowsweet (clears symptoms of hyperacidity).

Anthelmintic
These herbs destroy or expel worms from the digestive tract: Garlic, Onion, Wormwood, Rue, Thyme

Antibilious
These herbs help remove excess bile from the system and help relieve biliary conditions or jaundice in the body: Centaury, Balmony, Barberry, Dandelion, Goldenseal, Yarrow, Turmeric.

Anticatarrhal
These herbs eliminate or counteract the build-up of excess mucus and catarrhal buildup from sinus or other upper respiratory parts: Eyebright, Echinacea, Garlic, Cayenne, Sage, Hyssop, Goldenrod, Yarrow, Yerba Santa

Anti-emetic
These herbs lessen nausea and help relieve or prevent vomiting: Balm, Peppermint, Ginger, Fennel, Dill, Gentian, Meadowsweet.

Anti-inflammatory
Moderate inflammation is the body’s appropriate reaction to infection, injury or irritation, resulting in enhanced tissue repair and containment of invaders. One does not always want to lessen this inflammation, but often finds it more efficacious to stimulate it by using rubifacients or systemic vasodilators. (See rubifacient and vasodilator actions below). One uses anti-inflammatory action to combat extensive or too painful occurrence of inflammation. Anti-inflammatory herbs include those having demulcent, emollient and vulnerary actions when applied externally: St. Johns Wort [NB: DO NOT TAKE THIS IF YOU ARE BLOOD TYPE O or do not know your blood type – Editor SBW’s note], Calendula, Arnica, Licorice, Chamomile, Wild Yam.

Antilithic
These herbs help prevent or dissolve and discharge urinary and biliary stones and gravel. For urinary system kidney and bladder stones: Gravel Root, Hydrangea, Dandelion, Cleavers, Buchu, Goldenrod, Corn Silk, Uva Ursi. For gallbladder: Oregon Grape, Chaparral.

Anti-microbial
These herbs help the body’s immune system destroy or resist pathogenic micro-organisms: the green, unripe Black Walnut hulls, Echinacea, Chaparral, Garlic, Goldenseal, Wormwood, and herbs high in volatile oils such as Anise, Caraway, Clove, Eucalyptus, Myrrh, Peppermint, Rosemary, Thyme.

Aphrodisiac
These herbs help correct conditions of impotence mostly by strengthening sexual excitement and desire. They tend more to stimulate sexual arousal than to improve performance. The combined use of alteratives helps restore proper function: Damiana, Saw Palmetto, Ginseng, Sarsaparilla, Yohimbe.

Aromatic
These herbs have a salient, usually pleasant odor, which stimulates the gastro-intestinal system (see carminative action) and are frequently used to improve the aroma and taste of medicines and foods: Lavender, Peppermint, Angelica, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Dill, Citrus Peel

Astringent
This action promotes greater density and firmness of tissue by precipitating protein and condensing the cellular structure of the tissue, contracting and firming relaxed weakened tissue such as piles and prolapsed organs. Astringency can reduce excessive discharge of fluids like diarrhea in the intestines; blood haemorrhaging from the lungs and kidneys or excessive perspiration from the skin. These herbs include: White Oak, Pipsissewa, Horsechestnut, Partridgeberry, Witch Hazel.

Bitter
These herbs stimulate the sectretion of digestive juices benefiting the digestive process. They stimulate the activity of the liver and pancreas, aiding the elimination of toxins: Gentian, Hops, Artichoke, Mugwort, Dandelion.

Carminative
This action excites intestinal peristalsis, promotes the expulsion of gas, soothes the stomach promoting digestion and relieves gripping (severe cramping pain) in the gastro-intestinal tract. These herbs are rich in aromatic volatile oils: Anise, Fennel, Chamomile, Peppermint, Caraway, Ginger.

Cholagogue
This action excites the discharge and flow of bile from the gall-bladder into the small intestine. This is beneficial in treating gall-bladder problems. Bile helps disinfect the bowels and can have a laxative effect, as bile naturally stimulates peristalsis elimination. Cholagogues include: Barberry, Goldenseal, Dandelion, Oregon Grape, Wild Yam.

Demulcent
This action relaxes and soothes the tissue of the digestive tract upon direct contact, and triggers reflex mechanisms that travel through the spinal nerves effectively reducing inflammation and irritation in the respiratory and urinary systems. These herbs are mucilaginous, gelatinous, soothing and protective: Comfrey, Marshmallow, Slippery Elm, Mullein, Corn Silk.

Diaphoretic
Fever is a very appropriate defense response of the body for dealing with infection. Contrary to accepted medical technique, stimulating a fever is often highly beneficial. This acts to increase sweat bringing the heat and inflammation outward to the surface of the skin, cooling the skin by evaporation of the sweat and concurrently facilitating the excretion of waste matter. These herbs induce increased perspiration, dilate capillaries and increase elimination through the skin: Elder, Yarrow, Ginger, Peppermint.

Diuretic
These herbs increase the elimination and regulate the flow of urine. For best results, drink lots of pure water while using diuretics: Dandelion, Couchgrass, Uva Ursi, Plantain, Horsetail.

Emetic
Emetics cause vomiting, helping the stomach empty. To produce this effect, these herbs usually need to be taken in large doses: Lobelia, Ipecac, Boneset.

Emollient
Applied to the skin, these emollients soothe, soften and protect externally much like demulcents do internally: Comfrey, Chickweed, Plantain, Slippery Elm, Marshmallow

Expectorant
These herbs support the respiratory system in removing excess mucus. Stimulating expectorant – These herbs stimulate the nerves and muscles of the respiratory system to manifest a coughing syndrome, causing expectoration by encouraging the loosening and expulsion of mucus: Elecampane, White Horehound.
Relaxing expectorant – These herbs reduce tension in lung tissue, often easing tightness, allowing natural coughing and flow of mucus to occur: Coltsfoot (excellent for children), Gumweed, Licorice, Hyssop.
Amphoteric expectorant – These herbs can stimulate or relax the respiratory system, using the body’s wisdom to determine which is necessary: Lobelia, Mullein, Horehound, Coltsfoot, Elder, Garlic.

Febrifuge
These herbs assist the body to reduce fevers: Angelica, Catnip, Elder Blossom, Peppermint.

Hemostatic
These herbs are internal astringents that arrest haemorrhaging: Bayberry, Blackberry, Cayenne, Shepherd’s Purse, Goldenseal.

Hepatic
These herbs strengthen and tone the liver, stimulating its secretive function, and causing an increase in the flow of bile: Oregon Grape Root, Agrimony, Dandelion, Goldenseal, Wild Yam.

Hypnotic
These herbs have a powerful relaxant and sedative action and help to induce sleep: Hops, Valerian, Wild Lettuce.

Hypotensive
These herbs reduce elevated blood pressure: Crampbark, Onion, Garlic, Yarrow, Hawthorn berries and flowers.

Laxative & Aperient
Laxative herbs stimulate bowel action, promoting evacuation: Cascara Sagrada, Yellow Dock.
Aperient herbs have a very mild laxative action: Dandelion root, Boneset, Beet root.

Lymphatic
These herbs support the health and activity of the lymphatic system: Cleavers, Calendula, Echinacea.

Nervine
These herbs affect the nervous system, having either a tonic (Oats, Damiana), relaxing (Chamomile, Hops) or stimulating (Coffee, Yerba Mate) effect.

Pectoral
These herbs have a general strengthening and healing effect on the entire respiratory system: Elecampane, Coltsfoot, Comfrey, Mullein, Yerba Santa, Anemopsis.

Rubefacient
When applied locally to the skin, rubefacients cause gentle irritation, promoting capillary dilation and increased circulation in the skin, drawing blood from deeper areas of the body. Drawing blood from deeper areas of the body relieves inflammation and congestion in these parts, often reducing pain. These herbs are useful for treating acute sprains, chronic arthritis, rheumatism and other joint afflictions: Stinging Nettle, Mustard seed, Cayenne, Horseradish.

Sedative
These herbs calm the nervous system by lowering the functional activity of an organ, or by reducing stress and nervous irritation throughout the body: Valerian, Scullcap, Passion Flower, Black Cohosh.

Sialogogue
These herbs promote the secretion and flow of saliva from the salivary glands: Echinacea, Gentian, Prickly Ash.

Stimulant
These herbs warm the body, quicken the circulation, break up obstructions and congestion, increase energy and possess a notably intense energy: Cayenne, Ginger, Horseradish, Mustard, Wormwood.

Styptic
These herbs arrest or reduce external bleeding due to astringent action on blood vessels: Yarrow, Horsetail, Cayenne, Bayberry, Plantain.

Vasodilator
These herbs expand blood vessels allowing increased circulation: Ginkgo, Feverfew, Siberian Ginseng, Ginger, Cayenne, Bayberry.

Vulnerary
These herbs help the body to heal wounds and cuts, and are applied externally: Comfrey, Calendula, Chickweed, St. Johns Wort [again, DO NOT use if Blood Type O or if you do not know your blood type], Marshmallow.

Plants listed by common names

Agrimony******Agrimonia eupatoria
Alfalfa*******Medicago sativa
Angelica******Angelica archangelica
Arnica******Arnica Montana
Artichoke******Cynara scolymnus
Ashwagandha******Withania membranaceus
Astragalus******Astragalus membranaceus

Balm******Melissa officinalis
Basil******Ocimum basilicum
Bayberry*******Myrica cerifera
Bearberry*******Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
Black Cohosh*******Cimicifuga racemosa
Blackberry*******Rubus villosus
Bladderwrack*******Fucus vesiculosis
Blessed Thistle******Cnicus benedictus
Blue Cohosh*******Caulophylum thalictroides
Blue Flag******Iris versicolor
Bogbean******Menyanthes trifoliate
Boneset******Eupatorium perfoliatum
Buchu*******Agathosma betulina
Burdock*******Arctium lappa

Calendula*******Calendula officinalis
California Poppy******Eschsholzia californica
Cascara Sagrada*******Rhamnus purshiana
Catnip*******Nepeta cataria
Cayenne******Capsicum spp.
Celery seed******Apium graveolens
Centaury******Centaurium umbellatum
Chamomile******Matricaria chamomilla
Chaparrel******Larrea mexicana
Chaste Tree******Vitex agnus-castus
Chicory******Cichorium intybus
Chickweed******Stellaria media
Cinnamon******Cinnamomium zeylanicum
Cleavers******Galium aparine
Coffee******Coffea arabica
Coltsfoot*******Tussilago farfara
Comfrey******Symphytum officinale
Coriander******Coriandrum sativum
Corn Silk******Zea mays
Couch Grass*******Agropyron repens
Cramp Bark*******Viburnum opulus
Cranesbill*******Geranium maculatum
Cubeb******Piper cubeba

Damiana******Turnera diffusa
Dandelion*******Teraxacum officinale
Devil’s Club*******Oplopanax horridus
Dill*******Anethum graveolens
Dong Quai*******Angelica sinensis

Echinacea******Echinacea purpurea
***************Echinacea angustifolia
***************Echinacea pallida
Elder******Sambucus nigra
Elecampane******Inula helenium
Eucalyptus******Eucalyptus globules
Eyebright******Euphrasia officinalis

False Unicorn******Chamealirium luteum
Fennel******Foeniculum vulgare
Fenugreek******Trigonella foenum-graecum
Feverfew******Tanacetum parthenium
Flaxseed******Linum usitatissimum

Garlic******Allium sativum
Gentian******Gentiana spp.
Ginger******Zingiber officinale
Ginkgo******Ginkgo biloba
Ginseng******Panax spp.
Goat’s Rue******Galega officinalis
Golden Rod******Solidago virgauria
Golden Seal******Hydrastis Canadensis
Gotu Kola******Centella asiatica
Gravel Root******Eupatorium purpureum
Guarana******Paullinia cupana
Gumweed******Grindelia spp

Hawthorn******Crataegus spp.
**************Crataegus oxyacantha
Hops******Humulus lupulus
Horehound******Marrubium vulgare
Horsechestnut******Aesculus hippocastanum
Horseradish******Armoracia rusticana
Horsetail******Equisetum arvense
Ho shou wu******Polygonum multiflorum
Hydrangea******Hydrangea arborescens
Hyssop******Hyssopus officinales

Irish Moss******Chondrus crispus

Kola******Cola vera, C. acuminata

Lady’s Mantle******Alchemilla vulgaris
Lavender******Lavender officinalis
Licorice******Glycyrrhiza glabra
Linden******Tilia cordata
Lobelia******Lobelia inflata

Ma Huang******Ephedra sinica
Marshmallow******Althaea officinalis
Meadowsweet******Filipendula ulmaria
Melilot******Melilotus officinales
Milk Thistle******Carduus marianum
******************(Silybum marianum)
Motherwort******Leonurus cardiaca
Mugwort******Artemisia vulgaris
Mullein******Verbascum spp.
Mulberry******Morus spp.
Myrrh******Commiphora myrrha

Nasturtium******Tropaeolum majus
Nettle******Urtica spp.

Oat Bark******Quercus spp.
Oat******Avena Sativa
Olive Leaf******Olea europaea
Orange******Citrus aurantium
Oregon Grape******Berberis aquifolium Pursh.

Parsley******Petroselinum sativum
Partridge berry******Mitchella repens
Pau d’Arco******Tabebuia spp.
Passion Flower******Passiflora incarnata
Pennyroyal******Mentha piperata
Peppermint******Mentha piperata
Periwinkle******Vinca major (or Vinca minor)
Pipsissewa******Chimaphila umbellate
Plantain******Plantago lanceolata
**************Plantago major
Prickly Ash******Xanthoxylum americanum
Pumpkin******Cucurbita pepo

Raspberry******Rubus spp.
Red Clover******Trifolium pratense
Rosemary******Rosmarinus officinalis

Sage******Salvia officinalis
St. John’s Wort******Hypericum perforatum
Sarsaparilla******Smilax spp.
Sassafras******Sassafras albidum
Saw Palmetto******Serenoa serrulata
Scullcap******Scutellaria laterifolia
Shepherd’s Purse******Capsella bursa-pastoris
Siberian Ginseng******Eleutherococcus senticosus
Slippery Elm******Ulmus fulva
Sorrel******Rumex spp.
Southernwood******Artemisia abrotanum
Star Anise******Illicium anisatum
Strawberry******Fragaria vesca
Suma******Pfaffia paniculata

Tea Tree******Melaleuca alternifolia
Thuja******Thuja occidentalis
Thyme******Thymus spp.
Turmeric******Curcuma longa

Usnea******Usnea spp.
Uva Ursi******see Bearberry)

Valerian******Valeriana officinalis
Vervain******Verbena officinalis

Wild Cherry******Prunus serotina
Wild Indigo******Baptisia tinctoria
Wild Lettuce******Lactuca virosa
Wild Oat******Avena fatua
Wild Yam******Dioscorea villosa
Willow Bark******Salix spp.
Witch Hazel******Hamamelis virginiana
Wormwood******Artemisia absinthium

Yarrow******Achillea millefolium
Yellow Dock******Rumex crispus
Yerba Manza******Anemopsis californica
Yerba Mate******Ilex paraguensis
Yohimbe******Pausinystalia yohimba
Yucca******Yucca spp.

The above information is taken from The Male Herbal by James Green, Herbalist. I edited it very slightly. In my firm opinion, the best way to use the above information is alongside the blood type information - see http://www.dadamo.com

Day 79: Tackle Climate Change Today!

2007-07-13T03:52:00.001+01:00

The following is a very important message that was passed on to me and that gives us all the tools with which we can make a massive difference.

Dear friend,

Thanks for making this commitment to do your part to end the climate
crisis. The more people sign the Live Earth Pledge, the closer we come
to building a sustainable world for future generations.

Help us take this message to every corner of the planet--forward the
pledge to everyone you know:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_pledge/tf.php

In hope,

Ben, Paul, Graziela, Ricken, Galit, Lee-Sean, Iain and the whole Avaaz
team
_____________________________________

I PLEDGE:

1.To demand that my country join an international treaty within the
next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries
and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit
a healthy earth;

2.To take personal action to help solve the climate crisis by reducing
my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become
"carbon neutral;"

3.To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating
facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store
the CO2;

4.To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home,
workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation;

5.To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy
sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;

6.To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and
protecting forests; and,

7.To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment
to solving the climate crisis and building a sustainable, just, and
prosperous world for the 21st century.

Day 78: tips for a tip-top intuition!

2007-07-12T21:41:00.000+01:00

Previously, I shared information about intuition. Here, I detail methods to fine-tune, brighten and deepen your intuition. A very quick method, that is in intuition and beyond by Sharon A. Klingler, is to think of a question and have an internal image of traffic lights and seeing whether you get red for stop, green for go for it or yellow for wait. You may, however, need to just ask yourself what colour is the light if you are not very visual and you may find it easier to just note how you feel – some of us get gut feelings more than anything else. Sharon clarifies:

“Questions Not To Ask

1. When starting to work with your intuition, don’t ask ambiguous questions that can be answered in conflicting ways (especially ‘either/or’ inquiries.)

2. Try not to ask any ‘shoulds’. The question, ‘Should I move?’ could be influenced by financial restraints or any number of obligations. If you are seeking to remove the ‘shoulds’ from your vocabulary, don’t use them when you’re speaking with your intuition!

3. Don’t restrict yourself to asking merely about the choices you are already considering. There are always more options, and your spirit is capable of knowing a great deal more than you might think [….] After you have asked about each of your known options individually, ask your intuition to show you any choices you may have not yet considered.

4. Stay away from any questions with broad-brush outcomes. For instance, ‘Will I be rich?’ is entirely dependent upon what that state of being means to you at any given time.

5. Don’t focus only on the material outcomes. Your spirit wants to take you to the highest experiences of your truth, but it can’t take you there if you’re only looking for the closest parking space and best retirement package. Ask your intuition, ‘What can I learn from this situation’? or ‘How can I make my world better today?’ These types of questions will truly make your life richer by helping you discover your power, your purpose and the action you need to take to realise both.

Now That You’ve Got The Questions, How Do You Get The Answers?

Answers and messages from your inner guidance can appear in many various ways:

1. Sudden, spontaneous knowing or gut feelings can grab you right out of the blue.

2. Singularly focused, often nagging thoughts that may stick around for hours, days or even weeks – until you start listening to them!

3. Physical sensations can include hairs standing up on the back of your neck, goose bumps, nervousness, butterflies or tightness in the stomach, and dry mouth.

4. Subtle, undefined feelings of anticipation

5. Symbols that appear in dreams, meditations and visualisations that come of their own accord, or symbols you choose consciously as focusing tools.

6. Symbols and objects that you notice around you in the environment which act as figurative or literal signs, especially when they are repetitive or seem to have a pattern. When my husband was young, he went through a period of several weeks seeing boats all around him. He then decided to build his first boat. After that, the only boat he seemed to notice was the one he was building in his garage! Noticing what’s around you and paying attention to what distracts you are important components in experiencing your intuition

7. Synchronicity in meetings, observations, actions and events is a sign that there is no such thing as coincidence!

Tips For Asking and Answering

1. Release doubt. Always trust everything you get, and always trust the way that you get it.

2. GO DEEP!

3. Embrace your intuitive experience even if you don’t comprehend it

4. You can get the answers without knowing the answers!

5. Get to know your own style of seeing inside.

6. Keep practising

7. Diversify your practice.

8. Wake up to the details

9. Notice what is calling your attention inside and out.

10. Live in a state of curiosity!

11. Ask and Answer

12. Be willing to release your agenda and go where it may be difficult to go.

Always Seek Knowing!”

Day 77: Spiritism Explained

2007-07-11T04:54:00.000+01:00

Spiritualist Philosophy

The Spirits’ Book
Containing
The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine
on
The immortality of the soul: the nature of spirits
and their relations with men; the moral law:
the present life, the future life, and
the destiny of the human race

according to the teachings of spirits of high degree,
transmitted through various mediums,

collected and set in order
by
Allan Kardec

Translated from the Hundred and Twentieth Thousand
by
Anna Blackwell

Extract from Translator’s Preface:

“When, about 1850, the phenomenon of “table turning” was exciting the attention of Europe and ushering in the other phenomena since known as “spiritist”, Allan Kardec [born in Lyons, France, in 1804, and then living in Paris] quickly divined the real nature of those phenomena, as evidence of the existence of an order of relationships hitherto suspected rather than known – viz., those which unite the visible and invisible worlds. Foreseeing the vast importance, to science and to religion, of such an extension of the field of human observation, he entered at once upon a careful investigation of the new phenomena. A friend of his had two daughters who had become what are now called “mediums”. They were gay [happy], lively, amiable girls, fond of society, dancing, and amusement, and habitually received, when “sitting” by themselves or with their young companions, “communications” in harmony with their worldly and somewhat frivolous disposition. But, to the surprise of all concerned, it was found that, whenever he was present, the messages transmitted through these young ladies were of a very grave and serious character; and on his enquiring of the invisible intelligences as to the cause of this change, he was told that “spirits of a much higher order than those who habitually communicated through the two young mediums came expressly for him, and would continue to do so, in order to enable him to fulfil an important religious mission.”

Much astonished at so unlooked-for an announcement, he at once proceeded to test its truthfulness by drawing up a series of progressive questions in relation to the various problems of human life and the universe in which we find ourselves, and submitted them to his unseen interlocutors, receiving their answers to the same through the instrumentality of the two young mediums, who willingly consented to devote a couple of evenings every week to this purpose, and who thus obtained, through table-rapping and planchette-writing, the replies which have become the basis of the spiritist theory, and which they were as little capable of appreciating as of inventing.

When these conversations had been going on for nearly two years, he one day remarked to his wife, in reference to the unfolding of these views, which she had followed with intelligent sympathy: “It is a most curious thing! My conversations with the invisible intelligences have completely revolutionised my ideas and convictions. The instructions thus transmitted constitute an entirely new theory of human life, duty, and destiny, that appears to me to be perfectly rational and coherent, admirably lucid and consoling, and intensely interesting. I have a great mind to publish these conversations in a book; for it seems to me that what interests me so deeply might very likely prove interesting to others.” His wife warmly approving the idea, he next submitted it to his unseen interlocutors, who replied, in the usual way, that it was they who had suggested it to his mind, that their communications had been made to him, not for himself alone, but for the express purpose of being given to the world as he proposed to do, and that the time had now come for putting his plan into execution. “To the book in which you will embody our instructions,” continued the communicating intelligences, “you will give, as being our work rather than yours, the title of Le Livre des Esprits (The Spirit’s Book); and you will publish it, not under your own name, but under the pseudonym of ALLAN KARDEC (translator’s note: an old Breton name in his mother’s family). Keep your own name of Rivail for your own books already published; but take and keep the name we have now given you for the book you are about to publish by our order, and, in general, for all the work that you will have to do in the fulfilment of the mission which, as we have already told you, has been confided to you by Providence, and which will gradually open before you as you proceed in it under our guidance.”

The book thus produced and published sold with great rapidity, making converts not in France only, but all over the Continent, and rendering the name ALLAN KARDEC “a household word” […] “

From Page 132:

Physical and Moral Likeness

207. Parents often transmit physical resemblance to their children; do they also transmit to them moral resemblance?
“No; because they have different souls or spirits. The body proceeds from the body, but the spirit does not proceed from any other spirit. Between the descendants of the same race there is no other relationship than that of consanguinity.”
- What is the cause of the moral resemblance, that sometimes exists between parents and children?
“The attractive influence of moral sympathy, which brings together spirits who are animated by similar sentiments and tendencies.”

208. Are the spirits of the parents without influence upon the spirit of their child after its birth?
“They exercise, on the contrary, a very great influence upon it. As we have already told you, spirits are made to conduce to one another’s progress. To the spirits of the parents is confided the mission of developing those of their children by the training they give to them; it is a task which is appointed to them, and which they cannot without guilt fail to fulfil.”

209. How is it that good and virtuous parents often give birth to children of perverse and evil nature? In other words, how is it that the good qualities of the parents do not always attract to them, through sympathy, a good spirit to animate their child?
“A wicked spirit may ask to be allowed to have virtuous parents, in the hope that their counsels may help him to amend his ways; and God often confides such a one to the care of virtuous persons, in order that he may be benefited by their affection and care.”

210. Can parents, by their intentions and their prayers, attract a good spirit into the body of their child, instead of an inferior spirit?
“No; but they can improve the spirit of the child whom they have brought into the world, and is confided to them for that purpose. It is their duty to do this; but bad children are often sent as a trial for the improvement of the parents also.”

211. What is the cause of the similarity of character so often existing among brothers, especially between twins?
“The sympathy of two spirits who are attracted by the similarity of their sentiments, and who are happy to be together.”

212. In children whose bodies are joined together, and who have some of their organs in common, are there two spirits, - that is to say, two souls?
“Yes; but their resemblance to one another often makes them seem to you as though there were but one.”

213. Since spirits incarnate themselves in twins from sympathy, whence comes the aversion that is sometimes felt by twins for one another?
“It is not a rule that only sympathetic spirits are incarnated as twins. Bad spirits may have been brought into this relation by their desire to struggle against each other on the stage of corporeal life.”

214. In what way should we interpret the stories of children fighting in their mother’s womb?
“As a figurative representation of their hatred for one another, which, to indicate its inveteracy, is made to date from before their birth. You rarely make sufficient allowance for the figurative and poetic element in certain statements.” “

Later in the book, questions are posed against those who doubt reincarnation:

1. Why do souls manifest so great a diversity of aptitudes independently of the ideas acquired by education?
2. Whence comes the extra-normal aptitude for certain arts and sciences displayed by many children wile still very young, although others remain in a state of inferiority, or of mediocrity, all their life?
3. Whence do some individuals derive the innate or intuitive ideas that are lacking in others?
4. Whence do some children derive the precocious instincts of vice or virtue, the innate sentiments of dignity or of baseness, which often contrast so strikingly with the situation into which they are born?
5. Why is it that some men, independently of education, are more advanced than others?
6. Why is it that among the races which people the globe some are savage and others civilised?

Religious people who reject reincarnation can read:

“[…](T)he principle of reincarnation is implied in many passages of Holy Writ, and is explicitly formulated in the Gospels:-
“When they came down from the mountain (after the transfiguration), Jesus gave this commandment, and said to them – ‘Speak to no one of what you have just seen, until the Son of Man shall have been resuscitated from among the dead.’ His disciples thereupon began to question Him, and inquired, ‘Why, then, do the Scribes say that Elias must first come?’ But Jesus replied to them, ‘It is true that Elias must come, and that he will re-establish all things. But I declare to you that Elias has already come, and they did not know him, but have made him suffer as they listed. It is thus that they will put to death the Son of Man.’ Then His disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist.” (St Matthew, chap. xvii.)

Since John the Baptist is declared by Christ to have been Elias, it follows that the spirit or soul of Elias must have been reincarnated in the body of John the Baptist.”
…
“To sum up:- We assert the doctrine of the plurality of existences is the only one which explains what, without this doctrine, is inexplicable; that it is at once eminently consolatory and strictly conformable with the most rigorous justice; and that it is the anchor of safety which God in His mercy has provided for mankind.

The words of Jesus Himself are explicit as to the truth of this last assertion; for we read in the 3d chapter of the Gospel according to St John that Jesus, replying to Nicodemus, thus expressed Himself:-
“Verily, verily, I tell thee that, if a man be not born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And when Nicodemus inquires, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter again into his mother’s womb and be born a second time?” Jesus replies, “Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit. Be not amazed at what I have told thee; you must be born again.”

Resurrection of the Body.

1010 . Is the doctrine of the resurrection of the body an implication of that of reincarnation, as now taught by spirits?
“How could it be otherwise? It is with regard to that expression as to so many others, that only appear unreasonable because they are taken literally, and are thus placed beyond the pale of credibility; let them only be rationally explained, and those whom you call free-thinkers will admit them without difficulty, precisely because they are accustomed to reflect. Free-thinkers, like the rest of the world, perhaps even more than others, thirst for a future; they ask nothing better than to believe, but they cannot admit what is disproved by science. The doctrine of the plurality of existences is conformable with the justice of God; it alone can explain what, without it is inexplicable; how can you doubt, then, that its principle is to be found in all religions?”

1011. The Church, then, in the dogma of the resurrection of the body, really teaches the doctrine of reincarnation?
“That is evident; but it will soon be seen that reincarnation is implied in every part of Holy Writ. Spirits, therefore, do not come to overthrow religion, as is sometimes asserted; they come, on the contrary, to confirm and sanction it by irrefragable proofs. But, as the time has arrived to renounce the use of figurative language, they speak without allegories, and give to every statement a clear and precise meaning that obviates all danger of false interpretation. For this reason there will be, ere long, a greater number of persons sincerely religious and really believing than are to be found at the present day.”

Proofs of the Existence of God

4. What proof have we of the existence of God?
“The axiom which you apply in all your scientific researches, “There is no effect without a cause.’ Search out the cause of whatever is not the work of man, and reason will furnish the answer to your question.”

9. What proof have we that the first cause of all things is a Supreme Intelligence, superior to all other intelligences?
“You have a proverb which says, ‘The workman is known by his work.’ Look around you, and, from the quality of the work, infer that of the workman.”

Day 76: SANE

2007-07-10T18:43:00.001+01:00

Today, I want to share the effect an article had on me when I read it in last Sunday’s The Sunday Times (UK). It was an article about mental illness and the setting up of a charity called SANE to deal with what is apparently a chronic shortage of adequate care facilities for those who are in acute need of treatment.

In a civilized and prosperous country it is nothing short of a scandal that provision for those with serious mental health problems is poor, and according to the founder of SANE, leads directly to 100 suicides a year. So moved was I by the article, that I will investigate setting up a fund from the proceeds of my book to go to this or a similar charity. All too often, around the world, those who suffer from mental health problems are seen less as sufferers and more as causing their own illnesses and there is little sympathy, understanding or support as well as similar disarray in terms of funding and organisation of the services that are meant to care for them.

I need to research more about SANE, but certainly we can all do something to help by being aware that those with mental health problems are often the most reviled and ignored yet frequently simply because the causes of their illnesses are not known. Many have been sexually abused or been made homeless or have suffered other severe threats to anyone’s sanity, so we would do well to not see free will as being involved – often those who attempt suicide are doing so out of abject despair not any kind of true freedom. I hope that a recent reform coming through parliament will help but it is the public in all countries who can help the most by not giving way to prejudice or fear.

It is common to see people visiting inmates in prisons, but what schemes are there for people to support those suffering from debilitating depression, isolated in decaying psychiatric establishments? I think a sea change is necessary in how we treat the most vulnerable in society and needed now. For without charity, where are we as a nation or indeed as a world?

To learn more about SANE see http://www.sane.org.uk/

Day 74 & 75: The London Literary Festival & An Article on Mindmapping

2007-07-09T18:54:00.000+01:00

Saturday was the day of my choir’s rehearsal and concert, which went well. Some of us went for a drink afterwards and it was enjoyable. Yesterday, I didn’t blog because I went to the London Literary Festival, in fact to a talk by children’s laureate Jacqueline Wilson. Why did I go to see her, you might ask? Simply, because she has five books in my reading list (The Big Read: The Top 100 Favourite Books of All Time as polled by the BBC several years ago.)

I have yet to read any of her books, but she is next on my list - as children obviously voted alongside adults, there are many children’s books in the Top 100; children’s books, however, can teach a writer plenty and – as J.K. Rowling has amply demonstrated, often cross over to have mainstream appeal.

In person, Jacqueline Wilson was endearing, amusing and clearly dedicated to literature. I arrived 5 minutes late and was not allowed in for a further fifteen minutes, along with several other parents and there children, because of needing applause first. Finally, we were ushered in and I sat near the front and listened to the author: a smallish woman with short white/grey hair and five or six huge rings on nearly all her fingers; some big gems.

She talked of how her publishers (Random House) put on a driver and a silver Mercedes for her and of how her driver even helped her out with some antiseptic cream when she was bitten by a ferret once. She read an extract from a volume of autobiography from when she was a little girl and met a famous author. He proceeded to drape her in a snake he had, asking her if she was scared (she was petrified!) yet she said no; her mother telling her she didn’t know why she didn’t object instead of standing there so gormless. She tells her mum she didn’t like the snake; that it felt awful.

Then the young Jacqueline met a very famous female writer whom she admired and who was just sitting on her own, waiting for someone to approach her. Jacqueline’s mother pushes her forward, saying ‘Go on, say something: you like her!’ ‘I know!’ she whispers.

‘But I couldn’t,’ Jacqueline tells us. Then her mother brings her closer and the young girl says meekly to the glamorous successful author, ‘I like your books.’

‘Thank you,’ the author says sweetly, and smiles at young Jacqueline before young Jacqueline turns away ‘and we both breathed a sigh of relief’

She talked about having stayed in the same old modest house for a long time with her thousands of books, and how once she overheard one boy saying to another, ‘That’s the house where Jacqueline Wilson lives.’ The other one replied. ‘No it’s not. That house is a dump.’ Eventually, she moved, but says that although she wants to buy a little dog, because she is away so much she will wait until her books stop selling, and stay at home with it and read all her books then.

She spoke of meeting the Queen and how she sat behind her and Prince Phillip in a Royal Box when she was made the Children’s Laureate, and how she leaned forward to listen as to whether they were gossiping, but says they weren’t and were in fact very professional.

She also talked about her passion to help people read out loud and the importance of reading out loud to children until they slouch off in a surly manner as a teenager. She even said that she will support schools and organisations that take that initiative as it is one close to her heart. She jets all around the world on promotional tours and has written 90 books so far. Her most important piece of advice to all the would-be authors in the audience was, ‘Read, and keep reading. No one who has been published as an author has ever got there without reading a lot.’

There were thousands of children who put there hand up, wanting to ask a question afterwards, and one twenty-year old woman from Hungary thanked the author as she said the books had helped her learn English and fit in in this country. She also talked about her mum telling her ‘No more autobiography’ as a mention of her mum’s ex-partner had mortified her when her friends poked fun at her over it. Also, she says her best old childhood friend might be upset if she wrote in detail. Maybe one day, though, she appends.

I opted out of the mass exodus to have a book signed but was deeply grateful for having met her. Later, I sat in a Latin American restaurant outside the Royal Festival Hall and had a meal. I saw Jacqueline walk past and imagined her perhaps getting into her chauffeur-driven Mercedes and being whisked back to her home.

The following is an article about mindmapping; something I mentioned previously. This article is targeted for writers but mindmapping can be used by anyone and is a great way to organise ideas. The source of the article appears in full below.

“Mindmapping is better than linear outlining because authors can use flexible thinking and relativity in writing their book. One can add and subtract a thought or phrase from a mindmap easily. Mindmapping is an excellent way to start, organize, and finish your book.

What is Mindmapping?

Mindmapping is a color-coded outline of main ideas, sub topics and details, printed on different colored branches connected to the center. In the center in a circle, you will list your main idea, such as your book or chapter title.

For "The One-Minute Sales Person", Spencer's mindmap would have had seven different colored vertical branches coming from that center, so details
can be put on connected horizontal branches--much easier to read.

What are the advantages of Mindmapping?

First, a mindmap is open-ended and open-minded. No more squeezing new
"ahas" or ideas into the strict, tight form of the linear outline. You can make mistakes in your mindmaps. Imperfection leads to creativity. When you get an idea for chapter one, you can just add another branch off the main one. Mindmapping expands flexible thinking, making for better writing.

Second, mindmaps use only three to five concrete or color words on a branch. These key words help jog our memory. Under Chapter One "Attracting Passion," I added several horizontal lines that represented the format that follows. One line had "opening quote," the next one "introduction," the next one "Jerry's Story," the next "Food for Thought and Action," the next, "Passion Hot Line," the last line, "practice."

Third, mindmaps speed up your writing because you only write key phrases.
When you sit down at the computer, from your color-coded map, the answers
will flow naturally. If you need to fatten up your chapter, just go to your chapter file folders where you keep your research.

Fourth, in mindmaps you see the whole related to the parts. Your thesis, chapter titles, and chapter contents all flow because you answered each
question your readers had. This fast-forward technique allows me to write at least two or three books each year, and makes each book more organized,
more focused and clear, easier to read, and finally brings more sales because people can understand the information quickly and easily.

How Do I Create My Mindmap?

Use a large sheet of paper, at least 8 ½ by 11 inches, but I recommend a large square of butcher paper or poster board, so you can spread out and enjoy the process! Have at least six or seven colored felt-tip pens in primary and bright colors ready.

In the center, encircle your title. Arrange your chapter headings, each on
a different colored vertical branch, around the center in any order (you can number them later). If you can't think of a title, put a few key words. Use only one color per branch. Off each main branch, put five or so other horizontal branches of particular chapter parts.

Even though you later change your mind about the contents, this initial mindmap gives you the overall picture of what your book is and what it will share with its readers. I made several mindmaps of my Passion book before I settled on the best information to include.

For the colored mindmapping example, go to
http://www.bookcoaching.com/graphics/MINDMAP.JPG.

Practice: Create your book's mindmap on a separate piece of paper

Practice: Create one chapter's mindmap on a separate piece of paper now.

Wow! You are up to speed. You have your thesis--what challenge your book
will solve, your chapter working titles, your rough draft evolving with a Table of Contents, and you have questions to answer in each chapter.

Mindmapping is an excellent way to start, organize, and finish your book.”

Judy Cullins ©2004 All Rights Reserved.
Judy Cullins, 20-year book and Internet Marketing Coach, Author of 10 eBooks including "Write your eBook Fast," and "How to Market your Business on the Internet," she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says...and Business Tip of the Month
at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 140 free
articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Judy_Cullins

You may Freely publish any of my articles as long as you include the signature box below.

Book and Internet Marketing Coach, Judy Cullins, can
help you build credibility and clients, sell a lot of
books, and make maximum profits. Author of 11 books
including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast
and The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Targeted Web
Traffic" Get her free eBook"20 High Octane Book
Writing and Marketing Tips" and two free monthly
ezines at http://www.bookcoaching.com

Day 73: An Update

2007-07-06T22:45:00.000+01:00

I am rehearsing and performing with my choir ( http://www.hcschoir.com ) all tomorrow so I will blog ahead of time and let you know how things are progressing. There was an error in the photo from my photo shoot (for those with a long memory!) so I will ask for that to be rectified; meanwhile, I am being held up as I cannot send off to magazines etc without a professional photo. Ho hum. Still, there is always a lot to be done and researching the market - TV, radio, newspapers and magazines - takes some time, too.

I finished David Copperfield by Charles Dickens recently and have begun 100 Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I have been submitting articles to various websites, too, and researching local media outlets - all this a part of raising my profile. I will try to attend The London Literary Festival that finishes next Thursday, also. See http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/

Day 72: Look after the Golden Goose!

2007-07-06T18:16:00.001+01:00

Today, I share more about The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.

I mentioned the time management theories and the four quadrants in an earlier post, but will today further clarify what is so important about knowing the difference between production and production capability. Also, I will share what each of the 7 Habits actually are.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

1. Be Proactive
2. Begin with the End in Mind
3. Put First Things First
4. Think Win/Win
5. Seek First to Understand…Then to be Understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the Saw

“Habits 1,2 & 3 deal with self-mastery. They move a person from dependence to interdependence. They are the “Private Victories,” the essence of character growth. Private victories precede public victories. You can’t invert that process anymore than you can harvest a crop before you plant it. It’s inside-out.

As you become truly independent, you have the foundation for effective interdependence. You have the character base from which you can effectively work on the more personality-oriented “Public Victories” of teamwork, cooperation, and communication in Habits 4, 5 & 6.

That does not mean you have to be perfect in Habits 1, 2 & 3 before working on Habits 4, 5 & 6. Understanding the sequence will help you manage your growth more effectively, but I’m not suggesting that you put yourself in isolation for several years until you fully develop Habits 1, 2 & 3.

As part of an interdependent world, you have to relate to that world every day. But the acute problems of that world can easily obscure the chronic character causes. Understanding how what you are impacts every interdependent interaction will help you to focus your efforts sequentially, in harmony with the natural laws of growth.

Habit 7 is the habit of renewal – a regular, balanced renewal of the four basic dimensions of life. It circles and embodies all the other habits. It is the habit of continuous improvement […]

They are also habits of effectiveness because they are based on a paradigm of effectiveness that is in harmony with a natural law, a principle I call the “P/PC Balance,” which many people break themselves against. This principle can be easily understood by remembering Aesop’s fable of the goose and the golden egg.

This fable is the story of a poor farmer who one day discovers in the nest of his pet goose a glittering golden egg. At first, he thinks it must be some kind of trick. But as he starts to throw the egg aside, he has second thoughts and takes it in to be appraised instead.

The egg is pure gold! The farmer can’t believe his good fortune. He becomes even more incredulous the following day when the experience is repeated. Day after day, he awakens to rush to the nest and find another golden egg. He becomes fabulously wealthy; it all seems too good to be true.

But with his increasing wealth comes greed and impatience. Unable to wait day after day for the golden eggs, the farmer decides he will kill the goose and get them all at once. But when he opens the goose, he finds it empty. There are no golden eggs – and now there is no way to get any more. The farmer has destroyed the goose that produced them.

I suggest that within this fable is a natural law, a principle – the basic definition of effectiveness. Most people see effectiveness from the golden egg paradigm: the more you produce, the more you do, the more effective you are.

But as the story shows, true effectiveness is a function of two things: what is produced (the golden eggs) and the producing asset or capacity to produce (the goose).

If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on golden eggs and neglects the goose, you will soon be without the asset that produces golden eggs. On the other hand, if you only take care of the goose with no aim toward the golden eggs, you soon won’t have the wherewithal to feed yourself or the goose.

Effectiveness lies in the balance – what I call the P/PC Balance. P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.”

Day 71: How To Be A Billionaire

2007-07-05T17:25:00.000+01:00

In How To Be A Billionaire – Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth, Martin S. Fridson tells us more about Warren Buffett:

“[He] has used many of the same tools as other self-made billionaires, but he enjoys a special advantage. It is summed up […] “Warren Buffett is smarter than the average bear.”[…] Buffett is renowned for his ability to retain massive amounts of financial data and calculate securities values in his head. His bridge game is close to international standard. When a reporter remarked [in 1990!] that his office contained no computers, Buffett replied, “I am a computer.”

The nine fundamental strategies that self-made billionaires pursued:

· Take Monumental Risks
· Do Business in a New Way
· Dominate Your Market
· Consolidate an Industry
· Buy Low
· Thrive on Deals
· Outmanage the Competition
· Invest in Political Influence
· Resist the Unions

Key principles include:

· Pursue the Money in Ideas
· Rules are Breakable
· Copying Pays Better Than Innovating
· Keep on Growing
· Hold on to Your Equity
· Hard Work is Essential
· Use Financial Leverage
· Keep the Back Door Open
· Make Mistakes, Then Learn From Them
· Frugality Pays
· Enjoy the Pursuit
· Develop a Thick Skin

Self-made billionaires, in short, approach every activity with fervor. While some are remarkably frugal, considering their means, none leads a cramped, miserly existence. Their friends speak of their incredible energy and zest for life. If these phrases do not already describe you, then you should immediately begin developing the habit of welcoming each day as an exciting new adventure. Tenacity is another trait invariably ascribed to the great fortune builders […] More than loving money, the self-made billionaires loved the pursuit of money. To follow in their footsteps, you must adopt their mindset, as well as their strategies, tactics, and principles.

[…]”Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt”

Day 70: Of Permanent Value: Warren Buffett

2007-07-04T16:08:00.000+01:00

Today, I want to share with you some of the secrets that have made Warren Buffett one of the richest men in the world. My background is in NLP and that was started by the practice of modelling – that is, finding out how someone very talented does something and then replicating their behaviour. What is it that makes a genius, for example? If it can be done, anyone can do it, so long as we follow their internal and external behaviour.

Although some of you may not want to become multi-billionaires, I think it is interesting how Buffett - ‘history’s greatest investor’ - achieved his phenomenal success. These extracts are from Of Permanent Value - The Story of Warren Buffett by Andrew Kilpatrick.

“Buffett lives in a “blighted” area

It’s hard to believe, but he lives in a “blighted” area of Omaha. That is because a 35,822-acre area of east Omaha was declared blighted in an effort to win tax incentives for the Aksarben (Nebraska spelled backwards) property development nearby. The area includes wealthy as well as deteriorating sections.

In the early days, he sometimes kept track of intricate financial matters literally on the backs of envelopes. His was a “one-room” operation.

Buffett always has lived beneath his means.

He insists on rock-bottom operating costs, plenty of cash on hand and “little or no debt.”

For example, it was not until he was in his late 20s and well on his way to being a millionaire that he splurged on a $295 IBM typewriter for the partnership.

“He was always saying he didn’t need it,” recalls William O’Connor, a vice president of Mutual of Omaha who had been an IBM Salesman for 30 years. In his early days, O’Connor made the strenuous sale to Buffett. “It was an IBM Standard Model electric typewriter. He bought the standard model rather than the more costly executive model.”

Always tight-fisted, Buffett occasionally has dipped into his fortune for such endeavours as adding rooms to his house, including a handball court.
…
Buffett is a beacon of simplicity and sanity – and probably a genius. Rationality and common sense, actually uncommon sense, are his guiding lights. For example, there are many reasons he bought Coca-Cola stock, but a main one is that human beings, worldwide, get thirsty, and history shows that once exposed to Coke, people continue to drink it.

His three-word job description: “I allocate capital.” His verbose explanation: “My job is to figure out which businesses to invest in, with whom, and at what price.”

Operating from his spartan office, Buffett is the nerve center – along with business partner Charles Munger, who operates from Los Angeles – of a financial empire whose reach and influence sprawl all across the land and beyond.

Usually Buffett invests when there is some temporary stigma or fear or misunderstanding surrounding a superb business. Such was the case when GEICO, the auto insurance firm, came dangerously near bankruptcy in the mid-1970s. He bought big, made about 40 times on his money and now owns all of GEICO.
…
A key tenet at Berkshire [his company] is to bet big and seldom.
…
The secret to making money, in his view, is not to take risks, but to avoid risks.

Beyond his wealth, Buffett is the most influential investment mind and voice in the land.

He has two concrete rules for all who seek riches:

Rule No. 1. Never lose money.
Rule No. 2. Never forget Rule No. 1.

He lives an extraordinarily independent, stirringly original life. More than 99% of the monetary proceeds and 100% of the human proceeds of his life are to be “returned to society”.
…
When Buffett, the avatar of modern investing, wings off to money heaven, he has promised to keep in touch with us. He once told author Adam Smith, “I see myself running Berkshire as long as I live and working on séances afterward.”

For all his splendid long record […] Buffett serves as the business muse of the world."

Day 69: Paulo Coelho

2007-07-03T16:48:00.000+01:00

This is an extract especially for anyone struggling at the moment (I closed my eyes and opened a page in the book while thinking of you) as well as for all my Brazilian friends. It is another quote from The Manual of the Warrior of Light:

'The spiritual energy of the Path uses justice and patience to prepare your spirit.'

The Breviary of Medieval Knights says:

'The spiritual energy of the Path uses justice and patience to prepare your spirit.

This is the Path of the Knight: a path that is at once easy and difficult, because it forces one to set aside trivial things and chance friendships. That is why, at first, many hesitate to follow it.

This is the first teaching of the Knghts: you will erase everything you had written in the book of your life up until now: restlessness, uncertainty, lies. And in the place of all this you will write the word courage. By beginning the journey with that word and continuing with faith in God, you will arrive wherever you need to arrive.'

Day 68: Using Your Brain FOR A CHANGE

2007-07-02T16:00:00.000+01:00

This excerpt from the book Using Your Brain FOR A CHANGE is from one of the creators of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) Richard Bandler.

"Running Your Own Brain

I'd like you to try some very simple experiments, to teach you a little bit about how you can learn to run your own brain. You will need this experience to understand the rest of this book, so I recommend that you actually do the following brief experiments.

Think of a past experience that was very pleasant - perhaps one that you haven't thought about in a long time. Pause for a moment to go back to that memory, and be sure that you see what you saw at the time that pleasant memory happened. You can close your eyes if that makes it easier to do....

As you look at that pleasant memory, I want you to change the brightness of the image, and notice how your feelings change in response. First make it brighter and brighter....Now make it dimmer and dimmer, until you can barely see it....Now make it brighter again.

How does that change the way you feel? There are always exceptions, but for most of you, when you make the picture brighter, your feelings will become stronger. Increasing brightness usually increases the intensity of feelings, and decreasing brightness usually decreases the intensity of feelings.

How many of you ever thought about the possibility of intentionally varying the brightness of an internal image in order to feel different? Most of you just let your brain randomly show you any picture it wants, and you feel good or bad in response.

Now think of an unpleasant memory, something you think about that makes you feel bad. Now make the picture dimmer and dimmer....If you turn the brightness down far enough, it won't bother you any more. You can save yourself thousands of dollars in psychotherapy bills.

I learned these things from people who did them already. One woman told me that she was happy all the time; she didn't let things get to her. I asked her how she did it, and she said "Well, those unpleasant thoughts come into my mind, but I just turn the brightness down."

Brightness is one of the "submodalities" of the visual modality. Submodalities are universal elements that can be used to change any visual image, no matter what the content is. The auditory and kinesthetic modalities also have submodalities.

Brightness is one of the many things you can vary...[though there are] exceptions to the impact brightness usually has. If you make a picture so bright that it washes out the details and becomes almost white [etc]

Day 67: How Intuition Can Work in Your Life

2007-07-01T15:11:00.000+01:00

This is from intuition and beyond by Sharon A. Klingler:

How Intuition Can Work in Your Life
1. It helps you to recognise the best opportunities available to you and supports you in taking the action to embrace those opportunities, regardless of what your other sources of information and opinion say.

When Oprah Winfrey first had the opportunity to move to Chicago, she says that she did so not because her common sense or her friends told her she should, but because her intuition directed her to go, in spite of the greater risk involved in moving away from her established career and into an untested market. 'When you have finished growing in one place or time, you know. Your soul tells you when it's time to move on.' The rest, of course, is history - still in the making!

2. It helps you make the best choices about relationships and about your actions within those relationships. (I have a client in New York City who was very hesitant to marry because of trust issues about sharing financial responsibility. But her inner voice wouldn't let her remain in fear. It led her to a happy marriage and an opportunity to work through her fears about security.)

3. It helps you make the right choices in financial matters (as in the case of Conrad Hilton, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and many others.)

4. It helps you tap into a greater experience of your creativity. (In a poll of Nobel Prize-winning scientists, the majority said they believed intuition had been an important factor in their discoveries.)

5. It creates a better understanding of your sense of purpose and how you can bring that purpose to bear in your life.

6. It will give you insight into the most beneficial changes you can make and the options that lie before you.

7. It could even save your life. (Countless individuals claim to have been saved by their intuition. Winston Churchill, for instance, said that listening to his intuition had kept him alive on a number of occasions, from his days in Africa through to the Second World War. In one of these instances, while visiting an anti-aircraft battery during a bombing raid, he sat in the staff car on the opposite side from where he would usually sit. During that drive, a bomb exploded so near the car that it was actually lifted into the air, but Churchill was saved. When his relieved wife asked him later that day why he had made that choice, he told her, 'Something said "Stop!" before I reached the car door held open for me. It then appeared to me that I was told I was meant to open the door on the other side and get in there - and that's what I did!)

Besides creating clarity out of confusion and being able to make the best choices, there are even greater results to developing a conscious rapport with your intuitive mind. Looking inward for answers instead of outside yourself will always bring a greater discovery of your strength, confidence and freedom in life.

The more you listen to your intuition, the easier all of your decision-making becomes - building trust in yourself and in your own ideas. And this growing trust will allow you to become more self-reliant and confident in your truth. Ultimately, the answer to 'Why use intuition?' is the same as the answer to 'What is intuition?' And that answer is:

Your intuition is your truth;
it is the voice of your spirit

If you listen to the voice of your truth, you will start to be more true to yourself, no matter what obstacles lie before you. And the more you live your truth, the more you will feel the freedom to follow your dreams!

Day 66: More tricks to get a First Class Memory

2007-06-30T16:19:00.000+01:00

THE NUMBER-RHYME SYSTEM

It is important, when forming the images, to have a very clear mental picture in front of your inner eye. To achieve this it is often best to close your eyes and to project the image on to the inside of your eyelid, or on to a screen inside your head, and to hear, feel, smell or experience it in the way that works best for you. (For example, think of what you ate for lunch yesterday: how does your brain recreate it for you? Use the same medium.)
To make all this clearer, let us try the ten items given.

1 bun table

Imagine a giant bun on top of a fragile table which is in the process of crumbling from the weight. Smell the fresh cooked aroma, taste your favourite bun.

2 Shoe feather

Imagine your favourite shoe with an enormous feather growing out of the inside, preventing you from putting your shoe on, tickling and tickling your feet.

3 tree cat

Imagine a large tree with either your own cat or a cat you know stuck in the very top branches frantically scrambling about and mewing loudly.

4 door leaf

Imagine your bedroom door as one giant leaf, crunching and rustling as you open it.

5 hive student

Imagine a student at his desk, dressed in black and yellow stripes, buzzing busily, or with honey dripping on his pages.

6 sticks orange

Imagine large sticks puncturing the juicy surface of an orange that is as big as a beach ball. Feel and smell the juice of the orange squirting out.

7 heaven car

Imagine all the angels sitting on cars rather than clouds; experience yourself driving the car you consider heavenly.

8 skate pencil

Imagine yourself skating over the pavement, hearing the sound of the wheels on the ground, as you see the multi-coloured pencils attached to your skates creating fantastic art wherever you go.

9 vine shirt

Imagine a vine as large as Jack and the Bean Stalk's bean stalk, and instead of leaves on the vine, hang it all over with brightly coloured shirts blowing in the wind.

10 hen poker

Have fun!

Day 65: Tricks for a Brilliant Memory

2007-06-29T17:48:00.001+01:00

Mindmapping is a fantastic aid to studying and Use Your Head by Tony Buzan is a great introduction to the field. It also covers memory systems. Here is an extract from the book:

Assuming that the items to be remembered are:
1 table
2 feather
3 cat
4 leaf
5 student
6 orange
7 car
8 pencil
9 shirt
10 poker

In order to remember these it is necessary to have some system which enables us to use the associative and linking power of memory to connect them with their proper number.
The best system for this is the Number-Rhyme System, in which each number has a rhyming word connected to it.

The rhyming key words are:
1 bun
2 shoe
3 tree
4 door
5 hive
6 sticks
7 heaven
8 skate
9 vine
10 hen

In order to remember the first list of arbitrary words it is necessary to link them in some strong manner with the rhyming words connected to the numbers. If this is done successfully, the answer to a question such as 'what word was connected to number 3'? will be easy. The rhyming word for 5, 'hive', will be recalled automatically and with it will come the connected image of the word that has to be remembered.

SMASHIN' SCOPE OF MEMORY
The important thing in this and all other memory systems is to make sure that the rhyming word and the word to be remembered are totally and securely linked together. In order to do this, the connecting images must be one or many of the following:

1 Synaesthesia/sensuality
Synaesthesia refers to the blending of the senses. The great 'natural' memorisers, and the great mnemonists, developed exceptional sensitivity in each of their senses, and then blended these senses to produce enhanced recall. In developing the memory it has been found to be essential to sensitise increasingly and train regularly your:

a) vision
b) hearing
c) sense of smell
d) taste
e) touch
f) kinaesthesia - your awareness of bodily position and movement in space.

2 Movement
In any mnemonic image, movement adds another giant range of possibilities for your brain to 'link in' and thus remember. As your images move, make them three-dimensional.

3 Association
Whatever you wish to memorise, make sure you associate or link it to something stable in your mental environment, i.e. Peg system: one = bun.

4 Sexuality
We all have a virtually perfect memory in this area. Use it.

5 Humour
Have fun with your memory. The more funny, ridiculous, absurd and surreal you make your images, the more outstandingly memorable they will be. Salvador Dali, the surrealist painter, said that, 'My paintings are photographs painted by hand of the irrational made concrete' and that in many instances they are the paintings of the perfectly held memories of his day and night dreams.

6 Imagination
Einstein said, 'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.' The more you apply your imagination to memory, the better your memory will be.

7 Number
Numbering adds specificity and efficiency to the principle of order and sequence

8 Symbolism
Substituting a more meaningful image for a more normal or boring image increases the probability of recall. You may also use traditional symbols, e.g. stop sign or light bulb.

9 Colour
Where appropriate, and whenever possible, use the full range of the rainbow, to make your ideas more 'colourful' and therefore more memorable.

10 Order and/or sequence
In combination with the other principles, order and/or sequence allows for much more immediate reference, and increases the brain's possibilities for 'random access'. Expanded use of order and sequence allows you to develop Memory Matrices, such as the Self-Enhancing Memory Matrix, enabling you to memorise as many as 10,000 items of information and more (see Master Your Memory).

11 Positivity
In most instances positive and pleasant images are better for memory purposes, because they make the brain want to return to the images. Certain negative images, even though applying all the principles above, and though in and of themselves 'memorable', could be blocked by the brain because it finds the prospect of returning to such images unpleasant.

12 Exaggeration
In all your images, exaggerate size, shape, and sound.

These can easily be remembered by the mnemonic anagram smashin' scope.

Day 64: Restoring Peaceful Sleep & Relieving Pain

2007-06-28T18:20:00.000+01:00

This is from Crystals and Crystal Healing by Simon Lilly:

Restoring Peaceful Sleep
Sleepless nights can be caused by a variety of situations. They can often be overcome by simple strategies - but when you are half-asleep and exhausted, motivation is a difficult thing to summon up. This is when the right sort of crystals can be very useful. Different types of sleeplessness will need different gemstones to ease them, and you will need to experiment - a stone that works for one person may keep someone else awake.
* Chrysoprase, an apple green variety of chalcedony quartz, has been found in most cases to encourage peaceful sleep. A tumbled stone can be put under your pillow, or a larger piece placed on a bedside table
* Just hold the appropriate stones or have them nearby. They will help to quieten you so that you can relax and fall asleep.
* If tension and worry is the cause of restlessness try amethyst, rose quartz or citrine.
* If your sleep pattern is disturbed by something you have eaten, a digestive calmer like ametrine, moonstone or iron pyrites may help.
* Where there is fear, particularly related to bad dreams or nightmares, use a grounding and protecting stone such as tourmaline, staurolite, smoky quartz or tourmaline quartz and place it at the foot of your bed. Labrodorite will also help to chase away any unwelcome thoughts and feelings.

Relieving Pain
Pain is the body's way of letting you know that something is wrong and needs attention. Very often pain is caused by an excess of energy of some sort. Using crystals can help reduce pain to manageable levels by releasing blocks within the subtle bodies and stimulating the body's own healing mechanisms. In general, all cool-coloured stones - blue, indigo and violet - will help to calm painful areas and restore the natural flow of energy in a damaged area.
* Copper is well-known for its ability to reduce inflammation and swellings of all sorts, and some of the most useful gemstones for controlling pain have high concentrations of copper. Copper itself can be worn as a bracelet or carried in its rough, natural, nugget form to help all energy flow in the body and reduce inflammation.
* Malachite is a soft mineral of copper that forms in concentric bands of light and dark green. It is good at calming painful areas and drawing out imbalances. It is a good absorber of negativity and needs regular cleansing to maintain its effectiveness.
* Turquoise can be used whenever there is a need for calm healing energy. The colour of the stone stimulates the body's immune system and it has a beneficial effect on many areas.
* Carnelian, although it is a warm colour, is a useful stone as it is a powerful healer of the etheric body and encourages healing.
* Pink stones, such as rose quartz, calm aggravated areas and also reduce the fears that often accompany injury and pain. Placing pink stones at the solar plexus and sacral chakras [situated below the naval] will calm the mind and relax the body.

Day 63: Fascinating Insights into How We Think

2007-06-27T18:45:00.000+01:00

Today’s extract comes from Words That Change Minds – Mastering the Language of Influence by Shelle Rose Charvet.

Creating Our Model of The World

Every person has a certain number of filters by which they let in certain parts of the real world. In Noam Chomsky’s 1957 Ph.D. thesis, Transformational Grammar, he said there are three processes by which people create the filters of their individual Model of the World.

Deletion

The first process is called deletion. We delete lots of information from the environment around us and internally. In his 1956 paper entitled Seven Plus or Minus Two, George Miller, an American psychologist, said that our conscious minds can only handle seven plus-or-minus two bits of information at any one time, and that we delete the rest. That means on a good day we can deal with nine bits and on a bad day, maybe only five.

This explains why most telephone numbers are a maximum of seven digits. However, while I was living in Paris in the 1980s, they changed the phone numbers to eight digits. Everyone then had to decide whether to remember phone numbers by groups of two, or four, or to simply add the new Paris code, 4, onto the front of their old number. No one had an easy way of keeping eight digits in their head at once. Each person had to find their own way to break it down. People would give out their new phone numbers in their own peculiar manner. It created a great deal of confusion.

So seven plus or minus two bits of information is what we can be comfortably aware of at one time. Using the process of deletion, we filter out lots of things without being aware of it or consciously choosing to do so.

Distortion

The second process is called distortion. We distort things. Have you ever moved to a new place and gone into the living room before you moved your things in and pictured what it was going to look like furnished? Well, you were hallucinating. Your furniture was not actually in the room, was it? So you were distorting Reality.

Two examples of distortion are hallucination and creativity. They are both similar in that the external information is changed to something else. That is what the process of distortion is all about.

Generalization

Chomsky’s third mental filtering process is called generalization. It is the opposite of Cartesian Logic (where you can go from a general rule to specific examples but not the other way around). Generalization is where you take a few examples and then create a general principle. This is how learning occurs. A small child learns to open one or two, or possibly three, doors and then she knows how to open all doors. The child develops a Generalization about how to open doors. That is, until she has to enter a high-tech company and realizes that, to open the door, there is a magnetic card that has to be slid down a slot in a certain way. She has to relearn how to open doors to deal with those exceptions.

Generalization is about how we unconsciously generate rules, beliefs, and principles about what is true, untrue, possible, and impossible. Some women, for example, may have had several bad experiences with men and then come to the conclusion that men (i.e. all men) cannot be trusted. They develop the rule: Never trust a man. People have a certain number of experiences of a similar type and then make a rule or develop a belief.

With the three filters, Deletion, Distortion and Generalization, we each create our own model of the world.

Day 62: What's Your Type?

2007-06-26T18:06:00.001+01:00

Day 61: Natural Ways to Combat Depression

2007-06-25T17:22:00.000+01:00

from The Naturopathy Workbook by Stephen Langley:

DEPRESSION:

DEFINITION
Mental depression is an affected disorder characterised by altered mood. There is loss of interest in all usually pleasurable outlets such as food, sex, work, friends, hobbies or entertainment. May be bipolar (mood and elation are alternately present), endogenous (without apparent cause) or situational or exogenous (usually self-limiting from disappointment, illness or loss of job or loved one).

SIGNS & SYMPTOMS
Diagnostic criteria include presence of at least four of the following every day for at least two weeks:
• Poor appetite or significant weight loss, or increased weight gain
• Insomnia or hypersomnia (sleeping for long lengths of time)
• Psychomotor agitation or retardation
• Loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities, loss of libido
• Loss of energy or fatigue
• Feelings of worthlessness, self- reproach, or excessive or inappropriate guilt.
• Diminished ability to think or concentrate.
• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.

ORTHODOX TREATMENT
Orthodox treatments of depression suppress the symptoms and don't treat the cause. All orthodox treatments have tremendous and often irreversible side effects.

POSSIBLE FACTORS
• Exhaustion-mental or physical
• Hypothyroidism
• Alcohol abuse
• Recreational drug abuse
• Loss of loved one
• Sunlight deprivation
• Poor nutrient status-vitamins B3, B6, lecithin
• Blood sugar imbalances (Hypoglycaemia)
• Hormonal fluctuations (oestrogen/ progesterone)
• Postnatal
• Food allergies
• Deficiency of amino acids - tryptophan and phenylalanine
• Medication, drugs, the Pill
• Dehydration
• Dysbiosis - candida overgrowth

NATUROPATHIC TREATMENT & MANAGEMENT
• Remove stimulants - caffeine, alcohol, smoking
• Increase Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) e.g. Udo's oil
• Increase tryptophan foods (precursor to serotonin) - chicken, fish, turkey, beans,
avocados, cottage cheese, wheat germ, bananas.
• Emotional healing - counselling (e.g. repressed anger)
• Exercise, yoga, Qi gong
• Eliminate refined carbohydrates and sugar
• Vitamin C (500mg BD with food)
• Vitamin B complex plus extra folic acid (400mcg daily)
• Walnut tea (serotonin) - steep a broken half of a walnut in boiling water, drink several over the day.
• Porridge (oats) for nervous system restoration
• Aromatherapy - clary sage, lavender, rose, jasmine
• Bach Flowers - mustard, sweet chestnut, star of Bethlehem
• Bowel detox - probiotics
• Eliminate food intolerances or allergies e.g. wheat

HERBS
St John's Wort Hypericum perforatum (sedative) 2-4g by infusion TDS (N.B. DO NOT TAKE THIS IF YOU ARE BLOOD TYPE O OR DO NOT KNOW YOUR BLOOD TYPE. IT HAS DANGEROUS SIDE EFFECTS FOR TYPE O. - by Editor (SBW).

HOMOEOPATHY
Refer to Homoeopathic practitioner

Day 60: The Frog Prince

2007-06-24T13:21:00.000+01:00

Today, another poem, especially for us single people! My brother and his wife have their work cut out for them - she gets precious little sleep and my brother is not allowed to stay overnight, so she has to deal with them alone until he comes in the morning. The twins are of course adorable and my brother has already changed two nappies and is a dab hand at swaddling them and quieting their crying. I held one of them and she looked at me with her blue eyes (all new-born Caucasian European babies have blue eyes, apparently) for several minutes. They are surprisingly unscrunchy, as often premature babies are still wrinkly when taken out before the full nine months.

The Frog Prince

I am a frog
I live under a spell
I live at the bottom
Of a green well

And here I must wait
Until a maiden places me
On her royal pillow
And kisses me
In her father’s palace.

The story is familiar
Everybody knows it well
But do other enchanted people feel as nervous
As I do? The stories do not tell,

Ask if they will be happier
When the changes come
As already they are fairly happy
In a frog’s doom?

I have been a frog now
For a hundred years
And in all this time
I have not shed many tears,

I am happy, I like the life,
Can swim for many a mile
(When I have hopped to the river)
And am for ever agile.

And the quietness,
Yes, I like to be quiet
I am habituated
To a quiet life,

But always when I think these thoughts
As I sit in my well
Another thought comes to me and says:
It is part of the spell

To be happy
To work up contentment
To make much of being a frog
To fear disenchantment

Says, It will be heavenly
To be set free,
Cries, Heavenly the girl who disenchants
And the royal times, heavenly,
And I think it will be.

Come then, royal girl and royal times,
Come quickly,
I can be happy until you come
But I cannot be heavenly,
Only disenchanted people
Can be heavenly.
by Stevie Smith

Day 59: The Twins (again)

2007-06-23T13:19:00.000+01:00

I am off to see the one day old twins soon with my mum. First, another poem. It is either this one or yesterday's that is the twins' mum's favourite poem of mine. I include this alongside the other because I need to get used to giving two presents every time I see them - and probably slightly different presents, as each twin, of course, wants to be unique.

Grimblegromp
He grimaces like a Grombit
when he tries to gremb a smile
and his teeth crockle and brockle
like shinebows on the Nile.

As he tockles throfting brickles
which twackle underfoot
the wimbling Wonchglocks
glatter 'bout a gless-plit brook.

Swanterin swontily
he bruzzes srommy shinshom
brenning brop brish-brosh,
brish-brosh in the crawm.

Day 58: The Twins

2007-06-22T18:22:00.000+01:00

Today, my younger brother's wife gave birth to twin girls. Thankfully, the whole family are okay and all is well. I plan to visit them with my mum tomorrow - we are both excited. My mother always wanted a girl after having three boys and now, as a grandmother, she has two! To celebrate, I am reproducing another poem from my book as I think it is my brother's wife's favourite poem of mine and one that I made up for her.

Nonsense
I made this oop fer you’s,
‘cos I know you’s like me nonsense stews
an’ the clock was a-slowin’
while the wind-blown door was slammin’
an I’m sure I heard a howl like a Wholin.
No one believes in Wholins but me,
but no one stays up all night lissenin’ like me,
an I swear I heard a Wholin
howlin’ out your name
saying “Nonsense!”

Day 57: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

2007-06-21T18:31:00.000+01:00

Firstly, my brother's wife is due to have the twin girls early: tomorrow in fact, so I will be an uncle soon! It's all very exciting and I hope all goes well and will be sending my good thoughts to them all tomorrow.

I finally got a photo from the photo shoot so will upload that soon.

Today's quote is from Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter:

"The main management skills needed for success are:
1. The management of cash flow.
2. The management of systems (including yourself and time with family)
3. The management of people

The most important specialized skills are sales and understanding marketing. It is the ability to sell - therefore, to communicate to another human being, be it a customer, employee, boss, spouse or child - that is the base skill of personal success. It is communication skills such as writing, speaking and negotiating that are crucial to a life of success. It is a skill that I work on constantly, attending courses or buying educational tapes to expand my knowledge."

Day 56: SynchroDestiny

2007-06-20T14:31:00.000+01:00

In SynchroDestiny, Deepak Chopra states that Intent Weaves The Tapestry of the Universe

"My intentions have infinite organizing power

Our intentions are a manifestation of the total universe because we are a part of the universe. And our intentions hold within them the mechanics of their fulfillment. All we really need is clarity of intent. Then if we can get the ego out of the way, the intentions fulfill themselves. Our intentions attract the elements and forces, the events, the situations, the circumstances, and the relationships necessary to fulfill the intended outcome. We don't need to become involved in the details - in fact, trying too hard may backfire. Let the nonlocal intelligence synchronize the actions of the universe to fulfill your intentions for you. Intention is a force in nature, like gravity, but more powerful. No one has to concentrate on gravity to make it work. No one can say, "I don't believe in gravity," because it is a force at work in the world whether we understand it or not. Intention works the same way.
...
FOCUSING INTENTION
The best way to focus on intentions is to write them down. Although this may sound like an obvious first step, it is a step that many people ignore. As a result, their intentions remain unfocused, and therefore unrealized.

Go to a quiet place where you are not likely to be disturbed. Write down what you want on all different levels of desire. Include material, ego gratification, relationship, self-esteem, and spiritual desires. Be as specific as possible.

Ask yourself what you want on the material level, in terms of abundance and affluence. Do you want your own house with four bedrooms? Write that down. Do you want to be able to send your children to college? Write that down. Think also of your desires for sensory gratification - sound, touch, sight, taste, smell, and sensuality - anything that gratifies the senses. Write these down.

Ask yourself what you want in terms of relationships. Write down your desires for all your relationships - romantic partners, children, peers, parents, friends, and professional relationships.

Write down what you want in terms of personal accomplishments or recognition. Note what you want on a more universal level - how can you help? What do you want to do with your life in terms of your society, your country, your civilization? What do you want to contribute? Write down what you want when you think of discovering your highest sense of self. Whom do you want to be? What spiritually do you want to add to your life? Write down everything you desire on a single sheet of paper. Add or subtract from the list as your desires change or become fulfilled.

Meditate on what life would be like if all these desires were to manifest...Be patient, but watch for the miracles to begin."

Day 55: The Success Secrets of The Ancients

2007-06-19T17:01:00.000+01:00

Today's excerpt is taken from George S. Clason's The Richest Man in Babylon

The Five Laws of Gold

The First Law of Gold
Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family.

The Second Law of Gold
Gold laboueth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.

The Third Law of Gold
Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.

The Fourth Law of Gold
Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep.

The Fifth Law of Gold
Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.

Day 53 & 54: Frogs, roses, chocolates and poems!

2007-06-18T14:12:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, I arrived in Sussex whilst my mother was still working, so got the bus to where she lives. The moment I got on the bus, I found a box of chocolates and a chocolate medallion saying You are the Best on it on the seat. I doubted anyone would claim it if I handed it in, so I took it with me to give to David (I shall give him the same pseudonym I have given him in my book Off The Rails) for his birthday.

Mum tells me, whilst we sit in front of the TV and I read her some of my blog, that David does not eat sugar. I suggest perhaps it would be better if I ate the lot myself, but we decide, on balance, perhaps not.

On Sunday, I help mum clear some debris which has become something of a compost heap out the front, on the drive, as builders are due to come Monday and re-pave it. I clear it whilst mum rushes off to work again and I unearth about ten frogs hiding in a fern that mum bought for next to nothing but which took over the place. I re-locate the frogs to the pond, though they wriggle and try to leap out of my gloved hands.

The back garden and front are both exquisite – the back garden is something Monet would have struggled to do justice too, such is its array of colours, especially of the roses: bold pink ones, standing high; red ones, deep and strong; orange roses, of a rare and delightful hue; yellow ones, red-pink ones, white ones…The front garden too – though I do not even know all the names of the flowers – is a splendour, with the eternal, deep-red roses, orange nasturtiums and a carpet of blue star-like flowers growing on the rockery.

I get a lift with David to his party, as mum has to work again and says she will come later. When there, we sit in the garden of the house he has rooms in and share food (I give David his medallion and box of chocolates, although I tell him the fortune that led to them becoming mine) with other guests. Next to the garden is a church and we periodically hear the bells chime the hour. In the corner of the garden is a wild white rose that is perhaps twenty foot tall and a resplendent beauty, climbing a tree that is its neighbour.

We discover that there are many creative types amongst us: two storytellers and two poets, even before the ladies re-join us from admiring more roses in a rose garden. Therefore, David requests a poem and we all oblige, one highly talented man with a voluminous memory reciting a poem by Dylan Thomas (one of the ones to a friend on their thirty-fifth birthday, although David is a few years older). It is an emotional poem; rich and deeply affecting and we all like it so much we request him to read it again, which he does, again from memory.

Later, David sings one of his poems whilst the memory man recites it simultaneously, to great success. We all share a poem (I share Nostalgie, added to this blog on Day 2 or thereabouts) and mum comes with a beautiful lily for David an hour before the end.

Nine days to go before the Twins are born to my brother’s wife! Mum may stay the night with me that night and I may go to the hospital along with her to offer my support to my brother and his wife. Right, crossing the Thames now, so I will sign off and close the laptop.

Day 52: A Parting Present

2007-06-15T16:24:00.000+01:00

Marcus Aurelius provides so much good advice, in this humble writer’s opinion, that I will provide a second helping, in the event that I am unable to blog over the weekend. This, also from Meditations:

“When you would have a cordial for your spirits, think of the good qualities of your friends: this one’s capability, that one’s self-effacement, another’s generosity, and so forth. There is no surer remedy for dejection than to see examples of the different virtues displayed in the characters of those around us, exhibiting themselves as plenteously as can be. Wherefore keep them ever before you.”

Day 51: Pause for Thought

2007-06-15T16:20:00.000+01:00

I may go down to Sussex for the weekend now, as my friend the writer has his birthday party on Sunday and, much as I love the city, a break to the country is always rejuvenating. I may not blog for the next few days, consequently.

I leave you with a lucky dip quote by Marcus Aurelius from the book Meditations. Aurelius was a Roman Emperor (AD 121-180) yet also a profound philosopher. This is a book I enjoy dipping into regularly.

“When you are outraged by somebody’s impudence, ask yourself at once, ‘Can the world exist without impudent people?’ It cannot; so do not ask for impossibilities. That man is simply one of the impudent whose existence is necessary to the world. Keep the same thought present, whenever you come across roguery, double-dealing or any other form of obliquity. You have only to remind yourself that this type is indispensable, and at once you will feel kindlier towards the individual. It is also helpful if you promptly recall what special quality Nature has given us to counter such particular faults. For there are antidotes with which she has provided us: gentleness to meet brutality, for example, and other correctives for other ills. Generally speaking, too, you have the opportunity of showing the culprit his blunder – for everyone who does wrong is failing of his proper objective, and is thereby a blunderer. Besides, what harm have you suffered? Nothing has been done by any of these victims of your irritation that could hurtfully affect your own mind; and it is in the mind alone that anything evil or damaging to the self can have reality. What is there wrong or surprising, after all, in a boor behaving boorishly? See then if it is not rather yourself you ought to blame, for not foreseeing that he would offend in this way. You, in virtue of your reason, had every means for thinking it probable that he would do so; you forgot this, and now his offence takes you by surprise. When you are indignant with anyone for his perfidy or ingratitude, turn your thoughts first and foremost upon yourself. For the error is clearly your own, if you have put any faith in the good faith of a man of that stamp, or, when you have done him a kindness, if it was not done unreservedly and in the belief that the action would be its own full reward. Once you have done a man a service, what more would you have? Is it not enough to have obeyed the laws of your own nature, without expecting to be paid for it? That is like the eye demanding a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking. It is for that very purpose that they exist; and they have their due in doing what they were created to do. Similarly, man is born for deeds of kindness; and when he has done a kindly action, or otherwise served the common welfare, he has done what he was made for, and has received his quittance.”

Day 50: Poetry

2007-06-15T16:15:00.000+01:00

I had intended to blog this yesterday, however, after working intensively on the computer, my eyes became very painful, so I stopped work for the day. The day before yesterday, I went to a poetry workshop locally and there made a female friend with whom I went to a film. Following on from the poetry workshop, I share with you a poem by Pablo Neruda, extracted from the third poetry book he published, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.

Every Day You Play

Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing,
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the grey light unwind in turning fans.
My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want to do with you
what spring does with the cherry trees.

Day 49: Writing Success & General Success

2007-06-13T15:14:00.000+01:00

I managed to re-write and submit the article I wrote about recently. Now I wait up to a week to see if it is approved and published.

As a writer, I know few of my colleagues would dream of selling 16 million copies of their book. Even if the title is not one that attracts you, How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie did sell over 16 million copies and is a useful book. Here is another quote, summarizing how to…

“Win People To Your Way Of Thinking

PRINCIPLE 1:
The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

PRINCIPLE 2:
Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”

PRINCIPLE 3:
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

PRINCIPLE 4:
Begin in a friendly way

PRINCIPLE 5:
Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.

PRINCIPLE 6:
Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

PRINCIPLE 7:
Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

PRINCIPLE 8:
Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.

PRINCIPLE 9:
Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.

PRINCIPLE 10:
Appeal to the nobler motives.

PRINCIPLE 11:
Dramatize your ideas.

PRINCIPLE 12:
Throw down a challenge.”

Day 48: Colour

2007-06-12T13:56:00.000+01:00

Recently, a friend of mine who is recovering from cancer told me that he had a colour therapy session, which he said he found very helpful. Although I am not experienced with this, of course we all know colour affects us deeply. As I have a (rather neglected) book called Colour Healing by Lilian Verner-Bonds, I thought the following may be of use.

“MOOD FOODS
Different coloured foods can be taken in by the body to heal and stimulate health. Eating the appropriate coloured foods can help to rejuvenate and balance the system.
Seek out foods that are organically grown with no additives, as this will keep the colour vibration alive. Processed and junk foods are dead foods. Micro-waving food removes its colour energy, and will create internal disharmony.
Red, orange and yellow foods are always hot and stimulating. Green food can be used to balance the body and is a tonic for the system. Blue, indigo and purple foods are soothing and cooling.

FOOD COLOURS
RED: Gives extra energy * Heals lethargy and tiredness
ORANGE: Creates optimism and change * Heals grief and disappointment
YELLOW: Encourages laughter, joy and fun * Heals depression
GREEN: Improves physical stamina * Heals panic, fear and apprehension
BLUE: Brings peace and relaxation * Helps concentration * Heals anxiety
INDIGO: Puts back structure into life * Heals insecurity
PURPLE: Promotes leadership * Heals and calms the emotionally erratic

COLOURS FOR DIETING
If you are following a sensible diet designed to help you lose or gain weight, the appropriate colour can be used as an aid.

WEIGHT LOSS: YELLOW
To eliminate excess body fat, the colour to use is yellow. Wear it, eat it and drink it. Alternatively, use …meditation, visualizing a rich yellow bloom. Psychologically, the colour yellow does not want to carry excess baggage, hence its use in losing weight. Yellow is the nimblest colour of the spectrum and promotes energy and agility both of mind and body. Wear yellow when you exercise and it will keep you moving and pepped up.

WEIGHT GAIN: BLUE
To encourage weight gain, steer yourself towards blue. Wear it, eat it, drink it and visualize it. Blue curbs activity, which allows the calories to gather and turn to flesh. Psychologically, blue does everything quietly and with discretion. It will not be rushed, creating the right emotional environment that is needed if your body is to be given a chance to increase itself. Blue calms the nerves and the glandular system which encourages the curves.”

Yesterday, I spent ages registering at a prestigious internet site for submitting articles but lost a 600-700 word article I wrote there and then when the page expired. I was furious, but must write it again today. Only afterwards did I notice a button you have to click to save as you go along.

Right, off to the dentist now, where I shall be visualizing blue.

Day 47: Chicken Soup for the Soul

2007-06-11T14:58:00.000+01:00

I have made more progress with reading David Copperfield and am pressing on with researching for a contributor spot on a magazine/newspaper. Tonight I will go to choir and look forward to meeting Ania for a drink beforehand.

The following is a story extracted from Chicken Soup for the Soul™ by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen.

My Declaration of Self-Esteem

What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly.
Carl Rogers

The following was written in answer to a 15-year-old girl’s question, “How can I prepare myself for a fulfilling life?”
I am me.
In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. There are people who have some parts like me but no one adds up exactly like me. Therefore, everything that comes out of me is authentically mine because I alone choose it.
I own everything about me – my body, including everything it does; my mind, including all my thoughts and ideas; my eyes, including the images of all they behold; my feelings, whatever they might be – anger, joy, frustration, love, disappointment, excitement; my mouth and all the words that come out of it – polite, sweet and rough, correct or incorrect; my voice, loud and soft; all my actions, whether they be to others or myself.
I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears.
I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes.
Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts. I can then make it possible for all of me to work in my best interests.
I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know. But as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for the solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me.
However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is me. This is authentic and represents where I am at that moment in time.
When I review later how I looked and sounded, what I said and did, and how I thought and felt, some parts may turn out to be unfitting. I can discard that which is unfitting and keep that which proved fitting, and invent something new for that which I discarded.
I can see, hear, feel, think, say and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.
I own me and therefore I can engineer me.
I am me and I am okay.
Virginia Satir

Day 46: Your Body's Many Cries For Water

2007-06-10T14:47:00.000+01:00

"In Your Body’s Many Cries For Water by F. Batmanghelidj, M.D., he talks about the importance of drinking at least 8 large glasses of water a day to avoid many health problems.

“Pathology that is seen to be associated with “social stresses” – fear, anxiety, insecurity, persistent emotional and matrimonial problems – and the establishment of depression are the results of water deficiency to the point that the water requirement of brain tissue is affected. The brain uses electrical energy that is generated by the water drive of the energy-generating pumps. With dehydration, the level of energy generation in the brain is decreased. Many functions of the brain that depend on this type of energy become inefficient. We recognize this inadequacy of function and call it depression. This “depressive state” caused by dehydration can lead to chronic fatigue syndrome.”

The doctor goes on to state that chronic fatigue syndrome can be “improved beyond recognition” by correcting the dehydration. Furthermore, he shows anyone wanting to lose weight a simple and effective method: ensure you are drinking plenty of water every day and are not dehydrated, and drink water before you eat (ideally half an hour before) so that your appetite will return to normal. He explains scientifically that the brain often calls for water but as it calls for food at the same time, we just eat and ignore the call for water; whereas when we drink first, we eat less.

The ideas I am sharing from Dr Batmanghelidj, since their publication, have already gained mass popularity in the press and have been widely advanced now by the medical establishment. But few of us do these things.

The most important philosophy in Your Body's Many Cries For Water is to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day to avoid dehydration. The book has many quotes at the start, including this one by The European, London (December 1995): "The water principle has a convincing logic but turns much of current medical practice on its head. Does it work? You only have to turn on the tap to find out."

The doctor adds "The precaution to keep in mind is loss of salt from the body when water intake is increased and salt is not. After a few days of taking 6 [6 is the bare minimum to stop chronic dehydration occurring in your body] or 8 or 10 glasses of water a day, you should begin to think of adding some salt to your diet. If you begin to feel muscle cramps at night, remember you are becoming salt-deficient.

Cramps in unexercised muscles most often means salt shortage in the body. Also, dizziness and feeling faint might be indicators of salt and water shortage in the body. If such occasions arise, you should also begin to increase your vitamins and minerals intake - particularly if you are dieting to lose weight or do not eat properly, including vegetables and fruits for their water-soluble vitamin and mineral content. I have developed a rule of thumb for daily salt intake. For every 10 glasses of water (about two quarts), one should add to the diet about half a teaspoon of salt per day; that's three grams. Of course, one should make sure that the kidneys are producing urine."

For those seeking to lose weight, drinking several glasses of water half an hour before eating works excellently at decreasing appetite - in fact, frequently, we eat when really we are thirsty and not recognising our body's simultaneous cries for water as well as food.

Drink up and let me know how you get on! You can learn more at www.watercure.com

Day 46: Extra News

2007-06-10T12:51:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I went to help out at my choir's jumble sale with Ania where We worked on the men's clothing section. There were some very friendly people there and one woman really was unwashed (referring to my joke yesterday about 'the great unwashed') yet a fantastic character seemingly straight out of a Dickens book.

She wanted an extra large top but we only had a large one at that time and she said (whilst smoking a fag, natch!) that it wouldn't fit her and showed us the area that needed covering. It was considerable. She later told me, whilst I browsed the books, that she came to The Highgate Choral Society jumble sale before when it was held in Highgate, reporting that she preferred South London and that someone had come from there just for the jumble sale.

It was absolutely packed, although the women's clothing had brisker business than we did. I asked my friend on the book stall to find my Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years Of Solitude as the fools at Haringey Libraries don't even stock it in the whole of Haringey. No wonder children are illiterate criminals, hehe!

Amazingly, he found it and brought it over to me at my stall. I am overjoyed. At last, I'm making progress with reading David Copperfield, too. I ended up leaving the jumble sale looking like a bag lady, with six bags stuffed with books, a wet suit and various other articles including a Barbour jacket. Betsy tried to get rid of some lacey black knickers at the end by tossing them in one of Ania's bags, which was funny.

Now I must crack on with researching the magazine market and applying for a contributor post. My photo shoot pictures are still being prepared.

Day 45: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

2007-06-08T18:30:00.000+01:00

Today, I've decided to share some of the concepts of the time management ideas contained in the smash hit bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. He puts it like this. You can divide a page of paper into four quadrants and then write in the following.

Quadrant 1:
IMPORTANT/URGENT
Activities:
Crises
Pressing problems
Deadline-driven projects

Quadrant 2:
IMPORTANT/NOT URGENT
Activities:
Prevention, production capability activities*
Relationship building
Recognizing new opportunities
Planning, recreation

Quadrant 3:
NOT IMPORTANT/URGENT
Activities:
Interruptions, some calls
Some mail, some reports
Some meetings
Proximate, pressing matters
Popular activities

Quadrant 4:
NOT IMPORTANT/NOT URGENT
Activities: Trivia, busy work
Some mail
Some phone calls
Time wasters
Pleasant activities

Stephen talks about production capability activities as being those that help you prepare for production. Thus, doing what refreshes your creative powers as a writer can be termed a p/c activity, as can preventing problems from occurring by preparation and keeping the machines of production well-oiled.

To be highly effective people, he states, we can be aware of which quadrant we are spending our time in and create a balance between production (or doing) and production capability (keeping ourselves and/or our machinery able to function optimally). Thus, spending most of our time in the non-urgent yet important Quadrant 2 - which does include recreation - brings us the highest long-term efficiency.

Let me know whether this proves useful!

Day 44: I learn about Lakshmi, Goddess of Unlimited Abundance

2007-06-08T17:31:00.000+01:00

Last night, I renewed my energies by taking time out to hear my friend Sadie www.myspace.com/sadiejemmettmusic who is an excellent singer and guitarist. The evening was great and even though she was busy talking to her manager about a recording deal, I was happy that things were going well for her and delighted to hear five tracks I never heard her sing before.

The friend I went with is a poet and also a film maker, having made a documentary about her special experiences in India. Recently, she met the love of her life, so she is very happy and that was wonderful to hear. She said she prayed to an Indian Goddess and then it happened! She tells me if I pray to the Goddess Lakshmi (by downloading a picture from the net and praying to it whilst lighting incense) that she can help provide abundance. Lakshmi is the Goddess of material energy and unlimited abundance that is available for everyone; the fruits of the earth, she explains. I'm going to try and get that photo, because she seemed to manifest a man super quick with the help of the Goddesses so they must be worth a go!

After the gig, I went on to a club but it was a bit jarring so we all went home. On the nightbus, I finally read a few more pages of Dickens before a craving overtook me for a lamb kebab and I indulged before going back to bed. Tomorrow I may not have time for blogging as I am helping out at the jumble sale for my choir along with my great friend Ania.

Day 43: Time Out

2007-06-07T17:48:00.000+01:00

I did a lot more research yesterday about magazines to apply for a position on and have a favourite. I also may contact a journalist friend and get on a newspaper. It's all what publishers want even prior to publication in order to get a writer's name out there. This morning, I planned to take my friend - who is originally from Trinidad and nearly 80 - to the bank in her motorised chair but when we had got ready outside the gate, she realised she had forgotten to re-charge the power on it the previous evening, so we had to re-arrange for next week.

I know some people who read this blog are literary-minded, so if you wish to get a free download of highlights from the current Guardian Hay Festival, lasting an hour, go to http://www.arts.guardian.co.uk/hayonsky before July 18. You can also catch a daily Haycast at http://www.guardian.co.uk/hay2007

I am rushing to go to see my good schoolfriend sing with her band now, along with another good friend who is also a poet (or should I say poetess?) It is at a place in North London called Monkey Chews! At least the music will be better than the name! I have volunteered to help with our choir's jumble sale on Saturday as Ania will be there and it will be fun to preside over the hordes of public (the great unwashed! Hehe). What a lucky man I am to know so many lovely ladies!

Day 42: You Can Heal Your Life

2007-06-06T18:48:00.000+01:00

This is an extract from Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life.
It was the book I came across many years ago that set me on a path of recovery and I mention it in Off The Rails.

“Love comes when we least expect it, when we are not looking for it. Hunting for love never brings the right partner. It only creates longing and unhappiness. Love is never outside ourselves; love is within us.
Don’t insist that love come immediately. Perhaps you are not ready for it, or you are not developed enough to attract the love you want.
Don’t settle for anybody just to have someone. Set your standards. What kind of love do you want to attract? List the qualities in yourself, and you will attract a person who has them.
You might examine what may be keeping love away. Could it be criticism? Feelings of unworthiness? Unreasonable standards? Movie star images? Fear of intimacy? A belief that you are unlovable?
Be ready for love when it does come. Prepare the field and be ready to nourish love. Be loving, and you will be lovable. Be open and receptive to love.”

As a confirmed bachelor, I am still working on the forgetting bit long enough to encourage Love to sneak in and surprise me! As regular readers of this blog will know, however, fitting Love into my life at the moment when I already have two books and a baby screenplay to look after, would present a slight logistical challenge!

Last night, I had my teleconference, which was more intimate, being smaller than usual, and very instructive. It has helped me target the media outlets that I hope to gain a regular contributor spot on. It was also easier with less people to have a more personal approach with the others last night and good to know that we are all on our individual paths to publication, and share a community-type spirit. Writers are such individuals, so that meeting and interacting with others takes on a greater importance.

I managed to deal with some of the dozens of emails in my inbox but they kept coming in even while I was on the computer. And that’s not including the relentless dozens of illiterate invitations to buy Viagra and related spam. I remember with nostalgia the days when I first had an email address and envied those with full Inboxes, thinking ‘I’ll never know that many people!’ (NB: To all publishers, friends and spammers: keep ‘em coming; I’m only fooling around!)

Day 41: The Power of Positive Thinking

2007-06-05T16:32:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, my friend Ania - having already given me three wonderful presents last week - gave me another one: a beautiful dish with a picture of a fish on it. We met before choir as usual. Truly, I am blessed to have such a sweet soul as a friend.

Today, the news talked of the growing and very serious problem of the increasing numbers amongst the workforce (in this country; no doubt in the world too) suffering from mental health problems. The remedy is, of course, different in different cases, but I believe that we can all benefit by taking time out to replenish ourselves with positive thinking.

Norman Vincent Peale, in The Power of Positive Thinking, talks about the importance of being liked and of not isolating oneself, as an important way of providing a full and meaningful life. He goes on to list ways to get people to like you:

1. Learn to remember names. Inefficiency at this point may indicate that your interest is not sufficiently outgoing. A man's name is very important to him.

2. Be a comfortable person so there is no strain in being with you - be an old-shoe, old-hat kind of individual

3. Acquire the quality of relaxed easy-goingness so that things do not ruffle you.

4. Don't be egotistical. Guard against giving the impression that you know it all. Be natural and normally humble.

5. Cultivate the quality of being interesting so that people will want to be with you and get something of stimulating value from their association with you.

6. Study to get the 'scratchy' elements out of your personality, even those of which you may be unconscious.

7. Sincerely attempt to heal, on an honest Christian basis, every misunderstanding you have had or now have. Drain off your grievances.

8. Practise liking people until you learn to do so genuinely. Remember what Will Rogers said, "I never met a man I didn't like." Try to be that way.

9. Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone's achievement, or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment.

10. Get a deep spiritual experience so that you have something to give people that will help them to be stronger and meet life more effectively. Give strength to people and they will give affection to you.